Social Business Word of the Day: Crowdsourcing #socbiz #ls11 #getsocial11
This is our continuing Social Business Monday Word of the Day!
Crowdsourcing; Leveraging the wisdom of the crowd to generate new ideas and to refine ideas that exist, as well as vote on the “best” idea. Crowdsourcing leverages the collective intelligence of many people to try to solve a problem or generate new ideas. Crowdsourcing is also sometime referred to as “wisdom of the crowd" or "collective intelligence"
Crowdsourcing is an important part of your strategy. It is about soliciting customer wants leveraging the blogosphere. Leading companies engender loyalty by directly involving customers in defining emerging needs, constantly tuning offerings to satisfy the customers’ rapidly changing preferences. These leading companies leverage their clients and potential clients by making sure they are providing what customers want tomorrow, instead of what they wanted yesterday.
Throughout the global world, crowdsourcing with customers is a new competitive trend. Collaboration across different channels to create new products and services is becoming tablestakes. Companies are increasingly expected (by their clients) to follow them wherever they communicate with or about them through all possible channels. Not surprisingly, standouts are 13% more focused on new or different channels. It opens up new ways to engage with customers to harness their creativity and co-create to develop new products and service models.
Have you done it? Share your results!
Social Business and Swimming
Today I took my daughters to the pool. My youngest is taking lessons and is now on the swim team. While in the past she has not been able to even come close to my oldest daughter's speed, today, she exceeded it and won the races between the two of them!
Yes, even on my holiday, I think about Social Business and how this analogy could help my clients!
My oldest is more atheletic and determined. But her form was not the best, and she splashed more than stroked. She really doesn't want anyone to show her how it is done, because she is so confident in her own abilities. The youngest had been taught by someone more experience and glided through the water focusing more on her form, her goal, and the techniques and won the race.
I was thinking about this in regards to my clients in Social Business. I see many companies who are so talented and passionate about their product and clients. But with Social, they jump in the water and splash around their excitement. They don't have a plan, and they have not studied best practices, and so while the motivation is great, the results are not up to what they could be.
Then I have other clients who focus on learning from the best, practicing inside their 4 walls, and then begin their quest to better serve their clients. Those companies who focus on their goals, their culture, and the way they reach their clients are winning today.
Which one are you?
Social Business: Women vs Men on Social "Networking" + TIPS #socbiz #ls11 #getsocial11
@RODINCoglinMil sent me an article on Women vs Men on LinkedIn. She asked my thoughts about it.The report is from LinkedIn -- looking at where Women are great Social Networkers and which industry they are not!
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/06/women-still-dont-get-linkedin-says-linkedin/39152/
Intersting to me -- is that Women ReTweet Men more than women, and Men ReTweet Men more than women!
So the question I pondered, is how do you improve your Networking -- both Virutal and In Person!
Tips for Women to More Effectively Network!
- Make Time for it! This is a big difference in men and women. I once asked my male mentor about networking and he said he considered it part of his job. Most women consider it extra credit.
- Select the Right Areas -- whether the right LinkedIn Group, or beyond. I think that you cannot do everything. So for instance, I started with 3 LinkedIn groups about Authors but ended up selecting one of value.
- Be interesting! Showcase your compelling self! On LinkedIn, have a great Photo, complete your entire Profile, and make sure you have a great elevator pitch!
- Show interest! Listen to people, ask Questions (you can do this in the Q session on LinkedIn). Join great groups of interest.
- Follow up on the referrals you have been given and cultivate. I recently met a group of 10 fabulous people but knew I couldn't keep up the same with each. So I prioritzed. While I followed up with all, I dedicated more time and more followups to a select few.
I have to work at networking daily. I try to have lunch out once a month, connect with 10 new people each month, and provide value to 10 people each month either in connecting them to others, providing them information I think will value them, or just in general providing advice!
What do you do? What should we do? I'd like your active conversation.
Social Business -- What is a Social Business Digital Council? #socbiz #ls11 #getsocial11
Every Monday we will introduce a new "Social" word!
Today's word is Social Business Digital Council. What is it?
A Social Business Digital Council is a cross organizational body (marketing, HR, product development, supply chain, customer service, and more). In the most successful cases, it is co chaired by a line of business and IT. The mission is to explore best practices to share and replicate in the company. In addition, the Council should help to craft the Social Computing Guidelines, set up a content activation strategy, create a Risk Management and Reputation Management plan, and provide guideance to the company. It is not set up to be a blocker of social tools and techniques but rather a promoter of Social Business for competitive advantage. It will also ensure that the right level of Social Business Education is provided.
I ran a digital council when I was the CMO of our IBM WebSphere division.
What about you? Do you have a digital council? If so, share with me your best lessons learned!
Lowe's ROCKS Social Business at #e2conf !!! #socbiz #getsocial11
I had the pleasure to meet with Lowe’s Andy Carusone at E2.0 and hear about the amazing results that they have achieved. I loved his style and approach in his success case for Social. 400 Communities active and engaged!
How did they do it? Three key points from Alex Williams's Blog interview!
- Discovery: The created a Web site at their big sales event. People sought it out. It was a way for the sales people to communicate. This is a critical point. The people wanted more. They were hungry for it. They were not force-fed marketing dribble. They engaged and began reaching out beyond the conference itself. Lowe’s provided the tools. The people used them.
- Transparency: People shared their success. Ideas spread. They cite one example where they gained an additional $1 million in sales. That’s small change, in our view, compared to the social capital gained but that’s a point for another post.
- Behavior: Lowe’s avoided the ROI trap. Hurrah! Instead, they looked at the return on behavior, not technology
And here is the PROUD IBM team wearing the IBM Connections Shirts.
E2.0 - My Social Business THEATER presentation! Enjoy! #e2conf #socbiz #getsocial11
Gang: I had a great standing room only Theater presentation this week at e2.0. I love sharing our experiences both the great successes and what we learned from mistakes!
Since I've had a lot of requests, here's my link to the slideshare posting!
http://www.slideshare.net/SandyCarter/e20-theater
Community Managers CRITICAL for Social Business Success! #e2conf #socbiz
I had the HUGE pleasure of meeting today with a group of 10 community managers along with Rachel Happe and Rawn Shah from IBM! Read this great piece of work by Rachel on 2011 Community Manager report! http://www.slideshare.net/rhappe/the-2011-state-of-community-management
The bottom line is I believe firmly before of the important of Community Management and now am unquestionably sold on it!
Big quotable quotes!
* Everyone is a Community Manager!
* A Community manager is like a party planner!
* Community management is like a cultural translator!
We dished on Three Major topics!
A) Types of skills that made a GREAT community manager!
- Relationship skills
- Energizer
- Social Skills
- Coaching
- Facilitation
- "Event" management skills (This came from Jamie thinking about this role as a party planner -- getting the wall flowers to enjoy the party, making it fun but valuable, etc!)
- Business skills
- Host or Hostess
B) How many community managers do you need? 
- The answer we came to is "it depends" On what?
- Complexity, size of community, and goals
- In addition to community manager you need support from Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
- Can be done with part timers 3-5 people who spend 10-20% of their time
C) Where do you find them or how do you grow them?
- Mentoring
- Recommendations
- New curriculum that offers certificate?
The bottom line is this is now a new skill that is emerging and will be a critical success factor for any Social Business.
E2.0 - IBM Dachis Breakfast with the World Class Social Business Council! #socbiz #e2conf
This morning I had breakfast with the Dachis Social Business Council group sponsored by IBM at the Enterprise 2.0! I am so excited with the announcement here from IDC. IDC has named IBM the market share leader in social platforms for the second year in a row. According to IDC, the worldwide revenue for social software grew by 31.9% to more than $500 million in 2010 and is expected to grow to $1.8 billion worldwide by 2014.
The breakfast was great today and very relevant to myself and the council members were very active in our discussion!
We had great folks in attendence like Andy from Lowe's who told me that the $50B retail chain based in my home state of NC! had over 45 Million Page Views from Social Adoption and 400 communities internal. Sounds like he has done an amazing job there at Lowe's!
My key learning from Andy: Make sure that you embed social in the workflow, that is natural for your teams.
I also met Kevin Jones. I loved his comments on learning from mistakes. His major focus is on culture. He is a true believer that "culture eats strategy for lunch."
My key learning from Kevin: Don't be afraid of your social business mistakes! Learn and move on!
Robert Eastman, from SMB Research, discussed the value of Twitter, especially to the small businesses.
My key learning from Robert: Twitter is valuable! Leverage it!
And finally, I know there were so many others that I didn't get your business card, etc but loved meeting you! Overall, I also took away:
- Match culture to market
- Technology does make a difference. However, without the right planning and culture, you will still fail!
- Value of location based services
- Regulated industries are different. They have to have ediscovery, and beyond (by the way, this is why today we announced the partnership with Actiance today!)
I walked the group through the Social Business Agenda and gave out the first preview of the book! YEA!
A - Align your goals and culture to be ready to become more engaging and transparent. Do not underestimate the task ahead of you. Culture eats strategy for lunch. Take a look atIBM’s Social Computing Guidelines as a way to get started!
G – Gain Social Trust focuses on finding your fans, friends and followers, and forming best friends from your tippers or most influential clients or outside parties. It dives into what social trust is all about and how you instill it.
E – Engage through experiences focuses on how a company can engage its clients and employees and dives into gaming, virtual gifting, location based, mobile, or other stellar experiences to drive that engagement.
N – “Social” Network your processes. Since this is about business, figuring out how to add social technqiues to your processes is critical. Think about customer service — adding in Twitter to address your customer’s concerns. Or Crowdsourcing for product innovation, or Communities for incrementing your marketing processes around Loyalty!
D – Design for Reputation and Risk Management! This is the #1 areas of focus for the C level — managing the risk of having your brand online, your employees being your brand advocates, and even your clients becoming your marketing department! I think the value outweighs the risk .. but see how to develop a Disaster Recovery plan as you plan for the worst, and expect the best!
A – Analyze your data! Social analytics are the new black! You need to see the patterns of sentiment, who your tippers are, and listen daily !
Social Business - E2.0! What is a Social Business? #socbiz #e2conf #ls11 #getsocial11
I am here at E2.0! Moving around a bit slowly but meeting some great clients all day today! Tomorrow I have a client breakfast, a community manager lunch, a session at 1:30PM and a book signing!!
http://www.e2conf.com/boston/2011/speaker-list/?speaker=sandy-carter
I love that the conference this year is dedicated to Social Business! But today I six clients ask me what a Social Business was!
So here's my first post from E2.0! What is a social business?
| A Social Business is a business that embeds “social” in all of its processes, connecting people to people, people to information, and data to insight. It is a company that engages its employees and clients in a two way dialogue with social tools, is transparent in sharing its expertise beyond its four walls, and is nimble in its use of insight to change on a dime, It is different from Social Media, in that Social Media primarily addresses or focuses on marketing and public relations. (That’s where the media comes from.) |
Social Business - Word for Monday - Tipper! #socbiz #getsocial11
All!
I wnt to start doing a new Social term each Monday for posting! Mark those calendars to check in!
We are beginning our Social Business Glossary!
| Tipper | People who influence the rest of the clients and potential clients online and offline; usually about 5%-10% of your product or category’s population. |
Tippers are very important people because they influence everyone else in your network. Tippers vary by category. For instance, I could be a tipper in Social Business but not in cars. Knowing who these people are is very important. In my SOA days, we knew these folks and previewed product announcements, sought advice, and relied on them for shaping our business that grew in share each year. Much of our success in SOA and BPM came from this strategy!
Tools like the Social Analytics that IBM uses can be used to identify these folks. Also companies like Deep Mile!
Tell me your favorite way to find your tippers!!