Social Media Global Report: Charlene Li of Altimeter

A year of milestones finds her on her own

 

Charlene Li becomes the first person I've interviewed twice in this Global Report. I justify that because in the 54 weeks since the previous interview, a great deal has happened. She co-authored Groundswell the enterprise playbook for enterprise multimedia. She completed a nine-year tenure at Forrester Research and as I write this report, is putting the finishing touches on Altimeter, her new speaking and consulting service.

Charlene is one of the most frequently-quoted social media experts and has appeared on 60 Minutes, The McNeil NewsHour, ABC News, CNN, and CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USAToday, Reuters, Associated Press and even this blog. She's a Harvard MBA and graduated the College magna cum laude.

She took the time to answer these questions while flying back from New York where  AdAge had just honored her as one of the Women To Watch in 2008.

1. It has been just about a month since you stepped out of Forrester. How has your life changed during this brief period? What do you miss the most? What do you miss least?

Life is great - I'm spending my time doing more of the things I love, such as thinking and talking about social and emerging technologies, rather than dealing with typical analyst activities such as sales calls and inbound client inquiries. I'm also busy getting my independent business set up, such as getting a name, Web site, and most importantly, an assistant!!  I miss  is my colleagues at Forrester most. They are the brainiest, most honest, supportive group of people I have ever had the privilege to work with. What I miss least are calls from clients asking me to explain what Web 2.0 is.

Best of all, I have the freedom to spend time that I want and need with my family, and on myself. My kids love it. My  house is clean--or at least, less cluttered--and I'm meeting with a personal trainer regularly.

Life is good.

2. Speaking professionally, what do you plan to do with your time moving forward?

I'm going to be an independent thought leader on social and emerging technologies. I'll be researching and thinking about a spectrum of new technologies, and will be blogging about them. I'll be giving paid speeches and also be taking on a few consulting engagements on retainer. My goal is to have only a few clients who can really leverage my thinking and expertise.

3. What inspired you to write Groundswell? How has the experience changed you?

Simply put, I had a story to tell. And that story couldn't be told in a series of blog posts or in a Forrester report. It needed the time, expansiveness, and detail of a book to bring that story to life. The experience has been amazing -- my definition of success was that someone would come up to me with a copy of their dog-eared, heavily underlined book and tell me how it made an impact. It's been extremely gratifying to have that experience over and over again.

4. Groundswell is clearly for corporate audiences. How do you hope reading Groundswell will move the social media needle in the enterprise?

There's so much fear and confusion about what social media is and what it can do. My hope is that they will see it as an opportunity, rather than something to be loathed and feared. By breaking it down to the essentials, and putting it into the language of business, I hope people in businesses would see social media as a natural extension of what they do already.

5. There are three books that are being called seminal in social media. Cluetrain, published in 1999; Naked Conversations written in 2006 and now Groundswell. How would you describe the similarities and differences of these three books? How are they different?

Each book was written for the sensibilities of their time. Cluetrain was about the burgeoning power of the Internet and people's ability to connect with each other at the most basic levels - its role was to get us to think about the power of conversations. Naked Conversations was at the advent of social media, and exhorted people to put aside their fears and think about the possibilities -- it awakened the nascent interest in social media. And Groundswell is the handbook -- once you buy into the power of the groundswell, what do you do about it? The tools are available now and an ecosystem of agencies stand at the ready to support businesses.

6. You have spent a fair amount of time on the issue of ROI. You took GM FastLane and compared it at first with the cost of a monthly Focus Group, then you ran it again against a dated PR agency practice called "advertising equivalency." Do you think that focus groups and ad equivalence are fair and accurate measurement bookmarks or did you intend them more as place keepers?  Even if you accept focus groups and ad equivalence as fair comparison benchmarks, how does showing the lower cost of a blog against them, actually achieve an ROI for the blog?

Supplementing/replacing focus groups and ad equivalence are just some of the ways to gauge the value of blogs and other types of social media. The best way to measure ROI is to have a clear OBJECTIVE in the first place. Then decide how you will measure progress towards reaching that objective. For example, let's say one objective of the blog is to listen to what your audience is saying about the company, and to get feedback quickly on new ideas that you are considering for a product. The speed and detail of the feedback has a certain value to the company, just as the insights from a focus group has value. So to measure the effectiveness of the blog against the objective of listening to your customer, simply use the same measurement of ROI as you use for focus groups. What's that you say - the company does't measure the ROI of focus groups, or for that matter, any type of listening/feedback tool? Then I think the company has bigger problems than trying to figure out the ROI of a blog!

7. You stated in Groundswell that any corporate social media endeavor should start with the goal in mind and measurement would evolve from understanding the goal. Can you expand on that a little bit.

You can't manage what you don't measure. And to know what you want to measure, you have to know your goal, your definition of success. Otherwise, you're just spinning your wheels. All too often, I get asked what's the ROI of blogging. The right question should be what's the ROI of being able to listen to, talk to, energize, support, and embrace your groundswell of supporters? If you understand the value of these activities, of these objectives, then you can figure out how specific social media support your pursuit of that objective.

8. You inspired the title of this blog and much of my professional efforts when you stated that "Geography is becoming less relevant." When I interviewed you last August, you added that the advent of location-based technologies will make geography more relevant once again. How has your thinking on geography evolved over the past 12 months?

Geography is relevant in that it provides temporal context for relationships and content, but it's irrelevant as an arbitrary determinant of value. For example, a review for a restaurant in San Francisco from someone who lives in Boston may not seem to have much credibility. But if that person happens to be a gourmet chef, then geography is irrelevant. The reverse of that is if someone you know is nearby -- for example, I was using Twinkle at SFO, and a follower was also there. He noticed and blogged about it. If there had been time, we could have met up. Add social profiles, and I could start connecting with friends during flight delays.

9.  Cluetrain, Naked and Groundswell were all the result of collaborative efforts that exuded businesses to collaborate more. In retrospect, I found collaborating on a book to have been a Hellish experience, even if the result was good. Two members of the Cluetrain team have told me that the collaboration part was extremely difficult. Was this the case for you and Josh Bernoff, your co-author? What advice do you have regarding social media for author wannabees? Did the experience of collaborating impact or alter your thoughts on enterprise workgroup collaboration?

Trust is at the foundation of all great collaborations. Josh and I had a wonderful time writing the book, and the true test is that both of us would love to do it AGAIN. Here's the secret to a great book collaboration: Work together for eight years, during which time you've made each other write a bullet point over and over again until it's just right. Repeat that editing exercise at least a couple of times every month. Disagree strenuously and push each other to think about a topic so deeply that your brain hurts. Also manage and review each other at some point during that period. Do all this and then you'll be ready for a great book writing experience!

We were on opposite sides of the country so we used tools like wikis and Google Docs to collaborate. We also used these tools to collaborate with our Harvard Business Press editor as well as the marketing, PR, and sales teams at both HBP and Forrester. I thoroughly believe that enterprise workgroup collaboration works -- but only if the right culture and trust levels are in place outside of the collaboration platforms.

Last piece of advice for social media authors, or for that matter, any business book author. Know your audience and write to their needs. We knew our audience backwards and forwards because we talked to Forrester clients every single day. We tested the ideas, frameworks, and data every day. And we also knew what we wanted to accomplish with the book. The very first thing we wrote was the first paragraph that appears on the inside cover. That text was the guiding light for the book and it appears almost exactly the same as when we first wrote it. That shared clarity of vision of what the finished book would be was a key part of our successful collaboration, and also why I think the book presents itself so coherently.

10 Additional Comments?

Publishing a book is a long, long process. We started in January 2007, finished writing the book in November, edits in December, and then finally got reader copies in early March. But it wasn't until the end of March that I opened a box containing a single copy of the finished book. I tore open the box, held the finished book in my hands, and promptly burst into tears.

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Comments

[Janette Toral]

Great interview piece (just SU it). I bought a copy of Groundswell for a friend who admire Charlene's work so much.

[George Athannassov]

I agree completely about the "fear and confusion". Great interview Shel.

[Adam Metz]

Good interview and good questions, with one exception. Referring to your own book as "seminal" is one toke over the line. Otherwise, good stuff, Shel.

[shel israel]

Adam,
You are probably right. In the future I will take a more modest position in mentioning my book.

-Shel

[Kami Huyse]

If it is chosen by the Groundswell, I am moderating a panel with Charlene Li, Katie Paine and Avinash Kaushik next year at SxSW called Measure This! Charlene is a true thought leader and I have been richer from knowing her. Thanks for this update interview. Now I also have her new website and blog bookmarked.