Obama got elected for his open leadership style. No matter what your political leanings, people in marketing have to admire how he used social marketing and open leadership to get elected. Charlene Li Founder of Altimeter Group and her latest book called Open Leadership discusses Obama’s style of leadership, and a couple of companies’ style including Cisco, and Apple. Charlene also gives her perspective on leadership in China.

Charlene Li, Founder Altimeter Group, describes how important it is for leaders to have a sandbox covenant. She also describes the steps for an open environment with me. Her latest book, Open Leadership is a best seller in the first month of its release.

In her new book called Open Leadership, Charlene Li Founder of Altimeter Group discusses the importance and difficulty of being open as a leader. In this first of three podcasts, we delve into what it means to be an open leader. Can open leadership be learned, and will GEN Y change the way corporations are run because they are more transparent are some of the topics we tackle.

Charlene Li, founder of Altimeter Group and formerly the key social media analyst at Forrester Research, talks to Marketing Voices about the latest trends in social media and marketing. Charlene provided these insights:

1. Social media will be like “air.” It will be everywhere and used by everyone. No one will be afraid to use the tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter—sharing information will be second nature.

2. Every employee can be a marketer. From the manufacturing floor to the executive offices of large and small companies, everyone in the company will be using social marketing tools as a way to build brand and visibility.

3. Everyone can be a marketing channel for you. What’s most important is whether these bloggers have the right audiences and have captured the minds and hearts of others.

4. People are putting the technologies (for example, Twitter and Facebook) first—not the business objective. People must first determine what they want to accomplish rather than learn how to use these technologies.

She is writing a new book that will be published early 2010 that is called Open: How Leaders Win by Letting Go. In this book, she explains how leaders in today’s businesses need to understand the need for communication transparency, letting go and not be so controlling in order to succeed.

U.S. based bloggers including Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, and Charlene Li among many others joined an expedition sponsored by the Navy to view the USS Nimitz and its operations. On May 29-30th, these bloggers met many of the 5000 person Nimitz crew and were treated to tours of the ship and conversations with the officers and pilots. The goal of the Navy was to expose these bloggers to the real-life situations faced by many of the crew and to learn more about social media.

Blogger’s Embark photos from the USS Nimitz are available on Flickr.

On May 29th, 2009 a group of bloggers including Guy Kawasaki, Robert Scoble, and Charlene Li (in addition to me) will be flying via a navy plane to the USS Nimitz. The ship holds 5,000 people and will be out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The Bloggers and I will join the crew and captain for 20 hours of “ship bonding”. Why is the Navy doing this? I asked Dennis Hall, the group’s organizer and volunteer who nominates civilians to the Public Affairs Officers of the 7 military services. They are doing it to have the Navy get better “word of mouth” marketing among the world. Dennis also explains the entire trip to the Marketing Voices audience which will include a fast stop of the airplane as it lands and moves from 140 mph to 0 mph in just one second. Dennis says the people’s bodies on the plane will feel like a pufferfish.

To contact Dennis Hall, who is featured in this podcast, please go to AvereGroup.Wordpress.com or call: 916-541-1992

Groundswell guides companies to a winning perspective on social media and marketing. The co-authors Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff spoke with Marketing Voices about some of the companies they think are getting it right. (It’s worth hearing what they have to say about Ernst & Young, for example.).

Economists are hinting if not insisting that the U.S. is in a recession. Most often marketers are hit hard by a recession, as they and their budgets are the first to get cut. Forrester’s Josh Bernoff gives tips on how marketers should be thinking about social media now and what to do given this environment. Bernoff also talks about his upcoming book on social marketing and media: Groundswell that he is co-authoring with Forrester’s Charlene Li. He spoke with Jennifer Jones for this Marketing Voices podcast.