A music affinity group emerges on Twitter

One of the most fun things about messing around with Twitter is to see interesting things emerge. It's such a general tool that it's a lot like those college greens that architects leave without pathways, allowing students to develop their own patterns over time.

I've recently started seeing the emergence of a music affinity group on Twitter (one of many, probably). It occurred to me this is happening yesterday, when I got a follow from @peteyorn, a musician that I like but didn't even know was on Twitter.

How he found me, I don't know (perhaps Mr. Tweet does). Maybe it's my connection with @francisten from West Indian Girl, or @kmueller62 of WXPN (or even @fotteson, a local bass player). Maybe it's that I write about music a fair amount (including live Tweeting the My Morning Jacket New Year's Eve concert or my musical crush on NOMO).

At any rate, I've gotten follows now from @madalynsklar, @talkmusicnow and @sxsw. You can see the pattern emerging. And I like it. I want to know what musicians and music fans are tweeting about. I'll learn about new music & perhaps see a bit of the faces behind the records. It'll be fun to see how this group evolves over time. (And if you're a musician or music lover, give us a follow at @jmcaddell and I'll follow back. You can join the conversation then.)

Just another way @twitter is changing how we interact and learn.

DOPPLR - a fascinating tool to enable serendipity

In 1996, I was wandering down a street in Kansas City when I unexpectedly ran into an old colleague of mine. It was a delightful encounter. We spent ten minutes or so catching up and reminiscing about great concerts we had attended together. I remember it now as if it happened yesterday.

This story may explain why I am in love with a new website called DOPPLR, which connects you and friends/colleagues and allows you to share information with them.

(I can hear you already. What, another social site? I'm already on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, seven Ning networks. Enough!)

DOPPLR's unique twist is that it allows you to share travel itineraries with your circle--something of exceptional utility if you travel much, and if members of your circle travel as well. It lets you know when members of your network are traveling to your town, or (coolest of all), when you and an acquaintance just happen to be traveling to the same place at the same time.

For example, even though I have a small circle in my DOPPLR network, I already learned of two folks who will be traveling to the same conference with me in San Francisco next month. This piece of information spurred me to email them and set up get-togethers.

I've discussed the benefits of networking again and again in this space. The new social tools allow you to keep up with a much larger circle of acquaintances. The catch is, since they're all virtual, they don't help much in actually getting together with members of your network if they're not in the neighborhood.

But DOPPLR does exactly that.

Tags:
web 2.0, websites, travel, networking, social networking

Network when you don't need to

Act before there is a problem.
Bring order before there is disorder.
Tao te Ching, #27

I had coffee with a former colleague this week. He was looking for a new job, his company having closed its local office. My colleague was confessing his dread of networking. He knew he needed to do it, but it just wasn't pleasant for him.

Also this week, I got an email from another former colleague, who wrote, "Love to catch up. I am out on the street looking for my next position."

Both of these folks are senior people, corporate vice-presidents, who find themselves in the humbling position of contacting people in order to locate their next jobs. They have to network, because their next job depends on it. No wonder it's a burden.

I have been in their position. When I started out on my own, the timing was not planned. Suddenly, I no longer had my prior position, and I needed to find work. I called, I emailed. I touched base. Neediness oozed from my pores. No wonder it took a long while to get a paying gig.

A significant event was stumbling across the book "Never Eat Alone." Reading it helped at my mindset and my approach. It reinforced the importance of a network, why people work with people they know, and why people want to help others they know.

"Never Eat Alone" remains the best book on networking I've read. And the biggest lesson to me was to network because it's fun and exciting to keep in touch with people. Not because you need something. The stronger a network you have, the more you contribute to it, the more opportunities will come out of it.

And, paradoxically, the less you will have turn to it out of desperation.

Related posts:
On "Never Eat Alone"
Networking: burden or pleasure?
The power of "weak ties"
"Weak Ties" #2
A personal relationship makes all the difference

Tags:
relationships, networking, social networking, career

Mistake Bank featured in the Ning blog

Ning is the platform that hosts The Mistake Bank and more than 300,000 other social networks (!). In the Ning blog, they feature a few networks each day that use Ning. And last night, they posted a nice writeup of The Mistake Bank. Did you ever notice this: when others discuss an idea you have, they often explain it more clearly than you can! Please check it out.

And if you're interested in starting a social network, for a class reunion (like my wife did) or any other purpose, I'd highly recommend Ning. It's highly functional and exceptionally easy to set up, maintain and customize. (Note: I have no connection with Ning other than as a user of their software.)

Ning was founded by Gina Bianchini and Marc Andreesen. Andreesen previously had founded Netscape and Opsware, two highly successful startups. I think he knows something about growing successful companies.

Related Post:
"The Breakthrough Company": wise advice for the emerging entity

Tags:
Mistake Bank, social networking, technology, entrepreneurism, growth

Twitter and "Every Minute Accounted For"

I've been using Twitter for the last several weeks and I find it interesting, though I'm not yet at the point where I see breakthrough applications for it. They may be out there; I'm just not experienced enough to see them.

(For the uninitiated, Twitter is a micro-blogging tool that allows you to send 140-character notes from your PC or mobile phone, and for others to view them. You are asked a simple question: "What are you doing?" and your answer is broadcast to the community. You can also subscribe to others' Tweets.)

It's such a simple and open tool that the possibilities for using it are almost limitless. It may go without saying that most of the applications will be better at wasting time than improving productivity. Yet, Twitter has real potential to increase connectedness.

For example, I work with a team of people that are spread out across the US, UK and Ireland, and frequently shift from one location to another. It would be helpful to have Tweets updating where they are so that I can know when to call them (given that there is a 6-hour difference between Chicago and England), or when they're in transit.

You can imagine a million such applications. And right now hundreds (thousands?) of people are doing just that.

I find it fascinating that answering the question "What are you doing?" over and over again can create a life narrative--an autobiography of trivia, as it were. Which reminded me of an article I read in Harper's Magazine more than ten years ago about a guy, Robert Shields, who kept a moment-to-moment diary for more than twenty years ("Every Minute Accounted For" by David Isay--access free with magazine subscription). A sample is below:

10:00-10:05 I groomed my hair with a scrub brush
10:05-10:10 I fed the cat with tinned cat food
10:10-10:20 I dressed in black Haband trousers, a pastel-blue Bon Marche shirt, the blue Haband blazer with simulated silver buttons, both hearing aids, eyeglasses, and the 14-degree Masonic ring.

Two thoughts occurred to me. One: Shields could really have benefited from Twitter. And two: is Twitter growing more Robert Shieldses? How many people out there are notating their lives down to the minute and sharing them with the world?

The last paragraph of the Harper's article poignantly explains why anyone might want to leave such a record. (It is from a passage in the diary where Shields describes an interview with Isay, the author.)

I said I did not know why I kept it, especially since it is doubtful if anyone would ever read it. It is a compulsion. [Isay] asked whether I intended to keep it up until I die and I said yes. It is impossible for me to give any motivation for it, except that when I am gone, the words that I have written will be the only thing that survives.

Another article about Robert Shields is available here.

Related post:
Everyday stories hold great insight

Tags:
narrative, storytelling, social networking, connection, Twitter

Is your marketing department confused about web2.0? Read this

The one nearly universal feeling of companies dealing with the changes that web2.0 has made to marketing is utter bewilderment. I participated in a project to assess corporate blogs last year and I wouldn’t give any company I looked at better than a “C.” In fact, most of them would get incompletes: they had no blogs at all.

Never mind wikis, Facebook, Second Life, YouTube, Twitter, Digg, etc., etc.

So it’s very timely that Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research have written “Groundswell,” a book that illuminates what web2.0 means to everyday businesses. In straightforward language, and buttressed by primary research into how various groups participate in web2.0, Li and Bernoff define the most important web2.0 technologies, show how consumers use them, and lay out how companies can encourage and participate in the conversations about themselves and their products.

At the outset, Li and Bernoff define six overlapping types of web2.0 users & nonusers (creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators, inactives) and show their representation in various segments. For example, Democrats have more web2.0 users across the board than Republicans. Japanese Fujitsu PC owners are far more likely to be collectors (e.g., content taggers or subscribers to RSS feeds) than NEC’s PC customers.

Through these examples, the authors crisply demonstrate that companies need to understand the web2.0 profiles of their customers, so as to understand, ultimately, how to engage them in productive conversation.

Case studies appear throughout the book, both success stories (Blendtec’s “Will It Blend” videos) and failures (the short-lived blog of Unica’s Chief Marketing Officer). To satisfy old-line executives (especially CFOs), they include pro forma business cases for several web2.0 projects—including laying out the upfront and ongoing costs of these initiatives.

Over and over, Li and Bernoff emphasize the need, when using these technologies, to listen, and not to shout. To be transparent, and to be authentic. Whether this is possible with traditional companies, in which desiring to control the message is deeply ingrained, remains to be seen.

---------------------------------

Examples of web2.0 user types defined in “Groundswell”:
Creators – blog writers, amateur YouTube videographers
Critics – blog commenters, Amazon product reviewers
Collectors – del.icio.us taggers
Joiners – myspace and Facebook users
Spectators – blog readers, forum readers

Related:
Groundswell blog
Corporate IT maximum-security is damaging innovation
How enterprise 2.0 adds value to the connections between workers

social networking, information technology, web2.0, marketing, blogging, virtual communities, reading list

Mistake Bank update

The Mistake Bank is three weeks old tomorrow. And like any infant that age, it's still hard to know what it will look like when it grows up. Yet there have been hundreds of visits, several dozen members joined, and nearly that many stories shared.

Many people I've talked to are intrigued, but a bit wary. What if I don't have any stories to share?

Let me make it clear, then. With the Mistake Bank, lurkers are welcome. Please sign up and visit often. You never know what you'll find. [Perhaps an embarrassing moment or two.]

If you want to share a story, but don't know how, take a look at what's already there to use as a model. Or do it your own way.

[If you happen to be at Wireless 2008 next week, and want to share a story, email me at inquiry (at) caddellinsightgroup (dot) com. I'll be there with my new Flip video camera and would be delighted to record it for you.]

The experiences, discussions and interactions I've had since the Mistake Bank went live have only reinforced my belief that we can build it into a useful, fun resource for all kinds of people.

Won't you consider joining?

mistakes, Mistake Bank, learning, social networking

Corporate IT maximum-security is damaging innovation

Exhibit A: A fellow I serve on a board with recently got a new job with a city government. I asked him for his updated contact information and he said, "I can't give out my work email address. They don't like anything that's not 100% city business done on their computers."

Exhibit B: another friend who works for a large telecom company tried to access my new site The Mistake Bank from work and found that corporate IT had blocked all social-networking sites.

Exhibit C (counter-example): Google's CIO, interviewed in today's Wall Street Journal, says the company's policy allows users to download their own software, supports multiple operating systems and uses public resources (like their own blogger.com) for work-related activities.

Andrew McAfee, for one, has often pointed the finger at internal IT shops for inhibiting the adoption of transformative Enterprise 2.0 technologies. Accurately so, in my opinion.

Why? Reasonable concerns regarding security risks and productivity impacts have spawned draconian, corporate-wide policies that essentially prevent employees from learning anything except that which is corporately-sanctioned.

A company worrying about people frittering away time on Facebook simply closes off access--and thereby prevents employees from keeping track of and developing valuable contacts that can help them deliver better results in their jobs.

Obsessing over use of work IT resources only for work--such as the concern about non-work-related emails my friend encountered--forgets that more and more work concerns things outside the company--learning about the issues facing customers and partners, researching competitors, understanding innovation. It also conveniently forgets that knowledge work frequently spills over the boundaries of the work day--thereby forcing some non-work activities into the hours of 8-5.

In sum, while this throttling of external IT resources for more and more companies may or may not make them more secure and productive--it certainly limits the horizons of employees, depriving them of oxygen needed for learning, innovative thinking, and being a whole person.

And is that a reasonable price to pay?

Related:
How enterprise 2.0 adds value to the connections between workers

(Photo: Alcatraz Island from amagill via Flickr Creative Commons)

social networking, information technology, web2.0, enterprise2.0, productivity, security, innovation

Sales has its own culture--is this a bad thing?

I was recently part of a sales meeting where the salespeople from each region of the company descended onto headquarters, gave presentations to the senior management team, got direction, feedback, etc., then went back home to continue selling.

It struck me while I was there that I have seen this very same meeting in each company where I've had close contact, or been part of, the sales team.

And one observation I'd make is that quarterly sales meetings show how the culture of the sales team significantly differs from that of the company at large. Another way of saying this is that the sales team is not very well integrated with the company as a whole.

For example, when the salespeople emerged from the meeting and went onto the floor where everyone else works, they were clearly visitors. There was loud talking, laughter, as people came up and greeted them. Small meetings broke out, at which they discussed proposals, customer meetings, the state of the product collateral.

And then they were gone, and the office returned to its quiet buzz of activity.

That evening, the sales team went out to dinner. Just them, without other team members. And they talked about their concerns about the product, the level of support they got from marketing, operations, etc. Their feeling of being separate, on the margins.

The scene was eerily consistent with what I'd seen at several other companies, which makes me wonder if it's something that could be changed if a company wanted to.

But to me it meant that the sales team wasn't part of the overall team. And that has all sorts of negative ramifications. Thinking of it from a social networking perspective, these salespeople have strong external networks and weak internal networks--which reduces their ability to get things done in the company and therefore makes it more difficult to create strong solutions for customers. Which reduces sales. And contributes to sales turnover.

Or perhaps it would be just as bad if they had strong internal networks. Their external networks would suffer, they would have less distance from their colleagues, which would reduce their ability to lobby on the customer's behalf and demand more from their company.

What do you think?

culture, organizational behavior, social networking, sales

How enterprise 2.0 adds value to the connections between workers

Andrew McAfee, the Harvard Business School professor and formulator of the term Enterprise 2.0, shows us that there's more than one way to create a great blog. He doesn't post every day, or every week, even. It's been a month since his last post. But when he does post, it's the Web 2.0 equivalent of a scholarly paper. Detailed, well-reasoned, and complete.

Call his blog the anti-Twitter.

I write this because his new post is significant. Those of us who regularly work with Web 2.0 tools take it as a given that they can help businesses. Who could argue that more sharing and collaboration is harmful, we think? Unfortunately, this type of reasoning, or lack thereof, can't convince a skeptic to install Enterprise 2.0 tools in his data center and let them loose with the employee base--especially given the threat they pose to the information hegemony of senior management and the IT department.

Luckily, McAfee has been thinking about the "why" question. And in his latest post, he describes the value to businesses of Enterprise 2.0, by aligning its tools to the ties between workers--strong ties, weak ties, potential ties, and even no ties.

For example, wikis allow teammates (workers with strong ties) to collaborate on a deliverable. On the other end of the spectrum, prediction markets allow workers with no ties at all to contribute to answering a question or predicting a future result.

In sum, Enterprise 2.0 allows businesses to enhance value from the ties between workers. McAfee presents this conclusion in a very simple table.

So, we have our explanation. It's time to open up the data center. Who's with me?

social networking, information technology, web2.0, enterprise2.0, collaboration, Andrew McAfee

It's not just the network, it's making the network work

I was discussing this recent post about the ability to connect being more important than one's individual work output with my Vice President of Common Sense (a.k.a. Maura).

She said, "There are lots of people who can create networks, but there aren't many who can use those networks to get things accomplished. That's the real difficult task."

And I really couldn't respond to that at all, because, you know, she's right.

networks social networking connection collaboration

Who you know may be more important than what you can do

I read something today that was so counterintuitive it just might be true. Patti Anklam, the author of "Net Work, A Practical Guide To Creating And Sustaining Networks At Work And In The World," quotes in her blog fellow knowledge management expert Stowe Boyd on the value of personal networks:

It will happen, he said (or I am paraphrasing; I did not take notes), that having a larger number of connections is more important at work than simply doing a job well, or in his words, on a great slide show from his site titled Flow): "Productivity is second to Connectivity: network productivity trumps personal productivity." That is, the more connections you have the more resources you have to bring to a task: all work can be co-work.

I read this on a day when I talked to people in Chicago, the UK, suburban Washington and Seattle. And when I emailed a former colleague in Texas to locate someone's phone number to get to the Washington contact. And... you get the picture.

I had always looked to my intelligence as the supreme asset I brought to the workplace. It's taken me nearly forty-five years to learn that my (virtual) Rolodex is far smarter than I am.

And it works harder too.

(Photo by Frances Twitty via istockphoto.com)
networks social networking connection collaboration

Email marketing--a second try

(For those entering our story in the middle, our hero had distributed his first email marketing newsletter in January, all by hand. It took three days of labor and caused him to swear revenge on his ISP. Click here to get the gory details. Somehow, it was a beneficial exercise, but there had to be a better, more effective way.)

It was now April, and time for the second quarterly newsletter. After checking out a bunch of email marketing service companies (there are lots of them--you can see them referenced at the bottom of virtually every email newsletter you receive), I signed up with Listrak.

The experience was light-years different. The service easily imported my two contact lists and eliminated duplicate addresses. It had an easy interface for me to load and edit my newsletter. I could send the newsletter to different test email addresses and see how it looked on Outlook, Internet Explorer, Firefox, etc. And with one click I could schedule the delivery of the newsletter at any time.

And it went out, last Thursday.

The results: 60% more newsletters delivered. 250+ bad email addresses identified. Clear traceability of who opened and read the newsletter. Tracking of each click on the newsletter. Oh, and about 80% less time spent on the process.

DISCLOSURE: Listrak's Director of Marketing is a former colleague of mine. She's written a lot of useful white papers on email marketing that you might want to read.

email marketing, marketing, social networking

Email marketing--how NOT to do it

Have you ever created an email newsletter?

Ever read one?

I thought so. Few people who read email newsletters see what's going on behind them. I was part of that group till recently.

In January, I created and distributed my first email newsletter, completely manually. It was agonizing. First of all, my ISP treated me like a spammer by throttling the number of addressees I could have in any single send (despite the fact that I pay them every month for the privilege of having email accounts and a web site--how many spammers pay for their email accounts?). Furthermore, I had to let an hour or more pass before sending the next email (thanks, Yahoo!). It took the better part of three days to get the newsletter out.

And then, like all informal email, it was very difficult to see whether anyone was reading. I could make some indirect assessments of click rates, but that was all.

Finally, more than a few recipients generously responded with, "Hey, you should use an email marketing service. It will be much easier on you, and on us."

Despite all the hassles, the first newsletter brought tremendous benefits. I reconnected with several dozen former associates, spurred a bunch of new consulting opportunities, and began the process of cleansing my contact list (by fixing or deleting email addresses that were tagged as undeliverable).

Come April, it was time to do it again.

What happened? You'll have to wait till tomorrow.

email marketing, marketing, social networking