User Contributed Content: Great for Marketers and Publishers

Focusing on a subject and letting users contribute: a great formula for marketers (c) 2011

Does every company need a dynamic digital communication channel? Is a blog, wiki, Facebook page, or Twitter stream crucial for business success? For many businesses, the marketing manager's answer is “definitely, absolutely”. Yet, it seems like for many other businesses, it's not that certain. Before you jump into a knee jerk reaction, and blurt out an quick answer, look around and examine your position. Two indicators are useful in answering these questions. The first is a survey of executives, marketers, and business professionals. Ask people you know and dig a little deeper than just a yes or no answers. See if you can get a marketing manager to explain how they use digital communication channels. The second method to determine the potential of digital communication is a survey of company web sites, blogs, and other digital channels. In any product or service category, we find companies which use and benefit from digital communication. We also find companies with superior products and services which lag behind the use of digital communication. In some cases, we can actually estimate [guess] the affect of more invested digital communication, or true professional execution. Fortunately, some work is clearly useful as examples. In many examples we can see good ideas and good use of digital communication.

Specialization and Professional Status in Internet Services

Top flight internet professionals are available for consulting and training

Our digital revolutionary communication capability is changing more than available services and available information. It is changing the way our work is organized. Three meetings in the last week revealed a trend in the way companies consume internet services and in how professionals are willing to provide services. Some professionals offer their services as independent contractors. Some offer services as packaged products: blog subscription, e-books, paid newsletters, limited attendance video [conference], or a mix of these and other formats. Some professionals use traditional service structures such as advertising agencies, design shops, and business consulting. Regardless of their format, it seems like better communication and free publishing is enabling many top internet services professionals to stay on their own. On the consumer side, only very large companies with large internet properties employ large or top notch professionals. Since services are available to purchase a-la-cart, they buy these services piecemeal.

Learning From General Business Books (2nd installment)

In the last article about learning and practicing new skills, I wrote about Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers book. He tells a story about how people in remote locations, away from the (accepted) mainstream centers, become accomplished experts and seem to suddenly show up as if discovered by a reality pop music show. Gladwell's is one of the many general business, social science and psychology books describing idea or trend. Many similar books from Seth Godin, Jim Collins, Michael Lewis and others, also tell stories useful to navigate today's changes in media use (especially the internet.) How do we turn a story of the financial failure in the US to something we can use? (see Michael Lewis's The Big Short) We can even go one step further and ask how do turn it into a new skill? If Gladwell explains the phenomena of expertise away from centers of knowledge, can we turn this idea into something we can use? That part is even harder, some general business ideas do not seem relevant to most businesses. Yet, they are and they can make or break a company, your career and maybe even your everyday work satisfaction. Look at these trend and idea books as today's version of the 1970's self-help books.