Amid the Noise and Haste

Twitter Takes a Step Toward Commercial Accounts

Businesses have been using Twitter successfully for awhile now (see Dell article from the NY Times).  Now Twitter is one step closer to a business model for making money off of this.  NY Times just published "Twitter Takes a Step Toward Commercial Accounts" where Anamitra Banerji, manager of commercial products at Twitter discusses their progress:

Twitter 101 is the first step toward doing that. “If you intrinsically see some value in Twitter, you will want to pay more to get more,” he added.

Twitter unveiled Twitter 101, a series of Web pages and a downloadable slide show that explain what Twitter is and how businesses can use it, along with case studies of a few companies that use Twitter.

It remains to be seen how long it will take for twitter to launch a paid model, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.  If their services provided added value for businesses it just might work.

Making Twitter More Useful for Business

John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing has some great tips for making your tweets more useful, especially for tracking ROI...a few of his suggestions include:

• Let’s say I find a site I think is cool and tweet it. From my dashboard I can see lots of folks jumped on that and passed it around and also thought it was cool. Bingo! - I’ve got a topic for an expanded blog post.
• Let’s say I write a blog post and point it out on twitter - I can get real-time feedback, over and above comments, on how hot the topic was
• Let’s say people seem to like certain types of tweets, judging by how they interact, than others - could that help me tweet better?

Really, this is all about connectivity and thinking outside of the box to find new ways to share content, and other's.

Helpful tools John shared for doing this, and tracking results include

HootSuite

CoTweet

SU.PR

Objective Marketer

Team Building

When it comes to companies with many different deparments the unfortunate downside is silos.  Each department can become so focused on their own tasks at hand that the other departments become secondary in priority.  There are two key things I have seen when this happens:

1. Departments are made up of people (the people part usually gets lost); and
2. Departments need to work together as a team to keep the machine running

The Reforming Project Management Blog had a great list of questions to ask when dealing with "Team Communication and Health."  Asking these questions can help identify gaps in communication that can then be addressed with team building exercises, lessons in communication and development.

• To what extent is the team positive?
• To what extent is honesty and trust evident?
• To what extent is the team learning and improving?
• Is morale improving, steady or declining?
• To what extent are team members being open and honest with each other?
• Are there barriers between trades and professions and if so How high are the silo walls?
• How long or short are tempers?
• To what extent are team members collaborating?

Am Law 200 Firms are Becoming Social

By way of Doug Cornelius of KM Space and Kevin O'Keefe over at LexBlog, I found out that 8 of the top 10 Am Law 200 law firms, those with the highest gross revenue, have social networks on Facebook.  That's pretty big news.   Law firms have traditionally been slower to adopt less traditional means of marketing and business development.  But as Kevin points out, "Lawyers, amongst others, should focus on how examples of new media can
help instead of disregarding them because others use them in an
unprofessional or non business-related way."

Here are the firms with the current number of network members from each firm from Kevin's post:

1. Skadden, Arps 379 Members
2. Baker & McKenzie 728 Members
3. Jones Day 286 Members
4. Latham & Watkins 291 Members
5. Sidely Austin 199 Members
6. Mayer Browne No Network
7. White & Case 370 Members
8. Weil, Gotschal No Network
9. Shearman & Sterling 225 members
10. Kirkland & Ellis 192 Members

Scott Glavin from Enterprise 2.0 wrote about this, tipping off Doug Cornelius, and pointed out a few business uses of using a social networking site such as Facebook:

• exploring who else in your organization has the same interests and connecting.  Professional networking, but via the net.
• sharing media and updates with colleagues such as photo’s and business travel plans
• general exploration of how web2.0 can be supplemental to company goals

I think one of the biggest hurdles of adopting this new technology is eduction.  Scott's points are a fantastic entry point for why networking within a firm or company has benefits.  Internal communication is key to helping grow a business and social  networking enables this communication.  I encourage other firms and companies to adopt social networking as well. 

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Social Resources Galore!

John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing points us to Mashable's exhaustive resource list ONLINE MEDIA GOD: 400+ Tools for Photographers, Videobloggers, Podcasters & Musician.  All you could want and then some!

Shannon Holman at If You See Something Say Something points us to TechCrunch's comparison chart of white label social networking solutions for your enterprise.

Social Volunteering - Making a Difference

If you haven't heard of SixDegrees.org, I urge you to check them out.  Here is a description from their about page:

You've probably heard of the Six Degrees concept. Any one person (including me, Kevin Bacon) is connected to any other person through six or fewer relationships, because it's a small world. SixDegrees.org is about using this idea to accomplish something good. It's social networking with a social conscience. Through this web site, you can support your favorite charities by donating or creating fundraising badges — as well as check out the favorite causes of other people, including celebrities.

I set up my own badge which you can see in the right hand column just below the fold of my main blog page.  I choose Hands Together Inc., an organization which is close to my heart.  I worked with Hands Together in 1992 and travelled to Haiti with my high school, Cathedral High in Springfield, MA.  We brought medical and school supplies to different poverty stricken areas such as Cite Soleil and Brunette.  And I am pleased to see how far the organization has come since then.  Here is a bit more about their programs:

Hands Together carries out its mission through projects and programs aimed at improving the quality of life for the very poor - primarily in Haiti.

Through schools, orphanages, nutrition and feeding programs, medical clinics, sustainable development projects, and partnerships with local leaders and communities, Hands Together is building a better world for thousands of suffering people in Haiti. Hands Together volunteers contribute to this work through organized delegations and programs for those with specialized training like doctors & medical professionals, builders, water well technicians, mechanics and teachers.

You can learn more about Hands Together on their site www.handstogether.org.  You can donate to Hands Together by clicking on my badge or you can find your favorite charity by going to sixdegrees.org.

Social Bookmarking - Video from Common Craft

The folks over at Common Craft have done it again.  Another great little tutorial video explaining social bookmarking and how easy it is.  I hand over the mic:

We made this video because we want others to feel the power of social bookmarking and how it works to make web pages easier to remember, organize and share.

This video is focused on Del.icio.us, but you could also try social bookmarking sites like Magnolia or Furl.

Click To Play

I have my del.icio.us bookmarks set in the right hand column of this blog, take a look!  You can also read more about social bookmarking in a few of my other posts:

• Social Bookmarking as a Knowledge Management Strategy
• Social Bookmarking to Generate Traffic for your Blog

Social Networking in Plain English

Another great video from the folks over at Common Craft, this time it's all about Social Networking.  This time they have "focused on one part of a big concept."  Take a look:

Click To Play

The next step in client service in the legal world

Wow, this is how the client demands service.  LegalWeek ran this article by Michelle Madsen yesterday "Nine bluechips sign up 60 firms for cutting-edge legal network."  It speaks about "a group of the world’s leading companies, led by Cisco, have developed an innovative networking website [Legal OnRamp] that will give them free access to major law firms’ precedents."  The site will include even wikis and online chatrooms.

More than 60 of the worlds top law firms are already involved including Linklaters, Allen & Overy, DLA Piper, Eversheds, White & Case, Orrick, Morgan Lewis & Bockius and Baker Botts. 

Why is this appealing to law firms? 

Orrick practice manager Josh Rosenfeld said: “This is an opportunity for us to put out information to a select group of in-house lawyers — it is a better use of our marketing and business development time. In-house counsel are very busy; this will give them a repository of experience and information they can tap into when they need it.”

Way to think outside the box!  Amid the noise and haste of client services, this group of forward thinking firms and corporations have started something - together.

Wikis in Plain English

The folks over at Common Craft have done it again.  I wrote a little while back about their video for RSS in plain English.  Now, they have created a new video to explain wikis.  Here it is:

Click To Play

In their own words, they created this video "because wiki web sites are easy to use, but hard to describe."