UPDATED: With slides below

We all know that the world has been quickly transformed (you might also say overloaded) by social media.  News anchors are on twitter and ESPN has a social media policy, and you’ve only just signed up for facebook!  No worries, if you’re in Knoxville – you may be interested to join me (and a few friends, see Katie’s post on the topic) tomorrow as we explain our views and answer your questions at “Social Media 101: For Grownups” a panel put on by Leadership Knoxville.

The topics and presenters:

Social media is the new “civic” club. Learn how to make it useful personally and professionally. Presented by Katie Allison Granju Director of Digital & Social Media at Ackermann PR.
Nuts & Bolts of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. How to get started and what you need to know now. Presented by Bob Wilson Director of New Media at Moxley Carmichael.

Social Media Business Success! Hear how the use of social media and personal branding has produced measurable ROI in this challenging economy. Presented by Suzy Trotta Realtor at Coldwell Banker Business Benefits of Social Media

Social Media in the Enterprise. Hear how Ruby Tuesday, Inc. uses social media to build awareness and traffic to build its business and strengthen its brand. Presented by me.

The details:

Reserve your seat today!

Wednesday, Oct. 28th
4:00 – 6:00 p.m.

LK Alumni $20 per person

Opens to General Public $30 per person

Knoxville Chamber Markethouse Room
17 Market Square

Laptops encouraged – wireless provided!

rsvp@leadershipknoxville.com

865.523.9137

After I presented at the SMC- Greenville meeting I was approached by a college student and asked an interesting question, “what’s the best background to get into a social media job?”  at the time, I mentioned that my background was business and marketing, so I could speak to that but not social media in general.  I decided to tweet the question since I knew I’d get quite the mixture of answers. Here are a few responses, each with a different viewpoint – technology entrepreneur, marketing consultant and in house technologist.  (All who are worth a follow by the way).

from @jpatrickhunt trial by fire. on the job training. offer your services for nothing and dive in. learn and adapt. you will be assimilated.

from @jfloyd journalism, photography, video production, advertising, english, web design…what does Seth call it…a multipationalist?

from @BJ_Emerson Great question, may depend on the needs of the org. My opinion: Don’t skimp on the tech skills, be good at relationships.

I expected the answers to be all over and I wasn’t disappointed.  So where does this leave us?  Ultimately while a background in in PR or marketing has an upside, I’m going to go out on a limb and say I don’t think it really matters for hiring.  To be clear, one should have some manner of understanding of the basics of communication and if the job has a strategy component you’ll need to understand the social landscape.  But what matters the most is that you be customer focused. Which may seem to be a no brainer to some of you, however it’s not to everyone.  Customer focused means thinking of yourself as the advocate of the people your organization exists to serve.  So you are approaching problems with the mindset of it you were the end user.

This is important because at the end of the day, social media is about people.  It’s a set of tools that are allowing customers the ability to connect with and give feedback to their friends and the public – and we as organizations have the ability to be part of that exchange.  To learn and respond and share. If you want to work in social media, you’ll be well on your way if you can be that voice of the customer.

Updated: Slides embedded below and on SlideShare

I’m heading out to Greenville, SC to this weekend at the invitation of Trey Pennington to speak to the great members of  Social Media Club – Greenville on Monday morning (Facbook Event link) about Social Media in the Enterprise.  I’m going to cover the why, the how and the what about social media at Ruby Tuesday, Inc.  If you’ve wondered about how large companies think about and use social media – this will be a great chance to hear more about it.

I’ve got the honor of following the great panel from last month – (watch the video captured by Bobby Rettew).

Spike Jones of Brains on Fire
Olivier Blanchard of The Brand Builder
Jeff Elder from the Charlotte Observer
Top Chef’s Celebrity Chef Michael Parise

The deets – Monday, October 12, 2009

When:

8am-9am

Where:

Skyline Exhibits & Designs
346 Feaster Road
Greenville, SC 29615-6130 (Google Map)

Other:

Facebook Event Details

Register:

To preregister for the event, please go to http://smcgreenville20091012.eventbrite.com/
Preregistration: $6.75+ eventbrite fee | At-the-door: $10.00

If you’re coming – make sure you stop by and say hello.  I’ll also be around until mid-day if you want to connect but can’t make the morning meeting.  Shoot me an email at gavinrb (at) gmail (dot) com

UPDATED: 10/14/09 with new information about groups.

I developed this comparison (download) of Ning and Facebook for an internal discussion, but figured I’d share it since there didn’t seem to be much on the Internet in terms of a direct breakdown.

As an overview, Ning is a site that easily allows the creation of free private social networks.

This feature means sites are created around topics and groups. e.g. Knoxville Social Media Association is a group I’m a member of and we use a Ning site to organize around our topic.  It includes tools that allow the creation of events, blog posts, forums, and discussion, and it’s scope is very focused.  It’s also private – so if you’re not a member of that group, you can’t see the content.  In short, Ning sites operate around the TOPIC.

Facebook on the other hand is also a private social networking site, and members can join groups, pages, etc.  e.g. Knoxville Social Media Association also maintains a facebook page as a public outpost.  That public profile also has forums, and discussion, but those can’t be limited to specific people.  They are public. Additionally, facebook is primarily about me, my friends, my interests, so it exists as an ecosystem (or platform) and its focus is broad. In short, facebook operates aroud the PERSON.

Before we get too much further I want to cover one thing that the graphic above doesn’t – which is Facebook groups.  This is a feature on Facebook where you can create small private groups around a topic.  They can be open (public) or closed (private) but they do have a member limit and aren’t specifically suited to broad engagement across a topic.  They also receive less visibility on the Facebook platform. UPDATE: All Facebook reports that Facebook is switching groups over to a layout similar to the public pages.  I guess we’ll start to groups move away, and pages will have a private and public setting.

Analysis

One upside to Facebook is that there is a chance that a large amount of people already have accounts (300+ million)  thus lowering the barrier to entry and the level of adoption.  The upside to Ning is that user accounts can be maintained and kept current with group your membership roster, including the removal of accounts via CSV file upload. For dues paying membership organizations this can be important.

One of the dangers of using a public network like Facebook is that material that is not intended to be public facing will be accessible.  This information may not be trade secrets, but could be something as simple as a discussion on social media policy where the public sharing of information could be counter productive to an open discussion of the topic.

Ning allows all the great benefits of Facebook (including additional custom tools) and wraps them in a fully private system that assures private membership and provides a location for authentic dialogue. Facebook certainly wins the battle on the installed user base and the public’s familiarity  with the site.

Facebook and Ning certainly serve different purposes and can be used interchangeably with success. Ultimately, either site will require users – so understanding their behavior within your goals will be important.  A lot of people check into Facebook every day and will get a reminder of your content.  If you go with Ning, is your content enough incentive to bring them to your site?

I’m interested to hear what you think.  Please share any great examples of Facebook or Ning usage in the comments and I’ll be happy to update the post with your links.  Also, if you’ve used a site not included here – please share your experience.

I’ve been using posterous as my way to save thoughs, ideas, statements, pictures, etc that I like.

Until I figure out a sweet way to pull my posterous into this blog – I’d recommend you check it out at

http://gavinbaker.posterous.com/

One of the things I love to do is read.  I recently finished “Groundswell” by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff which is a great resource.  It’s a very balanced look at social technology and what can happen when companies choose to adopt them.  I’m late to the party on reading this book, but it launched to great acclaim in 2008 – and I now understand why.

They’ve managed to find what I’m considering the perfect blend of background, statistics, how to’s, case studies and sage advice in 286 pages.  This is not a book about marketing, this is a book that shares it’s view on how social technology is changing (and will change) companies big and small as we’ve known them.  Most helpful to me were the case studies, examples are concrete and share the actions and results; additionally they serve as inspiration of how those ideas could be applied at the organizations I’m involved in.

The book isn’t about specific tools, it’s about understanding the relationships, and knowing that social tools enable relationships to form faster and become mighty much quicker then they would have 10 years ago.  Even since the book was written technology has changed and will continue to change – so the key takeaway is focus on the relationships, how people connect with one another and it will impact how you do business.

Oh and it had 32 stickies for me – if you’re looking for a book that is a one stop stop on social technology then this is it.

32 Stickies

I was reading some Peter Kim recently and he had a post about taxonomy of content that I really liked.

Instead of the classic Forrester ladder – he breaks it down into those who make it, break it, and take it (also fake it). I’m drawn to this model because deep inside I’m a simple man.  I like things that rhyme, it’s easy for me to visualize and perhaps the biggest reason is that it gives me an out.

Yep, an out.  His breakdown helps me to know that I don’t have to be awesome like he is (crazy but true).   Because I’m the guy that reads stuff like Peter’s (insert any other A list blogger) and am fully wow’d by the thought and ability to time and time again stand at the plate and make solid contact. Not always homeruns, but rarely striking out.  So he gives me hope.

His post is pithy, so I won’t quote it but check it out.

I saw this video from a tweet by Jason Calacanis and I love it!  This is PS22 Chorus a group of 5th graders up in New York.  Check them out here http://ps22chorus.blogspot.com/ .  In addtion to Eye of the Tiger, they also do “Don’t Stop Believing” by Journey, “Just Dance” by Lady Gaga – quite the variety.  The videos are awesome!

I’m here in Charlotte, NC for the freshness that is Social Fresh aka @sofresh #sofresh

David Armano is keynoting aka @armano and Olivier Blanchard @thebrandbuilder is covering Social Media ROI and Spike Jones @spikejones of Brains on Fire @brainsonfire is talking about…something awesome, so it’s safe to say they are bringing it as well as reps from  Best Buy, Rubbermaid and IBM.

I’ll tweet during, but following the hashtag #sofresh will get you lots of great content too.

I got my Google Voice invite about a month ago. I think the service is intriguing so I was excited to see the email in my inbox.  First you have to pick a number  – this was a big deal to me since they don’t offer number portability, yet.   I decided to select an 865 (Knoxville, TN) number even though my mobile is a 513 (Cincinnati, OH) number.  After number selection I started playing around with the web app and what not but I pretty much just left it as it was.

Then I found out there was an iPhone app – not fully official but still available.  Then Google released official BlackBerry and Android apps that can take over the native dialer and sms function with the promise of an iPhone in the pipeline.  This was like a fresh roll of cotton candy to my eyes as I LOVE synergy.  If I’m going to use Google Voice, I want it be be as native as possible.  Then the whole FCC Google, AT&T, Apple fiacso got rolling and all possibility of that was shelved for a bit. Although I did download the non official Google Voice app via Cydia which the developer Sean Kovacs released amazingly for free.

Addtionaly, I did some checking and I got my Google Voice up and running on the desktop with a couple of tricks.  First from this article I installed a Firefox extension, but honestly it didn’t do what I was hoping.

So I figured Fluid would be the way to go.  For those uninitiated, Fluid is a program that creates site specific browsers, i.e. creates launchable applications out of browser based web apps.  I currently use it for CoTweet, Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Reader.  I’ve never encountered any odd systemic failures but it goes without saying that you try this at your own risk.

So here’s a bit of a tutorial of sorts to add Google Voice with Growl and Javascript icon notifications.  Props to the developer who created the script to make this Google Voice magic happen, all of this information is adapted from his original post here. If you’re already familiar with adding userscripts to Fluid apps you can get the script here – for everyone else.  Read on.

Prior to this step you’ll have needed to download and installed Fluid and then created an app for Google Voice.  Use the URL “http://google.com/voice” and the PNG for the icon here.  You’ll also need Growl running for notifications.

All photos will enlarge when clicked for details.

Step 1: Browse for userscripts from within the Fluid app you created (mine is called G Voice)

This will open a new window you’ll search in.

Step 2: Search for the phrase “google voice”

Step 3: Select the script named “Google Voice Notifications”

There are a few scripts, I’ve only used the one highlighted in this overview so I can’t comment on the effectiveness of the other scripts.

Step 4: On the script page click the GREEN Install button.

This will install the script in the Fluid app

Step 5: Confirm the install and close the window.

Step 6: Quit and restart the G Voice fluid app.  All indicators should be running like clock work.

Text a friend from your Google Voice to test and witness the awesomeness.

Step 7: Rejoice!