Christopher Carfi

"We have to make our passions our professions. If we don't, this [the economy] is going to be uglier and uglier, and we're going to feel more and more stressed." -John Hagel

John Hagel gives his thoughts on the importance of "passion" at last night's sold out SupernovaHub Mixer at Wharton | SF.  This is just a 30sec snippet; the whole event was over an hour in a packed house.  More on the mixer over at http://www.supernovahub.com/ .

Video also available here.

I’m really excited about the ongoing “Network Age” briefing series that we’ve been working on with the SupernovaHub community.  Last week’s briefing, on the topic of curation and filtering of the Real-Time Web (with Andrew Keen who wrote “Cult of the Amateur” and Erick Schonfeld from TechCrunch), was outstanding.

Our next Network Age Briefing is “Can We Ever Truly ‘Disconnect’ in the Network Age?”

When: Thursday, August 13, 2009, at 12:oo pm EST/9 am PST.

Web and chat: http://tobtr.com/s/639145

Call-in Number: (347) 945-6578

One of the defining properties of the Network Age is being
connected.   It’s connect or bust for business, for government, for
pleasure — indeed, for survival.   But being “always on” must take a
toll on us.   Are we dodging “meatspace” relationships by burying our
noses in our  smartphones?  Are we burning out?  Is a backlash coming?

Join SupernovaHub’s Isabel Walcott Hilborn as she talks with Linda Stone (who coined the phrase “Continuous Partial Attention”) as we discuss disconnectedness in the Network Age.

When do you turn off the ringer? What about email purges?  Is it
ever acceptable to not even read what comes in? What is the best way to
take a break?  And why are people so sensitive about it?  Are we coaxed
by the sweet enticements of the net into distractions that keep us from
focusing and being productive at our jobs?  If so, how do we mediate
the distractions and stay on point?

photo: jrodmanjr

I could not possibly agree more with this review of Scanaroo.

Yes.  Indeed.  I encourage everyone to do that from here on out.  🙂

Related: Scanaroo home page

“Let this be a lesson to us all: we’re seeing what happens when an
organization forgets that it exists to serve its members, not the other
way around.” – Dan Roam

The American Kennel Club won’t let Dan Roam name the new family pet “Snowball” because the AKC “has already registered the full allotment of this breed with your requested name.”

Um, what?

We’ve had a number of occasions where organizations have come to Cerado wanting to sprinkle magic Social faerie dust on their existing business efforts. “We need to be doing things on Twitter! An Facebook! And FriendFeed! And Flickr! And YouTube! And…”

And…hold on a second. (And, most importantly, please do not start the conversation by putting up a slide that looks like someone puked up every logo that’s appeared on TechCrunch or Mashable over the past two years, and claim that as a “Social Media Strategy.” Seriously. I’ve seen this done. It’s not pretty. But I digress.) It would be a lot wiser to go to Buzzoid to buy followers on Instagram if you are looking for quick and easy solution on that particular platform. There are many services out there that can upscale your social media following. Since Socialcaptain shut down many brands are looking for new providers for their Instagram accounts.

The first thing we ask “why do you want to do this?” There are a number of prerequisites to work through before going down the social business path; here’s a starting point to walk through the fundamentals that we put together back in 2007; it still seems to be holding up as a reasonable set of guidelines.

The thing that seems to tether the conversation to reality is the conversation around metrics. Metrics are how we tie the “why” to the business. We put together a quick slide deck with a few thoughts on how to set up metrics around a social business effort; it’s embedded below.

A lot of the structure from this thinking ties back to Joe Cothrel’s seminal article from 2000, “Measuring the Success of an Online Community.” (Cothrel, J. P., 2000, Measuring the Success of an Online Community. Strategies & Leadership, v. 20, no. 2, pp 17-21. MCB University Press.) Make sure to check it out.

Additionally, Hannah Del Porto at ImpactWatch has collected a killer list of additional resources on the metrics front. Go check out Hannah’s post for some great commentary on the topic as well. The links:

• 15 Ways to Measure Return on Engagement (ROE) of Social Media – PR Sarah Evans

• How to NOT calculate Social Media R.O.I. – The Brand Builder

• ROI vs. “Impact on X” – Understanding what Social Media ROI is and isn’t – The Brand Builder

• Social Media Monitoring: Brands That Listen Make Better Friends – Matt Granfield

• The Fleeting Value Of Social Media Monitoring – Silicon Valley Watcher

• Social Media Monitoring for Your Company’s Online “Health” – CMD Agency

• Social media success doesn’t start with ROI – Social Media.biz

• Measuring Linkfluence and Visual Social Media Monitoring – IStrategy Labs

• Social Media Cost Per Click Analysis – Social Media Surfer

• Social media and the acid-bath of ROI – Business Insight Zone

• How High Should You Set The Bar For Customer Service With Social Media Engagement? – PR Communications

So, how are your measuring social business activities in your organizations? Any other best practices out there that people are finding useful that might be worth sharing?

Perhaps you would be interested in a dedicated account manager for your personal or business’s Instagram? Upleap can help you get more instagram followers and drive sales.

An overview of OK Labs' efforts in building a customer and developer community.  The key bit:

The whole thing is here.

I had the chance to chat via email with Jordan Crook from Mobile Marketer earlier this week about Scanaroo, our loyalty card app for the iPhone.

Here's a link to Jordan's side of the story, which I think was pretty-much spot on.

The key graf:

This is really the foundation of why we built the app, and it derives directly from Doc's drive (wow, that's a lot of alliteration) with ProjectVRM, which has a stated goal of creating "tools of independence and engagement" for the customer side of the business relationship.

That said, Crook really grokked that what we're trying to do with Scanaroo provides a benefit for both parties. 

I saw this tweet today from @FitMenu which said "I've turned down loyalty programs to avoid that one more thing to carry," and Crook noted that "often times, loyalty cards, gift cards and membership cards are not used on a daily basis," which is exactly right, because it's currently a hot pain to carry them all around.  So, the retailers win, too, by always having the opportunity to have their card easily available.

Related:

Cerado Launches Loyalty Card Organization App (Mobile Marketer)

Scanaroo web site (http://scanaroo.com)

(Cross-posted from http://www.supernovahub.com)

Click here to learn how to join the call

This month, we're announcing a new weekly teleconference series — Supernova NetworkAge Briefings.
On these free, open calls, frank discussion is encouraged (and civil
disagreement is embraced). As a follow up to his recent interviews with Clay Shirky and Andrew Keen, Howard Greenstein will moderate the first one-hour Briefing on Thursday, August 6, 11am PST/2pm EST, featuring Andrew Keen ("The Cult of the Amateur") and Erick Schonfeld (Co-Editor, TechCrunch).

The topic: The "Real Time Web" has
worsened information overload. Many agree that information flowing
across our news, email, Facebook, Twitter and other flows needs to be
curated or filtered. But, who should decide 'All The News That's Fit To
Share?'

We'll live-stream Briefings from our website as well as on the BlogTalkRadio Supernova channel with live chat and moderated Q&A. For more details on how to participate, please go to the information page. You may also sign up to receive regular notifications on scheduled Briefings, topics and participants.

Mary
Uhl-Bien's research and teaching interests are in leadership and
ethics. Widely published, Dr. Uhl-Bien has been active in research,
consulting and management development both nationally and
internationally. She has consulted with Disney, British Petroleum, and
the General Accounting Office, and she served as the executive
consultant for State Farm Insurance.

"There is a sea
change going on in leadership, involving a shift from a hierarchical
way of thinking to a connectionist, networked view."

Connectionist buzzwords:

• Collaboration
• Innovation
• Integration
• Connectivity
• Adaptive Work
• Distributed Leadership

Classic
organization theory pits groups (with local specializations, local
expertise, local autonomy, local self-interest and local identities)
vs. an "integrated" approach (organization-wide hierarchy,
formalization, organizational identity, and centralized leadership).

This doesn't work in the Knowledge Era (Network Age), because attempts to create "integrated" organizations actually results in more localism, and greater pushback.

"In
the 1990s, when reorganizations happened en masse, there was a changing
psychological contract between organizations and employees."

Organizational
silos are an Industrial Age artifact. A representative of a major
government contractor noted to Uhl-Bien "I wish that we could have a
supply chain that goes across 'production' and 'sustainability.'" Right
now, the two functions are in unconnected silos.

Historically, the "heroic" leader was connected to the idea of managerial
leadership, where the leader was a "lone ranger, isolated from those
being led and who often commanded his/her organization primaily through
the use of top-down directives."

In the Knowledge Era, leadership is a behavior, not a role.

Question from the room: "Sarbanes-Oxley is forcing silo'd behavior…how do we get around it?"

A:
"We need adaptive solutions that come from the people in the
organization, not from the top. When we drive bureaucracy, we drive
silos. We want to take a different approach and drive this from inside
the organization."

There
are two kinds of power: "positional" power and "personal' power."
Millenials don't care for positional power, and prefer personal power.

Kimberly
Rath, President and Managing Partner, Talent Plus, has nearly 25 years
of experience in the human resources field, and she is a recognized
leader in the field of executive development. Rath provides executive
management consulting consulting and training to organizations
worldwide, including the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, The Estee Lauder
Companies, and Mercedes-Benz USA.

Rath asserts that:

(Talent + Fit) x Investment = Growth

• Talent means "Talent/Potential"
• Fit means "Culture, Schedule, Compensation, Skills, Education"
• Investment means "Relationship, Training, Mentoring"

"Recruiting is like shaving…if you don't do it every day, it gets a little rough, and a little shaggy."

"We are a company of 120 people. We had 1,500 applicants last year."

Rath
also led the group in a very eloquent conversation of the judgements
and labels we put on candidates based on our initial impressions. Bill
Eckstrom was a great sport, and allowed himself to be "labeled" by the
group. Literally.

Rath counseled that an organization needs to hire "as-is" – as fundamental change of an individual is unlikely.

Over
thousands of interviews, the attributes that Talent Plus has seen that
drive success are the following nine (values, competition, focus,
discipline, customer relationship, empathy, positivity, persuasion,
enterpriser), in the following five categories:

Drives and Values
Values
Competition

Work Style
Focus
Discipline

People Acumen
Customer Relationship
Empathy
Positivity

Influence
Persuasion

Thought Process
Enterpriser

Successful
sales people need to have 2 of the following 3, according to Rath:
Enterpriser, Persuasion, Competition. ("After Sept. 11," Rath noted,
"the two key attributes were Positivity and Persuasion.")

"We can predict failure — e.g. 'this person won't make it' — better than we can predict success."

"The behaviors you hire in, they define your culture."