Workplace Slideshow:
IT Unleashed: How Your Workers Influence Consumer Opinion

In some major enterprises, CIOs are working closely with their Chief Marketing Officers to make the most of their respective skill sets. But many may overlook an essential company asset to help them with this need: their own IT employees, according to Josh Bernoff and Ted Schadler, senior executives at Forrester Research. Bernoff and Schadler are authors of the new book, Empowered: Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business (Harvard Business Review Press/Available Sept. 14). It's your IT employees, after all, who are most connected via mobile devices and social-network sites. They're the ones who know what works and what doesn't with respect to pleasing the very critical "influencers" out there – consumers who shape mass impressions of an organization's reputation. Learn how they can help your organization to influence the influencers.