Comments on: Twitter Followers Increase Virtual Familiarity.

By: What you can learn from EMC’s Internal Communities.

What you can learn from EMC’s Internal Communities. — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 18:23:12 +0000

[...] I had the opportunity to check out EMC’s internal Enterprise 2.0 community the other day. And more importantly I had a chance to meet Len Devanna and Jamie Pappas personally. I’ve been following them on Twitter (@LenDevanna and @JamiePappas), but meeting people in person is always much better, especially people you follow already. [...]

By: Juergen Berkessel

Juergen Berkessel — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:22:31 +0000

In general terms, I agree…

However, I would add that it can be more delicate than this, depending on if the the organizational culture supports a holistic view on their employees, has forward looking thinking about work-life balance and is enlightened enough to encourage the blending of corporate vs. personal identity. IMHO the larger the organization, the rarer this is.

It also creates an opportunity: If organizational culture can be moved forward to embrace a more holistic view of their workforce, then it becomes a more fertile breeding ground to introduce social media tools and collaboration metaphors, and reap the more subtle benefits you wrote about, speedier team building, greater “virtual familiarity”, and ultimately a more engaged workforce!

So, I’m sure there are folks working on how best to define the ROI behind increased Virtual Familiarity

By: Gil Yehuda

Gil Yehuda — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:42:04 +0000

“is it a good idea to consolidate professional identity with corporate identity and interests?”
Great question, healthy debate. I’ll share my opinion. There are some elements of a person’s personal identity that are not harmonious with a professional identity. The classic topics that most avoid associating themselves with in their professional identity are sex, religion, and politics. So when you are managing your corporate identity, you’ll want to be careful about how people read your “message”. Note: we all have a perspective and opinions on these topics – it’s perfectly OK. But the challenge is in how we present those views. But when it comes to other aspects of your personal identity, such as a hobby or interest (sailing, craftsmanship, music, etc.), these represent great ways to relate to others who might share similar interest — or might simply find you to be more multi-faceted and interesting.

Do you think this is a good way to draw the line?