Fred (and many others) are certainly right — the value of Twitter is in the links. We’re seeing real-time search engines like OneRiot put an emphasis on links, and sites like TweetMeme and MicroPlaza that help organize links by popularity. Twitter itself, through Twitter Search is supposedly working on indexing the content of tweeted links to improve its search results with more context. Ultimately none of these systems do exactly what I want.

So here’s what I’d like to see (and it could be a Twitter app, website, integrated into a desktop app, etc.):

1. Ability to display a list of tweeted links based on interests. For example, I might want to see links for venture capital, startups, montreal and recruiting. So I want the links categorized by self-defined interests. The system would have to index the content of the tweeted links, otherwise I don’t think it would be smart/accurate enough to give me the best content just off keywords or hashtags in tweets.
2. A URL shortener with tagging. Before indexing the content of links, I think we need a URL shortener that allows us to tag content, like del.icio.us. Hashtags are helpful (and could be used as part of the assessment of links) but there’s not enough space for real tagging in 140 characters. But imagine if you had a URL shortener where you could input a bunch of tags into a separate field. The tags wouldn’t be displayed in the tweet but they would be associated with the URL as a way of identifying the URL and its content. That would help my proposed system a great deal. I’d love to see tagging of tweets built into a URL shortener like bit.ly and then integrated into desktop apps like Tweetdeck. People are fairly comfortable tagging content, and this would add richness tweets and tweeted links.
3. Ability to rank list of tweeted links by who submitted them. I don’t want to see every link within these categories, it’s too much. So I want to see the links ranked (or filtered) by people I follow, and then allow me to open up the firehose to everyone (which encourages friend discovery.) And ideally it would rank the people I follow as well - by some kind of reputation system (a measurement of the relationship b/w me and that person, how often their links are re-tweeted, etc.) This should bubble up to the top the best links from the best people in the right categories.
4. Ability to rank list of tweeted links by other factors. Some kind of algorithm is needed to determine the ranking of tweets. Showing only links from people I follow is step one, and implementing reputation on those people is step two. But ultimately displaying popularity of links (based on retweets) and adding other variables could be useful too. But this isn’t the core priority, and this is where most other systems in my mind fail; they focus almost exclusively on popularity of links. That doesn’t help me find the needle in the haystack that really matters to me.
5. The system has to learn. It would be great if the system learned what I liked over time, to improve the algorithm for displaying a sorted list of the best tweeted links by category/interest. This could include a favorites feature. It might also track how often I click the various links to recognize what content I’m most interested in, and from which person (which in turn could increase that person’s reputation.)
6. Only show me the links. I don’t want to see the content of tweets - I just want the links (and the submitters’ names.) I find systems that display the tweets are too noisy and messy. The tweet content doesn’t really matter; if the system is smart enough to tell me this is a valuable link from a valuable source, I don’t need to see the message the submitter tweeted the link with. Just give me nice, clean links.

The goal is to capture all the tweeted links of value from the Twitter stream (both from people I follow and those I don’t.) And the secondary goal is to help me discover new people worth interacting with based on the links they’re submitting.

In the spirit of giving, I wanted to throw this idea out there and see what people thought. And maybe, someone will build it, or some element of it. I think in its initial form you would need a URL shortener with tagging + a site for displaying the links in some ranked fashion. The limitation in this system is that the only content that might get picked up initially is content from tagged tweets, which would require people to adopt a new URL shortener. There may be smart ways to overcome that though.

I’ve also got a domain we can use — http://linktwits.com. This was inspired (of course) from Stocktwits, which I think is a brilliant system. I’d be happy to use this domain name for the project.

And, I’m happy to help in any way that I can. I’d certainly be a user of the system, and maybe I can help with other elements of it…

But is the real value in following event hashtags about catching up on real-time news?

Not really. Ultimately people will write blog posts (w/ more in-depth analysis) summarizing the conference you’re tracking, and you can use that as a way of catching up. And as valuable as real-time data is, tracking a very busy conference is overwhelming and distracting.

The real value (and fun) in following event hashtags is discovering new people to follow and build relationships with.

Events are great for discovering intersecting interests. They’re great for seeing who is active in a specific field or around a specific topic, and because of all the concentrated Twitter activity taking place in a short period of time, you also get a good sense of who knows who and how people are connected.

In the last couple of days I’ve followed two events - Social Recruiting Summit (#srs09 + #socialrecruiting) and 140 Characters Conference (#140conf). During that time I followed 50+ people at least, and many of those people reciprocated. Each one was actively using Twitter, and I was able in a very short time to gauge their interests and value (to me as a follower).

Event monitoring via hashtags and Twitter will improve. I know there are companies working on how to distill the best information from hashtags (with the main use case being for events), so that you can track the best tweets in real-time and reduce the noise. That’s great, and I look forward to seeing those solutions emerge, but at the end of the day, the real value is in discovering people to follow with mutual interests, who can provide you with meaningful value (and of course vice versa.)

Some companies have a very strong system of corporate values in place. They use it as a definitive guide for everything they do. They use it as a decision filter for hiring, feature development, etc. Google’s “do no evil” can be considered one such corporate value, although I wonder if it’s definition is too open for interpretation.

Here are two great examples of companies that have DNA-like corporate values, with slightly different styles:

• Atlassian’s Corporate Values: Open Company, No BS
• Comparative Values

Using strong, well-defined corporate values as a decision filter is very interesting. Startups face so much uncertainty and so much change, it’s incredibly easy to fall off the path of success. It’s tempting to chase every opportunity, make quick decisions to keep momentum, and “do what’s necessary to hopefully survive.” It’s easy to lose your vision and ability to execute on it effectively.

One of the most common startup failures is a lack of communication with customers (as obvious as communicating with customers might seem.) Beyond that, you see patterns of startups that had an idea, assumed it was great, built something, launched it, and kept on running based on intuition, instinct and opinion. And most of the time, they failed. We see the importance of getting out from behind the computer screen, interacting with customers, testing assumptions, etc. But beyond that, where do company values play a role?

So these are questions running through my mind — hopefully you can help me answer / discuss them:

• How important is it to have strong, well-defined corporate values?
• Have you ever created any, or participated at a company that had strong values?
• Can strong corporate values serve as a worthwhile decision filter?
• Can using corporate values as a constant decision filter improve a startup’s response and resilience to change & craziness?
• Do companies stick with them through thick and thin, or abandon them when it’s convenient?

I believe companies have a personality. I believe they have a culture. And I believe startup founders have to visualize that personality and culture upfront and build a team to evolve and refine things from there. The definition of us is important. But how important?

In 2007 I started Standout Jobs and jumped headfirst into the HR/recruiting space. It’s been quite an experience.

Since that time I’ve been looking for ways to blend my knowledge and thoughts on blogging (+social media) and HR/recruiting. Recruiting is evolving at a faster pace than ever. And I don’t see that trend abating any time soon. If anything, things in HR/recruiting are going to get faster, crazier and much more interesting in years to come. But even as recruiters flock to Twitter as the next big thing in recruitment (and I do think it has HUGE potential), blogging remains one of the best ways to attract, engage and convert the right job seekers into candidates and hires.

With that in mind, I’m very pleased to publish A Definitive Guide to Corporate HR Blogging.

It was written with the great help of Susan Burns at Talent Synchronicity.

The Guide is a very how-to, practical walkthrough of blogging for corporate HR and corporate recruiters. There’s no shortage of great resources on blogging available online, but there’s a dearth of consolidated information when it comes to corporate HR blogging. And that’s a gap I hope we’ve filled.

The Guide is almost split in half — the first half making a case for blogging and helping you bring that case and value proposition to your organization. The second half focuses in on how to blog effectively, but with a corporate HR blogging spin/center.

We’ve compiled resources and expertise from across the Web - from HR bloggers, corporate bloggers, small business gurus and more. Thank yous need to go out to Intel, Amy Beth Hale, Ben Gotkin, RSM, Becky McCray, Laurie Ruettiman, Dan Schawbel, Jim Kukral, Willy Franzen, Barbara Adachi, Deloitte and others who provided their input, tips, etc.

Blogging is as relevant today as it’s always been, and it can serve as the cornerstone of a successful social media recruiting initiative. Hopefully this Guide brings you one step closer to success in that regard.

Get the Guide Now >>

Cheesy, I know, but it’s early in the morning and I’m still shaking out the cobwebs.

Extreme Venture Partners, a small Toronto-based venture firm focused on early stage startups, just announced ExtremeU, a 12-week summer program for 4 lucky startups. This looks similar to Y Combinator, Techstars and other similar seed fund incubators.

Kudos to the EVP people for getting this off the ground. If you’re interested in the program, follow Farhan Thawar on Twitter. He’s VP of Engineering at ExtremeU and will be running the show.

On a side note, I hope I can be involved in some way, even just to check out the 4 startups’ pitches during the process!

In Canada, this concept is quite new. (Bootup Labs in Vancouver has or is working on something similar I believe.) And there’s been a lot of discussion about how to implement similar programs effectively. David Crow wrote a great thought piece on the subject, “Incubators, accelerators, and ignition. If you’re at all interested in the Canadian startup scene, check that out.

But here’s a slightly different concept from Polaris Venture Partners — Dog Patch Labs.

Dog Patch Labs offers free office space, Internet access and other amenities to startups. What do the startups have to give in return? Nothing. There are no signed, legal papers giving Polaris first rights to invest. Polaris doesn’t take equity right away. Granted, they don’t provide the same level of support as you’d find in other seed fund incubators, but they are available and around to assist.

“…Polaris is practicing a kind of “open source” entrepreneurship. There’s an implicit understanding that the venture firm will have first crack at funding a promising Dog Patcher, but only as what he [Mike Hirshland, GP] calls a “‘first sponsor’ goodwill thing. No economics, no rights/obligations.”

There are quite a few recognized names in the Dog Patch, but so far Polaris has only backed two kennel startups - LOLapps and Plinky.

Regardless, for Polaris it’s worth it. They get a hands-on view of the startup world, right down to the nitty-gritty level where all the innovation takes place. As the article points out:

But even if Polaris never funded another resident of Dog Patch, it’s worth the cost. The lab affords an up-close and personal eye on the future to help inform the firm’s other investments. It should also help foster the good will of the entrepreneurs who pass through—making it more likely they will come back to Polaris in the future.

If you want to read more about the Dog Patch, I would recommend you read Mike Hirshland’s blog and follow him on Twitter.

Dog Patch Labs concept is a great idea and could work quite well in Montreal (or elsewhere in Canada, or the US). Startups in Canada definitely need the guidance of experts, veteran entrepreneurs, etc. - more in the mode of ExtremeU or other seed camp incubators - but it would be incredibly smart for a progressive venture firm in Canada to setup something similar to the Dog Patch. Huge goodwill and an incredible, hands-on and deep view into active startups on the ground floor.

Mark MacLeod puts on his CFO-hat when asking the question, because he’s trying to figure out if there’s an optimal mix between great service and keeping costs down (by not having to hire tons of people to provide the support.)

Mike McDerment throws his hat in the ring as the well-known CEO of Freshbooks, stating simply, “Service is an opportunity, not a cost centre.“

I’ve written about customer service a few times myself. I’ve said in the past that I’m “obsessed with it.”

The Twitter discussion that ensued was also interesting. It’s too bad it’s not easy to capture a simple discussion (unless hashtags are used, I guess…) But Hugh McGuire said, “key metric is referrals & new business gen. aka consolidated cost of new customer acquisition + service @freshbooks vs other cos..”

Jeff Tala disagreed with Hugh, saying, “New biz, referral biz, as a result of customer service (like w/@freshbooks) is gravy. Keeping existing biz is job one.”

And I completely agree.

Client retention is the #1 metric and measurement of ROI when it comes to great customer service. That’s especially true for SaaS businesses that rely on monthly or yearly subscription revenue. But in almost any business, repeat customers are critical; and one way to improve the rate of repeat business is through great customer service.

You can easily measure the lifetime value of a customer. After a few years in business you can start to see what your churn looks like, and figure out how to improve it. I can almost guarantee that improving your level of customer support will reduce churn. It will also increase testimonials, referrals, up-sells and other wonderful things — but client retention remains the #1 value of great customer service.

At the end of the day it’s cheaper to retain an existing customer than acquire a new one. Retention is key. Customer service ROI is obvious.

Remember: The location is Boccacinos on McGill St.

And for the first time ever we have 2 sponsors! Both Nestor System and Sun Microsystems are sponsoring this event. (Both have sponsored previous breakfasts too!)

As a result of our sponsors combined generosity, breakfast is free. The menu will have a handful of items on it; the cost of breakfast (including tip) is covered by the sponsors.

Here are the important details:

• Who should attend? Anyone that’s into the tech and entrepreneur scenes in Montreal. That includes entrepreneurs, startup employees, angel investors, venture investors, service providers, students, etc. Every event sees new people, and hopefully the connections made turn into real value in the long-term.
• When and where? Tuesday, June 9th at Boccacinos on McGill St. (downtown) at 8am-10am.
• How do we connect? Stay connected using our Facebook Group.
• How do we RSVP? It would be great if you RSVP’d so we have a sense of how many people are coming. You can do so using the Facebook Event listing.
• Who is sponsoring? Nestor System and Sun Microsystems!

NOTE: The last event had far more people RSVP than showed up. This isn’t the end of the world, but please make an effort to attend if you RSVP (or update us before the event that you won’t be coming.) It helps us manage the seating arrangements, restaurant expectations, etc. Thank you!

Check out this tweet from @exectweets (I believe originally from Tom Stewart):

CEO paralysis caused by trying to look simultaneously through a microscope at every cost & a telescope at the future

It was too long to re-tweet effectively without having to edit it, so I decided to write a blog post instead.

To say what exactly? Simple this:

Between the telescope and the microscope which wins?

I’ve been told a few times, “The role of CEO is to keep the lights on.” That puts us squarely in the world of microscopes. But on the flip side — is a business with its lights on but no potential for massive scale really worth keeping around? A lot of businesses get to survivability but struggle to go beyond that. And oftentimes going beyond simple survivability (which in and of itself isn’t really “simple”) means gut-checks, innovation, tough ass decisions and brain power. That throws us back into the world of telescopes.

What are you looking through right now? A microscope or a telescope? Or both? Are you paralyzed?

Customers. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, we all need them. They’re not always right, they’re often elusive but they’re the lifeblood of any successful company. And that’s true for a business-to-consumer play (B2C) as much as it’s true for business-to-business (B2B) organizations.

One of the risks in dealing with customers is only speaking to a few of them and assuming that every customer and prospect thinks the same way. It’s easy to get caught up with a handful of very vocal customers that are suddenly driving product development. There’s a chance those customers speak for everyone else, and following them makes sense; but the opposite is equally true (and likely more true.)

Companies tend to start with good intentions when it comes to customer dialogue, but it easily falls to the wayside. I’ve seen this with startups that are very successful and those that are not so successful. The very successful ones get overwhelmed with feedback, lose control and can’t figure out how to communicate effectively anymore. The not-so-successful ones turtle, scared to speak with customers, or frozen into uncertainty.

The challenge for startups - in any situation - is to always been in communication with customers and prospects. It’s what Steve Blank and Eric Ries call customer development.

Andrew Chen writes a great blog that you should read regularly. One of his recent posts is: Talk to your target customer in 4 easy steps. It’s not complicated to communicate with customers and prospects but it does take guts, effort and persistence. It has to become part of your company’s culture to do so.

Here’s another interesting, and ultra-simple survey tool: survey.io brought to you by KISSmetrics and Sean Ellis. Sean’s producing some great content on startup marketing; go check it out.

Survey.io produces only a handful of questions (they’re always the same), so you can have a survey up and running in 5 minutes or less. The most interesting (and scary!) question for startups is this one:

How would you feel if you could no longer use [product]?

• Very disappointed
• Somewhat disappointed
• Not disappointed (it isn’t really that useful)
• N/A - I no longer use [product]

That gets right to the heart of things - it really comes down to whether your product is a painkiller or vitamin.

Whether you’re just starting out, you’re in the middle of development, or you’ve launched and you’re chasing customers — you need to look for ways to easily, quickly and logically talk to customers … all the time. Make it part of your startup’s culture.

But what I’ve been thinking about a great deal of late is the concept of top down and bottom up business models. Really, it’s about top down versus bottom up user acquisition models, on top of which you then layer an appropriate business model.

So what’s the difference between top down and bottom up B2B user acquisition and business models?

Top Down User Acquisition and Business Models

The top down approach to user acquisition and business models is the older, more recognized approach - at least in the B2B world. In the B2C (business-to-consumer) world, almost everything is bottom up. But in B2B, where software purchases can be in the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars, top down rules.

Top down essentially means that upper levels of management (think: C-level) decide to make a purchase and force that purchase on everyone else. The executive team buys a new email management system, sets it up and mandates that it becomes the de facto tool of use, end of story. In some cases this makes sense - especially when I.T. is involved to support something that’s company wide; it’s hard to do so with tons of different applications in use, different standards, etc. That’s why some organizations don’t allow individual users to install anything on their own computers (or even change settings). A bit draconian, and the concept can be taken too far, but you can understand where the top down mentality comes from.

A top down user acquisition model can be attractive to vendors, because purchases tend to be larger. Companies that are implementing company wide initiatives need to spend more on licenses, training and consultative services. Top down business models are often heavily weighted towards service-oriented revenue: implementation, training, customizations and on-going support. It makes vendors feel like they really have their claws stuck into the customer. Companies like top down user acquisition because they feel as if they can control things, provide support and gain efficiencies through uniformity.

But top down user acquisition models don’t always succeed. In fact, from the customer’s perspective there’s significant risk - higher price points, bigger user adoption curves, and the issues of enforcement. Generally, people hate being forced to change, and that reluctance is expensive. Top down projects often cost more than originally expected because of the scope of implementation - scope creep (one of my favorite buzzwords) runs rampant in top down projects.

Bottom Up User Acquisition and Business Models

B2C, social media, social networking and social software have started to impact how B2B software is sold, implemented and even built. B2C software is by its very nature bottom up — you’re not acquiring groups of users by selling to one person who forces things down their throats. You acquire each individual user, essentially one at a time. Of course the key to successful bottom up user acquisition is that it’s viral. No B2C company is successful unless its application and use are viral - spreading easily from one person to another to increase user adoption. User adoption has to be inexpensive and happen quickly, because most of the time a B2C’s value grows significantly with scale. More users = more value (for everyone.)

Bottom up user acquisition models are becoming much more prevalent in B2B software. Some early bottom up B2B players included 37signals (with Basecamp) and Freshbooks. They did it by targeting freelancers and small companies with only a few users, but making sure that those users could take the products to bigger companies or share information virally with other organizations (big and small.) Newer examples include Yammer and Rypple. These companies take the bottom up user acquisition model a step further by encouraging a few people within any size organization to start using the product, and over time watching as that spreads throughout the organization. In the case of Yammer, its current business model is built on the assumption that a few users inside a company will start using it, bring in others, and eventually the company will want to manage the process with enterprise-like, administrative tools.

Instant message grew within organizations in much the same way - it started as way for people to chat (outside of work), people then started talking during work about work stuff, and companies eventually realized that it was so commonplace within their organizations that they needed administrative control - security, user rights, more features, etc. That trend of bottom user adoption is becoming much more important for B2B startups today.

Top Down Vs. Bottom Up

So which is better?

That’s not really the right question. Although for any startup today entering the B2B space, I would strongly recommend looking at a bottom up user acquisition model (with a strong element of virality) because the more traditional top down approach is getting tougher. Let’s take a look at some factors:

More B2B startups are emerging with bottom up user acquisition and business models because these are the strategies younger entrepreneurs (neck-deep in social networking, social media, social software) are familiar with. Young entrepreneurs look at older models with dismay because they themselves don’t like the idea of being forced to do something in a specific way, and they want to bring innovation (both in terms of ideas and business models) to the table. It’s a trend that will continue to grow, and will be interesting to follow.

What do you think? Do you have experience with bottom up user acquisition and business models as a user of B2B software or an entrepreneur?