Why big companies suck and how they can deal with it.
I work at a big honking company (or at least a company that used to be
big and acts like a big company) Things here are odd and we work in
silos. I don't know what is going on at the company at a micro-level
For instance, there is a Facebook fan page for every one of the 100
brands and I don't know who runs them. There are people doing awesome
viral work, but no one is sharing the knowledge and it just goes on
and on.
Every once in a while we get an email from the OFFICIAL marketing team
telling us - "we're making a concerted effort to have Facebook fan
pages" And I am thinking? I've had a fan page since Facebook
introduced them? Why don't you ask your employees what they are up to
- find out what successes and failures they've had.
institutional knowledge sharing and a sad amount of mandates for
things people are already doing. All this is absurd and sad. There
are great people here doing great work and think they are alone in
their great work. We're all reading the same blogs, and trying the
same things but on our own. Its as though all the advantage of having
all these employees is lost because we're pushed to work on our own
things. How do we deal with it? To me there are a few things -
1. Empower employees to share information.
Have all employees enter their social network information into the
Enterprise phone book. I mean, who really cares about phones anyway.
2. Call out those who are doing good work.
Instead of the silly marketing team mandates call out the people doing
good work already. There experts here and you insult them with new
mandates. Not only that you make it seem like you don't know what you
are doing.
3. Give us the keys to the car.
At big companies there is access to great tools or contacts that will
help all of us move forward. Instead of locking all this up for
special projects let folks know what is going on. We need information
and tools to make things happen. Give us the tools and we'll make it
happen. What do you think? What else do you see at big companies that don't work?
