When I first came to Bizmanualz, I was unfamiliar with quality management, Lean, Six Sigma, ISO 9000, and the like. After all, I was hired for writing, marketing, and website upkeep, not for my quality background. And I imagine many company employees who are not part of the quality department are in a similar situation.

However, if your entire staff doesn’t understand the utility of a quality management system, how can they be expected to implement it or even buy in to the idea of it? That’s where the internal communication comes in. How do you communicate quality to your employees? In my last post, I showed you our scoreboard, where we keep track of successes, areas of improvement, project status, etc. It’s a great way to communicate where we are and where we’re going.

ISO 9001 Internal Auditing Certificate

But there’s another method we use that ensures every single one of us understands (and uses!) our quality management system. First of all, each employee takes an Internal Auditor training class. We’re at a bit of an advantage since we conduct Internal Auditor training courses here in our office, but similar methods can be employed by your company. Find a local training class and send your employees a few at a time as you have the resources available. These classes give employees a good understanding of the process. Ours gives a thorough examination of the ISO 9001:2008 standard.

Once we complete the class, we’re scheduled to conduct Internal Audits, which Bizmanualz conducts every other month. Employees rotate, so each has the opportunity to audit and learn about different areas of quality within the company. It’s so much easier to buy in to a quality system when you can see and examine how it really works in other departments. I didn’t understand the importance of ours when I first got here. After looking at it first-hand, I realized how it streamlines everything, from producing our policy and procedure manuals to following up on customer feedback.

Is your company struggling with employees who grudgingly go along with the QMS but don’t understand it? What ways do you communicate the importance of quality to them? I’d love to hear your ideas, and I’ll follow up with more when I hear them!

Like we’ve been shouting from the rooftops since last Thursday, Bizmanualz passed our ISO 9001:2008 certification audit, both for our products and our consulting services.

I don’t like this blog to be about tooting our own horn, but I did think it would be beneficial to pass along some of the positive comments our auditor made that perhaps your organization could use. Each company is different, and what works for us might not for you. Take the general idea and see how you can implement a style or form of it customized to your company.

ISO is a lot about communication. Management is supposed to communicate to employees the goals and vision of the company, specifics on the quality management system, and host of other subjects. As Shailesh pointed out, our auditor praised our method-holding daily meetings circled around our scoreboard.

Bizmanualz Morning Meetings

Each day we talk about different internal processes, i.e., Fulfillment, Projects, Internet Marketing, Quality, Human Resources, Strategy, etc., and discuss the latest developments or current work happening on each. We also are able to celebrate each other’s successes and talk about corrections or corrective actions that may result from defects or problems that arise.

It’s a way to keep everyone in our company in the loop, see where we are, and compare that to where we would like to be.  If your company is larger, perhaps you could do this departmentally or weekly instead of daily. The important part is that the communication is happening.

Below is our actual scoreboard. On it, we are able to see the person(s) responsible for each internal company process, the open action items in each of the processes, the current metrics (gauging successes or shortcomings of the process), and the overall status of each. These are updated daily, marked with positive or negative colors, and discussed.

It may seem like a lot to do daily, but we have a solution for that. As you can see in the photo above, we stand during the meeting, which tends to shorten the amount of time people ramble.

We also close the meeting with a quote–typically one that either inspires the staff or makes them think. It’s a great way to start off the workday, and I highly recommend it to any company looking for ways to improve the way it communicates to its staff.

By the way, I had today’s quote: “It is amazing how much people can get done if they do not worry about who gets the credit.” -Sandra Swinney

As I’ve said many (many) times before, Twitter is a great tool for connecting with current and potential customers. You can monitor your brand easily with it, offer special deals or discounts to only your Twitter followers, engage in conversations in your industry, and on and on.

But what about gauging the wants and needs of your customers?

The ISO 9001 standard requires that you satisfy your customers by identifying customer requirements, meeting those requirements, and enhancing customer satisfaction. At Bizmanualz, we do this a number of ways, including offering customer feedback forms, surveying our customers, interviewing current and potential clients, documenting and correcting nonconformities, and capturing as much feedback data as possible. We call it analyzing the “voice of the customer.”

But be careful if you’re thinking that monitoring Twitter and other social media answers some of that requirement.

Twitter users react immediately and loudly to anything they see as a disruption of their consumer trust because they know the brands are “listening.” For example, back in November Motrin released a video that portrayed mothers carrying babies in slings doing so as a fashion statement. Well, the Tweets hit the fan. Motrin soon pulled the video. A great example of listening to the customers’ needs and wants?

Maybe. But that’s assuming Twitter users are your primary customer. If you’re like our company, whose largest set of customers are CEOs of small-to-medium-sized businesses, Twitter users are most likely not your target buyer. A recent release of Twitter demographics shows that the site attracts mostly young adults and that the typical user also reads TechCrunch. In my own experience, I’ve found that many of the users are self-proclaimed “social media gurus,” “strategists,” “experts,” and the like who have an affinity for everything online marketing. Your target audience?

Should you listen? Absolutely. All information is helpful. But ISO is about gathering ALL data, assessing it, looking for trends, and then acting based on that. Beware of knee-jerk reactions to the noisy few.

Something we should have considered when creating our blog was how to handle other blogs or websites copying our content. Like a lot of beginner bloggers, we were just excited to get our content out there to our readers, and the thought of duplications didn’t really cross our minds.

But when you create useful articles or blog posts, especially when the author is a leader in his or her field, the chances your posts will be lifted are fairly high. So what do you do about it?

First of all, you need to figure out your company’s policy on republication. Do you want to restrict it altogether? Or is republishing OK if your company or author is credited and linked to?

We chose the latter and recruited some helpful online tools to help make sure our policy is enforced.

1) CreativeCommons
At the top of the website, click on “License Your Work.” The site will take you through a set of options. You can choose to allow other uses or not and which restrictions to place on it (i.e., credit the author). The site provides an icon and explanation of the license for you to place on your blog, online article, or any other work, be it a written piece, photo, or graphic.

2) FairShare
A Twitter friend turned me on to this great service. You simply sign up and give the site the feeds for your blog, articles, photo stream, etc. They then track the webiverse and send you via RSS any duplicate content. So far, we’ve only seen intentional republications, but I’ve been very impressed with the quick turnaround time and easy-to-use interface.

It’s important to track your original content not only because it’s intellectual property, but also to protect your brand. Another great use of the service is that you can see if someone is taking excerpts from your posts and commenting on it. If they are, wouldn’t you want to answer back?

Do you know of any other online tools that provide these kinds of services? Or have you had any experiences dealing with people who have used your original content without permission?

We’ve been talking a lot about implementing an ISO 9001 Quality Management System over the past month or so. It’s something that Bizmanualz holds to be very important-not just for the certification status-but because a strong QMS means a more organized and efficient workplace.

That got me thinking back to my Internal Auditing training and what are the common deficiencies of most organizations. Typically, the No. 1 weakness of companies tends to be training records, but the problem can be one of a number of issues.

Do you document cross training? Are written job descriptions filed and easily accessible? Can your employee point to a filed certificate or form to prove certain training?

We keep fairly detailed training records. Never before had I been asked for copies of my diplomas or certificates of past training. But after reviewing the ISO 9001 Standard, it was clear why I had to dig them all up. Clause 6.2.1 states:

“Personnel performing work affecting product [or service*] quality shall be competent on the basis of appropriate education, training, skills, and experience.”

*added by our Quality Manager

In our records, that means each person has a folder containing his or her job description, diplomas or other education certificates, training certificates or on-the-job training records, and resumes stating skills and experience.

To supplement those records and keep them updated, our staff members have gotten into the habit of using on-the-job and group training forms every time a new skill is picked up or cross training occurs. Another way to record training is to have your manager vouch for you, signing a memo that records training took place. It doesn’t have to be formal; it just has to be there.

These are easy ways to comply with the standard. Any other suggestions for compliance? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

BusinessWeek published an article this week on time management and the allure of social networks. Are they time suckers or are they useful marketing and brand-building tools?  (Nov., 2009, update: Apparently the jury is still out on social networking.  Most companies, regardless of their size, are waiting for someone to come up with a social media model that results in a profit.  Is this possibly is the “Holy Grail” of social media?)

The answer everyone seems to be coming back to is that social networking tools like Twitter and Facebook can be both. If you don’t have a plan when entering the fray, they can be a drain on your time and leave you with unproductive hours upon hours of entertainment.

On the other hand, there are great business uses for the networking tools beyond simply getting your name out there. For example, I use Twitter to get ideas for blog posts, ask followers for input, and learn more about a whole variety of topics. (It’s where I found the BusinessWeek article.)

That said, it’s easy to get lost in “research.” Here are a few tips to keep from drowning in the sea of links and info-tainment.

1. Plan Ahead
   At the beginning of the week, allot yourself a certain amount of time that you will engage in your social networks each day. It’s important to realize that even though you only have a certain amount of time, it should be distributed throughout the day in order to reach the widest audience. So maybe it’s one hour a day, split between four 15-minute sessions.If you have a large number of friends or followers, you may need more time to fully engage, answer messages, etc.
2. Measure Results
   What was your intent when you first signed up for a service? If it was to drive traffic to your website, has it been successful? How did you define “success”?  Measuring your results against a baseline or goal will tell you whether your social networking initiative is a good use of time and resources. If it’s not as successful as you had hoped, maybe it’s time to revise your strategy.
3. Take it Slow
   Once you join one network, it’s tempting to start signing your company up with every social networking site available. But, slow down…do you really have time each morning to check all of your messages on Facebook, Twitter, Plaxo, Ning networks, LinkedIn, etc.? Unless you’re a social media marketer, the answer is probably “no”, so you should start with one or two, and build from there. Once you have the brand and personality set, it becomes easier to distribute networking responsibilities throughout your organization and look into creating a broader presence.

Have any questions? Comments? Agree or disagree with me? Please feel free to comment below.

I just got an e-mail concerning my LinkedIn Group and changes the site has made to increase the relevancy and ease-of-use of these groups.

Finally! LinkedIn is recognizing the social aspect of social networking! LinkedIn is moving more toward becoming a true online community and not simply a job board or business networking arena. Here is a list of the changes:

1) Message “Announcements”
Group managers can now directly message all of their members via email. Previously, we could post discussion topics, but depending on a user’s preferences, he or she may not have received the message until the end of the week-too long of a delay to utilize that application in useful ways.

2) RSS Feeds
Instead of going in manually and posting News articles of interest, or even your company’s own articles and blog posts, you can easily feed your blog into the group. And, the email says, the items will automatically show up under the “News” tab. (Done and done.)

3) Job Listings
Group managers now can enable (or disable) the job listing board within the group.

Next on my wishlist: enabling the same applications that are becoming popular in individual profiles for group pages. While LinkedIn remains the online community of choice for the business-minded, much more needs to be done to enhance its usefulness. I hope it continues to expand.

What features would you like to see added?

If you read our blog posts and weekly e-newsletters often, you know that Bizmanualz is a strong advocate of having a well-defined and efficient quality management system. To ensure that it’s functioning smoothly, we have internal audits scheduled frequently throughout the year. (ISO 9001 simply requires that an organization conducts IAs at “intervals” and doesn’t specify how many per year.)

Since I was the last person at the office to go through Internal Auditor training, I’ve been getting my feet wet and just finished my second of these audits.

At first, I was completely intimidated. I mean, you have to ask your colleagues—and bosses—how they do their jobs and try to determine what processes are lacking or what actions aren’t being recorded. You have to dissect procedures that you may have no experience with. And then there’s that big, scary QMS “mountain of paperwork” that you’re supposed to pore through looking for inconsistencies.

Well, for those of you who are interested in being IA certified or thinking about conducting internal audits to prepare for ISO certification, here’s how it actually plays out.

First of all, if you’re conducting an internal audit among your peers (not those in the same department, because you’d then be auditing your own work—an ISO “no-no”) the situation will probably be more comfortable than you’d think. People are eager to talk about their work and show pride in their company. And you’re not there to point out errors in an “I gotcha!” moment. You simply ask questions, verify, and document.

Secondly, you don’t need to know the ins and outs of product development or processing orders. You just need to verify that certain procedures are documented, records are kept, and that the system is working.

Finally, if your company has a big, scary QMS “mountain of paperwork,” you’re probably not doing it right. Ours is actually fairly simple, extremely organized, and easy to find what you need. A QMS can even be in electronic form, which for some people, makes it even easier.

If you have any questions about Internal Audits, please feel free to comment and ask. I may not know the answer, but luckily we have some in-house experts. And for a more in-depth look at Internal Auditing, consider our upcoming workshop.

For all of the so-called social media “experts,” “gurus,” etc., there are really very few who actually know what they’re doing. And it’s for good reason: nobody has all of the answers yet. What works for some people will fail miserably for others. In my blog posts, I aim to offer advice that I’ve found helpful, but beware of anyone who claims extensive knowledge in the field before showing you actual results.

This blog post on Applicant.com goes into more depth about the latest Internet marketing trend of supposed “gurus,” but the point is that social marketing is more about you and your relationship with your customer/potential customer than it is about garnering big numbers that don’t convert into sales.

Look at the Skittles social media experiment for a minute. It was all about exposure. Exposure to your brand is great, but how much time and effort was put into that experiment? And did they sell more Skittles? We don’t know. All we know is the company website received a 1332% traffic increase in one day. The next day? Back to normal. (Graphic via marketingpilgrim.com)

It’s as gimmicky as tucking “Free iPod” into your website text to receive organic traffic. Yes, people come to your website, but are they the right people? Will they buy your product, or did they just want a free iPod? (P.S. – People aren’t stupid. Most see through lame marketing ploys.)

Other admissions: the most successful “social media” tool we’ve used so far is this right here—our blog, coupled with our articles and weekly e-newsletter. It provides information and doesn’t force our products down people’s throats. We truly are interested in the conversation. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc., are all showing promise, but we don’t know just yet. No one really does.

The value is there, and more and more, it’s becoming a necessary skill for Internet marketers. But it doesn’t take a “Social Media Expert” to do it for you. Start with your own marketing staff or take it over yourself. Find what works for you. You may find it breaks all of the “rules” of social media.

If you haven’t already entered into the microblogging world of Twitter, read my previous post for a how-to guide. Once you’ve got the service down, and you’re regularly Tweeting at least a few times a day, you should begin to see a decent stream of traffic to your website and be engaged in some discussions with others in your network.

Now it’s time to take it up a notch.

You’ve probably heard of a few Twitter applications at this point. HootSuite, TweetDeck, and Tweetr all provide a more user-friendly interface to Tweet from. Some have features like scheduling Tweets and being able to log into multiple accounts at once.

Here’s my list of the most useful applications that can help with your business networking.

1. Twitter Tools on WordPress
   

   If your company’s blog is hosted on WordPress, I highly recommend installing this plugin. Once installed, each time you publish a blog post, it’s automatically fed into your Twitter feed. You can also opt to not Tweet the post by unchecking a box at the bottom of your WP posting form.

2.  Tweet This
   Similar to Twitter Tools, this plug-in works with your WordPress blog. While Twitter Tools allows you to Tweet your blog post from the user interface, Tweet This lets your readers Tweet the post from their accounts, allowing for more dissemination of your blog posts and more exposure.
   
3. TweetStats
   

   Simply enter your Twitter username, and the application graphs your account information and trends. I learned that my highest Tweeting day is Thursday, and most of my Tweets hover around 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. It shows that 16% of my Tweets are @replies (which should probably be higher), and that I Tweeted 118 times in February compared with only 81 times in January.

   Why is this helpful? If you’re new to Twitter, like Bizmanualz is, it’s important to know where you’re lacking. Taking this information, I learned that I should probably throw out a few more Tweets midday-maybe I’ll reach a different audience. I should probably Tweet more Monday through Wednesday and reply to more friends’ posts. 

4. Twimailer
   

   Have you gotten into the habit of auto-following everyone who follows you? At first it seems like a good idea. You don’t have that many followers, and the more people you follow, the wider your network and reach will be. But … Bizmanualz publishes prewritten business policies and procedures-so why would we want to follow an Australian surfing blogger? At some point, your network will become diluted with people whose updates you don’t really read and who don’t read yours.

   When you sign up for Twimailer, instead of receiving the typical “so-and-so is now following you on Twitter,” you received a more detailed history, including their past 20 Tweets, number of followers and number of people who are following them. Then you can decide whether to follow them back.

5.  Twollow
   

   So I know I just said it was dangerous to auto-follow others. But there is a way to do so without diluting your conversation topics. Twollow lets you enter in specific keywords and choose to auto-follow anyone who Tweets those keywords. For example, I put in the word “Bizmanualz.” Twollow will automatically sign me up to follow anyone who is chatting about our company.

   You can also use this tool to follow the discussion on a list of keywords without actually auto-following. It’s a great substitute for search.twitter.com because you can see the results for many keyword groups at once, and Twollow saves your list of keywords.

Are there any applications you would add? Let us know!