Seeking Top 10 Social Business LeadersSeeking Top 10 Social Business Leaders

Enterprise Social Networks: Must-Have Features Guide

I'm looking for the businesses and business leaders who are making the most productive use of social business strategies. Are you out there?

Of course, we've been looking for those examples all along for coverage in The BrainYard, but now we have an opportunity to do it in a more systematic way--with your help, I hope. In November, right as UBM's E2 Innovate conference kicks off, we'll publish a special report on the "10 Top Social Businesses & Their Leaders." In addition to picking the leading organizations, we will name a #1 CIO and #1 business leader associated with those success stories.

I want this feature to count for something, so it's important that we pick organizations and individuals that are worthy of this recognition. If you'd like to nominate your own organization or one you admire, you can do so through the nomination app on our Facebook page or the form below.

The call for nominations will continue through the end of September, but by early October we'll be finalizing our list. Because we plan to do some additional research beyond the nomination forms, those that come in early will tend to get closer consideration.

I expect to get plenty of submissions from the public relations representatives of vendors who would like to showcase their success stories. That's fine, but we're looking for more than success with a single product, or a single aspect of social business.

[Update/Clarification: I'm much more interested in seeing customer success stories from social software vendors, rather than vendors nominating themselves as social businesses.]

We've all heard the great claims about the transformational power of social collaboration, social marketing, social sales, social service, social analytics, social workflow, and social so-on. I've repeated those claims and talked with leaders who have achieved success with social business, but is it truly lasting and significant success? There are plenty of skeptics unconvinced that a whole "new way of working" has been discovered. As Dion Hinchcliffe noted in a recent column on organizing for social business, many organizations can point to an isolated social collaboration or social media marketing success story. Examples of broad, strategic application of social business are still much rarer.

Help me find the examples we can all learn from.

Note that although I'm promoting this as a sort of contest, winners will be chosen according to our editorial judgment, including follow-up interviews with the nominees and other research. The nomination form below is meant to help us structure the process, but you need not complete every blank on the form. For example, you may nominate a technology leader without also nominating a business leader associated with an organizational success story.

Nominees suggested through other channels, such as social media referrals and recommendations from BrainYard columnists, may also be considered (although we'll still want answers to the same questions).

Note: Be sure to provide your contact information so we can follow up for additional details. Deadline for nominations Sept. 28. Get yours in earlier for more thorough consideration.

Social media make the customer more powerful than ever. Here's how to listen and react. Also in the new, all-digital The Customer Really Comes First issue of The BrainYard: The right tools can help smooth over the rough edges in your social business architecture. (Free registration required.)