I'll likely get flamed for this but I'm not convinced that this is such a great idea. Setting up a walled off space with copious screens showing visualisations of data streamed from social media monitoring systems seems to be the new new thing. I have no doubt that the objectives behind it – listening and paying attention to customers – are laudable ones. But do you need a room to do it? If I'm honest, the thing that bothers me is (once again) the choice of language. Establishing a 'command' centre or a mission 'control' seems to have echoes of a world that we are rapidly leaving behind, and one that feels remote and removed from the more humanistic traits that should characterise an endeavour such as this. I'm sure that it's not intended to be this way but in the end the language we use does matter.
22 responses to “Command And Control”
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Agreed. Listening Room? 🙂
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Agreed. Listening Room? 🙂
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Neil
Funny – just posted about this a little while ago on our blog trying to give our folks a sense of the scope of what is going on out there:
http://www.cronin-co.com/blog/are_you_listening_are_you_answering.
Couldn’t agree with you more on the terminology. In an age of iteration the world of campaigns and war rooms needs to disappear. I do, however, credit Dell with making social media everyone’s business. Maybe Guerilla War is a better analogy -
Neil
Funny – just posted about this a little while ago on our blog trying to give our folks a sense of the scope of what is going on out there:
http://www.cronin-co.com/blog/are_you_listening_are_you_answering.
Couldn’t agree with you more on the terminology. In an age of iteration the world of campaigns and war rooms needs to disappear. I do, however, credit Dell with making social media everyone’s business. Maybe Guerilla War is a better analogy -
Thanks for the comments both.
@Jonathan better, but should it be a room?
@Dan thanks for the link and yes, what you say about Dell is true – which for me makes it more of a surprise that this where their thinking has ended up… -
Thanks for the comments both.
@Jonathan better, but should it be a room?
@Dan thanks for the link and yes, what you say about Dell is true – which for me makes it more of a surprise that this where their thinking has ended up… -
..of course Dell is in Texas 🙂
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..of course Dell *is* in Texas 🙂
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Language is important. Perhaps it could have been called the Conversation Center. It appears that the creation of a room to monitor social media emphasizes the importance of social media for Dell and its employees. In the video, Manish Mehta mentions that every function in the company will use social media. Perhaps in the future the monitoring tools in the room will be accessible to individual employees at their desks.
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Language is important. Perhaps it could have been called the Conversation Center. It appears that the creation of a room to monitor social media emphasizes the importance of social media for Dell and its employees. In the video, Manish Mehta mentions that every function in the company will use social media. Perhaps in the future the monitoring tools in the room will be accessible to individual employees at their desks.
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Hi Carol. Thanks – yes, I agree it’s no doubt symbolic of the company’s commitment to social, and their objective is clearly to channel feedback to relevant teams – but I’d still question whether you need a room with lots of screens to do that. I believe, if Dell haven’t got it as part of their plan, then at least Gatorade had desktop widgets available for other employees too. But just why do they have to use controlling terminology like this?
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Hi Carol. Thanks – yes, I agree it’s no doubt symbolic of the company’s commitment to social, and their objective is clearly to channel feedback to relevant teams – but I’d still question whether you need a room with lots of screens to do that. I believe, if Dell haven’t got it as part of their plan, then at least Gatorade had desktop widgets available for other employees too. But just why do they have to use controlling terminology like this?
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I think you are being overly sensitive. Yes words matter but what matters more is action. Command is not so bad after all. Quick response commando teams are highly independent actionable teams when in field but they do have mission control rooms. I think that’s just a fancy name which collects the infrastructure for social media intelligence gathering for dell. When you run a billion dollar business control is balanced with empowerment. Any other way could be chaos. Having said that however if this is the “only” place for social media action for dell then it will fail because customer facing services are best delegated to front line employees
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I think you are being overly sensitive. Yes words matter but what matters more is action. Command is not so bad after all. Quick response commando teams are highly independent actionable teams when in field but they do have mission control rooms. I think that’s just a fancy name which collects the infrastructure for social media intelligence gathering for dell. When you run a billion dollar business control is balanced with empowerment. Any other way could be chaos. Having said that however if this is the “only” place for social media action for dell then it will fail because customer facing services are best delegated to front line employees
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I’m with you Neil.
Cordoning off this activity has some value as a symbol of intent to the wider organisation. But by definition, it also keeps it detached.
Listening, analysing, responding etc should run through the veins of a business, not be turned into a military-esque games room, which could negatively influence the culture of said activity.
~OK troops, let’s do some listening. Let’s listen the hell out of these people and WIN!~ -
I’m with you Neil.
Cordoning off this activity has some value as a symbol of intent to the wider organisation. But by definition, it also keeps it detached.
Listening, analysing, responding etc should run through the veins of a business, not be turned into a military-esque games room, which could negatively influence the culture of said activity.
~OK troops, let’s do some listening. Let’s listen the hell out of these people and WIN!~ -
I agree with Neil.
In fact I take issue with the word “centre” as much as the word “command”. There is not centre to a network and as soon as you see yourself as being there, narcissism must follow.
It’s high status and high production values and neither of those are really the vibe of social networks. -
I agree with Neil.
In fact I take issue with the word “centre” as much as the word “command”. There is not centre to a network and as soon as you see yourself as being there, narcissism must follow.
It’s high status and high production values and neither of those are really the vibe of social networks. -
Neil – We have to remember that the general populace are Lindsey-Lohan-esque reprobates at best, freedom-despising terrorists at worst. Unlike you, me or Michael Dell; they are barely human. Therefore it is imperative that we monitor them with all the technology at our disposal – as though they were endangered polar bears who could rip our faces off with the desperate swipe of a single paw.
ahem
I actually think that there are some links between the social software milieux and asymmetric warfare. And that the following document might provide some interesting insights: http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/coin/repository/FM_3-24.pdf -
Neil – We have to remember that the general populace are Lindsey-Lohan-esque reprobates at best, freedom-despising terrorists at worst. Unlike you, me or Michael Dell; they are barely human. Therefore it is imperative that we monitor them with all the technology at our disposal – as though they were endangered polar bears who could rip our faces off with the desperate swipe of a single paw.
*ahem*
I actually think that there are some links between the social software milieux and asymmetric warfare. And that the following document might provide some interesting insights: http://usacac.army.mil/cac2/coin/repository/FM_3-24.pdf -
Thanks for the good comments all.
@Matt Heh. Thanks for the link, will take a look 🙂 -
Thanks for the good comments all.
@Matt Heh. Thanks for the link, will take a look 🙂
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