Social Media Strategy and Blogging Consulting

“Markets are Conversations.” 10 years after the Cluetrain manifesto, it is more true than ever. Take the following conversation. A person has an “experience” with a brand. This experience moves the person so much that they decide to create a YouTube video – not just a talking head one either. A fully produced song, telling the story of that experience. And within 12 days, that video has generated over 2.3 million views, exposing that brand and its story to the public. The story even made the LA Times, and AdAge.
Ok, now imagine the story is bad, and everyone who sees it thinks your company and its representatives (called out by name in the song) are idiots. Ok, stop imagining, and welcome to United Airlines’ waking nightmare – a Crisis Communications Case Study and a case for Social Media consultants to share with brand managers for years to come.
Dave Carroll, a musician, sees his $3500 guitar being THROWN by airline baggage handlers on a stopover in Chicago. He tries to alert airline personnel, but they don’t listen. He confirms the damage when he arrives at his destination but doesn’t file a formal complaint till his trip back one week later. (Because, hey, maybe he’s busy trying to make a living and you’ve just damaged the instrument he uses to make said living.) [Read more →]

I had the privilege of interviewing the Deputy US CTO for Open Government today at the PDF conference.

Today at the Personal Democracy Forum event, US CIO Vivek Kundra announced the first “IT Dashboard” for manipulating data about how US taxpayer’s dollars are spent. (Good coverage at the NY Observer.) After Kundra and new media director of the White House Macon Phillips left the PDF stage, Beth Noveck, Deputy US CTO for the Open Government initiative spoke with PDF co-founder Andrew Rasiej about her project. Noveck, the author of Wiki Government, has the rare opportunity of proposing a major change in public policy in a book and implementing it just months later….

See the video: Supernova Interview: Beth Noveck, Deputy CTO, USA « Supernova Hub

In which I again tell you why you should backup your data early and often…

At a recent event I was talking with the director of a 10 person non-profit, and she mentioned an important database she was trying to convert to a newer format. “Where is it kept?” I asked. “On my computer” she said. “Where else?” And then I got that look – the look that says “what do you mean – where else?” Ah. How much would it cost to replace that data? Perhaps a million dollars, which is her approximate annual fundraising income. So one more time, for you folks who have not done so – Back up your work. Please.

Start-Up Toolkit

Over at the Supernova Hub, I got to interview BT Design’s JP Rangaswami, a true innovator and a leader in bringing Web 2.0 into the Enterprise.

At the 140 Characters Conference in New York last week, I spoke with JP about how Business and Strategy are changing due to ubiquitous networks and new ways to access data. He noted that “Things that were previously synchronous, like voice communications, can now be asynchronous, and things that were previously asynchronous [like knowing people status, location or current work] can be synchronous.” There’s much more in the video.

Supernova Interview: JP Rangaswami « Supernova Hub

Today I was privileged to speak to the Rockland County Capacity Building Initiative for Non-Profits at the Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Many people asked for my slides, so I’ve included them here. Remember, if you attended, email me, and one person who attended will get an hour of my time to discuss how their non profit can use Social Media.

Also, you can find previous slide decks I’ve used with other groups at http://slideshare.net/howardgr

These are the slides Dean Landsman and I used at the 140 Characters Conference in NYC this week. UPDATE – The Video is also available below.

It’s not easy to make your website compatible with all browsers – and now you have to consider mobile browsers like Blackberry, iPhone, Palm Pre and others.

Tomorrow’s launch of the iPhone 3GS and last week’s launch of the PalmPre focused my attention on the way people are doing more search and research on products and services while on the go. US consumers are the top group in the world for mobile browsing and spending according to mobile development house Bango, exceeding UK customers.

You can read the rest at the Start-Up Toolkit blog.

Yesterday was Social Media Camp in New York at the Roger Smith Hotel.

Howard Greenstein and Chris Heuer at Social Media Camp - image by Jay Bryant

Along with Chris Heuer, I presented or co-presented 5 presentations in the main track. Many of them were recorded via Livestream and are available for you to view. Check out http://www.livestream.com/socialmediaclub and click “On Demand” to see the sessions. Soon, all the sessions will be up and organized on the Social Media Camp Site.

Thanks to Jolie O’Dell of ReadWriteWeb for taping this piece from my discussion on Personal Branding. In this segment, I discuss the evolution of worrying about having embarrassing pictures on Facebook.

The slides I used in that presentation and some other relevant ones are on the Social Media Camp Site under “Creating a Digital Identity.” I also presented on “Using Social Media for your Job Search.”

UPDATE: Great Video from Courtney Crosslin – thank you!