Social Media to Social Business

All!  Sorry I didn’t post this on Monday as usual but I took a quick vacation day while in Orlando!

I do think it is important to focus on the barriers of success — things like  Security, Adoption and  Cultural Fit are areas that all businesses need to be aware of and plan through their business.

Your thoughts?

As you know, I have been a huge gamification driver for a few years — starting the first demand generation and educational game in IBM WebSphere with Phaedra Boinodiris on the game Innov8!

Now the market is demanding gaming — the average age of a gamer is 35, and the recall of playing a game is 80% higher than any other communication methodology!  We appreciate Rajat Paharia and the great work here to bring more Gaming to the IBM Connections Social Platform! 

Check out the “Level UP” concept of gaming from BunchBall built on top of IBM Connections!

At IBM Connect 2012, the Social Business Conference, BunchBall uses a great concept of Level Up — you see below Level 1, Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4 — providing fun in learning about IBM Connections, and a competitive spirit to get to the next level!

Here you see some of the metrics you can leverage while your teams are playing games!

Welcome to Lotusphere and IBM Connect 2012!  Today I wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page with a ‘quick” Simple Social view!

At our Social Businesss conferences in Orlando, we introduced three core offerings to add value to our clients in 2012!

1.   Community Management Training on how to become an effective community manager, the fastest growing job in social business.    This job type is one of many new jobs that Social has introduced into the marketplace.  Today, very few certification or education exists in this area where the demand is outpacing the supply.

2.  Adoption Advocacy which includes help for companies on their adoption of social inside and outside their four walls.   This includes governance, metrics, engagement plans, and communications and education on social tools.  

3.  Social Business Agenda Workshops.  These workshops address the top questions that companies have today:  How do I become a social business.  The workshop’s output includes:  a cultural assessment, an adoption plan, engagement strategy and analytics heat maps. 

IBM is also announcing a partnership with The Dachis Group, the world’s leader in powering the design, development, management, and measurement of Social Business performance, to help organizations quickly drive adoption success through a social business adoption quickstart workshop. The workshop combines IBM services for the implementation of Social Business solutions for enterprises with additional services from The Dachis Group and focuses on the use of social business technology while fostering cultural skills and engagement.

As promised from today’s webcast, here is a sample of the Culture Checklist!   Culture eats strategy for lunch!  So make sure you review your culture for its fit with the new social world!

Ways to change culture: 

• Have a third party walk through the below checklist
• Do a pilot to showcase value with a champion
• Share other companies references and business outcome
• ROI examples from McKinsey

Gang!  Our Social Business coffee break series is back on for 2012 due to the overwhelming demand!

Love to know the topics you’d like me to cover!

Here you go!!!

Continuing my list of 12s for the week!

1.    The BP day on Sunday.  Why?  I love Business Partners!   They have energy, passion and play such role in Social Success!  Reminder – OGS for BPs is at LUNCHTIME this year — not morning!  Energy level Up Up UP!!

2.   The OGS on Monday.  Why?  So much yellow, so much energy, and the surprise guest speaker.   I love surprises and energy!

3.  The TweetUps!    I think Tweet Ups are super fun because you meet people you “know” through Twitter!  What is better?

4.  The Australia Day Party on Tuesday Night.  Ok, I admit,  I didn’t know what it was until last year.  But now?  How can you miss it?

5.  Clients Clients Clients!    I love the number of client presentations, client meetings (I think I am fully booked) and client interactions at the water fountain in the Dolphin!

6.  The Weather!  Yes, I am a southern girl .. so warm weather is my fav! 

7.   The Super Women’s Group Meeting on Wed at 6;15PM.  We are hosting a Super Woman’s Group meeting for all us Business and Tech Savvy Woman at the event. Also our first C suite Lunch on Tuesday Noon.  If you didn’t get an invite, please tweet, comment, or email me at scarter@us.ibm.com.  Connect with other great C Suite Woman!

8.  Receptions, receptions, receptions.    There are receptions from Perficient, Prolifics, Ascendant, On 24, and on and on !  Party!

9.  All meetings at the Yacht and Beach club.    No, not really.

10.   Celebrating New Year’s with the Awesome Social Business IBM Sales team!  Enough said!  Could you ask for more?

11.  Hearing Jeffrey Gitomer, Guy Kawasaki,  Bill Taylor – Fast Company’s Founding Sr Editor.   Wow !  What a roundup!

12.  Seeing Social and Portal People everywhere!    I LOVE Social Business and Media but love meeting the “real” thing too!   I love those who love it too!  Come and find me!!!

Yes, I know there appears to be more than 12 — but Enterprise 2.0 is there in both locations as is SMSS in muliples. What am I missing?  Especially outside the US?

My favorite Social Tools!!

1.  IBM Connections.  Yes, I am an IBMer and I love IBM Connections.  I love the blogs and the microblogging that I use with my team, and with my clients.   It is the new ‘social inbox’ of my life!  I don’t think I could live without it! 

2.  Twitter.    I am addicted.  I have to tweet.   I use this tool because I love succinct statements.  I need the wisdom of the crowds.

3.  Foursquare.   Checking in whereever I am — and posting it in multiple places.   I like the badges as a gamification addition. 

4.  Klout.com.   I am not sure it is the perfect way to measure influence, but I like to see the influencers in a variety of areas.   It helps me to see and understand more and more about my virtual friends.

5.  Facebook.   I love the new frictionless social gestures and the way Facebook allows us to keep in touch wtih our friends and families.

6.  Tweetdeck.   I know I already listed Twitter but Tweetdeck enables me to monitor key words and to see the best conversations.  Without this tool, I wouldn’t be as effective on Twitter.

7.  Cognos Consumer Insight.   This tool enables me to track sentiment, affinity, and has predictive capability.   All great social media-ist should listen and study at all times!

8.  WordPress blogs.  WordPress has made blogging so simple and easy and hsa the tracking I need to see how my readers like what I am writing. 

9.  YouTube.    I love video and the power that it brings.  Video envokes trust and personalization that is not possible in other medias. 

10. Delicious.   I love the easy bookmarketing and tagging, which makes for quick searching later.

11. LinkedIn.   LinkedIn is for my business contacts and groups.  It is a great way to get linkedin to great groups – like those for authors or social media enthusiasts.

12. Hash Tracking.  A great tool to track campaigns on twitter. It tracks the level of engagement of the conversations around a topic.

What are your favorite tools?!

Being in the dialogue – Midwest Airlines

With 20% of employees at large U.S. companies now contributing to blogs, social networks, and other Web 2.0 services (according to IDC), the trend is no surprise, with companies finding ways to capitalize on this activity with their own social networks because of the competitive advantages they can gain.  Marketers have long acknowledged that word-of-mouth is important but that communication was always going in one-direction.  Blogging has taken one-way conversations of many-to-one and flipped it on its head.  The blogger has an equal voice and has as much opportunity to be heard as huge corporations or government institutions.

Blogging is important because it helps put a face on the large faceless mask of large institutions.  Suddenly someone can reach out and touch a person and seek out their perspective, expertise, or just plain say “Hello, thanks for being out here.”   There is power in the corporate blog.  Midwest Airlines leveraged their blog to create a personal connection to a new group of customers – traveling women. With more and more value being placed on service, Midwest Airlines wanted to have a blog that was targeted at the traveling population of woman for getaways, but one that had a personal touch.  Tish Robison started their blog which features services that are of interest to woman.

But those aren’t the reasons why Tish has a community willing to even wear Travel with Tish t-shirts!  The blog has a following because it is written from a personal point of view.  For example, she told me that she includes items like the amount of walking involved, or recommendations for when and when not to take a cab.  Marketing’s job is to provide a lens for Midwest’s blogging personality, for the market to see that personality.  The crucial part is to find someone who can make it personal, relevant and true.  The ROI has been excellent, providing approximately a 10:1 return, though much more return can be assumed that may have been triggered by the blog, but booked using alternative methods.  Blogs can extend your corporate personality and can be a very valuable source of information.  Midwest
is gaining insight into one segment of its customers need.    Check it out and meet my friend Tish!!!

Well tonight I was working on Twitter and my daugther came up and wanted to learn about it. She had such fun — that I pulled out my flip and filmed her!

This was her perspective on marketing 2.0!

All:
I have been inundated with uses for social media …. how can you us it in analyzing your market, in service, in different industries, and the list goes on! Especially after yesterday’s discussion with over 3300 women on Marketing 2.0!

Mini Case Studies
I decided to create mini case studies on 10 different uses of Social media — some from my book and some are recent uses! Send me others that you want me to include ! Today’s is a fun one! Social Sweet Spots!!!

Here we go! Short and sweet!!!

Typically, a simplified view of traditional marketing might starting with the articulation of new marketing requirements. Then marketing professionals would create new messages and images, which are then delivered via various media for consumption by the audience.

But with Marketing 2.0, which features Social Media + Traditional Methds, new behaviors have the capability to ‘short-circuit’ the
existing model. With 3.5B conversations occuring each day on social sites, and 1.2M blog conversations happening daily, more
listening must be done to shape our views. Obviously, traditional marketing and media does not go away, but undoubtedly these
changes are providing new opportunities for to research and engage our market.

How we listen:
So we have started listening and analzying the blogsphere and twittersphere. We research what the market is discussing and searching for, in or around a set of defined topic areas vs. Inside Out – we research what the market thinks of what we want to say. We look at the thousands of conversations around these topics and glean insight from that listening. This allows us to develop Social Sweet Spots!

How do we do it? From the “New Langauage of Marketing 2.0″, we document the steps to doing this Social Sweet Spot work!

• Identify key sites and blogs where conversations are happening – use tools to get the biggest bang — like TweetLater, StumbleUpon, AllTop, TweetDeck, etc.
• Translate the content into needs and preferences that inform your offerings and messages – you will find core topics like economic changes show interest in different topics, etc.
• Identify the best opportunities to participate
• Develop a repeatable, systematic and focused process!   We use Banter a process from 2 business partners to do this so that we can compare results week to week.

Conclusion:

Listening and learning to me is one of the most valuable assets of social media.  It complements my market intelligence and helps me to make better decisions.  For example, I have used it to gather market requirements for new products, for message and positioning tweaks, and for new offerings!

So this is our third case study of using social media in the real world!

For marketers, social media has shown how to drive opportunities in greater volumes into the pipeline. “Lightly branding”, which is having your customers and communities drive your brand, is happening all around us.  Companies today are custodians of their brand, not the owners.  In a global world, consumers are taking that brand equity and building their own stories.  It is these stories that are now at the heart of trust and relevance.

Social media is the toolset to allow pre-existing social networks to produce exponential increases in brand awareness and new customer leads.  It is more powerful than third-party advertising because it conveys an implied endorsement from a friend.  And it provides you with a way to personalize your brand. 

For example, EepyBird.com and the Coca Cola Company. The video of two “scientists”, 101 bottles of Diet Coke and hundreds of Mentos showed the reaction of the 2 products together in a huge fountain effect. It started as just a video for the fun of performance, but ultimately this “lightly” branding significantly drove up sales of both Mentos and 2-liter bottles of Dike Coke

With the YouTube generation, the internet is a media of social connectivity.  Differentiation is no longer about product/service but rather is based on the concept of engagement and long-term relationship.

For instance. In one of the book’s Online chapters, a small company in San Antonio Texas called RackSpace is highlighted because of their virtually 100% referral business. Driven by viral reference videos, and what they call “Fanatical Support”, they have co-branded their support as a competitive advantage. (http://www.ibmpressbooks.com/articles/article.asp?p=1273853)

Lightly branding is one way to start that long-term relationship and to drive new leads. It works both ways though!  Just recently, due to Twitter comments, Johnson and Johnson’s Motrin brand took a lightly branded approach by removing their new ad due to tweets about the ad’s impact on their “brand”.

Guiding principles:

• Businesses no longer hold absolute sway over the decisions and behavior of consumers
• The longer companies refuse to accept the influence of consumer-to-consumer communication a­nd perpetuate old ways of doing business, the more they will alienate and drive away their customers
• To succeed in a world where consumers now control the conversation, and w­here satisfied customers tell three friends, while angry customers tell 3000, companies must achieve credibility on every front

Social media is a new channel.   Through real time social media techniques, like blogging, twitter or online chat, a channel of support or assistance can be focused on a particular topic.  It offers an opportunity to interact with a person in a non-threatening manner moving from B2B to P2P – person to person.

As an example, using its social chat capability, IBM increased its leads, improved customer satisfaction, and drove up sales productivity. From their ibm.com/soa web site, IBM leverages a set of pre-determined “qualifications” to pop up an online chat. In just the first 3 months of operation, IBM has seen over 2,845 chats with new customers, resulting in 182 validated leads and is now extending the online chat to Germany, China and Japan.

In addition, Dell Outlet came up with the idea that Twitter may be a solution to the challenges presented, by offering Twitter-specific promotions and featured products. The goals were: 1. To drive increased traffic, and thus increased demand for particular products for which Dell Outlet has inventory greater than desired levels and 2. To grow the pool of Dell Outlet’s Twitter followers to the point where it is sizable enough to have an impact on specific demand-generation postings.

Dell Outlet’s Twitter strategy revolves around regularly posting Twitter-only offers.  When a new tweet is posted, it generally provides followers a coupon code to obtain a discount on that particular model in the Dell Outlet.   Typically, this coupon is exclusive to Twitter, so they are able to measure the redemptions and know that it was due to being posted on Twitter.  Twitter followers may share coupons easily with Twitter friends in a viral fashion

For Dell, Twitter represented a new way to reach customers.   Ricardo Guerrero, a key visionary for this work at Dell, claims that per their latest surveys, a significant portion of people who bought through Twitter were not aware of the Dell Outlet before Twitter. And by tracking the coupon code, in the first year utilizing Twitter as a promotional tool, Dell Outlet generated over $500,000 in revenue in sales of refurbished systems. 

The social media channel provides a way to respond “just in time”, not waiting in a reactive mode.  In fact, it allows a pre qualification process for new customers.  It gives you the ability to have a conversation with your prospects when they’re most receptive — while they are on your website or on your Twitter Channel actively gathering information. 

Guiding principles:

• Skills matter.  The presence in front of prospects is very important, so you want your best and brightest reps doing the real time chats.  They need to be very knowledgeable about the products and services not simply communicating at a high level. 
• Your mom taught you etiquette!  Use it online!   There is online etiquette for inviting people to chats, and for chatting with them once they accept.  For example, don’t immediately pop up an invitation within the first 30 seconds that a person is on your site — it’s pushy. 

I’d love your comments on your best practices with Social Media and to see your thoughts on the online portions of the book!  See it in action – don’t just read the words! 

Remember that all relationships have a set of common factors. First, all relationships require listening. Listening has become core to everything. Second, in the best relationships, there is a lot of active communication and dialogue. This dialogue is essential to growth in the relationship.

A lot of listening can be added to your marketing plan by adding communities from your social media toolbox.

To do that, Nintendo went straight to the source – gamers themselves. The company established an online community by offering incentives in return for customer information. The company also selected a group of experienced gamers based on the value and frequency of their community contributions. These “Sages” as they were named were given exclusive rewards, like previews of new games, in exchange for helping new users and providing community support.[ii]

Through this community, Nintendo has gained valuable insights into market needs and preferences. This has influenced everything from game offeringslike an online library of “nostalgic” games that appeal to older gamers—to new product design—for example, the intuitive controls of the popular Nintendo Wii system, which have helped attract new, casual gamers.[iii]

By leveraging the loyalty and expertise of its core customer segment, Nintendo has successfully connected with two new ones—women and older men. This collaboration seems to have paid off: Nintendo is once again ahead of its competitors, with 44 percent market share

 
2) Harley DavidsonThe Harley community is a fascinating one to me. Harley has had a viral social community for 25 years since 1983. The Harley Owners Group was started by the company as a way for riders to share the bonds between them and with the brand. While beginning in the US, their first international group started in England in 1991 and that globalness has only grown and improved over time. They are both online and in person with a focus on in person meetings facilitated through events and the joy and passion of riding together and doing things together. All of the groups exist around surrounding brick and mortar dealerships. All HOG chapters are sponsored by a dealership. Not all dealers sponsor HOG chapters, but a HOG chapter can only exist if a dealer sponsors

Harley Davidson – An Amazing CommunityHarley’s focus and philosophy for the groups is about interactions and obsession. In contrast to some of the other communities I investigated where they were about media plans and creative plans to sell things, but not about the aspect of the effect on people. The result is an increase in sales, but it comes secondarily. Their groups foster rich and deep social interactions. The Harley Owner’s Group is probably the strongest social network of any company anywhere. We’ve got more than a million members across the world. The Harley Owner’s Group is probably the strongest first-hand social network of any company anywhere.

Let’s look at an example of a HOG member, Dan Powers. He joined the HOG community in 2003 when he got his new Harley 2003 Road King. When you buy a bike from Harley, they give you free membership to HOG for 1 year. Dan comments, “After that timeframe, it is apparent this is a community you want to be in every year and you sign up for your yearly membership.” You can also pay one price for a “Lifetime Membership!” A famous tag-line from American Express is membership has its privileges, in Harley’s case once you have experienced this community and you know membership is fun and you can’t imagine not being part of HOG going forward.

Many times at motorcycle rallies you see members proudly displaying their HOG patches on their jackets going back many, many years. Some have chosen to be Lifetime Members. This is a badge of honor and branding all in one! Along with patches and membership pins, HOG sends a travel guide and map that includes the location of all the dealers in the world. And one of the reasons many HOG members renew or become life members is the free towing to the nearest Harley-Davidson Dealer should a member get stranded somewhere. This service is similar to AAA for motorcycles. HOG also has a terrific member magazine – HOG Tales – complete with user submitted content and pictures of their journeys. Many Dealers also provide discounts for members of the local HOG chapters. While all of these rational benefits are powerful, it is arguably the social and emotional benefit of being in the community that provides the most value.

The online web site is amazing. They focus on what riders want and need like mapping of routes, sharing of those maps with other riders going on those routes. They also have a list of all riding events coming up for the year, including links to help ship your bike to the event, hotel arrangements you can make on line, and links to others organizing the events for more information

On the Harley Davidson main web site, it is hard to find a link to the HOG website. For one thing most Harley riders have already bookmarked it separately, or they click on “Riders” and find the site in addition to many other great Harley happenings. Also the HOG website is tightly integrated into the entire Harley Davidson website to associate Harley from a look/feel and experience perspective with the community. You are part of Harley, you are part of HOG, it is a seamless experience and a seamless community.

The HOG community is a great example of not getting caught up in the buzz word of a community. But combining the power of in person meetings with the web creates a powerful community.

The idea for SOAsocial.com came during the process of building our
Social Network.

The Smart SOA Social Network already encompassed existing SOA networking communities led by IBM and other 3rd parties. However, we realized that there was not one stand alone web destination where SOA enthusiasts could find the latest SOA news, share knowledge and discuss relevant issues.

We were fortunate to partner with InfoQ, a leading software development community that already had a strong SOA news and networking portal. InfoQ was already interested in building out the capabilities of their SOA community, as so we signed on as the key sponsor — and thus SOAsocial was born.

SOAsocial is intended to fill an unmet need in the marketplace, not reinvent the wheel. For instance, it is not meant to replace the popular SOA groups that exist on mainstream social networking sites, but to supplement them with an additional source of focused knowledge from the worldwide community. SOAsocial’s overarching goals are to maintain a dynamic stream of quality, focused content, and provide the venue in which that knowledge can develop. I am excited to announce that SOAsocial will continue to unveil new capabilities in the coming months that make it even easier to contribute and consume the information housed there.

Please stay tuned!

Over the weekend I was catching up on some of the new thoughts in Social Meida and came across a note from Dee Fleming. She was commenting on a training seminar I did internally for the Super Women of IBM and she included a link to a cool article.

In the article, the woman called herself a Conversation Agent. How interesting! A title on her business card to let all know that she was about the dialogue, not a push message.

Have any of you seen any other interesting job titles and new roles created from the force of this new Markteing 2.0 world?

Let me know! I can’t wait to see what you respond with!

An interesting one that came up today!

This is a book review that ended up re-opening a murder case.

The power of social media! Read it here!

I was just in Dubai and heard from some of our clients that they are facing challenges they’ve never experienced before. At the same time external factors in their environment are forcing downward pressures on their businesses, they must still achieve growth targets/metrics and reduce costs… and they must execute with even greater speed than ever before. They are still looking to invest in critical areas but they are urgently searching for clearer solutions that deliver results to the bottom line with immediate value for their customers.

Part of what I saw was investment in technology like SOA and BPM! But I also saw a lot of Social Media interest as well!

Take for instance this! http://socialmediame.h2onewmedia.com/node/21

“It took us less than three months and less than 10,000 USD of investment to get our social media platform working for our business, we estimate that it has saved us at least 100,000 USD in sales, promotion and advertising costs over the past twelve months and that is without calculating the time saved by receiving super qualified opportunities.  From the perspective of our business social media just works and delivers significant value to our operations” Alan Condron Concur “

Also see this! A Super Cool vision for a Green City! – displayed on YouTube! Amazing! Marketing 2.0 goes around the world!

Yesterday, I provided you with a look at my 1st video.. hope you enjoyed watching it!

My second video highlights the “A” in the ANGELS framework. How to Analyze your market place (click on me!) - the whole premise is to insert Web 2.0 methods into traditional approaches.

1. How do you look at the globalization effect? The world is becoming flatter making the overall market place important. How can you use techniques to strengthen your market?

For instance..
Dove: they looked and leveraged the web culturally – exploring how to send their message in Europe and Russia in different fashions as there message went out – analyzing what was effective in both market places

Lenovo: Localized their message – taking what they knew from China & applying it in a new market place in India

Globalization is more and more important. The framework highlighted in the book looks at the ecosystem, how you manage those marketplaces w/ Web 2.0?

2. How to make sure you look at your distinct marketplace..
50% of marketplace is on-line per IDC
50% of marketplace is not on-line
How do you segment that market?

3. How do you leverage on-line tools?
Banter – allows us to measure the amount of times people use certain phrases..
On-line allows you to experiment and turn things much faster if you monitor the banter that is occurring

For example, Johnson & Johnson developed a new ad for moms. The feedback on Twitter was clear that mothers were not happy about it. From the bad publicity in the social media, the ad was immediately pulled and replaced with a new ad.

Experiment by leveraging web 2.0 techniques!

Let me hear from you!!

Today, we will discuss “N” from the ANGELS framework. I am here at Wharton with a group of Chief Learning Officiers and Chief Process Officiers!  My topic is on the use of Social Media in Strategy and Analysis of the market.

( You can see the video by clicking here! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9oNE7bSiDg&feature=PlayList&p=0270CF7431B8451D&index=2

In this video we look at how to insert new techniques in traditional marketing.

Corporate Social Responsibility is key – from a recent IBM study w/ 1100 CEOs, Corporate Social Responsibility is the # 1 priority for CEOs around the world. We need to demonstrate commitment to that strategy and live it.

How can you leverage that and nail your corporate social responsibility strategy? How you can use on-line tools to prove you are living your strategy?

An IBM example is “Project Green” where we leveraged Second Life to do demos. This allowed customers to view the demos without traveling, preserving our carbon usage, showing and living our commitment to green everyday.

Looking at branding, we used to control the message through a one way communication channel. Now with Web 2.0- two way communication, we need to realize we are the orchestrator of the brand, not the controller. We are conducting what happens and it is very successful on-line. You will see your brand on Twitter, Facebook etc.. you will influence that brand on-line by responding to your customers.

Look at roles – the way you segment your marketplace. If you segment by industry, one thing you notice on a global basis is that healthcare is different throughout the world. You should segment globally and look at roles on-line. On-line, you can gather a community using Web 2.0 technologies to form a group with similar roles.

For instance, Adobe and Rubicon Consulting have a group targeting bio scientists. IBM also formed a community on SOA – Role based segmentation.

Read the book for more case studies and check out my video!

We are continuing our series on the Angels framework. Next stop is “G”: How to Go To Market socially and how to develop your go to market plan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzIFVJTbh2s&feature=PlayList&p=0270CF7431B8451D&index=3

Some focus areas discussed in the video include:

1. As you add social media to your marketing plan, you need to remember the value propositions as they make a difference. Companies forget that the same marketing principles apply. The value propositions need to be compelling and differentiating – set your market apart.

• How do you make it compelling? Represent the value of your company. differentiation
• relevance
• compelling nature
• enduring

2. As you develop your plan, relationships are very important so remember the three C’s:

• customization – i.e. Sears – My Virtual Model
• co-creation – how do you enable your customer to use your technology to shape the future
• collaboration – facilitate discovery and take action – how do you engage the tools and images?

3. Master the wheel of influence

• Target by audience – i.e. Twitter, Bloggers, Governance and Universities

Continuing our series on the Angels framework, today, we will discuss “E”: how to Energize your channel and your community, one of my favorites!

Check out the video (do these help?) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?=DBUA7_hmi2k&feature=PlayList&p=0270CF7431B8451D&index=4

We look at how to choose the vessels available in social media based on your goals: dialogue, collaboration, sharing, etc. It all depends on your ultimate goal.
* Serious Gaming: Wii, DS: leverage the power of the games, a teachable moment. Example: Innov8, one of IBM’s serious games is a great example: it progressed from education to customer interaction to forming relationships with partners.  There is a 80% higher recall from teaching with a game vs. in-class education and the average age of gamer is 33 and 47% are in the 18-49 year old age bracket.

Widgets: a virtual briefcase with a set of channels for demos, presentations, etc. Use it internally and externally with customers. They’re great for sharing information and getting feedback on it.

Communities and Social networks: Per IDC, 50% of on-line Americans belong to a social network. Do you create your own or leverage existing ones out there? Both MySpace and Facebook as well as LinkedIn fit in here.

Sharing. I personally love the vessel of Blogging.  Blogging is great way to share information. My favorite of course is microblogs like Twitter. 
Dell created their own Twitter channel to sell excess inventory

There are lots of social tools – to energize your channel and community – here are the key steps to take:

• Learn about the options
• Experiment – try things out
• Leverage them in your current plans
• Plan and execute your social media vehicles

Social Networking and Blogs Surpass Email in Popularity

“While two-thirds of the global online population already accesses member community sites, their vigorous adoption and the migration of time show no signs of slowing. Social networking will continue to alter not just the global online landscape, but the consumer experience at large.

Mobile is playing an increasingly important role in social networking. Nielsen found UK mobile Web users have the greatest propensity to visit a social network through their handset, with 23 percent (2 million people) doing so, compared to 19 percent in the US (10.6 million people). These numbers are a big increase over last year – up 249 percent in the UK and 156 percent in the US.

 Today, I’d like to discuss “L” from the ANGELS framework: Leads and Revenue which is really the bottom line! Check it out at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S70moQZPcPc&feature=PlayList&p=0270CF7431B8451D&index=5

We look at how do you “show the money” from your Social Marketing? Highlights include:Metrics: don’t just measure the start and the end but look at the in process pieces ie: a lead from a virtual event, from Twitter, etc. How do you make sure Marketing and Sales are teaming together in the middle to progress that lead. Use in-process metrics!

Use a Dashboard: create an automated one such as a campaign effectiveness session or a response mgt session, that would allow you to automatically reach out to your customers.

Understand your dashboard … more than just ROI … sync it in to your business strategy and goals

What are the new metrics now that you have inserted social media into your plans: it’s all about the Marketing Mix. You may need to tweak it. Live events, search, virtual events, advertising … you need to optimize across the mix. Also, look at a lot of new metrics for on-line engagement, such as involvement, on-line interactions, are you getting the right audience. Look at the frequency of conversations, how many are converted relationships from negative to positive, relationships to purchase, on-line conversations that mention your brand, etc.

ROI can be tricky – measure the value of new social relationships, looking at innovation, at awareness, extended reach, word of mouth, communities, etc. Use and understand your Dashboard!

A friend of mine in India sent me these great trends for India. If any of you have trends for other parts of the world, can you please Tweet me or Blog me?

Thanks!

Top Seven Social Media Predictions for India for 2009

 We saw a preview of the power of citizen journalism in the 11/26 Mumbai terror attack. We also saw that mainstream media is increasingly willing to integrate citizen journalism in its news coverage. News organizations are not only promoting citizen journalism platforms like IBN Live’s Citizen Journalist, but also engaging with platforms like Twitter (see @DNAIndia, @LiveMint, @BangaloreMirror, @IndiatimesNews). We will see a continuation of these trends in 2009. More news organizations will experiment with citizen journalism, both by creating citizen journalism platforms on their own websites and by actively tracking social media for stories and sources.

I am so excited! Coming to the East Coast — live — a Social Media Tweetup! We had one in the Valley — that was so energizing but being an East Coast girl, we must try one here!

Every day companies are devising innovative techniques to leverage Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, Lotus Connections, WebSphere Commerce, iLog Visualization and other Social Media technologies to develop deeper customer connections.   And I see that many many countries are getting more and more interested in Social Media — like India, Brazil, and others

Many of you, have stories about ways you have deployed Social Media tactics to successfully drive demand. And I want to hear about them!  I love social media and if you share that passion and quest for Business Savy in measuring it for great business value.

f you do, please plan to share in a casual conversation, Social Media Tweetup, hosted by Sandy Carter, VP of Marketing for IBM’s SOA and Jeremiah Owyang, a Senior analyst for Forrester.

This event will be held in Mid Town Manhattan on Monday, March 23 from 6 – 8 PM. We are limited to 30 attendees so please RSVP quickly

To RSVP or to inquire for more details, please contact scarter@us.ibm.com

Guys … I took the 10 that Jeremiah gave us into 5!!!  He is amazing and loves this space

1)  Don’t obsess over the tools!  His advice?   Watch the early adoptors and see what they are adopting.  Tons of new tools being developed every month!  Choose carefully based on what you want to do!  But you will make mistakes and it is ok!  

2)  Invest in the resources around the tools you choose!  You can do a lot for very little money!  While growing, the total dollars here are small still.     Spend 80% on the strategy, goals, value propositions and 20% on the tools.  Examples he gave include Dell, Wells Fargo, and IBM.

3)  Do Integrate!  Don’t forget to integrate!  Social tools are not islands.  Successful social media works when the social media tools cross link and integrate!  Develop an index page of tools!

4)  Make sure you have an internal social media process!  Several models were reviewed – -the Tire –>  employees are communicating with the market with corporate communications still in the center.  Second, the control – Company communications owns all social media.  Third, hub and spoke — in the middle is a cross functional team. 

He compared this hub and spoke to an airport.  The team needs radar to listen.  The Signal Tower prioritizes the information and informs the right team.  The Flight log shows key results.

Have a place so that people can experiment — a Social Media sandbox like Yammer, or Blue Twit or Thinkforward internal to IBM.  Make sure you make it safe to try this internally!

5)  What not to do — measure the wrong things!

Page views along are not sufficient to measure .  Meausring click throughs is the wrong engagements!  Measure based on the business objectives.

Bottom line, this is personal, use them!  Play with them.  The ones Jeremiah suggested…..Facebook, LinkedIn, Yammer, Twitter, Blogs and Pictures. Use search tools like google alerts, twitter search , and technorati.

Well, we ended up with 62 people are our NYC TweetUP on Madison Ave on Monday night! It was a great group of folks who attended with amazing social media stories of use and value, new applications, and even one person who had never been on Twitter that signed up immediately in the room (yes, they got the invite verbally from a friend!).

Yes, some might say a little formal……but great food, free drinks, and great conversations and networking. It was great to meet face to face with those you have been tweeting with for a while!

I learned about a Social Media Club, a Social Media Breakfast, and some great upcoming events. What more could you ask for?

We will do this again soon! Thanks for joining us!!!

We are continuing our series on the Angels framework. Today, I’d like to discuss “S” : Scream! … use technology to scream into the marketplace. Check out the video at:
It highlights the two core attributes of Screaming: 1) Understanding the dichotomy in your marketplace today: understand the nature of digital citizens vs. non-digital citizens, those who are using social media tools and those who are not, and 2) Understand the technology: we are trained in basic marketing but we now also have to understand the new technology.

From Business Week

Messaging with the boss much? Maybe you ought to be. Workers who have strong communication ties with their managers tend to bring in more money than those who steer clear of the boss, according to a new analysis of social networks in the workplace by IBM (NYSE:IBM – News) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The research, released this week, even assigns a dollar value to e-mail interaction with an employee’s managers. Among the group studied, several thousand consultants at IBM, those with strong links to a manager produced an average of $588 of revenue per month over the norm.

The results represent an early attempt to understand the value of the broadening variety of personal connections afforded by the Web. Users of social media rack up LinkedIn contacts, Facebook friends, and Twitter followers by the hundreds, if not thousands. But figuring out how big a difference all those contacts make in a person’s life, financial or otherwise, is a far murkier matter.

[The article goes on ... ]

The actual study is here …

My Virtual Model enables consumers to “try on” clothes online and this is a business model after my own heart! For companies, using My Virtual Model technology improves their bottom-line profitability by increasing revenues while cutting costs. As an IBM SOA business partner, MVM will be at IMPACT 2009.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Louise Guay, the MVM co-founder and wanted to share her insight!

Sandy: This year will be your first trip to IMPACT! What are you most looking forward to?
Louise: I hope that I will have the chance to share our experience of social centrality and target advertising with the participants. The moneytisation of the social shopping and networking is “le sujet de l’heure” and we have an experience conducive to it! We can provide in the core of the shopping experience of merchants a usage of social media (Show me me how people like me wear this product!) and how the users can buy the entire look with a buy all button. Once the users register their profiles (their 3D models of themselves with a picture of their faces), ads can be targeted to them via banners or in emails or when they make their model appear on a product page. We have also an amazing network driving new clients to our merchant clients.

Sandy: I know that My Virtual Model has incorporated Social Media within the online shopping experience for Sears, Cosmopolitan and others. What is the reaction from customers and users?
Louise: Merchants are anxious to make a sound usage of social media. From a merchant perspective these times command a strong metrics oriented results, we also know that users trust more and more their peers comments. Imagine if they can see their peers wearing what they like and would wear also. They can choose seeing it on similar peers body types or same ethnicity or any physical affinity they have with peers! It influences their purchases and drives strong recommendations. It is an effective outfitting approach. Publishers want to go from mass media to personalized media. My Virtual Model brings each and everyone of their readers to literally try on their fashion picks and hints and all the trends presented regularly in their magazines.

Users are more and more visual and very involved in the process. They already rate products. If they can see the products on themselves and on others people similar to them it has a direct impact on their decision to purchase. It boosts their confidence in their styles, their looks and their tastes and preferences. Confirmed in their personalities they feel good to go and get what makes them look great. When we install our product on a publisher/media site like Cosmopolitan, users read fashion tips and trends and are always wandering what it will look like on them and where can they get it? These questions are answered by the virtual models of the users and the comments of other users on their models.

Sandy: What are some of the more popular elements of social media that users have really loved within the new My Virtual Model experience?
Louise: Users enjoy discovering their personal styles. They also develop friendships, affinities of interests and support the efforts of others. Many great talents appear and are encouraged by the Community. Users love to create looks, publish them on their public page and get rated by other users. They also appear in the most recent and popular looks of the Community and rate other users looks. They love to click the “Try On Outfit” button and wear on their model an outfit created by another user. It is a great way to shop and buy outfits. It is quick and highly efficient. They love to describe their looks and tell a story about their looks. They also love to see how each item of their looks is worn by other users utilizing the feature “More looks featuring this item “

Sandy: Why did you choose to base this on WebSphere Commerce?
Louise: WebSphere is well know for it’s foundational excellence and architecture of openness to integrate 3rd party applications that are user centric. By choosing WebSphere we were able to concentrate on what we do best, and leverage a powerful and robust ecommerce platform to create an innovative and solid shopping experience.
This is exciting and thank you for stopping by and sharing your insights! I am looking forward to seeing you in Vegas next month @IBM IMPACT 2009

Check this one out!

IBM to help SOA partners with SEO, social net tools
By Barbara Darrow, Senior News Director
14 Apr 2009 | SearchITChannel.com

Social Media Guru at IMPACT 2009!

I got to know Jeremiah at a Social Media thought leadership event in the Valley. He is truly a leader and visionary in this space. I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeremiah and wanted to share what he has planned for IMPACT 2009!

Sandy: How has the economic downturn changed the way people leverage social networking
Jeremiah: Our Technographics Research shows an increase in adoption of social tools from 2007-2008, in fact some pretty large jumps in behaviors. Basic common sense and logic tells us that social media usage for consumers will go up during a recession. Why? People will want to connect with others during crises, build personal brands, learn new skills by reading blogs. Also those who are in between jobs will have more time and certainly need to connect with others to find new job opportunities. Furthermore, we’ve found that 53% marketers have decided to increase their social media spend during a recession on social, however it’s important to note we’re not talking about sizable budget amounts, these are still small potato budgets –all things considered.

Sandy: Is social media superficial branding, or does it truly change the company?
Jeremiah: Sadly, many companies are slapping social features on their corporate websites or launching blogs –yet they are not walking the talk. Many brands don’t truly live an open an transparent workstyle, and as a result, customers see right through it. This research is telling, corporate blogs aren’t trusted by consumers.

Sandy: What is the biggest finding from the many interviews you’ve done with corporate social media teams, what’s the one trend you’re finding?
Jeremiah: Many companies are starting to get organized and are appointing key roles, such as the social media strategist and a handful of community managers. These specific roles, while often perform other traditional marketing tasks, are key to delivering true social media programs to the market. Why? Like all business programs, internal champions are still needed for success –especially new mediums

Sandy: On a lighter note, what’s your take on the Ashton Kutcher @aplusk and CNN @cnnbrk race to 1 million followers?
Jeremiah: While silly and trivial, this is a true milestone that Twitter and other social tools are about to go mainstream with media coverage. This however, doesn’t suggest they are mainstream tools, as they don’t have mainstream adoption.

Sandy: How do you feel about celebrities using Twitter? Oprah has 92,000 followers before she ever posted 1 tweet, are celebrities changing the way Twitter is being used and any lessons to be learnt by companies?
Jeremiah: Expect celebrities to monetize this microblogging tool far faster than Twitter themselves. They will extend this tool to help their sponsors reach new audiences, pimp their own shows and content, and use it to broadcast content. Most celebrities won’t understand the true dialog opportunities and will use it like their other tools –broadcast. As a result, early adopters of Twitter will move on, and create a new community that hasn’t become saturated.

Sandy: You will be at IBM IMPACT in Vegas next month talking about the importance of social networking for today’s commerce opportunities. Would love to get a sneak preview on this session.
Jeremiah: Social Network adoption is one of the highest participated social activities by consumers –as a result, brands want to be there. In my session we’ll talk about what works, and what doesn’t. I’ll have some practical examples and best practices, and will make it interactive. I hope folks show up, and Tweeting is certainly encouraged!

Gang, come and see us at IMPACT. We have some great social media adventures planned like blogger box seats, Paint your Facebook, and more! Sign Up Here!

P.S. As everyone knows, Jeremiah’s puppy is famous and no blog would be complete without a picture!

I have such excitement from the announcement of INNOV8 2.0 at IMPACT in Las Vegas!

Did you see it– if not click me!!

The early results from INNOV8′s eNurture campaign shows that our click through numbers are exceedingly above industry average: 77.8% compared to an average of 25%.

In addition, since using opt-in registration is a barrier to public score posting, our use of tailored emails worked well where the content mirrors the gamer’s scenario interest really works!

Although it is still early, this has been a most excellent pilot for us to explore how we can use games to not only Train but to Persuade, thus showcasing IBM as a thought leader.

The CICS team has been leveraging social network marketing to prepare for IMPACT and beyond. It is catching steam – with active twitter followers, facebook group participants, regular followers like Steve Baugh – a popular blogger – who further broadcasts the message – and expand the reach in the marketplace in new ways.

Here’s recent interview w/ with Dave Andrews.

The viral communications afforded by these new media are providing interesting ways to get the word out to new audiences that CICS has some exciting things to offer – the CICS community is delivering robust solutions in increasingly new and innovative ways. Great given the stereotype for a CICS user!!!

Some examples!:
I ♥ CICS
I Love CICS Facebook group
Youtube

Recently, Hostbridge, an IBM Business Partner joined us on facebook – posting information about one of their webcast events on our facebook group to extending THEIR usual marketing reach, driving additional attendence and awareness for this activity. Mike O’Neill and Susan Henderson of Hostbridge, felt this was a very positive extension of their usual marketing efforts and have since worked on a number of co-marketing activites with us. Hostbridge was so impressed with the value of using facebook as a way to establish community contact that they started their own facebook group.

We also had a joint webcast with Hostbridge and IBM – and leveraged all these social networking tools to broadcast registration information and we had a 10x registration rate!!!!

The facebook group is a tool to promote other co-marketing work we cemented (CICS Spotlight articles, webcasts, etc) and extending our reach to other facebook groups that are maintained by various CICS user groups, Mainframe communities, Academic communities, etc.

The viral effect is shown as other bloggers pick up the feed. For example, The Master Terminal actively promotes the I Love CICS facebook group and our recent Youtube clips – extending the usual marketing reach – as are many other bloggers and user groups on facebook.

The more we do to connect the communities….the broader our reach..and that of our partners.

Our facebook group membership accelerates and goes more global, Youtube views are getting picked up faster – as new ones are introduced- reflecting an active and interested community is engaging with our social networking efforts.

Who would have thought for the mainframe community! GO CICS!!! And thanks to Diane Johnson for her leadership here!

Great news!

My SOA marketing organization has received 5 Hermes Awards, as follows:

Platinum Awards:

Impact 2008 (Event Marketing category)
Smart SOA Widget (Electronic Media/Other category)
IBM Smart SOA Newsletter (E-Newsletter category)

Gold Awards:
Smart SOA World Tour (Integrated Marketing/Other)
World Tour “Get Smart” Videos (Viral Marketing category)

Hermes Creative Awards is administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals. The international organization consists of several thousand marketing, communication, advertising, public relations, media production, web and free-lance professionals. The Association oversees awards and recognition programs, provides judges and sets standards for excellence.

The home page for Hermes Creative Awards links to the winners’ list.
http://www.hermesawards.com/

I am at my Harvard Business School Reunion. It is so great to see all my friends again and catch up!

But we also get to attend great classes by Harvard Professors. One that I find intriguing today was by Charlie Collier on the Practices of Flourishing Families.

The highlights included:
– A discussion on what it takes to be a member of your family (do you have a set of family values, and a mission?)
– How do you encourage your children to lead their own lives yet stay connected to the family (tough one that we debated for a while!0
– How do you influence your child to be the best they can be (The discussion was around leading by example)
– We also discussed how you discuss money and prepare your kids to manage money (his theory was that we do not spend enough time educating our kids on how to manage their money)
– And we discussed how to raise a child to give back!

We discussed at length these questions and he ended with 6 questions that you should ask your parents and video tape to show your kids.

The 6 questions were:
1) What was the turning point in your life?
2) What was a high point in your life?
3) What was a low point in your life?
4) Who were the most influential people in your life and why?
5) What is your biggest regret?
6) What is the unifying theme of your life? Your legacy?

I think I am going to do this exercise — for my in laws, my parents, and me!

What do you think?

Listening is a lost art. Today we are hungry to be heard. We like to talk, tweet, blog a lot. But listening and exploring questions that matter makes a difference.

Think about it. We had 4 women at a table. They each talked on what energized them.. Wendy, the hippie chick, Ann where boundaries are gone, Sandy, empowering others and creating something new, and Trudie working from a challenge into energy. The conversation was great. It was like weaving a new cloth.. each conversation being one thread .. a cloth that will never be woven again.

Interesting how listening does that. Do you do that with your family, with your team, with those in your friend group, or your connections.

When was the last time you listened and reflected? What cloth did you weave?

I’d propose this defnition of a dialogue.

Voicing — explaining, sharing, your thoughts.
Listening — hearing what others have to say on the topic.
Reflecting — thinking through others point of view
Challenging — Discussion the ideas and pros and cons

What do you think of as a dialogue? What did I miss?

For your social media strategy, have you set your goals? Explored how to reach them?

And then tried to change ?

Capture the results.

More later!

When you decide to add social media to your company’s strategy, here are some things to think through!

1. Don’t say If we will do social media, but When we do Social Media. “If” implies that you are thinking, “when” empowers people to do something!
2. State your intention. This is why Technology companies announce ahead of time of delivery of the product a roadmap. Be vocal about your Social Vision — perhaps to your team or a cross brand team.
3. Understand your goal. If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there! Is your goal new customers? Better support? New product requirements? Make sure you know your goals before you kick off a social media planning!
4. Collaborative Social Media Plan. Step 1 for me is to set up a Social Media Council. I did this at with my IBM SOA team. We had a cross functional team that brought forward case studies, ideas, and passion. This council for me was a virtual group. The council can assist in setting the roadmap!
5. Be students of the game. Learn daily. Post best practices of social media in a WIKI or an internal blog. Mistakes should be expected! Experimentation in Social Media is easy and a way to learn! Experimentation is good (and necessary) but remember that it’s a scientific process – you should have an expected outcome/framework!
6. Listen! You need to be listening to conversations! I just did a presentation with Maggie Fox. I loved her quote of “DON’T ignore negative chatter – it matters, and things move quickly”. If you don’t listen, you will miss 50% of the value of social media!
7. Approach End to End! Approach things from a holistic perspective .. you want to make sure your brand is viewed end to end. That it constantly supports your vision and your goals. For example, a message on LinkedIn and Twitter needs to be the consistent .. perhaps even in your taglines, and naming of your group.
8. Solicit your customers to be your “brand army” of enthusiasts that make your success their cause. We had customers post videos to YouTube on why they loved our products. They became our advocates. RackSpace does an amazing job of this as well! Acknowledge and harness their goodwill to generate insight and return on your investment. For example, we took those videos that our clients did and learned how they discussed our products and used those words to talk to other potential clients.
9. Hybrid Rocks. Don’t forget this is about leveraging social media to supplement your real-world events and experiences. Face to face is still the most meaningful interaction!
10. Digital crisis plan. Have a digital crisis communications plan – being caught flat-footed can do lasting damage. You need to move super fast in this new world be ready. Example of Domino’s Pizza who had employees post pictures of employees sticking cheese in their nose before they put it on a sandwich. Domino needed to move fast!

I was just in Costa Rica – a beautiful country – to meet with GBM — our key partner there and several customers. Also I attended the OMG meeting.

While there Richard Soley had a guest speaker at the event — the President of Costa Rica. He is an amazing man with a Nobel Prize and vision for his country around skills and technology.

I was amazed at several companies — including Credomatic — who are lplanning to be the leaders in Social Media for the region. Watch this space for more energy around Social Media!

I was just in Hawaii and will feature a series on the relationship of those sidetrips to Social Media! Too much vacation? Tell me what you think!

While in Paradise, I went to visit the 7 Sacred Pools in Hawaii’s Maui Island! These “7″ pools are beautiful — and there are more than 7 for sure! They are freshwater but touch the sea! The Seven Sacred Pools are near the burial site of Charles Lindbergh, as well as over Jim Nabors’s macadamia nut farm!!

The assorted pools vary in elevation and size and are most pronounced when rainfalls are heavy. In 1967, He Chas agreed to donate a 58-acre tract to the Valley of the Seven Sacred Pools ‘Park. Then in 1987, in a bid to attract tourists, a few local businessmen apparently concocted a “legend’ that there were seven pools leading to the ocean, and that they were considered sacred. While there are debates, my tour guide said that there is no evidence of any religious affiliation. To get to the end of the road and the hotel the business men built, you have to go through 617 twists and turns on the 53-mile road to the village!

While I am not going to debate whether these pools are sacred or not, the 7 Sacred Pool story is an interesting one. And yes I did go!!!!

A story can make a huge difference. My favorite quote is
“Tell me the facts and I’ll learn. Tell me the truth and I’ll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever.” It changed a little town that was too hard to get to, into a major Maui tourist attraction.

In Social media marketing, we tend to think it is the tool — Twitter, Blogs, Facebook — is the key. Not the story when in reality it is the story you are telling, that will make all the difference in the world. Is it compelling? It is relevant and enduring? Those are questions all need to ask before they JUST jump into the tool!

What do you think?

Kīlauea is the youngest and southeastern most volcano on the Big Island of Hawai`i. Since 1952 there have been 34 eruptions, and since January 1983 eruptive activity has been continuous along the east rift zone. Many believe that Kīlauea ranks among the world’s most active volcanoes.

Because of its activity, it happens to be the most visited, and most photographed volcano in the world! I went to the park to see the volcano and was hit by the hot steam, and smelled the sulfur (in fact it got shut down for a while I was there due to the dangerous levels that day). Since we were on a cruise, we saw at night the flowing lave into the sea! Pretty cool!

How does this relate to social media? Well, Kilauea is so super cool because it is active. The same is true with blogging, twittering etc. As I was on vacation and offline, my readership declined, my interest waned and fewer people read what I had written because it was old.

Activity breeds interest and sharing — like I did with the volcano picture. You feel compelled to share that which is cool, interesting and relevant. To be cool, interesting and relevant you really need to be contributing on an active basis.

The more activity, the better. But be aware. It is not just meaningless contribution, but contribution that is cool and matters!

I will also be taking more of my advice and ensuring that I contribute here more!!! Many thanks!

While on Maui, we also went to see the sunrise at the Mt. Haleakala ! You get up super early — yes, 2AM — and drive up a very curvy road to see a breathtaking sunrise over a crator. But a sunrise? Haven’t you seen a sunrise? (Take a peek!!)

The beauty of this sunrise was amazing to me. As I talked to my tour guide, he was busy snapping pictures. I asked him why? Doesn’t he see this same view everyday? He said something impactful .. while he does see it everyday, it was that consistency of beauty (Haleakala’s brand!) that attracted him and made this tour what it was today! One of the most popular in Hawaii!

So while we tend to think that consistency is boring, his view was it was that consistency that made him intrigued. As I watched this glorious event, I thought again about my passion of Social Media. All of us have a multitude of tools, but the consistency of our brand in each is appreciated and celebrated. In a way, the consistency makes us unique.

For example, is your picture — part of your brand — consistent in Twitter, your Blog, your Blogher profile, your LinkedIn account. What’s the value of that consistency? Well, your brand is repeated. That consistent repetition makes your brand known — in this case, for your first impression! As I walk into a room to keynote, people know me from that repeated pciture!

What elements should be consistent?

As you look at your social media strategy, note your common “branding” elements. Things like taglines, pictures, resumes, should be consistent so that you are instantly branded.

What do you think? Anyone disagree?

Virtual World: Immersive social experience
Facebook / Myspace: Social Networking
LinkedIn: Career-focused networking
Viral: Leveraging pre-existing social networks in self-replicating process
Serious Game: New way of education and enablement
Widget: Mini-web app
Wiki: Users freely create and edit web site content
Blog: Web-based discussion tool
Twitter: Micro-blogging web and mobile-based
Yammer: Corporate micro-blogging, segmented by enterprise domain name
RSS: Web-feed format used to publish frequently updated content
Podcast: Series of digital media files distributed over the internet for playback on portable devices
Videocast: Online delivery of video clips
Survey Monkey: Online Survey & Polling platform
SEO: Search engine optimization – maximizing exposure on search engines

@: At reply. A public tweet directed at a fellow Twitterer, such as @Barack Obama, that shows up in their Twitter stream.

DM: Direct Message. A private message that appears in a Twitter inbox. You can only direct message people who follow you.

RT: Retweet. A tweet that you like so much that you are resending to your followers. Usually includes credit to original tweeter, such as RT @BarackObama, followed by the tweet.

Whale Icon: The iconic blue whale that pops up when Twitter is down. It appeared frequently in Twitter’s first year and a half.

#: Hashtag. Used to designate a topic such as #SanDiegoFire so that people can easily search for tweets on a topic. (It is totally unnecessary, though, because a search on a keyword without the # returns the same results).

Nudge: A feature that lets you send a note to a Twitterer encouraging them to tweet more frequently. You can only nudge people who are tweeting from a mobile phone.

Well– you can’t go too far these days without reading or hearing about Twitter, or LinkedIn, or Facebook, or blogs, and the list goes on.

And it’s fun it seems. But is it for business use? Or is this all a big waste of time?

I’d argue that it’s worth looking at – but there has to be a business case on the use of each.

Let’s have a look at some very recent survey results about how solution providers (VARs, RSIs, ISVs) are using Web 2.0 sites and technologies for business use – both today, and what their plans are in the future. Current Use is in Yellow. Planned Use is in Red. IDC split up the responses so that they were either in Currently using, future using, or neither.

LinkedIn , for networking use has the most users at over 50% of all those surveyed. This makes sense. LinkedIn has become very pervasive in the last few years.

Not for business use in this case – but a good benchmark – is the use of Facebook for personal reasons. Almost 40% of solution providers were using Facebook for personal reasons.

Something that IDC finds is very useful is LinkedIn Groups. A new piece of functionality within LinkedIn that allows people to participate in communities of interest.

There is a 15 mile coast in Kaui known as the Na Pali coast!

Much of it is inaccessible due to its sheer cliffs that drop straight down, 1000s of feet into the ocean. But it is beautiful! I went to view it in a helicopter and in a boat to get both views. You can also hike there but they say it is hard but it is well worth the trip!

So, how does this relate to Social Media? The reason people come here is the breathtaking view and the jagged coast. It is not because of smooth lines, and no issues. No, it is because of the balance in edginess and somewhat in the exclusivity in viewing.

This is why I believe that communities that are private or invitation only are going to be the big hit. As Jimmy Wales said “Communities can build amazing things, but you have to be part of that community and you can’t abuse them. You have to be very respectful of what their needs are.”

Think about how many open communities are out there and how much time you have. It is tough to join the many that exist out there today. But communities that are restrictive — like Harley Davidson who has a huge online and offline community but you have to have a VIN number to get in! Or Adobe’s biomedical community that is invitation only. Or even our IBM Software Partner community in LinkedIn that is by acceptance only.

It changes the game. I believe that creating great communities involves a few key points: (taken from “The New Language of Marketing 2.0):

Key elements of the Community
In order to build a B2B Community you need to meet these three key goals:
1. Build an understanding of the needs of the Community and an in-depth understanding of which of those needs are provided by existing organisations and how this Community could provide additional facilities, information and interaction to make it a viable entity
2. Develop a trusted environment; this can be built by engaging with a senior level group of individuals to form the core of the Community
3. Work with the core group to begin to deliver the essential content that will draw members into the Community.

Best practices:
1. It Has to Be Their Community – Not Yours
a. It needs to be independent – there is a massive difference between a company x user group and a Community sponsored by company x.
b. It should have an independent chair recruited from the ranks of the Community who is enabled to run the Community
c. Topics, discussions, etc within the Community must be driven by the members
2. You Need to Answer Their Needs – Not Yours
a. It has to provide the information they want – not the information you want to give them
b. It’s not about your products or services, it’s about building true business intelligence about your Community
3. It Must Be a ‘Trusted’ Environment
a. It must be a trusted environment a place where they feel comfortable they can share their issues with their peers in a closed environment – most high level B2B communities are very restrictive on press and vendor access.
4. B2B Communities Are about People not Technology
a. One of the key differences between B2B and B2C communities are that B2B communities need to be driven, they don’t tend to grow by osmosis so they need dedicated people interacting with the community creating content making sure new things are happening answering members needs etc.
b. Don’t get hung up on technology – yes the platform is important but a Community with poorer technology driven by the right people with drive and empathy for the Community will always be more successful than a community that is dependent on technology alone.

B2B Communities Succeed Because They Do a Number of Things:

1. The Community Empowers the Members
The Community must be run by the members to deliver the services they want.
2. They Give the Members What They Want
Above all, the compelling content will draw members into the Community.
3. They Have Passion
The Community manager needs to develop with the Community a content schedule, conferences, events, panels, webinars, surveys, polls etc. both online and offline that cover the most important issues and generate the passion for the subject matter, the debate and as a result the Community.
4. They Are For People Like Me
Our experience runs counter to the web myth that you should make it as easy as possible to join. In our experience members respect having to qualify and the fact that not everyone can join. In most of the communities in which we are involved over 30 per cent of applications to join are turned down.

This is essential. It says to the Community: ‘This is your group, it is for people like you, and when you join a significant part of the value is that only senior executives like you can take part’. Community members want to be assured they are with people like them.

5. The Community Allows Members to Collaborate
One of the key benefits to members of the Community is the ability to collaborate in two key ways:
1. To resolve common issues. Typically the core group will decide on a monthly basis what the key issues are affecting the Community and ask small groups of people from within the group to collaborate to produce white papers addressing these issues.
In this way all the group members benefit. Not only do members receive help from like-minded executives in other organisations to address the issue most pressing for them but they also receive the benefits of all the other whitepapers addressing key issues that are or probably will affect them. Because of this their productivity is massively enhanced and their perceived ability in their own organisation increases dramatically.
2. To build business together, certain communities benefit enormously from the fact that the community gives them the opportunity and technology to enable them to discover and work in collaboration with other members of the community.
3. Social networking (though in a very restricted way) is another very important element in the success of a B2B community.

Communities Must Offer Multiple Ways to Interact
There is no such thing as an online Community. Very quickly as the group forms they will want to interact in multiple ways both online and offline and it is essential to the success of the Community that this interaction is both enabled and encouraged. The Community must therefore offer multiple ways to interact. So while the on-line element is the ‘glue’ that sticks it all together, B2B communities are based on trust and trust only comes following face to face engagement – so regular meetings and events are vital to the success of a B2B community.

What do you think it takes to drive a great community?

I am in Chicago at the Blogher conference, speaking and meeting with customers and partners!

They shared their latest social media study. Some interesting facts!

* 43M women read/write blogs (from from 35M last year)
* Time shift to social media continues. Women using social media use between 20-40% less TV, papers, etc.
* 75% of women online and using social media use blogging as a tool.
* Bloggers are the most prolific social media users.
* Bloggers perceive themselves as tech savvy, tippers, influencers, and experts. They crave that cross influence.
* Bloggers consider online relationships equal to those offline! Wow!
* Bloggers are twice as likely to turn to their social media source for information.
* 78% are considering their purchases more carefully.
* 25% buy more from companies they “know”

The bottom line is that blogging is growing in importance in influence, size, and fun!

Lizzie from AllState

I am here in Chicago using to Blogging Best practices in 5 Case studies!
Here is case study #1! AllState!

My key take aways
1) Issues in regulated industries. Discussion of liability if someone takes advice from a Allstate message board. Seek advice from legal in these industries.
2) Have a strategy – don’t just “do social media”
3) Advise with others need to “approve” social media stategy. Her example was with legal:
a) First educate them on what social media is
b) Do your homework — know your facts. For instance, Lizzie from AllState went in with guidelines she wanted based on Farmer’s Insurance etc.
c) Show it don’t just tell it. Lizzie showed legal other message boards.
d) Prove, communicate, enhance, and repeat. Update the team!
3) Communications to the entire company — not just marketing is critcial!
4) Take baby steps, and then move forward to next strategy when success in one!
5) Track the results.
6) Lizzie leveraged resource from Blogging Council.

Some cool questions:
a) What’s your resource? One person.
b) What’s your next step beyond the message blog? Texting Tessa! Twitter and Gaming!
c) What are your results? Lizzie gave conversion rates of 50% plus to buy insurance! Online closure is moving higher.
d) How did you start ? They did no internal work first, they went to message board first.
e) How is the overall outlook in the company now? Yes, almost too much so. We do not want to go overboard. We are still an insurance company and we need to do many critical things in traditional ways.
f) What has this progressed? We have an internal board now to share best practices.
g) How do you quantify success? We measure acquisition of new customers and conversion in all tactics. Other groups in AllState are looking at it based on their stategy in terms of brand and loyalty.
h) Do you allow other companies to come in and share best practices? Not yet but I have used Walmart internally to move faster inside Allstate.

Bottom line to me is that regulated industries can use social media like Lizzie did and use her collaborative techniques to gain buyin throughout her company!

The keynote kicked off in Chicago with an amazing group of women!  BlogHer was totally sold out!  In today’s world of travel cut backs, and reduced expenses this is amazing to see over 2K women!

Some of the key points:

• Women are the majority of internet usage now – 53%
• Women who are on the internet trust the internet information more than other sources
• Women Online – Frugalistas and Hard News Junkies.   The tops are those on frugal shopping and politics (the Obama/Clinton campaign took the number of women politics blogs went from 300 to over 2000!)
• Strongest social users are those who blog.
• The Economist – The Story of Women Online!  Lisa discussed her decision to leave CNN and start BlogHer.  An amazing insightful decision!
• BlogHer is about the people!   Velveteen Mind

There are multiple tracks!!!

Business of blogging, Geek Labs, Leadership, Passions, and room of your own!  Oh, also the Mommy bloggers too.

Every major company is here…..Microsoft, HP, Sprint, etc.

My first time at BlogHer!

I had the great pleasure to attend BlogHer for the first time this year. How did I get to attend? A perfect storm really. 3 things happened that allowed me to attend: first, a customer had asked me to support them in their session and to talk about how my book on social media helped them with their strategy, second, I spoke with Charlene Li at the WITI conference and she knew the founders and secured me a ticket and then finally, I was asked to speak on how to leverage social media as the only real IBM presence at the conference.

So what is BlogHer?
I pulled this from the BlogHer site. It was founded in February 2005 by Elisa Camahort Page, Jory Des Jardins and Lisa Stone. BlogHer’s mission is to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment. BlogHer is the leading participatory news, entertainment and information network for women online and creates opportunities for its members via a community hub (http://blogher.com), annual conferences and a publishing network of more than 2,500 qualified, contextually targeted blog affiliates. BlogHer provides the highest quality content on a range of topics, with all blogs continually edited to meet strict editorial standards, including content quality, category relevance and blog frequency

The Top 10 Ah Ha’s
1. The Business BlogHer had a lot of great case studies. While not sold out on the business side, I found the case studies innovative and best practices. I have blogged on the specific case studies that I heard … Allstate, Tropicana, Pepsi, Sprint, Coach and many others.

2. Lots of Geek Labs – Hands on! I love the hands on labs. You could set up a new blog here with step by step instructions to learning HTML and PHP.

3. Networking The conference was setup to network. They did speeddating in a new and innovative way, and arranged the sessions and breaks to stimulate discussion.

4. Community keynote I attend a lot of corporate events and shows. Usually the keynoter is the CEO or GM in charge of the work. While powerful, I have not experienced a more moving and powerful keynote that BlogHer did on Friday night. It was a community keynote where bloggers were selected to read their blog entries. It was amazing. I am glad someone who had been here before told me to make sure I didn’t miss it!

5. Swag. Again, going to CeBit or GiTex is an experience and everyone gives away their toys. But I have never seen the swag that was at BlogHer. From products, to free services on site, to designer scarfs, and vendors printers, servers, and phones. If you come, be prepared. This shows me that the vendors view this show as an important way to reach the tippers. One of our competitors was here for Small Business and I saw the bump in blogs on their products in the GB space go up 3x over the last 3 days.

6. Panels. Most of the sessions here were in a set of tracks on Geek Labs, Business, Leadership, Room of your own, Identity and Passions. But most of the sessions were panels. If you don’t learn this way, it may not be the way for you!

7. Q&A’s are LONG! Another culture here at BlogHer is to learn from a Q&A session. The sessions here are meant for learning not gaining exposure. I would say that in the sessions over 1/2 the time was spent answering questions from the audience.

8. Amazing Women in New Media. The BlogHer team brought out the stars. From Lisa Stone to GM of CBS, to Donna Bryne, etc. This is the place for the new adventurers in the social media world!

9. Purpose I was truly impressed by the purpose that I felt from all these women and men. These guys, while looking to monetize, are truly dedicated to their mission. I heard about blogs on the homeless, soberity, raising disabled kids, traveling, shyness, and the list goes on. Everyone I met loved what they blogged on. A great lesson in you do more of what you love — for employers getting people into the right roles.

10. Fun I loved it. It was energeric, and fun. It energized me and showed me that one with a purpose can accomplish more than you can imagine! There were over 1999 parties. That’s right.. suites to teach photography, small busines skills, word of mouth marketing, silk screening, etc.

Next Year:
Next year the conference will be in NYC in August. Will I go? Absolutely.

The Future – Generation C
This is the future. Everything is going online. 53% of women WW are online. Generation C — which I have defined as the next generation who wants to co create, collaboration, and use their creavitiy. They are going to be around for a while. Join the exploration and see what works for you!

Innvo8 2.0: Serious Social Gaming

We talked about using gaming to train and drive demand in the new world. 

Web Traffic/Metrics

• Traffic has doubled  since May!   Thousands are playing per week
• >75% avg clickthrough of eNurture emails (avg in industry is 25%)
• Over 3.5M gamers used the Proactive LivePerson chat offering more information from the game on our products — an 4000% &  uptick in the use of the tool.

Usage Beyond Web

• Our Serious Game is now in Widespread use in our Briefing Centers Worldwide
• Innov8 2.0 is featured in our lobbies
• We also have heavy standalone usage by our enablement teams in many geos
• Many of our events feature a Gaming Competition!

I am sold on Serious Gaming.  What are your thoughts?

We wanted to take the serious game and take it outside the web as well.   

I just read this very interesting article on lethal generosity!  

“Lethal generosity,” is the concept that the most generous members of any social media company are the most credible and influential and as such, they can compete more effectively! 

In short, the company whose representative posts the most tips, links, advice, case studies, best practices that followers find useful will always rises to the top, not just in influence but also in search results.”

This is exactly what we observe in open source communities…. the communities that ‘scratch the most itches’ win.  Hibernate is a good example of a project with GOOD social traction. OpenJPA  is technically strong, but the project has very limited social traction. The open source projects that attract just a few passionate subject matter experts who like to talk/blog/tweet are generally much more successful than the others.

So relating this to your business and mine!  Every single time a question is answered about your product, the original problem/question and the answer needs to be findable (via google, twitter, or…). No exceptions.

There is too much good information get lost inside internal email chains. Although the customer is made whole, but the experience only lives in archived internal emails and in participants heads.

You need to start thinking about you get your best information to the public!

http://redcouch.typepad.com/weblog/2008/10/using-lethal-ge.html

Innov8 as a social media training element is really taking off at universities and business too!  Here are the latest in the university area!

At San Jose State, students are leveraging social media game, INNOV8:

USC is now using INNOV8 as part of their core curriculum- training 700 business school students this semester alone!!!

We are not alone!   Intel teamed with Buddy Media

Project:   InTru 3D application for Facebook

Goal: Generate awareness of Intel’s new cinematic 3D technology.  You create an avatar, play the game and earn points to upgrade.  You can invite your friends in Facebook to participate (share the message)!

What are you doing in gaming? I’d love to see case studies of other gaming usees.

 I am here in Europe for a few sessions with Partners!  One of the funniest ones was with Louise Grey, the CEO of MVM on a luxury goods, personalization and social media panel.  I spoke on the panel using our IBM customer, Faberge, as an example.

Our Story! Faberge is a boutique that designs and sells one of a kind works of art and jewellery.  The company wanted to revitalize their business model, establish itself as a premiere world luxury brand, and define an online approach to selling its high-value luxury items that avoided the usual mass market, self service format of the web.  Their aim was to make the experience truly interactive by providing each client with a real life personal sales advisor as they would find in a traditional, high end boutique.   The new site would also become the hub around which all client interactions would be constructed, thereby providing global reach and accessibility without the constraints or cost of a physical store network.

The key was to free the client to choose how, where and when they purchase.  With the new on-line experience, Faberge creates the impression of depth:  of a multitude of shops and products accessible to their connoisseur clients, backed with the quality of 1:1 VIP experience found in a private salon.

The initial Web Site

Experience from our Visioning Session! The online experience delivered by IBM translates the key elements of the traditional high end luxury good shopping process into an online paradigm that reflects traditional VIP private selling methods based on highly interactive and personal service. Prospective clients are required to pass through a filtering process in order to access the exclusive ‘inner sanctum’ where they can explore and interact with Faberge products. As the customer builds trust and explores, more of the product catalogue is progressively revealed.  Access to a personal agent is provided, avoiding mass market self service, and at the client’s discretion, can conduct a unique interactive dialogue via the medium of the web and assist by pushing items to the client’s browser and exploring them with the client. The result is multi-layered access, detail and exploration -Initial access to all via website.  Access to inner sanctum is via agent enablement, inivitation or mentor recommendation. 

Trust Builds! As the customer explores or returns to the site, rules unlock further elements making it a constantly developing experience -Agent may remotely(off line) or interactively expose further elements of the catalogue for a customer at any time and determine if they are VIP.  VIP status is progressivey earned or can be given by agent.  Pretty impressive and innovative use of social tools to match the company’s goals.

Pages after trust builds!

 

Launch in Sept 2009!  The launch of Faberge’s site was a huge success, giving clients wishing to purchase their own personal sales advisor who provides a live 1:1 interactive sales service via video, telephone or live conversation text. The interactive platform model allows continuing development and the addition of further capabilities.  These include the ability to involve other parties in the on line interaction and ensure the collection can be refreshed with new pieces.

Google is planning to soon return Twitter posts in their standard search results.  This will have HUGE implications for companies!  It sounds like from Google’s announcement that they will sift and sort years worth of previous twitter posts into search results related to keyword searches.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=220900052&subSection=News

(Note that the twitter announcement is at the bottom of the article.)

Talking to Dave McCoy at Gartner it seems that the more important announcement rather than the general social media search returns mentioned because the social media returns require that a searcher have a Google account and profile, be logged in, and have a previous database of searchable social content that is connected with their Google’s contacts list.  Since twitter posts are essentially a public microblog, they won’t require these prerequisites in order to show up in the returns.

“Wake The Beast” — OK, well, I just got around to writing this since my trip to Ireland a month ago!!!

I think the Honda Civic campaign called “Wake The Beast” is super cool!

Did you see it?   It was launced in Ireland — where I just was for a meeting in Dublin with partners!  I saw it on a  large billboard featuring Honda Civic R image with a tagline  ‘Wake the Beast’.
The beauty of this campaign is that people can  send a sms message “Text START to the short code 51500″ to start interactions with the bill board advertisement, this call to action (sending sms) will trigger the lights on the car to light up and smoke to billow from the exhaust of the car on the poster while user gets a link to Honda Civic R Mobile website so they can browse for more information and can receive the ring tone of engine roar.

Below is the video showing, how people can interact with the billboard display:

This is social media at its Max!   It is a way to ENGAGE the user, CONNECT with the texter, and CREATE a new image for Honda!

I love it!

As I have traveled around the world, I am seeing the following top Social Media Trends. I’d love your thoughts on these as core topics! I call them my crazy 8′s!

1) Mobility and social networking are biggest (most influential and highly visible) emerging trends related to Internet usage. The bar is now set as basic communications like voice or internet access and other than voice growing faster outside the US as far as I can see. The US runs the risk of being left behind in this core market since growth of mobility and user expectations are being set outside of the US!!! Safety and security are large reasons why the up-and-coming Tweens users are increasingly accessing mobile devices since their view security and privacy issues in social media environments.

I predict that key to mobile, social networking, and cloud will be security, and location based services like I saw in Japan. As walking downtown Tokyo, my cell lit up with coupons and offers based on stores I passed. Location awareness will increase in importance with the rise of mobile Internet and mobile social networking applications.

2) Social media is on the rise especially outside the US. Some of the most rapidly growing countries are South Korea, Brazil and the Philippines. In fact, when the power went out in Brazil, I used Twitter to find out what happened and if my hotel had a generator. In general, there is a youth movement driving much of the initial mobile Internet and social networking usage (particular in mature markets).

3) Mobile-friendly websites are required to leverage the power of the mobile Internet. Pictures are worth a 1000 words and therefore online video has a meaningful impact on purchase decisions. I believe the future of video is on mobile devices.   Most of the world is ahead of the US in mobile.  (P.S. I’d love some social mobile case studies!)

4) Continuation of a focus on relationship.   The best in class companies will not place the focus of social media on the bottom line revenue but focus instead on building relationship and continuous improvement. One of the biggest influences on purchases will continue to be colleague word of mouth — which as we know, grows exponentially with social media.  I see countries like India and China will a focus on this relationship element vs just ROI. 

5) WorldWide,  I continue to hear the biggest fear from all size companies on how to protect their company’s brand. Reputation management is an increasingly important trend.  Social media drives concerns related to brand management as well as implications for personal information.

6) Resume 2.0. And speaking of personal information, I think that the majority of resumes will be links to facebook, linkedin, podcasts, youtube, etc. The U.S. is leading this trend right now but I see other countries following.

7) Keep up the pace with search engine optimization. I predict that search engine optimization will continue to evolve. For instance, twitter will be searchable and will impact the search ratings and more changes will be coming WW.  I see this impact changing the way companies in multiple countries do business.

8) Cross pollination will accelerate in the future starting in the US first. In the future, there will be more linkage between social media tools. Using Twitter to drive reads of blogs, LinkedIn to facebook, for example… add the blog link application so your posts are prominently displayed on your LinkedIn profile.

So this is my view from visiting about 58 countries.  What did I miss?

I thought you’d be very interested in this, if you have not seen it already. It has fascinating statistics on the ubiquity and implications of social media today!

Q Interactive’s just-released study of 2,000 women and their use of virtual gifting and virtual goods.

Key findings include: 57 % believe virtual gifting is as meaningful as real life gifting Women are “actively engaging with brands” through virtual goods Respondents enjoy the presence of virtual goods during social gaming Furthermore, 74 % of women started using social applications and virtual goods because they saw or heard about a friend playing.

I was reading CRUNCHGEAR.COM.

On Nov 4-5, I was at the World Brand Congress! It was held in Mumbai at the great Taj Lands End Hotel. The World Brand congress is a group of some of the best marketing brains that gather from all over the world. Check it out here!

http://www.worldbrandcongress.com/index.html

So I have been hooked on some of the videos on Sell like Steve Jobs, Pitch like Steve Jobs, etc.  So I decided I would do Blog Like Steve Jobs!

• Sell dreams, not products … It’s important to have great products, of course, but passion, enthusiasm and emotion will set you apart.
• Create Twitter-like headlines … If you can’t describe your product or service in 140 characters, keep refining.
• Introduce the antagonist … great brands and religions have something in common: the idea of vanquishing a shared enemy. Creating a villain allows the audience to rally around the hero–you.
• Stick to the rule of three … the human brain can only absorb three or four “chunks” of information at any one time …
• Strive for simplicity … It’s difficult to find 10 words on a dozen Apple slides. Most of Steve Jobs’ slides are visual–photographs or images … Jobs tells the Apple story; his slides complement the story …
• Reveal a “Holy Smokes” moment … There is always one moment in a Steve Jobs presentation that is the water cooler moment … These showstoppers are completely scripted ahead of time … everyone who watched it–and those who read about–seem to recall …
• Share the stage … Your audience craves variety. Give it to them. They also want to see teamwork. Show it to them.

So here I am, watching the beautiful snow fall and closing out 2009. Of course, I always do my New Year’s resolutions. As a family, we share ours and, of course, support each other in achieving the goals.

So for 2010, with all of you as my Social media family, I invite you to join me sitting at the fireplace for my Social media resolutions for this New Year.

1. Focus on my Tweeter associations. My holiday reading included blogs about how strong relationships were formed over social channels. Thus this goal: Pick out and strengthen 10-15 of my strongest relationships  from Twitter over the next year. Want to join me?

2. Really strengthen my Facebook presense. I love Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Flickr, but I never really talk about Facebook or leverage it. This year, I am going to find a great use for my Facebook page and presence. This B2B maven welcomes your suggestions.

3. Experiment with the new trends in social media, such as location-based services.  Given that things such as BriteKite and Foursquare might become breakout hits in 2010, I will experience location-based services. And I hope that these become integrated into Twitter, LinkedIn, and   yes, even Facebook.

4. Strengthen my content on blogs and tweets. Content is queen, and I want to deliver more and better content to all of you. This includes my content in keynotes and sessions such as those coming up at BlogHer and WITI 2010.

5. Give back through sharing more of my social media experiences. I was just on the phone with Carolyn Leighton, President of WITI, and Michelle Price, Social Media Maven. They shared with me trends on women wanting social media skills but needing training. Over Christmas, I taught my dad how to use Twitter, and a light bulb went off. I want to bring more people into using Social media with an ROI attitude, so I will train more people who want to use these tools.

6. Increase my use of the cool new WordPress features. With new features such as the Affiliate and Squeeze themes, learning how to make this blog even stronger. I love WordPress and just need the time to do more.

7. Write another book . I am just beginning, but I will share more my Social media more widely (closely related to resolution #5).

8. Leverage all tools in my social media tool box for my new IBM role as leader of Software Group Partners. I am pulling together my social media plan now to drive more connections and ease of use, as well as sales linkage for my partner community. New territory, for sure.

9. Start a series on my blog with other top SMEs (subject matter experts). I will start this in January and have a great line-up planned. What companies would you like to see featured and what leaders would be good to interviewe here? Do you know someone I should focus on? How about you?

10. Talk to members of the Digital Generation and learn more about how they think. For them, social media is life . I want to see more about how they use  sites and content and how they think. My cousin only sends texts; my dad is now on twitter. This is ageless and timeless, and I need to learn more about its potential.

I want to hear from you on this one. What did I miss? Will you help me meet these goals?

As I was thinking about social media in 2010, I believe a different thought process because Social media is NOW mainstream!  My proof? 

Everyone is doing it, speaking it, and mobilizing it!

Here are the big 3 I read over the holiday!

1) Top 100 Companies “doing” social media! I love this article on Social Media ratings for companies around their Social media saviness.  This means that Social Media has now become mainstream.   Check out the who whose list of those who are leveraging Social Media.

Is there anyone off the list on the Fortune 500?    Well, a few, the biggest Exxon, Chevron, GE,

http://mashable.com/2010/01/04/most-buzzed-about-brand/

I love this survey too!  According to a survey from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), BtoB Magazine and ‘mktg’, despite continuing concerns about measuring ROI and effectiveness, two-thirds of marketers have used social media in 2009 and half have used viral videos, making these two formats the fastest-growing tactics in marketing!!!

 2)  Social Media Terms go mainstream!   When even my dad says, you’ve been tweeting a lot lately, you know something is happening!

I went to see if this was just “my family” or broader.  Check this research out — already “unfriend” and “hashtag” have made the dictionaries as common terms!  The world is changing!

http://www.pcworld.com/article/185729/social_network_terms_go_mainstream.html

Some examples include:

Words of the Year 2009

Tweetup – noun: a meeting or other gathering organised by means of posts on the social networking service Twitter. [from tweet + up on the pattern of MEETUP].

Hashtag – noun: a # [hash] sign added to a word or phrase that enables Twitter users to search for tweets (postings on the Twitter site) that contain similarly tagged items and view thematic sets.

Tag cloud – noun: a visual depiction of the word content of a website, or of user-generated tags attached to online content, typically using colour and font size to represent the prominence or frequency of the words or tags depicted.

Slashdot effect – noun: the slowing down or crashing of a small website due to a huge increase in traffic when the website is linked to another, much more popular one.

Unfriend/defriend – verb: to remove from one’s ‘friends’ list (e.g. on a social networking website).

3)  Mobile is main stream and everything hot is on mobile — over 50% of B2C marketers are using Social media on Mobile!

While mobile is used by 32 percent of overall marketers, it is three times more likely to be used by B2C versus B2B marketers (52% vs. 18%).

Social Media is mainstream!!!!

How many of you have seen Avatar?

What’s amazing to me about that movie is the technology and the 3D experience.  It impacted me so much I decided to sit down and really think about how it will impact the future of our social businesses.

I came up with 3 Ds of impact! Data, Desire, and Domain Eminence! 

1)  Data Overload Savior?!  Since we are all in data overload, 3D can help make us more action oriented!  For instance,  Deutsche Bahn (DB), Germany’s national railway uses visualization software to create information-rich user displays for its new train dispatching application, resulting in improved speed and accuracy of decision-making and reduced staff training time to use the dispatching system to “almost zero” from 5 to 8 days per user, according to DB Systems management. 

By visualizing the data, making it come alive, the teams could focus on acting on the data, not trying to sort through data.  A great direction to head!

2)  Desire.  Techcrunch declared Avatar the iphone app for movies!So true, now that you’ve seen this movie, who wants to see a movie that’s not 3D?   This movie teases you with the potential of what is to come.

I now want to see my Twitter IDs in 3D and collaborate in 3d!.  See this Youtube video on how it might look — just a start!

3)  Domain Eminence!

And then I have personally experienced 3D power with the game that we are using to showcase our technology education!

I have to show it to you!    What do you think? It has a 80% higher recall through 3D education !

I’d love your thoughts.  Are you seeing the impact of 3D today?  What do you see for tomorrow?

I was on our monthly Social Business lunch n learn today and received a great question.

The question was ” I tweeted about silent auctions and immediately was approached by many silent auction vendors on software, thoughts, points of views, etc.  How did that happen?”

Well, smart users of Twitter will have set up a tool like TweetDeck flagging key search words.   Then you can immediately see who is talking about subjects that are exciting to you.  It is so valueable to find those interested in your topic.

Tweetdeck

What are your best tips?

Gang:

I had a great opportunity to present Social Media & Personal Branding at University of North Carolina.  Yes, I am a southern woman — loving my sweetened ice tea and the hospitality!!

The day before the event, I had the pleasure of meeting with a group of Steel Magnolias — strong business women and professors of North Carolina.  It was an amazing lesson in networking in person with amazing women!

More than one-third (36%) of online US and Canadian women would give up chocolate, their Pradas, or their mother-in-law before they gave up their social networks!  53% of online women use social networks at least weekly.   These women were savy business leaders making their mark on the world — and understanding the new world enough to drive their growth in the new world.

Here we are in the Hyde Hall, a great building, on campus!

On the next day, I presented to a great group of students and professors on Personal Branding!   There were lots of great questions and I am still amazed at how much can be done with social media and branding!

Let me know if I can help out your university !

http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/games-networks-blogs-part-ibm-software-groups-strategy/1

I am intrigued by virtual gifting ever since I went to a Social Media conference that was housed with an online dating conference.  Yes, I know an interesting combo!   But as I walked through their solution conference, I found some interesting items!

First, let’s start at the beginning.  Per Wikipedia,   a virtual gift is a picture of an item, instead of the item itself. The item may have a digital social capital value, esthetic or functional value. The item may or may not be paired with an offline equivalent.

This HEX necklace was the first virtual gift that I created for an IBM event….it is a HEX necklace!

Second, people love them!   57 % believe virtual gifting is as meaningful as real life gifting.  WOW!

Third, it drives money. It is about 10% of Facebook’s revenue from the beginning in 2007.    (Couldn’t find any new factoids!)

Fourth, I want to see what you guys think about virtual gifting.  Are you using it?    See below what we created for my team mates below.

From one of my favorites — Ray Hammond!

A pan-European team of robotics researchers begins a project this year that could see humanoid robots interact with groups of people in a realistic, anthropomorphic way for the first time.

If successful, the project will give future humanoid bots something that existing robots don’t possess – the simple social skills necessary to deal with small groups of people, including the basic intelligence to pick out a group of humans and determine which ones want to interact with it. It could also endow robots with the ability to infer meaning from incoming sense data, which would be a rudimentary step towards truly anthropomorphic robot intelligence.

Gang!  We have about 17 inches of snow and it is still coming down!

Check this out!  My husband is 6 foot 2 inches!   Snow covers his knees!

Yes, this is a  ROAD!  It has been plowed numerous times today!

In my New Year’s resolution, I suggested doing a set of guest bloggers who are experts and users of Social Media in their businesses!  I had *Great* response to this idea and have a series of guest bloggers joining me ! 

The first in my series will be from Ascendant technology, who has a Social Media Practice in their business. Liz Albert, is our first guest blogger, and has some great experience in a small business setting leveraging social media! 

1.    Ascendent is a leading business partner with IBM. In a few sentences, what’s Ascendant’s value proposition and mission?

Ascendant Technology (Atech) is the leading provider of end-to-end web-based solutions to enterprises worldwide.  We create business agility for organizations through the adoption and implementation of technology, to both increase the speed at which organizations innovate and drive efficiency through this innovation.   

We work comprehensively across all five IBM software brands—Lotus, WebSphere, Tivoli, Rational and Information Management—to develop elegant Portal, e-Commerce, and rich Internet applications.  Our top-notch business services combine best-in-class subject matter expertise to develop solutions in Strategy Definition & Value Measurement, Requirements and Process Engineering, User Experience Research and Design & Digital Marketing.

With local offices across the U.S. and in Europe, Brazil, and India, Atech is a recognized Premier IBM business partner and has garnered numerous IBM awards such as Best Portal Solution and SOA Innovator Award for the Lotus, WebSphere and Rational brands.  Most recently, Atech was recognized as the 2010 North America Lotus Distinguished Award winner. 

2. Liz, tell me a little bit about your background in social media? 

 I have been an avid consumer of all things “social media” for several years, especially since the advent of social networking sites and public online communities.  Like many, I started with interest in Myspace.  Then Linkedin. Then Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Blogspot, etc.   At one point, I must have been signing up for 3- 4 social media sites every week!

 Over the past couple years though, I have noticed a trend in social media advancement, how the tools can now help address particular business needs and what social media truly means in today’s challenging economic environment.  It is these applications and uses of social media which will drive the next wave of social media demand and innovation.

3. Interesting. What are your 3 favorite social media tactics that you have executed? 

 Currently some of my favorite social media tactics include the new and somewhat innovative paths we’ve been taking with our recent Atech marketing campaigns.  Throughout 2009, Atech embarked on a path to introduce social media tools to our customers and partners with tactics intended to promote both the activities within Atech but also facilitate solution & methodology launches.  My 3 favorites through all our recent  campaigns include:

·      Expanding social media campaigns to include a more varied form of media (including video and photograph applications) with traditional print and blog campaigns.  Perhaps you’ve seen the Southpark videos we’ve created for the various IBM brand conferences in 2009?  These campaigns employed the use of YouTube to reach of different type of audience, one that perhaps would not have been familiarized with Atech and IBM solutions had we not “reached” them through this media platform.  The success of this tactic has resulted in expanded plans in 2010 to utilize the medium in a much greater fashion, so much so that we’re including a YouTube blog area of the new atech.com website, which is deep in the midst of redesign now. 

·      Development and promotion of Atech’s own instance of Lotus Connections, hosted on the Amazon Cloud:

http://getsocial.atech.com/

This site was launched at the recent Lotusphere 2010 (#ls10) conference and was also recognized as a finalist for the Best in Showcase solution.  As an innovative social media tool, the site is both an example of how easy it is to get up-and-running quickly with IBM Lotus Collaboration software and is designed to provide users an easy point-of-entry to experience the innovative features of the IBM social networking tool.  More than just a demonstration of the functionality of Connections on the Cloud, this particular instance is a live, working, full version of Connections for Atech employees, customers and partners.  Within this environment, there are various blogs discussing the latest tech and world news of the day, bookmarks to pertinent technical and life resources, and much more information as it relates to Atech and our current path of innovation, which our community of followers can now access in a centralized location. 

·      Finally, and I’m sure you knew I was going to say this, but Twitter has been a tactic which Atech has found great success through 2009 and will continue to expand upon in 2010.  Through lessons learned in 2009, we’ve learned the types of news (both Atech and Tech world in general) our followers find value in being alerted to and what will help to generate additional business for Atech.  As I mentioned earlier, Atech.com is undergoing a massive redesign, specially to address the greater need we see for social media marketing tools such as Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, etc.  The homepage of the site will now have a live feed of all corporate Atech tweets (@Atech_Speaks), as well as other feeds that include the soon to be introduced hastag #Atech, specifically from myself (@socialmediamvn) and Jim Deters, the King of social media forethought (@yodeets).

4. What do you think are the top 2 trends for future leaders to focus on?

Currently Atech, quite like yourself, is committed to a “Social Media Resolution” strategy for 2010.  There are definitely areas within our social media strategy that we need to improve upon to address the growing demands of both consumers and developers.  The one trend I can definitely foresee in the very near future which will help us meet these demands is that social media will be simply everywhere.  Take a fictional coffee drinker (Stan) for example.  While sitting at home, computer in reach and watching a prime time TV show (which happens to have a promotional twitter feed streaming during the telecast) Stan will see a commercial promoting a new fangled type of coffee pot.  Stan is encouraged to “Visit a website to learn more,” which he immediately does, as he was engaging in the twitter promotion with other viewers of the TV show he was watching.  Once at the site, he sees an embedded YouTube video showing a regular consumer, just like Stan, using the coffee pot of interest.  Also on the site, there is a link to purchase the product, which leads to an area with a social tool allowing other consumers to create reviews and product ratings.  Some of these reviewers chose to link their facebook and twitter ID’s, which Stan chooses to friend/follow, and so begins a discussion with previously complete strangers to determine the best coffee for Stan’s now purchased coffee pot.  Social media will be everywhere and very soon influence every activity we engage in!

5. What didn’t I ask you that you think I should have?

 The one thing that I’m constantly asked is how I maintain my high-level of involvement with the many social media tools, as it seems like a very time consuming activity.  I challenge all who question the applicability and ease of use within social media to find one thing that interests them, be it coffee like “Stan” or new innovations in the world of Mac, and start seeking out information via social media tools for that one topic.  Find something that grabs hold of you and learn how easy it is to engage within the many realms of social media to get complete information quickly and easily!

 Thanks Sandy! J

I am Israel this week with a whole set of partners and clients that are amazing!

During my time spent with clients and partners, here’s some of the things that I learned that I thought I’d share!

• In Israel,   Facebook growing faster than Twitter  •2 Million users:  53.8% are men and 46.2% are women •Ages 18-24 = 32.4%; 25-34 = 37.6%, teenagers 14-17 = 18.3% .  Interesting that in my Partner roundtable today, the country sentiment is that Twitter isn’t understood in value — I tried to help!  Let’s see if it worked!
• IBM Israel team did a ** Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn ** only campaign to attract partners to an event here and ended up with over 200 new developers!
• Social Groups.  I found a first of its kind! — Social media conference for Torah-observant people and organizations.  Sponsored by Kishor Women’s Professional Networking Group (www.professionaljewishwomen.org)   It was spent addressing legal and philosophical issues relating to use of social media as well as internet safety for children & students
• Social Media Networking – Israel – connect via LinkedIn §For developers, technical writers, and users
• Shin1 – most popular social network for Israeli kids (http://www.shin1.co.il)
• Supermom Network (http://jerusalemsupermoms.ning.com)
• Dec 2009:  IDF cyber defense strategy — planning to use social     networking –  Twitter, FaceBook, YouTube — to reach international audiences  

   Some great and creative work by Isreal on Social Media!

 So our next SocialStar featured is Darren Bibby Program Director, Software Channels Research IDC.  Darren does phenomenal work on the partnering ecosystem and is a social media fan for the channel.

Follow Darren at www.Twitter.com/darrenbibby

1) Darren, tell me about IDC and your role there.

IDC  is an IT analyst and research firm with almost 1000 analysts worldwide. My specific domain within IDC is all about software partners.

Every day at IDC I think about how software vendors and their business partners (VARs, ISVs, regional SIs) work together to make money, essentially. My small team and I look at partner programs, industry announcements, key trends, and the like. I’m always looking for ideas. Big ideas and small ideas. Anything that can help vendors and partners get more out of working together.

Social media is certainly a topic that applies in terms of new ideas. Many vendors and partners are doing some great things. It’s also appealing to me on both a business and a personal level. If you’d like to hear more about my work at IDC, check out my bio.

2) How do you see social media impacting the ecosystem space?

It’s already happening. IT solution providers of all varieties are experimenting with social media to see what can work for them. Many are already building communities, creating YouTube channels, writing blogs, tweeting, and more.

A survey of partners we did last summer showed that LinkedIn for networking was the top-used social media site or tool, followed by LinkedIn Groups; and then reading blogs. Our survey showed that the social media sites or tools that were going to grow the most were: writing blogs at number one and Twitter at number two. I still think that 2010 will continue to be a year of experimentation with social media for most solution providers. Perhaps by this time next year, VARs and ISVs will start to settle on a few key tactics that they can show some ROI for.

For instance, some partners I’ve talked to said they’ve traded in their traditional marketing newsletter for a blog. The blog allows them to show more personality, show thought leadership, and get feedback from readers. Much better than a one way email newsletter. Other partners are focusing on pushing out their thought leadership through Twitter. Some are using company Twitter handles and some companies are opting for one or two individuals to make a name for themselves and represent the company to the public.

I love what Ascendant Technology is doing with its South Park videos on YouTube as Liz Albert was describing in a previous post. The videos are catchy it seems to be working for them with the Lotusphere 2009 video getting over 20,000 views!

There’s no one magic formula that works for every partner. Liz and Ascendant are showing that being unique and humorous is the key for them!

3) What are a few of the top lessons learned that you’d like to share with my readers?

a) If you’re new to social media, it’s probably best to watch and learn first before participating. Digital records of what you post can last a very long time! Start following people on Twitter to get a hang of it. Sign up to some relevant groups on LinkedIn. Take advantage of the endless guidance available out there. IBM’s social media guidelines would be a great place to start.

b) Come up with some kind of plan for your company on how to leverage social media as a part of the marketing mix. It should be a well thought-out strategy for using social media versus what the common everyday user does, which is more random in nature. If you’re going to replace your newsletter with a blog, how are you going to get content? Who are your writers? At what frequency of new content can you maintain? As much as partners in our survey wanted to start new blogs, my gut tells me that most don’t know how much work it takes to keep them up-to-date with fresh content.

c) Go for quality and not necessarily quantity with your social media contributions.

I came to a realization a long time ago that I wasn’t going to be able to read every tweet out there nor was I going to be able to publish 10 value-added or interesting tweets a day.

Now, many people can do this, but it doesn’t fit with my own availability or style. My plan with Twitter, as an example, is to tweet at events I go to and only really when I feel I have something valuable to say to “the community.”

Remember it is a community out there. Think of any big meetings you’ve been in – you generally think twice about whether or not your comment will add value to the meeting. Hold yourself to a similar value-added threshold for social media sites. Again, your digital record lasts for a long time.

d) Look for inspiration and ideas from social media posts. 

There is a lot of information out there.  Way too much.  Social media sites and tools can help to bring the cream to the top.  I have stumbled across some great ideas through Twitter, blogs, and LinkedIn groups to name a few.  For example, I was pointed to one specific “TED Talk” a couple of years ago through Twitter and now I often make it a lunchtime diversion to watch an interesting speech from one of the world’s top thinkers.  Thanks Twitter!

 4) Why do you think social media is important to partners and vendors alike?

Good or bad, I think there is a new playing field because of social media.  People want to know how you think.  Let me use a theoretical hiring example to explain what I mean. 

Old world:  Candidate A has a resume, but that is usually peppered with embellishments, “mostly truths,” etc..  We all know there is only so much you can take out of a resume and I don’t think many people hire based solely on that. Then there’s the job interview, which I’ve understood from HR science aren’t actually very useful at determining someone’s future performance.  And then thirdly there are often references.  Hand-picked references, of course…  Candidate A has all three things, like any old world candidate would. 

So what’s the new world?  Now I have heard that people are starting to ask, “Can I see your blog? Can I see your Twitter stream?”  What a good reference point for HR departments and hiring managers to learn about how someone thinks. It’s arguably far more useful than the traditional “resume, interview, references” package. Candidate B happens to have all three elements that Candidate A has, plus a blog and a Twitter stream.  It’s far easier to see how “B” thinks than “A.” 

This will be the same in business.  Before we work together, “Can I see your blog? Can I see your Twitter stream?”  I’m not sure how, “I don’t have either” is going to go over. 

Tell us about your Social Media Needs! Take the IBM Social Media Survey !

The Social Media Universe.  Where do you fit?

Take our Social Media survey and let us know!

IBM has launched a “Business Partner Survey on Usage of Social Computing” in order to assist us in strengthening our social computing strategy and capabilities into the future. 

I hope each of you will take some time to tell us about your needs and your current social media preferences.  Are you a “twitterholic? like me”  A Facebook fan?  A member of LinkedIN?.   Do you blog?  

These are all aspects of social media that some of our Business Partners use, or listen to. Through the survey we are seeking Business Partner input to better understand market preferences, needs and reactions to specific social computing capabilities and tools. 

This will also include an assessment of preferences regarding use of IBM and other IT company websites that utilize social computing capabilities.

As members of the IBM PartnerWorld Community, please take a few minutes to complete the survey available now in the Making Business Sense of Social Media and Social Networking forum.

The survey has been approved by IBM’s Global Business Partner organization and is available through March 31, 2010.  So hurry and take the survey today !:) 

Results will be made available in the above forum where participants are also invited to join a discussion around the use of Social Computing in business today.  The survey is voluntary and, as all surveys are in IBM, this survey is completely anonymous – all personal information submitted becomes anonymous at time of submission. 

Social Networking has grown dramatically in the last 18mos.  But not everyone uses it for business , for some its only a tool for sharing personal information or photos.  For others, it can be a great way to share business information and network in real-time. 

Social media offers immediate information that can help you better understand market needs and information to better help you interact with other IT professionals. For myself, I am continually amazed at the amount of good , relevant information flowing through Twitter, blogs and social networks. 

If you’re new to Social Media, and looking for introductory education, you may want to view the new Getting started with social media guide from IBM on Partnerworld.

Wow!  Thanks for the great feedback on our Social Media Interviews!  Today’s featured guest is Michael Chin VP, Strategy and Client Services Deep Focus (www.deep-focus.net).

1. Mike, can you describe your company and role?

I work at an interactive agency in New York City called Deep Focus. We specialize in engagement-centric marketing, meaning we develop strategies and tactics that help our clients connect and have conversations with their customers, and vice versa. Social media has naturally played a large part in what we’re doing these days.

I head up our Strategy and Client Services departments. Together with our Creative, Technology, Media Buying and Planning, and Digital Communications and PR departments, we’re able to offer an integrated approach for our clients. I joined Deep Focus about a month ago from KickApps. KickApps is one of the leading providers of social software that enables brands and publishers to turn their web sites into social experiences.

2. Great and congratulations on the new role! What do you see as the 3 big opportunities for Social Media in this new role.

I believe that Engagement Marketing will ultimately become the central way in which brands communicate with their clients–it’s proving to be more effective and efficient than traditional marketing in many cases. Social Media has fast become a core to enabling engagement with customers. The challenge right now is that it’s still very new and we’re still learning about all the possibilities and limits, for example, as an industry, we’re trying to figure out how it scales and how to measure it.

As for the big opportunities for Social Media, I think that brands, and marketers, will begin to think much more strategically about how they’re engaging online with their customers and how they’re using social media. The past few years have seen brands dabbling with social media and there’s been a lot of experimentation. More often than not, you hear things like, “We need to be on Facebook,” or “We need to be on Twitter.”

Prior to that we heard things like, “We need a blog.”

Often junior members on their teams were assigned the task of setting up a Facebook or Twitter account, and no one bothers to ask the important questions of:

 - Why are we doing this?

 - How does this impact our business?

- What do we expect out of this?

Worse, the people at agencies or the so-called experts they hire don’t ask these questions or simply don’t have the ability to help their clients answer them. This year will see a big change in this as brands begin to dedicate more budgets and resources to social media and engagement marketing. It’ll be driven by the effectiveness that they’re seeing in early experiments by their own teams but they’ll also feel pressure from their competitors to do so.

Hopefully it will yield more creativity in the types of things brands do on the social web. Ideally we’ll see more sophisticated uses of some of the new features and functionality that larger companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google are introducing, but also from young and innovative startups. We’ll also start to see marketers realize that you can’t just re-purpose traditional marketing thinking on the social web. The smart ones will start to understand conversations work best and talking at customers rarely makes for a long and successful relationship.

The smarter ones will figure out how to do this well. This doesn’t mean that ‘advertising’ will go away. Quite the opposite. We just need to realize that advertising has it’s role and use it for it’s great at. At Deep Focus we’ve been able to use media planning and buying to scale much of what we on the social web. Yes, things can happen organically but you can also give it a shot in the arm. When done right, it’s a very powerful thing. A term that I’ve borrow from you actually is, “Perpetual Campaigns.” You used it in your presentation at one of the KickApps seminars that I organized.

That term perfectly describes the opportunity and the way people need to start thinking about marketing. Marketers need to treat communications with customers as a relationship and ongoing conversation and much as as one off campaigns. We’ve got to get much smarter about how we keep the conversation going, how one topic (campaign) rolls into the next. I think there’s a lot that marketers can learn from the media in this respect. We need to think of our campaign development in terms of editorial programming.

How do we keep our customers coming back to watch, read, play, talk, share, like, rate, comment, BUY, etc.? Our friends in the world of media have perfected this over the decades. We need to stop perfecting micro-sites and start learning about Perpetual Campaigning.

3. In your career, what are your top 3 social marketing tactics that you and your team have implemented?

a. At KickApps we built a community of users. In KickApps’ case it’s a community of web site developers. When done right, these customers become your most loyal customers that help you decide which products to place resources on, and they become a very important customer service channel. By being transparent with your customers in this way, you let them in and you start thinking about them as not just customers but members of your team.

b. Linking online and real world tactics and events. I’ve hosted and participated in lots of real world events that end when they’re done. I know that sounds silly but to me that’s a huge lost opportunity as a marketer. Extending that using social media has reaped tremendous benefits for me, even if it’s a simple blog or discussion board that you use to continue the conversations. The key of course is to keep the momentum going when there’s sdfsdsdfa lot of noise and competition for peoples’ time.

That’s where the editorial programming and thinking ahead of time plays a big part. It’s not just content though, it’s also activities–especially true when reaching consumers. Done right, it’s the ultimate multi-channel perpetual campaign. Reach people online, in real life, in their homes, out of home, etc.

c. This one isn’t a tactic that I’ve implemented, it’s one that I use as an example of to help illustrate the power of social media. Threadless makes and sells t-shirts that feature graphics and art designed by a community of artists. Their community of fans and customer vote on which shirts they like and Threadless produces the shirts with the designs that garner the most votes.

This is genius! They’ve never not had a hit product. The integration of social media, online community and product development speaks volumes about how businesses should think differently about customers.

Sandy, thanks for inviting me to this conversation. I hope you’ve found our conversation interesting

When you get a chance, check out this spectacular ARG game from the World Food Bank.

www.urgentevoke.com

Watch how they use Facebook to promote the game’s missions. Excellent example of creating a game to collaborate and innovate with a broad broad audience.

***LOVE IT***

Timely article out of Forbes underscoring value of business games -

Why videogames are the future of business–and women are getting on board. – Forbes.com

http://goo.gl/MNu6

All!

Here’s our next SocialStar Digest and the readership is continuing to go up!  I’d like to highlight Steve Lazarus and the great social media best practices at IBM’s IMPACT conference!

Steve, welcome and tell us a bit about your role and when IMPACT 2010 is!  Currently my role is Lead Strategist, Social Media & Interactive for SOA, BPM, Smart Work and WebSphere Software for IBM. Social media is a very important part of our success and adds tremendous value to our events. By building out and engaging with our communities around these topic areas, we are able to help connect Business Partners, Customers and IBMers and enable allow them to participate and share information through various communities.

This year IBM Impact is May 2-7, 2010 at the Venetian in Las Vegas, NV.

Steve, as you know, I love the IMPACT conference — partially due to the power of Social Media used there!  Can you provide us some factoids from last year?   I know you guys really blew it away!

Initially, IBM’s Impact 2009 faced multiple challenges:  1) the global recession discouraged many clients from attending events;  2) swine flu hit the wire the week prior to the event, making the U.S. potentially a dangerous destination. Even against those odds we had:

Over 5,000 attendees from 50 countries registered thru Impact site Bloggers community efforts catapulted the buzz w/@SmartSOA followers increasing 2.5X.  A 72-hr Twitter & Linked in promo secured additional registrants.

Attendees energized the event thru 700+ tweets over 4 days.  Client speakers enjoyed instant feedback on their presentations from Twitter, & its ability to interact w/audience in real time. One on-site brief alone generated 10 unique blog post & 130 tweets (90% positive).

Social Networking sessions at Impact ranked among the best attended.  150 participants competed in the Social Media game. Clients, analysts & press networked at 3 Tweet Ups. Blogference produced 3+ favorable articles on event’s social media usage. And a client’s visit to the Social Media ped helped seal a $100K deal. 

1,200+ views of our Smart Work client & partner videos, energizing regional lead generating events.  Major insurance companies selected Innov8 to emulate Farmers’ success announced at Impact & promoted via social media.  

Can you tell me about the top 3 new social media areas you guys are driving for 2010?

The first is our newly launched social media aggregator ‘Social at Impact 2010’ (www.ibm.com/social/impact). If you want to know what people are saying about IBM Impact 2010 when they’re saying it, there’s an easy way to find out. In one easy-to-navigate site, users can find anything and everything attendees are blogging, tweeting and posting about IBM Impact 2010. And because the site filters out the noise of unrelated posts, users will find just what they need without the distractions. Some of the features include: all tweets using our event hashtag #ibmimpact, blog posts, pictures and videos from the event, and trending topics. This tool also helps facilitates networking by allowing users to register their social profiles and blog feeds, allowing users to connect with them through Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook and more through this tool. (More features like reply, retweet and share will be live 4/30)

We also just launched our new Impact event blog (www.ibm.com/impact/blog) where we will be blogging and posting information before, during and after the event. We have interviews with Business Partners and Customers, official news and announcements from Impact and will also have guests live-blogging from Impact.

And the third major initiative is our communities. We have now launched both internal and external bloggers communities where we identify and invite bloggers to quarterly ‘invite-only’ calls with our IBM execs to talk about news and announcements, upcoming products, and other happenings in the social media space. (If you are an IBMer or external blogger, please contact slazarus@us.ibm.com or @slazarus for more information on how you can be involved)

What’s your favorite social media highlight from your work?

It is hard to pick just one, so I will settle on two, one from Impact and one more recent. The first is the launch of our new event aggregator, Social at Impact 2010 (www.ibm.com/social/impact). This is a great way for us to showcase all of the great voices of IBMers and bloggers around the event. We talk about networking at events and now with social media, this tool allows us to help facilitate those relationships and help showcase all of the great conversations around these topics. It is not just about blogging and tweeting, but having insightful conversations around important topics, which in the end allows individuals to make better business decisions.

The second was from Impact last year. It was such a great experience to speak with all of the Business Partners and customers and hear how they are using social media today and how they can be better connected with customers and IBMers. We were also sharing with them all of the ways they could engage with us through various social communities, i.e. Twitter, DeveloperWorks, etc. After the event had ended, one of our sales reps reached out to me and told me that because of those conversations, they had closed a new deal and the number 1 reason for that deal was because of those conversations we had. It feels great to tell your customers that you are listening to them and them show them. That customer is now a follower of mine.

 How can people be engaged at Impact?

The best way to stay informed is to visit the event aggregator, event blog or www.ibm.com/impact. Whether people are attending the event in person or virtually, they can follow the official ID on twitter @ibmimpact (www.twitter.com/ibmimpact) or follow those conversations using the tag #ibmimpact.

Use the Hashtag: #ibmimpact

Event Blog: http://www.ibm.com/impact/blog

Event Aggregator: http://www.ibm.com/social/impact

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/ibmimpact

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/ibmimpact

Twitter: http://twitter.com/ibmimpact

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ibmimpact

Linkedin Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=2681786&trk=anet_ug_hm

I am live in Sydney learning about Web 3.0 with some of our core IBM Partners!

Key themes that I learned from my first session led by LinkedIn gent!

1)  Online communities shifting to search and niche sites.  Since everyone is now in Facebook and other communities, in the future Web 3.0 that means that

2)  Career management is changing to resume 2.0 and 3.0.   Old way of finding a role, go through newspaper and find an ad that suited you!  You needed to be an active candidate to be in the race!

Then came the era of the job board, replicating the offline to an online search capability!  CVs were uploaded and searchable.  But you still had to be active and looking for a job!

Today, there are active sites where clients develop their brands.  Recruiters go to sites like LinkedIn to find potential recruits.  This new world of online recruiting has passive candidates that are assessed by recruiters.

Most talented job candidates are not looking but passively there and interested for the right opportunity!  The average student will have 10-30 jobs before they are 38!!!

3)  Brand of You!  Brand is your name and reputation.  Your revenue is your salary.  And your business listing is your online profile.    People are acting more and more like entrepreneurs.   Make sure you are focused on your online brand and that it is inline with what you want your brand to stand for!

4)  Professional networks will grow as fast as social networks.

Professional networks have core functionality that enable you to grow in your profession.  Members manage their identity and reputation.

Still Day 1 — listening to speaker on monitoring the social web in Australia!

First some local stats!  Pretty interesting!!!

• 2.3M Australians have created a blog, 1.6M are updating their blog, and 7.1M Australians read blogs!
• 83% consume video,, 39% of Australians create online content in video, and 84% of Australians use the Web for sharing photos!
• ACCC found that to reach Australians on product recalls, they need to be done in Social Media as well!

So where is Web 3.0 heading?    An evolution building on top of Web 1.0 and 2.0.  The view is that Web 3.0 is to figure out meaning of the technology movement in real terms.  So first in use is to understand how the web is used in making decisions.

In the past, web used for internal data to make decisions like what are needed new features, etc.   Now web 3.0 can be used for online BI to make sense of external data as well.

Case Studies:  

Unilever is tracking online what people are saying online about what consumers are saying about their products.

Ford using geographic analysis to determine demand as well.

One of the big 4 accounting firms is using social media for talent recruiting and track what new college students say about their company! Interesting!  This helps them aggregate information to better design their college recruiting program.

Quantas looks at where comments are coming from and determine differences in preferences culturally!

Taronga Zoo.  Cool stuff – taronga zoo measures social media buzz by flickr photos

Listening is very important!!

Advice given!  

• Start listening and ask questions to understand the market. 
• Collect and explore the data
• If you are not ready, don’t worry about your strategy.
• Focus on your core business in the listening

Questions from the conference!

What site can’t you get geo data from?  Buzznumbers focus on Australian market.   Discussed how they get geo data even if top australian bloggers have US servers.

Sentiment monitoring.  What advice can you give us?  To bot or not!  Speaker doesn’t like sentiment monitoring.

Tribes are important … key organizing prinicple around tribes is kinship.  The core goal is to provide a sense of belonging and band together!

Tribes today have shifted to multiple affinity tribes.   For instance, professional tribes, social identity tribes, etc.

People move into and out of tribes online…..for work, fun, and play!

Tribes written by Seth Gordon! 

How to get loyal tribes!  

1. Tell a story!  Grabs attention and holds it in an ongoing fashion.
2. Through rites of passage. Membership is earned not given!
3. Obligations.  Rules of conduct and honor.
4. Egalitarian goals.   Bottom up good!  Sharing is prized and highly valued.
5. Multi  skilled group.  
6. 2 way loyalty!   Tribe protects members and members protect tribe.

How does this relate to social media and the future of the web?   The same way…

1. Tell a story!  examples:  trip advisor, patientslikeme, whirlpool,
2. Through rites of passage. example like ebay power selling
3. Obligations.  Showing Intel Social Media guidelines
4. Egalitarian goals.   Tide tshirt on facebook.
5. Multi  skilled group.   Forrester ladder of participation
6. 2 way loyalty!    example — Facebook .. 35K people commited to quit Facebook…. due to privacy!

Very interesting thoughts.   Will pull together all days thoughts later!

Government 2.0 was a discussion point at the Web 3.0 conference!

Examples given ..

• National Weather Service — released the data.   Within 30 days, there were 6 innovative applications to show the data. 
• On Nov 14th, the MBTA released real time data for bus schedules.  Within one hour, there was a google app to leverage the data.   In 5 weeks, iPhone apps, displayed on buses.  In 8 weeks, there was a full blown google app.  Even a watch with the bus schedule shown!
• National library newsletter digitsation project to have crowdsourcing to fix the errors within.  The goal is to do something great for society.  Runs 24/7 since launch.  Julie Hempenstall has corrected over 300K erros! 23% of correctors are overseas.  Over 7million lines of text corrected! 
• Justin McMurry of Keller Texas — Volunteers for Help Desk for Verizon.  Public organizations where people volunteer their time.
• It’s Buggered mate.   Site to show where you have issues on your street, etc.    To fix issues in the cities in Australia!  This is a mashup from crowdsourcing.  Govt is doing what govt does — fix the roads.  But the public is helping identify and produce user interface!

Coke of Australia did a very cool campaign on surfing!  Some results include 1.5 M fans, Events statistics — 38K people!  Video on surfing — played 38K times in Australia!

Pringles of Australia:  Pringles (chips) got 250,000 FB fans in Oz in 5 weeks. That’s 250,000 relationships they don’t have get again -9 million users in Oz, double what it was a year ago. Big growth segment now is ages 35+

Chase and Facebook!  Created a black card and points — you can pool points together (along your mates). Chase shared financial informatoin with the 18-24 year olds and so started a long term relationship!  Chase found that most wanted to donate their points to a cause…. great job of social marketing.

Alex Crompton is speaking about his Social media experiences and sharing best practices!

What’s his challenge?  92% unaided brand awareness but only 6% market share.   His view was that social media could assist with market share!

His view:  Social Media is an engagement technique not a selling technique!

How did he start:  In Australia, he looked at where people went.  In Australia, average time spent is around 6 hours.   You cannot buy people’s time and attention in the SM space.  Interruption marketing will be rejected!  Give them something they value.  Earn the right to sell!

The bottom line:  Alimeter/Wetpaint Market Research:

The most valuable brands in the world are experiencing a direct correlation between top financial performance and deep social media engagement.

Modeled after Obama’s campaign.  The message was the core — the change.   Listened and then changed the core message based on feedback.  The hub and spoke model!   Not back to the old Ogilvy model!

#1 tactic used: SEO — #1 ROI producer for Social Media.  Social Media supports SEO through referred links.

Driving new revenue!

We just received results from our online survey of 1,000 of our partners, and we found some interesting results.   45% of our partners — which are primarily small and medium businesses — are beginning to experiment with social media to generate new revenue streams.  Not just to communicate but to actually drive new revenue!

Seeking Education!

The other interesting item was that  74% said that they would seek education in social media because, while they knew it was an effective sales tool,  they are still uncertain of how to apply it.

While the majority agreed that there’s a proliferation of social media outlets and there’s a potential to capitalize on social networking to boost sales, many are still not yet engaging in social media as part of their business strategy.

What’s the reason why they have not deployed more readily?

Our survey showed that Privacy concerns, lack of time, and confusion on how to measure the results were the top three most often-mentioned reasons for a lack of interest in using social computing for business purposes.

One partner wrote: “ With Twitter, there’s no worthwhile business information that can be expressed in 140 characters or less.” This reminds me of early days of the Internet and skepticism we saw then.!

Our announcement today from IBM announces a new Social Media Interactive Series to help our business partners in this quest!

So we did this video for our IBM business partners on the 5 Don’ts!

I’d love to see your comments!!

Chris McMann, President from 1800 Flowers, says that Social Media gives his company a competitive advantage.   They use this new dialogue both internally and externally.  

For instance, for their call centers, since they are now remote, they leverage internal communities for keeping in touch with the corporate culture.

Externally, they had people staffing Twitter, Facebook on Mother’s Day and Valentine’s Day to resolve issues.  Their competition did not leverage this media and their competitors saw their complaints grow, while 1800 Flowers, saw comments on their responsiveness, and care.

So now they Social Media to tell the story about their brand.   They ask their customers to tell everyone about traditions, about their mom’s for example.  They took those stories and placed them in a  book — called “celebrating moms” and creating a space in the virtual world.   They now sell the book as an offer on Mother’s day!

Chris said he is trying to even learn more about his clients and their needs.  He is engaged in the dialogue to ensure he keeps up to speed on what makes people smile!

Really?  Oncor — the largest utility company in Texas — and the leader in Smart Grids, not only speak Texan, but social media?  Texas utility Oncor is communicating with customers via social media in order to meet the needs & expectations of their customers!

I am live at the IBM Industry Symposium, and I heard from Mark Carpenter, CTO OnCor Energy.  From knowing ahead of time that the power is out .. (his quote “ We don’t have to wait on the customer to tell us when their power goes out. We already know”) to allowing bill and usage tracking from iPhones, they have embedded social networks in all they do to service clients. 

Mark made some great comments about how they have transformed their customers service and operations by moving to social networks. to meet demand.   Customers don’t want call centers, they want tech centers, and they want the ability to access that across ALL channels through social media.  So Oncor is delivering it in real time in all channels!    They recognize that customer behaviour changing with text, mobile and social media channels.  Do you?

The IBM Industry Symposium was in Spain this week — featuring a business development day and 2 days with global clients.

My key take aways from the event:

1.  Smarter Planet is an aspirational goal. Clients see value in the Smarter Planet value proposition and view the goals as their goals.

2.  New language.  LOB is becoming more important as a decision maker and therefore anybody needs to speak their language.  For example, the newly introduce CMO agenda has CMO speak.  The Industry Frameworks are in native language of the industry.

3.  IBM Ahead on the Industry Frameworks.   The Frameworks serve as the cookbook for the focus areas that make a difference. 

4.   Social business is mainstream.  From Air Canada, to IBM, to 1800 flowers, to Oncor, Social business was part of CEO, CIO, and CTO conversations about how to connect to the client of today and tomorrow.

5.  Becoming an Uber Connected Corporation is critical for competitiveness.   The executive focus and dollars invested in the IBM ecosystem was impressive and completely aligned with the IBM strategy. For example, the new SVP Industry Authorization provides partners access to critical “ingredient” assets.  

6.  Analytics is the new black.    Analytics for predictive capability is the way to dynamically reach your clients.   Learn about it and hire the skills now.  Enough said.

7.  Show me the outcomes.  It is now all about business outcomes.  2009 was about efficiencies and cost reduction.  2010 is all about revenue growth.

8.  Industry experts are the new popular kids.   Everyone the industry experts from clients and IBM went, a train of people followed.   This industry expertise is the new hot skill in the market.  Tell your kids.

9.  Tolerance is gone.  Given everyone is used to the interface of the iPad, iPhone, gaming, etc, the new view of IT is that it must be friendly and easy.   I heard this in EVERY industry group I attended.

10.   Vertical is the buzz.   Enough said.

OK!  I admit it.  My arms are sore.  I can’t get “That’s Not My Name” lyrics out of my head.   Yep…I am playing the new WII Dance 2 game with my daughters.

Besides this being absurdly fun and a great way to embarrass the kids while I jam away,  these social games on the WII really enable social interaction unlike games played alone.

Gaming is at a crossroads.   Gaming and Social Media are intersecting – not just at gaming but also in many companies.   Social media will change every aspect of business and their business models just as it will with gaming.  It will change the way we play games .. aka Dance 2, and who plays games aka  me and what a game is.   The world we see today will change in the next 5 years with gaming being part of education for Fortune 500 companies,  enabling the disabled to be better equipped for the world, and for even generating demand for goods and services.

The new generation learns from games … and will expect this style of learning and fun to  be prevalent in all their applications of the future.

Who knew that a simple WII game could impact the world!

What do you think?

I love my iPhone and just last night were hunting for my next favorite app!

I came across a great usage of an iPhone app for crowdsourcing…for a greater good.  It is called Creekside .. click here to learn more. 

This application enables everyone to contribute to cleaning up our waterways — crowdsourcing if you would for the world!

What is crowdsourcing?  To me, it is a world of the future.  It involves leveraging the “crowds” or all of us on the blogsphere to enhance products or services, provide a point of view, or even better the world. 

In this example, Creekside involves crowdsourcing problems with our waterways.

How do you get started?  You can download this from the Apple App Store and is free.  It is very easy to use — it took me only seconds!!  

First, you see a waterway — like a creek or lake that I stopped by yesterday. 

Use your iPhone to take a picture and then upload the following information:

What happens next?

This social application then aggregates the data.  You can see what others have uploaded or written — that’s the crowdsourcing magic! 

As the data is consolidated, it is shipped to the water control boards in the local regions.

Watch the why s of the application!

Do you have another great Crowdsourcing Application?  I’d love to see it.

My predictions for Social Business in 2011:

1. Virtual gifting will become mainstream. The research shows that people value virtual gifts as much as real gifts (now why did I spend all that money on Christmas?) Social dating sites already make lots of money on virtual roses and IBM did the virtual “hex” necklace for our great developers. What will 2011 bring!

2. Crowdsourcing will be used by the crowds. Crowds of successful companies that is. The most competitive and successful companies in 2011 will use crowdsourcing for new products and services. Enough said.

3. Social media and gaming will interconnect and gaming will become “the” currency in 2011. Games like Farmville will become the norm due to the popularity of gaming with all ages and the fun, teachable moments that encompass it. Aren’t Foursquare and Gowalla just gaming platforms? Will everything become a gaming platform? I think so!!

4. Everything is Mobile. I am now on my iPhone more than my computer. In 2011, your cell phone will grow in its usage from wallet, ticket broker, concierge, bank, shopping buddy and more.

5. Cyberwarfare has just begun. With the Wikileaks publicity , cyberwarfare has just begun. It’s power is great and its numbers more than we can imagine.

6. Talent will select companies who embrace social media. Talented resources will want to work for the uberconnected company. Beware — those of you out there who still restrict your employees.

7. Put a ring on it. Engagement is Queen! Customer engagement is the winning strategy in 2011. Purchases are often the result of emotions, maximizing a customer’s hands-on experience within the environment

8. Crystal balls are required. Social Analytics that not only tell you what’s been done but predict based on that information will be the wave of the future.

9. Friends matter most. In the next five years, consumers will increasingly rely on themselves – and the opinions of each other – to make purchasing decisions rather than wait for help from companies. 2011 is the time to get yourself a group of Brand Advocates to assist your brand!

10. PR is 2.0. The potential for PR 2.0 is immense, and I don’t think anyone realizes that PR 2.0 will educate citizens and influence so many in ways corporations and governments have not realized … yet!

11. Social business not Social Media. Today, companies are using social media to talk to clients, to do sentiment analysis…all important. But 2011 will be the Social Business year. Social business is about being able to leverage social tools to have sell side analysts communicate to institutional traders, reinvented CRM systems, social learning, and process changes to incorporate social.

Wow!   We won a Platinum MarCom award!!

We, IBM,  created a comprehensive marketing strategy designed to energize thousands of IBM Software Business Partners worldwide and drive double digit software revenue growth by leveraging social media.

The Perpetual Campaign. Based on feedback from our Business Partners through blogs, tweets, calls, and classic surveys, we developed a Business Partner strategy that would leverage social media and traditional tactics to deliver greater client value while driving software revenue growth for IBM and its Business Partners, and allowing for continual feedback from the Business Partner community on new requirements.

One cycle of our perpetual campaign centered around our January 25 virtual event at which 20 core announcements were unveiled. Using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Blogs, YouTube videos with a blend of traditional marketing tactics such as emails, newsletters, and web postings, IBM invited the entire ecosystem of Business Partners, Analysts, Press, Value Added Distributors, and IBM colleagues to the virtual event.

An innovative virtual invite on YouTube was created and sent to all Business Partners. In addition,virtual communities were leveraged to send invitations on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Pre-briefings with analysts and others resulted in an active stream of tweets directing Business Partners to the virtual event.

The IBM Virtual Event.  The virtual event itself, on January 25, 2010, combined avatars, virtual chatting, keynote and breakout sessions plus an online exhibit hall and press center. Key Business Partner enablement offerings included certifications on cloud computing architecture, industry summits with the availability of industry sales mastery tests across 17 industries, and a Green ROI tool to address clients’ demand for green solutions. More than 7,000 Business Partners worldwide participated in the virtual event, with more than 10,000 immediate downloads of IBM assets and over 9,000 keynote and webcast views. To personalize the virtual experience, participants were invited to create avatars and network with peers and specialists at the Expert Pavilion. A key indicator of the initial success of the virtual event showed that attendees stayed at the event twice as long on average compared to other virtual events.

The Results While the January 25 virtual event was successful, reaching 7x the number of participants compared to a single face to face event at 50% of the cost, it was not the end game. We then expanded our deployment in terms of scope, reach and results. Business Partners, who previously would provide a quote for a campaign, were encouraged to utilize social media to drive the message. More than 50 Business Partners issued their own press releases indicating how the new IBM announcements would help them level their business. Others, such as Software Information Systems (SIS) reached out to their customers with a YouTube video talking about the impact of the announcements on their business and how it would help their customers. Other Business Partners, such as Prolifics, accessed our virtual event center and hosted their own client virtual event that included custom virtual briefing centers with on demand access to IBM assets, live sessions, chats, and videos. Still others utilized Facebook and Twitter to communicate with their customers and others about the value of the announcements.

The Momentum Continued The momentum and energy of the virtual event continued and led to a second wave of our compaign, centered on cloud computing architecture. Utilizing analyst recommendations via blogs and face to face events with Business Partners, IBM introduced IBM Cool Cloud Cash Workshops, and offered education – both online and face to face – to prepare Business Partners for cloud computing architecture certification, allowing our Business Partners to differentiate themselves in the market. Cloud-certified Business Partners, such as CloudOne, are utilizing social media to take their skills, solutions and services to their clients to drive more revenue.

Summary.  The Business Partner strategy that showcased our Virtual Event has allowed IBM to continue the perpetual campaign, listening and responding to Business Partners requirements to address their skills, solutions, offerings and revenue needs through a variety of social media tactics and face to face offerings, including the latest IBM offering of social media education on how to leverage multi-channel strategies for Business Partner success. From the IBM Virtual Summit an energized community of Business Partners has emerged, contributing great crowdsourcing ideas for new offerings and who assist each other to grow their business.

Tactic Results IBM is a leader in leveraging social media and traditional tactics to create a campaign to drive revenue and grow the business.

Results of the IBM integrated campaign, led by the social media experience and Virtual Summit are:

 Influenced IBM software business results to realize 4 quarters of double digit Business Partner software revenue growth

 7,000 Business Partners worldwide participated in the Virtual Event

 7x as many participants as compared to a single face to face event, at 50% lower cost

 Attendees stayed at the event twice as long as on average compared to other virtual events

 An energized, connected worldwide community of Business Partners enabled to leverage social media and the virtual event to drive their business results

I am so excited about IBM’s Social Business Industries Symposium. It is January 31st and February 1st in Orlando Florida.

It will be focused on how organizations are investing in social strategies to drive greater profits and revenues.

We will focus on a roadmap of entry points to get started in your transformation.

The topics will help C level executives focus in on:
1. Leveraging social for business value
2. Re-engineering business processes in order to become much more effective social business – what does that mean?
3. Organizational change and transformation to become social business: from hierarchic to more distributed leadership and management

Plus there will be a ton of success stories around repeatable patterns in: Sales, Marketing, Customer Service/Support, Product Development, HR, and Operations.

If you are interested in coming, please email me at scarter@us.ibm.com!

It is Truly a MUST ATTEND EVENT!   #ls11

Here’s a great example of aggregation and listening at a major event!

Sign up and see how this  could help your business move into becoming a Social Business!

http://www-949.ibm.com/social/lotusphere/reg/LoadRegistration

What do you think?  How could we improve it?

Sandy

#ls11

IBM Super Women’s Group invites you to a special reception at IBM’s Social Business Forum and Lotusphere 2011

Join myself and Kristen Lauria, Vice President, Marketing and Channels
The event is: Tuesday, February 1, at 6:15 pm – 8:00 pm
Great networking, drinks, and appetizers
Location:Americas Seminar, Dolphin Hotel

Are you coming? Let us know!!! Sandy
#ls11

Today, we hosted a new Virtual Event on a set of announcements we were making.

Check it out here:  

This is our Second Annunal Event — our first one won a MarComm Platinum Award! YEA!

Insights and lessons learned:

1. Hybrid works best. We ran the virtual event with 30+ in person events around the world — Vietnam, Texas, Nordics, London, and the list goes on. The group watched the event today and “played” with the features but then personally got to network with others.
2. Engagement matters most. Last year, the time spent in our event was 84 minutes per attendee — pretty good, but this year, we will be double that. Why? We focused on content, responsiveness, subject matter expertise live, etc. Last year, we found this engagement resulted in big wins for us.
3. Word of mouth. This year, we had more client and bp references and speakers. It is always better having others speak on your behalf! The feedback and sat is off the chat on these great references!
4. It takes a Village. To pull off a virtual events, takes all the things that a ‘live” event takes: communications, drive to, organization, messaging, great content, planning, and the list goes on. Many of my clients think that virutal events are just easier. I beg to differ. The best are as well planned out as a big live show. (And of course, I think my IBM team is the best of the best!)
5. Content is king. Great content makes all the difference. Have meaty speakers, and great new things to talk about! It’s what its all about!

Tell me what you think we could do even better!!!

IBM is a Social Business!

A social business is one that leverages social techniques as tools for organizational productivity and culture change, for engaging with diverse constituencies of clients and experts, and for spurring revenue growth and innovation for our global workforce. IBM is leading social business on all fronts – technology, policy and practice.

 Let me give you some examples of how IBM is living its vision!
First,as a company, IBM takes social networking seriously — to develop products and services, to enable sellers to find and stay connected with clients, to train the next generation of leaders, and to build awareness of Smarter Planet among clients, influencers and other communities.

Second, IBM has embedded Social into its culture. Its employees are brand ambassadors

* 1 million daily page views of internal wikis, internal information storing websites

* 70,000 employees profiles in SocialBlue, IBM’s initial social networking initiative before the adoption of Connections

* 15,000,000 downloads of employee-generated videos/podcasts

 Third, we created the Social Computing Guidelines first as Blogging Guidelines in 2005, and as Social in 2008! 

Fourth, we have changed our processes to be more engaging:

*IBM has conducted 50 Jams over the past 10 years. For example, IBM’s ValuesJam was used to develop IBM Values in 2003, IBM’s InnovationJam 2006 identified business opportunities that preceded Smarter Planet agenda. IBM Legal conducted LawJam in 2007 in support of global functional transformation.

*Human Resources utilizes social media for tech-enabled recruiting, employee education, sales training and leadership development. For example, IBM relies on social media for leadership development from an employee’s first day on the job. IBM’s Succeeding@IBM makes new hires part of a social group for 6-12 months so they can get up to speed more quickly with other new hires, they network and acclimate more quickly

Global Collaboration and Development processes leverage social!

* Generation Open — Built around social business tools, processes and management systems, GenO creates instant communities of global teams to collaborate on projects and products.

* Today, more than 130 communities of IBM professionals around the globe are collaborating virtually. This has reduced the time it would have taken to complete projects by 30%, increased re-use of “software assets” by 50%, and cut component costs by 33%.

Crowdsourcing is prevalent:* We have many other examples, such as IBM’s TAP program (Technology Adoption Program), a company-wide “open beta” where products are developed through crowdsourcing, and we’ve created some of IBM’s best-selling software products.

Gaming is used in many different innovative ways.  From INNOV8, that I started a few years ago, to City One, and onboarding game, Social Gaming enables us to educate faster and funner!

IBM is a great example of Social Business.  How about your company?!!  You will hear about some other social businesses as we move through the week!!

At Lotusphere this year, we are leveraging Location Based services to attract more emphasis on our offerings, have fun, and showcase the social business aspects that we are highlighting here in Orlando!

IBM has teamed with Gowalla to make the most out of Lotusphere!!! It lets you connect with your friends and business colleagues. and checkin throughout the hotels and sites here in Orlando to let others know where you are, find out where
others are meeting and plan trips to your favorite sessions like mine I hope on Wed from 10-11 in the Swan 5. (shameless plug there!)

There are a whole set of fun incentives like badges for our partners, most sessions, and most eaten!! These On-site fun incentives will create an awareness of location based services and create experimentation … one of the best ways to get started as a social business!

If you are here with us, here’s how you get going!!!
Here’s how to get started:
1. Install Gowalla on your mobile device. (See http://gowalla.com/apps)
2. Sign up and connect with your friends and colleagues.
3. Bookmark Lotusphere on Location trips for a selection of must-see spots while at the conference. There are 9 Lotusphere trips you can complete to earn pins.
4. Then, as you visit each of these spots, check in to show where you are. You’ll earn custom pins as you complete trips and visit more and more spots.
5. Add your photos so others can see what you are up to.
6. When you complete 3 trips, stop by one of the Social Cafes and show us and you can collect Gowalla Items IRL too! (while supplies last)

Have fun in the world of Social Business. I’ll post results after the conference!!! And learned!

Well tonight I was working on Twitter and my daugther came up and wanted to learn about it. She had such fun — that I pulled out my flip and filmed her!

This was her perspective on marketing 2.0!

Yesterday, I provided you with a look at my 1st video.. hope you enjoyed watching it!

My second video highlights the “A” in the ANGELS framework. How to Analyze your market place (click on me!) - the whole premise is to insert Web 2.0 methods into traditional approaches.

1. How do you look at the globalization effect? The world is becoming flatter making the overall market place important. How can you use techniques to strengthen your market?

For instance..
Dove: they looked and leveraged the web culturally – exploring how to send their message in Europe and Russia in different fashions as there message went out – analyzing what was effective in both market places

Lenovo: Localized their message – taking what they knew from China & applying it in a new market place in India

Globalization is more and more important. The framework highlighted in the book looks at the ecosystem, how you manage those marketplaces w/ Web 2.0?

2. How to make sure you look at your distinct marketplace..
50% of marketplace is on-line per IDC
50% of marketplace is not on-line
How do you segment that market?

3. How do you leverage on-line tools?
Banter – allows us to measure the amount of times people use certain phrases..
On-line allows you to experiment and turn things much faster if you monitor the banter that is occurring

For example, Johnson & Johnson developed a new ad for moms. The feedback on Twitter was clear that mothers were not happy about it. From the bad publicity in the social media, the ad was immediately pulled and replaced with a new ad.

Experiment by leveraging web 2.0 techniques!

Let me hear from you!!

Guys … I took the 10 that Jeremiah gave us into 5!!!  He is amazing and loves this space

1)  Don’t obsess over the tools!  His advice?   Watch the early adoptors and see what they are adopting.  Tons of new tools being developed every month!  Choose carefully based on what you want to do!  But you will make mistakes and it is ok!  

2)  Invest in the resources around the tools you choose!  You can do a lot for very little money!  While growing, the total dollars here are small still.     Spend 80% on the strategy, goals, value propositions and 20% on the tools.  Examples he gave include Dell, Wells Fargo, and IBM.

3)  Do Integrate!  Don’t forget to integrate!  Social tools are not islands.  Successful social media works when the social media tools cross link and integrate!  Develop an index page of tools!

4)  Make sure you have an internal social media process!  Several models were reviewed – -the Tire –>  employees are communicating with the market with corporate communications still in the center.  Second, the control – Company communications owns all social media.  Third, hub and spoke — in the middle is a cross functional team. 

He compared this hub and spoke to an airport.  The team needs radar to listen.  The Signal Tower prioritizes the information and informs the right team.  The Flight log shows key results.

Have a place so that people can experiment — a Social Media sandbox like Yammer, or Blue Twit or Thinkforward internal to IBM.  Make sure you make it safe to try this internally!

5)  What not to do — measure the wrong things!

Page views along are not sufficient to measure .  Meausring click throughs is the wrong engagements!  Measure based on the business objectives.

Bottom line, this is personal, use them!  Play with them.  The ones Jeremiah suggested…..Facebook, LinkedIn, Yammer, Twitter, Blogs and Pictures. Use search tools like google alerts, twitter search , and technorati.

Social Media Guru at IMPACT 2009!

I got to know Jeremiah at a Social Media thought leadership event in the Valley. He is truly a leader and visionary in this space. I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeremiah and wanted to share what he has planned for IMPACT 2009!

Sandy: How has the economic downturn changed the way people leverage social networking
Jeremiah: Our Technographics Research shows an increase in adoption of social tools from 2007-2008, in fact some pretty large jumps in behaviors. Basic common sense and logic tells us that social media usage for consumers will go up during a recession. Why? People will want to connect with others during crises, build personal brands, learn new skills by reading blogs. Also those who are in between jobs will have more time and certainly need to connect with others to find new job opportunities. Furthermore, we’ve found that 53% marketers have decided to increase their social media spend during a recession on social, however it’s important to note we’re not talking about sizable budget amounts, these are still small potato budgets –all things considered.

Sandy: Is social media superficial branding, or does it truly change the company?
Jeremiah: Sadly, many companies are slapping social features on their corporate websites or launching blogs –yet they are not walking the talk. Many brands don’t truly live an open an transparent workstyle, and as a result, customers see right through it. This research is telling, corporate blogs aren’t trusted by consumers.

Sandy: What is the biggest finding from the many interviews you’ve done with corporate social media teams, what’s the one trend you’re finding?
Jeremiah: Many companies are starting to get organized and are appointing key roles, such as the social media strategist and a handful of community managers. These specific roles, while often perform other traditional marketing tasks, are key to delivering true social media programs to the market. Why? Like all business programs, internal champions are still needed for success –especially new mediums

Sandy: On a lighter note, what’s your take on the Ashton Kutcher @aplusk and CNN @cnnbrk race to 1 million followers?
Jeremiah: While silly and trivial, this is a true milestone that Twitter and other social tools are about to go mainstream with media coverage. This however, doesn’t suggest they are mainstream tools, as they don’t have mainstream adoption.

Sandy: How do you feel about celebrities using Twitter? Oprah has 92,000 followers before she ever posted 1 tweet, are celebrities changing the way Twitter is being used and any lessons to be learnt by companies?
Jeremiah: Expect celebrities to monetize this microblogging tool far faster than Twitter themselves. They will extend this tool to help their sponsors reach new audiences, pimp their own shows and content, and use it to broadcast content. Most celebrities won’t understand the true dialog opportunities and will use it like their other tools –broadcast. As a result, early adopters of Twitter will move on, and create a new community that hasn’t become saturated.

Sandy: You will be at IBM IMPACT in Vegas next month talking about the importance of social networking for today’s commerce opportunities. Would love to get a sneak preview on this session.
Jeremiah: Social Network adoption is one of the highest participated social activities by consumers –as a result, brands want to be there. In my session we’ll talk about what works, and what doesn’t. I’ll have some practical examples and best practices, and will make it interactive. I hope folks show up, and Tweeting is certainly encouraged!

Gang, come and see us at IMPACT. We have some great social media adventures planned like blogger box seats, Paint your Facebook, and more! Sign Up Here!

P.S. As everyone knows, Jeremiah’s puppy is famous and no blog would be complete without a picture!

I am in Chicago at the Blogher conference, speaking and meeting with customers and partners!

They shared their latest social media study. Some interesting facts!

* 43M women read/write blogs (from from 35M last year)
* Time shift to social media continues. Women using social media use between 20-40% less TV, papers, etc.
* 75% of women online and using social media use blogging as a tool.
* Bloggers are the most prolific social media users.
* Bloggers perceive themselves as tech savvy, tippers, influencers, and experts. They crave that cross influence.
* Bloggers consider online relationships equal to those offline! Wow!
* Bloggers are twice as likely to turn to their social media source for information.
* 78% are considering their purchases more carefully.
* 25% buy more from companies they “know”

The bottom line is that blogging is growing in importance in influence, size, and fun!

Lizzie from AllState

I am here in Chicago using to Blogging Best practices in 5 Case studies!
Here is case study #1! AllState!

My key take aways
1) Issues in regulated industries. Discussion of liability if someone takes advice from a Allstate message board. Seek advice from legal in these industries.
2) Have a strategy – don’t just “do social media”
3) Advise with others need to “approve” social media stategy. Her example was with legal:
a) First educate them on what social media is
b) Do your homework — know your facts. For instance, Lizzie from AllState went in with guidelines she wanted based on Farmer’s Insurance etc.
c) Show it don’t just tell it. Lizzie showed legal other message boards.
d) Prove, communicate, enhance, and repeat. Update the team!
3) Communications to the entire company — not just marketing is critcial!
4) Take baby steps, and then move forward to next strategy when success in one!
5) Track the results.
6) Lizzie leveraged resource from Blogging Council.

Some cool questions:
a) What’s your resource? One person.
b) What’s your next step beyond the message blog? Texting Tessa! Twitter and Gaming!
c) What are your results? Lizzie gave conversion rates of 50% plus to buy insurance! Online closure is moving higher.
d) How did you start ? They did no internal work first, they went to message board first.
e) How is the overall outlook in the company now? Yes, almost too much so. We do not want to go overboard. We are still an insurance company and we need to do many critical things in traditional ways.
f) What has this progressed? We have an internal board now to share best practices.
g) How do you quantify success? We measure acquisition of new customers and conversion in all tactics. Other groups in AllState are looking at it based on their stategy in terms of brand and loyalty.
h) Do you allow other companies to come in and share best practices? Not yet but I have used Walmart internally to move faster inside Allstate.

Bottom line to me is that regulated industries can use social media like Lizzie did and use her collaborative techniques to gain buyin throughout her company!

How many of you have seen Avatar?

What’s amazing to me about that movie is the technology and the 3D experience.  It impacted me so much I decided to sit down and really think about how it will impact the future of our social businesses.

I came up with 3 Ds of impact! Data, Desire, and Domain Eminence! 

1)  Data Overload Savior?!  Since we are all in data overload, 3D can help make us more action oriented!  For instance,  Deutsche Bahn (DB), Germany’s national railway uses visualization software to create information-rich user displays for its new train dispatching application, resulting in improved speed and accuracy of decision-making and reduced staff training time to use the dispatching system to “almost zero” from 5 to 8 days per user, according to DB Systems management. 

By visualizing the data, making it come alive, the teams could focus on acting on the data, not trying to sort through data.  A great direction to head!

2)  Desire.  Techcrunch declared Avatar the iphone app for movies!So true, now that you’ve seen this movie, who wants to see a movie that’s not 3D?   This movie teases you with the potential of what is to come.

I now want to see my Twitter IDs in 3D and collaborate in 3d!.  See this Youtube video on how it might look — just a start!

3)  Domain Eminence!

And then I have personally experienced 3D power with the game that we are using to showcase our technology education!

I have to show it to you!    What do you think? It has a 80% higher recall through 3D education !

I’d love your thoughts.  Are you seeing the impact of 3D today?  What do you see for tomorrow?

So we did this video for our IBM business partners on the 5 Don’ts!

I’d love to see your comments!!

The IBM Industry Symposium was in Spain this week — featuring a business development day and 2 days with global clients.

My key take aways from the event:

1.  Smarter Planet is an aspirational goal. Clients see value in the Smarter Planet value proposition and view the goals as their goals.

2.  New language.  LOB is becoming more important as a decision maker and therefore anybody needs to speak their language.  For example, the newly introduce CMO agenda has CMO speak.  The Industry Frameworks are in native language of the industry.

3.  IBM Ahead on the Industry Frameworks.   The Frameworks serve as the cookbook for the focus areas that make a difference. 

4.   Social business is mainstream.  From Air Canada, to IBM, to 1800 flowers, to Oncor, Social business was part of CEO, CIO, and CTO conversations about how to connect to the client of today and tomorrow.

5.  Becoming an Uber Connected Corporation is critical for competitiveness.   The executive focus and dollars invested in the IBM ecosystem was impressive and completely aligned with the IBM strategy. For example, the new SVP Industry Authorization provides partners access to critical “ingredient” assets.  

6.  Analytics is the new black.    Analytics for predictive capability is the way to dynamically reach your clients.   Learn about it and hire the skills now.  Enough said.

7.  Show me the outcomes.  It is now all about business outcomes.  2009 was about efficiencies and cost reduction.  2010 is all about revenue growth.

8.  Industry experts are the new popular kids.   Everyone the industry experts from clients and IBM went, a train of people followed.   This industry expertise is the new hot skill in the market.  Tell your kids.

9.  Tolerance is gone.  Given everyone is used to the interface of the iPad, iPhone, gaming, etc, the new view of IT is that it must be friendly and easy.   I heard this in EVERY industry group I attended.

10.   Vertical is the buzz.   Enough said.

My predictions for Social Business in 2011:

1. Virtual gifting will become mainstream. The research shows that people value virtual gifts as much as real gifts (now why did I spend all that money on Christmas?) Social dating sites already make lots of money on virtual roses and IBM did the virtual “hex” necklace for our great developers. What will 2011 bring!

2. Crowdsourcing will be used by the crowds. Crowds of successful companies that is. The most competitive and successful companies in 2011 will use crowdsourcing for new products and services. Enough said.

3. Social media and gaming will interconnect and gaming will become “the” currency in 2011. Games like Farmville will become the norm due to the popularity of gaming with all ages and the fun, teachable moments that encompass it. Aren’t Foursquare and Gowalla just gaming platforms? Will everything become a gaming platform? I think so!!

4. Everything is Mobile. I am now on my iPhone more than my computer. In 2011, your cell phone will grow in its usage from wallet, ticket broker, concierge, bank, shopping buddy and more.

5. Cyberwarfare has just begun. With the Wikileaks publicity , cyberwarfare has just begun. It’s power is great and its numbers more than we can imagine.

6. Talent will select companies who embrace social media. Talented resources will want to work for the uberconnected company. Beware — those of you out there who still restrict your employees.

7. Put a ring on it. Engagement is Queen! Customer engagement is the winning strategy in 2011. Purchases are often the result of emotions, maximizing a customer’s hands-on experience within the environment

8. Crystal balls are required. Social Analytics that not only tell you what’s been done but predict based on that information will be the wave of the future.

9. Friends matter most. In the next five years, consumers will increasingly rely on themselves – and the opinions of each other – to make purchasing decisions rather than wait for help from companies. 2011 is the time to get yourself a group of Brand Advocates to assist your brand!

10. PR is 2.0. The potential for PR 2.0 is immense, and I don’t think anyone realizes that PR 2.0 will educate citizens and influence so many in ways corporations and governments have not realized … yet!

11. Social business not Social Media. Today, companies are using social media to talk to clients, to do sentiment analysis…all important. But 2011 will be the Social Business year. Social business is about being able to leverage social tools to have sell side analysts communicate to institutional traders, reinvented CRM systems, social learning, and process changes to incorporate social.

I am so excited about IBM’s Social Business Industries Symposium. It is January 31st and February 1st in Orlando Florida.

It will be focused on how organizations are investing in social strategies to drive greater profits and revenues.

We will focus on a roadmap of entry points to get started in your transformation.

The topics will help C level executives focus in on:
1. Leveraging social for business value
2. Re-engineering business processes in order to become much more effective social business – what does that mean?
3. Organizational change and transformation to become social business: from hierarchic to more distributed leadership and management

Plus there will be a ton of success stories around repeatable patterns in: Sales, Marketing, Customer Service/Support, Product Development, HR, and Operations.

If you are interested in coming, please email me at scarter@us.ibm.com!

It is Truly a MUST ATTEND EVENT!   #ls11

For the 3 days we have been jamming — or brainstorming — on how to become a Social Business.

Over 3500 people, from over 80 countries, commented over 1800 time! Some highlights day by day are below and more will be coming. I’d love your biggest take aways.

Some highlights of the most active conversations taking place on Day 1:
Sandy Carter, Vice President, IBM Social Business, Collaboration, and Lotus Sales and EvangelismEvery business needs a Social Business “GM” – This discussion gets to the importance of leadership and commitment to this new way of working

John Woodworth, Manager, 3M Lab CollaborationHow can the retired employee still contribute? – A fascinating discussion about the value of alumni participation in your business

Day 2:
Lauren Walker, IBM employeeCan you measure the ROI of social media? – An interesting debate on ‘return on investment vs return on engagement’

Scott Smith, IBMerFor the 75% who don’t post — Automated Expertise? – Is this a key enabler for social adoption?

Keith Yamashita, Chairman, SYPartners“Seeing” – It’s literally becoming harder to “see into the eyes” of customers. What does this mean for social businesses?

Sarah Siegal, IBMer
Your Anxiety Is My Serenity and Vice Versa – Oversharing vs. the “unconcerned”

Day 3:
Philip Streck, IBM Business Partner‘How to create culture in remote companies.’ – How can we leverage social technology to build culture within an organization who’s employees never meet?

Larry Hawes, Analyst‘Middle Management’s Role in Social Business’ – How will their role evolve and are they really ‘in the middle?’

Jon Iwata, SVP, Marketing & Communications, IBM‘The “second funnel’ – How social media has put into the hands of everyone the tools of information production. Individuals have a printing press, a broadcast studio, the means to run ad campaigns, host events, organize and rally. In short, everyone has their own funnel.

What were your key take aways?   Sandy

I am at IBM’s PartnerWorld conference in Orlando.  Of course, I was handing out business cards.  I was surprised how including my “social media” contacts caused such surprise.

I led the Social Business evangelism and sales at IBM — so shouldn’t I be on twitter, blogging, using IBM Connections inside of IBM?  Of course!!!!  

So I challenge you!  Is your business a Social Business?   If so, does your card show it?

I am here in London!   The internet in UK is worth 100B pounds!  It is projected to grow to 20% by 2015 of GDP. 

I saw Salvation Army’s use of Social Business with a group of youth that were brought from 80+ countries to get together to brainstorm in person and continued the discussion socially through communities.

I met with City University and saw University Professors and staff collaborating online for innovation.

I checked out  Moshi Monster based on London.  1 in 3 kids in the UK have adopted a Moshi Monster.  It is the faster growing community for kids!

In the globally connected index, UK sits at #6.

London is the top Twitter city in the world.

Have you seen this one on the Connected UK?

I cannot wait to come back and host a Social Business Breakfast in 2Q!!!

Let me hear your UK Social Business Stories!!!

Sandy

A Social Business is one that is engaging, transparent, and nimble!!!

Check out this Vlog and tell me what you think.

Many of you have written me on the use of iPad in Socail Business. Here is a great case study that just happened in PA! The Australian Open!

To engage its fans, Tennis Australia heavily leverages its Australian Open website. This interactive, media-rich online experience allows fans to listen to live radio, review highlights of the day’s play, read blogs and followthe scores from every court as the action happens. Have you used the SlamTracker? It is very coole and lets us fans interact in real time with the draws and scores – make visiting australianopen.com the next best thing to being there. (Not as good for sure as I have had the honor of being there in person!!!)

During the two week tournament, the site attracts almost 10M unique users. With real-time scores, schedules, draws and player information all available on smart phones via a purpose-built Australian Open mobile website, fans can stay in touch with every Australian Open 2011 match while they’re on the go.

The Official AustralianOpen iPhone application takes this experience one step further with real-time scores, radio, Twitter feeds about the Australian Open as well as completed matches, schedules and draws. It is truly integrated social business!!!
This application also includes AO View, an augmented reality feature that uses the phone’s camera and GPS to give fans at the event an enhanced view of the data that is all around them.

iPad rocks!!!! For the first time ever, fans can access the full Australian Open program on their iPad. This new application brings together data from a variety of sources to connect fans with the online mood that the tournament generates. Special features include schedules and draws, fan data and autograph pages. australianopen.com is also viewable on the iPad.

I think this shows one example of a Social Business incorporating the iPad into its business. Any other examples out there?

A colleague of mine introduced me to an upcoming film on cyberbulling.    Here’s the trailer. 

I was shocked at some of the facts:

• 40% of all teenagers reported being cyberbullied
• Only10% told their parents
• Only15% of parents know about their kids’ interactive habits

See if you want to get involved.

All!

I cannot wait for BlogHer 2011 in August!   I am going to the business Blogher too in March but I am especially excited as my daughter Cassie, at age 10, has been blogging.  As a reward for a blogging project at school, she will be sent to BlogHer and will go with me this year!

The team at BlogHer was so excited and nice about her coming!   Here she is in her “BlogHer” outfit .. getting ready to blog!   She is so excited to meet all the cool and talented women there!

Cassie is excited to come to BlogHer!!!

Featuring the New Social Business Agenda!

I’d love your thoughts on this agenda!

So we have laid out our Social Business Agenda to help companies become Social Businesses. I like it because it is based on working with companies in 59 countries, and in all industries. In addition, it has it in lessons of success and failure that we can all learn from!

A is about aligning your goals and culture to be ready to become more engaging and transparent. Do not underestimate the task ahead of you! Take a look at IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines as a way to get started!

G – “Gain Friends through Social Trust” focuses on finding your fans, friends and followers, and forming best friends from your tippers or most influential clients or outside parties. It dives into what social trust is all about and how you instill it.

E – Engage through experiences focuses on how a company can engage its clients and employees and dives into gaming, virtual gifting, location based, mobile, or other stellar experiences to drive that engagement.

N – Network your processes. Since this is about business, figuring out how to add social to your processes is critical. THink about customer service — adding in Twitter to address your customer’s concerns. Or Crowdsourcing for product innovation, or Communities for incrementing your marketing processes around Loyalty!

D – Design for Reputation and Risk Management! This is the #1 areas of focus for the C level — managing the risk of having your brand online, your employees being your brand advocates, and even your clients becoming your marketing department! I think the value outweighs the risk .. but see how to develop a Disaster Recovery plan as you plan for the worst, and expect the best!

A – Analyze your data! Social analytics are the new black! You need to see the patterns of sentiment, who your tippers are, and listen daily !

Let me know if you’d like me to work through this with your company in anyway!

Sandy

This is a translation of the original press release from Bayer Material Science, which was in German and got published in the German CIO magazine here: http://www.cio.de/strategien/methoden/2265759/

It all began with an annoying discovery. Different teams at different Bayer MaterialScience AG (BMS) locations out of the 30 scattered around the world were working on the same subject, not knowing of each others’ existence. This resulted in unnecessary duplicate work, which is not a seldom occurrence in corporate groups the size of BMS with just less than 15,000 employees, but in any case a reason to take action.

“That was the starting point”, remembers CIO Kurt De Ruwe. “If the teams had known they were all working on the same problems, they would probably have stumbled across the solutions sooner.” [see also box: Benefits for the companies]. And yet another aspect played an important role when it came to BMS introducing a collaboration tool: the demographic factor. In the chemicals group boasting a large number of well-trained employees and a large research and development department, the knowledge in the employees’ heads is more than just “human capital”. Even today, it is foreseeable that a series of highly qualified BMS employees will be retiring in the next ten years. “A knowledge management system is to be one of several ways of passing on experience to younger staff”, says De Ruwe.

A good two years have passed since BMS decided to take countermeasures. The first attempts to install a new software tool failed, with both externally purchased and user-developed solutions. “Employees worked with it for a few months and then the whole thing blew over”, reports De Ruwe. BMS was about to suffer the fate of many companies, where attempts to introduce knowledge management end in a huge data cemetery. One essential reason for that is certainly the fact that knowledge management has less to do with technology and more with psychology. De Ruwe knows that. He estimates that “technology perhaps contributes ten percent towards success”. But nevertheless he goes on to say that, “a tool is important if we are to implement the project at all.”

It was by sheer coincidence that De Ruwe stumbled across different software. This wasn’t knowledge management but collaboration software. Connections from IBM. Here, the crucial parameters aren’t databases, information structures or knowledge sources, but simply the way in which human beings are able to communicate something and work together virtually.

BMS is moving in simple steps towards becoming an Enterprise 2.0. A small group of 50 people from research and development is launching a new attempt. Without any assistance in the form of instructions, training or advertising, the circle of users grew within the shortest of times to more than 700 employees worldwide. It is easy to handle. You set up your profile and you tell others about your special areas and interests and what you’re currently working on. Departmental and national boundaries disappear and colleagues who would probably have otherwise never met find each other.

Collaboration goes beyond pure information. A member of De Ruwe’s team had got in touch with other people through Connections. Together, they were able to work out five different ideas that BMS could now even register as a patent. “Without that tool, he’d never have known that these people existed at all”, says De Ruwe.

It has been a while since its use was limited just to research and development. The number of colleagues who collaborate is more than 2,600 on the worldwide scale and is growing continuously. “Because people like how the tool works”, is De Ruwe’s simple explanation. And yet the software does not necessarily offer particularly cunning functionality. Its actual trump card is its simplicity. “Other solutions cope with far more functions”, says the CIO. “But that only leads to confusion.” By contrast, what is far more important than extra features is the fact that all options are embedded in one application. There is no toing and froing between different applications.

In terms of operation, IBM’s solution reminds you of commonly known social networking sites. If Xing or Facebook can do it, so can Connections. Mind you, the tool allows you to do more than just network employees or distribute notifications in an uncomplicated fashion. Using Connections, you can exchange and edit files and documents, you can write a blog and you can draw up a company lexicon using wiki technology. Employee profiles are more detailed and extend far beyond the descriptions in business networks. Employees tailor them more to the company’s needs. And BMS profits from that. “Nowadays, the tool is becoming a crucial source for finding out who the best people for a project are”, says De Ruwe.

The tool is also easy to install. BMS began with Version 2.5 and only just recently changed over to Version 3. “The complete migration process was completed in one weekend”, explains De Ruwe. Worldwide, three people from his team were involved in technical implementation with support from IBM. This is also because BMS has not made any adjustments and is using the pure standard. Only the LDAP application protocol was integrated so that employees don’t have to log in separately.

At the start of this year, BMS had more than 500 active groups, co-called communities, that the employees had created out of their own initiative. Be it for departments such as IT, Accounting, Marketing or topics such as sustainability or women in the company, there are no limits to the imagination. Similarly to Xing groups, the initiators lay down the rules for access to the groups. These range from open communities that anyone can take part in and where everything is visible to closed invitation-only user groups that are invisible to non-members. That’s not all that difficult either, explains De Ruwe. “Starting a community takes 30 seconds and setting up the rules takes ten.”

The CIO himself sets a good example. He is now a member of 30 communities. And they don’t necessarily have anything to do with IT. What’s more, he has got used to hardly ever writing e-mails, instead posting many communications through Connections. “E-mails always go to a closed circle of recipients”, he says. “Often, though, the information is interesting to far more people.” For the opposite approach, he has set up his system so that it keeps him up to date. A message opens up when a certain person has posted something or a subject crops up in a message, a blog or a wiki entry. For example, this is the case with the key words “Program One”, the large SAP project at BMS.

The success that De Ruwe regularly witnesses in user figures and an activity index is now ringing in the next phase at BMS. In 2011 the CIO wants to launch active marketing to push ahead with staff participation. “Collaboration is one of the top three IT issues this year”, he announces. Now, it will be all about continuing on the basis created up to now and expanding it.

BMS will have to master two essential hurdles. Firstly, collaboration takes up time. This is because it takes time to read things and writing takes even longer. Nevertheless, De Ruwe doesn’t allow that argument to count. “That only leads to a situation in which you never begin”, he says. Anyone who knows how to organise themselves well won’t have any problems with the time it takes. “Ten minutes a day is enough.”

Things ought to be far more difficult when it comes to people’s need to express themselves. Anyone who doesn’t say anything in real life will not necessarily become more conversant in a virtual environment. Collaboration calls for an effort on the part of users. Which, contrary to common opinion, doesn’t have much to do with employees’ age. De Ruwe waves aside doubts, saying that “our five most active users are all over 40″. It is rather more the case that many are inhibited when it comes to comparing notes in the semi-public arena of a worldwide corporate platform. They are afraid of compromising themselves or they are not comfortable with the knowledge that they don’t know who is also reading their messages. “The first step is the most difficult”, De Ruwe has learned in the past years. He does not tire of repeatedly encouraging his people to also take this first step.

Conclusion: an exchange of ideas that can lead to patents, problems that can be resolved faster across national borders, feedback from customers that circulates throughout the company, open communication that strengthens employees’ feeling of belonging, and knowledge that is not lost, but is recorded and can be developed further: the list of advantages that justify the collaboration tool at BMS is increasing on a daily basis. “Even today, we have reached the point where we just couldn’t switch it off any more”, says De Ruwe. And he has yet another argument up his sleeve for anyone who is not yet convinced by that, and it’s probably one that will not leave a single CIO unconvinced: “we pay one euro per month per user.” [Text Ende]

Howdy Ya’ll!! I am back in my home tuff with my ropers and my jeans!  Sigh.  Austin SXSW.  Home!

I am in my first great session for Saturday (my first session was a bust!)   It is focused on influence. 

Differences between crowd and a community are:

• Crowds are motivated by pride; Community are motivated by purpose
• Crowds are powered by inspiration; Communities are powered by influence
• Crowds want beneftis; Communities want to belong
• Crowds want connection; Communites are driven by collaboration
• Crowds like to get; Communities like to give
• Crowds are sustained by service; Communites are sustained by Story.

Sometimes you need a crowd.  Sometimes you need a community.    The question is:  How do you move a crowd to a community with purpose!

Eric Knoll from Zappos gave this story.  At Zappos, everyone is trained on the phones for the BEST service.  Eric was on phone and the client was looking for a shoe that was sold out.   He went to look on other sites to find that shoe.  After 15 minutes of searching and chatting, it became apparent that this shoe was 2 seasons old, and not made any more.  But he finally found it on another site, a competitor site, and he gave her the site.   He sent her to that site. And she said “I am so confused”. I only want to buy it from you. So what else do you have that looks similar.   After another 15 minutes — he found the shoes.  This client is now part of the Zappos community.   This is not about graphs – but about people and purpose. To make a client happy!

Live from SXSW!

I am listening to Seth Priebatsch who is working on SCVNGR.COM.  The social layer world is built on today is Facebook, the next layer or era is the gaming layer.

I believe very strongly in Gaming!!!  I help start the gaming initiative at IBM with Innov8 which has lit a fire under social gaming at IBM.  We now have a practice around gaming, a game for Smarter Planet, and more.   Phaedra was the brillant hire I made that has knocked a homerun!   And think about Watson — the ultimate gaming machine!

Interesting points from Seth’s presentation:

1. School is a game. Just a really poorly designed game.  Example:  Grades.  Not based on progression but to accentuate failure.  Cheating as part of gameplay is rampant.   Princeton changed the rules.  Instead of having professors look for cheating, they changed the rules and set up an Honor Code that is self enforcing.  Bottom Line   Learning at   schools could be improved with gaming techniques to make it more engaging. 
2. Client Acquisition Strategy:    Leveraging gaming concepts to acquire clients is the next frontier.   Example used was Groupon with their free lunch offer.  The “free lunch” is a “game”.   Since most people don’t buy that there is a free lunch, they expect a “catch”.  The justification here is “a group has to sign up” so the skeptism is removed.  It attracts new clients through trust.   Groupon also uses communal gameplay.   Groupon leverages a countdown clock and according to research having a group with a timeframe and clear rules is a great gaming tactic. 
3. Location Based Services are not mainstream yet.  And won’t be until the rules of the game are changed.    With the amount of money, the constraint is that you have to be at the location.  So SCVNGR.COM is looking to change the rules to loosely coupled location.  For example, heading to a place, or online at a place.    The other interesting factoid was that when a reward is given like GAP did with checkin and get free jeans, when the reward was removed, the checkins declined. So the effect of checkins was not sustainable.

Overall gaming techniques to use to change your game were:

• Leverage gaming techniques to enhance your client acquisition strategy  ex countdown techniques
• Define your rules; and relook at the way your game rules are used. If too hard, then change them.
• Be careful with rewards — progression looks like best method.  Progression is like good, better best, and no one loses. Example:  American Express does with the green card, up to the desired black card.

Please join me at the B2B MarketingProfs Forum in Boston!  I’ll walk through the Social Business Agenda!

#socbiz #ls11 #ibmsocbiz

Question & Answer with Sandy Carter and Judith Hurwitz
I am thrilled to be here today with Judith Hurwitz, a dear colleague and friend, in the IT industry. She is an amazing woman with lots of knowledge to share . Today is the launch of her new book, Smart or Lucky? How Technology leaders turn chance into success!
Let’s hear what she has to say of this intriguing new book and title!!

Q: Judith, tell us about your day job.A: I am technology consultant and strategist and CEO of Hurwitz and Associates. I differentiate myself by being a thought leader in the space of Cloud, Social Business, Service Management, and Enterprise Computing. I have been doing this for way too long – greater than 20+ years of experience. I wrote this book based on my experiences in the industry.

Q: I know you’ve written other books. Tell us about them.I have written four “Dummies” books: SOA for Dummies (two editions), Service management for Dummies, and Cloud Computing for Dummies and I am now working on a Private Cloud for Dummies. I love to write and share knowledge so in addition to these books I have written lots of customized books on demand that allow managers to quickly understand the importance of emerging technologies to their business.

Q: Why this book? What was your inspiration?The inspiration came from decades of working in the industry. I have worked with so many companies who started out with a bang, and then ended up not making it. And then I have also worked with many companies who started more methodically, and ended up being big and successful. I noticed that the ones that failed didn’t pay attention to the signs of danger. They often didn’t plan well enough in very competitive markets.

In the technology market, entrepeneurs seem to be starting to repeat many of the mistakes of the past decades. It seems to me that the many emerging technology leaders have very short memories! So I wanted to make sure that I documented the best practices and worst practices so that others can learn from the experiences. I wanted to share what I had learned over many years and put in a form that entrepreneurs could use.

Q: Since I am a Social Business Maven, any Social Business stories that you could share?Actually yes! There is a company that I wrote about called Agillion that came to market with a product offering and strategy to create marketplaces based on collaboration. They had all the makings of a Google success but they were 10-12 years too early. There was no infrastructure in place to support the idea. One of the lessons that entrepreneurs need to learn is that there can be an idea that is before its “IT” time!

Q: What are the top 3 Ahas from the Book?Well that’s a tough one! (Pause) But I’ll try to choose from the many in the book!
1) There is nothing new under the sun. All of the new ideas can be traced back to a past innovative idea!
2) We all fall for the bubble or the silver bullet solution to solve a problem. Nothing is ever as easy or simple as it seems but it seems that history does repeat itself and that we continue to believe that it is easy!!
3) The companies who focused on solving the problem of the client were the winners. The loser’s secret? Focus on their technology – not the problems they were trying to solve.

Q: Coolest companies you wrote about?I do compare Google and Netscape. I titled that chapter “the Google Sneak Attack”. The major point is that Netscape did a frontal attack on Microsoft, the #1 leader, and of course, Microsoft attacked back. Google’s approach was “we are just a little ole search engine not really hurting anyone”! Things would be different if they have done a frontal attack by going for world domination!

Q: Anything I didn’t ask you about that you want to tell me about?Yes! I do have a chapter that covers two companies that were on the verge of collapse but have recovered today! I wrote about both IBM and Apple in the chapter called “You are not dead yet”. I discuss how both were able to recover and share the lessons that can apply to others today.

Judith, it sounds like a terrific book! Can’t wait for you to sign my copy!

Sandy

I have been thinking alot of about the new Social Client that Social Businesses will be serving!

Have you thought about the new processes? The new expectations?

I’ll also discuss more about this Social Client in my new book “Get Bold!”

You can order at Amazon.com!

I presented in Argentina this week on Social Business to the Entrepreneur Community there. Since I had an injury, my doctor would not allow me to travel but instead of canceling, we decided to host the meeting via Video, and use video for the presentation, Twitter and Instant messaging to take questions. It was a small but very influential group — so this was a test to see how “Social” we could be!!

I received very good feedback from different sources. I wanted to share with all of you the report with the twitter stream received from Community Manager — this is a best practice .. having a GREAT community manager — but more on that topic in another blog!
Click me and see the TWITTER STREAM !

Very interesting way to know how they received our messages and to know the ones engaged (& twitter enabled!). We have 27 different twitters, wich generated 122 messages with this trending words: #socbiz, el, rt, de, social, @sandy_carter, la, #ibm, en, del, mundo, y, business, @acroglia, via

IBM France (@henririmbaud) has launched a fantastic initiative, a video where IBMers talked about their use of  Twitter, and how it helped them in their daily work.    AT IBM Marketers, Sales, Technical Sales, PR Teams are using Twitter to communicate, share, learn, and contribute.

It’s a fact : IBM is present on the social web. The example of Twitter is inspiring : We have over 25 000 IBMers actively tweeting on  Twitter (source: @adamclyde) and counting… Not only we are present on Twitter but we also have over 300,00 IBMers on Linkedin, 198,000 on Facebook, and growing.

“Be yourself.”  It’s one of the rules of social media:

At IBM, we  don’t have a corporate blog or a corporate Twitter ID because we want the ‘IBMers’ in aggregate to be the corporate blog and the corporate Twitter ID.  “We represent our brand online the way it always has been, which is employees first. Our brand is largely shaped by the interactions that they have with customers.”

Thousands of IBMers are the voice of the company.  

Thousands of Voices

• 17,000 internal blogs
• 1 million daily page views of internal wikis, internal information storing websites
• 15,000,000 downloads of employee-generated videos/podcasts
• More than 400,000 Sametime instant messaging users, resulting in 40-50 million instant messages per day
• 400,000+ employees can access IBM Connections (internal social networking  platform)
• Thousands of external bloggers

Thank you to  @henririmbaud for this fantastic project which featured fellows IBMers , to name a few:  @IBMJoel, @JCDichant, @renaudraffaelli, @nicod92160, @milcent, @benoitbossuet

The video « Twitter en bonne compagnie. L’envie d’échanger » can be found on IBM France and on Youtube  -

Since I hurt my back (funny story in an of itself!), I have been grounded from traveling for 8 weeks!  GULP!  How can I manage my job without traveling?

Well, I have been faring pretty well in the first 5 weeks by leveraging Video as part of my Social Business.

My Tips for Using Video Effectively?

1.   Make sure you test the technology.   I am lucky in that I work for IBM and we have 2 options for Video Conferencing:   IBM Sametime and IBM LotusLive Conferencing.    I always tested the technology so that regardless of where we were using it, it worked!  I always connected 15 minutes early, checked everything out, and had someone local just validate volume, video, and motion was looking good.   I usually had a backup system in play as well, in case something went down.

2.  Choose the RIGHT meetings.   I didn’t use video for ALL my meetings.   I did have substitutes for some situations.  However, here is where I used video:

•  Internal Keynote Address to a Room of 400 people.  We practiced with the video and since it seemed to work well  with the charts on another screen, we did this for an internal enablement session.  It also demonstrated the Social Business Concepts that I was talking about and made it real. It was a success.
• External Keynote Address to a Room of 100 people.  Again, we practiced with the video, and we set up a hashtab in Twitter so that all there could ping me throughout the session.  I posted on the number of Tweets, and the response from the attendees. All positive.  However, it would have been better if I had been there in person just for the networking!
• Client Meeting:  1: Many >20 .   I used video for a client meeting between myself and 20  business associates from a client.   We didn’t have the big projection screens, but more of an intimate video setup.  It worked very well. 
• Client Meeting:  1:Many <10.  Here I actually went for Teleprescence so that the video was not one way, but a two way conversation.   In this case, I had NOT met everyone yet so I felt this was more appropriate for the situation.       I will do this again on Monday of next week.   Obviously I had to leave my home office, but not fly (that is what the doctor meant right?!)

 3.     Non verbal Communitions.  This part was the toughest for me. How do I read the room?  I had no idea how much I changed and altered what I did based on what I saw!    I had local teams in the room so the were instant messaging me the happenings in the room like: who was head nodding, who walked out of the room, where to speed up, and other non verbal signals. This to me was critcal. In fact, in the External Keynote, I had twitter on and asked the attendees to tweet me. That made all the difference in the world

Conclusion

Video was a great way to work in fact, I want to incorporate Video into more meetings.  I think Social Businesses will leverage more video.  I used these in meeting above in Germany, Argentina, US, and Canada.  

 However, the trick is that nothing can replace an in person meeting so perhaps this is best on second or third meetings.   The technology was very easy to work with but still requires pre testing due to so many different firewalls, and settings.  When the video and sound are good, I found this was very effective and the focus was on what I said, vs the tool!   

What do you think?   Do you use video?  When should you use video? 

I’d love to craft a set of best practices on WHEN to use this media successfully.  Let me hear your thoughts!

 All:

I love the reports and research done by GlobalWebIndex, a company based in the UK, lead by Tom Smith! 

Here’s what I learned from my weekend reading and learning!

1.  GLOBAL USE IS GROWING!

1.  The Asian markets — China, Japan and South Korea still have a strong blogging platform focus.

2.  Growth markets of  Brazil, India, Malaysia, Poland and Russia:  Leading in the social networking and microblogging world.

3.  Developed Markets - UK, the US or Canada, – microblogging and social networking strength

2.  REAL TIME is where the growth is!

I also found the thoughts on the growth in real time interesting.  They defined real time as Twitter, Facebook news stream, RenRen in China. 

The stats they shared were: 

• 10% of all web users are updating their social network profile on a daily basis , 24% on a weekly basis.

• Micro-blogs are still updated daily by 5% of all web users. 

• Almost 17% of 16-24s are updating their social network on a daily basis.

• Personal pictures, while still the number one action on a micro-blog, fell by 5% in the period, while links to external news stories increased by 17%.

• Over 70% of users that post more than once a day have streamed a TV show ondemand or live in the last month.

• Mobile users moved from 25% of web users to 33%

3.  Moving to ENTERTAINMENT!

The biggest reason to get social is ENTERTAINMENT — Films, TV, Music, Gaming, etc. growing motivations to use the internet are “finding  Their claim “A clear demonstration of the new age of entertainment that is driving change in how we use the web.”

I was here today in Boston (yes, in person!! but with my purple paisley cane!) to keynote at MarketingProfs B2B Conference.

  This conference is an exciting one as B2B marketing is using more and more social technqiues.  There were over 30 sessions having lessons learned and case studies on uses in real companies today.   There are over 300 great marketeers here learning and eager on these areas.

Roy Young kicked off the day at breakfast.  Do you know Roy ? He is brillant and has a lot of insight!

Key points of far!

• Culture eats strategy for Lunch!
• 15% of your followers are your tippers!  Find them, share with them, and make them your best friends!
• Engagement requires interactive experiences.  Consider mobile, gaming, location based, video, and virtual gifting.
• Embed social into your processes for impact!  15% revenue increase on average for adding social to marketing and sales.
• Have a risk migration plan.
• And don’t forget the Analytics!  Social Analytics are the new black!

More later!

Sandy

I’m one in 300.000 plus giving back to communities around the globe today on IBM’s 100th Birthday for the IBM Centennial Day of Service. I love giving back!  The event today was sponsored by Ginni Rometty and I invited all the women from IBM’s Super Women’s group!  

The event I was at was done with the WEDC.  The Women’s Enterprise Development Center, WEDC, is a not-for-profit microenterprise development program, formed in 1997 to help women achieve economic self-sufficiency through small business development. IBM is partnering with WEDC to help small business owners, most of who are minority and economically disadvantaged women, in a “speed mentoring” session. We’re seeking IBM volunteers with different areas of expertise to act as mentors.

Speed mentoring provides small business owners with an opportunity to gain business knowledge from professionals like you through brief interactions with several IBM volunteers in 60-90 minute time slots.  

I mentored three great women!  The owner of a jewelry design business — KMC Designs; the owner of a Social Reputation Management Company – WriteMinds, and a realtor who specializes in an astrology newsletter.

The three top questions these women entrepreneurs asked me were:

1)  What’s the value of my business being on Facebook or Twitter?  I went through 2 great stories — Richard Scott Salon, my salon in Westchester County who uses Facebook to market his business and does not do any more advertising and hasn’t for 1.5 years! http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Richard-Scott-Salon-and-Day-Spa/54521034706

The value that social brings a small company is the feel of a large company.  It equalizes the playing field!  That’s why small businesses doubled their investment in social for marketing in 2010.  50% of Small Businesses Say Lead Generation is Biggest Benefit of Social Networking.

2)  Is my value proposition right?  This question is the real meat.  In each of the mentoring sessions, we talked through product positioning.  For instance, for the jewelry, we talked about the value proposition of jewelry being “hand made” (perhaps a video showing how it is made on Facebook?) where the inspiration comes from (“nature and outdoor experiences”) and the uniqueness!    The busines WriteMinds is really about Reputation manager but has been struggling positioning around content management. Reputation management is more opportunity, sexier, and more of what she really does!

3)  How do I start if I am not tech savvy?  With all the women, we talked about easy ways to get started.  Using WordPress for blogs, Facebook and LinkedIn classes to get familar quickly, and the important of learning Google Analytics even if you are not technical.   We also talked about hiring a web designer as well as an option.   In all cases, I recommended looking at something like Constant Contact as well.    We also talked about Search Engine Optimization — SEO, and how a web designer could help you do that optimization.   

This is an ongoing relationship for 100 days!  I’ll keep you posted and small business owners, what advice would you give ??

All!

I wnt to start doing a new Social term each Monday for posting!   Mark those calendars to check in!

We are beginning our Social Business Glossary!

Tippers are very important people because they influence everyone else in your network.   Tippers vary by category. For instance, I could be a tipper in Social Business but not in cars.  Knowing who these people are is very important.  In my SOA days, we knew these folks and previewed product announcements, sought advice, and relied on them for shaping our business that grew in share each year.   Much of our success in SOA and BPM came from this strategy!

Tools like the Social Analytics that IBM uses can be used to identify these folks.  Also companies like Deep Mile!

Tell me your favorite way to find your tippers!!

I am here at E2.0!  Moving around a bit slowly but meeting some great clients all day today!  Tomorrow I have a client breakfast, a community manager lunch, a session at 1:30PM  and a book signing!!

http://www.e2conf.com/boston/2011/speaker-list/?speaker=sandy-carter

I love that the conference this year is dedicated to Social Business!  But today I six clients ask me what a Social Business was!

So here’s my first post from E2.0!   What is a social business?

This morning I had breakfast with the Dachis Social Business Council group sponsored by IBM at the Enterprise 2.0!  I am so excited with the announcement here from IDC.   IDC has named IBM the market share leader in social platforms for the second year in a row. According to IDC, the worldwide revenue for social software grew by 31.9% to more than $500 million in 2010 and is expected to grow to $1.8 billion worldwide by 2014.

The breakfast was great today and very relevant to myself and the council members were very active in our discussion!

We had great folks in attendence like Andy from Lowe’s who told me that the $50B retail chain based in my home state of NC!  had over  45 Million Page Views from Social Adoption and 400 communities internal. Sounds like he has done an amazing job there at Lowe’s! 

My key learning from Andy:   Make sure that you embed social in the workflow, that is natural for your teams.

I also met Kevin Jones.  I loved his comments on learning from mistakes.   His major focus is on culture.   He is a true believer that “culture eats strategy for lunch.” 

My key learning from Kevin:   Don’t be afraid of your social business mistakes!  Learn and move on!

Robert Eastman, from SMB Research, discussed the value of Twitter, especially to the small businesses.    

My key learning from Robert:   Twitter is valuable!   Leverage it!

And finally, I know there were so many others that I didn’t get your business card, etc but loved meeting you!  Overall, I also took away:

• Match culture to market
• Technology does make a difference.   However, without the right planning and culture, you will still fail!
• Value of location based services
• Regulated industries are different.     They have to have ediscovery, and beyond (by the way, this is why today we announced the partnership with Actiance today!)

 I walked the group through the Social Business Agenda and gave out the first preview of the book!  YEA!

A  – Align your goals and culture to be ready to become more engaging and transparent. Do not underestimate the task ahead of you.  Culture eats strategy for lunch.  Take a look atIBM’s Social Computing Guidelines as a way to get started!

G – Gain Social Trust focuses on finding your fans, friends and followers, and forming best friends from your tippers or most influential clients or outside parties. It dives into what social trust is all about and how you instill it.

E – Engage through experiences focuses on how a company can engage its clients and employees and dives into gaming, virtual gifting, location based, mobile, or other stellar experiences to drive that engagement.

N – “Social” Network your processes. Since this is about business, figuring out how to add social technqiues to your processes is critical. Think about customer service — adding in Twitter to address your customer’s concerns. Or Crowdsourcing for product innovation, or Communities for incrementing your marketing processes around Loyalty!

D – Design for Reputation and Risk Management! This is the #1 areas of focus for the C level — managing the risk of having your brand online, your employees being your brand advocates, and even your clients becoming your marketing department! I think the value outweighs the risk .. but see how to develop a Disaster Recovery plan as you plan for the worst, and expect the best!

A – Analyze your data! Social analytics are the new black! You need to see the patterns of sentiment, who your tippers are, and listen daily !

I had the HUGE pleasure of meeting today with a group of 10 community managers along with Rachel Happe and Rawn Shah from IBM!  Read this great piece of work by Rachel on 2011 Community Manager report! http://www.slideshare.net/rhappe/the-2011-state-of-community-management

The bottom line is I believe firmly before of the important of Community Management and now am unquestionably sold on it!

Big quotable quotes!

   *  Everyone is a Community Manager!

   *  A Community manager is like a party planner!

   *  Community management is like a cultural translator!

We dished on  Three Major topics!

A)  Types of skills that made a GREAT community manager!

• Relationship skills
• Energizer
• Social Skills
• Coaching
• Facilitation
• “Event” management skills (This came from Jamie thinking about this role as a party planner — getting the wall flowers to enjoy the party, making it fun but valuable, etc!)
• Business skills
• Host or Hostess

B)  How many community managers do you need? 

• The answer we came to is “it depends”  On what?
• Complexity, size of community, and goals
• In addition to community manager you need support from Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)
• Can be done with part timers 3-5 people who spend 10-20% of their time

C)  Where do you find them or how do you grow them?

• Mentoring
• Recommendations
• New curriculum that offers certificate?

The bottom line is this is now a new skill that is emerging and will be a critical success factor for any Social Business.

Gang: I had a great standing room only Theater presentation this week at e2.0.   I love sharing our experiences both the great successes and what we learned from mistakes!

Since I’ve had a lot of requests, here’s my link to the slideshare posting!

http://www.slideshare.net/SandyCarter/e20-theater

I had the pleasure to meet with Lowe’s Andy Carusone at E2.0 and hear about the amazing results that they have achieved.  I loved his style and approach in his success case for Social.  400 Communities active and engaged!

How did they do it? Three key points from Alex Williams’s Blog interview!

• Discovery: The created a Web site at their big sales event. People sought it out. It was a way for the sales people to communicate. This is a critical point. The people wanted more. They were hungry for it. They were not force-fed marketing dribble. They engaged and began reaching out beyond the conference itself. Lowe’s provided the tools. The people used them.
• Transparency: People shared their success. Ideas spread. They cite one example where they gained an additional $1 million in sales. That’s small change, in our view, compared to the social capital gained but that’s a point for another post.
• Behavior: Lowe’s avoided the ROI trap. Hurrah! Instead, they looked at the return on behavior, not technology

And here is the PROUD IBM team wearing the IBM Connections Shirts.

Every Monday we will introduce a new “Social” word! 

Today’s word is Social Business Digital Council.   What is it?

A Social Business Digital Council is a cross organizational body (marketing, HR, product development, supply chain, customer service, and more).   In the most successful cases, it is co chaired by a line of business and IT.   The mission is to explore best practices to share and replicate in the company.  In addition, the Council should help to craft the Social Computing Guidelines,  set up a content activation strategy, create a Risk Management and Reputation Management plan, and provide guideance to the company.  It is not set up to be a blocker of social tools and techniques but rather a promoter of Social Business for competitive advantage.    It will also ensure that the right level of Social Business Education is provided.

I ran a digital council when I was the CMO of our IBM WebSphere division. 

What about you?  Do you have a digital council?  If so, share with me your best lessons learned!

@RODINCoglinMil sent me an article on Women vs Men on LinkedIn.  She asked my thoughts about it.The report is from LinkedIn — looking at where Women are great Social Networkers and which industry they are not!

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/technology/2011/06/women-still-dont-get-linkedin-says-linkedin/39152/

Intersting to me — is that Women ReTweet Men more than women, and Men ReTweet Men more than women!

So the question I pondered, is how do you improve your Networking — both Virutal and In Person!

Tips for Women to More Effectively Network!

1. Make Time for it!   This is a big difference in men and women. I once asked my male mentor about networking and he said he considered it part of his job.  Most women consider it extra credit.
2. Select the Right Areas — whether the right LinkedIn Group, or beyond.   I think that you cannot do everything.  So for instance, I started with 3 LinkedIn groups about Authors but ended up selecting one of value.
3. Be interesting!  Showcase your compelling self!     On LinkedIn, have a great Photo, complete your entire Profile, and make sure you have  a great elevator pitch!  
4. Show interest!   Listen to people, ask Questions (you can do this in the Q session on LinkedIn).  Join great groups of interest.   
5. Follow up on the referrals you have been given and cultivate.  I recently met a group of 10 fabulous people but knew I couldn’t keep up the same with each.  So I prioritzed. While I followed up with all, I dedicated more time and more followups to a select few.

I have to work at networking daily.  I try to have lunch out once a month, connect with 10 new people each month, and provide value to 10 people each month either in connecting them to others, providing them information I think will value them, or just in general providing advice!

What do you do?    What should we do?  I’d like your active conversation.

Today I took my daughters to the pool.  My youngest is taking lessons and is now on the swim team.  While in the past she has not been able to even come close to my oldest daughter’s speed, today, she exceeded it and won the races between the two of them!

Yes, even on my holiday, I think about Social  Business and how this analogy could help my clients! 

My oldest is  more atheletic and determined.  But her form was not the best, and she splashed more than stroked. She really doesn’t want anyone to show her how it is done, because she is so confident in her own abilities.  The youngest had been taught by someone more experience and glided through the water focusing more on her form, her goal, and the techniques and won the race.

I was thinking about this in regards to my clients in Social Business.  I see many companies who are so talented and passionate about their product and clients.  But with Social, they jump in the water and splash around their excitement.   They don’t have a plan, and they have not studied best practices, and so while the motivation is great, the results are not up to what they could be.

Then I have other clients who focus on learning from the best, practicing inside their 4 walls, and then begin their quest to better serve their clients.  Those companies who focus on their goals, their culture, and the way they reach their clients are winning today.

Which one are you?

This is our continuing Social Business Monday Word of the Day!

Crowdsourcing;  Leveraging the wisdom of the crowd to generate new ideas and to refine ideas that exist, as well as vote on the “best” idea. Crowdsourcing leverages the collective intelligence of many people to try to solve a problem or generate new ideas. Crowdsourcing is also sometime referred to as “wisdom of the crowd” or “collective intelligence”

Crowdsourcing is an important part of your strategy.   It is about soliciting customer wants leveraging the blogosphere.  Leading companies engender loyalty by directly involving customers in defining emerging needs, constantly tuning offerings to satisfy the customers’ rapidly changing preferences. These leading companies leverage their clients and potential clients by making sure they are providing what customers want tomorrow, instead of what they wanted yesterday.

Throughout the global world, crowdsourcing with customers is a new competitive trend. Collaboration across different channels to create new products and services is becoming tablestakes. Companies are increasingly expected (by their clients) to follow them wherever they communicate with or about them through all possible channels. Not surprisingly, standouts are 13% more focused on new or different channels. It opens up new ways to engage with customers to harness their creativity and co-create to develop new products and service models.

Have you done it?   Share your results!

Every once in a while someone really amazes you. And extends you help and experience.   That happened to me at an Avnet Conference last year.  I met Jeff Gitomer and a great relationship has formed.  He has advised me on my new Thought leadership book GET BOLD.  

Why am I writing about this on the Social Business Blog?!

Well, the common thread that Jeff and I shared was seeing the vision of Social.   I think you know that Jeffrey Gitomer’sSocial BOOM! is on Amazon today.  Over the past 20 years, Jeffrey has established himself as a global authority on sales and customer loyalty, and one of the most widely read business authors of all time. His books have appeared on best seller lists more than 750 times, and have sold millions copies worldwide.

Social BOOM!, Jeffrey’s newest breakthrough book, is everyone’s guide to catching, riding, and mastering the tidal wave of business social media that is sweeping across the globe and changing the face of business forever. This is your step-by-step plan to attract, engage, and connect worldwide through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.

Last week, President Obama hosted a TWITTER Town Hall Meeting, a first of it’s kind. 

Tens of thousands of questions were tweeted to #AskObama on Twitter about the economy, health care and other important issues. The response was amazing.”

Goals of the Twitter Town Hall –

Happy Monday!

This is our series on Monday of new Social Business Words, that didn’t exist before Social came on the scene!  At the end of the series, I will share a full glossary of terms for your use!

Today’s term is one of my favorites!  Social Business Digital Council!

A Social Business Digital Council is a cross-organizational body (marketing, HR, product development, supply chain, customer service, and more). In the most successful cases, it is cochaired by a line of business and IT. The mission is to explore best practices to share and replicate in the company. In addition, the Council should help craft the Social Computing Guidelines, set up a content activation strategy, create a Risk Management and Reputation Management plan, and provide guidance. It is not set up to be a blocker of social tools and techniques but rather a promoter of Social Business for competitive advantage.

How many of you have Digital Councils?   I ran a Digital Council at IBM for our IBM SOA Group, and am on a few as a guest of my clients.  I’d love ot hear what yours looks like and how successful it is! 

I found this quite interesting!  If all US Internet Time was condensed into an hour. The fastest growing usages would be:

1.  Social Networks/Blogs

2.  Portals

3.  Instant Messaging

4.  Games

This past weekend I watched a segment on Social Detox.   What is Social Detox?  It is about “you” giving up all your “devices” like your iphone, ipad, computer, and gaming platforms and go to the “real” world!

According to a recent survey by American Express, 79% of travelers expect to remain connected to their mobile devices on their next vacation. Among those planning to check email, 68% say they will do so for work.

Oops that’s me!   I did try to give up my Tweeting for Lent but it just didn’t work. So I gave up chocalate instead.  Much easier!

As I dug around, I found that some hotels have introduced “digital detox” packages that offer discounts to customers who forgo using smartphones and laptops during their stay, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Among the hotels offering such packages: the Renaissance Pittsburgh Hotel, the Hotel Monaco Chicago, the Quincy in Washington, D.C., the Teton Mountain Lodge & Spa in Teton Village, Wyo. and the Lake Placid Lodge in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Has anyone gone to one?! I’d love to hear about it!

Sandy

Do you see anything missing from this truck?

Businesses are changing how they communicate with their customers. The telephone, an email address, and even a web site URL are often being replaced with social networking icons, near-universal symbols that direct customers to interact with a business via Facebook and LinkedIn, or to reach out and ask questions via Twitter. This transformational shift in how businesses communicate will have a profound impact on the Social Business requirements to effectively communicate, inside and outside the corporate firewall.

What changes have you made in your communications as a Social Business!!!

Today’s Social Business Word of the day is Tipper.  It is one of my favorite because if you do know know who your tippers are, then your efforts in social will not be as effective as they could be.

Tipper.  Someone who influences the rest of the clients and potential clients online and offline, usually about 5% to 10% of your product’s or category’s population.

Who is a tipper?  Those who have the most influence on YOUR market.

Some common ways to determine your Tippers:

• KLOUT score
• http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-build-a-free-social-media-monitoring-dashboard/#more-9739
• Cognos Consumer Insight

How do you find your Tippers?

I had asked my team to share with me stories where they had leverage Social Tools.   Here’s a pretty cool real world example of that philosophy in action told to me in Dallas Texas by Duffy Fron!

“David beat Goliath in Cary, NC this week” – that was the headline after a small band of concerned citizens blocked the US Government from operating an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center adjacent to a NC neighborhood.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/07/12/residents-north-carolina-town-defeat-federal-plans-to-set-up-facility-there/

This small band of citizens was able to do so much in so little time because we used social software to inform and mobilize an army of people to call and e-mail their Congressmen and Senators. Using Social Software such as Twitter, Facebook, and a Portal website (www.stopcaryicenow.org) our community successfully blocked the US Government’s plans. The GSA posted a press release on July 12th informing us of their decision to terminate their current SFO in Cary, NC This press release came out exactly three weeks from the day that we vowed to stop this project.

What makes something like this work in speaking your mind? 

• Multiple networks assisting in the message
• Someone is listening ( i tweeted with 1000′s about US Air incident – and no response!)
• Don’t give up — more than just one or two articles blogged, or tweets

What else? How can you help others use this media to make a differnce?

I am here in DC with Keith Yamashita and SY Partners!

With a group of companies, he led us through the What does it mean to be human and social!?  The bottom line:  Don’t fight both!  You are human — don’t lose that when you go online!!

We first answered a question “If you were with friends, and told a joke that hurt someone. How would you respond?   When would you respond?   and “How would your friends feel?”  No one finds this difficult because you are “human”.

However when we walk through the doors of the office and we forget these basic rules.   Being Responsive, Quick, heartfelt is important.  We know how to respond.  

Why do we change in the social media world?

The example they gave was from J&J, where when they launched their Motrin campaign offended moms.  The Moms took to Twitter, Facebook, and mommy blogs.  This continued through the weekend, and Motrin did not respond until Monday, when it removed the ad, and released a statement that Seth Godwin commited sounded like “it had been put together by a committee.”

Points: 

1.  People Gossip and Listen to Gossip! We are expressing this same behavior from the 17th century but social is amplifying it. 

2.  People want recognition.  Example – Foursquare with the badges.

3.  people seek outlets for their creativity.   Youtube example with 6M people watching someone build a lego version of Marion on video!

4.  People define themselves by the groups they belong to.    Networks of people.

5.  People fiercely defend their beliefs.  Example:  Nestle campaign about the “proposed” deforestation.

6.  People seek redress for their grievances.  People want to restore a sense of equity. Example:  Maytag from mommy bloggers.

7.  People join forces with strangers to achieve a common goal.  Example:  Raising money for Haiti online.

8.  People defy authority.  Example:   LibyanYouthMovement fueled the “gathering” in the streets.

9.  People try to make boring sites fun.  Example:  Keos healthcase game.

Thinking through the “uses” of social, the list below came from a worksession in DC where we were more focused on the use of Social Tools vs just the Tool itself.!

Did we leave anything out? 

• Lifecasting – like blogs where you document your activities or thoughts
• Crowdsourcing – like ideation –> innovating!
• Gaming Dynamics — to make everyting funner!
• 
• Real time communication — the  most common I think! like IBM connections, Twitter, Facebook!
• Social Commerce like groupon, Gilt — Timed offers that will run out if the group doesn’t come together!
• Social Review – going shopping with your 1000 best friends!  Like amazon, yelp, tripadvisor!
• File/Content Sharing – like Slideshare and Youtube!

Questions that you should think through!

1. In what ways is your company doing a great job of unleashing human potential to creat value
2. Which human drives or behaviors patterns could you tap into more?
3. What are your greatest opportunities?
4. Which social Tech can help you amplify and accelerate those opportunities?
5. How will you activate your organization an dothers to do this?

I cannot wait for the Future of Marketing today at July 28th at 1pm ET (10am PT/6pm BST).   The event kicks off the story of Sarah DeLash, a fictional senior marketer who’s trying to reinvent her brand for a rapidly evolving world. 

Sarah’s challenge: to launch an integrated marketing campaign, across multiple channels and platforms, that not only engages customers and stakeholders in a real-time conversation–but also grows the business at the same time.

See how the experts like Guy Kawasaki, Chris Brogan, and Brian Solis, and brands such as American Express, IBM, Coca-Cola, provide her advice!!!  In VIDEO!!!! 

To register, go here: http://futureofmarketing.com/registration/

Today, our Social Business word of the week is Engagement.  

My thought is that Engagement is the Energy of Social Business.

Engagement is about your connection with your clients, influencers, and others.   Your emotional connection with your client or employee usually created by exceptional experiences that are integrated, interactive and identifying.  A Social Business  connects people to expertise. It connects individuals whether customers, partners or employees as networks of people to generate new sources of innovation, foster creativity, and establish greater reach and exposure to new business opportunities.

It establishes a foundational level of trust across these business networks and thus a willingness to openly share information, developing a deeper sense of loyalty among customers and employees. It empowers these networks with the collaborative, gaming and analytical tools needed to engage each other and creatively solve business challenges.

How do you engage?

All:  I have been doing a LOT of meetings with companies starting their Social Business journey and the top 3 mistakes that I see people begging advice on is the below!

1. Social Media and building communities is not a PR, Communications and Marketing task only. It needs commitment and engagement from the whole team.  That’s why it is Social Business, not just Social Media!

2. Social Media is risky.  How do I eliminate the risk?  The answer is, you can’t!   There are ways to mitigate the risk but the risk is there as it is in many cases.   I recommend a Repuation Manage proactively monitor this online but that you have a Risk management plan.

3. You can not outsource Social. Some of our leaders asked me “who writes your blog?”  They wanted to hire external ghostwriters for a blog etc. I recommended not to do it because the success of the Social channels depend on personality and authentic writing & communication.  This needs to be personal. 

There are huge debates on the value of Klout.  (Don’t know what it is ?  Go to Klout.com and check it out!) Klout currently tracks a user’s Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin and Foursquare activity. It is reportedly looking at Google+ integration!!

My Klout score to date is 61. 

I have been reading about it for a while.  

From the Klout blog: “We think you are influential. Klout isn’t about figuring out who is on the ‘A-list.’ We believe that every person who creates content has influence. Our mission is to help every individual understand and leverage their influence.”

Do you use Klout?  I have noticed some putting their Klout score on their business card (which is interesting as it changes weekly for me!)

Let me hear from you!   Sandy

I am at BlogHer today — Saturday — and in the session on Video Blogging!   BlogHer was held in San Diego this week with nearly 3,500 woman bloggers in attendance!!  Women who blog are influencing purchasing

Vidoe in blogs could be as simple as adding video to a current blog, or hosting a show online using video.  Video is the most trusted media online today so experiment with this form of communication!

For Social Business, here is one of my first videos.  Your comments?

Top 5 Tips I learned in the session:

1.  Tools.  Make sure you use a good camera and great audio system.  People will tolerate an ok picture but the audio must be understandable.   While many people use the iPhone for video, most said the best was the Canon 5U

2.  Great links that were discussed that I was not aware of!   Biglive — for charging for your videos, youtube.com/playbook for great video tips like SEO; trafficgeiser.com & Tubemobile both for ways to watch traffic.  Also use “smoosh it” plugin on @wordpress to smoosh your older and current photos on blog to complement your videos.  Cool one!   Steps to get your link right for promotion of all your videos, not other recommended videos from YouTube:  upload viceo to youtube, go to your channel, click on the video you want to promote within your channel, and then use the url at the top from that click, not the suggested url.

3.  Drive to integration of your online prescence.  For the videos, have consistent opening and closing and include where you “live online”.  So your twitter id or your blog.  Unless you “live” in YouTube, make sure you are getting them over to your homebase!  At the end of a lot of videos, it freezes on the last screen.   So give them something to remember. 

4. People Driven.   Remember, there are people behind all these networks.     It is all about understanding what people are looking for, and how you can assist them.   You have to engage people 1:1.  Add value, provide good content consistently, and have active engagement w/ audience & reach. 

5. Livestreaming.  Using gaming techniques — like join the conversation at 2PM, create a scarcity to your livesteam. Check out ustream and livestream. 

We concluded with the monetization of videos.   For example, in beta, there is an application, so that you can get paid for your videos.  One example was a person who does training and in a private password protected site, she posts her training videos for those who attend her class as a differentiation!   There was a discussion of using blip as well to make money.

Anyone out there with more tips of videos?

At Blogher, Indra Nooyi, CEO of Pepisco, spoke to 3500 women at Blogher on Saturday. She really set the pace saying that the future of Pepisco is Digital!

Why don’t more CEOs leverage Social?  Or do they?   

Here’s the facts that I gathered on CEOs using Social.

1.   George Colony, the CEO of Forrester, had an interesting view on CEOs  This is taken from his interview withBarb Dybwad .   “I polled the audience and asked, “How many people in this audience have a CEO who they think could be social?” And I would say it was about 10%. Yeah. So that’s today — five years from now you put the numbers out. Maybe 20%? And maybe 10 years from now — I think it’s going to be 50% in 10 years. I think boards are going to be looking for people who can be social. Now in crisis, look at Toyota. The CEO of Toyota had a blog, but it was in Japanese. And it was about driving. So, he sells most of his cars to in English-speaking countries, and no one could understand it. That would have been a very good tool for him to use during this crisis, I think, to hear from the CEO in the CEO’s voice. He came and testified in front of U.S. Congress, so he could have preceded it with some talking about it socially, and that would have helped their cause I think.”
2. On LinkedIn, there are 1.3M people who are listed as CEOs.   Many of them are firms that market to CEOs, but I would estimate about 1M CEOs are on linkedIn.  I could not tell how active they are. 
3. From PR firm Weber ShandwickThe study also found that the most admired CEOs had a greater online presence (41 percent) than those who were less admired (28 percent). CEOs with more years on the job tended to be heavier social networkers. And CEOs running American companies proved more socially active online than those in EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa), Asia Pacific, and Latin America.Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20019465-93.html#ixzz1UYBtOVore

4. Great case examples. I love Bill Marriott’s blog,  It is sassy, informative, and transparent  http://www.blogs.marriott.com/  On Twitter, I love Zappos’s Tony’s tweets, and on LinkedIn Gary Kelly, the CEO of Southwest Airlines, and his use of Answers.   I’d love to know your FAVORITE CEO bloggers, twitters, etc!

5. Indra Nooyi Sets Pace at Blogher.  I found that Indra set the pace for other CEOs at Blogher on Saturday by recognizing that her company’s future is tied to digital!   

What do you think?   Should CEOs be Social ?   Or not?

Team:

I am honored to have been asked to write an IBM point of View on Social Business.  This book, called GET BOLD, comes out on September.  It has inside its covers over 70 case studies from Great and Leading Clients like:  Celestica, Avery Dinenison, IBM, Cemex, BASF, and more.

Compliments of IBM, here is Chapter 1 to you to see what it will contain!

Get_Bold_Sampler

A few days ago, I posted on how we are using Twitter to get leads into our system.

I received several comments and questions about lead passing.   Let me share with you a few examples of how we use social to pass leads!  Afterall, we do not want to throw those new leads away!

A potential customer from “Endicott College” is navigating IBM’s solutions for Higher Education and online collaboration for virtual students. As they explore the site, an ibm.com representative is notified and asks the customer if they want to chat via instant messaging.

After a couple conversation, connecting on LinkedIN, and additional information is provided, the customer wants to see how the product works and talk with other customers.

The ibm.com representative checks the Social CRM system at IBM as well as searches for product experts and local representatives close to Endicott College campus. The ibm.com representative also posts his/her micro-blogging status internally about the interest in online collaboration from Endicott College.

Within hours, multiple people inside IBM comment on his/her status. Some comments are from peers working with other customers in Higher Ed and wanting to get ideas for solutions. Some comments are from local resources at IBM that are familiar or alumni at Endicott College and want to make sure they get connected with the right IBM resource.

It even caught my attention as I was going out to meet with another University in the fall. The power of internal micro-blogging is not necessarily about the mass followers and tippers as it is in the consumer space like Twitter and YouTube. The power is in the more granular details provided in a secure manor while still leveraging the tippers inside your organization firewalls.

All IBMers had access to this micro-blogging status and unlike Twitter, he/she was able to post the customers name. IBM guidelines prevent employes from specifically sharing customer names unless authorized. Had it not been for he/she stating she was working with “Endicott College”, the thread would not have generated local responses and the details that followed.

All:  I love SXSW and the conference in Austin! It has the best forward looking views on Social!

For some reason, my entry this year on the site is having a title issue so that no one can find it to search on it. I still your votes!! Can you please help me?!

While SXSW is working on it, the only way to vote for my session is to go direct.

http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/ideas/view/8873

Today I was seeing how Social Business is impacting everyday life, not just work!

Hybrid media is now becoming common. As I am watching the weather on the hurricane, I saw the “traditional ” media mixed with social.  Check it out!

ThenI went to Chick Filet — one of my favorites!  And going through the drive in for the Ice Tea, I saw this one!

And then in Willmington, NC where I vacationed, I saw this with the caption:   100 years ago, the people of Wilmington used to meet, enjoy picnics, and socialize in an area known as “3rd Street Plaza”, so it goes today but in a social network!

I ‘d love to see what you see that is now showcasing that Social is now our 5th transformational trend today!

As I was in Hurricane Irene this weekend, I thought of the similarities of a Hurricane and Social Media!
1. The EYE.   A Hurricane makes motion around its Eye, the center of the storm.   A Social Business should make motion around its value add..  It should focus on sharing expertise and ways to listen, more than just pushing its message into the blogosphere. 

2.  Hurricanes have no fronts.   Social Businesses are the same.  They are transparent.  There are no fronts to them. They are open, and honest. They share information freely across all parties.

3.   None are immune to Hurricanes.  As we learned with Irene, all can be touched by one of the triple forces of  the winds, rains, and waves.   Just as none are immune to Social.  You cannot “opt out” of being Social.     Your company can choose to embrace it for deepening relationships with your clients, or ignore it at your own peril, not realizing what is being said about you.

4.  You need to watch the direction and progress of a Hurricane.   With Irene, we watched the signs of when it might hit, and where it might hit. Social Businesses need to listen to their clients, and influencers.    Without seeing what the comments and feedback is, you cannot be prepared and grow as a company. 

5.  Be prepared.   While seeing the Hurricane approach us in NY, we got prepared with flashlights, water, and food.    As a Social Business, you need to be prepared to arm your employees with the right tools in the market.   I loved this quote from a site in NC:  . It is not if a hurricane will hit but when.  With this in mind, knowledge and preparation are essential.  I believe the same is true with Social.  Social is the 5th transformational IT trend that is impacting the way we work.
 

I’d love you to order the new book with IBM’s Point of View on Social Business and over 70 case studies that you can learn from!

Here’s a quick peek!

Get Bold!  Use Social To Drive Up Your Sales Results!

Social media is changing everything.  I don’t have to tell you (or Jeff Gitomer who wrote Social Boom!) that Social media will change the way we live and work.   It is the 5^th business transformation that will impact every aspect of business.  

On 9/15/2011, Get Bold! will be released on Amazon.com.  It is filled with over 70 case studies, and a framework to help your business create their own Social Business Agenda. Order it here! 

http://www.amazon.com/Get-Bold-Social-Create-Business/dp/0132618311/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314717843&sr=1-1

It is a Must Read because:

1. It shares advice from a business leader who has leveraged Social Media to drive ROI in her businesses.
2. It has an actionable framework to help you do something, not just read something. The Social Business Agenda has been used in over 64 countries for business success!
3. The story is told with over 70 case studies from companies in B2B, B2C, small, medium, and large, and every industry and country. 
4. It is about real ROI.    Did you know that on average adding Social into your sales process increases your sales by 15% according to a McKinsey Study?
5. It recognizes that transformation takes more than luck, technology or prayer.  It takes a culture.  Afterall, Culture eats strategy for Lunch!

Adding social to your sales process makes you more competitive.

As an example of what you will learn in the book, read this real case study!

In IBM, our ibm.com team must attract a high volume of leads from a new set of customers.  Since Social has become a tool for getting information on products and services, we wanted to explore how to leverage word of mouth.   For instance, after a Twitter search or deeper conversation in a LinkedIn group or forum, potential buyers might ask companies for more information, but they also often turn to their peers, other clients and trusted advisors.

So our ibm.com team decided to go social.  Our inside sellers drove prospects to their Rep Pages –- personalized ibm.com pages that play a “virtual business card” role for inside sellers. These pages have relevant information to clients, enhance the relationship, and give clients one-click access to interact with their reps.

After training on how to engage and nurture potential clients, the ibm.com team built Twitter profiles to establish a presence in the social networking world. The ultimate objective of this pilot was for sellers to use social media to add value to conversations and build a pipeline of leads.

We (IBM) also worked with an outside firm to identify the most prominent influencers in the our space, so sellers could then follow them and comment on or retweet their posts and learn and connect.  We developed a unique engagement strategy for each influencer, based on their activity and what they were saying.

To make it easy to maintain their Twitter presence, sellers also have a social message calendar, accessible via the feed reader function within Lotus Notes. The calendar features time-sensitive messages reps can tweet, with enough content for three tweets a day.

Over a 7 month period, these ibm.com teammates increased their Twitter followers by 5X  

In the first two weeks of this effort, sellers’ Rep Page visits rose by 106 percent –thanks to a systematic pattern of Twitter mentions. The sellers reached 1.9 million contacts.

As we move ahead, social selling success will be reflected by the rep’s Klout score,  which gauges influence in the social world, an increase in the number of direct Twitter followers, and relationships developed with key influencers.

I’d love your comments and feedback on  “Draw Up Your AGENDA,” provides a showcase of complete Social Business AGENDA case studies with a summary on each workstream your company will need to complete.   Here are my top 10 tips for your Social Journey!

Many thanks to Jeff Gitomer for his mentorship on writing this book!! He is SUPER!

Social networking has had a profound effect on society. Couple this with the explosion of mobile devices makes this the right time to move from the hands of teens to business!

Consider these facts:

- There are more than one billion mobile users

- 86 percent of business people now use social media to help them make business decisions, according to a recent report from the Renegade firm.

- Sales of smartphones and tablets have surpassed PCs;

- 72 percent of firms surveyed by Aberdeen Group say they allow employees to use their own smartphones or tablets for work;

- A recent IDC survey said that 95 percent of workers have used technology they purchased for themselves for work;

- Global mobile data traffic is projected to grow 26 times over the next five years, according to a Kleiner-Perkins slideshare presentation.

Due to this Mobile Explosion, I thought I’d share the recent Social Business press release on this topic!

Check it out! 

I was delayed last night traveling and read about a study in Psychology Today while waiting for transportation.

According to this study, 302 is the optimal number of Facebook friends. Why?  Psychologically, people with over 302 friends are viewed as being too focused on the “number” of friends vs relationships. 

Quite intriguing! 

Team:  I wanted to share this best practice with you on Social Selling!

Since Aug 15, IBM sellers can compete for over 40 merit badges, used to recognize and promote identified social accomplishments and behaviors.

For example, we have a badge that sellers can “win” if they join Twitter, or exceed a certain threshold for followers, or install the latest version of software on their own personal workstation.

That way we know our sellers are living social, and also we are sure that they are using and demonstrating the latest/appropriate versions of our software.

This strategy is a gaming type strategy to motivate the sellers to have the highest skills possible!

Stats at a glance:

• Individuals from thirty-two countries have received 1,000 badges
• 60% of badges go to people outside the US.
• 51% of applicants receive the most popular badge.
• 71% of applicants receive more than one badge.
• 22% receive more than 10.

The program has been open for business for four weeks.

First two weeks it was word of mouth; resulting in about 200 badges. We purposely has a “soft opening” so we could build a groundswell or early adopters who would microblog about it.

Such a ‘soft launch” is a best practice for launching any kind of new social program — give yourself some time to build a tipper network for it.

In week three, I formally announced it via email, and badge requests have quadrupled & exploded, to exceed 1,000.

Here’s a view!  What do you think?

I am in the Phillipines this week at the Social Business Asian Tour! And TRUE the Phillipines is a TOP Social Media Country!   They have not applied all the work to Business yet…but wow — their personal use is truly amazing!

According to comScore Media Metrix, January – April 2011, the Phillipines is the #1 country of Facebook penetration with 93% participation from online users!  And they have the highest % of time on Social Networking worldwide.  And they are #9 in the world on their usage of Twitter!

 At present, the Philippines continues to hold the top spot for Facebook penetration and also ranks highest in share of time spent on social networking properties across the world, making it the most social media-addicted market globally. Of the total time spent online in April 2011 by the Philippines’ online audience, 41.3 percent was spent on social networking sites.

I am here this week with the MAP group speaking with the CEO of MySpace about Social!    Did you know that the FIRST IBM product here was a Clock and the retired IBMer who made it still maintains it for free?!

Check out our GREAT team here in the Philipines!

Thanks for the great feedback on the Social Busienss Coffee Breaks!!   We will have more coming too!

I am in China now and the big question here is What is Social Media?  And what is Social Business!

Here is a view.  Tell me what you think.  Does this help?

Hey!   I am heading to Europe in October!   Our Social Business Jam Camp has 3 parts: a bus tour, JamCamp, and developer headstart.

First, it starts with the bus tour Oct. 10 – Oct.18. We are going to visit customers, publications, universities, and business partners!We will be live tweeting, blogging, videoing during the tour. And our fun event — our wine tasting 2.0. Together with Cordelia Krooß from BASF, we are selecting a wine village, which is using social media to promote their vines.

The second part is the JamCamp in Frankfurt on Oct. 19 and 20. The JamCamp is again a combination of a conference with fixed agenda and an Open Space event. So we will 1-2 tracks during the event, where people can vote on. In the agenda we are having you kicking the event off. We have many great client speakers like Kurt De Ruwe, the Bayer CIO, Cordelia Kroob from BASF on connect.BASF, with AIIM Ambassador Hanns Kohler-Kruner on the AIIM Social Business Roadmap, with the German Compliance guru Dr. Ulrich Kampffmeyer on Compliance and Social Biz, with Claudia Pelzer on crowd sourcing (she is running the German Crowdsourcing blog), with Martin Meyer-Gossner on the web site of the future!

The final part is a developer workshop day on Oct. 21. We have the Social Business developer workshops and we are repeating a ‘How to become a Social Business’ workshop with Prof. Joachim Niemeier, René Werth and Peter Schuett.

The hashtag for the event is #jamcamp. The event page is online on  ibm.com and we are leveraging our German BM Social Business channels and pages on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube for promotion.

I can’t wait to see you all there!!!

I just left Singapore — sad to leave.

From a Social Business perspective,  the country is moving ahead on Social Business.   Janet Ang, IBM’s Country General Manager,  is an avid Social evangelist in the country and it shows.

Case in point is Singapore Airlines, my fav airline in the WORLD as they have amazing service (see below as I left my plane and the team took pictures with me as we chatted on Social around the world!)

Singapore Airlines turned to IBM to Empower its geographically distributed workforce, leveraging IBM Connections for communities in marketing and human resources.    With this expansion, the airline has started to strengthen their global communications.       (Read their press release here:   http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/32535.wss )

Its clients want it to be a great brand online as well as offline.     I loved this blog of suggestions to Singapore!  Its message…As of last month, there were 191 airlines on Twitter. Of these, only 85 had actively been tweeting. And only 28 provided 80% of all tweets! Singapore Airlines has been a great offline brand. My hope is that this doesn’t become the case of too little. Now, they need to make sure they don’t get lost in the crowd of 191 airlines on Twitter, and create a brand on social media that’s just as lovable

http://simpliflying.com/2011/welcome-to-branding-2-0-singapore-airlines-now-what-twelve-tips-to-do-social-media-right/

Communities are so important to a Social Business.  In fact, communities are the way to deepen client relationships and endender loyalty!  I hope you enjoy this short coffee break!

I had the pleasure of being on the “This Week in Lotus”  last week – it was great fun !! 

I thank both Stuart and Matt for their passion for Social!

http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3523697345-audio-player.swf

All! We have had such great response to the Social Business Coffee breaks that we will continue these every week through the end of the year.

Presenting this Monday’s Coffee Break on one of my favorite subjects — Social Analytics!

One of our top partners, DeepMile Corporation, talked to me about Social Analytics and listening!  I am here in DC and working on the Social announcement of IBM’s new Smart Cloud for Government, one that is FIPS and FISM compliant.  I thought this story was particularly relevant on Social Analytics!

 Who’s listening on Social ? An important aspect of an effective government social strategy is measuring its effectiveness with constituents and businesses.  New Social Analytics are emerging to measure an individual’s effectiveness to influence others in social network domains.  Here are the results of an Arab Spring Case Study to see who was really responsible for mobilizing the crowds in Egypt during Arab Spring. 

Social Tipper Metrics measures an individual’s social effectiveness by comparing the number of their followers and the number of reactions generated when that individual sent out a social message.  For example, Wael Ghonim was thought to be the biggest influencer in mobilizing Egypt’s constituents during Arab Spring.  While he had 86,000 followers on Twitter, his twitter messages created 3,291 reactions within his social networks.  The real influencer of mobilizing the masses were Weddady.  While he 6,900 followers, when he sent out messages, 1,281 reacted in some fashion to his messages.  Weddady had a much higher metric *186) on his ability to influence other people’s behavior through social. 

By measuring a “Tippers” effectiveness, government agencies can focus their marketing campaigns more effectively on constituents who influence the masses.  Justin Bieber sent out a few tweets reference Egypt and Arab Spring, there were not many reactions to his input. 

 Background:

• DeepMile analyzed 25,000,000 relevant tweets over one week
•  Identified communities, sub-communities and mass influencers related to events in Egypt
•  Analyzed “who” actively influenced discussions causing messages to cascade – or go viral
•  Correlated activity to events in the physical (offline) world 

The importance of Analytics is key!

Keeping on the path of the Social Analytics is the NEW Black .. here is a great case study from our IBM Press Book entitled Get Bold! 

Seton Hall University (SHU) is a major Catholic university located in South Orange, New Jersey. In a diverse and collaborative environment, it focuses on academic and ethical development.

As a private educational institution, Seton Hall University relies on tuition as its primary source of revenue. Prospective students consider degree programs, reputation, location, and many other factors as they “shop” for a college. But a college education encompasses more than tangible product characteristics such as these. Much of the college experience is about the relationships students build once they arrive on campus[md]in the classroom, in the dorm, and through participation in on-campus events and organizations.

Seton Hall decided to try to increase their revenue by focusing on the relationship aspect of their university and decided to use Facebook as their relationship space. Seton Hall marketers used the capabilities of social analytics in an initiative to increase enrollment for the upcoming academic year. The project involved the launch of the Class of 2014 Facebook page. The goal is to extend the core one-to-one brand attributes of Seton Hall to prospective students, including a sense of community, feeling of home, diversity of experience, and, sometimes, simply fun.

The staff tagged custom Class of 2014 tabs making it possible to identify any www.shu.edu visitors who had also interacted with Facebook. Using social analytics and reporting, marketers could then examine the behavior of these visitors. In addition, the Seton Hall staff began responding to prospective students’ requests for help, from orientation, to deposit status, to placement tests, to housing. Soon, “declarations” (posts where prospective students announce a decision such as major, orientation date, or interest in a club or sport) had risen to 47% of all posts. The data showed that visitors who interacted heavily with the Class of 2014 pages demonstrated a high level of engagement with the university website as well. For example, they were more likely to request information and fill out applications than other visitors. The data collected revealed that Facebook was not only important to Seton Hall but critical.

Prospective students used the Facebook pages to connect with current and prospective students, self-forming groups based on majors, common interests, geographical location, and even residence-hall room number. The “Facebook effect” was unanticipated, but it fit naturally with SHU’s historical strengths and proved to be a tangible influence in the decision process. In effect, fence sitters were convinced to attend Seton Hall by other incoming freshmen.

By midsummer (two months before classes were to begin), tuition deposits for the class of 2014 were 25% higher than the previous year at the same time. Moreover, enrollment was tracking at 13% ahead of the previous year’s class. By the end of the enrollment period, Seton Hall had its largest freshmen class in 30 years, accounting for an 18% increase in net present revenue of $29 million (USD). These results were particularly staggering given the prevailing trend of lower enrollment for many institutes of higher education. By enabling Seton Hall to capture data on the Facebook interactions and perform a deep level of analysis, social analytics is enabling the university to make more informed decisions regarding their marketing investment.

The overall initiative has eliminated any remaining skepticism about the value of Facebook. The university has embraced Facebook as a vitally important recruitment channel. Seton Hall is now looking at new ways to exploit the power of this new channel. To that end, the online marketing staff regularly shares information on Facebook usage and influence with key stakeholders, including admissions and housing. Together they are working to develop an infrastructure to deal with implications of the changing way today’s students expect (and even demand) to interact with the university.

We had a great Social Business Breakfast in Portugal!   At the end, the IBM team in Portugal brought out their Get Bold books!

Here is their picture!

It’s Thank God its Monday cause we have our next Social Business Coffee Break! 

This one is one of my favorites.  It links to Social Analytics that we had discussed as well as gaining trust in the marketplace.

All:  I was very humbled and honored by this great article in Forbes on IBM’s award winning approach to Social Business.

I’d like to share it here! Click this one!

Our IBM CMO study found that while 82 percent of CMOs say they plan to increase their use of social media over the next three to five years, only 26 percent are currently tracking blogs, 42 percent are tracking third party reviews and 48 percent are tracking consumer reviews to help shape their marketing strategies

 Marketers who underestimate the impact of social media are like those who were slow to view the Internet as a new and powerful platform for commerce. Like the rise of e-business more than a decade ago, the radical embrace of social media by all customer demographic categories represents an opportunity for marketers to drive increased revenue, brand value and to reinvent the nature of the relationship between enterprises and the buyers of their offerings. Marketers who establish a culture receptive to deriving insight from social media will be far better prepared to anticipate future shifts in markets and technology. 

While they identify customer intimacy as a top priority, and recognize the impact of real-time data supplementing traditional methods of channel marketing and gathering market feedback, most CMOs say they remain mired in 20th century approaches. Eighty-percent or more of the CMOs surveyed are still focusing primarily on traditional sources of information such as market research and competitive benchmarking, and 68 percent rely on sales campaign analysis to make strategic decisions.

While I was at the Leadership Alliance event, I met with a Dutch Govternment Agency. 

Dutch social networking usage has grown more than 70 percent since last year, and the Netherlands ranks first worldwide in Twitter and LinkedIn market penetration, according to a new social media survey. comScore Inc. (Reston, VA), a digital measurement and research firm, recently released the study, which showed that while Dutch social networking site Hyves continues to be the most popular social media venue in the Netherlands, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are extending their reach in the Dutch marketplace.

This Dutch Government Agency has deployed IBM Connections — a social networking tool – like Facebook and Twitter on Steroids for internal use.  So far they have over 5300 people leveraging the community in 2 weeks with over 200 communities.   The communities are around areas of interest like IT Support, Digital Workplace, and Emergency Response communities.   So far over 30K connections have been made and the team I met with , said the culture has already started a change based on the ability to share information so quickly!

We are hoping for more on this great story at our 2012 Social Business Forum in January in Orlando!

Team: 

Thanks for the overwhelming notes and comments on the Coffee Breaks !  I am so happy they are adding value and helping you in your company.

Please send me other topics that you’d like to see!

This week’s Social Business Coffee Break is about Social Enablement for Sales.  It is an IBM example of our use social enablement!

Enjoy!

I was just in Germany at the #JamCamp!  I met up with one of the earliest adopters of Social — Bayer!

I wanted to share their storyas  told to the audience by Kurt De Ruwe, the visionary CIO who began this social collaboration revolution inside the company. (See Kurt and I below after our lunch together discussing next steps!)

With over 111k employees, Kurt and team had several challenges. They had several teams working on the same problem across the world with duplication of effort and no real sharing of the solutions.   With an aging population,  Kurt had  35% of the people with thorough process and tool knowledge that were going to retire in the next 7 to 10 years.

So he set out to help Bayer become more competitive.  With a primary Social question in mind, he drove to create a culture where sharing is seen as normal and to stimulate the innovation process.

He piloted a set of communities in R&D (for innovation) and O&I (for social knowledge management of  best practices).  His progress and viral usage was amazing.

The pilot he started in the Materials Areas is now set to be ssed throughout his company. The R&D team focused on innovation, communities to spark the spirit of the team, and to facilitate crowdsourcing of ideas.  For O&I, he wisely worked on setting up places of sharing, communities to drive better practices, and to reach the teams at all levels.   

The success of his innovation stimulation and best practice sharing was built on a set of simple principles:

While in Germany at the #JamCamp!, I meet up with Cordelia Krooss from BASF.   She and Dr. CheeChin Liew were keynotes speakers there!

BASF is a German Chemical company.   Their chemistry is used  in nearly all industry sectors.  They are big with over 109K employees, and 63M euros in revenue in 2010.   They have filed over 1100 patents.

They have been using Social for about 18 months and are very advanced.  Cordelia is an Enterprise Community manager and is passionate about BASF’s success in all their initiatives!

Their objectives include networking, Knowledge sharing, and Collaboration.  While the team knew this would involve a cultural shift, they rolled out their Social Business Platform called Connect.BASF with the promise of making their world most productive.

Engagement of their employees:

Cordelia and team decided on a Pull Not Push adoption strategy for Connect.BASF.  They encouraged voluntary use, motivated by content and role models.  To begin, they set up Webinars, Learning Events, Demos, and Consulting.   The adoption took off fast with regions before headquarters.  With exciting launch communication, they set a best practice with Key Visuals, showcasing tangible benefits, and touching the emotions of the employees through stories of success.

Strong Adoption Team:

BASF had a big focus on community managers.  Their focus on community builders for adoption made all the difference in the world.  In addition to community managers, they had Advocates, or multipliers who support and promote
connect.BASF in their organization.   As I have written a few times, community managers and adoption advocates are a critical success factor in deploying social tools for employees.

Use Cases:

1.  Knowledge Sharing:   Example:  A marketing manager writes about Evaluating market information on surfactants”

• Comment from an Information Professional: Do you know this study?
• Marketing manager downloads study, finds it very useful
• A key account manager asks for the study, and alerts them to additional market information in return.
• On request of the marketing manager, the key account manager assesses the information for the team. 

  2.  Efficiency in Project Management:  Example:   project team with members from four continents needed to evaluate and select supplier for novel service.

• Community formed collaboration hub where all information came together.
• The project was self-documenting, new team members could easily orient themselves.
• Open exchange accelerated project progress so that a crucial project step could be shortened by 25%.
• After successful completion, the project inspires other users as Best Practice.

3.  Employee care.  Example:  Japan Earthquake

• BASF employees were deeply moved by the devastations caused by the earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan.
• Communication experts of BASF Asia Pacific created the Community “Origami Cranes for Hope”
• Employees from around the world posted messages and well whishes for their colleagues in Japan
• Community shows the fastest growth so far experienced in connect.BASF
• Employee donation campaign for Japan has raised more than €780,000

GLOBAL:

BASF is a global deployment.   And a true best practice!   Hats off to Cordelia and the team at BASF!

I was in London all day on Friday and discovered some great trends here in UK!

• Only 55% of UK businesses build online communities and 21% of those who do have a Social Community, depend on IT to drive it.  Those who leverage Social Communities are having great success but typically it is a joint IT/Business driven venture.   I would encourage your focus to remain on the IT / Business partnership.
• Channel management came up consistently in the UK.   Discussions on approach are crucial:  for instance, you could target 100 new facebook fans a week, 20 online discussions on forums, etc.  OR UK companies are reviewing the Tipper view:  get 5 influential bloggers to talk about your product or company and then have them reach the masses.   This is a very sophisticated approach to the thought process.
• Investment discussions were around Training of employees and Social listening.  Again, 2 of the key areas to drive results.  Very good direction from the UKI clients.

I didn’t have any UK companies provide me with permission yet to tell their stories — but soon!

I just got back from Germany at the Social Business JamCamp!  First, the team and people are pictured below who came up with this creative idea to deepen client relationships!

The Tour began with the Bus Tour!

Then ended with a 2 day session on Social Business — one day focused on Internal Social Business, and one session focused on External Social Business!

Even though reports show slower pick up of Social for personal reasons, we see Germany as a best practice adoption region for Social Business overall.

Being just in Germany, I had read that Germany was not yet ready for Social Business.  But studying the facts, and seeing the number of German companies already adoption social at great rates, like Bayer, BASF, Sennheiser, and more I think that Germany maybe behind in Social adoption for personal reasons but not in business. A recent report for Dell from Trendstream showed that 70% of German businesses are using social media for business purposes and 40% for customer acquisition

BASF is best in class for cross-platform: Headquartered in Germany, the chemical company does an excellent job using multiple platforms to reach their B2B audience. Their YouTube, Facebook, Flickr and Slideshare presence is proof that businesses can use social media to convey serious information through correctly toned content (and this is according to a few blogs!)

In the chart below from the Global Web Index, we see that Germany is the second country in its use of Social to research products and find new products to buy.

 What are your thoughts on Germany and Social?   What about your country?

This weeks Social Business Coffee Break features the new job types that Social Business will drive in the marketplace.

I find it fascinating how many jobs were created by the internet. Like web master, SEO expert, etc. SOCIAL will do the same! Love to hear your thoughts!

All:

I was invited to Farmer’s to present new Leadership Skills in a Social Business world. First, I view this as a insightful move from the executive team.  The line up of speakers was impressive and their focus on coaching and 21st century skills was amazing.

As I did 4 sessions to the highest senior team, I think I learned as much as they did but on different things.  Here’s what I learned from Farmer’s.

• Farmer’s is commited to leadership 2020.  This meeting focused on the leadership skills required to get them there.  So many times companies focus on strategy and priorities. They focused on people.
• As I love to say, culture eats strategy for lunch.  Their culture is one of authencity and teaming to lead them to that growth.   It is impressive.
• While growth is top of mind, the thing that impressed me the most, was their focus on “not at any cost”.  They reminded me about the mission of “caring for people” and how that has impacted their company.  They care for people — their employees, agents, and clients.   This oozes from everything they did.

I often say that becoming a Social Business will amplify your culture and values.  I was very impressed with Farmer’s Insurance as a company, and its leadership team and have no doubt that Farmer’s Journey will be successful.

I love the McKinsey reports on the Business Value of Social.  

The latest report was just published in October 2011.   The heaviest users of Social enjoy the benefits such as increased knowledge sharing and more effective marketing.  These benefits often have a measureable effect on their businesses.

Some of the cool experiences and facts that you could use with your company include:

Overall Usage:

• The percentage of companies using social networking was 40 percent and using blogs was 38 percent.
• Those who leverage Social internally, say that at least 51 percent of their employees use it. 
• Nearly two-thirds of respondents at companies using Social say they will increase future investments compared with just over half in 2009. The healthy spending plans during both of these difficult years underscore the value companies expect to gain.

Management System:

• The 2011 survey shows that the IT department is most likely to oversee internal Web initiatives (61 percent of respondents).
• For customer-facing initiatives, 74 percent of respondents say that oversight falls to the marketing department.
• For socially enabling external suppliers and partners, roughly equal numbers of respondents cite the IT, marketing, and business-development functions.
• Financing comes from a variety of places, including the IT function, central corporate sources, and discretionary funds at the business unit level.

Results:

• 64% percent of those using Social Internally derive benefit deploying Internally
• 55% percent of those using Social Externally with their clients derive benefit deploying Externally.
• 59% percent of those using Social with their partners derive benefits
• About 50% of the internally networked organizations reported that Social is integrated into their workflow, compared to 21% of the developing organizations.
• 3% of companies are using Web 2.0 in revolutionary ways. This elite group of organizations derives very high levels of benefits from Social’s widespread use, involving employees, customers, and business partners,

My team is in Japan and discover a big AHA moment for Toshiba!

In August, Toshiba’s research and development division decided to use IBM Connections for an internal jam to prepare for their technology preview.  The jam was conducted during a 4 day time span in early October and was deemed a success as they had roughly 400 participants across R&D, Engineering Planning, Sales, Marketing, Personnel, and other divisions.   This maxed out the number of people as they had only wanted 400 .. WOW!

Toshiba leveraged a focus on Communities. They had a main jam Community to guide the discussion rules and provide information by using wiki, files and bookmarks. The bulk of the content was contained in 10 sub communities for discussion around different themes primarily using forums and the ideation blog. Each sub community had a facilitator and leader. Prior to launching the jam, Toshiba used blogs, board updates, email and other collaboration tools to market and announce the internal jam.

The actual content of the jam is confidential to Toshiba, but here are some interesting facts from their jam.

• Jam produced over 900 pieces of content
• 100% of the survey participants think they should hold a jam again in the future
• 88% of the survey participates found it successful

This Toshiba example, is indictative of using Social for Ideation or Innovation.  McKinsey says that on average a company using Social for Ideation improvements see a 20% success rate improvement in new product, offerings, or program introductions!  

What’s your story!

Beginning November 8, the W3C Organization is hosting a worldwide event, called a Social Business Jam, a three-day online event to discuss how best to apply social technologies to maximize business effectiveness. W3C is a well respected standards organization in the tech industry and is responsible for key ideas that make it possible for you to read this page with your web browser. It is interesting that they are inviting business, government, and academia leaders for an open discussion on issues around social business and understand the role of open standards. A glimpse into their motivation may come from recent data reported that more than 50% of social technology users still have doubts about the effectiveness and value of the technology to their productivity at work.

Participants have the opportunity to interact with the Special Guests during the event, ask questions, raise challenges, and confer with speakers and other participants using an online discussion format that transcends schedules and world time zones. I see that Tim Berners-Lee will be one of the those Hosts. Should be exciting to see Tim’s views on Social Business.

The W3C event is free and the six topics described on the Jam information site are relevant to anyone attempting to move beyond just social media.

Registration is open and free.

I am excited and proud that IBM is a supporter of the W3C Social Business Jam as an industry focused, vendor neutral event.

I recommend you check out the Jam and register today: (http://www.w3.org/2011/socialbusiness-jam/)

IBM is eating our own cooking with being a true Social Business…crowdsourcing our Social Business ads!

By leveraging the “Wisdom of Crowds”, we took the best of the best from our Social Jam in February.

What do you think?!
Sandy

Social, Local and Mobile go together.  SoLoMo — it’s the buzzword du jour meaning “Social, Local and Mobile”  These days, everybody is talking about social features, local business (i.e. coupons) and mobile applications.

And at IBM, we help our clients understand how the “SoLoMo” sector can be applied to business.

In the video, I call out what IBM calls Social Business. A Social Business does more than use Twitter and put up a Facebook Fan page. A Social Business means that every department, from HR to marketing to product development to customer service to sales, uses social media the way it uses any other tool and channel to do its job.

A social business is an organization that uses social networking tools and mobile devices fluently to communicate with people inside and outside the company. It’s a strategic approach to shaping a business culture. Becoming a Social Business can help an organization deepen customer relationships, generate new ideas faster, identify expertise and enable a more effective workforce.

Social networking has had a profound effect on society, couple this with the explosion of mobile devices and new Cloud delivery models, a perfect storm of industry trends is merging that makes this the right time to move social from the hands of teens to business.

Be a part of the SoLoMo discussion and join us on Twitter using hashtag #IBMsocialbiz

Proof? 

• 68% of social networking users do so on a mobile device
• More than a quarter of all US adults (28%) use mobile or social location-based services of some kind (source: Pew Research Center)

Happy Monday ! November is already here! Hard to believe.

This Monday’s coffee break is around the value of Crowdsourcing! The McKinsey Study showed that on average crowdsourced products are 20% more successful in the marketplace. Pretty compelling in today’s economy!

Have a listen and this week we will focus in on crowdsourcing examples!

Keeping with our focus on crowdsourcing this week, here is a great view by Cemex on their structured approach to crowdsourcing through an app called Think n Build. Cemex is a $14B company based in Mexico that provides high quality building products to customers in 50 countries throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. They produce, distribute, and sell cement, ready-mix concrete, aggregates, and related building materials.

A true brick and mortar company!!!

Cemex structures their “innovation lesson” into 5 steps for all their employees!

1. The Challenge.  They open the innovation with a “challenge” to all employees.   This challenge is simply a problem statement.
2. Brainstorm.   Employees go in and brainstorm on the challenge.
3. Rating.   Employees rate the ideas and refinements.
4. Priorization of the ideas.   Based on the ratings, doability, and a number of factors, the ideas are sored.
5. Implementation and Execution.     The best ideas get implemented!

Hundreds of ideas for growth have been explored in this manner!  Have fun watching the video and be bold in trying this yourself!

Crowdsourcing is a top value of Social Business.   Crowdsourcing is the act of soliciting input (knowledge, insight, ideas and other forms of social capital) from a widespread, diverse population in order to produce an optimal solution, product or service. Often either monetary or non-monetary incentives are provided as motivation.

How do you select your crowd for this innovation?

Some suggestions!

1. Decide if you want an open “crowd” — i.e.  everyone and anyone, or an invited “crowd” based on a set of criteria.
2. Where do you find that crowd?   Do they hang out on LinkedIn? Facebook? In a particular communtiy?
3. How do you reward them to come to your “crowdsouricing party?”
4. Articulate your goal and process clearly so that the right people stay.  For instance, Community to Innovate 2015 Technology Trends.   We will start brainstorming in community y, for 3 days with votes deciding the winning ideas.
5. Make sure it matters enough to your team — SR team as well — to participate with your Crowd!

And always thank the Crowd!!!!

1. And always remember to say Thank you!

Yesterday I was invited to share Social Business for the NAFE group, the group of Female exeuctives dedicated to assisting women in their search for professional growth.

While waiting to present, they shared some facts that I found appalling.  They come from a Catalyst study:

• Women seem to be paid for proven performance—women who changed jobs two or more times post-MBA earned $53,472 less than women who rose through the ranks at their first job.
• In contrast, men seem to be paid for potential—men who had moved on from their first post-MBA job earned $13,743 more than those who stayed with their first employer.
• Across all career profiles, men were more likely to reach senior executive/CEO positions than women; in the most proactive category, 21% of men advanced to leadership compared with 11% of women.

The working session then focused on these women helping to set up “Sponsorship” focus vs mentoring.  The full study showed that woman do have mentors, but not sponsors.   People willing to stand up for them, and push them and let them learn in new roles.  Men tend to get these “potential” promotions based on their sponsors.  

The same strategies don’t work equally well for men and women. Women must adopt strategies different from their male colleagues’ to advance their careers. When women were proactive in making their achievements known, they advanced further, increased their compensation growth, and were more satisfied with their careers. They also advanced further when they proactively networked with influential others. Making their achievements known did not impact men’s careers. Rather, gaining access to influential others also helped men advance, and indicating a willingness to work long hours and conducting external scans for other opportunities helped men increase their salaries.

Hope this helps.  As a mom and a professional, it helps me doubly. I’d love your thoughts.

This is our last of this week’s focus on Crowdsourcing.  Market Research 2.0 will be done with Social. 

Here is a great example.  Charlene Li, author of Open Leadership and Groundswell, is using information for her next piece of research.

To whet your appetite, here are some early findings so far from her Crowdsourced research:

• Creating a “watercooler” is still the most common reason for deploying — but these suffer because of lack of adoption and more importantly, purpose.
• Companies are beginning to deploy enterprise social networks with specific business goals in mind, ranging from optimizing a business process like sales to supporting a change in strategic direction.
• Metrics, however, are lacking. Most deployment focus on engagement metrics around adoption and usage, rather than tying efforts to business goals.
• Some larger organizations are linking adoption and use of enterprise social networks to employee retention — engaged employees tend to be happy employees.

Take the survey!  It takes only a few minutes!  And experience crowdsourcing!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/36FZHVQ

The 2011 Tech Trends Report surveyed more than 4,000 Information Technology (IT) professionals from 93 countries and 25 industries who provided their views on future IT trends. The results also show a growing need for technical skills in the areas of business analytics, social business, mobile computing, open source technologies and cloud computing. Read the report at:  http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/techtrendsreport, share your opinions at #TechTrends and see what IBM experts are saying about the findings at: www.youtube.com/IBMEcosystem

The world has gone mobile and that means big opportunities for developers, business partners and entrepreneurs.

· Everyone’s doing it: Three of four survey respondents are currently working in mobile computing

· Its an App World: The top focus areas for mobile are enterprise app development, Industry specific apps and extending mobile to core applications

· Openness is key: The openness and ease of development make Android the platform of choice for developers (70%) vs iOS (49%)

· Region differences: The US and Russia are building infrastructure while India and China are building applications

From our latest IBM Retail study, this Black Friday will be very SoMo focused!

Starting on Black Friday (or Thursday), an unprecedented 15 percent of people in the U.S. will log onto a retailer’s web site through a mobile device. 

IBM reports that in October nearly 11 percent of people used a mobile device to log onto a retailer’s site, up from 4.2 percent in October 2010. Additionally, mobile sales continue to increase, reaching a high of 9.6 percent in October 2011, up from 3.4 percent in October 2010.

One of the new trends expected to take place is among Android users. And for the first time, the growing number of Android users will demonstrate similar levels of mobile shopping as iPhone users. These October 2011 numbers show iPhone accounting for 4 percent of mobile traffic and Android 3.5 percent. The iPad will also play a big role in holiday shopping this season. In October, iPad conversion rates reached 6.8 percent as compared to the overall mobile device conversion rate of 3.6 percent.

IBM also says that mobile shoppers will display a laser focus on buying this season that surpasses that of other online shoppers with a 44.2 percent bounce rate on mobile devices versus online shopping rates of 37.3 percent.

Social influence, mainly from Facebook, will also play an increased role in the buying process this holiday season. According to October conversion rates, 9.2 percent of consumers that visited a retail site from a social media site made a purchase. This compares to 5.5 percent of all direct online shopping last year.

All signs point to this holiday season being a big one for SoMo!!!

This week’s theme is SoMo….which is the Social and Mobile codependency!  The example is Hilton.  Hilton Worldwide drive real business value, including:

Check out the Hilton iPad Custom Apps that drives competitive advantage – Virtual Concierge Application.   It features 

•Room-service menus (plus the ability to order food),

•Spa and fitness information (plus the ability to book appointments)

including all the things you’d find on a printed compendium in the guest room desk drawer, such as room-service menus (plus the ability to order food), spa and fitness information (plus the ability to book appointments), transportation, maps, and valet-parking information. “If somebody wanted dinner, they could navigate to the menu portion of the app, look at images of the food, add it to their cart, click “check out,” and it would arrive at their room just as if they’d picked up the phone and ordered it.

Catch it livestreaming on Wed November 16th !!!   Click on Wed!

http://www.informationweek.com/thebrainyard/e2-santa-clara-2011

And would love your thoughts!

Sandy

IBM completed a 2011 Trends in the market and in the Mobile side, we identified with around 3000 people the most common use cases for Social – Mobile better known as SoMo.   I’ll be posting case studies on these scenarios, like the one we saw for Hilton yesterday, around these scenarios.   Do you have any Great examples?

Interesting to me from the IBM study that there is going to be more app dev on Android than Apple.

My presentation is posted here!

http://www.slideshare.net/SandyCarter/e20-keynote-solomo

So 2 of my favorite things:  Shoes and Social Analytics.   IBM showcased its Value on Social Analytics in showcasing a fav buy of everyone in the Black Friday Sales!   Shoes!

A look back at the last 100 years of shoe fashion trends reveals that heel heights soared during the most prominent recessions in U.S. history.  Low-heeled flapper shoes in the 1920s were replaced with high-heel pumps and platforms during the Great Depression.  Platforms were again revived during the 1970s oil crisis, reversing the preference for low-heeled sandals in the late 1960s.  And the low, thick heels of the 1990s “grunge” period gave way to “Sex and the City”-inspired stilettos following the dot-com bust at the turn of the century. 

An analysis of the last four years of social media showed that discussions of increasing heel height peaked towards the end of 2009, and declined after that.  For example, key trend-watching bloggers between 2008 and 2009 wrote consistently about heels from five to eight inches, but by mid 2011 they were writing about the return of the kitten heel and the perfect flat from Jimmy Choo and Louboutin.  This is not to say that the sky-high heels have gone, rather that, as the economic downturn has wore on, they are discussed as glamwear and not for the office or shopping trip.

Here’s how the analysis was conducted: first, IBM used special analytics software to search billions of social media posts to identify individuals discussing shoes. This initial category contained tens of thousands of posts. Next, the software narrowed the list down to those who are key online influencers in the area of footwear – bloggers, for example. The software relied on special algorithms that rated the popularity of these influencers by zeroing in on the ones who sit in the center of large social networks – that is, writers of blogs that many other blogs link to and which in turn link to many blogs. These bloggers aren’t traditional “experts” – they don’t work in the footwear industry, for example. But they are passionate footwear enthusiasts with large followings. 

Finally, the software analyzed the content of the social media sites, looking specifically for discussions of shoe height. 

Continuing our Social Business Coffee Breaks!

This week the focus will be on Gamification!

Gamification

Gamification is the process of using gaming thinking and mechanics to solve problems, and engage users.    And it is fun!  Fun sells and drives engagement.

While some think this is just marketing http://www.bogost.com/blog/gamification_is_bullshit.shtml, I asset that the concepts have merit for our new Millennials as do many others who view this is the next big Social thing (http://kotaku.com/5833631/gamification-is-here-to-stay-and-its-not-bullshit).  

And you cannot argue with the facts.  A lot of games have bigger audiences than TV shows do , and much stronger engagement.

For examples include IBM.  We use gaming for onboarding, demand generation, and education.

Farmer’s Insurance uses gaming to generate new clients using Farmville as a sticky hook.  They have a “blimp” with Farmer’s on it that can be used to protect your crops and if you click on it, takes you to Farmer’s landing page.

And Weight Watchers uses the point system to drive motivation .

What are your thoughts on gaming?  Do you use it?  Do you think you will?

Thinking through Social over Thanksgiving, I pondered the age of Social.  As my daughters look at me crazy at needing a mouse (why can’t you just use your finger speaks one of the Apple generation), and my daugther’s friend asks my husband what a modem is when he speaks of ancient history of computers.  I see the milennial impact today on Social in a positive way. 

At E2.0 in California, Molly Graham showed a fascinating chart on the differences in Millenial style.   I loved the differences in her (and Facebook’s viewpoint) of this new emerging culture.   Kristen Cobbie wrote:  Millenials feel they have a right to information and access to parts of the business that have traditionally taken years to get access to. Essentially, they expect that they have a right and the ability to make the company better.

While many view Millenials as needy, is this really a healthy need for feedback so that they can grow?  Instead of being viewed as selfish,  they view themselves as ineffective given the speed of the world if they cannot always improve their skills.  Millenials are viewed as selfish in some circles but this could be their passion shining through.   While they want ownership — (some deem it too early), they view this ownership desire as their willingness to accept responsibility for the ownership of the outcome.   And are they too impaient or just seeking new challenges

I love this Millenial style or frankly this view if motivates are accurate in all!  Your thoughts?

Since it is Thanksgiving and I love social so much, I wanted to know the linkage between being “social” and turkeys!

Surprisingly, turkeys are social animals. They enjoy the company of other creatures, including humans. They love having their feathers stroked.  (Like we do on Twitter — when someone retweets us!)

 They live in flocks-sometimes rather large — like we do in communities online.    Whether facebook, IBM connections, or linkedin or like me, all!!!

In the Turkey flocks, they have a social hierarchy or ranking in which each bird is dominant over or “pecks on” birds of lesser social status.  Is this what Klout is about? 

Turkeys are not “territorial” and do not defend an area against other turkeys.  Wonder if this is the same?

Happy Thanksgiving!

I continue to value Social in sales efforts. As we close out 4Q and ready for 2012 (!), I’d love to hear your thoughts on how you leverage social in your sales efforts.

From the 2011 Trend report of over 4000 clients, internal deployment outpaces external usage of Social.  This survey was across 93 countries and 25 industries.

Some fun Social Business facts!

Did you know that IBM has a social intelligence office who’s sole mission is to do monitoring? 

We have organized our social intelligence system into three parts:  1) Social Research 2) Real Time Monitoring and Engagement 3) Social Relationship Management.

Our Social Intelligence Office launched October 2011, with 2000+SWG SME and 400+ IBM champions trained in social business intelligence is online 24/7. Social intelligence is about understanding and combining Social Networking with Business Intelligence. It is this combination that allows the true understanding of what the consumer thinks about their brand, and the competitive nature of discussions.

The goal is to make sure we listen and learn from our clients and influencers.  Since Social enables large streams of consciousness, people willingly share their thoughts and views.  Social media and the real-time web intelligence, affords for the acquisition of unprompted and more ‘honest’ and ‘real’  mentions.  The scale of research is no longer restricted to a sample set that is defined by the limits of human capacity to gather and collate information

Also, IBM is not the only one!  UK intelligence agency launchedcode-cracking competition on Web & social networks to attract new talent in Social Intelligence. 

WebFluenz gave this example of why a company should have a Social Intelligence group!  A car company had a surprisingly large number of cancellations which spiraled the company into fixing everything in their sales. Later, it was unraveled that there were a bunch of bloggers who had blogged about their disappointing after-sales service. If the company was online and was monitoring negative comments, they could have addressed these issues before they became viral and caused such colossal damages!

Do you have a Social Intelligence Center?

Risk management is the #1 issue I hear about from the C Suite.  So many want to “opt-out” of social because of the risk! But in reality, not participating is more risky! 

Watch this informative video!

I love my iPad.  How did I survive without it?    And I am not alone.  The use of tablets in business is on the rise. Increasingly, employees require enterprise connectivity from their personal smartphones and tablet devices, also known as the “Bring Your Own Device” to work trend…. not BYOB but BYOD!

According to IDC France, the tablet market is forecast to reach over 4.1 million in 2012, representing a 48% growth compared to 2011.  The study reveals that 73% of business leaders surveyed currently allowed mobile devices to connect to their corporate networks!

IBM will make your holiday dreams come true with:

• Social networking for iPad:  Available from the Apple app store at no charge for existing IBM Connections users.  I use this everyday in my marketing and sales.
• Attend Online Meetings:  I can attend online meeting from any tablet anytime and any where.
• Instant messaging:  I was in the pilot for Sametime.  Wow!  This is extremely powerful.   Anywhere I can instant message anyone anywhereAccess business documents
• Easier access to mail and calendar: I use this everyday

Lots of clients are using these SoLoMo functions today!   ConMed Linvatec, other global organizations including Bekins Van Lines, Cincinnati Zoo, Cummins, VCC Construction, and schools like Virginia Commonwealth University.

I am heading over to LeWeb, a conference that promises to be the South by Southwest style conference in Europe!  You don’t know South By Southwest?  You should.  It is a HUGE conference on Social and the latest trends.  Check it out at http://sxsw.com/interactive

Some cool things I see about LeWeb so far!

• It is in Paris — enough said
• The theme is SoLoMo   –>  Check out my last presentation on this one:  SoLoMo
• They set up a community for all attendees with different groups — eating their cooking before talking about it
• Lots of European Case Studies there.  For instance, Danone will be speaking!

I’ll blog and tweet live from the event! 

Bon Jour!

Love this from the recent InformationWeek article!  It was the topic of 3 of my Canadian discussions today with clients !

Businesses see the value of social networks, but not every employee does. Here are some tips for getting people on board.

1. Perform A Social Assessment.   What do your employees know right now? A client today told me that his team was at a Kindergarten level.  So start there!

2. Set Clear Expectations.   Can employees speak on behalf of their company?  Can they set up an internal community on fun stuff like soccer?  Make sure all know the rules!

3. Put Expectations In Writing.   We at IBM have a set of guidelines.  It helps to guide and set expectations!

4. Provide Training.  At IBM we provide intense training for our BPs and employees.   Skills are very important to success.

 5. Culture Eats Strategy For Lunch — so get buyin from the top!

Our coffee break this year is on reputation management in a Social Business!  Reputation management is the business value of who you are and who your company is. 

I believe that “Reputation Share” will become increasingly important. 

For instance:

• More companies will measure their employees social savy for bonuses
• Word of mouth value will be measure like market share — it will be reputation share
• The financial value of your online reputation will become part of your brand value balance sheet

Here more in this Coffee break video!

I am trying to learn as much as I can and I thought I’d summarize some of my favorite tweets of the week from Events/Client meetings/Virtual events of this Social Business Week!

1. Transparency defies authority. Businesses must understand the re-architecture required by open social business. Culture must change
2. Awareness translates into business, so online conversations have value
3. Social has to be embedded into the way we work and that involves changing the culture of the company
4. Social business is not about technology, its about changing the way people work
5. You know the world has changed when you hear IBM executive Sandy Carter discussing Gaming! Who’d have thought?
6. Social is a requirement for enterprises to impact the war on talent.
7. Socialize me means going Mobile with Social.  68% of the social networking use is from a mobile.
8. Being an effective Social Media leader has less to do with knowing the answers & more to do w/ asking the right questions
9. Children’s Hospital of Dallas goes live with IBM Social Software
10. SoLoMo is it. Mobile numbers are most important in digitalmarketing. It is not just about Social, but Social Local Mobile.

I am so impressed with the “Who’s Who of Social” that is speaking at IBM Connect 2012!   Major and successful organizations are showcasing their ROI of going Social!

IBM Connect 2012 is January 17-18 2012 in Orlando!  Please join me there!  http://www-01.ibm.com/software/collaboration/events/connect/

•  TD Bank’s   Wendy Arnott, VP Social Media and Digital Communications and Glenda Crisp, CIO, as well as Tim Hockey, the Group Head, President, and CEO will speak on transforming financial services to a true Social Business!
• Gilberto García, VP of Innovation, CEMEX, and leader of Shift.  Shift is a Business
  social networking platform that empowers employees in all CEMEX operations worldwide to interact, share best
  practices and promote innovation through collaboration. Gilberto’s Innovation efforts have been recognized by
  Computer World, MIT Technology Review, Forbes, and IBM.
• CheeChin Lew of BASF, will be disucssing how BASF leverages Social for Social Collaboration.
• Scott Schrader, Director, Information Systems, SXC Health Solutions, will talk Gilberto García, VP of Innovation, CEMEX, and leader of Shift.is transforming Healthcare.
• Raymond Huff, President, HJB Convenience Corp/Russell’s Convenience  has a great story on Social Expansion!  He is using Social to grow his stores — online collarating with architects,construction, and marketing. Wow!
• Dr Burns, Children Hospital Boston, who has a way to train other doctors Socially. You won’t want to miss this one.
• Denise Hatzidakis, Chief Technology Officer for the Premier healthcare alliance. Premier serves morethan 2,400 U.S. hospitals and 70,000-plus other healthcare sites, the Premier healthcare alliance and itsmembers are transforming healthcare together. technology field as a decisive leader of operational
• Ray Wang, Constellation Consulting, will be talking about Gamification. As you guys know, I am a big believer in this and started some of the first work in IBM on gaming.
• Kevin O’Shaughnessy, Group Digital Director,Standard Life will lay out his new Digital Strategy at Standard Life.
• Michael Lynch, Manager IT Advance Personal & Workgroup Solutions, 3M will discuss how 3M Gets Social with Product Development! 
• Harish Lade, GM Systems & Information Technology,Asian Paints Ltd., will speak on how Asian Paints Develops a Culture of Innovation Through Social Collaboration.
• Rachel Happe, Principal Co-founder, The Community Roundtable, and a dear colleague!   She will go into how important People are in Community Building!
• Mark Heid – IBM, showcasing the Social Intelligence that IBM is driving in the market to make it an even better client value based company!

Wow!   Please join me there!!!

Embedding social into the HR process is a critical way to drive ROI.  In fact, in a recent study, embedding social into HR can help cut costs up to 15% by helping you recruit the best talent, and to retain the very best!

Learn more here or at our upcoming IBM Connect 2012 event where IBM – Analytics and workforce reporting for human resources (HR) and Chief HR leaders will talk directly about their experiences!

And there is a WHOLE track dedicated to Optimizing the workforce.  Social businesses improve the effectiveness of their people by unlocking talent and skills that otherwise might have gone unnoticed. Now more than ever, leaders need to focus on rapidly developing workforce skills and capabilities, fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing, and developing future leaders.

Learn from experts leading the way in workforce transformation who share their successes in developing and bringing together the right talent at the right times to support better, faster solutions to business problems.

I baked tons of cookies this weekend and ended up in a Cookie Coma!

What does a cookie coma look like?

• Over indulging on sweets by eating more than needed
• Obsessing to try each and every type of cookie
• Focusing on making the cookie look great, not as much on taste great

So why did I raise this in a Social Business Blog?

Well, as I see companies, I think they are in a Social Coma!

• Over indulging on social.  I see a lot of companies that seem to think that more is more.  They tweet and blog on everything and anything and broadcast too much!   Advice:  Think through your strategy on how you communicate in the market. While you cannot plan everything, you can ensure you are sharp and clear in our you communicate.   I advise companies to lay out their strategy by week.  For instance, each Monday post a video.  Each Tuesday respond on the following top 3 blogs.  Every Wed, Tweet the following, etc.  This strategy provides a way to be consistent and to let your “fans” know what to expect!  Surprising them also is good too but not everyday!
• Obsessing to try each and every type of social tool.   I see a lot of companies that cannot decide the tools that they need to use.  So each new tool they adopt immediately without thinking about the goal, or how it fits.   Advice:   Carefully select the tools based on the goals.   For instance, if you are already using Twitter, Foursquare, and LinkedIn, do you need Google Plus or Gowalla?  You’d be surprised at how  many companies try too many tools.
• Focusing on making it look great, not as much on content!  Social is about content.  Not just cool gadgets, and gizmos.   Many companies spend too much time on making their facebook page look great, but don’t focus on the content.  Content is king or queen.   Make sure you have a content activation strategy or curation strategy is more important than the icing!

Here’s one of my fav cookie recipe !!  It is from my grandmother who was from Lithuania.

A cool ball shape and has nuts and powered sugar….yes, some people call this a Russian or Greek Wedding Cake.  But not us!  It is the Lithuania Ball!

In a large bowl combine first 6 ingredients on low speed of mixer about 1 minute. Blend well. Gradually add flour at low speed until just combined; stir in nuts. Roll dough into 1 inch balls; place about 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 F for 8-10 minutes until firm to the touch but not brown. Do not overbake. While warm, roll in additional powdered sugar. Cool; re-roll in powdered sugar before serving.

And one more for good measure!  Not cookies, but we are on the sweet roll!

Pumpkin Gingerbread Pie

Great way to jazz up classic pumpkin pie, yet keep it simple!

•  Nonstick cooking spray
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• ½ cup sugar or splenda for baking
• 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice or (1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon ground ginger, ¼ teaspoon ground allspice, and 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg.)
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• ½ cup half-and-half or light whipping cream
• 1 14.5 oz package gingerbread mix
• Sugar free cool whip

Preheat over to 350 degrees.  Coat a 10-inch deep-dish pie plate or an 8x8x2-inch baking dish with cooking spray.  In a small bowl combine pumpkin, sugar, and pumpkin pie spice.  Add egg, beat lightly with fork just until combined, and gradually stir in half-and-half, mix well.  Set aside.

Prepare gingerbread mix according to package directions.  Pour batter into prepared pie plate.  Lightly spoon pumpkin mixture over gingerbread batter; swirl gently using a table knife.  Bake about 50 minutes for a pie plate or about 60 minutes for a baking dish.  Cool slightly on wire rack.  Serve warm or at room temperature with cool whip or whipped cream.

I always make this over the Holidays for my family and friends and they loved it.  This was the first dessert that was empty in minutes.

Yesterday a very small tree shed a very big leaf!   Take a look!  My biggest tree has the smallest leaves and my little tree produced this HUGE leave!

This leaf caused me to think about small and medium businesses and the value of social to them.  (Does everything remind me of Social?  Well, kind of!!)

Social is the great equalizer.  Social can be the great equalizer.   If used appropriately, a small company can produce the biggest leaf!

How do you do that?

• Share your expertise using Twitter.   A small dry cleaner is active on twitter sharing their expertise on geting stains out.  They are attracting the most new clients in their local area by their updates and value.
• Reach new audiences with Facebook or LinkedIn.  My local salon no longer does advertising to drive new clients.  They only use social means to drive new word of mouth clients through Facebook, Foursquare and other tools.  Richard Scott Salon and Day Spa is even doing social polling to understand better what is required to be even better.
• Grow your brand.   Russell Convenience Stores uses social tools in the cloud to collaborate in their growth.  They use IBM connections to collaborate with their builders, architects, etc while crafting their new store expansion!

Social is a great equalizer!  Just like my little tree!

Social tips that I found in my work and personal wanderings that I found this week!

1. “Top Terms make a difference”.   Looking through why certain YouTube videos there were the normal “content” “Music” “funny” but I found that one interesting analysis was the use of “most searched words”.   So I am testing this in my title.  According to YouTube:   “the weekly spikes are even more pronounced for the word “Friday,” which is a term that’s seeing more searches now than it ever has on YouTube.”    And I quote….
   “The video, which has been seen approximately 90 million times, will likely have another bump today as our data shows that — just like searches for the song — views of the video also increase every Friday. Interesting aside: even though “Friday” blew up the week of the 13th,”
2. Focus for your target audience.   My daughers and all her friends are watching this video.  Harry Potter in 99 Seconds.     The lesson is to target your focused Social work toward your specific group by age, likes, location, etc
3. Have a POV (Point of View):   People like comments, postings, community comments that have a perspective.   They may or may note agree with you but they like to debate the points.   Develop your expertise and your POV to add value to the conversation!

To all!  Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

A  fun “social” Christmas views! It is in spanish but I think is funny anyway.  Always there a dispute between Reyes Magos and Santa Claus.

My friends from Brazil sent me this picture of the Christmas tree that floats around in the Harbor!

What a great analogy with Social!!

 Having the flexibility to float into workgroups with Social Tools, and have teams spring up around a topic or project.   I believe that this is the new way of working and this tree visually showcases the freedom and flexibility that this approach brings to the table!

Merry Christams!  

A friend, Robert Dowling, just shared this with me!  HOW cool!

This tree is in Toronto’s Union Station and its lights are powered by taking “positive Christmas comments from social networks like Twitter and Facebook and using the data to spark 30,000 LED lights.”

Sheldon Levine of Sysomos, the Toronto-based analytics company behind the project, explains:

“Each color of light represents Christmas spirit coming from a different social channel. White lights represent social networks like Twitter and public Facebook statuses, red for blog and forum posts, green for online news and blue lights for messages sent through text [directly to] ChristmasSpiritTree.ca. The more social media spirit that comes in at one time the brighter the tree shines.”

canadiantire

The Christmas series continues!  My friends from Singapore sent me this Social Christmas Tree .. like the one in Canada!  Is this a trend?

What’s the deal here?  Well, you create your own “personal” tree in this facebook app  http://apps.facebook.com/heinekensocialtree/ and then your “personal” tree will be activated on the 11 meter high digital installation between the 17th-26th of December at Clarke Quay in Singapore!

Check this one out!  Another friend sent me this one!  Very creative use of showing the Christmas story using a “facebook” version.   

I love the feedback on our Holiday Series on cool use of Social for the Holidays!

1.  Overall Social on Hanukkah- interesting that people are tracking it and where it is popular!

2.  Video:

Here’s a new one from my friends celebrating Hanukkah!   The Maccabeats sing ‘Hanukkah’—a festive parody of Taio Cruz’s ‘Dynamite’.  The video went viral last Hanukkah and has been viewed over 6.3 million times so far. 

 “I flip my latkes in the air sometimes, singing Ayy-ohhhhh, spin the Dreidel!”

Happy New Year!   Just as last year, these are my top views for things companies should check out in 2012!

1. It’s all about the Process, baby.   The most successful companies deploying social are those that don’t put social over to the side, but having social embedded directly into the workflow.  Having social help make workers more productive or customers feel more engaged by leveraging natural actions, is a powerful way to get social used.  For instance, embedding social into customer service with social analytics or into talent management is the best way to adoption. Are you adding social into an already packed day?  Or are you embedding it into a process to make your company more engaging and productive?    Don’t let 2012 go back without thinking through this with your company.

2.  “Inside Out”.   In 2012, there will be more and more deployment of social inside corporations, big and small.  In the IBM 2011 trends study, for the first time more companies are deploying and using social tools and techniques inside their company then outside for marketing.   The question for your company in 2012 — how will you use social inside your 4 walls.

3. Adoptation is a forethought. Many companies learned in 2011 that you cannot build it and they will come, whether for employees or clients.   But that is not the case. You need to think through education, governance, metrics, and communications.  Adoption needs to be a forethought.  It takes planning.  This is why IBM has designed an Adoption Adovacy program to teach clients on the best practices of adoption.   Make this a requirement for 2012.

4.  Frictionless social gestures.   One of the most common reasons that people give for not using social tools is that it is too hard. They don’t like the interface.   I believe that 2012 will be the foundation of “frictionless social gestures”.   I love the new Facebook features that allow sharing automatically of your likes, dislikes, and what you do online.  No clicking anything.  This will be a future trend.  Experiment with it in 2012.

5.  Visualize it.   Infographics have simplified and visualized vast amounts of information. Guy Kawasaki uses this form of information regularly.   How will your company simplfy and leverage in 2012?   There is so much information you must get your point across quick!   What about QR codes?  Let’s let the infographic tell the story.  Do you use them?  I am adding to my business card in 2012.

6.  Codependence: SoLoMo.  Companies in 2012 will require a Social and Mobile plan that is integrated. Too many companies separate these thoughts, to their detriment.   The best look at leveraging social capabilities on mobile devices and leverage things like Local checkins to drive more client value.  Create a SoLoMo strategy early in 2012.

7.  Participant, not spectator.   Clients today do not want to sit on the sidelines.  Those days are over.  They want to move from spectator to participant.   I love the new Augmented Reality.     Althought I have only seen Starbuck’s use it to date, I predict that more and more this will be used to drive participation not just customers being participants.  Can you envision how you could leverage inside your company for onboardin, and outside your 4 walls?

8.  New Job Roles Grow.   The prediction is that Social will drive 5x the number of job types over the internet.  And these job types will be business and IT combined skills, unlike the Internet that drove many IT related jobs.  What job types do I predict for 2012?   Social innovation managers driving crowdsourcing, Social Analytics helping to analyze the tons of data now available, and even Social Customer Service managers.  This is addition to the influx of community managers of 2011.   I also predict more universities will be adding certifications helping to drive the social trend.  Do you have these roles in your company?  Should you?

9. Surprise Innovation.   I am constantly visiting clients and they are surprised by the innovations that are brought on by Social.   Coming to mind from 2011 are the Lowe’s example of how to sell a paint tray, or Sun Life Trust with the innovation meter.   In 2012, more and more companies will use crowdsourcing and surprise themselves in the results. Have you planned for crowdsourcing in your plans for 2012?

10.  Fun is required. Gamification Again.  Yes, this was on my list for 2011.   And it is growing every year.   It is simple actually.   The average age of a gamer is 35.  It has an 80% higher recall than lectures, or blogs.   It is fun and matches the next Generation Today.   What’s not to love.    Try it now with simpling gaming.   Don’t miss it in 2012.

11.Design for loss of control.    The world in 2012 will be one of adaption.  Cultural change is required for Social.   Companies must be more transparent and nimble.   Transparency requires that permission is not required.   BYOD demands the use of what you want.  And Cloud lets you get it anywhere.  Are you ready for this?  Can you plan for loss of control? Yes, but it will require a cultural transformation.   Do you have a culture plan?

12.  Your audience is now an audience of audiences with audiences.   Do you know who the opinion leaders are?   They will reach the next audience who reach the next.   This is true internally and externally.   Make sure you discover who those influencers are and build a relationship with them in 2012.  

Please come and see me at IBM Connect in Orlando January 15-17!!   http://www-01.ibm.com/software/collaboration/events/connect/

My best selling book is a great learning tool … let me know what you think!