2008 November

"Friend" is a verb Going through my mail this afternoon, I tossed my latest BtoB magazine into my ever-growing "must read" stack. Glancing at the back cover, a message from InformationWeek Business Technology Network (whew!) caught my eye: "Friend" is a verb. Got it. What I want to know is how it'll help me sell. The body copy went on to say "Not all social media is created equal..." Show Me The Money This ad surprised me, although I guess it really shouldn't have.  A great many large...

Office Space Company Big Box has a sales department, a legal department, an accounting department, a marketing department, an engineering department, a research department, a vendor relations department, etc. While they all drink from the same water cooler, many employees don't have an occasion or necessity to really interact. To understand how their own work relates to anothers, and how all the pieces fit together for the good of the whole. People might get their information from the intranet...

One definition of storytelling is as follows "storytelling...relating a tale to one or more listeners through voice and gestures." Sounds like content distribution, doesn't it?  In today's terms, that might include blogs, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, FriendFeed, the list goes on.  It's about sharing what you know and think.  About opening doors in the imagination and sparking creativity.  Or for that matter, sparking debate. The art of storytelling has a rich and complex history. ...

Your Brand Bible Should Include Social Media Etiquette and Principles I've posted previously about the adoption of Twitter by brands looking to reach, teach, and engage their consumer audiences.  I've also tried to shed some light on the oft-overlooked brand details to which your consumers are exposed.  I believe these two bunny trails intersect when the powerful force of authenticity enters the equation. Officially Un-Following I've chosen to focus the topic of authenticity as it relates to Twitter. ...

Twitter Central I subscribe to a great number of RSS feeds via a reader, but there are several businesses and organizations from which I receive traditional e-letters.  Today I was surprised to find that I received two emails from two separate companies--and the subject of each newsletter was Twitter.  Hmm. Three Types of Twitterers I guess it should come as no surprise, really.  I've been doing some research to identify corporate (a specific sector) and cause-type brands on Twitter and discovered...

Everything Has It's Own Purpose When I think about 1%, or 2% for that matter, the top-of-mind association is milk.  While I don't care for milk personally, my family consumes about 1/4 of the daily General Mills cereal production.  Some are soakers (let cereal and milk stand until achieving a soggy Lazy Acres Senior Community type consistency-bleh!), and some are crispers (just enough milk to wet the cereal), and to that end we have the Whole.  We have the Skim.  We have the Chocolate.  And no, we can't...

I enjoyed lunch today (a big WOOT! for the dragon roll # C5, more please) with someone I'll call Bob.  While we started verbally exploring a few business-related topics, we (okay, me) then tangentically spiraled over to other related "this too" areas.  Thoughts are swirling and I'm still connecting the bunny trails.  But one core theme is central to all the ideas.  The theme is...Value. That's It? That's All There Is? When, as a company, you consider the direction you'd like to go with your...