NikePlus provides Integration of Nike, iPod, and WWW. There’s a community piece to this online as well, you can find other runners using their site (click on community tab). Pretty interesting, anyone out there try this? Edward from USAToday has a review:

“Nike + iPod records the time, distance, pace and calories burned in real time as you run (or, in my case, power walk). You can track those results on an iPod Nano and, after connecting the Nano to a computer, on the Nike+ website (nikeplus.com)”

The next piece could be GPS, you could even build mashable games to play, indicating where users are.

Update: Some people think this is a security risk, you could be watched! Conversations on Techmeme.

Left: the Logo that used to adorn the HQ building of Exodus is now displayed over my garage sink.

From 2000-2003 I experienced nearly a complete business cycle at Exodus Communications. EXDS was a high flying (5 splits in 12 months), then the fastest falling company in the valley, we went Chapter 11 (twice).

The beautiful towers on Mission College on 101 were built with Exodus paper stock money. These gorgeous towers are now occupied by Yahoo and EMC, in a selfish way, I still I have some ownership over them. I’m not too hung up over the physical aspect, because I still keep in touch with many of the friends I made there.

While the shine of Podtech and Social Media is in my eye, and the market is picking up, I want to remind myself to take a look at what I learned in Web 1.0.

I won’t lose the lessons from an important experience, I still remember Exodus and what it means to me.

I’m tipping Nathan Gilliatt 1000 virtual Jeremiah Dollars. He’s the blogger that teaches executives how to be Web Savvy. We’re on the same quest and passion to learn about all the companies that measure social media.

I’ve We’ve started this list of Companies that Measure Social media, Influence, and Brand, and have had some successful comments and emails come in.

Unfortunately, I published it over Thanksgiving weekend, and suspect that not everyone has had a chance to read and add to it. Nathan and I have added quite a bit to it, and he’s found some international ones. Perhaps you know?

If you know other companies that measure Social Media, thanks I’m building out a resource guide for folks who need to know about this stuff.

There are a variety of tools and methods available for folks to connect for business, prospects, and new jobs. It’s really up to individuals to find the right tools and methods

Quality over Quantity
I decline most of the LinkedIn invites that I get to my account. I try to know folks, as for the 95% of the folks that are added to me, I want to be able to say good things about them. The other 5%, I have a hard time remembering, or when I added them I wasn’t thinking. Keeping one’s network quality is important. I see some folks with a crazy amount of contacts and friends, we all know they don’t really know them all personally, but it’s a way to sell themselves as someone connected. I’ve seen some Sales Rep resumes that proudly boast they have 400 contacts on LinkedIn.

Other Social Networking sites
Mario is providing some analysis on Xing and LinkedIn (including the paid premium service), be sure to read Damon’s comments in the post, he echos the quality over quantity theory.

At one time I explored Marketing Ladders, it was a job site for Marketing Directors. It was mainly aimed at Corporate type jobs, with titles of Director, VP, and CMO, so it wasn’t quite the right Social Media mix I was looking for. Seems like a targeted site, but I wasn’t willing to pay for it going forward.

Resumes are for people that don’t know each other. Now, with Social Media, folks in passion groups are getting to know each other, a new type of friendlier, faster, and effective hiring process will emerge.

Is the Resume and Cold Interview dead?
A cold interview is a meeting where neither parties know each other at all. Mark is a talented Web Professional that I’ve worked with in the past, he questions the resume and interview process (some of his experiences sound awkward at least) as not being efficient for those who are skilled. I agree. Now with the easy ways to connect with folks online, you can demonstrate your skills and thoughts, share with others. I predict and hope that people will use social media to connect online, a growing percentage of interviews will happen due to online interactions!

Enter the Warm interview
I interviewed at a handful of companies before accepting at Podtech, most did not use the traditional Resume (being in startup world, it’s about what have you done and what can you do for me?). When I handed CEO John Furrier my acceptance papers, I told him that I turned down better paying jobs as a large stable web/software company and offers from other startups. I really believe in what is going on here at Podtech, and I knew and respected quite a few of the folks. The interview process was smooth, having known John for a while, he made the right introductions, it was warm: he knew me, I knew him, Podtech folks. Most of the interviews I got were because of attending events I was passionate about, and my blog, you can do the same.

The best way to Network is still in First Life
Speaking of Social Networking (in real life) I’ll be at the I’ll be at the Guba Networking party tonight at the restaurant called Roe tonight. Meet me there if you’re in the area. Or just leave a comment or email me if you want to talk! Find hundreds of other passion groups assembling using Upcoming or Zvents.

We connect faster and closer
In closing, due to Social Media, niche groups coming together in real life (sometimes because of Social Media), humans in passion groups are able to connect, learn from each other, and build real communities. Whether you connect with the folks you want by attending events, social networking sites, or using blogs, let’s bury the old ways.

Death to the cold one-off resume!

Death to the cold interview!

I got a lot of ‘back channel’ comments via emails, phone calls, and in person today. Concerned friends and family jokingly ask if I’m ok adjusting to startup culture because of this post on ‘Corporatitus‘. This includes employees at Hitachi, Podtech, and friends, Pretty funny.

Even my new colleague Valerie (who has a wordpress sticker on her laptop but doesn’t blog) found it amusing, don’t know her, you may recognize her from Valleywag hottie contest.

I think I’m adapting ok, I’m just going to run with it until someone tells me otherwise, I’m noticing that in order to thrive a startup has to have self-starters willing to make mistakes, learn from them, and get back up and try again. I can do this. We can do this.

I asked Sr Management if they wanted me to write out a plan, heh, the pretty much encouraged me to try it out, who has time to read? Fine, I’ll keep those skills honed as I’ll need to use them for our corporate clients.

I’m glad a lot of folks are showing interest in this, not just for my personal support, but because it’s an interesting dynamic of how establish and start-up companies are so dynamically different.

For those that reached out to me, thanks! And don’t worry, it’s not contagious!

Update, Nov30th: When I first read this post by Holly about Gathering and Hunting, the difference between work styles at a startup and corporate I did NOT understand it.   Today, it makes sense, I get it, thanks Holly.  Hey you?  Does this make sense, do you get it?

Over the next few days, I’m going to be changing my Media intake, I’ve erased many of my feeds on my Google Reader feedreader and am starting over from scratch.  My Ipod has been replaced, so I’m re-selecting podcasts and video blogs.  Also, I’ve cut out Instant Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo, Gizmo, Skype, and Mobile Yahoo IM. (It’s nothing personal). I’m not sure if I’ll return to IM, we’ll see.  Those that know my cell can call anytime!

I’m not quite fully online at Podtech yet, so there is some slowness in my online response.  It’s kind of fun to start from scratch!

So if I’ve been unresponsive, please don’t get it personally, I’m still adjusting. (And trying to digest those red pills)

I care about how companies use Social Media to reach out to companies, Sun typically does a pretty ok job at it.

A few months ago, I helped to coordinate the Lunch 2.0 at Hitachi Data Systems (Data storage) for Web companies. We had 10 web companies present their products to the community, over 200 people showed up, there were a lot of blogs, pictures, videos and a few podcasts. It appears Sun is getting more interested in this space, as John Schwartz talks about the next Fortune 500, and Tim Bray of Sun makes references to Thumper, the next generation server/storage offering.

Want to know how much the Thumper costs? Adam published the price list. Not unusual as Robin Harris, a Storage professional, published all the price lists of the Data Storage industry, I noted on the Data Storage Industry Wiki. Robin, be sure to update the price lists. (as I don’t see Sun listed on there)
I found Sun’s approach to spreading the word about Thumper pretty interesting, Johnathan Schwartz made a video calling for people to respond via video on YouTube, and Google Video. Don’t know what ever happened there, but that’s an interesting use of using the right medium for the emerging technology audience.

Jeremiah who continues to watch the Data Storage blogosphere.

Respected Social Media practitioner Brian Oberkirch (who I just wrote about last night) doesn’t like people gaming the system, he says “There Is No Such Thing As Social Media Optimization“. He doesn’t like it because:

• “You are link bait dressed as thought leadership”
• “You focus people on tools & rules instead of talk & understanding“
• “You attempt to homogenize & productize what will really be a series of handmade, one-off engagements“
• “You do ridiculous things like put yourself in Wikipedia to seem more legit“
• “You attempt to ‘black box’ and complicate what should be made transparent, open, abundant“
• “You drag that bullshit practice of SEO into the social media world”

As far as I see it, these are best practices based upon experience to use these tools to their maximum ability, I see nothing wrong with that. That of course, as long as they fall under the premise of being community and customer focused.

Heh, this should be interesting, as I was the first to add to the list of Social Media Optimization list started by Rohit. I suggested to 6) Be a User Resource, even if it doesn’t help you 7) Reward helpful and valuable users. There is anything wrong with trying to get your message out there as efficiently as possible and being customer focused. Sharing of knowledge around how to use these tools as best as possible should be available to the open community.

I had no idea that this term Social Media Optimization was put into Wikipedia, the line should be drawn if someone is trying to bottle up, label, and brand these community learnings for a quick profit, is someone doing that?

2 comments

Extra launches Interactive Media Campaign, called “CandyStand”, which appears to have been live for some time. According to Technorati it’s ranked at 5,042 which means it has 981 links from 484 blogs. Seth Godin may say that’s ‘remarkable’. The “Jetpack Mission” game is making some waves on Digg.com, although if you read the comments, you’ll see some mixed opinions. The Interactive firm is called WWDG and has an odd website, you can read this very dry press release from announcing the campaign.

Tactics Deployed

• Interactive Media
• Accelerated with Social Media (Digg, Blogs)
• Flash Gaming
• Web Branding

New Colleague Christopher Coulter (Who I’m rethinking my stance on, he’s a pretty nice dude) was showing me his Archos Portable Digital Media Player. He uses this while filming on site, as well as enjoying entertainment media. It doesn’t have the best external sound but one could easily put on headphones or connect to any audio device.

That video interview below looks like the one with Hamid Shojaee of Axosoft. I’m pretty sure they’re sitting at is the Podtech office on illustrious Sand Hill road. We’re in an incubator, I’ve posted some pics here of the humble and growing podtech offices.

I went to the Apple Store to get my iPod replaced (which I have to figure out how to re-synch my content) and ran into this massive monitor, see the Apple Cinema Displays.

Robert’s up in arms about some private discussions being aired in public then being distorted . Rob, who I had dinner with and others with just a few weeks ago at Podcamp West has taken some private discussions public.

A few months ago, I was speaking at Ragan PR Conference, and Robert, being at Podtech a startup asked if I could share a room with him to reduce his expenses. Heh, at first I was a little reluctant, but ultimately gave in, as it ends up, Ragan provided him a hotel room, (he was the opening keynote after all). Robert’s asking for conference expenses being covered is consistent, he’s not playing an ego card as far as I can tell.

I really hope this gets worked out, I suspect this is blown way out of proportion, and hopefully this can be resolved so Robert can attend Podcamp. One rule of thumb is that private matters shouldn’t be exploited in public.

Update, Nov 29th: There appears to be some closure on this topic. Let’s all get back to work now!

Heh, Maybe I’ve been working at large corporations too long.

Today was my first day working full-time at Podtech. Although I was at a large startup Exodus (with a git-er-done attitude) from 2000-2003, I realized today how I’ve been trained to think and act a certain way that is nearly opposite from a startup with less than 35 people. Not bad, not good, just different.

I’m taking some pills tonight, they are 500MG of “Fast and Flexible” and 250MG of “Try, Fail, Learn, and Try Again”, and a spoonfull of “Innovation, Determintation”.

In the long run, this is a good thing, as I was asked to help out because of my Corporate deployment of Social Media, I’m just going to need to figure out how to turn it on and off.

If anyone has any other solutions, over the counter or home remedies, be sure to let me know so I can beat this bug quickly. Maybe Holly has some ideas, she just left AOL for a stealth startup.

Oh, and keep your eyes peeled for some upcoming Podtech news, there are some amazing things happening.

My iPod died at 11mos of usage. Granted, I’ve taken it around the world (London, China, Japan and all over the US) and played in my car, it’s seen some miles.

Like David Burden, I made a reservation online, showed up on time and was able to receive a brand new shiny 60 gig Video iPod replacement, no money spent. These things seem a bit fragile, so I may purchase the $60 extended warranty that will last me another year. Given I’m at a podcasting and Videoblogging company, having an iPod will be pretty important to consuming the product.

I asked the ‘Genius’ a few questions:

JKO: “Does Steve Jobs come in here?”
Genius: “Yup, he comes in once in a while and wants to see what it’s like as a customer”
JKO: “I’ll be this Palo Alto store has some of the best service out of all the apple stores!”

Second Volley:
JKO: “What do you know about the upcoming iFone?”
Genius: “Sir, We’re not allowed to speculate on unreleased products, this is a stock answer I’m told to give customers”

Did I ever tell you I think that iPods will be obsolete in 2 years? Why? Because of convergence, in Japan, the MP3 Players are already integrated with cell phones. I witnessed this here, and here. (pics)

GeoWombats found my pictures of some vases I took in Greek town in Chicago and added them to her Passion Blog on Mosaics.  Pretty cool.  She’s an artist too, and has some works in progress.  Check our her categories section on the right nav, you can see there’s quite an extensive taxonomy being built out.

It’s so easy to tell when someone is passionate about a hobby, profession, or topic.

An executive at a Fortune 1000 company sent this article to me, asking if this would be a good use case for Wikis and RSS.  The Department of Homeland Defense needs improvement in communications during crisis times, Senators ask for solutions:

“…senators expressed concern that one year after Hurricane Katrina tore into the Gulf Coast, the DHS has done little to bolster “situational awareness” during disasters. As a result, first responders are most likely still unable to provide key DHS personnel with a coherent picture of what’s happening on the ground during a disaster.”

Yes, it would be a good use case, Wikis, Blogs, RSS, and Forums could be the digital version of “Wanted Posters”.

A great example of Social Media being put to good use is Brian Oberkirch. He used blogs to help spread the word and report back to the world what was happening during this crisis, check out the Slidell Hurricane Blog. You can see the hundreds of photos Brian took and put on Flickr, reporting back to the world what had happened. For many homeowners, this was the only way to find out if their home was still standing.  Want to know more about Brian, Shel interviewed him a few months ago.
Social Media empowers the citizens (the first hand witnesses) to quickly share their story.

I always thought that IBM then Microsoft would be first. Ross Mayfield tells us in this video interview by Podtech that Small and Mid-Sized offices can obtain this suite has blogs, wikis, tagclouds, and other ‘bottom-up’ driven knowledge Social Software. As an appliance you’ll just need to provide Power and Pipe. The product is called Suite Two, an enterprise 2.0 platform from Intel.

Get more details from Techcrunch:

” Intel will announce SuiteTwo today, a product that brings together a number of Enterprise 2.0 apps into an integrated suite. The four products that are included in the release are MovableType from SixApart, SocialText, Simplefeed and Newsgator.”

It’s about $150-$200 per seat, as far as enterprise software goes, that’s not too bad, but when you realize a lot of this is freeware that was asembled into a single platform you may think otherwise, but who has the time to build what someone already did? Teresa from BBS has some additional coverage. Brian, David, do you see this?

Video: Day 3: The Growth of Social Media – What Does It Mean For Your Search Marketing?

Presenters: Sally Falkow, CEO, Expansion Plus Inc. Chris Heuer, Founder, Social Media Club MODERATOR: Bill Flitter, Pheedo

Presentation Gems
I spent some time listening to this video capture of Search Insiders’ recent conference, I really enjoy dissecting presentations and taking notes, it really forces me to learn. Link via David Berkowitz.

Here’s some key highlights:

• Three times of Media in the past
• 1) Broadcast Media
• Me talking to you
• 2) Interactive Media
• Me talking to you, but you can leave comments and feedback
• 3) Social Media
• The people telling the corporations what they want, and talking to each other
• What is Social Media?
• Paraphrased: CGM, and how the audience interacts with each other and brands, using a variety of channels
• Nod to Social Media being very ‘generational’, a common way how folks under 30 are communicating.
• Shane from HP asks, How do you make money? Is it a traditional advertising?
• Chris answers, if you’re searching for short term ROI, it’s not going to happen.
• Those with the best story tellers and relationship builders will win at the end of the day. That’s a long term strategy.
• Chris Heuer
• Benefits: Your content is showing up where people want to see it
• What Robert Scoble did at Microsoft cannot be bought, what he did for the brand was amazing.
• Chris suggests to read the book “The Influentials”: ONe in Ten people influences the other nine.
• Participation is Marketing
• Everyone who is talking about your company, or around your company is influencing others.
• Social Media is about humanizing, rather than mechanizing. (believe me, I know it’s not easy)
• Listening is the first thing to do (Agreed)
• It’s not just about sales, it’s about personal connections
• Empowering your Evangelist with the right tools (I had to do this at Hitachi)
• Refers to Cluetrain Manifesto
• Refers to Edelman Walmart Fiasco
• Sally Falkow
• Think like a publisher
• Mainstream media is losing circulation
• The LA Times is up for sale.
• Ad Revenue Down
• However…online all of these sites are growing
• MySpace continues to grow
• 1/20 hits goes to a social site, a majority go to MySpace
• Sending traffic to banks, travel sites and other commercial entities
• Social Media is the number 1 upstream provider of traffic to google
• Delicious scores high in SEM
• Recommends tagging content with Technorati.
• Provides a case study on Hand Lotion, pretty interesting.
• Key Takeaways:
• Top things to do
• 1) Listen, Monitor (Agreed)
• 2) Participate, once you find them
• 3) Lead: Build Community (Chris suggests they already exist, gave Technorati case study)
• 4) I recommend to measure here…
• Don’t shy away from negative comments
• Edelman waited 6 days to respond, thereby losing credibility.
• Social Media Audit
• Get your keywords and go to Technorati and Blogpulse
• IMPORANT NOTE FROM JEREMIAH: Blogs and blogs indexes do not cover all of the social media arenas, use Google and iTunes as well and consider hiring a firm that does this.
• Chris suggests the communication agencies may be the best to lead some of this
• PR industry is waking up says Sally
• Check out the Social Media Release, so it’s more search friendly

Technorati Tags: Social Media

Podtech Video: ConnectBeam Demo and CEO interview
Puneet Gupta the CEO of ConnectBeam was recorded doing a demo of his enterprise tagging tool with Podtech. Video of ConnectBeam demo. If you want to get some insight from Puneet himself, Robert interviewed him in this video.

Security and Cross Sharing Needed for Corporate Tagging and Knowledge Sharing
While Del.icio.us is great for social bookmarks, employees must be careful in information shared or bookmarked. There are some nice integration features with Google enterprise search. I recently gave some advice on how to use Del.icio.us for Marketing Research. ConnectBeam provides enterprises with the ability to have a richer experience as this enterprise tagging can be shared securely within an enterprise intranet environment. Users can share information via tagclouds, organize by groups and easily find out what others are tagging. There are some other features that are coming, be sure to keep an eye on this company.

ConnectBeam could be used for:
Use cases could include; teams sharing knowledge via links/tags, and overlaying notes on top. Search tagged content by an variety of personal slices (geo, role, project, etc). Develop bottom up controlled vocabulary for Intranet taxonomy. Most importantly, use ConnectBeam to tag your enterprise intranet securely, and away from prying eyes. In summary: ConnectBeam makes knowledge capture within an enterprise easy and more secure.

Disclaimers
It should be known that I’m on the Board of Advisers of ConnectBeam and have a vested financial interest in their success. Oh, and I start working for Podtech tomorrow.

Update Nov 29th: As a member of the Advisory board, I’m careful that there is never a conflict of interest.  To ensure no conflict of interest, I did not sign the papers to join the board of advisors at ConnectBeam until after my leave of my last employer.

Compare many video services from one page. Which one do you like? I think blip looks very ’sharpened’ and Soapbox looks good, although many would be hesitant to use Microsoft.

Although there are dozens of players, how come AOL is not on here?

This in from HDS colleague Julio Garcia, who says Podtech stole me.

Which one do you like? YouTube looks the worst (Although they have the largest community)

I just listened to the latest Podtech Weekly. Every week you can get your news update and summary from Podtech News Weekly. This week covers the following:

Learn about Apple’s iFone
(JKO: I’m sure other OEM cell providers will create MP3 and iTunes integration, my personal prediction is the Apple phone will not take off with the same zeal as the iPod. Apple must get into this space as building an MP3 player will be a commodity feature in future products, and the iPod will be unnecessary. How do I know this? I was in Japan a few weeks ago and observed that Japan phones are already offering mobile video conferencing and contain integrated and converged with MP3 players, as wireless continues to grow, the US will catch up with features, such as embedded MP3 players)

Universal Music has gone after MySpace and YouTube over copyright infringement.
(JKO: It will be interesting to see how ‘traditional’ music entities will work with social sites. The important thing to remember is that it’s not just ‘one’ social site to look at for distribution, by the time Universal and others get situated into this social network, the ‘cool’ kids may have moved on to what’s next. Get over the legal issues and start to figure out how to adapt to this new model.

Video Games are hot for Xmas
(JKO: Podtech reports that the PS3 and the Wii are sold out at brick stores, while you can still purchase them on eBay for $2000 dollars! I took a video of some passionate Wii fans that waited in line all night at best buy in SF. Podtech reports that there are other hand held devices to purchase. I wonder about what happens when we dispose of our previous game consoles, creating even more eWaste. Podtech reports that Digital Cameras, LCD panels are still hot items, if you look at the cnet homepage, you’ll see an accurate reflection of this.)

One of the things I noticed about the Podtech site is the tag cloud is so highly skewed towards the term “technology” it should be broken down into relevant, meaningful, sub-categories.Disclaimer: As most of you know, I start Podtech tomorrow as a full-time employee.
1 comment