Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Linkedin, Blogger are changing the way hundreds of millions of people communicate and collaborate.
The world was introduced to Web 2.0 technology as a way to connect with friends and make new ones. The business community quickly adopted Social Media as a powerful marketing tool. (SEO, Customer Communities, Blogging, Competitive Intelligence, etc)
The trend is strengthening. People are learning new, more convenient ways to interact. For example, many people prefer to communicate by instant message than by phone. (Maybe you are one of these people 
How will this trend change the way you consult? How is this trend changing client expectations? What if you were among the first to offer tools that could create a company’s internal Web 2.0 social media management system? It would be like having a private Facebook for the company?
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September 1, 2009 at 2:22 am |
Wayne, if you haven’t already, go to http://www.widgetbox.com and create a widget of your blog that you embed in your website instead. This way people can grab your blog widget and add it to their website, such as MySpace, etc. to follow your blogs.
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I’ve been using computers since 1985, when I bought my first Digital Rainbow, a DEC ( I had to take a 3 year mortgage out on it because it was so expensive). My website http://www.synergy.ie has been up since 2004 and I’m facinated with the power of the internet. It’s been called the largest thing in the world. Web 2.0 or is it 3.0 has so many new and powerful areas in it, it’s scary and exciting.
I’m always open to new ideas and collaborations anyone has, so feel free to contact me on my email.
Regards
Bob Tallent
http://www.synergy.ie
bob@ synergy.ie
PS
I’m always open to connect with people from this group, so please feel free to invite me and I promise to accept.
Posted 5 months ago | Reply Privately
Barrett Powell
Managing Partner at RSA Companies
Wow, DEC Rainbow. Now that is a term I haven’t heard in a long time. There were a lot of computers around back then that don’t exist today. My first computer was a Radio Shack TRS-80. Used basic programming and a cassette player to save your programs.
I’ve been using the web since the web browser Mosaic. The web back then was nothing more than REAL html pages (text). This was in the late 80s and early 90s.
My how time has changed. Or is it I am just getting old.
Posted 5 months ago | Reply Privately
Linda Daichendt
CEO/Managing Consultant at Strategic Growth Concepts / DAIMAR Enterprises, Inc.
I agree with your comments. Have written several articles recently in my blog ( http://strategicmktgconcepts.wordpress.com ) on the same/related topics.
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Lots of great comments here to be sure.
I favor LinkedIn for quite a few years now. I use MSN chat with my MBA students in Asia and the USA.
My reservation is that staff (gen x and y) are also increasingly “online” with chats that are not work related, whether it be on PC or mobile phone/sms. At times the focus on the core business seems a bit fuzzy when this is going on. How do we manage staff that become “addicted” to this behavior as it takes away from the work to be done?
For me, there is also the increasing expectation that my Blackberry be left on 24X7X365 for management and clients. Lately I have noticed more than a few people texting in church services! How do we effectively “get off the grid” for our private lives in the era of new media and its expectations, as well as create a positive standard of behavior for using this technology professionally and personally?
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Every phenomenon has its cycle. Right now it is social networking. Of course the real problem is that we are back to late 1990s early 2000 trends we saw during the dot.com era. Lots of great ideas, but no business plan or method to make a profit (with regard to the technology, not the business use of it others that is). A good example is Twitter. They have a neat little technology and no real revenue stream. That’s why they are now talking about “for fee” accounts for businesses that have adopted it. But part of the reason Twitter is so popular is because it is free. YouTube is having the same issue.
Things will eventually swing back towards face to face conversations and personal service. But until then we need to learn as much as we can about this first wave of new network communications and make the most of them. Because the next time around in the next iteration they are not likely to be as free.
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Rick,
You raise several good points. For the employee set, there seem to be two directions. First, if employees are self-directed and held accountable for results, then the use of chat, etc is not that different from the use of the telephone. If the issue has escalated to “addiction” and the first two conditions do not apply, more and more companies are blocking access to the web sites which facilitate such services. This is not technically hard to do.
The Blackberry issue is different. Unless you’re on the choke chain of a demanding boss, self-discipline is the only way. One business friend says his wife has a rule – the cell phone and the Blackberry get shut off at a certain hour (like 10 pm) unless he wishes to sleep in another room!
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I like Rick Price’s comments. Many of my clients are operating 24/7 and thereby have the expectation that I will as well. I have learned over the years that if I am on a vacation or have a significant event that I do not want to be disturbed, I hand my Blackberry over to my VP and he does likewise with me. It is learning to manage our private time as mentors and consultants that is the real trick to the new technologies. We have to be there for the client and the client will be there for some other company. Life is short and living for the client does not always make us good service providers. We as companies must learn to manage the technology but still balance to private and personal time. Having our client addicted to us is important but as a former officer, I have yet to meet an addict that survived!!
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Peter is spot on as well. Client access to you is also a function of what’s going on. If I have a client in some sort of crisis, he should expect me to be available 24/7 and I am. If not a crisis, then more normal business response time rules apply – but that still means respond quickly!
As a senior officer, I was keenly aware of which advisors got back to me quickly and which ones did not. Somehow, the very best consultants and advisors have figured out how to juggle so as to make every client feel like he/she is the only client.
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Great conversation!!! Let’s dig deeper. Web 2.0 technology has opened the door beyond casually using productivity tools. I think the opportunity lies in the fact that social media has created a new route to driving value to clients. It’s also an opportunity to differentiate your service offering and win an important marketplace advantage. For example, what if you could deploy a private “facebook” type software within a client’s company with the purpose of creating a grassroots strategic planning effort? Or, what if you used a private Twitter type software to let management know what everyone is working on? Web 2.0 social media conventions are a new opportunity to change the way companies are managed on the inside ~ and because so many front line workers are already familiar with the approach adoption and deployment would be much easier.
Social media leveraged to manage a company. What do you think??
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Well, I’m using a whole range of Web 2.0 and I try and encourage others. Interestingly I find some of the most reistant to change individuals seem to be fellow consultants who have yet to make the shift. This makes it difficult when working on collaborative projects. The clients, however, are usually more open and willing to have a go.
Twitter is proving very useful in healthcare – provides a listening process.
http://www.twitter.com/patientsafety for example
Blogs are being used more and more
Web teaming is perfect for many healthcare teams that are not geographically colocated
Mashups are excellent for healthcare performance reporting
Sarah
http://www.twitter.com/sarahfraser
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My only caution with using too much social networking like Facebook or Twitter is this, unless these companies (Facebook, Twitter) do figure out how to develop revenue streams, they may go the same way was many similar dot.com startups did early on. They may cease to exist and we will all be scrambling to replace them in our strategies and solutions.
Or more than likely, they will be commercialized and have a licensing and cost associated with them which may require replacing or going back and monetizing their value to clients.
I think what we will probably see which is equally exciting are more and more commercial applications with social networking aspects. We are already seeing some of these begin to come out now.
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…It’s not Facebook or Twitter but the now ubiquitous social media interface that they all use. See: http://www.onthesystem.com and you will understand what I mean. I think consultants could leverage the social media paradigm to create a highly structured, results oriented and measurable consulting engagement.
I think it will be the new trend in consulting: Leverage social media conventions to maximize engagement results.
Do you agree?