When Social Housing And Social Networking Collide

It seems the zeitgeist has been at large this week. I’ve been planning a post on social housing and social networking and lo and behold, within a few days it’s raised on both UK Housing and then Inside Housing! Both articles present intriguing points regarding the main social networks of today – Facebook and Twitter. As Trafford Housing Trust doesn’t currently make use of Facebook (although there are plans afoot and I’d be interested in any other experiences people have), my thoughts are primarily about the pros and cons of Twitter.

The first, rather obvious, point to make is that Twitter is vast. 200 million users issuing nearly 1 billion tweets per week. When I was a kid I used to walk home from school and one of the things I used to imagine was what it would be like if I could hear all of the conversations in all of the houses! And now Twitter gives you something of an insight into exactly that, with everyone from ministers, @grantshapps, partners, @TMBChousing, media @InsideHousingEd and organisations like @HCA_UK issuing 140 character, bite-sized comments. Personally, I’ve found it fascinating for following trains of thought and researching on topics from the Big Society, technology trends and international issues in housing. 

From Trafford Housing Trust’s point of view I can see that potentially this is an excellent medium for interacting with tenants. As with many Housing Associations we find that reaching the younger demographic of customers hard and Twitter clearly provides some kind of path to those users. 47% of users are under the age of 34 (Facebook is 64% for comparison).

Another opportunity is that it allows organisations to open themselves up and provide a level of interaction and accountability that hasn’t been possible before. On this level there has been some excellent examples, such as Greater Manchester Police’s exercise in tweeting every contact they had over 24 hours. In fact my very first tweets were sent when I was shadowing our 24/7 staff on duty overnight. When we want to show customers what's really going on behind the scenes I think micro-blogging allows you to build up a very detailed picture, with relative ease.

One final thing that I can absolutely see it being useful for is recruitment. After all if someone can impress you in 140 characters, then it's likely that they will have mastered the ability to be succinct, which is preferable to someone who generates a twenty page report any time you ask them a question.

Clearly there are some negative issues as well – one being that it potentially creates more work for us all! Even here there are pros and cons, let me give you an example. Early morning a couple of weeks ago @wearehomegroup tweeted that they were piloting the Tenant Cashback proposals. I said we were interested and by the time I reached the office a loose reference group had been formed to discuss the implementation. How many emails would that have taken to arrange? How would you have even found out about it in the first place? So although it gives you greater access to get involved, the corollary is that you might get involved in more things!

I think the single biggest challenge though is that modern communication methods require a modern attitude to communicating. If someone tweets a question, or comments on a blog post they are expecting a response as soon as possible, it's not something that can (or should) go through a seven stage approval process. That is by no means impossible but it's not something that we are used to and it requires an organisation that is light on its feet and able to react and respond quickly. This consequently speeds everything else up – it makes you wonder if the five year plans, so beloved of our regulators, might ultimately be toast.

One of the necessary consequences of this “hurry up” is that the line between business and private lives are blurred. Understandably, some are resistant to that. My take is that my Blackberry has helped me integrate work and home life. Recently I was able to work on holiday and I felt better for that than if I’d had absolutely no contact. I'm not saying that I advocate an always on approach to work, but that there are some interesting questions regarding the work-life re-balancing.

For all the challenges and change it brings, I openly declare myself to be a fan of social networking. Ultimately, I can’t help thinking that in five years' time everyone is going to be using it (or the next version of it, FourSquare has obvious social housing implications) and that those who have started investigating it will be five years further down the line and more advanced. I remember doing a bond deal in the 1980s when you would get a 68 page document faxed to you and thinking it was terrific because you didn’t have to wait until the next day to receive it in the post, how slow does that seem now? We have a commitment to responsibly investigate what new technologies can do, because there’s a good chance they can make us more efficient and surely that’s #ineveryonesinterest?

Needless to say I'm interested in any thoughts and will try and respond as quickly as possible! You can follow me or talk to me on Twitter @TeamTHT.