Email Is Not Free - Tom Cochran. By Tom Cochran | 12:00 PM April 8, 2013 My job description does not include managing email flow. Yours probably doesn’t, either. But it’s increasingly a big part of the work we do. In fact, in a single week last fall, I received 511 emails and sent 284. Almost 160 emails a day is ridiculous. That same week, I further analyzed the activity in my inbox: 235 of my inbound emails were from people within the company, close to 46%.
These numbers were personally daunting, but I needed a more holistic view. Anecdotally this clearly affected our company’s efficiency, but we had all the data points to calculate the bottom-line financial impact. Upon further analysis, we learned that all of the departments had approximately the same volume of email, except for one. I have spent time at a startup, a large consulting firm, a small PR firm, and the White House. These traits were all present in our outlier group. This is what a digital office should be. Social Media Crises Has Many Points of Failure. How a Game Got Our Global Employees to Collaborate - Imran Sayeed and Naureen Meraj. By Imran Sayeed and Naureen Meraj | 7:00 AM February 19, 2013 VJ, an engineer in India working on a development project, is trying to resolve technical issues within a software application. Since the global consulting firm where he works employs thousands of other developers he can only assume there must be others who have faced this challenge, but doesn’t know where to start in reaching them.
Meanwhile, Olivia, a technical lead working in Boston, Massachusetts, recently solved a similar technical issue. What divides these two colleagues and prevents them from sharing this and hundreds of similar solutions? In today’s one-click-away world, employees often rely on well-intentioned yet complicated communication tools and platforms to reach distant colleagues. To solve a set of similar problems, our company launched such a collaboration environment, called Socially, in 2010. VJ and Olivia are a perfect example of this. Winner Circle: The Social Business VCs Who Achieved Material Events. The purpose of this post is to identify investors who have had a material event (IPO or acquisition) in the Social Business Software space.
Read my other posts in this series tagged VC. Our continued research over VCs and investors in the market continues, yesterday, I presented highlights at the Corporate Venturing Innovation conference, and showed the highlights to LPs and Corporate Bankers of who’s making bets –and who’s winning. The following data was also covered in PEHub, and generating interest from entrepreneurs seeking funding.
As an Industry Analyst, it’s key that we understand consumer behaviors, business adoption, and startups, but also funding patterns as they influence startup growth or stagnation. Scope of Research and Methods Definition of Social Business Software: SaaS based software companies that provide social software to corporations to use. Buddy Media (Acquisition) Buddy Media acquired for an estimated $689M (source), raised a total of. Open Research: How Complex Companies Scale Social Business.
Altimeter’s latest Open Research Report (download at will, share with attribution) is embedded below. This report features how large companies have scaled social business across their enterprise. Specific case studies include: Whole Foods puts local social engagement into the hands of store managers.General Motors organizes for social business internally, then supports regions.Amway empowers distributors yet maintains brand consistencyPUMA scales limited headcount for worldwide engagement I co-authored this report with my colleague Senior Researcher, Andrew Jones, who’s been involved in several reports with me and knows the market which we cover in a detailed way, and provides unique insights.
Scalable Social Business Tension Dynamics The interesting thing about this research is that corporations are beyond the ‘why’ social but are now focusing on integration and tying together with all customer interactions. Six Common Tension Dynamics as Companies Scale Social. Look Beyond Your "Social Media Presence" - Jacques Bughin. By Jacques Bughin | 1:00 PM January 16, 2013 A lot of companies congratulate themselves on having a “social media presence” — by which they mean a Twitter following and Facebook likes and a marketing plan that uses social networks.
But some 70% of the extra profit to be made through social technologies has nothing to do with marketing. It’s in areas of the company such as knowledge management, innovation, communication, and better integration with the supply chain. Examples of enterprise social-technology use are cropping up all the time: TD bank relies on a social network for employee communication, and at Unisys, social communities provide specialized expertise to resolve technical problems.
The Dutch telecommunications company KPN implemented social media to strengthen employees’ connections to others, but the technologies have taken on a life of their own, creating unexpected benefits in surprising places. Integration. Scale. Video: Scaling Your Social Business (Dreamforce Presentation) I was pleased to be a featured speaker at Dreamforce, to share Altimeter’s research on Social Business. My topic? To focus on how companies need to scale social business. I referenced the following Open Research (meaning you can download them) reports: Social Business Readiness, Career path of the Corporate Social Strategist, and Managing Social Media Proliferation, see all my Open Research on this tab. Key Agenda Points: Social business does not scale, companies are at risk for “Social Sanitation”Advanced companies scale with at least six programs:1) Get into a scalable formation now2) Enable business units (safely)3) Streamline workflow with tools4) Scale with peer to peer communities5) Grow an unpaid army of advocates6) Integrate in all manners Below you’ll find the video recording, and raw slides on slideshare.
Above: Video recording of presentation, with slides, see on YouTube Above: Slideshare slides, available for download or perusing.