Last week I completed my TEDWomen application.  While no application questions specifically address gender, outlining my greatest achievements or imagining how a friend might describe me in the context of the conference has inspired me to do a substantial amount of personal navel gazing about my gender  and specifically women in the workplace.  As you might have guessed, this post won’t be about WOM so keep reading if you dare.

There was an active debate around having a separate TED conference on women – largely sparked by some awkward text that was used to introduce the notion of the event which is now resolved.  I was torn less by the existence of such a conference and more by whether or not I would actually enjoy attending.  God help me for admitting this, but I reacted very negatively to Eve Ensler’s performance at TED 2010.  The work felt like it was directly pandering to the guilt of the powerful and largely male audience (who gave her an instant standing ovation).  I sat and clapped politely.  It was similar to the cringey feeling I had when watching the I am Woman karaoke scene in Sex and the City 2 and wanted to yell at the screen “I am NOT like you”. Meanwhile, lots of woman at TED 2010 inspired me greatly – including games researcher Jane McGonigal , the unique perspectives of Temple Grandin, and grand dame ocean-pioneer Sylvia Earle.   Gender had nothing to do with their work or what they spoke about.  So, am I uncomfortable with women who use their femaleness as a “hook” for work, artistic expression, or popularity?  For whom it is their “shtick”?  Am I a self-hater who wants to be a man deep down?  No, indeed.

Being a woman in the workplace comes with its own unique set of opportunities and challenges.  I am now of the mind that not discussing it or attempting to ignore its differentness is fruitless and is not going to help me or anyone else excel.  From the trivialities of navigating the minefields of workplace dress to gracefully handling assumptions and double standards of others, it is just different.  Whenever I get the at-least-weekly well meaning comment “it must be hard to be away from your son so much”, it takes every ounce of decorum I have to maintain a normal tone of voice and reply that while it is, it is also difficult for my male colleagues who have similar schedules and families, but we love what we do and are lucky have strong support at home.

It is this minor epiphany that sparked me to apply.  Could I do a better job of understanding, coaching and growing those around me?  Could I do more to give back to other women in my community at large and in other cultures?  And could I do that more adeptly with more knowledge and ideas?  Without a doubt.  Regardless of whether or not I make the grade on attendance for this event, the process has certainly made me a bit more thoughtful about who I am as a woman in business and how I choose to handle myself and invest in those around me.  I firmly believe there is an authentic path that is neither Devil Wears Prada nor Mary Poppins and, while I am bound to stumble upon it innumerable times, it is a path worth travelling.

You’ve successfully passed through “phase 1” of your company’s social media evolution where just a few expert voices represented your brand online.  Now you are handing over the keys to a larger, more representative group of speakers.  How can you make sure that this proliferation increases, not fragments, your impact online?  How do you prevent someone going off the reservation?  Through guardrails, governance, and training (oh my!).  Here’s a checklist from basic fundamental to advanced degree:

1. Employee Social Media Guidelines – You’ll have to keep revising them and they’ll never be complete, but without them, employees won’t know what they’re allowed to do, whether they’re a spokesperson for your company, etc.  These are not one size fits all, but for a template or inspiration, check out Social Media Governance.
2. Corporate Social Media Strategy – You may remember a (small sample) report from earlier in the summer stating that more than half of companies actively engaging in social media had no strategy and no agreed upon success metrics.  While you might be able to pull that off with a couple of voices online, it will not scale.  A strategy will create the justification for future guardrails of what activities are in an out of bounds, roles and responsibilities, and success metrics.  This is where you should also define what adding more voices online will accomplish for the company so that everyone knows why they’re getting involved
3. Cross-Functional SM Working Group – Whether you call yourselves a committee, task force, or the Bay City Rollers, you will need a cross functional internal working group to create and socialize strategy and policy as it evolves and to handle anything that pops up.  For bonus points, don’t just include product, marketing, care and communications – you will benefit from talent acquisition, HR, and legal being consistently at the table as well.
4. Documentation of Goals, Roles, Responsibilities, Response Guidelines  – Knowing them is not enough.  As your organization grows and as customers find you in social spaces, you’ll want to have crisp external definitions of your mission in social places and the type of service or responses that customers can expect.  Internally, you’ll need to know who is responsible for what spaces and have a documented, agreed upon way to handle inquiries or comments from customers and escalation paths for things that could potentially go wrong.
5. Process for Initiating NEW SM Projects – If you are fighting the tide of proliferation of handles and pages using your brand, create a way for marketers in your organization interested in starting another social project to think through all the necessary elements of adding a new project to the ecosystem and ask them to explain why their needs can’t be met through existing social channels.  Letting growth happen totally organically could lead to a maze that makes it difficult for customers to find the “real” you.
6. Training on All of the Above – Figure out how you can train and engage your organization on the elements above.  Maybe some can be done in person, but for items impacting all employees, you may want to look to on demand video training to make sure everyone has full access.
7. Regular Communications of Performance to Metrics – Once your expanded organization is up and running, close the loop with communication with how you are performing to the metrics in your strategy.  Honoring standouts and accomplishment can keep your expanded social media crew rowing hard in the right direction.

This is formulated based on my experience in house and on the agency side helping multiple organizations with this transition.  What did I miss?  What’s your checklist?

Today, I blogged about marketing lessons from the Man in Black over on the Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence Fresh Influence blog.  Give it a visit or go straight to The Johnny Cash Project to let your inner artist loose!