Social Media for Business Development

Over the Labor Day weekend there was a Bond-a-thon on VH1. Roger Moore, in monitoring the deeds of his Russian enemies in Octopussy, looked at the movie playing on the face of his digital wristwatch. Q's marvelous device hardly raises a pulse because it looks so normal to see a video playing on a small portable screen.

Then there's Mad Men. Magic-markered storyboards, typewritten copy (typed by secretaries in the steno pool), and cocktail-fueled business networking in the office and at lunch seem like the rituals of a extinct race.

Technology has rendered some former everyday practices antique while making exotic ones seem obvious. Content- and media-sharing tools like YouTube and Google Docs are integrated into the regular business tool set and the benefits to productivity are abundant. Are the social media tools, like FaceBook, My Space, and LinkedIn, equally as well integrated and useful? In the professional services business, in which most employees have revenue-generating responsibilities, social media tools can be a huge time drain. The ROI for the time investment is hard to measure and controls on the corporate image projection are scant. Which social media sites work best for business lead generation, and is that even the point? Social media tools are not meant to be the 21st century equivalent to Mad Men's cocktail tray. But since time is the precious commodity, the value of the time spent using these tools must be evaluated with, ahem, a gimlet eye.

Of course we are all still waiting for the 21st century equivalent to the conference table ejector seat.