Technology

Webinar on social media measurement

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

I cannot attend this one but I just heard from Angela Sinickas about a Ragan webinar she is conducting this afternoon on measuring social media.

The idea of knowing and measuring what effect social media has on the business you are in, drives people nuts –sometimes in a good way.

Yesterday I showed a colleague in the office how I track visitors to our blog, Light Bulb Moments, and she wanted to know “where I got those from.” That it was just the built-in dashboard for WordPress blew her away. And that’s not even getting into Google analytics.

Social Media analytics has got a lot more complex, and necessary. Before diving into any social media tool, first think of what results and measures you would like to have. Start with the end in mind, I guess.

Listen to Angela describe it in a much more succing way here.

Quotes for the week ending 15 Feb 2009

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“To the young people of China, please learn a lesson from this…”

Michael Phelps, in a another apology, this time to Chinese fans on a video call.

“Mass for us is a business that doesn’t work.”

Tom Ascheim, Newsweek‘s chief executive, on the redesign of the magazine that will focus on a narrow segment.

“Amazon’s new Kindle e-book reader gets slimmer”

Amazon.com’s release of a slimmer version of its Kindle electronic reading device for $359

“I watched Nadya’s publicist on Dr. Phil the other night, and was ashamed for our profession.”

Linda VandeVrede, on ValleyPRBlog.com, commenting on a post about PR becoming tainted by ‘publicists.’

“The worst thing about the Suleman story is the way the freak-hungry media has rewarded her delinquency every step of the way.”

Tina Brown, writing for The Daily Beast, about the media’s swooning over Nadya Suleman and the cctuplets story

“Possibly in his law office, his feet on a cluttered desk, …his clothes a bit too small to fit his uncommon frame — maybe wondering if somebody might call him up and ask him to be commerce secretary.”

Barack Obama, using Abraham Lincoln’s birthday as a way of making light about how yet another nominee, Judd Greg, for the commerce secretary post withdrew from the post.

“It is like sitting there watching my house ransacked by a gang of thugs.”

Arnold Kling of the Cato Institute, one of those making symbolic but noisy objections to the new stimulus package that was approved by the Senate and the House this week.

“Reporters, bloggers, and the general public are being denied an opportunity to review one of the most important pieces of legislation sent through Congress in a long time.”

The Sunlight Foundation’s Paul Blumenthal, on the dangerous practice of ‘hiding’ the stimulus bill from the public and slamming it through.

“It could have been a computer failure or a human error.”

Russian space expert, Igor Lisov, on the collision of a Russian and US satellite, that raised the questions about the need for some type of international air traffic control with so much of space junk.

“Yesterday I testified before the Senate Budget Committee…”

Douglas Elmendor, Director of the government’s Congresional Budget Office, in a blog post about controlling health care costs. His no-frills blog is one of the many social media initiatives taken by the Federal government.

Big guns atweeting – what could we learn from them?

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

What does the Dalai Lama‘s office, Number 10 Downing Street, and the new Governor of Arizona have in common?

They’ve all taken to Twitter, lately.

You can tell the groundswell has moved up into the corporate office. Says the Dalai Lama’s office (which counts iJustine as one of the person it is following (?): “His Holiness thought it was prudent to make his office open and assessable to a more youth and technologically advancing audience.”

By now, you’ve probably come across a dozen uses of Twitter. I’m in a group at Arizona State University where more staff members than you would imagine have been tweeting.

We may all have different uses for this uncanny upstart of a micro-blogging tool that has suddenly made a come back –since it came into being in 2007. But the best one I came across this week was from Jason Calcanis, founder of Mahalo. “if I want to leak something to the press, I can do it by just saying ‘what do you think about this…?’ and if it’s notable, it will be on 10 blogs in a day.”

Calcanis, if you have been following him even outside of Twitter, is a self-proclaimed PR machine. Maybe we could pull the different strands together and learn a few good ideas from all of them.

If anyone cares to contribute to this thread, I’ll follow up with a Lessons Learned post that includes your comments. Thanks!


Tracking the first 100 days – everyone wants to do it!

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The first 100 days is now a yardstick of performance, especially so for the new Obama administration. Of course the media is following it diligently.

Yesterday colleges turned up the heat, to communicate the complexity of what the world is up against with global warming and climate change, and what the president needs to do in his first 100 days.  ASU participated as well in the national teach-in.  (The webcast is here)

Butothers are using social media to record and comment on –even crowd-source– the first 100 days. Here are a few:

ObamaCTO: Tehcnolgy folks keeping tabs on Mr. Obama

WhiteHouse2 – an alternative ‘house’ run by citizens!

First100Days Blog – you’ll never gues who’s blogging the first 100 days! Anderson Cooper? guess again! The GOP? Nah! It’s the State Department.

Then: Echo Chamber. Now: Think Tank

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What’s the value of Twitter? I’m sure you get asked this question a lot. I’ve been barely active for the past six months, and find myself pointing people to resources such as this ebook (by GreekPreneur) and Chris Penn’s great Power Guide to Twitter.

I found the head-scratching by David Pogue (he, a tech columnist @ The New York Times) very enlightening. Even Pogue is figuring it out as he goes, so I don’t feel too bad.

Anyway, all this preamble is to make the point that Twitter to me is proving to be a customizable focus group that never sleeps; one I could configure with a  few clicks, so that it’s pretty well targeted.

twitter_pollI found a quick poll being taken at The Strategy Web, (try it!) and the instant result confirmed what I thought: More people have found it valuable as a think tank, than a reputation enhancer. The number of people it reflects is very small, so this is not exactly representative of the Twitterverse, but it vindicates my time spent.

Quotes for the week ending 24 January, 2009

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“Citizen participation will be a priority…”

Macon Philips, White House’s director of new media, in a blog post a few seconds after Barack Obama took oath as the nation’s 44th president on Tuesday.

“Communication. Transparency. Participation”

The first message on the WhiteHouse.gov web site that switched over on Tuesday at noon., spelling out the details why ‘change has come to whitehouse.gov’

“an excellent example of witness media and pro media cooperation. It’s not about the ‘versus.'”

Steve Safran, quoted in an article about the evolution of ‘eyewittness journalism’

“Inaugural speeches serve two purposes. They are designed to heal whatever rough roads people had to go down to get elected. The other purpose is to lay out the agenda and the key metaphors for what’s to come-and hopefully to induce people to cooperate.”

John Adams, Colgate Speaking Union @Colgate University, quoted in Ragan.com

“You must find ways to spread – in a new manner – voices and pictures of hope, through the internet, which wraps all of our planet in an increasingly close-knitted way.”

Pope Benedict XVI, on the Vatican’s launch of a channel on YouTube.

“Obama gets a thumbs-up for his Blackberry.”

Headline of a series of articles that celebrated the fact that the ‘tech president’ gets his way in being able to step out of the communications bubble. Only a few people will have his email address, the White House says.

“Twitter IS a massive time drain. It IS yet another way to procrastinate … But it’s also a brilliant channel for breaking news, asking questions, and attaining one step of separation from public figures you admire.”

New York Times Tech columnist, David Pogue about how he’s learning to use Twitter

You’re never too old to use social media

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At the IABC conference last year we heard Bill Marriott opine on the value of a blog, and how he does it. I called it a ‘cool way to tell stories.’

But I have to say that the storytelling function of the blog only scratches the surface of the value of  social media. What’s happening is not just the communicating but the connecting.

“Who says the Internet is only for young people?” That’s the provocative statement made by the Red Cross.

“At age 126, the American Red Cross loves the Internet … is becoming a leader in adopting social media.”

It’s using Twitter to get information out fast, such as publishing links to a shelter or evacuation area during a fire or storm. People need to connect to organizations like the Red Cross because that’s often the first –if not only- way to get important information at that time.

Just last month we saw how PSNH (Public Service of New Hampshire) turned to multiple new media channels from Twitter and Flickr to YouTube to keep in touch with its customers.

And how old is PSNH? It was born a year before the first transatlantic telephone call  was made between New York and London! So don’t let anyone in your organization tell you you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Clay Shirky on the power of web collaboration, media

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Experiments in communication take off when they create ‘social capital’ rather than take that “big bang” approach, says Clay Shirky. He discussed this and more in an NPR interview and call-in last week.

Of course Shirky has written extensively on this subject of social capital, especially in Here comes everybody –the the best book on social media, to-date, in my opinion. His analysis of new media is spot on. As in observing how technology needs to become ‘technologically boring‘ before it gains social traction. It has to first lose its geek stigma, then become ‘normal’, then ubiquitous, to finally become pervasive enough to start a revolution.

And for those grappling with how much PR and media presence is necessary I love this quote from the book:

“All business are media businesses, because whatever else they do, all businesses rely on the managing of information for two audiences – employees and the world.”

Which opens a rich debate on the blurring line between internal and external communiction, whether PR should be taught in business schools etc, but that’s grist for the mill for another post.

Quotes for the week ending 10 Jan, 2009

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“Any journalist who enters Gaza becomes a fig leaf and front for the Hamas terror organization, and I see no reason why we should help that.”

Daniel Seaman, director of Israel’s Government Press Office, in the New York Times article on media restrictions in reporting from Gaza

“Think of it as real-time show notes created by me, our show hosts, and our community. Let’s call this stream the “river.” This is an experiment..”

Leo Laport, host of the amazing This Week in Tech, on starting to use a live text stream of links, comments, and notes via Twitter, FriendFeed, TwitArmy etc for his show.

“The comparisons to Twitter need to stop, and stop now. FriendFeed is not the same as Twitter.”

Allen Stern, at InformationWeek, commenting on the fact that many internet users don’t have enough services that need to be aggregated on FriendFeed.

“The manure storm is about to hit!”

Steve Hall, at AdRants, predicting the wrath of Mommy Cow Bloggers aimed at  Ray-ban, which has an ad featuring a cow giving birth to a man with sunglasses.

“If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth most populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria.”

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook

“Sri Lanka has lost one of its more talented, courageous and iconoclastic journalists.”

Reporters Without Borders, commenting on the murder of the editor of a newspaper in Sri Lanka, Lasantha Wickramatunge.

“He is a person of integrity.”

Bernie Madoff’s lawyer, after his client, the former chairman of the Nasdaq Stock Market, was arrested for a giant Ponzi scheme that lost up to $50 billion of investors’ money.

David Pogue’s “imagine” on the mark, breaks the rules

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This video by David Pogue on mobile technology is entertaining and thought provoking. So good it makes Jimmy Kimmel look like a high school skit.

It is a nice complement to that other lame version (for the XO laptop) by none other than the deceased Lennon.

“Imagine there’s no Apple, no products beginning with i…”

You may say it’s a nightmare, with Google, Mac and Dell

You might have real conversations, but the world would be… dull as hell!”

What was fun for me is that he demos Callwave, Google mobile text search, T-mobile, Pandora etc which I am huge fan of. The last bits are scintillating, especially the My Way parody for the iPhone. Pogue has other skits. Like this one on Voice Mail, to the tune of Sound of Silence.

Which makes me think that Pogue occupies a different kind of slot, even though he is nominally a technology critic for the New York Times. He often pokes a sharp stick at the trend or the tool he is reviewing, such as questioning (mostly in jest) the ‘psychosexual terminology of computing,’ and the tech impact on business and jobs. As in suggesting Bill Gate’s sings:

“I just called to say I bought you, I just called to say you’re unemployed,

I just called to say I own you, And to tell you that we’re truly overjoyed. . . . “

And again, his insight (a riff, really on Moore’s Law) with:

Pogue’s Law: any extra speed introduced by faster chips is soon offset by increasingly bloated software.

If only all technology columnists could be as eloquent.