One common misconception, held by almost every analyst and vendor I’ve spoken to, is that social media is all about openness and breaking down departmental barriers, creating a virtual water cooler in the sky from which billion-dollar ideas will spring. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that many in business, especially in management, are cynical about the inflated claims made by the social media punditry. In fact at BoardVantage we believe that social media has an important part to play in the running of a modern (=dispersed, =collaborative) company, but it is a role that respects, not ignores, the subtle conventions and behavioral norms that companies follow in their inter- and intra-departmental interactions. It reflects the real-life tension in the business world between the need to share and the reasonable protections of sensitive information. Our CEO, Joe Ruck, refers to this dichotomy as requiring an “Anti-Social Network”. Collaboration is essential, but the network is not a free-for-all. On the contrary, it’s one where privacy is arguably more important than openness. That’s certainly true for board work, and it has direct applicability to executive teams as well.

BoardVantage’s own use of our NextGen platform is an excellent example of just such an Anti-Social Network, one where collaboration and access to resources is critical, but also one where Process Discipline is key, branded presentation is vital and where privacy is ingrained.

As VP of Marketing, I interact with my fellow execs (one of whom happens to be my boss, the CEO, so no pressure there), my team (including remote contractors), and my “customers” (from an internal perspective, that is Sales). For this I use three team spaces: BVExec, BVMarketing, and BVTeam.

First, let’s look at BVExec.

BVExec is the TeamSpace we use among the executives. It’s here that we can freely discuss all manner of issues without fear of misinterpretation and do so quickly and efficiently. Here there is no fear that inadvertently expressing yourself poorly is something that you may be punished for down the line. BVExec functions for us as a communication channel which lets us continue the conversation beyond the standing weekly meeting. Whether in the office or on the road, the executive team needs to be “always on”, and BVExec is the place for that.

Of course, while there is a necessary level of frankness among execs, there is also a lot I don’t want/need to share. As VP of Marketing I run a department with its own unique crop of issues, most of which the rest of the exec staff don’t want to be bothered with. For that, I use a departmental TeamSpace, BVMarketing.

BVMarketing is the sausage factory. It may not look pretty, but I’m paid for what comes out, not what happens inside. It’s here that I maintain a full content repository of everything we’ve ever done (for content reuse), as well as work-in-progress. Other execs have little interest in delving into the details of my department, but I engage with them here through a formal approval workflow to secure buy-in on broad-based initiatives such as branding campaigns, new collateral, or even press releases. Sometimes this may be just me, other times it may involve our CEO, and almost always it will include our VP of Sales, Mary DeFrenchi, who is my principal internal customer.  Trying to do this via a myriad of emails, all entitled “Latest Press Release” doesn’t work. I know because that’s what I did for the last 20 years of my life. Moving the approvals cycle off email enables faster, more reliable approvals and keeps everyone happy. Details such as being able to see when someone has looked at something, and receiving an alert when an updated draft is available are not details. They are central to the process and provide management through visibility.

I can even control the permission levels within the TeamSpace, so that other execs and staff members can interact with Marketing, but be spared the gory details of the parts they’re not interested in. It’s not that I’ve got anything to hide, but there aren’t enough hours in the day to explain exactly why we do the things we do inside the sausage factory. This is the world of Managing Chaos. An additional point is that new information and ideas need to be staged and introduced carefully using a process of socialization. I don’t want to present a wonderful new way of doing email campaigns until 1. I’ve checked it through internally with my own team, 2. Got buy in and support from the VP of Sales, and then 3. Received a green light from the CEO. Only then would I look to communicate the plan to the broader sales force. The golden rule of executive collaboration is to never surprise your peers and certainly not the CEO!

Then, with all the ducks lined up, we interact with the broader company, and to do that we use BVTeam. This is the one TeamSpace that everyone in the company has access to. However, this is also the point where new content needs to be packaged up in a form that is both usable and digestible. Sales reps need content that is ready for customer engagement. They need to be told how and when to use that content. They need to be able to locate it when they need it in the future, along with all the other supporting material. In short, they need context, and that is exactly what a branded page delivers. Folder structures may be ideal for power users who need finger tip access to all the content, but they also lack context and so they are anathema to occasional users who need the information to jump out at them. For that you need a branded page.

On the Marketing tab inside BVTeam I can talk directly to Sales. I don’t need a 48-hour cycle time and several IT staff to update the Intranet. With no more effort than writing an email, I can announce and present new sales tools, and in doing so, start to drive team behavior.  A micro-blogging wall is a great vehicle for making such announcements while engaging on feedback, and the overall layout is one I control directly, making me self-sufficient. Keeping everything in one place means that Sales doesn’t need to keep long trails of emails – they just come to the Marketing tab to get what they need and go. Get in and get out. Fast.

These three TeamSpaces support the three roles I play in the company:

• Peer collaborating with my fellow execs, generating and reusing content
• Manager directing a team, maintaining quality and ensuring process
• Leader presenting final product, engaging the consumers of that content

We see the same pattern in the board world. A General Counsel collaborates with her peers on the exec team. Likewise she has a department to run, the corporate secretary office in this case, one that needs a smooth internal collaboration process. Finally, there is the presentation of board material. The importance of handling that correctly requires no further elaboration.

These patterns of collaboration occur across leadership teams everywhere. That is why we designed our new platform to support People-centric Process.

Most vendors assume that social media is all about peer support and nothing more, so they produce point solutions that function as virtual water coolers that are at best appropriate for departmental use only, and many don’t even include document management. Documents are critical, since 9 times out of 10, a document of some form is the physical embodiment and work product of that collaboration. Along those lines these systems may serve a limited purpose but to really get the job done, you need a system that addresses all three roles at once. Our NextGen platform does just that.

It’s an old adage that security has to be built in, not bolted on. No doubt a cool sound bite, but what does it mean in practice?  Here’s what I stress in conversations with customers when discussing our security strategy:

Commitment at the Core

Security is at the core of our design and starts at the outset of our development. As obvious as that may seem, it is far from the norm in the industry. Why is that? Why do many companies try to layer on security? The rub is that such a commitment to security requires a large (and unglamorous) investment of frequent design reviews, painstaking best practice implementations and expensive external audits. This deeply influences the cost of development and changes the culture of your organization. Nevertheless this commitment at the core is the only way to ensure that security is pervasive throughout the platform and not window dressing on a particular module.

Embed in the Culture

We invest heavily in training engineers on security principals. Because of the accumulated knowledge of third party audits, BoardVantage has a reservoir of knowledge, which we make sure is absorbed throughout the team. We encourage our developers to think like hackers. We create an environment where customer privacy is sacrosanct. For example, a common industry debugging practice is to log user activity to identify system anomalies or activities. It’s undeniably efficient, but it cannot be used here. At BoardVantage developers have no access to customer content because all data is always encrypted, be in transit or at rest.

Software Integrity

No matter how secure your architecture, bugs can potentially create attack vectors. That’s why BoardVantage QA is trained on the principals of software security and well-versed in sniffing out vulnerabilities that might compromise that integrity. That’s why we wrote a battery of core test cases that stress security and highlight any weak links. That’s why any changes to security architecture trigger a top-to-bottom regression test, no matter how minor developers perceive those changes to be.

Process Discipline

Do commercial pilots skip their pre-flight checklists? I don’t think so, at least, not if they want to keep their job. The same principle applies when managing a secure infrastructure. There can be no exceptions or deviations from established process. All new hires are formally screened with full background checks. Code reviews are not an option. They are at the core of our development process. Even experienced programmers benefit from other eyes examining their code. One process, somewhat unique for a service provider, but essential for integrity, is separation of duties. Engineers cannot access the data center. System administrators cannot access customer data. Third parties are contracted to perform penetration tests.

If all of the above seems a lot of effort, then you’d be right. It has been a costly and time-consuming investment for BoardVantage to develop this infrastructure and maintain it at its current high caliber. Is it worth it? For us it is. Because of this investment Fortune-100 customers trust us with their most sensitive data.  Would another vendor with less rigorous security be good enough for you? That I cannot answer, but perhaps you might consider the consequences of inadvertent disclosure of your own data. What would the cost be of that?

Our framework for understanding social media divides an enterprise’s operations into two main types: data-centric process and people-centric process. Examples of the former include accounting, inventory control and CRM. The software that serves these markets is developed by vendors such as Oracle, SAP and SalesForce. It is a mature and well-established sector. People-centric processes are collaborative in nature. Examples include budget planning, contract management and RFP responses. There are many others of course. But, unlike their data-centric counterparts, people-centric processes are still served by messy ad-hoc approaches, combining email, shared drives and even hard copy.

The key to Web-enabling people-centric process is a thorough understanding of its structure and the roles of its participants:

• Contributors generate the bulk of the content. As power users of the system, they are typically staff members whose job it is to produce finished results on hard deadlines. For a salesperson it might mean responding to an RFP, which means the ability to access previous RFP’s as reusable assets. But it will also require access to legal review, pricing policy, or other resources. A second example is the board administrator who needs to produce a board book from scratch or respond to last minute changes for tomorrow’s audit committee meeting. What these two examples have in common is the need for direct access to critical content, unencumbered by gatekeepers, yet controlled by permissions so that access is available, but without sacrificing process.
• Approvers are typically members of management. Their world is one of Managing Chaos. Their prism is email and Blackberry. Visibility for them is key, since the earlier a problem surfaces, the greater the chances of resolution before it turns into a crisis. They rely on process discipline to make sure that the RFP has the correct terms and conditions or the meeting minutes or board material the proper review cycle before release to the board.
• Consumers are the recipients of the information. They may outnumber contributors from 5:1 to 25:1 or more. Even while their numbers are great they only access the system occasionally. But don’t be fooled. They depend on the system for vital tasks, and they will express displeasure if they can’t get what they want, when they want it. They are your partners, your customers, your sales team or your board, and they are not inclined to wade through poorly presented content. They equate ease-of-use with familiarity. They are not open to training. Presentation should suit the consumer’s needs, not the application’s constraints. Any system that does not meet that bar will fail to achieve the hoped-for adoption.

Many collaboration vendors support only one of these roles. They offer a point solution for contributors, while ignoring the key role that consumers play. Or focus on consumers while ignoring the producers. Point solutions that rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul can always count on the support of Paul but will leave the process ill-served. That’s why we developed a platform, and invested heavily in architecture with the richness and flexibility to support all three roles. For contributors we provide full text search and rich visual thumbnails to quickly identify content for reuse. For the approvers we provide full auditing and a comprehensive approvals based process (Management Through Visibility). For consumers we deliver content within branded pages to maximize impact. If there seems a lot of functionality inside our platform, it’s because it’s needed to support three distinct groups of users. One-size-fits-all point solutions (“quick, let’s install a micro-blogging system”) that neglect the importance of these roles will not succeed.

People-centric processes require people-centric tools. That’s what BoardVantage NextGen delivers.

We all do it. You need to get started on that tricky employee review, make that difficult phone call or kick off the annual budget, but first, let’s check Yahoo! Finance, get coffee, or accept that invitation to this or that networking event. If you’re any good, you might even postpone that awkward task until tomorrow. Procrastination is a fact of life.

So it was with some wry amusement I read a recent article handwringing over employee use of Facebook. Surprise, surprise! People are goofing off work quite a bit with Facebook. But is this really news? Similar articles were written five years ago, fingering chat as the villain of the modern workplace. And ten years before that, the Web itself was the culprit. Delving even deeper into the past, time-and-motion consultants used to worry about time spent on private phone calls, and before that it was probably the water cooler.

So it strikes me as a bit unfair to pin all the blame on Facebook. The reality is that people will take time out from their work for all sorts of reasons, both good and bad. Psychologists even have a term for it: Displacement Activity. As times change, the forms of this activity may change, but the substance hasn’t. Had there really been a change in the trend lines, it would show up in these statistics in a drop of productivity. That is certainly not the case according to these US figures .

One thing that has changed is deeper merging of personal and work activity. Whether triggered by dispersion in the workplace or an always-on work ethic, employees generally feel free to book movie tickets during work hours, but after the movie is over, those same employees will often log on to their company servers to check their email from home at 10pm in the evening. In this new normal, the line between work and play isn’t as clearly defined as it once was and there are pros and cons to that for both parties.

However if you’re concerned about the amount of displacement activity in the face of so many temptations, a good place to start is to provide better tools to make the difficult tasks not quite so daunting , something I can almost guarantee will involve more collaboration and more direct access to their peers, friends, and colleagues.