2013 New Beginnings Calendar

Wishing a fabulous and inspirational 2013 with this xmas calendar 2013 I created of photos and prose.

5 Social Media Lead Generation Shortcuts – A nice surprise

Thanks to Google Alerts, I discovered this fabulous article from Andre Bourque in Technorati.

http://technorati.com/social-media/article/hitachi-data-systems-shares-5-steps/

Enjoy!

Happy New Year 2012 – 5 Keys to a HAPPY 2012

With this infographic wishing you a very happy 2012!

I Think You’re Cute – a Facebook Love Story

Yes, we struggle everyday with managing our personal versus professional presences online. It’s not like we need a separate avatar for each of our multiple personalities; rather we understand that separately segmented audiences require separately segmented conversations for relevance, culture, etc.

And yes, we struggle everyday with learning new concepts, ideas, technologies, and we have our own comfy place on the technology adoption curve.

Professionally I do a lot of work in Facebook as part of the role at my company. I create and manage advertisements for one, and I monitor conversations. I try to draw more eyeballs to posts and I “like” certain posts. Particularly the one below.

I Think You’re Cute

I was pleasantly surprised to see this post from Bill who happens to be my father, married to my mother for more than 50 count’em years. Without going into age details, Dad is not at his prime age for marathons. He’s got grandkids and a great grandkid. He’s not the prime age target for Facebook. He’s not a technical genius nor an early adopter.

So I was pleasantly surprised to find out that Bill IS a new facebooker, facilitated no doubt by the (mysterious) ipad thing that I gave to him.

And Dad definitely knows how to use new media (hmmm, maybe it’s all in the genes). Because the post that you see is not just any post from a teenager to a sweetheart, it’s the first post that Dad made on my Mom’s new Facebook wall.

Sure it’s every kid’s dream to know that their parents are crazy in love 50 years running, and I can’t even tell you how appreciative my siblings and I are every day of this blessing. But now this love story gets to be played out in social media, you know the same place where I’m “liking” technical virtualization storage platform videos, and promoting Cloud Storage for Dummies. It’s the ultimate contrast between personal and professional use. And yet it’s all part of a new and exciting opportunity of communicating things… things that have maybe even been around for a lot of years.

So the morale of this love story?

1) If you think you are too old for Facebook, you are not.

2) If you think you aren’t techie enough for this new media thing, well, you probably are.

3) If you are stressing on separating personal from professional Facebook personas, you can probably relax.

4) If you haven’t found the love stories in the products and services you promote, they are probably there waiting

5) Oh, and if you think there is no such thing as true love, well you’re probably wrong on that one.

Mom, Dad and Facebook, I think you’re all really cute

Look forward to your Facebook love stories!

12 Simple Actions for 12 Happy Months in 2010 – Happy Holidays!

The holidays are a great time for relaxing, thinking about friendships and accomplishments from the past year, and planning a new year of action!  So  this holiday “card”, is my gift to you: some good causes, some items for your action list, some new friends, and some topics for your blogs next year!  Here is a link to a PDF version of the card for your download pleasure:  xmascard2009_2010.  You can also click on the photos to read the details then check out the list below to hyperlink to the goodies.  Enjoy, and may all of your holiday wishes come true!

Here are the hyperlinks to help you check out and implement each of the actions!

EARTH

Check out this carbon calculator (UK)

http://bit.ly/3xzpK

HEALTH

Help prevent malaria by donating a mosquito net

This photo is one of the shots that you’ll find on the Unicef New Zealand Flickr Site:

http://bit.ly/7SavHs

And here’s where you can donate!  Please go to the Unicef Under Cover Malaria Net Fundraising site and donate a net!

http://www.unicefundercover.org.nz/

ENERGY

For good exercise for a good cause check out Team in Training

http://www.teamintraining.org/,

For good eating check out the Slow Food organization

http://www.slowfood.com/http://www.slowfood.com/

LOYALTY

Check out the Malama Loyalty website and reflect on how you can inspire loyalty

http://malamaloyalty.com/

ACTION

Act locally!  This year I helped ATCAA http://infonettc.net/, a local community action organization increase their outreach and efficiency.  Take action during the holidays, volunteer your time locally!

SUSTAINABILITY

Check out the Academy of Sciences San Francisco Sustainable Building

http://bit.ly/fKF0K

And get some tips for sustainable living

http://bit.ly/TkQAg

CONNECTION

Check out the blog by Siobhan Bulfin, who is changing the world of connections:

http://bit.ly/FYn4

The photo pictured here is one I took this year inside of the Sydney Opera House.  Come see us in Sydney in April 2010 for the Connect Now conference http://www.connectnow.net.au/ to learn how to find and promote your superheroes!

PROGRESS

Check out the video promo, Bringing Community to Broadband

http://bit.ly/4hBImQ

PEACE

Check out The Reckoning Film

http://www.thereckoningfilm.com/.

Find out more and participate in the international justice debate on the website below:

http://ijcentral.org/

EDUCATION

Here’s the site for a course that I teach at the Grenoble Graduate School of Business http://bit.ly/5QItj2

You can see the profiles of some of the amazing students here: http://bit.ly/8xk5D2.

Here is an educational website set up by one of the students:

http://socialmediaalive.com/.

FAMILY and CELEBRATION

Go out and hyperlink live with your loved ones to celebrate the holiday season and the arrival of 2010!

Wishing you a fantastic holiday season and a very happy new year!

Social Media Guidelines, hurry get yours today!

“Where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incidence, chaos will soon reign” — Victor Hugo (1802 – 1885)

Before jumping into new channels such as social media, have a strategy!  Here is a draft of mine. Send me yours!! I look forward to refining based on your feedback.

My Social Media Objectives

1. Educate myself through listening tools
   1. Follow a strategic list of topics, people and communities as listed below
2. Using a “reader”, review my selected follow list at least weekly
   1. Spend time weekly “surfing” or following my curiosity for innovation and ideas
   2. Educate others:
      1. Create and publish new content in my selected topic areas as least twice monthly
      2. Share information of interest in my chosen topic areas/keywords
      3. At least weekly, forward excellent content as appropriate
      4. Add commentary/opinions as applicable
      5. Inform appropriate network about events
      6. Inform current and potential professional collaborators and my network about my activities
      7. Connect others
         1. Forward introductions
         2. Act as a “glue” to network people and projects
         3. Number of incoming business opportunities through social networks
         4. Time spent (currently managed through Rescue Time)
         5. Qualitative connection quality reviewed monthly
         6. Qualitative review of commentary
         7. Future monitoring of social media analytics (currently reviewing tools TBD)
      8. Functional topics
         1. Discussions on performance marketing: customer-oriented marketing, social media, online marketing, performance marketing, analytical marketing
         2. Management consulting: leadership, reputation management
         3. Tools, emerging technologies, new media and techniques that help folks thrive
      9. Industry Focus
         1. Helping Non-profits, community developer, economic development entrepreneurship
         2. Developing and sharing best practices in sustainable business – organic farming/agriculture, local food, clean tech
         3. Small and local businesses
         4. High Tech, particularly software, services, Silicon Valley cool stuff

      My Success Measures

      1. Number of incoming business opportunities through social networks
      2. Time spent (currently managed through Rescue Time)
      3. Qualitative connection quality reviewed monthly
      4. Qualitative review of commentary
      5. Future monitoring of social media analytics (currently reviewing tools TBD)

      My Topic Areas

      1. Functional topics
         1. Performance marketing: discussions on customer-oriented marketing, social media, online marketing, performance measurement, analytical marketing
         2. Loyalty – mentor and inspire leaders to develop loyalty with communities and customers
         3. Management consulting – advise on leadership, reputation management
         4. Tools, emerging technologies, new media and techniques that help folks thrive
      2. Industry Focus
         1. Helping Non-profits, community developer, economic development entrepreneurship
         2. Developing and sharing best practices in sustainable business – organic farming/agriculture, local food, clean tech
         3. Small and local businesses
         4. High Tech, particularly software, services, Silicon Valley cool stuff

      My Style and Culture Guidelines

      • “Publish in social media as I would like to others to publish to me”
        • No spam
        • Respect time
        • Respect confidentiality preferences and requests of others
        • Promote others in a healthy ratio with promoting myself
        • Allow others to comment in my content, particularly opinions on all sides of the debate.  Take off topic  or spam comments offline
      • Selecting connections
        • Facebook : personal friends and limited professional friends
        • LinkedIn: personal and professional friends, connect to all except spammers (note also see my LinkedIn recommendation guidelines for more info on this)
        • Twitter: connect to most, except bots/spammers, off topic
      • Content creation writing style
        • Informative
        • Humorous
        • Casual
        • Organized

      My Confidentiality/Privacy Values

      I will not share:

      Friend’s personal information without consent, my birthday, financial information
      Information that is private to others

      Strategy Evolution

      This document is totally phase I.  As part of my strategy I look forward to adapting this based on results from my success measures and comments from others who have implemented successful strategies

Inside the Entrepreneur – Enlightening Lessons December 11th at Columbia College

Many of my students first heard about an “elevator pitch” in a course I teach in Management Consulting.  Yes, I have actually had the students practice their elevator pitch inside the elevator at the Grenoble Graduate School!

Folks at Columbia College do know how important an elevator pitch can be since they pitched and won a $7500 grant to support a lecture series called “Inside the Entrepreneur – Enlightening Lessons”

I’m honored to be presenting at this lecture series on December 11th with Greg Falken and Stuart Hince, two fantastic local entrepreneurs.  We’ll be sharing some best practices and lessons learned in emerging technologies and social media in the local Sierra Foothills community.  Check out the link below for more information and come on by to join us!  It’s friendly, it’s fun and it’s free!

Inside the Entrepreneur