Procter & Gamble turned to social media, not soap operas, to really connect to its customers. The Vocalpoint P&G community enlisted 850,000 stay-at-home moms to create new products and new services, such as Dawn Direct Foam.

Barry Libert, a social media visionary and the founder of Shared Insights (now Mzinga), knows how to use technology to harness the power of what he calls the crowd. Mzinga provides software as a service solutions for online communities. It currently manages about 14,000 communities, and services more than one billion monthly page requests from 27 million users in 160 countries worldwide. Libert is currently chairman of the board of Mzinga. He and his co-authors set up a community and enlisted members to contribute to a book called, We are Smarter Than Me: How to Unleash the Power of Crowds in Your Business. In fact, this is the first book on the subject that actually used an online community, based on a Web 2.0 technology from Mzinga, to help create the book. About 4,000 qualified members joined the online community and helped shape the final product. By using the same social networking tools and techniques that their book covers, Libert and his co-authors could provide practical and unique look at online community building.

He says that building communities isn't all about tools and technologies. "The task requires good facilitation, moderation, and services that go along with them. Remember, people at ebay and amazon make sure their respective communities work. You need a community manager. The same goes for customer communities and employee communities. Mzinga is the online equivalent to the community Sherpa."

In this podcast, Libert talks about the power of communities, the differences between the community and business, and the changes businesses must make if they want to build communities. Now let's join Barry Libert, author and chairman of the board of Mzinga.

Bio
Before founding Shared Insights, Libert was a senior partner at Arthur Andersen and John Hancock. He began his career with McKinsey & Company. He has also co-founded and sold two successful businesses. He graduated from Tufts University and has an MBA from Columbia University.

Resources
FT Press - If We Build It, We Will Come
Safari Books Online - Interview with Barry Libert
One Degree - Interview with Barry Libert

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio Producer
AlarmMusic.com Production Music Library for Broadcast, Film, Video & Post Production

Almost everyone agrees that anyone who seeks to lead must get firsthand experience. Experience, however, by itself doesn't guarantee learning. What matters most is what one makes of experience, particularly traumatic and often unplanned crucible events that challenge one as a leader. This conclusion comes from research done by Robert Thomas, who is executive director at Accenture's Institute of High Performance Business Leadership and as an associate professor at Tuft University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. The empirical research down by the Institute provides Accenture's consultants and clients with insight on topics ranging from new business global to talent management.

Most of the information analyzed in Thomas's new book, Crucibles of Leadership: How to Learn from Experience to Become a Great Leader, comes from interviews with leaders selected on the basis of their proven ability to grow and to sustain an organization during times of trial.

In this podcast, Thomas talks about what some CEOs have learned from their crucibles, how even CIOs can leverage their crucibles to move up the ranks, and how C-level executives can help emerging leaders learn from their experiences.

Bio
Robert Thomas is executive director of Accenture's Institute for High Performance Business and Galvin Professor of Leadership at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. Dr. Thomas has authored numerous books and articles on leadership, technology, and organizational change. He has co-authored Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders with Warren Bennis, which was Business Week's best selling book in 2003.

Resources
Accenture  - Human Capital Development
Accenture  - Next Generation Leaders

Production Credits
Elizabeth Ferrarini, Executive  Producer
Tom Parish, Host and Audio  Producer
AlarmMusic.com Production Music  Library for Broadcast, Film, Video & Post Production