Interesting Video Podcast

The first minute or so of bad sound and video almost made me quit, but stick with it, this is good stuff. The sound and video improve after just a bit. And, don't worry that it's long. Most of the the good stuff is at the beginning in Shel's part of the talk:

Office 2.0: Social Computing Video Podcast

Some initial insights from Shel Israel's research for SAP (which is not yet complete, and my comments are in parenthesis):

1. Where there is an internet connection available, social media is active (people, we are about community, whether we're spending our time in the real world or the electronic one). This is a worldwide phenomenon.

2. The most popular portion of social media is social networking. Other aspects, such as blogging and online video, seem to dwarf in the light of social networking's impact on its users.

3. Social networking and social media in general are enterprise-applicable. (This isn't a push by vendors, but a pull by users. Those companies who learn how to leverage social media will have a competitive advantage in many different areas - teamwork, retaining talent, customer relationships, etc.).

The WSJ published a great article today on IBM's international development teams, and how social media is helping improve their productivity and collaboration.

IBM, along with certain other vendors like VMware are becoming known for their innovation and forward thinking in this space. It's not only benefiting them internally, but externally. If you are in the enterprise space, it's time to move NOW.

Note: Soon, I'm going to have to blog about all the innovative initiatives IBM has in place to retain people and increase productivity. It's pretty impressive, and they are getting regular media attention for it. Smarties!

New fun for gamers!

Check out www.duels.com - a new online game and social networking site that launched yesterday.

Since launch it's had amazing traffic and fantastic growth primarily via word of mouth (players inviting others) Goes to show you, it doesn't take much to get traffic when you're offering a quality, engaging online experience.

Don't miss the cool outfits for your character (gauntlets and tiny speedos!).

Several people we know (and one of the mavens) were involved heavily in this project. Congratulations to you all!

Read the TechCrunch article here.

"Never ending" hype about Web 2.0

MySpace and Isobar & Carat recently commissioned a report about social networking that focuses on MySpace. Though offering nothing ground-breaking, it's a quick read and basically reinforces what you already know. It also has some nice charts and stats to add credibility to our trusted paradigm, that is, people are really into this social networking thing. All kinds of people are into it, of all ages, and the interest is building, not waning. And they are really, really into it. A lot. When you study the stats, it can get a little overwhelming.

We also know that marketers have caught on. Now we (the marketers) just have to keep focusing on how to exploit this new medium and the people that spend so much time there. We will have our evil way with them. Oh yes, we will.

I will say that I found some of the interviewee quotes a little disturbing. Here are two:

“I can’t come home from school and not want to go on MySpace.
I wake up in the morning, brush my teeth, and go on MySpace.
I have to in the morning. My mom gets so mad. I have to check on
MySpace in the morning because maybe at 3:00 in the morning
someone wrote me a comment. I just have to do it. It’s addictive.”
— Britney, 17, Los Angeles

“It just hooks you in there and you’ll just sit there and you’ll look at
people’s profi les or you’ll just randomly browse what’s going on, and
you just can’t stop. And you’re looking at the watch and you thought
you’d just sit down for a minute and you ended up sitting for an
hour, like what the hell am I doing?”
— Paul, 25, Chicago

I'm not really sure why I find them disturbing, I'm all about connecting and connecting online is the bomb. But some of the comments seemed to broach on internet addiction. Good stuff for marketers. Weird stuff for our society.

Facebook vs. MySpace

The preps vs. the outcasts?

Evidently kids know this already - but Facebook is for good kids and the party people all hang out on MySpace. Who knew? Turns out marketers knew. Those smarty pants!

http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html

Keeping it together... when you're not

The WSJ had a great article about working together in virtual teams - since you have to be a subscriber to read the whole article - I'll give you the highlights along with my compelling commentary!:

1. invest in an online resource where members can learn about each other - can anyone say... Social Media!
2. choose a few team members who already know each other - this makes a lot of sense, but they do say that if you have too many people that know each other - then there is a tendency for the group to become stale and predictable. You need fresh people and ideas to keep interest and energy up.
3. identify boundary spanners (people who have and make a lot of connections) and make sure they make up at least 15% of the team - these people serve as social glue,and are seen as SO valuable that they make it into #4 as well
4. cultivate boundary spanners as a matter of practice within your organization - having these people throughout the company helps ensure that more people will meet and collaborate
5. break the team's work up into modules so that progress in one location isn't overly dependent on progress in another - some members will be out sick, some will be more productive than others, and some tasks just plain take longer. If you can plan activities so many things can be done in parallel, it helps ensure no one is sitting around waiting for other groups to catch up. In short, everyone can be productive all the time.
6. create an online site where a team can collaborate, exchange ideas, and inspire one another - this is an offshoot of item #1. We live our lives online. Give us a way to collaborate!
7. encourage frequent communication, but don't try to force social gatherings - social gatherings early on - bad - get to work first. Social gatherings later on are good - when you already have a working relationship.
8. assign only tasks that are challenging and interesting - well sure - that would make everyone's job a lot better - but I don't think this one is actually do-able in practice. Some things just have to get done - and they might have to get done by a virtual team - and they might not be very interesting.
9. ensure the task is meaningful to the team and the company I'd argue that if the company doesn't care - why do it? But meaningful to the team? Again, you might be asking too much. Some things you don't care that much about just have to get done. I really don't care much about my lawn being mowed, but it's got to be done. So I make sure it gets done. Same with going to the dentist 2x a year. Some things are just necessary, yet not very interesting.
10. solicit volunteers as much as possible. This is a great way to make sure people want to be involved. This is the root of the open source movement - as well as Wikipedia and other online collaborative projects. If people are inspired, they will get involved, stay involved, and give it their all.

Most of the best practices here aren't that different from basic working best practices: meaningful work, frequent interaction, and a place to collaborate.

A lot of what I've read says that teams that share the same values do better together - and teams that get together often are more productive - but I think it's more about being on the same page. If you want to be there, you're working on something you want to work on, you touch base on a regular basis - and you have the tools to do so effectively - I think any team can be pretty successful. I am noticing - and taking note - of some sorts of conversations that should be had in person. I'm going to keep a running list of those and publish them in a few weeks.

Giving to the community....

In the tag cloud of my thoughts, online community and giving to the community have recently had very bold, very large fonts. (Ok that reference just goes to show you... I am SOOO geeky).

As a result, I found this article very engaging: Consider the Small Things. The author, writing for the online marketing trade site ClickZ, has some really great ideas.

Basically, he goes one step further than the ideas I put forth in this work of my MBA academic prowess, completed in December of 06: The Case for Social Media. In my paper, I suggest that marketers get involved in the online experience, make wiki entries, play Second Life (don't just slap advertisements there), post to blogs, things like that. They should do all this with their brand in mind - not overtly selling, but just keeping in mind that they are representing the brand. They can do this in tandem with overtly sponsoring some online activities/sites/etc.

Chad thinks that we can one up that - by really giving to the communities - not just our two cents - but GIFTS.

Some of the most active blogs and forums relevant to your brand and products may be run as a hobby by a single or group of passionate consumers....

While these sites may accommodate advertising, consider something different, such as sponsoring a user prize-giveaway contest. How about asking site operators what features they would like added, then provide those services to keep the site humming along. A rounding issue for your marketing budget could go a long way for an online community.

Go read the article, it's short, you can do it. This is good stuff - and you can really take his ideas and run with them. Run! Go! and let me know how it goes!

PS: Lots of corporations make a big deal out of sponsoring community (real space community) causes and events. If you can sponsor a community event around your brand... well... isn't that just all the more effective?

Hi, I'm Bob and this is my best friend Nike Air

JupiterResearch just released a new report, "Social Networking Sites: Defining Advertising Opportunities in a Competitive Landscape." For those who have been paying attention over the last few years, nothing in it is a big surprise. However, the report does give quantitative credibility to those initiatives we (who do not live under rocks) have known to be true for some time.

The summary: if social networking is a party, it's about to be sponsored by marketing tools everywhere. They can smell money, and they are on it.

The old marketing idea of "making the brand your customer's friend," well, it just goes one step further in the social networking space... the brand can actually BE your friend. Just add Coke or Pepsi as your literal MySpace friend and there you go. You're in with the in crowd.

In addition to documenting the viability of this new venue, Jupiter found that, "30 percent of frequent social networkers trust their peers' opinions when making a major purchase decision, but only 10 percent trust an advertisement," something an Austin startup, BazaarVoice - also quantified about a year ago.

Nothing here is groundbreaking, but it does mean that social networking and the Web 2.0 way of thinking is gaining some real credibility. You can now officially sell it to your boss and budget-doler-outers.

Now, what I really look forward to is some really innovative campaigns/implementations.... come on... impress me!

Web 2.0, not just for techies anymore

I'm currently working on a marketing plan for a construction industry professional organization. The group is well known and respected, but they want to expand a bit, and freshen up their value proposition. All pretty standard stuff.

Going into this, I have to say, I had some preconceived notions. I thought these construction company owners were going to be "good 'ol boys" who barely used computers and made comments like "Oh the Internet, yah, my son showed it to me one time on his computer."

Boy was I wrong. The construction industry is very online, and very technically sophisticated. It's international 24x7 business with a Blackberry and a laptop on all the time.

The managers I'm working with live their lives online, as much as any technology workers I know. In fact, one of the members just said to me, "We need to do a survey of the blogs and forums on this topic... really get some insight on current perceptions and what’s valued. You know, that's the best way to find out what people really think, just see what they are blogging about...the language in these is more first hand and unfiltered compared with other published information."

I'm delighted to say, I stand corrected. This should be a very interesting project.

[A word before we get to today's topic. We contributors have agreed to post once a week, and that will be about all I'll be able to manage for awhile. I come home from work with all sorts of ideas stirring around in my head, but I'm also brain-dead and dead tired, so writing is going to happen after I've had a day to recover. I start with this caveat in case there are any expectations of immediacy. With that said, we're becoming very web 2.0 at work, and there's a lot to say because we are currently undergoing a complete overhaul.]

I have a few soapboxes at work; I stand on them a lot as we go through the process of redesigning our web site. One of them is that we need to support our technical community in two ways:

1. providing them with information about our systems so they know:
• how to implement them in their specialized environments (creating capability)
  
• what processes we follow for making decisions or changes (creating trust)
  
2. enabling them to share their extensive information with each other and with us (creating community)

Historically, we have very little information available for them. We are a black box. There's some information out there, but someone typically has to direct you to it. There's no findability, and there's no link to what is available from our product pages.

What's interesting is that I get a lot of support for the idea of providing better findability for the information that will create capability. Some aren't sure of the idea of creating community. I think this has two causes. We do have a few in our customer base who like nothing better to take potshots. They lie in wait for the opportunity to arise. The other cause is a fear, I believe, that people will not participate. I'm not too worried--we have good participation on our mailing lists, and I think we can translate that to forums and community generated content.

Where I run into resistance (fear) is creating trust by opening up the black box. We run centralized IT services (network, phone, security, etc.) that others can and often must use. They can also run some of their own services. We have a lot of power, and we can make things difficult for people, oftentimes inadvertently (these usually end up being labeled "communication problems," but that's another post). That makes people upset and more likely to take potshots.

So, we open it up. Listening to our folks complain about the complaints they get and talking to customers tells me that this is what we need to do. As we enter the content phase of the web site redesign project, we will integrate that at several levels of the site--mission level, SLAs, policies, product/service descriptions, and more. Exposing information creates trust.

I Knew Someone Was On It

IBM Introduces Social Networking Suite for the Enterprise

(rubs hands together) Now... to convince them to hire the web2.0maven...

Admitting You Are Wrong - It Works!

Jonathan Schwartz never ceases to amaze me in his blog. He's approachable, likable, and puts a face on Sun that makes me want to buy their stuff (a comment many ppl make in the blog on a regular basis). In the same way Jobs's little kid excitement makes you want to go buy the new Apple gadget in a rush of childish enthusiasm, Jonathan makes you feel like dealing with Sun will be an amicable, "friends sitting over coffee at the local coffee shop" deal. He's looking out for you, and he's going to explain Sun's decisions in customer-centric terms. He gives blogging a lot of credit in Sun's turnaround, but it's not just the blogging that does it. Lots of big companies have exec bloggers. Yup you know what I'm saying. Enough said.

So this post: http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/good_bad_and_brave is an excellent example of a CEO stepping off the podium and engaging the blogosphere. What does he say in this post? Well.... from the post:

"And before you send me the email, yes, I saw the entry written by Matt Mullenweg - and all I can say is... I'm really sorry, Matt. That's not the way Startup Essentials is supposed to work. We screwed up, and you're completely right to suggest if that's the norm, we should kiss goodbye our aspirations of reestablishing our business in the startup community.
If there's anything I can do to win a second chance, I'd like to know. I appreciate your first sentence. "

Sun has a campaign to engage startups and basically, they treated this gentleman VERY poorly. He blogged about it, and Schwartz addressed it in his blog, apoplogized, and one will assume, made it right. One would also assume, whoever dropped the ball in the program will also be fixing their ball dropping issues. Boy I know I'd be shaking in my boots if the CEO had to take one on the chin bc I did a potential customer wrong.

The repliers to this post LOVE what Jonathan said. LOVE it. While they still hold Sun responsible for taking care of their customers, Sun gets a lot of credit for stepping up to the plate and admitting a mistake. The attitude is: "no harm, no foul, just fix it and you're fine." Honesty and trust go a LONG way in any relationship, even business relationships. Yah, I know, hard to believe, but yet... true.

Here's a few comments:

"This blog amazed me enough to want to reply, to communicate, and that's the first step in making me a customer. "

"Thanks for listening to the blogosphere, and thank you for taking time to respond. So many other business leaders could do more of that...."

"A CEO who blogs is rare. A CEO who publicly admits a mistake is priceless."

The rest of the replies are chock full of advice and insight. Some of it very usable for marketing departments, some it not. But all of it showing engaged customers and potential customers.

And that is priceless.

Quotable...and Readable...

"Marketing has really taken a backwards step. We’re still doing marketing the way we were doing it 50 years ago, and everything else has moved forward…. We’re still spending a lot of money broadcasting and creating a brand, but brand today is created by what you’re associated with…. I think marketing is remiss, in that it’s still relying on the old ways, and not experimenting with the new."

Marketing Guru Regis McKenna – in an Interview with PodTech.net

Translation: It's not effective for marketeers to "throw money at the problem" - we're going to have to use our noodles and come up with a way to get in with the in crowd...

Action: Well? You tell me. Here's what I pitched to work:

Technology Marketing 2.0: The Case for a Social Media Strategy

online collaboration--the cure for everything?

You may or may not know this, but I'm spending my weekends going to business school. We just started our new semester, and my study group did a presentation yesterday entitled: "Improving Environmental Sensing and Interpretation in Your Organization." Basically, it all boils down to: everything in the biz world is moving fast. Lots of information is being exchanged. So, how do you, in a dynamic, dispersed, and often frantic organization - ensure that the right people in your organization have access to the information they need in order to interpret and react to information/changes/etc. in the business environment?

So we talked about who's responsible for gathering the info (everyone really). And they we talked about how to build a culture (through example and reward) so that everyone did feel responsible. Then, we talked about how to disseminate the info. This is where the issue gets problematic. Say you work for a large organization, and you're at a tradeshow cocktail hour and hear some juicy competitive info regarding another team's product. Would you know what to do with it? Would you just disregard it because, well, that's another team? If you did try to pass it on, would that team welcome your input? Would you even know who to tell?

What a perfect place for social media. I can easily imagine my own company's internal "phone book" becoming more like MySpace. Instead of just the generic page with my phone number and address, each employee would have a "profile." I'd list in there all my vitals: contact info, job responsibilities, etc. But the page would also show current projects, teams and interests. What a fantastic way to encourage knowledgeshare and collaboration across large companies. If you wanted to know who's working on that Dept of Defense project up in DC, a quick search would lead you right to them.

Of course, I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this. I'm certain companies and vendors are already all over the idea... or are they?