The brains did register the conflict as an unpleasant emotion but for the political partisans they were able to shutdown that distress quickly through faulty reasoning. But here's the thing. Once the negative emotions turned off, the positive emotions turned on. They weren't just feeling a little better, they were feeling good.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I remember from years ago watching a laborious powerpoint pitch from a famous firm of management consultants. They were doing a change programme for a big company, and the whole theme was "making a compelling case for change". It was entirely rooted in a mindset of argument.

Among its horrors was a little matrix dividing the organisations employees into three levels of sophistication. For each level, the analogy was made to a national newspaper. Thus top management would be addressed like readers of the Financial Times; mid-levels would get Daily Mail treatment; and the rest were set to be addresssed like Sun readers.

So apart from relying over much on "rational" argument it also nakedly reflected a hierarchical notion of how change would take place. Wrong in so many ways.

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Disclaimer: The bold-face emphasis that appears throughout this commentary is mine, not Rabbi Yoffie’s.

The heart of synagogue community is face-to-face interaction. We go to temple—especially now -– to touch, taste, and feel community. We go there for solace, humor, and support among a reassuring crowd of friends and fellow Jews.

That being so, what about the Internet? Will it undermine the synagogue? Some fear yes -— that it will lure Jews away from the old ways of connecting that require us to be in the same physical place. They fear that it will become a substitute for in-the-flesh contact, and that if people start getting their needs met in the virtual world, they will have no need for the real world.

But this is not my view. True, you can’t have a minyan or pay a shiva call online; online experience is not the same as being there. Still, it can be a powerful adjunct. And studies show that heavy Internet use actually encourages users to meet more with other people.

Remember: from the time of Ezra, who rewrote the Bible in a new script, we Jews have always adapted to our environment and taken advantage of the latest technologies. To encode our conversations and sacred texts, we moved with ease from stone tablets to parchment to paper, and we will move with equal ease to the electronic word.

In fact, we should see the Web as one of the most wondrous developments of all time.

In the first place, our members do not have the time they once had. We are working more and sleeping less, and we can’t get to the synagogue as much as we once did. Carving out an hour or two for a class or committee meeting is harder than ever. In this world, we need the benefits that online community brings. In any case, let’s not kid ourselves; our members are spending more and more of their time online, and we need to be there with them.

In the second place, the web does what Judaism has always aspired to do: it opens up the vast treasury of Jewish knowledge to everyone. Judaism is not a religion of elites; we are all expected to learn and to know. The web provides access to Jewish learning on a scale that was unthinkable a decade ago.

And in the third place, the web -– potentially at least -– empowers our members and democratizes our synagogues. The synagogue is the grassroots address of the Jewish world, and the web gives us an instrument to involve and include Jews as never before. This is enormously exciting, and more than a little scary.

Are our synagogues doing great things in this area? Absolutely. Are we making the most of this potential? Not even close. Almost all our synagogues have email lists and websites; but these are usually a way to present information rather than a means to engage their members. Even those congregations that have a blog rarely use it to generate conversation and foster connection.

But I believe that we are missing a critical opportunity. The Internet and cyberspace are changing all the rules of Jewish interaction, and we need to be at the forefront of these changes. We need to create an online, Oral Torah of ongoing Jewish discourse, and invite in the opinions of our members. We need to ask our members to share their personal stories and Jewish memories -– which they love to do when given the chance. We need to encourage hotly debated, multi-voiced, civil discussions on synagogue and local issues, and on Israel and national issues.

The idea is not just to serve our members but to engage them. The idea is not only to inform but also to inspire and create community. The idea is to see the Web not as a bulletin board for announcements but as an act of communal collaboration.

Please note: None of this makes temple leaders less important. Information is not knowledge. Our members will still want their rabbis and cantors, their educators and administrators to listen and to lead.

Nonetheless, we need to be aware of what is happening in our world. We have talked endlessly about how to attract young adults into our congregations. No one is certain how to do it. But if we are ever to succeed with these young Jews, we need to know who they are, where they are, and what they want. Having grown up in the digital world, theirs is a culture of interaction and enablement. They want to inquire, discuss, and argue. They are natural collaborators and community-builders. And they will not be attracted by authoritarian Judaism; they want a synagogue that is more bottom-up than top-down.

That being so, I believe with all my heart that the Judaism best able to reach them is Reform Judaism, and the synagogue best able to meet their needs is the Reform synagogue. We must become the address for technological experimentation -– for web streaming, “virtual board meetings,” and a whole range of creative approaches that the innovators in our midst are already working on. To help our congregations begin this process, the Union has collected some of the best ideas for your review and consideration.

But there is one particular idea that I hope every synagogue will think about immediately, and that is a congregational blog -– not just an electronic temple bulletin, but a truly interactive, online forum. We need blogs because the era of one-way, passive information consumption is over. Our members, young and old, expect to talk back and have a conversation; they think in terms of networks rather than hierarchies. And creating a blog is easy and free, and the technology is so simple that even I can understand it. The Union has produced a guide with sample posts, technical advice, and ideas on how to draw people in. The key is to assemble a team of temple members who will agree not only to write for the blog but to read other posts and to comment. At the beginning, participants may be few, but if we address the real issues in people’s lives, the numbers will grow.

If this is to work, it cannot be the job of the rabbi or the administrator. They may choose to join in, but they have enough to do. Only if lay leaders take this on will a community come into being. As I said, if we ask our members to share their Jewish journeys, most will be flattered and eager to respond. Let’s exchange Jewish memories. Let’s talk about why we come to services or why we don’t. Let’s discuss the big issues of the Jewish world. And Presidents and board members can test ideas and ask for feedback, on anything from dues and membership to personal theology.

It is a rare business nowadays that doesn’t have an online forum for customers to share insights, make observations, and post questions. Given the importance of our sacred work, shouldn’t we be doing the same?

A word about the risks. A blog means you don’t control everything. You must welcome honest and open conversation and give people the freedom to disagree, criticize, and complain. Once, as we see from the Talmud, Jews could be counted on to do this with civility. But today, blogging can be a shoot-from-the-hip medium. And if our blogs are taken over by the kvetchers and the whiners, by the grievance collectors and the supersensitive souls, we are lost. I suggest, therefore, a simple solution: every temple needs a volunteer moderator who will review comments before they are posted. The Union will offer online training to prepare the volunteers for their work. And I recommend three rules to govern what will be posted and what will not: you need to sign your name; your comments will only be posted if they could be read from the bima on Erev Shabbat; and no one blogger will be permitted to dominate the conversation.

Our NFTYites do not agree with me here. They favor a wide open approach and feel that those who are petulant or nasty can quickly be brought around. But I believe that if online conversation is to serve our sacred cause, tact and reflective judgment are essential.

So yes, there are risks, but they are manageable; we will lose some control, but we will gain the ability to hear and to learn, and to reach out in new directions. The greater risk by far is that we will do nothing, and the digital generation will pass us by.

So let’s take up the challenge of the online age. Let this Movement do what it has always done: welcome diversity, encourage community, and join ancient tradition with cutting-edge culture. Let us create Torah, embrace Torah, and search out the unfolding word of God, wherever it may be found.

And by the way, this sermon will appear next week on the Union’s blog, and I look forward to entering into discussion with you.

John Nese is a modern day soda jerk. He’s passionate about “flavored water with a lot bubbles.” Soda makes him smile, makes him happy. He’s the proprietor of Galco’s Soda Pop Stop in Los Angeles. His store sells about 500 different sodas from small, independent-run soda makers. His business is a prototypical purple cow, worthy of word-of-mouth.

Watching the video below will not only make us smile and happy, it will make us smarter about business strategy and jealous we don’t have the same passion for what we do that John Nese does.

We’ll become smarter because we’ll see first-hand how passion propels performance, how being more selective makes a business more effective, and how sharing inspired expert knowledge will never go out of style.

We’ll become jealous because we’ll see someone who has made the necessary sacrifices in life to pursue their calling.

Enjoy. (Thanks Seth and Neal for bring this video to my attention.)

RSS Readers ... click here to watch the video.

A timely story about that distribution channel so often misused by the PR industry – email.

In an article published in Journalism.co.uk (and elsewhere), Iain Fleming, who works for Newslink, a news aggregation and delivery service in the UK, writes about the results of a survey he carried a few months ago on people’s attitudes to the email that PR agencies and others send them.

Probably little surprise at some of Fleming’s findings:

[…] the results of my small survey – including responses from 101 editors, section editors, journalists and IT managers – showed just how much those working on news desks disliked the PR industry – despite their growing reliance on it. So much of what is being thrown at them is completely irrelevant – if it gets to them at all.

What does get through – and 95 per cent reported problems with email of which around a quarter said it was ‘every day’ – is sent in ways which either crash their systems or can’t be opened because their employers simply cannot afford to upgrade software on 200 computers as regularly as a small PR agency of just a few people can – and does.

And that is just for ‘traditional’ text and pictures. The message that a national newspaper can happily use a picture – even across several columns – if it is only a few hundred Kb in size has not got through to the PR people, who keep sending out 10Mb files at a time.

Move on to ‘new’ media and the situation is even worse, with the same issues of incompatible file types, too large files, poor quality content and stuff that is ‘just not newsworthy’ topping the list of complaints. A senior manager within ITV told me just last week how one station struggled for several hours to get video sent by a fire brigade into a format suitable for broadcast, but ran out of time and the bulletin went out minus the footage.

What a picture. Read the full story in its gory detail.

I like to look beyond the dismal picture Fleming paints. There are great opportunities for the few – yes, there are some – who get it right.

Related posts:

• For Immediate Release: Special Live Call-In Show on PR Spam – June 11, 2008
• Who has responsibility for addressing PR spam?
• PR spam is mostly the result of being careless

[Photo by Neil Crosby, used under Creative Commons license.]

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About 15 months ago, I implemented the Thesis theme for WordPress on this blog. It’s  a premium theme (you pay for it) and a powerful one as it gives you access to the means to customize many aspects of the look-and-feel of your WordPress site and its functionality without your having to know much about PHP, CSS and such things.

Since developer Chris Pearson released the new version 1.6 last month, I’ve been tinkering on and off with it over on my Testing Thesis blog, a place I set up to aid my learning of what I can do with Thesis (and where others can help out, too, notably the great help earlier this year from my friend in Portugal, Bruno Amaral).

Today I’ve made some small tweaks to this blog and added the welcome box at top right of your screen beneath the banner. Thesis 1.6 makes it easier to see how to do this – what I did was customize the multimedia box option – but I still needed some hand-holding for specifics on getting it looking more or less how I wanted it to.

Things like padding and margins, font size, background tint: some of which just meant clicking some choices in the Thesis Design Options admin page, others needing code entering into the custom.css file.

So thanks go to all the Thesis users in the Thesis support forum whose relevant questions and posts pointed me in all the right directions; and specifically to Thesis Hacker and to Marko Saric at HowToMakeMyBlog for their invaluable tutorials.

And special thanks to Jonathan Wong who created the social media icons you see in the welcome box.

Related posts:

• Upgrades to WordPress and the Thesis theme
• [Testing Thesis] Thesis 1.6 installed – and it rocks
• [Next] Adding intelligence to WordPress theme design

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By 2000, there were 1 million book authors per year. One million authors is a lot, but they are only a tiny fraction, 0.01 percent, of the nearly 7 billion people on Earth. Since 1400, book authorship has grown nearly tenfold in each century. Currently, authorship, including books and new media, is growing nearly tenfold each year. That’s 100 times faster. Authors, once a select minority, will soon be a majority.

They speculate about the implications of this, and I agree that the general impact could be to distribute power more widely and away from small elites. (Though I don't want to get too wide-eyed).

It reminds me of what I wrote four years ago, linking the notion of being an author with that of authority. If more of us become authors of our own experience, that must represent a significant shift in how power is used in the world.

Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan

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The problem is a preference for avoiding the discomfort of looking at and considering changing our own behaviour. Unsurprisingly, many leaders prefer to support other people and groups to change rather than work on themselves; those other people, in turn, prefer to help other people change … and so on.

The first is that when they avoid exploring the discomfort of change before asking others to, they miss the opportunity to equip themselves with the kind of skills, empathy and understanding that would be invaluable for supporting change in others. The second is that when they don’t work on their own behaviours, leaders lose the ability to lead by example and are perceived as incongruent.

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If you’re an art lover who owns an iPhone or iPod Touch, you will rejoice today as you can visit the Musée du Louvre in Paris right on your device, wherever you happen to be.

The museum just launched an iPhone app that offers a glimpse into the rich works of art and other treasures you find in the museum galleries in Paris.

Get to know the Mona Lisa. Explore the works of Tintoretto, Titian and others of the Renaissance period. Tour the museum through a collection of videos. Get information about opening hours so you can plan a real-world visit.

This English-language app – not yet mentioned anywhere on the Louvre’s website – is available free (App Store link), is a delight and is very well produced.

Even if art’s not your thing, you’ll enjoy a tour of the museum and learn a little history.

One other art app I’ve had on my iPhone for the past few months is Love Art, an excellent pay-for app (£1.79 in the UK App Store) produced by Antenna Audio for the National Gallery, London.

This is in another league compared to the Louvre’s app as its various sections are more deep audio-visual tours of the content you want to explore.

And what content! Over three hours of video and audio, in fact, covering such a range of all you would find in the gallery if you visited.

Rembrandt is here as is Van Gogh, complete with detailed commentaries and visuals on their major works. You can watch or listen to compelling content on other masters whose works are displayed in the gallery including Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli and Renoir.

Delightful tools, ones that add real value to your mobile experience.

Now if only there were an app for other iconic museums and galleries. Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, for instance.

Oh, wait…

Antenna Audio again. Nice work!

© 2009 - visit the author for more great content.

If you pick up a tool and it fits your hand its useful, if you have to bio-rengineer your hand to fit the tool something is going badly wrong.

In Improv, people talk a lot about the paradox of structure and freedom. With no structure, there is chaos, with too much structure there's no creativity or life. They are not opposites. This video shows me playing a little improv game in the pub with my friend Jesper Bindslev. I set out a few bits of structure at the start, but what then emerges is improvised within that structure, and (I think) is playful and very human. (Click here for video if you don't see it embedded below.) Having used this activities hundreds of times, I can assure that the outcomes vary wildly from one iteration to the next, but nearly always conform to the rules of thumb set out at the start. However, if people do the activity repeatedly, they naturally start to push against the initial set of rules and/or spontaneously decide to try variations of the game. If you look in the comments when I first posted this clip, someone suggests doing a mindmap collaboratively with similar constraints. It's a small example of our natural desire to adjust structures to support our natural desire to experiment and learn.

Dave elaborates on his theme using a gardening analogy:

With too much structure there is no space for novelty. The dilemma at the moment is that social computing considered overall is a wild flower garden, richly diverse and constantly changing. On the other hand most corporate computing environments are the equivalent of the highly formal gardens of the 17th Century, before they were swept away by the naturalistic movement of the 18th Century.

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Lots of chatter online about the revamped Starbucks “rewards” program. Starbucks will discontinue its Gold Card program it began a year ago. The Starbucks Gold Card program was designed like many membership rewards program where customers pay a yearly $25 fee and in return they receive free refills on brewed coffee, free wi-fi access, and 10% off on all purchases.

Beginning December 26, Starbucks will replace its Gold Card program with a "My Starbucks Rewards" program offering customers a free beverage after 15 purchases. (There are a few other small perks in this program but it's essentially a Buy 15 Drinks, Get 1 Free program.)

Starbucks is touting its new rewards program as an improvement because of its simpler design and the no annual fee.

However, the consensus from the online chatter is this new program benefits less frequent Starbucks customers (2-to-3 visits a month) than the very frequent Starbucks customer (8+ visits a month).

Obviously the redesign of this program will benefit Starbucks more financially. Perhaps offering a 10% discount to Gold Card members on all purchases was profiting heavy-spending customers more than it was profiting revenue-needing Starbucks.

Whenever I read about new Starbucks business happenings, I refer back to the book I wrote about Starbucks foundational business practices. In TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE, there’s a short section on fostering customer devotion where I give the old school Starbucks perspective on “Preferred Shopper” loyalty schemes, such as a Starbucks Gold Card program or the new My Starbucks Rewards program...

“These ‘Preferred Shopper’ promotions also reverse the logic of great customer service: they ask customers to sign up for a card or buy a certain amount of product before they can enjoy the benefits of being part of the club. Do you really want to create two classes of customers? One that gets the ‘good stuff’ at a good price, the other that gets a raw deal? If you want to foster true customer devotion, don’t make your customers jump through hoops just to feel welcome, or 'preferred.'

Businesses operating like this treat their customers like cattle, doing whatever they can to attract attention. When companies are more focused on their own bottom line than their customers, both will eventually fall away. These programs lack soul and meaning to stand the test of time.”

The last paragraph in this chapter shares a thought more businesses, especially Starbucks today, need to pay attention to:

“Customer loyalty works both ways, and Starbucks knows that. Of course Starbucks wants to maintain its profitability, but it does this by helping the folks who come into its stores, not by working against them. If you want customers to stay loyal to you, stay loyal to your customers—treat them as people, help them as individuals, offer them something extra, and they’ll come back for more.”

You can read the full chapter, TRIBAL TRUTH #28: Foster Customer Devotion, in the box below:

This week’s edition of The Economist arrived in the post this morning. Not an unusual event, really, except it reminded me that last week’s didn’t show up until Tuesday because of the postal strike for three days. Which followed the two-day strike the week before.

During this week, I’ve noticed more companies’ websites with statements saying that if you buy from them, delivery won’t be affected as they don’t use Royal Mail.

Retailer John Lewis has switched entirely from the Royal Mail to alternate carriers.

Then I read articles and features in the mainstream media analysing the situation confronting the Royal Mail and everyone who works there. It’s a dire projected picture as this graph from a BBC report last month suggests.

So what’s next for the Royal Mail and the CWU union? The strike the union had planned for today and Monday isn’t happening as both parties are talking again amidst signs of diminishing public support for either side’s confrontational position.

Meanwhile, here’s what’s going in in the real world of the customers, strike or not.

The owner of a mail order business in Liverpool:

I have a mail order company with a turnover of £30 million and I employ over 200 staff. I have just stopped a contract with Royal Mail for over £1 million and I will not return to them.

A small business owner in Rugby:

As I run a small business I must take immediate action to ensure my invoices are delivered to my customers. The unions and the Royal Mail have forced me to invest in some new software allowing me to e-mail my invoices, statements and remittance advices. I cannot see any circumstances were my business would return to using slow mail.

An online retailer in Durham:

I’ve just moved my e-commerce store deliveries from Royal Mail to couriers and I don’t think I’ll be going back either.

Just a very small cross section of opinion from small and medium-size businesses in the UK, to add to the headline-making actions by the bigger firms like Amazon and John Lewis.

Whatever your cause, driving away the customers makes no sense whatsoever.

Related posts:

• Last chance saloon for Royal Mail and CWU
• Postal strike nonsense

© 2009 - visit the author for more great content.

• PR Week: CIPR Seeks To Calm Concerns Over Looming Financial Loss. (Referenced: IABC wipes out deficit by Allan Jenkins, Feb 2006.)

Download the file here (MP3, 2.54Mb; length 5:33), or sign up for the RSS feed to get this cut segment and all future ones automatically.

• @dsearls
  
• @deanland
  
• @joeandrieu
  
• @judico
  
• @juliangay
• @dariusdunlap
  

and others have been thinking a lot about ProjectVRM.  As part of the conversations, an activity this group was doing was trying to distill down to its essence what "makes" something "VRM" (or VRM-like, at least).  We came up with a couple of core concepts, the first of which is that in a system that is VRM-ish, the following holds true:

"VRM Law #1: The individual is the point of integration."

In other words, instead of myriad entities holding various "slices" of data/information about an individual, that individual instead is the place where that information comes together.  The individual is the place where it all happens.

We want to keep kicking this rock down the street (or rolling this snowball downhill, or keeping this ball rolling, pick your own metaphor for "imparting forward motion to some type of spheroid object").  However, I've noticed that in trying to determine these traits of VRM-ness, we sometimes are getting caught up in the semantics of the words, and instead are not clearly communicating the core concepts.

So.  Going to try something a bit new here.  I've embedded an open, editable presentation below.  Taking a page from the sketchbooks of Armano and Dave Gray and Dan Roam, let's see if we can do this better visually.  

Think of this as a "visual wiki," if you will.  Feel free to go ahead and change it, mark it up, tweak it, and adjust things.  You should (theoretically) be able to edit the presentation by clicking here.

Let's see what happens.

Overflow from FIR #498 on November 5, 2009.

• PR Week: CIPR Seeks To Calm Concerns Over Looming Financial Loss. (Referenced: IABC wipes out deficit by Allan Jenkins, Feb 2006.)

Download this podcast (2.54Mb, 5:33)

If you want to automatically receive FIR Cuts as they’re published, subscribe to the RSS feed.

(What are FIR Cuts?)

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Sent from mobile me

Posted via email from johnwinsor's posterous

Sent from mobile me

Posted via email from johnwinsor's posterous

Content summary: Shel’s on his own in Toronto; how the Union for Reform Judaism used Twitter and Facebook to solicit member questions for Tony Blair’s live appearance at the group’s biennial; Google Wave and Twitter List reminders; Dan York’s report; Media Monitoring Minute; News That Fits: Novell introduces Pulse with Google Wave integration, the move from stickiness to spreadability, more on Twitter Lists including a how-to guide from Mashable, Second Life takes enterprise software into beta; listener comments; and more.

Get FIR:

• Download the MP3 file (26.3Mb, 65:41)
• Subscribe to the RSS feed
• Get the show at iTunes

Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir.

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for November 5, 2009: A 66-minute podcast recorded live from Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute – see the show notes home page for info.

• FIR #498 show notes at The New PR Wiki

Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR, or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Join the FIR Discussion Forum and extend your conversations with the FIR community. You can also join the FIR Facebook Community and become an FIR friend.

To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

So, until Monday November 9…

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

© 2009 - visit the author for more great content.

Content summary: Shel’s on his own in Toronto; How the Union for Reform Judaism used Twitter and Facebook to solicit member questions for Tony Blair’s live appearance at the group’s biennial; Google Wave and Twitter List reminders; Dan York’s report; Media Monitoring Minute; News That Fits: Novell introduces Pulse with Google Wave integration, the move from stickiness to spreadability, more on Twitter lists including a how-to guide from Mashable, Second Life takes enterprise software into beta; listener comments; and more.

Get FIR:

• Download the MP3 file (26.3Mb, 65:41)
• Subscribe to the RSS feed
• Get the show at iTunes

Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir.

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for November 5, 2009: A 66-minute podcast recorded live from Wokingham, Berkshire, England, and Concord, California, USA.

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute - see the show notes home page for info.

• FIR #497 show notes at The New PR Wiki

Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR, or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Join the FIR Discussion Forum and extend your conversations with the FIR community. You can also join the FIR Facebook Community and become an FIR friend.

To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

So, until Monday, November 9…

This is one of the simplest yet most useful measurement tools for Twitter I’ve yet seen: TweetReach, discovered via a tweet by David Terrar earlier today.

What TweetReach does is calculate how many people have seen something you, or anyone else, has tweeted. It connects to Twitter via an API and searches what’s there to produce its results.

It works on hashtags, URLs, key words, anything in a tweet. Here’s an example of the results from searching on a URL, a post I wrote on The Next Web the other day:

Note in the screenshot that the URL is a short one, not the underlying original URL. I found out that TweetReach doesn’t work on the original if what you tweeted was a short URL. In other words, it searches only what was actually tweeted, which makes complete sense.

How does it all work? Here’s what TweetReach says:

[…] Basically we search Twitter and find all the tweets we can. Then we look at everyone who tweeted and who follows them to make a set of calculations.

The reach is the total number of different people who would have seen tweets on this topic in their Twitter stream. This takes into account people who follow the same people.

Here’s a reach example… Let’s say you have two loyal followers: User A and User B (don’t worry, you’ll get more popular). You tweet a link and they retweet it. They both have a loyal follower in common: User C. User B also has a second follower: User D. In this case, the reach comes out to 4 because Users A-D have all seen a tweet on this topic at least once.

If you’re paying attention, you’ll notice in the above example that User C would have actually seen two tweets about this topic, which brings me to exposure… Exposure is how many times someone saw a tweet about a particular topic. If 5 people I follow tweet the same link, I’ll have been exposed to it 5 times. Each time someone sees a tweet, we call that an impression

Useful (and free).

One thing I haven’t quite figured out is why the difference between the results TweetReach reports (in this case, the reach from 23 tweets as the screenshot shows) and the number of tweets reported on the website via the Tweetmeme button (in this case, 123 as I look at the post right now).

Still, it’s definitely another tool to add to your social media temperature testing toolbox to give you some helpful stats and pretty graphs.

© 2009 - visit the author for more great content.

Another quick look before publication at the Top 30 UK tech blogs list, thanks to my friends at the Wikio search engine.

The top 30 list is a subset of Wikio’s compete Top 100 UK Technology Blogs ranking, the November update of which will be published tomorrow.

Here’s the Top 30 for November 2009; numbers in brackets are each blog’s ranking position compared to the previous month:

1. The Guardian Technology blog (=)
2. TechCrunch UK (+1)
3. Geeky Gadgets (+1)
4. Blah! Blah! Technology (-2)
5. BBC Internet blog (+5)
6. Coolest Gadgets (-1)
7. The Red Ferret Journal (-1)
8. Econsultancy blog (=)
9. Dot.life (-2)
10. Gadget Venue dot com (-1)
11. All About Symbian (=)
12. TechDigest (+2)
13. Neville Hobson (+2)
14. Telegraph Blogs – Technology (-2)
15. The::unwired (-2)
16. GadgetLite Blog (+2)
17. Gaj-It.com – UK Gadget News (=)
18. Speckyboy – Wordpress and Design (-2)
19. Dial-a-Phone (+1)
20. Phones Review (+2)
21. Simon Willison’s Weblog (+17)
22. OUseful.Info, the blog… (+1)
23. David Naylor a UK SEO (-2)
24. Jkkmobile (-5)
25. Broadstuff (-1)
26. GadgetGrid (+1)
27. Mousetrap Technology – Times Online (-2)
28. The Ed Techie (+1)
29. Blog.Spoon Graphics (-1)
30. BlogStorm (-4)

Ranking by Wikio

© 2009 - visit the author for more great content.

They both see the recruiting process changing, for example, to one of inviting people already connected to the company through online and offline social networks to come work for them. The IT department becomes the ET department—Technology Enablement. P2P companies don’t outsource customer service. Collaboration is supported by the use of the best tools available. And, according to Maltoni, “Facilitating conversations inside and outside the connected company means designing business through interactions.”

You’ll recognize more and more of these traits as existing companies evolve into networked companies and startups embrace the P2P model. But succeeding under the P2P model won’t happen just because it seems right. It’ll take work. Companies have to implement systems to support the model.

Employee Communications is a critical function that must adapt in order to accommodate its role in a networked company. Inspired by Valeria and Olivier,  I’d like to offer a list of characteristics of the employee communications function in the networked/P2P company.

Ease employee access to social networks. Both Olivier and Valeria have noted that connected companies won’t block access to social networks. Leaving access unfettered is, indeed, a requirement, but companies will need to go a few steps beyond unshackling employees from the restrictions that keep them from connecting. It will be incumbent on the internal communications function to identify communities within social networks where the company’s products, services, operations, and other dimensions are discussed and even summarize the nature of the conversation taking place in this communities. Helping employees identify where the conversation is can help them begin participating in a more meaningful way. After all, it is within some of these communities where employees will establish and build relationships with people who are likely to become candidates for employment. These networks are also where employees will glean insights from customers that could lead to product or service innovation.

Show employees who’s saying what, right now. Employees already participate in the networks and communities aligned with their interests. Some may be interested in engaging elsewhere, such as communities they’ve never heard of where the company or its brands are being discussed. At the least, companies should provide a directory of these communities. Ideally, however, companies will let employees see, in as close to real time as possible, what the members of those communities are saying about the company. You might consider this a curator role for Employee Communications, one that demonstrates the sentiment of real people with real influence who are having real conversations about your organization. I can easily see a dashboard on the intranet portal with the very latest customer sentiments along with a link to more detailed content from these communities.

Communicate research results. Organizations of all stripes spend a ton of money on consumer research. Few share the results of the research with employees company-wide; it’s data that, for one reason or another, is usually made available only to brand team members. With all employees networking with customers, knowledge of the study results can inform the conversation. Internal communications needs to become a channel for sharing the results of market research throughout the organization.

Increase business literacy. Employees need to know the business. It’s a sad fact that most frontline employees couldn’t answer basic questions about the business beyond the work of their own department. It’s equally sad that this is most often true because nobody bothers to teach them about the business and the resources for them to teach themselves aren’t readily available. Employee Communications needs to focus considerable effort on ensuring employees are savvy about the company for which they work.

Build awareness of business initiatives. In addition to general business literacy, employees need to know about specific initiatives. Employees in a hospital that has started marketing its quality ratings should know about the effort. Employees in a manufacturing organization that has taken steps to be more sustainable should be able to talk intelligently about what that means.

Make sure everyone knows the rules of the road. Too often, organizations assume that because a policy has been published, everyone knows what it is. Employee Communications needs to communicate the policies and guidelines that govern employee activity in online communities on an ongoing basis through multiple channels. No employee should ever be surprised to learn they have violated a policy.

Champion and support internal training. Some of the companies that have the most positive employee engagement are ones in which employees can attend classes to learn about how to engage. At Zappos, employees can take classes on Twitter. The Mayo Clinic offers tweetcamps, where doctors and other staff can learn about social media. Ideally, the Internal Communications team will partner with the Training department to develop learning opportunities—face-to-face and online—that will help employees get business-literate and learn about social networking and how their engagement can produce meaningful results for the company.

Enlist company advocates. Best Buy’s Twelpforce is one of the more forward-thinking initiatives for engaging front-line employees with customers. Blueshirts—the employees who work in the retail stores—volunteered to respond to queries sent via Twitter to the Twelpforce account. Companies can take this concept beyond the initiative level, finding those engaged employees—that is, the employees who want to make discretionary efforts on behalf of the company, train them, and get them into vital communities. (This kind of engagement must be disclosed and transparent, of course. I’m not suggesting anything deceptive, just a means of identifying and activating those employees who want to be part of the organization’s organic networking efforts.)

Work with ET to ensure systems support networking. If IT has transformed into Technology Enablement, they are the ideal partner for Employee Communications to identify and launch the tools employees can best use to network with one another. The technology department can also ensure the intranet supports the modules referenced earlier, such as business literacy training, communication of research results, and real-time updates of who’s saying what about the company in key online communities.

All of this has to happen along with much of the traditional work Employee Communications performs, such as letting employees know that benefits enrollment is coming, supporting an internal change process, and informing employees about decisions that will affect them. In a networked company, there’s no question in my mind that the role of Employee Communications becomes bigger and more important.

What other traits should characterize the Employee Communications function in the networked organization?

As I said in the video, it’s hard to add people to a Twitter list if Twitter itself doesn’t know they’re there!

It was also slightly unnerving as Rick's style encourages a lot of openness and reading his transcription I think he got a fairly unpolished version of me. There's bits I would probably say differently now, but that wouldn't be in the spirit of the piece. And I think it does give some insights into why I do what I do.

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Content summary: FIR group on Google Wave up and running; Barbara Nixon suggests an FIR Twitter List; vote for FIR at Podcast Alley; Michael Netzley reports from Singapore; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; News That Fits: bridging the gap between corporate culture and the ‘Web 2.0 society’, what the connected company looks like, as sales fall newspapers must find a way to measure multimedia readership, has a PR industry meltdown begun?; listener comments delayed until next show; music from Mano Reza; and more.

Get FIR:

• Download the MP3 file (27.4Mb, 68:22)
• Subscribe to the RSS feed
• Get the show at iTunes

Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir.

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for November 2, 2009: A 68-minute podcast recorded live from Wokingham, Berkshire, England, and Concord, California, USA.

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute – see the show notes home page for info.

• FIR #497 show notes at The New PR Wiki

Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR, or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Join the FIR Discussion Forum and extend your conversations with the FIR community. You can also join the FIR Facebook Community and become an FIR friend.

To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

So, until Thursday November 5…

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

© 2009 - visit the author for more great content.

From social media networks to blogs, widgets, tweets and hot mobile apps marketers are faced with more choices than we ever could have imagined.

It seems every day brings a new shiny toy to try .. and to confuse. Add a few traditional tactics .. PR, email, advertising and search and the job becomes overwhelming. Overlay that with an internal structure  where functions are silo-ed by departments and you have a frightening disjointed marketing program.

One of the benefits that social media brings to the enterprise is a critical need to ensure cross functional communication systems are in place. As we're seeing social media does not live only in PR or Marketing or Customer Service.

Over the next few days let's take a dive into creating a Social Media Marketing Plan. The first step is to align internal stakholders and understand the landscape. What I call the P-I-E-C-E conversation is a process that helps develop a foundation for The Social Enterprise and sets the stage for developing an integrated marketing plan.

PIECE Conversation
Step 1: Prepare: educational component. as it relates to social media: competitive analysis, customer activity, industry trends
Step 2: Invite people who perceive they have a stake: C-suite, marketing, legal, technology, customer service
Step 4: Encourage people to talk openly
Step 5: Confirm and prioritize issues
Step 6: Engage next steps create a Red Flag Memo

Content summary: FIR group on Google Wave up and running; Barbara Nixon suggests an FIR Twitter List; vote for FIR at Podcast Alley; Michael Netzley reports from Singapore; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; News That Fits: bridging the gap between corporate culture and the ‘Web 2.0 society’, what the connected company looks like, as sales fall newspapers must find a way to measure multimedia readership, has a PR industry meltdown begun?; listener comments delayed until next show; music from Mano Reza; and more.

Get FIR:

• Download the MP3 file (27.4Mb, 68:22)
• Subscribe to the RSS feed
• Get the show at iTunes

Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir.

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for November 2, 2009: A 68-minute podcast recorded live from Wokingham, Berkshire, England, and Concord, California, USA.

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute - see the show notes home page for info.

• FIR #497 show notes at The New PR Wiki

Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR, or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Join the FIR Discussion Forum and extend your conversations with the FIR community. You can also join the FIR Facebook Community and become an FIR friend.

To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

So, until Thursday November 5…

David Terrar writes a terrific post on the SOMESSO blog on the  gap between corporate culture and what he calls ‘Web 2.0 society.’

What especially resonates for me about David’s words are the simple truths he articulates on some people’s behaviours in organizations, particularly large ones, that erect hurdles and other obstacles to prevent the organization as a whole from being a connected organization.

But he offers some strong light at the end of a dark tunnel. See how this resonates with you:

[…] Those of us at the leading edge of this ‘web 2.0′ technology, irrespective of which generation we come from (and that includes all the speakers at the conference) are already using these tools in our day to day working lives. We use blogs and online news sites as information feeds and Wikipedia for research. We connect with friends on Facebook, and work colleagues using LinkedIn and Xing. We collaborate with wikis and in online workspaces. We use micro-blogging tools like Twitter to connect with our extended network, and as one of the key places to look for the ideas that are cool, interesting, and innovative. We share presentation material with Slideshare and photos with Flickr. For us the lines between friends and work colleagues are already beginning to blur and we are in contact with people all over the World on a regular basis. If we work for a company where the IT department has locked down what operates inside the firewall and restricted access to Facebook or Twitter, it doesn’t really bother us that much. We’ve got an iPhone or a Blackberry in our pocket, and we can still get at what we need.

The smart organizations are the ones that realize the power that these kinds of connections and collaboration tools can provide. Rather than putting up roadblocks, they are encouraging adoption of the tools to reduce costs, increase efficiency and make their teams work more effectively. They can see how they can liberate new ideas and get some real ROI. However, they also realize that an organization’s culture may need to change to allow this this kind of team working and cross collaboration to happen. You’ll hear plenty of anecdotes and case studies at the conference, but in my next post I will be offering some examples of banks and financial institutions that are already seeing the benefits of social media tools, as well as highlighting some of the information sources that you should be watching for ideas.

Wish I’d said that!

David’s post is part of the content being published on the SOMESSO blog that connects with the latest SOMESSO conference in Zurich, Switzerland, taking place today and tomorrow.

Shel and I discuss David Terrar’s post in a wide-ranging conversation on behaviours and organizations – which includes discussion on Olivier Blanchard’s post on Becoming P2P: Principal characteristics of the new Social Business – in today’s episode 497 of the FIR podcast that will be published tonight GMT.

© 2009 - visit the author for more great content.

Brian Solis writes a thought-provoking post about how he sees the future of the social web, prompted by a Forrester report of the same name published in April.

Forrester’s research examined what’s happening in the context of what they describe as the five eras of the social web that began over a decade ago and continues through 2014. Their arguments on how the web is developing and evolving is nicely illustrated in this graphic from their report: how the five eras overlap and how the metamorphosis that’s happening is accelerating, driven by technology as a catalyst amid people’s rapidly-changing online behaviours.

Brian does a good job in summarizing the thrust of Forrester’s arguments, centred around portable identity or data portability as the prime catalyst for empowering consumers. His post makes some of the key aspects in Forrester’s report (which I read when it was published in April) a lot clearer.

Brian takes Forrester’s conclusion –

Today’s social experience is disjointed because consumers have separate identities in each social network they visit. A simple set of technologies that enable a portable identity will soon empower consumers to bring their identities with them — transforming marketing, eCommerce, CRM, and advertising. IDs are just the beginning of this transformation, in which the Web will evolve step by step from separate social sites into a shared social experience. Consumers will rely on their peers as they make online decisions, whether or not brands choose to participate. Socially connected consumers will strengthen communities and shift power away from brands and CRM systems; eventually this will result in empowered communities defining the next generation of products.

– and extends that view by introducing the notion of SRM: Social Relationship Management. He explains it thus:

[…] The Social Web is distributing influence beyond the customer landscape, allocating authority amongst stakeholders, prospects, advocates, decision makers, and peers. SRM recognizes that whether someone recommended a product, purchased a product, or simply recognized it publicly, in the end, each makes an impact on behavior at varying levels.

Therefore customers are now merely part of a larger equation that also balances vendors, experts, partners, and other authorities. In the realm of SRM, influence is distributed and it is recognizes wherever and however it takes shape.

Hmm, distributed influence as a concept, recognized as such wherever you see it. That idea is very interesting and one I find appealing, especially as you already see it happening even if it’s not referred to as such.

So Brian’s vision of the social web looks like it takes all of Forrester’s predictions that are summed up into the idea of the “socially-connected consumer” where technologies drive data portability, and extends it deeper and broader into the realm of people’s changing behaviours where, I believe, such changes in behaviours are the actual drivers behind events such as Forrester’s five overlapping eras.

To give you a better sense of where Forrester (and Brian Solis) see us going in the coming five years, here’s Forrester’s explanation of the three forward-looking eras they talk about, from now until 2013, described on page 2 of their report, followed by a picture of evolution described on page 6 of the report:

• 2009-2011: The era of social colonization. In the next stage of social evolution, starting later in 2009, technologies like OpenID and Facebook Connect will let individuals traverse the Internet with their social connections along for the ride. The boundaries of social networks and traditional sites will blur, making every Web site into a social experience.
• 2010-2012: The era of social context. Next year, as sites begin to recognize people’s personal identities and their social relationships, they will customize visitors’ experiences based on their preferences, their behaviors, and who their friends are. In addition to enabling more intense social applications, in this stage social networks will absorb features of email and become a base of operations for everyone’s online experiences.
• 2011-2013: The era of social commerce. Starting about two years from now, as social networks become the repository for identities and relationships, they will become more powerful than corporate Web sites and CRM systems. Communities will become the driving force for innovation. As a result, brands will cater to communities, resulting in a power shift toward the connected customer.

I summarize everything like this: It’s about people, not technology: how people behave online and the pivotal role social networks have on catalyzing behaviour change. Isn’t that actually what Forrester, Brian Solis and others are really saying in slightly different ways?

I include Twitter in that broad heading of social networks, incidentally: together with its ecosystem, it is a social network to many, and may become one of the most influential and change-making of all, far more than it is now.

What do you think? How do you see the future (the immediate one: within the next four to five years) of the social web?

Required reading:

• The Future of the Social Web – post by Brian Solis on October 30.
• The Future Of The Social Web – report by Forrester Research, published on April 27, 2009.
• The Future of the Social Web: In Five Eras – post by Jeremiah Owyang, primary author of the Forrester report, on April 27, 2009.

© 2009 - visit the author for more great content.

It's not easy to make up your mind when your mind consists of so many competing parts. This is why being sure about something can be such a relief. The default state of the brain is indecisive disagreement... certainty imposes consensus on the inner cacophony.. Being certain means you're not worried about being wrong.

Many people want their meetings to work like this: listen to many opinions and then reach a confident, united decision. I think the danger of such ideals is that they may increase the likelihood of being wrong.

My own hunch is that good teams can function with greater tolerance for dissonance and don't force "positivity" and decisiveness. I also find that when meetings take place within rigid hierarchies, the shadowy need to give the boss something certain (the "measurable, implementable, deliverable") can completely sabotage that kind of high quality functioning.

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It is not the job of government to guarantee that the business model enabled by last year’s technology will go on for ever. If it were, we would have outlawed radio to save vaudeville.

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*** My WOM Enthusiast hat is on with this post.

It’s a few weeks until WOMMA’s Creating Talkable Brands Conference (Nov. 18 – 20, Las Vegas). Sign-ups have been strong. And for good reason — the agenda is strong.

There are over 40 sessions with 4 learning tracks and 4 keynotes addresses (.pdf agenda). For each of the breakout sessions, WOMMA is pairing up a Brand with an Agency. So you’ll hear both perspectives, the brand-side and the agency-side, in each breakout.

To help make sense out of the packed agenda, I’ve been sharing highlights from Day 1 and Day 2 on the ALL THINGS WOM blog. Here’s a sample of how I’m breaking down the agenda...

The Annual State of Word of Mouth Address
[Wed. | 2:00 - 2:45]
Dr. Walter Carl has been a fixture in past WOMMA Conferences. Of course he’ll share new information on measuring WOM, that’s what he’s known for. He’ll also give us marketers more ammunition to better sell-in our WOM programs up the corporate food chain.

KEYNOTE: The Anatomy of Buzz
[Wed. Nov. 18 | 3:00 - 3:45]
Emanuel Rosen, an author and marketer who helped to spark interest in word of mouth marketing nearly ten years ago with the publication of THE ANATOMY OF BUZZ, returns to keynote a WOMMA Conference. Earlier this year Emanuel updated his influential book on WOM to include new learnings, new methods, and new case studies. His presentation will share the latest insight on all things WOM.

Choosing the Right Agency for your Social Media Marketing Projects
[Wed. Nov. 18 | 5:15 - 6:00]
David Witt (public relations manager, General Mills), Christine Morrison (social media manager, Intuit), and Steve Knox (ceo, Procter & Gamble Tremor) will advise brand marketers on what to look for in a social media agency partner. The beauty of this session is you’ll get both sides of the story (brand and agency) to help you better prepare your RFP and to whittle down the seemingly endless agency options. A must-attend session for brand marketers.

DAY TWO Highlights
Answers from Academics to WOM’s Toughest Questions
[Thurs. Nov. 19 | 9:35 – 10:30am]
There is an art and a science to word of mouth marketing. This session will focus more on the science of WOM. Brad Fay from the KellerFay Group will ask Professors (Walter Carl & Jonah Berger) and PhDs (Lezan Aksoy & Barak Libai) important questions about the motivations for why people talk. The differences between how online and offline WOM spreads will no doubt be covered. And, I’m expecting a heated debate about targeting “influentials” versus “influenceables.” Answers from these academics will be steeped in research and deep analysis. Every marketer is sure to learn something new from this session.

True Believers: Turning Skeptical Co-Workers into Progressive WOM Marketers
[Thurs. Nov. 19 | 11:00 – 11:45am]
I read the proposal Sean McDonald (Ant’s Eye View) and Sam Decker (Bazzarvoice) sent in for this session and thought this will be the most creative session at the conference. Sean and Sam have outlined all the corporate characters who can derail the success of a WOM marketing plan. We’ll meet the finance guy ("Eddie Excel") who always cries out for the ROI. “Fanny Facebook” is the marketer manager who thinks all she needs is a Facebook fan page, without any strategy, and WOM will happen. “Freddy Filabuster” shows up to grandstand against a marketer’s plan, but he’s only interested in advancing his career and not advancing the business.

Fun and creative stuff, for sure. But the session will also be helpful in giving us advice on overcoming the objections and misguided approaches from co-workers, thus, paving the way for our WOM marketing plans to succeed.

Power Lunch with Kristian Bush of Sugarland
[Thurs. Nov. 19 | 12:45 – 1:45]
Sugarland is one of the more popular country music acts, winning Grammy awards and winning fans. Much of Sugarland’s success stems from the band’s LOVE THE FANS philosophy. The band does creative things to keep their fans involved from scavenger hunts for hidden tickets to a continuous stream of interesting tweets on Twitter.

A band is indeed a brand. We marketers can learn lots from how Sugarland broke through the clutter of country music bands to become a success. Ted Wright from Fizz will set the stage for Kristian Bush, singer and guitarist from Sugarland, to share how Sugarland uses word of mouth marketing strategies to make his band a success.

That's only a smidgen of all the happenings on Day 1 & Day 2 at the upcoming Creating Talkable Brands Conference. I haven't begun to highlight the afternoon sessions on Day 2 nor the morning sessions on Day 3. (BTW, you can save $200 on the registration fee. Learn more here.)

In the spirit of David Letterman's Top Ten ...

13. A zillion landing page blogs are pretending to be social media .. take off the mask and you find a search strategy built on a blog platform

12. A comment that lists a company name instead of a person is likely looking for link treats not a relationship.

11. Facebook "fan" pages with posts lifted from corporate brochures and press releases is just another tricky search strategy.

10. Nondisclosure of paid posts or reviews of comp'ed products services comes with tricks of its own .. a big fat FTC fine  Make sure you are up to date on the law or your compensation treat will pay for your legal fees.

9. The trick is on the Twitter automatic followers .. no one cares about you - BOO!

8. No @s in your Tweet stream is a sign that you 1. have few friends to play with or 2. don't know how to share treats with others.

7. Not linking to sources sites or including RT (re-tweet @s) is another signal that you don't know how to play well with others.

6. Barbs on the "Back Channel" that don't help move the conversation along in a win-win for the audience and speaker is a clue that you want all the candy for yourself.

5.  Not listening to your customers' who take time to express their pleasure and concerns in the social world is a sad trick for both customer and company. 

4. Not building social enterprise processes to ensure the impact of social media lessons are shared across multiple departments is like not sharing your Halloween candy.

3. Emphasizing measurements that don't align with your objectives and goals are like getting socks instead of candy.

2. Discounting the relationships you build and networks that you (and your customers) participate in are as real and valuable as any offline is like wearing the same costume year after year after year.

And the Number One Reason To Halloween Toilet Paper A Social Media Strategy ...

1. Forgetting to say "thank you" to your customers, employees, fans and friends who shared their Halloween candy with you.

Max and I wish you a Halloween filled with lots of treats and few tricks!

Two hours later it was done, rebooted my machine and everything worked perfectly.

I was flabbergasted.  

It just worked.  And that's a worthy goal whenever we do software development.

*** My WOM Enthusiast hat is on with this post.

Fresh off winning a Groundswell Award for their word-of-mouth program to energize advocates of the Norton anti-virus software brand, Zuberance is hosting a webinar on Wednesday, November 4 (11:00am Pacific). >> DETAILS HERE.

You’ll hear from Rob Fuggetta, Zuberance CEO & Founder, as he shares a few case studies showing how B2B and B2C companies are using word of mouth to increase customer evangelism and drive sales.

I’ll be joining Rob helping frame the conversation on word of mouth marketing.

Should be fun. Should be informational. Should be something worthy of attending.
>> DETAILS HERE.

If you want some insight into who’s doing what in business-to-business engagement with social media in the UK, the Dell B2B Social Media Huddle on December 7 is an event that you’ll not want to miss.

During a full day at Dell’s UK headquarters in Bracknell, we’ll be hearing about and discussing insights and examples of B2B communication with social media from a wide range of business people who have direct experience of planning and executing communication strategies in which social media have played a measurable role.

The aim of this informal event is to bring together senior communications and marketing professionals to exchange and share experiences on B2B social media for mutual benefit.

The event is divided into three principal sections:

1. A general overview of the B2B social media landscape
2. Case study mash-up / unconference
3. Roundtable sessions on:
   - Integrating social media into your programmes in the right way
   - Social media and monetization techniques

The second section – case study mashup/unconference – has great promise to be the most interactive experience for everyone. There’s no set agenda: if you have a business story you’d like to tell, you can do that on the day.

We’ve got a terrific line-up of speakers to help everyone make the most of the day:

• Neville Hobson, Head of Social Media Europe, WeissComm Group, UK
• Richard Binhammer, Senior Manager Corporate Communications, Dell Inc., USA
• Steve Lamb, PR Manager, Microsoft Ltd., UK
• Benjamin Ellis, Director and Co-Founder, Redcatco, UK
• Kerry Bridge, Digital Media Communications, Dell Public Sector, Dell Ltd., UK
• Jamie Grenney, Senior Director of Content, Community and Social Media, Salesforce.com, USA
• Michelle Goodall, Online PR and Social Media Consultant/Trainer, Econsultancy.com
• Sarah Wright, Enterprise Programmes Marketing Manager EMEA, Juniper Networks, UK
• Henry Clifford-Jones, European Director, Advertising at LinkedIn, UK

You can get the details, including the agenda, in the event PDF at Slideshare. The brochure will be updated as more speakers join us.

The event is free of charge: if you’d like to participate, just sign up.

So mark your diary: the B2B Social Media Huddle on Monday December 7, 2009, at Dell’s UK headquarters in Bracknell – a whole day to exchange and share experiences on B2B social media for mutual benefit.

[Credit for image used in brochure and above: The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis and Jesse Thomas. Creative Commons licensed.]

This post also appears on Common Sense, the WeissComm Group blog; and on Direct2Dell, the corporate blog of Dell, Inc.

© 2009 - visit the author for more great content.