Soapbox Mojo

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.

Posting to Twitter and Yammer

At PointB, where I work, we are experiencing a minor groundswell in the use of Yammer.  This is an awesome occurrence except now I am challenged with posting to Yammer and Twitter.

He is my recipe for posting to both services.

Ingredients

• SnipUrl account and toolbar installed
• TwitterMail account
• Yammer account
• Twitter account

Directions

• Verify your email settings in Yammer.  Uncheck to bottom box unless you want to get an email an confirm every post.

• Browse to some interesting content on the Internet.
• Activate the SnipUrl browser toolbar
• Choose email as the method the share the URL.

• Address the email to yammer@yammer.com
• cc xxxxx99xxxx@twittermail.com (Substitute your TwitterMail address here)
• Review and edit message body as required
• Send

• Wait a few moments for the bits to circulate the net.
• See your post on post Twitter and Yammer

You can email posts without using SnipUrl if you don’t need to refer people to an Internet site.  Just create an email message with the addresses and anything in the body will get posted.  As an added benefit this will work with your company Blackberry or Windows Mobile device.

How I Keep Track of it All

If you’re at all like me you have a few email accounts and belong to various social network sites.  I monitor and maintain the following.

Twitter

Facebook

LinkedIn

GMail

Yahoo Mail

AIM

Yahoo Messenger

GTalk

Yammer

Fortunately I have Digsby to help aggregate all the updates into one client application.  It is the only tool I’ve found that allows me to track and manage all the incoming messages and information in an acceptable way.

Once downloaded and installed setting up the Digsby client is rather straight forward.  It supports all the major IM, email, and Social Networks.  It does not support Yammer directly but here is the trick.  In my Yammer settings I allowed updates from IM (GTalk) which Digsby does support.  Winner!

Here is a view of my client application.

When there is an update a small bubble pops open at the bottom of my screen with the new message.  This can be turned off during presentations or when it becomes annoying.

If I mouse over any of the Social Networks a message drawer (see twitter below) opens allowing me to review and reply to any recent posts.

It is not perfect.  You do lose some of the underlying application capability like attaching a file in Yammer or re-tweet as Twitter post.  Not a big trade off when you’re trying to manage screen real estate.

Gizmo5 - Make free internet calls from your mobile phone and computer

One of the benefits of being a consultant is the ability to save some commute time and work from home.  Shower if you want, fresh coffee when you want, walk the dog at lunch.  The one challenge I have is attending conference calls from the home office.  I certainly don’t want to use up mobile minutes listening to status reports and the chief of house does not like to loose phone access for extended periods.    I’d used Gizmo while in the UK to talk to family in the states years ago, so I downloaded the new version to try it as a VOIP option.   Works great, and the best part is you can call 8XX numbers without a charge.

Gizmo5 is a Free Phone For Your Computer

That makes calling as easy as instant messenging
Learn more

Reading & Review: Tribal Leadership

I’m just finishing this book and recommend it to anyone who is a leader of a group or large organization.  You will find it easy to read with great chapter summaries of concepts and actions.  If you are dealing with current organizational challenges, the authors guide you to specific chapters so you can take action. 

The web 2.0 back story.  I follow @zappos (Tony, Zappos CEO) on twitter and he mentioned it in a post..  When I looked on amazon it had 22 five star ratings.  Seemed like something worth reading.

Since the dawn of civilization people have formed tribes, and research demonstrates that humans are genetically programmed to form into groups. Within every company there are tribes, often several, consisting of 20 to 150 people who know each other and work together.  But while everyone tribes, the culture of each tribe is different, as is its effectiveness.  Improving a tribe’s culture—and its chances for greater success—requires a tribal leader who not only understands the tribe but can leverage its collective assets to build a greater team.

Tribal Leadership | Home

@Computer: Screen capture with audio (Currently Free)

Most times it is easier to show someone how to do something rather than trying to explain it in written verse.  I do love the zoom and edit capabilities of Camtasia Studio but the $300 license cost could be a barrier for some.  I found Microsoft Office  Labs Community Clips project to be a great tool in my bag-o-tricks. 

Project: Community Clips



View Slide Show



Watch Video

If you’ve ever struggled with a feature in Office, if you want to increase your Office know-how, if you want to show others your favorite feature or trick, or if you’ve had trouble explaining to your friends how to do something, start using Community Clips today!

Community Clips is a portal for viewing, sharing, and discussing informal "how-to" videos (screencasts) on Microsoft Office products. It also includes a client application for easy recording of screen views and voice.

Community Clips

If soccer moms can do it, so can you

Everyday I’m challenge with helping clients and associates to adopt better collaboration practices.  Yes, Outlook has a cc field which allows you to socialize your ideas with others and to many that is collaboration. 

Recently I was included in the distribution of a summer calendar which detailed attendance and activities for 5-8 boys that would be spending the summer break under the watchful eye of one young man.  When the 5th ‘update’ hit my gmail inbox, it was time to act.  They needed a quick, easy to use space to share contact details, photos, and a calendar.

A hosted WSS or SharePoint site would be over kill, Yahoo/Google groups require a domain email address, a quick wiki with some plugins was not intuitive, so my search led me to Nexo. 

About Nexo

We help busy people manage and enrich the many relationships in their lives — family, friends, work, school, sports teams and more.

Groups of people use Nexo to do more online:

• Create Web sites and email lists
• Share pictures, videos, files and Web favorites
• Have discussions
• Create shared calendars and vote on activities

Our vision is to connect people more tightly by improving the quality of group interactions.

Our mission is to build an online service that supports the sharing of experiences for groups of people.

In 15 minutes we had a site will all the required features.  The mom’s love it.  Does it have to coolest templates, not really.  Will it will a Webby award, probably not.  But every morning I get a daily digest of activity that shows they are using the tool to share picture, thoughts, ideas about the boys of summer.

Problem + Correct Technology = Win!

@Computer: Simple Tools

Sometimes its nice to find tool that do one simple thing well.  Your not going to use these every day but having them in your bag-o-tricks can save the day.

When is Good, makes coordinating meeting times amount individuals a breeze.  And best of all you do not need to join anything.

Tiny  Paste, when you need to get a large document to someone with draconian email limits or limited bandwidth.  No account or password and there is a firefox plugin.