In a study from the Stanford Governance Program, the question was asked whether senior management receives reports containing information and metrics from the company’s social media presence. The inquiry received an eye-opening answer: 55.5% answered no, 23.6% said yes, and the remaining 20.9% didn’t know. Those companies that answered no explained that their company doesn’t collect that kind of data, and explained that they felt it was too low level for senior management to deal with, and most interesting of all, they explained that they felt it was not valuable for making business decisions.
The Catalysts at AdHocnium disagree. On this AdHocnium Catalytic Podcast, Chris Heuer is joined by Shel Holtz of Holtz Communication + Technology, Redg Snodgrass of Stained Glass Labs, Bill Sanders of Roebling Strauss, and Bill Jensen of The Jensen Group, to discuss how senior executives can (and must) come to understand and become more involved social technologies and how they impact their markets and their companies.
the more that this technology brings us together, and gets us closer to the ideal, the better it is for society and for businesses.” At the same time, however, there remained some ambiguity as to how involved the CEO was with the transition, as social integration is often seen as a way to simplify communication rather than enhance it.
One of the most troubling consequences of what Chris Heuer refers to as “Spreadsheet Management,” where a CEO emphasizes only the financial numbers of their company instead of the true value it creates in human terms, is that they become detached from their employees and customers. In his experiences with several large technology companies, Chris continually heard the phrase “Give me the one number.” Essentially, they asked “What’s the one number I can show to the CEO that says we’re doing well or not doing well with social media.” Chris’ response was to explain that there a multiple things to take into account depending on strategies deployed and activities undertaken. But the fact that he needed to explain this illustrates some disturbingly commonplace misunderstandings when it comes to the maturity of social and digital technologies in business.
To hear the full discussion between AdHocnium’s social and digital business leaders, listen to the conversation above. After listening to this podcast, please share your thoughts on this topic below, providing us with further insights on how executives can expand their understanding and participation with their company’s social media outlets. How do you break through the “care barrier”?
Bill Jensen’s new book “Disrupt. Think Epic. Be Epic.”
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