Here at Swordplay, we’re devotees of WealthBriefing, run by the wealth industry veteran Stephen Harris. So it is with interest that we note the launch of a related venture – WealthConnect. Billed as “the only online networking community dedicated entirely to the world of wealth management”, the site went live this week and already has nearly 1,000 members. It has all the usual features you’d expect of a social networking site, plus a few potentially very powerful extras – such as the ability for members to post personal blogs on the site.
As regular readers will be aware, we’re strong believers in the value that Web 2.0 can deliver to professionals, as outlined in our new white paper – The Laity Bytes Back. So it’s no surprise that we think WealthConnect could be A Very Good Thing. While consumer social networking sites such as Facebook appear to be entering a phase of static grow, or even experiencing a downturn, business-focused sites such as LinkedIn are growing rapidly. Indeed, many analysts predict that industry-specific social networks are the next growth area, as outlined in this piece in the Wall Street Journal.
So what are the challenges for WealthConnect? Well, first is ensuring that the site is fresh enough to keep members coming back. WealthConnect will feature WealthBriefing news and features, so presumably a large proportion of WealthBriefing’s daily readers will simply use WealthConnect as a single portal – neatly solving that one.
But, crucially, is the wealth management world ready for a social networking site? How will practitioners in an industry well-known for its sense of discretion and reserve – or, perhaps more accurately, secretive nature – adjust to the open, democratic and collaborative nature of Web 2.0?
Only time will tell and we’ll be watching with interest. But if tangible benefits to members quickly become apparent and are clearly communicated, the WealthConnect team could be onto something very big indeed.
Image courtesy of Will Lion on Flickr.
Good article – thanks.
Yes ‘keeping the site fresh’ is what’s needed to keep them coming back. That’s the power of niche social networks like this.
IFA Life has offered an online network for Financial Planners and Wealth Managers for over 4 years now, with the new website having goine live in July this year. See http://www.ifalife.com.
Philip Calvert
Social Media Marketing Speaker
The headline says it all: ‘Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger takes pay cut‘.
Dan Sabbagh’s piece says a bit more: said editor ‘emailed staff at the newspaper to say that his salary in the upcoming 2012-13 financial year will be £395,010, compared with £438,900 in the current financial year’.
Some voices say: ‘How worthy.’
Others opine: ‘Well, he would, wouldn’t he?’
But we say: good work by Mr Rusbridger. For the sake of the media’s survival, we hope that others in senior positions in the industry will follow suit.
Image of toolkit allegedly deployed by Alan Rusbridger courtesy of Flickr user LollyKnit.
Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.
Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?
Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.
But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?
We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.
What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.
Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?
We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.
Is there a geek inside all of us?
Excellent Nike ad
Memo to would-be hacks: good writing is no longer a tool of your trade
Released almost a year ago, Spada’s groundbreaking research report, British Professions Today, is available for free download
This bank is so well designed that many of its staff never go home (allegedly)
In the latest of our series of white papers, Spada Research examines trends in environmental reporting.
After a raft of phone-hacking admissions and allegations, we are no longer seen as the gruff but dependable watchdog. Neville Thurlbeck, formerly of the News of the World (part of his Damascene conversion; to be continued).