Comcast has launched a company-wide customer service initiative to completely change the customer experience and hopefully its own reputation.  Minneapolis Star Tribune reporter Suzanne Ziegler takes a look at their progress here.

In this 4-minute interview, Dartmouth’s Paul Argentini talks about a couple of things worth hearing.  One, at 50, he says, social media is best approached with some initial mentoring from a younger generation or at least someone with the mindset of a younger generation.  Two, social media brings a responsibility that we’re not all ready for — once you have a couple hundred followers on Twitter, you have a responsibility to respond to questions, to step up to the plate and participate.  Third, we’ve entered an era of two-way communication that is to be appreciated.  This is huge.

What To Take with You
1.    Questions you will ask
2.    A clean FlipCam – clear off old recordings
3.    Extra batteries
4.    Tripod if you have one ($14.99 at theflip.com)

Interview Questions
•    Plan 3- 5 short interviews with each person – these multiple segments allow you to choose the “best of” for release
•    Each clip is about 2 minutes long
•    Ask 3 or 4 questions per clip
•    Make each clip a slightly different topic, or elaborate on a single topic
If you prefer, record one longer session with pauses between some of the questions or topics, and we will edit the recording into shorter clips.

Setting Up
1.    Choose a quiet spot – outside interviews are great unless there is airplane traffic or sounds that will overpower your voices
2.    Light source is behind the camera
3.    Interesting, colorful background or signage is in front of the camera
4.    Stand up – your voices will be stronger and more natural
5.    Set the camera at eye level or higher for the person you will interview – avoid having them look down into the camera (nostrils are rarely a best feature)
6.    Review your questions, anticipate when you’ll start/stop the camera
7.    Confirm the person’s name and title

Relax, start the camera and go.

Attach the FlipCam to your USB port.  Upload the file to www.drop.io for later editing or go straight to YouTube.

Local Pioneer Press editor Joe Soucheray stirred up some Twitter debate today when he said Twitter is “the end of the world as we know it, and I don’t feel fine.” His point:  we waste time chattering about nothing and mistakenly believe ourselves to be important by virtue of participation.  He bemoans the potential displacement of real human interaction.

Well, end of the world is a bit extreme.  But sure, absolutely we’re a far cry from days characterized by more in-person exchanges.  And yes, Twitter can be a huge waste of time.

If you are using Twitter for work, you’ve had to figure out how to manage the beast in a way that delivers useful information and connections.  Know your audience and reliably serve updates that are meaningful to them.

As for who you follow on Twitter, the great thing about this medium is just how much you can shape it.  Follow those individuals that you need to keep in touch with, and those sources that you value.  Remove the rest. I like Twitter for the news feeds I get from some of my favorite media sources and local business groups.  I also appreciate the relevance of casual updates from editors and colleagues.  It helps put the day in context of others.

It is worth remembering that a large contingent of the Twitter population is made up of people that work independently, often from a home or satellite office.  As the March wind howls outside an otherwise quiet office – save the soft snore of one of the dogs – I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that Twitter makes the world a little more HERE.

Twitter doesn’t replace in-person conversation.  Like email and everything else, it has the potential to be a time sink.  That doesn’t mean it isn’t incredibly valuable when you figure out how to make it work for you.

The Community Manager position is increasingly one that is at the pivot point between the needs of the organization and the needs of the community and engages in aligning both and enabling a conversational attitude that is meaningful for both sides.

This is a textbook description of what public relations is all about, and it’s the two-way responsibility that draws many people to the profession.  Hopefully, as Steve points out, the emergence of social media will apply the appropriate pressure to make two-way conversation a key deliverable for corporate pr teams.

An alternative is to apply majority public relations resources to pushing a canned point of view, and public relations programs funded by marketing groups have the toughest time avoiding this pitfall. The Community Manager that Steve describes is part corporate communications, part journalist, part marketing genius.  Of the three parts, the best will be those that retain the objective mindset of the journalist and find a way to effectively represent the two-way channel within their organization.

That experiment took off and has now become a daily news feed for executives, sales reps, product developers. Colleague Tim Elliott revamped it awhile ago, improving content and usability and enabling us to publish anywhere anytime.  We publish with WordPress because it’s quick, easy and well-suited to the task — not to mention free. Readers opt in by subscribing and the subscriber base has spread to Europe, the Middle East and Asia — all of it “viral.”

In today’s flood of media, response to what we call The Scanner was unexpected.  After all, who wants another news feed?  But it’s the fire hose of information that created the need for a filter, custom designed for our readers.

People we talk to seem to appreciate two aspects of the daily feed. First, we save them time. We take an enormous realm of press coverage and deliver what’s relevant to the business and its customers. Second, readers stop wondering what they missed. They get news the same day – and they have a place to go back to when they need to regroup and review.

It saves us time too. By capturing coverage each day, we streamline many other activities throughout the month.  Plus, the site is archived and searchable. Readers come here for past coverage. Gone are the incoming emails asking, “can you send me a copy of that article that ran a few weeks ago…”

This type of channel is a natural way to distribute news and results to your team. When executives and product developers and key sales people go out of their way to say thank you, we know the ROI is in our favor.

Rather than asking editors to wait, Comcast accelerated their launch plans.  Within a few hours, Comcast got product experts on the phone with writers in key markets and emailed product specs and pricing. Full (and positive) coverage was online by end of day and in print the next morning. The company posted complete information via a social media news release online where bloggers could access facts, charts and supporting data. Coverage spread faster and wider and with more positive enthusiasm as soon as Comcast got the news on the wire, and participants Twittered news stories and blog links for followers.