Social Media: If you build it, they won't come.

As his colleague fiddled with the technology a young man shuffled nervously in his suit. These few minutes in front of the executive team were precious, but he was confident of his pitch: the internet was going to revolutionise things, was going to revolutionise learning. The ridiculous inefficiencies of classroom training were a thing of the past. Web-based training ushered in an era of anytime, anyplace, anywhere learning (he was happy to overlook the tautology on the grounds that his audience would appreciate the Martini allusion). The year was 1999, and he was surfing on the tidal wave of change. The senior team agreed a million dollar investment in a learning management system and online portfolio, based on his impressive ROI projections. Soon, everyone would be learning this way.


I wonder why we so rarely look back and wonder where we went wrong. Probably there were two problems: firstly, recognising the opportunities that technology presents is a lot easier than predicting how people will interact with that technology. Secondly, we failed to think about the implementation. We assumed that if we built it, they would come.


Four years ago, together with the Head of Creativity at the BBC Academy, I commissioned a pioneering project: it was called MOO. The project was shaped by a number of BBC visionaries - people at the bleeding edge of Web 2.0. The idea was simple: why not allow people throughout the BBC to share their ideas, their links, their creative genius. The rationale was solid: the BBC is full of people, at all levels of the organisation, with something to contribute - indeed we attract people wanting to be part of 'the most creative organisation in the world', people versed in the latest technology. People who bring new skills and perspectives to the organisation. People who craved the respect of their peers. And the BBC itself: an organisation striving to embody the principles 'creative, simple, digital, open'. We did the research, people thought it was a great idea.


So we built it - a place where people could share video, links, blog, comment and tag. A place where communities could flourish and serendipity take root. Our viral marketing campaign featured mysterious cows positioned strategically around the Beeb. We knew that only 1% of people tended to post content, but with 25,000 staff those still looked like healthy numbers. Forrester foretold a generation of participants - we needed to be ready.


But hardly anyone posted anything. It was as if we had erected a giant marquee and said 'you can do whatever you like in this space' - people came, had a look round, saw an empty marquee and left. It didn't take us long to realise that people use social media for specific things - and we didn't have a specific thing. We needed something to drive usage. Danny Cohen, then Head of BBC 3 kindly obliged: we would run a competition. 'Give us your creative idea and the best one would be made into a programme'. What a brilliant idea: the BBC short-circuiting the tired commissioning mechanisms and drawing on creativity from all around the corporation. It was a modest success: we had over a hundred entries and the winning submission 'Wu How' was made into a programme. But ultimately I got the impresion that not everyone welcomed a new, subversive, commissioning model: in fact many of the important people preferred things just the way they were. We were fighting a good fight, but probably a losing battle.


We talked about MOO at conferences. At one conference one of our visionaries - Andy Tedd - was approached by a young developer working on a similar idea for a company called BT. That was the first in a number of fruitful exchanges with Peter Butler and his team.


I continue to believe in social media for learning: if only because Twitter is my principal learning tool, and blogging encourages me to reflect and engage with the wider community. Together with my team at BP and the irrepressable Morten Bonde we are working on what I like to think is the next generation of social media for learning platform - The Hub. Social media for learning 2.0 if you like. All that really means is that we are trying to avoid the mistakes common to organisations who implement sharing platforms, only to find that nobody shares, leaving them to nurse their virtual ghost towns.


What are the common mistakes? Firstly, the consensus seems to be that you go where your people are and make yourself part of the conversation rather than trying to force them into a closed environment where you control the conversation. If your staff are on Facebook, start a Facebook group. If they are on linked in or Twitter, become part of the community and have something to say. This is now the conventional view of how to 'do' social media well.


But I believe there is a second option: focus on your content generation/harvesting strategy and implement carefully. By the time the Hub launches we will already have a couple of hundred videos, selected carefully from a bigger set that the team have filmed, and aimed at specific challenges that staff face: such as joining BP, becoming a leader or improving safety. Respected experts, enthusiastic peers and senior leaders tell stories and share best practice. Why story-telling? If you just tell people something, then you are doing comms. If you tell a story, then you are doing learning (the distinction is the affective context: one has it, the other doesn't). Initially participation is limited to rating. We plan to move to commenting in phase 2. We hope that people will come not to contribute, but because there is something worth watching. Our small production team are working with teams across BP to identify voices that need to be heard. Honeybees and flowers.


Is this 'true' social media? I argued this point with @cliveshepherd at the social media workshop we ran: it may not be, but it may be a way to get there. For sure, technology alone won't get you there in 99% of cases. My point, I suppose, is 'it's the content, stupid!'. If you a creating a social media for learning platform, where is all your content going to come from? Don't assume it will happen by magic.


In summary, I firmly believe in the value of social media for learning, just as I continue to believe in the value of elearning. But the same is true of both: they work in specific contexts, when implemented thoughtfully and most of all - they depend on good content.