1. Clara, Your book is an essential text as Martin has confirmed by adding it to his Social Media class reading list. Reviewing your “Facebook Era” and hearing your keynote presentation the day it launched are privileges.

There is much in your book to further discuss but among the possibilities it occurs to me is adding the word “challenging” to your list of observations about the state of the social web 16 years on from the Internet’s arrival. Fellow AppGap blogger Bill Ives drew my attention to a recent study finding that just 16% of Fortune 500 & 38% Fortune 100 companies have blogs http://tinyurl.com/c7z9wp reminding us of the delay in technology adoption. It will certainly be interesting in another 16 years, 2025. to review the impact of the Facebook Era, the winners and losers.

My attention to your comments about ROI:

“Understandably, a large number of you are focused on ROI and might feel frustrated that there has been no clear quantifiable data around ROI” ~ Clara Shih (page 205)

in my original post was deliberate. To me developing new measures and mindsets around how value is created through social networks is critical to progress.

Yesterday on Twitter I noticed Patti Anklam (@panklam, another fellow AppGap blogger) comment about how when she gives talks on her book (“Net Work”) that:

“almost all very amazed to learn about how networks work”.

And this is 70+ years since Moreno’s sociograms that were the beginnings of social network analysis,and 2+ decades since the work at UC Irvine that created UCINET, Valdis Krebs early work in organizational network analysis at IBM and Rob Cross’s efforts at IBM’s Institute for Knowledgebased Organizations. In my experience organizations resist change and lack of easy to use and proven measures for how value is created through social networks handicaps innovation.

I hope from your position of influence that you will push the ROI discussion and build on your Customer Lifetime Value + Network value measure http://snurl.com/hhe9n proposed at the close of Chris Carfi’s terrific ROI panel in Boston March 26: http://snurl.com/hhe59.

2. Shiv, Glad you found my review helpful. I’m trying to imagine the interesting conversation that would unfold between you and Clara Shih around your latest post on “The Future of the Intranet. Not what we’ve had in mind” http://snurl.com/hhex6 I hope you get that opportunity.

3. Martin. Thank you for taking time to enrich the discussion here. I follow your always interesting AppGap comments. I hadn’t appreciated you were fuelling conversations from Gothenburg, Sweden.

Note: I participated in the Business of Community Networking Conference as a conference co-chair but am not an employee of World Research Group, the conference organizer.

Regards,
Clara