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• This Year In Web Videos, Four Different Ways [Kit Eaton at Fast Company]
  (tags: video trends youtube)
• 10 Must-have Google Chrome Extensions
• A Decade of Mobile [Noah Elkin | eMarketer]
  (tags: marketing mobile)
• Texas Intruments’ E2E Community Builds Exponential Success [take 5]
  (tags: Texas+Instruments online+communities B2B digital+marketing digital+strategy telligent telligent+clients)

Image by George Dearing via Flickr

• Top 10 Enterprise Products of 2009 [ReadWriteEnterprise]
  Not sure why Salesforce Chatter is on the list…
  (tags: enterprise2.0 collaboration microsoft socialnetworking enterprise sharepoint mindtouch readwriteweb)

• Rupert Murdoch: Journalism and Freedom – WSJ.com
  "Quality content is not free. In the future, good journalism will depend on the ability of a news organization to attract customers by providing news and information they are willing to pay for."
  (tags: business media WSJ newspaper publishing journalism newspapers murdoch news)
• Why Open Source Phones Still Fail [PC Magazine]
  (tags: mobile opensource iphone apple android nokia linux google)

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While Jive and Lithium are the ones mentioned in this Wall Street Journal piece, Telligent also has a strong story when it comes to the integration of mobile environments and things like online forums and groups.

A good example, and one the WSJ briefly alludes to, is having the capability to use email to push messages back and forth to a customer’s online forums. But that scenario isn’t just a no-brainer for external communities. It’s also big when you’re introducing online applications inside the firewall to a group of new users. By allowing a company’s employees to use their mobile phones, you don’t have to disrupt the way they’re communicating today.

We typically set up groups internally and users can create and receive updates on their mobile devices when new information is available. As users get comfortable with that approach, they’ll often move to more sophisticated subscription options like RSS feeds or personalized widgets.

While I’d rarely be against the development of a full-blown iPhone app in this context, I think the way mobile’s evolving, most access will be browser-based.

Dedicated applications will bring their own merit though, perhaps providing offline access, exclusive content and the "official" brand feel that a richer client app might provide. Either way, the mantra should be flexibility. If your customer can’t tell your online forum is anchored to your website, that’s probably a good thing.

Posted via web from George Dearing dot com

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Nice work by ComBlu’s Steve Hershberger and my Telligent colleague Lawrence Liu.

Ten Best Practices For Growing A Successful Online Community

Posted via web from George Dearing dot com

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• 3 Flavors of Social Search: What to Expect [ReadWriteWeb]
  (tags: social+search)
• Top 5 Budget Social Media Monitoring Tools | Our Social Times
  And if you need to monitor your internal or external community data you can use Telligent Analytics 3.0.
• Top 50 Journalism Blogs
  (tags: media blogs journalism news press)
• Four-Out-Of-Five New Media Users Interact With Companies & Brands Online, Up 32% From 2008
  "the frequency of interaction is increasing, too, with more than a third (37%) of users engaging companies or brands via new media at least once per week (up from one-in-four last year)."
  (tags: customer+service new+media social+media social+networking interactive)

 The reports from CMS Watch are consistently thorough, but usually geared for more technical tire-kickers. Some of the highlights in the press release echo some of what I’m seeing in the marketplace. (Full disclosure: I work at Telligent)

I agree with part of this one:

"Vendors’ growing emphasis on specific solutions in lieu of feature creep."

Yes, solutions are clearly a trend, but a big differentiator here is the partner ecosystem. If you ask most vendors for specific solutions, most of the time you’ll get partial pieces of the solution. It’s very difficult for most pure-plays to have the horsepower to deliver end-to-end. Make sure you understand your vendor’s alliance model.

There’s loads of inevitability around this one.

"Near total absence of the kind of significant M&A activity that has created significant upheaval for some customers in the ECM and Portals marketplaces, among others"

I think the interesting part is noticing which vendors have a heavy reliance on the biggest enterprise software vendors. That should tell you who’s gonna buy who. I’d also expect a potential merger of pure-play peers. For a few, that may be the only way to survive.

The last one alludes to some of the open source activity.

Maturation of key private vendors and open source projects, whose increasingly influential customer bases play a stabilizing role with respect to backwards’ compatibility and future directions

Between Dion Hinchcliffe’s recent marketplace chart and this one (CMS Watch), Drupal seems to have entrenched itself in the social software sector. While I won’t discount Drupal’s presence, I will say the C-Suite conversations I’ve had are devoid of any Drupal references. But I’m a business guy, not someone running a dev shop or IT organization.

And yes, I’ve used the platform to perform what Drupal evangelists call "Social Publishing." I think part of Drupal’s newsworthiness is a couple of things. It’s quickly captured mind share as it’s moved from one space (CMS) to another. That tells me that not only are things still early, there’s also a lot of confusion. The other thing I think it shows is open source can (and no doubt will) coexist in enterprise environments with more traditional platforms. If you think one tool set vendor can single-handedly move you to social, you need to reset your expectations.

And Byrne ends with a bit of captain obvious, but duly notes the importance of the right implementation strategy.

"In the meantime, buyers should assess each vendor individually. "You can’t just select any one vendor and succeed automatically," concludes Byrne. "But the collective risk profile among the leading two-dozen players is definitely lower than a year ago, which means enterprises can spend more effort focused on implementation success."

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• Q&A: Dan Lyons Talks to Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg [Newsweek]
  "Facebook will be less about Facebook.com and more about this underlying system and platform that we’re building. What we’re trying to do is be more about letting people use their information on any site or platform they want. We launched Facebook Connect last year, and we now have more than 15,000 sites using it, and that’s just a start. Within five years we hope to have hundreds of millions of [more] people using Facebook. But it’s more about using the system to make other sites more social." ~ Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook in 5 years
  (tags: facebook newsweek social+networking social+computing facebook+connect)

  

• Fair Syndication Consortium Gets Its First Ad Network: AdBrite [paidContent]
  "AdBrite is the first ad network to join the Consortium—and it’s a crucial first partnership—since working directly with the ad networks that are keeping content aggregators (and scrapers) afloat, is the cornerstone of the Consortium’s business model. Even with this milestone, though, the group still faces challenges, including defining what constitutes fair use vs. content aggregation and tracking specific ad impressions across multiple networks."
  (tags: fair+syndication+consortium paid+content micro-transactions advertising content+distribution)

  

• Send a One Line Press Release on Muck Rack [Twitter style]
  Sawhorse Media is letting companies submit press releases at $1 a character to its journalist community.
  (tags: sawhorse+media muckrack journalists aggregator press+release twitter pr pr20)

  

• Online Community Interview: Dawn Lacallade, SolarWinds [Online Community Report]
  Good chat with Dawn Lacallade at SolarWinds. They’re using the Telligent platform to integrate much of their online activity.
  (tags: solarwinds telligent online+communities community+management)

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• TI’s Web 2.0 Success Story: Better Customer Service – CIO.com
  "TI built the platform on technology from Telligent, a company that makes Web 2.0 technologies for the enterprise (often called Enterprise 2.0 apps). The Telligent platform allows customers to interact with the company hosting the forum, and each other, to solve problems."
  (tags: telligent Texas+Instruments online+communities web2.0 online+forums enterprise2.0)

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• Eight Competencies to Socializing Your Organization
  Good framework for helping orgs develop a community roadmap.
  (tags: community+roundtable rachel+happe community+management online+communities social+computing)

• Facebook Pages vs Facebook Groups: What’s the Difference?
  Good breakdown on how to market and build brand awareness with existing Facebook capabilities.
  (tags: marketing socialmedia facebook brands howto mashable)
• Is the PR Business Extinct? Yes
  Not dead but Darwinism is picking off PR firms quickly because of the way content creation and distribution is evolving.
  (tags: pr2.0 public+relations content+distribution syndication media) 
• The next layer on the stack according to VC Fred Wilson
  Everything is a channel and filtering and aggregation are the next hot areas for development.
  (tags: aggregator info+filtering tweetdeck personal+dashboards social+media)
• Up next, the mobile decade – The Globe and Mail
  No doubt mobile is the future but I’m still waiting for a good data plan.
  (tags: mobile+computing internet google smartphone)
• Microsoft Case Studies: Cadence Design Systems
  We (Telligent) announced a formal alliance today with SpeakTech and Microsoft that helps CPG and Manufacturing companies use social computing tools to build communities and collaborate more effectively. The Cadence case study is an example of the work we’ve done together.
  (tags: microsoft speaktech telligent collaboration social+computing enterprise2.0 enterprise+2.0)
• MediaPost Publications | Beyond The Mommy Blogger
  It’s not about "messages"– has more to do with how brands interact or retool to live in consumer’s environment.
  (tags: bloggers blogger+outreach mommy+bloggers consumer+engagement)
• Enterprise 2.0, version 2.0 : Andrew McAfee’s Blog
  I like this part : "Platforms are digital environments in which contributions and interactions are globally visible and persistent over time."
  (tags: enterprise2.0 e2.0 socialsoftware mcafee enterprise)
• Andy Sernovitz: How The Palm Pre Missed a WOM Opportunity
  Traditional media fails again? We’ll see.
  (tags: word-of-mouth marketing PR blogger+outreach)

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• Want to Keep Your Job? Stop Trying to Fit In – Peter Bregman – HarvardBusiness.org
  Good read on breaking the mold and being yourself in business.
  (tags: jobs harvard+business+review peter+bregman business)
• How much should you spend on marketing? | The DoubleThink – Ogilvy
  Analysis on how best to budget for marketing and what principles still apply.
  (tags: marketing ogilvy advertising research)

  

• GroupTweet
  GroupTweet allows users to send messages via Twitter that are instantly broadcasted privately to only the team members.
  (tags: web2.0 collaboration microblogging mashup twittertools grouptweet)
• Google falling behind Twitter | guardian.co.uk
  Partnership or acquisition?
  (tags: google web2.0 twitter real-time search)|

  

• Twitter Search Will Be Powerful
  We’ll see how fast Google catches up. (thoughts from @joemarchese)
  (tags: search google twitter real-time)
• Front End of Innovation: Keynote Presentation from Peter Erickson: Innovating on Innovation
  General Mills is a Telligent client.
  (tags: general+mills innovation telligent)

  

• Addictomatic: Inhale the Web
  Good aggregation engine for pulling content into one page.
  (tags: media search aggregator mashup news buzz searchengine web2.0)
• 4 Reasons @Ogilvy Got 10k Twitter Followers
  Well thought out approaches that map Twitter (microblogging) back to the business.
  (tags: media socialmedia twitter ogilvy)
• Captain’s Blog: The end of blogging | Fortune
  Microblogging and other SoNets are no doubt impacting blogging, but it ain’t dead.
  (tags: microblogging twitter facebook social+networking)
• Green news harvest: Solar’s ‘carbon payback’ | Green Tech – CNET
  Good to see data on Solar ROI.
  (tags: green+tech solar+technology alternative+energy)
  
• Social Media Fails To Manifest As Marketing Medium, Report Likens Twitter To TiVo: More Hype Than Reality
  Among other things, the study finds that less than 5% of social media users regularly turn to these social networks for "guidance on purchase decisions"
  (tags: social+media marketing word-of-mouth twitter)

Image by George Dearing via Flickr

• The Back Story of the Pledge to End Hunger (Video)
  Really enjoyed helping the North Texas Food Bank earlier this week. Watch this video to get the scoop on the events that led up to it.
  (tags: hunger+awaremess North+Texas+Food+Bank telligent mediasauce scott+henderson)
• Rypple – A little feedback goes a long way
  Haven’t tried this one yet..anything that gets rid of surveys is a winner in my book.
  (tags: web2.0 socialmedia collaboration webapp feedback rypple enterprise2.0 socialnetworking)
• Web Video Best Practices Webinar // Mayo Clinic
  Good stuff from the social media team at Mayo Clinic.
  (tags: video youtube social+media)
• Publish Your Blog On Amazon Kindle
  We’ll soon see how apt Kindle users are to pay for content on the new device.
  (tags: kindle amazon blogging content+distribution content+strategies)
• Lenny Mendonca on Leveraging New Technologies — Big Think
  The chairman of McKinsey Global Institute analyzes how technology is catalyzing business successes—and failures.
  (tags: McKinsey business+strategy technology)
• @ FOCM: Media Companies Need To Make The Personal More Profitable | paidContent.org
  “A lot of the old brands need to figure out how to personalize the way people receive information.”
  (tags: media brands syndication media+distribution)
• Professional Guides for Twitter | Pistachio
  Good list of how-to and help guides for companies and ppl seeking Twitter expertise.
  (tags: business twitter pistachio microsharing)
• Is Google Insurmountable? – Digits – WSJ
  "but we also believe Google has the resources to catch up quickly and the brand to keep users loyal.”
  (tags: google analysts)

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• Why you have to engage in social media even if you don’t want to
  "The days of "have a website and advertise" are over. It’s too expensive to be noticed on an Internet that’s already full."
  (tags: web2.0 marketing socialmedia media blogging)
• 25 Must Read Social Media Marketing Tips
  Excellent tips from big brands and practitioners.
  (tags: marketing socialmedia media blogging strategy brands measurement online internet)
• Forrester: Social Web To Evolve Due To Portable IDs
  "..according to Forrester, the social web is about to evolve from a few social network sites into a consistent backdrop for every online activity."
  (tags: social+media research socialnetworking social+web forrester)
• Enterprise 2.0 Blog » Interview – Rob Howard • CEO, Telligent
  ZDNet’s Oliver Marks interviews Telligent’s CEO for the Open Enterprise series.
  (tags: enterprise+2.0 telligent collaboration social+software social+computing social+networking)

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If you missed BlogWell Chicago back in January, you’re not completely out of luck.Blog Council has started posting the presentations on its blog over the last few weeks.

One of the recent uploads is “Mayo Clinic’s Natural Progression to Social Media,” from the clinic’s social media director Lee Aase. (video below)

I like to point to Mayo because a lot of people scratch their head when they think of a hospital or clinic using social media.  They have they same challenges, however, as other brands or commercial corporations when it comes to competing for media attention or capturing new customers — or patients in this context.

In that vein, Lee discusses how Mayo Clinic uses social media to build brand visibility, kick-start word-of-mouth conversations, and generate media coverage.

And BTW, the next BlogWell is in New York on April 29. It’s one of the best run shows I’ve been to in a while. The beauty is the format. Each company get 15 minutes to tell its social media story and there’s usually a few minutes left for Q&A. That keeps the sessions moving and the audience on its toes. Not sure I’m heading to NYC, but there’s a good chance. Use “friendsoftelligent” when you register and get $50 off.

• How Intel is listening, engaging with its community
  "Intel recently migrated its internal community..to collaborate through a tool that resembles an internal Facebook platform."

• How Kaiser Permanente Went Paperless

  Healthcare could use some digital DNA.

• The Power Of Community In Marketing – Forbes.com
  Good piece on using online communities to build brand loyalty and connect with customers.

  Related articles

I’m really liking ZDNet’s video portfolio, especially coming out of last week’s  Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. This segment’s from Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft’s business division, explaining how Microsoft helps companies use Web 2.0 inside the firewall.

Image by George Dearing via Flickr

It’s tough to have  a business conversation these days without someone mentioning  social media and its impact on business.

Many of us that work within the confines of social computing are too often distracted by all the technology around us. We tend to assume that everyone knows why they should have an internal social network or how an external community can drive sales reach. Here’s a big news flash folks – it’s still very early and most of us, like it or not, are figuring out all this stuff together.

If you’re still allowed to travel and have attended any recent social media or interactive marketing conferences, you’ve probably heard the cries and seen the blank stares.

“We think our marketing group needs a Wiki but we’re not sure”

”Our VP said we need a community platform and he thinks we should start an initiative ASAP”

”The CEO says he’s tired of hearing about Facebook and says we should do social networking internally.”

The problem with quotes above is there’s no specific objective tied to any of them. While more sophisticated users can quickly spell out how to apply a wiki to the way they work, others are continually pulled into the tech quicksand, unable to discern between a wiki or a beefed-up HTML page.

So let’s try those quotes again.

“Our marketing group needs a better way to communicate its strategy internally and wants other ways to share information other than email”

“Our VP wants our company to have a handle on what our customers are doing with our products. He’s confident we’ll see a sales and marketing lift if we get our customer talking about us.

“We want to make sure we’re capturing the knowledge within our organization. It’s imperative that we  move our communication into a more real-time mode.

Now that you’ve honed in on what challenges lie ahead, shouldn’t you be able to quickly find a vendor to help? Clients I’ve spoken to say the process still requires way too much work aligning with someone that clearly demonstrates an understanding of their business. Something that makes them say, “Yeah, that’s us, that maps to our business.”

That last part is something we (Telligent) work very hard at. Give us a shot, we’ll show you.

Related articles

• How to attain self-sustainability in community forums
  Good post from my colleague Lawrence Liu on running successful forums

• Growing Your Brands’ Digital Footprint
  Like the simplicity of the diagram..easy to walk through with clients.
  (tags: web2.0 socialmedia digital+strategy brands)

• 7 Things Needed for an Enterprise Social Network
  #6 "Interact w/ Legacy software" separates players from posers.
  (tags: social+networking community+platforms enterprise+2.0 social+software)