What Marketers Need to Succeed – Infographic
eCornell breaks data down from four reputable sources to show why marketing professional development is necessary for success and increased profitability. Click here to view the Marketing Infographic.
What We Follow Friday – July 19, 2013
On Fridays, we highlight some of the most interesting articles we’ve been reading from around the web. Articles feature news, strategies, and tools focused on marketing strategy, data mining and analytics, conjoint analysis, customer segmentation and targeting, and market response modeling, and a few others for fun. If you come across an article you think we should be reading, tweet it to us, post it to our facebook page, or leave us a comment at the bottom of the page.
This week, we’ve found some great pieces from quite a few of our favorite news sources: IBM, Forbes, and more. Enjoy!
Data Scientist: Consider the Curriculum
“Data science’s learning curve is formidable.Read More
Best Practices for Virtual Communication and Meetings
Did you know that almost 10% of the present-day workforce telecommutes from home? The likes of AT&T, Accenture and P&G have opted for a remote working system by partially eliminating their traditional offices. While there are obvious benefits associated with this system, a big drawback is the lack of communication between remote workers/teleworkers and their organization.
Teleworkers are far removed from the face-to-face interactions occurring in their organization. This automatically makes proactive communication an important facet of a remote working arrangement. And while it is best when initiated from both the remote workers and their supervisors/contact points, the onus fall on the latter. After all, communication is a key mechanism through which remote managers cultivate relationships with their reports. Here is a look at some best practices of virtual communication that can be very useful in any remote working arrangement.Read More
The eCornell Story: A Former Startup Helping New Startups Thrive
On September 7, 2000, the Cornell University Board of Trustees approved the creation of eCornell, a wholly-owned, for-profit subsidiary that would produce and deliver online courses authored by Cornell professors and extension faculty members.
With this charter, eCornell became the Ivy League’s first online education startup. Like any fledgling business, its founders — many of whom were Cornell alums — faced the challenge of defining and serving a relatively new market. Who were online learners? What did they need, and was it different from the needs of students sitting in classes on the Cornell campus? What expertise could eCornell bring to online learners that would set it apart?
Thirteen years later, we’re no longer a startup and we’ve found our niche. True to Cornell’s motto, eCornell has become a natural extension of the university’s ideals: the online outpost of “…an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.” We provide a virtual community for learners at every stage in their careers, spanning disciplines and providing Ivy League instruction grounded in application.
But we haven’t forgotten our roots. Throughout the years, the eCornell executive team has been paying it forward, supporting entrepreneurs and new ventures at all levels — whether through undergraduate student projects, alumni startups, peer coaching, or new courses and certificate programs.
“We’ve been a strong supporter of Entrepreneurship@Cornell (Cornell’s university-wide entrepreneurship initiative) for years because we know there is a direct link between developing the management skills of new entrepreneurs and their ultimate success,” said Chris Proulx, ‘91, eCornell’s Chief Executive Officer.
Proulx and Rob Kingyens, Chief Technology Officer and Chief Marketing Technology Officer, regularly judge business plan competitions around the country and participate as coaches or panelists at entrepreneurship conferences. They also are dedicated to leading eCornell in a direction that meets entrepreneurs’ and business owners’ unique needs.
“Launching a new business is more than a full-time job. Many entrepreneurs, especially those who can’t yet afford to quit their ‘day jobs,’ don’t have time to go back to school,” said Proulx. “They need accelerated, actionable learning, at the right time and place.”
For entrepreneur Egomeli Hormeku, eCornell’s courses were a perfect fit, even while he was running and building a new multi-brand business.
“The structure of the coursework didn’t take away from my business; it only benefited the process. I thought the task of running five brands and taking courses with eCornell would be impossible. That definitely wasn’t the case,” said Hormeku, founder and CEO of The Hormeku Group, a holding company focused on mens’ fashion, cigars, spirits, and wine.
Hormeku completed eCornell’s Business Strategy: Achieving Competitive Advantage certificate program, a decision that he said allowed him to better see the business from all angles, fine-tune the practical information he’d already gained on the job, and learn how to compete in vertical markets some would consider daunting.
Like Hormeku, Adam Zembruski came to eCornell to fill a skills gap. But Zembruski, president of hospitality investment and management company Pharos Hospitality, LLC, needed to fill those gaps for his entire team, not just himself. Though Zembruski has decades of hotel management experience, his new venture was founded on a technical skill he and many if his employees didn’t possess: hotel underwriting.
“We formed Pharos with the intent to bridge the gap between real estate investors and hotel operators. These courses [in Hotel Real Estate Investments and Asset Management] have prepared me to anticipate and meet the needs of all of our current and future partners. The courses taken through eCornell were priceless,” Zembruski said.
If you’re registered for Startup Weekend, you also already know how important networking and connections are for entrepreneurs. At eCornell, this is another way we pay it forward: bringing like-minded, driven people together through courses designed for interaction. Fellow students become your sounding board and source of inspiration.
“The people I take courses with keep in touch with me, and we find ways to sharpen the vision of our career goals. These connections, and my eCornell courses, have helped me cut costs, strategically move more units, stay ahead of my competition, and realize new ways of being profitable. They took me from being a good entrepreneur to walking the road of becoming a great one,” said Hormeku.
For Startup Weekend Fredericksburg attendees, we’re continuing our tradition of supporting entrepreneurs. Save 25% when you enroll in any eCornell certificate program by June 30, 2013. Visit https://ecornell.cornell.edu/swfred and use promo code SWFRED to get started.
Featured Post on Startup Weekend’s Blog
CAHRS Top 10 List for June 2013
Each month, the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies (CAHRS) publishes this list of the top 10 resources and articles that we have found in the HR world. Read through and let me know if you find them useful or if you found other links we should take a look at in the comments section below.
1. When Pay is Kept Secret, the Implications on Performance Are Revealing
Summary: Researchers set out to draw from expectance theory notions to explain how the effects of pay secrecy on perceived performance-pay instrumentalities are likely cause a generally adverse effect on individual task performance.
2. The New Employer-Employee Compact
Summary: The authors propose a new employer-employee compact to make organizations more agile and entrepreneurial. The article outlines 3 key components with action items to make the compact workable: (1) Hire employees for a defined period of time (2) Encourage and even subsidize employees to build networks outside of the organization (3) Establish employee alumni networks to build career-long relationships with employees after they have moved on.
3. An HR Icon Reflects on Retirement
Summary: Effective June 1 Randy MacDonald, senior vice president of human resources for CAHRS Partner IBM, will be retiring after 42 years in HR, the last 13 of which were with IBM. In this interview he shares about the succession planning leading up to the selection of Diane Gherson, what HR needs to do to be even more successful in business, and the key attributes of an extraordinary HR leader.
4. Balancing the Pay Scale: Fair vs. Unfair
Summary: Reward system designs need to balance incentive effects and equity concerns, and increased transparency around compensation and benefits can help employees understand their level of compensation.
For more on Compensation, take a look at Kevin Hallock’s Business Insider article “Why Pretty Much Everyone Thinks They’re Underpaid.”
5. Fixing the Disconnect in Talent Decision Making
Summary: Trying to make decisions without integrated data—or the wrong kinds of data—can send a company off course. HR analytics illuminate patterns that are difficult to observe with the human eye.
For more on HR Analytics, take a look at the January Working Group Summary.
6. Hitting the Intergenerational Sweet Spot
Summary: HR should target maximum engagement for all employees by not taking characteristics of millennials out of context and understanding that both millennials and Baby Boomers value challenging, meaningful work and opportunities for development.
7. Research Backs the Benefits of Flex Work for Workers – and Companies
Summary: There is a large quantity of academic research on flexible work arrangements that provide valuable insights into the debate, for example the positive effects of telecommuting are maximized at 15 hours per week and flexibility around work hours is more effective than flexibility around workplace.
For more information on Remote Workers, take a look at the Remote Workers Working Group Summary.
8. Incentivizing Creative Employees Towards Increased Competitiveness
Summary: The author argues that compensating and acknowledging employed inventors can incentivize creativity, innovation, and profitability.
9. The HR-Risk Connection
Summary: HR and risk management have begun working closer together to improve their bottom lines, streamline processes and ensure risks are addressed and/or countered before they take on any significance.
For more reading on Talent Management, visit the CAHRS Talent Management Center of Excellence.
10. Your Assumptions About Cultural Adaptation Are Probably Wrong
Summary: The workforce has never been more global, yet when working internationally most people focus on more concrete pressing tasks than the global element of their work. As a result, they often follow “gut” instincts about cultural adaption, which tend to be wrong.
For more reading on Globalization, take a look at the Singapore Human Capital Challenges for the Emerging Market and Talent Management Challenges for the India Market.
Baselining Social Media Use in Your Organization
This article dives deeper into the second step of the ABCs of Creating an Effective Social Media Policy: baselining the current state of your social media policy and the way its being interpreted by employees. Read the article, then download our sample social media use survey as a jumping off point for your own baselining efforts.
Whether your organization already has a social media policy, or is working to develop one, baselining the current state of its social media use is critical to success. You can’t craft a solid new policy, or address failings of an existing one, if you don’t have a clear picture of what’s happening on the ground in your workplace.
Making these assessments can, and should, be done before a new policy is even issued. It’s as simple as surveying employees to find out how much they know about existing policies and how those policies are being interpreted daily. Conducting an organization-wide survey to assess social media use provides a baseline level of intelligence that’s essential for successful, beneficial policy making.
Different questions for different roles
One way to increase survey participation and ensure more robust results it to create different versions of your questionnaire targeted to different employee roles. For example, consider making one questionnaire designed for individual contributors and another designed for managers.
For individual contributors, be sure to ask questions covering all aspects of social media policy and use. This may include asking employees to describe your company’s social media policy as it relates to specific areas such as blogs or tweets, or asking them whether they’ve received any formal instruction on these policies. You also want to know whether employees are following policies. But don’t ask this question directly; few employees will admit their transgressions. Instead, ask employees specific questions about use, such as “Do you ever use mobile devices to engage in personal social media use at work?”
For managers, be sure to ask questions to uncover whether they’ve reviewed current laws relevant to business records, monitoring, and electronic data. You also want to know if managers are finding that their employees’ use of social media is impacting productivity, or creating legal problems.
Remember the goal
The goal of this process is to accurately baseline how your employees are using social media at work, not to catch specific wrongdoers. To get honest answers, assure employees of your survey’s confidentiality before it’s administered and that you will make no effort to identify individual respondents.
Conducting an employee survey of your organization’s social media use is the first step in assessing the high-risk issues a new policy should address; the effectiveness of your current policy; or areas in need of change.
Hotel Revenue and Online Feedback
In January 2010, a Hotel & Motel Management/Market Metrix study showed that online reviews had become the biggest factor in potential customers’ hotel choices.
Chris Anderson, Ph.D., associate professor at Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration, called this moment a “tipping point” when he spoke to Travel Weekly last year about his landmark study on the impact of social media on lodging performance.
Today, this impact is increasing exponentially as more travelers book online and flock to social media. Still, most hotels can only address online guest feedback after the fact.
Some innovative hotels and brands see a better solution, one that combines online reviews, social media feedback, and modern surveying techniques to build customer awareness, deliver better service, and drive revenue.
To learn more, join eCornell and Revinate for a free webinar on Tuesday, June 11, 2013, where Cornell University’s Bill Carroll, Ph.D., and Michelle Wohl, Revinate’s Vice President of Marketing, will discuss:
Guest Sentiment Scoring (GSS) versus Sentiment Analysis
Embracing Transparency to Drive Sales
Using Feedback to Improve Operations in Real-Time
Changing Trends in Compensation
Register for the webinar today. We look forward to the conversation!
Private Social Networks: Why Your Company Needs One
Uncertain about the risks associated with public platforms and how a private social network might soothe your worries? This post provides an overview of the risks associated with public platforms and describes how private social networks (which I prefer to call private digital networks) can reduce those risks while also enhancing communication and collaboration among organizational stakeholders as part of eCornell’s Tech Tuesday series from The Denovati Group.
Public social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn can help organizations of all types enhance their marketing, public relations, and other external communication efforts, but they may not be the best choice for facilitating more private interactions.
Private social networks are also referred to as enterprise social networks, intranet 2.0s, social intranets, enterprise 2.0 platforms, social business platforms, digital communities, and similar labels. The basic idea behind them is to provide 2.0 or social media functionality within a private or secure environment, using a proprietary platform rather than one of the publicly-available social networks.
Public vs. Private Platforms
Recognizing the value of leveraging social media, organizations have been establishing and building their presence on public social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and LinkedIn, as well as semi-private platforms like Ning. These platforms can be very powerful for external applications like marketing, branding, and public relations, but they present a number of risks and challenges, including:
- Sharing information about organizational stakeholders (e.g., employees, business partners, board leaders, members) without their express permission.
- Exposing minors (a special risk for private clubs, schools, religious groups, health care and non-profit organizations). See this post for a more in-depth discussion of this risk.
- Being held responsible for unofficial presence/activities that appear official.
- Limited ability to monitor/control communication between staff and other stakeholders.
- Challenges maintaining relationship boundaries.
- Seeing things that may require taking unwelcome (but legally necessary) action.
Recognizing these risks, some organizations have attempted to create private spaces on public platforms, but there are downsides to many of these solutions as well. For example:
- Closed Facebook groups (vs. Pages): tend to be personally oriented, which may not be appropriate for professionally-oriented interactions.
- Closed LinkedIn groups: tend to be professionally oriented, which may not be appropriate for personally-oriented interactions. LinkedIn is also not a viable platform for organizations working with minors.
- Private Twitter handles: tend to have a relatively low number of users, and generally only enable one-way communication between an organization and its stakeholders.
- Private Flickr accounts and blogs: tend to present challenges in terms of driving traffic to them and promoting engagement.
- Ning communities: create yet another account for people to manage, and the platform is not completely private.
These issues are compounded by a more general set of challenges, including:
- Some people strongly dislike platforms like Facebook and Twitter and will refuse to set up accounts and engage on them.
- Each platform has limited functionality, and organizations have limited control over their design and features. More importantly, they have virtually no control over – or even warning about – platform changes.
- Privacy on public platforms like Facebook is kind of an illusion. Even if other users can’t access certain information/activity, the platform provider can – and does.
- There is no easy way for an organization to integrate activity in the various platforms, either within a platform or across platforms.
- Managing a presence on multiple platforms is challenging for both organizations and their stakeholders. People have different preferences for platforms and features, and are inconvenienced by having to manage multiple sign-ons. And managing multiple platforms requires a lot of time and effort from organizational staff.
- Trying to accommodate multiple objectives and preferences on public platforms often results in cannibalization of an organization’s digital engagement efforts. When individuals/groups carve out their own spaces on public platforms, the organization loses control. In addition, to the extent these spaces are publicly known, the organization’s brand – as well as its goals and objectives – can be compromised.
Establishing a private digital network can alleviate the risks and challenges associated with using public social media platforms for communication and collaboration among organizational stakeholders. It can also produce other benefits, including:
- Organizations can create a digital community/space to correspond with their physical community/space(s).
- Rather than having relevant digital interactions spread out across a variety of platforms, they can be contained in a single shared space.
- The private digital network can be connected to the organization’s website and other digital platforms, which facilitates access and increases the likelihood of engagement. Increased digital engagement can lead to increases in other forms of engagement.
- With its own digital network, organization-related interactions among staff and between staff and other stakeholders occur in an official, sanctioned, private environment, which helps create and maintain proper boundaries.
- A digital network promotes better communication and collaboration by enabling people to interact in various ways (e.g., via wikis, blogs, chats, forums) in addition to direct messaging (i.e., email).
- Private digital networks not only maximize flexibility for both individuals and organizations, they offer more control over the design and features of the digital platform through which people interact.
It’s a Question of “When” not “If”
In spite of the very real potential benefits private digital networks offer, many organizational leaders are still hesitant to pursue them, for a variety of reasons. Here are some of the most common reasons offered, and counterpoints for each:
We can’t afford it
The costs of enterprise social software vary widely. In addition to large, relatively-expensive, enterprise-oriented solutions like SharePoint and Jive, there are also free (e.g., Yammer and Salesforce.com’s Chatter) and relatively low-cost (e.g., 37 Signals, Intranet Connections) solutions. Many of these products/services are designed to be “out-of-the-box” solutions, which means they require relatively little customization and can be implemented fairly quickly and without significant IT support. Social software does not have to be a budget buster.
Our people won’t use it
Time and again organization leaders have found that individuals are far more ready to use social software than they think. Managing enthusiasm has proven to be a far bigger challenge than managing resistance. In addition, a well-designed platform will be user-friendly and easy to use, which will increase both the speed and extent of adoption.
People will waste time socializing rather than working
Performance management is a leadership issue, not a technology challenge. If people want to avoid work, they’ll find a way – with or without technology. In reality, one of the biggest benefits of social software is that it can enhance efficiency and effectiveness. It can also increase engagement and boost morale in a variety of ways.
Choosing the Right Tool
As the Digital Era continues to evolve, leaders will increasingly recognize the need for their organizations to establish a social/digital presence across the privacy spectrum. Each type of platform has a role to play in achieving an organization’s goals and objectives. To wit:
- Public spaces like Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn Company pages, Google Plus pages, and YouTube channels support externally-oriented objectives like marketing, branding, PR, and recruiting.
- Semi-Private spaces like Ning communities, Facebook groups, and LinkedIn groups enable communication and collaboration among individuals who have shared interests (but aren’t in the same organization).
- Private spaces promote secure, confidential, and regulated communication and collaboration among individuals who are linked by a common organizational identity/interest.
Choosing the right tool for the task (or in this case, the right social technology), should be driven by an organization’s strategy and a clear understanding of what each tool can help the organization achieve.
Click here to view the original post on the Social Media in Organizations (SMinOrgs) website and access related resources.
What We Follow Friday
Every Friday, we highlight some of the most interesting articles we’ve been reading from around the web. We cover hospitality marketing, hotel revenue management, hospitality social media marketing, SEO, SEM, and a few others for fun. If you come across an article you think we should be reading, tweet it to us, post it to our facebook page, or leave us a comment at the bottom of the page.
This week, we’ve found some great pieces from quite a few of our favorite news sources: Revinate, tnooz, and more. Enjoy!
Rethinking Traditional Guest Satisfaction
“Today, online reviews are providing hoteliers with rich data about guest satisfaction to help them please customers. In addition, online reviews provide a social currency that drives new bookings and trust in hotels.”
When Does Service Enhancement Become Stalking?
How hotels can use mobile devices and social media to connect and engage with guests without crossing the line into privacy invasion.
Social Media: The New Face of Disaster Response
In the wake of Thursday’s tornado devastation in Oklahoma, people took to social media as a replacement to 911 call centers to contact emergency responders. This post includes a very interesting infographic from the University of San Francisco.
Hotel Digital Conundrum: Brand Building vs Demand Generation
“Hotel marketers may come to look over the previous century as a time of simplicity and certainty. Their job was, and still is, to create a brand that resonated, but unlike today, they did not have to worry about getting their hands dirty with tiresome issues like attribution and conversion metrics.”
Five Ways Hoteliers Can Benefit from User-Generated Social Media Content
“User-generated content can be advantageous for gathering information about a hotel’s amenities and services or learning about a travel experience from a previous guest’s point-of-view, but it can also be controversial because this information is provided by the public and is often uncensored.”
What We Follow Friday
Every Friday, we highlight some of the most interesting articles we’ve been reading from around the web. We cover the top trends in HR focusing on social media, technology, policy development, remote work, employee retention, and a few others for fun. If you come across an article you think we should be reading, tweet it to us, post it to our facebook page, or leave us a comment at the bottom of the page.
This week, we’ve found some great pieces from quite a few of our favorite news sources: TNLT, HR Bartender, and more. Enjoy!
You Think Social Media Policy is Unsexy?
“The digital age has transformed everything about the workplace, from how we find talent to the increasingly virtual workforce. Never has there been a greater need to change and shift your company’s approach to meet the intersection of Human Resources and Social Media.”
Is There a Fear of Failure for HR Technology?
“Between January 1, 2010 and March 2012 there were 157 venture capital transactions, totaling $966 million, funding companies focused on solving HR and recruiting challenges. That’s great news for the HR industry because it means access to new tools and technology designed to help source, recruit and retain new talent.”
What if there was a Yelp for HR Software?
“for whatever reason despite there existing a ‘Yelp’ equivalent for seemingly just about everything, there really isn’t a large, successful manifestation of the crowdsourced review and ratings site for Enterprise Software.”
Using Employee Opinion Surveys to Drive Engagement
“Employee opinion surveys are a valuable way to take a pulse on the workforce. And they provide great data. But it’s the meetings and conversations after the survey that provide the foundation for improving the workplace and the essentials of employee engagement.”
If You’re Managing Remote Workers, Give Them Tools to Increase Efficiency
“Some managers and companies argue that having people in the office is essential, and that remote workers are harder to monitor and detract from company culture. But for many small business owners outside of major population centers, remote work is a necessity in one way or another. And many others have family commitments or struggle to function well in an office environment.”