Author: Courtney Hunt
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Digital Rebranding: Logistical and Human Factors
This piece describes and offers tips on some of the logistics associated with digital rebranding – changing websites and emails, moving blogs, rebranding social media identities, and promoting the new identity. It also addresses some of the human factors that can complicate (and potentially derail) a digital rebranding effort. The intent is to offer a…
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Becoming a Digital Organization: A Three-Phase Journey
There are three main phases to becoming a digital organization: digitization, digital engagement, and digital transformation. This post offers a lay oriented description and assessment of these phases. The objective is to help leaders who are digital rookies develop a conceptual foundation for understanding where their organizations have been, where they are, and – most…
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Managing Digital Era Risks: Social Media Policies and More
Managing risks is part of the cost of doing business, and managing them well can be a competitive differentiator, in both the economic marketplace and the war for talent. A relatively small percentage of organizations have addressed Digital Era risks in a meaningful way, however. This post provides an overview intended to help organizational leaders…
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Transforming Talent Management: The Impact of Social and Digital Tech
Transforming talent management requires digitization and leveraging social and digital technologies to promote and enhance communication, collaboration, and engagement. This post presents some of the ways in which social and digital technologies are transforming talent management throughout the employee life cycle. All of the practices are currently possible based on available technology; however, none of…
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Website Upgrades: 5 Essential Considerations
Organizations are increasingly realizing they need to update the look, feel, and functionality of their websites. The process for website upgrades has changed significantly in the past few years. The days of hiring a web developer to “hard code” a site. A better alternative is to go with a platform like WordPress.org, which enables the…
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Digital DIY: Penny Wise and Pound Foolish?
For a host of reasons, many organizations have been taking a Digital DIY (Do It Yourself) approach to pursuing technology initiatives, both externally and internally. Though the motivations for these approaches are understandable and seem logical on the surface, more often than not they are suboptimal strategies that aren’t in an organization’s best interests. A…
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Trickle-Up Socialnomics: How BtoB Firms Can Leverage Social Media
This post introduces the idea of Trickle-Up Socialnomics™, which describes how BtoB (business-to-business) firms can view their supply chain as a Social Media Chain and leverage it to identify business opportunities and increase revenues. It includes links to a white paper that describes the Social Media Chain more fully and provides examples of how participants…
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11 Lessons about Digital Communities from Rome – A Photo Essay
It may be an ancient, bricks and mortar city, but the buildings, infrastructure and inhabitants of Rome offer many design insights into cyberspace, particularly when it comes to building, maintaining, and participating in digital communities. This post shares 11 lessons, organized into three feng shui-inspired themes: balancing the old and the new, letting rules serve…
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Social and Digital Engagement: You Can’t Outsource Leadership
Effective social and digital engagement requires informed and active involvement from the top of the organization. Although it may be appropriate to outsource and delegate some responsibility and many activities, it’s not in an organization’s best interests to outsource leadership. To achieve the best results, leaders must educate themselves, develop a strategic, integrated approach to…
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What Factors are Relevant to Becoming a Social Enterprise?
Many leaders are still trying to figure out whether, when and how they should begin to transform their organization into a “social enterprise.” This post addresses the organizational and workforce characteristics that should be considered in making that decision and taking the necessary actions by addressing three sets of factors: those that matter less than…
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Social Media Reality Check: Four Mental Shifts Leaders Need to Make
This Social Media Reality Check addresses four key mental shifts organizational leaders must make to accept new Digital Era realities and move forward. These shifts include recognizing changes in the balance of power, accepting loss of control, developing new perspectives on productivity, and viewing social technology integration as mandatory rather than optional.
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Dressing for Success in Cyberspace: Give Yourself a Digital Make-Over
You pride yourself on your professional appearance and demeanor. You strive to create and maintain a strong identity and reputation within your organization, with your clients and peers, and in your industry. But are you as diligent a custodian of your professional brand in cyberspace as you are in the physical world? If not, you…
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Social and Digital Technology Trends: 9 Take-Aways for YOU
The evolution of social and digital technologies proceeds unabated. We continue to witness dramatic changes, and it’s safe to say that the anticipated changes promise to be equally profound. Even if you don’t consider yourself an early adopter or are a digital Luddite, it’s virtually impossible to avoid the impact of these changes both personally…
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Social Media in 10 Minutes a Day? 7 Reasons not to be Fooled
Although it’s generally well intentioned, most of the advice for engaging via social media in 10 minutes a day (or similar short timeframes) is misguided, misleading, and misrepresentative – especially for social media rookies. This post offers seven reasons why, and suggests more realistic and practical approaches for individuals and organizations to find ways to…
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Enhancing Your LinkedIn Profile II: 7 More Tasks and 23+ Tips
Building on an earlier post – 7 Simple To Dos for Rookies to Enhance Their LinkedIn Profile – this piece offers additional guidance to help professionals upgrade their LinkedIn profiles. It describes seven tasks that can be tackled in one sitting or over several sessions. These tasks include adding digital links, creating a summary and…
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Understanding the World Wide Web: A Brief Primer
Even though we all use the World Wide Web regularly for both work and pleasure, most of us would be hard pressed to define exactly what it is, describe much about its history, and/or articulate details of its impact. This primer offers a quick introduction to all those things.
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7 Simple To Dos for Rookies to Enhance Their LinkedIn Profile
This post provides seven basic recommendations that can help digital rookies transform their LinkedIn profile from anemic to respectable. These tasks can be tackled in as little as an hour (and no more than a half-day session) and will produce a solid basic presence that also lays a foundation for future development.
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Social Media Ownership: Recommendations for Employers
As individuals become more engaged with social media in their professional lives, employers are increasingly recognizing the need to address new challenges with respect to protecting their brand and commercial interests. Though it’s tempting to develop one-sided, draconian approaches, they are not usually in an organization’s long-term best interests. This post offers recommendations for developing…
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Coping with Social Media Realities: Time and Information Management
In our overcommitted, busy lives, lack of time is a common lament. The time challenge is exacerbated by information overload and the speed with which digital technology continues to change. For social media rookies in particular, these challenges can be overwhelming. This post highlights certain immutable realities of the world in which we live and…
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Five Social Media Engagement Principles (or Mantras)
This post offers five social media engagement principles to guide the efforts of both individuals and organizations. It is primarily targeted to rookies who are just getting started with social media, as well as those who want to regroup and redirect their efforts. The guiding principles include proceeding with “mindful flexibility,” listening first then talking,…