By Christopher Rollyson  Steve Shimek, SVP at PR firm Ruder Finn, claims that he has generated $250,000 in new business by developing relationships via LinkedIn. Specifically, he references LinkedIn Answers, in which executives post questions and the LinkedIn community of experts responds to them. Prospects post questions “in their own words,” unvarnished, and they ask for help and advice.
LinkedIn Answers is a golden opportunity for other LinkedIn members to help one another while showing their expertise–to the person who asked the question and to other members. It is particularly well suited for professional services marketing, which features thought leadership and expertise and education of prospects. Continue reading LinkedIn Case Study and ROI: Business Development in Professional Services
By Christopher Rollyson As a line executive and management consultant, I’ve had the benefit of being involved with and leading projects dedicated to maximizing the value of people using (information) technology. One of the most consistent pitfalls I’ve seen over the years while innovating with technology is that technology enthusiasts fall in love with/are curious about a technology, and they want to play with it, so they argue about which technology to choose (this especially happens with technologies).
Web 2.0 is no different in this regard, and you might find yourself party to a struggle that sounds like, “We need a blog.” “No, we need a wiki!” “Blog!!” “Wiki!!!”(repeat as desired ,^). It might also take the form of vendor religious wars: enterprise bolt-on vendor (SharePoint, Connections) vs. pureplay (Small World Labs, Neighborhood America). Here we will discuss some of the key symptoms and how you can break the logjam when you find yourself in one of these predicaments.
By Christopher Rollyson Social Networking Innovations in Interactive Learning, Registration
Executive seminars seek motivated people to use LinkedIn to change the rules
 Following its successful debut this spring and summer with “Classroom Seminars” with 60-75 participants, the Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn will debut a new option in executive learning on October 9 at Chicago’s TechNexus. Dubbed “Collaborative Seminars,” the new series applies social networking to all aspects of the seminars: the sessions themselves are focused on selecting relatively small (maximum 25) groups of participants so that leader Christopher Rollyson can focus on facilitating group interaction as well as LinkedIn best practices.
One of our explicit goals is increasing trust among participants, so they will be able to support each other during and after the seminar, Rollyson said. This is critical after the seminar as well because Alumni continue their learning in our online community. Each highly engaged motivated alum adds to the strength of the community.
Continue reading The Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn’s New Seminars Feature Social Networking
By Christopher Rollyson The Social Network Roadmap(SM) enables enterprises to understand and engage the emerging Web 2.0 ecosystem that is growing up around them. At the highest level, engagement requires perceiving the ecosystem accurately and knowing how to communicate with it.
The Web 2.0 Ecosystem Audit helps to see and understand the ecosystem, and the Web 2.0 Readiness Assessment addresses how the organization can best engage stakeholders in the ecosystem.
Continue reading Beta Program: The Web 2.0 Readiness Assessment
By Christopher Rollyson An increasingly tangible Web 2.0 ecosystem is growing up around all organizations, but they don’t know what it looks like, much less how to engage it. This is a looming problem that most businesses don’t know they have: their executives spend little time in Web 2.0 venues like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc., and they have no idea of how word of mouth is starting to change their businesses.
As a friend said poetically last week, “Quit pretending that people aren’t talking about you.”
Continue reading Beta Program: The Web 2.0 Ecosystem Audit
By Christopher Rollyson  Today an executive asked me to explain the value of Twitter versus voice mail for a particular mobility use case: she is at a business gathering and talking to “Jack,” someone whom “Barbara,” a friend of hers would like to meet (Barbara isn’t at the gathering but might be able to come by). Should she voice mail or send Barbara a tweet with the Jack’s information and willingness to connect? Read on to understand some of the nuances and virtues of microblogging (Twitter), SMS (short message service, or “text” messages in U.S. parlance) and voice mail.
Continue reading Leaving Messages: Comparing Twitter, Text Messaging and Voice Mail
By Christopher Rollyson  Mashable’s article, Biz Networking on Facebook Could Soon Supersede LinkedIn, discussed Facebook’s relative prowess at attracting ad spending and concluded that Facebook was a better venue for business networking. I felt the need to weigh in on that, so I offer my analysis here, which compares certain aspects of each venue’s networking, demographics and strategy.
Continue reading Quick Thoughts on LinkedIn and Facebook Business Models
By Christopher Rollyson This weekend I’ve been having fun trying LinkedIn’s new group discussion functionality, and it’s really promising and seems to work well, significantly increasing the value of LinkedIn Groups.
In Tweeple, LinkedIn’s Twitter group, someone asked a great question about whether to have multiple accounts on Twitter, but the questions applies equally to any Web 2.0 venue, like LinkedIn. This has also come up in the Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn seminars, whether to risk putting your side real estate business in your LinkedIn Profile, for example. Here are some quick reflections on managing many sides of yourself online.
Continue reading Managing Multiple Personalities Online
By Christopher Rollyson Multidimensional Innovation—Inviting Collaboration—Crowdsourcing via LinkedIn
 In August, I have been intensely involved in developing the next iteration of executive LinkedIn training (the Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn, EGLI), which has proven as illuminating as it has fruitful, so I will share key elements of the quick innovation approach I used as well as how Linkedin contributed to it. I believe that by collaborating with EGLI alumni and other people in my network, I have fielded the most innovative and valuable offering ever. I’d love to get your feedback, too! (links below)
Continue reading Inside the Innovation of the New Fall 2008 Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn Seminars
By Christopher Rollyson LinkedIn is about “professional social networking,” and the Executive’s Guide to LinkedIn opens the world of LinkedIn and other Web 2.0 venues (sites) to you. Web 2.0 venues can enable you to find and connect with very specific people who have similar interests and concerns, with whom you can collaborate.
For example, LinkedIn and Facebook can help you to locate clients and prospects that have very specific needs you can fill, reducing the sales cycle and increasing revenue per client because the fit is far better. Likewise with business partners, jobs, employees…
In the digital world’s new rules, it pays to be specific because the cost of finding people with specific interests continues to fall dramatically. If you know how to conduct yourself in these venues so that you increase others’ trust and confidence in you, you become far more effective. That’s what we aim to deliver.
Why should EGLI not tap the same phenomenon to organize seminars?
Continue reading EGLI Unveils New Fall Seminars with Social Networking Registration
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