“Social Media”, Business, and Matchmaking

This is a “part 2″ post, growing out of the principles outlined here in part 1, where we enjoyed a lively discussion about how, in business, social media (or Community Networking/Networked Communications) is part of the larger category of Communications, along with a lot of other traditionally silo’ed disciplines such as PR, Marketing, and Advertising. [...]

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Why I Follow…Shannon Whitley

This is my second edition in a variation on the Twitter “#FollowFriday” meme. Instead of just listing people I follow with no real room for explanation, I’ll make my weekly contribution of pointing to one person I value, and why.
Up today – @swhitely (Shannon Whitley).
As I recall, when I started on Twitter about a year [...]

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SXSW…from the eyes of a 20-year old

(I’m not sure I ever anticipated the day I’d have a guest post from one of my children! But, here it is. My oldest son, who is pursuing a career in film, accompanied me to the South by Southwest conference. Here are his impressions…)
Trying to break into the film industry from the ground level is [...]

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“Social Media” and Business, part 1

Earlier this week, I enjoyed a robust Twitter conversation with a few folks (thanks, @lizscherer, @kellyferrara, @lindabeth!) on how “social media” fits into the pre-existing business silos that we all know and love (Marketing, PR, Sales, Customer Service, etc.)
Instead of putting out 140-character fragments of thought, it might be more valuable to sketch out some [...]

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Church Advertising FAIL

Saw this advertising effort on the street this morning and did a double take.
It’s odd enough for a church to promote itself on a trash can. But to toss out the throwaway tagline: There’s a place for you? Perhaps they could have added: Drop-ins welcome!
Consider that a waste of the advertising budget. Or maybe I’m [...]

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Why I Follow…Pamela Martin

It’s becoming a tradition on Fridays in Twitterland to tag a bunch of your favorite people for “FollowFriday” – not a bad idea at all, but it has become somewhat overwhelming. Hard to separate signal from noise, and often I can’t possibly discern WHY someone is being followed.
Plus there’s the creeping sense of guilt involved, [...]

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Presenting to Win (a SxSW rant)

I’ve been, frankly, disappointed in the quality of many of the South by Southwest sessions. Here’s why: many of those leading these panels/discussions/sessions aren’t trying to win the attention of the audience.
There are many competing sessions, there’s the Twitter stream, there’s the Blogger’s Lounge, and there’s really good BBQ. If you don’t grab my attention [...]

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Stoning our Fellow Bloggers

There is a danger to being a blogger – the same danger experienced by all public figures. Your every mistake is magnified, and that means you may end up with a target on your chest.
Yesterday, a well-known blogger made a posting that was quite controversial. Suffice it to say that some of the reaction was [...]

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Someone Create this People Finder…Please!

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a smart, semi-automated way to find interesting people on-line?
What I’m about to describe exists in bits and pieces scattered throughout various apps. But it would sure be useful to wrap it up into one platform.
You (and all other participants) describe yourself in three areas: Personal/Social interests, Professional Interests, and [...]

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The Disappearance of “Social Media”

I’m sitting here in the swirl of buzz that is SxSWi (South by Southwest Interactive), the smorgasbord of all things leading edge in the digital creative space.
It’s all going to disappear.
What I mean is this: what we now call “social media” – this leading edge congolomeration of stuff that allows us to communicate immediately, globally, [...]

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See you in Austin!

I’ll be in Austin Fri-Tues for the SxSW conference – but, for the first time, with a major twist.
It’s going to be a father-son gig! I’ll be doing the Interactive track, and my 20-year son Nathan is going to be immersed in the Film track.
Nathan is keenly interested in pursuing a career in the Film [...]

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One Rung Up??

Ever since I first laid eyes on it, I liked the Forrester “Social Technographics Ladder”, which seeks to depict levels of involvement in social media by people according to usage patterns. The higher up the ladder, obviously, the greater the level of engagement.
However, the more I thought about it, the more I felt that it [...]

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Five in the Morning – Finale

Yes, it’s true. Today, after nearly 100 Five in the Morning posts (including guest posts by other bloggers), I’m bringing the series to a close.
Why? Well, mainly it’s a matter of time – there are some other priorities that now require more of my attention. Creating Five in the Morning posts, as fun and fulfilling [...]

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Five in the Morning 030509

Business Week asks: Who’s lining up to buy Twitter?
Be sure to catch up on John Moore’s series, highlighting the 100 Best Business Books of all time.
Do you speak Snacklish? At least Mars Inc. is showing some creativity (my take: the best a brand can hope for is to create one or maybe two words that [...]

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Forget Twitter Skittle…M&M does M&A on Google

It was just a warm-up act.
The blogosphere lit up this week when M&M Mars replaced the Skittles home page with a constantly-updated stream of “tweets” from the popular micro-blogging service, Twitter.
Social media experts – and there are many of them – were divided as to the effectiveness of the campaign, but all discussion can stop [...]

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Five in the Morning 030409

From WSJ: Social Networking goes Professional. How focused professional communities are using social networking tools to better their work.
The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur (yep, not a misprint) gives us 32 Ways to Cut Costs in Business. And while you’re at it, this post from TPE on How to do Everything is also pretty good!
Matt Dickman – [...]

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Five in the Morning 030309

Should brands think like start-ups? “Aim…fire…adjust…aim…fire…adjust…” What do you think? From David Knox, via @prblog (Kevin Dugan).
Measuring on-line influence. After you get through all the verbiage, I think a lot of it boils down to…the very last sentence. Micah Baldwin on Mashable.
From the Duct Tape Marketing blog, a podcast interview with Amber Naslund on Monitoring [...]

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