David Armano

Here's what I observed this past week after scanning the reactions of people in my own networks in relation to Google Buzz. People in my own ecosystem seem utterly exhausted by the plethora of networks they manage and the number of people within those networks. E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Yammer, Instant Messenger... just how many platforms can we participate in?

More articles on Harvard Business

As organizations move their social media strategies from theory to practice, they discover a difficult truth they must confront: Finding the "perfect" social media talent is practically impossible.

It's 2011 and as you gear up for planning initiatives for the new year, it's the best time ever to take a step back and think about what needs to be done before you take action. But before even doing that, you may want to think about how you've approached initiatives in the past. Here's a simple framework to consider:

A while back I wrote a post titled "How to Spot Social Media Snake Oil". Not long after, BusinessWeek's Stephen Baker ended up writing a sort of mainstream media version of it citing lots of sources and examples. I knew that this article would be written because Stephen contacted me about it and in fact I used Twitter to point him to some additional sources which I believe he sourced in the story. (This will probably become more commonplace by the way.)

From my latest contribution to Harvard Business

If you are a pundit, or get paid to watch trends, then this message doesn't apply to you. It's your job to go out and find the next shiny object that could influence how we live and do business.

Originally posted on the Collaboratory

Jeff Dachis and I recently returned from the Web 2.0 Expo in New York—a near week long flurry of activity that brings together technology, business and design amongst other things. We co-presented a somewhat uniquely titled session called “Social Business Design: It’s Clobberin’ Time”.

A nice reminder from Chris Brogan. I recommend watching the entire talk—it's only 10 minutes. Here's what you need to know: as an observer and active participant of the social web for several years, I've seen the power of serendipity influence how business gets done. Business leads coming in through Twitter because the person inquiring somehow stumbled upon you via the web and after following you for a while, they decided it was time to talk business.

Originally posted on the Collaboratory
From a holistic perspective, we talk about the need for organizations to become more socially calibrated—able to adapt and respond to changes both externally and internally. The three areas where emergent outcomes can manifest are, participation with your customers, collaboration between your employees and optimization in the interactions/transactions between your business and its partners. Digging into customer participation, it’s clear that in a networked economy customers demand engagement, information, support and ultimately, value and ecosystems such as Twitter are beginning to deliver here.