"Humanize: How People Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World" was my favorite book of 2011. This article discusses my impression of the book and why I believe, as Trendwatching put it, that this will be the year of the Flawsome company.

1. Free Traffic Tips | Humanize, Cylons and Why So Many Companies Fail at Social Media
Copyright Tinu Abayomi-Paul tinuabayomipaul@leveragedpromotion.com
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Humanize, Cylons and Why So Many Companies Fail at Social
Media
[caption id="attachment_10468" align="alignright" width="210" caption="An Exaggeration of How Much I Love This Book.
But Not Far From the Truth"]
[/caption]
Human beings may have been creating organizations for thousands of years but that does not necessarily make these
organizations particularly human.
Remember we've also been creating machines for thousands of years .... machines have been integral to our growth as a
species as well in fact may have maybe they have been a little too integral.
From Humanize How People-Centric Organizations Succeed in a Social World, by Jamie Notter & Maddie Grant
:
In the science fiction television series, Battlestar Galatica the Cylons are a race of humanoid machines, initially created by
,
humans as intelligent machines built to serve humanity. A running theme throughout the show was that these new Cylons
were so close to human that some sleepers lived as humans, and didn't even know their true nature themselves.
We're, of course, nowhere close to suffering this particular danger. Even in new media, it's apparent which people are
interacting with you in real time, which accounts are being run by an entity functioning as a team, and which ones are a mix
of people and software updates spread out over time.
Though people don't seem to mind whether a Twitter account is run by a company, a person, or a person assisted by
software, we all like to know who we're dealing with in this age of transparency.
One thing is clear though: people don't mind getting their news headlines from a bot, but they want to interact with people.
Seems simple enough, right?
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2. Free Traffic Tips | Humanize, Cylons and Why So Many Companies Fail at Social Media
Copyright Tinu Abayomi-Paul tinuabayomipaul@leveragedpromotion.com
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But if it were, social media ROI (return on investment) wouldn't be such a hot topic - the return on investment would be
obvious, despite the fact that some of it isn't measurable.
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5
Why are some companies failing miserably at social media?
Oh wait. Are we not supposed to talk about that?
Shall we hold hands and sing kumbaya, only pointing to the success stories of social media, afraid that saying WE failed is the
same thing as saying IT failed us?
Perhaps the primary thing you can do to encourage better learning conversations in your culture is to address the issue of
failure. It is counterintuitive to feel good about failure.
Page 227 of Humanize
, by Maddie Grant and Jamie Notter
Okay, we've given ourselves permission to talk about it - after all Jamie and Maddie are pretty smart. So is it really social
media that is failing? Or are some of us not doing it right? Maybe a little of both?
Well, the math definitely doesn't support the theory that social media doesn't work for anyone.
If most US Adults are using a social networking site each day (though by a slim majority in some age groups if you don't
,
include video), obviously there's enough of a reach for it to have an impact. With Facebook and StumbleUpon as leading
sources of trafficto other websites, obviously click traffic is happening.
This is of course only one indicator that social media works, and to me, it's not the most important one. Great to get people in
seats, but will they watch the show?
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3. Free Traffic Tips | Humanize, Cylons and Why So Many Companies Fail at Social Media
Copyright Tinu Abayomi-Paul tinuabayomipaul@leveragedpromotion.com
http://www.freetraffictip.com/humanize-cylons-and-why-so-many-companies-fail-at-social-media.php
And yet, Gartner predicts that up through this year, 70% of IT dominated social media initiatives will fail
.
Facebook reports 800 million daily active users, with 50% of active users logging in daily And according to one 2009 study,
.
35% of Facebook pageshave less than 100 "fans".
With all the fuss over social media, you'd expect these numbers to be higher, especially when including blogs and video sites
like YouTube.
Where is the disconnect?
Pages: 12 3 4 5
We're Selling to Humans. Why Aren't Our Organizations... Human? Or At
Least Humane?
We're trying to force-fit social media technology - a technology that is unleashing a wave of creative energy that draws its
strength by tapping into deeply human desires and aspirations - into organizations that have been built... on an entirely
mechanical model.
From Chapter One of Humanize
, by Maddie Grant and Jamie Notter
Yes.
Invariably the problem comes in when an organization attempts to use a mechanistic mentality to perform a
human function.
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4. Free Traffic Tips | Humanize, Cylons and Why So Many Companies Fail at Social Media
Copyright Tinu Abayomi-Paul tinuabayomipaul@leveragedpromotion.com
http://www.freetraffictip.com/humanize-cylons-and-why-so-many-companies-fail-at-social-media.php
In the industrial age, it perhaps made sense to have a company run like a well oiled machine. Were we not laborers trying to
produce hard goods in an assembly line setting? We were, in effect, performing the function of machine parts.
This is not so in the information age. And the underlying strategy to acclimating to more human approaches involves the
fixing of the entire organization.
Humanizeuncovers this issue - social media is for people, but businesses function like machines. And the business
functionalities strip us of the humanity needed to participate in social media effectively.
We get lost in wars over who owns what, which department has to approve what message for an employee to send out a
tweet.
But tweets, blogging, commenting, these happen in real time - by the time all the paperwork goes through, the moment of
potential progress is lost. That might have been the contact that led to the meeting that closed the sale. Businesses can't
afford to make these kinds of mistakes any more.
The solution is that it's time for the organization to evolve to represent us - not a Cylon initiation of us, where a cartoonistic
rendering of us grows creepier as its simulation becomes perfected. No, it needs to actually be freed from inhuman robotic
function and yield to the ecosystem of human interaction.
In Humanize, Maddie Grant and her co-author Jamie Notter show how businesses and organizations can be more
people-centric and how anyone at any level of an organization can help their business make this shift.
Pages: 1 23 4 5
What Will Happen If We Don't Humanize Our Companies?
[caption id="attachment_10465" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Caprica Six by Valerhon"]
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5. Free Traffic Tips | Humanize, Cylons and Why So Many Companies Fail at Social Media
Copyright Tinu Abayomi-Paul tinuabayomipaul@leveragedpromotion.com
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p
[/caption]
"All of this has happened before... and all of it will happen again."
BattlestarGalatica
Just imagine, for a moment, that the entity known as the corporation evolved from having personhoodto being
indistinguishable from a person.
Did you know this? Corporations have many of the same rights as we do. Imagine the corporations could, in some
not-too-distant robotic future, acquire a body, and move about as humans do - the Cylons of the future.
If we were to let our corporations continue to operate as machines, what would stop them from taking over the world? The top
corporations certainly hold enough wealth They employ the rest of us.
.
In their current state, all they would need is is bodies to exert additional power over us.
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6. Free Traffic Tips | Humanize, Cylons and Why So Many Companies Fail at Social Media
Copyright Tinu Abayomi-Paul tinuabayomipaul@leveragedpromotion.com
http://www.freetraffictip.com/humanize-cylons-and-why-so-many-companies-fail-at-social-media.php
Of course, the very idea that a corporation could one day be granted the same status as humans is ridiculous on its face.
The reason you're being asked to suppose this is to make you aware of how much we depend on the model of the company,
corporation or organization to run our lives. Many of us spend more of our day with the organizations and its members than
we do with family or sleeping.
True, we depend on this model to bring groups of people together, working towards an end with organized efficiency.
And so I submit that it is not the model that is flawed, it's our execution. Because the one thing that machines can't do is be
human. The Cylons tried it, and sure, some came close.
But if the Second;Cylon Warhas taught us anything, it's that humans and machines are only compatible at a great cost to
humanity, and are absolutely not interchangeable. And that cost is not one we humans are willing to pay at this point.
Many of us hate our jobs or the places we word in, because they treat us inhumanely or ask us to treat others in this way.
Whether that's inadvertent or intentional is almost besides the point - there was a time where to a limited extent this model
worked for us. It no longer does. .
When we as consumers bump heads with companies, we get frustrated when we want to be helped, and are presented with
resolution systems that aren't human. Remember the last time you got stuck in a phone tree trying to get an answer to simple
question, unable to reach a human?
That frustration, that vacuum of joyless mechanical processing is sucking the joy out of our lives.
It's only a matter of time before we begin to insist on the triumph of the ecosystem over the mechanized system instead of
ask. And the transition will be difficult no matter when we do it, and that much harder the longer we wait.
But at least with Humanize you have a map and a plan.
,
Pages: 1 2 34 5
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7. Free Traffic Tips | Humanize, Cylons and Why So Many Companies Fail at Social Media
Copyright Tinu Abayomi-Paul tinuabayomipaul@leveragedpromotion.com
http://www.freetraffictip.com/humanize-cylons-and-why-so-many-companies-fail-at-social-media.php
The Instruction Book for Exiting the Matrix - And Defeating the Next Cylon
Infiltration
One of the greatest things about this book is that the authors don't just point out that we're in the Matrix.
They give us a way out. And not just for the CEO. Anyone from the front-line employee to the middle manager or the C-level
executive can help show the organization the way out of the wilderness. With the book comes online worksheets that you can
use to muddle your way everything from the assessment of your organization to the steps toward change.
Trendwatching tells us that this is going to be the year of the Flawsome company meaning that "for 2012, brands that
,
behave more humanly, including showing their flaws, will be awesome." If you want to be ahead of that curve, do yourself a
favor and pick up a copy of Humanize.
It's that or make room for the rebirthing tanks
.
Don't just believe me though - for all you know, I'm a Cylon. Read a sample chapter for yourself, below.
Or join us on Monday, when you can win a free copy of Humanize, and ask Maddie some questions yourself
.
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If you're a regular, you know this. But I don't make any money from the proceeds of Humanize, nor are either of the authors
clients of mine. I just love this book and think most businesses will find it useful.
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