Since the future begins with local engagement/involvement….

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While large organizations are clearly delivering value to the public and private sector it is important that we do not lose site of the importance of small organizations, local governments, and their ability to drive positive changes.  According to census numbers and numbers published by SBA for the United States alone we know that:  

• There are more than 80,000 local governments in the United States.
• There are more than 27.5 million small businesses in the United States (http://www.sba.gov/advo/stats/sbfaq.pdf).

With these numbers in mind I have launched a brand new community, Our Town Talk.  This community will evolve as membership grows, meeting the needs of our members.   

The mission for this community is straightforward and summed up as providing a place for citizens, small business owners, local government employees and politicians to come together and share their thoughts on what is good and what is not so good in their communities.  Over time I would love to see this become a place where citizen 2.0 is standardized and becomes a reality.   

While these goals are worthwhile we will need to be patient and seek to grow this community to the point where a critical mass is achieved.  In the mean-time, note:  

• The community is absolutely FREE.  It is ad-supported and I want to keep it this way to make sure there are no barriers to entry.
• There are three members today.  As I noted, I literally just launched this.
• As new members join I will create areas for the towns they are from.  I expect this to be a very slow growth community and we should be able to keep up.
• If you have  ideas, share them.
• Invite friends and play to see how this can add value to your community.
• I am aggregating job listings  and daily deals from around the web and will continue to add to these to continue to give more value.

If you believe your town needs an easy to use platform stop by and give it a try.  

John  

Relationship-based value exchange is coming, are you prepared?

The State of Maryland took steps to make it clear that social media is no different from any other channel, at least with respect to political campaign rules.  First off, congratulations and kudos to Maryland for making a move that all states should follow.

Essentially, this change means that messages being sent, regardless of the channel they are being sent on, must name the source of the message. As noted in the article, this is typically a message like “”I’m ‘Candidate Joe Smith, and I approve this message.’ Paid for by the Committee to Elect Joe Smith.”"

While this is clearly important for political campaigns it is equally critical for all types of organizations across the public and private sector.  As I noted in my post, A checklist: Engagement Guidelines for The Social Organization:

“All accounts on all channels must identify their relationship to the Social Organization.  In other words, be honest, no guerilla marketing where you praise the company you work for without admitting you work for that company.“

Within The Social Ecosystem relationships can only be built where trust has been established.  While some organizations in some markets can make sales (for politics this equates to getting votes) without building relationships, and in the absence of trust, this will become more difficult over the course of the next several years.  If your organization is now successful without building relationships, consider your time limited based upon the following factors:

• Government.  If you do not live in an “open government”, where individuals and businesses are free to create value in their own way, you have time.  Consider yourself lucky or unlucky, I won’t judge.
• Technology and economics. There are many areas in the United States and throughout the rest of the world where the lack of bandwidth and other technologies makes it possible to stick with the status quo.  If your local community does not yet have competition you have time.  In the United States internet usage is still at only 78% and most of this is due to poor infrastructure and/or an economic inability to afford to go on-line.

If it is not yet necessary for your organization to build relationships and “sell” in a more open way, will you wait until you are forced to do so?

John

If you need help from The Lab, drop me a note. If you would like to view more case studies and interviews, or just want to read about The Social Ecosystem, click on the links and let me know your thoughts.

Key stories and thoughts plus my radio show launches

They will let anyone on the air, even that guy to the left of what I am writing.  I was pleased to have my first radio show of The Social Ecosystem Lab go off so well.  This show, and every weekly show from here forward, will  hit upon the top stories of the week (from my perspective) as well as have a guest discussing real-world experiences with topics relevant to The Social Ecosystem.

I would urge you to listen to today’s podcast (by clicking on the link above) as I had Darrel W. Cole, Senior Communications Specialist at Parsons Brinckerhoff and Jodi Conachen, Communications Director, Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development, on to discuss the communication and public relations efforts that went into a major 2-day construction effort.  The effort involved closing down a heavily trafficked bridge,  80,000 drivers (in addition to marine and rail traffic) were impacted.  Their up-front planning and cross-channel strategy (in person, newspapers, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) worked well, they only had 1 complaint over the course of the two days of the project.

If you get a chance, give a listen.

John

Product release reflections

We released a major update to our Milestone Tracking Matrix product this evening.  When release milestones are achieved it is important to reflect upon the good points as well as the areas where improvements are needed.  I’m tired tonight so I’ll simply share with you my scorecard for this release by including the e-mail I shared with the entire company:

“

   I wanted to take a moment and acknowledge one of the largest product releases we have ever delivered.  We met more than 30 customer-driven requirements, some small, some very large.  Not only did we meet these requirements but we also revamped the entire user interface so as to be much cleaner and easier to use, we delivered.  Our customers will benefit greatly.

   He is my quick scorecard:

• Customer Requirements: A-.  We met the vast majority of requirements, only falling short on some minor points.
• Scheduling: C.  While I take ownership for this one we must all seek to become more rigorous about upfront scheduling, tracking progress, and communicating challenges.
• Code Design Quality:  B.  We made some solid improvements in terms of code maintainability.
• Test Coverage. B.  We did a really good job but need to look at how to do a better job allocating resources earlier.  The challenge here is both schedule-based and resource limitations.
• User Interface Design: A.  We should be really proud of the work in this area, it feels like a brand new application.
• Usability:  Good usability improvements, customers will notice the changes we have made.
• Performance Improvements: C.  We only made minor performance improvements in most areas.
• Scalability: C.  We only made minor improvements.

Overall Score:  B

A great product release overall. We have plenty of room to get better, which is good….  If we did it perfectly what would we have to look forward to?

“

How does this compare to most of your releases?

John

April’s Top 5 posts

Here are the top 5 posts for April based upon current viewing numbers.

1. The unofficial Twitter roadmap for a social media marketing delivery platform.
2. Stop talking about Twitter, I’ve heard enough.
3. Job Opportunities.
4. Why is it that the best bugs are found at the end of the release?
5. SharePoint in Action Project Management.

For those of you who have not yet read these posts, I hope you find them valuable.

John

My favorite search application

If you haven’t tried SearchMe (http://www.searchme.com/ ) you are missing out on a very cool search application.  Applications developers should check out the interface as we can all learn a few things:

• The iphone style interface where you can easily flip through search results is extremely easy to use.  Instead of scanning pages of text for results, as with google, you see the pages and can easily dig in when you see what you want.
• The ability to zoom into pages without fully launching the page makes the search process even easier.  With most search engines you are constantly drilling down, then back up, until you find what you want.  Searchme goes above and beyond in making it easy to avoid this behavior.
• The interface is actually fun to play with and you find yourself exploring and seeking to learn more about it as you’re searching for your results.

I won’t give away more secrets, explore and learn what’s out there.  The web keeps moving quickly, don’t let it get too far ahead of you.

-John

Keeping the polls open until Thursday

http://twtpoll.com/eccfw4

So far it looks like I will be writing about “Social media and how it relates to CRM systems”…    Unlike the Oscars there will be no awards presented to the leading article, but I’m sure there will be some degree of celebratory toast raised for the winner.  I have  a glass of wine waiting for the occasion.

-John

Fun story of the day… Giant sausage stolen

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25072322-5001028,00.html

Why?  Real life always keeps you laughing.  If anyone out there stole the sausage, please come clean.

-John