Our School Boards, Company Administrators and Social Media Policies

Schools have been finding social media policies are as challenging to create as they are for companies. Reading one well-written, well-intentioned, school board’s efforts (pdf) to craft a social media policy for students and personnel drove this point home.

Both groups face a common challenge. That challenge is the growing gap in experiences and expectations from social media's rise.

Now we have real-time connections with anyone anywhere. We can connect and collaborate, critique and create, and discover options. Some of these options reflect poorly on the message they have been fed to date. But, that's the price of entry, learning, engaging, collaborating and creating.

Pandora’s box seems an apt metaphor.

Now in all fairness this is a well written, well-prepared, policy coordinated with a well-organized plan. The intent was excellent. And, I recognize there is always more than meets the eye or the local news with a school board meeting or its policy document.

The language and perspective in this agenda is often found in companies struggling to create a social media policy.

Here’s my thoughts as I read the text of this policy, a policy I've seen in place at many other companies.

AUDIENCE: The policy is addressed to only the members of the Board.

Questions:

• School: When will the teachers and students and parents hear of this policy governing their behavior?

• Company: As a company would you address your social media policy to only your Board of Directors or your Executive Committee?

Solutions:

• School: What if... a community page using Facebook or Ning was created for all the stakeholders in this conversation? That would include, should include all of the decision-makers. Those unfamiliar with social media's features and environments would have first-hand experience. A valuable teaching environment would be possible building bridges between students (now, teachers of social media) and administrators (now, students).

• Company: What if...your company or the school board included a requirement that all decision-makers must create a profile page and participate? Mandatory social media participation is an interesting concept. But why allow decisions made by those unfamiliar with the topic at hand?

PURPOSE: The following policy is promulgated to protect the students and personnel.

We believe...the proposal strikes a fair balance between the use...and privacy rights of parents and students.

Questions:

• Have students and personnel asked for protection?

• Were parents and students included in your discussion of their privacy rights?

Imagine that sentence included in a company's social media policy.

The following policy is promulgated to protect the employees and management.

We believe...the proposal strikes a fair balance between the use...and privacy rights of employees and management.

Questions:

• Have your employees asked to be protected from their use of social media?

• Were your employees included in your discussion of how you created your proposal to protect them, their careers and their company?

Skepticism is natural when volunteers appear to protect us from ourselves and our friends. Suspicion is also natural. And so is a tendency to immediately reject a proposal created without our participation.

The audience for a social media policy must be inclusive.

Solution:

For School and Company: What if...your proposal answered three questions from everyone targeted by your proposal. Those questions are:

• What’s in it for us?
• Why should we care?
• Why should we believe?

Effective answers for those questions begin the process of engagement. They see your answers come from your genuine care for their needs. The next step, taken very quickly, would be to include their feedback, suggestions, criticisms in the next revision.

PERMISSION/TRUST

Educators shall only allow students whose parent or guardian has given written permission to post on school related sites.

School administrators shall be granted access...

There could be more to this section. But this is how it could be translated:

• Educators are volunteered without their permission to be the enforcers.

• Students are not trusted by administration. They need double optin permissions: one from parents, one from educators.

• Educators are not trusted by the administration.

• Only administrators, the authors of this policy, are trustworthy.

Adjust this text for a corporate policy:

Managers shall only allow employees whose team leader has given written permission to post on company-related sites.

HR, Legal and Executives shall be granted access...

This is how it could be translated:

• Managers are volunteered to be the bad guys and Team Leaders are volunteered to be parents for the employees on their team.

• Employees are not trusted by the company: Executives, HR and Legal. Employees need double optin vouchers: One by Team Leaders (defacto parents) and Managers.

• Only Executives, HR and Legal personnel, authors of this policy, are trustworthy.

• No one’s permission is needed by either groups of administrators: school or corporate.

Questions:

Schools: Have you given your students permission to post on sites or discuss in person...anything? Have students asked, much less needed, your permission to do so? Have they learned communication and decision-making skills?

Company: Do your employees need your permission to join any social media site? Have you given them, as part of their work, the permission to ‘post’ with each other, with customers and vendors and partners. Right. It's part of their job. Why would their communication skills and decision-making now be in question?

Students and employees already are their own administrators and participants on social media site. Their conversations, their posts, are already happening? Did you know that?

Google the name of your school, principal or athletic coaches. Google the name of your company or executives.

Students and employees granted themselves trust and permission. And those qualities are shared and developed in their own community of peers. Your trust and permission is not needed.

Your policy, good or bad, will have little impact on these conversations. They will continue to take place with or without you.

If you join the conversations then education and engagement will happen. If you choose not to, then education and engagement will continue without you.

SOLUTIONS:

Schools: What-if you recognized that students have already earned your trust? What if you trusted that all your education on writing, reading, communicating and behavior had been learned? Could that be the issue?

Company: What-if you offered your employees the same trust with social media that you offer them in their daily conversations with their peers and other company stakeholders? Or would you be embarrassed if the general public saw the conversations your employees have with each other or other stakeholders including customers, vendors or partners? Would that be the issue?

My sense is both groups will learn that those we lead live up to or down to our expectations. Yes, disappointments will happen. But consider all the talent, ideas, conversations, collaborations, inspirations and education and engagement that is possible.

Use.

School administrators are authorized to grant permission for the educational use of social networking tools.

This is clear. But it read as it is your permission, your topic, your content, your purpose.

Questions:

• Where is the social networking?

• Without it where is the educational use?

• Without it why is a policy needed?

Learning requires engagement, right? If you are not part of their conversations and they are not trusted to be part of yours, then where is the engagement? And where is the education?

Consider this language in a corporate policy:

Company administrators are authorized to grant permission for the corporate use of social networking tools.

Same point, again: your permission, your topic, your content, your purpose.

Question:

• Why would anyone use these tools if these tools can only used as you define their use?

Building a brand requires engagement by all its stakeholders. If you are not part of their conversations and they are not trusted to be part of yours, then where is the engagement? Where is the brand being built?

Personal Social Networking

Nothing in this policy shall prohibit personal or private social networking by employees acting outside of the scope of their employment and with personally owned equipment.

Good.

Employees who maintain personal social networking sites shall not allow students to access personal sites, excepting members of immediate family.

Question for School:

• You do realize employees spend their whole day with other employees and students...? You trust them to be together all day, 5 days a week or more. They spend more waking hours together than they do with their family...at your insistence.

• What if their paths cross outside class? Should they avert their eyes?

Consider this language adapted for corporate policy:

Employees who maintain personal social networking sites shall not allow fellow employees or personnel from vendors, partners, customers and management to access personal sites, excepting members of immediate family.

Question: Same as above.

Yes, we all should spend more time with family. And we would, also.

But friends are important too. So are role models and mentors, resources and tools. Challenges and solutions any more do not happen during regular hours under someone’s supervision.

Yes, I understand about inappropriate interactions. On the other hand, that happened before social media.

This post turned into an interesting labor of love.

The takeaways from this labor seem to be recommendations for a few simple steps:

1.  Invite everyone. Invite everyone to this policy party who will be effected by the policy...

2. Ask some questions. Start the conversation. Start it correctly with some questions. Remember your policy is about being social. Be social. Ask some questions.  

3. Listen to everyone and everything they say. Listen to all their comments, questions, fears, experiences, problems, suggestions, ideas, tools, solutions...dreams and visions.

4. Learn constantly.   Being social is about learning and engaging. And social media is the media that lets us find new people to connect with and learn from, and deepen that experience with those we already know. The first three steps if you you repeat them repeatedly creates a process of constant learning and engagement. That's social. That's a living policy. 

Comments

[Frankbradley]

Interesting read. I came across this story in my Twitter feed this morning, and now again in your blog. I totally disagree with the banning of teacher and student interaction on social networks. As you allude to, what happened before Social Media. I think great opportunities for mentoring and coaching are being lost here.

A classic case of not involving all parties before drafting the policy.