For the seven day period ending February 8, 2010, the following were, in descending order, this web site’s most popular Managing Technology posts:

1. A Short Definition of “Strategic Planning”
2. Challenges Facing Recovery.gov and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board
3. What’s the Difference Between Innovation and Creativity?
4. How To Develop a Business-Aligned Social Media & Social Networking Strategy
5. Cookies, Imrworldwide, and Nielsen Netratings: What’s the Connection?
6. Promoting Technology Enabled Collaboration in Complex R&D Environments
7. POLL: How Should I Respond to the Washington Post’s Home Increased Subscription Price?
8. Move Over Kindle: Here Comes the Chinese E-Book
9. Banners and Widgets for Nonprofits and Volunteer Organizations, Part 1
10. Lessons Learned from Using Google Docs

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald. Dennis’ contact information is here.

My friend Bob Davis at MILVETS was kind enough to forward a link to the article 2020 vision: 10 things you’ll see on the Web in the next 10 years by Shawn McCarthy in the January 26 Government Computer News. While McCarthy’s list holds few surprises, I would have made number 10 number one:

10. Government interactions with the public makes a tectonic shift. Many people in their teens and 20s do not read the newspaper nor view government notices that arrive in the mail. They get all of their news and other information online or via their cell phones. This demographic shift, coupled with the climbing cost of paper printing, means that more government business will move online, including setting up accounts and log-in information for everyone who wants to do business with your agency. Because people of various skill levels will start logging on, agencies will need to collect demographic information to make decisions on what data to display and how to help with information navigation.

In other words, “meat and potatoes” government-public transactions will continue moving online, not only in the name of “transparency” but also because it’s just cheaper and easier for the government to do it that way.

This may sound mundane, but it’s not. The massive Federal budget deficits we face will have to be addressed through a combination of initiatives, including budget cuts, increasing “partnerships” with the private sector, likely tax increases — and making it impossible to deal with some Federal agencies other than online.

Today’s focus on “open government,” data accessibility, and transparency may, in other words, be quickly overshadowed by a rapid movement to automate basic services that now require heavy — and costly — manual support.

The process will be painful. But it’s inevitable. In the end, we’ll all benefit. There will be bumps along the way as the movement of government services to the web accelerates.

One large bump will be the need for Federal agencies to seriously consider how to reorganize their operations so that currently-siloed internal fiefdoms don’t hinder effective service re-engineering to take advantage of automation. Multiple departments that service the public but don’t share information will have to be swept aside.

Will this acceleration of Federal public service automation be a blessing in disguise? That’s up to us. We’ll have to take into account past lessons learned (painfully) during automation of private sector public services, including the need to plan strategically, to move quickly, to accommodate a wide range in public abilities, and to stay focused on core processes, not frills. 

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald

In How the Trends of 2000-2009 Will Shape Performance Improvement in This New Decade, Debashis Sarkar, a writer for Six Sigma & Process Excellence, lists as number 1 the following trend:

1. Power of Social Networking Sites: Something That Companies Can No Longer Ignore

Not that I’m surprised. I’ve been seeing this developing for at least 5 years. Even now a broader population of business analysts and consultants is recognizing both the actual and potential value of social media, Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0, and social networking. That’s a good thing, right?

Absolutely. Significantly, Sarkar avoids a common trap that other short-sighted observers fall into when discussing social media benefits for the business. He sees social networking not as just another advertising or PR channel, he sees social networking as a way to connect with customers. Here’s his “takeway” for this:

While looking at performance improvement projects, leverage social networking sites to connect with customers to collect their feedback, test out products/solutions, etc. Social networking sites provide immense possibilities that have still yet to be fully leveraged.

My only quibble with Sarkar is his use of the word “sites,” as in “social networking sites.”  Just as the most important thing that happens with a web site is not what happens with the page but what happens behind the customer’s eyeballs, the most important thing that happens with social networking “sites” is what goes on, relationship- and communication-wise, among a company’e employees and its customers. In short, the “site” is a vehicle, not a destination.

Item 6 in Sarkar’s list of trends is also significant:

6.Service Differentiation: Evergreen Strategic Weapon for All Businesses

Companies have realized that as products get commoditized, differentiation becomes a big challenge. Even if companies launch new products sooner rather than later, their products get copied by others and their unique selling proposition is lost in the marketplace. In such a context, quality service can be a distinct differentiator that competitors will find difficult to compete with. This will be possible when companies provide a superior experience and cater to customers’ demands that are valued by customers.

It’s not much of a leap to suggest that combining 1 and 6 — social networking plus service differentiation — is a winning combination. Getting closer to the customer before, during, and after the sale is critical.

There is a challenge, though, to using service as an important differentiator and driver of customer sales and satisfaction. That is that service and customer communication need to be driven by a unified strategy and managed in a coordinated fashion. Information about the customer needs to be shared across organizational boundaries. That means that ALL customer touch points need to collaborate.

This doesn’t mean that what’s needed is one giant integrated system to manage everything there is to know about customers. It does mean  that traditional organizational and departmental boundaries need to be transparent when it comes to sharing information that can help improve the customer experience.

For many organizations, unfortunately, achieving a higher level of collaboration will prove to be a challenge that even improved technology support may not be able to overcome. Will such organizations be able to survive in the coming decade?

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald. Email Dennis at ddmcd@yahoo.com.

Do you really need a blog if you already use Facebook?

Listen to what Richard Musson, vice-president of marketing for Labatt Breweries of Canada, said recently when asked about using social media to support the launch of Bud Lite Lime in Canada:

Consumers don’t go on websites any more, they go Facebook-to-Facebook and consumer-to-consumer. A website is inherently a big company talking to consumers, and it seems to me anyone under the age of 30 rejects that as a form of communication. In the old days we’d put the web page on every label and every case. I think it’s a question of a few months before we replace that all with Facebook pages.

In other words, if you’re targeting  a particular demographic, you go where the market is to communicate with that market. If they’re all on Facebook, that’s all there is to it, right?

Maybe not. Keep in mind that Musson is talking about a particular brand of beer here. I can see how a traditional web site would be irrelevant, and how the interaction of a blog would be pretty well duplicated and even overshadowed by Facebook.

But before you throw all your communication eggs into the Facebook basket, be sure to assess the particular markets, products, and services you need to support. In my own case, for example, I’m currently consulting with organizations looking at social media to support communication with diverse groups such as the teachers of grade school and high school students, government contractors and procurement officials, and military veterans. In all cases, I can see a role for a “traditional” web site, an interactive blog that is controlled by the management, and distributed social networking tools such as Facebook. All three types of vehicles need to work together and with other communication channels such as advertising, customer service operations, and call centers.

By the way, this is the page I get first when I type “Bud Lite Lime” into my web browser. See how prominently Facebook is mentioned on the main page? You get the link to Facebook even before you have a chance to type in your age.

That’s one way to handle the relationship with a traditional web page — there are many others. Such an approach has an additional advantage in that analytics can be implemented to track incoming and outgoing clicks from this page which enables you to build a picture of your market’s navigation practices.

Would a Facebook page be enough in this case? Maybe for Bud Lite Lime, but how about for your project, product, or service?

Think about that and how useful it might be to track behavior across multiple communication channels when you think about your blogging and Facebook strategies. In other words, the spectrum of communication channels now available makes a simple “either/or” question relative to blogging and Facebook seem simplistic. In addition to your target demographics you also need to consider factors such as control (or lack of control) over message, privacy, the ability to deliver “official” information, and your ability to maintain consistency across multiple channels.

One question you should be asking concerns the relationship between the structure of the products and services you offer, and the structure of the markets you’re serving. If you’re happy with defining your market in a few key demographic terms, that might simplify your decision about a marketing communication mix.

But if your products and services are complex or widely differentiated, or if the decision process by which your market comes to interact with your product or service is complex or drawn out, you need to be thinking about how to manage multiple channels — not just a single blog, web site, or Facebook page — so that you don’t miss something important.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald. For more Social Media Engagement Tips, click here. Do you need help thinking through problems like this? Give me a call.

By Dennis D. McDonald

Here are another 5 podcasts I like a lot:

1. Filmspotting. Radio personalities Adam Kempenaar and Matty Robinson talk about films new and old, make up and discuss movie lists of all kinds, and generally geek out on films. Lots of fun.
2. Are We Alone? - Science Radio for Thinking Species. Seth Shostak and Molly Bentley of the SETI Institute host stimulating discussions about science, life on other worlds and our own, physics, and astronomy. Programs range from the overly cute to resoundingly profound. Always entertaining. Favorite quote (from Molly): “Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.”
3. Binge Thinking History. Tony Cocks provides thoughtful discussions of history with a distinctly British perspective. His series on the Royal Navy is terrific. Another favorite of mine is the Battle of Britain (where a Merlin flying by at low altitude serves as a really neat segment separator).
4. In Our Time With Melvyn Bragg. The BBC may have a multitude of programs but this one stands out. Bragg takes advantage of the plethora of universities on the British Isles and brings in academics and authors for intelligent but plain-English discussions about a vast range of topics. My favorites include  the ancient library at Alexandria, the Samurai, and Leibniz vs. Newton.
5. Weta Cast - a bug in the workshop.A recent discovery. Weta employees Magnus Hjert and Daniel Falconer walk around Weta in New Zealand interviewing people about various aspects of movie set design, miniature production, collectibles, makeup, science fiction vehicles and weapons design, and various obscure details of film and TV production magic. If you’re a Lord of the Rings or District 9 fan, you’ll enjoy this series (though the accents take a bit or work to understand at times). I’m looking forward to what they eventually have to say about Weta’s involvement with James Cameron’s Avatar.

 Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald

In Fox-Time Warner Cable deal could mean billions for broadcasters, Bloomberg News’ Kelly Riddell wrote the following on January 4, 2010:

Time Warner Cable’s agreement to pay News Corp. for over-the-air television programming has opened the door for broadcasters to demand as much as $5 billion a year from pay-TV providers and their subscribers, analysts said.

The companies agreed on a distribution deal Jan. 1, without disclosing the terms. Other broadcasters have also said they may seek payment for programming that’s currently free. CBS has a deal with Comcast, the largest U.S. cable operator, that ends next year, and already collects fees from Time Warner Cable and Dish Network.

As much as I hate paying more for cable TV programming, I think that the golden egg of this pricing goose will be to place more pressure on cable TV companies to start offering a la carte pricing.

I don’t care about programs like “NCIS,” “Sunday Night Football” and “Desperate Housewives.” Why should I have to pay more to my cable company for the right to receive them? And if by paying for such programming I am in fact subsidizing other less commercial channels, why not give me the option to chhose whether I want to offer such subsidies in the first place?

Paying more for programming I don’t watch makes as much sense to me as the way I currently have to pay for mutliple non-English, shopping, and sports channels.

Will this coming price rise for basic programming be the final straw that forces a major overhaul of tiered cable TV pricing schemes? I hope so.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to rent DVDs, I’ll stream programming from Netflix via X Box Live, I’ll go out to movies more often — and I’ll continue to read books.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Dennis D. McDonald.

In descending order, here are the ten most popular posts for 2009 from this web site’s Managing Technology section:

1. A Short Definition of “Strategic Planning” (June 2007)
   
2. How To Develop a Business-Aligned Social Media & Social Networking Strategy (October 2007)
   
3. What’s the Difference Between Innovation and Creativity? (January 2007)
   
4. Cookies, Imrworldwide, and Nielsen Netratings: What’s the Connection? (February 2007)
   
5. ARRA’s Oversight and Information Technology Initiatives (February 2009)
   
6. Move Over Kindle: Here Comes the Chinese E-Book (February 2008)
   
7. Learning to Use Google Analytics (December 2005)
   
8. Amazon Kindle Orwell Deletion May Be Legal — But It’s Still Doubleplusungood (July 2009)
   
9. Challenges Facing Recovery.gov and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board (February 2009)
10. Highlights from “Web 2.0 and Sales Process Management” (April 2009)

Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis D. McDonald

Before you and your organization jump into implementing a “social media strategy,” be sure to study the communities you intend to interact with. Here are some of the questions you should ask in your research:

1. How many different communities are there?
2. How big are these communities?
3. Where are they located?
4. Who are they key players (both individuals and organizations)?
5. What types of organizations make up these communities (e.g., trade or professional associations, commercial businesses large and small, individual consultants, government agencies, think tanks, academic institutions)?
6. What are the main issues — technical, political, social, organizational — the different groups are dealing with?
7. What is your own organization’s position on these key issues?
8. Who are your potential partners — and competitors —  in engaging with these different groups?
9. Who are your potential competitors?
10. To what extent are these groups already making use of “new media” and “old media” in their own communications?

How much time you devote to this will depend on several factors. Depending on your schedule or budget you can do this type of research yourself or hire a consultant (here’s one) to help. There are a lot of resources available on the web to aid in your research, many of them free. At minimum, you should at least be recording details about your target populations in either a spreadsheet or a database so you can update and sort the lists as they grow.

Either way, you need this research to be as objective as possible. Don’t assume you know everything there is to know about your markets. Do be as quantitative as possible about numbers of people and numbers and types of organizations.

Part of what I recommend your doing is what we used to call “market segmentation analysis” in the market research business, only now a major goal for implementing a social media strategy will not necessarily be selling something but instead will be monitoring, publishing to, and interacting with a potentially diverse set of individuals in different overlapping communities. That’s a lot of potential “relationships” to manage.

Of the above ten questions, be sure to pay close attention to question number ten, “To what extent are these groups already making use of “new media” and “old media” in their own communications?.” Using social media and social networking based methods to engage with a variety of target populations will not completely replace the need to use traditional website, publishing, and research methodologies. The simple fact is that, in any large, complex population, the rates for adoption of new media and  communication technology will vary. Ignoring this fact will cut you off from useful information and insights.

Be prepared to meet members of your target markets on their own turf. If some prefer newsletters and email for interacting with you and your interests, and are slow to adopt public blogs, social networking, or Facebook types of tools, so be it.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis D. McDonald. For more Social Media Engagement Tips, click here.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for “open government.” But there are problems inherent to real-world democracy that can’t be automatically solved by making the workings of government more visible to the public.

This is especially true about the reporting by government of data collected from large and complex populations of people and organizations. (I wrote about one example last February in Challenges Facing Recovery.gov and the Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board.)

Why doesn’t “transparency” around large complex programs automatically succeed? There are several explanations:

1. People make mistakes. Building complex databases from hundreds, thousands, or even millions of different sources is bound to introduce unintended error somewhere along the way. Quality control efforts are essential but must be implemented throughout the process from data collection through final reporting and access. All that quality control takes planning, time, and money. The resulting data sets are bound to contain errors. People can pounce on these errors to cast doubt on the entire effort.
2. Source data can be sabotaged. Many open government efforts depend on widespread public participation, even volunteer effort. If someone wants to make a system look bad, source data can be withheld, selectively reported, or even incorrectly reported. Then when reporting time rolls around those same errors can be pointed out as “evidence” that the overall system is untrustworthy. Has this happened? I don’t know. But when you look at the complexity that surrounds some reporting efforts you realize how easy it would be to throw a “monkey wrench” into the works.
3. Facts aren’t sufficient. Even if the system gathers data flawlessly from a myriad of local sources, builds a comprehensive database with squeaky-clean reliability, and makes the contents of the database easily accessible in detailed and summary form, those who don’t support the underlying assumptions behind the data will never be convinced of (or admit to) the facts the data are intended to document. That’s just politics as usual.
4. Communication can be restricted. Governments of all shapes and sizes are good at figuring out ways to keep facts away from public scrutiny. While we might all agree in principle that certain national security data needs to be kept away from prying eyes, the fact is that government bureaucracies are well-practiced in burying unpleasant, embarrassing, or inconvenient facts, even in the face of public pressure for openness.

Still, I’m a firm believer that democracy functions best when the inner workings of government are visible.  But creating and taking advantage of that visibility is not a simple task. Creating and maintaining reliable sources of data requires time, money, and expertise.

More importantly, people need to be able to gain access to and understand what the data are all about. One problem is, as the complexity of that data increases, the expertise required to understand and interpret that data also increases. Consequently the need for such expertise increases the likelihood for politics to flavor how the facts are interpreted.

What’s the solution? More transparency, it’s obvious to me, is one answer; this current Administration is certainly behind this when compared with previous Administrations. But that’s not all. Vivek Kundra lists the following list of complex elements in Changing the Way Washington Works as he introduces the Federal CIO Council and OMB’s Data.gov public dialog effort:

• Focus on Access
• Open Platform
• Disaggregation of Data
• Grow and Improve Through User Feedback
• Program Responsibility
• Rapid Integration
• Embrace, Scale and Drive Best Practices

This is a long list that will require a LOT of work to implement. But it’s a good start.

It isn’t possible to reverse decades of secrecy, compartmentalizing, and data hoarding overnight. But I’m optimistic since, despite the costs of transparency, it’s probably impossible to reverse the flow once the barriers start to fall.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis D. McDonald. Contact Dennis at ddmcd@yahoo.com.

“The Sixties”The folks at Software Advice recently sent me a link to their ERP and manufacturing timeline that I thought was interesting and worth passing along. 

According to Software Advice’s Houston Neal, the timeline currently includes 17 events “… that have shaped the enterprise software industry over the last 50 years.”

Key events on the timeline include client server computing (late 1980’s) and cloud computing (2009). Looking though the timeline events, I wonder what the relationship is between the growth of the ERP industry and the growing maturity of database management practices and architecture during the same period.

Re-usability of data to support multiple applications and processes has always been a major feature of enterprise systems. There was a time when it was not unusual, for example, for different factories within the same company to have incompatible data management designs and practices that had to be laboriously standardized before it was possible to take advantage of integrated management systems. (I have managed such data conversion efforts for companies such as energy utilties and auto and appliance manufacturers — and have the scars to prove it.)

The costs of such data conversion and standardization projects were a tough pill to swallow back then  but eventually the popularity of ERP and related systems won out.

I wonder if, ten or twenty years from now, the spread of social media and collaboration technologies that we are seeing now in some enterprises will be viewed as being as much of a game-changer as ERP systems have been? What do you think?

Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis D. McDonald.

For a discussion of how views about software project costs have changed over the years, see The Justification of Enterprise Web 2.0 Project Expenditures.

Different groups adopt new technologies at different rates. When new technologies and the processes they support reach a point where accepting and using them becomes more effective and desirable than the old ways, change happens.

Not everyone changes at once. Still, success can breed success, word of mouth can promote technology adoption, and influencers who seek to influence will pay close attention to what’s going on around them so they can remain influential.

So it goes with the communication and collaboration technologies we refer to as “social  media.” Communications among friends and acquaintances that were  private a generation ago can now be conducted for others to see and hear. People use Twitter to send and receive messages to individual “followers” knowing that all their other followers can see the same message. Similar social transparency exists with Facebook where details previously considered personal are openly posted and discussed.

Related changes are happening in the workplace. There an evolving focus is on sharing and collaborating to accomplish common goals, reduce duplication of effort, and promote innovation. Such collaboration can, however, be complicated by the increasingly blurred distinctions between social- and work-related communication. Work-related issues can now be easily communicated to online “friends” or “followers” who may have only a very loose social or professional connection with the originator. The privacy and security implications of such openness is a recurring issue in corporate and government circles where policies and practices that guided earlier generations of technology users need to be updated.

I’m optimistic. I’m beginning to think that second-nature use of collaborative technologies by non-technologists, both for social engagement as well as for work, could reach a tipping point much sooner than I had thought. It’s not going to be completely smooth sailing, though.

Take Salesforce.com’s new Chatter service, for example. Watching Chatter’s online demo, there’s no doubt that the appearance and features of Twitter and Facebook are being heavily leveraged to reach a population interested in sharing and collaborating.

Some of Chatter’s appeal is the leveraging of social-media-like technologies to build work-related relationships and share work-related information. Another part of the pitch for Chatter is very traditional and centers on the ability of the platform to integrate data from a variety of sources that relate to workplace situations, processes, people, and opportunities. This is the venerable concept of desktop integration of relevant data from multiple sources that IT has been pursuing for as many years as computer networks and separate data stores have existed. After all, what user wouldn’t want an almost infinite number of links and relationships automatically waiting for drill-down when one is trying to marshal the company’s forces to close a big deal?

I know I’d love it, that’s for sure. But I also know that there are several hurdles that will need to be overcome in order to ensure the success of collaborative corporate platforms like Chatter that integrate multiple data sources.

I discussed some of these hurdles in a project I did earlier this year for Social Media Today and Oracle Software titled Web 2.0 and Sales Process Management.

Hurdle Number One is that, even if it is possible to economically build and maintain desktop applications that integrate data, processes, people, relationships, and business intelligence, not everyone in highly competitive situations such as corporate sales will be completely sold on the benefits of collaboration that “web 2.0” type technologies enable. The harsh reality is that rivalries, competitiveness, and organizational siloing must still be overcome in order to take full advantage of the benefits that social and collaborative workplace technologies support.

Hurdle Number Two relates to the complexity of the systems that are being made available for people to use. Not everyone is interested in, or capable of, efficiently managing the multiple streams of data and information that modern integrative technologies can make available from corporate- and cloud-based sources. One practical concern, for example, is that rapidly changing environments, data feeds, decision rules, and filters will need to be constantly monitored and updated in order to maintain their relevance. This takes time, knowledge, and money. This is one of the reasons that, as I commented in the Web 2.0 and Sales Process Management report, larger organizations may be better situated than smaller organizations to implement and successfully manage sophisticated collaboration and knowledge sharing systems.

Nevertheless, I believe that the new collaborative media will eventually overcome the inefficiencies associated with older communication forms that ignored the social realities of the world inside and outside the workplace. People see great advantages to sharing. Today’s technology makes it easier than ever to share information in ways that not only avoid “reinventing the wheel” but also promote innovation and creativity.

At the same time, “old media islands” won’t disappear overnight. People have invested much in the old ways. Until they see clear advantages, they just won’t change. Until such tipping points are reached, new systems may have to accommodate such “islands.” This raises the cost specter of maintaining dual systems.

One type of “old media island” can be a single senior manager who refuses to switch from email and attachments to a modern collaborative network. It can also be a government agency that refuses to allow its employees to use Facebook to communicate with colleagues, vendors, or the public. Either way, new and old media and communication practices need to be balanced.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis D. McDonald

To download a free copy of the report “Web 2.0 and Sales Process Management” go here.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’

I use the term “social media” all the time. It’s one of the terms listed in the index banner at the top of this page. Besides, development of “social media” strategies and tactics are an important focus of some of my current consulting clients.

Lately, though, I’ve become aware of some of the term’s limitations, based on my client work and what I see as potential problems caused by a failure to ensure that we are all speaking about the same thing.

I’m not the only person concerned about the term; others are thinking about the meaning issue as well. One issue is the word “social” itself. Distinctions between “social” and “professional” communications are difficult if not impossible to make when it’s so easy to use online networks to communicate about so many different topics. Plus, there is the tendency of some — still — to denigrate the term “social science” in comparison with engineering and harder sciences.

Finally, when concerns about government policy and responsibility are added to the discussion, simplistic terms like “social” and “professional” become even harder to distinguish when one is trying to convert legislative language and public policy into guidelines for communication environments that are inherently difficult to control. Consider the issue of “public” versus “private” social media tools. Public networking platforms such as Facebook and Linkedin offer varying degrees of privacy and access restrictions to different member categories. Defining such networks in terms of simple terms like “public” and “private” isn’t that helpful.

Thinking we can get rid of the term “social media” is probably just as fruitless as getting rid of the term “web 2.0.” As a consultant, for example,  I have to concern myself with the needs of my clients. If they insist on using terms such as “web 2.0” and “social media” I shall comply. At the same time, I have a responsibility to make sure my clients understand the meanings and implications of using such terms. For example, I have the responsibility to ensure that clients understand that there is more to social media than Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

Fortunately, none of these potential points of confusion is impossible to address clearly and openly. You don’t need an advanced degree to understand the different functions that different types of online social networking tools support. But you do need to be clear about your goals and the types of one-way and two-way communication you’re trying to facilitate. Once you do that, differentiating among the different “social media” tools that can support communication and collaboration becomes much simpler, and the possibility of confusion around terminology is likewise reduced.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis D. McDonald

For additional titles in this series see Social Media Engagement Tips: Don’t Give Up on Email Just Yet and Social Media Engagement Tips: Don’t Drop the Ball .

I admit it — I use Twitter. If I’m at my desk I check in throughout the day (I don’t access it by phone but by browser). Right now I follow 690 and 1,432 follow me, so I’m certainly no “A-lister.”

I do find it useful (and admittedly, entertaining). I use it to post news about new blog posts of mine, to respond with wry or sarcastic comments to the tweets of others, and to post links to interesting stuff I notice as I scan the news throughout the day. Occasionally stuff I post gets “retweeted” so that makes me happy (though I have not attempted to calculate the ROI of re-tweeting). I’m regularly pleased by the links provided by folks whom I’m following that provide insights into topics I’m tracking. Following Twitter will never replace Search, I believe, but it’s a useful component of what in the technical publishing world we used to call “current awareness” only here the currency value is dependent on whom you follow.

I do get silent satisfaction from blocking spammers and get-rich-quick schemers as I have a fundamental dislike of adding ANOTHER advertising channel to those I already avoid; I hate shopping with a passion. Getting bombarded with ads I don’t care about reminds me too much of shopping.

I don’t channel my Twitter feed into Facebook or Friendfeed; there are too many overlaps there. I’ve decided that I really do want to keep my various online networking venues separately defined. In other words, I’m not as concerned about data and identity portability as I once was. I enjoy the different personalities of the various online networking opportunities. I’m willing to put up with the occasional duplication in registration effort.

So what’s my Twitter strategy? Basically, I use Twitter is a conscious extension of my online presence, not as an end in itself. I have a professional website, I already participate in a number of permanent and temporary online networks, plus I actively pursue face to face meetings as well.

The central focus of my online presence is my web site, which is a core element in promoting my services. I constantly advertise recent blog posts with targeted emails (“I think this might interest you …”) and I use Twitter to link back to my web site as well. In fact, probably the most important element of my Twitter profile is not my ghastly picture but the link to my professional website. I regularly track where incoming links are generated on my web site and my Twitter address is steadily creeping up in importance.

So, yes, I have a Twitter strategy, but it’s not a standalone strategy. I’ve thought through how I use it in connection with my other networking and promotional activities, and in the process  I’ve learned to think carefully about who might be following — or listening.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis D. McDonald.

If you found this interesting you might also find Seven Articles about Strategic Planning and Social Media useful.

Also in this series: “Social Media Engagament Tips: Don’t Drop the Ball”

It’s fashionable these days to point out that email really sucks as a tool for collaboration. Email’s proliferation of attachments, CC’s, and “reply all” emails, coupled with constant spam, has caused email to emerge as the “tool people love to hate,” especially among social media evangelistas.

I admit it. I’ve voiced my share of concerns about email and how messy and inefficient it is as a collaboration tool. But it’s not going away. So the sooner we make peace with it, the better off we’ll be. Here’s why:

1. Someone in the group always prefers the comfort of email.
2. Email operates as an extended user interface for many applications.
3. Software applications are becoming more focused.

1. Someone in the group always prefers the comfort of email.

In the real world, many work groups, especially outside IT, are composed of individuals with a variety of experiences and expectations. No matter how efficient a collaboration application or social networking platform is, there’s always someone in the group who insists on sending and receiving group emails. You can talk till you’re blue in the face, but especially if that person is a stakeholder or senior executive, you end up accommodating him or her. That means the group and the project manager has to manage multiple workflows to ensure that everyone stays on the same page. It’s a pain, but it’s how the real world works. Stop complaining about “technophobes,” “resisters,” and (my favorite) “old farts.” Learn to live with it till they see the light.

2. Email operates as an extended user interface for many applications.

Like it or not, many software applications use email as an extension of the user interface. Sometimes this is just to send and receive “announcement messages” (“Someone has commented on your change  to Document X”). At other times email can be used to interact with an application (e.g., see my Posterous blog where nearly 100% of the pictures and tags were posted via email).

Interestingly, among the greatest “offenders” in this regard are … social media applications themselves. Some social networking users, as far as I can tell, never figure out how to turn off their email notifications. As a result they become accustomed to a huge chunk of their email basically functioning as links back to a web page. Again, learn to live with it. (My personal preference is to rely as much as possible on the web interface to interact with collaboration and social networking systems, except for applications I use infrequently.)

3. Software applications are becoming more focused.

This is an extension of item 2 above. Applications are becoming more focused and integrated with their communication functions. It’s not just Google Wave that’s moving in this direction, it’s also the single-function “apps” that Apple’s iPhone has popularized and which will be the focus of much Android development.

When you start moving applications to a mobile device you have to take into account (a) simplifying the physical interactivity and (b) integrating the application’s functionality with the platform’s communication capabilities. The result: phones are not just phones anymore. Email, when it moves to a mobile device and sprouts application legs, no longer acts like “you father’s email.”

In conclusion …

Email’s going to be with us for a long, long time.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Dennis D. McDonald

If you found this interesting you might also find Seven Articles about Strategic Planning and Social Media useful.