My friend, Steve Gasser, has developed a great little 20 - 30 minute game/activity for Social Media presentations/workshops.  While his is targeted at the non-profit sector, the materials can easily be adapted to almost any other industry.

Games are a great way to introduce and reinforce learning because they help drive home application of the topic.  Steve's game is quick and simple.  I'd have to say it is one of the best exercises that I have seen in a long time.  I am jealous that I didn't think of it first.  Steve is openly giving it to the community, for which I admire him even more.  I plan to use it and adapt it.  I hope you will too.  Thanks Steve!

Steve's blog post and materials may be found here:

http://www.stevegasser.com/social-media-for-non-profits-the-game/

Comment (0)

A quick blog post for those in the learning world. Elliott Masie has a new ebook available for free. It's a very quick read full of insightful tips and thoughts to consider. I especially like the quick article on Talent Management by Comcast's CLO Martha Soehren. Visit the Masie Center website and download the book here. Kudos to Bill Byron Concevitch for editing.

And thanks again Elliott for all you give to the community!

Comment (0)

Ok, I'll admit it...  I'm a closet KISS fan.  Yes, the rock band KISS.   Being a closet KISS fan, I hadn't looked for them online outside TicketMaster searches. I also have to admit that I was curious a few months ago when I received an e-mail from Eventful.com about a "fan routed" KISS tour.  Being a social media advocate/aficionado I had to see what this was all about.

To be fair, let me explain my expectations.  I consider Gene Simmons to be an insightful marketing minds.  I mean love him or hate him, this guy has been selling himself and KISS for decades.  Even if you don't like his stuff, you can observe that he gets it done.  So my expectations were pretty high.  I expected that a social media campaign such as a fan routed tour would have a very strong online presence.  I expected that Gene Simmons would have his folks working with the cutting edge technology that is pervasive in social media today.

So, what did I find?  I was surprised.  Keep in mind, I only did a bird's eye assessment - nothing more than 45 minutes total.  In this assessment, I look at the major social media and bookmarking sites.  This is not enough evidence to build a plan around, but it is enough to give you a sense of the social media presence of an entity. Here are my findings:

Websites: I was dismayed to find that KISS.com is not owned by KISS.  They needed to go with KISSonline.com.  Given the productions that KISS usually generates and the financial capital they hold - I would have expected a more polished website.  Same with GeneSimmons.com.  The visual feel is very similar and echos the presence on Facebook and MySpace.  Consistency s good,  I just expected more.

LinkedIn: I was not surprised here.  I did not find evidence of any band members - even using their real names.  This doesn't mean they aren't there - it just means I did not find any I could certifiably state were legitimate.  I did find several impostors.  I also found one LinkedIn group which uses the band logo.  I am surprised here at least from the standpoint of Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley.  Being the business mogul he is, I expected to find Gene with a presence on LinkedIn.   I was hoping that Paul Stanley was promoting himself as an artist here as well.   I guess when you're famous you don't need a LinkedIn profile, but I disagree with that notion.

Facebook: There is a legitimate KISS fan page on Facebook with over 100,00 fans.  Figuring 2 million Facebook users, that's 5% of the population.  There are some other fan pages, but they are either tribute bands or user generated fan pages.  The presence here is very similar to the KISS website.  So kudos for consistency.  There are even Facebook applications dedicated to KISS.  So on initial appearance (remember bird's eye view), we have a uniform brand so far.   Gene Simmons also has his own Facebook page set up, so we are starting to see him carry his personal brand over to the online world.  Way to go Gene!

MySpace: As expected, there is a MySpace page for KISS.  I would have been shocked if there wasn't.  When I think music and social media, I think of MySpace first as a place a band would be.

Twitter: Initially I was expecting a ton of impostors on Twitter.  The #Kiss hashtag is active with activity and shows related tweets.  I was able to find 5 accounts on Twitter which appear to be legitimate KISS representation, Gene Simmons was one.  Gene does not tweet very often and has only been on since March 2009.  Definitely a presence, but it could be tightened up a bit.  I also see how Twitter could become an integral part of the KISS machine - read on after the assessment notes.

YouTube: I was not surprised here.  There is a large KISS presence on YouTube - mostly fan generated though.  Who cares, its a large number of videos blaring KISS music.  This would be a great place to connect with the audience.  Heck, consider doing something official on Pandora as well.

Groups on Google and Yahoo: There are a large number of groups on Yahoo and Google talking about KISS - the band.   This is good because this is where the fan base is hanging out.   Knowing where your customers/clients/fans hang out is important - it lets you craft and target your message.  Mr. Simmons excels at that.

Delicious / Digg: As expected, there weren't many (in comparison to everything else) bookmarks on Delicious or Digg related to KISS.   There were about 300 total between the two sites (yes there will be some overlap).  For a band, I'm not sure how important this area is to build a presence on.

SlideShare: I was just curious and went here to see.  There were 3 presentations involving KISS.  I expected none or for them to be related to Gene Simmons only.

So in a nutshell, I feel that Gene Simmons has a more cohesive social media presence than his band.  I also feel that there are some things that could be done to tighten up the messaging and branding on both fronts.  There is absolutely a role that social media could play in elevating the KISS brand and like many corporations - they are struggling with it a bit.  The good things are that the presence is strong where expected - those places just need to be connected together with a strategic purpose.  I see evidence that Gene is doing that for his personal brand.   There are plenty of places to engage the community as well.  This is where I would focus the Eventful Tour Demand.  As for the other places such as LinkedIn?  They may not matter nor may Gene care - I think a presence there would reinforce him as a maven of marketing and detract from the impostors.

That said, I still love the idea of using social media to have fans vote on what cities and in what order KISS will play it's North American tour.  That's an awesome idea and one that should be capitalized on.  And here's the final idea for using Twitter.  Listen carefully Gene...  Set it up so that your set list on the tour is fan generated by Twitter.  My vote will be for "God of Thunder".

For those wanting to do their own Bird's Eye assessments, here's the table I use to capture the data in.  Again it's simple and shouldn't take a lot of time.  Add columns to do a comparison between entities.  Again, this exercise is not enough to build a plan or strategy around.  The purpose of this exercise is to determine online presence from a social media perspective;  show were potential conversations regarding your brand, product, or service occur; and at a high level capture the sentiment of the conversations that are occurring.

Comment (0)

It seems that the social media world has been on fire lately.  To many it seems like overnight.  It really hasn't been overnight, it's been creeping into the mainstream and now is poised to reach (if it hasn't already) mass adoption.  After today (May 18, 2009) the social media world will move exponentially faster and connect to more than it ever has before.  Today Facebook will support OpenID, and that is a great move forward.  See Facebook's announcement.

So what is OpenID?

OpenID eliminates the need for multiple usernames across different websites, simplifying your online experience.  You get to choose the OpenID Provider that you trust.  At the same time, your OpenID can stay with you, no matter which Provider you move to.  For businesses, this means a lower cost of password and account management, while increasing site visitor registration conversion rates. OpenID lowers user frustration by letting users have control of their login.

Why does the Facebook announcement matter?

Facebook will become the biggest example of a social network that allows users to log-in with OpenID credentials granted to them by other providers.  New Facebook users will now be able to create accounts using their Gmail credentials and existing users will be able to associate and thus log in with Gmail or any other OpenID account that supports "automatic login."

OK, But what is next?

Contact lists are the second simplest benefit of this kind of data portability, but it won't stop there.  In the learning and development world, it opens up the ability to share knowledge across networks, contact lists, etc.   I personally believe that OpenID will truly open up knowledge sharing by leveraging the larger social networks such as Facebook.  Sure, you can exchange data with APIs, etc, but with OpenID, you have a common platform for authentication.  I await when LinkedIn decides to go with Open ID.

If you are curious, I use an openID from Janrain.com.  I'm sure I will revisit this topic in the future.  For now, what are your thoughts?

Comment (0)

About a year ago, I found this odd, square shaped book on sale titled “The Back of the Napkin” by Dan Roam. I devoured this book. I mean I devoured it. For those that know me, they know “devoured” in this case means that Mark read the book in one day, most likely in one sitting. That’s true – except I read it twice in the same day. If you’ve visited my LinkedIn profile, you also know that I recommend this book.

I’m going to say this once. Reading the book does not do Dan Roam’s work justice. You may say, “OK – it’s a visual design book. That’s what I read Edward R. Tufte for.” You are correct – that is what I read Tufte for as well. In order to maximize the message from Dan Roam’s book, you must see him speak. Here are two opportunities for you to do so (for FREE).

Dan’s first presentation “The Back of the Napkin” is available at The Commonwealth Club of California’s site. The recording of this presentation does not show the whiteboard as it is used during the talk. For that reason, I recommend you read the book prior to viewing this presentation.

Microsoft invited him to speak at Mix09 and they recorded his presentation with the whiteboard. Dan’s second and evolved presentation, “The Way of the Whiteboard: Persuading with Pictures” may be found here… 

[span class=attention]Side note: If you like this approach to communicating, then you may choose to invest in a LiveScribe pen. While I wish the pen supported multiple inks (or my preferred gel ink), it’s great for capturing digital ink. I like it much better than a Tablet PC as it fits my normal workflow by allowing me to use tools that I have used for years – a journal and a pen.[/span]

Comment (0)