Sam F sent me a great article today that he found, that plays nicely with what we are doing in step 3. Understanding social media and social marketing must first come from exploration and planning (there is that word again).
Last night on the webinar the discussion revolved around "Tuning into the conversation" ! I guess most of the corporate world is NOT tuning into the conversation nor are they understanding how to utilize web 2.0 techniques and tactics to effectively establish a presence within these communities.
Read this article and post your excitement about this news below…This is great stuff!
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Web 2.0 fails the grade, executives say
By Toby Ward
Despite the enormous excitment for social media tools among communication and PR professionals, senior management continues to resist the so-called Web 2.0 tools. So does IT apparently. Ragan blogger Toby Ward examines the reasons why
“Collaborative tools are overloading employees and killing productivity—to the tune of $588 billion a year, according to a January study by Basex, a collaboration technologies consulting firm,” writes Brian Watson of CIO magazine.
A CIO magazine's study, Top Technology Priorities for 2008 finds that even techies don’t consider Web 2.0 as a priority. A survey of 250 “top IT executives” from a collection of small, medium and large organizations doesn’t even touch on the issue of Web 2.0.
In fact, the top 10 technology priorities are:,
• Creating or improving strategic applications (cited by 37 percent)
• Expanding IT infrastructure to keep up with growth (cited by 32 percent)
• Improving IT security (cited by 31 percent)
• Instituting a more flexible IT infrastructure (cited by 27 percent)
• Improving the quality of information (cited by 26 percent)
• Standardizing and consolidating IT infrastructure (cited by 24 percent)
• Discovering and deploying innovative, new technologies (cited by 23 percent)
• Improving ROI of IT investments (cited by 21 percent)
• Reducing the complexity of information systems (cited by 21 percent)
• Replacing legacy systems (cited by 21 percent)
A case could be made that seventh ranked priority (“innovative, new technologies”) could in fact include Web 2.0, but these tools are hardly new—they’ve been around for four-plus years.
A look inside the organization, and what each company has done confirms our suspicions. As I reported in my article, Intranet 2.0 on the rise, but barely, the deployment and use of Web 2.0 on the corporate intranet has barely advanced in the past two years.
Jane McConnell’s Global Intranet Trends Report reveals that very few organizations have implemented or optimized intranet 2.0 tools for general use in most organizations:
• Only 6 percent have blogs in general use (another 23 percent have them implemented it in some form) while 45 percent are still in test mode.
• Only 7 percent have implemented commenting tools (e.g. post a comment to a story on the intranet) in general use (another 35 percent have implemented it in some form).
Still worse, security and privacy are major concerns and a huge barrier to widespread adoption of Web 2.0. An Economist Intelligence Unit for KMPG found that 52 percent of executives (of 472) say securing and protecting sensitive data was the top barrier to adopting the Web 2.0.
It’s not that there isn’t value in Web 2.0—I believe there’s tremendous value, and I live in breathe it with my blogging—it’s that most companies to don’t agree, don’t see value in it (or are scared by the security experts), aren’t realizing the value, and have better things to do.
If Web 2.0 tools are to become common place on the corporate Web site and intranet (and open to general use by most if not all users and employees), Web site managers will have to continue to address bigger priorities first, including getting the attention of senior management with reliable intelligence and thorough business cases that support Web 2.0.
This article originally ran on Toby Ward's blog, Content Matters. Ward is the founder and CEO of Prescient Digital Media.
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When I read this article I nearly jumped for joy…WHY?
Learning what we are teaching and mastering this is going to give you such a HUGE advantage over corporate America! This really excite me because I know that if you take the time now and remove the distractions…and really learn this, you are going to be light years ahead and will be in the tops of your niches…
DON'T be scared of the competition everyone…They don't have a clue. This PROVES IT!…They will just be learning how to blog in a couple of years as you by then will be 2 years or more ahead of them 
Now go and tune into the conversation and learn what is being done on the social sites. Remember the key component is the "WORD OF MOUTH" concept in all of this…
convert this post to pdf.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Christopher // Mar 19, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Yea I’ve been “tuning into the conversation” for a little while now … and I’m finding lots of encouraging news.
With this article … there needs to be a jump for joy for people. I don’t think many people will give a hoot because they don’t stop and gawk at the fact that today, any single one of us is as capable as a Chief Executive Officer from a productive standpoint.
That we have as the same potential value the potential to produce that kind of value. And if you haven’t picked up on it yet … that value is to the tune of six figures or more.
This is something that I’m definitely gonna be talking about in Merchantology because it tunes that awareness for a greater business mind.
2 Walt Goshert // Mar 19, 2008 at 6:03 pm
As small business owners, we’re in a position to run circles around corporations working by committee, waiting for legal approval.
Also, corporations have a huge investment in “Old-School” advertising and marketing.
NOW is the Time to Rock!
Walt
P.S.— All the corporations think Word-of-Mouth is some kind of new marketing trick. Word-of-mouth has been around since the first merchants of Egypt began trading and doing business.
3 John Barnett // Mar 19, 2008 at 7:03 pm
I used to work for a large British electronics retailer on their IT helpdesk.
2.0 was BANNED sor 2 reasons.
1. They said chat rooms, bookmarking etc lost production time and extended breaks.
2. security would be compromised.
No downloading, no uploading, the only social interaction we got was the team leader was allowed to place an online order to the local Kebab shop.
Getting the corporate world to respond is like trying to turn an oil tanker. by the time you’ve done it, the small ships have grabbed all the best berths.
Great news for us all.
4 Derek Bowler // Mar 19, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Web 2.0 and the Internet is finally allowing the people on the street to finally find out what’s true and whats false , eventually they will turn to their favourite or trusted website instead of the mainline media. (This is already happening in a big way).
People are’nt stupid it’s just they are treated that way !
As my niche has been in the financial area for years, (more of a hobby up until now - yes please click my link for your benefit), I can certainly testify there is more genuine knowledge and help from Communities and Websites than the “Street Media”.
People are becoming more knowledgeable which is great for us but not so for the corporations.
“Knowledge is the foundation of ALL Wealth”
You only have to look at Ron Paul who was totally ignored by the Media (can’t have an honest guy running around), who in one day raised the record amount of money ever by a candidate, mainly because of his support from the internet.
As John said - “Great news for us ALL”
Derek Bowler
5 Drew // Mar 19, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Wow! and WOW! again. If this doesn’t light the fire under us to dig deep into the research project and select a viable niche, then nothing ever will. The corporate world could not make a snap decision if their collective lives depended on it. Let’s take advantage while they still sleep.
6 Lucinda // Mar 19, 2008 at 10:16 pm
I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine who is a brick and mortar business owner. He was complaining about the drop in the number of calls the receptionist was getting for new business.
I suggested that he have the receptionist use her “down time” between calls to implement a social marketing campaign to drive regionally targeted traffic to the company website.
He LAUGHED at me! It was just too much for him to grasp that it would be a good use of the time his receptionist was waiting for the phone to ring to promote his business online via social networks because “only teenagers and college kids frequent those sites.”
Now it was my turn to laugh - but in the end I was unable to convince him to give it a try.
Yes, those of us who understand the power of social networks, and learn to harness that power to our advantage, will be in the enviable position of looking down from the top at those who are suddenly scrambling to climb on board the ladder to success.
7 Sam // Mar 20, 2008 at 3:24 am
Lucinda, I own a web development company.. http://northeastwebdevelopment.com and struggled to lift it off in my local market due to the fact that spending $8000.00 on a local Yellow page ad is just WAY more effective that upgrading my website that is 6 years old and was made by my teenagers friend. CHECK PLEASE! I am leaving Now….
I can feel your pain … but hey the saying goes…”those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still”
I got tired of trying to educate my local market only to have them go back to their un-trackable local newspaper ads they are running..
O well, that is why I am here now instead of out there
It is much more cozy and warm in here anyways!
8 John_sydney // Mar 20, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Great article!
I totally understand that 45% in testing mode!And in the field of education (I teach at tertiary level) it is even worse!
Most teachers seem to understand there is value in Web 2.0, but just don’t know how to approach it!
So that is another important dimension - teachers just don’t know what to do with it!
It is the younger generation and the open-minded creative few who are leading the way!
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