Category Archives: social media

Bad Business 101

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My company is in the process of a major Web redevelopment, and I’m the point guy on the project. Among other things, it was my job to identify, solicit and make the hiring call on the vendor. I’m happy with the company we wound up with, but as the letter below indicates, it was an odd and frustrating journey. The names have been changed to protect the guilty.

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Hi Jeff. I wanted to get back to you on your recent bid for our Web redevelopment project. We felt like XYZ Interactive represented an outstanding development resource, and in the end I was convinced that you were the most capable vendor we solicited. Additionally, you came in with the lowest bid.

However, we decided to award the business to another vendor. Continue reading →

Shout out: the Balaya blogger’s conference

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I wanted to take a second to say hello to all my fellow bloggers participating in today’s Balaya conference in Savannah. I’m joining from Colorado via Skype and Tick-It, and am looking forward to learning more about developments with the company’s new social networking platform.

What I’ve seen so far suggests that Balaya has some interesting new ways of integrating the social media experience in ways that improve things for bloggers, users and advertisers.

I’ve written about Balaya before, and suspect I will be again…

Agencies “don’t get” social media: sad, but true…

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If you know anything at all about the agency world, this new report tells you a whole lot of what you already know.

‘Agencies Don’t Get It,’ Survey Says
Feb 28, 2008

Clients are placing more emphasis on mastering social media but find their agencies ill equipped to help them succeed in that space, according to a new survey.

TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony polled more than 60 marketers in North America, France and the U.K. to gauge how they are faring navigating the world of social media. It asked them for feedback on their agencies’ abilities to help. TNS found, in its words, “Agencies don’t get it.”

What’s the problem? Continue reading →

Social networking: the next generation

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Have you ever noticed how social networks don’t do a very good job of representing how our personal networks actually function? Sure, places like Facebook and MySpace and LinkedIn have their utility, but their flatness is a problem.

Think about your Facebook, for instance. If it’s like mine, you have friends there who run the gamut from “real life best friend” to “people I know” to “guy I couldn’t pick out of a lineup if my life depended on it.” You may have relatives, friends from school, co-workers and “assorted others.” And they’re all absolutely equal.

Our LinkedIn networks can be even less attuned to how our lives works. Continue reading →

Upon reflection: was I too hard on The Blog Council?

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Last week I joined a legion of business bloggers in poleaxing the shizizzle out of a self-satisfied new project called The Blog Council. Josh Catone of Read/WriteWeb stomped them. Dave Taylor, who’s probably forgotten more about blogging than the entire council put together knows, took them to school. Robert Scoble – another guy who knows a thing or two about blogging – explains why he’s skeptical. Jordan McCollum goes door-to-door on some of the group’s players. Mike Moran prays that it’s all just a big mistake. And so on.

Then Jake McKee comes along and explains that all us “experts” don’t get it. In fact, our failure to get it proves that the Blog Council is right in doing things behind closed doors. Continue reading →

A great new how-not-to resource for business bloggers

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When a new innovation comes along, corporations typically follow a predictable arc. First there’s the “Ignore It” phase. Then, once it becomes clear that it’s actually important, they dive into the “Getting It All Wrong” phase. The first step in Getting It All Wrong is “pretend that the new thing works like all the old things.”

Eventually they get past these early “ballistic podiatry*” activities and begin to figure things out, although there’s often a step, which falls late in Getting It All Wrong, called “Hire a Consultant Who Was Successful at Other Things But Barely Knows More Than You Do About The New One.” Sometimes these outside hitters have read a book, but mainly they rely on the tendency of executives to overgeneralize about prior successes.

Which brings us to The Blog Council, Continue reading →

Electrolux Innovision Hub – interesting concept at work

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A quick-hitter here. I’ve done a little work on Electrolux’s behalf (this is actually me voicing this video) and I really like the philosophy behind their approach. I’m expecting more good work from them on the social media front in the future – so keep your eyes on them.

S&R hits significant milestone: you, too, can be a social media star

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On April 16 some colleagues and I launched Scholars & Rogues, a team blog covering politics, media, art and literature, culture, sports – really, we wanted to cut a pretty broad swath through our readers’ lives, and whether you agreed or disagreed (heck, we don’t even agree with each other all the time), we wanted to encourage thinking and intelligent discussion. Continue reading →

Migrating into Facebook

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I finally set up my Facebook site. Yay.

It looks at the moment like Facebook is enjoying a lot of migration from different directions.

  • For starters, it was only recently opened up to non-college students, so there’s a general influx of new users.
  • A lot of business types appear to be abandoning LinkedIn for Facebook. I’m not unplugging my LinkedIn account yet, but the truth is that it’s never done me a scrap of good. We’ll see if I can make more hay with Facebook.
  • Finally, there may be a social network-climbing dynamic at work, although it’s hard to quantify. According to one writer, there seems to be a strong class differentiation between Facebook and the increasingly downscale MySpace. In truth, once you get past band pages, I’ve never found any value at all in MySpace, either.

All things to think about if you’re a business person or a student thinking about your career.

Come see me. I need friends…