Friday, February 19, 2010

7 Reasons CSR consultants should use social media

I have been asked to give a talk to a Forum of CSR consultants about why CSR consultants should use social media in order to ... well.. become better CSR consultants. I thought I would do a little test. I have prepared and posted my presentation to Slideshare, and it will be interesting to see how many CSR consultants who attend my talk will have picked it up before the talk. Should I make a little wager with myself? Hmm, I will guess no more than 10%. Otherwise, what would be the purpose of me going to talk to them? Duh!

Anyway, I apologise for the rather self-congratulory nature of the content, but the easiest way to give examples of how social media adds value for CSR consultants was to give examples from my own activity, because I find social media enriching, rewarding, educating, entertaining, (time-consuming), (addictive), challenging, enlightening, fun and always adding value to the knowledge, awareness, insights, information and service I can bring to my clients. I have taken real recent examples from my #csr life on social media, and included tweets, facebook and other conversations. I would like to thank all the unwitting partners in my social media engagement for providing me with material for this talk, and hope they will retroactively grant me permission to use their stuff in my presentation.

Here is the presentation.



elaine cohen is the joint CEO of BeyondBusiness, a leading reporting and social-environmental consulting firm. Visit our website at: www.b-yond.biz/en

5 comments:

Fabian Pattberg said...

I like the Title 'Lets Buzz' Elaine.

Very fitting in the wake of the buzz around Google Buzz.

(That must be a first as well, three times Buzz in two sentences) ;-)

elaine said...

thanks Fabian. Actually I haven't buzzed up to Google Buzz yet... i can't compete with the way you keep ahead of ALL the social media as it is evolving.you are amazing.
elaine

Anonymous said...

I do not believe as Cohen does that social media is creating CSR.

I do believe that Social Media is a tool.

I think the issue now for the Sustainability agenda is

1. education
2. application of learning into practice

Social Media can help the education practice

Application is the leadership practice that is what our initiative is about.

We have found ways to rally and educate in a rapid track the unskilled labor pool and bring them into a sustainable trajectory

and an aligned mission and value.

At present all our beta's are from a trust building stand of not selling CSR or Sustainability. Our stand is that we only work with people aligned to create success and have removed ourselves from conversations that are based on "prove it to me."

The world you service is critical to leadership and the approach you use valuable and it has to be part of a wholistic leadership activity. My company is becoming a leader in guiding that activity and the principles of building sustainable metrics in service of the bottom line.

Cost reduction has caused great harm, in particular in the US.

New conversations are needed at the leadership table that grow out of an inherent interest to lead, learn and permit tension and disagreement to bring people into alignment to take that learning an act.

Best,
Lavinia

Lavinia

elaine said...

PS: I gave my talk today. One attendee out of a total of 18 consultants in the room had seen the presentation in advance, because someone had sent it to her. 6%. My guesss of not more than 10% was about right. Wonder what this will be if I do the same test in 12 months time ? :)
elaine

Julie Urlaub said...

So many great ideas Elaine. Well presented and as always, enjoyed your wonderful post!

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