Thursday 10 July 2008

FT: Business is slow in taking up social networks

  I was quoted by Richard Donkin in today's Financial Times, talking about the disruptive nature of social networking:

"Jon Ingham, executive consultant at human resources consultancy, Strategic Dynamics, and author of Strategic Human Capital Management: Creating Value Through People , has become an extensive user of networking technology.

"I get a lot of work through existing relationships but I also find it comes through Web 2.0 technology, particularly the LinkedIn network that has proved useful for staying in touch with people overseas".

He shares my surprise that executives in the HR profession have been relatively slow to explore networking innovations outside the information technology sector.

A US online shoe retailer, Zappos.com, he says, has been using the Twitter network - sometimes described as a micro-blog - for staff collaboration and customer relations.

A US-based tax advisory company, H&R Block is similarly using Twitter to engage with customers - a refreshing change from the kind of sterile responses you often get in online customer communications."

 

I'll be posting on this over the next couple of days on the new Social Business.

 

 

5 comments:

  1. It's still an evolving trend and there are still some challenges to making social networking an effective tool within organizations. Beyond the wait-and-see game, I could see the necessity of social networks within organizations still being questioned. Useful, yes, but a necessity?

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  2. It is facinating this one. I think there is huge potential but there are also issues. Gen Y is growng up with the attention span of a goldfish. Multi-tasking is a myth and yet we play about with laptops, fones, blogs, websites and social networking sites etc more and more. Focus is becoming very difficult and for me ways of working will have to change to make this all work to increase productivity.ioaszkv

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  3. I have just spent a week with people who manage largish small businesses in the service sector. They feel social media is a luxury/risk though are willing to listen.

    I think social media applications will develop by osmosis. Somebody will start using it and gain traction. Allies and competitors will copy.

    Not sure I agree with Scott that Gen Y has limited attention span. I think the opposite. They take an entirely personal view of the world and are attending to their own agenda. That is not necessarily wrong but have a recurring question about their capacity to understand and create infrastructure - infrastructure blindness!

    I am very interested in where young people of today gain management and leadership experience. Where in the system can they say that they created opportunity for other people?

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  4. Thanks Erik, Scott and Jo - your comments are much appreciated. And yes, interesting times!

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