"No Boss Can Afford to Remain Clueless About Web 2.0"

There is only one path: Marketing and technology in your company must work together to design and implement your Web 2.0 strategy," says George Colony, chairman and chief executive officer of Forrester Research, the very same week that Web 2.0 University has announced that its unique one-day Web 2.0 education event is now being made available to Greater New York Area's executives for the first time ever on October 2nd, in midtown Manhattan.

As BusinessWeek wrote already in March 2006: “For all its appeal to the young and the wired, Web 2.0 may end up making its greatest impact in business.”

In his "Perspective" piece published yesterday at CNET ("Web 2.0 and the CEO"), Colony contends that "Web 2.0 has forever changed the relationship between your company and your customer" and advises them to take on board four key principles of doing business in the age of the New Web:

• Your company is inside-out in an outside-in world.


• Your company has a bad Web site.


• You should be asking your customer one question.


• You don't own your customer; your customer owns you.

Knowing the customers better than the competition is now crucial, Colony contends. He uses the example of Dell:

"This spring, it launched Ideastorm, where customers make suggestions and vote on them. The result: Dell's Net Promoter scores are back on the rise."

Inspired by Dell's example, Colony issues the following call to arms to Web 2.0 era bosses everywhere:

"They see the power of digital and its inherent flexibility. They know that it can do amazing things, and they could not care less about artificial, archaic restrictions that are designed to protect somebody's 50-year-old business model. So, Mr./Ms. CEO, wake up and face the brutal truths, and get on with inventing the future."

The full CNET article can be read here.