Daniel A. Schwartz, author of the Connecticut Employment Law Blog posted about one of the presentations from Legal Tech last week. His post, Social Media Policies and Practices Developing as Companies Begin to Embrace It, gave some details from the panel discussion by the following in-house lawyers: Lesley Rosenthal (Lincoln Center), Ted Banks (former in-house at Kraft), and Mark Bisard (American Express). Check out Daniels post here.I am most in agreement with Ted about social media presenting an opportunity to companies to engage their creative employees and let them flourish. This requires clear guidelines that are flexible enough to allow for employees to be artists in what they do.Seth Godin describes this really well in his new book Linchpin (if you haven’t checked it out yet, it is a must read). His general point is that corporate work trains obedience, being just good enough, and waiting for orders. To thrive in today’s world we need employees who are artists. They contribute value, connect to customers in ways that are human, and can make a real impact that propels the company. These people are linchpins.Rigid guidelines choke the life out of such employees. Demanding metrics over artistry mechanizes the processes, makes it sub par, and outsourceable. It’s why companies like Apple and Google, the leaders in business, thrive and are adored. Other companies say they want to be like Apple or Google, but this just means they want to be loved while producing mediocre results.Any social media policy should be a guideline. Your employees are smart enough to know what they should and shouldn’t do (if not – get new employees). A good legal department balances the need of the company to have a policy in place they can point to if something goes wrong, with the need for employees to be free enough to create without fear of censorship, backlash, or worse. It is a risky game, but one with great rewards if done right.
A social media policy is not some revolutionary mysterious thing. It is a policy. Likely a policy no one will read anyway. Where companies experience mastery is when they do things that are risky, things that ordinary policy making would cry “NO! Don’t do that!”
Notice I said risky. Not stupid. As a member of the legal department it is your job to protect the company, but realize that your employees are likely smarter than you think they are. Also, they are more creative than most of us realize.
If your management creates a linchpin culture where employees take risk, reach for greatness, and share their gifts then your policies at best should be guidelines to help amplify that. If you have an assembly line amassing Twitter followers than perhaps you want something more rigid that will meet the CYA standard. All I’m saying is that in a world where everybody is on Facebook, the winners are those who can connect with customers in ways that automation cannot.
Employee communities, internal social media platforms built for employee engagement by the employer, can be a wild success and source of innovation or an incredible flop. I have seen examples of both first hand. So how do you make your employee community an engaging place that workers will care about?
Monica O’brien has some exciting things going for 2010. As the 
January 14, 2010
Kippa Man: Making Me the First Custom Apple Logo Kippa in Israel
The iPhone hit Israel in December of 2009, and we have been experiencing the slow yet enthusiastic adoption typical of Apple launches. As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am an Apple nut, a customer evangelist if you will, who takes pride in his affiliation. What better way to display that pride than with a custom kippa made by the best?
The lady at Kippa Man (didn’t catch her name today) was pretty excited about this one. “Do you think other people will want it?” she asked in a light Israeli accent. I told her that people would go crazy over it, and she’d be able to say she was the first to do it in Israel because I had looked and not found it anywhere else. I also told her that I’d proudly wear it at Legal Tech in two weeks, a major technology conference in NYC for legal professionals. This made her more excited an she promised to have it ready by next week. What happened next was interesting.
She quoted a price which I thought was high for a custom kippa. “You wear big ones,” she said. “The are more expensive than the little ones.” She was right. I do like my kippas on the big side. They are more comfortable, stay on your head better, don’t require clips, and cover my disappearing hair. Knowing that Wonder Woman would kill me if I paid that much for a kippa the inner business man in me came out. “Tell you what,” I said, “I’m so excited about this kippa that I want to blog about it. I want to show it to everyone I know who loves Apple and have them come to you for one. With the iPhone blowing up in Israel there is sure to be interest. We brand this as a Kippa Man original and I think you’ve got a winner.” Through my entire speech I could feel her excitement, and it was true; I meant every word. It surprised me not to see more kippas with logos from passion brands like Apple, Windows, Nokia (Israelis LOVE their Nokias), and others.
In any case we came to an acceptable price range (she couldn’t give me exact b/c she won’t know until they make it), and I walked outside the store. I posted a check in at Kippa Man on Gowalla (location based service) citing my forthcoming kippa, snapped a shot of the store front (see above), and headed home to start work. Not sure how the kippa will come out, but if it looks anything like the other work I’ve seen Kippa Man do I’m sure it will be awesome. Look for me at Legal Tech.
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Tags: apple, iphone, Jewish, kippa, Kippa Man, passion brands, yarlmake