A large company I worked for was spending >$1M/year (data + data pipeline + personnel) on "Social Media Analysis." Every month a "Social Media Report" PDF was emailed to "key stakeholders and decision makers." When we asked them what they were doing with it everybody said they never really looked at it. When we asked them how it could be more useful they shrugged their shoulders.
And yet the company was constantly talking about how great they were at their social media presence and using social media Analytics to keep their customers happy.
I guess a sending out a monthly PDF on social media is self-explanatory to the value of if. So many people involved in something that was zero value.
You’ve just described 95% of projects at large companies.
If you consult for any of them you quickly realize there are like 5 people running the entire company and 49995 somehow pushing forward through inertia.
> If you consult for any of them you quickly realize there are like 5 people running the entire company
The sad thing is when some clueless manager on a power trip, or just trying to reorganize in the most clueless way, threatens someone vital to operating the company without knowing it. It can escalate quickly as the employee realizes how undervalued they are compared to their contributions, and a small local panic may set in for other people that see the train wreck that's fast approaching and its possible ramifications for them.
I've heard the situation explained times by others. My own experience is from a much, much smaller company and the owner just being oblivious due to his own ego. I saw the tension rising between the two individuals, and heard a few comments the owner had made which made it sound like they didn't think losing the employee in question would be a big deal. My first reaction was "If he fires her, I better look for a new job myself. This company probably has 12 months max without her, at least in it's current makeup."
"Eventually, as value hits diminishing returns, both the Sociopaths and Losers make their exits, and the Clueless start to dominate. Finally, the hollow brittle shell collapses on itself and anything of value is recycled by the sociopaths according to meta-firm logic."
That has a sort of cynical beauty to it.
AFAICT I'm a loser-turned-sociopath as I now sell to the highest bidder on a strictly short term basis, and don't believe in anything apart from my bottom line.
Somebody downvoted you but that site is a real eye opener. I also use to send friends to read it. I'm not sure that everybody appreciates it because it's to easy to find themselves or to realize which role they are playing.
"can" but can also suffer from other idiocy. I know, i've worked many times in big, medium, and small companies.
The problem with small companies is... the lack of inertia! You get the CEO reading an article and decide to 'rebrand', throwing away whatever plan there was in motion to do the previous fad.
Then he goes to a show, and comes back all bouncy about the new cool stuff we HAVE to start integrating or else we won't be relevant when coming to market.
Been there, done that, got a whole pile of t-shirts ;-)
I'm not the parent commenter but, regardless of the uselessness of such a job (as an analyst, producing reports of negligible value or whose value is ignored, or as a developer, producing apps that produce such reports for those analysts), you are still paid well enough to not complain/look elsewhere and the experience is useful for your next job.
I work with B2B companies and I can confidently say that outside of LinkedIn, there is little to no value in maintaining an active presence on Twitter/Facebook/Pinterest/Instagram in most B2B segments
Most corporate IT, enterprise software and consultants are on LI. People flow between those sectors, like a McKinsey consultant tapping out before becoming a partner, moving into a role at one of her clients, etc.
LI is a self-updating rolodex, has killed business cards. Invaluable to keep track of where people move.
Our sales people would hate for LI to go away. Happily pay themselves for Sales Edition.
I've seen far more mileage in maintaining an active presence on niche-specific platforms.
A company that actively creates and shares interesting content on HN will have a much better brand image than one that does the same on Twitter. HN's smaller, self-selected audience will also land you better quality leads with less noise as compared to a large social platform
A of of these projects/products come from the same place. An executive or manager has an idea. Some of these ideas have good intentions. Some come from somebody reading HBR and seeing an article titled "By 2020 30% of purchasing decisions will be driven by social media." Then the ball starts rolling with the PowerPoint decks filled with revenue forecasts. And once that ball is rolling you have a lot of people inside and outside of the organization who are all pieces in this machine to achieve the final goal. Since nobody has visibility to the whole process and the accountability is totally opaque, the ball rolls into something that checks every requirement (even if the requirements were the opposite of the stated goal) but is totally useless.
This reminds me of a principle I heard reading some stoic literature (unfortunately I forget which) which stated: "The purpose of thought is to inform action."
Thoughts, analysyes and ruminations can be fun, but ultimately if they don't suggest an action: either initiating a new action, or modifying an action that is unfolding, then they are without purpose.[1]
[1] The Buddha even suggested that they are stressful.
Do it for a number of years and suddenly you realize: you've become one of them. Adding zero value and leeching of paying customers. Really kills your motivation to better yourself.
And yet the company was constantly talking about how great they were at their social media presence and using social media Analytics to keep their customers happy.
I guess a sending out a monthly PDF on social media is self-explanatory to the value of if. So many people involved in something that was zero value.