5 very interesting insights into Social Media from Cisco

Cisco just released a study that “Reveals Proliferation of Consumer-Based Social Networking Throughout the Enterprise and a Growing Need for Governance and IT Involvement”.  Here are some very enlightening quotes from CNN on the study:

• Evgeny Kaganer, Ph.D., lead researcher and assistant professor, IESE Business School
  “The research findings spotlight an underestimation of the power and influence of social networks on businesses, and the transformation that companies need to make, not only to protect themselves, but also to encourage and benefit from the collaboration these social networks and tools afford them. Ignoring the increased usage and influence of social networking and Web 2.0 tools leaves organizations at the risk of misuse, potentially leading to the disclosure of information and misrepresentation of the company.”
• Neil Hair, Ph.D., lead researcher and assistant professor of marketing, E. Philip Saunders College of Business, Rochester Institute of Technology
  “Successful companies in the 2.0 world are those that are tying tools together, managing scalability issues, anticipating the continued evolution of platforms, and using the preferred tools of their stakeholders. These companies build social networking initiatives into their wider strategy and are able to create meaningful connections with their communities.”
• Nick Earle, senior vice president, Cisco Services
  “The rise of the connected consumer is driving a market shift in the enterprise, creating ‘people-powered business’ where social networking tools and collaborative technologies are the propeller of the next-generation of productivity and bringing about a fundamentally different leadership model. Companies who will succeed in embracing the tremendous power of social networking will be those who design a collaborative IT architecture capable of supporting the use of these technologies and mitigating the risks they pose.”
• Baz Khuti, study participant and chief architect, Information Technology, Emerson
  “Collaboration tools allow Emerson to effectively improve the speed and agility by which we can make business decisions and interact with our partners. Additionally, they provide insight into what’s going on within different parts of the organization, as well as customer usage of our products and market trends.”
• Hugh Murphy, study participant and business manager, e-Channels, 3M U.K. and Ireland
  “Businesses need to embrace social media not only to remain competitive, but also to continue to attract top talent. The next generation of leaders will be exceptionally savvy with these tools, so 3M is using social media externally to help us with recruiting. Several of the graduates we hired this year specifically told us that they hadn’t considered 3M before they saw our employer profile on social media.”

Cisco is Technology heavy and they commissioned this study, so it isn’t surprising that they “get” social media marketing – check out their Social Media News Room http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/index.html

Here is the article about this study: http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0575199.htm