Kevin Costello, the president of Ariba, has an interesting column in Forbes.com, "More Useful Than a Social Network," in which he reminds us that B2B networks have been around for years, and that many of the Fortune 100 already use them for reducing the inevitable friction created by routine business transactions. That friction, BTW, has a huge cost, which Costello pegs at $650 billion annually in lost productivity.

I mention Costello's column because it argues agains the grain of the common complaint I hear from business executives about social meda, which is that it has yet to prove its business value. B2B networks have more than proven their worth, so the idea of questioning the value of a network approach to business process optimization seems a tad outdated. At any rate, it's good to remember that networks come in many sizes, shapes and flavors -- so don't rule out the notion of leveraging social networking to achieve tangible business objectives.

Hey, I'm the first to admit when I'm in over my head. The comments I received on my post, "The End of Marketing," were better than the post itself. So I want to share them with you right here on the ol' homepage:

Rhonda:

beg to differ, mike

Marketing 101:  find a need and fill it , 5 P's of marketing (price, product, promotion, etc.)
Marketing 102: branding , differentiate yourself from competition
Marketing 103:  once you have a brand and positioning that resonates, sell the hell out of it!!!

So, my friend, sales is down the chain.  You can say marketing is a subset of sales, but it ain't so.

Britton:

Yeah, I have to challenge this POV -- not that I am a defensive marketer or anything. Marketing, by and large, is prone to making itself subservient to sales. But this is the sign of an immature enterprise. Indeed, roles should be reversed. Sales should be a channel under Marketing's leadership -- one of many. The one who creates the demand should rule the world. This will happen: Once Marketing learns to capitalize on the new tools of marketing technology to track, measure and predict, it will move into a more dominant role. That's already true in B2C. I expect it to be true in B2B within the next decade. Actually, my preferred solution is a VP of Sales and Marketing or a Chief Revenue Officer -- someone who owns it all.

Ben:

Ah, shake the tree Mike, nicely done. Two rejoinders:

1. First, this is a debate about semantics. I think we could all agree with Michael Porter's old "value chain" in which there are five basic activities that lead to margin: inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing/sales, and service. Those are irrefutable. We can argue about what we call each step and about which executive team should oversee what area, but all those steps exist in any business, from Apple to Walmart to an ice cream truck vendor. Marketing seems worthy of broader control than sales because it has a view on the entire marketplace -- including competitors, market entrants, substitutes, customers, and cultural trends that must guide the entire enterprise production flow. Apple didn't launch the iPad because it has good salespeople, but because it is building a market for a new tool.

In simplest terms, sales is a byproduct of effective marketing.

2. At the broadest macro level, beyond any single enterprise, you could argue that our entire culture is based on marketing. We buy products that we have no innate use for (brushes for teeth, sneakers for feet, diamonds for fingers) simply because a culture of marketing has told us we "need" these new tools. Because marketers are creating new demand for new products, in a way these leaders must guide the logistics of supplies, operations, sales and service. Marketing in this sense is "building a market," and companies do this all the time.

So in the most nuanced of terms, sales only exist because a vast organization has built a structure to create a new market.

It's all semantics, of course. Which reminds me: Shouldn't human resources be in charge of everything? ;)

Wow, thank you all. Now this is social media! Cheers!

You can't generate profit without generating revenue first, and you can't generate revenue without sales. In business, everything is about selling.

The more I look at it, the more the whole idea of marketing seems loony. I would be much more comfortable if marketing were redefined as a sales support activity. OK, it's fair to ask: What about demand creation? Isn't demand creation an essential part of marketing?

Demand creation is an essential part of the business process. But that doesn't mean it has to be part of the marketing process. Demand creation should be a subset of the sales function, and it should be called precisely that: Demand Creation.

Here's a simple model that any business can follow:

R&D => Product Development => Demand Creation => Sales => Fulfillment => Customer Service

End of story. End of marketing. Voila!

If you haven't had a chance to read "Thinking Outside the Inbox," the excellent blog by Luis Suarez, you're really missing a great experience. Luis is a true pioneer in the post-email universe, and he makes a strong argument for the end of email as we know it. The logical replacement for email is, of course, social media. Luis, by the way, is a social media evangelist at IBM. So he really knows how to make the case for using social media in a corporate environment. When you need to start convincing your boss that social media is the way to go, Luis is an valuable resource. And he also posts wonderful photos of his home island, Gran Canaria. Hey, it's nice to work from a gorgeous remote location!

Because the basic activities of social media strategy often play out in solitude -- lonely figures hunched over their laptops, typing furiously -- it's sometimes hard to remember that a core characteristic of all social media is multiple cycles of human interactions. In other words, social media is very social! Social media strategy doesn't work without lots of human beings -- their thoughts and emotions are the raw fuel that keeps the process going.

I thought of this as I considered a question being raised by some of the more farsighted executives I know. The question is: Does a person need special talent to succeed as a social media practitioner, or can just about anyone do it? Or more pointedly, they ask, will the organization have to go out and hire a bunch of specialists to develop, manage and execute successful social media campaigns?

The correct answer is probably yes, and no. Yes, some people with special talent will be required to staff an ongoing social media function. But some of these people can be recruited from the ranks of existing staff.

Anyone who is considering these questions seriously needs to reread "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. I know, you've already read it. That's what I thought when they asked us to read it for the class on social media strategy that I'm taking at SUNY Purchase. I thought, hey, I've read that book twice, and I thought it was kinda interesting, but obvious, shallow, pop culture, etc...

But I was hellbent on keeping a positive attitude, so I reread it. And I'm glad I did. Gladwell's take on the difference between Paul Revere and William Dawes contains some terrific insight that every manager needs to keep front and center when making hiring or staffing decisions for key social media positions. Basically, Gladwell notes that you need three kinds of influencers to make things happen: Connectors, Mavens and Salesmen.

His observation applies to staffing up for social media initiatives; you'll need the right mix of talents to make it work. And before you start hiring, do yourself a favor and dig out your old copy of Gladwell's book.

Yes, the long tail is still wagging the shaggy dog. How's that for a mixed techno-pop metaphor? At any rate, you can still order copies of "Partnering with the CIO" at Amazon. In some respects, it's more relevant today than when we wrote it four years ago.

Well, I signed up for a course called Social Media Marketing Strategy at SUNY Purchase. So far, it seems pretty good. It's got a B2C focus, which is understandable, but I think I can figure out how to translate the basic concepts into useful B2B strategies and tactics. I'll keep you posted on my progress!

Have you all had a chance to visit the website for "The Practical CIO" ? I recommend it highly!

Welcome to Cumulus Blog. I've been ghosting blogs for several of my clients, and I realized that it was kind of silly that I didn't have my own. I'm hoping this blog will become a sort of nexus for the thoughts generated -- or accumulated -- in conversations with many sources from a variety of industries and backgrounds.

One of the things I've noticed in my conversations with CIOs is that they tend to fall into two categories:

1. CIOs who "get it" and work closely with the business to deliver tangible value. In return they are valued by the organization.

2. CIOs who don't "get it" and devolve into highly paid techno-flunkies reporting to multiple VPs. This bunch seems to spend a lot of time on the phone with headhunters and friendly vendors.

Another trend I've noticed is that many of the really innovative IT strategies -- and the ones most closely aligned with pressing business objectives -- seem to be coming from markets in Latin America and China. I think it's fair to say that these emerging/developing markets are rewriting the IT rulebook. The CIOs and CEOs in these hypercompetitive markets are thinking, "how can I get this done fast, with mimimal support and no infrastructure?"

So if you're looking for exciting, inspirational stories about IT, you're more likely to find them in places like China, Brazil, Russia and Australia.