For once in my life I’m skeptical. And for you die-hard Pinterest fans, I hope you’ll bear with me as I explain my current disinterest in Pinterest.

I can’t get my sister-in-law to interact with me on Facebook. But she freaking LOVES Pinterest. And has been trying to get me to use it for a couple of months. And given the recent chatter on Social Media Today, I finally broke down this past Saturday and joined using my Facebook account to establish my Pinterest profile.

Over the course of the weekend, I noticed that I was receiving e-mails that “so and so” was now following me on Pinterest. At first I thought, WOW, I’m super popular. But then reality set in and I decided to see what was up. A quick call to my sister-in-law let me know that she received an e-mail that I was now following her on Pinterest and so she followed me back. My reaction? Wow, I never asked to follow you. In fact, I didn’t ask to follow anybody.

It turns out that when I used my Facebook account to create my profile, Pinterest accessed my personal information to automatically have me start following common connections. In my book, Pinterest broke a basic tenet of online privacy: to not invasively use my online information.

Connecting your Facebook account should either be an easier method for authentication (verifying identity) or to suggest friends to follow. I appreciate the ease of use that Pinterest is attempting to provide, but when it comes to deciding whom I follow—or not—that should be at my discretion, exercised manually. Additionally, while the Pinterest Privacy Disclosure does mention the use of personal information from Facebook to create a Pinterest account, it does not explicitly mention that it would be using that information to predetermine my followees. (You also have the option to establish your profile using your Twitter account, which does not trigger auto-follow, I’m told.)

A quick Google search shows me that other individuals have encountered this same issue:

“wow, Pinterest, really bad behavior you don’t make me automatically follow people without telling me just from signing up”
Adam Fick, Twitter

“The warning that I will give out about Pinterest is that they are not very good at maintaining your privacy when it comes to respecting your wishes about how much they share from your other social networking sites (you have to use Facebook to open an account).”
– How to Unfollow People on Pinterest, Infobarrel

“I thought pinterest would be a cool way for me to categorize great content from webpages so I could stop emailing links to myself. I thought my page would be a nice blend of my and other nerds’ (whom I followed by choice) repositories of great info. As it turns out, I’m now following 78 women and 3 men against my will.”

“Pinterest has really bad privacy settings (or none) and I hate that. If you find a forum for pinning photos or links, that is private (like as private as an email account or something of that nature) let me know. I don’t like the automatic follow and following. I don’t like that I can’t link to articles, as well as, photos. I would like to use it as my own personal links library, not as another social media platform.”
– So, let me tell you why I dislike Pinterest…and how to unfollow people on Pinterest, Josh’s Blog

In today’s world online privacy is critical. So here are some quick suggestions that I have for Pinterest:

1. Use Facebook information to suggest friends to follow, but do not automatically follow them on my behalf.
2. Create privacy settings as there currently are none. At a minimum, I should be able to create contributor groups and then establish individual viewing permissions for each of my boards for those groups.
3. Establish a method that allows people to unfollow connections in bulk. Currently, you have to unfollow people individually.
4. Err on the side of restricting information first and then allow the user to decide what information should be shared.

Online privacy is difficult to manage and I don’t envy budding social networks like Pinterest because they have many factors to consider. The relation between privacy and a person’s social network is multi-faceted. In certain occasions we want information about ourselves to be known only by a small circle of close friends, and not by strangers. In other instances, we are willing to reveal personal information to anonymous strangers, but not to those who know us better. (Information Revelation and Privacy in Online Networks, Carnegie Mellon University)

This is a painful lesson that Facebook learned: the importance of user-controlled privacy settings. Many people have voiced frustration as Facebook has released new versions. But the value in what they’ve done is that they’ve become the only site that allows you to personalize who and what people see all the way down to the individual news items or even individual photos in your albums. It’s been worth the pain for me.

It is absolutely not my intent to lessen the current excitement and chatter Pinterest has been generating, or the value that it introduces to the social networking community. But I think it’s important to call out the importance of online privacy. And please, don’t get me wrong. I’m still really excited about the possibilities of Pinterest. But, unfortunately, I haven’t had a chance to really try it out because I’m currently in the tedious process of unfollowing people.. one by one.

For a social media geek you could say that I don’t necessarily adhere to traditional views on privacy. I say this because I’m “out there.” EVERYWHERE. In fact, when I usually bring up online privacy, most people who know me have a “YOU are talking about privacy??” reaction. But here’s the thing. I care about online privacy because I’m so out there and it’s critical that I have the ability to personalize and control what information I share and with whom I share it.

I’m interested in knowing if anyone else had a similar experience? And I’m also interested in collecting more online privacy control suggestions for Pinterest from those people who have actively been using it. Please feel free to post your comments below.

Best,

Elizabeth

It’s been a loooonnng day…

I’ve spent 9+ hours working on the computer for my work job and here it is.. nearing 1AM and I’m still on the computer but now writing a blog post. My eyes are going cross-eyed and my finger tips are raw from tap-tap-tapping on the keyboard. I did take a break today, shuttling my kids around and going to dinner at Golden Corral (yes, I know), but, of course, I still checked my e-mail messages, Twitter and Facebook accounts on my TWO phones while talking school and shoveling buffet goodness into my mouth. To top it all off, I’m still wearing my kick @ss 5-inch heels. And there’s a reason why I’m doing all of this. I LOVE what I do.  Aside from the shoes, does this sound familiar?

With the dawn of social technologies, “ease of use,” and overall mobility, it’s easy to get lost in the endless cycle of work-life-work-life-work-work-work. I should know, I admit that I fall victim to mismanaging my work and personal life all the time — easy to do, especially when snippets of your personal life (e.g., blogging and speaking) are in addition to what you do at work.

Well, thank my ever-loving Fatty Catty (I really do have a cat who I call Fatty), my 5-inch heels must come off at some point otherwise my feet would never recover. And that’s my indicator that my work has ended and my LIFE has begun.

As the new year begins, I’d like to remind everyone the importance of doing the same: like your work, but love your life — OR love your work, but love your life even more. In the past two decades, the US economy has experienced a 60 percent growth in productivity. But, at what cost? Don’t become All Work and No Play (The Overworked American, Good.is)

Work / Life balance is essential to not only you but for your organization as well

Organizations that create cultures that value balance, and assist employees to achieve life balance will be rewarded with highly engaged employees. Work-life balance does not mean  that employees are not loyal, nor committed to their organizations, it means that employees want to lead whole lives, not lives solely centered on work. (Driving Employee Engagement, The Banff Centre)

We tend to define our lives first by our work and then by all the other facets of our day. We justify working for a living to attain what we want. In the process, are we keeping our lives in balance? (Working for a Living, Good.is).

So go ahead… kick those heels off… or your shoes… end your work day and begin living your life! Be an employee who loves her (or his) work, but loves her life even more!

Cheers,

Elizabeth

Source: In an Open-Source Society, Innovating by the Seat of Our Pants

The Internet isn’t really a technology. It’s a belief system, a philosophy about the effectiveness of decentralized, bottom-up innovation. And it’s a philosophy that has begun to change how we think about creativity itself.

The ethos of the Internet is that everyone should have the freedom to connect, to innovate, to program, without asking permission. No one can know the whole of the network, and by design it cannot be centrally controlled. This network was intended to be decentralized, its assets widely distributed. Today most innovation springs from small groups at its “edges.”

This technical strategy has led to the creation of a gigantic network of far-flung innovators who develop standards with one another and share the products of their work in the form of free and open-source software. The architecture of the Internet and its abundance of free software and components has driven down the cost of manufacturing, distribution and collaboration — of innovation. It used to cost millions of dollars to start a software company. Today, for little or no money, entrepreneurs are able to develop and release a “minimum viable product” and test it with real users on the Internet before they have to raise any money from investors. In their earliest iterations, Facebook, Yahoo and Google were running in dorm rooms and labs before the founders had left college or had raised outside money.

Neoteny, … means the retention of childlike attributes in adulthood: idealism, experimentation and wonder. In this new world, not only must we behave more like children, we also must teach the next generation to retain those attributes that will allow them to be world-changing, innovative adults who will help us reinvent the future.

Source: Creating the Innovation Culture

The innovation culture, of course, is likewise an expression of people, their past, and their current beliefs, ideas, and behaviors. They make innovation happen, and they do so consistently over time.

Since the innovation culture is not all that common among today’s organizations, we know that it’s not so easy to create one. A key reason for this is that the characteristics needed to achieve an innovation culture are not seen as the some ones that are needed in successful companies.

This, actually, is where the genius of firms like Apple, Cisco, and Toyota lies, because their leaders seem to have found a way to standardize the process of innovation. I know that the last sentence seems to express a contradiction – how do you standardize innovation? But that’s exactly the point (and that’s the same point that is made in the title of my book Permanent Innovation). They have created a true innovation culture, which is precisely what it means to make the creation of novelty a consistent output of an organization’s culture.²

Source: Intentional Innovation

Innovation is about what’s new and what’s next. It’s about that exciting leap forward into uncharted territory. Innovation is also about what works… better. It’s about that incremental step forward that makes old ideas new again and repurposes the familiar into the unexpected. Innovation—whether small or incremental, large or disruptive—is about change. For most of us the idea of “innovation” is laced with positive and desirable assumptions about something that will be shinier, faster, cooler, better than whatever we have. For some, innovation also comes with questions about whether we really need so much that is “new”—and if the new things are so great, then how do we help everyone to get them?

An innovative culture is a combination of the right technology, culture and people, working together seamlessly to deliver innovative solutions to important organizational problems. Is there an off-the-shelf blueprint or formula that can guarantee innovation? Absolutely not. But there are best practices and core principles that can be used to guide your effort. That is, if they are intelligently adapted and applied to your specific organizational culture.

Accept wonder. Ask questions. Seek answers. Drive innovation.

You probably know me … I’m the person you met at the airport, a conference or a networking event with whom you now share common interests. I’m the former colleague, high school or college friend with whom you now keep in touch. Or better yet, I’m the one you’ve never actually met in person, yet we know each other almost as well as if we had. People ask me all of the time: how do you do it? How do you meet so many people and sustain the relationship? And why do you care to? For me, the answer isn’t that hard or complex… and it’s most certainly not based solely on the fact that I’m extremely extroverted and needy (which I am).

I believe in connections — both online and offline. And social media has made all of this easier for me. Recently, a friend challenged me to tell him how I knew all of the friends I currently have on Facebook. He and I sat there and refreshed my profile page and each time he randomly chose someone from my friend’s list and asked me how I knew that person. I passed with flying colors. Was I lucky? Maybe. Am I someone who spends too much time on Facebook? More than likely.

I used to think relationships were much more linear: that people would come and go as you moved through each different phase of your life while only a lucky few would become close enough to experience all your life phases with you. With social media, there is no such thing as linear. It’s a tangley weave of connections that intersect and cross over each other the more you connect with friends and colleagues both past and present, and grows even more extensive as you bring more people in it.

I don’t live in a bubble. I’m well aware that, unfortunately, social media has had the opposite effect for some people: enabled walls and broken relationships. But I’m lucky to say that hasn’t been the case for me. Instead, social media did the opposite. It made 2010 the year of the friend in several impactful ways:

We started talking…

… while one or both of us were traveling or while we were networking at a conference. Admittedly, you were most likely forced to talk to me because I started talking to you first. But hey, all friendships have to start somewhere, right? By the end of our conversation, we had become friends on Facebook or connected on LinkedIn. I can’t tell you how many times, over this past year, that I met someone at what would have been a brief encounter, only to have connected to them on any number of social networks and been able sustain that friendship because of that platform.

You decided to follow me..

… or I started following you on Twitter — but who’s keeping track. Regardless, posts were tweeted and retweeted and… the rest is what they call history. In a turn of events, social media is what initially introduced me to you or you to me, and it was also the method in which information, knowledge, and personal quips were shared. But what began as a more professional or social connection developed into a solid friendship over time.

We met way back when…

… we were in high school (or journalism camp). Or college. Or we used to work together. We met in a previous lifetime. It wasn’t social media that introduced the relationship, but it has facilitated our ability to keep up on the personal and professional activities of each others’ lives. Social media has done this so efficiently, it almost begs the question: “who needs an actual reunion?”

So What Will 2011 Be?

Ever wonder what your online connections are like in person? I do. All the time. Not just the ones I’ve never met in person… but also the ones who I haven’t seen for many years. 2010 was the year for establishing friendships. Make 2011 the year for bridging those online friendships to offline ones (and vice versa, if you’re so inclined). So, go to a conference. Meet up with common interest groups. Arrange a get together with former colleagues or classmates. Visit a friend you haven’t seen in 23 years. Attend that dreaded 25 year reunion! Your friendships become much more meaningful when you know the offline person behind the online identity.

So when I reach out to you some time this year and say: “Hey, let’s meet or get together,” you’ll know I’m working on bridging the gap of my own friendships.

Many, many thank yous for your continuous support throughout 2010. I look forward to getting to know all of you better throughout 2011.

Big smiles,

Elizabeth

An exploration of authenticity in social media and in real life.

In one of my recent social media gatherings, a group of us reflected on what it’s like to eventually meet each other in person. Someone mentioned that they find it interesting when they meet people and there is a disconnect between the online persona and the physical person. Someone that is an introvert in real life can easily become an outspoken extrovert when shielded by a monitor screen. No matter who you are, it’s always nice to bridge the online and physical connection, but it begs the question: which you is the authentic YOU? The introvert or the extrovert? The person you are putting forth in real life or the person you present to your online counterparts? And how do you choose who sees what?

In life in general, the dynamics of any relationship or connection are hard because we are not just about our personal brands. “We are complex beings whose emotional, intellectual, spiritual and physical selves are in a constant dynamic state of change. We are social beings who find health, not in self-projection, but in self-giving, in actions of creating and sacrifice.” [Ed Brenegar]

In real life, our actions speak louder than our words.

In contrast, actions and thoughts move much more quickly on the Internet. In response to instant communication, we often say before we think and in some cases our emotions don’t have opportunity to catch up with how quickly we speak. How many times have we pulled the trigger on an e-mail or sent an instant message only to regret what was said two seconds later? The price of instant communication is to not always have the time to think things through. And if you’re anything like me, those extra two seconds are extremely valuable!

In social media, our words speak louder than our actions.

The Juxtaposition of Real Life and Social Media

Two of the most prominent words you will hear among social media enthusiasts, myself included, on how to manage an online presence, is to be genuine and authentic. Obviously, people have different interpretations of what being genuine and authentic means. I can authentically be an extrovert online while still genuinely be an introvert in real life (by the way, this is SO not me). And I think what it comes down to is deciding what your personal brand is to be, the personality you build behind it, and with whom you share that personal brand.

This is crucial whether you are an individual developing or participating in a brand ambassador program, a company dipping into social media, or anybody who seeks to genuinely connect with others. In any workshop, discussion or webinar that I attend, you will hear me (and any other social media consultant) say that the way for people or organizations to build trust with their audience is through authenticity.

I recently came across an extremely interesting post by Ed Brenegar on “Being Authentic in Inauthentic Times“ and he raises some salient points that I think are important not just for being authentic in social media, but also in real life. I’ve taken the liberty of extending his points (in bold) with those of my own, the combination of which will enable you to be the real YOU when you stand up.

1. Authentic people do not go around projecting their self-important personality on everyone they encounter. Authenticity in my personal brand is based on being able to express the genuine passion I have for employee engagement and enterprise collaboration with other social media enthusiasts, being able to share information and learn from each other. Be a meaningful resource by sharing information that you genuinely support or initiate conversations with those who express a genuine interest in what you do — understanding that not everyone shares what the same passion as you do. Don’t always talk, but listen too; and know that there is a time to be “on” and a time to be “off.”
2. Virtual identities are not real identities, and virtual relationships are mimics of real relationships. Personally, this is something that I struggle with ALL the time. I have developed meaningful relationships online that have never extended to meeting in person. Do I think these relationships are less genuine than the ones that I have in real life? Absolutely not. However, I also believe it’s easy to lose your authentic self when you’re living solely through a virtual identity that is not derived out of who you are in real life. I would like to think that I am just as passionate and vibrant in person as I come across online, no matter what the topic may be. The question is: are YOU?
3. Don’t tell me, show me your authenticity. If you are that person who is always “on,” ask yourself how people will know who is the real you when you are “off”? I see it lots … someone who constantly engages and entertains groups of people and yet they don’t know how to remain engaged in their most intimate connections. Reserve something for your personal, real life connections, so that they know they are special from everyone else you know online and offline…. and so they can be privy to a more authentic you.

To be honest, I think the only person who can truly evaluate who the real you is… YOU. Are you the person who is the introvert who becomes vibrant online? Or are you the silent observer who comes alive when you are in face-to-face conversations? Strive to be that authentic person… and you will find that you can stand up to be the REAL you and have much more genuine and meaningful relationships — both in social media and in real life.

I could be rehashing a topic that has been addressed many times before, but recent conversations within my own organization have resurfaced this for me and I know it is something that other peers are still sorting out as well. Companies are very much implementing social technologies to engage audiences externally, but still struggle with the advantages of implementing it internally. And this is something that I, in particular, am very passionate about. So, I’ve updated a blog post that I had written late last year focusing on this topic and have included what I hope is some fresh, relevant information and resources. Enjoy!

***********

I love how social media has made our world just a little smaller — bringing people together across the globe who might not have met otherwise. For business, one of the biggest and most under-realized advantages to integrating social networking tools is its ability to humanize a corporate workforce beyond just the typical four walls of a cubicle or office. Without social networking tools, companies risk problems not being resolved, ideas becoming stagnant and employees feeling underutilized or underappreciated. So, if you’re a company wondering how you can unify your global workforce, social technologies are an excellent step to building a more collaborative, productive and HUMAN workforce.

The Elephant in the Room

Every company acknowledges that social technologies is a growing trend that is a new way to engage with employees, but why is it such a hard sell to senior leadership? For most, it’s the elephant in the room that no one really knows how to address or, more importantly, how to implement. And why is that? Here are just a few of some of the reasons I’ve heard:

• Social technologies decrease productivity rather than increasing it
• It doesn’t align with our business goals
• It’s more valuable for external marketing campaigns than for internal engagement
• It costs too much money
• There’s no way to measure the return
• If we implement social technologies, aren’t we admitting we don’t know how to motivate our own employees?

To be perfectly honest, social technologies is a different way to communicate within an organization that most companies aren’t used to. Rather than top down communications, the essence of social technologies is to invert that traditional communications pyramid and allow conversations to be generated from the bottom up. Yes, putting some control in the hands of your employees. Scary thought for most senior leadership? YES.

It’s also been a struggle to get senior support because of the misconception that implementing social technologies is admitting that your company doesn’t already know how to motivate or engage its workforce. Absolutely not true. What it means is that you CARE about your employees and value their input and ideas, and that you are INTERESTED in them.

There are quick ways to measure engagement through web analytics (click-throughs, page views, etc.), but the real value of social technologies requires an organization to think longer term and more broadly. It’s somewhat an intangible ROI that is hard for a company to financially support when there are no direct correlations to the bottom line. But employees who feel engaged stay at the company longer, they perform better and produce more results, and they interact and connect with their colleagues more effectively.

What Business Priorities Can Be Addressed

• Strengthen and change corporate culture by building innovation and engagement with employees
• Extending beyond the brick and mortar corporate walls to unify a global workforce
• Increase productivity through collaboration and communication, giving employees a platform for knowledge share and expertise
• Creating a high performing workforce where employees understand how their work is connected to business strategies and are executing results
• Internalizing external marketing messages so that employees understand your products and services

Questions You Should be Asking

• How networked are your employees?
• How engaged are your employees?
• How do you bring them together?
• How do you bring down the silos and walls?
• How do you tap into and foster employee ideas and collaboration to propel business results?

Where Companies Can See the Benefit of Social Networking

• Cross-functional projects
• Standardized forms used daily by sales/service employees
• Collaboration among geographically dispersed employees
• To get all employees up to speed on new information quickly
• Providing employees with common answers to their questions
• Ensuring things explained in person are also in writing
• Enhancing member or customer communications
• Market research
• PR, industry recognition

[ source: Ways to Engage Employees Using Technology That Deliver ROI ]

What Social Networking Can Do for Your Company

Community and Collaboration

Social networks enable community building which is an essential part of employee engagement. Communities on social network sites generally fall into one of the following categories: ad hoc groups (e.g., clubs), project teams, or communities that are more formal, such as those recognized by management (e.g., professional practice areas or forums for company-sponsored programs). For cross-functional projects that involve key stakeholders spanning multiple organizations as well as continents, group collaboration through social networks is a great platform for document management, project updates and management.

“Collaboration is a very human characteristic. Many groups have a natural preference for defining themselves by working together peer-to-peer, rather than acting solely on commands from a higher level in a hierarchy. It is hardly surprising that the tendency should be reflected in the commercial (or public good) enterprise, when a collaborative structure is feasible.” [ source: Collaboration through Web 2.0 ]

Conversation Streams

If you can’t have the physical watercooler, then having a social network truly is the next best thing — connecting the workforce across the globe and providing a platform for realtime conversation and dialogue, and virtually creating the natural social synergy that you would have if you were physically next to the person with whom you are communicating. Some companies, such as Oracle, have developed their own internal versions of Twitter.

“When employees update their status, they can also send tweets to their networks, groups. Each tweet that appears in the Activity Log includes a link to the tweet that opens in a new tab/window.  If you want to reply, you can click through to see the tweet and reply. Or you can share links to useful information, communicating info much more effectively (and less intrusively) than an email could.” [ source: Oracle’s Connect: Building Engagement with Internal Social Networks ]

Knowledge Share

Your company is full of in-house experts that are willing to share their expertise — in fact I bet they’re dying to. Through social networking tools, you can allow each employee to create an “expertise profile” for themselves to identify their knowledge or skills on any number of topics. These profiles are not intended to replace your basic employee directory… although, the two can, and probably should, leverage the same basic data. What we’re talking about is a place for employees to list bios, skills, interests and projects that are inclusive of their current core duties as well as their personal interests. It’s about putting faces to names and being able to connect visually to colleagues that work in the next state or on the other side of the world. These profiles would be searchable by other employees to find the matching “experts,” and allow them to reach out to that colleague and seek their guidance or recommendations.

User-Generated Tagging

Every company I know has one consistent complaint from its workforce… they can never find the content they are looking for on the internal portals despite having a Search capability. In my experience, Search is a more passive approach that only performs as well as the content that has been pre-tagged. It also makes assumptions on what the business thinks is important to the employees, which doesn’t always align to what employees actually need. In an Enterprise 2.0 environment, knowledge sharing is made more effective by allowing employees to create user-generated tagging of other individual profiles, links, documents or pages — giving employees the ability identify content that is relevant to them and potentially to their colleagues.

…tagging, or the attaching of label-like keywords to a person’s name in a company directory, documents, images or pages on the Web. In the context of expertise-locator systems, employees can have tags that describe the work they do, information on their division or group, external affiliations, hobbies, memberships, location and names of projects. Employees can also use tags for evaluation purposes, such as noting whether an expert has been helpful in the past, and for tagging their own areas of expertise as they evolve.

What is particularly useful about tags is they are generated by the expertise seekers and experts themselves, not by a team assigned to maintain a database. This relieves the company of any need to dedicate resources or training to the practice, and makes the tags more likely to be relevant and properly maintained over time. [ source: Who Knows What? ]

Idea Generation

Some of a company’s best ideas for process improvement or product enhancements come from the very individuals who develop or use them — the employees. Often times there is a gap between communicating company business goals and getting employees to understand the relevancy of these goals in their day-to-day work. Creating a social network for idea generation is a great way to address this gap because it provides a platform where employees to foster ideas that support these goals. It’s a great way to recognize and acknowledge employees, make them feel valued and build a culture of innovation.

“By enabling communities to post, critique, collaborate on and refine ideas, companies are certain to reap the benefits of accelerated innovation. People connected to groups beyond their own can expect to find themselves delivering valuable ideas, seeming to be gifted with creativity. This is not creativity born of genius. It is creativity as an import-export business. An idea mundane in one group can be valuable insight in another.” [ source: What Enterprise Social Networks Do Well: Produce Higher Quality Ideas ]

Discussion Forum

Not only are discussion forums another great tool to drive participation, but they are also your next best thing to a corporate help desk. Having a place where employees can pose questions that can be answered in almost real-time by either other employees, or by moderators, is a fantastic way to make employees feel like their concerns or questions are being heard … and answered. When I think of my ideal discussion forum for business, I think along the lines of an internalized version of getsatisfaction.com.

You Are not Alone in Your Effort

It’s only natural that everyone wants to know what everyone else is doing. Building an effective enterprise social technology strategy means looking into what other companies have deployed and whether or not they have seen positive results from their efforts. With that in mind, I’ve researched many other companies and have come across a few excellent case studies and examples. The credit for the creation and management of this list really goes to Jacob Morgan, who performed or found some of the case studies found in this list for his own blog, Jacob Morgan: Social Media Globetrotter.

• Extensive List of Enterprise 2.0 Case Studies

Has your company implemented any of these social technologies? If so, have you seen any increase in engagement from them and / or do you see an high-level of usage with them? If so, I would love to hear from you!

If you haven’t seen the flurry of conversations the past two days, let me be the one to tell you that Forrester has  just released a very insightful report on the use of Location-based Services (LBS). Specifically, the use of applications such as Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt as a means for companies to engage and interact with consumers. LBS applications, as an emerging technology, has a lot of consumers (of the people surveyed 84% had never even heard of Foursquare, Gowalla, or Loopt) and brands wondering if it is technology that is all hype — not surprising since any new technology has a period of adoption while users determine it’s stickiness.

The report contains a lot of insightful information regarding the current fragmentation of the LBS application market — currently, consumers are having to choose between Foursquare, Gowalla and Loopt — where even someone like me, who considers herself a hard-core user of LBS applications has a hard time knowing what each application offers that’s unique from the other. And we haven’t even seen the impact that Google could / will have on LBS applications.

LBS Seeks Internet-Savvy Professional Male

But the takeaway that struck me the most interesting was how Forrester’s study shows that men, not women, are the majority users of LBS applications and suggests that male-oriented brands have the potential to have the largest impact.

And based on this information, Forrester’s report makes two recommendations:

1. That gaming, consumer electronics and sportswear marketers should lead the way with testing these apps; and
2. While these male-oriented brands forge the way, other marketers should hang back until these apps gain a larger, more diverse audience.

This data is actually surprising and a little disappointing to me since, in my own personal use of Foursquare, I know more women who use location-based apps than men. Personally, I believe the power of LBS apps is its ability to further drive social sharing… to socialize brand awareness, specials and discounts through the sharing of check-ins on Twitter, Facebook etc., thereby increasing traffic online as well as offline. And who are more social than women? And most women I know consider themselves, like me, chicks who are early adopters of new technology. But then, mom always did say I was in a “special” category all of my own.

Do Location-based Services Underestimate the Influence of Women?

And according to Newsweek, my mom knows what she’s talking about — chicks ARE special. In fact, Newsweek recently discussed how “the women in this country are responsible for 83 percent of all consumer purchases.” And this influence isn’t just for “girlie” consumer products such as cosmetics or clothing, but women are “a major force” for products such as cars and electronics.

The article focuses around a conversation that Newsweek conducted with reknowned consumer researcher Paco Underhill, where he discusses his new book, What Women Want, and explains what makes a product, place, or service female-friendly—and why the marketplace better listen up.

Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained

If consumer brands take a more passive approach to using LBS, they are allowing competitors to define and perfect a marketing channel that they could be leading. And to be perfectly honest, at the pace that technology is changing today, they also run the risk of being left behind. That is, there’s no time for major brands to play catchup.

Even though current data indicates that more men are using location-based services than women at this time, this demographic will rapidly soon change and, therefore, any brand can and SHOULD venture into location-based services whether they focus more towards male or female consumers as long as using this technology makes sense for them. And let’s not forget that brands who offer consumer services, not just products, have a tremendous opportunity to leverage location-based services — the hospitality, retail and restaurant industries are seeing significant reach with both female and male audiences.

As I always like to say: nothing ventured, nothing gained. If a brand thinks that they can socialize or target its products and / or services better to either male or female consumers, then I think they should absolutely explore the use of LBS applications. Otherwise, as Paco Underhill said: if businesses don’t learn to recognize women’s growing influence, they’ll [be] confined to the dusty heap of history.

I have shoes… and LOTS of them. In fact, there’s probably only one thing I love more than social media and that’s high heels. When it comes to shoes, the higher, the better; the more colorful and unique… the more I have to have them. And if you looked inside of my closet, you would know this to be true. Shoes come in all shapes and sizes, colors and varieties, and it’s essential that you find the right fit. Kind of like social media — giving you a unique identity (think Carrie Bradshaw!), putting a little skip in your step, and adding a little swank to your swagger.  And, when have found that combination that fits you perfectly, you will indeed drive conversation. In fact, I have found a lot of commonalities between slipping on a pair of high heels and stepping into social media. Here’s what I’ve found:

Instantly Achieve New Heights

It’s amazing what you can do when you achieve new heights! Most people don’t realize that I’m only 5’1″. And that’s because I almost always wear 4″ heels. In fact, the higher the better. The additional height allows me new visibility on what I’m trying to accomplish. If you’re someone who feels like you’re often looking from the ground up, try slipping into your own pair of social media shoes and see if it doesn’t put you at eye level or even higher than your competitors. Here are some basic methods for achieving new heights:

1. Create a Facebook fan page to communicate your brand and post relevant articles. Include links to your company site as well as any other social network sites in which you have profiles.
2. Start tweeting information that you find valuable to you and your industry on Twitter. Retweet others in your industry that you follow. Acknowledge those you retweet you.
3. Seek out thought leaders in your area of expertise as well as in other areas, and see how their ideas apply to you.
4. Use your new height as a vantage point to observe audience/community sentiment (positive/negative), being sure to listen in on mainstream conversations (Twitter, Facebook) as well as those being held on the side (FriendFeed, etc.)

Stand Out From the Crowd

When you become known as someone who wears unique footwear, interestingly enough, that’s what people begin to first notice about you. I find it amusing that when people first see me, they immediately look down to see what pair of high heels I have on. Likewise, when you differentiate yourself in social media — you start to stand out too: as a thought leader, participant, and contributor — and people begin to notice that about you. You have to choose your SuperShoe — the color, size, fit and style that is uniquely you.

1. Amplify what makes you great.
2. Differentiate yourself as a thought leader in your chosen field.
3. Build a solid reputation within your industry
4. Increase your influence and improve your perceived value in the marketplace

Find the Basement Bargains

While it’d be nice to have all the money in the world to buy a pair of Manolo Blahnik’s or Jimmy Choo’s, the simple fact is that we don’t always do. Like any savvy shopper, you can know how to look like a million bucks without having actually spent a million bucks. And in social media, you don’t have to have a personal shopper that helps you identify the proper tactics either. There are lots of great social media resources that can be used at little or no cost! Below are just a few of some of my favorite social media bargains:

1. Assess where you currently stand in Google results by using an Online ID Calculator. Use the initial results as your baseline and once you have gained footing, recheck your Online ID to see how far you have progressed.
2. Use Yahoo Pipes as your personal shoe cobbler — a place to manipulate, mashup and build customized RSS feeds.. splicing, dicing or combining them to create a unique feed that suits you.
3. Measure how much you influence others through Klout, a social media tool that provides context around who a person influences and the specific topics they are most influential on.
4. Check the power of your Twitter profile using Twitter Grader and see how it compares to millions of other users that have been graded.

Don’t Feel Compelled to Spill Your Shopping Secrets

Just because you shop at bargain basements, doesn’t mean that you have to tell people that you do. So keep the following in mind:

Don’t Get Upset When Your Shoes Get Criticized

Let’s face it, not everyone is a bold fashionista that is willing to wear five-inch fuschia heels. So don’t expect that they will all like what you say or what you do. Keep in mind, that some people do quite fine wearing flats, and that’s okay too!

1. See negative criticism as an opportunity to engage and drive conversation
2. Negative publicity can give you the opportunity to right a wrong; it can provide a platform for you to address an issue; and it can make you better at what you do

Stumbles May Happen, but You Can Walk

Nothing sends you tumbling to the ground faster than a pair of high heels, especially ones that aren’t the right fit or ones you aren’t used to wearing. It takes trial and error and practice to become graceful in high heels, and much can be said the same of social media. If you are stepping into social media for the first time, remember these things:

1. Take it easy … no one said you had to start running headfirst into social media. Take some time to break in your high heels first and make sure they are the right fit.
2. Social media has a 365 day return or exchange policy. It you try something out and you find it’s not working for you, try something else!
3. Get measured. If you don’t know what size to start with, talk to a social media consultant or conduct your own research to figure out what your best options are.
4. If your closet is full of different social media tactics that you have tried and tried on again, it’s time to clean it out and get a little organized. Keep the tactics that are working for you, and get rid of the ones that aren’t.

Comparing social media to wearing a pair of high heels might seem like oversimplifying a good social media strategy, and I by NO means am trying to do that. However, I believe that most newcomers to social media are overwhelmed by the number of choices and tactics, and this is a metaphor I have used in my discussions with people to get them to understand and appreciate the wide range of choices available to them! I’d love to hear what other correlations you have between stepping into social media and wearing high heels. In the meantime… I need to start cleaning out my own shoe closet… literally.

Whether it be Facebook’s lack of support for privacy, Google’s invasion of our privacy, or our individual inability to realize we no longer have any privacy… Privacy is a huge topic right now. I argue, though, that it’s not just privacy that is failing us. It’s also our inability to apply good ole common sense.

The latest story regarding an employee who got fired for her Facebook update and the ensuing outrage from her supporters really got me to thinking…If I were sitting at a table telling my friends how much I hated my job and criticized the people with whom I work, and my boss was sitting at the next table overhearing the entire conversation… would I get fired? Probably not. But at the very least, my credibility, reputation and career path would be severely damaged. And my common sense would tell me that it’s probably time to start job searching.

What’s the difference between this situation and displaying your discontentment on Facebook? HUGE. Online communication has taken what used to be conversations in controlled settings into an open community for public consumption. Nothing is sacred when it comes to social media and the web. NOTHING.

Late last year, Proofpoint released a study that showed 18 percent of companies had investigated a data loss event via a blog or message board in the past 12 months. 17 percent disciplined an employee for violating blog or message board policies, while nearly nine percent reported terminating an employee for such a violation (both increases from 2008, 11 percent and six percent, respectively). And with social participation increasing daily, we will see these numbers continue to rise.

Bring Back Common Sense

Think about what you say before you say it and don’t post something that you will regret later. Even if you delete it from YOUR computer screen, that doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t already pulled it up on THEIRS. What you think you are sharing with only your Facebook “friends” can still go viral – online as well as offline. And if you’re an “open mouth, insert foot” kind of person, you might want to take a look at the resources below. Actually, you should just take a look anyway:

1. Customize Who Can See What — I’m always surprised to hear how many people don’t take advantage of Facebook Friends lists. Organize your friends into lists on Facebook, so that you can segment the information you share on your profile.
2. Check Out this Privacy Resource — Privacy settings are something that many Facebook users are regularly confused about. Be sure to read this excellent post on the 10 most important privacy settings any Facebook user should know.
3. Download and read this Facebook Privacy E-book – This e-book presents a thorough overview of the most important privacy settings which includes previous settings that are still relevant as well as new privacy settings that have been added by Facebook.
4. Understand Legal Ramifications – Disclosure of business information among social networking sites is keeping Employment lawyers extremely busy these days. Whether you’re an employer or an employee, you should read the “Network Interference: A Legal Guide to the Commercial Risks and Rewards of the Social Media Phenomenon (2nd Edition)” White Paper published by ReedSmith.  It will help you to understand the huge potential benefits of social media and how to protect against the inherent legal risks surrounding it.

Examples of When Common Sense Failed

• Actions Speak Just as Loud as Words – Even Facebook’s first president, former Napster co-founder Sean Parker, was fired from the company in 2005 at the insistence of Facebook VC Jim Breyer after a cocaine-related arrest in North Carolina. Though Breyer had tremendous respect for Parker’s intelligence, he was seen as bringing a volatile edge to the company’s culture. (Source: San Francisco Chronicle)
• I Got Fired Before I Got Hired — Connor Riley, a 22-year-old pursuing her master’s degree in information management and systems at University of California, Berkeley, wrote: Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work. Cisco employee Tim Levad saw the post and responded with his own tweet: Who is the hiring manager? I’m sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the Web.
• Don’t Get “Dooced” If You Blog — Who can forget Heather Armstrong, who got fired several years ago for writing about her job on her personal blog, Dooce.com? The episode launched the phrase “getting dooced” to mean being fired for blogging about work. (Source: More Money Blog)
• Don’t Tell Facebook You’re Bored at Work — Kimberley Swann thought her job was boring. So she said so on her Facebook page. In response, her employer, Ivell Marketing and Logistics of Clacton, U.K., gave her this update: “Following your comments made on Facebook about your job and the company we feel it is better that, as you are not happy and do not enjoy your work we end your employment with Ivell Marketing & Logistics with immediate effect.” (Source: CNET)
• Don’t Insult Your Company’s Clients — Virgin Atlantic sacked 13 cabin crew staff on Friday after they criticised some of the British airline’s passengers on the social networking website Facebook. The airline opened an investigation on October 23 following complaints from passengers and other Virgin staff members over the cabin crew’s Facebook discussion. “It was found that all 13 staff participated in a discussion on the networking site Facebook, which brought the company into disrepute and insulted some of our passengers,” Virgin Atlantic’s director of communications Paul Charles told Reuters. “There’s a time and a place for Facebook. But there’s no justification for it to be used as a sounding board for staff of any company to criticise the very passengers who ultimately pay their salaries.” (Source: NowPublic)
• Playing Hookey, And Then Forgetting Who’s Looky-ing — A woman got fired from a Swiss insurance agency after being caught on facebook while out sick. The woman claimed she could not go to work, and that she couldn’t sit a computer, that she had to lay in the dark. However, an employee at the insurance company saw that her Facebook account had been active. This destroyed all trust the insurance company had in her. (Source: Sodahead)

First off… this is NOT my typical post. Rather, it’s in honor of my best friend and in celebration of her birthday. So, Happy Birthday, Rosebud. I love you!

The Wiz - High School (1989) I'm going to be in BIG trouble for posting this!

If you ever saw the two of us, you would immediately notice the contrast. She’s 5’11″ and I’m 5’1″. She wears size 11 shoes that are close to the ground (or no shoes at all). I wear size 6 shoes that are sky high. She loves old (like grave stones & Geneaology {{{ shiver}}} ). I love new (the shinier and newer, the better). She listens and listens and listens. I talk and talk and talk. She lives in Reality. I live in La La Land.

She’ll tell you her first introduction to me was when I voraciously took a HUGE bite out of the Snickers bar she so graciously offered to me way back when we were 16. Clearly, she hasn’t gotten over it. In my defense,  let me just say this: I don’t like chocolate. So, I don’t know how much credibility you can put into her claim. But despite all of our differences, we have a match made in heaven. And it’s been that way for well over 20 years.

What’s our common ground? We can shop at Nordstrom’s annual shoe sale for odd sizes together… and — you got it — social media.

Our interests in social media may be for different reasons, but that’s the beauty of such technology… it doesn’t matter what brings you there, but once you’re there and participating, you have a way of being connected. Case in point: She uses social networking to connect with dead people. I use social networking to connect with live people. Eh, to each her own.

But I will say this… our participation on Facebook and Twitter keeps us up-to-date and in tune with what is going on in each others’ lives more than ever before. It’s easy to get caught up in your day-to-day and stay out of sight out of mind. With social media, not so much. I see my BFF’s status and Twitter updates daily. And her updates give me insight into her daily life that neither e-mail nor a phone call would have ever provided. I know there are some people who feel this might be a little impersonal. I don’t feel that way. If nothing else, I feel more involved.

I suppose, since I know her so well, you could say that I am able to put an emotional context around her updates as well. This is true. I don’t need to rely on Emoticon analytics to know when she is having a good or bad day. And I can most certainly tell when she needs me to pick up the phone and call her. Or drive the four hours to be with her. And that’s just it: Social media is not a replacement to the phone calls, e-mails or in-person communication she and I have. It is an extension of an already existing relationship. Which, is how it should be in both personal and business.

I absolutely love hearing stories of how people have used social media to establish / maintain relationships — both near and far, personal and professional. I can’t count the times people have told me how they’ve joined Facebook only to find people they haven’t heard from since high school or from earlier stages in their lives. And the more you connect, the more you will see your social graph extend and grow, so that you can gain even more connections. Those possibilities are exciting to me and makes me feel like social media is the Snickers bar to establishing those connections.

So, back to my BFF and her birthday. As my birthday gift to her, I’m listing out some geneaology resources that I found online. If your name is Rosebud, or if you also have a fondness for tracing your roots… please enjoy. Otherwise, feel free to exit here by going to Nordstrom’s web site. It’s what I did.

6. MyFamily 2.0

MyFamily was one of the first online family genealogy communities on the Web, launching in 1998. The new MyFamily 2.0 version allow families to share photos, news and events for free. You can upload photos and then use them to create fun things like photo books, family photo calendars, and narrated slide shows. Family members can use a special toll-free phone