Category / Weblogs

by adam

Some Lessons Learned

I am not a blogger, but I have a blog.  It’s the same way I would say I am not a golfer, but I like to play golf, especially with good company in nice weather.  About 6 months ago, I started this blog as a “parking lot” and an outlet to capture thoughts about many topics.  […]

Wonder I am not a blogger, but I have a blog.  It’s the same way I would say I am not a golfer, but I like to play golf, especially with good company in nice weather.  About 6 months ago, I started this blog as a “parking lot” and an outlet to capture thoughts about many topics.  The topics are work related in nature, but I’m not looking to hawk wares from my company here.  I am learning a lot about conversation, engaging folks (or at least trying to), and what drives many of the social media blogging evangelists out there.  Frankly, it’s been a lot of fun.  I’ve decided to take a step back and look at what are some of the key things I’ve learned.  I know there are many, many better sources for blogging tips and advice, and to some of those authors what I have captured here could label yours truly as “Master of the Obvious.”  At any rate, anyone who jumps into social media has a learning path – I’m sharing some of mine, and would love to hear yours too.


1) Build It (Properly) and They Will Come


Search Engine Optimization is arguably more art than science.  Through looking at referrals to my blog in analytics, it’s easy to see Google searches are the number one search-related source of traffic.  What I did not imagine or anticipate is the types of search terms that got people to my content.  For example, “Working at Brulant” as search terms has brought a number of folks here.  This is a personal blog, although I do discuss my work on occasion.  Of course I immediately notified our recruiting operations and we are polishing up a more formal blog strategy.  In the meantime, two very interesting personal blogs have popped up from our recruiting folks at Talent Acquisition: What Would Darwin Say?  and the art and science of recruiting.  Hopefully the firm will see ROI from this but that is not my specific intent.  Either way, it’s cool to see how folks have found their way here.


2) I Like to Write


I was a political science major at UVM, and after a senior seminar on American Foreign Policy and a minor in American Literature I thought I’d never want to write again – too many late nights staring at my Mac Classic.  This blog has helped me to start building my writing skills again, and it’s fun to find a topic I’m enthusiastic about to let the writing fly loosely.  Of course, that leads to…


3) There Are Not Enough Hours In the Day


I like to write, but it’s far from ever being my day job.  There are statements of work, conference calls, strategy meetings, proposals, and seemingly endless other activities that consume my time.  I’m working on building social media skills internally in our organization, but most of that is on my own time.  Not to mention when I am home in the evenings I’ve got a very fun family to spend time with. (I have yet to hone my skills on the Wii, to the tune of my 7 year old beating me handily in MLB Baseball.  I would never have stood for that in the day, but I digress.)  This blog, not to mention other social media outlets like Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed and others, could easily consume more time.  I need to manage all of the above with a balance, and this blog gets a post a week on average – less than the recommended twice a week to maintain loyal “readership” by many sources.


4) Good Content is Rewarded


Good content is essential to a blog.  I know not every post I author is a good one, but when one comes along, it gets noticed and rewarded with traffic, recognition, and comments.  You don’t need to ‘link bait’ to get people to that stuff, it just gets out there – a friend from Twitter posted a link of one of my posts on Mixx.com; Another made it onto Digg; The folks at Alltop were kind enough to list my blog there; Other better known bloggers have linked to specific posts or added this blog to their respective blogrolls; Offline, friends, family and colleagues have shared with me positive feedback.  I love hearing from former and current clients who noticed this site.  The whole thing has remained a fun cycle to watch and participate in, and I am inspired to try to “do good work” with my posts here.  A good analogy would be to the children’s book, Mike Mulligan and the Steam Shovel in which a steam shovel and its trusty operator work a little faster and a little better with each additional person watching them work. 


There are many who have given me pointers (knowingly or otherwise) so far, and I thank all of them for their insight, tips, comments and suggestions.  I could highlight many folks or websites here that have good tips, but I’m just going to say a collective “thank you” to the folks who are passionate about this medium.  This has been a positive learning experience all around and I plan to continue it at a minimum just for that benefit.  What are some of the best lessons learned you have found from blogging or other social media tools?  If you haven’t started to yet, what is holding you back?  By the way, what led you to this post?


Photo credit: Austin Kleon via Flickr.

by adam

Using Friendfeed, Caught in a Social Media Turbine

I decided to check out Friendfeed, perhaps because of some of the outages of Twitter recently but also because I'm not an early adopter – but I'd like to be one day.  I think.  In a few short minutes I was caught in a vicious cycle, and it's probably because I'm not leveraging some of […]

I decided to check out Friendfeed, perhaps because of some of the outages of Twitter recently but also because I'm not an early adopter – but I'd like to be one day.  I think.  In a few short minutes I was caught in a vicious cycle, and it's probably because I'm not leveraging some of these tools properly.

Either way, here is what happened the last time I logged into FriendFeed, which is best read as if you are the guy from the MicroMachines commercials of the 1980s:

– In Friendfeed, I spot a Twitter post from a friend with a link to a cool blog post
– Read blog post, bookmark on del.icio.us
– Spot same blog post on Google reader 
– Share it on Facebook
– Facebook feeds automatically to my Plaxo account
– Get comment from Plaxo feed on how cool that post is
– I read comment in Gmail
– I respond in Twitter about cool blog post comment and go back to Friendfeed
– In Friendfeed, I spot a an annoucement about Friendfeed mobile
– I try Friendfeed mobile and send a txt message to my Facebook status, which updates in Twitter and posts on Friendfeed and syncs to Plaxo which sends me a notification email that my Friend's Tweetfeed shared a link on Googletwit… suddenly I'm in one of those awful AT&T commercials and I find myself in Googleplaxifacetwhirlfeediliciouseesmic.

Now I think I will go check that in as my location on Brightkite.

by adam

Alltop: Aggregation That’s Easy on the Eyes

I saw a post from Facebook friend David Hinson recently that suggested to get your blog listed at Alltop, all you need to do is send an email to Guy Kawasaki, the well known enterpreneur and venture capitalist in silicon valley.  Sure, it's that simple.  And I have an offshore account in Kuala Lumpur where I will wire […]

Alltop I saw a post from Facebook friend David Hinson recently that suggested to get your blog listed at Alltop, all you need to do is send an email to Guy Kawasaki, the well known enterpreneur and venture capitalist in silicon valley.  Sure, it's that simple.  And I have an offshore account in Kuala Lumpur where I will wire you $500K if you just send me your checking account routing number and your social security number.

Blogging for me is a hobby, a way to force me to think about the world outside of day to day challenges in consulting.  I know I don't write as often as I should.  I've had this blog up and running for a few months now, I'm enjoying writing, but I can't truly say I'm a blogger.  So when I got a response from Guy merely 5 minutes after a late night email, saying, "We'll add you to socialmedia.alltop.com.  Your stuff is good," I consider that a significant boost of confidence to continue writing and seeing where this leads.

Alltop is a content aggregator site that Guy created more or less on a whim, seeing the success in driving traffic to some of his other sites from other aggregators like popurls.com.  Alltop has many categories and doesn't have an 'algorithm' – there is a staff manually reviewing content and placing it on each page to give it a human element of what they recommend.  (My suggestion would be to add a Digg like feature to perhaps build up credibility in some of the content, but what do I know).  You can read more about Alltop here.  With a "persuasive email" you too can be included in their directory, in exchange for adding banners like this:Alltop, confirmation that I kick ass 
or the one I included on the right.

Thanks again Guy, for:
a) being responsive,
b) including me (it will definitely give me incentive to continue writing and focusing on providing the best content that I can), and
c) creating a cool new way to get at information rather than trying to follow blogrolls, del.icio.us links and other informal ways of finding good blogs and news sources to read.

Have you checked out Alltop yet?  Here's a screenshot of this blog post from http://socialmedia.alltop.com:

Myblogonalltop

by adam

Blog policy? Try a Social Media Policy

My company, Brulant, has been around for many years, but is just recently embracing elements of social media internally. In the past few months I have immersed myself in social media to learn – each day I find something new about what our clients can do and what we can do internally.  I’m still learning, […]

Toes_2My company, Brulant, has been around for many years, but is just recently embracing elements of social media internally. In the past few months I have immersed myself in social media to learn – each day I find something new about what our clients can do and what we can do internally.  I’m still learning, but one of the first pieces of advice was to get a blogging policy out there for the company.  We don’t have official corporate blogs in place yet, but I hope to one day soon.  Even so, people need to know what can help them and hurt them regardless of social media tools in play.

I started by looking for other examples out there.  Here are some things I dug up, and I’ll add to this as I find more.  Frankly I started saving so many links and examples it became redundant.  Some of the most valuable finds:

  • A colleague from the Technology Marketing Executive Council run by Forrester shared his firm’s policy (I’ll ask permission to mention him here before I give him up).
  • John Cass, who I connected with over Twitter and Social Media Breakfasts in Boston, has written a book about corporate blogging along with a companion wiki.  He also is a contributor to the list of Fortune 500 companies that have blogs.
  • Charlene Li from Forrester has a wiki of example corporate blog policies, although some of the links are DOA.  Her new book Groundswell with Josh Bernoff has a whole chapter dedicated to "the groundswell inside your company," but the strategy and advice for marketers applies throughout. This is a fundamental book everyone should read. There, I said it. And I just bought 15 copies to give to the people on our internal social media interest group.

Combing through all of these, it was clear that what was relevant to blogging policies is relevant to other sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and many others.  Aside from the HR verbiage around "disciplinary action up to termination may occur" for policy violations, the policy is really designed to promote professional and open dialog regardless of the technology.  Frankly, people need to be aware that firm executives (not to mention our clients) are watching the content generated on the interwebs and should act accordingly. 

Here is the outline of our policy and paraphrased snippets of what is included.  Contact me directly if you would like a copy, although we are still in the process of finalizing and publishing internally.  What have you included in yours and how could we improve this?

  • Agency Monitoring and Privacy Policy
    Essentially saying, "yes, executives are watching and you are responsible for your content out there especially when talking about work on your personal blogs, Face book profiles and forums."
  • Promote Interactivity and Individuality
    Be personal, clear about the purpose of your content, and be responsive to emails, comments and feedback.
  • Promote Free Expression
    Don’t censor comments unless they violate the policy (i.e. confidentiality), and don’t restrict access.  Allow and encourage conversation through comments and sharing of ideas.
  • Strive for Factual Truth and Scholarship
    Never plagiarize, do not use assumed names, and cite sources referenced in each post.  Learn about Creative Commons. 
  • Be As Transparent As Possible
    Reveal as much as your are comfortable with about your identity while being mindful of your own privacy.  Disclose conflicts of interest and other professional associations.
  • Be Professional
    Balance time spent in social media and don’t let it interfere with your work.  Don’t talk about specific clients without their formal approval.  Be mindful of what information is confidential to the firm or our clients.  Live the values in our internal team member handbook.  Respect copyright, the law and other people – disagree gracefully and respectfully. 
  • Examples of Situations Where The Policy Applies and Does Not

I’d value further advice on improving, and as we evolve our use of tools and engaging in conversations we will keep the policy updated.  Already I wish we had an internal wiki to use to collaborate with the team drafting this.  Does your company have a similar policy?  Who drafted it?  What was the response when it was published to everyone?

Thanks to Becky McCray and jwhitcomb for suggesting to write this up.

photo credit: mrvjtod via flickr

by adam

Finding Your Social Media Centerpoint

While I was reading Groundswell (the new book from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff from Forrester Research) on the plane last night, I had an epiphany.  I need to find my own "centerpoint" on social media.  What’s a centerpoint?  Great question, I’ll get back to that.  Here’s the paragraph that hit home for me from […]

Img00058 While I was reading Groundswell (the new book from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff from Forrester Research) on the plane last night, I had an epiphany.  I need to find my own "centerpoint" on social media.  What’s a centerpoint?  Great question, I’ll get back to that.  Here’s the paragraph that hit home for me from Groundswell, along with a picture of my signed copy from the Forrester Marketing Forum:

"…these people [IT strategists and CIOs asking about blogs, Facebook, etc] know they need to get involved, but they’re nervous about moving forward.  To us, they seem to have developed a sort of low-grade fever.  In fact, this problem is so common, we have a name for it: groundswell approach-avoidance syndrome.  Look for these symptoms in yourself or your co-workers:

  • Strong, and in some cases obsessive, interest in the blogosphere and in online doings at sites like Facebook and YouTube.  Repeated forwarding of articles on said topics to fellow sufferers.
  • Excessive salivation upon hearing much-repeated stories of corporations that have developed partnerships with social networking sites, started online communities, or otherwise managed to get held up as winners in news reports and at marketing conferences
    …
  • Anxiety at the thought of actually participating in social technologies, balanced by similar anxiety at the thought of missing out."

In the words of Lt. Frank Drebbin, Police Squad:  "Bingo."  My firm is abuzz right now with "figuring out" social media, and we have started a social media breakfast group internally to talk about client opportunities, strategy, lessons learned, trends, etc.  I’ve been using twitter for several months, started using Google reader, started this blog, joined Facebook…all in the interest of learning about community and interaction.  My CEO regular forwards press releases and articles about social media, and our internal interest group points out cool case studies to each other all the time.  What became clear after reading this chapter in Groundswell: I need my own centerpoint for social media.

Blue_4 A few years ago an an internal community meeting, my old firm hired John Foley to present about how high performing teams work together.  Foley is a former pilot with the Blue Angels, and tours doing speaking engagements.  A "CenterPoint" is what the Blue Angels would use to set up their amazing runs – a focal point or object on the ground that would be the absolute center for their flying demonstrations.  One flight pattern in particular uses it – having two F/A-18s fly directly at each other and pass just inches apart right over the centerpoint.  In Foley’s speaking arrangements, he uses the analogy of a centerpoint to be a common purpose to align people and resources, that "all pursue with conviction and clarity."  It can change over time, but defining a purpose is a first step.  (Foley, by the way, is an amazing speaker about how to energize high performing teams – his presentation is very engaging, with some amazing video. I’d highly recommend considering him for doing something different in those "offsite team building" dreary meetings.)

My social media centerpoint, for starters, is to educate, empower and connect people within my firm.  We can’t start preaching to clients about the merits of connecting the community if we can’t eat our own dog food first and learn from our own mistakes trying. 

What is your social media centerpoint?

by adam

“Cannonball comin’…”

A couple of college friends spotted my blog recently and asked why.  Some colleagues at work joined Twitter recently and found that I am already on it (in fact, I’m linking to this as my 1000th post), and asked why.  In the last three months both friends and family have seen me spend quality time […]

A couple of college friends spotted my blog recently and asked why.  Some colleagues at work joined Twitter recently and found that I am already on it (in fact, I’m linking to this as my 1000th post), and asked why.  In the last three months both friends and family have seen me spend quality time on Facebook and asked why.  I gave it some thought.  To understand these tools, you have to immerse yourself in it – by diving right in.

As I learn more about interactive marketing – frankly, I know I have a lot to learn – social media is changing our industry.  Old approaches to connect with customers and communities are becoming less effective and less relevant.  What better way to understand how it is changing than to jump right in, drink from the fire hose and be baptized by fire all at once? 

After a few months, I have learned a lot and had fun doing it through Twitter, Facebook, this blog, and other tools:

  • I have met a diverse group of passionate social media enthusiasts who have been welcoming to a new participant, including the Social Media Club in Boston.
  • I found a group of strangers who love dunkin donuts coffee like it’s crack, just like I do. 
  • I have direct access to some of the folks in PR, venture capital and social media around the country that are defining how the industry will change, and there are amazing conversations taking place that I can participate in. 
  • I have reconnected with former clients and colleagues who are marching down the same learning path that I am.
  • I have caught up with old friends from elementary school, high school, college and work.  Not to mention summer camp (former campers who were 12 last time I saw them are now out of college!?).
  • I found a die-hard group of Red Sox fans to share a live game experience as if we were all in the same room.
  • I watched a campaign to raise money for Cancer research unfold due to the openness and honesty of a few core bloggers.
  • I watched a couple of social media companies leverage tools like Twitter to do their own PR about their new firm.
  • I have watched companies and individuals experiment, connect, ask questions and contribute thoughts and opinions.
  • I have found new ways to leverage being online and being connected every day.

Most importantly, I’ve experienced first hand how connecting to communities can add value to the experience – in this case my own – and am grateful for the connections.  I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next.

by adam

Work Hard, Play Hard – with Social Media

I work for a small interactive marketing and consulting firm called Brulant.  95% of the close to 400 employees are based in Cleveland, OH.  Every year, we have a traditional event called the Practice Wars, teeing up team members in the Java and Microsoft practices against each other, along with folks aligned to industry verticals.  […]

Practicewars_2 I work for a small interactive marketing and consulting firm called Brulant.  95% of the close to 400 employees are based in Cleveland, OH.  Every year, we have a traditional event called the Practice Wars, teeing up team members in the Java and Microsoft practices against each other, along with folks aligned to industry verticals.  The competition ranges from foosball and ping pong to Rubik’s cube and an engineering egg drop.  Other competitions include football, softball and other sports.  Everyone is encouraged to compete in at least one event, and the winning group maintains both a trophy and bragging rights for next year.

This year, we have infused social media into the fun, but as a communication vehicle and a way to educate the company on the tools and communities that are out there. 

  • We’ve launched a Brulant Practice Wars blog (internal only)
  • We’ve started a twitter feed @practicewars http://twitter.com/practicewars for all to follow, with live updates and scores during events
  • The folks followed by @practicewars show up in a real time feed on the blog
  • The blog has a RSS feed, comments, photos, a mashup of maps for the event locations

We used to just send out a big powerpoint of pictures and results – this time we can update everyone real time, solicit ideas, and even let folks talk smack.  This is a great way and idea to leverage social media internally and in the meantime we are teaching everyone the value of a tool like twitter.   Score: New Brulant Community 1, Old school lack of engagement, 0.