Recently I was asked by @sufranke how I would describe her position within the company. She was not very pleased by the titel “corporate communications” because she sensed (correctly) that there was more in her daily work then just doing communications.
I brought up the term “Chief Networking Officer” or “CNO”. At first blush, this just seamed perfect: I mean, you can say “social media manager”, but this would sound too much tekki I guess. And not everybody knows what “social media” really stands for (especially when you work in PR 
).
CNO sounds cool, ok. But what is it? And what does he/she? So I looked up some information about the CNO. Here’s what I found in wikipedia:
The chief networking officer (CNO) is a business networking position in a company or other organization. [...]
In the business networking context, a chief networking officer manages the social capital of a company. The CNO connects people and businesses within the company, with other companies, and with consumers. The CNO’s mission is to facilitate know-how transfer and information flow, fostering innovation, safeguarding diversity, and facilitating profit growth. Chief networking officers are responsible for creation and cultivation of new communities and acquisition of pre-existing communities. [...]
In summary, a CNO’s job requires a higher value and moral code strategic thinker who possesses unshakable credibility—a moved-by-challenges professional skillful at managing partnerships. This person must possess clear, objective communication skills so they can guide personnel development. This executive must be creative and participative in harmonizing different interests, expectations, and needs among networks. The position requires negotiation experience, knowledge of the company, and knowledge of the marketplace. Finally, understanding coaching methodology is useful for managing people. [...]
Source: wikipedia.org
This sounds exciting to me. So let’s dive into this topic and find out, how this works in reality.