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  • Community building means making members feel special | Community Building

    Members of your community do a lot. You rely on them to make the community a success. You can influence the direction of your community, you can influence its content and you even have an influence over the type of members you want in the community. However, when it comes down to whether your community is going to be successful, your members are all that matter. You need to not only attract members that will help your community grow and continue to develop, but you need to keep them. You can do this by making sure they feel special.

    via communityspark.com

    Community Spark has turned out to be a real gem in explaining how community building works and why community management is such an art.

    The best thing a company can do to its community management efforts is to put a passionate and dedicated person in charge, and give them the *time* to do their job well.

  • LiveScribe Pulse pen: Where were you all my life!?

    As an early birthday present to myself, I bought a Livescribe Pulse Smartpen earlier this week. It arrived yesterday and I’ve just been blown away by it so far.

    The pen improves on regular pens in two key ways:

    1. It registers anything that is written on paper, effectively scanning my handwriting as I go, which means that as soon as I get back to the computer, the pen transfers it to the LiveScribe software for future reference.
    2. It records all audio in the room, which means I can take a few headline notes without writing down every single piece of information.

    Back in university, I had some form of RSI in my right wrist, so I made it a habit to record lessons on tape so that I didn’t need to write everything. In reality, I could never find the time or energy to dig through the 3-hour lecture recording to find the 5-minute segment that interested me, so it was pretty much a pointless exercise.

    With the LiveScribe, it all becomes much easier: Tap the pen on the headline note relating to the audio clip you need, whether it’s a title or a graph, the recording will automatically go back to that point and start playing.

    Normally, I’d shrug and say that this is a gadget for geeks and will never reach into the real world. Past similar gadgets have existed and gone nowhere fast. The biggest difference? This one prices its accessories reasonably.

    The pen itself is £120-£150 so it’s a small initial investment, but Moleskine-style notebooks cost about £1 more per unit than their traditional Moleskine counterparts, and the A4-sized school notebooks are £16.99 for a pack of 4. The paper is thicker than with the Moleskine, which makes me happy as I’m a heavy-handed writer. Next time I need to get some notebooks, I think I’ll get a 4-pack of the pink flip notepad which is far cheaper than Moleskine journalist flip notepads. (Plus it’s pink, wayhey!) The ink isn’t overpriced either, and in a pinch, since it writes like a normal pen, it’s possible to use the pen without the fancy paper (unlike stylus-based systems).

    The pen does raise some interesting ethical and legal questions: What if I forgot to mention to someone that I’m recording our conversation? Or maliciously chose to record a private conversation? Of course, I have no intention of doing that, but the technology is now becoming available and affordable to people who aren’t MI5 or hired spies (albeit in a pen the size of a large cigar!) so we’ll undoubtedly be seeing these issues show up on the Information Commissioner’s agenda in the future.

    As far as I’m concerned, this is a great new addition to my arsenal of tools to support my sieve-like memory and no one needs to worry about me using it stealthily. I’ll be too busy showing off the piano party trick it can do!

    Now you can watch my first pencast below…

    My cats’ routine
    brought to you by Livescribe

    [Note: Before you ask, this isn’t a sponsored post and LiveScribe didn’t give me a free pen. I just am that much of a geek that I get excited over pens.]

  • Ten Simple Steps for Dealing with the Tech Illiterati

    Every office has them; the people who seem to freeze as soon as they’re exposed to new technology. They throw their hands up at the first sight of anything wrong with their computer, always assume it’s “been hacked” and furiously click the mouse or bash at their keyboard louder rather than look for the virus-scanner that’s slowing down their machine to a glacial pace. They’re the tech illiterati.

    I must have a friendly personality because, while I’m not in the IT department by any means, I seem to be anyways have been a first port of call for tech support (especially on Macs) in offices I’ve worked in. I usually don’t mind helping out, really!

    I used to find myself grinning at the thought that someone needed to be shown something that seemed so obvious to me. Then just over a year ago, I discovered the Quickbooks accounting software, and felt humbled again. It was my turn to have NO idea what I was doing. With monk-like patience and a few pointers from my brilliant accountant, I managed to learn my way around so that I’m now reasonably proficient with Quickbooks.

    The experience made its mark though: Learning something you’re new to when you’re scared of screwing up is tough!

    Now imagine being freaked out by technology in general rather than just Quickbooks or Photoshop? That’s the relationship many (most?) people have with computers, even today. The difference between them and us is that we’ve developed the confidence to try things, knowing that (generally) it won’t break the computer.

    So how about taking 15 minutes to sit down with your tech illiterati colleague to show them how to do something this week? Think of it as time investment: If they learn how to do it and gain confidence, they’ll stop panicking every time that task arises.

    How to successfully teach a tech illiterati

    1. Before starting, make sure you’re in a good, open, positive mood.
    2. Before starting, make sure your illiterati is also in a good, open, receptive mood.
    3. Remove distractions: If you can, forward their desk phone to someone else, close email and “misplace” their Blackberry. Without their full attention, you’re wasting your time.
    4. Ask them what they need to achieve and where they’ve been stumbling. Listen to their answer to see what spooks them most.
    5. Take a deep breath. Take another one. Then start teaching.
    6. Go at half-speed: Speak slowly, avoid jargon and show them where you’re clicking. You may know the software or website by heart, but they don’t, so let each step sink in.
    7. Encourage them to take notes: Your student should make their own notes, since your notes or step-by-step most likely takes certain things for granted, skipping steps that are essential in their eyes. For particularly complex tasks, print a screenshot of the page and let them scribble directly on it.
    8. Do it again: After you’ve done the steps once, if you can, let the student do it a second time under your supervision but without any hints/tips from you. This will help the process sink in, yet provide them with the confidence that you’re there to ensure they don’t screw up.
    9. Praise: Give them encouragement, but don’t be patronising.
    10. Go grab a glass of wine and have a giggle at Eddie Izzard’s video on technojoy & technofear.

  • URL Shorteners: When and how to use them

    In recent years, URL shortening and URL redirection services have started popping up everywhere like mushrooms after the rain. Their main purpose is to shorten the typically long web addresses to make sharing by email or Twitter easier.

    Considering the URLs generated by sites like Google Maps can often be over 200 characters in length, being able to shrink them down to a tenth of their length before sharing them is hugely handy. However, the recent announcement from tr.im, one of the many shorteners out there, saying that it felt there was no way forward for its service and that it would close its doors by the end of 2009. (They’ve since said they’ll stay the course. For now.)

    It sent a shiver down our collective web archiving nerd’s spine, as we imagined the graveyard of dead links the future held as more of these services shut down.

    Best practices on using URL shorteners

    There are times where short URLs are appropriate, and others where it’s best to avoid them:

    1. Use them in time sensitive contexts

    Short URLs are great for sending a link via IM, over Twitter or in email to a friend or colleague. If it’s likely that you’ll need to refer to the link in more than a few weeks, then don’t rely on a short URL and send the full original link.

    Don’t use them in blog entries, research papers or anything that has long-term value unless you want to have to go back at a later date and change them all when a shortener announces it’s closing down.

    2. Put together a super-quick campaign

    Running a competition this afternoon and need to track participation without worrying about asking your web developer to set up Google Analytics for your microsite? Use a few short URLs and you’ll have some rough and ready data immediately. It may not be as reliable or thorough as classic site analytics but it’s a great way to get moving fast.

    Once the campaign is over, copy your data somewhere safe for future reference.

    3. Use them only in trusted environments

    Recently, I received an email from an ex work colleague inviting me to look at some holiday photos. I suspected something was odd because I’d not heard from her in years, so didn’t click on the short URLs. My spidey senses were right and when prompted, she said that she’d never sent the email and that her computer hadn’t seen a virus scan in centuries. The short URLs? They would have sent me through to some phishing sites.

    Short URL hacking unfortunately hasn’t been completely eradicated yet either.

    Avoid opening short URLs without knowledge of where they lead, and preferably use services that allow you to preview the destination address like TinyURL’s Previewer.

    4. Always archive the full URL

    Fond of bookmarking what you find for future reference? Be sure to bookmark the full URL, not the short URL, otherwise your entire archive may become a road to nowhere a few months down the line.

    How to make the most of short URLs

    1. Use a shortener that allows you to track clicks

    Many URL shorteners allow you to create an account to track clicks on the URLs you create.

    For example, Bit.ly allows me to see and share the stats on the latest blog entry I published of who clicked on the short URL (in this instance, the link was used to share the post on Twitter):

    http://bit.ly/info/15wBen

    Bit.ly allows us to find out total clicks, breakdown of when the clicks happened and where they came from. More interestingly, it aggregates conversation and lets you know who has been talking about you and where.

    2. Create a customised URL name

    Make it memorable by changing the default generated name to something easier to remember.

    bit.ly/tastythai will be more memorable than bit.ly/gbXt5 won’t it?

    3. Use publicly viewable results

    This one won’t be to everyone’s taste: If your team is involved in a campaign where you’re using the short URLs, showing everyone how to look at the number of clicks each link has received is a great way to make them feel empowered.

    A twist on this: Give everyone their own short URL and compete over who gets the most clicks. Of course, this only works if your team clearly understands the difference between useful sharing and spamming. We don’t want it to turn into a spam competition, do we?

    There is a place and time for every web tool, so use your short URLs wisely!

  • Food, Glorious Food: Towering birthday burgers

    3807420020_472a6084b4

    The towering birthday burgers we made this weekend contained (from top to bottom of the burger):

    • Toasted top bun
    • Fresh tomato salsa
    • Parma ham
    • Mature cheddar
    • Homemade burger patty
    • Fried egg
    • More cheese
    • Another homemade burger patty
    • Fresh guacamole
    • Toasted bottom bun

    This followed a massive bowl of tasty chicken wings with Reggae Reggae sauce, and was accompanied by some pink cava sangria. Once we recovered from the food overdose, we topped it all up with some birthday cake! Oooofff…

  • LG 23" Monitor: Announcing the winner!

    Last week, I ran a competition, inviting readers to leave comments and share their best home office or lifehack tip in order to win an LG 23″ monitor. As it turns out, my readers are just as awesomely geeky as I am.

    Once the competition ended, I used the Random Number Generator to choose a comment out of the 38 valid comments, with a view that if my own comment came up, I’d draw a number again.

    And the winner is… *drum roll* Zoe Rose from Cambridge. LG will be sending Zoe a monitor very soon, and I’m sure Zoe will send us pics of her new home office setup.

    As for my views of the LG screen, well…  I think the reality speaks for itself: I’m still using it instead of my 24″ Samsung screen. The main benefit of that switch is the huge difference the brightness sensor has made; it’s been a summer of days that varied wildly from very bright outside to cloudy and dark, yet at no point did I get that searingly bright light feeling. Also, being such a wide screen (1920 x 1080), it fits plenty of my crap on a single screen.

    I won’t harp on because I always feel awkward when the schwag is given to me, but all in all, the LG monitor comes pretty highly recommended for its reasonable price (around £150). We spend such long hours in front of a screen, it’s worth getting a good one so as not to go blind by the age of 40!

    Since the comments from the readers were so good, I’ll most likely make an entire post summarising them in the near future. In the meantime, go read them for yourself here and, while the competition is obviously over, feel free to add your own tips and tricks.

  • Corporate Blogging: Why you SHOULD publish press releases on your blog

    This morning, I came across the excellent “10 Harsh Truths about Corporate Blogging”, published by Paul Boag on Smashing Magazine. I was nodding emphatically at each point, until I hit the 5th one, which jarred me in the back like a bad pothole in the road when you’re daydreaming on the drive to work.

    Funnily enough, a year or two ago, I would have militantly agreed with Paul.

    5. Press releases shouldn’t appear on a blog

    […] a press release preforms [sic] a different role to that of corporate blog. As the name implies, a press release is meant for professional journalists. It is designed to encourage journalists to write about your product or service. It is not designed for your customers.

    A blog, on the other hand, is meant to be read by prospective and existing customers. It should be engaging, informative and helpful. When writing a blog post, you should always have the end reader in mind. What will they learn? What insight will this give them into who we are? How will it help build our relationship with the reader? You should never simply copy and paste press releases or news stories.

    The other problem with press releases is that they are corporate statements. A blog should have a more personal tone.

    Here’s why I now disagree; Bloggers are both journalists (in the broad sense of the term at least) and, one can assume, interested customers or prospects. Yet bloggers are journalists who often don’t get paid to deal with PR agencies’ bullshit (eg. embargoes) and don’t necessarily have the research resources that a professional journalist has access to.

    Realistically, a corporate blog won’t be read by the vast majority of customers. Even with cool companies like Flickr, 37Signals or Twitter, what percentage of users really care about what’s being said on the corporate blog? [Note: There is a difference between a corporate blog & a blog directed at the end users. On a blog solely directed at end users, press releases are unlikely to have a purpose. This post refers to corporate blogs specifically.]

    The beady eyeballs who will find most relevance in a corporate blog will be:

    • Existing and potential investors;
    • Competitors (As Paul says, get over it!);
    • Potential employees;
    • Active developers & geeks who want to use your API;
    • Journalists & Bloggers;
    • The occasional day-to-day user.

    Don’t fool yourself, the majority of users will only care when the service goes down. As long as your site/ service/ product is available, they don’t think about what you do as a company an awful lot.*

    So why does it still matter so much? The bloggers and the passionate users give a damn. They’re a key player in spreading the word about your business, and when they want to write about you, you should provide all the information you can so that they can feel smart and well informed. Yes, including that nasty old-world press release. Why? Bloggers cannot divinate information. Bloggers find themselves with only a short amount of time to write an entry and will be grateful for the stats you provide or the CEO’s past startup that can be confirmed via the release’s boilerplate.

    So go for it, publish that press release. But wait! Don’t publish it alone. Accompany it with a summary in informal tone, some context to help readers understand the relevancy of the PR push, and a bucketload of useful resources (links, images & further information).

    If your press release is so officious that you’re embarrassed to publish it on the blog, could it be that you need to rethink your releases altogether? Journalism is changing too, and a fresh, no-bullshit press release will most likely appeal to traditional journalists too. Why not try that for a change?

    [* Here’s another tip: If your livelihood is dependent on being available on the web, host your blog elsewhere so that you can still provide status updates when your service goes down.]

  • Win a 23" LG Monitor: What's Your Best Lifehack Tip?

    It’s never been a secret that I’m a bit of a GTD nerd, and since working from home, have tried to tweak my home office to be as welcoming as possible.

    lg_monitor

    So recently, when LG offered to send me a 23″ W53 monitor to review AND one to give away to readers, I couldn’t resist saying yes. I’ll be reviewing it soon, but first impressions are excellent and it has taken prime spot on my desk (replacing a Samsung 24″ I’d only bought in January).

    How to win the monitor

    I’m keeping the competition nice and simple, so that it only takes you a minute to take part: Tell me about your best office or life hack. Whether at home or when sharing an office with others, we each have our own way of making our working life slightly more comfortable/enjoyable, so tell me what your tricks are. I’ve published a few tips of my own before, and would love to hear yours.

    Leave a comment with your own tip by August 4th, and you’ll be in with a chance of getting a brand new LG W2353V monitor (retailing at about £149) delivered to your door in a few weeks. This competition is now closed, but feel free to leave more interesting tips and tricks. Maybe I’ll give you a cookie.

    So go on, let’s hear it!

    Terms of the competition

    1. The competition is open to anyone on the UK mainland. Sorry to my other readers, I promise the next competition will be open to everyone! I think as long as you don’t live in Alaska, we might be able to sway the PR agency to ship to you so give it a try 🙂
    2. You can take part as many times as you like, so three comments will mean three entries. However, I reserve the right to scrap your entry if you’re obviously just trying to make up numbers.
    3. The competition runs until August 4th at 11:59pm UK time, so as long as your comment is timestamped before then, your entry counts, even if it’s in the moderation queue until morning. I’ll announce the winner shortly thereafter.

  • Morgan Stanley intern: Why this teen's research paper really matters

    Over the past 10 days, Morgan Stanley, an established global financial services provider with offices across the world, saw a 15 year old teen create a lot of noise while interning at the firm’s London office.

    Matthew Robson was tasked with the project of writing a report on how teenagers consume media, the kind of job you give the son of a friend who’s asked for a summer internship. “Isn’t the boy sweet? Make sure the office manager offers him a glass of juice, will you?” Anyone who’s worked in an office has had this kind of intern around, kids with an interest in business who’ll gain more insight than you can ever imagine from a few weeks around.

    Usually, however, these students leave as quietly as they arrived, having organised a few filing cabinets and tended to a few menial projects.

    In this case, Matthew was given the opportunity to write a report on media consumption, which could have very well fallen on deaf ears, but not only have Morgan Stanley paid attention, the Telegraph published the report in full.

    If you spend your life bathing in online media as I do, none of the observations in the report are mindblowing. What is remarkable is that, this time, the CEO’s, directors and people in charge of company direction have listened to Matthew’s report.

    It’s a chronic problem with management: The higher up you get, the more out of touch you become with the reality of your users, current and future. You think in “audience”, “viewing figures” and other amorphous blobs of numbers, you forget that you’re dealing with people, intelligent and curious and ever-changing people.

    This boy’s report highlights some interesting realities.

    • Newspapers: This generation doesn’t want to pay for news. The Sun (20p) will occasionally get picked up but free papers or other means of consumption like the web or TV.
    • Directories: A dying medium, the print directory has never been used. Being Google-savvy means the teens can easily find what they want, again for free.
    • Viral/Outdoor/Guerrilla advertising: Teens welcome these unusual, exciting campaigns, so while they might shun banner ads and conventional TV ads, they enjoy guerrilla marketing, in-game ads and quirky ads that don’t tell the full story.
    • Music: Again, free and digital are preferred. Music that is accessible offline is also preferred, so the streaming model may not be right for them.
    • Mobile: Pay as you go, reasonably priced devices are topping this market. iPhones are nowhere to be seen due to cost and likelihood that the teens will lose them before the contract is up.
    • Games consoles: Surprisingly in this teen’s research, only a third of the teens had games consoles at home, with 50% owning Nintendo’s Wii console, 40% an XBox and a measly 10% with PS3’s, Sony’s prohibitively expensive console.
    • Social networks: Less surprisingly, Facebook is the clear winner in terms of favourite way to spend time online. Twitter doesn’t ring true with these teens, probably due to the time it takes to get to a stage where the service feels gratifying, versus Facebook that excites as soon as a friend or two are added.

    For some unknown reason (slow news week?), this report got far beyond the teen’s direct summer manager and was truly acknowledged by City bosses.

    While I think many of the observations don’t necessarily reflect the rest of Britain’s teens’ reality, it was a great read: Uninhibited, honest words, without the usual adult filter that causes us to speak in much less absolute terms. I think we should all try to see the world through a 15 year old’s eyes every so often, we’d notice amazing things.

  • Pepsmedia News: Training Courses on "Blogs & Social Media in Business" in September & October

    pepsmedia_workshop_artIn the past year, I’ve been providing in-house training for companies who are approaching blogging and social media with excitement, but need some guidance to ensure they do things right.

    I’m now opening up the “Intro to Blogs & Social Media in Business” training course to the public, with a few dates in September and October:

    • Cambridge: 8th September and 20th October
    • London: 22nd September and 21st October

    Some details about the training course:

    This one-day introductory course will offer insight into the emerging social media channels:

    • Blogs
    • Social Networks: Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr
    • Microblogging: Twitter, Plurk, Tumblr
    • Podcasting, Videocasting
    • Wikis, mashups, community events and more…

    We are confident that the above wonʼt sound like a foreign language any longer at the end of the day.

    This course aims to explore each channel’s potential in terms of getting brand exposure, building feedback channels and integrating within traditional marketing campaigns. We will look at case studies of the best and worst uses of social media by marketers from businesses ranging from 1-man-shows to multinationals.

    It will help you understand how you can join the conversation that is undoubtedly already happening about your company, your product and your brand on the web. You will discover the tools and techniques used for creatively communicating your message, building quality relationships with users & making your social media campaigns a success.

    I suppose that coming from a family of teachers, I was bound to end up providing training. Seeing attendees leave the session feeling energised, with bucketloads of ideas for their own campaigns and having shed the fear of this social science is the greatest reward for me.

    Interested? Download the course details here or register for the course right away to secure a space in one of the next few sessions!