Everywhere I look, some high-tech vendor is engineering the design of a private social network especially for its channel partners.

While the overwhelming adoption of networks like LinkedIn or Facebook is doubtless the reason for this enthusiasm, there still really is very little much information about how businesses are using social networks for classic business-to-business interactions.

I should disclose that I’ve been thinking about this in the context of some work I’ve been doing for the worldwide channels group at Cisco Systems. But the move by IBM to establish its own social network with PartnerWorld Communities AND the impending launch of a similar mechanism by Microsoft have got me thinking a lot about this particular issue. This whole conversation reminds me of the huge push behind partner portals a few years back, as high-tech vendors (rightly so) looked at ways of improving communications to and with their channel partners. I ask anyone reading this: How fruitful were those investments?

While I am a huge fan of social networks and other social media applications, such as the micro-blogging service Twitter, I hope these vendors have the patience and persistence to make these investments in closed channel communities worthwhile. Here’s some context for my concern.

1. A recent study by Forrester Research (“The Social Technographics of Business Buyers,” Feb. 20, 2009) shows the use of blogs, social networks and other so-called social technology decreases “on the job.” So, for now, participation in closed channel social networks is likely to be limited. The survey base included 1,217 people in IT buying and recommendation roles across North America and Europe.
2. As to who actually uses social networks, penetration in the United States is about 35 percent. It’s lower in Europe and higher in some Asia Pacific countries, such as Korea, according to some separate data from Forrester Research.
3. Here’s the clincher for me though: Right now, Forrester Research reveals that 42 percent of U.S. online adults juggle at least two social network identities; and 63 percent also participate in some sort of discussion forum.

I don’t know about you, but considering the time that social networking takes, something has got to give and I’m betting it’s not the Facebook account. The vendors who are building these networks need to remember the following:

1. It takes MONTHS for a following to develop, which means you need to appoint credible subject matter experts who will spend months nurturing the network with great content and helping guide conversations.
2. Anecdotally speaking, many VARs and IT solution providers tell me they’re not all that eager to share marketing or sales tips that could help their competitors. There, I’ve said it. HOWEVER, interestingly enough, systems engineers and support personnel have little problem sharing tidbits that can help make everyone’s job a little easier.
3. Mobility is a big deal. When you’re out at client sites or prospective client sites selling for most of the day, you’re less likely to spend time catching up on social network conversations.
4. VARs and resellers have more than one vendor vying for their time online. Why is your social network the most relevant one for them? Is it because you help them market or sell the entire solution rather than a point product?

Here’s how I think closed social business networks could be VERY useful for a high-tech company hoping to forge closer ties to its channel partners:

• They could be used to create a way for your channel account managers and field teams to interact more seamlessly with partners in their geography. Why limit the “closed” network to your partners? In fact you shouldn’t. This might be a great way for them to be more in touch with teams across your company, to stay in closer step with deals that are in the works or be alerted about local activity that might be of mutual interest.
• Systems engineers could contribute real-world insight into real-world problems. In some cases, social business networks are already being used as a collaboration tool for product development. As a real example, I’ll point you to the case of Chordiant Software, which uses a platform from Jive.
• Success stories (and therefore best practices information) can be shared by your channel marketing team, especially in the form of video. In the brief experiments I’ve done with some of SWOT’s clients, I’ve found that the right video (in the form of a partner testimonial) usually gets more attention than written version of same.
• By adding the right information widgets in the form of RSS feeds, you can all stay on top of competitive threats or developments.

With certainty, I can say that every high-tech vendor SHOULD be evaluating a social networking or broader social media strategy. But I definitely wouldn’t advise them all to build their own platform. Your team might be better served applying some of the concepts I’ve mentioned above to a group on LinkedIn. Personally, I believe Facebook will have a hard time overcoming its roots as something focused on personal connections. I refrain from adding professional contacts there myself, unless I’ve met them at a conference or they’ve been good enough to read stuff that I write (like this!)

If you want to chat more about social networks and B2B social media strategy, I welcome your outreach. I can be reached at this e-mail, or you can find me on both Facebook and LinkedIn.

Read a thought-provoking article the other day about why applying the same exact return-on-investment (ROI) equation to every single program you introduce or marketing campaign you launch is just a dumb idea.

I mused about that article here in my new Business Brains blog (over on the CBS Interactive Smartplanet Web site), so I won’t repeat everything here. But I did want to make a couple of additional comments about this topic that I feel have specific relevance for high-tech vendor channel managers.

I guess you could view these suggestions as simplistic reminders about how to hold firm when someone from your bean-counting department challenges your budget or suggests that hiring one or two direct sales people could “easily” cover the job handled by your partners in a given region. Here’s what you could counter with:

• Channel partners are worth their weight in gold in terms of the local, customer relationships they bring to the table. From an ROI perspective, this reduces your company’s overall marketing and demand-generation costs. And don’t forget the ultimate intangible: the value of credibility/trust. How many of your direct sales team executives serve on a local chamber of commerce in their region?
• Channel partners get paid by you when you both make a sale. Period. Can your bean-counter say the same of people on your payroll? Nope.
• Channel partners provide invaluable independent feedback, not just on anything that’s wrong with your product or technology but about why something isn’t working from a branding or branding standpoint. You could describe them as a perpetual focus group. One, again, that you pay when they sell your product.
• Channel partners bring valuable third-party alliances to the table: often, the collaborative nature of these partnerships (such as when a VAR teams up with the developer of a healthcare application) will make or break a deal. No partnership, no deal.

I’ll bet many of you with fiscal years that start in the middle of the summer are in deep into the process of justifying your channel investments as I write this. Hopefully just one of these simple arguments directs you to the data and evidence that will help you defend your position.

I learn something new every time I “tweet,” the act of sending out a status update, random thought, link or some other 140-character-limited message on the Twitter social media service.

I am absolutely a Twitter neophyte, someone who only has roughly 220 followers, although that grows by 5 or 6 people every day. One of my ex-CRN colleagues has something like 12,000-plus people keeping tabs on his updates. That’s a lot of responsibility!

I have had many, many debates with vendor channel managers and VARs about the business value of what Forrester Research calls social media. That term covers all manner of things, but I sort of think of it according to the three C’s: Web technology that lets you interact with a Community, Collaborate in real time and participate in Conversations that have relevance for your personal and professional life. As far as I can in my unscientific experience, some VARs, resellers and other IT solution providers are dabbling with social media, but many don’t see how it could possible pertain to their business.

While I think this is short-sighted and somewhat of a generational thing, I can see why. The fact is, many of the sales and marketing types out there in the channel spend a lot of their time in face-to-face meetings or preparing presentations and proposals. To them, social media is a distraction and a time suck. Not to mention the fact that many resellers that I’ve spoken with over the past year about communities and such say they are very reluctant to share what they consider to be “trade secrets” or “their secret sauce” in public forums. I’m not talking about more elite peer groups like Heartland Technology Group. What makes the Heartland Technology Group partnerships work is trust.

Peek over into the technical department, and the story is a little different. Engineers seem to have a totally different ethos when it comes to forums. They are more than willing to share ideas, tips and information that makes everyone’s job just a little bit easier.

My prediction for high-tech vendors that are experimenting with partner communities: You’ll see more traction from the technical sorts at your partners than from the sales types. Plan your content accordingly.

The big factor in community interaction, to me, is this: many resellers are very mobile. They spend most of their time NOT in the office.

Which brings me back to Twitter.

The reason that Twitter might appeal to folks in the channel is the fact that it’s very mobile. Your updates can be sent and received on your mobile phone. Or you can choose to use some of the Web applications that have developed for managing Twitter activity.

Here are three ways you could use Twitter as a channel manager:

• Keep partners informed about new marketing and demand generation tools. You can embed links back to your partner portal for the actual content.
• Share competitive intelligence.
• Alert VARs about technical issues or product news.

And, if you’re a VAR you might want to think about the following:

• Let customers know about new services
• Keep your team abreast of competitive developments.
• Establish yourself as an expert on a topic near and dear to your business.

Finally, I want to direct you to a few bits of extra-credit reading.

Time magazine’s 10 ways Twitter will affect businesses.

A Cisco video blog from this week about how one of its partners is using Twitter.

Coverage of a Twitter seminar.

Older article, but with a great 50 Tips list.

A Twitter primer.

You can follow my own Twitter updates here. Warning: I totally have attention-deficit tendencies, so I ramble all over the place about everything from green technology developments to the fact that I have a robin’s nest, complete with fledglings, outside my bedroom window.

I have always followed the channel programs of Autodesk pretty closely, partly because in my mind the company has led the software industry for many years in figuring out the best way to work with REAL VARs. That is, companies that sold solutions specifically focused on the CAD and design markets for which they had a unique business differentiation. Right now, the Autodesk channel includes about 1,900 such companies.

Plus, honestly, it’s pretty impressive that this is a company that is able to award silver anniversary honors to some of its channel members, not just employees. For the second year in a row, mind you. (More on that in a moment.)

I caught up last month with Steve Blum, senior vice president of the Americas for Autodesk, about how the company’s channel organization is helping partner principals manager their businesses right now. Blum hopes that by keeping close to key resellers now, they’ll be better-positioned to ride the up-turn more successfully. Incidently, that means Autodesk is recruiting partners, even though both they and these new resellers know that it might take longer to get up and running with a practice in the current economy.

This also includes, by the way, a lot of training for the Autodesk channel managers so that they can understand the concerns of a smaller business. “We should not be in the position of telling a partner what they have to do,” Blum says. “We merely share ideas that we’ve seen work in the past.”

Here are a couple of specific programs, though, that might be of interest to the partners that Autodesk is wooing, as well as any existing partners that might want to deepen their relationship. These might seem like very common sense ideas, but you’d be surprised at how few vendors support ideas like these in practice:

• The Path-to-Volume program: Autodesk has a very disciplined approach for figuring out when to take a product to the channel, and how. Every new application and acquisition is running through this lifecycle assessment to figure out how it should be layered into the program.
• Autodesk is also one of the few vendors to reward its partners with Solutions Incentives, meaning they get certain considerations for vertical and industry sales. Partners also can get Loyalty Incentives for driving long-term customer engagement and loyalty. (Which, in turn, drives long-term partner engagement and loyalty.) And they can earn Key Incentives for driving business in new products and technologies OR for getting an account to start thinking vertical. Last year, partners were able to grow their 3D sales by 25 percent using a combination of these incentives.
• Autodesk’s deal registration program (called the Autodesk Customer Engagement process) has helped some partners increase their margins by 20 percent.
• Over the past year, Autodesk has given out more than $10 million in “growth funds,” based on business plan submissions. (This is in addition to more traditional things like cooperative marketing funds.)
• The vendor also is pushing additional financing options, especially those that help resellers avoid having to carry product sales in a time when credit is hard to find for small businesses.
• And, harkening back to a long-time policy, Autodesk earlier this month introduced something called the Autodesk Assistance Program. The company has long seeded universities with its software, which has helped position its applications as critical business applications for professionals in the architecture and engineering professions after they enter the workforce. Under the new program, the company is free software and certification seminars to both students as well as unemployed architects, engineers and designers. Here’s a YouTube video with more information about the program.

Now, back to those Autodesk Silver Anniversary awards. Last month, at its annual One Team Conference, Autodesk recognized four resellers that have been representing the company’s software for 25 years. They include:

CAD MicroSolutions (A design automation solution provider in Toronto)

Hagerman & Co. (A consulting company based out of Fort Wayne, Idaho, that handles not just CAD/CAM but also sells 3D printers)

Industrial Technology (A Riviera Beach, Fla., reseller that focuses on manufacturing solutions.)

Le Groupe BusCom (A Montreal-based architecture and engineering expert.)

In case you are wondering what makes these relationships work, there are some slidecasts that Autodesk created with several of these partners. Here are those links, too:

Hagerman & Co.

Le Groupe BusCom

CADMicroSolutions

Apparently, non-profits don’t necessarily have to be charity cases. CDW has started a practice focus on handling the IT needs and management for charity organizations and other not-for-profit associations. In your “spare time,” this is worth investing.

Here’s my post about the launch from my TechTarget blog.

OK, certainly this isn’t a scientific study, but technology services marketplace organizer OnForce has released its latest quarterly “index” of which services are capturing the most traction and attention among its roughly 12,000 service professionals.

If you’re not familiar with OnForce, it is essentially a site where companies or individuals can bid on all sorts of services—from corporate voice over internet protocol implementations to installations of flat-screen televisions. A would-be buyer enters a proposed job, and OnForce members bid on the project. The site has been controversial amount IT solution providers, because of the potential for services pricing erosion.

The OnForce index covers approximately 70,000 service events during the first quarter of 2009.) All comparisons in terms of increases or decreases are made against the year-earlier quarter. By the way, the total services work order volume increased about 10 percent from year to year.

Perhaps not surprisingly, there was an increase in break-fix orders, although maybe not as much as you might expect given how closely businesses are watching their budgets and the fact that people are trying to extend the life of their hardware. Break-fix jobs were 63 percent of the total load in the first quarter of 2009, compared with 59 percent a year earlier.

The largest “onsite services economies” were California, Texas, Illinois and Florida, and the busiest cities were Chicago, Houston and New York.

One piece of data that I found particularly interesting: projects related to project technology installations and video services both showed an increase. My guess is that more companies are investing in virtual meetings and videoconferencing equipment to cut back on travel. I just heard yesterday, for example, that Deloitte will have installed approximately 100 of these systems by the end of the year. (It has 34 right now.) I’m not suggesting that they’re going to use someone from OnForce, but you get the point.

You can download the entire OnForce report at this link, which might give you a sense of where your own channel partners are focusing and where your ongoing programs might have the most impact.

For someone who loves electronic gadgets as much as I do, I am still woefully dependent on a cute little paper organizer in which I scribble my to-dos. Something about copying them from one day to another makes me more aware of what items on my list really need my attention. Believe me, I’ve tried the electronic methods. Maybe when someone gets me a good iPhone app that also syncs with my computer, I’ll change my ways.

Anyway, I have never REALLY thought about what it must be like to be a technology sales person, out there working hot and cold prospects every day. I am horrible with rejection, and I admire anyone who has the backbone to get out there and expose yourself to it regularly. Certainly, I never even knew what “A, B and C” leads WERE until a couple months ago when someone posted a question about prioritizing them in the SWOT LinkedIn group.

Yet, I found myself deep into a discussion about the ABCs of picking A, B and C opportunities during a recent conversation with Matt McManus, vice president of channel sales for Fujitsu Computer Systems. Fujitsu’s lead-generation team is working on refining the way that it categorizes a particular prospect, to give less weight on things like projected time to close and more weight to considerations including geography and vertical market.

Intuitively speaking, at least in the past, it might have seemed better to jump opportunities that were going to close sooner up to the front of the queue. Yet, even though someone might be ready to sign a check or purchase order more quickly, that buyer also is more likely to have a preconceived notion about what product or brand he or she is ready to buy. Why on earth, then, would that be an “A” lead?

It seems to me that if you haven’t addressed your own lead generation and cataloguing strategy lately (although I’m SURE you must have given what’s going on right now in the world economy!), that you might want to take a fresh peek to see what metrics your team is using.

While having very objective measures is important for automating the process, it’s worth reassessing those allocation measures. For a company like Fujitsu, as an example, which has been closing plenty of business in healthcare and education lately, leads in those accounts might jump the queue even if they were smaller deals or longer lead-time opportunities.

Why not work your company’s strengths instead of going with conventional wisdom?

Chat me up: Do you have a channel strategy I should be writing about? E-mail me.

As promised in my blog post from earlier this week, I wanted to offer up a link to updates related to Hewlett-Packard’s SMB VAR initiative. This story comes from my colleague Barbara Darrow, senior news director for Tech Target’s channel news service.

There’s lots of information about new product, but the business gist of her article is HP’s decision to adopt a new SMB Elite designation, that will allow IT solution providers to position themselves as trusted advisors capable of meeting the specific needs of these companies.

The new specialization will be effective May 1. PLUS HP is now allowing ALL of its U.S. partners (roughly 25,000) to take advantage of deal registration. Too bad it took the rough economic climate for the company to realize that this just makes sense. Any partner that helps a company win a new account should be rewarded. Especially now. Although, sadly, it does technically mean that mega-retailers could also try to apply for winning deals, too, so HP’s channel managers need to be really careful about which deals they approve.

I really like the overall spirit of this move, because it reinforces what I’ve believed for a long time: that vendors should do a better job of helping partners that have high potential but don’t have a long track record or gazillions of sales. Because it is easy to do so, many high-tech companies overlook the hidden influence of these partners.

By opening up deal registration AND allowing partners to earn an SMB nod they can use to market themselves, HP also is providing more specific tools that will help the channel more deeply penetrate a market that has historically been underserved. A market that HP estimates at an astonishing $68 billion.

So far, so good, Ms. Kelly!

Fundamentally speaking, most execs think they have two choices when they take on a new job: They can either embrace and extend a winning strategy or they can choose to make their own mark. I personally don’t think those choices are mutually exclusive. One of the most disciplined, intelligent paths an incoming leader can take is to stick with something that is working.

This seems to be the intention of Meaghan Kelly, the months-old vice president of SMB Channel Sales and Strategy for Hewlett-Packard. As I know very well from my past life as an editor at Computer Reseller News, there are thousands of solution providers out there with an opinion about HP’s SMB intentions, and there are at least hundreds who would express that opinion very loudly if things were changed simply for the sake of change. You’ll hear more about the company’s specific new plans this (HP has a briefing planned that several of my friends in the channel media will cover, but that info is confidential for another couple of days). Suffice to say that what you hear will seem familiar. That’s because even though Kelly is actually very new to HP (she joined the company very recently after 16 years of experience with Quantum, Veritas and Motorola), you’ll see her emphasize these three themes:

1. Increasing HP’s coverage to market through distributors and high-growth resellers that can add profitable growth.
2. Growing HP’s depth of market share with high-growth resellers across all its product categories, which is another familiar mantra. HP absolutely will attempt to drive the point home for both customers and VARs that standardizing across a series of IT products from the same manufacturer rather than buying piecemeal from best-of-breed players is the most cost-effective way to go, especially for customer support.
3. Driving more market visibility for its SMB partners, especially in what she sees as several recession-proof sectors including healthcare, the legal profession (warning, stay away from real estate lawyers!), and discrete and wholesale manufacturing.

My guess is that many channel managers and sales leaders are tempted to change course right now because of the economy. Maybe a better tack to take would be to look at what has been working and invest more time there?

We’ll see what else HP has to say later this week.

I have always been one to declare (loudly) that the best way to thrive in the high-tech channel is by setting your sights on the long-term agenda, and handling short-term hiccups through that lens but standing firm where you can see as far as the horizon, not just what’s in your face.

I have scoffed at companies that let their actions be ruled by their quarterly earnings reports.

I have been notably in the laissez-faire school about the topic of letting MY strategy be shaped by someone else’s strategy.

I have even advocated AGAINST letting yourself get distracted by what your competitors are doing. Why should you let them shape what you do? If you pay too much attention to them, are you paying enough attention to yourself?

The current market environment is challenging these convictions.

I had a very interesting debate about this a few days ago with Julie Parrish, vice president of worldwide channel sales at Network Appliance. Like every other high-tech channel sales executive, Parrish is hunting for ways to help her business partners negotiate the landmines of this economic climate deal-by-deal and play-by-play. Her team is paying the most attention to very specific things it can do tactically NOW to bring opportunities to closure. Sure, they’re planning out more than one quarter, but they are really focused on field execution. NOW.

“What is it going to take to help them cross the finish line first instead of second?” she says.

Did I mention that this is happening NOW?

So, here’s my obnoxious challenge to you for a Friday afternoon: How closely are you tracking the specific prospects your channel partners are working? RIGHT NOW. Are you doing everything in your power NOW to help them close business and, in turn, help you close business. Are you making it worth their while NOW to reach a percentage of their quarterly goals? After all, you’ve probably adjust the bonus and commission plans for your internal sales team to give them SOME chance at meeting at least some of their goals. Have you done the same for your channel partners or will you require them to reach 100 percent of their commitment before they earn their rebate?

This might be the most important question: Are you giving your partners the same competitive visibility that you’re giving your own sales team? Or are you holding back? If it’s the latter, you can bet your partners will also hold back on giving you the attention in the field that you both desperately need RIGHT NOW.

Yes, having a long-term strategy is necessary, but now more than ever it’s important to think of it in phased steps that you have some hope of achieving. Otherwise there’s very little reason to be motivated about what’s going on. What you do over the next three to six months will ensure that you and your partners are around to see the long term.

Did I mention that you should start thinking about this NOW?

If you want to engage one-on-on about this, e-mail me. I would love to hear what innovative things high-tech companies are doing to motivate activity.