In 2013, AHS Consulting founder Amna Shah started boosting her business’s presence on Facebook. She and her employees worked to build out a page with information about the Chattanooga, Tennessee-based company and posted new content multiple times a week. To attract potential customers, staffers crafted ads and paid to boost the exposure of posts.
Shah knew consumer-facing brands may be better suited for Facebook’s advertising and paid marketing, but assumed hers, too, could find an audience. Some existing customers interacted with the brand and likes piled up. But Shah says no one new from Chattanooga or the nearby Atlanta region seemed to be finding her consulting firm through the platform–only some individuals from India and China.
“Over time, we started to think these were fake profiles,” she says. “We got no new business out of Facebook, ever.” Halfway through 2018, the company stopped putting effort into Facebook marketing.
Shah is far from alone. In a November survey, Inc. asked CEOs and other high-ranking executives from fast-growing companies what they think about Facebook from a business perspective. Thirty-two per cent said they are now getting less for their marketing dollars with Facebook than they used to, while 27 per cent said they mistrust Facebook’s use of their business data. In follow-up interviews, several of the survey takers said they have slowed their use of Facebook marketing and advertising. A few, meanwhile, have pulled the plug altogether.
Shannon Hulbert, the CEO of Opus Interactive, a cloud-services provider in Hillsboro, Oregon, had been spending hundreds of dollars a month on Facebook advertising but said her company cut back dramatically in 2018. The following year Opus removed Facebook from its marketing budget entirely. The social network had stopped driving business, Hulbert says, as Opus had itself grown to cater to much larger businesses.
Moira Vetter, the founder and CEO of Modo Modo Agency in Atlanta, says a decade ago it felt like every business needed to be on Facebook and Twitter. Recently though, her creative agency–an Inc. 5000 honoree the past three years–has shifted its focus to producing content and promoting its work on Instagram and LinkedIn. “I feel that Facebook has run its course,” she says. “It’s not somewhere people in our industry are spending time. It’s become less and less of something I even think or talk about.”
Bubba Grimsley says he’d just cut off his Fairhope, Alabama-based company Liberty Rent’s Facebook presence in November, due to concerns about data privacy within his industry, which works with real-estate rentals and financing. “I don’t even know why we were doing it,” he says of the company’s Facebook efforts, which included paying to boost the exposure of its content. “I don’t think I was finding any customers.”
For years Facebook has poured energy into targeting and educating small businesses, growing a team of publicists and outreach employees. As of 2018, more than 140 million businesses globally used Facebook, at least 90 million of which were small and midsize businesses, according to the company. Veronica Twombly, the head of communications for Facebook Small Business, says SMBs are a “top priority” for the platform.
“We are trying to elevate our free and paid solutions to make sure these small- and medium-size businesses know all of the tools at their disposal to help grow their customers,” Twombly tells Inc. The company offers digital training for businesses and held more than 100 in-person training sessions in the United States in 2019.
Facebook in the past has acknowledged the growing cost of its advertising for business, even as user growth has slowed. Finance chief David Wehner said in an investor conference call that in the fourth quarter of 2017 alone, the average price per ad climbed 43 per cent, while the number of ad impressions served increased just 4 per cent. Still, Twombly says the company is continuing to see growth in monthly active advertisers.
Several of the executives who told Inc. they have stopped advertising on Facebook over the past year were from business-to-business companies, which often can find customers more reliably on LinkedIn or through other marketing channels. But others outside of the B2B realm have followed suit. One example is Jack Wight, the founder of an electronics reseller that advertised aggressively to individuals on Facebook in 2018 but pulled the plug on the effort the following year.
“We weren’t making any money on those people by the time we paid for the advertising,” says Wight, the chief executive of Buyback Boss, which is based in Tempe, Arizona. “The marketing cost was just higher than the other channels.”
Wight estimates his company spent about $20,000 on Facebook ads over a year, before giving up on Facebook about seven months ago. For 2020, his company is using a strategy of SEO and Adwords to find people who type in, for example, “sell my iPhone 10” on Google.
A Buyback Boss employee who had been handling the company’s Facebook presence and advertising now focus on search marketing. Wright says he’s open to resuming ad spending on Facebook–but only after he’s scaled the other marketing channels he’s found more effective.
“We put some money into it, we risked some money to experiment,” he says, “and it just didn’t work.”
Enterprise Architecture Maturity & Competency Development for a Succesful Digital Transformation
A Digital transformation initiative’s success extends beyond technology. It would require an enterprise wide culture change within the organisation and its people to extend its digital capability. To succeed in this journey, organisations should address its people, process and technology towards a digital savvy workforce that is aligned with the intents of EA in realizing the goals and objectives.
As depicted in the Competency Development Framework diagram, the centre focus for successful transformation lies in the competency of the Enterprise Architecture team that covers the holistic engagement to innovate and disrupt, measure and driving continuous transformation and deliver measurable outcomes.
Figure 1: Competency Development Framework
The first step is to assess the performance of its EA maturity based on the enterprise dimension factors. This will determine the appropriate action plans to be implemented to bring organisations towards a higher maturity level. The assessment further will provide recommendations that will focus on improvements, and benchmarking against relevant organisations and industry. An overall EA Assessment is also necessary to identify the current state of the digital transformation adoption which will cover the organisation that includes but not limited to Investments, Finance, HR, Governance, Risk & Compliance, IT, Legal and Secretariat, so as to develop a strategy to best execute the digital initiative and address any opportunities or gaps. The aim for this engagement is to realise the outcomes of a digitally connected enterprise from Strategy to Business to Information to Application and Infrastructure and vice versa.
The EA Maturity Assessment comprises of an assessment framework with methodology to measure the EA Maturity level using both the qualitative and quantitative assessment method as well as the actual conduct of a diagnostic survey.
Figure 2: The EA Maturity Assessment Process
The assessment will include the digital competency to identify performance gaps and learning measures in upskilling the team competencies in the areas of business, data, application, technology and solution architecture development. To achieve this and base on the results of the assessment, appropriate digital skillsets program should then be identified based on global EA best practices from TOGAF® Architecture Skills Framework together with the IT Architecture Body of Knowledge (ITABoK®) Skillsets to upskill a practical development and achievable target for achieving a higher performance level for a digital savvy workforce.
For EA to be effective, it must have measurable KPI to deliver business values and communicates them using business outcomes to make better decisions. For example, the figure shows the outcomes of key performance metrics for performing technology rationalization with the target of 70% for rationalization decision that fit with Future State EA and 90% for stakeholder’s approval decisions.
Figure 3: EA Key Performance Metrics Example
The ability to be able to develop the right EA Maturity & Competency models will lead to a greater digital capability where it can assist organisations to identify the right element along with the right time to increase IT approaches in digital transformation initiatives. Through EA Maturity & Competency Development, the digital transformation journey will be much clearer due to the fact that the organisational needs are taken into consideration. Every organisation should consider taking this ‘health check’ to ensure the digital initiatives taken are operating efficiently.
Related websites: Join the EA activities in Singapore and learn how you can implement Digital-Business-driven EA in your organisation. Computer Society EA-Chapter:http://www.scs.org.sg/Chapter/ea-homepage
Learn more about ITABoK (IT Architecture Body of Knowledge) skillsets and about the roles, scopes and impacts of EA Specializations. IASA:www.iasahome.org
Acquire successful Digital Transformation adoption with ATD Enterprise Architecture consulting and training services. ATD Solution:www.atdsolution.com
Solid company culture is one that supports employees’ efforts to grow and develop professionally so they can reach their full potential within the organization. Sometimes, these efforts may help the employee realize that they could learn more or would be a much better fit in a different department than they’re currently in. Great leaders want their employees to succeed — even in a different department — but if the transition isn’t done thoughtfully, transferring workers to other departments can cause disruptions and destabilize team morale.
To help, these six entrepreneurs offer their best advice on how to effectively move employees to a new department to help them continue their growth and development, with minimal disruption to the organization.
Plan, and create a framework.
The first step before beginning the move is the development of a clear plan of action, according to WPBeginner co-founder Syed Balkhi: “Creating a plan for any action is always a good idea, and this holds for internal transitions as well.”
Having a strategy in place will help both the employee and the department they want to be transferred to. “You can create a framework that helps your employee and the other people involved understand what tasks to carry out and whom to report to,” Balkhi explains.
Talk to everyone involved.
“Before moving an employee to a new department, talk to the employee, their head of department, and the head of the department they want to move to,” Match node co-founder Chris Madden advises, agreeing on the importance of having a clear plan with clear communication.
Management should first have conversations with all parties involved — individually to assess the situation and then together to work out all the details. “Use the meeting to plan a gradual transition of responsibilities so that no one is wrong-footed by the move,” Madden says.
Look at their existing work.
If an employee voices interest in learning and moving to a new department, managers should first look at their record and work to determine if they are a good fit for the position, SeedProd founder John Turner thinks.
“If not, you can suggest ways they can improve at their existing job, and encourage them to ask again once they’ve implemented your advice,” Turner adds. If the employee has exceeded expectations, managers should go ahead and talk to the department and work out a schedule for the employee to train for their new role.
Start with a cross-functional project.
“Cross-functional work involves working on or with multiple teams at the same time to accomplish a goal,” Jared Polites, partner at LaunchTeam, explains. While looking at their existing work can be a good indicator as to whether they’re a good fit for their desired new department, assigning them a specific project can be more relevant in some cases.
“Find a project that gives them a chance to prove themselves and even see if the other team is made up of people they would be happy working with,” Polites suggests. “Doing this will prevent premature decisions that could harm all involved.”
Find them a sponsor.
To ensure a smooth transition, managers could assign the employee a sponsor or a mentor, thinks Chris Harris, founder and president of BridgeTech. This would be very helpful for all parties involved, most of all for the employee who is interested in taking on a new role with new responsibilities.
“If you can foster a culture of employees being able to follow their intellectual interests into other areas of your company, the folks who do that first can mentor the ones that do it second and third,” Harris explains. “Otherwise, if this is the first time, try and find a ‘sponsor’ — an existing member of the team who is familiar with the new role who can foster the transitioning employee, even if that’s you!”
Make them feel valuable.
No matter how you approach this transition, the important thing is making your employee feel valued and valuable in their department, and also listening to them and considering their requests, according to Patrick Barnhill, president of Specialist ID.
Listening to employees’ needs is vital for business success. After all, moving the employee to the department they are interested in could turn out to be a vector for further economic growth for the company and personal growth for the individual, Barnhill underlines. “People want to feel fulfilled with their jobs, so it is important to accommodate your employees accordingly and make sure they are happy.”
Nine New Year’s Resolutions for Academics
2020 Resolutions
Think, write, teach, discover and read. These are the things we love and why we joined this great profession, but so many things are in your way and killing your joy. Our resident Fighty Squirrel offers a couple of resolutions and protips to let you do the thing you love. Your job. Enjoy and Happy New Year.
Jump Start Your Day with a Filter and a Huddle.
Morning sets the tone for your day. That happy buzz you feel with quality caffeine in your system can be squashed quickly as emails hijack your priorities and your office fills up with visitors, students, and colleagues. Put a tourniquet on your email haemorrhage with SaneBox. This monster service will kill spam, focus you on real email and learn your habits. Add a daily 20-minute huddle with your team at the start of your day in order to get everyone on the same page and you’ll be crushing it by 9 am.
Take a break.
No one cares if you are working the 120-work week. This isn’t the Olympics of Suffering where the gold medal is tenure. You’ll end up so tired and overwhelmed you will be useless and a terrible role model.
Destroy Waste.
You have a precious few commodities as an academic. First and foremost is your time. Guard it. Stop saying ‘yes’ to things that you aren’t passionate about. We recommend a ‘Say No’ post it on the side of your computer.
Stand on the Shoulders of Giants.
Every one of your fears, questions, and dilemmas has been asked by those that have gone before you not only in academia but also in business, philosophy and literature. Treat yourself to some of the excellent books we have recommended this year on assertiveness, resilience and how to write like a rockstar.
Network Like You Mean It.
Those people who seem to know everyone and get invited to give talks everywhere are getting exposure for their teams that you need? You need to be one of them. Follow some of the great advice on networking here.
Pick a fight.
Funding, failure to diversify, ethical conundrums, public scrutiny of research and all manner of misinformation are pulling our best students away and adding to the sense that academia is out of touch and superfluous. Pick a fight. Make a stand in your Society on gender equality, draw a line in the sand on how deep the budget cuts are impacting your students or how absurd a new policy is. Just one pick one. Your future depends on it and your students deserve to see how you can engage in tough societal issues in your real-world work
Get a Posse.
Your jobs as a PI are 99% cheerleading and grant writing. Make sure you get your own cheer squad to remind you of what’s important, why you are awesome and generally have your back. It’s unrealistic to think you will have these folks in your department or even your institution so steady on if you are struggling to find them. These folks don’t need to be your neighbours or even in your discipline to understand. You need them to be honest, supportive and probably funny.
Be Nicer Than You Think You Should Be.
Smile at people. Did we mention you’re a role model now? Ask people how they are doing. Particularly young academics. You never know what people are going through. Be kind.
Post on The Edge for Scholars.
You know we had to add this one. Do you not know who a good posse would be? Are you struggling on how to get the resources you need or get on the radar of the journal you want to publish in? Post your thoughts on The Edge and we will amplify your message via Twitter, Facebook and using our mighty distribution list. We will get you some answers.
original article: https://edgeforscholars.org/nine-new-years-resolutions-for-academics/
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