Archive for August, 2010

What We Do at Social Business Strategies

I think I’ve confused you.  May I have a few moments to clear things up? You know that Cheryl and I do something related to helping medium-sized and big companies learn how to use social media for business.  That can be a broad range of things, though, can’t it? Conversations with Molly Brochers (one of FahlgrenMortine’s rising stars) this week led me to start rethinking my content direction.  Part of that revelation is to help you to get a clear(er) picture of what Social Business Strategies does to help companies wrap their collective head around the social web.  I want to you know what we’re building. Whether or not you know it, you read this blog.  You’re already involved. The Vision “People of Earth!” (There’s that line from Cluetrain again.)  Humans inhabit the web.  Each day we get closer to living in the matrix.  We socialize with each other.  We curate and collect things.  We do business. Social Business Strategies helps mid-sized and large organizations implement change, so that they can leverage humans and technology to do business. What We Do at Social Business Strategies (Right Now) To make this simple, here’s a list (and some basic descriptions of what each set of words means).  There’s a ton of “definitions” floating around the web.  Here’s my take: Online Presence Audits and Recommendations – We look at what’s out there on the web about your business and brand, including the properties you own, as well as the content and conversations you don’t.  We look at what your competitors are doing.  We look at the category of your products and services (as a whole) to find trends, ideas and holes to fill.  We use a variety of tools and human power to wipe the fog from your organization’s lens.  And we go deep.  Really, really deep. Social Business Audits – This [...]

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How To Lead More Productive Collaboration at a Distance

Do you have clients outside of your backyard?  How about business partners? In most cases, that’s pretty common in today’s business environment.  Thank you, Interwebz. At Social Business Strategies, a good amount of the clients Cheryl and I work with live outside of central Ohio.  The nature of the work that we advise and train them on, as well as that of the programs we implement, is more like a marathon.  It’s not project work or even campaigns with finite beginnings and ends.  We help our clients move the needle towards organizational change and the corporate adoption of social media tools as a business solution. With that, regular “status” conversations with clients are absolutely essential.  We make it a point to have weekly – and sometimes even biweekly – discussions on any program’s progress. We brainstorm, address challenges, troubleshoot technology and devise workarounds, plan action items and assignments, and build consensus among team members during those conversations.  From my experience, these are all mission-critical elements of successful movement towards achieving our objectives. How To Lead More Productive Collaboration at a Distance From our own experimentation in the last few months, we’ve made some changes in how we approach status conversations with our clients.  Below are some of the things we do to lead more productive collaboration at a distance.  By all means, please steal this.  Feel free to use any of these ideas in your own work: Simplify the agenda. Don’t kill time writing out too many details on how the meeting will progress in a long and formal document.  Remember that most of us busy professionals get to reading the agenda about 5 minutes before the meeting starts.  We all move fast.  When you build your agenda, try to make it as simple and readable as possible. MindNode is a excellent tool for building your agenda in the format [...]

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The Rise of Human Business Teams

Welcome to Monday. I’m glad you’re here.  And I’m glad you’re doing your part to inhabit the Interwebz. It’s a beautiful thing – humans like you and I interacting online, that is. I thought about beginning this post with “People of Earth,” a line re-made famous in 1999 (the year I graduated high school) by authors Levine, Locke, Searls and Weinberger in the opening line of the Cluetrain Manifesto.  It was one of the most powerful books of the last century and, in my opinion, still is today. In fact, you’d be doing good to download the authors’ version of the 95 Thesis, sign it and hang it on your wall, right above your monitor (for reference). It just didn’t seem right to reuse those opening words, even if what’s on my mind aligns with what the authors intended to teach us way back then.  This is where my head is at today. Human Business Teams + Media Technology + Participation in Conversations = Better Customer Experience If you want to see a human business team in action, visit Incept’s blog, Facebook page or talk with Tim, Becky or Steve on Twitter (all are client links). Your Take on Human Business Teams If you want to see where I’m going with this whole idea of Human Business Teams, check out my post from the Content Marketing Institute.  Even if you think I’m completely nuts, please leave a comment.  Thanks to the sharp folks over at Disqus, I’m listening and I want to know what you think about all of this. Okay? nateriggsLike what you just read and want to get my posts delivered to your inbox? SUBSCRIBE HEREMore Posts Follow Me:

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