Soapbox Mojo

Social Media Invades Outlook

Xobni is an amazing little Outlook plug-in that really adds value.  Once installed it quickly indexes your emails and contacts to provide some great capabilities.

• Lighting Fast Email Search
• Email Analytics
• Relationship statistics
• Personal Assistant
• Threaded conversations
• Shared attachments
• Phone number extraction
• Web services integration with external sources (e.g., LinkedIn, Facebook, Hoovers)

When installed Xobni adds another panel to your Outlook client.  The panel is populated with data related to the sender of any email you select in Outlook.

(** N.B. Email addresses have been removed from the images resulting in white or black boxes **)

Working from the top down let’s walk through what you get.

 

The profile contains basic details and contact information if available.  The ‘edit profile’ link allows you to select what data source to use for profile information.  You can choose Xobni, Outlook, LinkedIn or Facebook.  The four tabs in the profile area are described below.

Statistics shows the email activity between you and the sender.  Since I select myself the graph is showing all my email activity.

 

Actions provides quick links to some basic tasks. The ‘Schedule time with xxx’ is especially useful creating an email with a quick view of your availability over the next few days.  No more hunting through your calendar for open time slots.

 

The LinkedIn tab attempts to find the individual in the LinkedIn network.  You can then view their LinkedIn profile right from Outlook.  If they are not one of your LinkedIn connections an additional ‘Add +’ button displays. 

As with the LinkedIn tab the Facebook tab provides the ability to find and add individuals to your Facebook Friends.

As expected the Hoover’s tab provides information on the organization.  Here I selected an email from Mindjet.

As part of the indexing process Xobni looks to identify relationships based on your email traffic.  In the ‘Network’ pane it ranks relationships between you and the selected sender.  Using the magnifying glass you can search just this network for a specific contact.

All conversations (threaded) that have occurred with this specific individual are shown in a scrollable and searchable list.

Any files exchanged by email are shown in a scrollable and searchable list.

Data junkies can even review their own email activity.  This data can be sent, copied, saved or printed.

Since installing Xobni finding and adding contact to LinkedIn and Facebook has become less of a chore.

I Blog and so doe$ Marriott - $$ Cha-ching $$

I have not made any money and don’t expect to find anyone willing to let me dictate posts but this is a great ROI story.

Kathleen Matthews, who heads global communications at Marriott International, came up with the idea for chief executive Bill Marriott’s blog. He saw it as a good way to communicate.

"That’s the importance of public relations, of advertising, of everything we do," Marriott said. "And this is just another channel." Marriott also likes how the blog shows that he’s "a human just like everybody else." He sometimes breaks from writing about corporate issues to post about the movies he sees on Saturdays with his wife.

Marriott has thousands of employees around the world, who make up about one-fifth of the blog’s readership and comment frequently. "It is the virtual substitute for Bill Marriott visiting every hotel," Matthews said.

He’s not your typical blogger — he doesn’t use computers. Instead, he dictates entries into a recorder and a staff member transcribes and posts them. The audio is also on the site, which averages about 6,000 visitors per week and has had more than 600,000 total visitors since its inception in January 2007.

Marriott has made more than $5 million in bookings from people who clicked through to the reservation page from Marriott’s blog.

 

Marketing Moves to the Blogosphere

If you don’t know it and know you don’t know it; you need to ask questions!

There is an old proverb that goes something like:

He who knows and knows he knows he is a wise man; seek him.
He who knows and knows not he knows he is asleep; wake him.
He who knows not and knows he knows not, he is a child; teach him.
He who knows not and knows not he knows not, he is a fool; shun him!
- Various

With a little spin, we can easily relate this to the task of gathering and defining technical and functional requirements for projects.

If you know it and know you know it; it is fact document it, it may be a requirement.
If you know it and don’t realize you know it; then it is fact or information by experience.
If you don’t know it and don’t know you don’t know it; ignorance is bliss and it’s in fate’s hand.
If you don’t know it and know you don’t know it; you need to ask questions!

Asking question can be challenging for a number of reasons.  The first is most likely the genesis for statement four in the original proverb.  People do not ask questions because they do not want to expose their lack of knowledge to a peer, client or manager.  Where this can lead is a separate blog entry.  Asking clients questions that result in information, which can be distilled into ‘fact’, and documented as a requirement is an art that develops over time.  Follow these quick tips to get the conversation rolling.

•    Ask questions that cannot be answered with yes or no.
•    Keeps the conversation going with simple follow on questions.
•    Change your tone and language to seem curious rather than confrontational.
•    Ask as many people as you can the same questions and collaborate.

Badges?… We don’t need no… stinkin’ badges!

Stop cutting and pasting all that html and JavaScript.

If you use more than one social networking site or microblogging service, you don’t have to deal with adding a badge for any new outposts you add to your social network.  With Retaggr you can create a profile card to use on your blog and it will dynamically update with activity and changes.  You can even add IM widgets that will enable people to initiate a chat with you from your blog or web site.

Once you’ve created a profile the site provides easy to use tools for your blog and web sites.

Add it to your email signature

Add a widget to your blog and replace all your badges

Put a button on your blog and visitors will have a great way to connect with you on any of your social networks.

Enable your blog for the Retaggr network.