Is Facebook for Business Really Coming?

Facebook users may not currently be comfortable using the site for business networking; typically, general social networking tools are used to share personal information that may not be appropriate in the context of professional relationships.

However, Facebook has begun adding new privacy controls that allow users to have more granular control over who sees what. Essentially, the trend is toward giving individuals the freedom to segment their social networking content.

Other challenges to using Facebook for business networking come from the business perspective and concern issues such as security.

Read the article by Josh Catone titled Is Facebook for Business Really Coming?

For more information on the trend toward segmentation, join us for Chris Anderson's keynote on April 24th at 8:30 am at DigitalNow 2008. Following the keynote, Chris will participate in a panel moderated by Carla Balakgie, CAE, Executive Director, Electronic Transactions Association (ETA). Power of the Niche: One Size Does Not Fit All features: Bonnie M. Cramer, Vice Chair, Board of Directors, AARP; Katherine Trahan, President and CEO, Safety Council, Louisiana Chapter; and Mark Langley, COO, Project Management Institute (PMI).

Can't make it to DigitalNow? Be sure to visit the official Web site April 23 - 26, 2008 for up-to-the-minute summit news and valuable content downloads.

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The DigitalNow Summit: Association Leadership in the Digital Age.

April 23 - 26, 2008 at Disney's Contemporary Resort.

Have you heard about the Fusion Productions Community of Practice platform? It's the first CoP platform to fully integrate social networking tools. Take the instant demo now.

Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com


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The Role of Evolving Technologies: APQC white paper

Our Communities of Practice partner, APQC, has recently completed a benchmark study looking at Web 2.0 tools and the impact they are having on commercial enterprises.

Consistent with our observations and findings blogs, wikis, and social networking are gaining traction and are beginning to blur the lines between authoritative content/collaboration and connectivity to people. In other words, the focus within enterprises is now on connecting people first then collecting and managing content. It is an evolving paradigm shift that is helping to break down the silos within corporate America. What does that mean for associations?

It will be evolutionary. The early innovators who have taken the initiatives with blogs and wikis are establishing followings. Groups are beginning to evolve just as organic (member driven) communities evolved a few years ago. The viral nature of social networking is providing a complementary mechanism to advance connectivity. Having structure and flexibility in tools is making it easier to publish content. The key is providing organization, flexibility, and control.

Read the white paper, The Role of Evolving Technologies: Accelerating Collaboration and Knowledge Transfer published by APQC.

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The DigitalNow Summit: Association Leadership in the Digital Age.

April 23 - 26, 2008 at Disney's Contemporary Resort.

Have you heard about the Fusion Productions Community of Practice platform? It's the first CoP platform to fully integrate social networking tools. Take the instant demo now.

Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com


association, association management, digitalnow, association executive, Chris Anderson, Dan Heath, Jeremy Gutsche, Jeneanne Rae, The Long Tail, technology trends social media marketing

Build an "insanely popular" blog

According to Skellie of skelliewag.org, there are at least 25 paths to an "insanely popular blog." From Hansel and Gretel Linking, to How to Value Add Everything, this post is rich with information - some of which is sure to have significant relevance to your association's blog.

Read the post.

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The DigitalNow Summit: Association Leadership in the Digital Age.

April 23 - 26, 2008 at Disney's Contemporary Resort.

Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

Have you heard about the Fusion Productions Community of Practice platform? It's the first CoP platform to fully integrate social networking tools. Take the instant demo now.

association, association management, digitalnow, association executive, Chris Anderson, Dan Heath, Jeremy Gutsche, Jeneanne Rae, The Long Tail, technology trends social media marketing

Twittering for Business

Whether you call it "Twittering" or "Tweeting", posting to Twitter can be a powerful networking and knowledge sharing activity. In her post, The Beauty, Secrets, and Utility of Twitter for Business, B.L. Ochman discusses how Twitter can be used to "learn, listen, meet, and enjoy a global view of an endless flow of creative thought - 140 characters at a time."

Read the post.

Learn more about Twitter.

The DigitalNow Summit: Association Leadership in the Digital Age.
April 23 - 26, 2008 at Disney's Contemporary Resort.

Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

Have you heard about the Fusion Productions Community of Practice platform? It's the first CoP platform to fully integrate social networking tools. Take the instant demo now.

association, association management, digitalnow, association executive, Chris Anderson, Dan Heath, Jeremy Gutsche, Jeneanne Rae, The Long Tail, technology trends social media marketing

Are you a digital knowledge worker?

If you are concerned with digital resources, knowledge management, productivity of knowledge workers in a digital environment, and digital structuring principles, then according to http://digitalknowledgeworker.net, you are a DigitalKnowledgeWorker (DKW).

The Digital Knowledge Worker states that while organizations have long begun to set up systems that help them cope with massive amounts of information, little has been done to find and employ strategies to help the individual knowledge worker become more effective, efficient, and productive. Learn more about why this is important.

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Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

Have you heard about the Fusion Productions Community of Practice platform? It's the first CoP platform to fully integrate social networking tools. Take the instant demo now.

association, association management, digitalnow, association executive, Chris Anderson, Dan Heath, Jeremy Gutsche, Jeneanne Rae, Anne Balsamo, The Long Tail, technology trends social media marketing

Everyone (including me) wants to be a lawyer: Does social media expose associations to too much anti-trust liability?

Last week the US Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld a lower court verdict declaring that online classified advertising portal Craigslist.org could not be held culpable for unlawful content posted to the site by its users. The judges ruled that Craigslist couldn't reasonably be expected to police its millions of ads for unlawful content. This week there have been a few posts around the association blogosphere on this ruling.

One of the most common objections association executives and volunteer leaders raise when considering a social media strategy is that the medium exposes the organization to an uncomfortably high level of risk. They fear that users of their social media sites will raise anti-trust or other issues. That the courts have continued to rule in favor of Craigslist should give associations some comfort in this area.

Learn more about trends in technology and business and how they translate to associations at DigitalNow, April 23-26, 2008, at Disney's Contemporary Resort in Orlando, Florida.

DigitalNow- the proven leadership summit for associations.

Contribute to the DigitalNow blog. Suggest a blog topic, or reference an article or other item you think would be of interest to the DigitalNow community. Drop us a line at DigitalNow@fusionproductions.com

Joining the DigitalNow crew - Tom Hood

Hi, I am Tom Hood, CPA, the CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs. That is my alter ego, Rocky Maddaloni (from Second Life) of the Second Life Association of CPAs. I have been a DigitalNow attendee since the very beginning, 200o when Jim Collins was the headliner and Y2K was on our minds.


Remember when we were all scared to death of the new "Internet" thing? I still remember vividly an article in Red Herring magazine titled, "Associations - Roadkill on the Information Super-highway" (Red Herring magazine was ultimately roadkill itself). The Digital Now community gave me hope, a network, and resources to deal with the threats and opportunities of the web.

Just a few things I learned from Digital Now:

• Why we as Associations need to embrace Web 2.0 to stay relevant to the next generation of members


• The themes of Value, Strategy & Structure continue as a great framework for dealing with the rapid changes in Technology and the evolution of the Association world.


• Don Tapscott, Jim Collins, Pat Lencioni, Tim Sanders gave us great leadership and strategy tips & tools for managing in a rapidly changing environment.
  
• How cool the library associations did their Learning 2.0 project and allowed us to build off their idea for CPAs - see our project at CPA Learning 2.0
  
  DigitalNow has become my "must-attend" conference every year since...
  
  Ok and now a bit about me, I am a CPA with a bit of a "techie" background. I am enjoying my role as CEO of the Maryland Association of CPAs and the Business Learning Institute. Maybe that is why I love this conference - it is about technology as an accelerator of business strategy., both areas that I believe are critical to our future success.
  
  I live in Maryland with my wife and three sons. Having raised this little herd of "digital natives", I am curious and amazed at how they use and think about technology. Some of you may have met my oldest son, who were here last year and this year, him and his brother, Andrew, will be at the conference to help demonstrate Second Life to any of you "newbies". The point is, how will this upcoming generation of digital natives affect the way we all do business? What about the Long Tail and the Wisdom of Crowds and social media? These are just a few of the reasons I love this conference.
  
  Hope to see you at the conference!

Reason # 436 to start blogging and use other forms of "Social Media"

Ok, I am not really sure if it is reason #436 or not but Debbie Weil's latest post on ROI of Social Media is worth a read. And ROI is not Return on Investment... It is Return on Influence.

The article goes on to talk about how the new forms of social media (which includes blogging) can boost marketing and more importantly your relationship with your customers and members. This has been our experience since 'taking the plunge' into blogging and Web 2.0 over a year ago. And yes were were totally inspired coming from the DigitalNow conference.

Let me give you two examples of how this works...


1. Our blog (http://www.cpaisland.com/) caught the attention of Linden Lab's CFO, John Zdanowski. We then connected to John when he was visiting our "island" in Second Life. One thing leads to another and then we end up hosting him in Second Life doing a "mixed reality" session with him "live" from the real world conference in Orlando and a live "virtual" session in our BLI conference Center on CPA Island. Then CFO magazine's blog picks up our work on Second Life and the amazing viral connections of the Web 2.o world are unleashed...


Next is Youtube and what I like to call the Long Tail effect...

We produced a video with our friends at the AICPA, promoting the CPA profession in Maryland. We loaded the video to Youtube and have since had 2,271 views without any marketing at all! Check it out here: Defining America's CPA - Maryland. Then in an interview with a local business paper, they love the Youtube idea and we get some great press. Another one of the trails that results from playing around with the Web 2.0 stuff...

How about you? what has been your experience with Social Media?

The 1% rule

Social media is on most of our radar screens. Do you also think about the 1% rule? The 1% rule is based on research by Ben McConnel and Jackie Huba in their book Citizen Marketers. The 1% rule says that of the total number of visitors to a democratized forum, 1% will create or contribute content.

You may wonder about making a big effort for only 1% of your audience or a fear that the 'wrong' 1% will contribute. But, do you also think about the opportunities you create for the 1% to stand out. When social media tools exist on your Web site, members build their personal/professional reputation through their association affiliation.

The 1% rule has an impact. It means being thoughtful (you don't want the tyranny of the few); it means developing member participation will take work (it doesn't just happen when the Web page is posted); it means not giving up too early, it takes time.

At Digital Now I hope to hear about your experiences with social media.

Has the 1% rule had an impact on your efforts to engage your members in social media?

Survey on Social Media

At Digital Now, I will be moderating a symposium that will bring organizations together to discuss their successes and best practices in establishing, maintaining and taking their Communities of Practices to the next level. As I am preparing, I ran across some data that might be of interest. The Software and Information Industry Association recently published a survey on how businesses are using social media. You can find the study at http://www.siia.net/content/pubs/web2survey_0108.pdf. I look forward to seeing all of you at DN.

You are not your user

So I am taking some time to select my sessions. Today I am thinking about personas. I have been reading ‘The User is Always Right – A Practical Guide to Creating Personas’ by Steve Mulder and Ziv Yaar, hence my interest in the session being lead by Tamara Adlin. According to Mulder and Yaar, personas bring focus (everyone is not a user), build empathy (you are not your users), encourage consensus (get the team on the same page), and create efficiency (think of it as an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure). And all of that leads to better decisions.

For those of you not familiar with personas, this is not a demographic breakdown of your members. You can't design good products or write good copy to a demographic; good development and good messages are driven by having a clear picture (figuratively and literally) of a person.

One question that frequently pops up is how many personas are appropriate. I recently heard a rumor that Apple has one persona. This is an unsubstaniated rumor, but it wouldn't surprise me. Think about the focus you can have with one persona. Hmm - think of the success of the iPod. Is one persona possible in an association community? Well, it might be in a niche market (have you read the The Long Tail yet) but, highly improbable with associations whose members have fragmented into specialties or global organizations.

So are you using personas to make better business decisions? Are personas on your radar list of things you need check out?