Posts from — September 2008

Microblogging can be very important communications tool, but as many people have said in numerous conversations I’ve had online (not using Twitter or it’s ilk) those services are worthless. I was one of those people when Twitter first emerged, and I thought it was the dumbest thing that had ever happened, that was until I “got it”.

The value of microblogging (like any form of social media) is in how you use it and the value you create with it. Microblogging comes in many flavors and each one has featers that make it unique. If you are looking for something that gives you the ability to create rooms go look at Utterli. If you are more into video check out Twitter.

Communicating in this manner is great for friends and it’s a nice and easy way to share links and other media with anyone who is “following” you. But how can it be used for business? You can promote your blog, do customer service, or even use it to get information on a certain subject. That’s just the beginning.

There are a ton of microblogging services that are popping up to fill the niche of enterprise level microblogging, for a list of possible candidates you can see my list of both enterprise and consumer services here and Jeremiah Owyang’s list of strictly enterprise services here. Here are 5 ways implementing a microblogging platform can help your companies productivity.

Communication – Need to get a message out to your whole group all at once? If you’re whole office is on a service like this you can broadcast out a message and instantly have dialogue with the people in your company.

Sharing – The nature of this microbeast allows you to quickly share information with a whole group of people, and discuss what you’re sharing. This is great for research teams or people collaborating on a project.

Collaboration – Depending on which type of implementation you go with you can keep everyone connected, including remote agents. Most services just require an internet connection and then you your agents in Japan, Turkey, Europe, Canada, and the US can all communicate, collaborate, and share information at the same time.

Problem Solving – Run into a snag on your latest project? Using one of these services you can instantly have the whole company working on the same page to help bring about a creative solution quicker.

Accountability – Most services keep records of the conversations for later review or to keep track of how a certain thought, solution, or product evolved.

Email is static, it’s slow, and if multiple people reply all at once it can get confusing really quickly. Microblogging is dynamic and keeps everyone on the same page (literally and figuratively). As the needs for communication change within a business utilities like these will get more and more prevalent, and there will be a need to consolidate some platforms, luckily there are some enterprising individuals out there already making great strides in consolidating many services under one roof. I’ve tried several different ones but my favorite by far has been Twhirl. This wonderful piece of software makes it possible for you to use an enterprise implementation of Laconi.ca along with your other microblogging favorites like Seesmic, Identi.ca, Twitter, and FriendFeed.

Microblogging can add productivity to business, and tools like Twhirl can add productivity to microblogging. With a setup like that why wouldn’t you want to implement a tool like this?

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Every company has to deal with people who all they seem to do is complain. If you are a company who is using social media as a communication device (and if you aren’t what’s you’re excuse?), you have probably come across someone who is louder than everyone else and that can be a problem. Jeremiah Owyang has talked about using the bozo feature to silence that person, but it’s only available on certain platforms. So what if it’s on a more mainstream social network, and how do you decide if they are a bozo or if it’s just an uncharacteristically loud outburst from that person?

Thankfully, now, there’s a tool that has the potential to help you find out more about that person. Today Mashable has an article about a tool called DramaLevel that can help you find out more about that person and if they are just someone who likes to cause a stir everywhere they go. This won’t work in all situations and may take some time for it be truly useful but there is some good potential here, especially if you use MySpace, FaceBook, Imvu, and other types of social networks in your marketing, pr, or branding efforts.

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Today I embarked upon a mission, and that mission was to get 10 of my fellow co-workers to sign up for Yammer and then for us to give it a try. See how it held up under the smashing use of it under a corporate environment. I have a lot of bad to say, but I also have some good to say, and since everyone loves hearing what’s wrong with something lets jump right in and start there.

What’s wrong with Yammer:

• Right now there is no ability to send personal messages. This creates several problems and the first one is that in order to send a work group sensitive message to someone I had to switch windows and utilize my boring old email. If you force people to stop using your utility and switch to an old standby soon they will just go back to the old standby.
• No groups… what business (other than the 4-10 person startup that is) doesn’t have different work groups? Not having this feature is a quick way to alienate your larger business customers who have a need for both a public stream and a by group stream so they can monitor / be included in both. The larger a business gets the more segmented it gets and the harder it gets to carry on a conversation. It only took a minute to make a group in IM with the 6 people I wanted a discussion with (there’s that old standby again).
• It’s noisy. With everyone posting up where they are going to lunch, asking for lunch orders, talking about their weekend, etc it gets really noisy really quickly and the public stream gets polluted with fluff. The only way to prevent that is to say it’s for work related notices only and that takes all the fun out of a utility like this. Even if you are following all the people you “need” to it can still get hard to have a conversation. I found it easier to just switch to IM when I wanted a conversation with one person (once again, forced me to switch to an old standby).
• The monthly charge is a big downer for a large company. $1 a month per user is a killer in a large company. Can you imagine Jet Blue, Comcast, or Cisco (if they got all 66,129 employees) using it? Their monthly bill would be astronomical! Not to mention how polluted that one public stream would be, it would be useless! Why would someone pay for this when they can just install a Laconi.ca instance? Where is the feature that truly sets it apart? In my mind running it on the web vs installing an instance of something else is not truly a major benefit.
• Basically the larger your company is (which is where Yammer could be raking in some real dough) the more irrelevant Yammer becomes. It becomes less and less an indispensable tool and more a frivolous toy.

What’s right with yammer:

• It’s easy to sign up for, easy to use, and if you purchase the admin rights then it’s got even more functionality that has the possibility of becoming a very useful communication tool.
• For a small business who doesn’t have a ton of people (like a small start-up, or small group of free-lance developers) it’s fantastic! It keeps everyone connected and everyone communicating even if they are out in the field somewhere. All you need is an internet connection and you are connected with your co-workers.
• Nothing to install. If you are not technically savvy and don’t want to pay someone to install a local client then you  don’t have to. But wait, didn’t I say that WASN’T a benefit? Yeah I did, but I also put it into a relevant parameter here.
• So long as you’re a small company it’s cheap to enjoy the full use of it.
• It’s fun to use and while it has some very large drawbacks it makes communicating amongst your company (especially in a mass form) easier and more interactive.
• Increases employee engagement with the company. Can you imagine if your CEO actively used something like this to check the pulse of the company than sending out a poorly worded survey once a year.
• Has desktop, Blackberry, and iPhone apps available.

Currently I wouldn’t use Yammer in anything above a small business or start-up. The cost and confusion alone would deter most large companies. If they added direct messages (which I have confirmation they are working on, so good for them) and groups then I would say that it is pretty much the perfect communication for almost any company.

The last hurdle for most large companies would still be the cost. Can you seriously imagine Cisco paying $66,129 a month for this tool? That’s $793,548 a year! Almost a million a year for a private Twitter, that’s just not feasible for almost any company, so if they want to attract some larger companies they would need to create some more attractive pricing plans.

If you are a small company then I say do it! If you are a large company then I would advise you to just install your own client. But then maybe that’s what they are going for anyways. An economical, easy to use microblogging utility for the small guy. What’s your take? What are the pro’s and the con’s to Yammer in your mind?

Related services

Professional:

• Edmondo – Microblogging for education environments

• Identi.ca

• I Did Work

• Joint Contact

• Laconi.ca

• Mixin

• Present.ly

• Prologue

• Social Cast

Recreational:

• Fidj.it

• FriendFeed

• Jaiku

• Plurk

• Pownce

• Seesmic – Video equivalent of Twitter

• Twitter

• Utterli (formerly utterz)

Did I miss any?

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This is a re-post of an “old” blog from the blog of the start up I co-own. I just thought that it should go here too and it works as a nice way to get people who read this blog to get them over to this blog. So go ahead and fall for my ruse and clickity click here.

Right now I’m sitting at my computer working on stuff for RoyalAnts. My laptop is in my living room facing towards the TV which is playing KungFu Hustle (which is on Spike at the moment) and I have my receiver switched to AUX where I have my media server (which is hooked up to my TV and surround sound) playing my mp3’s on random. I’m sitting here and I can’t help but be amazed at the technology that surrounds us on a daily basis and we just completely take it for granted because we are just used to it.

When I was a kid I couldn’t fathom a computer as small as my laptop, I would never have thought of using my computer on my TV and watching movies by playing a file instead of using some physical media was just plain preposterous. That’s not to say that I didn’t do this type of thing when I was a kid, I just went about it differently. I used to turn on my parents record player (then later the cassette and after that the cd player) then turn off the sound to the TV and watch tv shows, commercials, infomercials, movies and anything else with my very own soundtrack. That’s how I used to play my Atari, original NES, and later computer games as well. I have long used this means of visual
audio combination as a tool to help me create. It gives me something to look at that isn’t what ever I’ve been obsessing over for the last several hours yet doesn’t completely distract me, and I always look forward to those neat little moments where what’s on TV matched up so well with the song I was listening to at the time.

But what does this have to do with RoyalAnts? What does this have to do with you and
me and the rest of the world? What does this have to do with Social Media? Well it’s the same age old answer that grandparents and philosophers alike love to throw about, and that answer is everything
and nothing. On the superficial level it means nothing. It’s just me talking about under what conditions I like to create. There’s nothing wrong with that, other bloggers do it all the time. But lets look at the first part of that answer, the everything part.

I shared a story about how I have been doing the exact same thing that I have done since i was a kid and as new technology came about I just adapted and found newer, easier, and more interactive ways of doing it. This to me is a metaphor for social networking. When we were kids and all the way on up through young adults we had a mandatory way of networking in the form of schools. Meeting people with similar interests, learning from them, exchanging ideas, stories, and media (through cassettes, dvds, books, etc).

College was a bit less in the area of entertainment and a bit more in the area of professional interests but we still did the same thing. We sought out people of like interests and shared media (content) with them (who then became our friends) and they exposed us to new stuff and new people and on and on the cycle went.

I guess when you boil it all down what I’m trying to say is that social networking (even social media) isn’t anything new at all, it’s just the next step in how humans connect. For the skeptics out there who say it’s a fad, for the businesses who don’t want to see the value in it, and for those who are stubbornly refusing to “jump on the band wagon” I say quit dragging your heels. This isn’t something new, it’s just a new way of doing the same thing we’ve been doing since we climbed out of the primordial ooze and started making guttural noises at each other. We’re finding new ways of connecting.

Josh “Shua” Peters

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It’s been about… 6 years since I was in school and I have to say that school supplies have come a long way. They are damn near breath taking with all of their colors and pockets and sound effects. Recently I went to my local Smith’s Marketplace and while on my search for a can opener I came across a 5 subject notebook and I was immediately taken aback. When I was a young whipper snapped we only had the 2 subject, maybe 3 subject notebook if you were lucky and it never had heavy duty pockets like this majestic example of modern ingenuity. This little beauty has increased my productivity by 10 fold easily!

• Subject 1 Goes to all the content I am working on for an upcoming project.
• Subject 2 This section is dedicated to blog post Ideas and the musings I have regarding them.
• Subject 3 Here one could find my outlines for social media media walkthroughs and strategy tips (coming soon to this here blog).
• Subject 4 SMP is what’s written on this tab, and it’s where I keep all the ideas, plans, and moments of unexpected brainstorming regarding Social Media Plans I am working on for various companies.
• Subject 5 Miscellaneous. I like to write short stories with tragic endings and since I am an avid consumer of comic books I often write ideas about my own comic in there and anything else that just hits me.

This has helped me keep myself more organized, gives me access to what I had in various other notebooks nicely consolidated in one massive tome, and it’s what works for me. Since I am never without my Urban Defiance shoulder bag (a failed business venture of mine), and don’t have my HTC Dream yet ( I am so excited for it I might wet myself just thinking about it) this is how I currently roll. I’ve always been a fan of handwirting ideas, and while his may not wokr for most of you this is how I have made my life a little simpler, a little more organized, and increased my creativity (I never know when a train of thought will be derailed and I need to switch topics, having it all right there is a boon!). Enough about me, what are your favorite productivity increasing tools?

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Just like the new chemically fueled commercial states, that good ol’ Hu (as they refer to it on quick little graphic during the beautifully shot marketing stomp) is the main element to social media. It’s why it’ exists, it’s why it continues to grow and it’s without a doubt the most vital part of any social media plan. So here are 5 C’s that will help nurture the Hu of any endeavor.

1. Create – Don’t write your replies (or anything else that your customers are going to interact with on a constant basis) like you are writing a text book. People deal with automatic systems that dispense generic info on a daily basis, don’t add to the mess by creating something that would belong in an IVR when you are trying to connect with someone.

2. Connect – This is so important and is truly why social media exists, to help us connect with each other. However, it’s not just the social aspect that you need to connect on. When it comes to business you need to connect on the same level as your customers. For example, don’t sit and preach about the virtues of your product when they come looking for tech support, meet them at their level. Don’t run out there and PK them with your over abundance of information.

3. Communicate – Don’t speak above or below the level of your customers. People will leave your conversation if it’s too confusing or if they are angry because you are talking down to them. Find the voice of your company based on the audience you are connecting with.

4. Care – When people bring up concerns, worries, ideas, etc don’t just brush them off. Create a way for people to give you feedback and a plan to address that feedback and show your customers you care about them and their opinions.

5. Cultivate – Once you have a relationship with a group of people or even just a single person you need to cultivate that relationship through dynamic conversation, follow up, and interaction. If you make a friend and stop calling them they soon think you don’t care because you won’t communicate with them and they stop being your friend, real world concepts apply greatly to many aspects of social media.

These should all make sense to you, but if they don’t then spend some time on MySpace or FaceBook and try reaching out to someone you don’t know and make that connection. See how they react when you talk to them and experience making that organic connection based on mutual likes (or dislikes) and see how people respond to genuine honest answers.

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When implementing a social media strategy you can’t think of it as just a way to get people to notice you or your company. You need to think of it as some kind of genetic mutation of marketing, PR, W.O.M., branding, customer service, product development, feedback, networking, customer engagement, etc. Basically any anything else you can imagine thrown in there as well. Social media is not a term for something specific and concrete, it’s a way to define the tools used to proactively communicate with your customers, fans, investors, partners, friends, or anyone else who wishes to engage in a conversation with you or your brand.

When making a social media plan it’s absolutely imperative to your mission that you recognize how all the various departments within your company come together within your social media plan. Making your plan for just one single department is a sure fire way to ensure that your conversation level will be dismal at best, because weather you want it to happen or not people are not going to see what you are doing as just marketing, or just a bit of PR, they will think that you are trying to make contact.

So what’s next? Following up and being proactive about your plan. When you set up your listening tools make sure you capitalize on every chance you can to help your self, your brand, and your customers experience. Just listening doesn’t do any good, imagine if you were in a department store and you had a legitimate complaint and all the manager did was give you a dead pan look and walk away. You would be furious and probably never go there again.

Being proactive is one of the key tenants to social media, in fact it’s what creates the social part of that little phrase. If you don’t plan on following up and tending to your garden of social tools you might as well just take an ad out in your local paper and call it a day.

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Google has officially announced it’s releasing a browser that goes by the name of Chrome. How did they announce it’s release? Well there are the normal channels all over the web but in an odd marketing twist they released a < a href=http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/>comic book that tells it all. The tell all blog comes to us from Philipp Lenssen of Google Blogoscoped and the comic book is illustrated by none other than Scott McCloud (which for a comic book geek such as myself is fairly pertinent information). You can find all the details of Chrome from the post I linked above, so that’s not what I want to talk about. In fact the only thing I want to say about it is that I’m excited for it and they finally produced the first Dyson inspired browser. What I want to talk about is the comic book.

I’ve read the comic book and linked to it in the above paragraph so you can read it too. It’s great. It’s fantastic in fact. There are illustrated representations of Google staff talking about various features of the browser and why it was created. The Japanese have been using comic books for years to advertise, educate, and train new employees so over there this would be nothing new. Here in the good ol’ U.S. of A this is something quite noteworthy. I wonder if this is going to be a new fad, if  this type of marketing approach is going to catch on? Zune recently produced a comic book written by Steve Niles(30 Days of Night), each chapter was illustrated by a different artist, and it came along with my monthly subscription to Juxtapoz, so not having to buy it was great and even though the name Zune only appeared on the spine and inside covers of the comic I remembered that they were the ones who sent it my way (thanks Zune). Even Seth Godin is talking about this approach. He attributes it to engagement, I on the other hand attribute it to our attention span being reduced by constant AV over stimulation.

There was a great article on Mashable yesterday rhetorically asking "Is the US becoming a part of the internet backwater?" To which the answer is pretty much a resounding YES and companies like Comcast aren’t helping matters much at all. I fully support Paul Glazowski’s letter and as soon as I move into an area where Comcast isn’t my only option (hopefully later this year) I won’t have any of their overpriced and under delivered services. I think if Comcast truly cared about their users (business and residential both) they would read this article by Mark Dykeman and pull their heads out of their collective asses and see that bandwidth capping is a bad bad bad bad BAD idea. I can’t help but think their competitors see this as a good thing as they are driving business their way, and Qwest’s CEO Ed Mueller is probably sleeping a lot better knowing that Comcast has solved many of his problems for him.

A move this ridiculous, this just plain stupid feels like (Comcast’s CEO) is standing on a box and screaming "We blew our load acquiring more than we can financially handle so we need to screw our customers to recoup the expense". Are they going to reduce the price of their ridiculously expensive internet? No. Are they going to give us more choices on our basic cable packages to help makeup for reducing my Hulu usage? No. I’ve got a better option for them. How about you create a tiered package that goes along with your speeds? People who don’t use the internet for much more than reading email and the news can grab a smaller cap and pay a much smaller fee, then have a mid level (the 250g you are currently proposing) followed by an unlimited (like it is now) with associated monthly fees. This would help them grab customers from competitors by offering lower priced packages that fit many daily users needs and still keep many of your current customers by allowing us to keep our unlimited access, unless you jacked the price up that is, in which case I would still leave you. Customers are picky like that we don’t like suddenly getting less than we are paying for.

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