Can you name some of them? - Chetan Bhawani

I'm guessing they do now! - Simon May

This does not surprise me at all. - Suki Fuller

Spread the twitter-awareness :) - Sasha Kovaliov

this does not surprise me. i have spent a lot of time in industrial companies and email is the most advanced tech that has traction. can't even get secure sharepoint sites to get traction with execs! - Jeff DiStanlo

welcome to the analogue world ;) - Sascha Pallenberg

Were you surprised? It amazes me how few people (in general) know about these....especially Twitter. - Vinny

I am not surprised. The day these and other such folks get onto social media, social media will be passe ;) - A. Prem Kumar

People don't know about Twitter?! What! - frank barry

Ya i suspect by end of 2009 it will have hit mainstream consciousness, but still obscure now. - Brian Carter

not surprised. even some of my friends in tech doesn't know twitter - AJ Batac :)

I just can't believe it. Do these people live under a rock? - Happy

It would have been a surprise if they had. Good job Robert is on hand to spread the word. - WoH: Minding her Botts

There was a seminar on social media and communications in Toronto last night and a few people had never heard of Twitter, either. Is it really surprising or are we just to immersed in it? - Bonnie Dean

It took me years to get around to wanting to use Twitter. I read about it regularly at Coding Horror (ex: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog...) for at least a year but I just didn't see the point. I finally registered because I wanted to reply to a friend's tweet. I think for a lot of people it's more of a reticence to join social networks than plain technophobia. - Daniel J. Pritchett

that says something doesnt it? - Richard Binhammer

This is not surprising. Recall that John McCain does not even use email. And I am sure most, if not all, of these "top" executives are part of McCain's generation. - Joe Lima

I haven't touched Qik/Seesmic/Kyte because I can't work out the difference. Not surprised most won't have heard of them or Twitter - Luke

Robert, send them an invoice for innovation consulting! ;-) - masa media - Martin

Make a list of top execs who do know about social media. - stefan hyttfors

Not Surprising, I'd consider myself fairly Tech savvy and although i've been registered for ages i only just started Tweeting. Although given the publicity it's had in the last few weeks i'm slightly surprised. - Jamie Vidamour

but i guess they know about Facebook ? well, i think twitter is more for more tech people - Junal Rahman

Do you think their assistants know about those technologies? My understanding of CEO responsibility is that they have to think on a super broad and strategic level. Many of those technologies are about integrating tiny pieces of information into something bigger. Since that's not really their job, I would think those services would be off the CEO's radar until they have an impact at that high level. Right? - David Wynn from fftogo

Our CMO @BestBuyCMO relayed a similar experience at a CMO dinner he was one or two of 10+ who knew about the tools and he certainly was the top user of them. - Ben Hedrington

It's not surprising, if you think about it, but it's still unfortunate. Top executives are hardly "the mainstream" and if they're not in tech or marketing, those types of communication are not foremost in their minds. I know one chief exec. of a Fortune 1000 company who still has his "important" emails (as determined by his assistant) printed out and put on his desk every day. - Robert Clockedile from twhirl

This does not surprise me in the least. Yes, awareness is growing but anyone who assumes that our social media world has "made it' to mainstream is unclear on the concept. - Cathy Brooks from twhirl

What a surprise!! Here in Brazil I've asked to my friends and coworkers and nobody knew about Twitter. Well, some of my friends don't even check e-mails account daily... - Flavio Knopp

it goes to show that twitter, kyte, friendfeed, etc... haven't really hit the mainstream yet... user adoption will always be a problem no matter what platform or software is out there. - Dejim Juang

Most of them can't even use email.... - Stuart Murray Walton

What is the point of Twitter, Kyte etc when hundreds of thousands of people are losing their jobs and we are in global economic crisis? Don't these top execs have bigger issues at hand? Are we drinking too much social media coolade in these times? - Andy Oliver

Dejim: I would not consider 30 executives not knowing about Twitter to equate to these services not being in the mainstream. It you ever worked with "top" executives, you'd be amazed by how much "mainstream" knowledge they really lack. - Joe Lima

That's not suprising. I still have to ask "Do you know what Twitter is?" - geekazine from twhirl

I'm doing a Social Media 101 seminar in a few weeks for entrepreneurs who haven't touched linkedin.com, facebook, or twitter. Seminar is full. We'll likely do 2 or 3 more. I'm not surprised at your group's ignorance. - Shelley Cadamy

I'm a publisher in medical technology market data and I continue to be stunned at how much behind the tech curve my audience of medtech companies is. Their rate of adoption of social media, like their adoption of new information technologies, lags at the same rate as physicians, who are traditionally slow to adopt any new technologies other than medical technologies. - Patrick Driscoll

Top *executives*? No surprise there, unless they're *tech* executives. Gates or Dell not knowing would be worrying, but should a boss at Exxon or Rolls-Royce (the aero engine company) know or care any more than we'd know or care about distillate refining or FADEC aero engine controllers? - James

I don't think we are drunk on social media when we say that in spite of the downturn and maybe because of it, we need to look at the enormous possibilities of social media at the very least as a brand loyalty mechanism(ie I am more apt to subscribe to products from companies/ people that I have a more intimate relationship with). - Phillip

The other issue with non tech executives not tuned in is their reluctance to accept ideas that don't have a direct and obvious connection to ROI. I have to admit (and I'm not blowing my horn) that during the pre-internet heydey, I felt like Tom Hanks in "Big" raising my hand to say, "I don't get it". Then, I couldn't understand why website traffic mattered more than revenue. - Patrick Driscoll

Recently, I spoke with a colleague of mine, a university professor of linguistics known as geek. I asked if someone is studying tweets' peculiar language and style from a scientific point of view. "Twitter?" he said, "Microblogging? never heard before". A geek, they say. Well... - PaperDoll

not surprised at all. You may try to ask if they know Firefox - ClubEddy - clubeddy.com

There's a whole tendency in social media toward rapidly accepting what's at the front edge of development, while at the back end, product managers, sales/marketing and other grunts are just struggling to hit their numbers. They don't live and breathe the latest info tool -- they live and breathe their own product. - Patrick Driscoll

OK, I'm hogging the airwaves, but one last point. When I look at new medical technologies emerging in the market, I have to bring in two very important perspectives: the opinion-leading early adopters (docs at universities or highly visible MD-consultants to industry) and the regular practicing physician working in the trenches of daily care. Social media evangelists would have me pay much more attention (I'm simplifying a bit) to the opinion-leaders. - Patrick Driscoll

I can understand that they don't know about Qik or Kyte, even I don't and I spend a lot of time on Twitter and FriendFeed... - Odi Kosmatos

You should get a hat! - Freida Wolden from twhirl

I don't think that social media is so important that everyone MUST take part in it. If I had more of a life (was a busy doctor or exec.), twitter and friendfeed would be the last thing that I would do in my spare time -especially twitter. - BEX

Carol Bartz doesn't use Flickr and she's Yahoo's CEO. Her daughter does use facebook to post photos though. - Thomas Hawk

Our organzation is doing well w/Facebook with more plans for expansion after receiving demographics that show a high number of professional level participants and 30 and up crowd. I always considered FB for kids. - R. Ferguson

I can belive Qik and Kyte. But Twitter. That is tough. Of course my CEO doesn't know what SEO is. - John Flynn

Robert, that does seem strange. But then I see smaller co's. and non-profits jumping into Twitter, FB,etc. faster. My theory is because start-ups and NP's are open to the pool of university student volunteer workers, interns, and beginners out there who are more saavy in this area. - Melanie Reed

Maybe it's the name...? Maybe they would prefer using something called The TwitCorp Group - Catherine Ventura

robert - did you talk to them about zoho, zocdoc, gomobo, freshbooks, etc ? - Allen Stern

not surprised. - anna sauce

They must not have any kids... or watch CNN <grin> Nice one, Catherine - love The TwitCorp Group - Cheryl Allin from twhirl

OMG there's a world OUTSIDE of Twitter and Soc Nets?! :P - Mona Nomura

cmon mona you should know by now that in the valley there are only a few products that can be talked about outside the valley by those inside the valley - scoble just doing his job :) ha! - Allen Stern

And to think, we just had an amazing tweetup in the Raleigh area last night of more than 200 tweeps. Triangle Tweetup was awesome. - Angela

Mona - LOL - say it ain't so!!!! - Susan Beebe

Yes, I agree with Freida, you should get a hat :) - Michael Forian

I - Alistair (alpinefolk)

Non-tech CEOs is not surprising. However, depending on the kind of executive not knowing at least 1 like Twitteer may be troubling. For example if they are media companies or telecom companies then that is a more troubling thought than say the executive for a manufacturing company. Ultimately the lack of knowledge is a reflection of the type of talent they recruit and how that impacts their corporate culture now and in the future. - Altan Khendup

Did those same guys also show ignorance about Facebook- then we will know that we live on different planets - google,facebook,twitter are all helping to re-shape the way we communicate with each other- rgds- hiro bachani- http://www.merlin-me.com -Merlin Magical Gadgets - hiro

Amazing how a generational gap can preclude users from a given technology. I bet none of their friends are on Twitter either - Jameel

Unsurprising to me. I think the only interesting item might be how a company without a revenue model continues to raise money! In *this* economy, that is a story. - AJ Kohn

The elementary school I work at has started to hear about Twitter. It is going mainstream very quickly. - MarkCarras

Their on FriendFeed now are they? - paul mooney

My fiancée has heard of Twitter and she does her damnedest to avoid all this high-fallutin' technology. - Chris Charabaruk

Not a good mood if you want to build up goodwill and awareness of your brand. I mean, unless you're McDonald's or something. - Mike Nayyar

very small % of top exective in japan knows twitter either. - Yasuyuki Goto

Do they need to know? Is twitter going to get them out of their problems? Maybe their marketing managers do know? - santiromero

Why would they know or care about Twitter, Qik or Kyte? What's the business case? - Francine Hardaway

did they know about facebook - for global mainstream business leaders that at least should be known? - mike "glemak" dunn

Using our difficult economic circumstances to dismiss the tools of Web 2.0, be it Twitter, Facebook, or something else is to embrace the status quo. And if you hadn't noticed, the status quo isn't working. Web 2.0 offers a unique opportunity to reach out to customers, be they current or would-be customers, and engage them in a way previously not possible. As for me, I work for a manufacturer and searched for “new...xxxxxx” using http:///search.twitter.com, with the new thing being our product. I found dozens of Twitter users talking about our product. Not over the past few weeks, but over in past few hours. These are people we can engage. They took time to type 140 character missives about the things we sell. The mental and physical energy spent in posting those 140 characters suggests they wish to be engaged. Those 140 characters were not wasted energy (unless we the manufacturer decide to ignore it), but energy to be directed to the common good of our business and the value received by that cust - Lee Allgood

did they know about computers? how about the internet? ebay? facebook? trying to quantify the time lag between reality and executives. - Dino

does that say something? twitter and all these things are not the most essential parts of businesses. these things are fun but there's lots of people i know who have no idea about twitter. people who invest so much time and effort in these things have to realise this. - Terry O'Fee

when things get really really tough these "social media experts" in the businesses will be the first to get the axe, sadly. - Terry O'Fee

the value of twitter? i know lots of successful businesses who would never even look at this kind of stuff. it's not as important as a lot of you people think. - Terry O'Fee

You people? Who you calling 'YOU people'. - Chris Saad

Thats the problem. You NEED to look at it before you understand its value, both for personal use and as a corporate tool. - JCunwired

you people = the people who think the world would end if twitter shut down tomorrow... - Terry O'Fee

This post is a complete and utter déjà vu for me. Robert, did this happen another time upon which you posted a very similar statement. For a second there, I thought FriendFeed glitched and reissued an old entry. Maybe I'm just tired. - Micah

seems that twitter will have 30 more users. - pala

Um. I work under people who thinks blogging is new and uncharted territory. I'm in marketing. - myron

nonsurprising.. some of my teammates don't know about twitter. none of them know about qik. and i never heard of kyte! - Ihar Mahaniok