Web 2.0 Leadership: Ten Questions for Executives

"Web 2.0 and its social media of blogs, podcasts, instant messaging and myriad of applications (many of them mobile) is potrayed as the harmless playground of teenagers, twenty-somethings, music junkies and disgruntled blog writers."

But the main concern from today's corporate and governmental missions is deeper. How will emerging social media impact me and my organization? How do we respond? What are the risks? How do we mitigate them?

what comes next? What steps should smaller corporations or institutions (large or small) in the public or community sectors take?

market2world respectfully suggests 10 questions executives and their teams might ask as they ‘listen and learn’ and eventually ‘leap’ into Web 2.0.

1. To what extent do we understand the social media of Web 2.0 and its context, relevance and pace of change?

2. To what extent are subjects that concern us being discussed in the social media among blogs, vodcasts, and podcasts and do they relate to the issues, policies or products which affect our organization?

3. Can we qualitatively or quantitatively assess the impact of social media discussions as they relate our organization, public or customers?

4. Is there a need for a Web 2.0 SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) assessment for our organization?

5. To what extent can your discussion and dialogue with customers or the public migrate to social media from our traditional media and methods?

6. Does our organization have guidelines for creating or responding to social media?

7. Do our employees, suppliers, partners, customers or competitors use social media as part of their communications and marketing mix?

8. Does our organization embrace the necessary candor and openness inherent in social media and its participants?

9. Does the opportunity exist to apply social media internally to supplement our organization’s intranet or knowledge base?

10. Could an internal application of social media be repurposed externally once our processes, policies and protocols have been tested and proven?

These 10 questions can help an organization break down their fear and loathing of 2.0 while developing a risk-averse social media strategy.

( Blog entry by Sam Mbale)