Twitter and Journalism – A New Perspective – Being There

January 30, 2009 at 8:20 am · Filed under Twitter

Much of the debate about the future of media assumes that traditional media will not “get it”.

But there are important signs that some in traditional media most definitely do get it.

We know that the White House wants to have a better interface with the press – but so does part of the press

Here is Chris Cilliza’s from the Washington Post who is Twittering the Whitehouse – by following his Tweets you get a seat at the conference – you get the internal conversation that you would have if you were there – who is being boring, what the body langauge is etc. A whole new perspective.

Here is David Schlesinger of Reuters who is Twittering at Davos talking about what this means to journalism. Again, if you want to be at Davos – follow the Twitter Stream #davos

What I see is a new perspective. Old Journalism kept you at a distance – emotionally and in time. The journalist pretended to have no feelings or connection. In most cases you were being given a picture of events after they had happened – much filtering went on.

What Twitter is doing is helping the journalist to take you right into the event in real time and also as a participant – you are at the White House Briefing. You are at Davos.

This is entirely new

Comments (2)

Clay Shirky, with Euan Semple, on social media, collaboration, the future of the enterprise and more

January 27, 2009 at 5:01 pm · Filed under Enterprise 2.0

Thanks to all who joined us earlier this afternoon for a great discussion between Clay and Euan. Attached is the recording of the conversation for those who missed it and want to listen in place or by download.

Clay and Euan will both be at FASTforward’09, as will all of the contributors to this blog and other leading thinkers in the space including Charlene Li and Don Tapscott.

From the conference site:

The Largest Business and Technology Conference Dedicated to Search-Driven Innovation

The User Revolution continues to rage on, and the seriousness of its impact is being felt not only by the newly empowered users – but also by businesses that are struggling to respond.

FASTforward’09 explores how leading-edge companies like yours can use search technology to Engage Your User and unlock business value by connecting people to the right information when and where they need it…

For more info on the conference, which is being held in Las Vegas this year from February 9-11, and to register, head here.

 

 Clay Shirky with Euan Semple: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Comments (1)

Social media experience at Mayo Clinic

January 27, 2009 at 11:21 am · Filed under Enterprise 2.0, Social Media

Image via Wikipedia

At last week’s Blogwell 2 conference in Chicago, Lee Aase from the Mayo Clinic shared their efforts to use social media to continue to share the Clinic’s message with the existing extended community tightly and loosely surrounding them. The Mayo Clinic has built a worldwide reputation over the course of many decades. Fundamentally, that reputation is a function of word of mouth. That makes social media in all forms a natural fit for Mayo.

They are working across multiple fronts included a fan page on Facebook, multiple blogs, a YouTube channel, and Twitter. At the conference, Lee announced their most recent effort, Sharing Mayo Clinic, which is intended as a place to share people stories about the Clinic and to serve as a hub around which other social media efforts and coalesce.

i was struck by a number of things in Lee’s presentation and Mayo’s overall efforts. First and foremost was the value of simply diving in and learning from their experiences. Coupled with that was the additional leverage found in thinking systemically. The heart of their strategy here is to find and share the human stories connected to the Clinic every day. The technologies serve as multiple ways to get the story out and Lee and his team (which is much smaller than I would have predicted) are smart enough to not get in the way of those stories.

For example, although they are making extensive use of video in their storytelling, they are using the Flip Video Camcorder instead of a more complex (and intimidating) video set up. What they are learning is that the Flip provides good enough production values and doesn’t get in the way of the storytelling. I suspect that there’s more craft involved than Lee let on, but not so much that it is out of reach for any organization that’s willing to make a few mistakes in the early stages.

Lee closed with an intriguing observation about the value of Mayo’s investments in social media. Here’s how he put it:

As I approaches 0, ROI approaches infinity

I suspect that the average CFO would be a bit suspicious, but there’s an important point here. The financial investments in social media can start at zero and don’t need to get terribly far away. The real investments are in organizational time and attention and what Lee and others are demonstrating is that those costs are also readily manageable. Answering questions about ROI does not necessarily entail using a spreadsheet.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Sharing Mayo Clinic Goes to Facebook and other Social Networks
• BlogWell 2 Chicago: Some Big Companies Do Connect
• Should hospitals use Twitter to follow patients?

Comments (2)

Webinar reminder: Clay Shirky, interviewed by Euan Semple

January 26, 2009 at 10:45 am · Filed under Enterprise 2.0

A reminder to join us tomorrow, Tuesday, January 27th, at 2:00 p.m. ET for a webinar with a Clay Shirky. Clay, who’ll be giving a keynote at FASTforward’09, will be interviewed by Euan Semple, the longtime social computing practitioner and consultant (who will also be joining us at FASTforward’09).

Register here to tune in.

And to find out more and join us in Las Vegas for FASTforward’09 from February 9-11, head to the conference’s website. The contributors to this blog will all be there as will Charlene Li, Don Tapscott and others.

Comments

Listening To and Talking With Your Current and Potential Customers – SNCF

January 23, 2009 at 6:38 pm · Filed under 2.0 Design Thinking, Community, Enterprise 2.0, Interaction, Social Media, Trust, User Revolution, Web 2.0

During a recent business trip to France, I met with a range of business people interested in and involved with early Web 2.0 initiatives in the corporate arena.  There’s a lot of interest in the area (as there is in North America) and it seems to be growing rapidly.

Publicis (the advertising giant) has a consulting arm specializing in corporate-things-digital, and has been involved in helping some companies roll up their collective sleeves and go beyond using the Web to display information on a corporate web site.  I had the good luck to meet with Martin Menu (Community / Networking Manager at Publicis Consultants) and Stanislas Magniant (his colleague at that time and now with Linkfluence, purveyors of webpulse and visualisations of networked conversations on the web, in Washington, D.C.).

Martin and Stan introduced me to, and helped me understand, an interesting case study involving bringing a large and somewhat monolithic quasi-governmental organization (SNCF, the French national rail transportation company) into the 21st Century in terms of interaction with and listening to customers on the Web.

I also remember reading a Reuters or AP feed to the Globe and Mail a couple of years back in which Maurice Levy, Chairman and CEO of Publicis, clearly stated that he and his colleagues wholeheartedly believed that digital and the Web were the future.  He mentioned in the news piece that Publicis would be giving priority to learning more about Web 2.0 and incorporating a range of the elements into its offerings and practices.

SNCF’s web site is the largest e-commerce site in France.  The following graph gives you a sense of it’s presence on line and the amount of conversational activity it stimulates.

.

.

In the last several years it has gone about updating  it’s web site to reflect a growing range of content and opportunities for customers to communicate / interact with the company.  Publicis is the digital branding / communications consulting agency that has helped it design and build these sites. 

.

2006 SNCF Site

.

2007 SNCF Site

.

.

The changes year over year reflect the increasing opportunities and demand for interaction, and in 2008 SNCF decided to test, in a pilot project, the much-ballyhooed listening to and speaking with customers with a new site, a section of which (at the URL http://debats.sncf.com) carries the tag line “Talk To Us” (or “Speak With Us”).

.

2008 SNCF Site

.

.

The growing awareness of the need for and utility of hosting conversations with customers led SNCF to realize that it “is a company that people talk about a lot on the Web without it being able to answer the criticisms“.   They decided they wanted to explore “how can we create the conditions for dialogue with Web users?”

SNCF, with the help of Publicis, decided to take advantage of the launch of the newest version of the site to create an interactive space to stimulate and engage in conversation with (current and potential) customers who use the web site.

.

2008 “Talk With Us”

.

Creating this interactive and participative space involved the following steps:

• SNCF recruited voluntary spokespeople within their staff
• Web users ask the spokespeople their questions about the SNCF
• They are able to vote and comment on other people’s questions
• Every day, the “spokespeople” answer the questions elected by the Web users

Thus SNCF and the customer participants on the Web site co-create the content of this space.  From what I learned in talking with Stan and Martin, an important additional effect has been the feedback from customers working its way back into some of SNCF’s core business processes.  Are you surprised ?  I’m not. 

The short-term results of the pilot project seem to speak for themselves:

• 76,486 visits in a couple of months

• An average of 2,000 visits a day
• 
331,606 pages seen

• Average time spent on the platform is 2.30 minutes

• A community of 1,560 users

• 1,210 questions and 233 answers

Via debats.sncf.com customers asked questions mainly about services and pricing, and provided a wide range of feedback, while SNCF through its staff asked questions in order to solicit customers’ advice and better understand what kinds of new features and services customers were wanting or looking for.

It also became the de facto source for current information, such as:

Jan. 24 strikes announced

• Users worried about the impact on their daily journey
• Seeking for information on Google

Opinion & Debate is users’ first choice

• Opinion & Debate at the 1st rank of Google query
• Daily updated content
• Free referencing campaign

A key source of official information from and about SNCF

• Web users go to the platform
• Find answers

.

All in all, the pilot project was deemed successful enough to make it a permanent feature of the SNCF web site.

 Now SNCF can legitimately state that it is a company that has experienced, appreciated and will continue to learn from being in dynamic interaction with its current and potential customers … thanks to the Web.

Powered by Qumana

Comments (3)