Keeping up with social media is a real challenge these days. However, one theme seems constant whenever you read blogs about social media, especially among marketers and so-called optimizers who target, target, target to drive, drive, drive customers to their client’s social media asset, i.e. video, blog, community, etc. You would think advocates of social media are Rowdy, Gil, Jed, or one of the other actors on Rawhide.
Stop with the Rollin’, Rollin’, Rollin’: Customers aren’t Targets for Social Media
October 1, 2008
1 Comment | 
Brands, Customer Experience, Experience Design, Social Media, User Experience, Web 2.0 | Tagged: customer engagement, Experience Design, SEO, Social Media, social media optimization, targeting, Web 2.0 | 
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Posted by Larry Irons
Social Software, Community, and Organization: Where Practice Meets Process
September 18, 2008
Ross Mayfield of SocialText recently pointed to a longstanding issue involving the relationship of organizational practices and organizational processes. He offered a discussion of distributed collaboration and community, specifically on the question of which organizational stakeholder is the most effective leader of community (internal and external) initiatives. Ross suggests that even though we may see the emergence of a Chief Community Officer to align and coordinate internal and external communities, communities are more likely to arise around organizational processes as 360 degree process communities.
In my view, approaching distributed collaboration from the standpoint of community alone, especially communities internal to the enterprise, is overly restrictive. Collective understanding and collaborative understanding, as Thomas Vander Wahl makes clear, are different parts of what he refers to as the social sofware stack. Without getting overly picky, let me agree with Ross’ point that the development of internal communities in enterprises will most likely occur around the way process owners manage routine work and its exceptions. Nevertheless, the distinction Ross makes, following Mike Gotta, about the difference between processes (how work is supposed to get done) and practices (how work actually gets done) really indicates a need to keep in focus the range of connections and interactions that social software enables.
9 Comments | Collaboration, Community 2.0, e-Learning 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Innovation, Social Media | Tagged: Collaboration, Community 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, Social Media, social software, Web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Larry Irons
Closing the Engagement Gap and Customer Experience
August 29, 2008
A few weeks ago, we drew from the 2008 Tribalization of Business Study, sponsored by Beeline Labs, Deloitte, and the Society for New Communications Research, to discuss the gap between the importance many enterprises attribute to the development of communities and the accompanying investment in that engagement strategy, whether focused on internal stakeholders, or externally on customers.
We noted that the findings of the Tribalization study point to a Community Gap. Yet, drawing from Rachel Happe, we also pointed out the differences between the conversations characterizing social media and the conversations of a community. The distinction is important to keep in mind when considering an overall strategy for connecting with and engaging people online, whether they are employees, suppliers, or customers. After reading two recent research efforts, one from Fleishman-Hillard and the other from Forrester Research, it is clear that the Community Gap is one manifestation of a larger gap, the Engagement Gap.
Read the rest of this entry »
6 Comments | Brands, Community 2.0, Customer Communities, Customer Experience, Experience Design, Social Media, Web 2.0 | Tagged: Customer Experience, engagement, Social Media, Web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Larry Irons
Social Media Networking with Customers Explained
August 16, 2008Lee Lefever’s CommonCraft website offers a succinct take on how social media help businesses network with customers. If you haven’t seen his paperworks video technique for explanation I recommend viewing the video below. We’ve used Lefever’s work before to explain twitter and its relevance to collaboration.
Visit Lefever’s website and take some time to review the work. It is a unique approach to visual explanation.
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Leave a Comment » | Customer Experience, Social Media, Web 2.0 | Tagged: Customer Experience, paperworks, Social Media, Web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Larry Irons
Mobile Learning and Visual Tags
August 4, 2008
eLearning Guild QR Visual Tag
We first discussed visual tags a couple of years ago as Web 2.0 technology initially emerged in mobile devices such as cell phones. Referring to two visual tagging techniques available at the time, we noted:
Shotcode and Semacode make mobile information seeking over the web work like scanning a bar code to determine the price of an item. They make offline media interactive. It is pure pull, unless you consider the offline advertising “pushy”. The metadata necessary for accessing relevant information is largely in the context, the embodied situation of the user.
Take a look at the following video for an overview of how visual tagging works, in this example it is for advertising services.
So, how does this relate to mobile learning, or m-Learning as the eLearning Guild refers to the practice? Read the rest of this entry »
2 Comments | e-Learning 2.0, v-Tags, Web 2.0 | Tagged: Collaboration/Learning, e-Learning 2.0, elearning 2.0, folksonomy, m-learning, mlearning, mobile learning, performance support, Social Media, visual tags, Web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Larry Irons
The Community Gap
July 27, 2008Rachel Happe, over at The Social Organization, recently posted an entry titled Social Media is not Community, outlining the broad differences between what distinguishes community from the conversations characterizing social media. Rachel’s general point is that even though social media can support community development, several key traits of communities make them distinct.
They are continuous, not temporal – this is not to say that people don’t drop in and out but there is a core membership that interacts together over a long period of time.
Communities gather around a concept or common goal not around a collection of content (although content does plays a major role, it is not the impetus for the community).
Communities take on various conversations and activities, led by different members over time – it is not one conversation but many.
People within communities get to know each other and interact regularly without centralized facilitation and not necessarily in the context of what the community is discussing as a whole.
Community leaders emerge over time as they continue to take proactive roles in the community and rally other members to their causes. These leaders are community members and they self-select because of their interests – not because they are told to do so…although they can be encouraged to do so.
Rachel adds that enterprises can take advantage of two opportunities relative to social media and community. The enterprise can use social media to start conversations among their stakeholders around content, initiatives, and goals. Or, enterprises can develop communities and sustain them over time in order to impact business processes. She believes enterprises don’t yet understand what is entailed in developing communities.
The points offered in Rachel’s post are provided empirical support in the recent 2008 Tribalization of Business Studysponsored by Beeline Labs, Deloitte and the Society for New Communications Research. Read the rest of this entry »
6 Comments | Customer Communities, Enterprise 2.0, Web 2.0 | Tagged: community, Social Media, tribalization study, Web 2.0 | Permalink
Posted by Larry Irons
Skilful Minds 