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Supporting
Our Communities
Burkhardt Research Services supports activities that
improve our communities. Our team is currently
involved in launching the National Coalition of
Community-Based Correctional and Community Re-entry
Service Organizations (NC4RSO). This coalition has
been launched to provide a national voice for local
community-based corrections-related organizations around
the U.S. - as well as to support the development of
additional local community-based corrections-related
activities around the country. Check out NC4RSO at
http://www.burkhardtresearch.com/nc4rso.html .
Economic
Climate: When should competitive intelligence be done?
Decisions about if, when, and how to track and evaluate
competitors (their activities, strategy, intentions,
etc.) vary from one company to another.
Given today’s challenging economic environment,
now is an interesting time to consider whether
competitive intelligence is practiced – or practiced
more or less actively – during recessions as opposed to
when “times are good.” While many
corporate departments must work harder to justify their
spending (or even their existence) during difficult
economic periods, the activities of a competitive
intelligence department can be more critical during
periods of economic slowness. Good
competitive intelligence helps determine how to best
position one’s firm to succeed while fighting harder for
market share and overall consumer spending.
Burkhardt Research Services conducted studies in 2002
and 2006 about competitive intelligence practices within
companies. Here are several
revealing highlights from our 2006 study that relate to
competitive intelligence during challenging economic
circumstances:
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Companies that actively
conduct competitive intelligence feel more confident
about winning over competitor’s clients than companies
that don’t formally do competitive intelligence.
(NOTE: Winning new business becomes increasingly
important during slow economic periods.)
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Companies that don’t do
formal CI worry more about loosing customers to their
competitors. (NOTE: Losing business during slow
economic periods can be particularly challenging.)
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Firms who don’t actively
monitor their competitors were asked when they might be
MOST LIKELY to start doing competitive intelligence.
Their responses include “when times are tough
(economic downturns, industry upheavals, etc.) and “when
we create or update our business/marketing plan.”
Is your firm concerned about
how to navigate the current economic environment?
Many firms are concerned. This is an important
time to take steps to ensure competitiveness and to
increase your ability to manage difficult times.
Competitive intelligence is an important resource for
managing challenging times - don't go without it!
Professional
Networking.
Who engages most actively in networking for
career advancement? How?
Professional networking and the ability to confidently
assert one’s professional capabilities through
references provide any
number of benefits - several of which include mentorship
opportunities, the opportunity to hear about
word-of-mouth job openings, to better position oneself
for new job opportunities, and the ability to keep
abreast of industry developments.
In September, 2009 we published a white paper to assist
persons shy about promoting themselves professionally.
That white paper demonstrates how to comfortably apply
marketing principles for business to the personal world
of self-promotion for career advancement.
We now consider who does active networking and
reference-utilization for success. We haven’t yet
conducted a statistically-reliable study on this;
rather, we are starting to “think out loud” on this
topic. Analysis of the profile characteristics for 100
of Kim Burkhardt’s LinkedIn connections (professionals
with whom I have non-statistically-random contact and
all but one of whom have at least some post-secondary
education) may help suggest some interesting
demographics for formal study (LinkedIn is an online
networking site for professionals):
• Ms. Burkhardt’s Linkedin connections have a median
average of 156 connections (1 connection at the low end
and 500+ at the high end; calculating a standard 500
connections to the individuals with 500+ connections to
avoid skewing the majority of connections who have fewer
than 500+. 14 of the 100 connections reviewed here are
in that category. LinkedIn routinely reports “500+” on
profiles of individuals who have more than 500+
connections.).
• My connections have been recommended by a median
average of 2.9 of their LinkedIn connections
(recommendations in LinkedIn are only received from
individuals to whom one is “connected”). 57% of my
connections have received no recommendations from their
LinkedIn connections at all, while others have been
recommended by as many as 47 of their connections. Most
of my connections who have LinkedIn recommendations have
13 or fewer recommendations.
What topics come to mind when considering professional
networking? The following thoughts come to mind:
• Networking (everywhere - online, offline, etc.)
provides a variety of potential benefits as touched upon
above. We all hear about “the old boys’ network”.
Exactly how and where do people network?
• What are common networking characteristics of various
demographic groups (including the “how and where” of
networking)? What are the components of successful
networking? Comparing the varying networking habits of
various demographic groups – such as executives, college
graduates, and/or persons in certain regions or
industries – could provide insight into how and where to
network for maximum effectiveness.
We begin our look at the questions above through a
small-scale review of LinkedIn networking described
above (again, this is preliminary, casual
hypothesizing):
• Within the context of 100 individuals in my LinkedIn
network, I have compared connection habits to a number
of demographic characteristics (these are the first 100
people in my network alphabetically; all but one of
these people have at least some post-secondary
education):
a) Individuals differ in their number of connections and
recommendations based upon types of employment. While
the overall median number of connections for all
individuals is 156, executives have an average 142.6
connections, consultants have 125.6 connections, and
persons employed by companies have 128.57 connections
(the median for each individual group is lower than the
overall median due to varying dispersions of individuals
with 500+ connections AND due to the non-inclusion of
people who currently profile themselves as working at
two or more jobs, at least one falling into an employee
role and at least job as a consultant). Almost
inversely, 20% of “employees” have 500+ connections,
17.6% of executives have 500+ connections, and the
number of 500+ connections drops to 11.63 for
consultants. It may be possible to hypothesize from this
that persons who have advanced to the executive level
have done so in part through networking and recognize
the advancement value of networking, while perhaps being
more selective than employees about whom they currently
accept or seek out for connections. Again, this is
hypothesized by looking at only one form of networking
(e-networking) by a small sample of individuals.
b) People in my particular LinkedIn network who reside
in the U.S. have a median average of 199 connections,
while people residing in Canada have an average of 68
connections and people from a small sampling of other
countries have an average of 44 connections.
c) Men in my network are more likely to “connect” (i.e.,
network) with a larger number of connections in this
e-networking context than women in this network. Again,
my LinkedIn connections have a median average of 156
connections. For men in my network (57% of the sample),
that number is 176. For women in my network (43% of the
sample), that number is 128. This could be an indication
of a greater likelihood to network, a greater likelihood
to network via this medium, or both.
• Recommendations received and disclosed are useful for
reference/advancement purposes. Recommendations for
individuals on their LinkedIn profiles must be requested
from or voluntary provided by people to whom they are
connected to in LinkedIn. The following have been
identified regarding recommendations in the sample
LinkedIn group:
a) 53% of the people in my LinkedIn network have one or
more recommendations on their profile.
b) 70.58% of executives/administrators in this sample
have recommendations, while 53.49% of consultants and
43% of employees have one or more recommendations.
c) 58% of women in my network have one or more
recommendations, while men 54% of have one or more
recommendations – despite men having a higher average
number of connections - suggesting that both genders
recognize value in recommendations and that women
perhaps more intense use of smaller networks. In fact,
only 3 of the connections in my network have more than
13 recommendations; 2 of those 3 individuals are women
(47 and 26 recommendations respectively for the two
women, compared to 22 recommendations for the male).
• There is no significant correlation between the number
of connections held by people in my LinkedIn network and
the number of recommendations received. While all of the
individuals with 500+ connections have at least one
recommendation, there are individuals with as few as 17
connections who have at least one recommendation and
persons with as many as 380 connections who have no
recommendations.
• Individuals may hold any number of jobs over the
course of a career. Further, individuals list only the
job experience that they wish to list when they create
their LinkedIn profiles (i.e., LinkedIn is a networking
site for professionals; it may not be viewed as
necessary to list having worked at a restaurant job as a
college student or to list a job that’s not related to
one’s current career path). With that said, people in my
LinkedIn network who list 3 or fewer jobs on their
profile have a median average of 113 connections, while
people who list 6 or more jobs have an median average of
189 connections. People who change jobs frequently may
come into contact with a broader range of networking
contacts and/or feel a stronger need to keep in touch
with connections to network for future employment
opportunities.
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Burkhardt
Research Services
