Getting Social in 2013: Three Great Resources to Get You Started

The new year is fast approaching, so here are three great resources to help your company get off to a fast start in 2013:

First, at IBM we’re gearing up for our big event of the year, Connect 2013 in Orlando. This is an exciting event where we’re really digging into the crux of social business. Sure, we’ll spend some time talking technical details, but we’ll really focus in on the transformational power of social. This event is an amazing learning experience for any organization looking to get into social and equally as informative for those companies who are in the transformational process. Subject mater experts, real life success stories, technical demonstrations, transformations before your very eyes, all under one roof! I encourage you all to check out more details, this is the event of the year for social business.

Next, TODAY is an exciting day! Today at bookstores nationwide, as well as at all major online retailers, including Amazon.com, there’s a new book that provides you with the ultimate playbook for transforming into a social business. Socialized!: How the Most Successful Businesses Harness the Power of Social, by Mark Fidelman, is a must read for any organization, small and large, thinking about jumping into social. Mark covers all the necessary components of a successful social business, from cultural implications, engagement challenges, measuring ROI and more.

Included in the book is an in depth case study on IBM’s own social business journey. Mark chronicles the organization’s use of social software to foster collaboration among our dispersed 433,000 person team — a practice that began long before Generation Y became fixated with social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. It’s really a tremendous use case in social and its impact on a global workforce.

Hats off to Mark for writing a truly exceptional illustration of what social business can do for an organization!

And finally, there’s another book I highly suggest you get your hands on and buy for your product management team. Opting In: Lessons in Social Business from a Fortune 500 Product Manager by IBM’s Ed Bill is available for pre-order now, expected for release on January 20. This is the ultimate educational resource for all those product managers who have either ignored social or don’t see the value in engaging to get their job done. Ed provides a first person account of how he has used IBM’s social business platform to help develop some of IBM’s most innovative products for our clients. Your product team needs this book, another must read!

I invite you to take advantage of these three great social business resources now at your disposal. I hope to see you at IBM Connect 2013 in Orlando and be sure to pick up Socialized and Opting In to read on the plane down!