FT’s Decision Dynamics – 3

This is the third and final part of a look at the FT’s Decision Dynamics survey (see here for part 1 and part 2. This part looks at the role of social media in decision making.

Frankly, I think there’s a lot of tosh and assertion on the importance of social media in influence. In short, while there’s been a rapid rise in the use of social media there’s little evidence that it’s impact decisions, particularly in the B2B world. We’re all blogging and Twittering and ‘LinkingIn’ to each other but not in the context of decision making. Anyway, back to the FT survey.

This first chart (below) illustrates that rapid rise in use of social media by enterprise decision makers. As the FT notes, “Work-related use of social bookmarking and community sites has exploded in the past year.” It has, but only to the levels seen to date for reading blogs and using professional networking sites.

(Source: Financial Times Annual Decision Dynamics Survey 2009)

The most telling chart, though, is this next one, which shows the usage of various types of social media in a work or leisure context. It’s interesting to see the use of social bookmarking (Dig, Delicious, etc) as a decision making aid. But webcasts and streaming video are also important and more established in the B2B marketing mix.

Most surprising, given the volume of noise on the subject, is the low penetration of Twitter.

(Source: Financial Times Annual Decision Dynamics Survey 2009)

My own take on this is that Twitter:

(a) Is useful if you know who you want to follow, but can’t help identify important people

(b) Is a great echo chamber of followers and followees, but has limited reach outside the Twitterverse, and

(c) Is really only used by people that don’t have a “traditional” job (autonomous, mobile, networked), which may include most of the readership of this blog and most analysts, but not your average CIO.

Epiphany and the customer decision journey

One of my most commented-upon posts in recent months was that on McKinsey’s Consumer Decision Journey. The most intriguing feature of the concept outlined by McKinsey was the non-linear structure of decisions. It’s clear to me that, having read Predictably Irrational, The Decisive Moment, and Risk, decision making is anything but linear.

So I did some digging into my Feedblitz archives to see what other posts I’ve read have to say on this, and found this post from February from Chris Koch at ITSMA. It notes the existence of an Epiphany stage in a decision lifecycle, which precedes awareness (or attention) and which marks the realisation of an important business need.

I remember reading it at the time and noting similarities between ITSMA’s Epipany stage and the Wave chart in the book (below). Epiphany corresponds directly to the first ‘crest’ in the Wave – we (imaginatively) call it Deciding to do something in the book. McKinsey call it a trigger event.

Realising that there’s something to be done is the first stage in a decision process. Influencing that epiphany – getting prospects to acknowledge that they have to do something – is the hardest part in the decision lifecycle. It’s where the majority of influencers have a role, where most of the activity and noise exists, and where buyer skepticism is most prevalent.

But it’s also the most important stage. As we say in the book, influence early and you influence the deal.

What’s your strategy for influencing influencers that impact buyer epiphany?

Review of H+K’s Influencing Technology Decision Makers research

There’s a really interesting video and white paper produced by Hill and Knowlton, the PR/AR firm. The title is Influencing Technology Decision Makers (sounds relevant!) and the work is based on a research project carried out on behalf of H+K.

On the whole it is a really thought-provoking piece of research. The interesting bits, for me, are (in italics, with my comments):

• Previous experience is the primary driver for decision making. I agree, and where a decision maker doesn’t have this experience they have to borrow it from another source – influencers.
• Decision makers are cynical towards sales collateral and marketing messages. Yep.
• There is increasing influence of blogs, even in the C-suite. I disagree – we’ve completed a round of research for a client which shows that, except in France, blogs have little influence at the C-level. Blogs do tend to influence more technical audiences, and where blogs are part of the cultural make-up of the market under investigation (i.e. predominately online markets).
• Gartner and Forrester are the leading analysts, and there is not much between them. Gartner has greater influence on the IT managers, while Forrester is more widely read in the boardroom. Interesting. This indicates that Forrester has caught up with Gartner, and has more credibility with senior decision makers. We certainly see these two far and away the biggest influential analysts.
• Events are not that influential. I think this referred to analyst events, but I find it’s true in general. Gartner Symposium is the only analyst event that occurs in our research on a regular basis.
• The Financial Times is the most influential non-IT publication. The Wall Street Journal leads in the US but trails the FT in other countries. In the UK, the Sunday Times, Telegraph and The Economist ran highest. No real surprises here, except perhaps for the poor showing of the Journal outside the US.
• Print media is more widely read than online media. I agree, though the boundaries are often being blurred. As far as I know, the study didn’t track whether a respondent that read the FT did so in print or online format.
• Analysts are important throughout the decision making process. Absolutely. In the book we’ve mapped various influencer types to the decision making process, and analysts play more roles than any other type. It’s important to understand, though, that although analyst firms play various roles, it’s not the same analysts that play all roles.
• Use the media and analysts to influence decision makers, not to please your CEO on tour. Hoorah! If vendors take a decision maker focus, rather than creating noise to satisfy their own internal ends, then they might not annoy their customers and prospects so much. It is refreshing to hear this from a PR/AR firm.

The big criticism: where are the other influencers? This study only looks at the media, analysts and blogs. What about consultants, resellers, peers, user groups, academics, procurement experts, gurus and thought leaders, or the vendors themselves? I’d love to see the research run next year with this broader remit.

(A few words on the methodology. The research involved 420 interviews, across the UK, US Canada and China, and were conducted using a mix of online, face-to-face and telephone interviews. Interviews were also split by C-Suite and IT managers, and by large enterprises and SMEs. The sample looks a bit thin, when spread across all of these splits. But good food for thought.)

Silicon’s Top 50 CIOs

I’m not a fan of top 50 lists. I think they are usually meaningless and pointless, naming obvious people in obvious companies.

Not so the silicon.com Top 50 CIOs. This identifies the top IT executives in the UK, across private and public organisations. The list makes interesting reading, including less obvious organisations such as Oxfam and Hampshire County Council.

As I recall, the average tenure of a CIO is around 18 months, so the chaps (and they’re almost all male) must appreciate some profile-building to aid the hop to their next post.

In the meantime, I pity them. The number of unsolicited calls from eager salespeople will reach industrial proportions. The CIO community is the most sought-after group of prospects. But appearing on the list means that these CIOs are even less likely to respond to marketing in traditional forms.