Excellent summary of how CEOs consume information

1. CEO Information Consumption:
How Business Leaders Stay Informed
Information has been called the new gold, the new oil, even the new soil. But how exactly do
CEOs consume information? What are they searching for? What forms of media do they
prefer? What are their favorite websites? What media brands still matter? Do any of them still
read those giant, smudgy newspapers?
350 chief executives, bringing you the
latest research on where, how and on which devices business leaders are devouring news,
trends and other information to help them (and their companies) succeed.
increasingly digital. A 2011 Harvard Business Review study found that the average CEO spent
4.88 hours/week on email alone.1 In our survey, 88% of CEOs said they found themselves
online looking for business-related information at least once a day. They search for every-
thing from technology trends to virtual tradeshows, they read The Wall Street Journal (though
maybe not the same way they did 10 years ago) and they LOVE email newsletters.
3/4 of CEOs
under 50 say they
ABOUT THE
SURVEY
“mostly consume
We surveyed more than 350
chief executives with a wide
information online”
range of age, industry and
experience. About half of the
respondents were leaders of
(for over 50, it’s not quite 2/3) businesses earning less than
$10 million in annual revenue.
You can read more details at
Under 50 the end of the report or
Over 50 click here if you want to read
the long version now.
How do they want all this info served up? Read on to see what we discovered.

2. What Forms Of Media Do CEOs Prefer?
“You basically just want to press the ‘entertain me’
button and that’s what [podcasting] does…especially
when you’re on the go, you’re doing other things.” 2
-Noah Shanock, CEO of Stitcher
INFOGRAPHICS 18%
(skewed strongly younger)
PODCAST 2%
(skewed slightly toward
companies over $10M)
VIDEO 8% NO PREFERENCE 22%
CEOs across the board seem
70% say they watch
more video than to be becoming increasingly
they did a year ago “information agnostic.” They
care less and less about what
format their information
comes in, as long as it is
immediate and consumable.
70% also say they
seldom actually *read*
online, preferring to ee
gr
scan for main points isa
rD ee
re
e No gr ee
e sa gr
gre t Ag gr
ee t Di isa
ly
A ha rA ha ly
D
(skewed slightly older) ew ew
TEXT 57% Stro
ng
Som Neit
he
Som Stro
ng
but for a follow-up question (“when I consume information online, I prefer text”) only 14% had a strong
preference one way or the other. But while the preference for text over more interactive content may not
be as strong as it once was, when forced to choose just one format, the majority of CEOs still prefer it.
Which Devices Are CEOs Using?
-
tion. Mobile adoption has outpaced any communications innovation before it, and executives are
certainly riding the wave.

3. “What people do on their phones is
often a daily habit...I pulled the list
of what people do on their phones
in rank order of frequency. If you
89% use a laptop every day
ignore things done by carriers--
voice, text, and maps…the list looks
like: e-mail, check the weather, the 57% consume business info
news, share photos, get nancial on a smartphone every day
quotes, sports scores, and games.
We all have these daily habits." 3
35% spend as much time
-Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!
on a tablet as a laptop
What Information Are CEOs After?
Google and Forbes, in the 1500+ face-to-face interviews they conducted last year
for their “Rise of the Digital C-Suite” study, found that the majority of execs say
“I check Google News a
they conduct 10+ business-related Internet searches each day, or at least one
lot, and I have Google
each average working hour. 4 alerts set up for topics I’m
especially interested in…
For 4 out of 5 CEOs we surveyed (across age, experience and business size) I also read a variety of
“business news” was the content they accessed most frequently. websites and blogs, which
Google search.” 5
-Eric Schmidt,
former CEO of Google
Top 10 Business-Related Searches For CEOs
1 Business News
2 Market / Industry Trends For CEOs of companies over $10M, this is # 1
3 Business Insights / Expert Advice
4 Technology Trends For CEOs under 50, this is # 3
5 Marketing Trends
6 Competitor Analysis For CEOs with less than 5 years experience, this is # 4
7 Case Studies
8 Executive Lifestyles For CEOs over 50, this is # 6
9 Webinars / Virtual Tradeshows / Events
10 Speeches / Panel Discussions

4. Which News Sources Do CEOs Like Best?
Ten years ago, the gold standard (with nearly 20% of the vote on an open-ended question) was The
Wall Street Journal. Much to its credit, and despite a decade of paradigm-shifting media upheaval,
that preference now strongly favors the online over the print edition.
news source now and a decade ago—both the frequency of each response and how the Top Ten list
of popular sources has changed. Grey sources were on the list a decade ago, but not today. Black
sources made both lists. And blue sources are on the list today, but not ten years ago. The larger the
logo, the more popular the response.
Most Preferred CEO News Sources Then And Now... is the #1 choice
in Entertainment
Still on the List New to the List
News for CEOs
newspapers
Industry
Newsletters
TV
magazines
“On the iPad I have the Wall Street
“I don’t know about you, but I was the last
guy in the world who ever got rid of my and CNN. I'll read those every day." 7
physical newspaper, because I loved it.” 6
- , CEO of Tumi
-John Donahoe, CEO of eBay
TV, Newspapers and Magazines (which nearly a quarter of respondents said they relied on most a
retain strong attention shares while others (like AOL) have become irrelevant to CEOs.
Several of the new additions to the list are established outlets that maintain both print and online
editions: Forbes, Harvard Business Review and Financial Times. Other new additions (like Twitter and
Flipboard) largely represent an up-and-coming generation of CEOs and the new ways they interact
with information in general—social media in particular.

5. Do CEOs Find Value In Social Media? “I love Flipboard—I don't have
magazine subscriptions anymore
The Social Generation Gap because why would I?” 8
% of CEOs who consider these -Nancy Lublin,
social platforms “very valuable” to CEO of DoSomething.org
their businesses
Under 50
Over 50
“The main way I discover information is my
Twitter feed and my Facebook news feed. If
people were honest, I think they would give
more credit to Facebook and Twitter.” 9
-Jonah Peretti, CEO of Buzzfeed
While twice as many CEOs under 50
nd Facebook “very valuable” for
business information than they do
Google+, the smaller, newer network
actually outperforms Facebook by
30% among CEOs over 50.
When it comes to social media as a source of business information, there’s a strong generation
gap. More than twice as many CEOs under 50 categorized Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, blogs,
converged in their estimation of the usefulness of LinkedIn (with the younger crowd still 40%
higher) and Google+, which less than 15% of CEOs in either age category found valuable in their
businesses at all.
What Other Info Sources Do CEOs Find Valuable?
96%
Aside from news and social media, CEOs’ answers to our
questions about which general information sources they
found most useful in their businesses had some surprises
of CEOs say
for us as well.
CEOs Sing The Praises Of: email newsletters
1 Email Newsletters 58% say they’re happy to
pay for useful content
are valuable
2 Online Trade Pubs
in their work.
3 Industry Forums
“very valuable”)

6. What Are CEOs Doing To Create Information?
and well, it is clear that the up-and-coming generation of executives are not the only ones
getting used to obtaining information instantly and from an ever-expanding number of
sources. Their seasoned counterparts are also getting more tech-savvy and more familiar with
social media.
But these CEOs are not just passive consumers of information. Like most everyone in the digital
age, they create information as well.
Over The Past 6 Months... 60% participated in a
webcast or video
31% wrote
a blog post
16% were part 87% participated in a social network
of a podcast
In short, the way business leaders consume information is changing. Sheer volume increases
daily. Faster access and more transparency are the new normal. And mobile consumption and
social media are defnitely here to stay. But there are echoes of a world before the information age
a century remain the standards today—especially those that have managed to change with the
times. And as executives continue to adapt themselves to ever-changing media, markets and
consumer needs, it’s certain their information consumption habits will continue to evolve as well.
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7. About The Survey Sample...
We don't love relying on reports where we're kept in the dark about the data sample, so
here’s what you need to know about our respondents:
How many?
How old? Age distribution followed a classic bell curve with the mean at 50 years. Nine percent
How experienced?
From what kind of companies? Our respondents represented a
wide variety of industries. And while just under half of those
Under 50 surveyed were leaders of businesses with less than $10
Over 50
million in annual revenue, the rest were spread fairly evenly
across the other revenue tiers.
es om ale
rvic elec in
g
es tio
n
< 5 years Experience ng Se re /T ur ol ta
isi tion ial ca ch a ct h
es or
t c lth Te uf /W sp r
> 5 years Experience ver uca an a gh an tail rvic an he
Ad Ed Fin He Hi M Re Se Tr Ot
Under $10 million
$10-49 million
$50-99 million
$100-499 million
$500 million+
Notes:
1. “Rise of the Digital C-Suite” http://www.forbes.com/forbesinsights/digital_csuite/index.html
2. “This Week in Startups: Noah Shanock” http://thisweekin.com/startups/noah-shanok-founder-and-ceo-stitcher/
http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-
mayer-lays-out-her-vision-for-the-future-of-technology-and-yahoo-2013-1
4. “What Do CEOs Do?”
5. “What I Read: Eric Schmidt”
http://chiefexecutive.net/john-donahoes-transformational-adventure