HorizonWatching

Culture Plays A Big Part In Social Business Adoption

A couple colleagues recently reached out to me on the topic of how best to implement social business within a mature company.  Some employees seem to flock to the latest collaboration and social technologies on their own.  Most employees seem unsure why they should be using these technologies and how to go about getting started.   Finally, some employees want to avoid social and collaboration technologies at all costs.

The fact is that emerging technologies do get a lot of hype and sometimes leaders decide to implement these new hyped technologies without the proper understanding of the change that will be required in business processes and what the impact that will have on employees.

The bottom line for me with any new emerging technology...whether it is is analytics, cloud computing, or social business is that successful implementations of new technologies must have three strategy elements integrated and in place 1) Technology Strategy (the new emerging applications and tools)  2) People Strategy (changes to skills, organization, and culture) 3)  Business Process Strategy (changes to tasks, activities, etc.). 

Too often I see a focus on the technology strategy too much without a focus on the other two.  It's like a three legged stool....if one or two legs are bad the stool falls down.   The business leader must focus on having the proper people and processes in place and that often depends on the culture that business leader develops and promotes within the organization.  Leaders who give the green light to implementing new technologies without understanding the impact on people and processes, will only see those technology initiatives fail.

So my message and advice is that culture does play a big part in implementing change within a mature corporation.  In my mind, culture change is the responsibility of our business leaders and therefore leaders should not implement new emerging technologies unless they understand the impact on people and processes.

Regarding the topic of implementing social business and the cultural implications of doing so, I’ve developed a list of links for those of you who would like to read up more on this topic.  Enjoy.

• IBM:  The New Collaboration:  Enabling innovation, changing the workplace
• IBM:  The Social Business:  Advent of a new age
• Book:  IBM Press Planning and Implementing Social Software for your Enterprise
• IDC:  Social Business Framework:  Using People as a Platform to Enable Transformation
• IDC:  Becoming a Social Business:  The IBM Story
• Dachis Group:  Social Business Design
• Case Study:   Alstom - People and Process First.  Technology Second
• Linkage White Paper:  Social Media:  Finding Its Way into Your Business Strategy and Culture
• Tieto White Paper:  Transforming in a social business
• Book Chapter:   Leader Does as Culture Is
• Book:  http://www.thecultureofcollaboration.com/ a book by Evan Rosen.  Evan blogs also at http://collaborationblog.typepad.com/
• Blog Post:  Social Business Impacts People, Process, & Technology

For more information on the Social Business trend itself, check out my other Social Business related blog posts

Learning about the Social Business trend: Three IBM White Papers

I’ve written before about the social business trend and it’s impact on businesses (see The Social Business Train Is Leaving The Station Are You On It? and A Social Business Strategy Can Make A Company More Responsive and Agile). 

I believe that the social business trend will have a profound impact on the architecture and design of future businesses.  Business processes will change and that will lead to required changes in application software.  Those businesses that make the successful transition will be more agile, more responsive, and more successful than others.

This post provides links to three white papers found on IBM’s Social Business website.  IBM has been on the forefront of the social collaboration and social media marketplace, learning how to leverage these technologies internally.  These white papers provide a great overview of social business, the potential value of the trend, and the challenges all businesses must overcome to become a true social business.

The Social Business: advent of a new age

(February 2011) This 10 page white paper written by the Lotus team at IBM Software Group defines what a social business is and what it takes to become one.  It puts forth the view that businesses are entering an inflection point where social computing and social media are about to be fully integrated into enterprise application design.  The table of contents are: 

• Introduction
• What does it mean to be a Social Business?
• What is the value of Social Business?
  • Deepen customer Relationships
  • Drive operational efficiencies
  • Optimize the workforce
• Preparing for the future
• The right partner for a changing world
• For more information

Becoming a Social Business: the IBM story

January 2011)  This IBM-sponsored 14 page white paper was written by IDC’s Erin Traudt and Richard Vancil.  In this paper, IDC provides three case studies that describe IBM's internal evolution to a social business.  The paper then uses the learnings from these case studies in order to provide guidance to other large organizations considering making the transformation to a social business.  

• IDC Opinion
• Methodology
• In This White Paper
• Situation Overview
• Case Studies
  • IBM DeveloperWorks
  • From Individual Contributor to Community Manager
  • BlueIQ
• Future Outlook
• Challenges / Opportunities
• Conclusion

 

Jamming on social business

(April 2011) Exploring new approaches for the next era of business.  This IBM white paper provides a review of the key findings from a 72-hour online brainstorming session held in February 2011 between over 2,700 participants from over 80 countries.  This report summarizes the key insights gathered from the all the conversations, comments, and tweets. 

The table of the contents of this report reads as follows:

• The Social Business Jam
• What is a Jam?
• Jam insights
  • Building the social business of the future
  • Building participatory organizations through social adoption
  • Using social media to understand and engage with customers
  • What social means for IT
  • Identifying risks and establishing governance
• Our jamming experience
• Next Steps

If you are tasked with learning about the social business trend, these three white papers are an excellent resource for you.  More information and case studies can be found at the IBM Social Business website.  For those of you who want to follow the discussion on Twitter, search on the hashtag #socbiz.

A Primer on the Website Personalization Trend

The Personalized Web will be driven by analytic engines that will integrate data from many sources in order to present an online experienced tailored to each user.

Thanks to the explosion of social media, how users are influenced, consume information, and make purchasing decisions has been altered forever.  Users are increasingly expecting company websites, products, and services to be tailored to their individual preferences, past experiences, and what they happen to be doing at this very moment.  This puts the demand on business and IT leaders to create a personalized and engaging experience for end-users across all channels, both online and offline. 

                Unica: The State of Marketing 2010 (link)

Users want to their experience to be customized:

• Returning visitors to a web site want to see a page based on all the information collected from previous visits.  Businesses should present personalized sites to these customers by organizing information and prioritizing it based on the individual's liking.  Products and services offered on those pages will be pre-configured.
• “Anonymous” visitors to websites should get customized messages based on the referring URL, search terms, geo-location and any other insights. 

In 2011, I expect business leaders to focus on advanced solutions that can delivering a more personalized experience to end users.  These solutions will be designed to mine the user profile, buying behavior, browsing behavior and other insights obtained through marketing analytics in order to deliver a more customized and personalized online experience.  Look for further improvements in technologies such as marketing analytics and predictive algorithms that can automatically deliver highly relevant, contextually aware, personalized content and recommendations to customers via both online and offline channels. I also expect the personalization trend to be extended beyond the website to other digital channels, including social media marketing, mobile marketing, and email marketing.

One other point, the personalization trend is not only about presenting personalized pages to users of sales and marketing processes. All business application users can benefit from web sites and applications that present information that is personalized to the user. 

The rest of this post provides you with some background information on the trend, some quotes from the marketplace, and a bunch of links to additional reading information.

Trend Drivers

• Individuals want content that is personalized and is relevant to why they are on a particular website at a given time /
• New analytic capability

Trend Inhibitors/Challenges

• Integrating offline as well as online behaviour
• Need to build and retain complete profile data
• Privacy issues

Trend Implications

• New business processes and skills required
• Need to track individual’s interactions and transactions across all channels, in order to provide the best offer or communication.
• Messaging plans can be tailored to interests and preferences of each individual.

Quotes from the Marketplace: 

“Emerging context-enriched services will use location, presence, social attributes and other environmental information to anticipate an end user's immediate needs, offering more-sophisticated, situation-aware and usable functions” - Gartner (link)

“Marketers are focused on making their communications more timely and relevant to recipients. To do that, they need to build communications around the interests and preferences of each individual customer or prospect. “ - Unica, Sept. 2010 (link)

“Personalized product recommendations are proven to consistently increase sales, conversion rates, average order value and customer retention“ - Coremetrics, Oct 2010 (link)

Featured Video

Personalising the Web Experience - Unica Video

For More Information

Here are some sites where you will find links to other learning resources like white papers, demos, customer briefs, and videos

• Coremetrics:  Personalization and Build Lift and Loyalty With Personalizd Product Recommendations
• BusinessWeek:  CEO Guide to Context-Aware Technology and Artificial Intelligence
• Forrester:  Personalization (search) and Web Analytics
• Gartner:  Context-Aware Computing
• IBM Web Experience and Developerworks:  Building a Context-Aware Service Architecture
• Unica Webinar: Achieving Interactive Marketing Success
• Wikipedia:  Personalization and Adaptive Hypermedia and Recommendation System and Context Awareness and Personalized Marketing

More Information From ibm.com

• IBM Customer Experience product page.
• Coremetrics Intelligent Offer tm 7: website
• Coremetrics Resources Page: page full or resources / links
• Coremetrics: Best Practices for True Online Marketing Personalization – 1 hour recorded webinar
• Unica Enterprise – Product page
• Unica Resources – A page full of resources/links
• Web site personalization Although written in 2001, it is still a good read.

You Are Invited To The Social Business Jam

Last week, I posted about the emergence of the Social Business term to represent the next stage in how companies are using social and collaboration technologies in order to conduct business.  My post “The Social Business Train Is Leaving The Station Are You On It?” provides an overview of the trend and makes the case for why it is important.

As a follow-up, I wanted you to be aware of the Social Business Jam.  On February 8-11, 2011 IBM will host the Social Business Jam (www.ibm.com/social/businessjam).  Should you register, you will have the opportunity to collaborate with leading experts on topics such as:

• Building the Social Business of the Future
• Building Participatory Organizations Through Social Adoption
• Using Social to Understand and Engage with Customers
• What does Social mean for IT?
• Identifying Risks and Establishing Governance

I will be jamming…along with some leading Social Business experts, including:

• Charlene Li, Founder of Altimeter Group, Author of “Groundswell”
• Mei Li Tan, CMO, Treasury & Trade Solutions, Citigroup
• Steve Wylie, GM of Enterprise 2.0 Conference
• Vittorio Cretella, CIO, Mars Inc.

Join me in the Jam.  Should be an interesting discussion.  It all starts February 8th, so register NOW!!!  www.ibm.com/social/businessjam. 

For those of you on Twitter, we’ll be using the hashtag #sbjam 

The Social Business Train Is Leaving The Station: Are You On It?

I expect the Social Business topic to be among the most talked about trends in 2011…and all that buzz is justified.    In fact, the buzz will kickoff next week as IBM conducts it’s Social Business Jam February 8-11, 2011.  I’ll post more about the Jam next week, but for now, head on over to http://www-01.ibm.com/software/info/social_business_jam/ and register for the Jam. 

Social collaboration is changing the way business is being conducted. Enterprise processes are being transformed by social technologies. Over the next 10-15 years, social computing capability will becomes part of every business function within the company.  I fully expect that social capabilities will become embedded in every single website, computing device for every participant in every single business transaction. 

In the future, all participants involved in a company’s business processes and transactions will have the ability to share content, comment on content, rate/vote on content, and collaborate in an open and sharing environment.  In addition, all this social activity will generate data that will be mined and analyzed in both batch and in real-time.  The insights generated will be a critical input into all business processes, including research, product development, marketing, sales, technical support, and even business processes like accounting, procurement, and legal. 

Since social will eventually be embedded in every business process and transaction workflow, social computing capability will need to be a critical part of every business application.  As a result, I expect entire business application suites will be rewritten to make use of social collaboration features.

Analyst Perspectives

“The social business model is changing the way companies generate and conduct business online, and IDC believes that this model will have a long-lasting impact“ - IDC (link)

“Social Technologies Will Drive The Next Wave Of BPM Suites” - Forrester (link)

“Just as the Internet had a disruptive impact on organizations' processes and business models at the beginning of the decade, today social media is changing the way business is conducted”. - Gartner (Link)

“Business application vendors are integrating social features into their applications and the dividing lines between transactional tools and social environments are fading.” - Gartner (Link)

“To optimize investments, competencies, and outcome, it is essential that enterprises establish a shared understanding of social technologies and trends, coordinate strategies and initiatives, and leverage investments.“ - Gartner (Link)

Implications

• This will require a cultural transformation within most older, established companies.
• Business leaders must realize that 80% of success of social business efforts will come from strategy, planning, roles, and processes — only 20% will come from the technology platform.
• The path to a Social Business requires definition, education, and career paths.
• Centralized implementation may be required for company-wide social tools, standards, policies and practices
• Social capabilities will become embedded in every single website, computing device for every participant in every single business transaction. 

An important thing to realize is that the success of implementing social technologies into mature businesses will be how well business leaders can lead a cultural transformation in order to leverage these new social technologies.  Business leaders must realize that 80% of success of social business efforts will come from strategy, planning, roles, and processes — only 20% will come from the technology platform. All these new capabilities will require new Career Paths and Education tailored to the new social technologies. 

The Social Business Train Is Leaving The Station….are you on it yet?

For More Information

• BusinessWeek:  Social Media Marketing and  Collaborative Management
• CIO.com:  Web 2.0 and Collaboration
• Forrester: social (search) and Enterprise Collaboration
• Gartner:  Business Gets Social 
• IBM:  Collaboration Solutions and 2011 Social Business Jam 
• IDC:  Enterprise Collaboration and Social Solutions
• InfoTech:  Collaboration & Teamware and Business Process, Workflow & Forms Automation
• InfoWorld:  Collaboration
• Wikipedia:  Social Computing
• Video: Gartner – Business Gets Social (link)
• Altimeter, Nov 2010 (link)
• Dachis Group: The 2010 Social Business Landscape (link)

Cloud Computing Is Enabling The Next Phase Of The Internet Evolution

Carlota Perez wrote a book titled “Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital” (2002) that is a real interesting read.  Perez says that there have been five historical waves of economic and social transformation in the developed economies of the world. Each of these waves have what she calls an Installation phase followed by a crash of some sort and then a Deployment period. 

Perez says that our global economy has now entered the deployment phase of the fifth technology investment cycle, which she says is the Age of Information and Telecommunications (see embedded picture).  Perez says that this will be a period of adjustment when novel business models will exploit the new IT infrastructure that is now being put in place that enable more porous, open, collaborative approaches that seek to leverage the economics and flexibility of global sourcing.  She expects enterprises of all sizes will employ technology to help them transform their business models, processes and operations.

As mentioned, Perez says we are entering this Deployment phase. As we do there are some key characteristics across our global economy that is impacting how this phase develops. The firms that will succeed are the firms that will embrace these characteristics and the change that is happening in order to innovate and leapfrog competition.

Important characteristics of our global economy includes:

• A level, global economic playing field presents new opportunities, challenges and competitive technologies
• New technologies, services and skills are emerging…and they are quickly being integrated into every aspect of business and everyday life
• The pace of change is dramatically compressing “windows of opportunity” for real competitive advantage.
• Billions of skilled people are entering the world’s economy, fundamentally transforming the mix of the global workforce
• The interconnected nature of our world’s economy means businesses must be prepared to respond to – and capitalize on – changes in real time, with unprecedented flexibility.

While all this is happening, we are moving into what I believe is the third stage of the Internet. Call it Web 3.0 or whatever you wish, but cloud computing is perhaps the most important technology.  In fact, I believe that cloud computing is the key enabling technology for this next technological wave and the next phase in the evolution of the Internet.

Back in the mid to late 1990s companies were just concerned with getting websites up so they could have a presence on the Internet. It was all about providing very basic information to the public. But soon the so called e-commerce trend arose and business was being conducted on the Internet. Then Web 2.0 came into play and all users realized that they could share their ideas, create content, and collaborate online.  We are now well into this next phase of the evolution where the enabling technologies will be cloud, analytics, mobile, video, and semantic capabilities.  This so called Web 3.0 phase will provide applications that are much more immersive, social, and collaborative in nature.  Combined that with an explosion of networked sensors and advanced predictive analytic and all the Smarter Planet initiatives will become a reality. 

But the most important enabler will be the combination of private and public cloud computing infrastructures that will be the ‘engine’ of the future Internet.

Enterprise 2.0: The Value of Online Communities

The trend of building online Communities of Practices and Customer Communities is an important trend I’ve been watching (and leading/participating in) for a number of years.  I often get asked:  What is the business value of online communities? 

Unfortunately community platforms are lacking tools for community leaders that would allow us to track and measure the impact that these communities have on business results.  So it is a very subjective measurement today.  Note to community platform vendors:  Community Leaders need better dashboard tools.

I have established a graphic that I use to explain the power of communities and the value it can generate to an enterprise.  The story line to the graphic goes something like this:  Community Participation leads to increased Enterprise Knowledge, which leads to improved Organizational Capabilities, which results in positive Business Value for enterprises.  

Here’s my stab at a graphic (Note:  Click on the picture to enlarge and reformat)

(Click on picture to enlarge) 

Do you have any better graphics, reports, or slide decks that illustrate the business value of communities?  If so, please let me know!   For some resources I’ve uncovered on the value and ROI of social media and online communities, check out my previous post:  Learning About The ROI of Social Media and Online Communities

Social Media Case Studies and Lessons Learned

Want to learn more about how other companies have leveraged social media to help them achieve their business objectives and goals? 

This post provides links to resources, blog posts, and articles that can help you understand just how transformational social media can be to helping businesses increase growth and/or drive productivity to improve the bottom line.  I’ve included links to lots of case studies and examples that can help you find ways to embed social computing into the framework of every enterprise business process.  Learn from case studies and lessons of others that have already experimented with social media.

I’ve categorized the resources found below into four sections:

1. Marketing Case Studies and Lessons
2. Customer Service Case Studies and Lessons
3. Product Development Case Studies and Lessons
4. General Case Studies and Lessons 

I hope you explore the links, learn from them, and then develop your own social computing strategies.  Enjoy!

Marketing Case Studies and Lessons

• BusinessWeek:  Why Social Media Is Worth Small Business Owners' Time
• ClickZ:  A Social Media Strategy Checklist
• Forrester:  Defining Your B2B Social Media Strategy
• Hub Spot:  6 Social Media Marketing Case Study Lessons
• Ignite Social Media: 26 Social Media Marketing Examples in Detail
• Influential Marketing Blog:  9 marketing lessons of the pink ribbon Cancer campaign
• Jeremiah Owyang:  50 Ways to use Social Media, listed by Objective
• Online Marketing Blog:  25 Must Read Social Marketing Tips 
• Mashable:  The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration
• Mashable:  5 Advanced Social Media Marketing Strategies for Small Business
• Mashable:  3 Things You Need to Know About Social Media Strategy
• Mashable:  7 Things to Consider for Social Media in the Enterprise
• Mashable:  4 Ways Social Media is Changing Business
• Peter Kim: A List of Social Media Marketing Examples
• Peter Kim:  Analysis of a wiki of social media marketing examples
• Search Engine Watch:  Developing a Social Media Strategy 101, Part 1 -
• Search Engine Watch:  Developing a Social Media Strategy 101, Part 2
• Small Company, Big Image:  8 Reasons to Build a Community For Your Products & Services

Customer Service Case Studies and Lessons

• CRM Magazine:  The 7 Benefits of Online Customer Service Communities
• CRM Daily:  Twitter Can Help With Customer Service
• EBayInk:  EBay Motors Launches Customer Service Twitter Account
• Forrester:  Five Strategies for Customer Service Social Media Excellence 
• FreshNetworks:  Social media and customer service – some examples
• Mashable:  How to use Twitter for Customer Service
• Social Media Explorer:  Exploring Customer Service Efforts Using Twitter
• Techcrunch:  Best Buy Goes All Twitter Crazy With @Twelpforce 
• USA Today:  Social Media like Twitter change customer service
• And… a few example Customer Service Twitter IDs
• Ford: http://twitter.com/FordCustService
• Comcast http://twitter.com/comcastcares
• UPS: http://twitter.com/ThomasAtUPS
• Best Buy: http://twitter.com/twelpforce
• Starbucks: http://twitter.com/starbucks
• Southwest Air:  http://twitter.com/southwestair

Product Development Case Studies and Lessons

• Blog:  Social Product Development
• Clarity on PLM:  Going Social with Product Development
• Clarity on PLM:  Social Computing and Product Collaboration “2.0″
• Sandy Carter’s Blog:  Coach Crowd-Sourced Product Development
• Talkibie:  Starbucks leads the social product development trend Talkibie
• Wikinomics:   CL!CK – LEGO's Fun Social Product Development Platform

General Case Studies and Lessons

• AriWriter:  Case studies of four brands using social media
• Business Week:  Brands that Tweet
• Blonde 2.0:  Starbucks' Formula to Social Media Success
• Forrester:  Winners of the 2009 Forrester Groundswell Awards and 2008 Winners and 2007 Winners
• Ignite Social Media: Top 50 Branded Facebook Fan Pages of 2009
• Mashable:  5 Small Businesses Successfully Using Social Media
• Mashable: 40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them
• Mashable:  5 Ways Banks Are Using Social Media
• Search Engine Journal: 16 Examples of Huge Brands Using Twitter for Business
• Social Media B2B: 10 Examples of B2B Facebook Fan Pages
• Social Media Governance:  117 Social Media Policies
• Social Media Marketing:  Dairy queen: how it uses social media
• Social Media Today: Five examples of innovation with Twitter
• WOMMA:  Case Study Library

Top 50 CIO and IT Leaders in the Social Media

Yesterday my post here was titled 2009 CIO Award Winners Are Not Embracing Social Media.  In that post I provided the results of some research I did to understand if CIOs and IT Leaders who had received Industry related awards in 2009 were participating in the social media.  I found that those award winners I did research on had not embraced the social media trend.

Today, I provide the other end of the spectrum:  The Top 50 CIO and IT Leaders in the Social Media. 

For this post, I set out to find those practicing CIOs, CTOs, and IT Leaders who have embraced the social media with passion.  I scoured the Net to find CIO’s that are blogging and tweeting about issues and events that are important to CIOs and the IT industry in general.  These are the CIOs that are actively creating and participating in discussions in the social media.  They are sharing their experiences and ideas in the public Internet, instead of holding these experiences and ideas to themselves.

In addition to the blogging and tweeting, I was also interested in finding CIOs that were actively building their LinkedIn profile and connecting with others through LinkedIn.  

I found about 65 CIOs during my research.  I then developed a ranking system by scoring CIOs on a number of criteria, including the currency and frequency of their blog posts, the richness of their LinkedIn profile, and their participation on Twitter.  A quick sort by the total score and I have a list of the top 50 as displayed below.

Some stats from the list of 50.

• 80% of those on the list are blogging on a public website.
• 92% are actively using Twitter
• 96% have a LinkedIn profile
• 66% are on Facebook (note:  Facebook usage did not enter into my scoring and ranking system)

So here is the list of the top 50 CIO and IT Leaders I came up with.  I’ve provided links to their Blogs, their Twitter IDs, and their LinkedIn Profiles.  I encourage you to explore those links and learn from their posts and tweets.  More importantly, I encourage you to  participate in the discussions they are having by commenting on their blogs and responding to their tweets.  Perhaps they will even inspire you to start blogging or tweeting your ideas and thoughts about the important issues facing CIOs today.

Top 50 CIO and IT Leaders in Social Media

		Name	Title/Industry/Social Sites
1		John Moore	CTO, and SVP of Engineering at Swimfish Industry:  Technology   LinkedIn:  John Moore Blog:  John Moore's Weblog Twitter: JohnFMoore
2		Phil Windley, Ph.D	CTO, Kynetx Industry:  Technology LinkedIn:  Phil Windley Blog:  Windley’s Techometria Twitter: windley
3		Bob Gourley	CTO and founder of Crucial Point LLC Industry:  Technology LinkedIn:  Bob Gourley Blog:  CTOvision.com Twitter: bobgourley
3		Andy Blumenthal	CTO, Bureau of ATF Industry:  Government LinkedIn:  Andy Blumenthal Blog:  Andy Blumenthal Twitter: totalcio
5		John Halamka, MD	CIO, Harvard Industry:  Healthcare LinkedIn:  John Halamka Blog:  Healthcare CIO Twitter: jhalamka
6		Chuck Musciano	CIO at Martin Marietta Materials Industry:  Manufacturing/Aerospace LinkedIn:  Chuck Musciano Blog:  The Effective CIO Twitter: EffectiveCIO
6		Werner Vogels	CTO, Amazon.com Industry:  Technology LinkedIn:  Werner Vogels Blog:  All Things Distributed Twitter: werner
6		Andrew Hoppin	CIO, New York State Senate Industry:    Government LinkedIn:  Andrew Hoppin Blog:  globehoppin Twitter: ahoppin
9		Padmasree Warrior	CTO, Cisco Industry:  Technology LinkedIn:  n/a Blog:  CiscoCTO Blog Twitter: Padmasree
9		Shawn Riley	CTO, Austin Med. Cntr., Mayo Clinic Health System Industry:  Healthcare LinkedIn:  Shawn Riley Blog:  HealthTechnica Twitter: rilescat
11		Mark Cummuta	CIO @JobAngels Industry:  Consumer Services LinkedIn:  Mark Cummuta Blog:  CIO Job Search Twitter: TriumphCIO
11		Dave Fletcher	CIO, State of Utah Industry:  Government LinkedIn:  Dave Fletcher Blog:  Dave Fletcher's Gov. and Tech. Weblog Twitter: dfletcher
11		John David Son	CIO, Marshall County School District Industry:  Education LinkedIn:  John Son Blog:  CIO Corner Twitter: JDSCIO
11		Isaac Sacolick	VP, Technology, McGraw-Hill Industry:  Media LinkedIn:  Isaac Sacolick Blog:  Social, Agile, & Transformation Twitter: nyike
15		Steve Francia	CIO, Portero Industry:  Retail LinkedIn:  Steve Francia Blog:  spf13 Twitter: spf13
15		Tony Maro	CIO for EvriChart Industry:  Healthcare LinkedIn:  Tony Maro Blog:  OssRamblings.com Twitter: tonymaro
15		Mark A. Silver	CIO, Health Svcs Div., Siemens Healthcare USA Industry:  Healthcare LinkedIn:  Mark A. Silver Blog:  Social Media and Business Insights     Twitter: MarkSilver
15		Jim Haughwout	CIO, Neighborhood America (Florida) Industry:  Consumer Services LinkedIn:  Jim Haughwout Blog:  Ex·se·cu·tus Twitter: JHaughwout
19		Brian Blanchard	Chairman at St. Louis Innovation Camp Industry:  Technology LinkedIn:  Brian Blanchard Blog:  Dev Revival Twitter: BrianBlanchard
19		Chuck Hollis	VP and CTO of Marketing, EMC Industry:  Technology LinkedIn:  n/a Blog:  Chuck's blog Twitter: chuckhollis
19		Hubert Vaudaux	CTO at FBA (www.groupefb.fr) Industry:  Financial LinkedIn:  Hubert Vaudaux Blog:  HVaudaux Le Blog  Twitter: hvaudaux
19		Bill Schrier	CTO, City of Seattle Industry:    Government LinkedIn:  Bill Schrier Blog:  The Chief Seattle Geek Blog Twitter: billschrier
23		Casey Coleman	CIO, U.S. General Services Administration Industry:    Government LinkedIn:  Casey Coleman Blog:  Around the Corner Twitter: caseycoleman
23		Linda Cureton	CIO, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Industry:    Government LinkedIn:  Linda Cureton Blog:  Goddard-CIO-Blog Twitter: Curetonl
23		Mike Schaffner	Dir. IT, Cameron Industry:  Oil & Gas LinkedIn:  Mike Schaffner Blog:  Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms Twitter: MikeSchaffner
26		John McMillen	CIO, Graves County Schools in Mayfield, KY, USA Industry:    Education LinkedIn:  John D McMillen Blog:  Techucation Twitter: ujdmc
26		Peter Kretzman	CIO/CTO Industry:  Technology LinkedIn:  Peter Kretzman Blog:  CTO/CIO Perspectives Twitter: PeterKretzman
26		Nigel Fortlage	VP, IT at GHY International Industry:  Financial LinkedIn:  Nigel Fortlage Blog:  My Thoughts Twitter: nfortlage
26		Arun Manansingh	CIO, FusionLatina, LLC Industry:  Media LinkedIn:  Arun Manansingh Blog:  A CiO’s Voice Twitter: solus72
30		Colin Osburn	CIO at Intelligentz Corporation Industry:  Technology LinkedIn:  Colin Osburn Blog:  n/a Twitter: colinosburn
30		Will Weider	CIO, Affinity Health System Industry:  Healthcare LinkedIn:  Will Weider Blog:  Candid CIO Twitter: CandidCIO
32		Lev Gonick	VP, IT Services, Case Western Reserve Univ. Industry:    Education LinkedIn:  Lev Gonick Blog:  Bytes From Lev Twitter: lgonick
32		Ian Cohen	CIO, Jardine Lloyd Thompson plc Industry:  Financial LinkedIn:  Ian Cohen Blog:  The Accidental CIO Twitter: coe62
34		Paul Cheesbrough	CIO, Telegraph Media Group Industry:  Media LinkedIn:  Paul Cheesbrough Blog:  Paul Cheesbrough Twitter: paulcheesbrough
34		Stephen Gillett	CIO & GM of Digital Ventures, Starbucks Industry:  Retail LinkedIn:  Stephen Gillett Blog:  The Guild CIO Twitter: @stephengillett
36		Eric Egnet	CIO, Vitalize Consuilting Solutions Industry:  Healthcare LinkedIn:  Eric Egnet Blog:  In The Know CIO Twitter: InTheKnowCIO
36		Omri Tintpulver	CIO, Brunico Communications Industry:  Media LinkedIn: Omri Tintpulver Blog:  Omri Tintpulver Twitter: omri
36		John Suffolk	CIO, UK government Industry:    Government LinkedIn:  John Suffolk Blog:  John Suffolk - Government CIO Twitter: GovCIO
39		Chris Marsh	CIO, Aviacode Industry:  Healthcare LinkedIn:  Chris Marsh Blog:  n/a Twitter: theChrisMarsh
39		Katherine Coomb	CIO, Morrison Facilities Services Industry:  Services LinkedIn:  Katherine Coomb Blog:  Banking on IT Twitter: kat_woman
41		Vivek Kundra	CIO, US government Industry:    Government LinkedIn:  Vivek Kundra Blog:  IT Dashboard Twitter: VivekKundra
41		Dr. Andy Chun	CIO, City University of Hong Kong Industry:    Government LinkedIn:  Andy Chun Blog:  CIO's Blog Twitter: CityUCIO
41		Eachan Fletcher	CIO, Sporting Index Industry:  Leisure LinkedIn:  Eachan Fletcher Blog:  The Fletcher Project Twitter: n/a
44		Victor Fetter	Global VP, Dell Industry:  Technology LinkedIn:  Victor Fetter Blog:  n/a Twitter: vpfetter
44		Peter Birley	IT Dir., Brown Jacobson, LLP Industry:  Legal LinkedIn:  Peter Birley Blog:  CIO blog Twitter: birlep
44		Robert Carey	CIO, U.S. Navy Industry:    Government LinkedIn:  n/a Blog:  doncio Twitter: n/a
47		Janet Claggett	CIO, Richland County, S.C. Industry:  Government LinkedIn:  Janet Claggett Blog:  n/a Twitter: cio007
48		Steve Mannina	CIO Cook County Treasure's office Industry:    Government LinkedIn:  Steve Mannina Blog:  n/a Twitter: smannina
48		Scott Lowe	CIO, Westminster College (Fulton, Mo.) Industry:    Education LinkedIn:  Scott Lowe Blog:  n/a Twitter: scottdlowe
48		R. Todd Thomas	CIO, Austin Radiological Association Industry:  Healthcare LinkedIn:  R. Todd Thomas Blog:  n/a Twitter: thomast360

As you look through the list, you will see that there are more than a fair share of CIOs from Healthcare & Government on the list.  I’m not sure why, but that could be a question for further research.

2009 CIO Award Winners Are Not Embracing Social Media

I’ve been doing some research to support an article I am writing for an upcoming post to InfoBOOM on the topic of CIOs and the Social Media.   My article will provide some thoughts on what CIOs should be doing this year to begin to leverage the social computing trend.  That article will appear on InfoBOOM in mid March.

One of the things I was curious to find out was whether or not CIOs were embracing the public side of the social media trend.  I wanted to see if I could find evidence of CIOs, CTOs, and IT leaders who were participating in the public social networks.  Are there CIOs out there that are actively engaging in conversations and providing though leadership on topics that are important to CIOs?   So far I have found about 50 of them that are blogging, tweeting, and connecting on social sites. I will post that list in the next day or two as I finish my research, so watch for that post.

As I did this research, I decided to take a look at some of the CIO and IT leaders who received awards in 2009 to see if they had embraced the public side of social media. Every year, there are a number of organizations that hand out awards to top CIOs and IT leaders, each with slightly different criteria.  The question I was asking was were these award winners actively participating in the public discussions on topics that are important to CIOs and IT Leaders? 

So I picked two 2009 award lists and researched the award winners on each list.

1. The CIO Leadership Network’s 2009 Top 10 Leaders & Change Agents Award honored CIOs and senior IT executives “whose innovative responses to changing business needs have provided outstanding leadership in global IT management and have brought demonstrable business benefit to their organizations”.  
2. The CIO.com 2009 Ones to Watch Awards honored 25 “rising stars in IT—the senior staff destined to become the CIOs of the future—as identified and sponsored by the CIOs of today's leading organizations”.

I performed online searches of the 35 award winners to see if I could find evidence that they were participating in the public social media.  I looked for evidence that they were blogging, tweeting, commenting, or otherwise posting content that was being consumed in the social media. 

Of the 35 award winners, I could find no evidence that anyone was blogging or commenting on others blogs.  Only two of these award winners have Twitter IDs and both of them are not actively using Twitter.  It was encouraging to find that 29 out of the 35 did have profiles set up on LinkedIn, however, most of those profiles were lacking content.   I found less than half of them were on Facebook.

While I understand that blogging and tweeting might not be everyone’s ‘cup of tea’, I would have hoped I would find more of these award winners actively participating online and adding their voice to public conversations happening about subjects important to the IT industry.  There’s so much we could be learning from these award winners…and so much they could be learning as well. 

The social computing trend is a very significant trend that is quickly crossing over from the consumer market to enterprises.  Our future CIOs and IT leaders need to be embracing the social computing trend in order to understand it’s impact on business processes and the potential value it can bring to the enterprise. 

I’d like to see a higher percentage of these award winners experimenting with social media and sharing their thoughts on the future of the IT industry and the role of the CIO.