A while back I wrote a post on 10 ways to convince CEO’s to get blogging. Today I saw a tweet from Euan Semple reflecting on a point by Lee Bryant at the Corporate Social Networking Conference:

@euan Agreeing with @leebryant that it takes years to really get social stuff going in a business.

So what advice would I give if a CEO put me on the spot and asked for my ‘cheats’ way of advancing social media in the enterprise? Talking to Rachel Happe at the Community Roundtable I better understand there’s a lot to be gained from using your online community, firmly embedded in your organisation, to drive this forward. The danger is community manger burnout. But maybe a properly managed CM strategy is a direct route to socializing the enterprise? After all shouldn’t I know by now, that was partly my role at the ICAEW; it even says so on my LinkedIn recommendation:

“When implementing a community based software inside a corporate ecosphere, the biggest challenge of all is the cultural change. Stuart is the answer.” April 10, 2008. Bozhidar Zashev , Commercial Manager, Consultcommerce Ltd.

If that’s of interest check out Dennis Howlett’s recent interview with ICAEW’s John Pearce, Director of Digital Communications, where he explains the role of cultural change in the online communities in this short video: “It’s a learning curve,and a cultural change, and (in response to a follow-up question from Dennis) …we are not frightened to fail”.