Year: 2009

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Corporate Blogging Roundtable

The folks from the German-American Business Association were kind enough to invite Mark Finnern (SAP), Jennifer McClure (Society for New Communications Research), Vassil Mladjov (Blogtronix), Mark Simmons (SixApart), Mario Sundar (LinkedIn) and myself to participate in a televised roundtable discussion entitled “Successful Corporate Blogging.”

Here’s the setup:

“Blogs are
changing the way companies are listening and reaching out to their
customers. This televised panel of media experts is aimed to give
insight in how to use blogging as a successful marketing communications
strategy.  Sample discussion topics include: What are the elements of
a successful blog? How can legal pitfalls be avoided? How can ROI be
measured? How can we confront our fear of blogging? What will the
future of blogging look like?”

The panel was followed by a Q&A
session.

Here’s a link to the video.

Bonus factoid: What I learned…it’s a bit disconcerting when a person whom you don’t know hands you a lavalier mic and calmly instructs you to partially disrobe (in front of a roomful of people) in order to run the microphone cord up the inside of your shirt so it doesn’t show up on camera.

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Is “Community” a Lie?

Picture 10 Micah (say "Me(ha!)") does some solid thinking about "The Lie of Community."  The thought-provoker:

"The lie of community is that by having users or by creating content,
a community just exists. That by being on the Internet somehow we are
all part of some global community. There is no global community."

…and the money 'grafs:

"Create the ability for community members to communicate as they want to.
Brand managers and most companies want to control the conversation. If
your users are truly part of the community, they will do nothing to
hurt and/or destroy the community in which they live.

Trust them to make your product better. Trust them to make your community better."

Which brands that you know have the courage to actually trust their community members?  And which ones are afraid?

photo: wvs

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The New Maelstrom of Social Media

Picture 6 Some thoughts on social media overload over at DestinationCRM.  The lede:

“Is it time to declare email bankruptcy, delete those 1,000 unread messages, issue a public mea culpa, and start over? With an ever-increasing chorus of “overload,” this social media stuff must be irretrievably broken, right?”

Link to article.
PDF of article.

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Study: Unselfish Individuals Benefit in Social Networks

Altruism
Nifty excerpt in the Technology Review on altruism in social networks.  The excerpt:

"How altruistic behaviour emerges has puzzled evolutionary biologists
for decades. From the point of view of survival of the fittest, the
unselfish concern for the welfare of others seems inexplicable. Surely
any organism should always act selfishly if it were truly intent on
saving its own bacon.

One explanation is that altruistic acts,
although seemingly unselfish, actually benefit those who perform them
but in indirect ways. The idea is that unselfish acts are repeated. So
those who have been helped go on to help other individuals, ensuring
that this behaviour spreads through a group, a phenomenon known as
upstream reciprocity.

Eventually, the individual that
triggered the altruistic behaviour will be on the receiving end of
least one unselfish act, ensuring that, at the very least, he or she
doesn't lose out. In this way, unselfish individuals actually benefit
from their altruism."

Read the Technology Review summary here.

Here's the full paper (26pp.).

Neato.

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Texture

Very interesting "open-source business card" project being tested over at Kickstarter from VRM colleague (and NPR innovator) Keith Hopper.  Check it out.  Keith says:

"I
discovered that if you power off your iPhone with the camera app
running, you'll get an impromptu close-up shot when you next turn on
your phone. This is usually a shot of a table surface, the ground, your
shoes – many of which provide interesting textural backgrounds.

This
phenomenon inspired me to shoot texture shots taken as iPhone
close-ups. In order to learn more about effectively framing and
lighting a digital shot, I post all photos without edits, cropping, or
level and color changes.

If you want one of the first packs of Creative Commons-licensed MOO MiniCards, the
money will go to pay for the cards and the shipping for your order. All
the photo and edit work to complete the project I'll do for free. Any
additional money raised will go towards hiring a graphic designer to
design a 100th card (99 photos + 1 professionally designed card). The
100th "credits card" will give photo, design, and support credits to
every participant that pledges at least $1 to the project."

Trying a new form of innovation/business exploration? Check.  Art?  Check.  Cool stuff?  Check.

I'm in.