Archive for October, 2009

Behind Closed Doors: What’s On the Mind Of Chief Marketing Officers

Categories: CMOPosted on October 30th, 2009

We attended the Forbes CMO Summit in sunny Palm Beach, to learn what’s on the minds of executive marketing leaders. The conversation from this group regarding social was more sophisticated, which Charlene and I don’t think is reflective of most chief marketing groups we speak with. What’s unique about these Forbes CMOs? Perhaps they are more progressive, well read, and tuned into the rapid changes coming.

In consideration to attendees of this event, I won’t be giving any specific individual quotes, (this wasn’t a media event) but instead, I’ll focus on the insights related to emerging technologies, overall budgets and market economics.

The Dialog on Social Marketing Has Elevated:

CMOs on a holding pattern for growth. Our host, Steve Forbes kicked off the first evening, telling us why he believes we got into this financial spiral. He gave a broad economic lecture covering mortgage, congress, the weakened dollar and compared the current situation to other global and historical incidents. Although the theme of the event was “Preparing for Growth”, I didn’t get the sense that marketers had increased their budgets or were preparing for a marketing upswing. Yet despite decreased marketing budgets, the opportunity to innovate with inexpensive channels were discussed.

CMOs admitted they were losing power to the empowered consumer. A few years ago, the conversation may have been one of resistance, argument or fear of these changes. Yet this group had moved on, accepted the changes, and had already put into place programs to benefit from market changes. I liked Greg Walsh’s quotes, one of the opening moderators (I just reviewed his book) he openly admitted that power was shifting to the empowered consumers. He gave the analogy that previously marketers were used to ‘Bowling’, where marketers could easily throw a message down the aisle and hit the pins with great confidence. Now, he eloquently describe, it was more like ‘Pinball’ where a marketer could load the message up, shoot it out, but have no idea where it will end up.

Social was on the lips of nearly everyone. Although not all the panels and speeches were focused on social, it was noted by speakers and moderators it was a recurring theme among the day. Charlene Li (who invited me to attend, thanks) lead a panel with executives from the Ritz-Carlton, Porsche, and HP. This wasn’t the usual social rhetoric of the 101 questions, but the overall group asked sophisticated questions around the change in influence, reputation management, and integration with existing programs. For example, the Ritz, has already woven in social to their experience, each hotel manager spend over an hour reviewing the online conversation (even Tweets) at their location before walking the grounds each morning.

Social is difficult to measure –yet marketers know they must be there. One of the Forbes moderators gave a stat that they polled the Forbes CMO group to find that “Over 70% of the CMOs polled will do more in the social space this coming year”. Yet, when asked “How do you measure success?” there wasn’t a clear answer, it’s still baffling. Although social marketing is easier to measure than real world ‘analog’ ads, it’s more difficult to measure than web based digital ads. Similar to the difficulties measuring analog marketing, they’re ok with not being able to measure everything in social –they now see the value.

Beyond monitoring, insight from the social sphere is untapped. Social media monitoring is just the first baby step, most companies haven’t tapped into what the data actually means. I sat next to the CEO of Autonomy who’s mission is to organize customer and market data and make sense of it for companies. We were both nodding to each other seeing the opportunities to mine, understand, and make sense out of the vast unstructured social data sets and develop richer customer profiles and map out relationships.

In private conversations, I asked a few if they think the pace of technology change is increasing, and they said “yes”, interesting times ahead. Finally, I’d like to thank Forbes for inviting me to attend and participate, they graciously paid for my travel and hotel.

Update: This post has been reprinted on the Forbes CMO network.

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Book Review: ‘Good For Business’ Asks The Right Questions, But Doesn’t Give the Answer

Categories: Book ReviewPosted on October 29th, 2009

I’m attending Steve Forbes’s CMO event in Florida with Charlene Li, and part of the recommended reading for all attendees is the book Good for Business, which came nicely packaged to my desk. Not one to defy Steve Forbes, and certainly wanting to be a good student, I’ve consumed the book on my flight, and share my notes openly, here’s what I found:

The Thesis: The Corporation of the Future Should Inspire Trust
Selling products to make a profit is no longer sufficient. Companies must also appease the human nature of their customers as they are now demanding sustainability, open conversation, helping the community, transparency, and an ethos and mission they can relate to. The book asks four fundamental questions, they are: 1) Do customers care about what the brand stands for beyond just the immediate use of the product? 2) Do customers talk to each other about these higher goals 3) What should companies do to assure their brand is more than a collection of boxes or software code? 4) Does it impact the bottom line? If so, how much?

Unlike Other “Do-Good” Books, There’s Useful Data
Good for Business is a touchy-feely book which ultimately concludes that companies need have loftier goals than just profit such as donating to charities, volunteer work, and brands that make you feel warm and fuzzy. At first, I groaned when reading the start of the book, having been victim of “do good” speeches when I was in corporate –it always felt like an empty shell. Yet the book started to win me over when the four authors presented meaningful stats and graphs about the growing fickle customer, their desire for brands to be more than just profit machines. Using data they made an argument that companies showing their human appeal a worth while investment.

Chock Full Of Case Studies –With Measurable Business Impact
I’m not sold that the earthy huggy ‘humanized brand’ is right for every company, some cultures simply won’t be able to adapt and some customers just want their immediate needs solved. The book also gives dozens of case studies of companies that have an ethos of more than just profit such as: Jones Soda empowers customers by letting consumers pick labels, Ernst and Young connects with their millennial employees talk back by launching an internal community called “Feedback Zone”. The Container Store is one of the top places to work as they allow employees to have flexible hours, How UK’s Innoccent drinks values it’s employees more than sales and profits and dozens of other examples.

Jeremiah’s Review: Good For Business

The Good: A Convincing Argument
The book Good for Business sets the stage that the world has changed and companies need to change too. It also gives some juicy data points and dozens of anecdotes of companies that have made the leap. It’s well-written, and can be consumed in a few hours.

The Bad: Leaves More Questions Than Answers
The book falls short in a two ways. While stories are entertaining for a long flight I find myself asking more questions that were unanswered, like: 1) What were the challenges these companies went through during this metamorphosis? What was the common barrier 2) Although there’s a loose framework towards the end of the book, how do I get started? How do I do this? Although a nitpick, while the cover art is catchy, yet the smiley faced button is reminiscent of Walmart (was that intentional?) or the comic book movie The Watchman, which has no relation to this topic.

The Verdict: Addresses Right Questions, But Doesn’t Tell You How
Good for Business asks the right questions, get you thinking, but seems it’s missing a few chapters. The thesis convinces you that changes need to be made, but feels empty, as it never tells you how to do it. I recommend you put Good For Business on your reading list, but read the more important books that give a pragmatic approach. To summarize, I give this book a grade of a “B” or “Four out of Five Stars”. If anything, this book is calling for a sequel to answer these questions.

That’s just my take, so I’d love to hear your thoughts on this book, or your comments on similar titles.

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Your Company May Own Your Tweets, Pokes, and YouTube Videos

Categories: Legal, Social MediaPosted on October 28th, 2009

Your Boss May Own Your Facebook Wall Posts
Both employers and employees may be surprised to find that employee created blog posts, YouTube, LinkedIn profiles, Facebook profiles, and even tweets may be owned by companies. Yes, even those personal pictures you took last Friday with your loved ones, or direct messages in Twitter could belong to your employer. Why is this? Employees sign employment contracts that may indicate that all intellectual property created during employment may be owned by the company, let’s dive into what you should know:

Work, Online, and Life Mix
As employees check personal websites at work (and likely on work computers) they are indeed using corporate infrastructure. Similarly, as employees do work from home in the evening on personal or work computers the lines continue to blur. It can become even more blurry, as the work and lifestyle content share on social networks becomes one in the same. For example, a LinkedIn account that describes an individual’s career goals which she uses to network with prospects is both personal and work related. Secondly, a product manager who announces new features using his Twitter account is discussing work-related content.

Social Accounts Created At Work, Who Owns Them?
What becomes even more dizzying is the thousands of professionals that have career-related blogs that attract companies in the first place. Who owns their blog posts during their tenure at a company? If an employee generated revenue from those blog posts should the revenue go back to the employer? What if a career blog is launched during employment at a company and discusses information related to the company, or a LinkedIn profile during employment, who owns them?

Case Example: Cisco’s CTO on Twitter and Her Million+ Followers
The real question is: Would a company even want this information? I discussed this on Twitter and many scoffed at the ideas that a company would want bits of 140 characters at a time. Take for example the Twitter account of Padmasree of Cisco. She created this account during her employment at Cisco, and talks about both personal and Cisco related content. Her Twitter account, as the CTO of Cisco is on the suggested users list by Twitter and she has over 1,200,000 followers. This is clearly an asset to her and Cisco, and if she leaves would be a loss to Cisco. I’ve spoken in public with Jeanette Gibson of Cisco communications, and they make it clear it is an account owned by Padmasree, she owns it if she decides to leave Cisco.

Guest Post: Perspective From A Lawyer
I’m not a lawyer, so I’ve asked one to comment on this topic. I recently moderated a panel at Blog World Expo on the topic of sponsored conversations, and I was delighted to meet Attorney Lisa J Borodkin, (her blog, Twitter) who specializes in federal court litigation and the resolution of complex commercial disputes. Her substantive expertise is copyright, trademark and new media law. She commented on this post draft post, and gave me permission to publish the following, which are completely in Lisa’s words, she writes:

“There are several dimensions to this issue.

First, the contract law aspect.

It’s important in the age of the blog and Twitter that people understand that a clause claiming all “intellectual property” created during the term of employment would be property of the company would cover tweets and blog posts. This provision would also cover anything else creative the person did on the side, as a hobby, such as writing a screenplay, or creating a comic strip, even purely for fun.

For this reason, when I represent entertainment executives who are presented with this type of clause in an employment contract, I ask that it be restricted only to intellectual property created within the scope of their job duties under the agreement. The rationale is that if you are not being paid to create something, then the company shouldn’t own your output simply because it is created during the term of employment. That would be a windfall for the company. So it’s a new twist on an issue that has been around for a while. The twist is that when these provisions were first written, I doubt anyone ever thought of blogging or Twitter. So this ownership should be only tied if possible to the type of job the person is hired for.

Second, the copyright law aspect.

Most terms of service for blog hosting sites and Twitter provide that the user is the author and owns the copyright in the blog post or Tweets. (Here’s a link to a blog post I wrote on the subject: http://lisaborodkin.com/ip-protection-for-blog-posts/ ) They also provide that, by using the blog hosting provided by the site, the user grants a perpetual free license to the blog host for using the content. This is a pretty fair distribution of rights. Everyone wins.

The point here is that company “ownership” of the blog or tweet content is not the only option. For most company purposes, a shared license or joint copyright would probably also be just as beneficial. For the blogger, ensuring that the blogger is always credited as the author of the work with a credit and trackback or link is probably the key condition.

Third, the policy aspect.

The larger question is whether the job or industry the person is in is of the type that a company would find it beneficial for the person to be blogging during work hours or using work equipment. There is a good online database of social media policies from a variety of companies at http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php They vary wildly, from PR firm Porter Novelli’s “Never comment anonymously” rule, to the EFF’s detailed advice on “How to blog anonymously.” As you state, the reality is that people will blog, Tweet and use social networks, and it is healthier for companies to embrace that and recognize the value in such individual activities, where it is beneficial to the company’s mission.

By now I hope everyone realizes that thousands of lawyers every day are fully employed in reviewing millions of company emails that have been subpoenaed in lawsuits all over the world. As long as a company reminds everyone that they have no right of privacy in anything that goes through the company’s computer systems, and that this extends beyond email to social networks, then employers and employees can undertake these activities mutually aware of the risks and rewards. The hope is that both will find shared value in mixing social media with work and allocate the potential economic rewards in an equitable manner.”

Jeremiah: Thanks Lisa for your insight, it’s interesting that many employees probably don’t realize that content that goes through the company’s systems is owned by the employer –even their personal Facebook messages.

Key Takeaways

Companies are attracted to potential employees with the ability to communicate online, and those that have a built-in following, yet the rights over the content created aren’t entirely clear.
Both personal and work lives are mixing online and off, creating blurry lines between ownership of content. In many cases, legacy employment contracts give ownership to the company –even personal created content on company systems.
Employees are creating social content that relates to work often on company-owned property, or during work hours.

Recommendations:

Employees should get educated on this topic and find out what it means in your existing employment contract. Get a lawyer that understands the language of the contract, and can advise and protect you.
Employees should carefully review their existing employee contract to know the boundaries, risks, and liability for their online activity.
Employees should understand how to create a “carve out” in the employment contract for personal created media.
Companies should understand benefits and risks, then evaluate their social media policy and update it to reflect the changing world of social as personal and work lives collide.
Companies and employees should setup training, policies, and a dedicated group within a company to help employees to understand best practices in the new world where personal and work content collide in the workplace and at home.

Updated: Someone tweeted this related cartoon out.

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Social Search: Customers Influence Search Results Over Brands

Categories: Altimeter, MicroMedia, Social Media, Social NetworkingPosted on October 22nd, 2009

This post was collaboratively written on a wiki by Charlene Li, (cross posted) who maintains a focus on Leadership Strategy and Jeremiah Owyang, who maintains a focus on Customer Strategy. Together, we’re covering the convergence of emerging technologies at the Altimeter Group.

Twitter brokers a deal that offers search engines Microsoft Bing and Google Search access to their real time data streams. Also, Facebook, offers up public status updates to be searched and served up to Microsoft’s Bing. This trend towards micro media requires companies to pay attention to the real time and social web for marketing, support, and competitive strategies. There are several impacts to the ecosystem, here’s what you should know:

Deal Fills In Technology and Relationship Gaps for Twitter. Twitter lacks the computing power of a premiere search engine, as their current Twitter search results are littered with spam, duplicate tweets, and are only sorted by time. Leveraging the sophisticated engineers at Microsoft and Google affords Twitter an opportunity to focus on their platform –not search. From a business aspect, this deal makes sense is that Microsoft and Google both have relationships with advertisers and brands, with trained sales forces to cut deals. Although the terms of the deal aren’t public, it’s suspect there was an exchange of material goods, it’s likely that Twitter will benefit from revenue share in the near future.
Social Search to Serve Results Based On Time, Authority. Expect real time data to merge with existing search engines, as a result we should see Google Search and Bing to serve up search results based on: 1) Real time information based on what Twitter users are saying, including memes from trending topics, 2) Preference given to links and URLs that are tweeted by users with more followers or authority, 3) Geo location of tweets to influence search results. As users seek “Thai Restaurants in San Mateo” location based tweets could provide additional context. 4) Eventually results will be served up by your friends. Google has given a nod to serve up information based on your social graph (your friends) using Google Profile.
To Compete, Facebook Must Make More Content Public. For closed social networks like Facebook, this means they need to continue to offer up more data that can be searched in public by search engines. With default settings in Facebook set to ‘friends only’ this will continue to be a challenge as Facebook’s community prefers the filters and privacy settings that this closed social network provides.
Twitter’s Future: Seamless Integration with the Web. Success for Twitter isn’t about becoming a destination site, but instead about becoming a data protocol that’s embedded everywhere. Like “Air“, microblogging features are already present in multiple applications, desktop and mobile clients, and the bite-sized information is becoming available in context wherever it’s needed.
Customers Influence Search Results An even more amazing impact of these announcements is that for the first time, consumers will be able to directly impact web search results. Although companies spend thousands of marketing dollars controlling their search results by using Google’s advertising services, customers and competitors can quickly and cheaply impact search results using simple tools like Twitter. Consumers, empowered using mobile devices as a publishing platform can link to content and influence search results. Now, a simple tweet with a picture of a plane landing on the Hudson from a mobile phone will show up at the top of search results.

Key Takeaways: Customers Impact Brand Search Results Using Twitter
Even if your company is not active on Twitter, your customers can influence the search results related to your company –you must pay attention to this trend. Just as your company likely already has a search strategy through search optimization or paid search terms, you’ll need to extend micromedia to your strategy. In order to be prepared for this change, companies must:

Develop a Listening Strategy That Starts With Roles and Process. Every business and market is now moving faster and faster as information spreads around the globe in minutes –if not seconds. Companies must be ready to quickly identify flare ups, be ready to respond, and correct incorrect information. Develop a listening strategy that has internal roles set in place, a process to respond and the right tools like Radian 6, Visible Technologies, BuzzMetrics, or Cymfony.
Change The Marketing Mindset –Legacy Methods Ineffective. Search marketers must understand that blasting marketing information through Facebook or Twitter won’t be effective, as search engines will filter out irrelevant messages that nobody listens to. Instead, marketers should allow content on all web properties and email marketing to be easily added to Facebook, Twitter, and other social sites by offering icons that encourage people to share. Providers like ShareThis and AddThis make this simple to do.
Develop Influence Marketing Programs. Since these search engines have all noted that they will rank real time information on a person’s authority and not just traditional page ranking, marketers must double down on building these relationships. More than ever, brands will need to foster discussions within Twitter as retweet, replies, and linking behavior will influence what is served up on results pages. It takes time to build real relationships that develop into public conversations so get started now.

Related Links:
For a list of social networking stats (including Twitter) we’ve a 2009 collection we keep up to date.

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How Local Businesses Can Benefit From Mobile Social Networks

Categories: Mobile, Social Media, Web StrategyPosted on October 19th, 2009

Local Businesses Can Benefit From Mobile Social Networks
The nearly mainstream social web is now evolving and graduating to mobile devices. This emerging space of mobile-based social networks are empowering customers to find the best venues and prices, and offering savvy companies unique ways to cater to this new medium. Yet, despite the emergence of applications like FourSquare, Yelp, and recently launched GoWalla, there are risks as customers talk directly to each other and opportunities for businesses who harness the tools. Local businesses should approach the mobile social networking space by first listening to their customers, responding to commenters, provide special offers to advocates, and prepare for pricing to be impacted.

Mobile Social Network Offers Discounts Based On Location
Using FourSquare, a location based social network, I ‘checked in’ to the movie theatre indicator to my friends my location. Immediately after the application identified my approximate location it offered a ‘special nearby’ which I clicked. The Savvy Cellar Wine Bar offered me 50% off a wine flight to a store 2 blocks away. Using both my general location using 3GS on the iPhone and my explicit checkin to the location, it was able to serve up advertisements based on my physical location. We should expect FourSquare to evolve and eventually offer advertisements based on your friends interests “John, Amy, and Allen all like Los Taqaritors, invite them now for a 20% off discount”. Location based ads will soon connect with social information.

Catering To “Top” Customers Spur Word Of Mouth
The opportunities aren’t just focused on location based, but also provide opportunity for developing an unpaid army of advocates. Take for example Foursquare’s point system, those who ‘check in’ the most to a location can become the ‘mayor’ of their particular store, indicating they’re the top customer. Some savvy restaurants provide free drinks or other services to the mayor, who will continue to spread their affinity for a restaurant using social networks. A few weeks ago, I spent time with Yelp’s marketing team and their community manager Connie who oversees many of the community facing events. I learned that many local restaurants cater to Yelp Elite, and will likely provide them with quality service above and beyond, in fact, Yelp has launched a program for restaurants to offer a prix fixe menus for Yelp users. Expect to see Yelp’s mobile application advertise these special deals for Yelpers as they search for restaurants online using mobile devices.

Empowered Customers Check Prices In Real Time –Impacting Buying Behavior
Even if you don’t have a physical store, but offer a consumer good, consider RedLaser, which is a real-time bar code scanner that allows any phone to scan UPC codes and find them cheaper online. This means that retailers with higher priced products may miss out as consumers can quickly buy it from a competitive store down the street or find it online. If this trend continues, manufactures may shift their supply away from high-priced retailers to compensate for the change in demand. (Thanks Andrew Hyde for the tip)

Innovative Market Dependent On Adoption
Despite the innovation, location based marketing and advertising has its limitations as it’s dependent on: total number of consumers with mobile devices, adoption of mobile social networks, and their desire to find location-based offers.

Key Takeaways For Local Businesses:
Local businesses should approach these mobile social networks in a four part strategy –not simply reacting without a plan. Companies should approach this space by:

Listening In For Free Research. Local businesses should immediatly montior their brands on mobile social networks like Yelp and FourSquare. Use this information as free research: find out the perception of customers opinions both good –and bad to learn about their market.
Responding To Reviewers. Use negative information as a way to improve products and services and let your community know you’re listening to their feedback. Although there are always two-sides to any complaint use these same tools to respond to customers in public, but be sure to abide by the terms of service.
Rewarding Top Customers. Customers that frequently patron your store and tell others on these mobile social networks should be rewarded. Build both in person and online relationships with them so they’ll continue to advertise and market on your behalf. Free drinks anyone?
Preparing for pricing impacts and positioning. With disruptive tools like RedLaser appearing, customers can quickly find pricing of products and find them at nearby retailers. Retailers like CVS, Walmart, Target, BestBuy, Safeway should take heed as consumers continue to become empowered through instant information. Companies will need to respond by: making product pricing more competitive, or offering other deals such as bundling, speed, time, or other value-based offerings.

Update: Here’s some screenshots, I learned how to take screenshots with your iPhone by holding the main button and power button.

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People on the Move in the Social Media Industry: Oct 15, 2009

Categories: Career, On the movePosted on October 15th, 2009

Despite a downturn in the economy, we continue to recognize those moving in the social media space. I’ve started this post series (see archives) to both track and congratulate folks who get promoted, move, or accept new exciting positions. Please help me congratulate the following folks:

MySpace is finally filling its executive board after ushering out nearly the entire leadership team at troubled social network. They’ve recruited an experienced team to turn the ship around starting with Nada Stirratt has joined MySpace in the role of Chief Revenue Officer, Dustin Finer has come on board as MySpace’s Chief People Officer, Ali Partovi, former CEO of iLike, will serve as Senior Vice President of Business Development based in San Francisco, Hadi Partovi, former president of iLike, will serve as Senior Vice President of Technology based in Seattle. More information can be found on CEO Owen Van Natta’s Blog.
Adam Nash, has been internally promoted at LinkedIn as the Vice President, Search & Platform Products at LinkedIn. We recently spoke, and he emphasized LinkedIn’s commitment to his space, hence crafting his role. I’ll be watching this area of opportunity closely, congrats Adam.
Vanina Delobelle left Monster and is now working for Sears Holdings Corporation in Chicago. As I a manager of e-commerce Product Management, Vanina will build a social commerce solution.
Microsoft gets serious about Social Computing and launches the Future Social Experiences (FUSE) Labs, a new group led by general manager Lili Cheng that will focus on software and services that are centered on social connectivity, real-time experiences, and rich media.
Sheila Scarborough launches new social venture in her role with a focus on social and tourism, her blog captures her hard work, get some sleep already!
James Whatley @whatleydude left his role as Head of Digital, Social Media for SpinVox at the end of August and has taken up a position as Director of Engagement Strategy at WOM Agency, 1000heads.
Bob Bahramipour joins InXpo a virtual events company, as CMO to oversee all aspects of marketing, including advertising, brand awareness and product marketing, to further drive adoption for the company’s virtual solutions. This also includes social media and how to incorporate this further into our platform. I’ve met Bob in person, and recognize his talents, I expect to see good things spring from his fresh perspective.
John Hegstrom is a new VP of Client Services also at InXpo a virtual events company. His goal is to ensure that customers successfully reach their target audiences, deliver their messages effectively, and build engaging and collaborative virtual environments.

How to connect with others (or get a job):
Several people have been hired because of this blog post series, here’s how you can too:

Submit an announcement
If you know folks that are moving up in the social media industry, fill out this form.

Seeking Social Media Professionals?
If you’re seeking to connect with community advocates and community managers there are few resources

List of Enterprise Social Media Professionals
This list, which started with just 8 names continues to grow as folks submit to it. List of Social Computing Strategists and Community Managers for Enterprise Corporations 2008 –Social Media Professionals. Other job resources include:

Web Strategy Jobs powered by Job o Matic (Post a job there and be seen by these blog readers, these affiliate fees pay for my hosting)

Read Write Web keeps announcements flowing at Jobwire, although is broader than just social media jobs

Facebook group for community manager group in Facebook

Jake McKee’s community portal for jobs

Chris Heuer’s Social Media Jobs

SimplyHired aggregates job listings, as does Indeed

ForumOne Jobs for Social Media and Community

Teresa has a few jobs, some around community

New Media hire has an extensive job database

Social Media Headhunter

Social media jobs

Jobs in social media

Altimeter Group’s list of social media consultants and agencies

Hiring? Leave a comment
If you’re seeking candidates in the social media industry, many of them are within arms reach, feel free to leave a link to a job description (but not the whole job description, please)

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Video: Access Internet Content in Physical Context Using Augmented Reality

Categories: Augmented RealityPosted on October 13th, 2009

I recently spoke with Dave Elchoness of GoWeb3D who’s one of the early pioneers in the Augmented Reality (AR, but not to be confused with Analyst Relations) industry. In this above video he gives a demonstration of how information (often from the web) can be over layed on top of physical locations. Unlike Virtual Reality (like the now obscure Second Life) the barriers to entry are mobile devices, internet access, and utility can make this a reality.

Dave’s business GoWeb3D provides a data layer on top of the Dutch Layar browser (update: also see Wikitude “World Browser) which is available for some mobile platforms –iPhone is coming. This browser will allow developers to create data layers what will provide AR experiences. Users of this application can “drop” digital content such as blog posts, photos, videos, for their friends or customers who visit a specific location in real life.

[The promise of Augmented Reality is to provide existing internet content in physical context]

What types of business can benefit from Augmented Reality? Any retail or commercial entity with a physical space, any company that sells physical products, any company that does advertising in real life. Despite the promises the biggest challenges will be creating useful applications beyond the ‘cool’ factor. I’ve been using the Yelp “Monacle” feature, which is an interesting first generation –yet the data isn’t always accurate.

I’m still chalking this space as “to watch” as we should first expect growth to happen in the mobile social web first, let’s keep an eye on promising emerging technology as it quickly comes around.

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Altimeter Report: Customer Bill of Rights – Software-as-a Service

Categories: AltimeterPosted on October 12th, 2009

If you’re in the market to buy web based collaboration tools, community platforms, CRM, or any software as a service application, know your rights before you buy.

A few months ago Charlene Li, founder of the Altimeter Group launched her Engagement Database report, which showed which brands were most active with their customers in social sites. Today, we’re proud that partner Ray Wang launches the Software as a Service Bill of Rights for customers, you can view, download, or share the document from his blog.

Our research wasn’t created in a hole, we want to help the community that we serve and involved 57 ecosystem partners for their feedback, input and guidance. We’ve also made the research available using Creative Commons–meaning we encourage it to be shared with others.

How to use the Software As A Service Bill of Rights

If you’re a buyer of any of these markets, use this document as a checklist to ensure your rights are being met.
Have a dialog with your vendors, asking them where they fall within these bill of rights and where they differentiate.
Encourage your existing vendors to follow these rights as you negotiate your next renewal.

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How Speakers Should Integrate Social Into Their Presentation

Categories: Conference, Social MediaPosted on October 9th, 2009

Whether you’re a professional speaker, company representative, or panelist at a conference, you must develop a social strategy during your speaking.

The Audience Continues To Gain Power Over Speakers
A few years ago, the first major eruption occurred from the audience hijacking the attention at SXSW during an ill-fated interview on the main stage. Even weeks ago, Kanye’s debacle was commented on by Twittering attendees despite them not even having the mic. (Update, a speaker gives her first hand story of an audience revolt on Twitter)

This week, an audience revolt happened at the Higher Education Conference, you can read about it here, here, here and here. Although I was miles away, I was watching it unfold in real time on Twitter search –I felt horrible for that speaker who likely didn’t even know what was happening till someone posted his phone number on Twitter and people were texting him how horrible he had done. Ouch, the audience was vindictive and felt injured and wanted to get back.

Savvy Speakers Will Engage With Audience In Real World –and In Digital
Critics would suggest that monitoring the backchannel is counter intuitive to what a speaker should be doing: focused on presenting. Yet, I’d argue that some power has shifted to the audience –and with that comes responsibility of the speaker to respond to the power shift. As a speaker (I’m now represented by Monitor Talent), I feel empathy and at the same time am scared this doesn’t happen to me. The best way for speakers to avoid this revolt is to make sure that they be aware of the changes in power shifts and develop a plan to integrate social.

How Speakers Should Integrate Social Into Their Presentation:

Prepare More Than Ever. This is baseline. I could give a long list of speaking dos and don’t but there’s been books, classes, and private coaches that provide that (something I’m going to continue to invest in as I grow). It boils down to: know your audience, have strong content, practice, repeat. The change here is that the audience will scrutinize you, grade you, for all to see.

Know Your Audience’s Social Technology Adoption. While the first audience revolt was at SXSW, a new media tech conference, where adoption of new communication tools is likely. The Higher Education conference wasn’t focused solely on technology (update: in the comments, I learned this was a technology conference), so this revolt has moved out of the technology scene. You’ll need to pay attention to this more at conferences where social is active, first gauge the discussion in chat rooms or twitter using search tools. Find the conference hashtag (if there is one) to determine level of activity.

Monitor the Backchannel While Speaking. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Guy Kawasaki keynote a large conference, he monitors the body actions from the crowd and commands attention of the audience, he’s making micro-tweeks to his presentation to engage and react. Just as speakers do this in the real world, they must be monitoring the verbal, explicit reactions in the backchannel like Twitter or a chat room. Ask coordinators to display a monitor on stage facing you to see hashtags, use your mobile phone, or have your computer on stage to quickly see the stream.

Develop Backup Resources to Monitor. Some speakers have told me this is nearly impossible for them to do as they are focused on presenting content, here’s two tips for you. Speakers who are unable to monitor the backchannel should have a buddy attend the speech, sit in the front row, or off stage, and indicate if there’s something out of the ordinary they need to respond to. If your speaker content is rehearsed –it should be second nature to present it. Scoble is known for taking “Twitter breaks” during his presentation every 15 minutes to gauge the audience feedback.

Interact with the Audience: If your speech is going well, a majority of the tweets will be echos of what you’re saying then retweets. However, some speakers should monitor and look for questions, comments, or interesting new information that would add to the presentation. For example, at the Web 2.0 expo, I saw an audience member say my panel was boring on twitter, so I immediately shifted to Q&A which kept the audience interest.

Practice Two-Fisted Speaking. In the future, we may start to see presenters with two devices in hand: the presentation clicker in right hand, and cell phone in right hand, monitoring the flow of conversation. Despite the presenter having great control with the clicker controlling the flow of conversation, ultimately the audience has more control as they scrutinize, talk to each other, and shape a complete other conversation. Speakers should practice integrating input as they output in real-time first in private, then integrate into their performance.

I’d love to hear from you how speakers should respond to the power shifting to the audience, I know there’s a lot I can continue to learn in the craft of speaking. What should speakers do?

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