Recently in social network Category

HyperOffice is holding a webinar about Email and Productivity. It follows up on the LinkedIn Poll that Shahab Kaviani, VP of Marketing at Hyperoffice, held last week on reducing your Inbox with Online Collaboration.

This is of interest to me because I get so much email, including listserv messages and social networking notifications. There is so much noise to filter through - Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, email, IM/chat, voicemail, and text messages - it is becoming overwhelming.

There are days that it takes 6 hours to shuffle through all this communication. I think this hyper-connectivity is a bad thing. Notice how people in a restaurant or a bar spend more time on their phones than actually talking / interacting with the people right in front of them?

Crackberry was a joke, but it turned out that it is very difficult for people to unplug. I successfully did that for a couple of hours each day this weekend, but then right back online to see what I missed. It's nuts. I'm going to start a 12-step program.

Are you overloaded with email / communications? Is email bankrupt? (After getting 500+ spam messages this morning, I think the answer is obvious, except that email is primary communications tool).

Obviously, there are tools that can be used to make business communications more efficient, but some that I have tried slow down Outlook so much or eat up so much memory the laptop slows down that I had to delete them. Suggestions are welcome.

1. Are you overwhelmed?
2. Can you un-plug?
3. Do you un-plug?

A productivity consultant I know, Matthew Cornell, says that he has a zero inbox. I can't even envision that because some projects, like a fiber build, can result in over 400 emails. I leave them all in the inbox until the project is finished, so I can search in one spot. That's probably not the best way, but I also go through both my sent folder and my inbox monthly to make sure that I have contacted people regularly.  Again, I would be happy to hear of a better way.

Do you know what twitter is? It's the text messaging to the masses application platform. Officially, I think it is described as a micro-blogging social networking platform, but huh? The idea with twitter is to update a group of folks about what is of interest to you.

I'm on twitter and so are many TMC folks, like Rich, Tom, and sales guy extraordinaire Anthony; so is the TMC news service.

There are some telcos on twitter like Embarq, CenturyTel, and Windstream. The two companies merging do nothing with there account; it's a place holder. Windstream however just started up and they are doing a good job of it as far as I can tell. It's about interaction and they are being interactive with their customers, which is the example set by companies like JetBlue and Zappos.

The cable company with a bad service reputation took to twitter months ago and has been winning back it scustomers One at a time. That's right, Comcast is doing it the old fashion way, reaching out to help customers one at a time.

TWCable has an account with protected updates. Bright House Networks has one employee who is just underway.

In the VoIP world, there are plenty of folks on twitter, including Dan York from Voxeo, Garrett Smith of VoIP Supply and FreedomVoice. Actually there are too many to mention in VoIP.

Is your company interacting with its clients and target marketplace? Take twitter out for a test drive -- or watch what other folks are doing and copy it.

So social media expert, Chris Brogan, blogs about Michael Goodspeed being wronged by YouTube. Since Google owns YouTube, this is the beginning of Google becomes the Evil Empire.  I've been watching this happen for a while. When GrandCentral was upgrading to Googel Voice in waves it was a bitchfest on Twitter because people had to wait. *gasp*. They had to wait like 10 days to get access to an upgrade to a free service. WTH?

I just don't understand the issue with entitlement in this world.

It's like the people who have sued Google when Google makes changes to its algorithms, causing their business to fall off. Or when Google started charging for Google Apps and Gmail for businesses. People were not  happy. (What will they do when Google Voice comes off Beta and has a price tag? Voice has a cost).

I now understand why businesses fail: lack of common sense; lack of business sense; no knowledge of business or contract law; and entitlement.

Google, YouTube, Flickr, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Twitter, and Facebook are free to use. If your account gets deleted like Goodspeed's did, it is a bad day. You have back ups, right? But is Google evil because the account was deleted? I don't think so.

If you base your business on a free software platform and that company changes something, you better have plan B. What if the government decides to take ARPANet back for government use only? Or Net Neutrality policy fails so that you only get content form your ISP?  No more INternet as we no it. What then? You better have a Plan B.

I understand that Goodspeed is upset his account was suspended, but it happened on Thursday, March 26th. It's only the 31st. Google isn't set up for customer support to consumers on its free services.

And he forewarned people that this could happen. How did he know?

When twitter is slow, people complain all day. There's a Facebook group titled I will not pay to use Facebook - Keep it free. I just don't understand the mentality. It costs big dollars to provide these platforms and keep them running. And to do it for free is unheard of until the Internet came along. It's the Generation of Entitlement - and it is annoying. No one owes you anything.

IBM

Image via Wikipedia

has a study out about how Social networking has co-opted many minutes of traditional talking.

 

People are communicating more things to more people than ever before, and not just by phone anymore. Internet-enabled communication models are gaining audience, attention and market share at the expense of traditional telecommunication providers (Telcos). Can Telcos fight back and find new growth opportunities in this rapidly changing ecosystem? The challenge is not just in understanding the technology, but also the unfolding fundamental shifts in human communication behavior.

Facebook, SMS, twitter, LinkedIn, Ning, YouTube, Ustream, and all the rest of the social media strata are where people are communicating. IM/chat like Skype, Google Talk, Yahoo, and MSN also have taken some minutes out of the system.

If you look at usage of cell phone minutes on the youth, you will see very little talking but lots of texting and web access. (Maybe charging per minute caused that). The primary communication method is social networks not telephony.

Telcos are losing landlines, mainly to cellular replacement. Certainly, cableco bundles have taken some landlines, but studies show that in this economic mess folks choose the mobile phone over a static line. Add in the fact that the next generation doesn't eat up minutes means that long distance revenue will be dipping as well as landline counts.
 

This presents a problem for telcos because the content folks don't want to share the revenue, which in many cases they don't have. Twitter, Facebook and Hulu are all having a challenging time monetizing a rapidly growing platform.

People are communicating in new ways -- and none of these innovations came to you from Ma or Pa Bell. Surprised? I'm not.

If there was ever a demonstration of how a government could use Web 2.0 (user generated content), it has to be the Obama group. Here's 10 Online tools that the Obama Administration is using to connect to the People.  I can see why he wants to keep his Blackberry.

On Twitter this morning, someone asked about the Cluetrain Manifesto. (I had to look at Wikipedia to remember what the main points were). The Internet will change every business.  "The authors assert that the Internet is unlike the ordinary media used in mass marketing as it enables people to have "human to human" conversations, which have the potential to transform traditional business practices radically."  We see that happening in quite a few verticals. It has changed the newspaper, music, entertainment, retail shopping, and telecom industries. It will likely change even more.

"The clue train stopped there four times a day for ten years and they never took delivery."  Certainly, this quote applies to 3 Detroit CEO's.

This has been a busy networking week. Business Buddies holiday party, AMA Tampa Bay Luncheon, and the Tampa Bay CEO Awards dinner last night. The emcee for the event, Brent Britton, is an interesting guy, a lawyer from MIT in Tampa via Silcon Valley. Another person of interest was a finalist for a CEO Award. She worked on Obama's campaign doing online marketing. She writes for Huffington Post. You just never know who you will run into.

The problem I have with it is how so many intriguing people can live in Tampa Bay - and no one knows it!  So a couple of us are on a mission to cross-pollinate the creatives in town with the techie/geeks in the Tampa Bay area. Find all the hidden gems in Tampa Bay. It started with BarCampTampaBay in October and will continue with Lunch 2.0, maybe Jelly, Dev/Design, some other stuff and culminate at BarCampTampaBay in Sept./Oct.

During a discussion online, some interesting items popped up.

Companies ban Instant Message. One IT Security Consultant looks at the irony of it here. Tele-Presence is all about improved efficiency in communicating -- no more phone tag, less voicemail, that kind of thing -- but how will that be implemented in a corporate environment that locks it down?

Social networking like LinkedIn and Twitter are becoming commonplace among the marketing set. Maybe instead of banning these things in a corporate environment, you embrace it and set policy. Here's an article from CIO.com on LinkedIn etiquette.

It boils down to tools. Will you give people the tools that they can use to be effective at their position?  If you are that worried about security, do an audit and train your people. Manage by walking around. Most theft is internal or social engineered. You can train against the social engineering, but if someone wants something bad enough they will figure out how to get it. It's just a shame that can't get that passionate and creative about the job.

On Wed. night, I am moderating a discussion at the American Marketing Association - Tampa Bay Chapter (New Media SIG) on the Deep Dive into Blogging. 

In a Biz Journal article, the author notes, "It is a new world for business. Embrace the opportunities. Open your mind to a new way of connecting. It is a great way to prosper in any economy."

I say that in today's business world, you have to be connecting with your customers and prospects - even your employees, vendors, and prospective employees. Reward programs are old school. Social media - in the form of blogging, Facebook groups, YouTube channels, Twitter, etc. - is the way to really form a bond with your customers.

For years, we heard about WOM (word of mouth). We read books about turning Customers into Evangelists and BuzzAgents and Sneezers. But how do you do that? According to Seth Godin's latest book, you build a Tribe. You lead people. One way is to be a Thought Leader in your industry. Blogging helps.

If you have an authentic dialogue on your blog whereby you give value to your readers, you will eventually build a tribe. (It may not be a big tribe, but a tribe of followers nonetheless).

Here is a sneak peek at my presentation:

 

In grass roots fashion, Pandora, the online music genome project, urged its users (like me) to contact Congress about extending the royalty deadline. The bill passed the House. "Pandora and other Web-based radio services have been negotiating with music-industry groups for more than a year now, hoping to agree on a workable royalty structure before the existing structure bankrupted webcasters." [Dallas Morning News]  Who was the biggest opponent of the bill? NAB. Go figure!