The Trials of Today's CEO
By Ken Ross, ExpertCEO
(Continued)
As CEOs face these and other critical leadership issues of the day, their need for relevant advice and consultation extends far beyond what can be found within the four walls of their company headquarters. Often, CEOs turn to spouses, friends and other company managers for input but it is difficult for others to understand the broad range of responsibilities faced by top execs.
A New Solution
At ExpertCEO we're harnessing social-networking technology to solve one of the most vexing problems facing the CEO - how to manage and solve problems that confront CEO's every day. We have grown our community of CEOs to more than 600 members - all of whom face the same kinds of opportunities and challenges at work every day.
In the fall of 2007, when social networking membership was really accelerating, I began to think about how to apply this technology to the more abstract issues that CEOs face - in essence a social network for business. It would have the advantage of "the wisdom of the crowds", so that questions would be viewed by hundreds to thousands of peers and those with relevant knowledge would respond. The time commitment would be minimal and at the CEO's convenience since it was online and it would be inexpensive.
Since the ExpertCEO site launched in beta in April of 2008, we've had fantastic response. Membership has grown at a rapid rate and all our members are CEOs, COOs or GMs. The caliber of discussions has exceeded our expectations and there have already been a variety of success stories where ExpertCEO has helped members make critical business decisions. Discussions on our site range from strategic to operational to current events. Aside from the wisdom imparted by members, the site has a panel of experts from fields like venture capital, employment law and executive placement who can participate in discussions.
Early enterprise applications solved business problems for controllers, CFOs and Human Resource professionals. The next generation of software tackled solutions for manufacturing, customers, marketing executives and sales. ExpertCEO aims to help solve the problems of today's CEO by leveraging the insights of a unique community - and making it a little less lonely at the top.
Ken Ross is founder and CEO of ExpertCEO.
-
