I screw up a lot, always have, always will, but what matters is what I do next.

My first presentation to a Forrester client was a total F-up. I’m not new to speaking, but presenting in the Forrester style requires a specific style, and as trained speakers, clients pay a lot of money and expect very polished ‘performance’.

Here’s what happened: I was out in NY, and I wasn’t fully prepared, I’d only done a half-ass job of rehearsing the presentation. I had the wrong date typed on the opening slide, and the client saw it. Also, I was giving covering for a colleague and doing her speech, therefore emulating her style, and not doing my own thing. Apparently, the client wasn’t impressed, and even suggested I was dressed inappropriately, I’d argue that I was, but the customer is right. The next week, in the de-brief with the account team, I got a 30 minute well deserved earful, and had to sheepishly apologize and sent them an mea culpa email which I hope they forwarded on to the client. Fortunately, the relationship with the client is salvaged, and we continue to do work with them, although I probaly won’t be invited back.

I sadly dwelled on this for a few days, got some support from my colleagues (Josh, Charlene), my boss-boss Cliff Condon was supportive, mentioning to me it was a ‘hard-knock’ a good lesson to walk away with.

So what was I going to do about it? I made a vow to correct this problem: I started to rehearse outloud several times before new presentations (in the car, at home, in the hotel), started to read more materials on how to be a better speaker, and got some internal training and support. So far, I’ve given maybe 30-50 presentations since that ill-fated day, each with good-to-great remarks from clients, I’m confident the things within my control won’t happen again.

So what did I learn? Every company, every website, and every individual is going to make mistakes and fall. What matters is to quickly learn from those mistakes, and improve that it doesn’t happen again. It’s important in the web industry (a rapidly changing one) that we work in environments that accept mistakes as long as they are not repeated again through hard lessons.

The trick is to quickly make mistakes and then rapidly fix them and move on. So my friends, fail fast.

Now back to you, how have you quickly turned a negative (product, feature, complaint) into a quick positive iteration?

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I’m in the unique position that I get to speak to enterprise brands, white label vendors, and now CMS vendors on a regular basis, here’s what I’m seeing:

It’s now quarter 3, and I start research on the big report, the Forrester Wave (learn about the reports) on the Community Platforms (White Label Social Networks) the Vendor Catalog of this space will be published for clients in the coming days. The process, which has been completed for many other markets, is detailed, granular, and will take me over 10 weeks to complete. The results will yield a report that indicate the strength and weaknesses of those vendors for enterprise class interactive marketers.

[Trend watch: Enterprise CMS Vendors to enter the White Label Social Networking Space and offer Community Features and Platforms]

Social Features a Commodity
As I’ve mentioned time and time again, it’s a crowded space in the white label social network space due to low barriers to entry, and commodity features, in fact with 80+ vendors (could be 120+ if I counted insight vendors and collaboration vendors), there’s no shortage of those who will throw their hat into the ring.

Overview: Enterprise Content Management Systems
I’ve started to notice more of the ‘traditional’ CMS and Portal players that already have deep footprints into the corporate web teams that are inching into this space. First, let’s take a historical view, many of these vendors appeared in the late 90s, they offer easy ways to publish online for corporations, often including advanced review workflows, templates, and staging and dev sites. I’ve been on the teams (I’m a former corporate web guy) that have had to implement, manage, or train stakeholders to use these. Next, in the early 2000-2002 we started to see acquisitions into this space by large ERP players: Microsoft acquired CMS which eventually evolved into Sharepoint, EMC acquired Documentum, and other ERP players such as Interwoven, Vignette, Stellent, IBM’s Filenet and LotusNotes, edDot CMS, Xerox’s Docushare, and Saperion started to extend their KM products for public websites. There’s a great list of these vendors from CMS watch.

CMS Vendors sniffing the social space
Fast forward to 2008. With the demand and buzz for social network features, or community offerings, these established CMS/Portal vendors recognize the demand, and see opportunity dollars falling through the cracks. I’ve started conversations with several of the big players to gauge where they are headed. Of course, the conversations don’t end up on this blog (unless they give me permission, or publish first) but it’s quite obvious where things are headed. In fact, see my predictions referenced in a recent Techcrunch article. They won’t be the only ones, we’re starting to get glimmers of social platforms tying to CRM systems too –integration afoot.

Three Options for CMS Vendors
There are at least three ways these large CMS vendors can head:

1) Develop the features and roll out community suites. Acquire new staff to understand this new world (it’s a different skill set than CMS rollout and management). This will involve client side training, consulting, development/design, new metrics packages, and series of recurring support revenue streams.

2) Acquire the successful white social networking vendors that complement their existing offerings. Find a player that digs deep within Fortune 5000 that offers 100k revenues on first year from a solution sell, and 50k for ongoing support and services. Or either find and easy to use vendor that offers few but broad features, and attached advertising streams and develop a media network.

3) Do nothing. Some CMS vendors may be content with their current product offerings to client, and don’t want to jump into a crowded pool and may choose to avoid offering social features to clients. With third party developers offering widgets and embeddable applications, they actually may not have to.

Four Options for White Label Social Networks
Some of these enterprise class vendors (I’ll know more when wave report comes out), it’s likely they will do a few of these, it’s not exclusive, and will have a strong stance to do the following:

1) Stay independent. I could call this ‘do nothing’ but it’s not the case. Like the CMS/Portal space in late 90s, some of these vendors will continue to grow and be stand alone companies, who knows, some may actually become publicly traded companies.

2) Start partnerships. We’re already seeing some of these companies band together such as Mzinga/Prospero, and now Awareness ties data to Sharepoint, this nods to a direction of working with others, or at least having interoperability.

3) Design for acquisition. Some white label vendors have thought this through, and are building their software in the platform or language of another traditional CMS company and are making themselves ripe fruits for acquisitions.

4) Develop flexible architectures. The future of the web is amorphous, therefore some white label vendors will heavily depend on open APIs, Data, and develop or work with widget vendors to let social content be shared and ‘fly’ around the web. Eventually, some of these widget features could easily be embedded into CMS systems, even if they don’t offer these features.

Four Options for Brands
In our recent forecast report, we predicted that the largest growth spend at the enterprise level for social services and products will be social networks. Brands have a few options:

1) Develop their own social software features. I know a few brands (despite me suggesting they buy) are extending their home grown CMS systems to add on social features. For those with large web development teams it makes sense. For others wanting to be fast and flexible, it’s often not an efficient path.

2) Work with a White Label Vendor. Many are choosing to rope in these vendors to develop, train, design, and manage these communities, in most cases they sit ‘off to the side’ of the corporate website and are not integrated with product pages. Of course, this whole discussion excludes marketing efforts on organic social sites like Facebook, MySpace, etc.

3) Wait for CMS vendors. Many brands are just toe-dippin’ into the social space, they are not offering community features, don’t see the point, or have other objectives to fulfill. As a result, they may just wait a few quarters till CMS vendors offer this ability within their existing platforms. Of course, this comes with risk from deploying too late, or not offering features that meet the needs of community members

4) Do nothing. In the end, some brands will choose not to engage customers in community sites, for a variety of reasons such as products or services that are sold to resellers and rebranded, deep technology components that are mainly a b2b sell, or lack of vision to embrace customers.

Watch this emerging trend
Where are we now? We’re at the very beginnings of this journey, with most white labels being around for just a few years, and the established CMS vendors starting to sniff this sector and gather requirements (many are coming to me) we’re clearly at the R&D stage, with some banding development teams to enter this space.

Questions that will be need to be answered by this space:

Will CMS vendors be able to adapt to social features into their legacy systems?

Is the demand from client side strong enough for CMS vendors assert flexibility?

How will these commodity social features be monetized, with everyone having them, how will you differentiate?

Will CMS vendors build, buy, or ignore social features?

When will we see existing internal knowledge management systems integrate these features?

Will the small white label vendors start to get friendly with the CMS space and start to develop an exit strategy?

Are white label vendors building their products for easy integration into CMS vendors?

I’ve been thinking about developing a ’show and tell’ event where both of these vendors can come together for a meet and greet, if I did, would you attend?

Chime in, love to hear you answer these questions I posed above.

Update: Larry Dignan from Zdnet throws in his hat and predicts, in his opinion, the most logical options.

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I create many lists, have been doing this since I started this blog. Why? It helps me to keep track of the industry I’m covering, I can watch it grow, and it’s a reference I can quickly pull up and demonstrate to others who’s doing what well –and wrong.

If you’re in the Finance, Auto, or Insurance industry (or one of your clients is), I recommend forwarding those links to your colleagues, so you can quickly assess the competitive landscape. If you’re leading the charge at your company, show the list of full time social media folks to the key decision makers.

The following six lists have been growing, or show remarkable traction, I wanted to call them out since of them may be older.

1) List of Social Computing Strategists and Community Managers for Enterprise Corporations
When I started this list just last Friday, it had about 8 names on it. Since then, it’s grown to over 60 full time professionals at enterprise size (1000+ employees) that are managing social media programs. Most of the adoption is with the tech industry, with a smattering from media, consumer products, auto and airline.

2) Finance Industry + Social Media
If you’re in the Financial industry and want to see who’s doing what, there’s a small, but growing list of firms engaging social media.

3) Insurance Industry + Social Media
Similiar to the Finance industry, we see patterns of slow adoption, toe-dipping, and the occasional project moving forward to reach customers.

4)Auto Industry + Social Media
Perhaps one of the passionate group of consumers are auto drivers, it creeps into the lifestyle of the American in so many different ways as well as global impact.

5) A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media
This is the one list of mine that you don’t want to be on. It lists out brands that have been brand jacked by social media. Sadly, it continues to slowly grow.

6) A Complete List of the Many Forms of Web Marketing for 2008
This comprehensive list of all the tools available to you to use for your marketing efforts online is a staple for anyone making decisions or handling budgets at their corporations. I’m not quite sure what to add to it next year in 2009.

If you can submit to any of them, go to that specific post and leave a comment, thanks!

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A few days ago, I ran a contest for two winners to receive free tickets to the Internet Strategy Forum Summit in Portland. The winning responses, based on insight, ability to back up their predictions and being succinct were Christopher Smith and Kristie.

I’ve selected the two winners, here’s their submissions:

Kristie Connor, a Marketing Consultant, submits on the concept of ‘fluidity’. I like this concept as the corporate website won’t be the only container of brand and product content but also this content will spread to wherever the conversations flow on the web: Social networks, blogs, friendfeed and wherever else. She writes the following:

“Corporate websites of the future will be less about canned content and more about fluidity. Meaning, the consumer will demand websites that are connected to the ‘users’ and ‘consumers’ personal networks which will promote and instill word of mouth as a best practice for business development and ultimately sales. The infrastructure will be designed in a way that company developed case studies, webinars and such will be replaced by real consumers leaving messages and user created video’s. The back-end will be light and built to accommodate the interactivity of users and social networks. Customer generated content will be ranked higher in search engines and push the website owner to move in the direction to capture mind share.”

Additionally, this evolution will put the consumer in the driver’s seat which will drive accountability from outside in.

Christopher Smith, VP of Digital Media Marketing and the Creative Director at MediaTrust submits an excellent piece highlighting that people, real humans will be front and center, rather than the stock photo and corporate happy talk, I couldn’t hope and agree more. Perhaps the future holds a ‘customized’ social network where people you actually know that work at the company are front and center on the website, or customers that are connected to you on your social graph:

“Jeremiah, in response to your contest I submit the following:

I actually believe in 5 years the “corporate website” as we now it will no longer exist. Gone will be the days of the static brochure site, supported by a “dynamic” sub-branded social community. There will no longer be the “self-service” document download centers, or the video case study hiding the infomercial inside.

I see the corporate website as hub of individuals that become your first point of contact, and guide you through your search for products, service or support. Consider the example of the Apple Retail Store experience and extend that to the web. You are going to the corporate site for a reason. Even casual browsers to a corporate site have a passive agenda. Virtual corporate ambassadors will assist you in your interaction with the company, blurring the lines of sales, CRM, and support, with the use of chat, video feed, guided browsing, VoIP… the list goes on.

How will this happen in 5 years? I have already begun this work for my company’s new site, and have begun working with our customer experience team from the tech side to insure that we begin building the opportunity today and defining the process in design and test.

And yes, I already have the date in my calendar, and plan on attending as much of the conference as I can. The downside of winning your contest will be that I am required to visit my mother in law if I am Portland.”

Doh! Have fun with your mother in law Chris. For additional reference, do read my post on the Irrelevant Corporate Website, and how to evolve it. Although over a year old, we’re just starting to see websites evolve.

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Above: I spent Saturday on San Gregario beach in Half Moon Bay, just a few minutes from the hustle and bustle of busy Silicon Valley, pics from mobile phone.

While only 30 minutes from companies like Siebel, Oracle, NetSuite, and Visa in San Mateo, Half Moon bay is a world apart. A short 12 mile jaunt westbound on 92 will take you over the reservoir, which coincidently is in the shape of the fault line (an aerial view indicates it is the fault line) and over the San Mateo hills. You’ll immediately notice a temperature drop and increase in the humid, salt, air as you drive through the eucelpyous groves. In the fall, you’ll see the magic of the pumpkin festival, kids on pony rides, and the various smoked salmon shops and mini-wineries.

Half Moon Bay is home to many silicon valley executives, corporate offsites, and rolling beaches. You’ll find the Scobles, Tracy Chapman, Singer/Songwriterand Phil Schiller - Apple Marketing SVP. Head south and you’ll find a handful of public –and private—beaches. In college I took a geology class, and learned all about the very unique sand/rock stratifications and the collision between water and rock to make some of the most dramatic –and beautiful– landscapes. Other notable areas is the famous Mavericks surf, where world class surf competitions take place.

There’s a reason why Silicon Valley is one of the most expensive places in the world to live, aside from the thriving technology industry, the quality of life makes it a desirable place not only to work but also to relax.

Related: See my pics from Hawaii, also using my onboard cell phone camera, Nokia N95

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(Silicon Valley Sightings is an ongoing PhotoBlog that captures the intersection of Tech Culture in the San Francisco Silicon Valley Bay Area, check out the archives. All photos by Jeremiah Owyang)

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Previously, we heard that Andrew read this blog and got a job, now more success stories that people are connecting –and getting jobs from reading the web strategy blog, this is great news. I’ve been given permission to publish this email from Jonathan:

Hi Jeremiah,

Thanks for your DM. It would be my pleasure to share my story… one of your tweets (almost two months ago) mentioned your job feed on your site. Feeling quite unsettled in my current position, I click and found what looked to be a perfect job. I fired off my resume and received a call the next day from the hiring manager. After a series of calls and an intense day of interviews, I received an offer! My new job is Web Director at the Association of Corporate Counsel. It’s a logical step in my career and should involve a good deal of strategy and operations.

I gave my official notice today — my manager was in a state of shock. I, on the other hand, am so excited to move.

Best regards,

Jonathan Kash
PS Aside from my gratitude for all you do for the community (including the job feed), I certainly owe you a drink! I’ll be blogging about my experience once the department knows (law firms are such a strange environment).

Congrats Johnathan, I’ll take that drink, red wine is a fav.

You can find jobs, connect with others, and read other case studies by clicking the “on the move” section. Or, see the Web Strategy Job Board, where recruiters are posting jobs (paid) and a dynamic listing is available.

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It seems odd, but yes, there’s a unique need for marketing executives that must know traditional marketing strategy, but also the social media space. Perhaps not in the Fortune 5000 ranks, but for the many social media companies that are appearing (only a handful are thriving) this specialized skill set is critical.

Good friend Jennifer Jones interviews Matt Raggio, an executive recruiter who finds Marketing Executives for Social Media companies. I met Matt recently (I was the analyst he mentioned) and captured my findings. Earlier this week, I learned from another recruiter focused on this same market, who shared some of the challenges he’s had.

If you haven’t done so already, subscribe to Marketing Voices, a podcast focused on Marketing+Social Media. The content is tight, succinct, and high value and hosted by former colleague, Jennifer Jones, who teaches me something new about VCs, PR, and Marketing every time I chat on the phone with her.

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I can’t believe how fast time flies, I’m now at my second year for this domain. While I’ve been blogging longer than two years (blogspot, 360, etc), the purchase of this domain web-strategist.com has been a milestone, let’s recap.

By the numbers: A Benchmark
What was the path? When I started this new blog, according to Technorati, it was ranked in the millions of blogs, last year was 1,708 and today it’s ranked at 540 (the lower the better), and has over 10,000 incoming links. According to Feedburner there are now over 12,000 subscriptions. According to Google Analytics, there are 86,725 Visits, 132,198 Pageviews, in the last 30 days. Wordpress indicates there are there are currently 1,914 posts and 17,017 comments (over the two years).

Two year Impacts
Despite all this, most of these numbers are meaningless. For each of these metrics, I question the validity of measurement and measurements only make sense if you benchmark against the previous year, which of course, I did: see last year’s stats. What really matters is the impact that blogging has over the industry that I cover, and the jobs it’s helped me to get.

My Blog Strategy: How I did it
So enough stat-porn, I’ll tell you exactly how I did it, giving you all that I learned so you can improve too. Here’s how I did it:

Created focused content
I focused on the topic of making decisions for corporate websites, primarily around social media. It’s important to find something interesting and unique to discuss, avoid echoing techmeme. When I first started, I tried to be on Techmeme, I just became a small link when someone else would break a larger story. For some time now, I’ve avoided being on techmeme, as I’d rather be original and small rather than larger but just echo. I also avoid ‘blog fights’, I’d rather deliver ‘how to’ posts an be a resource.

Publish frequently
I published nearly every day, in fact multiple times a day. How’d I find time to do that I slowly work on drafts (I’ve over 100 of them sitting in wordpress) and I’d budget my time in the morning to pay myself first. (It’s 430 AM when I write this).

Think of readers first
Make it easy to read. Sure there’s a lot of text, but I organize it in an easy to scan (yes scan) way by indenting, use horizontal rule (lines) bolding and using indent points. I approached this as more of a resource to busy professionals rather than my personal journal (although I occasionally share personal info in the context of posts). Forrester conducted a survey, if you want to see who reads this blog and why, the results are public.

Interact
Join the conversation. Such shallow words that are thrown around now, but it’s true. I link to whatever else readers would want to learn about (knowing the more I helped them, the more they’d come back) answer comments on my own blog, and occasionally leave comments on other blogs (I could work on that more). I self reference to older posts, and that helps to tie everything together as the body of work builds on top of itself.

“Productized” content
Developed some unique posts that were mainstay type of posts: my digest, the many index lists, and the on the move series. These help me to manage the industry I cover, have an online archive, make it easy for info-hungry folks, and reduce my time to come up with constant new ideas.

Have Passion
I’m so lucky that I get paid to do what I love, I think this is one of the most important things to do in life, sadly, it’s hard to tell when work starts and stops. Many people thought it was really strange when is started this blog, many said it was a fad, and really didn’t look down the line.

So what’s the future to hold? Well for one, I’m starting to ask people to follow me on Friendfeed. Regarding this blog, I’ve no intentions to stop this pace sharing and learning, thanks for being part of this, it’s a fun adventure and I learn many new things from being part of the conversation, (from your comments and links) every day.

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I just got back from Forrester’s Finance forum, according to one of our long term attendees Steve blogged it was a success. This is one of the perks of the job, being able to meet interesting folks and hearing how you’ve helped them be better at making decisions.

For those that have been reading for a while, or following me on Twitter, you’ve noticed I’ve been very busy helping clients, conducting research, and sharing what I’ve found with the press and media. After 8 months as an analyst the questions from the market have just increased, between helping clients and managing this blog, I’m operating at an efficient speed where things go very well. Having successfully launched their book Groundswell fly even more than I do, delivering the POST methodology to individuals that want to learn how to approach social computing and social media.

I’ve received news from Cliff Condon (my boss boss) that based upon client needs, we’re expanding the team. We’re going to be adding some additional roles in the Analyst and Researcher position (each job performs a different function) in order to meet our clients needs. The job descriptions are available for the Analyst and Researcher position, and if you’re qualified, please submit your resume to the website, and reference that you saw this from my blog.

I can’t speak for the researcher role, but being an analyst was the logical step for me in my career, while a very challenging job, you’ll have the opportunity to touch all parts of the industry, make sense of chaos, and define a path for companies to ventures towards. You’ll have access to Forrester’s immense survey data, work with smart people, help clients, travel, and grow your career a few steps up, I often tell folks being an analyst is like a “Living MBA program”. Not only do you study business, you get to help clients apply your knowledge.

Josh provides a bit more information about the jobs, do read his posting.

I’ll update this post when we fill the position, so you’ll know when it’s filled.

I hope you apply!

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I’m rewarding two readers with a complimentary VIP pass to the Internet Strategy Forum Summit conference on July 17th at the Governor Hotel in downtown Portland.

If you’re passionate about making your corporate website the best it can be, and want to connect with others who are leading the charge at their companies, then you’ve already marked a place on your Calendar for the Internet Strategy Forum Summit in July 17th in Portland.

Speakers include

• Geoffrey Ramsey, Co-founder & CEO, eMarketer
• Charlene Li, VP & Principal Analyst, Forrester Research (I can’t wait to meet her someday!)
• Chris Shimojima, VP, Global Digital Commerce, Nike
• David Placier, VP, Consumer Insights, Disney Online
• Nancy Bhagat, VP of Sales and Marketing Group, Intel
• Daniel Stickel, new CEO, WebTrends (formerly with Google)
• Shane O’Neill, Chief Technology Officer, Fandango
• Mike Moran, Distinguished Engineer, IBM, author (highest-rated speaker at 2007 Summit)

I attended last year, and was impressed to see all the corporate web leaders (web strategists) attending. Steve Gehlen for the Internet Strategy Forum, who founded ISF, has done a great service to our industry, in fact, he and I worked together to form the Silicon Valley chapter a few years ago.

We both realize that many of the readers of this Web Strategy Blog would love to attend the ISF conference, so we’re giving away two free tickets.

Last time, I gave away tickets for Graphing Social Patterns (John Bell, a winner rated it 4/5 stars) by running a contest, it worked pretty well, and I’d like to do this again./ The winners will be announced in new blog post and this post will be updated (so bookmark it).

I will be selected two winners who answer the following question:

1) Question: What is the future of Corporate Websites in 5 years?
I’ll be looking for out-of-the-box thinking, plausibility, and ability to logically connect the dots why and how your 5 year prediction will happen.

2) Write it clearly and succinctly, points assigned for brevity.
Effective strategists are excellent communicators.

3) What percentage will you attend the conference?
I want to give these tickets to someone who’ll really use it, I encourage you to answer this even if you don’t plan to attend, have fun with it!

Thanks for reading, I’m grateful to get enough traction now to reward readers with conference tickets, books, and the ability to network. Have fun with this, and strut your stuff strategists!

Update June 28: I’d like to thank Christopher Smith and Kristie Conner for their excellent responses (scroll down) to their vision of the future of the corporate website. While everyone provided excellent answers, I enjoyed hearing the focus on people from Chris (sites become social) and Kristie’s notion on ‘fluity’ of the future of the corporate website –it’ll spread both off domain and aggregate social content. Thanks all for playing.

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Damn, I may have put my foot in my mouth again…

Wow, I should have saw this coming, in a recent comment by Margie (BTW, I read every comment, regardless of what post it’s put on) is offended, well downright mad at my post on the impacts of Gen Y and Boomers.

Here’s Margy’s comment in its entirety, she raises some valid points, and they deserved to be brought up, here’s the comment she just left:

“Your blog entry is days old, so you probably won’t see my post here, but it’s taken me days to calm down from your post to sputter anything back. (Jerimiah, you made me mad!) I’m a Boomer but in no way ready (or financially able) to exit any stage. When did Boomer (hate that term, btw) become a pseudonym for old fogey anyway? Here’s how Boomers described ourselves to each other in an iconic (for the time) book-cum-manifesto, “The Apartment Book,” dated 1979. Sounds a little bit like the optimistic twenty-something rhetoric of 2008. “Through most of the seventies [we] struggled to invent and interpret a way of life that did not follow the old patterns. For the first time, because of the radical changes of the sixties, young people were not automatically following their parents’ paths to marriage, children and a house in the suburbs. Rather, they were searching, alone or in paris or in groups for a place to live that would express their own values. The community of young people who were, by God, going to live their own brand of life — even if they weren’t so sure what it was yet. Because we come from various persuasions and backgrounds, we approach our subject matter with new eyes. The only discipline is a shared commitment to making real ideas happen, without …hype or the tyranny of status names.”

I still believe that. And I bet if you went back further and checked on contemporaneous advertising and magazines targeting young college graduates of the early 1950’s post-war generation just entering the workplace, you’d again find that same open-eyed wonder at the opportunities before them.

The ready-for-anything attitude you describe can’t be pigeonholed into tired marketing classifications like Gen X or Gen Y. It doesn’t come and go like actors on a stage or styles in fashion. It’s something that, if we’re lucky, attacks us early and stays with us throughout our lives.”

First of all, I’m sorry for offending you, I sincerely mean that, that was never my intent.

Secondly, the post is based off data, and my duties in my day job, as it’s an accurate observation of what is, and what will happen. In fact, I’m working on a Forrester report looking at how boomers use social media (coming in the next few weeks) so this is top of mind.

As an analyst, it’s my job to categorize, segment, and describe trends, and for what it’s worth we didn’t create the “boomers” classification.

Regardless, Forrester classifies the Boomer generations in two segments, Younger Boomers (42-51) Older Boomers (52-62). My previous post was obviously referring to the older boomers, and I’ll suspect that you Margy are of the younger group.

These aren’t pigeon holes, and nor are they intended to de-personalize the individual. They are useful for those who make decisions to see the big picture, make sense of it, and do the right thing.

The fact of the matter is that some older boomers have already started to retire (congrats!) I’ve former colleagues who retired as early as 60.

So to clear up any misconceptions, in my original post, I should have indicated I was mainly focusing on older boomers, those that are getting nearer to retirement within just a few years.

This post is intended to be an explanation and an apology, I’m concerned it could potentially infuriate others further. I’ll forgo that risk and make a public apology.

Humbly, Margie, (and anyone else) I seek your forgiveness and understanding as I continue to explore these generational issues as it ties to web strategy.

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I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly digest on the Social Networking space, which I cover as an Industry Analyst.

I’ve created a new category called Digest (view archives). Start with the Web Strategy Summary, then quickly scan the succinct and categorized headlines, read text for my analysis, and click link to dive in for more.

You can subscribe to this digest tag only, which filters only these posts tagged digest.

Web Strategy Summary
This week’s focus delivers more on data and web usage, primarily after the launch of Google’s “Trends” tool, which offers a way to track activity on all websites. More reports on the growth of social networks, it’s funny how bloggers twist it each month, just a few weeks ago people were talking about the decline or lull of social network activity.

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Nokia acquires Plazes
Although Nokia has been experimenting with mobile software such as maps, and other social applicaitons (I recently was briefed by one of their teams) they’ve acquired mobile based Plazes, a social network.

Web Usage: Friendster shows Growth
I see conflicting data all the time, so it’s very hard for me to determine who the actual leader is, or sometimes to be more accurate, the intrepretations of data are often different. Great pieces by Eric at VentureBeat who does analysis to show how Friendster has growth in Asia.

Web Usage: Facebook and MySpace
Although I see many different graphs and patterns about the ‘top’ website, Andrew Chen breaks down that Facebook is growing faster via vistiors in Australia over MySpace, and has more growth internationally, on the other hand, he demonstrates that most ad revenues are in the US, an interesting way of thinking about where the ROI could lay.

Web Usage: 25% Use Social Networks
The Consumer Internet Barometer, a sample size of 1000 in North America found that a quarter of North Americans use social networks. For North American adults, this is very similar to what Forrester’s own data says, glad to see correlation.

Upgrade: NYT adds social features to site
Much in the theme of the future of the web is that the web will become connected to your personal networks, in this case the NYT (who has been innovating) is developing new ways for the content of their site to become social with Times People Beta.

Intranet: Microsoft leans on Townsquare
Although only a prototype, Microsoft office labs are working on a new intranet product that has social features, called TownSquare.

Vertical: Intel launches site for family caretakers
This community site which is for those that are managing ill or elderly family members provides a connection for others, who may need a support group that may not have been able to connect prior.

Revenues: Facebook Developers Get Paid
The company social media, essentially an advertising network for widget developers has paid out $8million to developers who are involved in their network over the last year, there are 5000 apps, for about 100 developers, although there’s apparently a curve, some cashed in and some did not.

eCommerce: How shopping is a social activity
eWeek picks up a story (I’ve a quote in it) that outlines how Pluck’s module based white label social network can embed social interactions into an eCommerce experience –a certain future trend.

Education: Social networks spur learning
This summary of a study indicating that students from a variety of backgrounds were able to learn from social networks, improving social and technology skills, more details from this article. From colleague Jennifer Doctor

Web Usage: Facebook king of the globe
Comscore reports that Facebook’s Global Traffic the king, I see different takes at data from different companies, so I can never quite be sure of who’s interpretations –or data set to rely on. Therefore, I watch trends, not specifics.

China: Facebook, Tencent launch against Xiaonei
Chinese versions of Facebook and Tencent are now launched in China, to reach to one of the world’s largest online populations. The dominating player, Xiaonei has 22 million users, still a long way off from Facebook –but watch growth.

Valuation: How to value social networks
Techcrunch does an interesting analysis quantifying social network value –by looking at several values based around user size and valuation.

Leave a comment if I’ve missed anything specific.

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I’m with quite a few late adopters of Social Media, in fact, I’m at Forrester’s Finance Forum here in NYC, one of the banking centers of the world. I can often tell the level of sophistication of industries to social media by the type of language they use, in fact, I’ve used these phrases when I didn’t know any better.

Phrases like:

“Campaigns” which convey short wartime activities of bomb dropping and tank rolling to advance territory.

Rookies who want to benefit from word of mouth, or are approaching it the same way as interactive marketing or advertising may say “Leveraging Social Media”, as if doing a little to gain a lot from this medium.

Or describing people as “users” rather than community “members”

Describing this movement as “UGC” vs “people sharing”

So what’s in a name, phrase, or description? A lot, actually. It’s a clear indicator to me on the approach that a brand is going to take, and I can often predict the results will end up looking like an interactive campaign on a social network, rather than a community discussion where the brand is involved. There’s no reason to get emotional or religious about it, it’s just that this type of thinking is likely to result in getting a brand punk’d, or worse yet, no one coming resulting in complacency. I’m no ‘phrase police’ but when I hear it quietly am able to segment where folks are at, that’s all, now you try, what causes you to wince?

For what it’s worth, if you go back to my archives you’ll see I’ve used these same phrases a few years ago –guilty!

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I’m in a fortunate position that I spend most of my days talking to vendors, buyers, investors, and of course, analysts in the social media industry.

But now, I’m starting to talk to more and more recruiters. Some of it’s due to my career series called “on the move” but mainly because that brands are starting to take this movement seriously.

In my recent Forrester report “How to Staff For Social Computing” I outlined two roles. The social media/computing strategist, and the online community manager, I recently met yet another recruiter (read my findings from the first one) who is focused on bringing forth social media strategists to large brands, and they both have the same problem. Coincidently, he read my reports (I realize they are being passed around, without paying)

Challenges that recruiters are having hiring social media strategists

First of all, finding folks is a challenge, to find an experienced social media strategist is limited to just a few folks. What’s the qualifier? They’ve actually deployed this in an existing company already. I’ve a list that I created a few days ago of Strategists, while it’s going to hit over 100 people this week, there’s very few folks on the strategist list. Talking about it on a blog is far different than having done it and brands want a track record of at least once success.

Secondly, going into a company and making severe cultural changes across multi-departments is a challenge. I know, as I’ve done it, being prepared to be an evangelist, and educator, a teacher, a cheerleader, and a leader is a challenge –esp when the culture may not want to move forward. It’s a challenging position that requires more jockeying than most in order to bring about enterprise change. In most cases, executive support (and funding) will be needed, including arguing teaching old school marketers.

Lastly, consultants are having much more lucrative offers by going off on their own, starting their own shop, or joining a smaller crew. Some can make more money by being independent, and not having to deal with too much internal politics.

Impacts
Some say we’re in year 3 (depending on how you count) for big companies to start to consider these technologies, as such, finding folks that are qualified, and then being able to attract them to go through the challenges they just finished are well, tough.

For more resources, check out my “on the move” posts (celebrating new hires in the space) and my “careers” section where I share what I’ve learned (I’ve made a lot of mistakes along the way) or you can find social media jobs right on my job board. Also see this list of Social Media Strategists, Community Managers, and Product Managers.

I share a lot here on this blog, but desire for you to talk back, please leave a comment on what you’ve experienced when it comes to hiring experience social media strategists.

Lastly, he asked me not to blog about the specific job or brand, although it’s Fortune 1000, why? he’s not confident he’ll get the qualified people, so I’m honoring his request.

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I’m here in NYC, one of the financial nerve centers in the world, attending Forrester’s Finance Forum. With loyalty to brands decreasing over time, companies need to figure out how to reach customers where they are, where many, are discussing their financial past, present and future online.

During today’s panel and speaker discussions, I heard a lot of trepidation, fear, and uncertainty from many of the brands. Most are answering the first two of the five questions (”what” and “why”) I use to gauge company sophistication. Some mentioned they want to toe-dip and get out if it didn’t work well, others mentioned they were monitoring, and some feel threatened by the peer to peer models that cut out the middle man.

The finance industry has a unique challenge, hindered by government regulations and often a conservative culture, they have a real challenge embracing the online conversation that’s already happening between customers.

Criteria: Although there are many finance startups and consumer review sites, this list is really about the financial institutions, large brands, and banks that are adopting social media to reach customers.

Ongoing list of Social Media in the Financial Industry

Wells Fargo
The first and greatest case study to date is of what Wells Fargo has done with their multiple blogs, starting with the Guided by History blog, Later, they launched the Student LoanDown blog, and a virtual world called Stagesoach Island Community that lets members learn and experience financial management.

H&R Block
This company has done quite a bit with blogs, virtual worlds, Facebook campaigns, and social media programs and campaigns. During tax time, there was a significant upswing of activity from Facebook applications, and they engaged in online dialog in Twitter by first monitoring keywords and directly responding to members.

Intuit
Online communities are nothing new to Intuit, this customer-focused brand let’s customers self-support each other, as well as communicate to them using blogs. Quickbooks (financial software) has extensive growth for SMBs who want to connect to each other.

Chase +1
This credit card company used Facebook to find out about what customers desired, laying the foundation for delivering a customer-focused product

Ernst & Young
This large accounting services and consulting firm is anxious to reach new hires fresh out of college, by creating a sponsored Facebook group, they have online dialogs with graduating students starting the interview process online. Smart way for each party to learn for each other.

Royal Bank of Canada
Launched this ongoing blog called the Innovator Blog, which goes back to October 2006. Link via Trevor Cook. Also, they’ve a Facebook page, (link from iljazz)

ING
Trevor Cook has more details, listing that ING has an Asia / Pacific blog, My Cup of Cha, a microfinance blog, and a Chinese blog. They’ve also created a microsite called I need to go, that has a spreadable widget.

Fidelity
Using map mashups and podcasts, Fidelity is reaching to it’s customers using new channels. (from Benjamin Ensor, Forrester)

Genworth
Springboardforum - From Genworth - you need to get an account to see it (free) “Genworth has partnered with Dow Jones, Time Inc., Bloomberg and Source Media to provide you with tools & resources that may support your business”(tip from Jay Bryant)

HSBC
This online community from HSBC Business Network is for SMB and entrepreneurs (tip from Jay Bryant)

Alberta’s Commonwealth
Online community for Alberta’s Generation Y provides a lifestyle platform for youth to self express and support called Young & Free.

Discover
This lifestyle portal provides helpful content for Discover customers, called Discover Edge, it delivers expert best practices for money management. It’s difficult to see if this has social features.

American Express
This website called OpenForum provides a dialog for customers, Chris Brogan has the details.

Capital One
This social network for small businesses, called Slingshot, allows people to connect to each other, promote their services, in this ‘yellow pages’ type of marketplace.

Canada’s Largest Credit Union, Vancity, launches blog
This blog, called Change Everything, is intended to spread feel good messages and videos to attract Vancity’s community, and interesting project.

MyVault by Scotia Bank
This ‘dashboard’ style interactive application allows members to manage their money, gather feeds, and communicate with community members via forums, called MyVault.

IT Counts by the Institute of Chartered Accountants
This community site ION, yields blogs by thought leaders on the topic of technology, sponsored by Microsoft.

Who else? Leave a comment, of if you’re shy, send me an email. I’ll keep this updated until I can’t scale further

Related Resources

Social media for the insurance agency

Social media for the automotive industry

List of social media strategists and community managers at enterprise corporations

34 comments

Been a busy week, I was in L.A. (twice) helped many clients, and now am off to NYC today on Sunday in preparation for tomorrow’s Forrester Finance Forum. Aside from the hectic schedule, there are two major changes in my life: 1) My kid sister enters the workpace, 2) My parents contemplate retirement. Me? I’m in the middle, “Jeremiah-in-the-middle” as a young Gen Xer, experiencing it all unfold.

Gen Y Enter Stage Left
Last weekend, my kid sister (yes, the one who said she only uses email to communicate with old people like me) has graduated from college. 10 years my junior, she starts her first full time job in San Francisco. Already armed with a network connected to her on Facebook, Instant Messaging tools (and probably MySpace too), she enters the workforce connected to her new employers: customers, partners, and even competitors.

What they are on their profiles echos to their networks, and if they indicate they are employed (many do) then they are now representatives of the brand.

Companies have three choices when it comes to understanding this opportunity: 1) Do nothing. Most companies are unaware of these changes, or even if they are, they are unsure of the possibilities. 2) Shut it down. Some companies have locked Facebook, YouTube and other ‘time-wasters’ away from employees, but now with today’s pervasive mobile devices (iPHone, Blackberry, Nokia, Sidekick), there is no blocking it. 3) Make use of the opportunity. Employees, whether they realize it or not are the front line of the company, they can be support, they can be sales, or they can just be brand ambassadors. Check out this interview with me about the future of the outsourced Intranet from ZDnet, and how Serena Software encourages it’s employees to have a Facebook Friday.

These questions remain:

Do the once finite lines of the corporate firewall between work and personal start to fade?

Who is really an official spokesperson? Is there an unofficial spokesperson?

As Generation Y moves into the workforce, how will their communication habits change? How about ours? (I work with several talented ones)

Will Generation Y, who is accustomed to Facebook Applications, Google Docs, Rich internet application interfaces, and advanced web technology (all public) be shocked to find out how bad your enterprise software is?

How will companies adapt and changes their corporate policies to meet this change?

Baby Boomers Exit Stage Right
Although still a few years away, my parents are considering retirement. They’ve accomplished a lot in their careers, both have been towards to the top of the food chains in their respective careers in Education and Medicine. These baby boomers (the largest generation America has ever seen) leave their companies and organizations, and often with the know-how, knowledge, and networks that we’ve relied on. In fact, many senior leadership at corporations are members of the large boomer generation.

For example, at a previous company where I managed the intranet, I received stats from HR, in order to complete my user experience research. I found that 40% of the company (more than a third) of the employees were going to retire in the next 5-10 years, many in leadership positions. That was 3 years ago.

These questions remain:

Are companies prepared for this mass exodus of experienced leaders?

How will they harvest the knowledge from these professionals? Once they leave, they are under no obligation to return it.

How will some companies have ’soft-retirements’ allowing them to work part time or have access to their networks.

Will they leave a gaping hole in upper and mid management giving a gravity well to Gen X to quickly climb to leadership –some with questionable experience?

Solutions? Dennis McDonald left a link to an interesting social network created by Dow that ties retirees to the company.

Comparing both generations, I often have heard from my parents generation about climbing the corporate ladder, getting a pension, and being lifers at companies. When I talk to the younger generation, they are at the stage of wanting to climb vertically, and they know the fastest way up is out –in just a few years. Without a doubt, we’ve changes ahead, it’ll be interesting to see how companies cultures and workstyle change.

46 comments

If you’re interested in jobs for this space, please read the “on the move” posts.

Understanding how companies staff, organize, and prepare for social media/computing is one of my top interests personally and professionally. Having been a former Online Community Manager at Hitachi Data Systems, I want to make sure companies do it right. I’m often asked which companies have one of the two emerging roles, (companies love to benchmark against their peers) so I’ve decided to start a list, not only to back my research, but also for those wanting to show to their companies “hey this is starting to happen for real”.

The first role is the Social Computing Strategist, the second is the Community Manager, although the titles vary, and sometimes it’s a part-time function, there’s clearly a trend as corporations staff.

It’s important to note, that in the end, these skills (the ability to communicate online) will disperse and grow to many employees. Generation Y comes to us with these abilities built it as a “digital natives”– yet the need to organize will still occur, it’s a knee jerk reaction to every corporation.

This list, which I realize is going to be a lot of work, will be an ongoing index of these professionals, I will only do this for a limited time (probably till end of 2008, or until I can’t scale).

Requirements
Unlike a wiki, I will be vetting this list to ensure quality. Kindly leave a comment but first read the requirements:

1) This is your full time (and current) job even if you have a variation on the title –you are not a consultant. Sure, you do more than social media alone, but the organization realizes you’re on point as the expert.
2) You’re at a large corporation, in fact, a Fortune 5000 company, or you’ve over 1,000 employees. I can easily list out thousands of community managers at startups, but I’m trying to demonstrate how large corporations are moving forward.
3) Provide reference: You must provide your title, and a link to your blog/profile/linkedin that indicates your role and title, perhaps a post that announced your title or intentions.
4) Indicate which role you are, a Strategist (inward focused) Community Manager (externally focused), or Research of Product focused (developing a social media product/service for sale)
5) This is primarily for external efforts with customers and prospects –not internal
6) If you do not meet the requirements to meet this list, you can create your own, and I’ll prominently link to it.

I’ve you’re a social media professional (at a smaller company, agency, startup) I’ve a list for everyone on my “on the move” posts.

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Ongoing List of Social Computing Strategists at Enterprise Corporations
The Social Media Strategist, whose job is to lead the internal charge, develops the program, gains resources, convinces management, and measures success.

Key differentiator for this group? They are primarily internally focused program managers.

Technology

Ken Kaplan, Broadcast and New Media Manager, Global Communications Group at Intel Corporation

Bob Pearson, Vice President, Communities & Conversations at Dell

Chris James’s Experience, Social Media & Community Strategist, Advanced Micro Devices

Gunjan Rawal, Worldwide marketing manager at Intel Software Network

Adam Christensen, Social Media Manager, IBM Corporation

Bryan Rhoads, Sr. Digital Strategist at Intel Corporation

Brian Ellefritz, Sr. Mgr, Social Media Marketing at Cisco Systems

Todd Watson, Social Media and Search Marketing Manager, IBM Software Group

Rawn Shaw, CoE Lead - Social Software Programs & Enablement at IBM

Vanina Delobelle, Global Product Director, Monster

Jeanette Gibson, Director of New Media, Cisco Systems

Marc Sirkin, Sr. Marketing Manager - The Microsoft CIO Network at Microsoft

LaSandra Brill, Manager, Web & Social Media Marketing at Cisco Systems

Tac Anderson, Social Media - CRM - Search, HP

Justin Kestelyn, OTN Editor-in-Chief, Oracle

Richard Binhammer, Senior Manager, Dell

Deanna Bell, New Media Program Manager, Cisco

Jamie Pappas, Social Media Strategist, Evangelist, and Enterprise Community Manager, EMC

Michael Brito, Global Social Media Manager, Intel

Annie Rodkins, Social Media Manager, Intel

Lorna Li, Web Marketing Manager , Social Networking & Social Media, SalesForce

Kelly Colgan, Media Relations Specialist at APC

Dan Schawbel, Social Media Specialist, EMC

Bob Duffy, Senior Social Media Strategist, Intel

Mark Yolton, Senior Vice President, SAP Community Network, SAP

Steve Mann, GVP, Social Media & Customer Experience Strategy, SAP

Bob Duffy, Senior Social Media Strategist, Intel

Fred “Fritz” Alberti, Senior Manager of Social Media, Salem Communications

Tilly McLain, Community Manager, MyBlogLog, Yahoo

Diane Davidson, Sr. Manager of Customer Success and Community Program, Cisco, the WebEx Technology group

Rick Reich, Sr. Mgr, Social Media & Technologies, Citrix Systems

Rachel Makool, Sr. Director, Community Development, eBay

Electronics

Mark Squires, Head of Social Media Communications, Nokia

Marcie Cohen, Sr. PR Manager, Sony Electronics

Automotive

Chris Barger, Director, Global Communications Technology, General Motors

Scott Monty, Digital & Multimedia Communications Manager, Ford Motor Company

Chad Kaszer, Social Media Administrator, Toyota Motor Sales

Christopher Barger, GM Director of Global Communications Technology, General Motors

Sylvia Marino, Executive Director Community & Social Media Operations, Edmunds.com Inc.

Airline

Paula Berg, Public relations specialist, Nuts about Southwest Blog, Southwest Airlines

Brian Lusk, Manager Customer Communication, Nuts about Southwest Blog, Southwest Airlines

Morgan Johnston, Manager Corporate Communication, JetBlue Airways

Alma Dayawon, Electronic Communications Manager, The Boeing Company

Finance and Insurance

Ed Terpening, VP of Social Media Marketing at Wells Fargo

Matthew Anchin, Vice President, Online Communications, American Express

Christine Morrison, Social Media Marketing Manager at Intuit’s Consumer Group

Scott Wilder, GM - Online Communities at Small Business Division, Intuit

Paula Drum, Vice President, Marketing, H&R Block

Alan Edgett, Sr. Director of Advanced Marketing Systems, Experian Interactive

Justin Gibbs, Online Marketing Strategist, Manager, Experian Consumer Direct

Annalie Killian, Director of Collaboration, Intranet, Communication and Innovation at AMP

Shawn Morton, Senior Consultant for Social Media at Nationwide Insurance

Matt Anchin, Vice President, Online Communications, American Express

Consumer Products

Jim Deitzel, Sr. eMarketing Manager at Newell Rubbermaid

Lindsay Lebresco, Public Relations & Social Media Manager at Graco Children’s Products/Newell Rubbermaid

Bert DuMars, Vice President E-Business & Interactive Marketing, Newell Rubbermaid

Retail

Todd Feldman, Sr Manager, Emerging Marketing Channels, Circuit City Stores, Inc.

Stephanie Pike, Manager, Content and Community, Circuit City Stores, Inc.

Gary Koelling, Sr Mgr Social Technology, Best Buy

Steve Bendt Sr. Manager of Social Technology, Best Buy

Denise Garciano, Online Content & Community Specialist, PacSun

Research

Yemil Martinez, Director, New Media Marketing and Web Strategy, Institute for International Research (IIR) a subdivision of Informa

Michele Frost, Director, Web Marketing at Forrester Research

Heathcare

Marcus Frank, UX Strategist & Creative Director, National Cancer Institute

Burt Lum, Business Relationship Manager, HMSA

Shwen Gwee, Lead Business Analyst, Health Informatics and New Media at Vertex Pharmaceuticals

Media Gaming and Entertainment

Jessica Baker, Marketing Manager, Interactive Media, American Greetings Interactive

Michael Hall, Community Product manager, ABC.com

Charles Miller, Director, Inbound E-mail Operations and Blog Outreach, DIRECTV, Inc.

Eby Ghafarian, Manager, Product Engagement & Community Development at Hachette Filipacchi Media (Elle.com, caranddriver.com, roadandtrack.com)

Jean Fahmy Director, Director, Digital strategies, Transcontintental Media

Jason Richman, Director, Digital Product Strategy, NBC Universal

Daniel Thornton, Community Marketing Manager at Bauer Consumer Media

Charles E. Miller, Director, Inbound E-mail Operations and Blog Outreach, DIRECTV, Inc.

Agency

Shiv Singh, Vice President, Social Media & Global Strategic Initiatives, Avenue A Razorfish

Brad Mays, Senior Vice President (Social Media), Fleishman-Hillard

Jon Burg, Emerging Channels Specialist with Digitas

Services

James Davidson, Web Strategist, Creative Services & Branding, Manpower

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Ongoing List of Community Managers at Enterprise Corporations
The Community Manager, who’s job is to primarily be a community advocate is a social media user, and is externally focused, they are primarily the face to the online community. As companies scale, I expect to see these types or roles appear often for each product group at larger companies, they often report directly to the strategist or at least have a dotted line.

Key differentiator for this group? They are primarily an externally (customer/community) facing role.

Technology

Lionel Menchaca, Community Manager, Dell

Anton Chiang, Web Communities Manager, Juniper Networks

Lacy Kemp, Social Media Communications Specialist at RealNetworks

Stephen Spector, Sr. Program Manager, Xen.org Community, Citrix

Vishal Ganeriwala, Sr. Manager of Citrix Developer Network, Citrix

Amie Paxton, Channel Community Manager, Dell

Angela LoSasso, Community & blogs strategist, HP

Tom Diederich, Social Media/Web Community Manager, Cadence Systems

Bill Pearson Bill, Manager, Intel Software Network, Intel

Josh Hilliker, Community Manager of the vPro Expert Center, Intel

Robyn Tippins, Community Manager, Yahoo! Developer Network at Yahoo!

John Summers, Community Manager at NetApp

Mario Sundar, Community Evangelist at LinkedIn

Tom Ablewhite, Community Manager, Thomson Reuters

Craig Cmehil, Community Manager for the SAP Developer Network

Lou Ordorica, Social Media Producer at Sun Microsystems

John Earnhardt, Senior manager, media relations and blogger in chief, Cisco Systems

Deirdre Walsh, Community Manager at National Instruments

Rachel Luxemburg, Community Manager at Adobe

Aaron Tersteeg, Software Developer Community, Intel

Josh Bancroft, Software Developer Community, Intel

Jeff Moriarty, Software Developer Community, Intel

Shashi Bellamkonda, Social Media Swami , Network Solutions

Ian Kennedy, Product Guy, MyBlogLog, Community Manager, Yahoo

David Kim, Manager, Online Marketing and Communities at Symantec

Marilyn Pratt, Community Evangelist, SAP Labs

Scott Jones, Community Manager and Content Strategist, SDN at SAP Labs

Badsah Mukherji, Sr. Community Manager at VMware

Jon Mountjoy, Community Manager & Editor-In-Chief at Salesforce

Senior Director, OTN & Developer Programs Oracle

Jake Kuramoto, Oracle Apps Labs, Oracle USA

Kelly Feller, Web Marketing Manager leading the IT Community site Open Port, Intel

Erica Kuhl, Sr. Producer & Community Manager, Salesforce.com Community

Aaron Tersteeg, Community Manager (Multi-core Development) Intel Software Network, Intel

Jeff Moriarty, Community Manager (mobility) for the Intel Software Network, Intel

Alison Bolen Editor, Sascom voices blog, SAS

Melissa Daniels, Community Manager for All-Star group for Yahoo! Messenger, Yahoo!

Amy Barton, Strategic Programs Manager, Intel Software Network, Intel

Holly Valdez, Community Manager, Cisco, the WebEx Technology group

Electronics

Ray Haddow, Blogger Outreach, Nokia

Charlie Schick, Lead on Nokia corporate blog, Nokia

Media, Gaming, Entertainment

Kellie Parker, Online Community Manager at PC World and Macworld

Kristopher Shaw, Community Manager at MTV Networks UK

EM Stock, Senior Community Manager at Sony Online Entertainment

Katie Hamlin, Community Manager, Fodors.com, Random House

Justin Korthof, Community Manager at Electronic Arts

David Cushman, Digital Development Director, Bauer Consumer Media UK

Laurent Courtines, Community Manager at Games.com AOL

Research

John Cass, Online Community Manager, Forrester Research

Finance

Scott Moore, Senior Online Community Manager at Schwab Learning

Nancy Zimmerman, Bank Evangelist, Citizens Bank of Canada

Jose Antonio Gallego, Community Manager at BBVA (Spain)

Amy Worley, Director, Marketing Manager, HR Block

Fran Sansalone, Community Manager for the Open Calais Web Service, Thomson Reuters

Automotive

Karen Spiegler, Community Manager, Edmunds.com, Inc.

Alicia Dorset, Blog editor, General Motors

Retail

Slaton Carter, Online Community Development Manager, Whole Foods Market

Winnie Hsia, Online Community Moderator, Whole Foods Market

Consumer Goods

Jennifer Cisney, Chief Blogger, Kodak

Agriculture

Christopher Paton, Social Media Team Lead, Monsanto

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Ongoing List of Social Media Researchers and Social Media Product Managers
It’s become evident there are other roles within large en