One of the issues that I have noticed whilst convincing senior managers and CEO’s about the power of new media and the latest innovations facilitated by the Internet, e.g: Web 2.0 is potentially how ‘sleep inducing’ the dicussions can be!?

Sure, CEO’s probably love reading about how two innovators developed a jaw dropping awesome application like YouTube. Or, how MySpace was purchased by NewsCorporation for millions of Dollars . Unfortunately, they tend to fail to see the benefits of such innovations for their business. Maybe they are only inspired by the sums involved. Or, the ‘cut to the chase’ attitude. Another way to put it is as follows:

’If I spend X of both my time and money what will I get in return and when’?!

It could be that the definitions and examples given to answer the latter, are simply too complex and technically orientated.

After doing some research and thinking, I came up with the following to help:

Q: What is Web 2.0 and why would I need to change my website?
A: Web 2.0 is not a new version of the Web. Instead, it offers increased collaboration between teams. For example, storing, sharing and enabling synergies between users – leading to potential increases in productivity. Improving your site will also aid in making your company’s marketing more sticky for your existing and potentially new clients.

Q: What is Social Media – sounds like an excuse for virtual water-cooler!
A: Imagine being able to easily share content, for example, video, audio, images journals/experiences (Blogs) and build a knowledge pool – It would be a way of ensuring that your corporation’s knowledge ensures effective communication, consistency, continuity and contingency – and offering opportunities for greater customer service.

Q: There is a lot of talk about Feeds – Is this just not another way to give people updates. Wouldn’t a ‘what’s new’ section on my company’s current site be enough?
A: Actually, no it would not be sufficient. That is because feeds are a great concept for people (internal and external) who are interested in your business to automatically receive updates if they subscribe to receive them. That is not the same as email. Therefore, consider the huge savings in the cost of owning and managing email and their associated attachments.

I assume that the next stage is to build / publish cost benefit models that show current and future prospects.
I recently put together a publisher’s podcast model, i.e: translating an existing rate card for selling space within an agreed episode format.
In that way a direct financial return could be forecast adding greater motivation to both invest and track the performance of the money spent from day one of the project.

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