Robin Maiden – Leveraging New Media and Social Media

I’ve had several people ask me recently about my thoughts on email as a social / new media / business tool.  Email is the “killer” app of our age.  When grand-parents are comfortable  emailing pictures and stories around the world, no one can question the efficacy of email as a communication tool.

When you start emailing larger and larger groups, the list management can become quite a problem.  That’s where the email service providers (ESPs) step in.  As with most things, there are a range of prices for a range of services.  Here is a list of a few that I am familiar with.

• Cheetahmail
• Blue Sky Factory
• MyEmma
• Constant Contact
• iContact
• Aweber
• Yahoo or Google Groups

Cheetahmail, at the top of the list, is an enterprise solution.  Some of its customers include Sears, Borders Books, H&R Block, and even some airlines.  You can see by the brands, millions of customers means millions of emails.  Cheetahmail uses robust systems to ensure the delivery of those millions of emails while providing dynamic creation tools, specialized segmentation tools, and powerful administrative, management, and reporting capabilities. Cheetahmail has a full service staff able to help with dynamic content creation, creative material creation.

Blue Sky Factory and Emma are more of a “boutique shop” provider.  They will provide highly personalized service at a medium price for a mid-size email list.

I will clump Constant Contact, iContact, and Aweber togather in the bottom tier.  They are very much a “self-service” providers.  This doesn’t mean their services won’t provide a very useful improvement over a Google or Yahoo group email list.  Some of these lower tier services will allow unlimited emails for a fixed cost per month.  I know many people who are happy with these services. 

In a future post, I’ll explain what these Email Service Providers actually do for you.

I made a presentation recently where I talked about the steps I use to change other people’s behaviors and beliefs.   I wish I could claim this as my own, but I can’t.  I’ve copied it from someone smarter than I am.  But, I can’t even remember who to credit.  That doesn’t diminish the value of these steps.   Here are the steps:

• Attention
• Permission
• Interaction
• Trust
• Influence

As I was preparing for my presentation, I realized I had used this approach to introduce New Media / Social Media in my workplace.  I hadn’t planned it with that clarity, but I did pass thru each of the above steps.

Early on, I presented a manager with an MP3 player with some sample podcasts pre-loaded.  I had his attention.  I checked back and got his permission to talk more about the possibilities of new media.  We met periodically where I could talk more about the benefits and possibilities.  These interactions continued over the months and I began to produce some sample podcasts.  I gained his trust that I could produce and manage a quality podcast.  With the trust in place, I was able to formalize and ligitimize the podcast as a new communications channel in my organization.

 I have since used these steps with other projects, as well.  If you know where this list originated, please let me know in the comments.   

I’ve been invited to work all of December in our corporate offices.  My main focus will be on getting an vendor email service provider tool integrated into our business processes.  On my first day in the offices, I had several ad hoc conversations about some new media tools that could help with some business processes.  I had the opportunity to discuss several tools:

• wikis
• forums
• blogs
• social networks – ning.com, groups.google.com
• email service providers
• conference call to MP3 podcasts

While I am comfortable with all these tools, it was very clear that our highly regulated industry does not lend itself to the transparency of new media tools.  So, the question is:  “Does the legislative oversight of your industry shape the new media tools used in your organization?”

One of my long time complaints about the Apple iTunes / iPhone platform was that you had to dock your iPhone to get the latest podcasts off of your computer.  I was disappointed that even though you had great connectivity through the cell network or wifi, you couldn’t automatically download podcasts straight to the iPhone.  You had to use iTunes on your computer as the podcast catcher.  Then someone created an iPhone app to “catch” the podcasts right on the phone.  Apple pulled it down from the iPhone app store only to receive complaints from the users.  This week, Apple released iPhone update 2.2  which allows on the fly downloads of audio and video podcasts straight to the iPhone through wifi or the cell network.   This makes the iPhone a much more useful tool when you are on the road without your computer.

What a tough name.  First off, it isn’t just for corporate communicators.  It is for all organizations – non-profit, educational, any enterprise with a group of people who need to be communicated with.  I just got tired of trying to get the “perfect” name.  So, there you have it…   You can say NMICC, as in “ANEMIC.”  (Thanks to Shwen)

So much for the name.  I have talked with a number of people over the last few years about using new media / social media tools within an organization.  Lots of effort has gone into using these tools with the external customer, but I wanted to leverage these tools internally.  That is where a lot of my energy has gone.

 If you are at all interested in leveraging new media / social media tools for internal enterprise communication, I hope you will join the group at the NMICC.  You can find the group at http://newcorpcomm.com.  See you there.

Here is the quick and dirty welcome video to the NMICC.

Find more videos like this on New Media for Internal Corporate Communicators

What do you have if you don’t have your reputation?  Not much, I say.  We all know it:  “Your reputation precedes you.”  Have you ever Googled a job candidate?  Your boss?  Your new business partner?  Have you Googled yourself, lately?  If you haven’t, someone else has.   Go ahead, Google your self now, then come back.

Are you surprised at what you found at the top of the search?  How about the first five items?  Did you expect what you found?  I want to scare you a little first then show you some ways to protect your online reputation.

Google is a reputation management system.  Do you “own” your online reputation?  If you don’t, claim it while you can.  The consequences can be ugly.   It can take a little work, but what do you have if you don’t have a reputation.

Glenn Tilton is the CEO of United Airlines.  Mr. Tilton didn’t claim GlennTilton.com, so now the pilot’s union has it.   Take a look.  It isn’t pretty.  I will bet, Mr. Tilton wishes he owned GlennTilton.com.  Are you in a position where something like this could happen to you?  Could something like this happen to you in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years?  You bet it could.  It is very cheap to buy a domain name and hold it.  Consider it insurance – very cheap insurance.

So, I’ve convinced you to buy your own domain name.  Great.  Now what about your LinkedIn profile or your MySpace page?  I suggest you take a look.  What if there is someone out there who uses the same name as you, has a less than stellar reputation, and is ranked highly by Google?  Their profile will show up whenever anyone searches for your name.  You can prevent this by staking your claim to your name on all the popular social networks.  This will take some time, but when you go to your next job interview, you’ll be glad you did.  Here is a GREAT tool to claim your profile on social networks.

One last suggestion…  If Google doesn’t have you or your favored profile at the top of the search list, you can move yourself up the Google search by making your new website a blog.  With regular posts, you can move your website to the top of the Google search.  Help people find what you want them to find.  It takes a little time and effort, but you can control your online reputation.

UPDATE:  Ping.fm is a great way to manage all of your online networks.  Many more networks are represented there.

UPDATE 2:  Be sure to check out Rex Whisman’s post on this very subject.

Update:  No construction required.  I finally found the Y-adapter I’ve been looking for:  Y-MPS-2MF  Scroll down to the correct model number.  This will save all of us lots of work.

iRiver Setup – Two electret headmics and custom “Y adapter” to record 2-track conversation.

To create the stereo – two electret mic adapter, I used a regular “Stereo earphone “Y – adapter.” I split the outer covering with a razor on both legs. On one side, I cut the red wire and on the other side, I cut the yellow wire. Closed it all back up and and plugged two electret head mics into the female ends of the adapters and then the male end into the iRiver. This allows you to record two separate tracks with pretty good results. Some of the other “Y adapters” I used had some aluminium shielding wrapped around the wires. For those, I did the same thing, but used some heat shrink tubing on the cut ends to make sure nothing grounded against the shielding.

Here some pics to help. Click on them to see a larger image.

An additional tip, I use three of these setups to record a group of six. Obviously I get three separate stereo recordings, but I just put them all together in my favorite audio editing software. To help synch the separate recordings, I create a spike by clapping one time into all the recorders. Then, when I’m editing, I just line up the spike on all the tracks. It isn’t perfect, but it works amazingly well.

Here is a show that was recorded this way using a single recorder – InsytWorks Marriage Projections

The second one was recorded using three iRivers, Y adapters, and head mics – TheDivaCast Harley Ride . It did take some postproduction, but it worked.

Here is a Electret Powered Mic page I used to create my iRiver Stereo adapter.

The Altec Lansing AH302i I use is no longer available, but here is the larger, newer version

Something like this will also work.

I really think any mic designed to be plugged directly in the “mic” input on a computer or laptop will work.

Crowdsourcing was best described in Wired Magazine in 2006.  Centralization is out.  Decentralizing is in.  In the past, complex problems often were solved using a focused team using a very linear process.  Now because of better and faster communications and the ability to cheaply capture and distribute data, problems can be solved.  And, if they aren’t solved completely, an adequate solution will certainly present itself where no solution existed before.  It is all about scale.  If you have a problem you haven’t been able to devote resources to in the past because of the cost, perhaps you can find a 90% solution using lots of empirical data, cheap recorders, cheap communications, and software tools. 

Here is a recent example validating the crowdsourcing approach:  TomTom’s GPS navigation data services will start selling their driving condition information to other GPS navigation device manufactures.  By recording, communicating, and aggragating navigation data, TomTom has gleaned valuable information and knowledge it can now sell.   

At great expense, TomTom could have gathered its own data, using its own resources, and developed a pretty good way of getting from A to B.  Using the data from huge numbers if users, TomTom captured the “best” route from A to B as travelled by the locals who know it best.   The crowds of local experts are providing the information to TomTom.  This is a validation of crowdsourcing process. 

 How can you use crowdsourcing to solve a long standing business problem?  Think:

• Lots of data points
• Cheap capture methods,
• Cheap communication tools
• Distilling data into information for 90% solution

Let me know your example.  And, don’t remind me that I used a crowdsourced tool,  Wikipedia, to define crowdsourcing…

This Technorati Report is a must read if you are in the new media space.  Or, even if you aren’t, yet.  In the business environment, blogs are not to be overlooked.  This report makes that clear.  It focuses on blogging, but podcasting and videocasting will certainly follow a similar trajectory.  The report is broken down into five sections

1.  Who are the Bloggers
2.  What and Why of Blogging
3.  How of Blogging
4.  Blogging for Profit
5.  Brands and Blogging

This report validates what many of us have been saying about the new media space.  Blogs are not only growing in numbers, but also in validity.  Ninety-five percent of the top 100 US newspapers now have reporter blogs. Bloggers are regularly quoted by mainstream media.  Rick Sanchez at CNN regularly fields questions and comments through Twitter and Facebook.  The main source for the Natalie Holloway story was a blogger.  Pay attention.  Blogs are here.  If you aren’t leveraging a blog for business, you will be left behind. 

I had the opportunity at the New Media Expo to record a conversation with a long time podcaster – Andrew McCaskey of SDRnews.com.  I have always enjoyed my conversations with Andy.  I’m glad I was able to record one for you to listen to.  We talk about the the current state of new media and some ways podcasting can be used within an organization.

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