25 Top social CIOs. How much are they really so? LinkedIn analysis (2).

So here we go! I looked for the LinkedIn profiles of the 25 + 2  CIOs present on the list (the additional 2 are special mentions).

I found them all and this is what I got after close but fast inspection of the info available in their outlines as of January 17th, 2014.

Most top social CIOs were easily reachable (23; 85%) in LinkedIn.

Just four (4; 15%) had enabled the privacy feature and so you need his or her e-mail address to send an invite. Could you directly connect with them in an e-mail or telephone number? The scene changes a lot: just eleven (11; 41%) have their connection information appropriately populated to do so. Sixteen (16; 59%) have no contact info to be directly reached. I think a reasonable expectation for a top Social CIO would be to be easily approachable in the internet. It looks like that is the case just in LinkedIn.

Let’s get into CIOs' social friendliness. 

Almost all have a personal picture in place (24; 89%). Just three (3; 11%) have no photo. Next, I checked the professional line with the following criteria: mark “bad” the pattern “position / level” at “company” and “good” any other wording that explain competencies, skills, etc. The result is that a significant majority follows the standard, NON-recommended pattern (21; 78%) as opposite to those who don’t (6; 22%). Most top social CIOs have not customized their LinkedIn URL (20; 74%). Just seven (7; 26%) changed the default URL to align it to their personal brand. Almost no one has taken advantage of the LinkedIn visual capabilities to add not just text but also visual info: just one (1; 4%) has something visual in place. I think a reasonable expectation for a top social CIO would be to take into account some basic stuff about profile customization to improve SEO and identification easiness.

Different aspects of CIOs' Social activity offer different findings.

Eleven (11; 41%) have Twitter account present in their contact info. The remaining sixteen (16; 59%) may have twitter account, however, if they do, their LinkedIn profile is not updated with it. Recommendations given and received are a significant measure of this point, I think. The average number for both is four (4), so the total numbers almost match each other (103 received versus 106 given by CIOs). Seven (7; 26%) have received no recommendations and nine (9; 33%) have not given any. The intersection of the previous sets is four CIOs (4; 15%) that have not received or given any. It looks like recommendations is not a very used LinkedIn feature by the top Social CIOs. By the way, is somebody suspicious about the similar figure of received and given references? Regarding the number of connections, all but one (26; 96%) have 500+. I think a reasonable expectation for the top Social CIOs would be to be plenty of activity in the internet and show it on LinkedIn.

Two additional points about top Social CIOs.

First, the type of LinkedIn account. Six (6; 22%) have a premium one and half of those (3; 11%) also joined the OpenLink network. I think this can be a good indicator of investment because of Social interest. Second, twelve (12; 44%) have a new job, so the top Social CIOs look also good on promoting their professional careers.

Having said that, I would summarize all above in just one point: I reached out them all (well, just the 23 reachable in LinkedIn), explained that I had learned about them in a Personal Branding training course and so I would like to connect with them in LinkedIn if that were OK with them. Response? So far, just eleven (11; 41%) accepted.

Taking into consideration all above, what do you think? Do those LinkedIn profiles meet reasonable expectations for the top Social CIOs?

Photograph references:
“Man with Laptop” image courtesy of hyena reality / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
“Businessman Sending Message” image courtesy of FrameAngel / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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25 Top social CIOs. How much are they really so? LinkedIn analysis (1)

Having learned about the 25 Top Social CIOs I decided to find out how much those are really by analyzing their LinkedIn profiles and so get a gross clue.

I recently came to know about the list of 25 Top Social CIOs in a Personal Branding training course prepared and taught by @EsmeraldaDíazAroca. That list is the result of a research performed in 2012 by Harmon.ie. The activity of 250 Forbes companies CIOs in the most relevant social networks was gathered and then an algorithm developed by @MarkFidelman, who belonged to Harmo.ie leadership at that moment, applied to produce the ranked list.

If you are not convinced about the importance of the matter, you should check out this video where Avon’s CIO, Donagh Herlihy (by the way, one of those 25 Top Social CIOs), put both relationships and networking among the three top priorities for any CIO.

One key conclusion about CIOs was: 

“The most striking finding of our study is that only 10% of the Fortune 250 CIOs are themselves social. The rest, apparently, do not recognize the importance of being social, or are delegating the task to a subordinate”. @MarkFidelman also commented the results in Forbes. So far so good. We know these 25 are the top ones in a world of CIOs apparently not very social. 

Still, how good are those CIOs about social stuff?

I mean that it is certainly brilliant to be on the top, however, it does not mean you are doing great, just better than the rest below. Therefore, I decided to perform my own (quick and dirty) research by focusing on LinkedIn to get a gross, qualitative and quantitative glimpse of those guys. Here is the outcome.

What characteristics make a good social CIO that can be identified with a reasonable quick inspection on a LinkedIn page?

I identified the following areas:

1. Reachability or how easy to connect. We can get an overall idea by checking the configuration of that action –standard or restricted, i.e., you need to know his or her e-mail address- and connection info populated that would allow you to reach out directly to he or she, for instance an e-mail address or a telephone number.
2. Social friendliness or profile appropriately customized to be easily found and identified. We can check the photo, the professional line, the URL customization, and the presence of visual info (not just text) to obtain a flavor of this point.
3. Social activity or how much web stuff is in place. Referenced twitter account and websites, received and given recommendations, and number of connections can give us a good idea.
4. Other non-social points or taking advantage of the effort to look at some other interesting stuff, such as type of LinkedIn account (Premium or not), and new job compared to the 2012 list.

Then, I performed a review of all points above per each Top Social CIO LinkedIn profile. Interested in the findings? Wait for the second part of the post... I promise it will not deceive you.

Photograph references:

• "Social Network Business" image courtesy of suphakit73 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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