the Web Chef's e-Bytes

Large Company Digital C-Suites Rare

Two recent studies point to the lack of adoption of digital tools in the C-Suite.  One study conducted by Forbes Insights found a significant difference in Internet utilization based on the age of the respondents.  Not too surprising this study found that C-Suite participation in social media tools was lowest among those 50 and over.  Among the 50+ crowd only 4% were likely to blog weekly compared to the under 40 segment where 56% of executives did the same.  Using newer microblogging tools like Twitter was common with the under 40 group, where 56% read or generate posts daily, compared to the 50 plus segment of only 3%.

Meanwhile UberCEO looked at Fortune 100 CEO participation in social networks and found it to be very slim according to MarketingVox.  Of the total only 2 had Twitter accounts (with one being basically inactive), 13 had LinkedIn Profiles (only 3 with more than 10 connections) and 19 personal Facebook pages.  UberCEO found that no CEO in the Fortune 100 group had a blog that could be easily located by searching on their name.  Here's a slide presentation of their research along with some recommendations that Fortune 100 and other C-level executives should note as they develop their social media strategies with their corporate communications teams.

Fortune 100 CEOs and Social Media

View more documents from Sharon Barclay.

LinkedIn Connections Widget

I'm investigating a possible feature for a client that I think is very interesting. It is a LinkedIn widget that can be attached to an article that will in turn tell you who is in your network at companies referenced in the article. You can find out more by viewing this video that shows the use of the widget at Business Week.

I tested the widget at an article on Business Week that was discussing the Circuit City closure and liquidation sale. When I went to the LinkedIn Connection widget it brought up 3 "friends" at Best Buy. I'm not sure why Best Buy was the connection that came up since the story was really about Circuit City and found that none of the three were my friends.

Here's a screenshot of the three names that came up when I clicked on the widget.

Web Tidbits - Web 2.0, Photo Sharing

I've been remiss in posting to this blog. 

Here are a couple of links to articles and resources that I thing you'll find interesting.

State of the Blogosphere - Technorati, Day 1 of their 5 part series on the status of blogs.  Today's report covers "Who are the Bloggers?", with the next 4 days expanding on the topic.  Among the findings are that North American bloggers are 57% male, 59% above 38 years old and 74% college graduates (yeah!  I fit in).

Beyond Blogs - Business Week writers and bloggers Heather Green and Stephen Baker refresh their popular 2005 cover story "Blogs Will Change Your Business" with "Beyond Blogs", a refreshing look at some of the many tools of social computing that are having an impact within the enterprise and among consumers.

Photo Sharing Sites - Looking for photo sharing sites beyond Flickr?  Check out this listing and evaluation on Photography Bay of 45 sites.

Slides on Conference Engagement Using Web 2.0 Tools

Earlier this week I was one of the keynote presenters at the 2nd annual National Conference on University and College Conference Centers. The topic of my talk was what Fortune magazine is calling Conference 2.0. For these Conference Centers being able to add value to their University clients as well as for outside users of their centers is something that is being sought. The use of web 2.0 tools like social network groups on LinkedIn, Photo Sharing on Flickr, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts etc. are all part of creating engagement among conference attendess and making meeting planners happy.  As Seth Godin says, you don't want your attendees to say "I flew all the way here for this".

The slides that I used at the presentation were posted on SlideShare and are available here for your reference.

Buzz Networks:conference engagement with social computing tools

View SlideShare presentation (tags: social computing conference tools)

Web Tidbits - Miscellaneous

Sorry for not posting for awhile.  I'm ready to get back in the blogging saddle...

Here are a few web tidbits and sites for your pleasure and exploration.

Wiki of obsolete skills - A to Z contributions of skills we no longer need.  A - Adjusting rabbit ears on top of a tv, Z - zmodem to transfer a file.  Perusing the list brought back some memories like eight tracks, formatting a floppy or rewinding an audio-casette using a Bic pen.

BusinessWeek talks about the TED conference introduction of Kluster (beta), a social network for product invention and creation.  The concept is that through the "wisdom of crowds" ideas will be converted into protottypes and solutions.  Also referenced in the article is Inkling, a Chicago based company that is creating a "prediction market platform" for generating results from groups.

Meanwhile Information Week, showcases the start-up HiveLive, a Boulder based enterprise social networking vendor that markets LiveConnect "a user-configurable building block for networking with people and sharing information.  Hives can incorporate forums, polls, blogs, wikis, and more."

Web Tidbits - Social Networks, Wikis

One year old Citizendium is hunting for a piece of the content pie seeking to be a reliable alternative to Wikipedia through the use of expert contributors.  According to the Financial Times they still have a ways to go given that the site only has 3,300 articles (compared to Wikipedias 2 million in English alone) and is growing at 14 new ones a day.  With the viral and network effects of the Internet the projections for the site are positive according to the founder Larry Sanger.

In the social networking space, Google announced the launch of OpenSocial, a consortium described by the Financial Times as "The technology that Google unveiled will let developers spread applications across any of the social networks that adopt it, removing the need to rewrite them for each one".  CNet is reporting that there are 26 companies that have joined the consortium including Google's Orkut (popular in Latin America), Hi5, LinkedIn, Friendster, Plaxo, Ning, Beebo, Oracle, Salesforce.com, etc.

For more on social networks see my article "The expanding world of social networks" on Wisconsin Technology Network.

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".

E-Comerce Times Reports on Growth of Business Social Networking

E-Commerce Times had a story yesterday "Businesses Tap Into Social Networks", that is good reading for those of you into the B2B marketing space.  We keep hearing so much about B2C applications, but what are the "killer apps" for the various sub-sectors of the B2B space?  I've had the pleasure of being one of the 5 million members using LinkedIn, one of the sites referenced in the article and hope to broaden my understanding and utilization of the site in expanding my network. 

Other sites that are referenced in the article are InnerSell, GoBigNetworks and AlwaysOn-Network.  The article had little to say about them and I'm not familiar with any of them either.  Drop a comment if you have experience with any of these that you'd like to share.

Another one I've been looking at is Jigsaw.  They have an interesting model where you buy and sell contacts or exchange your contacts for other contacts.