Entries Tagged 'Blogs' ↓

Over on Seattle 2.0 today, the Seattle Startup Index for January 2008
has been posted. It’s great to see Visible Technologies listed among other top startups in the Seattle area.

Thanks Marcelo for putting this together.

Blake

There are three reports that came out recently worth noting for those a bit behind in their reading like I always seem to find myself.

Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff was generous enough to share his recent report on Keys to Creating a Social Strategy in which he lays out what he calls the POST method for social strategy development. Josh contends that most companies are going about creating social strategies backwards by focusing first on technology rather than audiences and strategy upfront. I couldn’t agree more even though I work for a social media tech firm. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in meetings where technology and tactics were the topics over strategy and objectives.

The POST method revolves around People, Objectives, Strategy and (then) Technology. Josh’s report lays out a sensible approach for companies to follow. It’s well worth the time even if you’re late to the reading game like me.

The second study was the widely covered and discussed “Digital Footprints: Online Identity Management“ report from Pew Research concerning the number of Americans who Google their own personal information. Research analyst Mary Madden expressed surprise in interviews this week that only about half of the people in the U.S. with Internet access have Googled themselves.

I don’t find that number surprising at all. In fact, I’d bet it’s lower than what Pew found. When you get away from the urban tech centers of our country, the average American isn’t living online, Googling all their friends and relatives, blogging every day or Twittering every five minutes. Some of us have a slanted view of the real world. Only a fraction of people who really need to be concerned about what appears about them in search engines have ever taken the time to check their results. If more of them did, I promise you’d see more people freaking out than you do at the moment.

The third study from USC’s Annenberg Center and Ketchum PR found that many communicators are out of sync with the way consumers now use media. This trend has been underway since the invention of the browser. Findings related to the growth of media usage by emerging markets make this study worth reading too.

Mike Spataro

Andy Sernovitz, one of the founders of the Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association and GasPedal, who is a leading guru on WOM and social media has just launched “The Blog Council” a professional community of top global brands dedicated to promoting best practices for corporate blogging. Founding members are AccuQuote, Cisco, Coca-Cola, Dell, Gemstar-TV Guide, General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP, Starwood Hotels and Wells Fargo. These many of the most respected companies that are presently listening, understanding, and engaging with customer in social media. Congrats to Andy for founding what I am sure will be a great organization. Nice quote in the official press release from Sean O’Driscoll at Microsoft.  To learn more check out the council’s site.

Blake

Visible Technologies

The Society for New Communications Research is another fast growing organization gaining wider respect and new members each year. The group handed out awards last night in Boston to more than 50 companies and individuals in the area of excellence in social media and interactive services.

It’s a good thing that organizations like SNCR and WOMMA put in the time and effort to recognize what people are doing because I’m not sure how we’d keep up with some of the amazing work being performed in this emerging industry. We were thrilled to be among the winners in the area of technology innovation for our TruCast solution, but if you ask me the real winners are the people whose lives are being changed everyday by smart interactive and social media thinkers. For instance;

The Humanitarian Emergency Logistics Preparedness, Inc. (HELP) is a non-profit humanitarian relief organization that helps victims of natural and man-made disasters on a global basis. They target medical/health concerns in disasters and other areas of chronic medical need. HELP deploys “Doc-in-a-Box” mobile telemedicine clinics and a Web-based community of volunteer physicians and hospitals. These clinics enable local physicians to have modern state-of-the-art facilities and expertise “looking over their shoulder” providing the latest technology and insight to the remotest regions of our world. It’s safe to say the program has been an enormous success. The work being performed in the non-profit area is among the best you’ll see. You can find the other case studies on the SNCR New Communications Review site.

Awards were also given to some of the usual brands that have been long-time social media leaders, such as GM, Dell, Sun, Microsoft, Boeing and others like Midwest Airlines. In fact, I had a chance to spend some time with Tish Robinson who authors Midwest’s popular female-focused travel blog - Travels with Tish - Girlfriends Getaway Guide, which is based on the personal travel experiences of Tish and her friends. What a cool idea.

More on the actual conference sessions in the days ahead.

Mike Spataro

Finally made it to the Seattle Web Community Forum. Walked in on a very heated discussion about all the things that are NOT good about Facebook. Some of the questions being posed/debated centered around the scariness of Beacon, lack of functionality related to “email”, overall privacy issues, why students post so many personal details, all the useless/useful applications, the youth of Mark Zuckerberg and how many of the recent stumbles show the inexperience of management at Facebook. There is a very large debate about what role the community that helped build Facebook into the success it is and should have as it relates to driving direction (i.e their potential for monetization) of the company. By the way the title of the session is: Facebook Curmudegeons!

More from the session later this evening and tomorrow.

Blake

Visible Technologies