Group items tagged

"Harvard Business Review Analytics Services has released a study on the impact of social media. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, blogs etc. offers organizations the chance to join conversation with millions of customers around the globe every day. But even though social media has great potential, many organizations do not properly integrate social media in their marketing and communication efforts, or only use it as a one-way communication channel instead of listening, analysing, and driving conversations. The survey was conducted among HBR magazine and newsletter subscribers during July 2010. The participating organizations were mainly based in the US and in Asia."

In Innovation Deep Dive, Lisa Strausfeld from Pentagram has contrasted the drivers and the impact of innovation of various countries by way of an interactive line ranking. The visualization uses quite a large set of different datasets, ranging from Gallup and business schools reports, to the usual suspects like the UNESCO and the World Bank. The interface requires some trial-and-error to get used to (e.g. the data categories at the top are clickable), but creates a compelling overview of how different nations actually perform versus how their business executives perceive the same issue.

"With an 8.1 percent August unemployment rate and 12.5 million Americans out of work, a new Temple University study examines a neglected area of research: how the unemployment process impacts the willingness of those laid off to endorse or return to their previous employer."

New Post 20 hours ago KPMG's Lord Michael Hastings: Business Must Take Note of Occupy Wall Street New Post 23 hours ago Consumers Expect CEOs to Be Held Accountable and Take Action on CSR New Post 1 day ago Why Corporations With a Social Purpose Perform Better New Post 1 week ago American Ingenuity New Post 1 week ago Sustainable Consumption Is a Myth New Post 2 weeks ago Corporate Social Purpose: It's in What You Don't Sell New Post 2 weeks ago Finally, Occupy Wall Street Puts the Blame Where It Belongs: On Us New Post 2 weeks ago Occupy Wall Street: A Powerful Demand for Something New--Like This Comment 2 weeks ago Yet another point of view Paul: http://wp.me/p1IFEp-7h on Pre-Occupied With Corporate Social Responsibility New Post 3 weeks ago Pre-Occupied With Corporate Social Responsibility New Post 3 weeks ago Starbucks' Job Creation Plan New Post 3 weeks ago Stop Being Cynical About Breast Cancer New Post 4 weeks ago How Sameer Hajee Has Shed Real Light in Africa New Post 1 month ago Taking CSR to the Next Level New Post 1 month ago How A Serial Entrepreneur Found Success By Practicing Responsible Capitalism New Post 1 month ago Making Every Dollar Count: Investing for Impact and Return New Post 1 month ago The Next Global Debt Crisis New Post 1 month ago Thriving on the Value of Vice: Stop Making Too Much of CSR Comment 1 month ago Thanks for your comment. I also makes me think of the importance of [...] on A Higher Ambition for CSR: Corporate Social Purpose New Post 1 month ago A Higher Ambition for CSR: Corporate Social Purpose   *****   6   33     45   0   0   The Forbes 400 World's Billionaires Celebrity 100 World's Leading Companies more + The Forbes 400 is the definitive list of wealth in America, profiling and ranking the country's richest citizens by their estimated net worths. View complete list » #1 Bill Gates Latest News » #14 Mark Zuckerberg Latest News » #7 George Soros Latest News » #331 Stewart Rahr Latest News »

If you haven't (yet) read Coase's "The Nature of the Firm" (and you should), this article explains why his thinking in 1937 lends strong insights into the impact that digital communications technologies are having on today's organizations and markets. 

A few notable thoughts here:  "as rare as these shifts are, the early predictions about [their impact] are usually underappreciated." "the number one way that customers get information today is through "personal interaction with an employee of the firm" which trumps all traditional sources that most organizations are heavily invested in such as analyst opinion, the Press, and advertising, and that gap has widened."

Admittedly, it can be difficult to quantify a specific profit or revenue impact from some types of experience enhancers-more robust "voice of the customer" programs, more polished customer statements, better trained front-line personnel, streamlined customer touchpoints, a more user-friendly website, etc. The financials surrounding such initiatives are much less precise than those of hard-dollar initiatives, like the renegotiation of real estate leases or the consolidation of corporate functions. Of course, that doesn't mean customer experience investments have any less of a compelling return than these other endeavors. It just takes a little more work to quantify it. And, frankly, in some cases, it requires a leap of faith.

When a large brand like Pepsi or Old Spice decides to use video, there are a lot of factors they have to consider: What message is their video expressing? How will it affect their customers? When should they release it for maximum impact? Small businesses have to contend with all those same issues, but with smaller staffs and less money. Despite the challenges, there is value in video for small businesses, even if you're a video greenhorn. We found four businesses that have had real world success thanks to video

The arrival of Generation C will have an impact comparable to that of the Industrial Revolution, but it will take place much more quickly. For managers, it is no longer sufficient to plan for the next few quarters, or even the next few years. Companies that aren't willing to determine their strategies for the longer term - 10 to 15 years out - are putting their business models and value chains at risk. Executives must begin now to develop an agenda that includes an analysis of the capabilities and workforces they will need in the next decade and beyond. A critical step will be to make sure that the organization as a whole understands the coming changes, and that there are already people within the organization who are living these changes now, who don't perceive them as a threat, and who can help integrate them into the organization's business plan.

A new analysis by HP finds that old media has a decidedly greater impact on what becomes a trending topic on Twitter, a ranking which identifies what is "immediately popular." Rather than being driven by personality or frequency, the study found that "(t)he main determinant of whether an item trends - much more than who tweets about it or how often - was the specific subject of the tweet."

Brad Feld, a venture capitalist, recently had a very uncomfortable experience with social media. The final quote from his account of the experience highlights the need to experience media to understand it: "I guess it's a good thing that this just happened and caused me to think harder about the implications. One of the reasons I immerse myself in this stuff is to understand the products and services, but also to understand the impact on humans and our society. While it's easy to think intellectually about privacy, it's a whole different deal when you have to process the ideas in the context of real issues that you encounter."

Strongly identifying with an organization or workplace can change people's lives in profound ways, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

In 2006, sociologists from the University of Arizona and Duke University sent out another distress signal-a study titled "Social Isolation in America." In comparing the 1985 and 2004 responses to the General Social Survey, used to assess attitudes in the United States, they found that the average American's support system-or the people he or she discussed important matters with-had shrunk by one-third and consisted primarily of family. This time, the Internet and cellphones were allegedly to blame. Keith Hampton, a sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania, is starting to poke holes in this theory that technology has weakened our relationships. Partnered with the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, he turned his gaze, most recently, to users of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. "There has been a great deal of speculation about the impact of social networking site use on people's social lives, and much of it has centered on the possibility that these sites are hurting users' relationships and pushing them away from participating in the world," Hampton said in a recent press release. He surveyed 2,255 American adults this past fall and published his results in a study last month. "We've found the exact opposite-that people who use sites like Facebook actually have more close relationships and are more likely to be involved in civic and political activities."

We spend a large percentage of our lives at the office, engaged in the drudgery of work. Although we obsess over the medical benefits of various leisure activities - should I do yoga? take long walks? not watch television? - the amount of time we might spend in downward facing dog pose pales in comparison to the amount of time we spend seated in our chair, staring at the computer screen, surrounded by co-workers. A new study led by Arie Shirom at Tel Aviv University reveals the powerful impact of the workplace on longevity. The researchers tracked 820 adults for twenty years, starting with a routine health examination in 1988. The subjects worked in various professions, from finance to manufacturing to health care. They were interviewed repeatedly about conditions at their workplace, from the behavior of the boss to the niceness of their colleagues. Over the ensuing decades, their health was closely monitored, allowing the scientists to control for various medical conditions, such as high blood pressure, smoking and depression.

This talk explores nine commonly held assumptions about how teens and young adults use technology. By applying nationally representative data, we'll unpack fact from fiction. Do teens really send that many text messages a day? Is Twitter the next big thing among young adults? Are landlines obsolete? Using data from surveys and focus groups from the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, we will examine the changes in technology use among young people, and look at why it is important that we understand these trends, even if we're not young adults or parents of them ourselves

American companies and organizations spend billions of dollars every year on leadership training for their managers. To improve job performance they ought instead to focus on what managers believe about their employees, a study by the University of California, Riverside shows.

HR and IT are not working together in ways the workforce needs, and L&D professionals are hard pressed to demonstrate the impact of their efforts on individual performance and bottom-line results. The professionals of the incoming generation, Gen Y, are demanding a complete overhaul of how you connect with them, coach them and teach them, but only about one-quarter of new managers get the effective coaching or training they need when assuming their new role. What do your learners find outside of your company? They find that IT and training play together quite well. For example, Apple's store has over 300,000 apps, thousands of which deliver on-the-fly tutorials plus developmental and assessment tools tailored to every need, many of which are free.

"No executive can afford to be a Luddite and dismiss all new media. Sometimes it's exactly the right way for you to spend your time (especially if you're "on the way up" and need to build your profile). But too many leaders dive in without thinking through the costs of social media (what else could you be doing with your time?). After all, in this crowded media landscape, sometimes what matters most isn't your use of 21st century technologies. Instead, it's the forgotten 19th century arts (handwritten notes, personal phone calls, and high-quality personal meetings) that can have the greatest impact." Dorie's article misses two important reasons that leaders might need to include social media as part of their activities: 1) Good leaders understand culture, and social media are an important part of culture 2) Good leaders understand media and their effects on how humans organize. Understanding, especially where media are concerned, is best gained through participation. If they were to take Dorie's advice, Napoleon probably wouldn't have read newspapers, Winston Churchill wouldn't have listened to radio, and JFK wouldn't have watched television.