Monday, April 30, 2007

Flipping the funnel on Conference Vendors

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One of the Microsoft bloggers i read frequently is Heather Hamilton, she is one of their Staffing Managers. Heather always has great posts on recruiting in today's world (especially some of the challenges or advantages that organizations like Microsoft recruiters have to deal with), trying to get a job at Microsoft and quite frequently some fairly funny shares like this video.

I was just catching up on her recent postings and found this one titled 'Vendors and conferences and flipping the funnel' that provides an example of how corporate bloggers are using their blogs. Heather posted that she was headed to a recruiting conference in San Diego and that in the days before the conference she was getting a lot of marketing and offers from vendors who were going to be at the conference exhibiting their products and services. Sound familiar?

So what makes that different? She knew she wouldn't have time to visit all the vendors and goes on to complain about the amount of noise around new technologies, products services etc. in the recruiting market. So just like any sane blogger who uses their blog as a communication tool, she left the following message on her blog:

"I will reserve three fifteen minute time slots to talk to three vendors exclusively. You can pitch your product, ask me about recruiting at Microsoft or get fashion advice. First come, first served. Drop your name and contact info into the comment section and I'll contact you offline to make arrangements to meet."

How many takers? One. You can find him in the post's comments.

Before i go to conferences, i scour the blogsphere for attendees that I might be interested in meeting. Normally setting up a Google Blog search for that purpose in addition to setting up news alerts on factiva to see if companies are launching products, key speakers are presenting etc. Doing this i always manage to schedule good meetings- with people who are engaged not just coming by to the booth to pick up conference schwag. I didn't attend this recruiting conference, but if i had i would have loved to get some fashion advice from Heather.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

SuperMarket 2.0 Video

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During one of the keynote sessions at the Web2.0 Expo this video opened up the session and had the audience laughing out loud at points. The video we saw was a bit edited but i found the complete video on YouTube.

So for your Sunday evening viewing pleasure i present you with "Supermarket 2.0" - a web 2.0 compliant grocery store where they don't charge you (because hey it is the Internet) but do give you a cookie, milk comes with user comments, you can subscribe to an RSS feed to see if there are other products made by a specific food producer and of course they have classic and professional double power AJAX.

Great stuff-

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

User Generated Shirt at the Web 2.0 Expo

1 comment :
At last week's Web 2.0 Expo -in the spirit of Web 2.0- one of the attendee giveaways was a User Generated T-shirt. The shirt had a label across the front with a fill in box "Web 2.0 is______".

Mine now says that"Web 2.0 is About People" as you see in this picture. Others are tagging their t-shirts on flickr.

Ian Kennedy as usual has a great must read post about what Web 2.0 will do for his neighbor Ron. Ian left his t-shirt blank and went about his life running his local errands asking people what they thought Web 2.0 was. I was not surprised to hear that most people don't give a damn and I agree with Ian that in the "Web 2.0 nirvana, we cannot ask them to change their habits and join us in our medium - we need to meet them using tools they understand".

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Social Media Resume

6 comments :
There has been a recent meme in the blogsphere about Social Media as a new Resume/CV with a big focus on Blogs,Video and Google searches in general. I got tipped off to it via Jeremiah's blog and then found a nice roundup of posts by the blogger that originally started the meme Adam Darowski.

On both sides (employer and employee) user generated content is becoming more and more important to find good hires as well as attract good hires. A while back i even posted about some work we have done with clients to help them track and react through recruiting dashboards.

The funny thing is that right before i noticed the meme, i updated my Resume/CV to incorporate social media elements into the standard 'acceptable paper' format. Although many hiring managers and recruiters know enough to 'google' someone or find their blog, i figured it would be better to add those elements to a Resume/CV saving them a couple clicks. Taking a que from the Social Media Press Release, i added some dynamic icon links to my resume as follows:

Some may ask why- hey they are going to find it anyway- might as well show them efficiency from interaction number one! I like this format since it removes some of the static elements of the traditional resume. This PDF resume in some one's DMS system will always point to my most recent activities yet it maintains the standard Resume/CV format that is currently acceptable.


Now the big question- would a employer/recruiter know enough to click on the icons?

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Mashing Up Business Value with Web 2.0- Video Session at Web 2.0 Expo

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One of the sessions i attended last week at the Web 2.0 Expo was the session on Mashing Up Business Value with Web 2.0 which included one of my colleagues Greg Merkle along with Rod Smith and David Barnes from IBM. Greg is VP Creative Director for the Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group based in Princeton and i was very lucky that i got to spend some quality time with him over the three day conference.

The panel discussed enterprise "mashup eco-systems" comprising of data sources (mashup widgets, feeds,taxonomies,metadata) along with some of the new tools being created to create mashups quickly (focusing on IBM's enterprise mashup maker-QEDwiki). I managed to record the session and have posted it as a 4 part video on my blip.tv channel:
  • Part I- Rod Smith, IBM Internet Technologies Group introduces the session and talks about the business value and how developers ignite new Web 2.0 development projects for their companies
  • Part II- David Barnes from IBM takes the audience through a quick demo of QEDwiki and talks about how IBM is using internally
  • Part III- Greg Merkle demo's a Dow Jones Mashup using QEDwiki and discusses managing metadata for the purpose of delivering role specific mashups quickly to the enterprise and takes some questions from the audience
  • Part IV: Q&A Session



Click To Play

When looking at new technologies we need to not forget the Environmental Impacts

1 comment :
I am not here to validate a statement that Bill Maher ended with on his weekly HBO show this week that stated that cell phones could be one of the causes of Bee Colony Collapse Disorder- but i am highly disturbed by it and i do believe that we should look at every day like it is Earth Day. Supposedly, cell phone usage is among the many things affecting bees due to the electromagnetic signals we all are emitting. The story is also on Digg.

Now i am not a big fan of bees, just today i screamed like a two year old when one landed on my jacket as i waited outside of the best breakfast places in the area but i do understand the importance of bees on the food chain.

Just last week at the Web2.0 Expo- many wireless sessions and vendors were present to show off new cell phones services and as we all know many are looking at cell phones as the next big information delivery platform. For developing countries cell phones and other wireless technologies are being lauded as one of the great services that can be provided and many cell phone companies are taking advantage of these new markets.

As we look at further enabling wireless access for our information consumption habits we must however be cautious of what impact this could have on our global environment.

One of the coolest thing i saw at the Expo was Potenco a portable power generator that can help keep electronic devices charged (of course including cell phones!) - no wall sockets required. One minute of your own muscle power provides enough energy to potentially keep your devices running for up to several hours depending on the device which is pretty cool. Not sure how you get one but i certainly would love one~

Sunday, April 15, 2007

Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco not here? Join Us Virtually

2 comments :
The Web2.0 Expo started up today in San Francisco. I did not get a full conference pass but will be taking advantage of the Expo Pass which provides access to a lot of sessions, the expo hall itself and a whole bunch of other activities going on at the conference. This morning i also participated through Jeremiah's Live Video and Chat Streaming session.

I go to a lot of conferences that are Web2.0, Social Media, technology etc. related that take place in the Bay area but this one i am extremely excited about. The main reason is that I have a whole bunch of folks from the Dow Jones corporate offices coming into town and a good amount of clients that we have been reaching out to that are coming along to take advantage of the Expo pass that we distributed the free code to with an invitation to a happy hour (free marketing for the Expo and a great way for us to engage with our customers~you can't beat it).

I usually am reporting back to these folks, but this time i get to engage with them real-time and so can you if you are going to be there (drop me a line daniela{dot}barbosa{at}dowjones.com or leave a comment). We have the following folks coming into town:

If you are not in town you however can still participate and learn a lot from the sessions. Blog is here, twittering here and there will be a lot of video and audio streaming as well.

This morning when i got around to logging on i found out that Jeremiah was Live Streaming Video from the Expo so i logged on to participate which was pretty cool~ what a great way to engage remote people. Services like ustream.tv are providing another form of engagement. Others from the Podtech crew will be live streaming Video for the next three days (check in here for updates).

At one point after the panel 'evangelist and rabble rouser' Deb Schultz asked if those of us participating in the Live Streaming Video and Chat had a life, we do ;-) while you folks were indoors at the conference center, i happened to be watching from my sunny kitchen and now i am off for a nice long walk to the beach because it is a lovely day in Pacifica. see you all tomorrow!

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Twitterment new service monitoring and measuring microbloging content

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I was in Portland all day today and at the end of my day at the airport i got an e-mail from Jeremiah about a new Twitter base service. Twitter allows 'micro-blogging' with text-based posts, up to 140 characters long. Yeah i know you were wondering how long it would be before i posted the word 'twitter'- in this post i give you 17 derivatives of the world 'twitter' to get it out of my system.

The subject of the e-mail was Twitterment a new Twitter search service that allows you to search what people are 'twittering' and analyze what terms people are twittering about. The Twitterforum has a detailed post on the functionality that is available but besides searching and graphing on one term it allows for comparing two terms like 'vista' compared to 'leopard'.

Twitterment provides a search interface over an index of recent updates obtained periodically from the public time line API . The Twitter API only retrieves "public" data. Twits from a protected user who is not a friend (a permissioning term) with the requesting user API would not show up.

On their site, Akshay Java one of the Twitterment authors writes:
"What makes microbloging content really valuable from an analytics point of view, is the granularity at which users are starting to provide information. This is an exciting new area is Social Media analysis and there is lot more we can learn from this. Right now are working on a sentiment analysis module and a social search feature."

Just this afternoon i was meeting with a customer and i brought up the rise of Twitter as another social media output and how many companies will soon need to monitor (and then when they begin to see impact on their business -measure) these new 'microbloging' services. Twitter is not the only one out there for example Jaiku is another.

There are already over 50 applications/services that use the Twitter API to provide different types of functionality.

and yes i have a Twitter account...but no i haven't 'twittered' yet.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Blog Comments- monitoring and measuring

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At the Blogher conference two weeks ago i spoke on a panel on How To Measure Social Media ROI with Katie Paine and Lena West. One of the things that we discussed was the growing importance of monitoring Blog comments and using them as one of the aspects of measuring the success of your blogs. During the panel, i commented that you also have to understand your audience, will they leave comments, it is easy for them to do so (or do they need to sign-up like for example HP blogs), are they afraid to engage in public because they are afraid to speak on behalf of their company, etc. From my own experience, I still get a lot of e-mailed comments especially from clients on blog posts.

The Net-Savvy Executive has a recent post on Measuring blog comments that hits on that same subject and mentions some companies that allow you to search comments and others that allow tracking of comments that can then be incorporated into measurement techniques companies put together as part of their Social Media strategy. I agree with Nathan that vendors in this space are aware that tracking and measuring comments is important. This topic also came up back in December when Factiva hosted a Social Media Roundtable event in Palo Alto to gather feedback on what should be measured.

Monday, April 09, 2007

We love Netflix and want to make it better

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A couple weeks back i announced my companion Blip.tv channel to this blog. I have a new video up that consists of a conversation with Keith Deweese and myself about how much he loves Netflix and how we have some suggestions to make it even better. (Click here if you can not see the embedded video below or want to see it in large resolution).


In this session, I interview Keith Deweese an avid Netflix fan (tune in to hear about his favorite movie~ hey i was surprised!).

Keith however is a taxonomist and a very good one to boot and he feels that Netflix could drastically improve its service by improving core website features like browsing, navigation and search for end users.

During the interview, we discuss how we think that the Netflix recommendation engine contest is great but feel that Netflix needs to first make some improvements to allow users to find what they are looking for- by following some standard information categorization practices and improve their service overall.

Keith is based in Chicago and i filmed this session in San Francisco using a Web Conferencing Tool, a conference phone and a wall projector (i couldn't get the video conference working but the first clip in which we do introductions has a great picture of Keith).

His blog post on subject can be found over on his Blogex Deweese blog. Thanks-Keith!

If you have specific experiences with Netflix that you would like to share on this topic feel free to leave a comment or a link to your response.

Monday, April 02, 2007

Wells Fargo Blogs: Case Study from Blogher Business Conference

3 comments :

The BlogHer Business Conference two weeks ago had the conference title of "How to Succeed in a Social Media World". The goal was to explore questions about social media in the business world and consisted of two days of various panels, conversations and networking opportunities from small to global enterprise businesses that have waken to the fact that Social Media is here to stay, continues to evolve very quickly and needs to be incorporated into your business strategy.

On the first day, a lab session took place in which four business blog case studies were presented through interviews with their main bloggers and it was obvious during those interviews that social media regardless if you are selling Giftbaskets, News, educating people on racial issues or selling financial products is an important tool. After the session, we broke into groups with the case study blogger to dig a little deeper and i joined Staci Schiller a marketing program manager from the Wells Fargo Education Financial Services group and a key member of the Wells Fargo Blogs team. I volunteered to report back to the bigger group what we learned in our discussion so below are my notes on The Student LoanDown™ blog case study:

The Student LoanDown is Wells Fargo's blog about financing a college education and they blog about student loans: applying for them, selecting them, repaying them etc.

How is the decision made as to which Wells Fargo employees Blog:

  • the blogger needs to know how to write and be passionate and want to write
  • has to have lifestyle experience - you can't talk about a subject if you haven't 'lived' it
  • subject matter experts for example the Wells Fargo Historians (Congrats on reaching your first year anniversary!)
  • recently they added a fictional character that was hired specifically for Stagecoach Island Community™ which is an online virtual community to create a financial literacy program for young adults- if you want to have fun on the island you need to have money and the program shows them how.
  • how much time does it take the bloggers? Staci started spending about 20% of her time blogging but now spends close to 50%
  • there are 5 people on the Student LoanDown all from marketing communications . All with full time jobs and blogging has been incorporated as part of their jobs.
  • how do they figure out which writer writes want post? the team has experts on specific items so for example there are specific blogger that at specific times of the year are writing about scholarships

What are the internal processes for the Student LoanDown blog:

  • The Wells Fargo Blog team is headed by Ed Terpening one of their first bloggers (HERE IS AN INTERVIEW WITH ED that Staci just posted announcing their first year anniversary of the Guided by History Blog)
  • It took the team about 2 1/2 months the first time they wrote a post to get it approved through legal and risk management groups. There were obviously a lot of meetings and policies but into place
  • The Student LoanDown was not the first Wells Fargo Blog but it was the first blog to talk about financials issues that affect Wells Fargo products and services
  • Over the months (it launched in Sept 2006) the team has learn to 'negotiate' with the legal and risk management groups and the process is shorter for approval
  • The team has weekly meetings to discuss upcoming posts

Blogging in a financial world- Compliance and Risk issues to deal with

  • The financial banking world is full of compliance issues and the Student Loandown team are educated on all issues
  • Compliance issues certainly affect the way they write and many times that are self conscious about posts- reading and rewriting them
  • Many times they might want to be judgement but obviously can't because the reader might be a potential client so that affects how and what they write. Staci shared with us an example from a recent MTV show (she is a self proclaimed MTV fanatic) in which a young women was filing for bankruptcy yet was drinking a four dollar latte from Starbucks. Her post on the incident is here.
  • Because of compliance issues they need to have very clear rules as to how readers can participate. From their blog "As a bank, regulations prevent us from obtaining your personal information—hence the restrictions in our blog comments that prevent you from submitting your full name. Also, we can't capture your blog's URL in our comments due to concerns about phishing". Their guidelines in the about page are very clear.
  • We asked if comments had to go back to legal/risk management and they don't- the team can make the decision to post them- they do go back to them however if they don't feel comfortable.
  • We asked if there have been any comments trashing Wells Fargo products and Staci said to date there haven't really been any but if they were on topic they would be posted. They are here to establish credibility in the community and being upfront and transparent is required.

How are they promoting and measuring in the impact of the Wells Fargo Blogs:

  • They are not doing active promotion of any of their blogs but have gotten a lot of coverage in the main stream media mostly because of world of mouth and the novelty of a banking institution blogging
  • They go out and contact influential bloggers in the personal financial blogging world
  • THIS IS A MUST FOR ANY CORPORATE BLOG: they promote it internally- with over 170,000 team members who are providing services to clients and potential clients using them as a main distribution point is ideal
  • They are still not able to track conversion to specific products and do not have a solid plan to do so
  • They do use multiple online tools to track what people are saying about Wells Fargo (so hey this post should pop up!)

Overall, i think both Staci's stage presentation and our little breakout session were excellent and Staci did a great job of presenting the Wells Fargo Social Media Strategy. I extremely impressed with Staci's passion for what she does and i think that myself along with many others that participated in our breakout session where extremely pleased with what Staci shared with us. I did ask Staci if i could blog this case study and she graciously agreed- whatever she said with us on that day was sanctioned as public knowledge.

The one thing i did not ask Staci is how they came up with the Student LoanDown name-did someone bring it to the table when the idea started or was it a work in process with the team once the theme was decided? i think it is pretty clever- get the lowdown on borrowing money for college at the LoanDown!

If you attended Blogher and want to add additional thoughts that i might have missed please do- thanks.

Here are some other blog links that covered this specific case study:

Influential Post on Corporate social responsibility?

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According to this post on PRWeek's event blog Target Green listing the most influential blog or post is in a particular category for areas of interest to the green/clean tech community, one of my posts got ranked on top in the category of Corporate Social Responsibility. The post was a review of a service called dotherightthing.com which i thought was a good service and one that PR and corporate relations should keep an eye on. The San Francisco Tech Chronicles Blog just posted a review of the service as well. I just took a look at the site this morning and there doesn't seem to be a lot of activity so hopefully as they get buzz more users will participate.

Corporate Social Responsibility has certainly been a topic of conversation for may Fortune 500 companies and just this month, Fortune Magazine covers the 10 green giants, companies that have gone beyond what the law requires to operate in an environmentally responsible way. Being a frequent traveler who laments on fuel waste on empty flights, I was extremely happy to see Continental Airlines on the top 10 list and hope that their leadership (and perhaps social responsibility brownie points) will encourage other Airlines to do the same.

Corporate Social Responsibility certainly pertains to branding and image issues for example; Burger King's recent announcementt that they will be buying eggs and pork from suppliers that did not confine their animals in cages and crates but it has also presented a lot of opportunities for companies that are trying to service their client base with sustainable and green solutions like Sun Microsystems to name one of a few in the technology industry.

Sunday, April 01, 2007

Intelligent Agent Blog Review of Social Bookmarking Tools

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I have posted a couple of time about social tagging/bookmarking in the enterprise and i believe that it is one of those Web 2.0 tools that will reap a lot of value in the enterprise space because of its natural fit into knowledge management needs.

The Intelligent Agent Blog written by Robert Berkman of Information today has a good review of free, public social bookmarking sites that could also be suitable for enterprise use. He reviews many of the services that have been out there for a while and also reviews some new ones that i was not aware of. In addition he posts that on April 15th he will share a full article, which also contains a detailed feature comparison chart of both fee-based and free social bookmarking vendors and sites. I am really looking forward to this article since i am working with a handful of customers that are starting to seriously evaluate social tagging as a solution for their enterprise.

Social tagging & bookmarking has great potential for not only helping enterprise users save, organize and share information with each other but for natural extensions like expertise location. I am confident that it will become a common solution for enterprises. Just this last week, Rich Hoeg from Honeywell announced the launch of Connect Beam's enterprise solution.