Last week, Ben Franklin Technology Partners (BFTP), announced it is investing $675,000 in six Philadelphia-area tech companies. If you are not familiar with BFTP, they are a Pennsylvania state technology fund whose mission is to invest in early stage companies to create and keep jobs in the region.

PeopleLinx is proud to be one of the six companies chosen in this round so follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter to keep an eye out new job postings related to their investment – hint: they will be in Product Development and Sales.

Providing commentary on the partnership I tracked down our CEO, Nathan Egan:

“We have been working with Ben Franklin Technology Partners for over a year now and while their cash investment is important, we want everyone to know BFTP has given us much more than just capital. They have been a true partner and a diligent advisor from the very beginning – helping us to evolve our business plan, shape our management team, and ultimately set the foundation to grow our company. With that in mind it is a honor to help them create jobs in the Philadelphia region.”

For more information on Ben Franklin Technology Partners and their economic impact on the region click here to visit their website.

Social Business is a rapidly emerging and evolving term that already means many different things to many different constituencies. As a result there are inconsistencies in how the term is utilized and understood. A recent query for Social Business on the Bloomberg Businessweek website returned articles expressing half a dozen different uses of the term. Even technology focused news sources that focus on emerging segments such as Social Media (“media” implying a consumer application, i.e. B2C) have been unable to effectively demonstrate an authoritative voice or definitive approach to Social Business. Despite the lack of common ground regarding the definition of Social Business, the segment and related solutions are exploding and leading research firms such as Gartner have validated current and future growth potential.

Thanks to a “share” from my LinkedIn network, I recently read a very interesting article from Chief Marketer, highlighting IBM’s jump into social business and social selling.

IBM is often on the forefront of new technologies and business practices so we took notice. In this case they appear to have hit a home run by using social business to increase lead generation through their employees’ social networks. When IBM makes a move, people listen and often follow – so we suspect many more businesses will be quickly adopting a similar strategy.

According to the article, IBM chose to introduce social selling practices via internal videos featuring star sales reps. Additionally, they developed their own strategy for rolling out content through Twitter and LinkedIn. We think this is a clever way to increase internal awareness, educate and introduce content. This also illustrates an important fact about the social business space – there doesn’t appear to be many true, enterprise (B2B) solutions available and designed to help large organizations like IBM to leverage internal resources, expand relationships, and efficiently spread a message. If a good end-to-end solution existed, IBM is well positioned to utilize it.  Instead, they chose to build it themselves.  Or so it appears.

In terms of timing, we think IBM is spot on.

Is this the beginning of “hockey stick growth” for social business?

IBM is in. Gartner thinks so too. What do you think?

As social business marches towards becoming a $100 BILLION industry, companies are quickly realizing the need to adopt this new and innovative way of using social networking technologies for direct sales, recruiting, marketing, business intelligence, and compliance.

However, many large companies are faced with a glaring challenge: “how on earth can we roll out a unified social business strategy to thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of employees?”

At first glance, this certainly appears to be daunting task, but we are going to help you figure out what is real, what isn’t, and what the future holds for social business. Our goal is to simplify the process and allow you to make the best decision possible by knowing the ins and outs of social business.

Below you will find a simplified matrix (not a glitzy infographic – sorry) debunking the top 3 myths we encounter working with large organizations around social business strategies.

At PeopleLinx, we believe developing and adopting an enterprise-wide social business strategy is most easily accomplished through traditional strategy frameworks and a systemic approach to education and empowerment. The first step in this process is debunking the myths that hold back even the most innovative managers and enterprises from adopting social business.

What are some other social business myths you’ve heard?

Almost two years ago, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and Twitter founder Biz Stone famously proclaimed the integration of the two sites as the perfect combination – like chocolate and peanut butter.

Ahem, well that has changed. LinkedIn announced last week a partial decoupling of the pair: they are removing the Tweets application from the home page. And some of us are a bit annoyed.

ZDnet cited low user rates as the reason behind the move.

This recent change, combined with the removal of the “Answers” application severely limits the value of the LinkedIn homepage. These were the two primary tools we used, and taught our clients to use, to make the LinkedIn homepage an integrated “dashboard” of real-time business intelligence.

When and all is said and done, I don’t think these two modifications are helping LinkedIn drive the core user metric it so desperately craves: TIME ON SITE.

January 17, 2012 - PeopleLinx is excited to officially announce today that Richard Genzer will be joining the company full-time as Chief Operating Officer after serving in an advisory and consulting role over the last eight months.

Rick (aka Genzo) brings over 25 years of operations and technology expertise to PeopleLinx. His impressive track-record and resume includes but isn’t limited to positions as EVP and Chief Technology Officer at two successful Philadelphia’s technology start-ups, InteliHealth and Reality Online, which sold to Thompson Reuters. For the past twelve years, Rick has operated a successful management consulting practice where he advised over 30 clients, from large corporations to start-ups, in areas of due diligence, business strategy, project management, and software architecture.

Commenting on Rick’s new position at PeopleLinx, our CEO, Nathan Egan told me “Rick is a true ‘A player’ and we are proud to have him on-board fulltime. His experience, work ethic, and vision are perfectly aligned to our needs and the timing is perfect. He is a great addition to our rapidly growing team.”

Rick earned his BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park in 1986. To learn more about Genzo, check out his LinkedIn profile (which admittedly needs a little optimization now that he is a full team member )

Stay on the look out for more job postings and other exciting announcements!

All the Best,

Mike Best

PeopleLinx is excited to launch our search for 2012 summer interns! Interns will compete for the coveted, PeopleLinx “Intern of the Year” award.

“Working at PeopleLinx was awesome! Everyone is fun to work with and made sure I had the best experience possible.”  – Trina Kadakia, winner of the 2011 “Intern of the Year” award at PeopleLinx.

Check out the opportunities here. If you think you have what it takes, we look forward to hearing from you!

“Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.”

– General George S. Patton

General George Smith Patton Jr. is arguably one of the greatest American military leaders of our time. No one would question his leadership or influence.

Which of course makes me think: what would his Klout score be? How influential would he be as a blogger?

Considering he never had access to either of these mediums the obvious answers are: ZERO and NOT VERY. But if he did – how would he have faired? I don’t think the answer is actually very straight forward.

As online leadership converges with real-world leadership, three trends emerge:

1. Traditional or conventional “leaders” (those who were considered leaders BEFORE social media) who are struggling to transition their real-world leadership skills online. This seems to be especially true for leaders who thrived by controlling the supply chain of information.

2. Newer leaders, but not necessarily “young” leaders, who have developed their leadership roles in parallel with the rapid proliferation of social media (i.e. the last 4-5 years) and do not experience the same transition problem. I would also note that our society’s “new” leaders also tend to leverage transparency of information to their favor.

3. Lastly, there are the people who are not leaders at all and are using social media to promote themselves as such. These individuals neglect traditional, real-world leadership skills and “game” the system by attempting to persuade and motivate others via Tweets and blog posts. Many “bloginaires” seem to fall into this category – though some have broken the mold and developed into true leaders within their industry.

So what does it mean to be a leader today, in 2012? To me, it means you need to exhibit leadership qualities across ALL your communication outlets (digital and real), not just one or two.

Unfortunately I know and see a lot of people who claim to be “leaders” online and are real-world ZEROS.

Your thoughts?

Best,
Mike Best

[You]

I wanna be a Bloginaire so freaking bad
Tweeting about a life I wish I had
Uhhhh, I wanna be the most influential blogger you have ever seen
With a Klout score that rivals Guy or Chris Brog-een

[Chorus]

Oh every time I click my keys
I see my retweets in shining lights
A different follower and comment every night oh oh ohhhhhh oh yeah
I swear all my soon-to-be tweeps better prepare

Oh oooh oh oooh for when I’m a Bloginaire
Oh oooh oh oooh for when I’m a Bloginaire

Just having a little fun winding down 2011 here at PeopleLinx – have a safe and happy New Year everyone! Maybe next week we will redo Bruno’s “Lazy Song” as the Lazy (Entrepreneur) Song… NOT!

First – Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! As many of us begin checking out of work mode and “checking in” to our slippers and family time, we at PeopleLinx wanted to share a few social media best practices for holidays.

#1 DO NOT status update or announce your travel plans
While “checking in” to your destination and status updating travel plans has become commonplace, it can put you, your family and your home at risk. What better way to tell the world your house is empty? Not a good idea.

#2 Make a Social New Year’s Resolution
Everyone has something they can improve on. Whether you’re spending too much time on Facebook, Tweeting your sex life or letting every Joe Shmoe into your LinkedIn network, we can all do something better. So toss that on the list.

#3 Share and spread the Holiday spirit
Donate to a charity and then status update to your friends to do the same (here is a good one: MyCharityWater.org) The reach of social media is a proven resource for doing good and spreading the word. Don’t overlook any opportunity to spread the holiday cheer – virally.

#4 Shut it all down
There is probably no better time of year to turn off your cell phone, close your laptop, and put a healthy dent in your “time on site”. Enjoy some high quality, in-person interaction with your loved ones. They’ll appreciate you not checking your cell phone and real-time status updates of every present on Christmas morning.

If you have some holiday season social media best practices of your own, please comment or send them via email! We’re happy to expand on this list!

Cheers and see you in 2012!