Recently, my Altimeter Group colleague Charlene Li and I published an ebook that revealed The Seven Success Factors of Social Business Strategy. To our pleasant surprise, the industry didn’t just react with positive feedback, but also with fantastic infographics that brought the core of the book to life. I wanted to share a few with you here. Over the years, we studied businesses endeavoring to master social media at various stages. We detailed our findings in our research report uncovering…
Twitter Files for IPO – What it means for users, investors, and social media
By now you’ve heard that Twitter IPO will fly soon. On the heels of its release of the controversial Conversations feature, Twitter announced, via a Tweet of course, a confidential S-1 filing for a planned IPO. In fact, just last week, I shared with ABC News that we needed to prepare for the inevitable. While many experts are jumping on their platforms to shout that it’s about time, many investors are smirking with clasped hands, understanding of course that in…
The Truth About How Social Media Has Impacted Employees
Guest post by Dan Schawbel (@DanSchawbel), a Gen Y career and workplace expert, the Founder of Millennial Branding and the author of the new book, Promote Yourself: The New Rules For Career Success (St. Martin’s Press). Back in 2007, I created the first social media position at EMC Corporation, a Fortune 200 technology company based outside of Boston, MA. Back then, selling the idea of social to the company was extremely tough because it was so new, management was afraid…
The Disconnect Between Aging Management and the Younger Workforce
Are you ready to connect your connected workforce? With all of the discussions around social media and how it improves the opportunity to engage customers and build more meaningful relationships, we tend to lose sight of another important group…employees. As technology impacts behavior and connects customers and businesses in new ways, the same is true for employees. With every new social and mobile network, every new smart device, and the materialization of trend after trend, people become increasingly informed, connected,…
3 short videos on innovation, surviving conferences and cringe-worthy career moments
Every now and then, I take a step back away from research, writing and the relentless barrage of disruption and innovation to go through my inbox, favorites, bookmarks, etc., to see what’s worth revisiting. To my surprise, I’d forgotten about three fun, short 60-second videos that I shot for LinkedIn on location at SXSW 2013. While short, I was thoughtful in my responses to three important yet diverse questions. As such, I’m hoping that they might either help or entertain…
SnapChat Targets Tweens with SnapKidz – Hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your husband…
Snapchat has yet to show any signs of self-destructing. In fact, it’s blowing up. Nielsen recently reported that Snapchat had more than 8 million unique users in May 2013 with adults on Nielsen’s U.S. panel accessing the app on average 34 times that month. Snapchat now sees 200 million snaps exchanged per day, up from 60 million in February. According to my good friend Jennifer Van Grove at CNET, that places Snapchat in the league of the majors. Facebook for…
Small Business Survey: Technology a Challenge and Opportunity, Steve Jobs Recognized as Idol
Did you know that the 23 million small businesses in America account for 54% of all U.S. sales? Did you know that small businesses provide 55% of all jobs and 66% of all net new jobs since the 1970s? While big business has eliminated four million jobs since 1990, small businesses added eight million. Why the focus on small business today? It’s National Small Business Week in the United States and to commemorate the occasion, I partnered with Cox Business…
Disruptive Selection: Nature’s Way of Weeding Out the Average Business
Disruption! It’s everywhere. I live in Silicon Valley where many say that the terms disrupt and disruption have become buzzwords. Pundits believe that the word is losing its promise and impact through the acts and examples of entrepreneurs and businesses that misuse the word to describe intentions rather than associating it with a desired or natural effect. In some of the startup meetings I attend for example, digital disruption is actually a stated business objective. Instead of “killing it” or…
Plugging into the Future of Humanity: Exploring the Human API
I had the opportunity to present at LeWeb in Paris, arguably Europe’s largest conference dedicated to the future of technology. The theme of the conference explored the Internet of Things, where devices and things connect to one another to perform certain tasks and/or track activities to improve what we already do or make possible what we’re trying to do. The Internet of Things is bigger than we may realize. We are experiencing a shift from a world of inanimate objects…
Content is King! Amazon Invests Millions In Original TV Shows…But Why?
My friend Tim Stenovec (@TimSteno) just published a great story on Amazon’s move to create original programming a la Netflix for The Huffington Post. He was kind enough to include me in his article (thank you Tim). He sent along a few questions as I was boarding my flight from NY to LA. As Tim was on deadline, I needed to send a thoughtful response as soon as I’d have the opportunity to turn my phone back on. The quote…
