Why Small Businesses Aren't Feeling Web 2.0 - Part Two
My second blog post over at Small Business Trends was published today and I was pleasantly surprised by the discussion it kicked up. It was based on a recent study by Bredin Business Information on how small and mid-size businesses have not adopted Web 2.0 in large numbers as of yet. I admit to being surprised to a certain extent by their results, as a good number of my business associates are into this stuff in a big way. But I can see many small business people, over the age of 40 with businesses outside of high tech and marketing, have been slow to adopt the Web 2.0 philosophy....and tools.
But as my buddy Paul Greenberg pointed out in his comment to that entry, the small business folks who have bought in to Web 2.0 are true mentors, demonstrating to the big guys as well as other small businesses how these tools along with the right mindset can be extremely successful. They are also benefiting tremendously. And although the survey says that only 14% of SMBs think blogging will be really important over the next 5 years, I'd be very surprised if that's the case. I don't know the ages of the people surveyed but I'd bet the average would have to be over 40. With the average age of first time entrepreneurs coming down, colleges teaching entrepreneurship and social media as part of their curriculum, and a whole new generation being raised with all this stuff, I think traditional small businesses will adapt, and adopt quicker. And once the big companies begin using these tools for what they were intended for, that should speed things along as well.
As a small treat for the readers of this blog, below is a clip of a conversation I had with the editorial director of Bredin Business Information, Stuart Feil. It's the first part of a two part conversation that will air this week on my radio show. It's about 9 minutes, but it's a quick 9 minutes....I think. Enjoy!
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