Irish Rose Consulting

Resources for Reeling in Business 2013

Dennis Deery — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:26:48 +0000

Listed below are the tools mentioned during my presentation, as well as others that might be useful. At the bottom of the list is contact info, please don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions.

2013 NWWIB Reeling in Business – Hello, are you out there? from DDeery

Tools for Listening
Google Alerts - let Google email you when someone mentions your name

Web Site Tools

WordPress
ShareThis Plugin - provide social media sharing buttons on your web site
Google Sitemap - make it easy for Google to index your web site
WP Touch - make your WordPress web site mobile-friendly

Tools to Make Social Media Easier
HootSuite - all your social media accounts in one place
Seesmic - similar to HootSuite
Tweetdeck - similar to HootSuite
Gist - manage all your contacts
Nimble - manage all your contacts
Salesforce - high-powered customer relationship management

Search Engine Optimization

Good intro to SEO from Google
Beginner’s Guide to SEO
Google’s SEO Starter Guide

Web Site Analytics
Google Analytics
Mint - competitor to Google Analytics

Learning Resources
HubSpot.com - some good free resources on social media marketing
Chris Brogan - one of the best thinkers and bloggers in social media for business, his Social Media 101 book is a must-read
Beth Kanter - another great social media thinker, focused more on non-profits
Clay Shirky - lots of great writing on the big picture of social media
Becky McCray, Small Business Survival - a good blog on social media for small business
DragonFly Effect - another great book on social media, focused on non-profits but relevant to business

Connect with Dennis Deery

twitter.com/IrishRoseCons

facebook.com/IrishRoseConsulting

flickr.com/DennisDeery

www.linkedin.com/in/dennisdeery

qik.com/DDeery

www.vimeo.com/DDeery

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qleYNN4uNtk

www.slideshare.net/ddeery

www.goodreads.com/user/show/2906136-dennis-deery

Resources for Wisconsin Farm Bureau Women’s Ag Summit 2013

Dennis Deery — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 04:55:25 +0000

Technology in Your Daily Farm Life from DDeery

Browsers

www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/

www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/?from=getfirefox

Backup & Protection

www.jungledisk.com/

www.mozy.com/

www.crashplan.com/

windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/products/security-essentials

www.backupify.com/

www.truecrypt.org/

Passwords

lastpass.com/index.php

keepass.info/

agilebits.com/onepassword

Learn to Search Google

www.powersearchingwithgoogle.com/course

Google Apps

www.google.com/intl/en/enterprise/apps/business/

Online Files

www.dropbox.com/

www.sugarsync.com/

drive.google.com/start#home

Note Taking/Archiving

Scanning

Task/Project Management

www.rememberthemilk.com

Phone Services

Social Media

Twitter Hashtags and People

www.twitter.com

twitter.com/search?q=%23agchat

twitter.com/search?q=%23agnerd

twitter.com/search?q=%23rockinruralwomen

twitter.com/search?q=%23womeninag

twitter.com/realfarmwives

twitter.com/agchatfound

twitter.com/BeckyMcCray/small-town-rural-resources

CRM

www.plaxo.com/

www.zoho.com/

rapportive.com/

Online Meetings

tools.google.com/dlpage/hangoutplugin

www.skype.com/intl/en-us/home

www.screenleap.com/

www.crossloop.com/

Conference Calls

www.freeconferencecall.com/

www.powwownow.com/

Online Accounting

www.freshbooks.com/

quickbooksonline.intuit.com/

Mailing List Management

mailchimp.com/

www.constantcontact.com/index.jsp

Web Monitoring

www.google.com/analytics/

haveamint.com/

Crowdsourcing

www.mturk.com/mturk/welcome

Open Source

wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Download

Online News

www.feedly.com

www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/default.asp

www.google.com/producer/currents

Presentations

www.logitech.com/en-us/mice-pointers/presenter

Print and Design

Hardware

Home Automation

www.belkin.com/us/wemo

www.nexiahome.com/nexiahome.aspx

Mobile Tools & Apps

www.accuweather.com/en/downloads

weather.weatherbug.com/mobile.html?sid=80&

getpocket.com/

www.tripit.com/

www.yelp.com/

www.dataviz.com/products/documentstogo/

www.epicurious.com/services/mobile

www.fooducate.com/

www.goodguide.com/about/mobile

runkeeper.com/

www.myfitnesspal.com/

www.endomondo.com/login

www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml

Change Management

www.strategy-business.com/article/rr00006?gko=643d0

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Change_management

Online Training

www.lynda.com/

Learn More

usesthis.com/

blog.lifehacker.com/

www.facebook.com/IrishRoseConsulting

www.creativepro.com/

thewirecutter.com/

Future Stuff

www.google.com/glass/start/

www.thingiverse.com/

www.sonymobile.com/us/products/accessories/smartwatch/

getpebble.com/

xproheli.com/

Connect with Dennis Deery

twitter.com/IrishRoseCons

facebook.com/IrishRoseConsulting

flickr.com/DennisDeery

www.linkedin.com/in/dennisdeery

qik.com/DDeery

www.vimeo.com/DDeery

www.slideshare.net/ddeery

www.goodreads.com/user/show/2906136-dennis-deery

Likeable Business by Dave Kerpen

Dennis Deery — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 20:54:04 +0000

Likeable Business: Why Today’s Consumers Demand More and How Leaders Can Deliver by Dave Kerpen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(Full disclosure: I got a free copy of this e-book from the publisher via the wonderful NetGalley service.)

Author Dave Kerpen runs a social media marketing firm and has previously written Likeable Social Media. In his latest effort, he applies the principles of social media behavior to business life in general.

I appreciate the message in this book as it’s one I often share with clients when discussing social media. There’s really no difference between social media and real life in how a businesses should behave. They need to be genuine, be likeable, honest, etc. Kerpen lays out 11 different values that businesses should try to live, both via social media and in real life. I agree wholeheartedly with the values he identifies, and he illuminates them all with some good real-life examples of company behavior.

My one small quibble with the book is that too many of Kerpen’s examples are introduced as just a thumbnail sketch. I suspect this is because a number of the examples are taken from the media rather than Kerpen’s own direct experience with clients, perhaps due to Kerpen’s own youth and the youth of his business. As a result though, since the examples are only skin deep, at times Kerpen’s advice leans perilously close to being shallow and cynical. For example, in discussing engaging with customers on social media, Kerpen suggests that you might consider putting more effort into engaging someone with a high Klout score. Such an approach, if not done carefully, could be construed to only value customers that can truly show you online value.

Quibble notwithstanding, there are still a lot of good examples in the book, and in the end Kerpen does come across as someone who does business while truly trying to value people. He identifies most of the values that I treasure in my own business, and I appreciate anyone that can evangelize those values.

View all my reviews

Buy from Amazon

Can you print me a coffee cup?

Dennis Deery — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:30:10 +0000

One of the coolest things on my radar these days is the rise in 3D printing. 3D printers work similarly to an inkjet printer, but rather than lay down a layer of ink, they lay down a layer of plastic, or ceramic, or other material. By laying down multiple layers, they can build up three-dimensional objects.

See that picture above? That’s the Irish Rose Consulting logo rendered in 3D in plastic. Using some simple design tools, I was able to take a 2D version of my logo and make it a 3D design. I then used an online service, Shapeways, to print the logo for me (since it was a first attempt, I didn’t bother with a two-color rendering).

So why is this cool? Do we really need a way to create more small plastic trinkets?

No, not really. But how about producing small plastic machine parts? How many times has this happened to you: your washing machine, or dishwasher, or some other household appliance breaks. You disassemble it, finally digging in to find a small plastic part broken. You call the company, and they order the part to be shipped to you. So you wait several days with appliance parts all over your kitchen while the part finds its way to you from overseas. Finally, days later, you’re able to reassemble the machine and return your house to normal.

Now, picture the 3D printing version. You find the broken part. You call the company, and 15 minutes later you receive via email a design file for the part. You fire up your digital printer, and 15 minutes later you have in hand a plastic part of just the right size. Total cost – 50 cents worth of plastic (and, of course, whatever the company charges you for the design file).

This is already happening today. A Swedish manufacturer of music synthesizers called Teenage Engineering recently posted design files for their replacement parts online. Nokia recently released a kit to allow people to print their own plastic phone cases. I expect that we’ll see a lot of design files coming from manufacturers in the coming months.

But you’re not limited to printing pre-made designs. Now it’s within reach to design your own 3D object and become a short-run manufacturing outfit. Online communities like Shapeways and Thingiverse are popping up that allow people to share designs and sell objects. You don’t even need your own printer, as outfits like Shapeways will print your design. The Irish Rose logo seen above cost in the neighborhood of $5 to print, so it can be pretty cheap to get started.

And should you choose to buy your own printer, there are some available for under $2,000. One of the most popular, the MakerBot, retails for as little as $1,800. There’s even an open-source movement to provide design files for a 3D printer that can print most of the parts to make, yes, a 3D printer. So, buy one then make more of your own.

As with most new technology, prices are coming down, so I think we’ll soon see a tipping point where these are affordable for home use. The day will soon be here when you can print yourself a new coffee cup if you break your favorite mug.

Links for 07/10/2012

Dennis Deery — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 03:30:16 +0000

Refine, reuse and request data | ScraperWiki

A great resource for scraping data from web sites. Create your own scraper, or use others created by the site’s users.

tags: scraping data tech

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Small Towns & Leadership, Does It Get Any Better?

Dennis Deery — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 02:36:44 +0000

Last week I had the great pleasure of attending two events at the University of Minnesota-Morris – the Bush Foundation Leadership Chautauqua and the Symposium on Small Towns, hosted by the Center for Small Towns.

The Chautauqua was a gathering of people involved with leadership development in communities around the upper Midwest. Bush Foundation, as a funder of many leadership programs, was interested in fostering discussions amongst service providers, funders and participants to improve the quality of leadership development.

The program kicked off on Tuesday evening with a great talk by David Mann on collaboration and communication. Mann came at the subject from a theater background, and used themes from improv theater such as “Say yes” and “commit fully”. He’s really quite an engaging speaker, and with the event hosted under a tent on the mall of the UMM campus, it was a beautiful way to spend the evening and get into the spirit of the conference.

Wednesday began with a presentation on research into the efficacy of leadership development programs by Kenneth Pigg. Pigg has performed initial studies on community leadership programs in several states. The studies performed thus far have determined that these leadership development programs do improve the leadership abilities of participants. However, most programs struggle with getting their participants to engage in communities following their time in the program.

Just before lunch, we were treated to a performance by the Theater of Public Policy from the Twin Cities. This improv troupe is incredibly talented, taking thoughts and ideas from the world of public policy and turning them into humorous sketches. I will definitely admit to being a policy geek, but I think most people could see the humor and skill involved in what these folks do. The gang of five wove some truly hilarious sketches from our morning discussions on leadership.

The rest of the day was filled with small-group conversations on various topics. I sat in on a couple of discussions about changing paradigms around collective leadership. In most of the discussions throughout the Chautauqua, there was a lot of dissatisfaction with the term “leadership”, I think largely due to the shift from a strong-leader model to more collaborative forms of leadership. Being from Wisconsin of course I could offer the example of what can happen when a leader attempts to ignore collaborative approaches. I tried to make the case that perhaps our dissatisfaction with the word stems more from the fact that too many people are stuck in the frame of mind that a leader has the right to ignore the needs of collaborators and followers.

Wednesday evening’s dinner was capped off with a great presentation and panel discussion celebrating the sesquicentennial of the Morrill Act, which established the land grant universities. I was surprised how little I actually knew (or remembered?) about the act, which is a move that has radically impacted especially rural areas and people who would have otherwise had difficulty accessing quality education. Perhaps most surprising was that this act was passed during the Civil War. It’s kind of humbling to look back and realize that, in the midst of the worst crisis that our country has ever faced, our national leadership was able to bring the power of government to bear and create something truly long-lasting and great.

The next morning we transitioned from the Chautauqua to the Symposium on Small Towns, opening with a poem from Athena Kildegaard. Ken Pigg then gave a more detailed presentation on his leadership studies, followed by a great panel of small town people talking about leadership stories in which they’re involved. Much like the Wisconsin Rural Partners Rural Summit, it’s great to hear about how much people can accomplish in their communities.

Over lunch we heard from Luther Snow, the creator of asset mapping, regarding leadership in practice. Luther shared a number of good stories from his work in communities around the country. He truly showed his background in asset-based work by focusing on the positive. He’s really an interesting speaker!

The afternoon was filled with breakout sessions. I sat in on three great sessions. A group of leadership program alumni from Morris talked about their work in presenting a community forum on government finance and taxation. I think this is an idea that could, and should, be replicated widely. They invited the city manager, county executive and school district administrator to present to people information about how they develop budgets, and how that connects to taxation. One presenter even remarked that he knew little about the topic before doing the forum, and I think that’s a pretty common issue.

A second presentation discussed a great project to develop sustainability indicators for the northwest region of Minnesota. I was especially impressed that the effort involved the College of Design to make the indicators simple and easy to understand. Efforts like these have to be backed by an immense amount of data, but often fall down when it comes to presenting the data in easier formats. I think these folks are really on to something.

Next up I sat in on part of a session on generational transition in family-owned business, and what it can mean for small towns. It was a great discussion, but unfortunately I had to step out early to get ready for my own presentation, “Is Social Media Making Our Small Towns Less Social?” (I’ll be getting that written up in the next few days.) Following my talk, I sat in on a discussion of small-town main street development by Emily Northey of the Minnesota Main Street program. Lots of great information!

Finally the day wrapped up with a massive group networking exercise, allowing people to post needs and skills in the room so that people could connect with others who might share their same interests. A number of connections were made, and more will no doubt be made when the lists are shared with participants in the coming weeks.

Both of these conferences were really fantastic events. I think I came home with more business cards and more new contacts than I’ve ever met at a conference. Both events drew a wide range of people, from academia to industry, practitioners to volunteers to community members. As a result, the conversations covered a lot of ground, and really helped me to crystallize my thinking on a number of issues.

Jane Leonard of the Bush Foundation closed out the day quoting a poem from Minnesota’s own Bill Holm that I think summarized the whole event perfectly:

Someone dancing inside us
has learned only a few steps:
the “Do-Your-Work” in 4/4 time,
the “What-Do-You-Expect” Waltz.
He hasn’t noticed yet the woman
standing away from the lamp.
the one with black eyes
who knows the rumba.
and strange steps in jumpy rhythms
from the mountains of Bulgaria.
If they dance together,
something unexpected will happen;
if they don’t, the next world
will be a lot like this one.

Bill Holm

Would You Like to Fix Facebook?

Dennis Deery — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 16:55:16 +0000

The most common complaint I hear recently when talking with people about social media is a universal dislike of the timeline view in Facebook. While I can’t make the timeline go away, I can recommend a tool that will improve your Facebook experience.

Social Fixer is a browser plugin that allows you to tweak the Facebook interface to remove some of the more annoying aspects of Facebook.

Using the plugin creates several tabs on the Facebook news feed, moving posts from games and applications like Farmville to a separate feed. If you’re not into Facebook games, this by itself makes the plugin worthwhile.

Social Fixer can also notify you when friends un-friend you (don’t get stalker-y now!). You can apply themes to Facebook to change the overall appearance. And regarding timeline, while Fixer won’t make it go away, it can make timeline into a single-column view, which I find easier to read through quickly.

Social Fixer works in Google Chrome, Firefox and several other browsers, but not Internet Explorer. But c’mon, you shouldn’t be using Internet Explorer anyway! I strongly recommend you use Google Chrome, but Firefox is a great alternative as well.

Download Social Fixer now, and if you like it be sure to donate.

Oneida Nation Social Media Day

Dennis Deery — Thu, 07 Jun 2012 18:30:01 +0000

Today I’m in Green Bay, Wisconsin speaking with folks from the Oneida Nation about social media analytics. You can find the resources for my talk here.

Congratulations Hartung Brothers!

Dennis Deery — Fri, 11 May 2012 13:42:05 +0000

Last night our long-time client Hartung Brothers, Inc. of Madison was awarded the Wisconsin Family Business of the Year award in the Large Business category. I’ve been working with HBI for 18 years now, and I’m happy to call the people there friends as well as clients. They’ve been supportive of Irish Rose and have really helped me to build the kind of business I wanted to build. It’s been a great pleasure to watch their success. They exemplify what is best about rural businesses. Well deserved!

Business Use of Social Media

Dennis Deery — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:48:01 +0000

This morning I’m giving a talk for the Dunn County Economic Development Corporation on “Business Use of Social Media.” You can find the resources for this talk here.