Four Community Ideals

I was asked to participate in an interesting collaborative project called the Project 100 which was started by consumer marketer  Jeff Caswell last month.
As Jeff noted on the Project 100 blog:
It’s a simple concept.  100 authors.  400 words each.  1 Collaborative Book on “Project 100: Marketing in the Social Media Era”.  I will [...]

My Social Media Job Description

For one of my projects this week, I had to create a social media job description.  I did a quick search on Google and on various job boards, but I didn’t like any of the descriptions that I saw.
So, I wrote my own “perfect” job description which could be viewed almost as a checklist.  I [...]

Minuteman Parking Website Launches

My latest project finally launched today.  Chris Fox is a longtime friend of mine and he runs a valet parking company called Minuteman Parking in the Los Angeles area.  For the past 2 months, I have been helping Chris update his website and marketing messages.
In the process, I learned a lot about the valet parking [...]

Social Media and the Military

I am working on a project for a digital media company and part of the project is to research the latest trends on social media in the military.  I ran across some interesting information and links, and would like to share them so others can see the progress being made by our military institutions.
All of [...]

Ideas That Spread Win

In this TED Talk from 2007, marketing guru Seth Godin talks about Wonder Bread and other marketing delights.  His premise is that ideas that spread will win and he refers to the current time as the “Century of Idea Diffusion”.
Here is the TED description of the 15 minute video presentation:
In a world of too many [...]

Information vs. Advertising – According to Google’s Vinton Cerf

Google’s Vinton Cerf (“The Father Of The Internet” and VP, Chief Internet Evangelist) shares his thoughts in this 3 minute video (from YouTube) on how brands can leverage social media.  He sums it up simply as:

It’s advertising when people do not care about the message.
It’s information when people are interested in the message
The trick for [...]

The “Groundswell” Revolution – Forrester Shows Rapid Increase in Social Media Participation

Josh Bernoff and his social media Groundswell colleagues at Forrester have just released their 2008 Social Technographics data – and the results show that there is a rapid increase in participation in all types of customers and across all age ranges.
Forrester’s research has identified 6 categories of users:

Creators – people who blog, upload videos, write [...]

The Importance of Regular Community Communication

One of the most important tasks that a community manager needs to do is to regularly communicate with his members. When I was managing the Catalyze community, I accomplished this by sending out an email newsletter every 2 to 3 weeks.  The frequent contact is important from many different angles.  It keeps the community in [...]

The Red Sox Nation and Web 2.0

What is it with Red Sox fans and Web 2.0?
Even though I am a Los Angeles Fan (primarily the Angels and secondarily the Dodgers), I am intrigued by the passion of Boston Red Sox fans.  It also seems like Red Sox have done the best job in Major League Baseball of co-opting Web 2.0 for [...]

Gartner Blames IT Managers for Failed Communities?

In a recent press release from Gartner, the headline states that “many social software projects fail due to IT managers not having a well-defined purpose to succeed”.
Now that’s seems a little harsh to the IT world. Unless Gartner is just trying to be controversial or come up with an angle that will attract attention to [...]