Social Businesses Use Video ! When Is this Effective? #ls11 #socbiz #getsocial11
Since I hurt my back (funny story in an of itself!), I have been grounded from traveling for 8 weeks! GULP! How can I manage my job without traveling?
Well, I have been faring pretty well in the first 5 weeks by leveraging Video as part of my Social Business.
My Tips for Using Video Effectively?
1. Make sure you test the technology. I am lucky in that I work for IBM and we have 2 options for Video Conferencing: IBM Sametime and IBM LotusLive Conferencing. I always tested the technology so that regardless of where we were using it, it worked! I always connected 15 minutes early, checked everything out, and had someone local just validate volume, video, and motion was looking good. I usually had a backup system in play as well, in case something went down.
2. Choose the RIGHT meetings. I didn't use video for ALL my meetings. I did have substitutes for some situations. However, here is where I used video:
- Internal Keynote Address to a Room of 400 people. We practiced with the video and since it seemed to work well with the charts on another screen, we did this for an internal enablement session. It also demonstrated the Social Business Concepts that I was talking about and made it real. It was a success.
- External Keynote Address to a Room of 100 people. Again, we practiced with the video, and we set up a hashtab in Twitter so that all there could ping me throughout the session. I posted on the number of Tweets, and the response from the attendees. All positive. However, it would have been better if I had been there in person just for the networking!
- Client Meeting: 1: Many >20 . I used video for a client meeting between myself and 20 business associates from a client. We didn't have the big projection screens, but more of an intimate video setup. It worked very well.
- Client Meeting: 1:Many <10. Here I actually went for Teleprescence so that the video was not one way, but a two way conversation. In this case, I had NOT met everyone yet so I felt this was more appropriate for the situation. I will do this again on Monday of next week. Obviously I had to leave my home office, but not fly (that is what the doctor meant right?!)
3. Non verbal Communitions. This part was the toughest for me. How do I read the room? I had no idea how much I changed and altered what I did based on what I saw! I had local teams in the room so the were instant messaging me the happenings in the room like: who was head nodding, who walked out of the room, where to speed up, and other non verbal signals. This to me was critcal. In fact, in the External Keynote, I had twitter on and asked the attendees to tweet me. That made all the difference in the world
Conclusion
Video was a great way to work in fact, I want to incorporate Video into more meetings. I think Social Businesses will leverage more video. I used these in meeting above in Germany, Argentina, US, and Canada.
However, the trick is that nothing can replace an in person meeting so perhaps this is best on second or third meetings. The technology was very easy to work with but still requires pre testing due to so many different firewalls, and settings. When the video and sound are good, I found this was very effective and the focus was on what I said, vs the tool!
What do you think? Do you use video? When should you use video?
I'd love to craft a set of best practices on WHEN to use this media successfully. Let me hear your thoughts!
IBM France is a Social Business ! 25K IBMers on Twitter!
IBM France (@henririmbaud) has launched a fantastic initiative, a video where IBMers talked about their use of Twitter, and how it helped them in their daily work. AT IBM Marketers, Sales, Technical Sales, PR Teams are using Twitter to communicate, share, learn, and contribute.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8S0iS-idSw]
It’s a fact : IBM is present on the social web. The example of Twitter is inspiring : We have over 25 000 IBMers actively tweeting on Twitter (source: @adamclyde) and counting… Not only we are present on Twitter but we also have over 300,00 IBMers on Linkedin, 198,000 on Facebook, and growing.
“Be yourself.” It’s one of the rules of social media:
At IBM, we don’t have a corporate blog or a corporate Twitter ID because we want the ‘IBMers’ in aggregate to be the corporate blog and the corporate Twitter ID. “We represent our brand online the way it always has been, which is employees first. Our brand is largely shaped by the interactions that they have with customers.”
Thousands of IBMers are the voice of the company.
Thousands of Voices
- 17,000 internal blogs
- 1 million daily page views of internal wikis, internal information storing websites
- 15,000,000 downloads of employee-generated videos/podcasts
- More than 400,000 Sametime instant messaging users, resulting in 40-50 million instant messages per day
- 400,000+ employees can access IBM Connections (internal social networking platform)
- Thousands of external bloggers
Thank you to @henririmbaud for this fantastic project which featured fellows IBMers , to name a few: @IBMJoel, @JCDichant, @renaudraffaelli, @nicod92160, @milcent, @benoitbossuet
The video « Twitter en bonne compagnie. L’envie d’échanger » can be found on IBM France and on Youtube -
Social Business: The New Social Client!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jn869VCQCc]I have been thinking alot of about the new Social Client that Social Businesses will be serving!
Have you thought about the new processes? The new expectations?
I'll also discuss more about this Social Client in my new book "Get Bold!"
You can order at Amazon.com!
A Social Business Case Study: Sandy Carter is a SOCIAL Business!? #IAE #SOCBIZ
I presented in Argentina this week on Social Business to the Entrepreneur Community there. Since I had an injury, my doctor would not allow me to travel but instead of canceling, we decided to host the meeting via Video, and use video for the presentation, Twitter and Instant messaging to take questions. It was a small but very influential group -- so this was a test to see how "Social" we could be!!
I received very good feedback from different sources. I wanted to share with all of you the report with the twitter stream received from Community Manager -- this is a best practice .. having a GREAT community manager -- but more on that topic in another blog!
Click me and see the TWITTER STREAM !
Very interesting way to know how they received our messages and to know the ones engaged (& twitter enabled!). We have 27 different twitters, wich generated 122 messages with this trending words: #socbiz, el, rt, de, social, @sandy_carter, la, #ibm, en, del, mundo, y, business, @acroglia, via
Social Business Sandy Interviews Judith Hurwitz on Smart or Lucky?
Question & Answer with Sandy Carter and Judith Hurwitz
I am thrilled to be here today with Judith Hurwitz, a dear colleague and friend, in the IT industry. She is an amazing woman with lots of knowledge to share . Today is the launch of her new book, Smart or Lucky? How Technology leaders turn chance into success!
Let’s hear what she has to say of this intriguing new book and title!!
Q: Judith, tell us about your day job.A: I am technology consultant and strategist and CEO of Hurwitz and Associates. I differentiate myself by being a thought leader in the space of Cloud, Social Business, Service Management, and Enterprise Computing. I have been doing this for way too long – greater than 20+ years of experience. I wrote this book based on my experiences in the industry.
Q: I know you've written other books. Tell us about them.I have written four “Dummies” books: SOA for Dummies (two editions), Service management for Dummies, and Cloud Computing for Dummies and I am now working on a Private Cloud for Dummies. I love to write and share knowledge so in addition to these books I have written lots of customized books on demand that allow managers to quickly understand the importance of emerging technologies to their business.
Q: Why this book? What was your inspiration?The inspiration came from decades of working in the industry. I have worked with so many companies who started out with a bang, and then ended up not making it. And then I have also worked with many companies who started more methodically, and ended up being big and successful. I noticed that the ones that failed didn’t pay attention to the signs of danger. They often didn’t plan well enough in very competitive markets.
In the technology market, entrepeneurs seem to be starting to repeat many of the mistakes of the past decades. It seems to me that the many emerging technology leaders have very short memories! So I wanted to make sure that I documented the best practices and worst practices so that others can learn from the experiences. I wanted to share what I had learned over many years and put in a form that entrepreneurs could use.
Q: Since I am a Social Business Maven, any Social Business stories that you could share?Actually yes! There is a company that I wrote about called Agillion that came to market with a product offering and strategy to create marketplaces based on collaboration. They had all the makings of a Google success but they were 10-12 years too early. There was no infrastructure in place to support the idea. One of the lessons that entrepreneurs need to learn is that there can be an idea that is before its “IT” time!
Q: What are the top 3 Ahas from the Book?Well that’s a tough one! (Pause) But I’ll try to choose from the many in the book!
1) There is nothing new under the sun. All of the new ideas can be traced back to a past innovative idea!
2) We all fall for the bubble or the silver bullet solution to solve a problem. Nothing is ever as easy or simple as it seems but it seems that history does repeat itself and that we continue to believe that it is easy!!
3) The companies who focused on solving the problem of the client were the winners. The loser’s secret? Focus on their technology – not the problems they were trying to solve.
Q: Coolest companies you wrote about?I do compare Google and Netscape. I titled that chapter “the Google Sneak Attack”. The major point is that Netscape did a frontal attack on Microsoft, the #1 leader, and of course, Microsoft attacked back. Google’s approach was “we are just a little ole search engine not really hurting anyone”! Things would be different if they have done a frontal attack by going for world domination!
Q: Anything I didn't ask you about that you want to tell me about?Yes! I do have a chapter that covers two companies that were on the verge of collapse but have recovered today! I wrote about both IBM and Apple in the chapter called “You are not dead yet”. I discuss how both were able to recover and share the lessons that can apply to others today.
Judith, it sounds like a terrific book! Can’t wait for you to sign my copy!
Sandy
Join me at MarketingProfs B2B Forum To Hear about the #Social Business Agenda
Please join me at the B2B MarketingProfs Forum in Boston! I'll walk through the Social Business Agenda!
#socbiz #ls11 #ibmsocbiz
Cook it in Social Sause!
While at BlogHer, I had the opportunity to meet with Michelle Stern, author of The Whole Family Cookbook. It was great to hear her story of how her small business is leveraging Social to grow into a Social Business on many fronts!
If we look at our Social Business Agenda, she has really focused on doing this right!
So how did she leverage Social? Let me try to frame it as the A-G-E-N-D-A!
She Aligned her corporate goals to the social business vision. The soul of the recipes are from social networking sites!
Her focused on Gaining friends by targeting those who have common interests with her company What's Cooking for Kids. Her target of course are those who love to cook, and involve their kids.
She engaged her Fans through a number of ways. For example, she involved them in her process of writing her book. Once the book was finished, she put together a pdf sample of the book and put it on facebook - as a bonus for people who join the community. In a matter of days, she grew by several hundred people and has great engagement and excitement of cooking with kids! And now that the book is actually for sale, she has an amazing group of bloggers doing reviews and giveaways -- they are her brand advocates! Village Harvest Rice also sponsored an incredible movie trailer for her new book. It helps people to get to know me better and understand where the book is coming from. Check it out here! http://whatscookingwithkids.com/landing/the-whole-family-cookbook/
(Social) Networking her processes, even as a small business, she decided that her "product development" process would be social. What's her product development? Developing recipes of course! All of the recipes in her book were tested by members of her facebook community (www.facebook.com/whatscookingkids).
Analyze the data! Traffic to her site has gone up by 40% and the Facebook community has grown 50-100 people a day for the past few weeks. All of these in process metrics are helping her grow her book sales, and cooking classes!
I get lots of questions on can this work for a Small Business.....Michelle is a great example of how a small business can leverage the power of Social Business. Michelle certainly has! (Also, check out the new book she has .. I bought it and my daughters have been engaged in learning how to cook! I love the keys to which recipe steps are for which age children!)
Social Business In Canada - Celestica!
I was in Canada this week (yes, on a 9 hour flight due to weather and maintenance issues!) meeting with the great IBM team there and some superb clients. I had an opportunity to go and see Celestica around a $6M company.
They design, manufacture and ship complex electronic components for international clients, manages customer relationships, operates end-to-end supply chains and logistics, and develops processes and software to support its clients. The company employs more than 30,000 people in worldwide locations, such as China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, the USA and Romania.
Walking in: As I went into their building, I immediately saw the passion around Social Business from Celestica. Basically, Celestica wanted to have social communities to drive sharing of ideas across all their locations. Think of best practices, innovations, and even just networking to drive up productivity.
Below is the encouragement to join the overall community and to start subtopics that add value.
While they do have a community manager, the discussion groups are very organically grown. The most popular one? On helping the Japan team with encouragement and moving workload around due to the disaster in that part of the world. But there are more... on best practices on their processes, and their competitive advantages. So much so that CISCO just named their Partner of the year on both the IT and business side!
The results of this new community are reduced cost and increased innovation. In fact, the team lead by CIO Mary Gendron and Sr Director of IT TQ (Tianbing Qian!). The cool thing was the they formed a collaboration council to drive ideas, made up of line of business leaders, and had over 2000 collaboration champions in the company.
Further results have been that this has been named the #1 Game Changer Award winner, and it has reshaped and inspired the corporate culture. From the CEO on down, they have changed their culture of their company from Silo to a single driving organization set on changing the world.
Social is Today's Era. Tomorrow is the Gaming Era.
Live from SXSW!
I am listening to Seth Priebatsch who is working on SCVNGR.COM. The social layer world is built on today is Facebook, the next layer or era is the gaming layer.
I believe very strongly in Gaming!!! I help start the gaming initiative at IBM with Innov8 which has lit a fire under social gaming at IBM. We now have a practice around gaming, a game for Smarter Planet, and more. Phaedra was the brillant hire I made that has knocked a homerun! And think about Watson -- the ultimate gaming machine!
Interesting points from Seth's presentation:
- School is a game. Just a really poorly designed game. Example: Grades. Not based on progression but to accentuate failure. Cheating as part of gameplay is rampant. Princeton changed the rules. Instead of having professors look for cheating, they changed the rules and set up an Honor Code that is self enforcing. Bottom Line Learning at schools could be improved with gaming techniques to make it more engaging.
- Client Acquisition Strategy: Leveraging gaming concepts to acquire clients is the next frontier. Example used was Groupon with their free lunch offer. The "free lunch" is a "game". Since most people don't buy that there is a free lunch, they expect a "catch". The justification here is "a group has to sign up" so the skeptism is removed. It attracts new clients through trust. Groupon also uses communal gameplay. Groupon leverages a countdown clock and according to research having a group with a timeframe and clear rules is a great gaming tactic.
- Location Based Services are not mainstream yet. And won't be until the rules of the game are changed. With the amount of money, the constraint is that you have to be at the location. So SCVNGR.COM is looking to change the rules to loosely coupled location. For example, heading to a place, or online at a place. The other interesting factoid was that when a reward is given like GAP did with checkin and get free jeans, when the reward was removed, the checkins declined. So the effect of checkins was not sustainable.
Overall gaming techniques to use to change your game were:
- Leverage gaming techniques to enhance your client acquisition strategy ex countdown techniques
- Define your rules; and relook at the way your game rules are used. If too hard, then change them.
- Be careful with rewards -- progression looks like best method. Progression is like good, better best, and no one loses. Example: American Express does with the green card, up to the desired black card.
Crowd vs Community
Howdy Ya'll!! I am back in my home tuff with my ropers and my jeans! Sigh. Austin SXSW. Home!
I am in my first great session for Saturday (my first session was a bust!) It is focused on influence.
Differences between crowd and a community are:
- Crowds are motivated by pride; Community are motivated by purpose
- Crowds are powered by inspiration; Communities are powered by influence
- Crowds want beneftis; Communities want to belong
- Crowds want connection; Communites are driven by collaboration
- Crowds like to get; Communities like to give
- Crowds are sustained by service; Communites are sustained by Story.
Sometimes you need a crowd. Sometimes you need a community. The question is: How do you move a crowd to a community with purpose!
Eric Knoll from Zappos gave this story. At Zappos, everyone is trained on the phones for the BEST service. Eric was on phone and the client was looking for a shoe that was sold out. He went to look on other sites to find that shoe. After 15 minutes of searching and chatting, it became apparent that this shoe was 2 seasons old, and not made any more. But he finally found it on another site, a competitor site, and he gave her the site. He sent her to that site. And she said "I am so confused". I only want to buy it from you. So what else do you have that looks similar. After another 15 minutes -- he found the shoes. This client is now part of the Zappos community. This is not about graphs - but about people and purpose. To make a client happy!