My background comes from the insurance arena where I did a lot of risk management.
One of the things that I did was run a lot of projects. The thing with projects is it allows you to time-box things. It allows you to say “I’m going to get to this objective and it’ll take me this long and I’ll spend this much money doing it” and you can measure against that all the way through the journey.
The problem is that when we start on something new, (for many people here for example the Societal Web is new), we don’t know the roadmap so it’s hard to view it as a project. Projects need clear end goals. Working out how to integrate new tools into old methods is tough, especially if you don’t even know what all the tools are.
Yet, If you treat this Societal Web stuff as a project and put project disciplines around it then that will help you to get the results you want. First establish your baseline and measure it. Identify your core outputs and requirements, for example, brand presence, being found in the search engines, Conversation and connection, cooperation and support, business referrals etc. then that’s what this (project) work will give you.
Projects deliver change, and change means you never really know the things you need to know when you start, but a good strategy, a good plan and a budget, plus measurement and course correction on the way, will give you the results you need.
