I was fortunate enough to catch up with the Martha Lane-Fox of pensions for coffee this week; the brilliant Mackenzie Nordal. After swapping photos and stories of our babies, we reflected on how much the asset management industry has achieved in the two years since her and I first met and mallowstreet was launched.
Mackenzie and Co’s launch of mallowstreet coincided with my own efforts to convince colleagues that social media has a role in client engagement. So it made perfect sense for us to combine intellect to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.
The challenges we faced then were, in no particular order,
‘this stuff is just for kids,’ ‘I don’t have time for it,’ ‘compliance will never let you do it,’ and my favourite, ‘it’s just a fad and will never catch
on.’
The inertia was akin to convincing a small child to wade
into the sea. Now while there are clearly children that take to it like the
proverbial duck, most need a combination of coercion and encouragement. We took
baby steps, establishing small beachheads that we share learning from. This
built confidence in those that we showcased and the determination to overcome
their fears in everyone else.
So here we are, 18 months on, and standing with the sea up to
our middles. Confidently splashing our hands in the water with a random blog written
according to our agenda and engaging with the occasional passing beach ball
with a random forum post. We all have the correct kit now, updating our
profiles and ensuring we log in just often enough to ensure nothing looks out
of date for too long.
This is doing social. I don’t mean this harshly, as we have
all come a long way to get to this point; but this is ticking all the boxes to
satisfy the people that sit in the offices where the air is a little sweeter
and the carpets a lot thicker, we are in social media.
Doing social is not being social; that’s the next bunch of fun we’re going to have together.
Doing social is not being social; that’s the next bunch of fun we’re going to have together.