No matter whether your business is B2B or B2C, every great business strategy must have a mobile and social element.
Here is an idea for your next executive meeting. Do a pulse check on your mobile strategy. This will require giving everyone a bit of homework and asking them to bring at least one mobile device to the meeting.
The goal is to end up with a range of devices using different operating systems and in different shapes and sizes. And to also have each attendee come armed with the name of their favorite mobile application (for smart phone and/or a tablet or mini-tablet device.
If you have an IT department and they are not normally represented in your Executive Meetings, invite them to join. I guarantee it will be enlightening.
If you have someone gifted at facilitation, that would be a useful addition.
If you want to really walk on the wild side, invite a 20-something staff member and give them the same assignment. This is particularly important if your executive team is skewed over 40.
1. DEVICES AND USES
Start the meeting by going around the room and telling everyone what device you have and what its primary and secondary uses are for you. For example, for a smart phone it might be phone calls and camera or phone calls and email. For a tablet or mini-tablet, it might be social media and movies or shopping. Depending on the number of people in the meeting, you might want to put a one minute limit on this piece.
2. SOCIAL NETWORK SCORE
Have each person give themselves a social media score based on two factors. One is the combined number of followers/fans in the various social media apps that they regularly use (typically we look at LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter as the primary networks to measure). The second score is the number of times that they use those applications on a weekly basis. These two numbers can be put on a stick on name badge. Mine would be 6175/70.
3. FAVORITE APPS
Each person should share their favorite mobile apps, for a smart phone and/or a tablet. If you are not an app user, you need to ask someone in your circle to tell you theirs so that you can share it with the group. If you would like to keep the sharing limited to business apps, or just apps in your industry, that is fine. You can also ask the team to focus on the best apps from your competitors. But often if you learn about what people do in their leisure time, you will know more about them, which can help build trust and relationship.
4. LOOK AT YOUR OWN COMPANY
First, look at your website (assuming you have one) on the various mobile devices. Check out how the navigation works from page to page and if you have forms to fill out or ecommerce capabilities, see how it works. This should take about 5 minutes and then each person should share their observations.
Second, if you have one or more apps, try those out as well. If you do not have an app, talk as a group about whether you should.
All told, this would easily fill an hour. I for one believe that this is a terrific investment of time for your team. You should know one another better. You should better understand what people expect from mobile and how you are performing against that expectation.