Social Media Marketing GSP: A Tweet-book

First Set of TweetsToby Bloomberg is not the type to let the dust gather. She is always looking at things, asking “what can we do with that” and, rather than just asking, she starts trying and doing. She is a force to be reckoned with!

She is at it again with her latest experiment, Social Media Marketing GSP: A Tweet-book. She asked me to be one of her guinea pigs… um… I mean interviewees… for chapter 6 on communities and networks. Of course, I had to say yes. Here is a bit of context. My tweets are embedded. Let’s see if this makes any sense!

So what’s a Twitter-book you may be asking? It’s a book written using Twitter as platform and distribution channel. Social Media Marketing GPS #smgps is the first business book to experiment with this format.

This Twitter-book is structured as a “real” business book and includes: a foreword, introduction and chapters. Each chapter will have a 1 question interview with people knowledgeable about the topic. All posts will be hash-tagged #smgps.

Chapters and interviews will be tweeted Monday – Friday through the end of April. I invite you to join me in this experiment in a new way to write a business book. Please add your insights and learnings to the stream; they’ll be incorporated into the book. My ultimate goal is that this Twitter-book will serve as a resource about social media written by and for marketers. So explore .. have fun .. discover and don’t be afraid to try it out.

second set of tweets Now that Toby is on chapter six, she has sussed out the process a bit and suggested earlier in the week that preparation is worth it, and that trying to not get carried away with too many tweets is also useful. That asks the writer to be both succinct per post (140 characters) and overall. With the size of the question Toby asked me, that was challenging. How to be brief but substantive, eh? It is harder than it looks.

It is also interesting to try and express something that both works read forwards and backwards. Readers reading back on Twitter, get it from tail to head. Those reading the recap on the blog and eventually the “book” (whatever form that might take) get it in order. Tricky. Interesting.

As I tweeted out my 12 140 character or less contributions, a few people wondered if I a) should be writing a blog post instead (they missed the context and Toby’s intro, I suppose) b) had too much nervous energy and c) how they might contribute. I think the burst of volume might not have been appreciated by all those people following me.

Hmmmm… what do you think? final set of tweetsAre we pushing a medium too far or is this a useful, creative application? Or something all together different?

Here are a few other creative writing experiments with Twitter:

The interview for Chapter 6 is also now up here.

Monday Video: Steve Ball

Via my walking buddy come’s this week’s Monday Video (Thanks, C!). Brilliant guitar, hypnotic visuals and a stirring message.

This video led me to explore more about Steve Ball and Airport Update. I am listening to a piece Ball composed for his daughter Sofie as I write this and I am transported.

I have been thinking and working a lot with multimodality in my work both online and offline. A couple of weeks ago I did a short Kinesthetic Modeling exercise with some agriculture scientists. I have played with using music as a shared experience in a chat room and of course all my dabbling into visual facilitation. Each experiment brings me, personally, into a fuller experience with more of my attention and presence intact. Steve’s music has that focusing effect on me. I’m loving it. Thanks, Steve! I hope Sofie’s suite is in the Sketch Box set… I’m buying it!

More Info: “The Airport Exercise: featuring the work of Steve Ball, Robert Fripp, Tony Levin, Pat Mastelotto, J. G. Bennett, and David LaVallee. From ‘Steve Ball Sketch Box, CD2: Guitar Sketches” – coming Summer 2009.”

The cultures of collaboration – Inside Knowledge

Covershot of Inside KnowledgeShawn Callahan, Mark Schenk and I wrote a three part series for Inside Knowledge, the print magazine (yeah, I know. So yesterday!) I didn’t think any of it would show up freely available online, but lo and behold, part 2 is currently up. Take a gander… Masterclass: The cultures of collaboration – Inside Knowledge
Masterclass: The cultures of collaboration

In part one of this series we set our definition for collaboration and introduced the idea of team, community and network collaboration. As we move between each of these different types of working together, how do our traditional notions of collaboration and collaborative culture vary?

In Part 2 we’ll begin to explore this question in our journey to build better collaborative workplaces. While we do, it is important to keep in mind that collaboration happens both within and among organisations. Tapping the wider networks outside, collaborating across organisations is an essential part of the collaboration landscape. But for the purpose of this article, we are taking the perspective of at least starting within.

Update: All three parts are available online. The Culture of Collaboration, Shawn Callahan, Nancy White and Mark Schenk, Inside Knowledge, 2008 (3 parts, part 1 here, part 2 available here, part 3 here.)

Challenge: SharePoint and NGOs/NonProfits -go or no go?

challenge quoteMy March post on SharePoint Tom Vander Wall Nails My Sharepoint Experience continues to get hits in a way few of my hundreds of blog posts ever have. Hmmm… Something is a ‘cooking.

In the past week three separate conversations have come up about the challenges of using SharePoint as an organizational intranet or portal in international NGOs. (I presume this applies to US non profits as well, but oddly, I have heard of far fewer use cases.) In each case there have been the following factors where the organization:

  • was a beneficiary of free or low cost SharePoint software
  • did little to no assessment of their own needs and contexts
  • had (are) used shared folders in the past as their main “collaboration” approach
  • identified “collaboration” as a reason for implementing SharePoint
  • did not have sufficient culture/leadership/process elements in place for the adoption.

And the implementations struggle…

So I keep telling myself, should I just say “NO” when an organization asks me to get involved in their SharePoint project? Are the silos and folder metaphors and the organizations that choose them too antithetical to my understanding of collaboration? Am I really missing something about the use of SharePoint and it’s related products?

I think it is time to throw down a gauntlet. Or propose a challenge. I HATE seeing the social and finacial capital lost on failed SharePoint installs. There has to be a more productive path. SO let’s figure it out.

This challenge open to any NGO/NPO/Consultant working with SharePoint and anyone from Microsoft and their vendors who want to play.If you or someone you know might be interested, point them here.

Here’s the goal: Let’s look at these challenges and failures and figure out if…

  • There is a way to make SharePoint work as a collaboration platform (as opposed to a content repository). This includes technology and process.
  • And if not, articulate why and share that with Microsoft SharePoint developers (and I hope they won’t just tell use we are misguided or want something that is indeed, not useful. I’ve heard that before with respect to Microsoft Live meeting shortcomings…)

Post a comment if you want to play and a little bit about you. NPO/NGO folks, I’m particularly interested in people responsible not just for the tech support of SharePoint in your org, but for fostering and evaluating its use. In  a week, we’ll see who wants to play and we’ll figure out how to get the conversation going.

It is time to fish or cut bait and I want to FISH!

Technology Stewardship and Unexpected Uses

Flickr cc from http://farm1.static.flickr.com/66/223828400_24606629d4.jpg?v=0I was cruising through my blog reader, hopelessly “behind” in reading (my own construction – I know I can “mark all read!”) and came upon a post from Vic Desotelle who pointed to a TED talk on Compassion which somehow lead me to a Garr Reynolds post about a TED Talk by Evan Williams of Twitter. (Talk about the network!)

The post had a quote that resonated with my experience as a technology steward to various communities.

Presentation Zen: TED talk: Twitter & the power of the unexpected

You never know how users will end up using your technology. Sometimes they end up using your product in creative ways that you could not possibly have thought of on your own.

As I work with NGOs attempting to roll out intranets and collaboration tools, I preach two things:

  • technology is designed for groups, but experienced by individual
  • users are creative – use that as a powerful positive force rather than trying to get them to conform with rules and limitations.

These two tenets have significance for technology stewards. It means that they cannot assume that the members of their community will have the same experience they do with any particular tool or platform, and that over time, the community will continue on a predictable trajectory of use of that technology.

It is about a dynamic evolution of practices and applications of the technology, not about the installation or the simple availability of the tool. So here are some practice hints.

  • Role model your experience and practices with tools, but don’t present them as the only options.
  • Watch for experimentation and amplify new, useful practices. Better yet, encourage community members to talk about and share their practices.
  • When members ask for tool adjustments based on their experimentation, work hard to accommodate rather than block innovation. This may mean going to bat with “higher-ups” to gain permission, or to allow the experimentation to fly “under the radar” until you can make a case for the value of the changes.
  • Encourage the fringies – the people who push the limits of a tool. Make them allies rather than enemies. Their pushing of your buttons may also create the innovation that you need to foster wider adoption.

What are your suggestions for technology stewardship that involved unexpected uses?

And… you never know where a link will lead you either. 😉

Photo credit: Alex Osterwalder on Flickr