Before social media really took off, the number of tools for engaging stakeholders online was very, very small. You could create a bulletin board on your site. An interactive calculator. A "guestbook" (remember those?) Or get people to sign up to a ListServ and participate in a discussion via email....

Facebook just announced that it now has one billion active users -- an astounding number. On the other hand, you (or your organization) may have but 1,000 or 10,000 -- hardly a dent, and at best, a rounding error.

Whether your number hovers at 100 or a billion,...

John Kenneth Galbraith, in his 1958 book The Affluent Society, popularized the term "conventional wisdom." It refers to a world-view generally accepted by everyone as fact, without question. He could not have foreseen how the social web could both splinter -- and reinforce -- this concept.

Do...

Consider the newest words entering our vocabulary: Kindle, eReader, Nook, iBooks, and Kobo. Let me add one more: iCensorship.

If statistics are to be believed, our eBook purchases on these devices are fast eclipsing traditional print books. This isn't surprising, as eBooks are not bulky, don't kill our...

No CEO wants to be known as a hypocrite. But unfortunately, many are precisely that -- here's why.

There is an interesting conundrum that many companies face when expanding beyond their borders. A key reason for their success at home has been that they could take advantage of the...

If you're reading this, the chances that you are on Facebook are relatively high. And sadly, the chances that you personally will duplicate Mark Zuckerberg's business success are relatively low. Very few of us will take our companies public, let along profit so handsomely during our careers.

What we can...