What Organizations Can Learn From “Social Media”

Human beings are, by nature, social creatures.   We communicate, we feel emotion, we connect with others based on common interests, we have a proclivity to create.

Enter technology and buzz words like “social media”.  Yep, “social media” is a buzz word.  Why?  Because it was always there – people have been connecting, talking, creating, and sharing for a very very long time.  New shiny objects (Pinterest, Posterous, Foursquare, StumbleUpon, Digg, Tumblr, exit Bebo, exit MySpace – you get the point) make us gravitate to them and all too often, we extend resources to make it work.  But why?  To be an early adopter?  Sure.  To innovate and maintain competitive advantages?  Absolutely.  But what do we learn if the shiny objects aren’t a fit – something you don’t even know on the onset of a new tool or platform – and what if doing it “right” is cost and resource prohibitive because there is no data to back it up?

All too often, myself included, I see people reinventing the wheel and not taking any learnings and data into consideration about decisions.

So I challenge you to ask yourself – what can we learn from these evolutions in technology and communication and how people and content connect in the digital space?  And more importantly, how are these learnings translatable to human behavior outside of digital?  What social learnings can you take or infer about human behavior that will outlive the popularity of [enter XYZ social platform here]?

Learning:

1.  We are narcissists and voyeurs. 

According to the Pew Internet Study: Social Networking Sites And Our Lives, an average day on Facebook consists of some of the following actions by the site’s users (close to a billion of them, might I add):

• 26% “Like” another user’s content
• 15% of users update their own status
• 22% comment on another user’s posts or status updates
• 20% comment on another user’s photos

Yep, people you like recognition.  It feels good when someone reads your blog and comments about it.  You like it when someone retweets your content.  You check your LinkedIn profile stats to see who has viewed your profile (could someone be trying to hire you for a job or a project – or, most probable considering how LinkedIn is used for lead generation, someone is trying to sell you something).

Simply put, humans like to be heard and made to feel that their opinion counts (how would you react if you were ignored in meetings, or people didn’t give you a chance to actually speak by talking over you all the time?) The same  goes on social sites, but now audiences are extended and we have actions such as “comment”, “like”, “reply”, “retweet”, “pin”, “subscribe”, “follow” and the list goes on, to actually tell us that people are listening.

Oh, and we need to call out photo activity on Facebook.

•  6 Billion photos are uploaded to Facebook each month
• Women upload more photos than men (Can we make some social connections here regarding the women/beauty/power theories?  Sure, but that’s a whole other topic)

Yep, people you like showing off.  And people you like creeping.  I can go into an entire monologue on this, but Dr. Jean Twenge and Dr. Keith Campbell do a nice job of really bringing this home in their book The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement   (Excellent read!)

Bring it to your organization:

How can you leverage people’s desire for recognition?  How can you leverage knowing that people like seeing their name in lights and having their voices (and their pictures!) heard (seen)?

Tip:

Involve them.  People are more likely to promote themselves for their own benefit, not necessarily for your reasons.  So what?  Align and leverage it.  Win/Win.

Learning:

2.   We create.

Technology has given everyone the power to be a publisher.  We’re all photographers now and technologies like Instagram make us designers now too.  Hell, I make photo books for my niece, a photographer, nor a designer am I (the books come out awesome FYI).

•  100+ hours of video is uploaded to YouTube in less than 5 minutes.
• 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content.

Bring it to your organization:

How can you leverage people’s creativity and content production?  Not everything will be “brand” quality, but that’s the beauty of people – it’s a person, not a faceless brand – the human connection, not necessarily the quality, is what has the potential to resonate.

Tip: 

Crowdsource.  People like to be a part of things.  People will create.  Give people credit (see above), and they will create more for you.  And probably share it too.

Learning:

3. We connect with other humans.  Our faces elicit emotion.

Close to 1 billion users with a valuation at almost $100 Billion… there’s a lot that we can learn from the growth of Facebook and it’s not just about how to grow a fan base.

A study conducted about brain responses concluded that the most emotional connection was created between a user and Facebook versus other leading search and media outlet sites.

In Mashable’s write up, “A.K. Pradeep, the CEO of NeuroFocus [Firm commissioned for the study], says the presence of faces on Facebook are a major reason why. ‘As you can see, one of the dominant features of Facebook is the human face,’ he says. ‘The face is a window to the emotions.’ Pradeep says that since childhood we are trained to read people’s faces to discern emotion, and that such information is key to survival: Thus the stimulation we experience when scanning our newsfeeds”.

Businesses, especially B2B, are relationship driven.  Technology cannot take the place of one to one interaction, but it can enhance and optimize.

Bring it to your organization:

How can you bring any of your internal and external projects to life by using the human face?

Tip:

Knowing that a stronger emotional connection and perhaps, emotional response can be triggered by the face,  but perhaps not possible or relevant all the time – test content performance.  Try using stock imagery vs. that of real people in real situations (not stock photos of people, this is just bad) in marketing materials.  Test content distribution.  Try personal distribution of content via social networks (actual people) vs. that of the brand.  The brand might have more reach and more people might access, so test performance as a ratio of desired action to audience number.

Evolutions in behavior are constantly occurring.  People are selfish and we’re pretty fickle too.

Yep, we all are.  We’re busy.  We really don’t care about things if they are not relevant right now.  Plus, something that I like today can perhaps be something I could care less about tomorrow.  And I want it now.  And I want it interactive.  Woah – I’m needy.

But really, the Internet and mobile devices and constant communication methods have trained us like that.  Technology is at our fingertips and if I can’t find what I am looking for, I will move on to something else.

Unless there is an apocalypse, the speed and the access of information will only continue.  Facebook might collapse and enter XYZ social tool can take it’s place, but human nature and the learnings from sites like Facebook will remain constant.

Nothing new is occurring, it’s just amplified.   People connect to people.  People consume content, they create it, they share it, they talk about it.

What do you want them to talk about?

People + Content = Social Media Win

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Note: This blog post was originally featured on CareerBuilder’s The Hiring Site on May 3, 2011 where I am a guest contributor. I am not featured on the actual contributor page because I don’t post my photos publicly online (if you look closely at my mini-avatar, you can see me behind my two dogs).  For more insight as to my reasoning on the conscious decision to maintain an online persona with the photo of a dog and the real value of online social networking, click here. 

The concept of social media is a simple one: people and content. There is nothing new about this.  People have been connecting with each other and content since the beginning of time. With the advent of technology, namely the Internet, it should be of no surprise that human beings have taken their desire for interaction to new heights as they connect with friends and family on Facebook, and with professional colleagues on LinkedIn; share and follow others with the same content interest on Twitter; watch stories unfold via video and photography on YouTube and Flickr; and produce and connect with others via the written word on WordPress and Blogger.

People will connect to brands on social media, too. No other medium has afforded brands the opportunity to build this intimate and innate connection with desired audiences. eMarketer reports that the number one reason consumers connect with brands on Facebook is to let their social network know which brands they support.

Realistically though, how can one define the ROI of “support”?  Will it be in the form of short-term or long-term sales? Will it be in the form of traffic to a website, in which more robust content is delivered?  Is it measured on increased brand equity or sentiment for employment branding? And how does one even quantify brand equity or employment branding?

Building Support
All too often, our team sees that organizations tend to measure the success of social media via likes, followersand subscribers. Unfortunately, “If you build it, he will come,” is quite possibly the biggest social media myth that I encounter and consult against on a daily, if not hourly, basis. (For more insight on how to resist this Field of Dreams whisper, check out Melissa Murray Balsan’s post, How to Launch in the Social Space.) Just because you are there doesn’t mean that people know or have a reason to care.  And just because you invest in content doesn’t mean people will automatically know how to find it.

To begin growing your presence, go to the people that know and love you in the “real world.”  You already have an audience with individuals that comprise your organization as well as those who help keep the lights on by buying your products and/or services.

• Employees: Assuming you treat them well, with the appropriate message and reason, your employees should be your first selections for brand advocates. Without them, your organization wouldn’t exist. How can their stories be framed to push your corporate initiatives forward?
• Customers: Assuming you have a good product or service, your current clients and customers are another audience base that you can preliminarily leverage to push your message forward. Again, without them, your organization wouldn’t exist. How can their voices help you with your overarching business goals?

If you are not planning to fund the growth of your social media presence via advertising, how are you integrating and messaging your two core audiences of employees and customers to join you online? If you are not messaging your audiences and giving them a reason to participate, you are missing out on your first brand advocates. How else can you integrate your current marketing and communication materials to make audiences aware of your presence?

Realistically Define Success Metrics
Not everyone will be able to achieve nearly 26M fans on Facebook that consistently sing the praises of the organization, like Coca-Cola has done. Meanwhile, Starbucks has more than 21M fans that not only defend the business against competition but also upload user-generated content and publicly profess their taste preference for the brand.

While 20M to 25M fans might be out of the question for most, every organization can still utilize social media to tell its corporate story. More importantly, social media affords the best platforms to leverage audiences to push that same story forward, like the trend seen on the Starbucks and Coca-Cola pages – everyday consumers publicly “loving” a product. It’s not the simple act of clicking like on a page; it’s the story that each individual shares with his/her 130 friends about your brand.

Get Them Talking
So how do you provide a platform on which those audiences can actively participate with you? Social Media is a visual platform through which people will connect and share content. As mentioned earlier, the heart of this content should tell your corporate story. Understanding that not everyone can be the behemoths of Starbucks and Coca-Cola in size and marketing dollars, Epic MedStaff Services Inc., shares the success it has seen by empowering audiences via social media.

As an organization that recruits only the best nurses in Texas and provides top of the line care for children in their Epic Pediatric Services Division, the relationship that Epic MedStaff has with its employees is essential for its business. By providing a platform for and cultivating these relationships with employees, Epic MedStaff’s Facebook page is a great example of social storytelling. Key tactics include inviting and fostering dialogue with employees. “Social Media has allowed us to cultivate new relationships with our employees,” says Kristian Stevens, corporate recruiter for Epic MedStaff. “By utilizing Facebook, we have created an online platform where we can communicate to our employees and clients without boundaries.”

These new types of dialogues with employees have publicly garnered such commentary:

• Hello Epic, you guys are doing a great job. Keep it up… You rock!
• Day 2 of my new employment with Epic. So far so GREAT 
• Today was my first day orienting at [Epic MedStaff]… I love this job!

So what do these dialogues and public testimonials do for Epic MedStaff? Understanding that what was found through eMarketer’s report, “support” isn’t as quantifiable as traditional marketing campaigns in terms of ROI. However, Stevens tells us that these conversations have helped brand Epic MedStaff in “the online world” in a way that traditional media and marketing hasn’t been able to. Along with corporate and employment branding, these conversations “have created more awareness about who we are and the patients we serve.”

Determine Your Wins
Once you have built your preliminary audience, I challenge you to ask yourself and your colleagues how you can increase your organization’s audience base. When doing so, be sure to concentrate on what current and future audiences will give back to you via engagement and how those stories can be pushed through your current audiences to new ones.

In an ever-evolving business landscape, how can you create success out of a corporate story that you already have? The hardest part sometimes will be determining what that story is, but once you have honed in on it, create the emotional connection with your supporters so they push the story forward within their respective networks. Soon you will be on the path to creating a platform created of brand advocates – individuals willing and ready to publish testimonials to your current and future audiences.

People and content. Social media wins are that simple. What objectives can you meet if you empower your audiences to tell your story?

My (Social Network) Life As A Dog: My Online Elevator Pitch

If we haven’t met in real life, chances are, you only know me physically as a dog.  My avatars and profile pics and whatever other new age words are used to describe the photos next to my online profiles, are those of my dog.  For consistency purposes, I try to use the same dog (I have two), if not the same photo of the aforementioned canine.

I’m a dog person.  I love my dogs.  If you know me personally, you know I am passionate about my dogs and can talk about them forever.  My dogs help drive my motivations personally and professionally.

So what, right?

Well, I’ve always gotten flack about using pictures of my dogs as my personal profile pictures.  Less so with Twitter and with WordPress (in fact, never), but mostly with my LinkedIn picture.

• “LinkedIn is a professional site.  Why on earth would you risk your reputation and portray yourself as a dog?”
• “LinkedIn is a professional site.   Considering your profession, shouldn’t you apply some of the best practices you preach?”

I was at a personal branding / social media conference in February of 2010 and we were in the process of critiquing each other’s LinkedIn profiles.  So clearly, Venetta’s dog profile picture really came under attack, of which the above two critiques were the most consistent.  Mind you, I didn’t know anyone there, so this was raw feedback from strangers.  Strangers that did not know my personal passion for dogs and also strangers well versed in social media.  Olivier Blanchard, author of The BrandBuilder Blog, and  Social Media ROI, was a guest speaker at this event, and told us about Chico as I was coming under attack for the depiction of my online persona.  Chico is Olivier’s dog and Olivier used to portray himself as Chico.  It wasn’t until recently that Olivier added his own picture to the blog:

Although I do not know Olivier’s original reasons for deciding to use his dog Chico as his personal persona (obviously, he has since added his own likelihood to his profiles), I do know my initial reasons as well as the evolution of those reasons.

For one, I am a highly private person.  However, I do like to participate in online conversations but I still am not personally comfortable taking the additional step and posting my mug out to the masses.  I don’t think that I ever will be – for me personally it’s uncomfortable, and as most people, I try to avoid any and all situations that are unpleasant. Simply and echoing Barnaby, when it comes it to using a “real photo”, quite frankly, “I prefer not to”.

Secondly, (and this comes from a highly successful sales career), a photograph of a dog has been one of the best conversation starters I have ever had the pleasure of benefitting from.  I will give you an example that has come forth on numerous occasions (these work best when your connections are dog owners or just like dogs).

• Icebreaker question posed by many clients/prospects based on my LinkedIn profile alone:  “I saw your LinkedIn profile, what kind of dog is that?”

This question usually segways into what kind of dog the other individual has/had/known/etc.  This is a great icebreaker.  I still talk to these individuals based on our common interest of dogs even though we no longer do business together.  It has helped solidify relationships not only professionally, but personally – which is the true testament of “business relationship”.

People don’t typically take the time to read through bio’s on blogs and profiles if you’re connecting based on business.  I do, but I am one of the few.

This is what I have seen:  I know you, we’ve “met” in some professional capacity (typically this starts over the phone), we solidify our professional rendezvous online.  That’s pretty much it if you’re not a recruiter or sales executive that should be going through bios in greater detail.

So, my ten second online elevator pitch is my title, some random cliche words about myself and a picture of my dog.

And the picture sparks the connection.

When is the last time that you were able to non-creepily discuss someone’s LinkedIn profile picture as an icebreaker?

How would that work?

• That’s a great shirt you’re wearing! (This is just creepy)
• Oh, you’re older than I expected.  Secondary thought:  Based on your age are you biased towards technologies and communications that are out of date?
• Oooohhh, you’re actually a lot younger than I expected.  Secondary thought:  Based on your age and possible lack of experience, should I even trust you with my business?

And the one we can all relate to 95% of the time:

• You look absolutely nothing like you do in real life.  (We all experience this almost all of the time, or at least I do and chances are, the online persona depicted in that profile picture is better looking than the person in real life. This is not an insult to anyone, it’s just true.  You have the time and the care it takes to pick that one picture that makes you look stellar.  And why wouldn’t you – it’s human nature and virtually anyone on the Internet can stumble upon this, so it’s in your best interest to, well, look your best)

The Internet has given us all the most wonderful narcissistic playground.  We perform based on our audience and the platform.  The performance can be in the form of knowledge distribution (because I’m smarter than all of you and my Tweets prove it!), or social photographs (because I do awesomer things than all of you and go to events and have a great time all of the time and document all of this evidence on sites like Facebook!), or professional connections (because I am connected to more CEO’s than you are and my LinkedIn network proves this!) or even associations to specific locations (because my Foursquare check-ins show that I eat better food than you and check-in at the coolest and hippest new places!)

The psychological implications of  social sites and how that ties into our behavior (and the performance of that behavior) fascinates me.  And it is also what hinders me from changing the “dog picture” to a “real picture”.

For one, the picture I would use would be a glorified version of myself that you wouldn’t recognize even if you knew me. But even more so, because social networking, to me at least, is about creating the right relationships based on common interests and nurturing those relationships for future mutual benefit.

Perhaps when I achieve the status of Olivier Blanchard, I can transition away from Chico and bring myself into the picture (pun intended).

But for now, my dogs have served me well.

They’ve solidified relationships and helped start new ones based on common interests – which is the power of social media – just moving the real world online.

It’s All About the Content (Strategy), Baby!

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What’s the next best thing after social networking sites for marketers?

Another innovation in content delivery.  Yes. That’s it. That’s all Facebook is and why marketers are flocking to the medium.

As AOL announced that it would let go of Bebo in April 2010 (yes, another Bebo reference), only a few months later did the news make it out that AOL would be hiring hundreds of reporters for their new media venture Patch.com.  In their own words, Patch.com is “is a new way to find out about, and participate in, what’s going on near you […] a community-specific news and information platform dedicated to providing comprehensive and trusted local coverage for individual towns and communities.”

So, citizen journalism, right? Not quite. With the emerging popularity of Examiner.com and subject-specific writers/bloggers spreading their content via their own social networks (“Examiners” are paid on traffic, comments, and social shares of their content, and I hear that it’s barely pennies), Patch.com notes that their communities (what the beats are called) are run by “professional editors, writers, photographers and videographers who live in or near the communities” they are reporting on.  Patch is banking on their elevated credibility as opposed to the you-don’t-even-have-to-interview-and-can-write-for-us Examiner.

Moving away from competing with the social networking behemoth, Facebook, AOL is investing in content. Rightfully so as their CEO, Tim Armstrong defines AOL as “a global media content company” in an interview with CNN’s Poppy Harlow.  The full interview can be viewed here.  Regarding the “hysteria” of paid vs. unpaid content, Armstrong notes that companies have “to be open to the business model that meets the content you’re producing”.

Enter genius marketing/business strategy by, of all organizations… The United States Postal Service.  With all of the buzz of internet marketing and earned media through social media, marketers don’t need direct-mail anymore.  Why pay for production, shipping and barely any tracking when only a small minority of the recipients will even open the piece? Instead, jump onto FaceSpace and track your followers.  Boom. Complete.

Not so.  And who better to let you know than the United States Postal Service.  Deliver is a magazine geared towards marketers with an attempt to revive direct-mail budgets. Not too bad of an idea from the USPS.  Create a niche publication geared towards your actual buyers.  Give them content and still promote your agenda (direct-mail budgets).

I mean, I loves me some social media, but the back cover of Deliver Magazine, July 3, 2010, Volume 6, is pretty compelling:

(Written on the paper: “Why are we paying so much attention to this [social media] if HALF the population isn’t”; Response in alternate color: “Cause it’s the cool new thing”).

I give it to you, USPS, clever idea with this Deliver Magazine of yours.

And then… the impetus for this post… Rouge Magazine.  Publisher?  P&G. Yes.  Procter and Gamble.  Procter and Gamble published a magazine for women. Yes, that P&G. Comet, the household cleaner P&G. (Okay well, Javelin Custom Publishing Inc. for Procter and Gamble).  You can read the Totem (Javelin Custom Publishing is a subsidiary of Totem) brand story about Rouge Magazine here.

I received my first copy of the magazine today (in the mail, thank you United States Postal Service) and was completely in awe – I didn’t order this, this is an amazing piece of content I can waste my time with, and… these are “inspiring ideas by P&G Beauty”. Intrigued, I go through the magazine. Okay, granted, all ads are for P&G brands.  Most advice is shrouded in “Head and Shoulders is not just for dandruff”, but it really isn’t that overwhelming salesy.  I’m actually quite impressed.

The Fortune 500’s beauty magazine makes sense. Why spend millions on a campaign in Allure or Glamour or any of the over done beauty magazines.  You’re competing with plenty of others in the retail stores, why fight for the advertising eyeballs? Chances are, the $50,000 one-month full page spread may or may not drive sales at your local Target. You really can’t measure the ROI on that.

But… create your own content (women read anything that has to do with beauty even though we’ve read the same advice since we were in high school, there are just new advertisements now), advertise your own array of brands, sprinkle your own specific products within the content you’ve produced (I took note of a blouse in their fashion spread and I vividly remember the CG lipstick the model was wearing – of which I might buy), and offer up a couple of coupons in the back. Oh – and did I mention, send the less than 60 page P&G brand-orgy magazine to someone that you identified from one of your retailers as buying a competing product (I’m almost certain I was targeted, pun not intended, based on my Target Visa).

Take it from AOL that threw their attempt at creating a social networking site to rival Facebook away and refocused on content.

Look at the clever way the United States Postal Service is getting marketers to digest content aimed to increase direct-mail efforts.

Even P&G, the consumer goods manufacturing titan is making content part of their overall strategy.

Social platforms such as MySpace and Facebook, YouTube and Blogger, have altered the way that we communicate with each other and digest content.  That’s a fundamental shift in how we will do business and interact with our various stakeholders.

But do keep in mind – Facebook wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the content that personal networks produce.  You post a picture (you add content), your entire network knows and the voyeurs digest that content and possibly act upon it (comment on your picture).  But if it weren’t for your personal networks, and the automatic interesting content that humans are prone to (because realistically, it’s the controversial that gets the ball rolling for discussion), Facebook wouldn’t be where it is today.

The future of innovation is the content itself and it’s delivery.  It’s that simple.

And I cannot believe the best examples I have seen are from Procter and Gamble and the United States Postal Service.

For the reference… my copy of Rouge, making its way to the top of bills and news journals:

Should Social Media Participation be an Employee Requirement?

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This dynamic question was posed on LinkedIn, and to my surprise it didn’t receive much traction. My major theory as to why? Too many companies are looking at the potential of social media for short term advertising and marketing campaigns. (I have a secondary theory regarding the fact that this was a discussion vs. a question and that people are less likely to participate in discussions because they are not published on your LinkedIn profile – for now at least – and therefore there is less social currency associated with, “check out how smart I am and look at what I answered” attached directly to my profile – but I digress…)

“Let’s go to Facebook and fish where the fish are.” It makes sense, do it. The fact of the matter is that not enough companies are carving out the long-term strategic capabilities of what it means to be social. Social is here and it is changing daily. People are people and will continue to be people. Whether or not Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. will suffer the fate of Bebo in the upcoming months or years doesn’t matter. It’s incredibly irrelevant to the long-term because the medium doesn’t matter. Social has taught us that people are ongoing and so is conversation. With technologies in place this will only continue. For marketing and advertising purposes, this is great, assuming that you do it correctly or constantly improve and refine your message.

Reverting back to the question, the following is the two cents I shared on LinkedIn where I was incredibly disappointed by the lack of engagement from those that profess to be in the social “know” and are self-proclaimed “experts” and “guru’s”. Again, to my dismay, no one seemed interested in discussing the potential of “social” for long-term employee engagement strategies to build competitive advantages. I hope that it is not a tell-tale sign that we are more concerned with our current customers than our future employees and future sustainability as an organization.

“It is imperative that all companies start engaging their own employees in social media/ social tools within their organization. But, “requiring” participation doesn’t work either. If something is required, the quality and quantity of content will be subpar no matter what. Transparency is what consumers are looking for right now, and will most probably be able to identify the companies in which the employees are made to participate in some capacity. The key is for companies to effectively motivate, engage and create brand enthusiasts and advocates of their employees so that they want to participate in the external social activities of the company .

Once you tie social media and participation into an employee’s “what’s in it for me” (along with having a product, service, and company worth the buzz), the participation won’t be forced. This is the one of the hurdles.

Another hurdle is that the big buzz marketing ideas and strategies are growing Facebook and Twitter fan bases aimed at engaging their customers. Companies are currently too focused on their external customers and in my findings, are not doing enough with their internal customers, and their most valuable asset: their employees. Social media has been widely discussed and implemented as a marketing tactic and hasn’t been explored enough as a strategic tool within the organization.

When you factor in the mindsharing capabilities that social tools enable companies with, the possibilities for a sustainable competitive advantage increases significantly. Considering the power of networks as well, a strong internal “social network” is also likely to decrease attrition and save companies millions of dollars a year. Organizational development and training is an area that large organizations can benefit from through social tools by harnessing the power of their internal crowd and collaborating on a much larger scale, without geographical (or even “cubical”) boundaries.

We already know the power of social media and companies are finally jumping on the bandwagon to listen to their customers. Most companies have forgotten the power of the employees that they already have and the power that their participation in company sponsored social media/social sites could have on their organization for not only external marketing campaigns and tactics, but also for long-term sustainable competitive advantage.”

-Originally shared (by me) on LI to much disappointment in the quantity of responses considering that many attest to being a “ninja” regarding social media these days

My positioning on whether or not social media should be an employee requirement teeters on yes, but knowing that motivation and recognition factors for human behavior hinder the feasibility of a yes or no answer in terms of implementation, the fact of the matter is simple:

If you have a good company, have a good product, treat customers and employees right, then requirements aren’t needed, people will oblige and participate for the long-term sustainability of the company, no matter what the collective effort is.

But truth be told, how many companies can truly say that they, in Google’s words, aren’t evil in any aspect of how they do business and that anything that they do internally (minus trade secrets, business strategies, and the like) should be published for all to see?