Dilbert Does Social Media!

Dilbert has always been a favorite comic of mine because it is based on truth and there is no better humor than truth, especially at work. According to Wikipedia; Scott Adams and Dilbert came to national prominence through the downsizing period in 1990s America. A former worker in various roles at big businesses, he became a full-time cartoonist in 1995. Adams writes in a satirical, often sarcastic way about the social and mental landscape of white-collar workers in modern corporations and other large enterprises.

Scott really nailed it on this one. According to Wikipedia; Social media employ web- and mobile-based technologies to support interactive dialogue and “introduce substantial and pervasive changes to communication between organizations, communities, and individuals.” The problem is that social media is not an art or a science but an interesting combination of both.

Done correctly, social media is the most powerful form of communication our industry will ever experience. Done incorrectly, social media is the biggest waste of bandwidth our industry will ever experience. It’s time we take social media seriously. It’s time for us to harness the power of the fabless semiconductor ecosystem and start communicating using the devices we have enabled.

Done correctly, social media enables original content and dialog from trusted sources who share experiences, observations, and opinions. Done incorrectly, social media enables content based on rumors, innuendos, and flat out lies from people who Google around and quote “anonymous” sources for a living.

Social media analytics is the science behind the art. If you are not measuring your social media activities you are not doing your social media job, simple as that. According to LinkedIn there are about 500,000 people in the semiconductor ecosystem so SemiWiki’s 380,000+ unique visitors is a significant number. Unfortunately 380,000+ people will not read every blog, wiki, forum post, or banner. Even if they did, what would that really prove?

Seriously, social media is a quality versus quantity measurement. Looking at how many people read your post is one data point, knowing who those people are is another, and seeing what action those people take is probably the most important. The ratio between the three is the measurement you really want and here is a simple example:

Free whitepaper on RF CMOS Design at 60 GHz
Hello,

At this year’s Design Automation Conference in San Francisco, Helic and TSMC co-organized a workshop on “CMOS Design at 60 GHz and Beyond: Capabilities and Challenges”, with speakers from Silicon Image, TSMC, Helic, KU Leuven, Integrand Software, and Presto Engineering. A white paper on the workshop can be found here:

http://www.helic.com/veloceraptorx/whitepaper_60GHz

Hope you enjoy.

This was posted in the SemiWiki AMS Design forum by Dr. Sotiris Bantas, CTO of Helic (I added the LinkedIn share button java code). So far more than 700 people have viewed this, more than 100 people have shared this, and more than 80 people have registered with their contact information and downloaded the white paper, simple as that, social media done correctly.

A white paper or webinar blog, the mainstay of SemiWiki, is a better example. One of the SemiWiki bloggers with 25+ years of experience in the semiconductor ecosystem will download the white paper or attend the webinar and blog it. If you read a 500 word summary and click over to download or view something that is what you would call a qualified click, the ultimate social media ROI measurement.

One thing I have noticed during my 28 year career in Silicon Valley is that today people don’t get out as much professionally. Seriously, it is very hard to get people out of their cubicles due to the increasingly fast pace of the semiconductor ecosystem. On the other hand people are much more connected through their mobile devices which makes digital and social media all the more important if done correctly so don’t forget to download the SemiWiki app for Android or Apple IOS.