Internal Knowledge Sharing: It Does Exist!
Blog PostSome of the companies we’ve helped have had competitive relationships between their brands. In some cases, none of the brands wanted to share successes or warn others of potential failures; internal knowledge-sharing was practically non-existent. It’s not all that surprising, given the structure of some parent company-to-portfolio company relationships. Typically, each brand has their own budget, resources, and agencies. So, it takes a vested interest on behalf of corporate to coordinate an event for all of their brands and a thoughtful framework for collaboration to encourage sharing.
Time for Mobile Experimentation
Blog PostMobile is the ultimate channel: consumers are constantly attached to an endless stream of the information they want and need. When was the last time you heard someone declare, “It’s the year of mobile”?
Introducing The Social Business Unit
Blog PostOne of the trends that we clearly see this year is that organizations are taking stock of all their social media efforts, internally and externally. Usually they are trying to get beyond the initial learning years and the resulting early chaos to determine how they should best be structured to deal with what has become the world's largest and most engaged marketplace. And, while everyone can and should be a foot solider in the modern social enterprise, businesses are also starting to realize that the days of isolated tactical experiments are drawing to a close.
Turning Social Handraisers into Social Sales
Blog PostHere at Dachis Group we frequently field requests from current and potential clients on how best to establish and implement a social servicing process. It's really not that surprising. Widely publicized successes like ComcastCares combined with fiascos like Dave Carrol's "United Breaks Guitars" have forcibly made companies understand the value of a rock-solid social servicing process. What is surprising to me is how infrequently the conversation turns to wringing additional incremental sales out of social media by focusing on social handraisers.
For Those Ready for Real-time Advertising, Promoted Trends Presents Opportunity
Blog PostBack in April, Peter Kim and I encouraged advertisers to wait until more information was released about Twitter's new ad platform before jumping on the Promoted Tweets bandwagon. We advised brands to find success with regular tweets (the basics) before diving into Promoted Tweets - a new hybrid of paid and earned media. Since that time we have observed how bleeding edge brands like Virgin America and Coca Cola have experienced off-the-charts social media engagement with Promoted Trends, a new advertising concept Twitter began testing back in June as an extension of the Promoted Tweets platform. Promoted Trends are topics already trending on Twitter (meeting a minimum level of popularity) that advertising partners can link their Promoted Tweet to, which guarantees greater visibility and reach for brands.
Activating Innovation at Nokia
Blog PostNokia is a fascinating company. They are the single most important company in the nation of Finland. They employ 129,000 people. They control 40.3% of the global cellular phone market - and yet we only really hear Nokia's name in relation to how badly the iPhone and Android are eating their lunch. With that background, it was interesting reading this recent article in the New York times regarding the countless opportunities that Nokia has squandered to lead the smartphone market.
The Bias Lurking in Your Listening
Blog PostThe other day my father asked me if I was happy and I responded “I don’t know.” He laughed out loud, as if to suggest it would make more sense for me to say yes or no, something definitive. I didn’t know what he meant by “happy” and wanted clarification before I gave an inaccurate answer. Happiness can be so complex. How did I know if he was asking me about my current mood or my long-term satisfaction with life? Like any researcher, if I don’t understand the question being asked, I’m reluctant to give an answer. This rarely happens in an interview. Never happens on a survey. People will always provide an answer as much as meetings will fill the entire hour. Inherent in those answers is an assumption that each other’s definition of a given topic/construct are the same, take happiness. Guess what? This happens in Listening too.
Football and Social Business Game Plans
Blog PostIt’s that time of year again… Football season. Here in Texas, football reigns King. As a native Texan born and bred, you can bet that football will consume my weekend from September through February. On Friday, Texans follow high school football. Saturday, you’ll find most of us watching college football (go Longhorns!). Sunday, the TV will be on from noon ‘til ten. And, on Monday after dinner, we round out the program with some Monday Night Football. This past weekend, while watching the Cowboys (alas, another loss) I started thinking about the striking similarities between Social Business and football. Would social business teams be more effective if we thought about them the way we think about football?
Jiveworld 2010: Game On
Blog PostYou can't walk the halls of the Intercontinental hotel during Jiveworld 2010 without getting the feeling that social software is on the cusp of being on the "must have" list of every enterprise. In every revolution, from email to internet to mobile, there comes a time when big companies flip the switch from experimenting to adopting. As Jive CEO Tony Zingale said in his keynote presentation, "Nobody has to convince the CEO that they need virtualization software in the data center" yet we still have to make the case for social software. Everyone has the feeling that 2011 might be the turning point for social software though, which is driving the theme for this year's conference: Game On.
Jiveworld 2010 Interview: Greg Lowe
Blog PostI had the opportunity to speak with Greg Lowe, the Director of Collaboration Strategy at Alcatel-Lucent. We spoke about their recent Jive deployment, the adoption that they've had so far, and the drives of change inside the company. You can view the video of our interview below: