Guest Blog: Mark Fitzgerald, Boise State University Super Hero
It is fascinating how social media affects communication. It not only provides more outlets to communicate but it provides more complexity. So with the most recent HDI contest I decided to put a few experiments into play.
As a help desk super hero I put out a plea to my friends on Facebook. Vote for me. Not surprisingly this garnished very few votes. So was it not specific or was it lost in the sea of so many other people reaching out?
So the next media I turned to was email. I sent out a generic email stating I was in a competition and would like their vote. I sent this to colleagues at work, past jobs and even my HDI Forum. This gained me a couple of dozen votes. But by this time the competition started heating up and I was behind.
The next set of emails was to family members and past employees. These emails were very specific to what I was trying to accomplish and asked for commitment to action. A more specific email was resent to the HDI Forum. This set of emails put me over the top by the end of work Friday night. I was leading by several percentage points.
But true to life that lead did not last. My competition was not letting down. So the next step in the social media experiment was direct contact. Anyone that popped up on Instant Messenger or Facebook was immediately contacted and asked to participate. Friday night the lead went back and worth. When I left work I had 92 votes. When I went to bed I had a 123 and I was ahead by 8 votes.
Alas the competition doesn’t sleep and by the next morning she had 136 to my 130.
Not surprisingly, direct pleas had the most success of communication to action. It was also the most work. As help desk professionals we are required to communicate all day long. It is so easy to broadcast out your message and then fall into the trap of thinking we had successfully communicated. But in reality it requires a lot more work. We need to be specific, brief and call people to action. If it is truly important it will require work to ensure your message is heard.
As for being a super hero, some people were not happy that I lost. But I hope I will always be her super hero.
He's my "Super Hero"
