I don't know about you but I'm getting a little tired of this trend of posting lists.  Just in the past few minutes, I have received tweets about blog posts regarding:

• 12 Reasons To Stop Drinking Bottled Water
• 7 Ways News Media are Becoming More Collaborative
• Apple's Top 10 Biggest News Stories in 2009
• Top 10 Social Media Top 10 Lists of 2009 (counts as 11)

It is all starting to seem so contrived.  So here's my last list (for a while at least) with 7 alternatives to lists:

SmartBrief's Mary Ellen Slayter recently interviewed Shiv Singh (author of "Social Media Marketing for Dummies").  The interview includes a discussion of social media trends and identifies social brands as one of the top three trends that business leaders must follow.  According to Singh, the companies that will win are those that let their employees and brand advocates become the "face of the brand."  He uses Best Buy as an example and points to Twelp Force on Twitter as a good example of a successful social brand effort.

I would argue that associations have the same opportunity to create a social brand.  In fact, that opportunity may be even greater than for corporations, given the importance of relationships and transparency in those relationships for associations and their constituents.

Ironworks is helping ASAE and the Center with a new SharePoint track at the 2010 Association Technology Conference (Feb. 10-12 in at the DC Convention Center).  This will be a full conference track of deep-dive sessions for those who have some basic experience with Microsoft's SharePoint collaboration portal and want to learn more.

David Perkinson will lead a session entitled "Search Your Way to Success: How to Best Leverage SharePoint Search."  He will discuss how to configure SharePoint's enterprise search capabilities for optimum performance and share some simple customizations that can make a big difference in user satisfaction with search.

Brandon Anderson will share what it takes to "Make It Not Look Like SharePoint."  This technical discussion of SharePoint branding and customization will explain how layered CSS and the jQuery JavaScript library can help overcome known styling and branding limitations.  Take a look at one such public site that we recently launched for Owens and Minor.

Finally, I am looking forward to working with Karla Whiting at Edison Electric Institute (EEI) regarding a case study of their efforts to launch their public site on SharePoint.  We will discuss issues they faced including Microsoft licensing, AMS (NetForum) integration, layout/design requirements and custom functionality, including a really neat email newsletter application.

Several other great SharePoint sessions are being offered on SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Designer and using their Business Data Catalog.  An additonal SharePoint case study will be offered with the American Health Lawyers Association.

Ironworks is a Microsoft National Systems Integrator, their top tier of trusted partners, with less than 50 in the United States.  We are an especially good fit for larger organizations with more complex implementations and integration challenges.  In addition to EEI, our association clients using SharePoint include ISACA, the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) and the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts.

I don't want to set expectations that knowledge sharing initiatives are easy and inexpensive but you can get started with relatively little effort and budget. 

I participated in a panel on Knowledge Management at the annual conference of the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) in New Orleans yesterday.  Also participating were folks from the BloodCenter of Wisconsin and GE Healthcare.

Russ Neumeier handled the case study for GE Healthcare. I was impressed with what this global organization (100+ countries) with 46,000 employees has done to foster knowledge sharing with very few resources in a relatively short time.  They prioritized their effort and focused on a few, simple, easy-to-use tools to stimulate conversations across the organization.

The primary tools they selected were:

• In 3 years, they have 30K unique visitors, 2.4M pageviews, 6K pages of content 

• Used for meeting minutes, project updates, content launch pages, event organizing, historical info, product development

WordPress for blogging

• 220 blogs (50 active); 730 registered users (several multi-author blogs)

• Used for project updates, team/division communications, podcast feed, personal/team diaries

phpBB for discussion groups

• 1150 posts within 279 topics among 400 registered users

• Used for non-real-time discussion, anonymous feedback, event notes, polls and questions

Yammer for micro-blogging (i.e. internal Twitter)

• Over 2,300 users and 125 groups in less than 1 year and growing fast

• Used for non-real-time discussion, sharing status updates, asking questions, links to relevant information, and announcements

• Free version is hosted so they are careful about what is shared

As one user at GE Healthcare put it: 

“I really love the fact that I can share and when people have time or really connect with the issue, they can join in and participate with no problems of time constraints, physical location issues etc. “

I would encourage organizations to invest in a more deliberate and disciplined process for implementing a knowledge sharing solution.  Some essential compoments such as enterprise search and employee profiles may involve more complex solutions.  However, this goes to show what one large corporation can do with little budget and support.  There is no excuse not to get started.

Social Fish has put considerable effort into producing an informative whitepaper entitled "Six Online Community Vendors for Associations: An Analysis."  They took the time to interview the CEOs from six companies that are active in this space and provide some feature comparisons.  They look at:

• Connecting People (profiles, connections, groups, alerts)
• Putting People to Work (blogs, forums,polls, wikis)
• Enabling Face-to-Face Events (live events, registration, calendars)
• Satisfying the I%ers (mobile, tagging, RSS, ratings, integrating with sites like Facebook)
• Details for the Techies (APIs, AMS integration, security)
• Behind-the-Scenes Marketing Tools (SEO, metrics, advertising)
• Working Together (deployment, pricing, support)

I encourage anyone interested in social media solutions to download this paper and keep it as a handy reference.  But I would also caution that this is a very incomplete list of vendors and solutions.  Missing are open source options, CMS platforms that provide rich social media features, and vendors such as Ironworks that have successfully deployed a variety of technology platforms in support of diverse social media objectives for both corporations and associations.  Be sure to ask lots of your own questions and check references carefully before partnering with any vendor on such an important project.

My friend Becky Granger (Educause) recently posed this question on the ASAE and the Center's Technology listserv and sparks a barage of responses. Not unusual for Becky but may be a record for the listserv. The answers were a bit surprising, both from vendors and association professionals. Of course, many said "it depends" and it does. So many variables can impact cost.

What was surprising was the number of very low 5-figure estimates. While smaller associations need some bargain solutions, I cannot imagine larger ones considering a full redesign (research, strategy, revised IA, new design, integration with CRM/AMS and other apps, testing, etc.) for less than $250K and most will go higher if a new CMS and/or portal is employed. Maybe the better question would have been... What is reasonable to expect for web redesign within a budget of $xxx?

My recommendation: Find a partner with the skills sets and reputation you need and negotiate a reasonable hourly rate to define a roadmap for implementation phases.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Thanks to Jeff De Cagna for coming up with virtual ribbons for those who cannot attend the Annual Meeting of ASAE and the Center for Association Leadership in Toronto.  I'm only able to be there over the weekend this year due to client commitments, so will be able to use both of these ribbons.  Add them to your website or blog or print them out and wear the proudly around the office.

SmartBrief has done an insightful interview with Wick Davis, director of online services for the Lupus Foundation of America (LFA), on their creative use of social media to reach their constituents, help them network with each other, increase advocacy efforts, and raise new dollars.  It is definitely worth a read and demonstrates how an association can leverage social media tools with limited staff and budget resources.

I'm especially pleased with Wick's success since he once worked for me at the American Diabetes Association when I was responsible for their web and call center operations.  And I can say for the same for Rob Birgfeld at SmartBrief who conducts this interview and also worked for me and got his introduction to social media at ADA.  These are two smart guys.  When they have something to say, pay attention.