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Efficiency

Social Networking Integration

by RandallCraig on November 30, 2012

Filed in: Blog, Career Planning, Make It Happen Tipsheet, Management, Social Media

Tagged as: , ,

Have you ever considered how some words (and technologies) are so important, yet in the fullness of time completely disappear?  Buggy whips, Barrel makers (“coopers”), and Telex machines  are but a few examples.  Not fifteen years ago, the term “ebusiness” was popular, until people figured out that there was no such thing as ebusiness – just “business”.

Today, we may be at a very similar turning point.  Consider the terms Social Media and Social Networking:  what do they mean from a business perspective?   Communication, engagement, community-building, research source, advertising venue, sales channel, support mechanism are but a few examples.  These same terms are the basic marketing building blocks of any successful business; it’s reasonable to expect that the requirement for a completely separate “Social” strategy will seem silly.  From an IT perspective, it is very much the same: at one point there were Word processing strategies and Laptop strategies.  No longer.

The movement of a technology (or a marketing channel) from a special place to commonplace is not binary – it happens one step at a time.  And it happens as leaders begin to understand the importance of a complete social media integration with their organization: not a tack-on delegated to marketing or HR.

This week’s action plan:  Look for one way to integrate Social Media into your day-to-day responsibilities. Contrived tasks or generic surfing don’t count: using the social web to achieve your annual objectives does.

This week’s (flip-side) action plan:  On the flip side of complete social integration, is how quickly you retire some of the “old” processes and technologies.  Still have fax machines or fax numbers on business cards – or have you replaced these with Twitter handles and Skype addresses? This week, look for a few examples of “old” that you can replace with the new.

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.RandallCraig.com to register.

Randall “Barrel maker and fax sender no more” Craig

@RandallCraig (follow me)
www.RandallCraig.com
www.108ideaspace.com
www.ProfessionallySpeakingTV.com

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Management and Measurement

by RandallCraig on March 30, 2011

Filed in: Blog, Make It Happen Tipsheet, Management, Planning, Social Media, Strategy

Tagged as: , , ,

When the economy is tight, most organizations face a financial call-to-action: tighten your belts, manage costs, and cut-cut-cut. This seems reasonable – financial management will rationalize that revenues no longer support a “higher” level of expenditure, so either sales must increase, or expenses must cut.

But how are these cuts determined?  Too often, it is a question of expediency (easiest to cut), recency (latest programs), or politics (weakest sponsors’ programs get cut.)  A far better approach is to cut based on efficiency and effectiveness.

Instead of merely looking at the cost of a particular initiative, why not consider whether it was worth the time and money to do it in the first place? And whether, after X months (or years), it is pulling its weight? Cutting lazy investments frees resources for higher-value activities.

The best way to do this is to build evaluation in from the outset. What are the goals of the program? How will they be measured? What are the expected results: financial, marketing, operational, and otherwise? What are the downstream benefits? Understanding these upfront means mid-course corrections can be made along the way.  And it also means that when the call to cut happens, objective measurements can be introduced as criteria. In short, you can’t manage what you can’t measure.

This concept is even more important in the area of social media. For whatever reason, the concepts of managing and measuring seem forgotten in the excitement of the latest tweet or blog posting.  They shouldn’t be.

This weeks action plan: Review your social media initiatives, and set the goals, measures, and expected results. Don’t get caught when the call to cut occurs.

Bonus idea: This same concept works on a personal level. Can you quantify the impact of each of your activities?  If not, spend the time setting goals, measures and expected results.

Note: The Make It Happen Tipsheet is also available by email. Go to www.RandallCraig.com to register.

Randall Craig
www.RandallCraig.com
www.ptadvisors.com

Prime time

by RandallCraig November 17, 2010

Are you interrupted so often that you can never get anything done? Too often, our priorities are set by external stimulus, and not through intentional decisions. We focus on the urgent, not the important. The key to addressing this issue is trainint… of those people around you. If people think that you will always answer [...]

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25 Hours of Status Updates

by RandallCraig June 16, 2010

Every day, there are more Social Media venues that demand your attention. Every day, there are more people that you need to connect with and respond to. Yet every day, there are only 24 available hours. Time is finite, but what you “need” to do each day seems to grow, and grow, and grow. What [...]

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Career Intensity

by RandallCraig October 3, 2006

An athlete’s training schedule holds an important lesson for those looking to develop a successful career. At the beginning, an athlete may run 5 miles in one hour. As they get better, they move their time down to 55 minutes, then 50 minutes. At this point, they decide to add a 6th mile – which [...]

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