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A large company I worked for was spending >$1M/year (data + data pipeline + personnel) on "Social Media Analysis." Every month a "Social Media Report" PDF was
by apohn 8y ago
A large company I worked for was spending >$1M/year (data + data pipeline + personnel) on "Social Media Analysis." Every month a "Social Media Report" PDF was emailed to "key stakeholders and decision makers." When we asked them what they were doing with it everybody said they never really looked at it. When we asked them how it could be more useful they shrugged their shoulders.
And yet the company was constantly talking about how great they were at their social media presence and using social media Analytics to keep their customers happy.
I guess a sending out a monthly PDF on social media is self-explanatory to the value of if. So many people involved in something that was zero value.
- throwawayqdhd 8y agoI work with B2B companies and I can confidently say that outside of LinkedIn, there is little to no value in maintaining an active presence on Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest/Instagram in most B2B segments
- theshrike79 8y agoIt does matter for getting the right kind of employees, basically it's used as branding the company as something people would want to work in. Most B2B companies are pretty hard to get any relevant information out of.
- throwawayqdhd 8y agoI've seen far more mileage in maintaining an active presence on niche-specific platforms. A company that actively creates and shares interesting content on HN will have a much better brand image than one that does the same on Twitter. HN's smaller, self-selected audience will also land you better quality leads with less noise as compared to a large social platform
- paulie_a 8y agoUnless you are selling to HR, I don't see any value in even keeping a LinkedIn presence.
- shadowtree 8y agoMost corporate IT, enterprise software and consultants are on LI. People flow between those sectors, like a McKinsey consultant tapping out before becoming a partner, moving into a role at one of her clients, etc. LI is a self-updating rolodex, has killed business cards. Invaluable to keep track of where people move. Our sales people would hate for LI to go away. Happily pay themselves for Sales Edition.
- zentiggr 8y ago> Our sales people would hate for LI to go away. Happily pay themselves for Sales Edition. You just convinced me to go kill my LinkedIn account from whenever ago.
- sf_rob 8y agoAs an analyst this is one of a few comics forever on my wall: http://dilbert.com/strip/2007-05-16 http://dilbert.com/strip/2007-05-16
- worldsayshi 8y agoHow doesn't that completely demotivate you?
- sf_rob 8y agoI don't think it's my whole career by any means, just a comedic reminder of what bad projects look like.
- ihsw2 8y agoI'm not the parent commenter but, regardless of the uselessness of such a job (as an analyst, producing reports of negligible value or whose value is ignored, or as a developer, producing apps that produce such reports for those analysts), you are still paid well enough to not complain/look elsewhere and the experience is useful for your next job.
- castlecrasher2 8y agoDomo was founded in 2010, three years after this was published. Coincidence?
- irq-1 8y agoThis is mine: http://dilbert.com/strip/2007-03-20 http://dilbert.com/strip/2007-03-20 Same spirit.
- Bakary 8y agoI'm not sure why, but this comic feels like a cut above the rest in terms of execution.
- mooreds 8y agoThat is heart breaking.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoWhere there’s chaos, there’s opportunity. Channel that heartbreak into cash flow.
- serpix 8y agoDo it for a number of years and suddenly you realize: you've become one of them. Adding zero value and leeching of paying customers. Really kills your motivation to better yourself.
- donttrack 8y agoI now know how that woman at the end of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" must have felt... That movie might have been a metaphor for corporate work places.
- tjr225 8y agoOr do something that's actually productive elsewhere?
- toomuchtodo 8y agoIf you’re not getting the most dollars you can for each hour you work, you’re shorting yourself.
- branchless 8y agoInvestment bank research. A trader had said "it's the brand recognition between picking it up from my inbox and putting it in the bin".
- foobarbazetc 8y agoYou’ve just described 95% of projects at large companies. If you consult for any of them you quickly realize there are like 5 people running the entire company and 49995 somehow pushing forward through inertia.
- kbenson 8y ago> If you consult for any of them you quickly realize there are like 5 people running the entire company The sad thing is when some clueless manager on a power trip, or just trying to reorganize in the most clueless way, threatens someone vital to operating the company without knowing it. It can escalate quickly as the employee realizes how undervalued they are compared to their contributions, and a small local panic may set in for other people that see the train wreck that's fast approaching and its possible ramifications for them.
- TheArcane 8y agoThis sounds specific. Has this happened with you?
- kbenson 8y agoI've heard the situation explained times by others. My own experience is from a much, much smaller company and the owner just being oblivious due to his own ego. I saw the tension rising between the two individuals, and heard a few comments the owner had made which made it sound like they didn't think losing the employee in question would be a big deal. My first reaction was "If he fires her, I better look for a new job myself. This company probably has 12 months max without her, at least in it's current makeup."
- konschubert 8y agoAnd this, kids, is why a small startup can beat a big incumbent.
- buserror 8y ago
- stan_rogers 8y agoThere is a non-zero probability that the whole thing started out as a flypaper report: http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_flypaper_report http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_flypaper_report
- elliotpage 8y ago>When we asked them how it could be more useful they shrugged their shoulders. This is a massive driver for giving you "Bullshit Job" thoughts. If my end products are not being used, why the hell do they even exist?
- apohn 8y agoA of of these projects/products come from the same place. An executive or manager has an idea. Some of these ideas have good intentions. Some come from somebody reading HBR and seeing an article titled "By 2020 30% of purchasing decisions will be driven by social media." Then the ball starts rolling with the PowerPoint decks filled with revenue forecasts. And once that ball is rolling you have a lot of people inside and outside of the organization who are all pieces in this machine to achieve the final goal. Since nobody has visibility to the whole process and the accountability is totally opaque, the ball rolls into something that checks every requirement (even if the requirements were the opposite of the stated goal) but is totally useless.
- gerbilly 8y agoThis reminds me of a principle I heard reading some stoic literature (unfortunately I forget which) which stated: "The purpose of thought is to inform action." Thoughts, analysyes and ruminations can be fun, but ultimately if they don't suggest an action: either initiating a new action, or modifying an action that is unfolding, then they are without purpose.[1] [1] The Buddha even suggested that they are stressful.