29 October 2011

Doing Social



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We all have the correct kit now, updating our profiles and ensuring we log in just often enough to ensure nothing looks out of date for too long.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.