Here you can see the result!

I will continue writing on Web 2.0 and management topics. In the coming economic downturn innovation will become even more important for the health of companies, I will be focussing more on innovation. Social Media is becoming a very important enabler of innovation; therefore the new title of my blog is:

Innovation and Social Media

The new blog makes use of the Thesis template. This gives me more flexibility in presenting and managing my blog posts.

I hope that subscribers will subscribe to this new blog; you can do this by clicking on this link to the RSS feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/InnovationAndSocialMedia

Yammer at TechCrunch

Short summary description of Yammer: ‘Yammer Wins TechCrunch 50 with Twitter-like Enterprise Service’

TechCrunch50 Awards Ceremony – Yammer (video)

Short video explaining the functionality of Yammer: Yammer presentation by David Sacks, CEO of Yammer at Techcrunch50

Summary description from the Yammer site:

‘Yammer is a tool for making companies and organizations more productive through the exchange of short frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you working on?”

As employees answer that question, a feed is created in one central location enabling co-workers to discuss ideas, post news, ask questions, and share links and other information. Yammer also serves as a company directory in which every employee has a profile and as a knowledge base where past conversations can be easily accessed and referenced.

Anyone in a company can start their Yammer network and begin inviting colleagues. The privacy of each network is ensured by limiting access to those with a valid company email address. The basic Yammer service is free. Companies can pay to claim and administer their network’

Other remarks in this presentation:

– a tag cloud give insight into what people are talking about within the organization

– comparison with email: conversation is shifted from email to Yammer, enabling other employees to find relevant information

– Apple iPhone, Adobe AIR clients are available

– Business model : everything is free; you pay to be administrator to remove users, enhanced security (like IP address ranges, password policies).

Pistachio consulting

‘Pistachio consulting’ has an excellent blog on Microsharing/ Microblogging.

On Yammer, they present  is an overview of all articles related to Yammer, which is an enterprise microsharing solution. Yammer is a ready-to-use solution (Software as a Service)

Downside of this solution is that you have less control, and that the data is not within your organizations’ firewall, but at the service provider. Upside is that you do not have to take care of all servicing yourself (updating the software, backup etc, problem resolution, customer service, etc).

Comparison matrix of Yammer and 14 rival microsharing solutions: ‘Twitter’s “water cooler” collaboration, support and problem-solving qualities have led to much discussion about a similar application for internal “Enterprise 2.0″ collaboration and communication.  Yammer’s success touched off a spate of announcements about similar applications, and Jeremiah Owyang and I have been tracking the growing list. ‘ (Scribd.com site; free account needed to download the comparison sheet).

Chris Brogan

Chris Brogan has a different opinion on Yammer:

‘Twhirl Makes Yammer Irrelevant’: ‘So, to sum that all up: Twitter inside the firewall, private for your business is Twhirl+laconi.ca. Twitter outside the firewall with your business colleagues and friends is Twhirl+Twitter’ – Discussion on FriendFeed about this post

Twirl+laconi.ca: Indeed, this might be a good solution when you want to host the service inside our own organization, within the firewall.

Other (some more critical) voices

Mathew Ingram (Communities editor at The Globe and Mail in Toronto): Yammer: This thing is a prize winner?

NY Times article: Will Microblogging at Work Make You More Productive?

BBC is using Yammer: Yammer goes down, companies all over go silent

Mark Evans: If Yammer has potential as an enterprise tool, the big question is why hasn’t Twitter already moved into the corporate market. For a company scrambling for a business model, you figure that selling a corporate version of Twitter would be a no-brainer.

Good commentary blog post by Steve Boyd: ‘The idea that work activities — like request for meetings, status changes in tasks, peoples comings and goings, and new information about projects — should flow to you rather than sitting in web pages, documents, or emails is compelling.’

‘Yammer is a more-or-less point for point duplication of Twitter functionality, which makes it so odd that Twitter has refused to build this product. That is spectacularly dumb. Here’s what it looks like.’ – Steve Boyd’s own Yammer site:

Steve Mann (SAP) on Yammer (Steve Mann is a 20-year veteran of the high tech industry. Currently he is a Global Vice President of Marketing for SAP, focused on driving SAP’s Social Media Strategies to market. ): ‘In the hopes of becoming part of an Enterprise 2.0 backbone for organizations of all sizes, grouping functionality is absolutely essential. Without it, there’s no way to cleanly and precisely provide direct team support capabilities.’

From the NY Times: ‘Now, Brevity Is the Soul of Office Interaction’:

“Every time we put something across Yammer, we’re exposing it to people but not forcing it down their throats,” said Tom Link, chief technology officer of Universal Mind, a Web development company in Westfield, Mass., with 70 employees. “Depending on what they’re doing, people might be paying attention to messages as they’re posted. But if I’m not in the office, I can go back and get the whole company stream for a day and read it in about 10 minutes. I could never do that with e-mail.”

“Companies with many employees who work from home or in far-flung offices may get the most out of internal microblogging, which can help fill the inherent social gaps among remote workers. Even simple updates like, “Going to the dentist” or “Mopping coffee off the keyboard” can make co-workers feel more connected to one another.”

Security concerns

‘Security. Any time a business has employees putting data outside the corporate firewall, there will be privacy and data security concerns. If the Yahooligans could get Gov. Sarah Palin’s private e-mails and post them to the Internet, it could happen to one of your employees.

Yammer’s security statement

Technical

http://www.programmableweb.com/api/yammer: links to API description, blog

Other platforms: Present.ly

Enterprise Twitter heats up with Present.ly

Other platforms: ESME

ESME means Enterprise Social Media Experiment. ‘ESME is a secure and highly scalable microsharing platform that allows people to meet and discover one another in a business process context.’

ESME is an open source development; developers from companies such as SAP and Siemens are contributing to it.

The interesting part is that this platform is very much focused on delivering a solution that can integrate well into the overall enterprise software landscape. This is no surprise when we see that most of the contributors have strong background in SAP.

More on this platform later, in a separate post.

To be clear: I have not had any real experience yet with using GetSatisfaction.com in this way.

Does a New Website Hold the Secret to Great Customer Service?

Summary of this interview with CEO of GetSatisfaction.com Thor Mueller – with my comments on some of his quotes added:

• ‘Launched in September, 2007, the site provides forums where customers discuss problems with products and services of 2,500 companies from Apple to Zappos — whether the company participates or not. (…) We’ve got companies large and small that are actively participating, ranging from Comcast and Google and Paypal to more up-and-comers like Twitter and Timbuk2.’

GetSatisfaction is a viable platform – well known startups such as Twitter use it; it is also used by large companies such as Dell and Microsoft.

Some companies have their own employees acting on it; whereas e.g. the Facebook entry on GetSatisfaction is completely run by volunteers. Dell using GetSatisfaction for customers services on 18 different products (as of november 2008)

• ‘The problem with traditional forums — which in many cases worked quite well over the years — is that they’re often difficult to search or the answer is buried way, way down.’

This is what I see when setting up communities, e.g. by using www.ning.com – ning.com is a great platform, but has limited capabilities for customer services. GetSatisfaction.com could be used by a group of experienced users from the specific Ning community to help out new users of the Ning community.

• ‘Our proposition is different; it’s a neutral space. We call it a Switzerland between companies and customers, and it’s designed for positive outcomes.’

The proposition of GetSatisfaction enhances the attractiveness of your community, by offering this neutral space.

• ‘… In a very basic way, we’re seeing that customer service is the ultimate way of creating word-of-mouth marketing and creating lifetime value with customers.’

‘Word-of-mouth’ marketung is the primary driver for growth of online communities; enhancing it with a customer service platform can enable such growth.

How it works

• http://getsatisfaction.com/how_it_works
• Most active companies on GetSatisfaction

Key benefits

On Get Satisfaction for Your Company:

• ‘Create and retain passionate users’
• ‘Get users involved in improving your products and services’: this is the most important benefit when using it for a ning.com type of community
• ‘Reduce customer churn and repetitive support tasks’

Technology

• GetSatisfaction support OpenId ; this makes the barrier of entry lower (easy authentication mechanism)
• ‘Our feedback widget allows you to collect customer input on any page of your site.’ – this means you can have a tight integration of GetSatisfaction on each of the pages of you site.

Comparison with other customer services platform

• Google Revamping Forums, Changes Look Good – GetSatisfaction still looking superior compared to Google forum functionality
• Cross platform example of ‘Word-of-mouth’ : ‘Yammer is currently being praised by employees of the following companies and start-ups: Xerox, GetSatisfaction, Slideshare, and SmugMug.’

Comparison with older ways of online support (FAQ’s etc)

‘Customers helping customers: The first step is to use Web 1.0 tools like a FAQ or knowledge bases to enable customer self-help – this is a fairly standard operating procedure for the vast majority of contact centers. However, beyond this there is an opportunity to allow customers to help each other through forums, wiki product manuals (e.g. see Moto Q wiki), customer-led support (Second Life does it), or online problem solving venues (e.g. see GetSatisfaction.com).’

Possible downsides…

… to using GetSatisfaction.com as complementing a ning.com community; however I do not yet know how serious these downsides are:

• users have to create yet another account (although the OpenId support makes this a less serious downside)
• spam messages on your GetSatisfaction forum
• (for Dutch users): the site is in English, not in Dutch

Government use

From Brian Solis on TechCrunch (‘Is Obama Ready To Be A Two-Way President?‘)- he mentions the idea of using GetSatisfaction:

‘Other opportunities to engage with citizens online include:

– Launch a social network at Change.gov and/or whitehouse.gov

– Create a citizen feedback and collaboration page at GetSatisfaction‘

What do you think?

It would be great if you would contribute your thoughts, either by posting a comment on this post below, of @replying on my twitter account! Thanks!

Microsharing according to Social Media Agency ‘Pistachio’:

‘What is microsharing?

Let’s start with the best-known microsharing application, Twitter. Twitter is a collection of remarks. It’s what a group of people–a very dynamic group of people who are connected and becoming more closely connected everyday–find remarkable. The connections between people, the ambient intimacy.

Microsharing reduces the emotional and intellectual distance between people and helps them become more engaged, connected, effective and collaborative.

Microsharing is hard to understand at first, and frequently seems trivial and foolish, but it generates tremendous value and opportunity for participants who really get it and who push to discover its hidden potential.’

For me, the key benefit of this tool is indeed the ‘reduction of emotional and intellectual distance’ on internet platforms. It is very easy to:

• find people with whom you want to exchange ideas, and
• actually start conversations online.

It seems to be more easy starting an online conversation compared to e.g.:

• commenting on a blog post from someone else, or
• by commenting on a forum.

Therefore, the trend I am seeing in 2008 is to increasingly incorporate Twitter-like functionality in forum and blogging software platforms (e.g. WordPress.com)

Business benefits

Twitter is a great example of a platform that facilitates ‘organizing without organizations’ (Clay Shirky: ‘Here comes everybody’).

With the emergence of Social Media tools such as Twitter, the costs for people to organize themselves in (ad-hoc) groups is greatly reduced. Therefore, business problems that until now were not addressed can now be tackled.

This also means that Twitter (or Twitter-like tools) will enable cross-unit information sharing within large organizations in a very cost-effective manner. Within large organizations. special attention must be placed to issues such as information security, reliability, compliance, integration with other enterprise communication platforms (e.g. Microsoft Exchange, back office tools etc).

For the enterprise, several Twitter-like tools are emerging that take these specific requirements into account: www.yammer.com, ESME and others.

Enhancing my own blog ‘Web 2.0 and Management’

Using both my blog and Twitter, starting online conversations about specific topics is more easy:

• post on my blog (or comment on a blog from another user); and
• ‘tweet’  links to my blog post or comments on Twitter.

I have also added the twitter stream to my blog (right lower side of the blog)

Good post: ‘9 Benefits of Twitter for Bloggers‘

How to start with Twitter

Here is how I have started using Twitter:

• Create an account at twitter.com
• Use twitter search for some interesting topics and people to ‘follow’
• The best way to start with Twitter is to also have a blog (e.g. on WordPress.com). This is your ‘home base’ on which you post topics of you special interests.
• Post references to your blog posts on Twitter (‘tweet’ it) to elicit conversations about the blog post.
• Start ‘following’  people that have a blog with a shared interest. Increasingly, blog authors indicate their Twitter name on their blog.

Some people on the internet from which I have learned a lot about Twitter are:

• Chris Brogan: one of the real ‘gurus’ on Social Media. He really known how to combine tools such as blogs and twitter to grow his ‘audience’, and deliver real value to them!
• Darren Rowse (‘Problogger’): very experienced blogger, has lots of advice on how to start a blog
• Davied van Berlo (Dutch): ‘evangelist’ on Web 2.0 for Dutch government agencies

Some blog posts on ‘How to start with Twitter: Guide to Twitter for Business‘

Useful Twitter tools

Twitter is not only an internet tool, but a platform. A whole ‘cottage industry’ has grown around the Twitter platform, providing additional functionality. Some of these Twitter applications that I find very helpful are:

Statistics:

• twinfluence : ‘twInfluence is a simple tool using the Twitter API to to measure the combined influence of twitterers and their followers’
• tweetstats : ‘Graph your Twitter Stats including, Tweets per hour, Tweets per month, Tweet timeline, Reply statistics’

Search:

• Twitter search : Fulltext search on all public tweets (e.g. search on @jeroendemiranda to find tweets addressed to me by other twitterers)

Adobe AIR applications:

These tools are alternative user interfaces for Twitter (i.e. instead of using you browser). You must install Adobe AIR software as a prerequisite:

• Tweetdeck : ‘It aims to evolve the existing functionality of Twitter by taking an abundance of information i.e twitter feeds, and breaking it down into more manageable bite sized pieces.’
• Twellow : This is a directory with Twitter users.

Other sources for information

• Twitter Fan Wiki : probably the most comprehensive wiki with information about Twitter
• Other tools and ideas at my bookmarked links about Twitter at delicious.com.

If you want to follow reactions, tune in to my twitter feed at twitter.com/jeroendemiranda

Recently I have used the ‘Organization Effectiveness Simulator’ offered by Booz Company.

Purpose of using this simulator is to determine where the client organization is positioned, with regards to implementing a Change Strategy.

I highly recommend this simulator for the following reasons:

– it helps you to quickly establish the current status of your organization;

– it enables you to have focused internal discussion by your management team, on which kind of measures will help best in implementing a Change Strategy;

– results of this ‘management game’ can be used to align more internal stakeholders to the agreed actions plans

The background of this tool is described in an article in the Harvard Business Review of June 2008: ‘The Secret to Successful Strategy Execution’ by Gary L. Neilson, Karla L. Martin, and Elizabeth Powers.

One of the main messages of this article is:

‘(…)we’ve identified four fundamental building blocks executives can use to influence those actions

• clarifying decision rights,
• designing information flows,
• aligning motivators,
• and making changes to structure.’

(…) In fact, our research shows that actions having to do with decision rights and information are far more important—about twice as effective—as improvements made to the other two building blocks’

How does the simulator work:

First step:

As a management team, you answer some 18 questions to determine the kind of organization you are right now. Examples are:

• ‘The Passive Aggressive Organization’
• ‘The Over Managed Organization’
• ‘The Outgrown Organization’
• ‘ The Fits and Starts Organization’
• ‘The Just-in-time Organization’
• ‘The Military Precision Organization’
• ‘The Resilient Organization’

Second step:

Based on one of these organizational types, you are then offered some 28 possible strategic actions, from which you can choose 5.

Actions such as:

• ‘Clarify Key processes’
• ‘Create Centers of Excellence’
• ‘Delegate more decision making’
• ‘Introduce a knowledge management system’

And so on.

Based on a large database of Booz Company (with results of interviews and business results of a large number of interviewed companies); the simulator gives you then a clear indication whether the actions that you have chosen are effective (compared to best practice actions).

Especially the discussion around choosing the right actions are very helpful in defining your own strategic action planning!

We found that indeed, actions that clarify decision rights and actions that improve information flows are most effective in implementing the Change strategy.

Read more about this book…

This book by David Maister is centered around the concept of earning trust and confidence of clients. It is based on academic research of David Maister during and after his stay at Harvard University.

He has studied consultancy in many different industries, from accountancy, legal to financial industries.I will give a short review of this book with the key points, and some remarkable quotes and examples. Contains a lot of checklists. Highly recommended book!

The book consists of three parts:

1. perspectives on trust
2. the structure of trust building
3. putting trust to work

Some key elements of this book are:

Part 1 – perspectives on trust

The more clients trust you, the more they will:

• reach for your advice
• be inclined to accept and act on you recommendations
• share more information
• pay your bills without questions
• refer you to others
• …..

Part 2 – the structure of trust building

This is the more formal part of the book

‘Trust equation: T = (C + R + I) / S

• T=trustworthiness
• C=Credibility          ‘I can trust what he says…’
• R=Reliability           ‘I can trust her to…’
• I=Intimacy              ‘I feel comfortable discussion this…’
• S=Self-orientation  ‘I can trust that he cares about….’

This equation shows how the different elements of trust interrelate.

On Self-orientation:

• there is no greater source of distrust than advisors who appear to be more interested in themselves than in trying to be of service to the client
• How do we demonstrate a lack of self-orientation?:
  • letting the client fill in the empty space
  • not giving answers until the fight is earned to do so
  • saying you don’t know when you don’t know
  • ….

The development of Trust:

• Engage: initial connection between advisor and client
• Listen: earning the right; rational and passive listening; list of ‘What good listeners do’
• Frame: encapsulating the client’s complex issues into a problem statement
• Envision: envisioning an alternative reality
• Commit’: the final stage of trust building. On managing expectations; resistance to commitment; joint commitment

Part 3: putting trust to work

Worth to look at:

• ‘The Lieutenant Colombo Approach’ – useful metaphor for effective consulting. ‘Colombo’s style is informal …. he appears overwhelmed and underqualified…. of course, he is none of these things. …. his style is chosen … on one level, Colombo’s lesson is obvious. Set the client at ease and don’t overwhelm him with technical expertise…’
• Cross selling
• Quick impact list to gain trust

The Back of the Napkin is a great book on Visual Thinking. It is written by Dan Roam.

Watching this video of his presentation at Google, you will learn how to use this method to solve many different business problems.

I highly recomment reading his book if you want to get a real understanding of Visual Thinking!

Authors@Google: Dan Roam

YouTube video

Some highlights of this show:

• Who can use this: anybody!. Dan classifies people into three catagories:
  – ‘black pens’ (start to draw right away),
  – ‘yellow pens’ (drawing comments on drawings of others),
  – and ‘red pens’ (do not want to draw; but often turn out to have the best ideas. You have to challenge the ‘red pens’ to start drawing).
• Core idea: reduce complexity of a problem by slicing it into 6 slices: the 6 ways we are seeing:
  – what,
  – where,
  – how much,
  – when,
  – how,
  – why
• Use the corresponding drawing:
  – what: portrait representing a person or object
  – where: map
  – how much: chart
  – when: timeline
  – how: flowchart
  – why: multi-variable plot
• Talking while drawing leads to better understanding of a problem
• Dan gives examples of his work with Microsoft
• Dan uses a drawing to give an explanation of the strategy behind the Yahoo takeover over by Microsoft

More resources on Visual Thinking:

• Another great resource on Visual understanding – also look at http://www.gapminder.org
• Earlier post, containing some presentations explaining the concept in more detail

I have used visual techniques in several workshops that I have facilitated; I now intend to extend my workshop tools by using these ‘Back of the Napkin’ techniques!

This is perhaps the best book on innovation!

Examples of disruptive IT innovation are (IMO):

• Google, Amazon Lead Disruptive Cloud Computing Wave, Microsoft Again Behind Curve
• Newspapers Beware: Blogs are A Disruptive Technology

I can much better understand these disruptive innovations after having read this book!

From Newspapers Beware: Blogs are A Disruptive Technology – some key factors are:

• ‘print publishing has overshot the needs of the market’
• ‘Sure, the new versions aren’t as high quality (fact-checking, writing, spelling, design), but they get the job done’
• ‘And eventually, the old model will have lost so many customers that it will no longer be able to support itself.’

At the website of the authors Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor you can find some ready to use ideas and templates to shape new disruptive innovation ideas:

1. A Template for Shaping Disruptive Ideas :

• Target nonconsumption
• Leverage the low performance hurdle
• Make it “foolproof.”
• Lock in and take over

2. A Game Plan for Would-Be Disruptors : How to Turn the Innovator’s Dilemma into the Innovator’s Solution

More information on innovation at:

• More books on innovation:  (for accessing this list, you have to create an account at librarything.com)
• Site of Authors Clayton Christensen and Michael Raynor

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I am reading ‘The Skilled Facilitator’: this is a great in-depth book on facilitating groups!

Amazon reviews at: http://tinyurl.com/5a83db. Author: Roger Schwarz.

This book will really help me to become a better facilitator of groups. It contains a complete Systems-thinking based approach to facilitation.

Core statement: ‘The facilitator’s main task is to help the group increase effectiveness by improving its process and structure’.

It complements some of the ideas of Manager-Tools in a great way! There are some similar ideas; e.g. on WWWTALA sessions; dealing with emotions; setting the Agenda of meeting etc.
Of particular interest is the model for Interventions in groups.

It is highly recommended reading! You can find more at the site of Roger Schwarz; a summary statement from this website:

‘ (…) The Skilled Facilitator Approach: Outcomes and Key Features

Whether you are working with another person, a group or team, or an organization, The Skilled Facilitator approach will help you create the following outcomes:

• Decisions that get better results
• Decisions that people actively support
• Decisions that save time
• Better relationships – at work and in your personal life
• More personal satisfaction and less stress
• Learning that allows you and others to adapt and change where most others can’t

To achieve these outcomes, the Skilled Facilitator approach has a number of key features:

• Exploring and Changing How We Think
• The Group Effectiveness Model
• A Clearly Defined Role
• Applicable To a Wide Range of Roles
• Explicit Core Values
• Ground Rules for Effective Groups
• The Diagnosis-Intervention Cycle
• Non-Judgmental Thinking
• A Process for Agreeing on How to Work Together
• A Systemic Approach ‘

Has anybody read this book? Or other books on group facilitation? Please feel free to comment / contribute to this post!

The Skilled Facilitator Field Book has lots of practical examples and applications of TSF:

Amazon review .

Bottom line: ‘The Skilled Facilitator’ is a great book on group facilitation!

More on Facilitation at this blog!

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Mark Horstman on: ‘The Meeting Introduction’:

‘If you’re leading a meeting where a team is being formed, or a project group is meeting for the first time, I recommend you use this tool to start off well. In fact, it is so effective, it is my all-time favorite manager tool.

I’ve been leading meetings as a manager, leader and now consultant and facilitator for 20+ years. I’ve seen hundreds of ways to do this, and used many of them myself.This tool is by far the simplest to understand and the easiest to remember for everyone. (…)’

———————————————–

Recently I have used this ‘Manager Tool’ for the first time. This was in a professional setting, with some 18 participants. Some of them were new to the group.

I received some very positive feedback on this ‘Meeting Introduction’; so I can really recommend it. Some tips:

• really prepare this well (I even translated the instruction sheet into Dutch; glanced on it during the instruction phase to make sure that I did not forget important aspects
• do not rush!
• make sure that the welcome cheer at the beginning of every introduction is done by everyone; and also the cheering at the end

This is a members only podcast (so you have to register; costs $15/month):

http://www.manager-tools.com/2005/12/december-2005-member-only-podcast/

Have fun!

What is your best idea of introducing people in a large meeting?

Tim O’Reilly:

…. the internet as Web 2.0 is displacing Microsoft Windows as the dominant software development platform,

…. the competitive edge comes from aggregating the collective intelligence of everyone who uses the platform….. ‘

‘Web 2.0 is a transformative force that’s propelling companies across all industries
towards a new way of doing business characterized by harnessing collective intelligence, ….

from: http://radar.oreilly.com/web2/

Wikipedia’s definition of Web 2.0

The two other sites that I like best to keep me current on Web 2.0 developments are:

• ReadWriteWeb

• Programmableweb

Some of the Web 2.0 platforms that I am using:

Social Software:

• LinkedIn.com
• Facebook.com
• FriendFeed.com

Blog related:

• WordPress.com
• twitter.com
• bloglines.com
• feedburner.com
• technorati.com
• digg.com
• pingomatic

Content oriented sites:

• Flickr.com

Bookmarking:

• del.icio.us

My posts on Web 2.0:

Definition:

• What is Web 2.0
• Groundswell – by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff (Forrester)

IT market and trends:

• Gartner on Web 2.0
• Forrester Research on Web 2.0
• What is Wikinomics? ‘How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything’
• Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0

Platforms:

• On Facebook
• On LinkedIn
• On Mashup’s
• Comprehensive list of Web 2.0 applications

Vertical platforms:

• What is Twitter
• Customer Services
• Web 2.0 and projectmanagement

Social networking and Blogging; privacy:

• Social networking and privacy

• Video explaining Social networking

Technology:

• Identity management and Web 2.0
• Bookmark sharing

Blogging:

• Blog hitrate increases
• Tips for writing the best blog post
• Desktop tool for blogging

Great sites where you can learn more about Web 2.0:

• http://radar.oreilly.com/web2
• http://www.programmableweb.com/
• http://www.readwriteweb.com/

Forrester research on Social Networking in the Enterprise:

Video

On Web 2.0:

• managers: try it yourself; play with RSS, feeds, make your own blog, participate in a wiki, ….
• it is still very early stage
• some things work; some things do not work

‘ The Impact of Web 2.0 and Emerging Social Network Models’:

Video

Great video on Web 2.0 (Davos Annual Meeting 2007)

‘The rapid rise of online social networks is both a social and business phenomenon, the impact of which is only beginning to be understood. The consumer-powered Web 2.0 creates innovative ways for businesses to operate and people to communicate.

1. What is driving the emergence of virtual communities? Is the rapid rise in their valuations justified?
2. How are companies beginning to use social networking strategies for product and market development, as well as for communication?

• Caterina Fake, Founder, Flickr, USA
• William H. Gates III, Chairman, Microsoft Corporation, USA
• Chad Hurley, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, YouTube, USA
• Mark G. Parker, President and Chief Executive Officer, Nike, USA
• Viviane Reding, Commissioner, Information Society and Media, European Commission, Brussels’

Related information:

Web 2.0 summit 2007

Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us: great short video explaining the technological essence of Web 2.0

Web 2.0 Expo

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What are your favorite books on Social Media (Web 2.0)? My favorites are:
– Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide – by Amy Shuen – ‘Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations.’
– The Tipping Point by Malcolm Bradwell – ‘… that magic moment when ideas, trends and social behaviours cross a threshold, tip and spead like wildfire…’
More of my ideas on Web 2.0 at: https://jeroendemiranda.wordpress.com

Q/A on LinkedIn

———————————-

Answers:

Katherine Coombs

Senior Innovation Manager at Lloyds TSB

see all my answers

Best Answers in: Change Management (1)

This was selected as Best Answer

I am reading Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. It’s interesting, but to be honest I dare say that it would be impossible to write a futureproof book about Web 2.0 in the Web 2.0 world! Content and views change so often, and behaviours change, and new websites are launched that I suspect that the best sources of information aren’t going to be books but are going to be digital blogs.

Links:

• http://forrester.typepad.com/charleneli/

Ralph Bernstein

Web Manager at Productivity Press

see all my answers

Best Answers in: Business Development (1)… see more, Supply Chain Management (1) see less

Naked Conversations, by Shel Israel and Robert Scoble. It’s a book about corporate blogging.

Messages from Ralph Bernstein (1):

• RE: Your favorite books on Social Media (Web 2.0) are?

Kelly Rusk

Digital marketing and social media enthusiast

see all my answers

Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (2)… see more, Direct Marketing (1) see less

I’m also reading Groundswell and loving it. Though I will disagree that they are focusing on theories and strategies to adapt to changing technology so it will be relevant for years to come (though the examples may get out dated)
What’s interesting is right before I read the Cluetrain Manifesto, which just hit the 10 year mark. The funny thing is there are so many similarities between the two.

Daniel B. Honigman

Social Media Coordinator/Strategy, Chicago Tribune

see all my answers

I liked “Wikinomics” by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams. It talks about the sheer social and economic force of collaborative media.

Baseer Mohammed

Owner, Future Consulting Inc

see all my answers

Interesting question. I am traditionalist (is it a real word) Dale Carnegi’s good old book still holds true “How to win friends and keeping them”
Baseer.

Most interesting book on Social Media (Web 2.0) seems to be: Groundswell, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.

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Social Aggregators Emerge To Manage Digital Lifestyles

Wednesday, 19 March 2008 2:48 P GMT-05

It’s beginning to look like 2008 might be the year of the social aggregator as users begin to employ these emerging new tools to better manage and track their various online relationships, both personal and professional. …..

Social Aggregators Emerge To Manage Digital Lifestyles

It’s beginning to look like 2008 might be the year of the social aggregator as users begin to employ these emerging new tools to better manage and track their various online relationships, both personal and professional.  The introduction of these new Web applications, such as Friendfeed , Socialthing! , Spokeo , Second Brain , and Iminta , are making it easy for users to keep track of what their friends are doing online while simultaneously demonstrating that there are compelling alternatives to being…

• 

The Social Graph: Issues and Strategies in 2008

One of the hottest topics in the online world in the last couple of years has been the growth of social networking services such as Facebook and MySpace , as well as the addition of a social element to existing user experiences.  Despite riding several waves of hype, it’s now clear that the social networking space will only get hotter in 2008 according to most watchers.  Social software has come fully into its own as of 2008 — for all appearances permanently — and understanding the reasons for this…

• 
• 

Web 2.0 Predictions for 2008

It’s the first work day of the new year and I thought I’d take some time to offer up my predictions for what will happen on the leading edge of the Internet this year.  2007 saw Web 2.0 — defined here as the pervasive two-way Web used for social media , mashups , user-powered Web applications , and social networking — go far more mainstream than it had in 2006.  Web 2.0 poster children like MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube pushed their way into the top 10 Web sites globally and stayed there for…

The Enterprise 2.0 Conference: Web 2.0 Continues Its Move To The Workplace

Social Media Goes Mainstream

While some will dispute what mainstream is defined as exactly — with my own personal favorite being when my grandparents and their grandchildren both are doing whatever is under discussion — the rise of consumer-powered media platforms has all the hallmarks of being something that’s not only here to stay, but something that’s increasingly pushing everything else off the stage.  Yes, I’m talking about blogs, but also wikis and every other kind of two-way, user controlled participation tool…

pink and green, originally uploaded by Jeroen_De_Miranda.

]]> https://jeroendemiranda.wordpress.com/2008/05/17/pink-and-green/feed/ 0 jeroendemiranda https://jeroendemiranda.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/salesroundupcom-summary-of-last-10-post-for-easier-access/ https://jeroendemiranda.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/salesroundupcom-summary-of-last-10-post-for-easier-access/#respond Thu, 15 May 2008 17:59:22 +0000 http://jeroendemiranda.wordpress.com/2008/05/15/salesroundupcom-summary-of-last-10-post-for-easier-access/ This is an easy overview of the Salesroundup.com podcast (the latest 10) – makes it easier to select the one you need:

Quote from the article: ‘We’ve noticed that many people don’t use some tools that would make their lives online much more effective and efficient. Here’s our list of some tools we’d suggest are essential. Several of these tools will deliver huge value to your workday and take less than 10 minutes to get set up.’

Based on this article, I started using some of them – these are indeed essential tools!

1. Multi-service IM: makes IM more easy!

2. Cross Platform Screensharing Tool: not used yet; is similar to Microsoft NetMeeting used in the corporate environment

3. A Custom Search Engine: this is really useful; you can now search only on my blog using google

4. Startpage: I use Netvibes, this is really great!

5. Blog With Your Name and Contact Info: will put my gmail address on the blog

Do you know other essential tools?

Great tips for users like myself who use wordpress.com (and do not self-host)

Tweeting for companies 101 – very interesting!

Useful tips on how to grow an online community

Number 1 blog on technology

New social phenomenom – barcamps

Let’s have a look at his livestream

Chris Brogan is a long time blogger, started in 1998

Cloud computing seems to be the new ‘hype’  – following SaaS (Software as a Service)

I configured a CSE (Custom Search Engine) on my blog, after reading this post

Some good presentation tips

Wikipedia going mainstream in the academic world

Wike on Twitter

I have tried this, but it did not work out. Any ideas would be helpful!!

Some good tips, will use them

Searching on Twitter

Good tool for making your online surveys

Famous quotes – will use this in future posts

Important technical detail in Twitter usage

I saw the first message on the earthquake in China in the twitter messages of Scobl on twirl

Can use this for management of innovation projects

On the latest trend in Web 2.0

‘Before I wrap this up, there are a few other ‘Tweet like a pro’ ideas:

1. Shorten your URLs at Tweetburner where you can also track stats on these links !
2. The mother of all places to find everything awesome Twitter is: http://twitter.pbwiki.com/
3. Want to set up a ‘group’ tweet? This is way cool: Grouptweet (have multiple employees send messages to d companyname with a message that you can aggregate at @companyname)
4. Give people beer for good deeds with Foamee

Now you are ready to tweet like a pro!’

———————————

JetBlue corporate Twitter:

‘@stevebaker Twitter matters because our customers matter. Brevity enforces honesty, and honesty breeds loyalty. The market IS a conversation’

A McKinsey Global Survey http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_page.aspx?L2=16&L3=16&ar=1913&gp=0&pagenum=5 Great article from McKinsey Quarterly (free registration required). Key topics and conclusions: – initiatives start at grassroots level – improves internal communication, in speed and in quality – facilitates communication with customers ‘ (…) A key theme that emerges from the discussions is that many of these technologies start at a […]

Some great videos of the Web2.0 Expo!

‘Web2Expo: Web 2.0 Expo is a global annual gathering of technical, design, marketing, and business professionals who are building the next generation web.’ (…) Web 2.0 Expo is co-produced by O’Reilly Media and TechWeb.’

Most interesting are:

• Matt Mullenweg (WordPress.com)
• Matt Cutts (Google)
• Jonathan Schwarz (SUN Microsystems)
• Marc Andreesen (Ning)

http://www.mckinseyquarterly.com/article_page.aspx?L2=16&L3=16&ar=1913&gp=0&pagenum=5

Great article from McKinsey Quarterly (free registration required).

Key topics and conclusions:

– initiatives start at grassroots level

– improves internal communication, in speed and in quality

– facilitates communication with customers

‘ (…) A key theme that emerges from the discussions is that many of these technologies start at a company’s grassroots level.

Because many of these tools are easy to implement, small groups of interested individuals can launch informal pilots to test their viability. “We have been very customer driven and quite ad hoc,” one executive explains. “As we grow we are formalizing the process, but it is still driven by inspiration [and] passion from key stakeholders.” (…)

“Wikis are adding the greatest value,” one executive says. “Blogs and podcasts are more focused outside the organization, supporting sales and marketing efforts. . . . Technology is just the way of doing business.”

In addition, some note that as collaboration tools spread through the organization, they help break down hierarchical and functional boundaries, since they facilitate passing information up, down, and around: “We use a CRM³ package where I can easily find out what my customers like and dislike and have suggestions from the help desk guy on how to improve our service. The message does not need to flow through layers within our organization to reach me.”

(…) “The most valuable aspects today are providing a means for customers to have a dialogue with us. This provides benefits to both parties. If we get something wrong, our customers let us know very quickly and they expect to know when we are going to address it. This rich dialogue also brings us ideas and suggestions on future product developments, which is extremely valuable.” (…) ‘

I find it interesting to see that Twitter is used also for:

• internal business communication: connecting employees with one another;
• for customer services – notifying customers of e.g. new products and releases

More at: 17 Ways You Can Use Twitter: A Guide for Beginners, Marketers and Business Owners

also interesting is:

Twitter May Not Have To Care About Uptime Any Longer

Covers main technologies, suppliers; and implications for sectors (e.g. Government):

slideshow

Comments on changes by Ed Yourdon

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Healthcare providers that make their quality of services more transparent to patients will improve quality of service in that way!

This is a very entertaining presentation of Paul Levy at a Dutch healthcare congress 2008.

‘Paul Levy

Paul F. Levy MBA, CEO & President, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
“Those hospitals that publish their results will do better”
When starting at the BIDMC, Paul Levy was new to the health care sector. He used his experiences from the sewer and electricity sectors in helping the BIDMC back to the top of the Boston health care market. Essential in his strategy is transparency. Transparency in what he does as a CEO but mostly and foremost transparency in the quality the hospital achieves.

He states that transparency is essential to holding ourselves accountable. Because when we know our results are open, will do just a little better. And with the increasing cost, hospitals are more and more pressured to be open, clear and helpful in improving the quality of care. Hospitals are political institutions; they are paid by the public and offer care to the pubic; being in a capitalist or social system. br> During his speech he refers to various urls:
http://runningahospital.blogspot.com
http://bidmc.harvard.edu/default.asp?node_id=8332 (home page results of BIDMC by Harvard)
http://bidmc.harvard.edu/default.asp?node_id=8332 (patients feedback)’

From: http://www.zorginnovatienederland.nl/presentaties.htm

Interview with Paul Levy:

I post this here for easier access.

Presentations:

Managing
download

Clients
download

Strategy
download

Careers
download

——————————————-

Strategy:

“The One-Firm Firm” – new free seminar | “Values in Action” – new free seminar | A Case Study In professional Ethics | A Home Fit For Heroes? | Alignment and Accountability | Another reader question | Are Law Firms Manageable? | Are You Being Mentored? | Blawg Review #76 | Blawgworld 2007 | Book Review – JUST ENOUGH ANXIETY | Can the Good Guys Win? | Can You Say No? | Central European and Australian Interviews | Compensation Systems | Corporate Strategy and Personal Profiles | Creating a High-Trust Organization | Creating A New Religion | Disclosing People’s Pay | Do My Ideas Work? |

Does the Network Work? | Does Your Organization Add Any Value? How Do You Know? | Don’t Measure, Judge! | Employer Value Proposition | False Economies | Fat Smoker | Focus and Diversification | Focus and Diversification | Goldman’s Secret | Good to Good | Governement Operations as Professional Service Organizations | Guns for Hire | Happiness is Relative | Help Me With My Strategy Please | How Did You Lose Your Innocence? | How Much Standardization? | How to Keep Your Resolve | How to Pay professional Employees | How We Really Make Decisions | How’s Your Mood? | Immigration and Strategy | Innovating by Standing Still | Innovation in the Practice of Law | Internal Blogs as a Management Tool | Is Stewardship Dead? | Keeping the Kids | Last Podcast Episode on Strategy | Lions, Wolves, Beavers and Humans | Living by the Principles | LLP | Making Mergers Work | Making The Network Work | Managing the Multidimensional Firm | Marines and Mercenaries | Minnow or Whale? | New Business Strategy Podcast Episode: “Practice What You Preach” | New Strategy Podcast Episode: “Strategy Means Saying No” | Non-Financial Currencies | Nothing New Under the Sun | Number of RSS Feeds | Partner Compensation in a Start-Up | Partnerships and Equity Shares | Passing It On | Pricing and Promoting a PreSchool Business | Profit Formula | Re-engineering a Professional Business | Recession Responses | Rights and Obligations | Running Fast to Stay in Place | Ruthlessness and Charity | Sales Commissions | Service Line Diversification | Should PSFs do CSR? | Sinning Gurus | Spa Wisdom | Stop Paying for Performance | Strategy and The Fat Smoker – New podcast episode available now | Strategy as Portfolio Management | Strategy is Standards | Strategy Podcast Series | Strategy, Scarcity and Rewards | Stylists | Survey Results | The Battle for Marketing | The Best Places in the USA to Work | The Branded Free Agent Hub | The High Priest’s Catechism | The Long Term | The Mutidimensional Organization | The One-Firm Firm Marches On | The Power of Principles | The Shoemaker’s Children | The Size and Growth Impulse | The Trusted Brain Surgeon Advisor | Two Entrepreneurs | Warlords and Civil Society | Warlords and Dickensian Factory Owners | We Don’t work for Jerks | Welcome to the Real World. Figure it Out Yourself! | What a Company Needs Most | What Do Consultants Know? | What Does Client-Centricity Really Mean? | What Does it Take to be Truly Great? | What Gets Fat Smokers On The Diet? | What IF There’s No Final Whistle? | What Killed Andersen? | What’s A Professional Firm? | What’s Our Deal? | Whatever Happened to Quality? | Who Likes You? And Who Doesn’t? | Who or What is the Firm For? | Work and LifeStyle Balance – Can a firm Give Options?

Managing

20 Bad Workplace Habits | 360-degree Feedback Programs | A Natural Manager (and Free Podcasts) | A Shakespearean Retreat | A Summation of What I’ve Learned | About Women | Accountability | Alignment and Accountability | Are Law Firms Manageable? | Are We ON The Same Side? | Assigning People and Work | Authentic Leaders | B-School competition on Human Capital | Believer or Skeptic? | Benchmarks | Blawg Review #76 | Blawgworld 2007 | Bob Sutton’s ‘No Asshole Rule | Book Review: Lead Well and Prosper | Business Guru David Maister Breaks Groundas First Top-Tier Business Author to Podcast | BusinessWeek Editor speaks! | Can the Good Guys Win? | Compensation Systems | Compensation Systems: Sales Commissions | Creating a High-Trust Organization | Creating A New Religion | Creating and Sustaining Professionalism (In Oneself and Others) | Dangerous Rubbish About Leadership | Dealing With the Worried Well | Disclosing People’s Pay | Does Your Organization Add Any Value? How Do You Know? | Don’t Measure, Judge! | Dry Cleaning and Grocery Shopping | Emotional Self-Control | Employer Value Proposition | Escalating Appeals | Excitement | Executive Intelligence | Fat Smoker Principles: Surviving a Short-Term Environment | Fat Smoker principles: Update on the war for talent | Getting an Organization to Stretch | Getting Good at Getting Feedback | Getting Others to Give You What You Want | Goldman’s Secret | Good to Good | Governement Operations as Professional Service Organizations | Great People Decisions | Happiness is Relative | Hold Issue-Solving meetings | How Did You Lose Your Innocence? | How Managers Should Spend Their Time | How Much Standardization? | How Not to Manage People | How to be Intimate | How to Layoff 2,000 People | How to Pay professional Employees | How We Really Make Decisions | I Need to Stop Changing My Mind! | Innovation in the Practice of Law | Innovations about Innovating | Internal Blogs as a Management Tool | Is Managing Professionals Different? | Keeping the Kids | Leadership Qualities | Lies | Life Could Be Better | Living by the Principles | Loyalty to Whom? | Making The Network Work | Managerial Underperformance | Managing Dad | Managing Professionals in Not-For-Profits | Managing the Multidimensional Firm | Managing Works | Marines and Mercenaries | Meeting Rules | Mentoring | Mentoring | Metrics for Internal Service providers | New Blogosphere game | New book on HOW | New Case Study Discussion feature at BusinessWeek.com | New Service for Law Firm Managing Partners | Non-Financial Currencies | Not Qualified to Manage | Not Qualified to Manage – new managing videocast & audiocast | Nothing New Under the Sun | Now, That’s Leadership! | Number of RSS Feeds | Outcomes and Behaviors | Partner Compensation in a Start-Up | Performance Appraisals | Professional Firm Boards | Relationship Strength | Repairing Fences | Rights and Obligations | Ruthlessness and Charity | Sad Truths for Leaders | Sales Commissions | Saving the Training Baby | Screening for Character | So Young and So Jaded | Squeezing the Stress Sponge | Start the Day Off Right! | Stop Paying for Performance | Stress at the Top | Stylists | Teaching Guts | Team Rivalry | Technical Excelllence | The 2R Manager | The Balanced scorecard on YOU may be coming soon | The Best Manager I Ever Had | The Branded Free Agent Hub | The End of Apprenticeship | The First 100 Days | The Forgiveness Index | The Hardest Working Leader in Show Business? | The High Priest’s Catechism | The Importance of Appearance | The IQ of a Meeting | The Keynote Speech Charade | The Long Term | The Managing Partner’s Speech | The Mutidimensional Organization | The Problems with the Traditional Law firm Management Model | The Rule of St. Benedict | The Sad Life of the Staff Person | The Shoemaker’s Children | The Three-Month Rule | The Training Article | The War For Talent | Train a Pigeon | Two More Interviews | Two New Interviews | Using Language To Get What You Want | Watch out! | We Don’t work for Jerks | We Just Don’t Want to Do That! | We Succeed When We All Succeed | We’ll Follow the Old Man Wherever He Wants to Go | What If You’re Not That Interested in People? | What Management Owes the Individual Professional | What Managers Do Least Well | What My Boss Could Do To Convince Us | What New Hires Are Thinking | What’s a Senior Partner For? | Whatever Happened to Quality? | When Are You At Your Best? | Where Should Marketing Time Go? | Who Can Help? | Who Should Lead? | Who to Hire | Why Are Some People So Motivated? | Why Does Bad Management Thrive So Much? | Why Training Is Useless | Wise words | Work and LifeStyle Balance – Can a firm Give Options? | Working Internationally | Write it Down | You Gotta Go First

Client Relations

“Values in Action” – new free seminar | A Conversation with Steve Rubel | A Generic Consulting Proposal | About Scope Creep and Creepy Clients | Advice on Negotiating a Deal | Another reader question | Are You Being Mentored? | Are You Dispensing Useless Pills? | Assigning People and Work | Attracting People to a Seminar | Blawg Review #76 | Blawgworld 2007 | Blunt Marketing Critique | Broadcasting Tactics to Generate Enquiries | Business Development in Professional Businesses | Business Guru David Maister Breaks Groundas First Top-Tier Business Author to Podcast | Can the Good Guys Win? | Can We Be Manipulated? | Client Focus and the Halo Effect | Client Politics | Client Responsiveness and Compromised Quality | Consultant Seeks Advice | Creating Awareness – Advice Please | Dealing With the Worried Well | Developing Relationship Skills | Digital Marketing for Professional Firms | Disclosing People’s Pay | Do You Have a Trusted Advisor? | Doing It Through A Blanket | Don’t Compromise – Take Turns | Earning Trust when there’s too little time | Edward Tufte on Powerpoint | Executive Intelligence | Experts vs. Advisors | Firing unprofitable clients | Friendship Skills and Strategy | Gatekeepers and Trusted Advisors | Getting Good at Getting Feedback | Getting Hired by New Clients | Getting the Boss to Change | Goldman’s Secret | Great Clients | Handouts and Slides | How Clients Can Get the Best out of Us | How Did You Lose Your Innocence? | How Polite Are You? | How to be a Customer | How to be Intimate | How to buy Professional Services (and how not to) | How to Move a Terabyte | How to Set Fees | How We Buy | How We Really Make Decisions | How’s Your Mood? | I Can’t Believe This Worked on Me! | If they won’t talk to you | Implementing a Client Service Strategy | Integrity Impugned | Interview with me about Blogging | Is Blogging Dead | Is China Different? | It’s THEIR fault | Lead Generation Tactics | Loyalty to Whom? | Maister’s Exaggeration Ploy | Marketing Complexity | Marketing in a One-Off Industry | Marketing the Marketing Consultants | Marketing To Existing Clients | Merchandizing | Mysteries of Law Firm Marketing | New Article on “Integrity Impugned” | New Business Strategy Podcast Episode: “Practice What You Preach” | New Edition of Ford Harding’s Classic Book | New Translation | Number of RSS Feeds | Offering Advice When it’s Not Been Asked For | Pictures of Partners | Planners and Performers | Pop Music’s Lessons for Marketing | Preventing the Train Crash | Pricing and Promoting a PreSchool Business | Pricing Consulting Services | Promoting a New Book | Quitting Time | Relationship Strength | Relationships: What’s the Problem? | Repairing Fences | Romance and Sincerity | Romance: Why Bother? | Rules of Relationships | Satisfaction Guaranteed | Screening for Relationship Attitudes and Skills? | Self-Promotion | Should You Write A Book? | Sinning Gurus | Some Principles of Presentations and Pitches | Special Challenges for the Young Professional | Stop Chasing The Prom Queen and the Star Quarterback | Survey on Pricing | Take Questions In the First 15 minutes | Talking with Reporters | Team Rivalry | The Disproportionality Principle | The Battle for Marketing | The Branded Free Agent Hub | The Client From Hell | The Consultant and the CEO | The Importance of Appearance | The Joy of Sets | The Keynote Speech Charade | The Long Term | The New Marketing Director Speech | The Overhead Projector | The Person Behind The Mask | The Power of Principles | The Psychology of Waiting Lines | The Three-Month Rule | The Trusted Brain Surgeon Advisor | The Undiscussed Side of Trust | They Just Don’t Get It! | Trite Formula? | Two Entrepreneurs | Two New Interviews | Value Pricing | Watch out! | We’re All Dentists | Web 2.0 and law firms | What Do Consultants Know? | What do THEY want? | What Do You Want From Me? | What Does Client-Centricity Really Mean? | What IF There’s No Final Whistle? | What if Your Customers Can’t Be Trusted? | What reporters hate about PR people | What The Networking Seminar Speakers Said | What We Hate About Those People | What Would the Client Say? | Whatever Happened to Quality? | When Are You At Your Best? | Where Are We On Client Feedback Approaches? | Who are the Marketing Experts in Professional Businesses? | Who Should Lead? | Why Don’t Advertising Agencies Advertise? | Why Email is Good For Us | Why Should I Help You? | Why Training Is Useless | Why You Don’t Want Me | Work and LifeStyle Balance – Can a firm Give Options? | Working Internationally | Working With Your Client’s People | Write it Down | Writers and Performers | You Gotta Serve Someone

Careers

‘Solve This’ #1 – How to Get into the Flow of Better Work | 20 Bad Workplace Habits | A Career Opportuntity for Someone | A Summation of What I’ve Learned | About Women | Advice on Careers | An Employeer’s New Bonus Scheme | Are You Being Mentored? | Are You Dispensing Useless Pills? | Assessing the Risks of the Next Step | Assigning People and Work | Ayn Rand | Blawg Review #76 | Bob Sutton’s ‘No Asshole Rule | BUSINESS WEEK interview | Can We Copy Our Heroes? | Career Strategies at 60 | Choosing a Doctoral Thesis | Don’t Compromise – Take Turns | Done at Last! Thoughts on Procrastination | Down Time | Dry Cleaning and Grocery Shopping | Dynamos | Earning a Relationship | Emotional Self-Control | Employer Value Proposition | Ending the relationship | Exit, Voice, Loyalty and Principle | Gatekeepers and Trusted Advisors | Getting Good at Getting Feedback | Getting the Boss to Change | Good to Good | Happiness at Work | Happiness is Relative | History Lesson | How Are You Doing? | How Did You Lose Your Innocence? | How Not to Manage People | How to Get Ahead: Lie and Cheat? | How to Keep Your Resolve | How We Really Make Decisions | How’s Your Mood? | I Need to Stop Changing My Mind! | I’m Terrified and Need Help! | I’ve Stopped Reading | Improving Mutual Understanding Between Business Schools and Business | Interview with me about Blogging | Is Blogging Dead | Islamic Saying | Kathy’s Blog and Website | Lessons in True Professionalism | Life Could Be Better | Maister’s Exaggeration Ploy | Managing Up | Marketing the Marketing Consultants | Mentoring | My Way | My worst habits | New Article on “Integrity Impugned” | New Podcast Episode on Career Planning | New podcast episode on work fufillment | New Podcast Series on Career Development | Number of RSS Feeds | Old Secretary | Personal Branding | Perspective on Careers | Politics Part Two | Promoting a New Book | Public and Private | Quitting Time | Relationship Strength | Repairing Fences | Reputations | Required Reading | Screening for Character | Some Principles of Presentations and Pitches | Spa Wisdom | Special Challenges for the Young Professional | Start the Day Off Right! | Stress at the Top | Summary Proverb | Take Questions In the First 15 minutes | Talking with Reporters | The Disproportionality Principle | The Best Advice I Ever Received | The Best Places in the USA to Work | The Brazen Careerist | The Brutal Truth About Other People | The Dream Job? | The End of Apprenticeship | The Importance of Appearance | The IQ of a Meeting | The Mysteries of Dealing With People – A Few Pointers | The New Marketing Director Speech | The Overhead Projector | The Person Behind The Mask | The Power of One | The Psychology of Waiting Lines | The Sad Life of the Staff Person | They Just Don’t Get It! | Think of Work | Trite Formula? | Two Entrepreneurs | Unbounded Cynicism and (Almost) Despair | Watch out! | What Am I Supposed to Know about? | What do THEY want? | What Do You Want From Me? | What New Hires Are Thinking | What Would the Client Say? | When Are You At Your Best? | Who Can Help? | Who Likes You? And Who Doesn’t? | Who to Hire | Who’s Happiest? | Why Are Some People So Motivated? | Why Business Schools Cannot Develop Managers | Why Do We/They Become Consultants? | Why Email is Good For Us | Why Should I Help You? | Why Training Is Useless | Work and LifeStyle Balance – Can a firm Give Options? | Working Internationally | Write it Down | Writers and Performers | You Gotta Go First | You Gotta Serve Someone

‘Which are your favorite books on Business Strategy; and what is special about them?

This is a question that I have posted on LinkedIn.com. Below are my answers and the answers of some 15 LinkedIn members. This is a comprehensive overview of literature on this topic.

I have started with a new blog: http://www.jeroendemiranda.com

My favorites books on Business Strategy:

– Strategy Maps by Robert Kaplan and David Norton.
They show very clearly how to operationalize the mission, vision and strategy of a company. It contains many striking examples. This book also gives you good ideas on how to define an effective Balanced Scorecard.

– Executing Strategy by Mark Morgan, Raymond E. Levitt and William Malek (Harvard Business Press).
This excellent book presents the ‘Strategic Execution Framework’. It is a comprehensive and easy to use framework. It shows how to formulate a mission, vision and strategy, and how to translate this into a project portfolio which realizes the strategy. ‘

Favorite books on Business Strategy by LinkedIn users:

Shakti Kapoerchan

Student at RSM Erasmus University

I consider having a solid factual basis for strategy theory to be an excellent starting position for further exploration on the subject. A book which provided this for me, is ‘Contemporary Strategy Analysis’ by Robert M. Grant.

Mark Bouch

Director , Sykes Fairbairn

Hi Jeroen
To answer your question: Mastering the Management System (HBR article by Kaplan and Norton) and Competitive Strategy by Michael Porter.

But strategy execution is also worthy of consideration within question. Getting things done often provides greater challenge than the intellectual exercise of developing strateg. With this in mind I recommend you add ‘Execution – the discipline of getting things done’ by Bossidy and Charan to your reading list.

Best Regards
Mark Bouch

Will Pearce

Non-Profit Executive, Management Consultant, & Volunteer Board Member

Strategic Thinking / Visioning:
* Built to Last by Jim Collins

* Good to Great by Jim Collins
These two Collins books together do the best job of anything I’ve read of identifying the key characteristics of organizations that exhibit sustained competitive superiority.

Strategic Direction (Strategy Formation); both of these books will get you thinking about the specifics of your strategy in new, creative ways:
* What Really Works by William Joyce and Nitin Nohria
* Nonprofit Strategic Positioning: Decide Where to Be, Plan What to Do by Thomas A. McLaughlin

Strategic Planning:
* Team-Based Strategic Planning by C. Davis Fogg
Emphasizes the prerequisite environment/culture, facilitators & facilitation of the process, and process team dynamics.

For nonprofits:
* Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations by Michael Allison and Jude Kaye
* Strategic Planning for Public and Nonprofit Organizations by John M. Bryson

For IT organizations:
* A Practical Guide to Information Systems Strategic Planning by Anita Cassidy

All of these books are available on Amazon.com.

Mick Monroe

I’m here to meet experts that would volunteer to answer questions about their industry. I am an warm+ networker. 550+

Winning by Jack and Suzy Welch – In the first chapter he explains the importance of and way to develop consensus within an organization on the behaviors that must be in place to support the values that will enable an organization to accomplish it’s mission. Within two paragraphs in the first chapter or so it helped me understand how do develop and help others develop a mission statement that was effective at mobilizing organizational support.
One of those ‘airport book store purchases’ that ‘took my breath away’ before the plane ever lifted off.
Thank you Jack and Suzy Welch!

Malcolm Gabriel, MBA; MA (Ind Psy)

Visionary Leader in HR, OD & Change Management

Jeroen,

I agree with others’ recommendations on great business strategy books, and I’ve read most of them. But, my personal favourites are the following, based not necessarily on methodologies for business strategies or strategic planning processes; rather on how one thinks about business strategies themselves:

Senge, P.M (1990). The Fifth Discipline. This timeless classic framed my systems-orientation and helped me appreciate causality in the market and industry; and more importantly appreciate that for every business strategy action (and inaction) there is a corresponding reaction (both intended and unintended).

Hamel, G. (2000). Leading the Revolution. This masterpiece argues that the only sustainable competitive advantage today is in an organization’s ability to innovate their business strategies (refered to as “business concept innovation”). It is truely the hardest challenge for competitors to replicate.

Baghai, M., et. al. (1999). The Alchemy of Growth. This one helped me think through business strategies as kickstarting and sustaining growth through time horizons; horizon 1 (typically “cash cow” core businesses), horizon 2 (emerging businesses), and horizon 3 (seeds of tomorrow’s businesses). The invaluable insight in this book is that organizational modelling, as well as talent and performance management should be different for each horizon, rather than a “one size fits all” approach.

Joseph Templin, CFP, CLU, ChFC, CAP

Head Geek, Unique Minds Consulting Group, LLC

“The Art of War” by Sun Tzu.
“He who knows his enemy and himself shall always be victorous.
He who knows neither his enemy nor himself shall never taste victory, even if he fight a thousand battles.”
Joe

Michel Buffet

Founder and President at ETM Consulting Group

My favorite by far: Adrian Slyvotzky’s The Art of Profitability. This book proposes 23 business lessons – written as a the story of a manager seeking enlightenement from a wise master. An original and thought-provoking book.

AK Adapa

IT: Services & Strategy Consultant

Jeroen – You have given two of the best books on this topic and I like Executing Strategy book the most out of the two.

As one of the comments said, from time to time I come across pretty good HBR articles. The most recent HBR articles “Can you say what your strategy is?” and “Putting leadership back into strategy” are good reads as well.

“Competing for the Future” book by Hamel and Prahlad is a good read.

Mark Taylor

Director, Eriskay Associates

Hi Jeroen,
This is a great question and has attracted some great answers.

I am tempted to say that no book on strategy seems to adequately capture what the subject is really about but this is too harsh on some of the great writers out there.

My own view of Strategy Maps by K&N is pretty similar to yours, although many of my clients find this approach quite prescriptive. A broader and more fluid methodology is
Eden, C., Ackermann, F. (1998), Making Strategy: The Journey of Strategic Management, Sage, London, .
Similar to the K&N approach, it makes comprehensive use of mapping but, in my view, creates a far more realistic and less rigid set of outcomes. I use this a lot with clients and it delivers great results.

See the link below for some case studies.
Good luck with your work Jeroen.
Mark.

Links:

• http://www.eriskay-associates.co.uk/caseStudies.html

Claudia Gramaccia

Studio Gramaccia

hi Jeroen,
the authors you quote are certainly miliar pillars of the business strategy thought
recently Michael Reynor and Pankaj Ghemawat have published interesting books. Have a look at them on
Cheers Claudia

Links: http://strategos.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=1625368%3ATopic%3A2401

Ashwin Ramaswamy

Awake Dreamer

There was a simple book I read called “The Tao of Leadership”.
I am yet to come across something as outstandingly brilliant.
It doesn’t cover much on strategy per se, but the principles of leadership enshrined are the necessary & sufficient conditions for success.
I think this is available on the web too

Ron Hurst

Manager, Teacher, Coach

I do not believe I saw The Art of the Long View by Peter Schwartz on the list above. I highly recommend this for its contribution to scenario planning.
Ron Hurst
http://www.developaleader.com

Marc Jadoul

Market Development at Alcatel-Lucent

“The Art of War” by Sun Tzu and “Clausewitz on Strategy” (edited by Boston Consulting Group’s Strategy Institute)

Stephen Michaelson

Lean Six Sigma Project Leader; Business Process Analyst; Project Writer/ Tech Writer

W. Edward Deming’s _Out of the Crisis_ (1982). Yes, it’s dated, but still very relevant: the work of Deming and Joseph Juran after World War II is largely responsible for the success of leading quality- and customer-centered companies (like Toyota) today.
A concise description of Deming’s recommended business strategy is contained in his “14 Points for Management (…)

Links: http://books.google.com/books?id=4qw8AAAAIAAJ&dq=amazon+deming+%22out+of+th…

Ana Capucho

Account Manager at EMC & Restaurant Owner

Hi Jeroen,

These are my suggestions for you:
Blue Ocean Strategy (Harvard Business Press)

and
Strategy Safari — A Guide Tour Through The Wilds Of Strategic Management.
Both are a kind of “out of the box” business strategy to set you aside from mainstream or as I like to call it, tradicional management.

Regards
Ana Capucho

Steven Miller

Program Director, GTM Initiatives at IBM

I’ve studied quite a few books on strategy, and several authors stand out:
Clayton Christensen – it seems that the initial impact of this book series was a few leaders looking to disrupt for disruptions sake. This book series does a great job of helping the reader understand disruptive innovation and how to lever it.

Adrian Slywotzky – His books are invaluable as many businesses are seeing their legacy business models going by the wayside numerous disruptions rewrite the future: web 2.0, DVRs, open source, new media, online communites, SaaS, skyrocketing fossil fuel prices, … Leaders need to know how to select and evaluate business models to best take advantage of these disruptions.

Geoffrey Moore – I first read Crossing the Chasm while working a startup. I would love to see an update to this excellent series.

Jim Collins – Built to Last was one of the very first strategy books that I read and one that has stuck with me for a long time. Can be an eye opener to compare your current and past employers against the lessons of this book.

Tom DeMarco – the book I have in mind is ‘Peopleware’. A key part of strategy is your human resource strategy. This book’s lessons have guided my career for a long time.

Ram Charam’s books also have a lot to offer, with a focus on HR strategy — Execution, The Leadership Pipeline, …
The books above will help you:

• Select a disruptive innovation
• Select a business model
• Bring the new innovation to market
• Build a company that can thrive for a long long while
• Attract and retain talent
• Build Your Leadership Pipeline

Ram Motipally

Key Account Manager at Sasken Communication Technologies Ltd.

Jeroen,
I am sure you have plenty of suggestions on books on Business strategy. The original favorite is always Porter’s strategy. But, I highly recommend Jack Welch’s Winning. It is a practical handbook for any manager including for strategy. Look forward to loads of common sense and very little of theoretical models.
Rgds,
Ram

——————————————————————

My favorites are:

– Strategy Maps by Robert Kaplan and David Norton.

– Executing Strategy by Mark Morgan, Raymond E. Levitt and William Malek

More on Business Strategy:

• 10 Favorite Books on Business Strategy
• Favorite books on Management Consultancy – LinkedIn Question
• Business Model Innovation
• Alignment: ‘everybody needs to understand the value of their role’
• Summary of the article ‘Partnering and the Balanced Scorecard’ by Robert Kaplan
• Strategy articles in the Harvard Business School website

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I guess Web 2.0 is getting more and more mainstream! It is also interesting to see that special attention is paid to legal issues surrounding these new technologies:

‘Collaboration Tools and Technologies

The Law Practice Management Section of the American Bar Association has just published a book entitled “The Lawyers guide to Collaboration Tools and Technologies: Smart Ways to Work Together” It was written by Dennis Kennedy and Tom Mighell’