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Social media and social networking do not reduce the need for good social skills. Rather, the disconnection from physical presence in online communication makes social skills (what some call EQ) even more critical.

Some of the recent fracas rebounding across Twitter are a good example of this – covered well by various people including @kimota and @mUmBRELLA.

The basic skills for building relationships include reciprocity, negotiation ability and sharing. Also critical are the skills of walking away gracefully from an issue or staying to fight with dignity.

For many people these are skills that were learned in the playground. But what happens when people have missed these important lessons?

What happens if the person who’s been asked to run your firm’s social media activities never developed those skills in the playground? And what are the essential skills required for effective social interaction?

It seems to me that we’ve been putting up with a paucity of social skills in the workplace for a long time and it is only now that there is traceable evidence we’ve noticed that it’s a problem. Social media merely provides us with documentary evidence of the kinds of human social interactions that have been happening for aeons. The problem is that this documentary evidence now gives these unfortunate social interactions a much longer lifespan than a cranky comment in passing conversation.

Evidently on a quick shot medium like Twitter it is easy for a grumpy day or lack of coffee combined with quick fingers to lead to an explosive incident for your brand. Then the Streisand Effect can amplify the incident so that it resonates for days or weeks afterward. And, as an added benefit, the whole thing will get indexed by search engines and be findable for ages.

Social media is now providing us with tangible evidence of how many people lack (or fail to demonstrate) the basic skills required to get along well in the playground. And these are the same skills we need to work successfully with other grown-ups, both online and offline.

Goleman, one of the gurus of emotional intelligence, offers twelve questions to assess emotional intelligence. Answer ‘yes’ to half or more, (and if others who know you agree with the self-rating) then you are apparently doing okay.

The real question is how can we apply this to social media and learn how to channel the best of ourselves rather than the worst?

Goleman’s 12 Questions

1. Do you understand both your strengths and weaknesses?
2. Can you be depended on to take care of every detail? Do you hate to let things slide?
3. Are you comfortable with change and open to novel ideas?
4. Are you motivated by the satisfaction of meeting your own standards of excellence?
5. Can you stay optimistic when things go wrong?
6. Can you see things from another person’s point of view and sense what matters most to that person?
7. Do you let customers’ needs determine how you serve them?
8. Do you enjoy helping co-workers develop their skills?
9. Can you read office politics accurately?
10. Are you able to find “win-win” solutions in negotiations and conflicts?
11. Are you the kind of person other people want on a team? Do you enjoy collaborating with others?
12. Are you usually persuasive?

[Source: Goleman, Daniel. "Working Smart." USA Weekend, October 2-4, 1998, pp. 4-5.]

My dog Trotsky* is a somewhat bolshie little beast and she does not like it when I travel away from home overnight (I’ll come back to this fact later).

Recently we (Trotsky and me that is) were asked to participate in a trial of a new dog food by the folks over at Yoghurt Plus. The deal was Trotsky would eat the food and I would report back on how it all went down.

I was intrigued by the notion of a probiotic dog food that had been developed by a former AFL player.  As mentioned in their press release:

Yoghurt Plus has been developed by John Gould, former Australian Rules Footballer, who played half back for two Carlton premiership sides in the 1960s. John himself owns 10 domestic dogs. Yoghurt Plus is supported by five years worth of scientific studies, conducted by Melbourne University, Victoria, Australia, Murdoch University, Perth, Western Australia and Auburn University, USA. All studies were independent and met the strict requirements of AAFCO. The findings were then substantiated by Professor Nick Costa – Head of the school for Environmental Science Murdoch University, Australia and Dr Robert Gillette- Director Veterinary Sports Medicine Program Auburn University, USA.

I don’t know much about Aussie Rules football, but this guy sounded like a real dog lover to me, and it’s not often Trotsky gets invited to review things, so we accepted.

She’s been eating this new food for three weeks now. We were a bit worried about how she would go with a new diet as Staffordshire Bull Terriers have notoriously delicate tummies (which has been bad for the carpet in the past). But she’s scarfing down the stuff quite happily (and sharing it with Roy our other dog). Both of the dogs are looking good on this new diet.

But there was one claim in the press release was proved absolutely true the other day. Namely: “Helps Reduce Stool Volume and Odour – Assists digestion, helps to decrease the potential pathogens in the GI Tract and helps decrease the compounds that can lead to unpleasant odours in stools.”

As mentioned earlier, Trotsky is unhappy when I travel and, as a protest, she has a bad habit of sneaking into the upstairs living room and making a ‘deposit’ there for us to find at a later stage.

In the past these ‘deposits’ have been very smelly, squishy and hard to pick up. But I am delighted to report that her last ‘deposit’ powered by annoyance at me for being away and Yoghurt Plus dogfood made for a non-smelly, less bulky and easy to pick up ‘deposit’.

Sure this dog food does nothing to address the weirdly passive aggressive relationship between me and Trostky. But it is living up to its promises and Trotsky and Roy have healthy shiny coats and gobble down their Yoghurt Plus with gusto.

The only other thing I would note is that the food has a very yoghurty kind of smell when you open the bag – some people might not like that. But the dogs don’t seem to mind at all.

* that’s Trotsky on the left in her butterfly wings, Roy is standing to the right

It was fascinating to be at the inaugural Digital Citizens event in Sydney last week – the topic was: Private Parts: Personality and Disclosure – Finding a Balance in the Digital Space.

There was a great line up on the panel with visiting US lawyer and social media specialist Adrian Dayton (Social Media for Lawyers), Sam North (Ogilvy PR), Damian Damjanovski (BMF), and Renai LeMay (Delimiter), all wrangled expertly by the moderator Bronwen Clune (Strategeist).

It was a very thought provoking session with the panel and audience discussion. And the big takeway for me is that social media and its practitioners need to accept that we live within a particular social and legal context.

No matter how much we ’social media’ types decry how poorly the law is setup to deal with what we do everyday, that is the situation we must deal with. The law moves much more slowly than changes in technology, and, upon consideration, maybe that’s not such a bad thing?

For example, Damian Damjanovski argued: “A lot of people out there use it as a personal communications method. There are lots of people with no more than 70 followers . When did we get to the point that this is suddenly publishing and should be treated as such?”

The fact is ordinary people are doing something that was once privileged – publishing. We are publishing content in many places now in the same ways that publishers (who have lawyers vetting much of their content) have for years.

Now that everywoman and everyman is a publisher we need to understand the rights and obligations that come with publication. We are no longer having a chat about something over dinner or at the pub with a bunch of mates. We are posting content (pretty much) for perpetuity and complaining when there are legal ramifications associated with that act.

It all made me think that perhaps a good topic for another Digital Citizens session would be about the legal issues associated with the act of publication on the web? Since, while Adrian Dayton was great, it would have been handy to have Australian lawyer on the panel.

A brief write-up of the event is also available on mUmBRELLA

moar Lolcats

It is fascinating to note on this International Women’s Day that one of our major newspapers has an article titled “Gender pay gap shows no sign of abating”

The gender pay gap can cost women up to $1 million over a lifetime

* Women earn 17pc less than men * Pay inequality worth $1m over lifetime * Women have more self-managed super

WORKING mothers and daughters can expect to be $1 million worse off during their lifetime, compared with fathers, as pay inequality and financial bias keep their incomes and assets low.

By Karina Barrymore March 08, 2010 6:34AM

What does this tell us?

It tells us that even on International Women’s Day and even in Australia, the right of women to a fair go and equal treatment still has a long way to go.

It tells us that women’s higher participation in education still does to not pay off equally with men’s participation in education.

It tells us that women still need to strive together to achieve parity with men in many areas of life.

The recent Febusave campaign by ANZ also highlighted the need for women to take control of their financial destiny. Better finances are an important component of choice and freedom for women.

But these are all first world problems.

There are terrible and sad situations with women in many developing parts of the world. In those places women suffer physically and mentally due to oppression, violence and war.

On this IWD think about how we might help those women too. There’s microfinance ideas like Kiva or Unifem.

Why not reach and help a woman in developing world this IWD?

This lolcat is brought to you by @nickhodge

moar Lolcats

The best place to see engagement marketing in action is in a small town that is not far from a large shopping centre.

Here the shopkeepers know that if they do not engage with you then you will simply jump in the car and head off to the choices offered by the big shopping mall just down the road.

At my local store the shopkeeper always greets me by name and keeps special things aside for me. It makes the choice of dropping by to her local store simple. Because she is (a) friendly and helpful; and (b) goes the extra mile for me and I feel the desire to keep coming back.

There’s nothing like the personal connection. And that is all that engagement marketing really is – connecting with customers so they will choose you above alternatives.

I go back to my local shop because I really enjoy the personalised experience (it’s probably a bit more expensive than the mall) – but my local shopkeeper knows me and my family, she holds items for us and get things in specially.

Marketing does not get much better than this. My whole neighbourhood talks about how good we feel going into that local shop. Just popping in the pick up a newspaper can put a smile on my face for a whole day.

moar Lolcats

Spoke during the last session of the day at Media 140 Perth about realtime web and how it might evolve into an internet of connected people and things. Our evolution towards a networked and hyperconnected society is under way.

The slides might be somewhat opaque without the commentary but please feel free to ping me with any questions.