I had a fantastic conversation with Frank Eliason (@comcastcares), Duncan Riley, and Chris Brogan last night during the Microsoft Windows Mobile Developer event (@WMDev) at Chapel in Seattle. We explored the drivers that propel companies into social labyrinths and how they participate, react and in turn, strategically plan (or should) once they’ve arrived. The common motives are spurred through innovation (rare) and urgency (more common). It’s Aha vs. Uh-oh… However, the debate from within will eventually arise, questioning who owns…
Listening Literacy For Nonprofits
Guest post by Beth Kanter, Read her blog | Follow her on Twitter Credit I am an early adopter of social media and set up my listening post 5 years ago to scan for people, trends, and ideas related to social media and nonprofits. Listening and engaging with people has been critical to any success I’ve achieved as a social media practitioner – whether I’m blogging or fundraising for Cambodian children. For the past five years, I’ve been teaching social…
Newsflash: There are more men than women speaking about tech
Guest post by Cathy Brooks, read her blog | follow her on Twitter There are more men than women in the tech and new media sectors… I know. Shocking. Joking aside, I thought it was time to take a slightly different whack at the conversational kerfuffle that’s percolated yet again in recent weeks. Yes, that seemingly unsinkable subject – the lack of women on the tech industry speaking circuit. So when Brian Solis graciously offered me the opportunity to guest…
The State and Future of Communications: An Interview with Kara Swisher
This week, I was invited to speak at the Girls in Tech event in San Francisco as part of its evening discussing and exploring the nuances and opportunities defining and fueling Journalism 2.0. I’ve supported GIT founder Adriana Gascoigne since the beginning and will always help the chapters that now exist around the world. It’s an important organization. The evening was hosted at the San Francisco HQ of MySpace in the city’s South Beach district, which prior to their arrival,…
Building Bridges Between Knowledge and Aspiration
Image Credit: Jeremy Ginsberg There’s no shortage of businesses, and more specifically, the individuals who represent them, seeking insight, answers and direction to simplify, organize, and elucidate the intimidating and confusing social media landscape. Likewise, social media experts, gurus, and ninjas are seemingly ubiquitous. Far too many of us expect others to build bridges that connect disparate communities rife with individuals starving for logical and defensible insight and direction directly to us. In the end however, it’s our sole responsibility…
Making Whuffie With Julia Allison
Guest Post by Dr. Mark Drapeau – read his blog, follow him on Twitter You can’t eat whuffie, but it’s getting harder to eat without it, as Tara Hunt says in The Whuffie Factor. For the uninitiated, think of whuffie as an alternative to money – a reputation-based currency that started as a concept in a science fiction novel, now being applied to online business. Hunt’s interesting central thesis is that in order to successfully change social capital into market…
Are Facebook and Twitter on a Collision Course?
Image credit For years, Facebook and Twitter have maintained a friendly coopetition of sorts, with neither one taking a firm stance against the other. However, if you believe that Mark Zuckerberg does not actively contemplate strategies for either acquiring Twitter or rendering it obsolete, please think about the landscape and monetization drivers that aren’t yet readily apparent to us as everyday consumers. This may seem like the “Social Media Summer of Love,” but in the end, there are billions of…
If This Headline Doesn’t Catch Your Attention, I Failed
Guest Post by Shannon Paul, Read her blog | Follow her on Twitter Image Credit: Gakuranman Content may be king, but it won’t ever get the royal treatment outside the confines of your company’s website unless its dressed for success with a killer headline and description to match. A lot of interest can be generated with great content and some proper positioning. Positioning, in this case means solid headlines and descriptions to accompany the content at a variety of access…
Breathing New Life into Virtual Worlds
Source And you thought Virtual Worlds were so passé…a new study suggests that virtual worlds may be getting a second life. In 2007-2008, many brands and companies flocked to Second Life to build a virtual presence, which spiked, peaked, and created somewhat of a backlash and ultimately a bit of a retreat in the process. By mid-2009, virtual worlds were realizing a comeback of sorts. In July 2009, virtual worlds consultancy kzero.co.uk reported that membership of virtual worlds grew by…
Active Listening on the Social Web; It’s Overrated
by Michael Brito Getty Images Wikipedia tells us that active listening is an intent to “listen for meaning”. Others suggest that active listening should “focus on who you are listening to, whether in a group or one-on-one, in order to understand what he or she is saying.” These are excellent definitions. But as it relates to customer interactions on the social web, active listening is only one half of the equation. Take for example, this brief illustration. A man gets…
