Barrack Obama and social media

If one is still wondering on how effective social media can be, they only need look at the social media efforts of the Obama campaign.  Reports of US$639 million raised from over 3 million donors the vast majority of them online – social media had a undeniable impact on this.  I’m fortunate to be speaking at a Rotary Club luncheon this afternoon and I intend on mentioning this fact during my speech.  In the meantime, here’s an interesting Business Week article today about Obama’s efforts regarding social media and how future campaigns will never be the same…

I was invited to attend a CIPS dinner last night, the event was sponsored by Bell Canada as part of the ICE Conference and directed towards top CIO’s and business people.  I’m writing an article on social media and large organizations for the Edmontonians magazine and thought this would be a good place to get a quote or two.  Interestingly, I was able to speak with a number of Bell exec’s from several different departments and the answer was the same.  “No we’re not using social media externally.”  There’s a definite wait and see attitude throughout their culture on this issue.  I’m wondering if the Bell brain trust has been paying attention to the US presidential election lately or at all?

During that same dinner, I was also able to speak to a couple of people who work for the Alberta Government.  It seems as though they too are grappling with the use of social media among their ranks.  As one AB Gov director said, “the upper management doesn’t think it’s being used but among the younger employees it definitely is…”  There are reports of a planning across all ministries but it’s slow moving.  Out of that discussion, I’ve been invited to present to one of the key government departments on social media.  This may also have been due to the fact that we’re already working in this space to some extent.

Regardless, there is no denying that Barrack Obama broke the mold in many ways during this election, the world has changed forever (for the better I think and hope) and in my opinion so has the discussion regarding social media ROI.

Presenting “Miss Rogue.”

My November column for the Edmontonians Magazine will be about blogging.  I’ve only been given 500 words this month. It seems my first article (Pg 10) was reported to be entertaining, if not a bit “long-winded.” Of course, anyone who knows me well knows that’s completely “in” character for me.  I don’t know – you tell me what you think and weigh in on the picture too.

I wanted my next effort to have a key interview or two, providing you the audience with a nice change from my usual self-indulgent approach.  After some thought (environmentalists will be happy to know that no smoke appeared during my thought process), I wanted to reach out to some serious blogging enthusiasts.  One of those picked was Chris Pirillo, the self-proclaimed “geek” behind Gnomedex – a blogging conference to see if he’d be willing to answer a few questions for my article.  Chris replied, “What questions?”  I emailed six questions to him, and they must have offended him as I’m still waiting for a response.  Most likely, though, he’s just very busy.

Having said that, I’m under a deadline, and Barb the editor would have had my guts for garters if I didn’t get a move on.  So as I usually do in these situations, I picked more than one interviewee to touch base with for just such a time-crunch occasion.  So who’s the lucky duck?  None other than Tara “Miss Rogue” Hunt of Horsepigcow.com fame.  Given that she’s in Lisbon at the moment, we opted for an email exchange to save on the cell bill and Skype break-up.  Below is a short excerpt from our email chat.

W: Do you think micro-blogging, in this case, Twitter with it’s growing notoriety is reducing the overall relevancy of the personal blog?

TH: I don’t know if relevancy will be reduced, but, in my case anyway, frequency is reduced. I know a large number of bloggers who post less because they are able to share their ideas quickly and succinctly on Twitter. However, once I’ve had a rigorous conversation on Twitter and ideas come together more coherently, I put them into a blog post. I no longer meander around ideas on my blog. I meander around ideas on Twitter, then post more solid content to my blog. So, in the end, the relevancy is actually increased on my blog because every time I post, it’s been thought out more than it used to be.

W: What are you doing in Lisbon at the moment? Business, a conference?

TH: I’m speaking at SHiFT08: It’s awesome because now that I’ve been on the speaking circuit for 2.5 years, I know many of the other speakers. Brilliant folks. It’s amazing how our ideas start to flow together, too.

The rest of my interview with Miss Rogue will appear in next month’s Edmontonians Magazine edition. I’d like to thank Tara “Miss Rogue” Hunt for her time and responding so promptly from the road during an international event where she’s presenting. A true pro.

Published in 3, quoted in 1

These certainly are crazy and highly-cool days.  I’ve mentioned in the past that I’ve been asked to write several articles on social media lately. Many are published and circulating now, and so I thought I’d share that with you.  Certainly it’s a real honor to be asked to write for any one of these cool publications let alone all of them, and so I wanted to thank those folks who have provided me with the opportunity to speak my mind.

Here’s a list of where you can find me in order of who asked first.

“The Art of Marketing without Marketing” – Propel Magazine, shipped today and hits the stands this month and I’ve been asked by David Cree (Publisher) to write for the next issue which is really great.

“Understanding Social Media” – Troy Media Corporation, a series that will deliver interviews with Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin and Chris Heuer, more here.

“Social Media 101” – Monthly column with the Edmontonians Magazine.

All of the above opportunities were a direct result of social media working in fusedlogic’s favor.  Whether it was the topic itself or through a series of events online that led back to myself and my company, social media came through and continues to do so everyday.  Another example of this is how Twitter has led to my being interviewed for a facebook centric article written by Tannette Johnson-Elie, (@telie on Twitter) a journalist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

I’d love to hear your feedback on the articles…are they interesting?  I was asked to provide some high-level perspectives and will definitely delve deeper in upcoming articles.