Preparing for May 14 Panel discussion: social business inside IBM and KPBS

I'm putting the last-minute touches on the presentation I'll be giving on May 14 here in San Diego for the Business Marketing Association's Southern California Chapter. It's going to be an exciting conversation about how two very different organizations have internalized and launch social media initiatives inside and outside their organizations to transform the way they do business. It's always fun presenting not just this material, but also to do so at the recently renovated (and tres swanky) Hotel La Jolla.

The networking starts at 3 and the presentations by 3:30pm. I hope you can join us!

Social business: from midmarket curiosity to strategic imperative

A new article in IBM ForwardView, the newsletter for Midsized Businesses (100 to 1000 employees) came out recently that discussed how social business is no longer a fad or curiosity, but increasingly critical for business success. In particular, it can help midsized businesses be much more nimble in responding to market conditions faster than their Large Enterprise competitors. I was interviewed for the article, and you can read it in more detail here.

End-to-end marketing part 3: creative examples, good and bad

In the lead up to tomorrow's not-to-be-missed SoCal BMA event, “Increasing Profits by Delivering Great Customer Experience: The 6 Disciplines for Achieving the Full Business Potential" with Forrester Research's Kerry Bodine, the SoCal BMA chapter posted the 3rd and final chapter of my guest blog post, "End to end marketing part 3: creative examples good and bad". I hope you find it enlightening and comment-worthy :-)

End-to-end marketing part 2: marrying creativity with technology

As I mentioned earlier, I was very happy to be offered a guest post series on the Business Marketing Association's Southern California chapter's blog. Part 2 has now been published: "End-to-end marketing, marrying creativity with technology". I hope you find it interesting, and I look forward to your comments there or here!

Social Business, or social media from the inside out as well as outside in

I was delighted to be invited to be a panelist for the Business Marketing Association Southern California Chapter's discussion coming up May 14, "Internalizing and Launching your social media initiatives".  As part of my preparations, I've been catching up on some reading both within IBM on our own initiatives, but also how other B2B companies in particular have been doing lately on the social business front.

I found this post on the Forbes Blog, "Demolishing the Social Hype", that does a very good job of distillating why social business as an organizational transformation play is so much more than just using public social media in marketing efforts. Money quote:

To become an empowered social business is to inject the advantages of social media directly into the heart of your corporate DNA. That means recognizing it’s not only about having a fantastic Facebook page or a high profile Twitter account (though that might be part of the plan!). It’s about implementing the benefits social technology offers through the fabric of your business- not just the consumer facing ones. 

It jives very well with IBM's own definition of what it means to be a social business. You can see partly how IBM in particular is transforming itself socially, in this IT Briefcase Exclusive Interview: The Future of Social Business, with Ethan McCarty, Director of IBM Enterprise Social Strategy. One particular example is the IBM Voices initiative:

IBM Voices is a visual example of the convergence of IBM’s brand and culture. It is a real-time data service that showcases live social feeds of IBMers who are experts in big data, mobile enterprise, social business, cloud computing, cognitive computing and much more. Voices then marries the individuals’ thoughts with IBM’s company feeds (@IBM, @SmarterPlanet, @IBMResearch) etc.), as well as a word cloud that shows visitors what’s trending via data visualization technology originating from IBM Research.
Voices instantiates IBM’s values-led culture and massive social media footprint.

This is in addition to the already-extensive use of social technologies inside of IBM, which has grown multi-fold since early adopters created the first IBM Social Computing Guidelines from the ground up in 2005:

...more than 400,000 IBMers use IBM social technologies [internally], including IBM Connections, our industry leading social business platform. As a result, more than 130,000 communities have been developed, 842,000 files shared globally have generated more than 22.1 million downloads. Every day, IBM generates 50 million instant message chats.

Lots of great material for the May 14 SoCalBMA Panel Discussion!

email gets social - it's about time

Just finished another March 13 IBM broadcast post-event wrap up, this time for the Social Business User Group blog. Enjoy (free registration required).

IBM March 13 Social Business Broadcast post-event podcast

With the replay of the March 13 IBM Broadcast that I've been so focused on, "From liking to leading: transforming your business with the right social business platform", now posted, it's time for some catching up. Specifically, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by the Social Business User Group for a post-event recap podcast (free community registration required).

I would love your comments and questions!