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Elect Charlene Li to the Harvard Alumni Board
I’m running for the Board of Directors of the Harvard Alumni Association, so if you’re a Harvard alum, you likely received a ballot in the mail recently. I’d very much appreciate your vote, and if you are so inclined, for you to encourage other alumni to vote for me as well.
Why am I doing this?
Well, I was asked. I got a call a few months ago to consider joining the board, primarily because they thought I could help push the alumni more into using social technologies. I was deeply honored to be asked so agreed to run.
Harvard made a huge difference in my life, not once, but twice (College ’88 and Business School ’93). And it continues to wield its influence in my life on a regular basis, from alumni connections to the research the University conducts. I see this as an opportunity to not only pay back my alma mater, but to also “pay it forward” and invest in a future that will benefit not only me, but also society and the world in general.
How I’ll help the Alumni Association
To be effective, Harvard has to extend and leverage its resources wisely, and one of the most exciting ways to do this today is through the use of disruptive technologies such as social media, mobile devices, and cloud computing. In particular, I’m energized by the possibility of tapping into the extensive Harvard alumni network, especially activating people who to this point have had limited engagement with Harvard.
Imagine if we’re able to get Harvard’s alumni base to interact and contribute just a bit more than they already are today, simply because the social affinity between alumni becomes greater because of these technologies. The implications are staggering – we could exponentially increase engagement on multiple fronts and provide greater support to Harvard’s mission of creating knowledge for the next generation of leaders.
There is also the issue of diversity on the board. As a woman and Asian American, I feel I bring a unique perspective that would benefit alumni programs. In particular, I frequently work with women who for very good reasons decided to take time off to raise their families — and then struggle to re-enter the workforce. I’d love to see the university develop more programs to help alumni – both male and female — as they go through the inevitable transitions in their lives.
How You Can Help
- Spread the word — tell other alumni to vote for me on the ballot. Send them a link to this post.
- Tell me what you would like the Alumni Association to do more of or do differently. If I’m elected, I’ll be using these tools to surface ideas for the Board to consider. Comment directly on this post, or email me at charlene@charleneli.com.
Thank you!
Social Search Propels Bing, Will Hurt Google
by Charlene Li
Microsoft’s Bing.com search unit announced today that it is integrating Facebook’s social graph information into some parts of its search results. This is the long-awaited “social search” that I’ve been talking about and waiting for for years. I was briefed by Adam Sohn from Bing.com this morning. [Update: Danny Sullivan has an excellent deep dive into the new offerings from Bing, as well as implications for SEO and Google.]
Search algorithms have used different types of “signals” like location to figure out what it is that the person is trying find or do. By integrating Facebook’s social graph and the “like” data generated by Facebook members, Bing is adding social signals to its algorithms.
In a nutshell, Bing announced two new features that take advantage of this new social signal: Liked Results and Profile Search.
Liked Results
When you are signed in to Facebook (more on what exactly that is later) and do a search on Bing, you have the option of seeing search results that take into account what your Facebook friends have “liked.” For example, if I’m searching for “restaurant Napa Valley”, I’ll see the 10 blue links that Bing’s search algorithm normally delivers. But I’ll also have the ability to see results that have been “liked” by my friends as well that also match the query.
It’s a way to highlight search results that your friends have liked. The fact that many of my friends are wine-drinking parents who may have dragged their kids along for a wine tasting tour means that the Liked Results are going to be just slightly more relevant to my particular situation.
Where it gets interesting is when the Liked Results don’t show up in the first page of the search engine results page (SERP). Bing then suddenly becomes much more relevant because it is personalized to you because of your social graph. Sohn explained to me that in the future, they plan to include what they call “algo annotation” that will show the signals that are being used to rank the result. For example, you’ll be able to see how many friends liked a particular link. There’s also the possibility in the future of showing not only likes, but also check-ins, photos of food and people, or reviews from friends associated with a particular restaurant in Napa.
Profile Search
About 4% of searches on Bing are name searches, amounting to about 1 billion searches a month. The problem is if you’re looking for a particular person — especially if they have a common name — it’s hard to differentiate. By tapping into your social graph, Bing looks at your friends, your friends’ friends, and your networks to return results that have greater “social proximity” to you. These search results will also appear as a separate module.
Privacy and Permissions
The key to making all of this work is that the person using Bing is logged into Facebook and thus gives permission for Bing to tap into his/her social graph and data. Bing is taking steps to make sure notifications are clear and require explicit opt-in. Over time, the notifications will cease to pop up, because the assumption is that the user will no longer want the notifications to appear after repeated acceptances.
Even if you are not logged into Facebook in another tab but have clicked on the “Keep me logged in” check box, you’re setting your cookie to sign you in for a set period of time, which is approximately two weeks right now. This usually isn’t a problem — as long as I’m the only person using the computer. But on a shared computer — like the one that’s in my kitchen — I am frequently inadvertently logged in as my husband and have done things such as accepted friends and Liked items on his account!
Now with search being impacted, I’ll have to make double sure that I’m logged in (or not) when using Bing.
Surfacing social graph information like photos and check-ins will raise even further the cries around privacy and permissions on Facebook. For someone who has set their privacy settings as completely public — and is careful about not putting up private items — this isn’t a problem. But most people are much more nuanced about this, maybe posting photos from an evening out that will now have the possibility of being taken completely out of context.
I believe that having social data in search results will lead to some inadvertent and potentially embarrassing and explosive situations, which in the end will curb people’s appetite for sharing socially. In the same way that college students realize that Facebook posts and photos will follow them into their professional careers, Facebook members will be more circumspect about posting when they see their friends’ social information showing up in general search results.
Power Shifts With Social Search
The rise of social search means that the people using it — and the companies who know how to leverage it — will have an advantage over those who don’t leverage social technologies. There are three major implications:
- SEO will lose relevance. Search engine optimization (SEO) — where a Web or content person tweaks a web page to get higher SERP positions — will lose effectiveness as search results become more influenced by social signals. While a company could potentially manipulate “likes” for an item or Web page, marketers can’t SEO your friends. The result: better search results for people who leverage their social graph, because the search results will include more relevant data.
- Socially connected people will make more money. If I have a great set of friends, I’ll be able to make better decisions because of more relevant search results. People in my network will start noticing the benefits of likes from their friends and be motivated to be more socially connected as well. It’s the classic network effect, but rather than be driven by purely social incentives, there are clear monetary ones as well — getting better deals, finding things faster, etc.
- Bing’s social search hits Google right between the eyes. Google has recently been making noises that it wants access to Facebook’s social graph, calling for the company to be more open. That’s because Google realizes that unless it can harness social graph data, it will be relegated to traditional algorithmic search based primarily on the information on the Web page itself and scrapping what social data it can. You can see some of Google’s early attempts at social search at http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/introducing-google-social-search-i.html.
Because Microsoft’s Bing is the privileged search provider on Facebook, it enjoys special access to the social graph and data that no one else does. That’s going to be a huge competitive advantage in a social-driven world, where users and marketers (and their search dollars) will flock to the search engine that performs.
Does it seem unlikely that Bing could unseat Google? It’s happened before. Remember that Yahoo used to be the search leader until Google came on the scene because of its new approach to search. So look for this new phase to come with significant changes.
The Open Leadership Awards 2010 Winners
Back in August, we launched the Open Leadership Awards to recognize people and organization that best demonstrate the principles of open leadership. We received submissions from a range of individuals and organizations, and are excited to announce the winners onstage today at Altimeter Group’s first conference, Rise of Social Commerce, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Palo Alto California.
While we saw many impressive case studies and intriguing use cases, the seven award winners best exemplify one of four key criteria needed to demonstrate open leadership: 1) Innovation & Execution, 2) Creating Impact, 3) Overcoming Barriers, and 4) Leadership.
Now, without further ado, the winners!
Innovation & Execution
“Dell: A Company Built on Direct and Open Communications“. Submitted by Dell.
Dell has been an active participant in social media but what continues to impress us is that they are committed to continually pushing the boundaries of social business by pushing engagement into all areas of their business practice. What started out as basic monitoring and reputation management has turned into a way of doing business that permeates through every department. This does not come easily or quickly and Dell is being recognized for their dogged determination to being “direct” with their customers in multiple ways.
“Infor Promotes Open Communication With Its Employees, Partners and Customers“. Submitted by Infor.
Infor’s goal was to create more open and transparent communications with employees, customers, partners, and even prospects and competitors. To do this, they used a combination of Yammer, LinkedIn, and Twitter to engage these different audiences. But what really impressed us was their detailed implementation program, which included contests, parties, and incentives to engage people both at the grassroots level and also involve senior executives. It was the thoroughness of the thinking and excellence in implementation that brought Infor this award.
Creating Impact
“AmericaSpeakingOut Helps Republicans Reach Its Consitituents“. Submitted by Microsoft.
Created by House Republicans in May 2010 to engage people in a virtual “town hall” type of discussion, the site drew hundreds of thousands of people, who submitted over 15,000 ideas, and voted over 1 million times for the ideas. The effort not only engaged an audience in a new way, but also is beginning to impact how House Republicans listen to people, and also information their legislative priorities and even the drafting of legislation.
“Bringing Open Leadership to Government“. Submitted by City of Manor, Texas and Spigit.
The city of Manor, Texas has a population of 6,500 people and is blessed with city leaders keen to open up government. Last fall, the 24 year old CIO of the city, Dustin Haisler, set up manorlabs.org to gather ideas on how to improve city. Since then, over a third of the city’s population has participated, with over 80 ideas submitted. Five of those ideas have been implemented, including the suggestion to allow recurring payments for utility bills and an RSS feed for public work orders. For comparison purposes, typically only 10-15 people attended monthly city council meetings. To get people to engage, the city also created a virtual currency that could be redeemed for prizes like being mayor for the day or a ride-along with the police chief.
Overcoming Barriers
“U by Kotex: A Breakthrough Launch Driven by Social Media“. Submitted by U by Kotex and Organic.
The Kotex brand team wanted to reinvent a brand for young women and create dialog around a taboo subject, vagina health. They had to overcome tremendous barriers around this subject and create a cultural shift with a key audience. This required a tremendous amount of preparation around guidelines, training sessions, and worst-case scenario planning, as well as putting in place collaboration tools to be able to quickly respond to sensitive comments. Crucial to the success of the program was trained Conversation Managers and Community Planners who were prepared to talk about and respond to questions and concerns.
“TurboTax Live Community“. Submitted by Intuit.
After a technical launch of the TurboTax support community in 2007, the company found that only half of the asked questions were being answered. Moreover, only 12% of Intuit employees had answered questions. It took Patsy Nations and her team to create a culture at Intuit that not only created opportunities to engage with customers, but they also made it fun. Using a combination of incentives and internal competition, employee participation in the community rose to 85% this past year. Moreover, it included the GM of the Consumer Group, as well as every VP and Director in the company.
Leadership
“Driving Best Buy’s Social Customer Success“. Submitted by Best Buy.
When Best Buy started monitoring customer comments in social media in 2008, they had no intention to actively and directly engage customers. Gina Debogovic, BEST BUY’s Communities Manager was told straight out by an executive that there was no way they would launch any type of customer community before the end of the year. Not one to take no for an answer, Gina doggedly set out to make it happen, and on September 18, 2008, the community was launched. The result: in the past year, call deflection and sales influence thanks to the community is estimated to be a $5 million benefit.
Special Thanks
And a special thank you to Spigit, which built and managed the award platform, and congratulations to the winners, and thanks to everyone who participated this year!
Celebrating six years of blogging and sharing
Six years ago, I wrote my first blog post, “Blogging as a state of mind“. Forrester was supportive of my research efforts into the nascent subject of social media and saw the logic of my having a blog if I was going to be advising clients on how to have one! I am forever grateful for that leap of faith.
I remember how nervous I was writing that first post. After rewriting it several times, I finally closed my eyes and clicked on the “Publish” button.
I hold on to that memory because it’s a powerful reminder of what many people new to social media go through, that sense of being out of control. While I’d been publishing research at Forrester for five years by then, blogging was just me — unpolished thinking, typos, and all.
What I didn’t realize with that first post was how addictive it would all become. The same thing that drove me then — to share my thoughts and research with people — is what drives me to share today. And today, anyone with a Facebook or Twitter account can quickly and easily share and feel the same sense of power.
In that first post, I wrote, “I believe that blogs as they are today are more a state of mind than a technology or a publishing tool.” As an example, I pointed out that Forrester’s CEO George Colony would occasionally write a column. He’s now a frequent blogger and Twitter user.
This is what many executives fail to grasp – that social media isn’t about blogging or Facebook or Twitter. It’s about sharing as a state of mind.
Executives are shockingly bad a sharing publicly, so I encourage them to take small steps, sharing simple observations with a small team of people. Many start doing this by email.
One recent example: The CEO of General Electric Jeffrey Immelt was asked to give the commencement address at Boston College last spring. In the course of writing his speech, he reached out to 270 Boston College grads at GE via email, asking them to share what advice they would give to new grads. It’s small steps toward greater sharing, but it is steps.
I’d love to hear from you what your first experiences were like, when you ventured into this brave new world of sharing and social media. Were you anxious, exhilarated? What have you learned since you started? Share so that we can relive those early days with you — they are worthy of reflection.
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