How IBM Promotes Employee Engagement with Social Media

January 9, 2010

I am constantly impressed with IBM and its open attitude towards its employees’ use of social media.  The company has on its website, for all to see, its “IBM Social Computing Guidelines” .  

I wrote about this on the Blogger’s Bulletin , a LinkedIn subgroup.  With the start of 2010, other companies, who are floundering with their social media policies, would do well to check out IBM’s guidelines.  One of many lines in the guidelines that intrigued me: “IBM is increasingly exploring how online discourse through social computing can empower IBMers as global professionals, innovators and citizens. These individual interactions represent a new model:  not mass communications, but masses of communicators.” What a profound statement.  Gone are the days when a company can tightly control its message through advertising and printed materials.  IBM has recognized that thousands of its employees, within certain guidelines, are the touch points for communications with customers, prospects and the general public. Read more

8 News Media Business Trends for 2010

December 27, 2009

These trends are reprinted from “ Mashable, the Social Media Guide,” By Vadim Lavrusik

With the news industry struggling to find new revenue streams that can reshape their broken business model, 2010 will be defined by experiments in news media monetization. This will also include content that is guided more than ever by the audience and ad revenue.

This coming year we will also see the results of news organizations putting pay walls up, as well as new experimental models like accepting Web donations from readers — some of which may prove to be successful. Below are eight emerging news media business trends to look for in 2010.  For more detail, go to Mashable for descriptions and images.

1. Social Media Monetization
2. Revenue Beyond Advertising
3. As Publications Fold, Others Become Lean and Mean
4. Growth in Hyperlocal and Community Models
5. Local Advertising Grows
6. Local Advertising Models Emerge
7. To Charge or Not to Charge?
8. The Fremium Model

Why I’ve Come to Love Blogging

August 6, 2009

I’ve really come to love blogging and bloggers.  I started to blog this past spring — almost six months ago.  A friend encouraged me to try it — I’d like it!  So, I created a simple WordPress blog and started out on an unforeseen, but incredible journey.  Read more

Does Your Company Have a Social Media Director? Take The Poll

July 26, 2009

I’ve posted a simple 5-question poll on Linked-In: Does Your Company Have a Social Media Director to Manage the Company’s Social Media Strategy? Click on Social Media Poll if you would like to take the poll.

I’ll be posting the responses.  Also, please use the Comment section in this post if you would like to add your thoughts on the topic.  I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks!

Fortune 100 CEOs are Social Media Slackers, Says New Study

July 23, 2009

The website UberCEO (All Things CEO) conducted a study last month that we just discovered.  The study of the Fortune 2009 list of the top 100 CEOs found: Read more

Nonverbal communication in a social media world

July 16, 2009

Has social media and the Internet eliminated the need for — and importance of — nonverbal communication?  When you think about it, there are three ways to communicate: Read more

Why the 10,000 hours of practice rule doesn’t apply to social media

July 11, 2009

I recently posted a comment to someone’s question on LinkedIn’s Social Media Marketing Group. She wanted to know,  “How Do You Engage a Social Media Guru?”   There were several thoughtful replies with what I would call the standard advice:  look at their social media projects and communication experience, the processes they use, how they measure their results, etc. All worthy goals. But I disagree with this approach.  Here is what I said in my response, with a few new thoughts:

Read more

Twitter Fatigue

May 31, 2009

Are you tired of tweeting?  I find a fatigue factor is setting in.  I have fewer than 200 people I’m following (carefully chosen) and their posts are just whizzing by.  It doesn’t help that Twitter has been moving at the speed of a pig stuck in mud when I try to catch up with them.

I also find – to my surprise and dismay – that some of the most famous social media gurus write really dull tweets.  Read more

• Try Different — Seth Godin

  The usual mantra is to 'try harder'. Trying harder is impossible when you're already trying as hard as you can.

  But you can always try different.

  Years ago, I was creating trivia questions for a product we built for Prodigy. We had a 99% accuracy rate in doing the questions. Which was great, except there were 1800 questions in a batch, which meant 18 wrong each time, which was totally and completely unacceptable. These were honest mistakes, made by smart people working as hard as they could.

  No matter how hard we tried, we couldn't do better than 99%. So we switched our system completely and did it in a totally different way. Same number of people, same number of hours, 100% accuracy.

  If it's not working, harder might not be the answer.

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