Barry Libert on How We Are Smarter Than Me

Running Time: 9 minutes 30 seconds 

Canadian Management Centres Business Intelligence Podcast series is pleased to present the American Management Association Strategic Planning Podcast, How We Are Smarter Than Me, with special guest speaker Barry Libert.

Online Social Networking is a reality. The millions of people who have a Facebook or a MySpace page, or anyone who uses Wikipedia or Google knows this. But for todays companies, the question remains, how can we profit from the crowds who are swarming all over the internet?

A lot of todays leaders have an old school view when it comes to business and are busy being wrapped up in their intellectual property. They dont see that theyre part of the social environment even though they are. Businesses are not going to change overnight; and a social take to conducting business isnt going to happen immediately. At present, business leaders will continue to be more concerned with protecting their brand, intellectual property, courseware, and training, instead of taking advantage of the opportunities in the social environment.

Companies that are smart will turn their brand over to their constituents, and let them be the keepers of the brand and intellectual property, which will in turn move them forward in their development efforts.

Economic benefit can be derived from social networking, as customers can be found in big social networking groups, and in turn you can then appeal to them to see what products you should be delivering. Let them design the products they want to see. They can be your research and development team. By facilitating social space and human interaction without censorship, youll be participating in crowdsourcing and youll find that people will come and contribute.

Crowdsourcing is finding a group of people anywhere in the world thats interested in your business and letting them have a chance at designing one of your products. Instead of reducing labour costs by shipping jobs offshore, let your customers become the basis of your product development. Because as the opportunity for new products gets smaller and our attention spans get shorter, the only competitive, durable advantage companys have today is human interaction.

A lot of businesses are still skeptical as they cant imagine that giving something away will have any real return on investment. But, the more they give to their customers (i.e. trust them), the more empowered the consumer feels and thus the more willing the consumer is likely to give back as well.

Barry Libert is an industry veteran with more than 25 years of executive and growth company leadership experience. Barry is currently the CEO of Mzinga, a provider of business social networks that help companies improve their performance by leveraging the power of community.