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Online Meeting And Appointment Schedulers: Comparative Guide And Review Of The Best Collaborative Tools

Robin Good — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 09:52:00 GMT

Online meeting and appointment schedulers are automated tools and web services that help you and your contacts find the best matching date / time to organize a physical or virtual meeting. Instead of making many phone calls, or going back and forth with emails, these collaborative tools can help you find the perfect matching time for a meeting while doing all of the hard work. Photo credit: homestudio As you have likely found out already, to set up a meeting (both online or face-to-face) the main problem everyone has is finding a compatible time slot available that fits all of the participants schedule. As a matter of fact, often you spend more time "finding the time" than actually having your appointment scheduled. Online meeting and appointment schedulers allow you to simplify the process while making it more effective and reliable. You simply declare your available time slots through a calendar-like interface just like everyone else invited to participate. It is then the automatic meeting scheduler that tries to match available date and times from the different participants to find a common available date. Not only. Appointment schedulers generally also allow you to import your email contacts list, set your own reference time zone, and get immediate email notifications when other invitees have input their ideal meeting time. For those already use a calendaring system like Outlook, iCal or Google Calendar, it is possible to integrate their popular and familiar scheduling facility with one of these meeting and appointment schedulers to manage all appointments from a unique dashboard while keeping all your meeting info up-to-date. In this MasterNewMedia comparative guide you can find a full list of all the online meeting and appointment schedulers available out there, accompanied by a full comparison table showcasing their key strengths and features based on the following review criteria:

Meeting Invitations: Automatic email updates to all invitees
Time zones: Support for appointment scheduling over different time zones
Email import: Importing of email contact lists
Website integration: Embeddable widget integrated / published on your website.
Pro Features: Basic Pro price and matching features.

If you are into simplifying and speeding up the time needed to organize group meetings, you will find this family of automatic meeting schedulers highly useful. Here all the details:

Online Meeting And Appointment Schedulers Comparative Table

Online Meeting And Appointment Schedulers

GenBook

GenBook is an online meeting scheduler that facilitates arranging appointments with your customers. You first select your availability through the week on an interactive dashboard and then place a "Book Now" button on your website. To request an appointment your customers must click on the button on your site and, if they match your period of availability, an automatic confirmation email is sent without any supervision from your side. Then another email is sent to you as a reminder of the arranged meeting. If you do not have a website, GenBook provides you with a personal scheduling page that allows your clients to confirm appointments online, in real-time. GenBook currently does not work across different time zones and no email import feature is available. A complete range of features (unlimited bookings, "Book Now" button, appointment calendar, etc) is already available with a free registration. Pricing plans start from 19.95/month and give you extended features like the ability to receive payments with a credit card, get SMS notifications for arranged appointments, synchronize your calendar with Outlook, iCal, Google Calendar, and more. Free trial available.
http://www.genbook.com/
Google Calendar

Google Calendar is a free meeting scheduling solution that anyone with a Google account can use. You have a personal dashboard that allows you to add an appointment and set a reminder (via pop-up or email). You can also add a new meeting using the "Quick Add" function by typing when the meeting is going to take place (e.g. Training 4pm tomorrow). Each calendar is selectively shareable with other Google users and works over different time zones. If others share a calendar with you, you can see the appointments and (if permitted by the owner of the calendar) add and remove meetings. Having a global overview of all calendars of your co-workers allows you to decide when is the best time to meet with other member of your team. Each procedure requires your input. You can also synchronize your meetings on Google Calendar with other web-based or software calendaring applications. By enabling a dedicated function in the "Labs" section, you can even share files with other invitees from within your own calendar. No email import or website integration. Google Calendar works also on mobile phones and is free to use.
http://www.google.com/calendar
Doodle

Doodle allows you to find the best time to set a meeting. You create a poll with multiple choices and declare your availability within a selected period of time. When you send your poll to others, invitees can set the best time they can handle a meeting. When you have collected all the responses, Doodle automatically sets the time that best suits all participants. The service also generates a fixed e-mail you can use to invite attendees and schedules the appointment for everyone. Doodle handles different time zones and works via mobile, Facebook and iGoogle. Free to use and registration available, but not required. If you register an account you can synchronize your polls with your existing calendars (Outlook, iCal, Google Calendar, etc.) using the Doodle plugin and also send e-mail invitations automatically. No email import nor website integration. Doodle is available in a branded version for internal use inside a company: free if ad-supported and $240/year if ad-free.
http://www.doodle.com/
Meet-O-Matic

Meet-O-Matic is a free web-based service that helps you find a common available date for your group meetings. Without registration, you get a simple calendar interface where you set your availability and invite other participants to join your meeting. Each invitee receives a meeting request and a form to fill with her availability info. You then collect all responses and schedule the meeting when is more appropriate for everyone. Each step requires your supervision because the service does not work automatically. No synchronization with other calendars is available. Pro plan is priced at $19.99/year and allows extra control over your meetings with features like: fine-grained scheduling (down to 15-minute intervals), time zone management, improved scheduling interface, refund policy, and more. Free trial available. White-label versions obtainable upon request. No email import or website integration.
http://www.meetomatic.com/
TimeBridge

TimeBridge is an online scheduling service that helps you manage all your calendars and select the best time for a meeting. When you register to the service you select an existing calendaring system you have (Google Calendar, Outlook, iCal, etc.) and set your time zone. TimeBridge then automatically syncs all your calendars and provides you with a dashboard where you can manage all your appointments at a single glance. Also all the data you have inside your calendars, like email addresses and contacts, are synced. You can even set which shared calendars you want your workmates to access or consult. When you want to set up a meeting, you just have to declare your availability in a selected period of time and pick a list of invitees. TimeBridge automatically sends an email to all attendees requesting they choose (inside your availability period) when they are free to meet. When all responses are gathered, the service confronts each possible option and schedules the appointment only when (and if) all members is available. No website integration. Free to use.
http://www.timebridge.com
Presdo

Presdo is a free web service that saves you from sending tons of email to set up a meeting. On the homepage of Presdo website, you can just type a quick description of your appointment (e.g. meeting with John Smith in one week at 3pm in Berlin). You can also propose different times (e.g. Friday or Thursday at 8pm) or ask your invitees to suggest dates first. Presdo automatically processes the requests and creates a pre-filled meeting invitation form. Then (if you are registered) you can send the meeting proposal to your guest(s) or save your meeting to a third-party calendaring system like Outlook or Google Calendar. You do not need to be registered to reply to an invitation. Your invitees will receive your meeting proposal to accept or suggest another time when they prefer to meet. The day before any event you have scheduled, Presdo sends you an email reminding you of the upcoming event. You can even schedule a meeting installing the Doodad bookmarklet on your browser. No website integration nor email import.
http://www.presdo.com/
TimeToMeet

TimeToMeet is a web-based meeting scheduler that helps you find common available times to arrange a meeting. Free to use, TimeToMeet provides you with an interactive calendar where you can "paint your availability" by coloring the time slots you prefer. You can then add a title for your event, set a time zone, indicate the email addresses of your invitees and then decide whether to send a meeting invitation or share the link of your personal calendar with your own mail client. If you want extra features you can switch to the Pro pricing plan which offers you to sync your calendar and contacts with your existing calendaring application (Outlook, iCal or Google Calendar) and have a unique URL that people can refer to schedule meetings with you. Pro plan of TimeToMeet is priced at $3/3 months or $5/6 months. No website integration available.
http://www.timetomeet.info/
Meeting Wizard

Meeting Wizard allows you to schedule appointments on a time that works best for all participants without sending email back and forth. You select the people you want to meet and then propose different time slots, according to your availability. You choose time slots using a drop-down menu and adding selected intervals to a form. You can also specify a time zone. If you are registered to the service import email addresses from your Meeting Wizard address book is just a click away. When you have set some other options like: meeting location, whether the organizer of the meeting is participating and the type of meeting (face-to-face or online), you can ask people to reply and select their availability. When you finish collecting and reviewing all responses, you then schedule the meeting for everyone. A notification is sent to all participants as reminder. Free to use. Pro plan not available for the time being. No website integration.
http://www.meetingwizard.com/
WhenIsGood

To find out when others are free to attend a meeting you can use WhenIsGood. This free online meeting scheduler allows you to pick different time intervals to submit to your invitees and decide when everyone is free to meet. Without even registering, you access a calendar where you can specify your availability. If you are not in the same time zone of your attendees, check the dedicated box and select your time zone. Then you are given a code you need to jot down to access your event in the future. After saving the code you can: edit your availability period, send an invitation to your attendees and track all the replies you get. You can also set an alert that warns you when you get a response and sync your events with your own calendaring systems. Premium account is priced at $5/year and allows you to select your availability more precisely by indicating if an interval of time is "perfect for you", "fine for you", or "possible, but not ideal". No website integration nor email import.
http://whenisgood.net/
ScheduleOnce

ScheduleOnce is a free Google Calendar add-on that enables all attendees to compare real-time availability and find the optimal time for a meeting. After you download and install ScheduleOnce to your Google Calendar you have an additional box that allows you to manage your meetings. You simply mark your tentative availability and generate a link that you send to attendees. When all invitees reply, you can see the availability of the whole group using an interactive dashboard. From this dashboard, ScheduleOnce automatically recognizes all common available times and you can select the best time slot to meet. The service then creates a new appointment in the Google Calendar of all invitees and sends invitations. Different time zones are supported. No website integration nor email import features are available. ScheduleOnce is optimized to work with Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer 8 and Google Chrome.
http://www.scheduleonce.com/
ClickBook

ClickBook is a free web-based solution to provide online booking to your customers. By placing a "Book Now" button on your website, you allow your clients to contact you 24/7 and schedule appointments without any supervision from your side. If you don\'t have a site, ClickBook creates a free Microsite with unique online address to handle your scheduling procedures. Each time a customer books an appointment you receive an automatic email notification. You can also receive SMS notifications (sold separately in packages starting from aprox. $4 for 25 SMS). To manage your schedule you have an interactive dashboard where you can consult, track, print and download all your appointments. Yo can also sync your ClickBook calendar with third-party calendaring systems like Outlook or iCal. If you have staff members, you can manage all their bookings from your own calendar and receive notifications from their clients. Other features allow you to find the next free time slot available for an appointment, manage multiple bookings, prevent clients from scheduling appointments too close to each other, and more. No time zone handling nor email import. Registration required.
http://www.clickbook.net/
Diarised

Diarsed is a free online meeting scheduler that figures out the best common time available for a meeting. Without registering, you just have to enter the details of your proposed meeting (title, description, location, etc.), including the meeting invitees and the possible times and dates for the meeting. You can select multiple invitees and dates using drop-down menus. The service then emails all invitees and tracks their responses. When all attendees reply, you get a list of tentative dates to schedule the appointment. You can also have Diarised auto-schedule the meeting if all attendees provide matching availability times. When the meeting is set, all participants receive a confirmation. Diarised is available in different languages but does not allow any synchronization with third-party calendars like Outlook, iCal or Google Calendar. No website integration, email import nor time-zone handling.
http://www.diarised.com/
AgreeAdate

AgreeAdate is a free online service that saves you time and money by avoiding telephone and email tags to find when people are free. You first have to decide the type of event you want to arrange (conference call, business meeting, social event, etc.) and declare your availability. Later you send a personalized email invitation to your invitees with your availability and a link to your reply page which includes all info about the meeting. You can also set reminders to warn the invitees about the upcoming appointment. Invitees then need to tick the dates they are available and reply. When you get the responses of all attendees, you can pick the time that best works for everyone from your personal AgreeAdate page. Once confirmed, everyone can use a simple link to add the event into their calendar (e.g. Outlook). You can also store the contact details of your attendees. No website integration but different time zones are supported. To have more storage space for your address book you can purchase a premium plan starting at $3.99/month.
http://www.agreeadate.com/
SAM

SAM is an online meeting scheduling tool that eliminates the hassles of repeated phone calls and emails when setting up your meetings. Simply register, then tell SAM what kind of appointment you want to arrange. Select invitees, location, time zone, preferred dates and times and provide a description and a title that help other participants identify your meeting. The service then automatically emails all attendees, prompting them to choose from available time slots. Once every invitee has responded, SAM matches all preferences to determine the optimal meeting schedule. Each participant receives reminders and updates during the whole scheduling processes. To quickly select your attendees, have SAM import your email address book. The service currently does not support integration with third-party calendaring systems like Outlook or iCal. No website integration. Free to use.
http://www.setameeting.com/

Originally prepared by Robin Good and Daniele Bazzano for MasterNewMedia, and first published on July 20th, 2009 as "Online Meeting And Appointment Schedulers: Comparative Guide And Review Of The Best Collaborative Tools". ...]]>

Media Literacy: Making Sense Of New Technologies And Media by George Siemens - July 18 09

George Siemens — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 09:00:00 GMT

As new and old media pervade so many aspects of our lives, it is very important that everyone learns to decode and interpret messages and images and to ask critical questions about who is creating them and for what purpose. Photo credit: Nancy White Inside this Media Literacy Digest:

Addressing Problems of Faculty Resistance - James Morrison tackles the topic encouraging faculty to expand their range of instructional strategies and increase utilization of technology in the process.
Social Media Guidelines - Organizations have to tell their employees how to use social media.
Tools and Our Brain - Norman Doidge, in his text The Brain that Changes Itself, provides many compelling examples of how technology, tools, and experiences can substantially rewire the human brain in a short period of time.
Social Media and Social Divisions - Does the internet - social media in particular - act as a unifier? Apparently not, according to several researchers.
That Brain of Ours - Researchers are in the early stages of understanding the dynamics of the human brain.
Consumer Voices - Trends can build and develop for long periods of time without significantly impacting status quo.
Five Ways To Run a Deadly Online Seminar - Alan Levine reflects on his experience attending an online seminar:

New media technologies are the new means to explore, study, research, experiment and discover. Understanding and making sense of how these new communication tools work, allows everyone to communicate more effectively and to develop the new job skills required in our information economy. Here all the details:

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends by George Siemens

Addressing Problems of Faculty Resistance

James Morrison tackles the topic encouraging faculty to expand their range of instructional strategies and increase utilization of technology in the process. A great discussion follows the original post. Obviously, you don’t need technology to be a provide a great learning experience. Creative, engaging, and participatory learning is an educational mindset, not something that requires blogs, wikis, Second Life, and podcasts. What technology does, however, is expand the range of options for interaction. Classroom walls give way to global connections. Single educator models are replaced with distributed networks. A bit utopian? Perhaps. But, once control shifts to a network of learners, the prospect arises for the creativity that exists in open source software and with application developers (i.e. iPhone, Facebook) can be applied to education.

Social Media Guidelines

You’d think that certain things are obvious and don’t need to be explained. For example, a company like Intel deals with pretty cutting edge technology. This requires some fairly intelligent people. Apparently, even then, organizations have to tell their employees how to use social media:

“These are the official guidelines for social media at Intel. If you’re an Intel employee or contractor creating or contributing to blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds, or any other kind of social media both on and off intel.com - these guidelines are for you.”

Tools and Our Brain

We often hear about how technology doesn’t change the brain. Or, at least that technology doesn’t impact how we think in the short term. Evolution, we are told, takes much, much longer. This argument then forms the basis for treating technology only as a tool - something that we use and select for particular tasks (for a review of the differing views of technology, see Heather Kanuka’s excellent article(.pdf) on the subject). Norman Doidge, in his text The Brain that Changes Itself, provides many compelling examples of how technology, tools, and experiences can substantially rewire the human brain in a short period of time. While we may disagree about the impact of technology on humanity, it is difficult to argue that technology does not alter mental functioning. Computers, mobile phones, and web search form the basis of a network of and for cognition. Consider this study of how tools become part of the body. We have a reciprocal relationship with tools: we use them, they change us. As McLuhan stated: first we shape the tools, thereafter the tools shape us.

Social Media and Social Divisions

Does the internet - social media in particular - act as a unifier? Apparently not, according to several researchers. Instead, social media amplifies existing social structures. Or, as Danah Boyd states, “pervasive social stratification is being reified in a new era”. Technology doesn’t (immediately) alter human nature. It provides new views (mirrors) for seeing what we are. The desire to associate with people who share our beliefs, values, and economic conditions, migrates to new social spaces - digital or physical.

That Brain of Ours

Researchers are in the early stages of understanding the dynamics of the human brain. Discoveries (interesting word - how do constructivists respond to the notion of discovery?) to date are causing shifts in views in fields like law and the legal code. If I commit a crime, and it is due to a brain lesion or a developmental disability, should I still be punished as if though it was a free will choice? What I find most interesting in developments in neuroscience is the growing understanding of the brain as a complex system and knowledge / thought as connection-forming and patterning (we had a short discussion of the support neuroscience offers for connectivism during CCK08 last year). Two resources on this topic:

How chaos drives the brain - a short, but intriguing video of patterns (waves) of thought activity.
Olaf Sporns presentation from 2007 where he discusses the brain as a complex systems that produces networks configurations often noted in sociology and mathematics (i.e. small world phenomena).

Consumer Voices

Trends can build and develop for long periods of time without significantly impacting status quo. Periodically, the trends coalesce and offer an expression of the nature of change. YouTube, for example, has had moments where it exerts its growing influence on existing political discourse (US presidential elections) and entertainment (pick any of the dozens of YouTube-created celebrities). Occasionally, an example of the depth of the power shift from The One to The Many arises. Dave Carroll’s damaged guitar, at the hands of United Airlines, resulted in this music video. Approaching 500,000 views, it has become an embarrassment to United and a rallying cry for frustrated travelers. The appeal of this video is largely based in the shared experience of suffering indignity and of “voice-less-ness” when dealing with large corporations. There is in this video, I think, as sense of expression given to our collective feelings of being powerless... followed by a sense (hope?) of the ability for emerging media to alter power relationships.

Five Ways To Run a Deadly Online Seminar

Alan Levine reflects on his experience attending an online seminar:

“I recently felt like this wistful gal during a recent online seminar- isolated, lonely, and wishing to go outside and play. With nose-diving budgets and more work moving online, it’s time to raise the bar on how we run online events. Like a horrendously designed PowerPoint, no one sets out with a plan of creating a deadly dull online seminar, but they seem to happen often enough.”

The move to online meetings parallels the experiences I had in the late 90’s/early 00’s with teaching online. The initial assumption is “no problem, I know my stuff. I can teach this online”. But, the online medium is different from face-to-face - different orientation points, cues, distractions, etc. As with teaching and learning, the goal is to transform the experience for the environment, not merely transfer it. On a side note, Alan delivered an exceptional presentation at ED-MEDIA a few weeks ago on 50+ web 2.0 ways to tell a story. He used Cooliris as the presentation tool - visual and effective.

Originally written by George Siemens for elearnspace and first published on July 17th, 2009 in his newsletter eLearning Resources and News.

About the author To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book "Knowing Knowledge".

Photo credits: Addressing Problems of Faculty Resistance - kmitu Social Media Guidelines - Irina Tischenko Tools and Our Brain - sgame Social Media and Social Divisions - jjavo That Brain of Ours - pablo631 Consumer Voices - Mikael Damkier ...]]>

Online Marketing Strategy: Trust Economy And The Value Of Attention

Chris Brogan and Julien Smith — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:05:00 GMT

Where is online marketing headed in the trust economy? Why more and more customers are suspicious of traditional marketing and favor honest, easygoing relationships with brands? Photo credit: Phecsone With the growing amount of blog-based independent news, social media, real-time news streams, live collaboration tools, video and podcasts, Internet users are increasingly on the run. At the pace of a few minutes for each, people are jumping from conversations to entertainment to creating content and sharing it with no pause or break. Their attention is now the scarce resource, not the content, tools or services they are interacting with. That\'s why the ability to grab and hold someone attention for an extended period of time has become more valuable than gold. Getting deep and extended customer attention is going to be one the most valuable asset a company can build, no matter what article or product it sells. This is why "attention" is the new ROI. But how do you conquer such scarce and in-demand attention? There are many ways. Start creating a two-way relationship with your audience. Make customers your friends. Establish a sincere dialogue with them before you make any sale. Provide advice. Share good information and resources with them. Teach them something good. And so on. As a matter of fact, it is the whole concept of "selling" that needs to be approached in a different way. People are suspicious of marketing. If they see that you are actively trying to sell them something they will resist your offers. Direct marketing strategies are also useless in this new trust economy and institutional info has become the symbol of fake, untrustable company communication. Customers want friendly, sincere, credible and unpartial suggestions, passionate recommendations by someone who cares about their needs and not only about extracting money from them. Start building a following of passionate, true fans and followers who love your advice, suggestions and ideas. Let them be your best marketing agents. Help them realize their dreams and they will in turn do the best word-of-mouth marketing job you could ever buy, for free. If you leverage your character, authority and expertise, without coming down as the "best", the only one, and all that classical marketing crap, but relate to people in a way that puts them and satisfying their needs as your first objective, they will start to like you more than they ever did. They will self-elect themselves as your brand-ambassadors and will spontaneously promote and give advice about your product at zero cost to you. Be so good and honest to make them trust your advice and the sale will come, guaranteed. In today\'s featured contribution, Chris Brogan and Julien Smith explain why the trust economy is on the rise and why attention is indeed the new ROI. Here all the details:

Trust Economies: Investigations into the New ROI of the Web

by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith

If You Build It, They Won’t Come

What happened to the early days? You built a baseball stadium, a store, a web app, and people flocked to it. Now what? We are suspicious of marketing. We don’t trust strangers as willingly. Buzz is suspect. It can be bought. Instead, consumers and business people alike are looking towards trust. We want our friends to tell us it’s good. We want someone we know to say we should look into it. Marketing spend might start at awareness, but in the trust economy communities are king, and ROI stands for Return on Influence. This affects disruptive products or services more than ever. You have a new razor? Mine seems just fine. Your new web application is a great time saver? I’m over here instead because my friends use this web app. Marketing and sales people, here is your notice; you’re fired unless you start investing in the trust economy. Somewhere into the 1990s, the sense that what someone tells you about a product or service is “true” went downhill fast. We became skeptical about everything. The more society attempted to “be real,” the more they launched deceptions that were quickly overturned. Some innocent people videotaping their RV trip across America suddenly became “that Walmart scheme.” The lonely girl in her bedroom became a production project. The “try out Vista on ferrari laptops” turned into a controversy. Even Nikon’s D80 campaign went through some blogosphere controversy related to whether giving someone a product for evaluation was too influencing on future coverage. What do these all have in common? Trust. All of these situations came from unknowns, drove awareness briefly, were uncovered to be something different than perceived, and floated like a lead balloon.

Stop Thinking Sales. Start Thinking Relationships

The relationship comes before the sale, not the other way around. Make your customers friends. Not in an ushy-gooshy “let’s all go out and get tattoos” way. But, care about these people. Treat them like what they are - your gold. In marketplaces where a simple sale is no longer simple, building trust today, through establishing and cultivating relationships, is at the core of the experience. This isn’t “trust so you can make a sale.” Rather, build trust and establish a relationship, period - for the sake of that trust and relationship alone. The sale is neither here nor there until the relationship is established. The problem when you’re faking that relationship - like, after you make the sale - is that the friendly emails suddenly stop. When the relationship is fake, the client detects that. In fact, we all do. But if the relationship is real, you will do the best for your client. When that happens, you’ll begin to see all those negative responses vanish. Why? You just became a friend, and friends look out for one another. A short-term sales person or marketer sees only the number they’ve been given to hit. While numbers are important, and while bosses have quotas in mind, it’s possible that building a stronger relationship will drive more recurring sales and referrals and further adoption. Consider it tending a farm of potential versus hunting for the short term.

Return On Influence: The New ROI

If marketing and sales requires a new relationship, the best returns come from those with the most influence over others. Your friend the photography buff influences her photowalking club. Your brother’s friend who works at the sports bar has a line on which new beers are good, and people trust him and value his opinion. Learn the skill of identifying the influencers, and develop those relationships. And for the bonus round, learn how the online world makes this even easier via social networking. With luck, this can occur organically. The goal isn’t to roam around on social networks hand-picking friends. Instead, get involved with communities of interest, and grow these experiences and relationships BEFORE you need them. And remember, if you are building relationships strictly for business, they will have less impact. That’s because being part of relationships is what real people do. When you enter a market, be a real person. Act like one, care like one, and feel like one. Those subtle signals, verbal and non-verbal, help people figure out how to react to you and see whether they should hand you any of their attention. Understand that the digital natives know who’s there to market and sell, and who’s there to build relationships. We (the digital natives) know you’re new. We often can tell really quickly that you’re hoping to introduce your product or service to the conversation. Some of us will even be more responsive to this than others. But, then there will be many who will cry foul the moment you cross the line into pure sales or marketing. Remember, the trust economy is a conversation / relationship environment. We know you’ve got a job to do, but there are lots of people who prefer you do it elsewhere if you’re going to use traditional “bomb” marketing and sales efforts, versus “hand to hand” relationship building.

Business Is Personal: The Blending Of Social Constructs

The edges between work and social life are blurring. people are shifting their social networks into their work networks and vice versa - business associates and childhood friends, side by side. Business has invaded Facebook. Creative talent seekers are scouring MySpace, Flickr, and YouTube for their next star. Do you “friend” (befriend?) your boss on Facebook? do you send Twitter messages to your sales rep? You do now. Social software permits rich interactions. What you feed into the system becomes another point we can use to connect. We prefer to buy from people that are like us. You like Batman movies? Me too! That may not always be enough to move a sale, but it shows your human dimensions, and in this wired world of digital communities and deep long-tail niches, humanity-over-IP is the protocol.

Don\'t Be That Guy

There’s networking and relationship-building for business, and then there’s sales-disguised-as-networking. Don’t confuse the two. “That guy” talks about his product incessantly. His product sent out a really great tee shirt to fans. His product is beating the doors off the other guy. You should really get on over to his product’s website and look at the updates. Don’t be that guy. Talk to people because you like the people. Choose people that have something to do with your product, and then, ask them about them. Make the person you’re speaking to a rock star - care about them, the projects they have, and come to see it from THEIR point of view. You’ll find yourself excited about their successes, and then they’ll be happy about yours, too. Consider this a “trust Stock market,” and the marketplace is really bearish on “that guy” today.

Attention As Currency

Ask anyone if they have enough time in a day. Ask them if they want more words to look at, more decisions to make, more websites to navigate. Our attention is becoming more valuable than originally calculated. Web hits, magazine subscribers, and TV viewers can’t be counted accurately any longer, because we’re not paying as much attention! Here’s a magic question: “What has your attention right now?” And if you seek to influence that answer, you are barking up the right tree. If you answered that your attention is on this manifesto, don’t lie: The truth is that your attention is on this manifesto, your email, possibly the fight with your wife this morning, and how you were cut off during rush hour right before work. Admit it: Attention is scarce - more valuable than cash and rarer than gold. When you get some, embrace it and find out how to get more. Then lather, rinse, repeat. Think about it like this: In a time of starvation, people hoard their food. these days, we are starved for time. That means it’s harder to get someone to try your service, or read your blog, or even have a conversation with you - all that takes attention we don’t even have. You solve this by creating value before you need it. that imbalance helps people realize what you’ve given them, and it makes them want to give you more of their attention. If you use that wisely, you’re well on your way. But the challenge comes in knowing how not to squander or over-use the attention you’re given. If you’re forever asking for the spotlight, people will grow tired of this quickly. Just like with any economy, there are deposits of your time and attention, and then there are withdrawals when you seek out someone else’s. So pay close attention to your balance statements.

Friends As Spokespeople

Look at any glossy print advertisement for a new product. Is there a smiling person holding that product? Who is that person? Do you trust celebrities to tell you what’s good? Why should a testimonial from someone you don’t know sell you, especially when you KNOW they were paid? Now, what if your friend told you about something they love - no money changing hands, and without any incentive? What if your friend simply really loved a product or service? Wouldn’t you feel compelled to follow their suggestion? Now turn that equation around. Find LOVERS of your products and services and equip them to evangelize. Keep it above board, and make disclosure the keyword that keeps it all honest. If you do this right, the next thing you know, you have a volunteer army.

With a Little Help

Friends are the Wall Street of the trust economy. Can you reach out? Who do you know that can solve the issue?

Make and sustain connections with varied people, from several walks of life. Don’t reserve yourself to your usual fare - people that work in the industry you do, or people that have the same hobbies.
Meet everyone, and use the systems that best promote relationship building and sustaining.
Share your connections openly and willingly. Make yourself the first name people think of when they ask “Who do I know who might know a good dentist?”
Remember to go back, keep your connections active. It’s never nice to get a request for help out of the blue.
Stay close to your network. And protect it with everything you have. do NOT just give your network to others. Share it, but only within the circle of trust. If you do this, you’ll see it expand, seemingly by itself.

But in truth, you’ve nurtured it. So when you reap the rewards, you’ll know why.

Originally written by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith for MarkMonitor and first published on March 5th, 2008 as "Trust Economies: Investigations into the New ROI of the Web".

About the authors Chris Brogan uses social media and technology to build digital relationships for businesses, organizations, and individuals. Chris has merged his experience in technology (enterprise It and wireless telephony) with his passion for social media. Chris Brogan blogs at chrisbrogan.com. Julien Smith leverages the web and social media to help businesses reach their goals in the online marketplace, with a focus on connecting media with the audiences they are looking for. Julien’s podcast was among the first in Canada, and his blog was named among the 10 best art / entertainment blogs in the country. Julien Smith blogs at inoveryourhead.net.

Photo credits: Stop Thinking Sales. Start Thinking Relationships - Henk Leerssen Return On Influence: The New ROI - neosiam Business Is Personal: The Blending Of Social Constructs - pnrphoto Don\'t Be That Guy - Yanik Chauvin Attention As Currency - nyul Friends As Spokespeople - Shetland With a Little Help - nyul ...]]>