the Web Chef's e-Bytes

Bacn Management - e-mail infoglut management strategies

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Radicati Group reports that "the average corporate e-mail user received 126 messages a day, up 55% from 2003".  This infoglut is the result not only of continuing problems with spam, but with the growth of what is now being called "bacn" or "e-mail you want, but not right now". While spam filters, white lists, black lists, trusted senders and other tools have been and continue to make inroads against spam; "bacn" both from external and internal sources is clogging e-mail inboxes.  This infoglut is creating major headaches for recipients and corporations alike.  The importance of this problem is clear with The Wall Street Journal article stating "Email overload is now considered a much bigger workplace problem than traditional email spam."

Companies are approaching the "bacn" growth with a number of strategies.  According to a recent article in Computerworld, one strategy being pursued is the introduction of enterprise RSS feeds.  These RSS feeds, much like those consumers are latching on to, allow workers to subscribe or be subscribed to content feeds that are relevant or critical to their work.  This narrowcasting can reduce the infoglut of e-mail.  I know that when given a choice between e-mail and RSS, I'll subscribe to an RSS feed, however if it is what I call "crispy bacn" (mmmm, my favorite) or messages that I really want to see, I like to receive these via e-mail.  The reason for this is that I subscribe to so many feeds (I know a glutton for punishment) that it can often be weeks or days to get to the feeds that I'm less interested in.  Among the enterprise RSS feed companies that are referenced in the article are Attensa, KnowNow and NewsGator,

In a different strategy for e-mail infoglut management, The Wall Street Journal reports (subscription required) on the growth of start-ups that are helping users manage their e-mail by tagging, sorting or re-directing it to different users.  The sorting takes place based on algorithms rather than user supplied factors.  For ClearContext, one of the companies cited in the article they reportedly look at your inbox and the speed in which you normally respond to that sender to determine how to tag the e-mail content. Other companies that are referenced in this article are Seriosity and Xobni (inbox spelled backwards - cute!).

As a professional with a background in corporate and marketing communications, efforts to improve internal communications like these will prove popular and useful in improving team productivity.

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Need help with your internal communications strategies? 

Drop me an e-mail or give me a call (608) 255 4092, I'd be happy to work with you to develop strategies for your Intranet, RSS feeds, internal e-mail, wikis or other tools that could be of use for improving worker productivity.

Paul Gibler
the Web Chef

Enterprise or Business Social Networks

Intro
Business or Enterprise Social Networks, much like consumer social networks, are growing rapidly and are available in a range of functionalities, sizes and shapes.  Among the options that are out there for business people and enterprises are the following:

• Cross-company business social networks - Ryze, LinkedIn, Spoke and newly launched IncBizNet "the networking community for small companies", etc.
• Business networks at consumer sites like Facebook
• Enterprise social networks or sub-sets of selected tools
• Branded communities for end customers

The interest in social networks by businesses is projected to grow as reported by Redmond Development News "according to a recent survey of 273 IT professionals by Forrester, 28 percent of enterprises with more than 500 employees say their enterprise has some form of social networking initiative, while 20 percent are considering it."

Meanwhile, IDC has broken down the emerging market into three segments according to WebProNews "These include: self-service applications used by groups and marketing campaign teams; brand applications that focus on persistent customer engagement; and enterprise applications that provide more effective ways of working with customers, partners and other external parties".  They project a growth in investment in these segments to $428.3 million by 2009, from $46.8 million in 2006.

So why the interest in business social networks?  According to CIO Insight, SelectMinds (one of the business social networking vendors), "claims users are seeing quantitative and qualitative results in terms of new business generation, productivity, retention and branding."

Social Networks Reviewed
Before we go into each of these social networking options, some of you may still be a bit confused about the social networking buzz.  Social networks are typically based on linking together individuals based on their interests and expertise.  They often revolve around individuals developing a profile and then identifying explicit and implicit connections according to Cerado, a business social networking specialist.  In an Executive Briefing (PDF) at their site they identify 10 ways businesses and associations can use social networks including the following:

1. Customer and Member relationship development
2. Customer support
3. Expert knowledge identification
4. Post-acquisition integration
5. Providing a whole product by linking related products and services
6. Understanding and visualizing organizational communication paths
7. Meeting facilitation and preparation
8. Extending meeting shelf lif
9. Sharing Knowledge
10. Pulling together appropriate team

To look at social networks in a more visual fashion, I found this video from The CommonCraft Show that provides a simple and easy to understand explanation of a consumer social network.  For corporate or enterprise social networks substitute jobs for clients and love for business relationships and you'll get the concept completely.

Public Social Networks
Cross-company public sites like Ryze, LinkedIn, Spoke and IncBizNet are gaining followers and supporters as business people follow the consumer sector in recognizing the potential benefits of social networks for business purposes including lead generation, recruitment, market intelligence and business gossip. The specialized business social networks are being joined by the consumer social networks where "business-centric applications" or widgets are being developed and launched at sites like Facebook according to Redmond Development News.  They also report that companies like Apple and Microsoft have set up employee networks on Facebook. 

Enterprise Social Networks
In the enterprise, we're seeing a range of applications that are promoted under the Enterprise Social Networking banner.  These range from full service networked applications with blogs, wikis, networks, video sharing, etc. tied together to more specialized applications targeting a sub-set of activities. 

In a recent interview I conducted with Geoff Hyatt CEO of Contact Networks, he described how his software was designed to solve a business problem that a number of consulting, law, investment and other professional service firms have - capturing and making the relationship asset information from throughout the firm available for use.  Contact Network's software is designed to operate behind the business firewall to enable the capturing of this data for business development purposes, improved client management and coordinating relationships.  He reports that one advantage of his service is that there is no data entry required on the part of highly compensated and busy team members, but rather the software captures, reports and can be queried on relationships based on the frequency, recency and length of customer relations identified through the data analysis of existing enterprise information systems. 

One advantage of closed enterprise social networks is the security and authentication inherent within network applications behind the firewall.

Other vendors that are in the Enterprise Social Networking space include major players like Microsoft, IBM and BEA Systems, but also smaller providers like the following:

• Awareness Networks
• Cerado Haystack
• Contact Networks
• Intronetworks
• Mentor Scout
• Ning
• SelectMinds
• Small World Labs
• Social Platform
• Pringo Networks
• Visible Path
• Web Crossing

If you have experience with any of these or are aware of other social networks, please let me know and I'll update my listing accordingly.

Corporate Social Networks

In an interesting example of how online publications can mix and match their traditional print and text focused media strategy, CIO Insight has an insightful slide show on "5 Reasons to Deploy a Corporate Social Network".  The slide show succinctly lays out the reasons and the requirements for success in implementing a business social network.  The 5 reasons given and elaborated on are:

1. Build Better Customer Relationships
2. Improve Knowledge Management
3. Facilitate Recruiting and Retention
4. Increase Business Opportunities
5. Build Community

The requirements for success that they discuss all center around changes in the corporate culture.  Particulary they reference the following 3:

1. Can be time intensive
2. Will breakd down hierarchies
3. Challenge the formal organization chart

If you're interested in more about social networks see the two articles I've written for Wisconsin Technology Networks on this subject - "The Expanding World of Social Networks" and "Virtual Communities Make Online Connections".

New Column in Wisconsin Technology Network - The expanding world of social networks

I've written another article in the series of Buzz Networks columns that I contribute to Wisconsin Technology Network every month.  This article "The Expanding world of social networks" looks at the continuing evolution of social networks for consumers of every age and interest, for businesses to improve internal operations and for other marketing purposes.

I encourage your feedback and comments on the article, either here on the Web Chef's e-Bytes or at Wisconsing Technology Network. 

Interestingly one of the social networks that I referenced in the article last week, Sermo, was in the news today for its agreement with Pfizer described in the Financial Times - " Sermo and Pfizer will work together to establish how drugmakers can best communicate with physicians online, and provide drug and disease information to them on-demand".  The site reportedly has 30,000 members and is adding 2,000 a week.  It will not be supported by advertising accoring to the article.

Update
One group of demographic social network sites that I did not cover are those created and managed by Community Connect, a developer of niche demographic social networking sites - MiGente (hispanics), GLEE (gays and lesbians), AsianAve (Asian Americans) and BlackPlanet (African Americans).

2007 Business Priorities

B2B Magazine has an article analyzing the results of a survey they conducted among B2B marketers about their priorities for 2007.  The survey results of 569 respondents show that 62.7% plan to increase their marketing budgets and that 75.6% of respondents will allocate more money to Web 2.0 techniques like podcasts, blogs, online video, wikis, social networking and to "traditional" e-marketing tactics like search engine marketing, their web sites, white papers, e-mail permission marketing and webinars.

Marketers surveyed continue to stress the importance of engaging the user and of how the Internet is the perfect medium for accomplishing this engagement.

The number one objective for their marketing initiatives in 2007 is acquiring new customers according to 62.3% of respondents, followed by brand awareness - 19.5% and customer retention - 11%.

Web Tidbits - Broadband & B2B

Broadband
ClickZ reports on research from Nielsen Net Ratings showing that 78% of Americans are now using broadband to access the Internet.  Average times spent online for broadband users in November were 34 hours and 50 minutes online vs. the narrowband usage of 26 hours and 13 minutes.

B2B Video Channel for Construction Pros
ClickZ also reported on the launch of Cygnus Business Media's new "YouTube" like video channel sponsored by Caterpillar and targeting the construction industry.  The video channel "Forconstructionpros.com" allows manufacturers to pay to post their promotional videos and demos.  When I looked at the site I found that it was missing various useful functions that you find on other video sites like providing the code to allow for embeding a clip into a blog like this one.

B2B Online Spending Growing

eMarketer reports that B2B spending on online marketing will show significant growth with online ad spending growing 27.3% in 2007 to $2.4 Billion according to Veronis Suhler Stevensen.  The growth, while representing only a fraction of that seen in the B2C space ($4.2 Billion in the 3rd quarter of 2006 alone according to the IAB & PWC as reported in MarketingVox), still represents an increase to almost 10% of all B2B ad spending.  With the bulk of the B2B Ad spending still goeing to trade publications, this has been a shift that bears watching.

B2B Business Blogging

Forrester's Marketing Blog has an interesting posting about whether B2B organizations should blog or not.  The article stems from research by Laura Ramos on the need for a B2B marketing makeover.  The research found a growing interest by B2B marketers in social computing tactics like blogging. 

To evaluate whether to blog or not she suggests that you answer questions like these:

• What is the purpose of the blog? 
• Who is the audience? 
• Will the blog encourage participation? 
• Who should own the blog’s content?
• Does your business – or industry – change quickly enough to support the realtime publishing model?
• How does the blog fit into the rest of your communications strategy?

In the end, she recommends that you tune in to blogs, but not at the expense of other interactive marketing investments like e-mail, webinars or search marketing.

You can see an analysis of business blogging trends and some other suggested steps to follow in starting and managing a blog my article on Wisconsin Technology Network "Cutting Through the Blog Fog".

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Looking for some help with evaluating whether to start a blog, how to improve an existing blog or establish blogging guidelines in your organization?

Why not call on Paul, the Web Chef.  I'd be happy to review the appropriateness of a blog in your marketing and communications mix and help you develop and execute a blogging strategy.

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Marketing Sherpa Best B2B Lead Generation Tools

Marketing Sherpa has an interesting article summarizing the research they conducated about the best lead generation tools for B2B marketing.  Interestingly, the number 1 technique is blogs.  Anne Holland, President of MarketingSherpa stated that she suspects it is because of the "search engine friendliness of blogs to the thought leadership your management team can flaunt to build brand value".  Among the other items referenced in the article are to provide your prospects wtih content of value including PowerPoint presentations.  As she says "Content Rules".

NOTE: The article will be available for public viewing through August 8th. 

Top B2B Marketing Tool

Dave at B2B Blog has an interesting post about ThomasNet's research that showed that the #1 B2B marketing tool is their web site.  The research showed that 35% of users will seek out a new vendor for a new purchase.  When they look for a new vendor they often search online.  Once they are at the site they want to have accurate product descriptions, lists and links to distributors and other supporting information to help them make their decision.

AD: Why not contact ConnectingDots principal consultant Paul Gibler for a web site audit? This 3rd party review gives you insights on areas for improving your site.