Using YouTube To Collaborate and Innovate as a Team

One way to improve the exposure of your staff to innovation and teamwork is to encourage and help them use YouTube more effectively. 

local
This is particularly important in the realm of the local social sector where organizations and the people they represent will benefit from not only innovation and collaboration, but are better able to learn from talented leaders and their teams that are nearby. You will also learn what's important to your staff from the experience of having them participate in the making and using of a "viewing club" or short list.

global
More effective use of YouTube also applies to teams that make up the global village a term popularized by Marshall McLuhan thirty some years before the Internet and part of his vision of  the Internet as an "extension of consciousness"or as marketers might call it, awareness.

a mix
A mix, then, of local and international voices is a guiding principle of identifying the channels that mean the most to your organization as well as those that address issues you are confronting and other relevant subject areas. 

benefits
Over time the perspective of your staff will begin to widen, new partnerships with like minded organizations may be discovered, and problem solving meetings will incorporate best practices and insights not limited to the immediate neighborhood or circle of influencers. In a recent McKinsey study, What social-sector leaders need to succeed, sixty-one percent of the responders said "leaders put the interests of their own organization ahead of collaborating with others to solve problems."

advice
My advice is to pull your team together, talk about the benefits, surface a champion, set up a process to gather and review suggestions and give it a try.

The marketing guru, Seth Godin, recently suggested "a simple way to process advice: Try it on...act as if, talk it through, follow the trail."

how to
Make sure that your team not only subscribes to the channel, but they click on the menu button and select the two options: (1) send me updates and (2) show only uploads in feeds. Most interesting channels don't update that often, but news oriented channels do so daily, so before selecting a channel review their videos to see the frequency of the content they publish. 

overload
If your staff is complaining that they receive too many emails already, then tackle that issue as I have found many people do not have a clue how to manage their emails using already existing tools such as folders, flagging, etc. and work with internal IT folks or someone's techie relative to identify and reduce spam. Don't just live with a dysfunctional email system.

P.S. Need help starting your own YouTube Channel and connecting to other social media such as Twitter and Facebook?  Email me at ruthann@reddigitalmarketing.com.

P.S.S. Available on Prezi for easier viewing as a group.

Ruth Ann Barrett, DigitalSavvyite, Portland, Oregon, January 26, 2015