Twintangibles

IP and IA in the Social Media Age

Structured Abstract Purpose – Social Media (SM), basically defined as those media "whose major functions are oriented toward sharing of information" (Web 1 Marketing, 2010), is undoubtedly transforming business, creating both new challenges and unprecedented opportunities. This paper will provide an overview of the findings of a survey conducted by the authors, aimed to identify broad trends in the adoption of SM by organisations in the UK. The survey will then seek to analyse how considerations of Intellectual Property (IP) and Intellectual Assets (IA) issues may have influenced their decisions and attitudes to making use of SM tools. Design/methodology/approach – There is a range of perspectives on the implications for IP and IA in the implementation and exploitation of SM tools. At one extreme there is the perspective that SM can offer innovative models for the generation and harnessing of a company's IA. At the opposite extreme though lie the perceptions that the same tools are a great threat to traditional mechanism used to generate, manage and protect IP, and should, therefore, be avoided. We propose a survey-based approach that will seek to examine how IA and IP considerations affected: - the decision to adopt SM or not;- for those that chose to make use of SM how far IA and IP considerations affected the choice of the SM tools and the general’s approach and guidelines for their use;- if post adoption issues relating to IA and IP had been identified that had led to an adjusted approach;- the relative success or merits or otherwise of adopting SM in relation to IA and IP. Originality/value – Some of the more compelling early examples of business success through the application of SM, as cited by writers such as Tapscott and Williams, did advance and highlight very novel IP and IA models. However, little has been written subsequently that analyses the level to which these new approaches have become embedded as common business practice and the implications this may have for traditional IP and IA management models. The analysis of the survey responses will draw general conclusions on all of these issues and it will include considerations of any perceived sectoral differences that might be apparent, these include industry type and public/private sector splits.

Practical implications – As a conclusion, the paper will try to assess the general attitude of businesses and organisations towards the usage of SM as a business tool, and will try to outline future trends.

Keywords – Social Media, Intellectual Property, Intellectual Assets, Innovation, Co-creation

1 Introduction

Social Media (SM), basically defined as those media "whose major functions are oriented toward sharing of information" (Web 1 Marketing, 2010), is undoubtedly transforming business, creating both new challenges and opportunities. The penetration and demographic spread of the adoption of Social Media (SM) continues to grow rapidly: for example within the past year, access to Twitter by UK users alone has increased by 974% (Goad, 2009); with more than 400 million active users, Facebook would be the 4th largest “country” in the world; Generation Y will outnumber Boomers by 2010 as the largest generational group: 96% participate in social networks. The question is now being asked, “Is social media a fad? Or is it the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution?” (Socialnomics, 2009).

The recent AIIM Survey of Social Media Activists (AIIM, 2010; Mancini, 2010) suggests that 30% of its respondents use Twitter for business networking at least once per day. Whether SM has a valuable role to play in business or not is not in the scope of this paper. The authors sought instead to understand some of the patterns of adoption of SM in business, looking in particular into a range of perspectives on the implications for Intellectual Property (IP) and Intellectual Assets (IA) in the implementation and exploitation of SM tools.

IA are defined as those items of "knowledge that have some market value for a company". Examples could be brand, staff expertise, market intelligence, trade secrets (Intellectual Assets Centre, 2010). Social Media could act both as a conveyor of all those assets to the market, and at best as a means to exploit and manage them.

IP is defined as the “right of a business to control creativity and innovation” (Intellectual Assets Centre, 2010). Users are making their own content available to the world, but most of the user-generated content unavoidably creates IP rights’ ownership issues, as well as liability for trademark and copyright infringement, and last but not least rights of privacy and/or publicity. Anecdotally, an important concern of decision makers is the reputational risk and threat to traditional models of IP management posed by the use of SM in the workplace. How to effectively exercise such a control appears to be becoming a major concern amongst businesses, and the growing number of workshops and seminars offered on the subject is the first and most immediate sign of that. Since Tapscott and Williams offered a view of a potentially profound re-working of existing business logic in the seminal Wikinomics, many commentators have offered perspectives and examples of how this new way of thinking is working or, alternatively, is not. One of the most radical pieces of thinking was that the traditional approaches to innovation and generating value from that is, by the nature of the typical commercial exploitation models, internally focused, predicated on talent recruitment and retention, and bounded by a secrecy necessary to prevent advantage being lost to a competitor and to ensure that disclosure was suitably constrained so as to secure rights of ownership. Tapscott and Williams felt the model was up for change. As they put it:

“The old notion that you have to attract, develop and retain the best and brightest inside your corporate boundaries is becoming null. With the costs of collaboration falling precipitously, companies can increasingly source ideas, innovations and uniquely qualified minds from a vast global pool of talent.”(Preface to Wikinomics Expanded Edition 2008)

Li and Bernoff continued that theme in Groundswell – highlighting how SM tools are key to underpinning and enabling this revolution.

If we accept that there are some excellent examples of the use of SM tools to underpin radically altered approaches to innovation and value generation, it is worth asking how pervasive the impact is in business generally. How far has this percolated from the exemplars to the generality? Is it generating heat and light in equal measure or - to stick with a fiery metaphor - is it a Prometheus

unbound or firmly shackled? Can we yet talk about the age of twintangibles?

The authors sought a little more clarity on these questions by developing and deploying a simple online questionnaire that was made available, and is still available, to any willing participant. In particular, the survey sought to capture the scope and nature of the use of SM in a business context, gaining insight into an organisation’s perspectives regarding the opportunities and threats offered by SM for the generation of IA and the attitude towards the related IP issues. The intent was to gain an “as is” view, establish if regional and sectoral trends exist and identify commonalities that have resulted in a positive perception of SM.

This paper summarises some of the findings of the survey and it is hoped that, over time, as respondents numbers becoming ever greater, trends will be evident that give us a greater understanding of this area.

2 Methodology

To ascertain the business adoption of SM, a questionnaire was created and made available online over a 6 week period between February and March 2010. The authors conducted a survey to obtain data on how businesses and organisations use and manage SM to maximise the value of their IA, and how they deal with IP issues involved in the use of SM. The questionnaire contained twenty-one questions; a mixed methodological approach was conducted using both open and multiple choice questions. Businesses were evaluated on different levels, reflected in the three sections of the questionnaire: Awareness and Use of Social Media; Intellectual Property Considerations; Intellectual Assets Considerations. Within these holistic topics, a number of questions related to the management of knowledge within the organisations. The resulting number of respondents was 136 at the time of writing.

The survey sought to analyse how considerations of IP and IA issues have influenced the decisions and attitudes of the organisations to making use of SM tools. The extent to which these IP and IA considerations are factored into a decision to make use of SM or not are also influenced by the general level of awareness of general IP and IA matters by those making a decision. Therefore, the survey aimed also at placing respondents on a scale of awareness of IA and IP generally. The analysis of the responses tried to draw general conclusions on all of these issues, including considerations of any perceived sectoral differences. As a consequence, the paper assessed the general attitude towards the usage of SM as a business tool, outlining future trends and posing the basis for further research. 3 General Findings

In the recent AIIM, Survey of Social Media Activists (AIIM, 2010;Mancini, 2010) taken in February 2010, 76% of respondents agreed either strongly or very strongly with statement "I think that business social networking tools help me to do my job better" and 62% felt that "it’s becoming increasingly important for my job that I am active on social networks".

In conducting our survey, we identified a number of points which appear to support and refute general perceptions of the use of social media within the business environment. The majority of companies (86.3%) are using SM in the workplace for work-related purposes; the percentage is even higher when Micro-Enterprises are considered (90.6%). Of the companies who responded to our survey, the prevalent usage of SM is social networking, with an overwhelming 81.9% of respondents using websites such as Facebook, Linked In and Bebo. Over half of respondents noted that social networking websites were used for networking with individuals external to the organisation, however the focus was especially upon using social networks for Marketing purposes (61.2%). For example, the majority uses Twitter for raising brand awareness. Also, the usage of

blogs (48%), Microblogging such as Twitter (49%) and Wikis (46.1%) was relatively high. A good percentage declared use of Livecasting/Instant Messaging tools and Video Sharing. Furthermore, more than half of respondents believe that SM helps to exploit their intellectual assets, again what it is implied in the concept of IA is Brand Awareness\Recognition. On the same wavelength, many individuals declared that they use SM to interact and analyse their customers. There seems to be little differentiation between public and private sector, again challenging expectations and anecdotal evidence with the exception of private sectors seem to use micro blogging more than formal blogging; generally speaking, private sector uses a greater variety of tools: nothing gets a zero rating whereas public sector has 6 tool groups with no use.

The responses to the survey also outlined a large use of employment websites (26.5%) for recruitment purposes. The use of SM for hiring may stem from organisations sourcing new talent or identifying the skills in the external workforce. Conversely it could be said that individuals were using SM at work to source future potential employment. Without further research, this question will be left unanswered. The use of SM monitoring tools (i.e. Social Radar) and Crowdsourcing, even if low, has been noticed and perhaps shouldn’t been ignored with such a relatively small pool of respondents.

Contrary to the author’s perceptions, a high proportion (41%) of companies have used these tools for more than 2 years and a total of 68% has been using them for between 1 and 2 years. 74% of responses stated that all staff are allowed access to SM within the work place for work related purposes. Only 10.8% answered “Only Managers”. This apparent lack of constraint seems to go against anecdotal evidence. An overwhelming 71.1% have not introduced policies and/or guidelines for conducting business practice online.

4. IP considerations

The use of SM is undoubtedly becoming an increasingly common business practice, rapidly gaining acceptance as a new way to do business, and bringing along a series of unforeseen – and often hard-to-spot - implications. Furthermore, the phenomenon is certainly growing fast, not always leaving the time to consider consequences, be they positive or negative.

Web 2.0, because of its fertile nature, is an environment where materials can be easily created, copied and re-disseminated, therefore it can pose major IP rights issues, which need to be understood so as to avoid pitfalls and explore opportunities. The collaborative nature of Web 2.0, developing on a global level, results in the blurring of copyrights ownership and infringement liability. The lack of suitable case law makes the situation problematic. Already in 2007, in the context of Supernova conference, a major executive technology conference, it was being said that “the promise of social networks, video sharing, and online communities goes hand-in-hand with the challenge of unauthorized use, acknowledging the risks and urging for an accommodation between the explosive creativity of social media and the constraints of intellectual property law” (Howell, 2007).

According to the UK Intellectual Property Office (2009), when an employee discloses information regarding a company innovation on a SM website such as Facebook, Twitter or Flickr, this could invalidate a potential patent application. Legal firms have long started offering a wide range of services regarding employment, defamation, copyright, data protection, image rights and similar, specifically related to the use of social media. As the Social Media Risks and Rewards Conference describes it, “While we've yet to see a major piece of litigation stemming from social media, it is only one inappropriate “tweet” away”.

It’s not only about IP. As more employees start to use SM for work related purposes, executives are becoming increasingly concerned with the general message their workers are conveying to the public, which will reflect the company’s image. A recent survey from the professional services Deloitte (as quoted in King, 2009) found that 60 % of the executives interviewed believe they have

a right to know how employees portray themselves and their organizations. 74 % of employees themselves, on the other hand, believe that social networks make it easier to damage a company’s reputation. Therefore, many feel it is important to effectively exercise control on the use of social media polices and this is becoming a major concern amongst businesses, with the growing number of workshops, conferences and seminars offered on the subject. A casual review of these would include sessions on protecting company’s identity in virtual world, IP and SM in general, privacy and security in social media, corporate policies for SM.

In this regard, the findings of the survey are interesting as 74% of responses stated that all staff are allowed access to SM within the work place for work related purposes, whilst 71.1% of those have not introduced policies and/or guidelines for conducting business practice online. This result is conversely juxtaposed to a survey carried out by CloudNet (Journalism.co.uk, 2010) which identified that only 20% of respondents did not have a social media policy implemented. CloudNet’s survey sample size was similar to that of ours. Perhaps, more surprisingly, there appeared to be little distinction in this matter between organisations in the private and the public sector which does seem to run counter to the anecdotal evidence which seemed to suggest that the public sector was both less engaged with the use of social media and that this caution translated into quite restrictive practices where access to external SM tools was actually allowed. When the size of the organisation is considered as a differentiating factor it seems to be the case that larger organisation have a significantly higher tendency to have some form of policy in place than the small or micro organisations. This is perhaps not entirely surprising in that one would reasonably expect larger organisations to have more formal policies in place in most areas of the organisations operation that smaller ones. By the same tokens it would be reasonable to suggest that smaller organisations have a higher level of “trust” operating within the organisation and stronger social bonds providing a normalising influence, and hence a decreased perceived need for such policies.

It is possible to look a little further into the figures by way of geographic distinction where is seems that the UK has the lowest incidence of SM policies being in place with 78% of UK respondents saying that their organisation had no policy, whereas in the case of the Americas this figure falls to only 50%. We should though be cautious about drawing firm conclusions or theorising too much from this apparent comparison as the number of respondents is quite low for this region and is therefore open to some margin for error.

For those that did have policies the additional notes added by respondents appears to show a range of types of policy from the quite specific to the short but holistic. One comment describes their organisations policy thrust as being “Don't give it all away”, which has echoes of the former Sun CEO and its “Blogger in Chief” Jonathan Schwartz whose alleged guidance on using blogs at Sun was pithy to say the least, “Don't do anything stupid” being a key maxim. It also would appear that there is limited detail called to mind on the policies suggestion that whilst they may be in place few have bothered to commit to memory the detail. Some also seem to assume a policy is in place but confess that they are not entirely sure with comments like - “I am sure the company has one.”

One can speculate about this apparent lack of guidance and constraint from the centre of an organisation as being a product of great trust, abandon or ignorance; great trust in that it is possible there has been a revolution in the attitude of employers in the trust they place in employees using these powerful communication tools; abandonment in that organisations have simply abandoned any attempt to control this burgeoning phenomenon; or ignorance in that either the users or employers are ignorant of the risk and opportunity that might be offered in the use of SM in a business or perhaps that employees are ignorant of any policy being in place so unable to comment on it in the survey.

Among the minority declaring to have issued guidelines, there’s little agreement about what those rules should be: less than a half of them declared that their policies include mention/consideration of IP issues. Where those issues are mentioned, they almost always include only copyright clauses and confidentiality agreement. This reflects the prevailing concerns of respondents who were worried about IP in a social media context.

However, the overwhelming majority of respondents (76.3%) did not have concerns with disclosing their company’s IP through the use of SM. The survey then asked if, as a result of using of using social media tools, respondents had reconsidered their stands on the implications of Social Media from an IP perspective. For those who answered "yes", once again they were mainly concerned with copyright: 57% declared they will be more careful with copyright statements on the web. A smaller group (15%) restricted the use of SM to a part of the staff, only allowed to access SM on the work place, and a very small percentage have created or are creating a social media policy.

There is an inherent tension in the association SM - IP. If people can't take what they want out of an online-published content and then continue the “conversation”, how can it be considered a “social” media? New IP models like Creative Commons may be the solution here. However, regardless of the reasoning, it is apparent from the responses that there seems to be very little formal guidance for users of SM in a business context, on any issues relating to IP with one exception that being issues of copyright.

5. IA considerations

Up to now, we have dealt mainly with IP considerations. IA also offer interesting, yet different, perspectives. We can regard IA as being something of value that cannot be physically touched, such as a brand, trade mark, knowledge assets or goodwill. Although the value of intangible assets can be hard to determine, they can add significant value to a business (IA Centre, 2010).

The authors believe that all types of IA can be created and enhanced with the help of SM. For example, the network of contacts that an employee builds through the LinkedIn account can be pure relational capital, valuable to the worker as well as to the company.

The survey results presented us with some interesting scenario. One of the more notable features identified was that only 57% of respondents felt SM had a role or was of value in exploiting IA, which seems to us to be very low. It was respondents from European countries other than the UK that seemed to rate SM as a tool for exploiting IA the lowest, with only 40% seeing a use for it. It is interesting to note however that there seems to be a consistent minimum 25% response in all categories of “I am not sure” when asked the question as to whether they felt SM had a role in the exploitation of IA. Few respondents considered IA as being more than brand awareness and recognition, considering SM useful from a marketing point of view (e.g. promotion of brand, launch of a new product). By all means, the power of Social Media as brand-builders is already acknowledged and exploited at high levels, Twitter and FB docent. So perhaps, given the predominance of marketing and communications as the apparent champions of SM in the work place there is just a dearth of insight and imagination from other communities as to how to use SM to successfully exploit IA. Exploitation of other kinds of IA such as networking, connecting/engaging with potential clients, knowledge sharing, co-creation, and so on, only appears in a small minority of responses. Although almost half of respondents used SM to interact and analyse their customers, it’s again the marketing people to take the lead here. So again it may perhaps be an issue with the lack of breadth in the definition of IA in the minds of the respondents that could be at the heart of the apparently low reporting of SM being used specifically for IA related purposes.

From the results of the survey, there is very little awareness of issues that may be caused by SM impact on open innovation. Just over a half of respondents declared that they were familiar with

the concept of user generated content and co-creation/crowdsourcing. However, those who declared an active involvement in any of these areas, the examples they gave to substantiate this claim appear rather unsophisticated. Wikis, which would be described as a user-generated content, are the most commonly cited activity. As for co-creation, only one of the described activities met the strict definition of it, which is "market or business strategy that emphasises the generation and ongoing realisation of mutual firm-customer value. It views markets as forums for firms and active customers to share, combine and renew each other's resources and capabilities to create value through new forms of interaction, service and learning mechanisms" (Wikipedia.org). Finally, nobody registered the use of crowd-sourcing tools. Interestingly Europe (excluding the UK) with its low rating of SM for IA exploitation by contrast rates as the most positive region for entering into co-creation activities.

The more complex and challenging and innovative approaches to crowdsourcing seem to figure little in the thinking of the respondents. Broadly speaking, more than 1/3 of respondents know and use (or plan to use) idea repositories. We think that, all considered, this is a very high percentage, especially on the basis of such a small sample. This could lead us to conclude that the respondents are showing less enthusiasm for the more innovative uses to which SM can be used, when thinking of some of the examples that Tapscott and Williams would use to illustrate the opportunity. It might be tempting to conclude that this simply represents a lack of imagination or even awareness of the opportunities these modes of innovation offer, but when we consider that 30% of respondents saying they were either using or planning to use Idea repository – a relatively contemporary and new approach to the use of SM – then this argument seems less compelling to say the least. Could it be that certain operational and business models find it hard to adjust to certain types of innovation?

6 Conclusions

It seems clear that the use of SM is wide, varied and relatively unrestrained from a policy point of view. Technical constraint is not clear as whilst we did ask about use of SM for business purposes we did not specifically require that this was actually undertaken at a place of business using the organisations connectivity and equipment. However, given the breadth and commonality of use, it seems reasonable to surmise that – for time constraint reasons alone – a good deal of this is being done in work time and possible on work owned technology and connectivity.

It would be fair though to say that based on the responses so far there is little evidence of great innovation or radical approaches with most respondents using the most common tools for the most commonly cited purposes.

In the case of IP in its most formal sense there was little evidence of crowdsourcing approaches to developing unique IP, and little apparent in depth guidance on IP issues, and further areas of concern on IP issues beyond copyright issues. This seems to describe a relatively unsophisticated understanding of or attention to IP issues. Perhaps as the use matures and dynamics of the use of SM become more varied, then the more groundbreaking use of SM for IP generation might be more pervasive than it appears to be at present.

Once again it seems we could reasonably ask the questions we used before, those being is this a case of great trust, abandonment of traditional approaches and the embracing of crowdsourcing models, or simply ignorance of the potential risks presented. It is not clear from the survey returns which if any of these reasons prevail but the apparent lack of concern or perhaps awareness of IP related issues within a medium which has attracted considerable attention as a potential “game changing” approach to innovation is, to say the least, puzzling.

The use of SM has many different purposes however the main application is by far Marketing and Communication. As we can consider IA as having wide general presence in most of an organisations domains, marketing and communications and brand management being but one, it seems that it could be reasonably posited that SM is being used for IA related purposes both

directly and obliquely, and that value is seen to be generated through that activity by virtue of the fact that the organisations have continued to participate over extended periods. However in assigning and defining the majority of activity falling within Sales Marketing and Communications in the traditional sense, and these groups being seen as the main champions of the adoption of SM in a business environment, there may perhaps be a lack of specific frameworks and approaches to the broader and more specific application of SM to what would be IA initiatives or activities.

If twintangibles are the intangibles of Generation Y, new management thinking, which goes beyond the apparently narrow application of Social Media in business at present, will be required, if we are to exploit their wider potential towards long term sustainable development.

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twintangibles is a Glasgow based company that offers a range of Social Media services ranging from strategic advice; guidance and training; reporting and analysis; to active outsourced help in setting up and managing the Social Media Presence for many organisations.

Contact us at:+44 7717 714595twintangibles@twintangibles.co.uk@twintangibles