Monday, January 24, 2011

The Unapologetic Geek Google's Marissa Meyer on Marketplace

I had meant to post this earlier , Marissa Meyer vice president of consumer products at Google, was on Marketplace on NPR on January 7th 2010.
If you need any nudging to listen to her below here is her opening :

geek isn't a word you often hear referring to women. But, I am a geek -- not only am I a computer scientist by training, but I love to code, on Linux, on web servers, in C++, javascript, and mySQL. Outside of work, I cook using spreadsheets

Part of the Marketplace series : 2010: A LOOK BACK AND A LOOK AHEAD


Sunday, January 23, 2011

Swami's weekly Book list : Content Rules , Open Source & other interesting Books

  1. From the Economist Book review : The Comingled Code : Open Source and Economic Development By Josh Lerner and Mark Schankerman.
  2. At least theoretically, open source could also resolve the main dilemma that bedevils innovation policy. On the one hand, most inventors need incentives to keep inventing. On the other, the social value of an invention is maximised if anyone—not just those willing to pay for it—can use it. Open source seems to satisfy both conditions. Developers contribute voluntarily, and share code freely. 
  3. What I am reading now - content rulesIf  you were holding out about creating content then Content Rules is for you .You probably heard the term "Content Rules" a lot and you probably thought it applied to the other guy and not to you. This book will explain to you how this applies to you. Do you have passion and a open mind? Are you a photographer? How does this apply to B2B ? Guidelines and tips - Ann Handley (@marketingprofs) who I have been a fan off for several years (even before the term social media was coined)yet never met in real life and C.C.Chapman who I met first on the internet and then in real life, who is such a nice guy that you wish him more unlimited knowledge as you know he will share it with everyone. Did you read this  book? 
  4. Resonate by Nancy Duarte was reviewed by Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson in their For immediate release podcast  I would highly recommend adding For Immediate Release to your reading list.
  5. Jay Baer  and Amber Naslund I am sure are looking forward to the Feb 1 release of their book The Now Revolution: 7 Shifts to Make Your Business Faster, Smarter, and More Social
Are you writing a book? Do you like this series, please let me know with a comment. brickbats and bouquets welcome.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Search + Mobile = Purchase (Maybe) From Media Post

Laurie Sullivan wrote this article for Mediapost.com and I thought this paragraph was interesting

"Baynote recently released the Baynote Holiday Online Shopping Experience Survey, which analyzes 500 U.S. online holiday shoppers during the month of December. The study provides a look at consumer satisfaction with their digital experience across several areas including mobile and social.

It turns out non-traditional promotions show promise. Thirty one percent of respondents were influenced by promotions through Facebook, while only 17% were swayed by Twitter, and 20% were influenced by mobile promotions."

Monday, January 17, 2011

Experian Warns Smartphone Users to Smarten Up

This is from across the pond and I would say you should start precautions and have a locked phone with a password.

Thier research found :

Nearly two thirds (65%) of smartphone users send and store e-mails on their phones - even if these include sensitive information such as receipts and credit card details from shopping online.

More than half (53%) of smartphone users access social networking sites from their phones. This could easily reveal key pieces of information like names, dates of birth and other details commonly used as passwords for online banking and other accounts, such as first school or place of birth.

Nearly one third (29%) of smartphone users take advantage of public Wi-Fi hotspots (often found in city centres, used whilst having a break from the shops) which are unsecure and highly vulnerable to electronic eavesdroppers.

Of these, one in five (19%) say they conduct online banking while using public WiFi, risking their accounts, PINs and passwords."

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Swami's weekly Book list : Social Marketing to the Business Customer and other interesting books

  1. Behind the Dream: The Making of the Speech that Transformed a Nation. The article in today's Washington Post  by Clarence B Jones adviser, lawyer and speech writer of Martin Luther King explains how the words " I have a dream" were impromptu. I was impressed by the preparation that Martin Luther King went through for his public speeches. The book will definitely be a good read and an inspiration for all of us.
  2. Social Marketing by Paul Gillin & Eric SchwartzmanI was looking for this book even before it was published “Social Marketing to the Business Customer: Listen to Your B2B Market, Generate Major Account Leads, and Build Client Relationships “ By Paul Gillin and Eric Schwartzman. I was preparing for a course I am going to teach at Georgetown University this spring and wanted to read the book and see if I could make it the class textbook.
    • First impressions of the book are great and loved the foreword by Karen Quintos CMO Dell who said that 80% of Dell’s revenue comes from b2b market. The example of Dell Tech Center of a community formed on helping users help each other and  as Qunitos says “ we take great care not make this resource a sales pitch” referring to the Dell’s social media page.
    • To me Dell is a great example of social media success and they are the pioneers. The best thing about it is that they have openly shared their tactics for their success as Quintos and  Scott Hanson @dellservergeek does in Chapter 1 of the book. 
  3. I was delighted to receive a copy of The Ulitmate Online Customer Service Guide by Marsha Collier after I had ordered a few copies myself. It is on my reading list and Network Solutions social media case study is mentioned in the book along with other great examples.

Communities of Practice: Conversations To Collaboration by Stephen Dale

I am sharing this from Slideshare which is a great social network for sharing Presentations and documents. I came across this while doing some research and Stephen Dale has made this a very comprehensive and detailed presentation on communities. No wonder this presentation has more than 20k views and over 168 others have embedded this presentation on their blogs/ websites.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

First Ever National GiveCamp Delivers Technical Wishlist Projects for Over 120 Non-Profits

The first ever National GiveCamp, sponsored by Microsoft takes place this weekend in 14 locations coast-to-coast More than 1,000 volunteer developers, designers and IT Professionals, will code for charity delivering custom software, new applications and web sites for over 120 charities. Without the donated efforts from the National GiveCamp event, these charities, which would typically not be able to afford their wish list projects, will be able to better reach the communities that they serve."

The 14 U.S locations are: Austin, Texas; Phoenix, Arizona; Birmingham, Alabama; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Dallas, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; Houston, Texas; Nashville, Tennessee; Dallas, Pennsylvania; Fayetteville, Arkansas; New York City, New York; Malvern, Pennsylvania; Redmond, Washington; and Clayton, Missour

Visit http://bit.ly/h9eHtM and follow GiveCamp on http://twitter.com/GiveCamp for more information.

Friday, January 14, 2011

iPhone Trumps Android in QR Code Scanning Battle

"According to a recent analysis by JumpScan, the leading social QR service, Apple’s iPhone outpaced Google’s Android by nearly three to one. The trend is based on a recent sampling of 5,000 scans from mobile devices. Blackberry came in a distant third, generating approximately 3% of the overall scans.
“One of the reasons,” speculates JumpScan co-founder Mike McKearin, “could be that iPhone users had a significant jump start on mobile web, apps and emerging technologies. “We anticipate this gap closing as Android users quickly adapt to QR usage on the mobile web.”"

Nielsen estimates smart phone penetration at 25% of the market, while predicting they will overtake feature phones in the U.S. market be then end of 2011. Many in the industry are predicting 2011 as the tipping point for mobile.

“We’re confident that more smart phones are going to come with QR readers pre-installed as demand for instant web access increases,” McKearin continues. “Gone are the days when people say ‘Friend me,’ or ‘Let me type in your phone number.’” Meanwhile the battle for QR scanning supremacy continues. At this point, with Android’s share of market gaining, McKearin predicts a dead heat in the near future.”


Read more at iPhone Trumps Android in QR Code Scanning Battle:

This post brought to you by Shashi Bellamkonda:Featured in the Washington Business Journal: http://bit.ly/wbjshashiWashington Tech Titans list : http://bit.ly/ttshashiBlogs: http://www.carryoncurry.com | http://www.shashi.name | Facebook: http://fb.shashi.name | Linkedin: http://linkedin.shashi.nameExaminer Column : http://bit.ly/dcexaminerWhat I am reading: http://shashib.amplify.com

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Marshall Kirkpatrick’s Corporate Social Strategist Analysis

Marshall Kirkpatrick co-editor of ReadWriteWeb posted a interesting analysis on a list of Corporate Social Strategists created by Jeremiah Owyang on his personal blog : http://marshallk.com/corporate-social-strategists-on-twitter-resources-charts

You learn a lot about how data can be researched and manipulated and here a list of a few but you should head over there and read it http://goo.gl/O27ee

I get a honorable mention 2 times and after reading that you can come back here and give me your comments.

Did you know ?

Who’s been at their current jobs the longest among all the members of Jeremiah Owyang’s list?

Monday, January 10, 2011

Aprile Parella features on BlogTalk Radio Karen Krymski ‘s Women PowerUP January 11th 4 p.m

Sometimes your best critics become your best friends. I met Aprile Parella at Social Plus earlier this year when she did me a favor and asked me very good and open questions about Network Solutions after my talk there on Social Media Marketing and since then we have become good friends. She was a speaker at Affcon 2010 in Miami Dec 2010 where we met again.I am thrilled that Aprile will be appearing on Karen Krymski ‘s Women PowerUP - Upcoming Show: 1/11/2011 4:00 PM  .

 

Aprile is a great online marketing professional with expertise in igniting conversation about your brand or product or service using social media tools and tactics with a lot if experience in Affiliate marketing.

Description from the show:

Be sure to tune in and learn from our featured guest, *Aprile Parella*.
Aprile is a seasoned online marketing professional with expertise in
igniting conversation about your brand or product or service using social
media tools and tactics. She managed multimillion dollar programs at JP
Morgan Chase and Bank One. Aprile credits her success in affiliate marketing
with her unique brand of communication strategy.
Don't miss this opportunity to listen and learn from Aprile!

Hope you are following Aprile Parella on Twitter @thefloormaven

 

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Swami's weekly Book list :Open Leadership by Charlene Li and other books news week

In my New Year Resolution is a desire to read more books this year. I am a firm believer that you keep learning through out your life and books are a great way to learn.

Swami's weekly Book list :

  1. Open Leadership
  2.  Charlene Li (Hardcover - May 24, 2010) I have a review below and the Amazon reviews of Open Leadership have some good view points
  3. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother  Amy Chua (Hardcover - Jan 11, 2011)  - Amy had written an article in the Wall Street Journal  and I saw a tweet and posted it on Facebook "Applies to many Asian cultures RT @jacolineloewen: WSJ.com - Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior . http://on.wsj.com/gJPP44 " and see the comments here http://www.facebook.com/shashib/posts/145722972150067. The Washington Post Sunday had a review " Mom just wants you to be happy - and perfect
  4. Your Social Media Roadmap Beth Schillaci (Paperback - Nov 30, 2010) I have to read this before my colleagues Susan Wade or Lisa Byrne read this and write a review first . This book is Beth Schillaci and I had the good fortune of writing the foreward.
  5. Rework Jason Fried, David Heinemeier Hansson (Hardcover - Mar 9, 2010) I read this book over the holidays  and  tweeted about "You don't create a culture - it happens - Rework @jasonfried @dhh"  I got a response from Jason Friend himself.http://goo.gl/3xQqf
  6. Washington Post had a list of 3 books this week on Decluttering




Open Leadership by Charlene Li
What I am reading this week? Open Leadership

Usually during the holiday season you would expect to be curled up in the sofa reading a dreamy novel and I chose Charlene Li’s Open Leadership and it was a wise choice.
The book is geared to the C level yet you get thoughtful insights into how to think or incent the Corporate executive committee to think about Openness in relation to social technologies. Open leadership  like any leadership should inspire more than control at the same time the book gives examples of implementation from the US Navy ( my heart missed a beat when I heard the US Navy had taken a few bloggers on board the USS Nimitz) to companies like the  Cisco, SolarWinds, Gore-tex, Mozilla and others.
Some of the ways of giving up control in the book begin with Charlene Li’s Ten Open Elements :
Information Sharing
1.       Explaining – how to share at the same time beware of risks of information leakage
2.       Updating – Communicating the mission of the organization in the best possible terms frequently
3.       Conversing – putting communities and collaboration with work.
4.       Open Mic – encouraging participation with no pre conditions in creating content and conversations
5.       CrowdSourcing -  Solving a specific problem together
6.       Platforms – open API’s like Twitter
Decision making
7.       Centralized – Commiting an atmosphere where information sharing flows up and down the decision making levels
8.       Democratic –  Narrrowing down the decision making choice and putting it to vote
9.       Self-managing - Allowing employees to self-manage their own decision
10.   Distributed – Cisco is a great examples here of setting up councils and boards to shift decision making down several levels
Charlene Li Talks about dialog and starting conversations and we are succeeding with the Network Solutions’ Facebookpage < http://facebook.com/networksolutions ) in the same way as the Kohls’ example in the book.

I would recommend it for reading even if your company already has a well established new communication strategy.



  

Sunday, January 09, 2011

My Cooliris Holiday Story

IMG_7641
In 2010 I have done my share of conferences and I always look for SWAG to take back to the kids. Beach balls are a hot favorite and then this summer while on a visit to the Rocky Gap State Park in Maryland the beach ball ( Swag from Cooliris) floated away from the Beach" and floated across the lake to end up at the dam. The next day when we went for a trek across the lake we took this picture but never realized that the ball was in the picture till my friend who ran the trail told us about it.

My son as very disappointed and never wants to visit the Rocky Gap State Park and I tweeted this and was surprised to get a response from Cooliris  who sent me a "Cooliris beach ball  again. Needless to say my son never wants it our of his sight when we take it on trips.


Did you know Cooliris powers a lot of image displays on smart phones specially android and has olug-ins for browers so you can see the pictures as you want them displayed even if the site does not offer that option. As I am writing this post I can see the http://www.liveshare.com/ have the photos from Clemson Women's Basketball vs. Georgia Tech. Also see pictures from CES  http://www.liveshare.com/#id=598083.

This company did not have to even reply to my tweet but they took the trouble to make little boy happy. They definitely have the personal touch that is needed with more online companies.

Monday, January 03, 2011

Smartphones were on everyone’s gift lists this year, What did you get?

Wirefly (http://www.wirefly.com), the Internet retailer of cell phones and cell phone plans, today released its annual list of its Top Ten Best Selling Cell Phones during the 2010 holiday shopping season 

 

Wirefly’s Top 10 Best Selling Cell Phones for the 2010 Holiday Season (Black Friday thru Christmas Eve)*

1.    HTC EVO™ 4G (Sprint) 
2.    DROID Incredible by HTC (Verizon Wireless) 
3.    Samsung Captivate™ (AT&T) 
4.    DROID X by Motorola (Verizon Wireless) 
5.    Samsung Intercept™ (Sprint) 
6.    BlackBerry® Torch™ 9800 (AT&T) 
7.    Sony Ericsson Xperia™ X10 (AT&T) 
8.    DROID 2 Global by Motorola (Verizon Wireless) 
9.    Samsung Epic™ 4G (Sprint) 
10.    Samsung Fascinate™ (Verizon Wireless)

*The iPhone 4 is not currently sold by Wirefly

Wirefly’s Mobile Trend Predictions for 2011 (in the U.S.)

Prepaid Gets Smarter – We expect to see even more consumers adopt the contract-free lifestyle in 2011, a trend that started to gain serious momentum in 2010. As a result, we will see an influx of affordably priced prepaid smartphones, particularly Android-powered smartphones, from manufacturers that are less established in the U.S.    

Voice/Email No Longer the Killer Apps – In 2011, the ability to make phone calls or send emails will no longer be the driving factor for purchasing a cell phone. Rather, consumers will seek out smartphones that are capable of supporting advanced applications to maximize productivity and keep them connected and entertained while on the go. Examples include mobile commerce and video-centric apps such as video chat/calls, video sharing, and movie downloading and streaming.

Video Chat: From Novelty to the Norm – Video conferencing from a PC is nothing new, but it wasn’t until this past year, with the introduction of the front-facing camera on a handful of high-end smartphones, that people were able to make mobile video calls. In 2011, we expect the front-facing camera to become a feature available on more handsets and consumers will embrace this more personalized way of communicating - not just in wifi hotspots or to other phones, but wherever, whenever they want.

4G/LTE Takes Off – The launch of the next-generation wireless data networks 4G and LTE were met with consumer praise and industry enthusiasm in 2010. However, with the technology limited to mostly data cards and a handful of wireless devices, its debut did not have a major impact on the market. We predict that 2011 will be the year of 4G and LTE handsets. Carriers will strive to be the first to get their devices on the market, and consumers will be waiting with bated breath to get their hands on them.

Swype Technology Gains Traction – Introduced in the early part of 2010, Swype has revolutionized the way people compose words and sentences on mobile devices. This innovative technology allows users to input text faster and more intuitively with one continuous, fluid finger motion across a virtual keyboard. In 2011, we believe Swype adoption rates will continue to grow rapidly as more and more users come to prefer the smooth swipe method over tapping out a text message.

 

More details see their press release : http://www.prweb.com/releases/wirefly/cell-phones/prweb8041333.htm

 

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