growing your social media presence... if you're interested

if you're at all interested in growing your web brand/alter ego, take a look at this site.  in addition to some really insightful anecdotes, this blogger has a really intriguing take on life in general.  i think the draw, for me anyways, is the nonconformist premise of the author.  

the author provides insight and advice on how to garner traffic to your blog or social media profile without using feeder sites like "digg." i printed "279 days to overnight success."  admittedly, however, i have not made it through the entire essay.  but, i have made it through enough to get an idea of... well... his/her idea. "279..." i find it uber intriguing that this author is anti-google! *gasp* as much as i rave about google... dare i rave about google's antithesis? the author suggests that google adsense is a huge waste of time and that you can generate your own webenue (just made that one up myself... ha!).  so, growing your influence AND monetization are the focus of this article.

how enterprise 2.0!  or in this case... self-enterprise 2.0.

oh p.s... learned about another 2.0 technology while on the site.  anyone ever heard of "stumble upon"?

auto industry leader collaborates

toyota has been bitten by the collaboration bug.  like all things 2.0, toyota's soliciting input from consumers.  in particular, the company is asking for innovation ideas in efforts to board another popular wagon, "going greener."  consumers can go to the website and view an interactive map of a campus.  the different areas of the map are clickable and takes the user to innovations and ideas previously submitted by other consumers.  each innovation can be rated by visitors to the site.  in order to rate the innovations, however, you must create an account.  formula sound familiar? of course this is a way to grab consumer information and plop you right into their marketing web.  users can, of course, share each clickable innovation, add it to their "personal commitment list", or create their own innovation.

check out some of the innovations!  they are really interesting.  some are very smart.  others, maybe not so much.  lol.  the suggestions range from the practical to the outrageous.  i think my fave is the one about generating a magnetic field under the car that is of the same polarity of the earth's magnetic field.  in doing so, the car would repel the earth's field causing the vehicle to hover.  is that not genius?!?! if the cars don't use roads, then we can fore go paving and cultivate more green space.

needless to say the site also doubles as a commercial for how green the company is by highlighting its green initiatives.  i think this is a pretty cool way to engage toyota's audience.  the site is "pretty" and uses a very current, dynamic, and interactive site.  just when i thought 2 0 collaboration only lent itself to certain industries or certain types of business.  i think toyota is thinking outside of the box on this.  kudos!  and i'm not saying that because i drive one ;)

for the geeks...

this is totally cool. shoulda saved this for a weekly (assignment) post. but, alas... i already wrote mine for the week. pfft

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/aneesh_chopra_americas_chief_technology_officer.php

getting some perspective

first off... i thought it was really cool to listen to dwight gibbs speak at our last class meeting. for one, he is very frank and opinionated about how he thinks companies can leverage 2.0 technologies and methodologies to sustain market share and/or gain competitive advantage. second off, he is one of the co-founders of motley fool! i know that's only cool in geekdom... but i'm just sayin! my grandfather will be sooo jealous. lastly, though, i think i really liked him because he substantiated a lot of my thought processes with respect to how i think my organization (in particular, my office) can use these tools to move forward and out of stagnation. the college's IT strategy is definitely taking leaps and bounds from or current archaic technology and mindset. but, i don't necessarily want to wait for the strategy to trickle down to the masses. i want it now! so, yes... in my own, self-absorbed way... i liked him mostly because he validated my ideas. lol.

seriously though, the younger members of my office are constantly shouting out ideas at the top of our lungs. ideas about how to streamline processes or which technologies and conveniences students might want to see enabled within our services and processes. but, the older generation constantly gets stuck in the culture/comfort of how things "have always been done." they especially don't entertain my banter without substantiating evidence that students do indeed want what i'm suggesting they might. (the fact that i'm a loyola student myself and i've sat amongst a few hundred every semester over the last 2.5 yrs obviously has no bearing) so, i need to put some feelers out there and see if i can evoke some sort of response from the student body. and i want to enlist the help of a few 2.0 technologies to help engage folks.

the challenge is, of course, planting that viral seed to get folks (students) to latch on and get involved. will our customers be so dissatisfied or care enough to even engage? i figured i'd start with twitter. thoughts? suggestions?

gibbs really hit the nail on the head when he said something to the effect of CMS & taxonomy [both novel ideas to loyola IT strategy] being old news and wikis & folksonomy being the new standard. he went on to say, "what's easier for the client is 2.0. What's easier for the vendor is 1.0" i need to take that quote to my supervisors. better yet, i'm making a sign as we speak to post on my pseudo cube door... STAT!

talk about your "picket fencing"...

the business insider recently published an article highlighting cnn's acquisition of the existing cnn twitter account. huh? you read correctly. resident random guy, james cox, is the creator and was the owner of the "cnnbrk" twitter account with close to a million followers. the real cnn is now in control of the account and there is industry speculation that cox was paid a handsome amount of money for relinquishing control. no one is saying how much or even confirming the pow wow went down. buuutttt... there are some pretty convincing allusions in the tweets posted by cox and the new accounts the cnnbrk moniker is now following. take a look.

in related news:
twitter is so popular, it's become one of oprah's coveted "favorite things." for those of you who may live under a rock on another planet, when a product or service gets an oprah nod, you have almost certainly guaranteed yourself significantly increased revenues (or in this case, subscribers) for next year's annual report. with increasing popularity, you can imagine the salivating "investors" that are looking to acquire little ol' twitter. but, twitter says it's not interested in a buy out in the least bit. instead, the company is seeking partnership with would-be investors... distribution partnerships, to be exact. the notion is this:

"Most Web sites seek page views because they sell ads based on page views. Twitter does not sell ads and does not prioritize views to its Web site, Mr. Wilson said. Instead, it measures “tweet views,” the number of tweets viewed times the number of people who viewed them. To Twitter, it does not matter whether a tweet is viewed on Twitter’s Web site or on Facebook, a Twitter application or a phone. From Day 1, distribution of tweets has been 'singularly the most important thing' for Twitter..."

in the social media hemisphere, talks of revenue generation are the hot topics for companies like twitter and facebook. yet, they are not hungry enough to simply take whatever offers may be thrown their way. zuckerberg thinks his company is worth more than the offers he's receiving and biz stone, et al, is not settling for take overs. not only are they reinventing interpersonal networking as we know it, they are re-writing the way business start-ups are cultivated and entrepreneurs are made.

p.s. i broke down this weekend and finally created a twitter account at the insistance of long-time friend at an alumni homecoming event... NOT oprah. but damn if she didn't cause the major clogging on the exact weekend that i decided to give it a try. twitter may have to rethink that whole buy out thing... they need more servers and fast!

pure comedy

what's next?

these past few weeks of class, our instructor, shelley, has managed to land us a few awesome speakers: director of e-commerce at under armour, "knowledge managing" director (my title for him) at general physics, and svp of operations for AOL's marketing 2.0 arm platform a.

talk about a wealth of information.  now, what to do with it all?  all spoke of the hot topics on,  not only the 2.0 circuit but, business rhetoric circuits in general.  amidst the discussions of how these three companies are either using or facilitating 2.0 technologies, i gathered from the talks a few takeaways: how can businesses stay relevant and what can they do to leverage any competitive advantage they might still have in this time of downsizing, door closings, and bailouts?

the answer has 2.0 written all over it.  and we're not just talking about setting up a facebook account for your organization and labeling it 2.0 compliant.  it means really knowing your core competencies, knowing your target audience, and tailoring your 2.0 ventures to suit both simultaneously.  it means using the next gen analysis, marketing, and predictor tools to get to know your customer in such a way and on such an intimate level that you have never known them before.  it means building and hosting said tools and selling them in the salivating market place for profit.  or, it means implementing some combination thereof.