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Links, Links, Links

“Link” is a word we all throw around a lot. A lot. Let’s go to the source on this for a minute (source: answers.com):

noun

  • A unit in a connected series of units: links of sausage; one link in a molecular chain.
  • A unit in a transportation or communications system.
  • A connecting element; a tie or bond: grandparents, our link with the past.
  • An association; a relationship: The Alumnae Association is my link to the school’s present administration.
  • A causal, parallel, or reciprocal relationship; a correlation: Researchers have detected a link between smoking and heart disease.

verb, transitive

  • To connect with or as if with a link: linked the rings to form a chain.
  • (Computer Science.) To make a hypertext link in: linked her webpage to her employer’s homepage.

verb, intransitive

  • To become connected with or as if with a link: The molecules linked to form a polymer.
  • (Computer Science.) To follow a hypertext link: With a click of the mouse, I linked to the company’s website.

Now, those are just some of the definitions that are in current usage. And they are all about connection.

chicago4
(social networking exercise, Chicago, IL, 2005)

When two things are connected, a link joins them. Take some linked items, and join them together, and all of a sudden you have a network. Dave Gray writes:

“Networks form the basis for everything, from the tiniest atom to the entire universe. Understanding networks and how they function may be one of the most important competencies of the knowledge economy.”

I agree with Dave. Which is why from Sunday-Tuesday, like Dave, I’ll also be at MeshForum. It looks like there’ll be a few other folks there, as well:

And many others, too. Here are a few links where you can learn more about MeshForum, register, or even check out the Haystack-based network we’re setting up for the event.

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Some Real Stories from New Orleans

As noted here, BrainJams New Orleans is tomorrow. A few quotes via Jerry Cashman, who has traveled down for the event.

Jerry writes: I took time on my flights and during the hours it took me to find a wireless connection to pulse the “spirit of New Orleans”, ask locals a lot of questions, and listen, listen, listen. Here are some of the quotes:

“You go BrainJams! There are so many needs in New Orleans. We will need help for at least 10 years. The help can be almost anything. However, it needs to be on things we have identified that we need help with.” — Small business owner with four food processing plans on the Louisiana gulf coast and a fleet of 10 fishing vessels.

“You mean the technology community wants to help? We got all these checks from technology companies into the American Red Cross for the first few months after Katrina. Now, they are nowhere to be found. Don’t people know thisis when we really need the help!!! We haven’t even cleaned up and the Hurricane season is just about to start again.HELP!” — New Orleans City government employee.

“This is my first time back to New Orleans after Katrina. If I known things were still this bad, I would be organizing a group like BrainJams for the Airlines industry. In fact, I will bring it up at our convention today,” — Continental Airlines executive attending an Airlines industry conference in New Orleans.

“BUSINESS SUCKS! Please help us,” — small business owner on Bourbon Street.

“We have so many technology needs it isn’t funny. For example, it would be great to have a community web site with functions like bulletin boards. For example, we still don’t know where all our former staff is after Katrina. Each hotel, such as us, posts a request for updates from our employees on our web site. But, it would be much more efficient if there was a New Orleans wide web site for that kind of information, updates on the rebuilding process (so dispersed people know about key updates – such as the Superdome reopening on September 24, 2006), etc.” — Hotel manager, Central Business District.

“Jazz Fest used to bring in a lot of tourists who’d revel in staying at one of the many Historic Hotels in New Orleans. We just haven’t seen it yet. We hope Thursday, Friday, and Saturday will be better. But, right now it is mostly locals. Could you use the web to simulcast Jazz Fest performances next year. I bet people would pay good money and the proceeds could go to the festival and to the rebuilding efforts. We need virtual events to supplement our biggest treasure and asset – our music!,” — Night club owner.

“Could you link Houston and New Orleans better electronically? They are currently housing 400,000 of the 500,000 Katrina refuges. There is no effective linkage on schools, housing, FEMA assistance, rebuilding efforts, and basic details for the residents of both cities in one simple, easy to read spot on the web. Plus, there are lot of dirty little secrets no one wants to talk about. For example, crime has gone up by 36 percent in the past three months in Houston (mostly in the neighborhoods where Katrina refugees reside). I don’t want to say there is a corelation, but it is very interesting that crime went up right when the federal assistance started to slow down or go away).” — Business owner in Houston that has involvement with three partnerships in Louisiana.

“People do not what is going on here!!!!! A girl from a club at Bourbon Street was killed two days ago because a dispute over $500. $500!!!! Guys can’t find jobs and they are killing people because they are desparate. And no one is telling the story. Why can’t you use those blog things you are talking about to get the stories out that the media won’t tell????” — New Orleans native and Bourbon Street bar patron.

Check it out here.

Bonus: Perspective from Tom Foremski

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Alternate Headline: “Local Woman Starves While Waiting For Carryout”

Great bit from Jacqueline Church: “Confessions of a DiningIn 12-Stepper“.

“[The customer service supervisor] can understand why I’m upset, he’d like to help me. He suggests that it’s probably that they’ve run out of the items I ordered. I’m not buying it. He offers that it might be that the website had items that the catalog (printed four months earlier) did not have. (that’s the ‘sympathize with the customer’ part of the script) Nope, ordered from the admittedly more current website. Then he says, it’s probably an issue with the time of day. The items I selected might be only available on the lunch menu and by the time I finished the order, it was dinner menu time. I ask him why there is no indication on the website or the catalog of limited availability. Has no answer. Now, he’d like to help me by taking my order.

FOR GOD SAKES WILL SOMEONE MAKE ME A G&T ALREADY?”

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LOHAS Leadership Summit

Incredible session. The two key thoughts.

Dominique Counseil (President, Aveda):

“As a leader: I don’t think it’s our job to have ideas…there are plenty of ideas around us. We need to listen more.” (ed. – YES!)

Michael Crooke (CEO, Revolution Living):

“I think the most major thing that we’ve done with technology is how we market our brands. Word Of Mouth Marketing is the only way to grow and nurture our brands in an authentic way. You’ve got to have authenticity and transparency, and things like blogs are a big part of that. We’re using RSS feeds, and podcasting, and the demographic we’re going after isn’t a demographic…it’s a psychographic…and those people want to connect to the company, and do it on their terms, and on their platform. The more ways a customer can connect with the company, each new way has the potential to double the customer’s lifetime value. Because of blogs, because of podcasting, because of Word of Mouth, we’ll connect.”


More after the jump.

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Liveblogging LOHAS – Megatrends with Patricia Aburdene

Patricia Aburdene is the author of Megatrends 2010: The Rise of Conscious Capitalism.

According to Aburdene, "conscious capitalism" the predominant trend to watch in the coming years.  (In contrast to what she calls "unconscious capitalism" as defined as Friedman’s statement "the social responsibility of business is to increase profits.")

Three ways to run a company to meet these trends correctly:

  • Values –work harder to link the values you stand for with your product
  • Standards — Eductate the customer to differentiate between diluted standards, and the higher standards that you embrace.
  • Authenticity — Walk the talk.  The customer needs to know that the way that the business is run is aligned with the same values that show up in the marketing of the product.

More here.

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Liveblogging LOHAS – Marketing

Am livelogging the LOHAS conference in Santa Monica over the next couple of days. (I’ll be doing the full writeups over at the Blue Marble blog.) First session was “LOHAS Marketing.”

Host:
Mark Spellum, Editor in Chief, Plenty Magazine

Panelists:
Susan West Kurz, CEO, Dr. Hauschka Skin Care
Rick Ridgeway, VP Communications and Environmental Initiatives, Patagonia
Laura Coblentz – VP Marketing, Wild Oats
Peter David Pedersen – CEO, E-Squared

That said, the two lines that popped out, from Susan Kurz, “Authenticity is the ultimate luxury” and the one from Rick Ridgeway, “when given a personality test, companies are social deviants and pathological liars” require some further thought.

More after the jump.

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Quotable

Best line I’ve read all day.

“Good social networks provide ways for people to create just the sort of information to create useful affinities or ways to find the people you’re interested in networking with. This is something I call the social surface area (graphic) but I think the potential for this in the enterprise are clearly still there, once initial concerns are overcome. Thus, the social media companies that find good ways to increase a user’s social surface area without disrupting the business itself will tend to be most successful.” — Dion Hinchcliffe (ZDNet), from his post Social Networking Makes A Play For The Enterprise

Spot. On.

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Haystack Updates – April 26, 2006

A bunch of news on the Haystack front. In addition to moving to a new infrastructure provider, have put in a load of new capabilities. The most notable two are:

Profile Permalinks

We realized that, if businesses are going to be using the system to enable customers to find the “right” person to help them from within an organization, organizational representatives need to be as visible as possible. So, in addition to finding individuals via the Haystack tag navigation, profiles are now permalinked and, therefore, discoverable via the big search engines. This also means that you can put a link to your Haystack profile in your email signature, or even link to it from a webpage. Or even from within a blog post.

Example: Permalinks to Dennis Howlett, Denise Ryan and Andrew Taylor.

And check this…the Google visibility rocks.

Private Haystacks

We’ve had a number of customers come to us and say “I love what you’re doing…can we use this just ourselves, and not make the profiles visible?” The answer is now yes. So, Shel Holtz writes the following about “enterprise social networking” behind the firewall.

Shel: “To me, [enterprise social networking] means within the organization. I am convinced that there is tremendous potential in an all-internal social networking platform for large organizations that lets employees get knowledge and information, and make connections, among themselves.”

There you go, Mr. Holtz. Any Haystack administrator can now choose to make his or her Haystack “private,” and only allow visibility to those who are in the network. The Haystack itself doesn’t even show up in the directory. Done. Next?