Daniel Burrus' Strategic Insights Blog

The Next President Must Have an Integrated Social Media Strategy

us flagWhen President Obama became president, it was widely reported that he used social media and technology to help gain the momentum and the votes he needed.

Today, if we look at the republican candidates and their use of social media, we see that each has a lopsided social media strategy at best. In other words, someone might have a lot of Facebook activity, but not much on Twitter. One might have a lot of “likes” and another one may not have any “likes” because they don’t understand what “likes” do. Some of them have Facebook and Twitter, but they aren’t on YouTube.

For example, let’s look at frontrunner Mitt Romney. He has over 1.3 million Facebook “likes.” That’s powerful. But his Twitter followers are only around 200,000, and his You Tube subscribers are a measly 3,300 (as of this writing). So he’s doing great in one area, but where’s the rest?

How Trust Can Shape Your Company’s Decisions

queue croppedIn the past few months, we’ve seen quite a few corporate reversals that have come about via social media. For example, Bank of America proposed charging customers a $5 monthly fee for using their debit card. It didn’t take long for a social media revolt from customers to get BOA to reverse that decision.

Most recently, Verizon Wireless announced they were going to charge customers a “convenience fee” for paying their bills online. That quickly was beaten down, again thanks to technology and social media allowing consumers to voice their opinions collectively.

Those are just two examples. The list of corporate reversals is long, from Netflix to Blackberry to Hewlett-Packard. So what’s really going on?

Can companies get away with new fees?

credit card feesCustomers have let it be known that they’re not going to accept new charges without added value in return. This post comes from Matt Brownell at partner site MainStreet.

When Verizon announced last week that it was imposing a new $2 fee for paying your bill online or over the phone, it probably thought the news would fly under the radar. After all, the announcement came during that dead week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, a time when many members of the media are on vacation and people are preoccupied with their New Year’s Eve plans. In that sense, it was the perfect time to drop the bad news with the minimal amount of controversy – or so the company perhaps thought.

Verizon customers revolted, with the news trending on Twitter and an online petition against the fee garnering upward of 50,000 signatures in a single day. The company quickly backtracked, canceling plans for the new feejust a day after the initial announcements.

Gameification: Accelerating Learning with Technology

Accelerating Learning with TechnologyBy Daniel Burrus and John David Mann

Anyone who has kids—or who has been around them for any length of time—knows they are attracted to video games like moths to light. You might be tempted to think these young-uns are using their time idly.

In reality, they’re pioneering the future of business training and education.

This is part of a trend I call gameification, which I first identified in the early eighties and is today reaching its tipping point.

Gameification represents part of a predictable sequence. Many of the greatest technological advances in business have come originally from the world of kids and their games. Here’s how the sequence flows:

10 Business Authors’ New Year’s Resolutions for You

10 Business Authors There are lots of great business books out there but, as a small-business owner, you may not have time to read them all. Luckily, we were able to get some of the country’s best business writers to distill their business theories into one short and sweet New Year’s resolution for you. Even if you only pick one or two, you’ll be on the road to building your business in 2012.

The Most Important New Year’s Resolution of All

2011 year resolutionIf you’re one to make resolutions at the start of the New Year, the number one resolution you need to make is to take control of your destiny and stop waiting for outside help to come in. This advice is especially true for business owners and leaders.

Realize that we all have amazing opportunity in front of us right now. Thanks to today’s technological transformations taking place, we’re transforming how we sell, market, communicate, collaborate, innovate, train, and educate—and all this is leveling the playing field globally. Why? Because no one has an advantage when there’s a major game change taking place, and right now we have multiple game changes taking place on a global level. That means the big, established players no longer have the competitive advantage they’ve had in the past. So not only are the technological tools for success changing, but the rules that govern how you apply those tools are changing as well.

But the key question is, “Are you noticing it?” And if you are, are you making your move, or are you waiting for the economy to pick up or some law to be passed before taking action?

The Real Concern about North Korea

kim jong ilOver the past week, many people have expressed concern over the passing of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-il. In reality, it’s not his death that should raise concern; rather, it’s who is taking his place as the country’s ruler.

Kim Jong-il’s successor is his youngest son, Kim Jong-un—someone North Korea’s official KCNA news agency called the “Great Successor,” and “the outstanding leader of our party, army, and people.” Is that an accurate statement? I’m not too sure.

We don’t know much about Kim Jong-un, other than the fact that he’s in his late 20s, studied for a short time at a school in Switzerland, and was appointed to senior political and military posts only last year.

Now here’s where the real concern comes in: North Korea is a nuclear power. And anyone in their late 20s—no matter how well schooled—is fairly inexperienced when it comes to leading a country. Granted, I’m sure he accompanied his father on a number of different government meetings and perhaps even international meetings, but he’s still very young to be in control of a nuclear power. That’s where the real concern and worry should be.

How to Avoid Future Shock

How to Avoid Future Shock By Kim S. Nash

Originally Published December 16, 2011

What’s wrong with how most companies create a business strategy?

C-suites spend a lot of time focusing on execution. The problem is they may not be executing on a full strategy. Too often, a strategic plan is a static document. We have a meeting and write it up, including objectives, goals, time lines and accountability. But then it’s fixed in time until the next time we have a strategic planning session and come up with a new one. We need to make the strategic plan alive in the minds of our people.

Job Trends: Taking Tech Changes Into Your Own Hands

Job Trends

By WALLACE IMMEN

Published Thursday, Dec. 15, 2011

As bleak as the prospect of a long winter might be, at least you can be sure that it’s going to give way to spring.

web careers

Taking tech changes into your own hand.

It’s a shame you can’t be as certain about an economic rebound, a resurgence in hiring or even whether your job or employer will be secure in the coming year.

Yet there are changes and trends you can be confident will happen in the near future, and they can be used to design career strategies to weather even the most prolonged economic chill, according to technology trends consultant Daniel Burrus, author of Flash Foresight.(To read an excerpt from the book,click here.)