Harvard Business Publishing

Thank you for this post, as I've been thinking this to myself for some time. My thoughts are this:

1. Socializing as a distraction has always existed. Though there are more ways to do this now, people still have the ability to recognize that which produces real value in their life, both economically and socially. Balance between these has always been a challenge.

2. There is somewhat of a Web 2.0 bubble right now. Although there isn't as much money wrapped up in it as the mortgage market, far more Web tools/sites are coming to market right now than the market can bare. A few years from now, only the successful, profitable, and useful will survive.

I was just wondering what you would write about at this economic crisis time. I guess no matter it's web 2.0 or wall street's "innovation", the fundamentals of a lasting business still hold. Cash is still the King, and you still need to keep adding value with products or services that customers are willing to pay for. Unfortunately human nature rarely changes much. But you are right - let's be hopeful "the current crisis led to a more diligent, industrious economic climate"!

Now that the bubble has "burst" as we say, I think now is when we see what's frivolous and what actually works in social media vs. business. Adding social media to your brand increases trust and transparency, which (in theory of course) will increase sales, inbound links, and other things we like.

As far as Facebook profiles and Second Life being beneficial to our productivity, that's likely a big no. Time for us to pick and choose where we want to invest our time. Not necessarily money, since social media is essentially free and has a 100% ROI, but I think we're past being able to tell our bosses that updating our status on Facebook will get anyone more business.

From a personal knowledge perspective, social media is probably growing due to the fact that it's a lot cheaper to type than it is to travel (or make phone calls). It's very easy to let people know what you're up to with a few keystrokes now (perhaps too easy), but I would suspect that social media tools are serving, on a personal human-to-human level, as a cost-out tool (and in some rare instances being a revenue generator - there seem to be a lot of blogs now sharing giveaways or using affiliate marketing to get the bloggers a few drops of income, at least).

From a business perspective, if you're a blogger or social media participant, showing - in a public forum - your subject matter expertise most likely helps you market yourself to a future employer (or customer), at a much lower cost than traditional marketing.

On an organizational basis, social media tools are a great way to share knowledge, and thus rapidly source \ develop (or easily retain) employees (via rapid knowledge sharing and expertise locators), and now help to retain customers (via building a social community - check out the various Facebook groups for products of all types - a Facebook notification of a new CD, TV show, or packaged good product is certainly less intrusive than spam emails - or some of the emergent work being done on extranets).

If anything, all the growth in social media tool usage - vs. actual travel \ phone conversations - makes one wonder that the world at large prefers to let their "fingers do the walking" instead of the rest of themselves... this makes me think that in the future, humans really will evolve to just be ultra big brained creatures, and then we'll really need Second Life avatars to stand in for our future physiques...

Rethink your post in light of this talk:

Explaining the cognitive surplus.

I have found social networking both fun and essential in keeping up with the fast paced society we live in. Being able to network with local professionals and peers in a way never before possible. We're actually so busy working we don't have time for cocktail shmoozer parties and the like to network.

Twitter and facebook, the cocktail parties of the future.

Oh, come on!

Where is the news in this? Where is the insight?
That facebook and twitter are not essential for most professions was clear from the beginning. That's why they are called 'social', and not 'professional' networks.
And that there is business potential in them was also clear, as all business is based on relationships.
But, even with the benefit of hindsight, where is the value of this text?
I am sorry to be disappointed, but I expect more meaningfulness from HBS articles.

Hi,

This discussion is really getting the grip on me. Stepping into the blogging, twitting and social network world and yet I sense that most people in the "normal" world are looking into it with glazed eyes asking, "What the heck does it bring for me? What is the concret benefit?"

Pretty much now into team entrepreneurship, connecting people around the globe to make business in remote work partnerships I feel that blogging, etc. is used by techies and yet these techies are embedded in their own techie-world and trying to connect to "real" business outside their closed community is unthinkable for them.

Any thoughts?

Best regards

Ralf

Are you perhaps asking a bit much of social media that they serve as "the basis of a solid economy?" Does a BlackBerry -- or a corporate webside -- serve as a basis? Or are they different-sized tools, systems at different levels of complexity, to serve some particular purpose in a much larger setting?

Please understand, I'm full weary of people sticking "2.0" after everything, the way they stuck "e-" in front of everything. (At the same time, I'm full weary of "branding" as a substitute for having actual substance. It's not just social software that's often accompanied by hot air.)

Reducing social software to friending and writing on walls is as simplistic as reducing executive compensation to making the rich richer.

Sure, people are using Twitter or Facebook status updates to tell you what they had for lunch. They're also building and strengthening their professional networks. They're finding new connections to help understand new situations. And they're collaborating, and accomplishing results, despite the barriers of organizational silos, corporate firewalls, and geographic distance.

At the risk of starting a controversy, I have to ask a few questions:
-How many of you readers/commentors are in touch with generation Y?
-How many of you read or write blogs or use them to keep you in touch with your workforce or trends in the workplace?
-How many of you have ever used a social/new media tool like facebook or linked in to call upon your network to answer a question, find an expert or find a job? Do you understand the power of what you have at your finger tips?
-How many of you know that Comcast uses Twitter to identify cable system outages before it's call centers even know?

I'm 42, worked in the telecom, media and Big 8/now Big 4 accounting industries. I'm a CPA and have an MBA from a top 20 school.

I just returned from the Blog World Expo conference last month. I can tell you that I met some of the smartest, most authentic, forward thinking, entrepreneurially spririted, outside-of-the-box idea people that I've ever met.

IMHO, Social Media is the tie to the younger generation. Whereas, BabyBoomers and Gen X'rs might sit back and question the value of social media, Gen Y and the Gen after that (yet to be named) won't even question it as it is already a given as part of their innate lifestyle.

I've seen amazing business partnerships formed on Facebook and we haven't even started to talk about Twitter yet. Yes, I do agree that we are in the middle of the Social Media explosion and like all industries, we will see consolidation. But it's not leaving and there is value...and it's significant. If you think not, just go to www.technorati, look up some of the top 100 bloggers and go ask them how much money they are making every year. Guys like www.copyblogger.com and @garyvee of www.tv.winelibrary.com and Tim Ferriss, author of Four Hour Work Week.

So, it's your choice to turn your heads to social media but I'm putting my money in social media and holding.

Thanks for reading!

Angie
Founder, Six Figure Moms Club
Blogger, Writer, Executive Coach
@aaswartz on Twitter

This article was more a waste of my time than any social or new media platform. The writer is out of touch, cocky and generally comes across as uninformed. The new tools have evolved the way many organizations do business and connect with members and customers. It's not about the silly names like Twitter, Pownce or Plurk, but about the medium itself and how it has changed business. Why don't you ask the marketing team at BlendTec what they think? Their silly skits involving blenders and lab coats earned an 800% increase in sales.

"The medium is the message. This is merely to say that the personal and social consequences of any medium - that is, of any extension of ourselves - result from the new scale that is introduced into our affairs by each extension of ourselves, or by any new technology."
- Marshall McLuhan

After November's election, social media will have shown to be far more than just a "yapping distraction", as you suggest. Web 2.0 will continue to present a supplement to economic and sociological frameworks, not a basis. Stop drinking the grain alcohol, Tom.

I find it hard to believe that someone from HBS doesn't grasp the benefits of using a medium such as the internet, with it's potential for highly targeted audiences through memberships to social media sites as good for business.

The potential to advertise your product, service, business, etc to exactly the audience you want to reach through social media at a far lower cost than traditional media is something that I do not think is going to go away. Nor do I see it as a waste of time. It is this thinking that is causing some major corporations to fall behind.

Is this a serious post?

It's posts like this that lead me to believe that there is a new Digital Divide. On one side are those who 'get' Web 2.0, and on the other side are those who just don't 'get it'.

I have only been a member of Twitter for a couple of weeks, but its value on a professional level became obvious quickly. There is a new company called Sitemasher, a total solution website builder that I am interested in, so I started following them on Twitter who then followed me. I liked what they had to say and how personable they are, so now I plan on purchasing their product.

Another example: I follow Google's Matt Cutts on Twitter and perhaps because I follow him another Twitterer called Google Tutor followed me. I liked his Tweets and began following his blog which is what I'm sure he intended. If people are interested one thing perhaps they'll like what you have to offer as well. It's just another way of reaching out to an audience.

If these aren't proof enough of economic activities, then step back because the digital divide is getting bigger.

Kelley

I find it a very interesting that a professional author of a major IT dept seems so out of touch with GEN Y and Millennial psychology?

The post seems like a cry for help from a lost older generation than more of a true understanding of what is going on.

Kids of today don't know life without all these technologies and this is the way that they learn and are taught to learn. When my 2.5 year old niece can go open a web browser, find HER favorite's tab, click the page that she wants to visit and be engaged for just as long as she would be with an episode of Sesame Street, there is a substantial paradigm shift happening in the collective mind space and biz and boomers better get prepped because this isn't just a fad that's going away tomorrow...

It's the 2.0 technology and thought behind it that is leading to "a more diligent, industrious economic climate."

The lines of 'socializing' and 'working' have blurred. Twitter is but one example, there are many more. To sit back and look at the new social media and write that it's "fluff," is a serious (and quite frankly, alarming, given your position) mistake.

And FYI - some of us are already making money from our online networks.

survival of the fittest shall be the name of the game .. and change management concepts will be put to acid test now..

Tom

Wow, another traditional thinking business pundit who doesn't understand what web 2.0 is, now that's original.

Web 2.0, first of all, is not social networking, it's a catch all for a robust set of business tools that level the playing field for businesses that employ them in smart ways - that's it plain and simple.

To argue whether Facebook or Twitter, both just examples of Web 2.0 tools, are here to stay is ridiculous at this point. Two minutes of research would turn up thousands of examples of organizations, large and small, employing them effectively and profitably. (Of course in the same time you can turn up many examples of people wasting their time and resources because they don't understand that these a just tools to help meet objectives. Guess you need a strategy for social media just like any business tactic.)

But that's not really the point. The point is that these tools, everything from project management to financial management, and yes, social networking, have changed the way the world works in a profound and fundamental way. And that's the point that many traditional business thinkers, including many of the economists trying to figure out if we are in a recession or not, must come to understand.

Simply sticking your head in the sand and saying, "I don't get any value from social networking so nobody does," is a recipe for extinction.

When the rules of the game are known, the windows of opportunity have long been closed.

Problem:
- We don't know yet the rules of the game
- The current leaders might be the fatal losers soon

Opportunity:
Probably the windows of opportunity are not yet here or we don't know it yet.

One thing is certain there have been a tremendous changes:
- the adoption of the Internet will not disappear.
- the mobile communications anywhere in the world has changed mankind even more
The world just has become smaller.

I find it humorous and telling that you started questioning social networking and web 2.0 during posting 4 or 5 blog posts in one day. Talking about mixed signals...

Social media is the language of the young. While older generations google, Gen Y and the like use Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and many others to inform and stay informed. But, what is interesting is that the line is blurring between using social networking sites by businesses to market and what they are intended for: socializing.

Why? This phenomenon provides extraordinary opportunities. Businesses are the cusp of exploring ways to effectively and efficiently get involved and benefit from these gigantic communities. While many will stumble their way through using these social networking sites and while others have already achieved success, this is not going away anytime soon. There is significant evidence for this: advertising agencies are creating departments, new marketing service companies are opening up everyday, and large companies are creating internal resources to capitalize on this.

Just over the horizon, there are hints that these worlds will become less blurred. Already, when working with clients, we use a concept that draws a definite distinction between the two: one is the world of social networking and the other world is “social marketing.” Simplified, social networks are the communities and social marketing is using the communities as another business tool to elevate brands.

Phill Barufkin

Social media is the language of the young. While older generations google, Gen Y and the like use Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and many others to inform and stay informed. But, what is interesting is that the line is blurring between using social networking sites by businesses to market and what they are intended for: socializing.

Why? This phenomenon provides extraordinary opportunities. Businesses are the cusp of exploring ways to effectively and efficiently get involved and benefit from these gigantic communities. While many will stumble their way through using these social networking sites at first and while others have already achieved success, this is not going away anytime soon. There is significant evidence of this: advertising agencies are creating departments, new digital marketing companies are opening up everyday, and also Fortune 500 companies are creating internal resources to capitalize on this.

Just over the horizon, there are hints that these worlds will become less blurred. Already, when working with brands, we use a concept that draws a definite distinction between these two realms: one is the world of social networking and the other is “social marketing.”

Phill Barufkin

I just started twittering so I could talk about it with some knowledge. I hear a lot of VCs (like Guy Kawasaki) and others supposedly "in the know" that they can more easily go without a cell phone than Twitter. Still, I can't help but think its a bit of a waste of time. An even bigger waste than email has been.

My personal jury is still out on Twitter, but I can say that there are many great opportunities for jobs and building businesses that have come about solely because of social media and networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. The key is to combine the opportunities with follow through. As it becomes easier to make connections, you then still have to nurture the relationship with real work and follow through. Economics is about trust and that only comes after a lot of work is put into a relationship (or tight rules are enforced by a community).

With Twitter, I like the fact that I can Twitter quickly and use it like a shared idea or thought piggy bank. When I have an idea, I can share it and others can build on it. Twitter can be a first pass at the selective process that ideas have to go through before they can be leveraged, invested into, and hopefully, monetized. At least one way to make sure that ideas go into the ether instead of the void.

As the economy goes south, we all have fewer opportunities, but social media will continue to create more. I see it as a way of hedging and getting ahead in a bad economy. The network effects of idea sharing will continue to change society and accelerate innovation for now and likely forever.

This article rang very true as I sat in in a coffee shop (one very similar to Starbucks) and drank my grande americano with 2 inches of steamed soy and 1 splenda.. what I society that we live in were people can work in such cozy conditions!

I think that value CAN be made through ideas. The ideas the create value are the ones that improve the way in which people communicate with each other and grow their individual and collaborative professional and intellectual capital.

Cheetah Learning is a prime example of offering great value for Project Managers with IDEAS in their free downloads at http://tinyurl.com/freepmtools. And these ideas are not just fluff, either, but real quantifiable ways in which people can obtain jobs (through obtaining their PMP certificate) or keep the jobs they have (through maintaining their certification through courses provided).

This is just one example how ideas can translate to RESULTS in this age of coffee shop hopping professionals. And you can access all this without even getting up to top off your cup o' joe.

Thanks for shedding some light on e Web 2.0's role during economic hard times.

Kristen Kent