Gartner gets it. What about you?

Gartner analysts Anthony Bradley and Nikos Drakos have come out with a report identifying the benefits of social media, on the heals of announcements from several banks that they are banning the use of tools like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.  The analysts say the collaborative possibilities of the sites increase productivity so much that it overwhelms what might be seen as wasting time at work.


I know I've been late to the party when it came to adopting these tools.  I've had a MySpace page simply to maintain a connection with my kids and their circle of friends (Hey, Jon's Dad is cool, he has a Myspace), and reluctantly joined FaceBook (I wrote in the status several months ago that I was wondering what value it had).  

Since then, I've been able to use it to make business connections outside of the EDA and Fabless areas my business has focused on for years.  I've been able to share ideas quickly and easily with colleagues, find old friends and sharpen my view of new media.  Twitter has helped me focus my thoughts better.  The blog helps organize those thoughts and expand my presence in the market.

Yes there are time-wasting applications, but computer solitaire was sited as a reason to not get desktop computers for employees 10 years ago.  Look where we are today.

Social media is a tool that can be used extremely well by competent communicators, or an energy sucker when used by people with no purpose.  It is what you make of it.  As the corporate world continues to kill the traditional communications mediums by its lack of understanding, it better get on board with the new medium or it will find itself walled in with no way to the market.

Comments

  1. Brian FullerAugust 12, 2008 at 4:25 AM

    I'm concerned about a couple of things. I enjoy chasing after the next shiny object as much as the next new media dweeb (Tumblr and Ping.fm for instance). However, social networking is about community. MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn could end up being the AOL of their generation. AOL, you'll recall, was pretty hot stuff at one point (you may have made this point in an earlier post or comment, Lou). Now it's all but dead as community. Before that, there was The Well.
    So maybe portable ID solves the problem of platform evolution and platform hopping. Time will tell.
    One thing rang true in a client meeting yesterday: Facebook could be dead in 24 months and adults have disposable income. They're edging into social networking, but not spending huge amounts of time there because--helloooo!--they don't have huge amounts of time. There goes the page inventory play for all but the hugest social-networking sites.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Lou CoveyAugust 12, 2008 at 6:19 AM

    As always, great insight, B. But what I'm seeing about social media is that the only constant is flux. There was a time that electronic bulletin boards were all the rage, not so much anymore. There was a time that email was the only way to reach editors, but that was before spam. Then texting, IMing, blogs, microblogs, social networks. What people are looking for is relationship without extraneous noise.

    I have no illusions (no I mean illusions, not allusions) on the future of Facebook because I trust no business model based on advertising, but while it lasts, I'm going to make use of it. I need to sit down with you on the portable ID thing that I don't quite get, but I didn't get Facebook either.

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