by Rob Cottingham | Dec 10, 2009 | Social Signal
Social Signal regulars will know that we’ve (and by “we”, I especially mean “Alex”) put a lot of effort into finding the perfect solution to our project management needs. We’ve tried web apps like Basecamp and Remember the Milk, desktop apps like Daylite… but nothing has met all of our needs.
Which, frankly, doesn’t surprise us too much. Every organization has its unique demands and idiosyncrasies, and short of a tailor-made solution, no off-the-rack suite is going to drape every bump and curve in the most flattering way.
But we came remarkably close with a combination of project-management upstart Manymoon and Google Apps. (You may remember Manymoon from such blog posts as this one, and such podcast episodes as this one.)
And now the nice people at Google are telling the story of how we did it, as part of their series of customer profiles. (To see Social Signal’s article, selected “Professional services” and “Small business”. Or view it as a Google Doc right here.)
It’s boggling to realize how recently you would have had to pay thousands of dollars for tools like these – mainly because they were only being built for enterprises, if at all. Yet the no-charge edition of Google Apps is more than enough for most organizations… and Manymoon is almost shockingly affordable.
And therein lies an untold story. How big an impact has the arrival of new, no-to-low-cost business applications (and their open-source counterparts) had on the creation and growth of small businesses and non-profit organizations? So many of them run with such tight margins that I’d be surprised if it isn’t substantial, but I haven’t seen any research on the question. Anyone else?
by Rob Cottingham | Dec 5, 2009 | Blogging, Conferences and workshops, Social Signal
October’s cartoon-blogging at the Real-Time Web Summit was a well-received experiment in innovative event coverage. The response was overwhelmingly positive, the Twitter stream showed people appreciated the added dimension to the event, and the organizers were more than pleased.
Now, two things:
First, the ReadWriteWeb report, The Real-Time Web and its Future, is now on sale. Edited by Marshall Kirkpatrick – one of the smartest guys I know – the report sells for $300, and distills interviews with more than 50 real-time web honchos along with insights from the over 300 folks who attended the summit. Plus there are 10 case studies, 20 profiles of leaders in the field… and a package deal on the report plus RWW’s guide to online community management. Details (and a free sample chapter) here.
And second, I just came across some notes I took on the experience, and I thought they’d be worth sharing. As with most experiments, this one held a few surprises for me – and some useful lessons. Since I want to offer cartoon-blogging as one of our Social Signal offerings, those lessons take on a special significance.
Here’s how it unfolded, and how I’ll fine-tune my approach next time:
- I arrived with my MacBook Pro and Cintiq, and settled in at a table. Handy tip: bring a power bar. Conferences usually max out their electrical outlets, and being able to turn one outlet into many is a valued skill (and a not-bad way to make friends). I have a nice little Belkin that also happens to have USB ports, which can be handy if you want to charge, say, an iPhone. As it turned out, I needed to.
- I had hoped to live-stream my cartooning on Justin.tv (one of the event sponsors). It worked fine on both the Vancouver International Airport and Holiday Inn wireless networks, neither of which was especially fast. But conference WiFi is notoriously unreliable, and bottlenecks and signal dropouts made live-streaming impossible. If live-streaming is anything other than a nice-to-have for you, make absolutely sure there’s a rock-solid Internet connection.
- If WiFi fails, you’ll want to have a Plan B ready to go so you can at least upload your cartoons – or email them to comeone who can. In my case, it was tethering: connecting my computer to the net via my iPhone. (Given the cost of data roaming for this itinerant Canadian, my Plan B would also have involved a second mortgage and possibly a night job.) As it turned out, the wireless connection was reliable enough that I stuck with it.
Now, what I’ll do differently:
- While the main room for the event had plenty of electrical outlets, the same wasn’t true for the breakout sessions. And for that matter, the Cintiq isn’t exactly a mobile device; picking up, moving and setting back up was a time-consuming effort. Next time I’ll take my sketchbook into breakout sessions.
- My digital SLR broke down right before the conference, which meant that when I did use my sketchbook, I was shooting with my iPhone camera. That required a lot of Photoshop work… which I ended up abandoning: the quality just wasn’t good enough. Instead, I wound up redoing the sketchbook in the Cintiq, which doesn’t take as long as you might think but took longer than I’d have liked. Next time, if this comes up, I’ll do bigger, simpler drawings, and shoot them under bright, even light.
- This was a day that relied largely on breakout groups rather than keynotes or panels. Since most of the ones I attended were facilitated rather than led, they were certainly interesting… but they lacked the narrative coherence that can make for good cartoons. Next time I’ll choose more carefully (admittedly, a little harder with the spontaneity of unconferences.) And when a session has me completely out of my technical depth (a debate over whether a particular app has a RESTful API is a solid clue), next time I’ll have the humility to smile and leave.
- There were several sponsors there, and a few made it into one of the cartoons… but most didn’t. I wasn’t playing favourites, but I wouldn’t want to inadvertently put the conference convenors into an awkward position. Next time I’ll clarify with the organizers in advance how to handle sponsors.
- I learned a lot about my own workflow in cranking out cartoons and getting them web-ready. I discovered, for example, that it’s a lot more efficient for me to work in batches: do several sketches, then polish them, and then fire them off. But I’d made some assumptions about how things would go on ReadWriteWeb’s end (through no fault of their’s) and when those proved to be mistaken, I had some scrambling to do. It all turned out fine, but next time I’ll make sure I understand clearly how the workflow will go, establish the organizers’ expectations for the pace and volume of cartoons, and make a personal plan for the day.
- We could have done more to think about presentation: whether the cartoons would have a stream of their own, and where they’d live. As it turned out, they did perfectly well as part of the ReadWriteWeb blog flow, but if I’d cranked up my pace, the day’s blog posts might have been lost in a cartoon sea. (We could have done more to feature them on the Social Signal site too, but as it happened we had a little competing news that day.) Next time, I’ll work with the organizers to suggest ways of presenting the cartoons in a way that enriches the conference experience without detracting from other communications.
The fact I took away some important lessons doesn’t mean I didn’t have fun, of course – I had a great time, learned a lot and, I think, contributed something of real value. And I can’t wait for a chance to do this again.
by Rob Cottingham | Oct 7, 2009 | Social Signal, Vancouver
When BC Hydro asked us to help them develop a new social media project – building on the success of the Green Gifts Facebook app – our thoughts naturally turned to the 2010 Winter Games. BC Hydro is an Official Supporter; organizers are aiming to have their greenest Olympic Winter Games yet; BC Hydro’s ad campaign is built around the slogan “Save power. See the games.”… hmm…
The result is Power the Games, where you commit to reducing your electricity consumption by 10% over the next year, and pledge your efforts to help power the 2010 Winter Games event of your choice.
For a little added fun and conservation goodness, Power the Games offers daily challenges: little tasks that can add up to something big. Like snuggling under a blanket and turning the thermostat down two degrees. Or learning a little about how switching to energy-efficient lighting can cut your costs. Our hope is that this becomes a kind of green tasting menu, helping people to try out conservation-friendly behaviour that just might become healthy habits.
(And if you’re as impressed as we were by the app’s gorgeous design, then let the folks at Work at Play know – they built it for us, and they were, as always, an absolute delight to work with: professional, committed, dedicated and talented.)
Ultimately, this app aims to couple the excitement so many British Columbians feel about the upcoming games with their pride in our province’s environmental reputation… and their personal commitment to conservation.
(By the way, BC Hydro launched their new Facebook page at the same time as Power the Games – please do drop by!)
by Rob Cottingham | Oct 5, 2009 | Social Signal
The BC Children’s Hospital is on the lookout for a Super Community – a group of people doing something extraordinary to raise funds, raise awareness and support the hospital’s work caring for British Columbia’s children.
And to do that, they’ve created an online space where communities can organize at SuperCommunity.ca. You’ll find tools for collecting donations, emailing contacts, and sharing stories, videos and photos.
But they aren’t just offering tools – they’re offering some context as well: stories, ideas and tips for putting those tools to work, and fundraising and organizing online. We’ve helped them pull together their Super Community Resource Kit, which lives on their blog at bcchf.wordpress.com.
Be sure to check it out… and consider it just a beginning. Add your comments, ideas and links to other helpful resources, and help BC Children’s Hospital’s supporters do even more to help kids when they need it most.
(Oh, and while you’re in the mood to help BC Children’s Hospital, please do fan them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter and check out the personalized superhero video and Facebook application we helped them build!)
by Rob Cottingham | Sep 22, 2009 | Social Signal
Alex’s Harvard post about metrics and the obsessive condition she calls analytophilia has triggered a lot of conversation this morning about the role analytics ought to play in organizational communications.
Which has me thinking about the role tools like analytics play in our personal communications online, too – for better and for worse.
The past few years have seen some fascinating changes as organizations – some tentative, some confident, a few very bold – adopt the tools of the social web. We’ve seen windows and occasionally great big doors opening in the walls that separate businesses, non-profits and governments from the public.
But something else is happening too. Just as the tools of social media are turning marketing into personal conversation, they’re also turning personal conversation into marketing.
To see it in action, look no further than metrics and analytics.
Think of the number of people you deal with via the social web who are obsessed with followers, friend counts and network sizes. Look at the explosion of sites designed to rank your reach and influence on Twitter.
Metrics now lurk at the margins of everything we do in social media, offering to tell us how popular it was, how many folks liked or disliked it, who linked to it, who followed us, who dropped us and how it affected our chances are of going to that great Web 2.0 prom called the A-list.
Get sucked into that, and everything you say and do online becomes strategic… or, more accurately, tactical: “Will this get me more followers?” “I’d like to blog about this, but that will get me more profile.” “How does this move the needle on however I’m measuring influence?”
Awful, right? It would be easy to conclude that metrics and other marketing tools have polluted social media and corrupted personal communication, stripping it of authenticity and spontaneity, and replacing it with calculated manipulation.
But here’s the thing.
We express ourselves for a reason. Yes, there’s a drive to speak out for its own sake – and sometimes we’re just howling at the moon – but usually we want to have some kind of impact.
And often that impact isn’t as shallow as you might believe from the mass media stereotypes of social media. Often the impact we’re looking for is to reach out to someone. Sometimes we’re seeking comfort or offering it. Sometimes we’re sharing a point of view, hoping for feedback, hoping to change some minds, prompt a discussion or shift behaviour.
The metrics available to us are very poor approximations in measuring the potential impact we can have… but they’re a starting point. The key, if we want to keep our conversations authentic and make that impact count, is to remember they’re only a starting point.
It comes down, as it so often does, to intention and attention: doing things with a view to what they do, how they change the world. But we don’t know if we’re succeeding, if we’re on the right track, unless we know what the difference is between what was before we acted, and what is now that we have. Sometimes we measure that difference qualitatively, sometimes intuitively… and sometimes quantitatively, with metrics.
We don’t have those metrics yet. We probably aren’t sure quite what it is we’re measuring. But acting with intention ultimately means answering those questions… and, yes, acting a little strategically.
That’s where organizational communications – disciplines like marketing and public relations – do have something to teach us about our personal conversations. The trick for us as individuals is to apply those lessons with care. We are not our personal brands, and we aren’t organizations, and we don’t have the same goals and needs.
Understanding the difference is the first step toward using the tools of marketing to dramatically transform our personal impact while staying true to ourselves and each other.
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