Archive for the 'Weblogs' Category
September 30, 2008
Quoted on MSNBC.com about Cleaning Up Your ‘Digital Dirt’
I was quoted yesterday by an MSNBC.com columnist about what to do when your online history, as shown by Google search results for your name, begin to cause career problems.
Here is the main portion that quotes me:
Many of us may want to find ways to erase the negative information about us on the Web, but that may not be the best strategy.
“What to do when you don’t like the impression given by your online persona?” asks C. David Gammel, a corporate technology consultant. “The counterintuitive response is the best: Post even more content about yourself online.”
However, he adds: “The content should be of a nature that is at least neutral, at best positive, for your career prospects. Blog about your professional interests. Discuss research you have conducted yourself on a topic of interest.”
Gammel believes in burying the Internet skeletons in positive cyber dust. “Once the less savory items are pushed off your first page of ego search results on Google, you’ll be fine with most people,” he notes. “That’s why you have to post more, not less, to get rid of the impact of those skeletons.”
The same thing is true for organizations as well.
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September 25, 2008
Podcast: Social Media and Young Professionals: An Interview with Lauren Turner
Today I have a real treat for you: an interview with Lauren Turner who is leading some innovative efforts to use social media to engage with young professionals for the Chamber of Commerce in Fort Worth Texas.
In the interview I ask Lauren about where their young professionals are engaging online, how they have reach out to them and which techniques seem to be the most effective.
Here are a few links mentioned in the interview:
- Vision Fort Worth. The web site the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce created specifically for the young professionals audience.
- Vision FW Facebook Group. Requires login.
- Vision FW Twitter Account.
- Vision FW LinkedIn Group.
The podcast is a tad over 15 minutes long. I will also be discussing Vision Fort Worth as a case in an American Chamber of Commerce Executives webinar on October 2. Be sure to register for that event if you are interested how to engage with young professionals in your community.
Play the interview below or follow the link to download the MP3 file.
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September 11, 2008
When You Get Slammed Online
Eve Tahmincioglu, a columnist for MSNBC.com, quoted me recently in a blog post she wrote about her experience interacting with a blogger who slammed one of her articles as ’sloppy journalism.’ It’s a good case for how to approach criticism online with good results in this instance.
The key thing Eve did was to take a deep breath and respond initially as if the person criticizing her was rational. Turns out he was and they were able to find common ground via comments and blog posts discussing the issue.
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March 21, 2008
Fear of litigation is the mind killer.
Hullabaloo over social media legal issues rears its head yet again in the association world.
Here is the deal folks: if your association tends to get sued or investigated over the comments of your members or staff every few years, then sponsoring participatory media activities may enhance that risk. For everyone else, get over it.
I am not a lawyer, therefore I can actually offer common sense advice about the online world.
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January 4, 2008
What Should ASAE Blog About?
Lisa Junker has asked for feedback on what the ASAE Acronym blog should cover in 2008.
My biggest wish as a member and supporter of ASAE is that they would talk more about themselves. This is often a bad idea but I think that ASAE has an opportunity to use blogging as a way to discuss what they are doing as an organization and to engage more directly with their online member community about the society itself. Walk the transparency talk, in other words.
So, Lisa, that’s my suggestion. Good luck in 2008!
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August 29, 2007
Public Relations and Social Media
A question about sample PR policies for social media came across a list I am on. I responded by saying that before writing policies, it’s important to know how you want to engage online and to what purpose. Without that, any policy is going to be irrelevant, at best, or more likely harmful.
I have written a framing device that you can use for yourself, team, or even your Board to discuss at what level your organization wants to and should be engaged in online conversations: Four Levels of Engagement in the Blogosphere.
Here are some questions you can use with the device:
- At what level are we currently?
- What level would best serve our goals and mission?
- What level will our current organizational culture support?
The answers to those questions should get you on solid footing for identifying how you want to engage online.
For more on PR and social media, see this post by Steve Rubel on why the future of PR is participation rather than pitching.
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August 16, 2007
Deep Thoughts from Peter on Associations and Participation
I was at ASAE’s Annual meeting earlier this week in Chicago and did not blog a single thing about it. Lots of others did, though. (An aside: seems like a blog tipping point was reached at this meeting. Very active and diverse blogging going on all over the place.)
Peter Turner has posted an interesting idea based on the Decision to Join report and Jeff De Cagna’s Ungovernance session:
The longer your association waits to implement governance and product development changes that are more “open and inclusive” to the rank and file member, the more likely you can expect to generate lower retention rates or product sales.
Closed ended models of governance and product development in an era of open innovation and product co-creation is THE CANCER in association management today.
Rings true to me. I think that all the excitement about social media in the association space is a direct response to the subconscious feeling that the time tested models aren’t going to work for much longer.
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August 6, 2007
Podcast: Interview with Jeremiah Owyang on Measuring Social Media
I am working on an article for Associations Now about how to measure social media success. The questions I am exploring: How can you measure success with these tools? How do you know you are creating value with a blog, podcast, wiki, RSS, etc.? What’s beyond the page view?
I interviewed Jeremiah Owyang, about this issue last week. Jeremiah is with PodTech, an online video network. Jeremiah has been writing about social media, and metrics in particular, quite a bit this year. He even started a Facebook group on social media measurement.
In the recording attached to this post we discuss the idea of measuring engagement, subjective vs. objective measures and what the near term future might look like. Jeremiah shares several tips on getting started with measuring social media (follow the link for a write-up of these). Thanks Jeremiah!
Drop me a line if you are using social media at your association and would like to share your experience for the article. You don’t have to have solved the problem (if you have you can write the article!) but I am very interested in talking about the value you think your efforts are providing and issues related to measuring that value.
Update: Jeremiah has posted a few additional comments and links related to what we discussed in the interview.
Interview with Jeremiah Owyang on Measuring Social Media [10:46m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | DownloadPermanent Link | Subscribe via RSS | Subscribe via Email | 3 Comments
July 31, 2007
World Bank 2.0: The BuzzMonitor
I just heard about a new open source application for tracking discussion of specific issues in social media (blogs, tags, podcasts, wikis, etc.) online: The BuzzMonitor. This was developed by the World Bank for their own purposes and then released as an open source application. From the about page:
Like many organizations, we started listening to blogs and other forms of social media by subscribing to a blog search engine RSS feed but quickly understood it was not enough. The World Bank is a global institution and we needed to listen in multiple languages, across multiple plaforms. We needed something that would aggregate all this content, help us make sense of it and allow us to collaborate around it. At the time, no solution (either commercial or open source) met those requirements so we decided to build our own.
We were playing with Drupal, a solid, open-source content and community platform for different pilots. Drupal being so flexible and module oriented, we decided to write the specifications for a “super aggregator” that would help us people understand, follow and collaborate around mentions of the organization online.
I asked Pierre Guillaume, who announced it on the Social Media Measurement Group on Facebook, how they are using it internally at the World Bank. His response:
Thanks David. We are rolling it out to communicators across the bank with a guide on how to use tagging, voting, rss feeds etc…there is, not surprisingly, a bit of a learning curve both in terms of “getting” social media and using the tool but some champions are emerging, embedding findings obtained through the buzzmonitor in their regular comm and web reports, adding relevant bloggers to their contacts etc.. We also feature the most recently voted on items on a page available two clicks down from the intranet home page, for all staff to see.
Sounds like a great tool for raising awareness of how issues important to the Bank are evolving online. I recommend listening to the online conversation as a key activity for any organization and this looks like a great tool for assisting in that. I have downloaded the application and will give it a try this week.
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May 24, 2007
A Couple Conference Opportunities for June
There are two conferences I’ll be attending in DC in June that I wanted to let you know about. They happen to overlap but are in the same building, so you could hit them both if you wanted.
First, Jeff De Cagna is spearheading a social media unconference for association executives on June 5, 2007 at ASAE & the Center’s meeting space in the Reagan Building. The event is free and will be driven by the attendees. Simply add your name to the registration list on the web site if you wish to attend. I’m very excited this event is happening and I encourage you to attend if you are passionate about social media and/or want to learn more about it.
The second event is the Gilbane Washington DC conference on June 5-6, 2007, also at the Reagan Building. This conference focuses on content management technologies for government and non-profit organizations. Content is tracked, so there should be something for everyone. I will be facilitating a panel on integrating association and content management systems and processes. This event is not free but you can get a $100 discount by entering my last name as a promotional code when you register.
I hope to see you at one or both events!
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