In de jaren van iMode en Vodafone Live! kregen we allemaal een telefoon, waarmee we content konden kopen of downloaden, van ringtones en wallpapers tot het weerbericht en de beursinformatie. Maar als wij met ons mobiele apparaat de straat op gaan dan willen we geen content downloaden. We maken dan foto's en sturen die door, we zijn in gesprek met elkaar via Twitter om te weten wie waar aan de borrel zit of op welk congres rondhangt en we willen contextuele informatie om te weten of het regent op het voetbalveld waar zoonlief moet spelen over een uur. Anders gezegd: wij worden Creators in plaats van Consumers.

De uitdaging is het dus om een mobiele dienst te leveren die uniek is. Uniek in die zin, dat het alleen zinvol is op een mobiel apparaat en nergens anders. Dit zal een dienst zijn die ons in de rol van Creator aanspreekt, of eentje die ons contextuele data geeft op basis van locatie, profiel en voorkeuren. Gerichte informatie dus. Informatie ook die automatisch wordt opgepikt (locatie), wordt geanalyseerd en wordt omgezet in zinvolle informatie voor de ontvanger.

In deze ontwikkeling is het als aanbieder van belang dat je de data bezit en de analyses. Dan kun je waarde creëren. De enige hobbel is dus nog om de data van je gebruikers te krijgen. De zakelijke markt vraagt doorgaans van uit beleidsoogpunt om allerlei informatie van de gebruiker die de veiligheid van de gegevens moet garanderen. Geef mij je data, dan krijg je van informatie. De enige die hieruit van profiteren zijn het individu en het bedrijf zelf.

Om echter op mobiele apparaten de data te kunnen gebruiken voor toegevoegde waarde voor de gebruiker is er een ander model nodig. Een community-model. Het idee is dat je als gebruiker uit eigen wil data gaat toevoegen aan de mobiele cloud, omdat je weet dat je er iets waardevols voor terugkrijgt. Je input in dit model bestaat uit contentcreatie (foto's, recensies), uit je mobiele activiteit en automatisch kun je ook je locatie, timestamps en zoekopdrachten op je mobiel laten analyseren. Je doet dat omdat je er veel voor terugkrijgt: gepersonaliseerde en contextuele informatie, waar je niet zelf naar op zoek hoeft. Informatie op maat! En dat is denk ik voor veel gebruikers veel interessanter dan de laatste aflevering van Onderweg naar Morgen op je mobiel.

Never fear, fellow American, a bright new world is just a vote away as these two presidential candidates come to us able to wash away the problems of the past with - (drum roll, please) - a lot of money.

From the Obama website - "Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities: Obama and Biden will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, to serve one million more children." AND "Barack Obama and Joe Biden will double funding for the Federal Charter School Program to support the creation of more successful charter schools." AND " Obama and Biden will address the dropout crisis by passing his legislation to provide funding to school districts to invest in intervention strategies in middle school" AND it goes on from there.

Not to be outdone, McCain claims - "John McCain Will Allocate $250 Million Through A Competitive Grant Program To Support States That Commit To Expanding Online Education Opportunities." AND "John McCain Will Offer $250 Million For Digital Passport Scholarships To Help Students Pay For Online Tutors Or Enroll In Virtual Schools" AND "The budget for the Opportunity Scholarships is currently $13 million. John McCain believes that this extremely successful program should expand to at least $20 million benefiting nearly a thousand more families" AND then some.

Now wait just a minute! Are you telling me this money is just laying around? Or is it coming out of the campaign coffers once the vote is finished? If fixing education is this easy, why in the world hasn't ANYONE else done this?

Wait, I think the answer is coming to me. It's because money alone doesn't fix things. It's because that money isn't there. It's because even if the money were there, we wouldn't be throwing that much of it at education when we have a $700 billion bailout to consider.

I really wish candidates wouldn't think that the American public is foolish enough to believe this rhetoric. I wish they would just be honest and say, "There's not a lot that I can do in the situation, but I am going to give it my best shot." I wish they didn't make empty, far-fetched promises to get a cheer and a vote when what really happens is they just teach another generation that politicians can't be trusted. I really wish - that the American public wasn't silly enough to believe all this nonsense. Sadly, my fellow American, we are just that foolish.

-Ted Murcray

Whilst I am in total agreement with Jay's comment, I was interested in their thoughts on engaging with less developed 'groups'. For example, in the B2B office products market the online business community is less developed and I would be quite fair in saying that the use of social media channels is embryonic at best. Many of the buyers (whether in procurement or in the reseller or Dealer community) are not yet engaged.

In episode 4 Connie and Eden addressed my question and to hear their suggestions, log on to Community Divas or subscribe to the show at iTunes. In episode 4 you'll also catch a great interview with Daniele Rossi who talks about his podcasts, and in particular how he's building a niche community for his 'Stuttering is Cool' podcast.

I believe we need to be testing, engaging and learning about digital media and how it can be used to support the business strategy. If we keep plugging the traditional media in isolation we will be left talking at people rather than conversing with customers via media that enables customers and suppliers to really engage and join the conversation.

Today we visited friends (and customers) who just moved from Preserve at Astor Farms to Lake Forest. So I took the opportunity to take some pictures of the community. Now I wish it had been sunnier because due to the rain my photos don't do Lake Forest full justice.

I have always loved Lake Forest. It is a little peaceful world of its own, consisting of close to 500 homes. In fact many residents say if it wasn't for work, they wouldn't even have to leave their community because there is so much offered within. The community is very active and meets a lot in the state of the art club house with fiteness center and tennis courts. The junior Olympic size pool is also a great place to hang out and meet your neighbors. Besides the amenities, Lake Forest also offers many other benefits that homeowners in Central Florida are looking for: security (it is a gated, man guarded community) and convenience (less than a mile from I-4 and almost as close to 417, Seminole Towne Center and Colonial Town Park which some call "Downtown Heathrow"). To say the least, Lake Forest truly is one of the most desirable communities in Central Florida and definitely in the West Sanford area. Prices start already in the 300s all the way up to several million.

I still remember when I first entered the community 4 years ago: I was impressed with all the nature! It truly is a forest within the city with lush landscaping and huge towering trees - very romantic and a contrast to the typical palm tree, golf course feel that you might expect. As European I am what many would call "green". I respect and enjoy nature (even though I have to admit I could live without mosquitoes, but that's another story), I admire and strive to protect the environment every day with little but in my opinion effective habits. So when I saw Lake Forest I experienced something I hadn't seen in Central Florida until that day: a community truly built into nature, into the forest. A community finally respecting nature. When the community was first built the builder protected and built around the trees thereby saving them. Unfortunately during the boom another builder came in and started building in the back of the community destroying most of those trees. That was certainly a big mistake.

Lake Forest in Sanford, it's almost like a in a fairy tale :)

Of course, there are more communities in Central Florida that respect nature by the mere way they were built and of course others that are "green" by the way they protect the environment, be it through recycling or any other activities. I wanted to mention one that I also frequently visit, it's called "The Springs" in Longwood. VERY nice indeed, so peaceful and idyllic. But more about that another time. Whenever I come across another one I will post and, as usual, I encourage you to post yours as well if you think it meets the criteria, so I can mention it here. Go GREEN!

I'm going to start off with a great post from Steve Rubel titled ethical social media marketing that I think we should all read and send to others.

Next here's an article from newsweek in which the author thinks that the UGC pendulum is swinging back towards the experts.

Better read this one user-generated content site gets sued by copyright owner for naughty uploading habits of users

From an SEO perspective we have: Maximizing SEO Returns with User Generated Content

Here's a blog dedicated to UGC

Here's a great article by Paul Chin about the value of UGC which I highly recommend.

Want to know about the rise of user generated content? Read this article from Entrepreneur

and then the dark side-or When user generated content goes bad

Are you someone's user generated content? and All (User-Generated) Content Doesn’t Want to Be Free:

Now at this point you should be getting the gist. So, what are your thoughts on user generated content? Do you put more trust in your peers and communities than you do traditional media, online media and word of mouth? Who's blog do you trust? who's opinion do you bank on? Do you find yourself spending more time online than watching or listening or reading traditional media sources?

Take the UGC Survey

Mindapples asks a question that people want to know the answer to, and gives them a platform to share their answers in public. The idea is to encourage everyone to take more care of their minds, simply by publishing what people are already doing. The site doesn't help you 'do' anything in a practical sense. All it does (or at least will do once we've built a better website) is publish the behaviours that we want to see more of. And I think that, simply by publishing these behaviours, we can create more of them.

As well as helping us practically to perform tasks, the web can also give us the inspiration to do things that we didn't previously feel were possible. For example, School of Everything provides a set of tools to help people organise their learning and find new students near them. But as my friend Stowe says, "the presence of the tool implies a permission to behave in a certain way." By building a website that helps everyone become a teacher, we want to show everyone that they have something to teach. Or to use another example, Flickr doesn't help you take photos, but by publishing the photos of millions of photographers it gives us all permission to be a photographer too.

So if there is a behaviour you want to encourage - be that social care, photography, knitting or democracy -
rather than leaping straight into building complex tools to help people do it, why not find where it's happening already and share it with the world? If you can rally the people together who want it to happen and tell their stories, maybe they'll build the tools for you.

I run a business!

It's called Vida (or various other names I choose to call it) and it's always been a vehicle to allow me to have lots of fun doing interesting projects for companies like Gap, Honda, Isuzu, Coke, Unilever and Tesco. Mainly working through other agencies, as Vida doesn't have a large sales and marketing budge and I never really wanted to employ people.  I have 2 kids and I've seen them grow up to be 6 and 8.  Best choice I've ever made.

Now my kids are in school, I'm thinking it's probably more important to build up the company, so I need a new Sales and Marketing approach.

Crowd Sourcing Business Consultancy via Twitter

I have around 250 people on Twitter who follow me. I also post my twitter feed to Jaiku, Friendfeed, and Facebook, so lots of people read my twitters.  I've seen people ask questions on Twitter and get very useful responses, so I thought I'd try it.  My question was:

if you were to start a company now, what would be your tips for lead generation and sales?

I then direct messaged a few people to ask for their responses. I got several very interesting ones.  Some of the answers are picked out below:

martinpacker @pjnet Sniff around the tragedies of others? :-)

epredator @pjnet share everywhere work a freemium model and see every person on every network as customer trust serendipity

NikkiPilkington @pjnet SEO, online networking and article marketing - work hard to build brand and reputation

stevepurkiss @pjnet network, network, network...

rooreynolds @pjnet asks "if you were to start a company ... tips for lead generation and sales?" - be Interesting. Don't treat social media as marketing

PBJohnson @pjnet but SEO is easier to grasp than networking ... so easier to outsource?

epredator @pjnet if you attract people they are the right people you may have to alter the "product"

NikkiPilkington @pjnet fair enough - I misunderstood "reserve of small biz"

SuButcher @pjnet think about the client/user/purchaser. What are they thinking? What do they want? Where will they go to get it?

epredator @pjnet "no publicity is bad publicity" social media and long tail engagement seems to offer opportunity to engage with customers new and old

Other Comments

I also received several direct messages, and one of which caught my eye. Roo Reynolds sent me 2 links on Interestingness, one from his own blog and one from Russel Davies which I think are stunningly good links on how to be interesting as a person:

how to be interesting A brilliant and timeless blog on how to attract people

Russell Davies well worth a read to give Roo's take on Russell's ideas

So What Now?

So, I've had lots of advice, and I've generated lots of ideas. I personally think that SEO is far from useful when going after large corporate accounts, but I see the purpose of it.  I do think however, I'm going to remember to blog more, and make myself more interesting!

So watch this space. Maybe, just maybe, I'll be more interesting.

We keep hearing about historic numbers of new voters being registered across the country (check out this video from Free Speech TV) and this seems to be the perfect time to inject our K-16 education system with some real political education. If every public education student could leave high school understanding the fundamental philosophies (social and economic) of different parties in the U.S. and feeling a sense of urgency regarding political engagement, I'd say we would be heading in the right direction. No wonder we have several generations of politically apathetic folks (including my own generation and many dear friends) - we have nearly erased real political education from K-12 education since WWII, leaving millions of people feeling things must be "fine" the way they are, so why bother?

My first grader went along with me to register new voters over the weekend - the final weekend to register in Georgia - and she had a ball. I made sure to give her the lecture about what "nonpartisan" means and that she should not mention either candidate to anyone. Instead she created tables of "registered/not registered" and made tallies to represent folks' responses to us. She also made posters and hung them up pleading, "Please Vote," and paced back and forth singing her ever-changing song that included lyrics like, "Please vote and help our country be happier, help us save our charities, help us be a better country..." and on and on. She loved having a real audience - something we can make happen for kids everywhere...

What could kindergarteners and first graders do in their schools? How can we inspire them to not only pay attention to current social and economic issues but also to think deeply about various "solutions" offered to us through candidates' perspectives?

Here are some ideas off the top of my head that might be fun in various k-12 settings:

-Critical readings of television advertisements: What is the purpose of each campaign's ads? How are they positioning one another? How are they positioning American voters? Are they talking about issues? Distracting from issues? How would students re-write those advertisements?

-Collect newspaper and magazine articles, Internet videos, etc. to share during "show and tell" (or similar sharing times during the day). Get students talking about these things every day.

-Research voter registration strategies by different groups and come up with new strategies for a local push for registration even after this election (there will be more elections folks!)

-Graph new voter registration state-by-state, then compare that to the turnout on Election Day.

-Research "early voting" rules in different states and compare them, thinking about issues of equity and access.

-Research "election day voting" in different states and compare the rules, thinking about issues of equity and access, including people who are in jail and/or people who have served their sentences.

-Brainstorm, more than one time, the reasons why it's so important that people vote - AND - why so many people have decided not to vote in the past.

-Create brochures, films, email messages, speeches, posters, songs, artwork, and other texts to motivate people to vote in this election - and in the local elections that will also be coming up soon.

-Research any other issues or candidates that will be on the ballot in November and construct texts to advertise those issues beyond the Presidential Election.

Have Fun and let's Rock the Vote starting with our youngest future voters...

DUBLIN, October 6 (Compass Direct News) – Militant Islamists in the southern island of Mindanao have stepped up their attacks on majority-Christian villages following the failure of a peace agreement that would have enlarged an existing Muslim autonomous region there.

With Muslim commanders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) in the southern Philippines yesterday saying ongoing support from the international community was necessary to prevent a full-scale war breaking out in Mindanao, both Muslim and Christian residents in the disputed territories were fearful of what the future might hold.

“The problem is that many people living in these areas don’t want to be part of a Muslim autonomous region,” a source in Mindanao who preferred to remain anonymous told Compass.

“The closer you get to these zones, the more nervous people are,” he said. “The town of Kolambugan, where most of the fighting took place in mid-August, became a virtual ghost town for a while. It had a population of 25,000. But people are slowly returning to their homes.”

A Christian family from the area said many people were afraid to sleep at night because they kept hearing reports that they would be attacked at midnight.

“When MILF forces attack Christian villages, Muslim neighbors are afraid that Christians will retaliate against them, even though they have nothing to do with the violence,” the source added. “This has happened in the past.”

He also explained that some moderate Muslims are drawn to support the MILF because the rebels claim the Christians have stolen their ancestral homelands. Communities in Mindanao often struggle with extreme poverty.

“If MILF is successful in gaining control over these lands, the people assume that their economic situation will improve,” he said. “So although they want the fighting to stop, they sympathize with the MILF.”

While the conflict is primarily political, religion plays a significant role. As a member of the Moro Youth League stated in an Aug. 5 national television interview in the Philippines, “As a Muslim, in order to live in a righteous way, you need to be living under sharia [Islamic] law and with an Islamic government. We believe we have the right to fight for this.”

Other Youth League members on the program agreed that sharia was a primary objective of autonomy, and that Islam was the only “real path of doing anything in this world.”

Violence Erupts

Some 2,000 MILF supporters yesterday held a protest march in Marawi city, Lanao del Sur, appealing to the United Nations and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to compel the Philippine government to revive the aborted peace agreement that would have enlarged the existing Muslim autonomous region in the south.

Breakaway MILF commanders on Aug. 18 attacked several majority-Christian villages after the Supreme Court prevented the Aug. 5 signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD). The agreement potentially would have given the MILF power to establish an Islamic state governed by sharia law.

Christian leaders in Mindanao appealed to the Supreme Court when they realized that if they voted against inclusion in the proposed Bangsamoro Juridical Entity (BJE), their majority-Christian villages would become small islands in the midst of MILF-administered territory. As a result, they feared, they would be forced to move elsewhere.

Incensed by the 11th-hour stalling of the agreement, three MILF commanders on their own initiative led attacks against towns in North Cotabato and Lanao del Norte provinces on Aug. 18, burning homes, seizing livestock and killing at least 37 people. Another 44,000 residents immediately fled the area.

When some Christian residents armed themselves in defense, Secretary of Interior Ronaldo Puno warned that anyone carrying weapons would be disarmed.

The MILF has only 11,000 active fighting men, according to local estimates. But by Aug. 20, the National Disaster Coordinating Council had reported a total of 159,000 people displaced by the rebel attacks.

The Philippine army quickly retaliated, sweeping villages in an attempt to seize the rebel commanders.

After two weeks of violent clashes, the Philippine government officially abandoned the MOA-AD. Spokeswoman Lorelei Fajardo said President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo would seek a new agreement based on consultation with legislators and local politicians rather than negotiations with the MILF.

Furthermore, the government would concentrate on the “disarmament, demobilization and rehabilitation” of MILF cadres, Fajardo said.

In response, MILF leaders rejected any renegotiation of the peace deal with Arroyo’s administration.

Overcoming Prejudice

An opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Aug. 7 stated that the MOA-AD would only reinforce prejudices between Christian and Muslim communities.

Under the agreement, WSJ claimed, the government would further divide Mindanao into Muslim and Christian enclaves, increasing the likelihood of territorial disputes. Separating Muslims from the rest of Philippine society, it stated, would encourage a vision already held by MILF to help create a pan-Islamic state covering several countries in the region, including Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.

Finally, the WSJ said, less Philippine control of Mindanao would “invite even more terrorist activity in an area that already has strong ties to al Qaeda.”

While there are proven terrorist leanings in groups such as the MILF and the Abu Sayyaf, not all area Muslims approve of or engage in such activities.

Camilo Montesa, a key figure in peace negotiations, in his blog on Aug. 30 described an encounter with a young man who believed that Muslim residents would readily seize property from Christians once the BJE were formed.

Others told Montesa that, “Muslims were scouting and marking the big houses of Christians in Cotabato and staking a claim over them in anticipation of the signing of the peace agreement.”

“The hearts and minds of the people are the battlefields, and not some hill or base camp,” Montesa concluded. “There is a limit to what arms and war can produce ... It is unfortunate that we are so divided as a people at this point in our national life.”

Reclaiming ‘Ancestral Domains’

As Islamic identity strengthened in the Middle East after World War II – and as many Philippine Muslims traveled to study in Middle Eastern countries – certain sectors of the Bangsamoro population became committed to reclaiming “ancestral domains.”

Their claims dated back to the rule of the Sultanate of Sulu, which existed prior to Spanish colonial rule in the 1500s, and the establishment of the Commonwealth of the Philippines in 1935. When the last sultan died in 1936, the fledgling Philippine government refused to recognize his heir, effectively eradicating the traditional Bangsamoro power base.

When the Philippines became a republic in 1946, its constitution allowed for the establishment of an autonomous region in Muslim Mindanao. Initially the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) fought alone for this autonomous territory; in 1977, however, MNLF member Hashim Salamat – who had studied in Saudi Arabia – and his followers seceded from the movement and founded the rival MILF.

The Philippine government signed an agreement with the MNLF in January 1987, and territories were added to the resulting Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) through a series of plebiscites or referendums in 1989, 2001, 2002 and 2006.

MILF commanders later laid claim to a further 712 villages outside the ARMM.

Negotiations between the government and the MILF began in earnest in June 2001. Both parties were to formally sign the resulting MOA-AD on Aug. 5, a deal which could have led to the creation of the separate Bangsamoro Juridical Entity, or fully-functioning state, replacing the ARMM by 2010.

When details of the agreement were leaked to the press, however, Christian politicians in regions of Mindanao affected by the agreement appealed to the Supreme Court, which in turn issued a temporary restraining order on the signing of the agreement on Aug. 4.

Report from Compass Direct News

It throws out some interesting questions about the topic:

1. How do we protect what is private?
2. Are we always safe sharing?
3. What if Wikipedia is crap?
4. How do we earn a living when everyone is freely sharing their ideas?
5. In the past you were what you owned...now you are what you share?

In the USA, celebrate "Walk to School Day" on October 8, 2008, and promote safe walking and bicycling throughout the year.

If I ever thought I'd be one of those parents who lecture their children about how I had to trudge five miles, up hill and through the snow to get to school every day, I would have rolled my eyes, shrugged my shoulders and said politely, "I don't think so." 

I hate to admit to it, but I've become just that.  You see, when I was at school, I didn't have a choice.  I walked to school every day, rain or shine, sleet or snow.  Yes, every day was "Walk to School Day" for me. 

"Walk to School Day" began in 1997 when the Partnership for a Walkable America sponsored the first National Walk Our Children to School Day in Chicago.  Back then, it was simply a day to bring community leaders and children together to create awareness of the need for communities to be walkable.   Walk to School events work to create safer routes for walking and bicycling and emphasize the importance of issues such as increasing physical activity among children, pedestrian safety, traffic congestion, concern for the environment and building connections between families, schools and the broader community. This year, "Walk to School Day" is expected to include 5,000 schools from all 50 states.

If your family is anything like ours and you live in the 'burbs then your children are used to being chauffeur driven everywhere.  So, I was thrilled when both of my children got in to the magnet school located approximately one mile from our home because it meant we could walk or bike there.   Now, I realise that times have changed and today our neighborhoods and communities are not as safe as they once were, but on October 8th you can join my family and I and let your cherubs feel what it was like to live back in the olden days when mom actually had a life outside of shuttling her kids back and forth to school by participating in "Walk to School Day."

On that morning, like most mornings,  I will smile widely through my children's grumbles and groans about how bad they have it as we walk together to school.  And, yes I'll be sure to remind them of all those reasons why we're leaving the minivan in the garage.

Wow, hard to write down all that I have witnessed since the last Time to Cry Tuesday.

In one week in my little world a baby was born while the elderly man next door died leaving his wife of 65+ years. I attended the funeral for the dad of a dear friend and went straight to a Bat Mitzvah celebration for the daughter of another. 

Talk about the cycle of life!

Are all these things simply coincidence? I surely think not.

Within the context of the turmoil of our times it is grounding to think that the micro can still balance itself out in some bittersweet way.

(I know what you are all thinking, you have never seen such a short post out of this big mouth. Sometimes you can say it all in a few words. Rarely for me, but this time for sure).

 :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  :  : 

1. Use transactional or demographic data to improve the performance and/or efficiency of services.
2. Understand what really motivates people in particular circumstances so that you can tailor services and target messages to change behaviour, useful in getting people to stop smoking, improve health or do things that are good for them that they might not otherwise do - like fasten their seat belts.
3. Use 1 and 2 above to inform council and partnership priorities and strategic decision making.

Although it's widely known as customer insight, we sorta changed the name to reflect that uses 2 and 3 are about more than a kind of customer interaction with the council.  Those are more about a citizen's relationship with local government - and the citizen aspect is particularly important when thinking about how councils will need to evidence that they understand their citizens, customers and communities during Comprehensive Area Assessment.

Here's our proposed copy of the report cover:

Problem is, the folks who work in customer insight don't like it.  They think it's confusing and that we should just stick with customer insight.

On a purely personal note, I'm much more of the citizen bent.  Even though I'm not a citizen of the UK, when it comes to my council I want them to think of me a citizen.  Someone with a relationship to the council which is about more than collecting my rubbish once a week and processing my council tax and parking permit.  I want them to think of me as someone who is a part of the community I live in, with privileges, rights, duties and obligations.

But the last thing I want to do is confuse people, particularly if it prevents them from taking up a set of valuable tools which can help councils and their partners improve delivery and work with citizens in an informed, mature way.

I ran the report through a nifty little online application called wordle - which generates word clouds.  Generally, the more a word is used - the bigger it will appear in the final graphic.  See below:

I had thought that there would be a great big giant CITIZEN in the middle, given the emphasis we're trying to make in this report. But instead, customer and citizen are fairly well balanced. And that's probably about right. There's also a lot of discussion in the report about how councils can use customer information - there are some transactional relationships with councils that really are about the customer experience, albeit a customer without many choices of provider usually.

I'm thinking of another title change.

Insight: Understanding your citizens, customers and communities.

What do you think?

Update: Citizens, not customers and Customers, citizens and claimants two thoughtful posts that provide opposing views.

The three:  2008 Report on Trends and Best Practices in Adopting Web 2.0 by Awareness (enterprise vendor that’s been tracking the industry for several years through research), 2008 Marketing Analytics in the Twin Cities by Evantage Consulting (local), and, of course, Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008. 

I have white papers for the first two.  The Technorati report has been widely circulated, but available online (five-part series).  Some points that particularly struck me follow here.

Not surprisingly, the Awareness study found adoption of social media tools within organizations moving in Big Boy Steps versus Baby Belly Scoots in year-over-year comparisons. Yes, employers are beginning to think it’s more than okay to allow social media networking for business purposes – 69 percent in 2008, up from 37 percent in the 2007 survey.   Probably because some 75 percent of employees are now using sites like Linkedin and Facebook professionally, up from 15 percent last year.

And although employers retain concerns about security and inappropriate content that might get posted, almost half (49 percent) allow employees to express themselves openly, albeit appropriately, on corporate social networking sites.  More than a third run periodic promotions to actually encourage participation within online communities.  

Specific tools are changing also.  While success with blogs remains relatively unchanged over last year (44 percent versus 45 percent), that tool didn’t come in first place this year.  Top Dog was video (48 percent) in terms of applications that organizations thought most worthwhile.

I participated in the Marketing Analytics study (as MIMA member) and recall quite a bit of it was fairly technical/geeky, so when reviewing the findings, keep in mind that it’s talking about very specific web analytics – not just “measurable results” as we might define them.  And, it’s just Twin Cities. Again, the findings compared year-over-year responses.

It doesn’t seem like organizations in our own backyard are making the most of analytical technology to make marketing programs more responsive and results-oriented.  “Inconsistent use” is how the executive summary put it. I guess we will do stuff even if we can’t measure it. The researchers thought this may be due, in part, because organizations are still very firmly in an annual budgeting model and many marketing programs are tooled likewise.  It’d just be a whole different ballgame to change out an entire Cenex Guy campaign one month after implementation if our analytics were saying the program just wasn’t hitting the mark.  A stretch goal. 

Companies are beginning to put more dollars toward measurable direct marketing channels at the expense of “one-to-many” channels such as print and radio.  But the whole shift is slower than expected, given the rise of web analytic tools – especially free ones.  Not quite half the respondents (46 percent) said they were using more than one analytic tool, and, of those, 79 percent are using freebie Google Analytics as at least one of them.  Our old friend, Web Trends, came in a distinct second to GA.

I would have liked to see more findings about resources being devoted to analysis.  The report teased me with its finding that, among top-performing companies, 89 percent had at least one FTE dedicated to analytics.

I can’t begin to do justice to Technorati’s blogosphere report here; I encourage you to look at the details if you haven’t already.  But with 77.7 million unique U.S. visitors, compared to the total estimated internet audience of 188 million, it’s a playground worth paying attention to – our stakeholders are.  Some 90 percent of bloggers say they post about the brands they love (or hate).  Business info and personal experience with companies/products are topics-of-choice for the majority of bloggers.  

With the Technorati report fresh in my mind, I caught an On the Media/NPR piece over the weekend about the rise of litigation targeting bloggers.  This trend may cull the ranks of fair-weather bloggers – those who are either simply intimidated by corporate cease-and-desist orders regardless of merit or those who can’t muster the dollars needed to fight such cases – but it’s already initiated a much-needed public conversation about blogger standards along the same lines as journalistic standards or truth-in-advertising norms. Even better (!), there’s now an insurance policy for bloggers from the Media Bloggers Association to cover legal expenses.

So, lots of topics to chat about around the water cooler -- if we had one.

This thread over at the Beyond Unreal forums lays out the rules for a good competition.  Focusing on originality but based around 1 on 1 style of play.  Check it out if you fancy a challenge.

At the time of writing this two maps have been subbed.  I've finished one review but I'll wait until I've done the other before I post them.  That should be tomorrow or the day after.  I want to spend the rest of today working on quatro.

Again big thanks to hal over at Beyond Unreal for pimping this site.  I sent the news to Planet but nothing as of yet.  The stats for this site show that the community is still around.  Communities build communities not single people.  It will become as strong as you make it.

More big thanks to the people who have given me feed back.  So vital in this community.  Not from an ego point of view but simply if no-one gives feedback then you guys don't get the sites and maps you want.  Epic may have missed the mark but that doesn't mean we, as a community, will.  UT3 is a great engine that's capable of some amazing stuff.

Till Then

Non-UT related link.  Be a hired hitman in stickman world.

Vad bidde det då? Jag tror det bidde en tumme för de allra flesta. En snabbsurf runt på bibliotekens (svenska och norska) profil- och gruppsidor i FB ger vid handen att få har fler än 50-talet vänner, medlemmar eller fans. Och hälften av dessa verkar vara bibliotekspersonal av olika kategorier.

Ett undantag är Göteborgs stadsbibliotek som har över 100 vänner. En del är biblioteksfolk, men inte alla. En snabbkoll i profilen visar att sidan uppdateras ofta t ex med postningar innehållande boktips och liknande. Man gör också regelbundet inbjudningar till bibliotekets olika events.

Nyckelordet är aktivitet, som medlemmarna/vännerna inte kan undvika att ta del av. Något annat som har visat sig viktigt när man går in med sin organisation/företag (bibliotek) i ett socialt forum är att man har en plan för vad man ska där att göra. Varför finns vi där, vad är syftet, vad är realistiskt att uppnå, hur skapar vi aktivitet.

Gruppen "Marknadsföring på Facebook", som jag gick med i för ett år sedan är sorgligt inaktiv. Man har insett att marknadsföring i FB inte kan stå för sig själv, utan måste kompletteras med kampanjer utanför nätet. Som t ex den framgångsrika Rosa bandet-kampanjen, som samlade in mycket pengar via FB. Det hade förmodligen inte fungerat om inte de flesta redan känt till vad Rosa bandet var för något.

Ska man då inte gå med i FB som bibliotek? Jo, självklart ska man det. Men som sagt, man måste veta vad man vill och vad som är realistiskt att uppnå. Och Facebook lever inte sitt eget liv, utan behöver hela tiden kopplas till det som händer utanför. Varför inte skylta och visa bibliotekets Facebookprofil i det fysiska biblioteket (samt naturligtvis webbplatsen), och berätta att här lägger vi ut evenemang, boktips och VIP-information som bara Facebookvänner kan ta del av. Det kan ju faktiskt bli lite av bibliotekets VIP-klubb. Och den vill väl alla vara med i, eller?

Själv har jag haft störst utbyte av Facebook som lättillgänglig kanal för att knyta kontakter, framförallt i mitt jobb. I många fall känns det lättare att skicka ett meddelande i FB än att melja någon. Och så ser man ju samtidigt vad personen ifråga har för sig, det blir lite personligare.

Något som inte fungerade tidigare var att ta med sig information ut ur FB, man kunde bara ta med information in i nätverket. Nu har jag en liten widget i Netvibes som gör det möjligt att se de senaste statusuppdateringarna av mina vänner. Säkert finns det många fler tekniska nyheter som jag inte har koll på, då jag har varit lite slö på FB-bevakningen det senaste halvåret. Men ibland måste man ju göra en uppryckning. Säg gärna ifrån om ni har en annan upplevelse av biblioteken i Facebook än jag har skrivit om här.