Chicago-Style Innovation 2013 [Lightbank Innovation Day]

Lightbank logoChicago-Style Innovation is my notes from Lightbank Innovation Day, which took place on 9 May 2013 at the City Winery (presentations) and Lightbank’s offices (networking). Throughout the day, it was obvious that the Knowledge Economy’s Social Channel was unfolding; entrepreneurs’ startups are stripping off an increasing breadth of enterprise processes and using digital social software to improve them. For example, Needle’s platform creates experts in user (customer) use cases and outcomes that outperform anyone at retail; Fieldglass, HighGround, Fooda, oDesk and TalentBin take aim at various parts of human capital while Aon Hewitt showed how to practice enterprise innovation on the inside; DoubleDutch aims to [at long last] digitize trade shows and conferences through its platform’s geosocial functions. Sprout Social and Contently offered social tools.

Presenters Gian Fulgoni, J Schwan and Ramon De Leon shared valuable advice for entrepreneurs, investors and enterprise executives. Fulgoni provided statistics that showed how mobile was eclipsing ecommerce and analog commerce; Schwan opened the audience’s eyes to Ubiquitous Computing and the Internet of Things, and De Leon showed the power of (pervasively ;^) being yourself.

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B2B Executive’s How-to Guide to Social Business

B2B Executive’s How-to Guide to Social BusinessThe B2B Executive’s How-to Guide to Social Business is an executive primer on developing B2B relationships much faster and cheaper.

If you have been on several “social media” platforms as a firm or individual for some time but feel that you’re barely scratching the surface, this guide will help you boost your results significantly because: its goal is to help you develop B2B relationships more efficiently, instead of “selling” yourself and it shows you how to use B2B-oriented platforms in concert to increase leverage. If you would like some background on the profound distinction between “selling” yourself and focusing on relationship, “Social Business Disruption of B2B Sales & Marketing” crystallizes it in 8 minutes.

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Executive's Guide to Blogging

Three-Step Executive's Guide to BloggingThis Executive’s Guide to Blogging offers executives a pragmatic, conservative approach to blogging. For years, now, I have beseeched all the executives and “knowledge workers” I know (that’s thousands) to blog, so please consider this as part of that campaign—with benefits (because this is a how-to post). Here’s why: In the Knowledge Economy’s pervasive digital networks, you are invisible unless you come across people’s screens regularly. And, while you are invisible, your potential business partners are seeing people who do flit across their screens. If you aren’t there, you are in a bloody ocean that gets smaller every year. Don’t stay in, the water is not fine. Please understand that I’m stating this as a simple fact. I’m sure you’ve read books like The Long Tail, which describe how we are all publishers now, that is, those of us who decide to use the free tools at our disposal.

Blogging is 21st century thought leadership, which is table stakes in the Knowledge Economy. Your thoughts represent and “scale” you, so they help you to connect with people with whom […]

Wet Paint (Pardon Our Dust)

Social Business Services logoThanks for being one of the first visitors to Social Business Services, which launched on 3 February 2012. The site has many moving parts, so please let us know by commenting on any page or post if something seems awry; we are still in the process of final tweaking and testing.

Social Business Services aims to be your front row seat to the disruption and transformation of B2B sales and marketing as well as other functions like client/customer service, human resources, product development and IT. B2B clients will change your business because they are finding and educating each other very quickly. This creates fantastic opportunity for the firms that understand and react.

Thanks for visiting!

B2B Customers Getting More Social Fast: How Marketing and Sales Can Evolve

B2B Customers Getting Social Fast: How Marketing and Sales Can Evolve explains how clients/customers are smarter and want a new kind of relationship | The new economics of business reputation

B2B Customers Getting Social Fast: How Marketing and Sales Can Evolve: evolutionWhile preparing to launch Social Business Services for B2B Sales in January 2012, I have been engaged in its Ecosystem Audit. I have plumbed online conversations about B2B Sales and Marketing adoption of social business (erstwhile social media). I have been struck by a recurring realization: a large part of Marketing and Sales as we know them is significantly out of alignment with B2B customers. Social business is permeating customer networks throughout the economy and changing customer behavior and expectations. This has created a rare opportunity for B2B marketing and sales people who understand and respond ahead of the market. If I’m right, this could be one of the most important posts you read this year.

Two quick examples of misalignment: one of Marketing’s underlying assumptions is that it is not economically feasible to have large-scale one-on-one customer conversations, so marketing must […]

Why Google+ Should Be on Executives' Radar

Why Google Plus Should Be on Executives’ Radar explains Google’s new social network and why it commands attention; it changes the context of social networks.

Why Google Plus Should Be on Executives' Radar

The launch of Google’s new social network has poignant significance for executives—in predictable and surprising ways. Google+ is exceptionally significant because it is an exciting new social venue with the potential to disrupt, but even more important, it can teach us about how the ecosystem works and how organizations can learn to use it to garner support for things they care about. Here I’ll outline my first impressions and give general guidance for executives to take advantage of Google+’s potential.

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Case Study: IBM's Experience with B2B Social Business

The example was IBM’s corporate social responsibility and green initiative. They realized it would be incongruent or unsavory to have a (physical) conference for green initiatives in which people would burn tons of CO2 getting there, so they held it in Second Life. The sales conversion ratio was equal to physical conferences. […]

Increasing Customer Transparency: Real Threat or a Paper Tiger for Marketers?

Should you worry that interacting with your customers on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs will let your competitors poach your customers? How increased transparency affects business and how you can use the trend to drive your competitiveness […]

Realizing Value: The Social Network Life Cycle Model

Life cycle model for social networks provides a blueprint for investment, along with goals, activities and milestones for each stage. A plan of action for creating value from enterprise social networking initiatives. […]

Strategy for LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter: Where Do I Need to Be?

LinkedIn versus Facebook versus Twitter: a thumbnail guide on selecting which Web 2.0 sites your company should be on […]