I did a search for Don Cornelius, creator of Soul Train, on Google. At the top of the search results, there’s a note that tells me here are 20 personal results, or 20 links or posts that mention Don Cornelius by people in my Google+ circles.

If I click on personal results, I see the full search results list, but with the personal links at the top of the list. Holy smokes! That means that the Washington Post article on Don Cornelius, which was previously at the top of the page, just got overtaken by a link on nerdist.com because someone I follow and interact with a lot posted that link on his Google+ page!

This is just another example of how Google is heavily favoring its Google+ social network and another giant reason to:

• Create a Google+ page
• Encourage social sharing of your content across all social media platforms (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, Google+), but especially Google+

A study by Nielsen back in 2009 found that 90% of people 25,000 people surveyed “trust recommendations from people they know, while 70 percent trusted consumer opinions posted online.” This makes intuitive sense. Think of all the people in your Facebook network who ask for recommendations for a contractor, camera or pediatrician. And consider the crazy, huge influence of mommy and wedding bloggers.

So, what’s your social sharing strategy? It could be as simple as making sure there is a Share This link on all of your articles, meetings and products. Or you could actively ask your customers and members to recommend your products and service to their networks in your e-mails, tweets, and e-newsletters.

First of all, Maki was on the Nissan Leaf waiting list for 18 months. 18 months! We kept getting these teaser e-mails and brochures about how the car was coming, but then there would be one delay after another. When Passport Nissan finally started taking orders, Maki was the first in line. Thank goodness we weren’t in a hurry to get a new car.

Actually buying the car once it became available was a snap. But then again, buying a car these days is pretty easy. You go in, you get financing through the manufacturer, you sign a bunch of paperwork and you’re done.

This is a photo of Maki during the assessment, which took place in August. The installation finally happened in November.

Getting the charging station installed so that we can charge the car overnight (using a regular AC outlet would take over 24 hours) turned out to be quite challenging. Nissan gave us a list of contractors, but then they all dropped out of the program. We finally got a company to come out and do the assessment and give us a quote, but they didn’t actually have any installers/contractors available in our area for a month. When we finally got a contractor, the company took forever to file the permit and then they missed their appointment (just never showed up, never even called).  When the contractor finally bothered to come out, actually installing the charging station was a snap because all they did was hook up the equipment to our already-installed 240 volt circuit and mount it on the wall.

Okay, so now we have the car. It’s pretty, it’s quiet and we feel super hip and green. But first generation products come with a price.  The Leaf’s range is less than 100 miles on a full charge. A few days before Thanksgiving, after driving our son around town for some errands in the afternoon, Maki headed out to Dulles airport to pick up my brother. According to the gauge, he had enough charge to get there and back. But he didn’t count on the gauge not being super accurate because range is affected by driving conditions, e.g., going fast on the highway lowers your range. So Maki is at Dulles and he realizes he can’t make it home. Remember all those TV ads about charging stations up and down the East Coast? Those charging stations don’t exist. Period. End of story. I called the dealer, I googled, I made calls. No charging stations. Maki even left a message with a woman who has a home charging station to see if she would help out. No answer.  I finally found a My Organic Market in Herndon that has 2 free charging stations. They’re not quick charge stations, but they’re charging stations nevertheless. So Maki, my brother and his girlfriend shopped at MOM and went to dinner. After an hour and a half, the Leaf had enough charge to get home. Phew. I guess we’re keeping my Honda Civic Hybrid for a while.

Do we expect to save a lot of money by driving the Leaf? Eh, not really. Our commute to work is short and we can’t exactly go on long road trips with this car. Do we think we’re saving the planet? Eh, not really. We know it took a lot of energy to make the car, especially the gigantic battery. But we do think that if we keep the car long enough, it will be a net gain for the environment because the Leaf does not pollute. We also know that companies rely on early adopters like us to lead the way, share our experiences with others, and pave the way for greener cars.

So far, we LOVE our Nissan Leaf.  If you’re in the DC area and you’re dying to get a ride or learn more, contact me or Maki at work. Maki is always happy to talk about his new car. :-)

Unless you live under a rock, you’ve no doubt read about, heard about and discussed the SOPA blackout that’s happening all over the Web. Web giant Wikipedia has gone dark to protest SOPA and PIPA, while others like Craigslist, Google, Wired, WordPress and dozens of other sites have put prominent messaging and graphics that clearly show opposition to the proposed legislation. Wired and WordPress show large portions of their home pages blacked out as if they have been censored.

Wow. Let’s just stop and consider the reach of these Web site giants.

Google is ranked by Alexa as the number 1 site in the US and is visited by half of ALL global Internet users daily. So at least half of us today got messaging from Google about SOPA and PIPA. If you use the search tool embedded in your browser, you missed the black censor bar over the Google logo and the simple plea to: Tell Congress: Please don’t censor the web!, but the Google logo is still blacked out in the top left corner of all pages.

If you ignored Google’s censor logo and call to action, you probably did a search on Google and found a link to Wikipedia, which was blacked out for the day (just the English version). Alexa says Wikipedia is the 6th most popular site on the Web, so millions of us didn’t get to use Wikipedia to look up names, places and things.

If you were looking for a job, car or apartment today, you probably went to Craigslist, the 9th most popular site in the US. Although Craigslist did not go completely dark, an intro page urges everyone to oppose SOPA and PIPA.

And oh yeah, even though Facebook and Twitter didn’t join the dozens of sites that participated in the SOPA blackout, the conversations on these sites were dominated by SOPA and PIPA.

And then of course, there was the overwhelming coverage about the SOPA blackout by mainstream press, alternative press and bloggers.

All of this means that today, January 18, I would bet that the vast majority of American got some kind of exposure to SOPA and PIPA, most of it negative. And if just a fraction of the millions of Google, Wikipedia, Craigslist, Reddit, Wired, WordPress (and on and on) users took action and contacted their representatives and Senators, today was a very busy day on Capitol Hill.

That’s one heck of a grassroots movement. How about you? How many sites did you visit that had some mention or call to action re: SOPA and PIPA? Did you contact your representative in Congress?

Our move reminds me of every single website launch at Matrix Group. When a Project Manager reports that he or she will be done with a project when it launches, I warn that there could be weeks of tweaks and that we should just expect it. Here’s why:

Sometime, you just don’t don’t know where to put something until you’ve lived with it a while. I wish I could say that our information architecture process is perfect and we account for every piece of content, but it’s not and we don’t. Clients often have to live with a site for a few days or weeks before they figure out where everything should go. In the meantime, content doesn’t go up or it gets stored under some generic navigation called Resources. I feel like Resources is like our garage; there’s a lot of great stuff in there but it’s hard to find what you’re looking for and you know you need a better organization system.

The little tweaks can make all the difference in the world. The new master bathroom in our house is wonderful but it had a few problems. You had to walk inside to reach the light switch and the towel bar was several feet away from the shower. We were unhappy from the beginning but we didn’t know what we wanted or how to fix the problem. Then one day, my husband came home with a wireless outlet that he attached to the wall. Voila! We can now turn on the light before entering the bathroom! And a hook added to the wall just outside the shower solved the towel problem. Same with a website. We often need a few days or weeks of real users road testing the site before we can make the slight improvements to the flows and paths that make the site really great. For one client, we added a Google map link to a calendar application; it was amazing how much happiness 2 lines of code created.

You can’t finish decorating right away. Our new house is laid out in a very similar manner to the old house but nearly everything had to be re-arranged. Bookshelves got moved around the house, we re-arranged the closets, and the living room is completely different, even though the dimensions are the same and we didn’t buy new furniture. With website redesigns, small changes to the navigation sometimes means a total rework of the content and CMS. And clients often can’t conceive of how to “dress up” pages with images and formatting until they are live.

You’ll get more done if you throw a party. My mom always says that if you want your house to look good, throw a party. You’ll get the boxes unpacked, the pictures hung and the furniture arranged – just in time. When a client picks the launch date for their website, we ask if they will be unveiling the site at a conference or event. I love having a deadline tied to a conference because conferences don’t move, which means everyone hustle to get things done and it’s amazing how much content gets written right before the event and launch.

Anticipate the tweaks. At Matrix Group, we know that it takes time for clients to get comfortable with the new site, use its new functions and figure out what’s working and not working. Leslie Blum from Carolinas AGC calls them “iron outs” and she’s right on. It generally takes between 2-4 weeks to get the help text just right, all the new content loaded, and the integration use cases all worked out. So rather than fight the tweaks, we anticipate them and plan for them in our schedule. I will caution, however, that tweaking past 30 days can get counter-productive. You run the risk of the team losing steam and experiencing launch fatigue.

In the last 30 days, we’ve launched new sites for the Ironworkers, the American Society of Addiction Medicine and the Washington Building Congress. Although the sites look great, we’re still tweaking. :-)

This whole campaign has been about social media and group effort. First, I polled the Matrix Group staff to see if they wanted to repeat the social media fundraiser from last year. The answer was yes. Then I asked the staff to nominate their favorite charities; I picked the top 5 charities selected by staff.

Next, we reached out to the local charities and asked them to create an informative video that makes the case for giving them money. Not surprisingly, we got amazing, authentic videos from each organization. One was created by a volunteer who did a stellar job.

Next, we came up with a way to fold in social media, increase our reach, and make the campaign fun. So we filmed a kitschy video that explains the campaign and tied the donations to getting new likes on Facebook and subscribers on YouTube. The whole campaign, including creating the video, working with the charities and putting it all together on the web was made possible by my amazing staff.

Check out our funny video on YouTube explaining the campaign and introducing the charities.

Watch the videos of the five deserving organizations on YouTube. The five organizations are Doorways for Women and Families, Food and Friends, SPCA of Northern VA, Washington Animal Rescue League and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association.

Here’s how YOU can raise money for those in need this holiday season:

• Like us on our Facebook page.
• Subscribe to our YouTube channel.
• Vote for your favorite charity or charities by liking their videos on our YouTube channel.
• Spread the word about the campaign to your networks on Twitter, Facebook and Google+.

You’ve got until December 20 to like, subscribe, vote and share. I’d love to raise $5,000. Can you help?

• For the gamers in your life, a Playstation Move or an Xbox Kinect will let them interact with games in a whole new way. With these accessories, your body becomes the controller and you can run, jump, punch and dance to a new generation of games. My favorite Move game is Everybody Dance, which teaches you cool dance moves and provides quite the workout. I’m dancing every morning to try to lose the last of the baby weight. Hey, if Kirstie Alley can dance her way to a new figure, so can I!
• If you’re looking for cool game titles, check out Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword and Batman: Arkham City.
• In my office, we’re all about the techie toys and all things Star Wars are cool. James thinks the Lego Super Star Destroyer is super cool.
• For a different type of game experience, Tanya recommends Dominion Card Game. This game is so geeky, it won a MENSA award!
• If you want to shop for unique gifts that give back, Jessica likes The Greater Good Network Store. For example, shopping in their Hunger site raises money to fight world hunger and promote peace on earth.
• Jenny loves to hop on Etsy.com, which features mostly handmade items from individuals.  I especially like the reusable paper towels and storage box and wallets made from duct tape of different colors!
• Since zombies are all the rage, it’s important to be equipped with the proper zombie gear. Kelly has some great suggestions: a tactical vest, a zombie survival guide, and survival tools.
• For the kids in your life, a Nintendo 3DS will endear you forever (well, a few months at least), and a Mindflex Duel Game will let them test their powers of concentration and use their brainwaves to levitate a foam ball (no kidding!).
• For the movie lover in your life, we love the Roku LT streaming media box.
• And finally, since we all mostly have everything we need and want in our lives, how about making a donation to a local charity? There are so many good ones in every community, we hope you’ll think of them during this holiday season. Maria likes Oxfam USA and Heifer International.

How about you? What’s at the top of your list this year? What are you gifting and what are you hoping to receive?

This pattern is validated by user interviews and surveys that Matrix Group conducts for clients when doing a redesign. People visit websites because they need something; they don’t just randomly visit or navigate a site aimlessly hoping to find something useful. But here’s the rub: users rarely know exactly what they need. What they do know is that they need help with a specific topic or problem.

For example, a contractor might be facing an OSHA inspection so she visits her trade association website looking for resources on prepping for an OSHA inspection. She doesn’t know if she needs a book, a CD, a checklist, a webinar, white paper or consultant. All she knows is that she’s got 48 hours to prepare and she needs help fast.

But think about it. Jane contractor needs help re: OSHA inspections, but the website she’s visiting is organized by Events, Publications, Newsletters, etc. What she would love is to be able to find everything offered by her association that will help her with the upcoming inspection. A search is useful, but it might return too many results, and it’s often not curated. How does she know which search result will be most valuable?

This is where taxonomy comes in. If you’re one of my clients, you know that I am a taxonomy fanatic and I won’t let clients get away with NOT having taxonomy on their sites. A taxonomy is a fancy word for a classification system. At Matrix Group, we work with clients to develop a set of categories or topics that reflect members’ needs and special interests. Then we integrate that taxonomy into the content management system (CMS) and the association management software (AMS) so that everything can be categorized: news items, newsletter articles, magazine stories, meetings, webinars, publications, even supplier members.

Here are some great examples of taxonomy at work.

Leadership and staff of the American College of Sports Medicine know that members of the public visit the ACSM website looking for information on specific topics, e.g., exercise for women. So we implemented a taxonomy that lets the staff categorize everything on the website. The result is a topic index that lets the public view ACSM positions, brochures, fact sheets, books, news, events and outside resources. Today, a website visitor does not need to know what kind of service he needs, he can simply click on a topic to find everything offered by the association on that topic.

The Association of Small Foundations did something similar when we helped them create the Tools and Resources portion of their site. ASF knows that their members call, e-mail and visit the website when they need something, and that something is often related to a known set of issues associated with running a foundation with zero or few staff members. If a member needs help with governance, he can browse the Boards and Governance category and find resources on Building Your Board, Board Roles, Board Policing and Running the Board. These resources include articles, sample policies, FAQs, upcoming seminars, publications for sale, and a consultants. In ASF’s case, members and the public can browse the topics, but only members can access the protected content.

Now you see why I love taxonomies. Taxonomies connect people to content and let them more easily find the information and resources they need.

How about you? How are you using taxonomy on your site? Got any good examples of taxonomy in action on a website or app?

On Monday, Google opened up Google+ and allowed companies and brands to create corporate pages.

If you haven’t done it already, I encourage you to create a page for your organization, company, brand or initiative by going to the Google+ Create Page.

Even if you don’t know how or what you’re going to do on this new social media platform, I think you need to be on it because:

• Google+ has 40 million subscribers and that number is growing fast. It’s nothing compared to Facebook’s 800 million subscribers, sure, but 40 million is still a big number.
• Google+ users tend to be early adopters. According to Target Marketing, in the first few months of the network’s presence, the users were mostly young men, a third of users were between 25 and 34 years old and 59 percent of all visitors were male. This will surely change over time.
• Just as there isn’t one TV network or channel that dominates anymore, chances are your organization’s target audiences are on various social networks so you probably need a presence on all the major platforms.
• Google likes to drive traffic to its web properties, like YouTube and Blogger, so having a corporate presence on Google+ will be good for search engine optimization.
• Google likes to integrate its offerings, so there will surely be really neat tools to tie together Google+ with Google Analytics, Google search, AdWords, Google Reader, Gmail, etc. For example, there’s already a way to +1 an article in Google reader. +1 is Google’s version of the Facebook “like.” I’m especially excited about Ripples, which is an interactive graphic of the public shares of any public post on Google+ to show you how a post has rippled through the network and help you discover new and interesting people to follow.

My dilemma right now is that I don’t know how the Matrix Group Google+ page will be the same and different from our presence on Facebook. If you’ve ever heard me speak or if you follow this blog closely, you know that I preach a layered approach to social media where each platform has a different purpose and content strategy. There is overlap to be sure, but it’s best to have a different strategy for each platform to encourage your target audiences to follow you in multiple ways.

As your marketing team ponders this same question of market positioning for your Google+ page, be sure to create your page early to reserve the name and have a presence for the early users who will be looking for you.

Have you created your company’s Google+ page? How will you be using it to connect with your customers, prospects or members?

In the corporate world, it’s conventional to believe that the person answering the phone is the lowest person on the totem pole. Worse yet, many companies believe we can replace receptionists with automated attendants: ring the doorbell for service or dial by extension.

Me, I’ll always have someone answer our main line because most people calling Matrix Group are customers who need help or prospects who need our services. So you better believe I want a warm, friendly, knowledgeable and committed person answering our phones! And because it’s not always clear to people who does what in a Web agency (do you talk to the programmer or a front-end developer or the PM about an error on your admin site?), a good receptionist can field and route calls efficiently.

My Creative Director Alex Pineda says that every employee is a brand ambassador for the company. So my receptionist, as the person who perhaps has the most contact with the most people, is arguably the most important brand ambassador I have. Which is why her title is First Impressions Officer. The other admins in the office, who also share customer interaction responsibilities, are equally important brand ambassadors.

Scott Spandauer defines a brand as “more than just your company image. It also includes your customers’ experience and the expectation you set when doing business with your company. In short, it is (a) promise.”

As a CEO, I may set the tone for our corporate culture and brand, but it’s my staff who live and reinforce it with our customers. Company owners everywhere, remember that your customers’ experiences start with the person who answers the phone and greets people at the door.

It’s not that I don’t like Google Plus. On the contrary, I like the interface, I like that it’s so easy to add people to circles and post updates to only specific circles, and I like that the interface is (for now, at least) nice and clean, not cluttered with ads.

It’s just that I’m feeling saturated. I already have my routine of posting interesting news items to Twitter, posting personal updates on Facebook, uploading my weekly video interviews to YouTube, checking into FourSquare when I go out to eat or visit a new place, and blogging once a week.

The question for me has become: what place should Google Plus occupy in my life?

I guess I could simply post the same updates to a bunch of social networks, but that doesn’t make sense to me. If I’m connected with the same people on multiple networks, they would see the same posts and that’s no fun and a waste of time.

Perhaps Google Plus will become, like Twitter, another public persona for me, whereas Facebook is the network I reserve for family, friends and close network.

Sean Parker, a co-founder of original music file-sharing service Napster and a prominent Facebook shareholder, says that, “power users have gone to Twitter or to Google+.” Could this be true? In my case, my techiest of friends and co-workers seem to be more active on Google+ these days but my network is still firmly on Facebook. And yet, Google+ is grabbing subscribers fast. GooglePlusWiki says that there are now over 20M people on the network.

After pondering this issue for a while now, here’s where what I’m thinking. Although the majority of my network is still not on Google+, I need to be on it. Because no one network will dominate and it will be hard to ignore Google+. Just as I tell clients that they need to be on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and Flickr because their audiences are on these networks, I know that I need to be on all the major networks personally. I will figure out where to find the time to post to Google+. I will repeat some posts because there is some overlap in connections but it’s not 100%. I will hope that HootSuite will soon let me post to Google+ in addition to Twitter and Facebook. And I will figure out what brainspace Google+ will occupy.

How about you? Are you on Google+? What is Google+ doing to your Facebook and Twitter updates? Are you posting different things? How are you integrating Google+ into your day?

My story is simple. My many Apple products made it easy to share the wonders I call my sons and made technology easy at home. I’ve been an Apple fan for a long time and have slowly accumulated a collection of Apple products.

Apple Should Have a Campaign About How Macs are for Moms

My Mac is my mommy machine. I use iPhoto to store and manage my over 30,000 photos, mostly of my sons and photos from our travels around the world. And when I want to share photos with my family, I select the photos I want and then ask iPhoto to send lower resolution versions, so I don’t clog e-mail inboxes with photos that are 4MEG each — no need to resize the images first, which means my mom gets photos nearly every week!

At the end of each year, I made video slideshows of my children’s activities using iDVD. The themes make it easy to put together a great looking DVD and I get a terrific keepsake from the year.

My older son learned how to use a computer on our Mac (the baby isn’t old enough but he’s definitely interested). He immediately understood the intuitive user interface and can play games, watch videos and surf the web.

iChat and now FaceTime make it easy to stay in touch with Grandma, who lives in California. She loves that she can see the boys, although she often frets about how she looks (as if the boys care, they love her!).

Apple Devices Make Home Networking Easy(ier)

I joke with my techie husband that setting up a home wireless network is not for mere mortals, although I have to admit that Apple has made it easy. We have Airport base stations around the house to ensure that have a good wi-fi signal thoughout our 4-story townhome.

We’ve set up speakers in the different parts of the house and downloaded an app that lets me control the Mac and send music or radio programs to different parts of the house.

We’ve owned an Apple TV for many years. We use it to watch movies, watch YouTube videos on the big screen, and enjoy our photos. We were worried that Apple would discontinue the Apple TV for lack of sales but it looks like this device will be around for a while. Thank goodness!

I don’t think I could live without my iPad at this point. My husband, older son and I were vying for iPad time so much time that we now have 2 of these tablets at home. I use my iPad to check my schedule, check weather, check e-mail, surf the web, find recipes, play games, manage my user manuals, listen to music, watch movies on Netflix, and so on and so forth.

Finally, I love how all my Apple purchases (music, apps, games, movies and shows) are done through my one iTunes account. And I absolutely adore how synching my devices regularly means I can enjoy these purchases on all (or most) of our devices — PC, iPad, iPod Touch and Apple TV.

Thank you, Steve Jobs. Thank you, Apple

If you haven’t already noticed, I’m a huge Apple fan and a big consumer of Apple products. I’m passionate about Apple products because the products clearly were developed with end users like me in mind. I love the form factor of the devices, I love the easy user interface, I love the diversity of the apps and functions, and I love how all the products work together.

Thank you, Steve Jobs for making my life as a mom better.

Well, I’m going paperless with my user manuals because they’re all going into my iPad.

Just imagine this: all (or most) of my manuals in one portable device, searchable, and including a dictionary and ability to write notes. Here’s how to do it:

• Download the PDF to the computer that you use to synch and back up your iPad.
• Drag the PDF to your Books collection in iTunes
• The next time you synch your iPad, voila!, the user manual is now on your iPad

This means I can get rid of the ugly stacks in my house and I never have to worry that a manufacturer will remove a user manual for an aging device.  Want to learn more? This article from MakeUseOf shows you how to paginate, bookmark and annotate in iBooks. Love it!

In case you hadn’t noticed, the world is going mobile. Check out these amazing statistics:

• There are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers; that’s 77% of the world’s population.
• In the US, 25% of Web users are mobile only, meaning they only they use their mobile device(s) to access the Web.
• Global tablet sales are expected to top 80 million by the end of 2012.

Which is why I think every organization needs a mobile strategy. Here are my top recommendations for getting started:

Include Mobile in All Of Your Marketing and IT Activities

Over a dozen years ago, I urged clients to be the person in the room who always said, “what about the Web?” Today, appoint yourself as the person who says, “what about mobile?” Know what tools you have available in your mobile toolbox, including mobile stylesheets, mobile sites, text messaging, and apps. Talk to your customers and ask them if, how and when they access your website and e-mails on a mobile device.

Budget for Mobile Initiatives

I believe mobile needs its own line item in your budget or it needs to added to your marketing and IT activities. For example, do you have the hardware you need to view your website on an iPad, Android phone, iPhone, iPad or Android tablet? Be sure to ask your Web partner (like Matrix Group!) to help you budget for mobile, whether it’s developing an app for your convention, designing a mobile version of your website, or using text messages to generate traffic at your exhibit hall.

Planning a Website Redesign? Plan for a Responsive Design!

Here at Matrix Group, we’re really excited about building websites that look and behave differently depending on the size, platform and orientation of the device, including widescreen monitors, standard size monitors, tablets and smartphones. Responsive Web design uses a mix of flexible grids and layouts, images and javascript to customize the experience for the device. For example, if I’m looking at a website on a smartphone, the large branding area could disappear and the horizontal navigation might turn into vertical text navigation. If your organization is thinking of redesigning your website, please consider a responsive design. You will spend more time and money on wireframes and design, but the results will be worth it. Just imagine: less pinching and squinting for smartphone users and lots of gestures and swipes on tablets.

Pay Attention To Your Mobile Stats

As always, pay attention to your usage reports. Google Analytics has a whole, new set of reports that tell you what your mobile users are doing and what devices they are on. I’m using our usage reports to figure out what functions to include in a new mobile version of our MatrixMaxx software since we don’t believe mobile users want to use ALL database function.

How about you? What’s your organization’s mobile strategy? How are you getting started? What kind of results are you seeing?

This totally makes sense to me. When I find something new, cool, interesting, amazing or whatever, I immediately post it to Facebook and Twitter (increasingly, Google + as well, but more on that in a future blog post).  And I rely on my network of friends, co-workers, clients and business colleagues to find out about other new, cool, interesting and amazing things.

So I got to thinking. If social sharing is an important means by which we (again, the collective “we”) learn about new sites, we can’t and shouldn’t leave this sharing to chance. Sure, most websites now have a ShareThis widget, but is this enough? I say no. I think every organization needs a social sharing strategy that includes the following:

• What you want people to share. Do you want visitors to share your home page? Individual articles? Donation pages?
• How you want people to share. Do you want visitors to send an e-mail, post to their social networks, save to their social bookmarking pages, all of the above?
• Regular review of analytics to find out what and how people are sharing links on your site. Be sure to review your usage reports, ShareThis account and other reports to find out what’s popular, how people are sharing, and learn why certaini articles or posts generate activity.
• Design and CSS guidelines that make your site shareable. For example, if you share a link on Facebook, Facebook automatically indexes the images and allows you to cycle through the images and select one to include with the link. If your organization logo is set up as a background image in your CSS or the logo is not whole, your logo can’t be included in the link.
• Calls to action to encourage sharing. While many of us will share our favorite links on our own, other won’t unless prompted, so I think it’s important to have calls to action to encourage sharing. It’s also a good idea to test calls to action on a regular basis to find out which calls to action work best.

The design and front-end team at Matrix Group has developed a set of guidelines for setting up web pages so that titles are complete and the proper images are included in links. Be sure to test the shareability of your site on a regular basis and address issues with your web design or maintenance team.

How about you?  What’s your platform of choice for sharing links?

So I visited the website (TheseComeFromTrees.com) and ordered a bunch of stickers for Matrix Group. Jessica, who is on the “green team,” put stickers everywhere we use paper: in the bathrooms, the kitchen, all the printers.

Curious to see if the little stickers would make a difference, I started paying attention to the amount of paper waste in the women’s bathroom. Here’s what I found: in the women’s bathroom, the trash bin for paper hand towels used to fill up before lunchtime. Today, the bin does not fill up at all during the day. This is consistent every day. The women of Matrix Group are absolutely using fewer hand towels in the bathroom. Could the little sticker really be making a difference?

We haven’t reduced the number of female staff, so that couldn’t be the cause. And I can’t imagine that we’re using the bathroom any less. So I started talking to my co-workers and they all agreed that because of the sticker, they are using 1 paper hand towel instead of 2. We had effectively halved our paper consumption!

This got me thinking. How had a little sticker changed behavior?

I attended a presentation last week by Don Schmincke of the Schmincke Research Alliance. He effectively articulated why management consulting doesn’t work: You can’t change behavior by changing the process. You need to change people’s beliefs in order to change their behavior. People need to believe and understand why doing something is important and necessary.

So how did the little sticker make me change my beliefs? In this case, I don’t think the sticker changed my beliefs, but it did help me connect the dots between trees and my paper consumption. The little sticker also made it easy for me to do good: just think about where paper towels come from and use fewer!

This reminds me of signs that remind us that stormwater drains go into a nearby river or bay. Even though I already don’t litter, I’m extra careful when I see that a gutter or drain will dump into a body of water.

Or how about the gauge in my Honda Hybrid that tells me how many miles per gallon I’m averaging on a tank of gas? There is a number that I shoot for with every tank. When the gauge tells me I’m below that number, I look for ways to change my driving to up that number: I coast more, I don’t speed, I use distance to slow down, I turn off the AC, yada, yada.

The question is: in our daily lives, what other signs and reminders could help us be more productive, healthier, greener, nicer? What labels and signs have helped you make a difference in your life?

P.S. I hope you’ll consider ordering stickers for your home and office. Heck, I’m thinking of buying a bunch and plastering them in bathrooms of bars and restaurants all over town! Won’t you join me?

My answer is this: post about that one topic but change the perspective, voice and interactions depending on the platform.

Say your organization is pushing for a piece of legislation on Capitol Hill. You could issue a policy statement and repeat that statement across all platforms. A more effective strategy would be to:

• Post the policy statement on the website. This policy statement will likely have a formal tone and reflect the position of the entire organization.
• Write a press release on the policy statement and send it to your media list. This, too, will have a more formal tone.
• Post links to the policy statement on Twitter, but with differing headlines, highlighting different aspects of your policy. You could also post third party stories, facts and figures that support your position; in this instance, you would be curating relevant content to bolster your position.
• Feature interviews with members and customers talking about why they support (or oppose) the proposed legislation on YouTube and your blog. These interviews will feature member perspective in their own voices.
• Have the CEO write a blog post about why the issue is important to the industry and members. The tone of the blog post should be conversational and personal.

If you are promoting a new publication or report, you could:

• Feature the publication in your online store and what’s new section of your website. These descriptions should be compelling but more formal.
• Post an audio excerpt on your YouTube channel and iTunes. The excerpt could be done by the author.
• Post key findings and highlights to Twitter. The most effective tweets are thought-provoking and compelling.
• Feature the publication on Facebook and sponsor a discussion with the author for a 7-day period. A discussion will allow a dialogue about the issue and foster a different kind of member interaction.

Finally, if you are marketing a convention or event, you could:

• Mail a 4-color brochure with full meeting information.
• Mail and e-mail postcards (e-cards) that showcase the different benefits of attending the event. The tone of these pieces should be urgent and compelling.
• Tweet conference news (number of exhibitors, confirmation of keynote speakers, etc.) and third party news that highlight the importance of the issues to be covered at the event
• You could test different calls to action in e-mails and posts. Some calls to action could focus on benefits, some could inspire fear, while others could discuss opportunities.
• Feature YouTube interviews or presentation highlights from the featured speakers.
• Offer a hosted discussion with the speakers for a 7-day period on Facebook.

Our jobs as marketers are so much harder because we are marketing to multiple generations, there is no one platform that allows us to reach all audiences, and people are motivated by different things. Having a layered messaging strategy that utilizes the capabilities of each platform and features different perspectives and voices will help you reach and connect with your audiences better.

How about you? How are you marketing your products and services? And how does your message or approach change with each platform? What’s working?

So when Maki and I went to the beach last week, what did the staff do? They pranked me and prank me good they did!

I came back to find that my blog had been completely redesigned and rewritten. I became Jar Jar Binks, my signature purple was now green, and I had apparently been blogging about our new dress code and drinking on the job (if you know me, you know that I’m not much of a drinker). The net admins went to great pains to make sure that my new, green blog wasn’t available from outside the office.

I was in shock initially. Then I panicked that the blog had actually been replaced. Then I started laughing hysterically when I realized I had been pranked and pranked hard.

Check out the alternate version of The Matrix Files. (If the image comes in small, click it to make it full screen in your browser. Trust me, this will be worth it.)

Kudos to Liz, who masterminded the whole prank, and the whole gang of people who designed, wrote, posted, and hosted.

If you’re at familiar with some of the internal jokes at the office (purple is our signature color, we don’t allow shorts, yada, yada), you’ll get a chuckle at the posts. The writing is so good that I think I’ll recruit some new guest writers for this blog.

If you’re shocked at the amount of time that goes into our pranking or that I even allow pranking, let me just say that pranking is great for office morale and productivity. The prank prep is done during personal time and it’s just plain fun.

How about you? Have you pranked anyone lately? Share stories!

I remembered an advertisement from Empire Today. The appeal was that they offered to come to my house, show me samples and install my carpet the next day. So I went online on Sunday night and booked an appointment for Monday night. The sales guy came on time, helped me pick a carpet and asked what time I wanted the installers to come the next day. Amazing. And I didn’t even have to leave the house.

This whole episode reminds me, once again, of the importance of meeting clients and prospects on their own turf. I’ve rarely landed an account where I didn’t take the time to visit the prospect’s office, meet the staff, walk around, and learn about their pain points. Yes, I can probably get good information over the phone and via Webex, but somehow, meeting prospects in their own office makes a difference.

I just came back from a client meeting in New York City. Yes, it took all day because of the train ride up and back, but we had a fun and productive 5-hour meeting. While I don’t necessarily recommend marathon meetings like that, we had to pack a lot into the day to make the travel time worthwhile. But guess what? Meeting for five hours in person was enjoyable because of the amazing information the client was sharing, the conversation and the socializing during lunch. There’s no way to replicate that type of connection via phone and no way to hold an effective multi-hour conference call.

When I get busy, my first inclination is to do a call instead of a face to face meeting. And e-mail is quick and easy when I don’t have time even for a phone call. But I fool myself when I pretend that I connect with staff, clients and prospects via e-mail and phone the same way I do when I meet them in person. I know it’s not practical or cost-effective to do all of my meetings in person so I aim for in person gatherings for the kickoff and midway through the project.

How about you? Do you prefer in person or phone meetings? Voice or e-mail? And how do we steer our interactions back toward face to face in this busy, time-starved, electronic age?

Inventory and audit everything. During the move, I was amazed at the stuff that I “found” and the junk that I ended up tossing. It makes me think of a content audit we completed for a client recently. After delivering the Excel spreadsheet that listed all of their website’s content, the client said, “wow, there’s so much stuff that we didn’t realize we still had online.”

Don’t just hire movers to move everything. A neighbor recently moved and she hired movers to pack up her entire house and move the boxes and furniture. Me, I prefer to do my own packing because it gives me a chance to edit, sort, and toss. With a redesign, I recommend that clients not ask us to just migrate everything because inevitably, we’ll migrate content that should be archived or we’ll put content into the wrong place and it gets “lost” forever.

Use a move to re-organize the flow of your house or website. When Maki and I moved into our old house, the garage was pristine. Over time, the garage became a dumping ground for everything: old notes, out of season equipment, holiday decorations, overflow storage for kitchen items, yada, yada. Pretty soon, the garage was a mess and it was hard to find anything. With this move, I’m taking the opportunity to re-organize the garage so that everything has its place, the shelves are properly labeled, and like items are grouped together for easy access. Same with a redesign: don’t just dress up the pages, use the redesign as an opportunity to make it easier for your customers to find information and services. And label everything properly!

If you haven’t used it in a year, toss! My mom always tell me to toss clothes that I haven’t used in a year. While this advice is not always practical (think winter coats and specialty items), I think it makes sense to put into storage, donate or toss things that my family no longer needs. Same with your website. Check your usage reports to see what content is just not getting visited. If the content is no longer relevant or out of date, you’re better off archiving the content offline or simply deleting it. In fact, old content can be a bad thing because Google can index it and serve it up to visitors, which can cause confusion and misinformation.

Organizing takes time. This process has taken more time and energy than I had originally budgeted. So the moral of the story is to allocate enough time to do your content review, then double or triple your estimate.

Get professional help. I’ve blogged in the past about how I worked with a professional organizer to get my house into shape. For the new house, I’m involving C. Lee from SimplifyYou early. She is going to help me figure out where to put mail, how to store kids’ games for easy access, how to organize supplies in the garage, etc. She can tell me what other clients have done and she can recommend products and solutions that would take me hours to research. With a website redesign, I recommend that clients work with us to create the content inventory, site map, migration plan, navigation and taxonomy. We’re able to do the work faster and we can draw on our experiences working with hundreds of other organizations.

Don’t just make the new house a replica of the old house. Sometimes, clients ask us to redesign their websites, but they want the navigation, content and applications to look and work exactly the same way. What is the point then of the redesign? A new website, like a new house, will have similar functions (think kitchen, living room, dining room, etc. or About Us, Contact Us, Calendar, etc.) but the new site should have updated and improved design, flow, content and functions. Now is the time to create a really great About Us page, redo the site search, roll out some new publications and rethink the online store.

The new house is a work in progress and it will take time to get it just right and feeling like home. But the time, money and effort will be more than worth it.

How about you? When was the last time you moved and how did it go? Is it time to “move” or redesign your website to clear out the garbage and create a fabulous, new space?

Once I realized what was happening, we quickly switched to e-mail confirmations and statements.I vowed to do more to reduce the paper tsunami that swallows my mailbox every week but then entropy set in and I just resigned myself to simply standing in front of the garbage can as I reviewed my mail.

Well, turns out I have another opportunity to reduce my carbon footprint and save trees. We’re moving next week, which means I get to contact all my creditors and vendors to give them my new address. In the process, I’m switching to e-statements whenever I can. I like how Schwab retains my statements for 10 years. And I love that ExxonMobil is planting a tree in my name because I switched to e-statements for my DRIP. Wherever I can, I’m receiving bills through my online banking account and paying online.

According to Matador Network, “The average person in the US receives nearly 11 pieces of junk mail each week, or 560 pieces a year. This amounts to 4.5 million tons of junk mail yearly, of which 44% goes straight to the landfill unopened and unread.” Apparently, eliminating US junk mail would be like taking 480,000 cars of the road!

So what can we all do to reduce our paper consumption? Here’s what I’ve learned:

• Opt out of credit card offers by going to http://www.optoutprescreen.com/; btw, this has the added benefit of making you less likely to be victimized by identity theft from people stealing these credit card offers and opening up accounts in your name.
• Contact the Direct Marketing Association and opt out of about 75% of direct marketers’ lists by going to DMAchoice.
• Configure your online banking account to send you e-mail notifications when you have a new bill and stop paper bills.
• Take the time to cancel unwanted subscriptions and catalogs; this is the most time-consuming because it’s easy to just pitch the unwanted stuff in the trash but think of the trees you’re NOT killing by making the effort.
• Print everything double-sided.
• Watch what I’m printing. Before I hit print, I check to make sure I’m not printing unnecessary pages. I once nearly used up a ream of paper when I accidentally printed a search results page that had hundreds of pages of debug code. Ugh, that was not pretty.

In doing research for this blog post, I found cute suggestions for ways to reuse junk mail as scrap paper, but I don’t believe that solves the problem: the trees had to be cut down in the first place. Besides, junk mail is some of the most expensive paper because it’s coated and printed in four color.

My goal is to trim the crap that appears in our physical mailbox by 50% by the end of the year. I’ll let you know early next year if I met my goal. How about you? Are you overrun by paper? What are you doing in the war against paper?

Why so late to the YouTube game? As I’ve explained before in previous blog posts and webinars, I believe that it’s important to create a layered experience across different media. In other words, don’t just post the same stuff to Facebook, Twitter, your website, YouTube, your blog, etc. Have an overall strategy, but take advantage of each site’s capabilities and culture to maximize followers across all platforms.

Until recently, we didn’t have a clear idea of how we wanted to incorporate YouTube into our marketing, sales and client engagement strategy. We had videos from Matrix Group staff events, but we had reserved our Facebook page for information and posts about the project we’re working on and corporate culture. I didn’t want to use YouTube as another place to promote corporate culture. And until we hired a new Marketing Coordinator, we didn’t have the bandwidth to staff an active YouTube channel properly.

But this past week, we launched The Matrix Minute, which is a series of interviews with in-house and outside experts who discuss web technologies, mobile technologies, social media, design and web development. Occasionally, we’ll feature local CEOs who will talk about leadership and what their organizations are doing to stay relevant and vibrant.

Here’s how the Matrix Minute fits into our overall sales and marketing strategy:

• As a company, we’re extremely committed to ongoing education for staff and clients so content-rich interviews make sense for us.
• It’s a way to showcase the expertise we have within the staff.
• It’s a way to leverage the expertise of our clients and partners.
• It’s a way to continue demonstrating thought leadership.
• We get to show off our video production capabilities.
• YouTube is owned by Google and Google favors keyword-rich videos and descriptions so the channel is good for search engine optimization (SEO).
• It’s a way to layer YouTube into our strategy in a way that’s new and different from what we’re doing on our website and social media.

The Matrix Minute has also been a lot of fun.  So far, I’ve been doing all of the interviews and I’m learning a ton. Ray Stankiewicz, New Biz Manager at Matrix Group, is the producer and Melissa Bader, Designer at Matrix Group, does the video editing.

We’ve got a half dozen interviews already online. For example, Jill Foster of Live Your Talk talks about videoblogging. Jennell Evans of Strategic Interactions shares her tips for managing remote teams. And Sherrie Bakshi of Matrix Group talks about why 2011 is the year to start a corporate blog.

BTW, we call it The Matrix Minute, but the interviews are usually 2-3 minutes long. 1 minute just didn’t provide enough time for a meaningful interview and Matrix Minutes sounded goofy.

I hope you’ll check us out on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/MatrixGroup) and you’ll rate, comment and subscribe. Tell us what you think of our latest initiative!

But what’s even cooler about social bookmarking is that my bookmarks are public (unless I mark specific links private, which I do when they’re links to sites related to my children or my friends), which means I can easily share my bookmarks with others. For example, I use the RSS feed from my Delicious account (www.delicious.com/jmpineda) to share my bookmarks on this blog (check the bottom, right column), and I encourage my staff to access my bookmarks when they’re looking for Internet statistics or case studies.

Finally, I love that I can create a taxonomy for my bookmarks. I’ve carefully created a list of categories that I’m interested in and whenever I bookmark a link, I associate that link with one or more categories. For example, I categorized an article on optimizing your Facebook page for search engines under the tags of Facebook and SEO. I have 148 tags and I bookmark sites nearly daily.

So I was very happy to learn that social bookmarking of choice, Delicious, which had been bought by Yahoo! several years ago and then put on the block recently, had been purchased by the founders of YouTube. You see, I started my social bookmarking life on a platform called Magnolia. I loved Magnolia and still think the user interface is better than that of Delicious, but January 2009, Magnolia suffered a huge data loss and I nearly lost all of my bookmarks. So I switched over to Delicious and I never looked back. If Delicious had gone under (which was a possibility if no buyer were found), I could have exported my bookmarks, but it’s always hard switching platforms and getting used to a new interface.

If you haven’t yet discovered social bookmarking, I encourage you to give it a try. Not only are my bookmarks easily accessible, I have found amazing resources by checking Delicious’ top links and exploring the bookmarks of other people. It’s fascinating when thousands of other people have bookmarked your same links and equally interesting when you’re the first person to save a bookmark.

How about you? Are you a social bookmarker? What’s your platform of choice?

According to Facebook, “Top News shows popular stories from your favorite friends and Pages, many of which have gained lots of attention since the last time you checked.” What this really means is that Top News shows the posts from the people and company page that you interact with the most. For example, I tend to “like” and comment on the updates from my friend Eileen, the photos from my brother Alex and articles from PBS. Since I interact with these Facebook account regularly, their posts are pretty much guaranteed to be in my Top News stream, which, by the way, is the default view.

Top News also displays updates by relevance, based on an algorithm. If a post is getting a lot of comments, it will probably show up at the top of your stream, even if the original post is not the most recent in your stream.

Most Recent “shows updates from as many as 250 friends and Facebook Pages.” This is a more traditional stream because it shows all posts, in chronological order, unless you’ve hidden posts from a specific person or company. If you haven’t checked out Most Recent recently, click on it now and you’ll see posts from a bunch of people and companies you thought weren’t posting. If you start interacting with some of these accounts more, you’ll start to see them in your Top News stream.

What does this mean for marketers?

It means that it’s absolutely not enough to have fans or followers. Your company’s Facebook page can have a million followers but unless they’re liking and commenting, your posts won’t show up in their Top News, which means they’re likely not getting much attention. On the flip side, once you get followers to interact with you more regularly, your posts will show up in Top News, which will further encourage them to like and comment.

Remember, the key to Facebook success is to get your followers to interact with you regularly. I’ll blog in the future about ways to encourage interactions. And oh yeah, I’m doing a webinar next Wednesday, May 18, 11am Eastern on Social Media Marketing and Customer Engagement. Hope you can join me.

BTW, you can edit your stream options by clicking on Edit Options at the bottom of your News streams.

What do you think of Top News vs. Most Recent? Which stream do you prefer?

© 2007 USPS. All Rights Reserved.

In honor of May 4, a sacred day among Star Wars fans (because George Lucas released all of the Star War movies on May 4th), I’m blogging about my Rule #1: Do or do not. There is no try.

Clearly, I did not make up this rule. It’s Yoda’s rule. But it’s a damn good rule, especially in business.

Here’s what I know: Clients don’t come to us so we can TRY to develop the complicated web application they need. They need us to do it. And they need to know that we will be successful and the end result will be close to what they envisioned.

I learned a long time ago that when assigning tasks that must get done, I don’t ask staff if they can do it. I provide background, then ask what they need to get the project done, what obstacles are in their way, and how I can support them. And when I get, “I’ll try,” I remind them that “I’ll try” is not a commitment and it’s not a promise, it’s a half-hearted “maybe” or a definite “no.”

Now, if we’re brainstorming, assessing options or exploring whether or not we can accomplish something, then I ask if we (Matrix Group) can do it. And it’s perfectly legit to say, “I’ll try.”

So what happens if someone (me included) doesn’t know exactly how to get the required task accomplished and can’t quite commit to it just yet? In that case, I ask people to give me a plan that details what they are going to do so they will know and can commit to a timeline and budget.

In Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back, Yoda lifts Luke’s starfighter from the swamp. An incredulous Luke says, “I don’t believe it.” To which Yoda retorts, “that is why you fail.” Like Yoda, my best developers, front-end developers, designers, admins, project managers (yada, yada) believe they can accomplish ridiculously hard tasks under ridiculous deadlines. That is why they succeed.

We called Boombah to complain that we ordered shirts with a sublimation process, which, incidentally, is what our e-mail receipt says. The Boombah sales rep said something to the effect of “the sublimation process is only available for the white and gray shirts. Our receipts say sublimation as part of the template, but it’s wrong. Our website is very clear that you can’t get sublimation with the black shirts.” (Don’t get me started on what happened when I asked to speak with a manager or the owner. It was not good.)

Okay, forget that the invoice says sublimation. Boombah violated what I affectionately refer to as JP Rule #3: Never let your client make a mistake. In my mind, if we had called asking for black shirts with logos, the rep should have made sure we were crystal clear on the concept that sublimation, which is the nicer printing method, is NOT available for black shirts. Knowing that fusion on black makes for a crappy shirt, the rep should have at least tried to prevent us from making that mistake. Yes, we ultimately placed the order and we take responsibility. We paid for the shirts and promptly ordered a batch from another company.

Whether it’s shirts or websites, clients rely on their service providers for expertise and recommendations. It’s up to us to educate our clients, make sure they understand the options, make recommendations, and warn them if we think they’re about to make a mistake. Yes, clients ultimately need to make their own decisions and they are big boys and girls, but if we hold technical knowledge they don’t, shouldn’t we at least make sure they are aware of the impact of their choices?

Case in point. A new client was implementing MatrixMaxx, our association management software. Our main contact told us that the association didn’t need any company demographics as part of the setup. We questioned this decision several times and he maintained that no, the organization did not need to collect company data outside of contact information. Knowing this is wrong and a waste of an opportunity to gather member data, we took the issue to the VP. Without making it seem like we were going over the manager’s head, we let the VP know that we thought the organization could benefit from collecting additional data as part of the member profile and membership application. We even suggested a package of fields. Sure enough, the VP, who has a bigger picture view, agreed on the demographics. We *could* have dropped the issue after confirming with the manager. We would have had tons of documentation showing that the client rejected the additional fields so that if the client came back to us a year later, we’d be perfectly justified in charging extra money for a change order. But that behavior would have violated Rule #3.

We try to live Rule #3 and we don’t always succeed. There isn’t always clarity about what’s absolutely right and what’s absolutely wrong. We don’t always realize a decision will be the wrong one in the long run. And clients don’t always agree with us. BUT, I believe that we have an obligation to our clients to at least give it the old college try and help them not make mistakes.

How about you? Got any stories of a vendor who let you make a mistake or saved you from making a bad decision?

P.S. I have a total of 23 rules. I’ll try to blog about them all in the future. If you’d like a copy of the list, let me know.

Matrix Group recently had the pleasure of helping the Outdoor Foundation launch a new website for one of its initiatives — Outdoor Nation (ON)

Here’s what I absolutely love about the ON website: it’s got a ton of attitude.

The design of the site is bold, almost brash. But the attitude really shines through in the copy. The about page starts off with:

Before the recent youth-led revolutions that are now happening around the world—there was Outdoor Nation. Okay, we probably didn’t influence those uprisings but we do share a belief in the power and passion of young people and our ability to start a revolution.

ON says they “host awesome summits” and “when the ancient Greeks invented social networking, this is what they had in mind!”

In the branding area on the home page, there’s a big pitch to GTFO (get the f*** outside) because “there’s no excuse not to get the fun outside.”

How fun to see a website just brimming with enthusiasm and passion! It’s obvious that ON is targeting a specific demographic and not every organization can get away with this type of attitude and language. But I bet more of us could and should inject our marketing campaigns with fresh design and copy that signals a certain lifestyle and brand.

How about you? What attitude does your website project? Can you name other websites that have a lot of attitude?

Matrix Group is competing in the Arlington Green Games, a competition for the commercial office sector (property owners and tenants) in Arlington, VA to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

When we first signed up for the competition, the office was all gung ho. We formed a green team, we filled out the benchmark survey and we got to work on our green initiatives. Turns out, it ain’t easy being green. Here’s why:

• Little Control Over Major Systems. At home, my husband and I ultimately control our energy consumption. We upgraded our HVAC system to a high efficiency system; our house is cold in the winter and warm in the summer; we just upgraded our windows to be triple-paned, argon gas-filled and super efficient; we installed dimmers; we wash our clothes in our cold water; yada, yada. But at work, our options are much more limited because we can’t control many of the systems that generate the most greenhouse gases. For example, as a tenant, I can’t exactly upgrade the windows on the 12th floor and we didn’t install the HVAC system that heats and cools the building.

• Being Green Costs More. As any news article on green technologies and lifestyles will tell you, being green just plain costs more. The Green Games website recommends that we purchase green credits to balance our CO2 emissions. We can also make sure that all of our purchasing (office supplies, equipment, furniture) is green, which can be considerably more expensive.

• There’s Little Incentive to be Green as a Tenant. I once asked a friend if she had switched her light bulbs to compact fluorescents and she said, “Why should I? I don’t pay for my electric bill. My building does.” As a tenant in a commercial office building, it’s hard to see the effects of our energy-hogging or green ways.

So what’s the green path and how are the Green Games making us better?

What I’m appreciating the most about the exercise is twofold: 1) we are focusing on obvious practices like composting our Keurig grounds and making sure the recycling is going into the right bins and actually being picked up by the recycling contractor and 2) we have initiated a conversation about real policy changes at the company that will result in meaningful greenhouse gas emission reductions.

For example, we currently subsidize half of employee parking fees and Metrocheck cards. But we don’t have incentives (financial or otherwise) for the staff who walk or bike to work. What can we do for these staff beyond giving them $50 a month that will mostly get eaten up by taxes (whereas parking and Metro subsidies are tax-free)? Can we alter the IT policy of leaving our computers on at night so that security patches can be installed; can we at least turn them off on the weekends? And how much of our company profits are we willing to forgo in favor of purchasing green products and credits? All tough questions that we don’t have answers to but that I look forward to exploring this year.

When I was in college and taking a course on aid in the developing world, my professor urged us students not to think about what one person can do in a day, but what a community of people can do over time. The Green Games are hopefully helping the business community in Arlington chart a course for real green practices and change in Northern VA. While it ain’t easy being green, the alternative ain’t much better.

How about you? What is your company doing to be greener? What innovative policies and initiatives have you come up with? What’s worked? What hasn’t?

One of the most important changes is the ability of Facebook admins to interact with fans and other pages as the company or brand. Here’s what this means:

• Facebook admins can now be on Facebook as an individual OR the Facebook page or brand. If you’re admin on a Facebook page, go to your Facebook page and click on Account in the top right. The second option in the dropdown is Use Facebook as Page. If you click on this, you’ll get a list of all pages for which you’re an admin. Select one. You will now interact with others and pages on Facebook as THAT company.
• You can “like” other Facebook pages as the company, not as yourself. Pages that your Facebook page “likes” will be displayed randomly (5 of them) in the left rail of your Facebook page, with the ability to View All.
• You can comment on your own wall and other walls as the company, not as yourself. For example, Matrix Group can comment on a  client’s wall, even though it’s me, Joanna Pineda, who would be authoring the post.
• You can view a newsfeed of updates from the pages that your company likes, not your friends. For example, Matrix Group has “liked” the Facebook pages of our clients. When I’m on Facebook as the Matrix Group page, when I press Home, my stream is from other company pages, not the friends and family of Joanna Pineda.
• When I’m online as a page, Facebook recommends other pages for me to like as a company, based on the “likes” of the fans of my fan page. For example, Facebook tells me that 101 of Matrix Group Facebook fans like Starbucks and gives me the option to “like” Starbucks right from the Matrix Group fan page homepage.  Very slick.

If there are multiple admins on  your Facebook page, be sure to train them on how to switch between their profile and your fan page. And establish guidelines for when to interact with other Facebook pages and fans as themselves or the company fan page. Remember that just because you as an individual love a band, author or political party, it does NOT mean that your company or brand should like these pages as well. I love these new changes and look forward to being Matrix Group on Facebook!

For every 100 youth who join scouting

• 1 will use his Scouting skills to save a life
• 1 will use his Scouting skills to save his own life
• 18 will develop hobbies that will last throughout their adult life
• and on and on

Who are Boy Scouts?

• 72% of Rhodes Scholars
• 65% of the US Congress
• 65% of male college graduates
• 26 of the first 29 astronauts were Boy Scouts
• and on and on

Wow. With statistics like that, I’m keeping my son in Boy Scouts forever and I’m giving them money every year!

Here’s another compelling statistic I heard recently. I’m a member of Vistage, which is a membership organization for CEOs. Vistage says that their member companies consistently outperform non-member companies. Based on the coaching and resources I get from Vistage, I believe it. Vistage is a big commitment of time and money, but totally worth it.

How about you? What compelling statistics or facts can you share with your prospects to make them join your organization, become a customer or donate money?

• If you’re an accrediting body, can you point to the top organizations that are accredited and how accredited companies have better safety/graduation/success rates?
• If you’re a trade association, can you point to the top companies in the field that are members, your legislative record, and the success rate of your companies?
• If you’re a professional society, can you point to the job rate and salary levels of your members, your contributions to the profession, and your profession’s rank as a top career?
• If you’re a charity, can you point to your success in changing systemic problems?

In thinking again about the Boy Scouts, what was effective about the pitch was this: I wasn’t being sold on the activities of the Boy Scouts, I was being sold on the outcome. The message was clear: Enroll your son in Boy Scouts and this is what he can become. I’m sold.

It seems everyone is hawking a good deal lately.

A recent article in the Vancouver Sun reports that “frugality (is) the top consumer trend in 2011.” After this long recession and with many people still feeling uncertain about the economy, it only makes sense that we’re all trying to make our dollar go further by looking out for sales and coupons.

I think that most people are looking for savings and value everywhere: when they’re shopping for clothes, booking travel, buying software, or registering for meetings. How does frugality affect your organization and what are you going to do about it? Here are some ideas:

• Offer more for the same price. If you’re loathe to discount, I don’t blame you. But since most people are looking for a deal or extra value, what extra thing can you offer? Last year, when we announced the Matrix Group webinar series, we offered four webinars for the price of three to people who registered for the entire series. It worked really well for us because we got a lot of registrations to all four events and clients got a deal.
• Create lightning deals. Most organizations offer an early bird registration fee. But what if you offered a steeper discount during just one day? Market the heck out of the deal, create some buzz and capture registrations early in the game. I call this the groupon strategy (I’m going to get sued for saying this, hope not).
• Offer discounts for PR. When I got my haircut at Salon DeZen the other day, the stylist offered me 10% off my bill if I checked into Yelp. Owner Maria Burns knows that a check-in or a great review are worth way more than the few dollars off she’s giving away.
• Create social deals. This idea isn’t new. In fact, it’s a classic campaign: refer a new member, registrant or purchaser and get a discount off your next bill. Encourage your clients and members to register for a meeting as a group and give them a break.

I have a feeling that frugality is going to get even more chic and popular. How will YOUR organization take advantage of this trend? What’s your discount/value strategy? What’s worked for you?

• Why I should give
• What my money supports
• An easy way to make a donation, preferably without having to create a login
• If using a third party payment gateway or network, make it really clear to me what I’m going to see on my credit card statement
• A statement that you won’t rent or sell my information to other charities

Instead, what I usually find is a simple e-commerce form that simply asks me for my credit card information! What a waste of an opportunity to make the case for giving!

So I scoured the Web and looked for effective donation pages. Here are some I love:

Johns Hopkins Giving – This is a microsite devoted entirely to giving. I like the navigation: Why Give, Where to Give, How to Give, Calendar. I also like the branding area, which has great stories about Hopkins students and professors and doesn’t rotate too quickly.

United Way – I like the chart on the left that shows the percentage of a donation that goes to administrative costs vs. program costs. I like this label: Our work in education, income and health.

Red Cross – Instead of one big form, the first page of the Red Cross donation form lets me designate where my donation will go, e.g., disaster relief, military families, local chapter, unrestricted funds.

Humane Society – I like how the donation process starts on the home page through a simple form, then continues to a larger form. I think it’s effective to call donors heroes who stand up for animal rights.

How about you? What are your favorite donation pages? Got any examples of donation page disasters?

One of my Project Managers said she was having a tough time reaching a client. I suggested she try the client’s cell phone since that client is almost never at her desk but she’s almost always available via cell phone.

I have a friend who almost never answers his phone, but if I send a direct Tweet, I get an instant response.

Egads. With all of these communication channels, what’s the best way to reach someone these days?

On any given day, I check multiple devices for voice mail, e-mail or text messages: work e-mail, personal e-mail, home phone, work phone, cell phone, Twitter and Facebook. Some of these channels overlap.  For example, direct messages on Twitter, Facebook messages and work voice mail all end up in my e-mail.

But with so many devices to check for messages, I invariably favor certain methods (work e-mail, work voice mail and cell phone), to the detriment of others. Case in point: I completely missed a friend’s voice mail on my home phone because she called while I was upstairs with the baby one Sunday. Since I was home all day, it never occurred to me that I might have missed a call, so I didn’t check voice mail for several days. Eeek.

Many of my friends and staff have consolidated communications on their cell phones. They have no land line at home and do everything on their smartphone. But my husband Maki and I won’t give up our land line because in an emergency, my trusty land line phone (an AT&T Trimline 210 from 1989) that does not need a power source will still work (unless the central office is out).

I thought Google Voice would save me. Google Voice gives you a phone number that’s tied to YOU, not the device. Currently, I have a Google Voice number that rings on my cell phone and home phone; by the end of the week, it will also ring my direct extension at work. I can program Google Voice to ring on specific phones during certain hours of the day. And I can make free calls anywhere in the US and around the world to other Google Voice subscribers. Pretty cool. Currently, only Maki, my mom and the nanny have this number because they’re the people who MUST reach me when they NEED to reach me. But here’s the rub: Google Voice gives me another mailbox to check! Ick. I hope I managed to disable that feature.

All of this thinking about how to reach me and how to reach other has got me thinking. Are we making ourselves crazy by always being reachable and having the expectation that everyone should be reachable at all times? If you’re an NCIS fan, you know that Gibbs’ Rule #3 is “Never be unreachable” so I guess I need to continue diligently checking e-mail, voice mail, text messages and social media messages. <sigh>

How about you? What’s the best way to reach YOU? And how do you let friends know the best to reach you?

Most organizations go years between redesigns. It’s a big deal to redesign a website; it takes a boatload of time, effort and money. But in between redesigns, most organizations become unhappy with their sites. We have clients come to us because they’re unhappy with everything on their site, which was last redesigned 3, 4, or 5 years ago. Does it have to be this way? I think not.

There are many, many reasons to redesign your website, including:

• Your organization’s mission, name, logo and/or brand have changed dramatically.
• Visitors complain about not being able to find what they’re looking for.
• Your products and services have changed or you’ve added new offerings and you don’t know where to put all the information.
• You are rethinking how your website fits into your company’s overall marketing strategy and want to redo all or nearly all of the content.

BUT, if you’re largely happy with the design and navigation of your site, visitors are able to find what they’re looking for, and your company branding and messaging remain the same, perhaps all you need is a website refresh. Here are some ways in which clients have refreshed their sites:

• One client changed the headers graphics throughout the site and added social media widgets.
• Another client made the entire website wider (the site had been designed for 800 x 600 pixels) and added another column on the home page for events and a featured publication.
• Yet another client revamped important landing pages and improved pages by editing the text and adding images and formatting.

If you don’t have the budget for a full redesign this year, opt for a refresh and focus on content and making calls to action more prominent.

BTW, here’s a photo of the new Matrix group home page and reasons for the refresh. I’d love to know what you think.

How about you? What’s in store for your site in 2011? Full site redesign or refresh?

Sometimes, you need a professional to do the work or help you out. Of course I could have tackled the job of organizing my house myself, but I had been trying to get my house in shape on my own without much success.  C. Lee didn’t just get the project jump started, she gave me a framework to work with.  Organizing a website is no different.  You can do the work yourself, but a good website Information Architect (IA) will help you understand user flows, and get you fired up when the task or re-organizing your website has stalled.

A good organizer gets to you know YOU. Before making recommendations, C. Lee walked the entire house with me, asked a ton of questions, and got to know me, my family, the rhythm of our life, and our priorities.  For example, C. Lee came to respect and understand that my photos, my son’s artwork, and art from our travels are some of the  most important things in my house. So she made recommendations for storing and showcasing them, rather than trying to convince me that I don’t need to keep CJ’s masterpieces from preschool.  A good IA figures out what makes each client unique, who their audiences are, their most valuable services, and their goals for a redesign.  He or she will geek out on your site’s usage reports, interview staff and outside stakeholders, create a content inventory, get a handle on all content, and strive to understand how visitors should navigate your site, for maximum impact, traffic and conversions.

Who is going to use this? C. Lee and I came up with a plan for organizing the house that worked for me, my husband and my son. For example, we created an area in the coat closet for my son that has low hooks so he can put away his backpack and coat himself. On your website, be sure to take into account your target audiences, their demographics and psychographics, what they are looking for, what they call things, and the transactions they want to make. For example, avoid insider terminology if you have a general audience and add a prominent way to resize text if you are targeting a senior audience.

A good organizer has a repertoire of tools. When it came time to find a home for all the “stuff” in my life, C. Lee gave me a multitude of options so I could select solutions that fit my budget and design aesthetic. She suggested different ways to store all of my shoes (Hey, I’m Filipino, after all!) and CJ’s trains and Legos. A good IA will explore different ways to organize your content (by topic, function or audience, for example), and present options for navigation and featured content.

Everything needs a home. C. Lee says that clutter happens when you don’t have a permanent home for everything. So mail piles up on your dining room table, kids’ games get stacked in a corner, and small electronics end up everywhere. But if everything has a home and you make a commitment to putting it back after use, clutter is less likely to happen. So too with a website. We can take the latest news item, recent publications, and the membership application form and feature them on the home page , the footer or the right rail, but we need to know where they live permanently so they can be found from anywhere in the site, not just specific pages.

Do you really need all that stuff? When I finally went through the mounds of toys in my living room, I found toys that my son never played with or hated, broken items, and games he had outgrown. Good grief! Why was  I holding on to this stuff? The short answer is I hadn’t taken the time to review, weed, edit.  When you create a content inventory of your entire site, you might be surprised at what you find. Ask yourself which content is old and dusty and needs to be archived, which content should be updated, and which content is compelling and necessary. And you should schedule a time (I recommend twice a year) to go through content on the site and determine what stays and what goes.

How about you? What have you organized lately and did anyone help you along the way?

I did it! I finally became a Mayor on Foursquare!

Foursquare crowns you Mayor of a location when you’ve checked in from that location more than anyone else. So I decided to make it a personal quest to become Mayor of Rustico, a restaurant in Alexandria that I enjoy and visit fairly regularly. So for the past couple of months, I scheduled all of my lunch meetings at Rustico, and even took my family there a couple of times. About ten days ago, I finally unseated the current Mayor to become Mayor. Woo hoo!

But here’s the rub: aside from getting a congratulations message from Foursquare and a crown in my profile, being Mayor gave me nothing. I told my waitress when I became Mayor and she looked at me like I was nuts. Ditto the manager. Where other venues offer Mayors something special, I didn’t even get a thank you for promoting the resturant to my Foursquare and Twitter followers for the past few months.  Many establishments, especially restaurants now offer “specials” to Mayors and people who check in xx number of times; it’s a great way to encourage people to come, to foster loyalty and spread the word about your company. When a friend called to invite my family to dinner at Rustico, he asked if being Mayor made it easier to get a reservation and I just snorted. Ha! I wish! Not even a free soda!

So I began to wonder if the folks at Rustico are even aware of Foursquare, Foursquare specials, and Mayors! I visited the Rustico website; no familiar links to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, etc. I did manage to find Rustico on Twitter, but the page is not customized, there’s not even a description! Their Facebook page has 3 fans and no status updates. Okay, so it’s looking like Rustico hasn’t yet developed a solid social networking plan.

I don’t believe every business should be on the Web and every social networking platform; it’s just not realistic, practical or even necessary. What I do believe, however, is that every business should have a listening strategy so that they can know if and when their business is being mentioned or discussed in a significant way on specific platforms. Does Rustico even know that hundreds of people are “checking in” to Rustico on Foursquare and Facebook places each week? Gosh, it takes just minutes to set up Google Alerts and Twitter searches.

Imagine this: you set-up a Google alert so you’re notified when your business is mentioned on the Web. You notice lots of mentions on a specific social network. You check it out, learn more, maybe invest in ads or specials. Foursquare, for example, has a primer for businesses on how to use Foursquare to encourage more business.

As for me, I recently lost the title of Mayor of Rustico but I’m not upset. I’m gunning for Mayor of another restaurant that I KNOW offers specials to its Mayors.

How about you? Are you on Foursquare? Have you managed to become Mayor? Did you get anything special for it?

We’re taking the money we’re saving by not mailing printed cards to our entire list and once again donating it to charity. This year, however, we’re trying to increase the amount that we give away.  For every new Facebook fan who “likes” our fan page (the deadline is December 14), we’re adding $10 to the charity pot.

Next, we’re asking our entire network of clients, partners, vendors and supporters to tell us how to give away the money.  I polled the staff and asked for recommendations for charities they thought were worthy of a gift.  We came up with the following organizations:

• Back On Your Feet
• Capital Area Food Bank
• Doorways for Women and Families
• Goodwill of Greater Washington
• John L. Gildner Regional Institute for Children and Adolescents
• The Reading Connection
• The Washington Animal Rescue League
• WEAVE

In our Facebook page, we set up a Poll that allows fans to vote for their favorite charity from the list above. So far, we’ve gained over 100 new Facebook fans and nearly two hundred people have voted.

I like this year’s holiday campaign because we’re able to increase the amount of our donation this year, we gain new fans, and we are able to showcase effective and well managed charities in the DC area. It’s also been fun to promote this holiday campaign to our house e-mail list, on our social media pages, and to our network of friends and supporters.

Here’s how you can help:

• “Like” our Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/MatrixGroup
• Vote in our poll
• Spread the word about the campaign to your network of colleagues, friends and family

We’ve got a goal of $5,000.  Help us support some terrific charities this holiday season!

P.S. In case you’re wondering, we decided to still mail printed cards to our key client contacts because we were worried about some clients and partners not receiving the e-card because of a firewall or anti-spam software. In the end, we liked the idea of clients receiving something tangible from us and the ability to sign and personalize cards.  But instead of mailing nearly 1,000 cards, we’re mailing fewer than 200 cards.

• Everyone who doesn’t have an Apple iPad wants one. At least a couple of staff members want an Android tablet.
• A bunch of staff want the new Amazon Kindle, while a few are getting or giving the Nook Color e-reader.
• The gamers in the office are getting the Kinect for Xbox 360 and/or the Playstation Move. Both devices take gaming to the next level because your body becomes the controller. Watch out, Wii!
• For the PS3 gamers who get the Move, we like Sports Champions and R.U.S.E.
• The L5 Universal Remote turns your iPhone or iPod Touch into a universal remote. Very slick.
• The Roku Player lets you stream Netflix to your TV, for a lot less money than an Apple TV, PS3 or TiVo.
• The Parrot AR. Drone Quadricopter powered by your iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad is ridiculously cool. There’s even a live camera feed from the quadricopter to your Apple device so you can see the view from above.
• Is it possible to have a cool vacuum? Yes if it’s a Dyson. I want the hand vac but it’s always out of stock!
• The Flip UltraHD video camera can record high def video and surround sound with the press of a button and automatically convert your video to be YouTube compatible.
• The Logitech Google TV lets you stream videos from various providers and run Android apps.
• We like this USB car charger for when your devices run out of power and you need to charge them on the fly.
• You’ll love this Spy Net secret mission video watch. Very James Bond.
• I recently got a Panasonic Lumix G2 DSLR camera. Love the touch screen, the smaller form factor and of course, the gorgeous photos I’m now taking.
• If you’ve got a Lego lover in the family, the Lego set of the Death Star from Star Wars will make them happy. It’s got over 3,800 pieces so someone will be busy for a while!
• If you want a non-techie gift idea, the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust lets you adopt orphaned animals and receive e-mail updates throughout the year. Kids will love this one!

If you want more ideas for geek gifts, visit Ars Technica’s holiday wish list of gizmos, gadgets and gear.

How about you? What are your top gifts ideas this season? What is on your Santa list?

Getting lots of fans and interactions is the holy grail of Facebook marketing. The more people “like” your page, “like” your posts, click through to your offers, comment and otherwise interact with your page, the more likely they are to become loyal fans and customers.

So how do you increase likes and interactions on your Facebook page? Here are my top tips, based on the experiences of the Matrix Group marketing team.

• Give your Facebook updates an authentic voice. What most people love about Facebook is the fact that they’re reading their friends’ thoughts and comments in near real-time.  And these comments are not written in corporate-speak; they read and sound the way people talk, like they’re having a conversation with you.  Your company’s Facebook posts should probably not be too casual, but they should sound less like a press release, and more like a comment from a friend or colleague.
• Don’t just RSS your news items or blog posts. I’ve said this before but if all you’re doing is republishing headlines from your website or blog, you’re not giving people an incentive to follow you on on Facebook because the information is the same.
• Don’t automatically post your Twitter updates to your Facebook page. Why?  Because you’re probably chattier on Twitter than you are on Facebook and chatty people and companies dominate Facebook streams, so fans are more likely to right-click and press Hide.  Besides, on Twitter, all you get is 140 characters; you get more words on Facebook, why not use them?
• Make your posts stand out by adding photos and videos. You know the old saying, “a picture is worth a thousand words.”  It’s definitely true on Facebook and it’ s not surprising.  Most people scan their Facebook streams and a photo or video will catch people’s attention much more than a plain text status update.
• Ask for feedback. I’m always amazed that the simple act of soliciting feedback often results in feedback.  Funny how that works.  Heck you don’t even need to ask for serious feedback.  Ask your fans what color to paint your office walls; or ask them to comment on your holiday menu.
• Spark a debate. If you’re comfortable doing so, posting about topics that generate a little heat are great for interactions.  But always keep the language appropriate.
• Use Facebook apps to add interactive features to your Facebook page. For example, you could create a custom tab, sponsor a contest, or host a game.
• Offer exclusive benefits to your followers. Last holiday season, Snapfish offered a daily discount on its Facebook page that generated lots of interest, clicks and comments. I know because I could see the activity and I certainly checked the Snapfish Facebook page regularly for deals!
• Test, test, test. My marketing team is always playing around on our Facebook page to see what time of day is best for posting, the types of messages that generate interactions and ultimately sales, and how to wordsmith updates to generate the highest number of interactions.

Here are some good resources on Facebook marketing and interactions:

• Zimply Zesty has 7 ways to increase interactions.
• A study by Vitrue found that morning posts are more effective, users are more active at the top of the hour and weekdays are busiest.
• Smart Passive Income has some great how-to videos on how to create and customize your Facebook page.

How about you? What tactics have you used to increase interactions on your Facebook page?  Please share your stories!

I was researching an organization last week and visited their website, blog and social media pages.

So did I decide to “follow” the organization on Twitter and “like” them on Facebook?  Absolutely not. Since I had already subscribed to the blog RSS feed, I didn’t feel compelled to follow them on Twitter and Facebook.  Why add clutter to my social media streams with information I can already get elsewhere?

I know it’s tempting to set-up pages on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms and populate them with posts from your blog or press room.  We’re all busy and most communications and marketing departments are stretched thin.  But posting the same information across platforms isn’t doing your organization any good. Why?

• By posting headlines that meet the least common denominator across platforms (probably Twitter, with its 140 character limit), you miss out on functionality offered by the other platforms.  For example, Facebook lets you post longer updates, upload photos and videos, include links, host discussions, etc.
• You don’t give your target audiences a reason to follow or fan you across platforms.  Just imagine this.  If you post complementary but different content across platforms, your clients, prospects and supporters might just follow you on multiple platforms, giving your company an incredible voice with those individuals.
• If you’re posting headlines from your news room, you’re not offering people the authentic, personal voice we’ve come to expect on the social media pages.

Here’s what we do at Matrix Group:

• Our website showcases our products, services, clients, portfolio, news and webinars.
• This blog, which is authored by me, Joanna, the CEO, features my thoughts and commentary on social media, marketing, communications, strategy, customer service, trends and gadgets.  This blog DOES feature website launches at the bottom of each page.
• Our Twitter page showcases our work and clients, but the majority of the tweets are about industry news, trends, how-to articles, and case studies.  Twitter will tell you who we are and what we’re reading.  We’re pretty chatty on Twitter; we post updates multiple times a day.
• Our Facebook page also showcases our work and clients, but we also post photos and updates about happenings in the company, including trainings, parties, fun events, etc.  Facebook will tell you a lot about who we are as a company and our culture.  For example, our staff pumpkin carving contest was featured on our Facebook page.  We’re less chatty on Facebook, just updating a few times a week.
• Our Flickr page is home to our photo library of company events, while our Facebook page has the “best of” photos.
• Our YouTube channel is a work in progress and will soon feature short interviews with senior staff about their areas of expertise, including branding, the user experience, software development and security.

As you can see, our various pages are all designed to showcase our expertise, clients and work but the user experience on each platform has been carefully crafted to take advantage of that platform’s capabilities.  And while the website is clearly a marketing channel for the company, we’re not very sales-y on our social media pages, focusing instead on posting useful and interesting links.

How about you?  How are you creating an integrated use experience across your company’s social media pages?  What’s working for you?

A couple of months ago, someone claiming to be an exhibitor at a client’s trade show called, asking for the client’s logo so they could use it in an e-mailing going out.  The person said they had the approval of the client.  My responsive Project Manager opened up a work request and got the logo sent out asap.

In both cases, the persons making the requests were legitimate and no harm was done.  BUT, they just as easily could have been hackers or scammers and my helpful staff could have been duped into giving them information or access they were not authorized to have.  Which is why Matrix Group covers security during orientation and training for all new hires and we recently brought in a security expert to discuss social engineering.

Social engineering is “the act of manipulating people into performing actions or divulging confidential information, rather than by breaking in or using technical cracking techniques.” Kevin Mitick, the famous computer hacker, claims that it’s “much easier to trick someone into giving a password for a system than to spend the effort to crack into the system.”  There are many social engineering techniques, including:

• Pretexting is the act of getting people to divulge small pieces of information, which hackers use to obtain more information from the next person.  Knowing bits of information establishes legitimacy in people’s minds and makes them more willing to divulge even more information.
• Phishing is used to fraudulently obtain private information.  Phishers typically impersonate legitimate businesses via phone or e-mail and convince victims to divulge sensitive or private information.  Think of the hundreds of e-mails you get that look like they’re from your bank; nearly all of them ask you for your account information, login information and/or SSN.
• Baiting is a technique whereby hackers leave CDs or USB sticks containing viruses or trojans in public places, in the hopes that a curious person will pick up the items and insert them into their systems, effectively infecting them and making them vulnerable to hacker attacks.

Social engineering is highly successful because of the natural human tendency to trust other people. In addition, most people want to be helpful.  In fact, we train our staff to be helpful because helpfulness is key to a successful business.  If you’re wondering if you or your organization are vulnerable to social engineering tactics, ask yourself these questions:

• How easy or hard would it be for someone to gain access to your office by mentioning the name of the CEO and some key staff?
• How difficult would it be for someone to impersonate you by providing your name, address, SSN, mother’s maiden name, spouse name, etc.  I’ll bet a lot of this information is on public Web sites and social networks.  Just look at some of your friends’ profiles on Facebook; you’ll find hometown, e-mail, birthday, the works!
• How hard would someone have to work to impersonate someone and convince a network admin to divulge or reset a password?
• Have you held the lobby door open for someone off the street while entering a secure building?

Okay, now that you’re paranoid, what are you going to do about this potential threat to you and your organization?

While I love Facebook, Twitter, instant messenger, etc., I try very hard to limit the amount of personal information that I share on those networks, including and especially my address, home phone number, information about my family, etc.  But with the social networks constantly updating their terms of use and adding new functionality to their sites and apps, it’s hard to keep up with the changes and monitor the impact on our privacy.

Which is why I recommend an audit of your Facebook (and other social network) privacy settings on a regular basis. Here’s how:

• Log in to Facebook and click on Account in the top right corner of any Facebook page.
• You’ll get a dropdown of options; click on Privacy  Settings.

Facebook Privacy  Settings Landing Page

Here’s what your Facebook Privacy Settings Landing page looks like.  Note that you can share parts of your profile with Everyone, Friends of Friends and Friends Only.  I have edited my profile so that nearly everything about my profile is visible to Friends Only.  But wait, this page only shows you a fraction of the privacy settings available to you.  To view and edit all of your privacy settings, click on Customize Settings.

You’ll also notice two navigation items on the left for Recommended and Custom.  Click on Recommended and you’ll see that Facebook recommends that a great deal of your profile be available to everyone.  You can select these default settings with a click.  Me, I definitely opted for the Custom Settings.

Customize Settings Page

Here’s what the Customize Settings page looks like.  You’ll see that you can select who can see elements of your profile.  Here are my recommendations:

• If you post photos of your family, especially your children, make Posts By Me visible to Friends Only.
• Be sure to pay special attention to the Things I Share section.  This is the section where you can control what others are doing, including tagging you in photos and videos, checking you into Facebook Places, etc.  This allows you to NOT allow friends to check you into a bar or party, and stops them from tagging you in photos and videos and thereby making your photo visible to their friends.  Here’s a blog post about how someone nearly sabotaged a dinner party by checking all the guests into Facebook places.
• If your Facebook network is vast, consider creating custom lists and then specifying with each post and update which list can see your updates.  For example, I have a Family list that I use to share family photos and insider updates.
• Be sure to audit your privacy settings for existing photo albums. If you created albums before Facebook rolled out its new privacy settings, you may find that all or many of your albums are available to Everyone (I know I did!).

As for that pesky iPhone app that uploads your personal information to Facebook, unfortunately, there’s nothing you can do about that.  Facebook did recently add a warning to the app, warning users to make sure their friends are comfortable sharing their information with others.  This is a small consolation to me; I would venture to guess that most people don’t think about the privacy ramifications of their actions and apps and will blow right past this user agreement.  What to do?  This may sound dorky, but here’s what I’ve told my friends:

• Please don’t sync your iPhones with Facebook.
• Don’t try to check me into Facebook places.
• When you’re at my house, never check into Facebook Places or FourSquare so you don’t reveal my home information.
• Please don’t upload photos and videos that are unflattering to me and my friends/guests.  (When I throw Rock Band parties at my house, videos are not allowed; we DO allow photos of us band members looking cool with our instruments.)

How about you?  Have you audited your Facebook privacy settings recently?  Any revelations?  Any privacy disasters?  What are you doing, if anything, to maintain a semblance of privacy online?

MatrixMaxx is Matrix Group’s Web-based association management software (AMS) that is used by dozens of trade associations and professional societies to manage their membership applications and renewals, meeting registrations, committee rosters, tradeshows, sponsorships, foundation fundraising, e-mail lists, and publication sales.

Beer and cream cheese is the software development methodology we came up with after exploring several agile methodologies, including SCRUM.  While there are many flavors of agile development methods, most are characterized by:

• Breaking big projects into smaller tasks that can be accomplished in hours or days, never weeks or months.
• New versions of the software are released in short timeframes, called timeboxes or sprints.  Sprints can last 1 day to 30 days.
• The goal of each sprint is to produce a working product that the client can use immediately, rather than having to wait months or years for a release, bug fix or new functionality.
• Each team has a customer representative who represents the client perspective and makes him/herself available to team members.  In the case of SCRUM, there are 3 roles: the ScrumMaster (who serves as the project manager); the Product Owner (who represents the stakeholders/lients); the Team (the staff who do the development work).

We call our methodology beer and cream cheese because about 18 months ago, Tanya, the MatrixMaxx Director, posted to one of the SCRUM message boards, asking if anyone had experience with having the same person be the ScrumMaster AND the Product Owner.  One ScrumMaster sarcastically remarked, “You CAN do it, but that would be like combining beer and cream cheese.”

Fast forward one year.  The MatrixMaxx team is still using beer and cream cheese, but our process has changed, and for the better.

• Where Tanya used to play the role of Product Owner and ScrumMaster, she is now the Product Owner.  Geoff is our Brewmaster.  As a result, Tanya can focus on the product road map and client requirements.
• Our sprints are now 15 days long.  Major product releases are quarterly, but we put out small enhancements, especially custom enhancements for clients, twice a month.  Clients love this!
• Although we still primarily use our intranet to manage tasks and requirements, there is a whiteboard in the MatrixMaxx team area that lists tasks that have been designated for the next release/sprint.
• We’re doing a better job of tracking projects and elements that tend to go over budget.

We plan to refine our beer and cream cheese process even more over the next year by:

• Going back to shorter, daily check-ins, which have turned into lengthy discussions about tasks and requirements.  We realize that the entire team does NOT need to be part of all in-depth discussions.
• Giving each team member one long item and one short item per day to encourage maximum productivity from all team members and help us manage the backlog of small items.
• Making a renewed commitment to identifying and analyzing tasks that tend to make us fall behind or go over budget.

BTW, we still hold beer and cream cheese parties where staff bring in baked goods made with beer and cream cheese.  My favorite this year was the dark chocolate cupcakes made with beer and topped with cream cheese frosting. Yum!

How about you?  What software development methodology does your company use?  Are you an agile shop?  What’s working for you?  And how did you select the methodology that you are using?

I’m having a baby tomorrow

The answer to the first question (how much time are you taking off?) is not clear cut.  When you’re a small business owner, you can’t exactly just disappear for a few months. When you’re the owner, the business is your baby, it’s part of your life and your identity.  That said, I’m giving myself the flexibility to work as much or as little as I want, come in when I feel I need to, and decide when I’m ready to come back to the office full-time.

The answer to the second question (how will the office survive without you?) is “Just fine, thank you very much.”  In fact, just like the last time I was out with my first son, I expect the office to thrive. Here’s what I’ve done to prepare myself and the office for my absence:

What Is It That Only I Do, or Can Do, At the Office?

When I first announced to my management team that I was going to have a baby, the questions I asked of myself, the Directors and Project Managers was: “What is it that I do, that only I can do, that you rely on me to do?”  Then we got to work documenting the list and figuring out a plan for getting those tasks done in my absence.

For example, I review the monthly billing reports after the Project Managers (PMs) have reviewed them to double check that we are properly marking work as billable or unbillable.  Over a period of a couple of weeks, I went over dozens of reports with the PMs, discussed why I question certain items and provided suggestions for how to handle ambiguous items and make sure clients are never surprised by their invoices.  The Director of Client Services will also now review invoices in my absence.

Documenting What’s in JP’s Brain

When you’ve been in the Web business for as long as I have (since 1994 but please don’t try to calculate my age!) and when you’re responsible for landing a lot of the company’s business, you just accumulate a lot of knowledge about clients, process, and projects. Even though I use our intranet religiously to document all of my communications with clients and prospects, there’s just a lot of knowledge that I carry around in my brain.

So over the past few months, I worked with my team to document the strategies, best practices, and potential land mines I’ve encountered while working on myriad projects. I paid special attention to the project components that I tend to spearhead, including Goals and Personas, Content Strategy, Integration with a Back Office CRM (customer relationship management system) or AMS (association management system), CMS (content management system) reviews, and Social Media.  These are now called PM Guides and they live in our wiki. All staff are encouraged to modify them as needed.  The guides are reviewed before the start of each project, and the PMs are loving the sample agendas and notes for running meetings.

Letting Staff Shine

When I took time off with my first son, a great thing happened: the vast majority of my staff rose to the occasion, took on more responsibility and did a great job. Some of them said they wanted to do a great job so that I could be at home with CJ and rest easy knowing that the office was in great shape.  Others saw the time as a terrific opportunity to show what superstars they are.  Still others ran with projects, figuring they should act first, apologize later.  The results were great.

This time around, I’m trusting that the recruiting, training, practices, guides and team process that we have in place will ensure that my stellar staff can do what they need to do, not encounter bottlenecks while I’m out, and do a great job for clients.

Getting Rid of Overhang

Once we all realized I would be out,my team and I identified tasks and initiatives that had been hanging out for a while and didn’t have any movement. We either abandoned them, moved the deadline or completed them.  For example, we got cracking on our mobile strategy, updated the Meet Your Team page on our client extranet, set-up our new data center in Chicago, and moved the deadline for redesigning our demo site.

Protocol for Contacting JP Re: Urgent Items

No matter how much I plan, I know the office is going to need me for certain things, like complex contract negotiations and developing a strategy for responding to big, hairy RFPs (requests for proposals).  So I’ve alerted the admin team that after a few weeks, I will call once a day; whoever needs to speak with me needs to be ready with their list.  And to help me wade through the mountains of e-mail that will collect in my inbox, we selected a codeword that staff will enter in the subject line to indicate that a certain message is urgent and needs my attention. This way, if all I have is 10 minutes to check e-mail on any given day, I can filter by the code word and see the most important and urgent messages of the day.  No, I’m not divulging the code word here, but suffice it to say that it involves Star Wars.

There Will Be Hiccups

Are the plan and system perfect?  Absolutely not. In the end, I will rely on my sterling staff to do a great job while I’m out, which I know they will do.  I’ve warned everyone that there will be hiccups, errors and crises, but if they keep the interests of their clients and staff in mind, overcommunicate, and stay on top of deadlines, they’ll be great.

How about you?  How has your company prepared for an extended absence of your CEO or any key staff member for that matter?  What worked?  What did you learn?  Please share!

Now, I’m off to have some spicy food and go for a brisk walk.  I have a baby to birth!

And then of course, there’s the iPad, my beloved iPad. On my iPad, I have the Apple iBooks, Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook apps. I have purchased and enjoyed books on all 3 apps. And I have downloaded and enjoyed dozens of free books that are out of copyright.

While I love, love, love the idea of having hundreds of books on one device, having lots of great things to read on a trip, and combining books, music, photos, videos and games on one device, I have stopped buying books on my iPad.

Why?

Well, it turns out that I’m a social reader. I like buying books, reading them, and then passing them on. I just love the idea of sharing a great story or author. My copy of Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson was shared with a half dozen people before it came back to me. Same with The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaman, only it never came back (which is just fine by me!) I have also been the happy and lucky recipient of many, many books from my brother Alex and friend Steve, who have introduced me to so many great authors and series. My sister and her daughter have given my son dozens of wonderful children’s books, which I have gladly passed on to other moms when my son outgrew them.

You can’t share e-books the same way that you can share printed books. Yes, I can share e-books with up to 5 devices connected to my Mac at home, but I can’t authorize random computers all the time just to share a book! Moreover, when my Kindle-toting friend Eileen recommends a book to me, not only can she not share the book with my physically, she can’t share it digitally because we have incompatible devices!

Wouldn’t it be great if I could relinquish my rights to an e-book and pass it along to a friend, in a universal format they could download to their device of choice? Until that happens, I’ve put the breaks on buying a whole of e-books. I’ll break my rule the next time we have to travel to Asia, of course, but in the meantime, expect to still see me browsing at a local bookstore or buying lots of printed books on Amazon.

How about you? Have you switched to buying e-books exclusively? Has this new habit changed your sharing habits? Or are you holding out and still buying printed books?

A recent article in Ad Age explores how some of the top consumer brands have Facebook pages with a fan base and interactions that far outstrip that of their official Web sites. Starbucks has 12.9M fans; Coke has nearly 11M fans; Oreo has 8.9M fans.  Of the companies in the article, only Starbucks has steadily increasing Web traffic.

All of this got me thinking:  What happens when an organization’s blog, Facebook, Twitter or other social media page gets more traffic than the official Web site? Is this the ultimate goal for marketers?  Is traffic on a social media site worth as much as traffic on a company Web site?  Does this increased traffic ultimately lead to more customers and sales?

I have clients who worry about redirecting traffic to social media pages, for fear of losing control over the conversations, not owning the Web property, or that the interactions are not quite official enough.  Others hold their social media stats in the highest regard.  Most of us  wonder what it really means when somebody chooses to “like” our fan pages.

How to make sense of all this?  Here are some thoughts:

• If your Facebook page is getting increased traffic and interactions, while traffic on your regular Web site is on the decline, ask yourself, “What is it about my Facebook page that’s working?  What’s making people “like” us, click through to articles and comment?  What are the lessons for content and opportunities for interaction on our official Web site?”
• Your goal should be to have your Web site, Facebook page, Twitter page, blog, e-mail campaigns, microsites, etc., all be part of an integrated strategy where each Web property is complementing the others and encouraging cross traffic.
• Ultimately, the goal should be conversions, whether that means more sales, more subscribers, more members or more donations.  Your goals should never be about traffic on specific platforms; that’s just a tactic.
• You need a way to track the effectiveness of followers, likes, clicks and fans across the different platforms.  Use tracking codes, cookies and marketing codes to determine which platforms are really helping your business to thrive.

Getting back to Matrix Group, here’s what we’ve learned:

• Traffic to our Web site has not declined.  On the contrary, traffic has increased as we have expanded our social media efforts.
• Our most valuable interactions still come from the Web site, where visitors get a chance to look at our work AND, most importantly, make a decision to call or e-mail us for more information or request a proposal.  We get several, high quality leads from our Request Information form every week!
• Our social media pages have proven to be valuable outlets for showcasing our work, sharing tips and resources with a wider audience, and demonstrating our expertise.
• The social media pages have also been a terrific way for clients, prospects and job applicants to make inquiries, give us feedback and comment on our work.

How about you?  What trends are you seeing across your Web and social media pages?  How do you value fans and interactions on Facebook and other social media sites?

Since joining CitizenEffect’s Gulf fact-finding mission trip last month (also called the #CitizenGulf project), it’s been a non-stop learning curve on my end, plus tough emotional processing.

The social media factor and the #CitizenGulf fact-finding trip

CitizenEffect, a nonprofit that helps anyone online be a citizen philanthropist, formed the social media team seven weeks ago to personally visit the Gulf, meet with fishing families impacted by the oil spill, and figure out ways to help them. Local nonprofits in Louisiana met with us too, clarifying perspective and the needs of parishes there. We published content (audio, video, photo essays, written commentary) via CNN’s iReports, Twitter, Posterous, Live Earth’s blog, and more. It was difficult to see such hardship up close. But what helped get beyond the heavy emotional response was a decision made by CitizenEffect after the trip:

A CitizenGulf National Day of Action on August 25th (and you)

You, your friends, and communities can be involved. What’s the goal on 8/25th? To help create a more sustainable future for Gulf fishing families by investing in education. All funds raised on the National Day of Action (less processing fees) will go to the project’s charity partner, Catholic Charities of New Orleans, who will then administer an area children’s educational program.

What’s also exciting is how organizations – online and offline – are offering their support

Social Media Club chapters across the country are organizing meetups to occur on 08/25th — which you can attend (or you can certainly form your own meetup too). In the spirit of Louisiana and many Gulf communities, we suggest that meetups include great music (stereo or live!,) like blues, jazz, or Zydeco. Gulf Coast Benefit, which had fantastic success with a national Gulf awareness and fundraising campaign in early July, is a lead supporter of the CitizenGulf project as well. Enthusiastic partnerships both offline and online in the social space have been incredible.

Would you join us to help children of Gulf fishing families? (lots of different options exist)

• In DC? You can RSVP here for the local SMC chapter event on 08/25th.
• In another city? RSVPs are open in many cities at event pages already set-up.
• Want to donate instead?
• Or you can vote for a PepsiRefresh project that will help Gulf communities.

The oil spill presented a huge challenge which I know, for one, can feel daunting when considering solutions. Thanks to you for listening, to Matrix Group for the chance to share here, and to all those helping Gulf families imagine and hope for a better life beyond the oil spill.

Jill Foster helps entrepreneurs, creatives, and community builders be distinct communicators online through social media and offline through public speech with her company Live Your Talk. She has particular expertise with women in leadership communities and works in the Washington, DC area. Jill was the founding editor of WomenGrowBusiness.com and named by ForbesWoman as one of 30 women entrepreneurs to follow on Twitter. In 2009, she won the Social Citizen Award on how technology could help communities in Washington, DC.

Me (Joanna): I can’t predict the future, but I think Facebook and YouTube will stick around for a while.  Not sure about the smaller networks, especially those without solid revenue models.
Participant: But I’ve heard that the younger audiences are leaving Facebook now that their parents are signing up.
Me: Yes, I’ve read that as well, but Facebook has really tipped in terms of popularity, all the research shows that the older audiences don’t leave a social network once their friends have joined and they’ve made a commitment to the site, and Facebook as a platform for all kinds of third-party applications is really compelling.

But then I got to thinking.  Does it really matter if Facebook survives?  Does it really matter which of the social networks survives?

If you’re hesitating about investing in a social media strategy because you’re wondering which of the platforms will survive, I think you’re worried about the wrong issue.  Here’s why:

• Social media isn’t just a fad. Social networks have fundamentally changed how we communicate, connect and market.  Social networks have “tipped;” there is now a critical mass of people on social networks.  You can’t ignore the numbers.
• In the end, it doesn’t matter which social network survives because there are now so many mainstream and niche social networks, it’s almost pointless to worry about which ones will make it.  Remember when we thought no other search engine could threaten Yahoo!’s primacy?
• Your social media strategy probably needs to include having a presence on multiple networks, depending on where your target audiences are AND to ensure good coverage and reach for your marketing messages.

Here’s what I think IS important:

• Your organization needs to develop a core competency in using social networks to reach your current and new audiences.
• Your organization must be nimble enough to sniff out opportunities represented by upcoming sites and networks.
• Your usage reports should tell you which sites and networks are up and coming and worth investing in.
• Your communication team needs to be quick to understand the capabilities of new social networks and adapt your message and strategy to each site.

Once and when you DO develop this core competency, it won’t matter IF Facebook will survive.  The question will become: What’s next?

What do you think?  How is your organization developing competency in using social media to meet your goals?  What up and coming social media sites are you exploring?

• How Long Should Your Posts Be? We suggest that each post be no more than 4-6 paragraphs.  If your posts are too long, your followers may decide to read them at a later time and not come back.  But you want enough length to be able to cover a topic with enough substance.

• Create Visual Interest. Although followers follow blogs for their content, we believe that your posts will have more impact if they have photos, videos, event basic html formatting.  If nothing else, use formatting to make your content skimmable.

• Align Posts With Your Keyword/SEO Strategy. While I’m a firm believer that you can’t force keywords into headlines, do try to make your titles and opening paragraphs keyword rich.

• Create Compelling Introductions. Think about it.  You make a decision about whether or not to open an e-mail or click on an article in your RSS reader based on the title and opening paragraph.  So make your blog post introductions compelling to encourage clicks.

• Do Allow Comments. We understand that many organizations are reluctant to allow comments on their blogs for fear of obnoxious or irrelevant comments.  On the other hand, social media and blogging are all about user-generated content and user engagement.  Comments are a great way to solicit feedback, find out what critics are saying and respond to them, and let your community advocate for you.  In addition, most blogs (like this one) usually don’t inspire negative reactions, so why not just allow comments directly?  You can always delete offensive or spam-y posts.

• Your Blog Needs a Marketing Plan. It’s simply not true that if you build a blog, they will come.  Not anymore at least, what with the huge volume of sites and blogs online these days.  Be sure to create a promotional strategy for your blog that includes: promotions in traditional outlets, featuring on your Web site and social media pages, commenting on other blogs, and encouraging your members/customers/house e-mail list to follow and subscribe.

• Review Your Usage Reports Regularly. As with anything worth doing, if you don’t measure your progress, how will you know if blogging is worth doing?  Be sure to check your Google Analytics or other usage report package regularly.  And don’t forget your RSS statistics; how many people are signed-up for your RSS feed or e-mail updates?

How about you?  What are your favorite blogging tips? What has worked for you?  And why do you blog?

• What Are Your Goals? The most important thing is to align your blog’s goals with your organization’s goals. Are you trying to engage your target audiences?  Influence?  Foster specific actions?  Your goals should be measurable so that, at the end of the day, you know if your blog is a success.

• Who Should Blog? Shaun and I believe that anyone can blog, but for most organizations, you need people who have a 20,000 foot view of the industry or issues, enjoys writing (or is paired with someone who enjoys writing and is a good writer to boot), and is committed to pumping out content on a regular basis.

• What Should You Blog About? This is the $64,000 question!  Ultimately, you need a mission statement for your blog that guides your content strategy.  We grouped blog posts into the categories.  In practice, most blogs employ a variety of blog post types to keep readers engaged.
  • Hot items/News – These posts tend to cover what’s new in the industry, breaking news, etc.
  • Strategy/Commentary – These posts try to provide a perspective on specific issues and usually aim to persuade readers to take a certain point of view.
  • Trends - These posts report on market trends, trending topics, research and statistics.
  • How-To Guides – These posts are often a combination of text and video and aim to provide users with a practical guide to doing something specific.

• How Often Should You Blog? Shaun and I agreed that you should blog at least once a week; twice a week is gravy.  Blogging once a month, in our opinion, is not often enough to connect with your followers regularly.  On the other hand,  blogging too often (one blog we referenced had a single blogger who posted a dozen times a day) can exhaust your readers.  There are exceptions, of course.  Tech blogs, product review blogs, and magazine blogs often have posts throughout the day, but these blogs often function more like news blogs than thought platforms for organizations or leaders.

Okay, so this is Part One.  In Part Two of Blogging Best Practices, I’ll discuss how to write content that encourages participation, what we think about allowing comments on blogs, and how to promote your blog.

In the meantime, I’d love to know about your blogging success stories.  What has worked for you?  Do you agree or disagree with the best practices that Shaun and I outlined above?

I had an early meeting in Hyattsville this morning.  I was armed with my Garmin GPS and printed directions from Google Maps — I still got lost.

How is this even possible?  For the last nearly 20 years (how did I get so old?), I have been in sales in the DC area.  I feel like I have driven to most corners of the region.  I know this region and I do not get lost!!!  How on earth did I get lost this morning?  And how did I get lost when I had so many tools at my disposal?

I have a hunch that all of these digital assistants are making me stupid. How and why?

Well, long before cell phones, GPS systems and Google/Mapquest maps, I would get directions the old fashioned way.  I would call the prospect or client and get detailed directions. Mr. client would ask me where I was coming from and he would give me directions that included navigational clues like:” go 4 lights then turn right; if you see the Giant, you’ve gone to far; or go about 3 miles and then get on 95 on your right.”  I would also get really helpful suggestions, like “don’t go through the City at that time of day, take the Beltway.”  I would heed these directions and almost never get lost.  And if I did get lost, I would find a gas station and ask the always-friendly attendant for help. Oh yeah, I also used to carry around maps with me, but I tossed those when I got my GPS; silly me!

I can’t remember the last time I called for directions or the last time I stopped at a gas station for directions.  Along the way, while using my digital assistants, I lost the important navigational clues that helped me successfully navigate from one sales call to another.  I have come to rely on my Jane the GPS and Google maps so much that I feel like I have lost my ability to navigate on my own! Now I wonder what other abilities I’m losing as a result of my reliance (some would say over-reliance) on these electronic devices and online services.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not giving up Jane anytime soon and Google maps is one of my best friends.  And to be truthful, I *know* I got lost because Jane could not get any satellite reception and the Google maps directions were confusing.  But perhaps next time, I’ll call for directions ahead of time and avoid giving my husband another case of navigational heartburn.

How about you? What electronic device do you rely on?  What have you given up as a result?  And how’s your driving these days?

It was during this conference that I heard Kathy Korman Frey,  Chief Hot Mamma of the Hot Mammas Project, talk about the Sisterhood of Success and how every successful business person needs a Party of five that she can turn to for advice and support.

The Hot Mammas Project is creating a giant library of case studies and role models for girls and women.  When not running the Hot Mammas Project, Kathy is also a professor at the George Washington University School of Business.  Here’s what she had to say about the Sisterhood of Success:

• There are two things that most affect a woman’s success in business:  family life and access to mentors.
• In business and as a formula for success, everyone needs 5 people they can turn to for advice, support, problem-solving, coaching, and networking.
• If you have your Party of 5, you are more likely to be paid more, have higher status at your company and in life, and have higher levels of self-confidence.
• You will not be as successful unless you have your Party of 5.  Period. End of story.

While Kathy directed her message to the woman solo-preneurs and business owners in attendance at the conference, her advice applies to anyone who wants to be successful, get ahead, do great things.  Kathy’s Party of 5 message makes a lot of sense and rings true even in our personal lives.  Her research shows that people who have 5 or more friends are happier and have higher feelings of success.

I have certainly benefited from my Party of 5, whose members have been, at various times, key clients, Advisory Board members, my CEO coach and fellow CEOs.  I’m especially grateful to the members of my Vistage group and EAG (Executive Alliance Group), who share their business advice and give me a reality check at least once a month.  Two years ago, my good friend Chet told me to hoard cash because this recession was going to be bad.  I did and as a result, Matrix Group has weathered this recession in strong financial health.  My CEO buddy David shared his company dashboard with me, which inspired me to develop my own dashboard, which now guides planning, budgeting and resource management at Matrix Group.

As someone who has benefited from strong and effective mentors, I also feel an obligation to serve as a Party of 5 member to others looking for their own success.  I’m currently mentoring a couple of people at my company, and several entrepreneurs whose work I admire and trust.  Not surprsingly, I am learning just as much from being a mentor as I have learned from being a mentee and colleague.

How about you?  Do you have your Party of 5?  And what are YOU doing to be a member of someone else’s Party of 5?

The Background

Matrix Group has had a Facebook fan page for a couple of years now and we had been slowly building up our fan base. We did all the usual things to generate new fans: we let our customers know about our Facebook page, we linked to it from our Web site and blog, we asked staff to invite their friends to “like” us, we included the link in staff e-mail signatures, and we asked our Twitter followers to fan us.

I had recently read an article about how the Weekly World News got to 40,310 fans in 4 days (up from 3,244 fans!) and got inspired to launch our own campaign.  Weekly World News offered an exclusive video, they changed their ad daily, they did A/B testing on their ads and they leveraged their huge user base.  But what kind of incentive could we offer?  Unlike Snapfish, the photo printing site, which recently offered a coupon for a free 8 x 10 photo collage for “liking” its fan page, Matrix Group doesn’t have products to offer.  And we don’t have a customer base of tens or hundreds of thousands of people.

The Campaign

We decided to use good, old-fashioned corporate philanthropy to incentivize people to “like” us.  The campaign was incredibly simple:  we would donate $10 to a specific charity for every new fan we got between June 21 and June 30.  We selected the National Park Foundation’s (NPF) Disaster Recovery Fund in the Gulf to be recipient of our campaign.  NPF is a Matrix Group client and the entire Matrix Group staff, like the rest of the country, is upset about the Gulf oil spill.  Selecting this fund only made sense for us.  BTW, we put a time limit on the campaign because we know that people are more likely to act when they have a deadline; hence the June 30 end date for the campaign.

We promoted the heck out of the campaign over the past 10 days:

• We posted regular updates to our Facebook fan page
• We tweeted regularly about the campaign
• We asked our staff and friends to update their Facebook and Twitter pages
• We actively asked for retweets
• NPF promoted the campaign to its Facebook followers
• We promoted the campaign on our Web site

The end result is that we’ve exceeded our goal of 500 fans and we’ve raised nearly $3,000 for a good cause. BTW, in case you’re interested, funds raised by the NPF Disaster Recovery Fund until September 1st will go to National Park Service efforts in the Gulf Coast region including park enhancements, education and environmental monitoring.  No funds will go towards mitigating BP’s responsibilities.

How about you?  What are you dong to generate fans for your Facebook page?  What kind of campaigns have you launched?  And with what results?  Please share your experiences!

FourSquare is a location-based social network. The idea is that you share your location with your friends and followers by “checking into” locations.  For example, every time I go to a restaurant, I pull up the FourSquare app on my phone, let the app determine my GPS coordinates and show me possible options.  I can select one of the venues select and “check-in” or add a new venue.  When I check in, I can write a little message and share out my update on Facebook and/or Twitter.

Last Saturday, I checked into four locations, including three restaurants and I got hilarious comments from friends about how all I did on Saturday was eat!

Here’s what I’m enjoying about FourSquare:

• I don’t feel compelled to check in multiple times a day, every day. My check-ins are usually to restaurants, but increasingly, I’m checking into events.  Tonight, I checked into the DCWW Content Strategy Workshop held at the Matrix Group office.  I check in only a few times a week, if at all.
• I love the gaming aspect of FourSquare.  People who have the most check-ins at a specific get a Mayor badge.  So far, I’ve earned a Newbie badge and an Explorer badge.  I’m hoping to become Mayor of one of my favorite restaurants sometime soon!
• It’s fun to see where my friends are and what they’re doing.
• FourSquare is not nearly as chatty as Twitter and Facebook.
• I have learned about so many great, local businesses through FourSquare!
• Some enterprising retailers are rewarding frequent customers with discount coupons and other goodies.  The retailers are glad for the patronage AND the free advertising from the check-ins!

FourSquare has its detractors, of course.

• Some critics say FourSquare is just another tool for sharing TMI (too much information). Yep, I agree, some people should Just Say No to checking in everywhere they go.  Seriously, do you need to check at Planned Parenthood or the strip club?
• On a more serious note, there are legitimate privacy and security concerns about constantly broadcasting where you are and where you are not. The Web site PleaseRobMe.com used takes FourSquare and Twitter feeds and broadcast location updates of thousands of people.  The founders of PleaseRobMe say the public is now paying attention and they’re now trying to figure out whether to continue the service.

Me? I only update during the day when I’m normally at work and yes, I have an alarm system at home that is always on when nobody is home.  And I never, ever update Twitter, Facebook or FourSquare and broadcast that I’m going to be away for an extended period of time.

As of a couple of days ago (June 22) TechCrunch reported that FourSquare had 1.7 M users and that it had added 100,000 users in the last 10 days.

How about you?  Are you on FourSquare?  What do YOU think about the new location-based social networks?

With all the hiring we’re doing right now, my team decided that we better revisit all of our orientation guides.

When we started reviewing our existing guides, we found that the majority of them were too sparse. If you were lucky enough to do orientation with an earnest old-timer, you got lucky; otherwise, lots of things were missed.

So a bunch of sat down, revisited topics, and came up with 2-4 page guides for each topic.  Each topic has a sub-topic and talking points + specific things to cover.  The guides are working out very, very well.

One new thing we decided to create is a “Matrix Underground” guide, or the things you should know but nobody every tells you. We realized that it’s things on this guide that tend to trip people up or leave people bewildered.  For example, there are expressions that we expect people to know, acronyms,  and Joanna-isms that a person could take years to figure out.

Most things on the guide are funny, but some are dead serious.  Some examples:

• Sumner is the part-timer on the MatrixMaxx team who works in the afternoons (recent hires said they spent six months trying to figure out who the heck Sumner is).
• When Joanna says “can you do me a favor?” or “I need something from you,” it means “she needs something done NOW, not tomorrow, not next week, now.”
• When someone says “the cheese has moved,” it refers to the book “Who Moved My Cheese?” that we read as a company several years ago and it means “dude, the situation has changed, let’s move along and get over it.”
• You should always be super-nice to the network administrators, who just might be the most powerful people at the company (because you know, they can read your e-mail and they can help you recover your new Windows password that you changed yesterday and promptly forgot.)
• You should never, ever, ever say “I’ll try” to your manager, Joanna or a client.  Do or do not. There is no try.

I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to admit we have an underground and that we need to help people get up to speed on it!  The Matrix Group Underground Guide is a work in progress.  The “guide” will be discussed during the walking tour that new hires get treated to during their first week.  The idea behind the walking tour is to familiarize new team members with our physical environment, you know, things like where to get the best sandwich, where the closest ATM is, where to get a good salad.  From now on, we’ll supplement the walking tour with a discussion of the Matrix Group underground!

How about you?  How does your company help new hires get up to speed on your underground?

Have you ever noticed how long these Web addresses are?  Ever wonder why these URL are so long?

The answer is simple: tracking codes. Tracking codes are strings of text added to the end of a URL that let you track the source of a click.  For example, if your organization has an e-mail newsletter and you want to know how many people click on the links in your e-mails, you add tracking codes to the URLs.  Your usage tracking software will almost always treat the URLs with the tracking codes as unique from the same URLs without the tracking codes.  So, when looking at your usage reports, you can look at usage overall to specific pages and then figure out how much of the traffic came from the e-mail newsletter.

If you usage Google Analytics for usage tracking, Google has a terrific URL builder that create properly formatted tracking codes to track the source of clicks, specific campaigns, even the duration of your campaign.  Here’s an example of how it works:

Let’s take the URL to my recent blog post on magazine subscriptions on the iPad.  The URL looks like this if I navigate directly to it:

http://www.thematrixfiles.net/blog/am-i-really-going-to-pay-4-99-for-one-issue-of-time-magazine/

When my marketing team promotes this blog post e-mails, Twitter, Facebook, etc., we use the Google URL builder to add tracking codes.  Here’s a sample URL:

http://www.thematrixfiles.net/blog/am-i-really-going-to-pay-4-99-for-one-issue-of-time-magazine/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=SM&utm_campaign=blog

If you look at the codes closely, you’ll easily decipher that the source is Twitter, the medium is SM (social media, as opposed to e-mail or a banner ad) and the campaign is blog (as opposed to events, news, jobs, etc.).  On a regular basis, we filter our usage reports in Google Analytics to see how many clicks we’re getting to the blog post from our posts on Twitter, as opposed to direct traffic and traffic from other sources.

Oh, btw, since these URLs are crazy long, I use a URL shortener service like TinyURL or Bit.ly to keep my links manageable on sites like Twitter.  I don’t bother shortening the URL when I’m posting links on Facebook, Amplify or this blog.

Bottom line?  Tracking codes are key to tracking the success of your outbound marketing campaigns.  I recommend never linking to pages on your Web site without some type of tracking code.

How about you?  Are you using tracking codes in your campaigns?  What services are you using?  How are tracking codes helping your measure the success of your campaigns?

A recent article in Ad Age Daily tries to explain why we should expect to pay more for online subscriptions on the iPad.  According to Ad Age, we should expect to pay $4.99 for an issue of TIME, Popular Science, Maxim, Popular Photography, Sound and Vision, Transworld Skateboarding and Islands because publishers are suffering, there are fewer tablet PC owners, and magazines are still burdened by their huge editorial costs.

But here’s the rub: I purchased an issue of TIME for $4.99 and discovered that the content was the same as my print issue!  C’mon, TIME.  I pay about $0.50 for a print issue, but you want me to pay $4.99 for the same thing!  If you’re going to charge me a whole lot more, I expect a different experience and additional content I can’t get elsewhere.

This reminds me of publishers that put up PDF versions of their print publications and post them to the Web site.  It’s easy to do and gets the job done.  Problem is, the Web is a different medium from print.  Have you ever tried to read a PDF of a print magazine?  Try going from page 2 to page 36 on a Web browser.  Try reading a two-column page that scrolls up and down past two screens on a monitor.    And now companies are putting out software that will take print files and convert them to iPad apps!  Once again, ignoring the usability and user experience capabilities of the device and merely re-purposing content.  How does this create value?

If publishers hope to create valuable new content on the Web and hope that we readers will be willing to pay a premium for it, they need to give us great content and a user experience that matches the capabilities of the device. On the iPad, give me additional content, HD videos, podcasts, interactive apps that take advantage of the iPad touch technology, and on and on.

So, am I really going to ever pay $4.99 for an issue of a magazine in the future?  Realistically?  Probably not.  But I would be willing to pay for another subscription to the same magazine if I got additional value, and not just the prepackaged stuff we’re getting now.

How about you?  What’s your take on publishers putting out content across platforms and devices?

More and more of my clients are making the decision to eliminate their print magazines and newsletters.

All of this makes sense to me.  I get most of my information via e-mail these days, and I’m subscribed to dozens of newsletters via e-mail and RSS.  And in an effort to minimize the “piles” at home, I have canceled all but a few paper subscriptions.

But I got to thinking:  Am I ready to ditch ALL of my paper subscriptions? Am I ready to cancel my print subscriptions to my favorite magazines, namely TIME, Smithsonian and Stanford magazines?

Here’s my concern about all digital publications:  it’s easy to ignore an e-mail newsletter as just another e-mail in the hundreds I get every day.  Consider this:  when my copy of TIME magazine arrives on Saturday, it ends up in my “to read” pile. This pile gets shuffled around from dining room table to coffee table to bedroom side table.  Each issue sticks around until I read or skim it, then toss.  But here’s what happens with some of my e-mail subscriptions:  if I have the time, I read them on the spot.  If I don’t have the time, I may leave them in my inbox or move them to a “read” folder for later reading.  Trouble is, with the flood of e-mail that I get, I rarely get to my e-mail read pile. And sometimes, in an attempt to gain back control of my inbox, I delete a huge group of e-mail newsletters and start over.

Ugh, so much for the future of publishing.  What is the balance that content organizations should try to achieve between print and digital?  And if digital is your only future, how do you ensure delivery and readership? I have some thoughts:

• As with everything, it’s important to consider the audiences for your e-mail alerts and publications.  Who are they?  What are they looking to you to provide?  How do they want to consume the content?
• Is it even an option to mail a publication out to customers, if they so request?  If not, then you better be able to rely on compelling headlines, great writing, a great opt-in list, and good design to get readers to read your e-mails on the spot. (Hmmm… come to think of it, printed pieces need the same things to be successful.)
• Be sure to embed open and clickthrough tracking in your e-mail campaigns. While you’ll never know if people are reading your printed pieces, you can and should benchmark online usage over time using tracking codes.
• Test, test, test. Figure out the best day for sending e-mails to your audience, which topics generate the most interest, and which headlines result in the most traffic.

One final thought.  I think that the iPad (and similar devices) could revolutionize how we consume content.  While I won’t skim an entire issue of TIME on my laptop, I will read or skim an entire issue on my iPad.  Why?  It turns out that the iPad lets me browse online content the same way I read my printed magazines: on the couch or in bed.  And if I get used to this, I will likely cancel my print subscriptions and opt instead for the digital versions of my favorite magazines.  Which I think would be a win for publishers because they will still get subscription revenue AND they can track my reading habits.

How about you?  Have you ditched your print subscriptions? How do you manage the flood of e-mail newsletters coming your way?

Back in 2005, Facebook’s privacy policy clearly stated the following:

No personal information that you submit to Facebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings.

The Evolution of Facebook’s Privacy Policies

But then, slowly and over time, Facebook’s privacy policies changed.

• In 2007, Facebook made your name, school name and profile photo available to the search engines unless you specifically prohibited this in your privacy settings
• In 2009, Facebook revamped its privacy settings and gave users more control over who gets to see which aspects of their profile.  Trouble was, the default gave “everyone” access to information.
• In April 2010, Facebook made the decision to make specific elements of all profiles public (name, hometown, school, interests and fan pages), and eliminate the ability to limit access to these fields.  If you didn’t want those elements to be public, Facebook recommended that you delete the information from your profile.
• In April 2010, Facebook also launched the Open Graph, which shares user profiles with third party sites so that visits to those third party sites can be personalized based on a person’s Facebook interests.  On the flip side, Facebook opened up its API (application programming interface) so that third party sites can add a Facebook “Like” button to their pages; when clicked, the information would be saved back to a user’s profile.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a great timeline of Facebook’s privacy policies, including links to archived versions of Facebook’s policies.

These changes to Facebook’s related to privacy and sharing data have prompted public outcry and scrutiny.  Gizmodo published of Top 10 Reasons to Quit Facebook.  On May 5, the Electronic Privacy Information Center and 14 privacy and consumer protection organizations “filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, charging that Facebook has engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices in violation of consumer protection law.”  Wired says Facebook’s Gone Rogue and calls for an open alternative to Facebook’s convoluted privacy policies and settings.

Take Back Control of Your Facebook Data and Privacy Settings

Okay, now that you’re totally freaked out, what should you do?  Here are my top recommendations:

1. Go to your Facebook page and edit your Privacy Settings.  Go to Account -> Privacy Settings.  Click on every link and update your defaults.  For example, under Personal Information and Posts, I set my default to Friends Only.  If I ever want a status update or a photo album to be available to Everyone, I can change the access level when I submit a specific update.
2. Delete sensitive information about yourself. For example, I don’t see any reason for my birthday to be on Facebook.  My family and friends know when my birthday is, I don’t really care if my family and friends don’t remember my birthday and who the heck needs to know how old I am?
3. Under Account -> Privacy Settings, I limited Activity on Applications and Games Dashboards to Friends Only and under Instant Personalization Pilot Program, I opted out of Facebook sharing my data with third party applications.
4. Go to ReclaimPrivacy.org and use their Facebook privacy scanner tool to audit your privacy settings.  I did it and it identified a couple of areas that needed shoring up.  Turns out that friends could share information about my Online Presence so I turned that off.  I did decide to keep some settings turned on, including the ability for friends to share my links and Web site.  I am in the Web business, after all, and I want people to be able to find me.
5. Remember that if you post a comment on a company Fan page, remember that your comment will be public since company pages are designed to be public.  If you don’t want your comment to be public, don’t post a comment; there is NO WAY to make it private.
6. If you don’t people to know about your interests, don’t click on Like buttons all over the Web. Clicking the Like button is like commenting on an article or blog post.  That action is meant to be public.  If you don’t want it to be public, just say No and don’t click.

Am I quitting Facebook?  Nope.  But I am keeping a close eye on the company’s ever-changing privacy policies, I’m auditing my settings regularly, and I remember the golden rule: if you don’t want specific information to be public, don’t share it anywhere.  Period.  End of story.

How about you?  What do you think of Facebook’s privacy policies?  Are the new policies making you think twice about joining or staying on Facebook?  Have you audited your privacy settings recently?

P.S.  Today, May 19, news organizations reported that Facebook is considering an about face on some of its recent privacy policy changes.  I guess we’ll have to stay tuned.

So I decided it was time for a face-off between the iPad and the Kindle. I invited my friend Eileen to come over to the house with her Kindle.  Eileen would represent the Kindle while my 5 year-old would represent the iPad.  Here’s the face-off video where I play host and ask the co-stars to compare the iPad vs. the Kindle in terms of:  e-bookstore experience, screen size and display, resolution, page turning and search.  See for yourself and be the judge.  Who do you think won this face-off?

This homemade video brings home the point that with the Web and social sharing sites, everyone’s a critic, a moviemaker, or a citizen journalist. Despite a legion of tech writers reviewing the iPad, I felt compelled to create my own iPad review.  And now I’ll reach out to my network of friends, clients, colleagues and followers on Facebook, Twitter, blog and e-mail to share my video, get their feedback and try to influence their thinking about these devices.

How about you?  Are you publishing your own content to social networking and sharing sites?  What’s your take on the iPad and have you decided to get one?

The Open House was wonderful!  The office looked great, the food and drink were outstanding (loved the beef satay and blueberry mojitos!), turnout was great, and by all accounts, guests enjoyed themselves thoroughly.  The Open House made me realize that hosting an event, much like putting up a Web site, should be a collaboration between client and vendor.  When both parties do their part, the result is almost always success. Here’s what I’ve learned:

• Clients should take the lead when it comes to goals and direction. When Matrix Group is designing a Web site, we ask lots of questions and try to find out what their goals are and what a successful project looks like.  In the same way, Seana Hale from Design Cuisine wanted to know all about Matrix Group, how we interact with clients, and how the Open House would support our client and partner relationships.

• Clients should define the overall design aesthetic and values. When Matrix Group designers are working on a design project, we don’t try to change the character and image of an organization.  Instead, we strive to understand the client’s brand, represent it well via design and multimedia and enhance it through our work.  Design Cuisine understood that we wanted a nice event that showed off our creativity and our work, was modestly priced, and played up our brand color of purple without overdoing it.

• Let the experts take the lead but be prepared to give timely feedback.  Once we’re armed with good background information, our UX (user experience team) creates navigation, wireframes and designs.  It’s great when the client trusts our judgment, takes design direction AND lets us know if we’re on the wrong track by giving us specific and timely feedback.  We also love it when clients let us brainstorm and come up with out of the box ideas, knowing that most won’t fly but the creativity that comes out is good for the project.

• With the Open House, I trusted Seana and her team to come up with good displays and menus based on our discussions and my experiences with past events I’ve attended.  We provided feedback on the menu, decided where to put the different food and drink stations, requested a signature purple drink, and then let Design’s team take over.  I did NOT want to be in the business of choosing linen colors and deciding how many tables we needed.  I figured Seana is the expert, she knows events and it’s her job to make sure the event flows smoothly and the food and drink are divine.

• The User Experience should always be top of mind. Matrix Group Creative Director Alex Pineda is fond of asking about user flows and actions.   No matter what the occasion, he asks, “What’s the User Experience?”  On Web site projects, we identify the target audiences, learn what they want to do, and figure out how they should navigate to their goals.  With the Open House, staff served as tour guides so guests could learn more about our culture and work, we placed food and drinks stations around the office, and we placed signs all over the office to identify functional groups (e.g., Designers, New Biz).

• If it’s important, it should have support from the top. In my experience, if a Web project has support from the top, it will get the staff and budget support it needs, and it will get done in a timely manner.  Decisions also get made faster.  With the Open House, I knew that I had to be involved enough so that Design’s team could get fast approvals on what to serve and where to serve it.

Here are a few photos from the Open House to give you a sense of the displays and user flows.  BTW, if you’re interested, check out the Matrix Group photos from the Open House on Flickr.

Jen enjoying the amazing satay bar

The Matrix Group admins ordered an assortment of purple candy for the candy bar.
Design made everything look pretty.

This cupcake tower sure went fast!

The signature drink of the evening was a blueberry mojito. Yum!

Cat and Janna gave guests from NPRA and ASF a grand tour of the office
and introduced them to team members.

How about you?  How are Web site development and event planning the same? How are they different?  In your experience, what works?

Facebook’s Rationale for the Change to “Like”

Facebook says it changed “Become a Fan” to “Like” to offer businesses a more light-weight and standard way to connect with people, things and topics in which you are interested.

In addition, changing to “Like” aligns with Facebook’s overall strategy of populating the Web with “Like” buttons so that Web surfers can announce their like of pages anywhere around the Web and have these “likes” posted to their personal Facebook pages.  (More on this in a future blog post.)

It seems Facebook wants to corner the “Like” market.

For the Most Part, Facebook Pages are NOT Changing

Aside from changing the language in the button from “Become a Fan” to “Like,” the Facebook pages aren’t really changing.

• Status updates on Facebook pages will still appear on fan (er liker) profiles.
• Facebook page owners can still call people who like their pages “fans.”
• When a Facebook subscriber “likes” a page, it will show up in their Profile under Info –> Pages.

What IS Changing About Facebook Pages

• Facebook now allows you to customize the order in which Pages appear on your profile. You can even move some Pages behind a “See all” link, so that you can still connect to Pages without displaying all of them prominently on your profile.
• Instead of seeing a random selection of fans + a link to See All, there are now two boxes:  “xx Friends Like This” tells you how many of YOUR friends also “like” a page while “xx People Like This” tells you the total number of likers or fans.

Will “Like” Encourage More Fans, More Connections?

According to PCWorld, Facebook reports that users click “Like” almost twice as much as they click “Become a Fan” — so, it follows that if Facebook changes “Become a Fan” to “Like,” more users will click on it.  Could this be true?

I don’t know about you, but to me, there is a BIG difference between announcing that I “like” something and declaring myself a “fan” of a company, product or service.  Think about it.  Fan is derived from the word “fanatic.”  Dictionary.com says a fan is “an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer.”  Being a fan is a far cry from simply “liking” something.

Who knows?  Perhaps it’s all semantics and Web surfers will behave exactly the same way.

Or perhaps, as Facebook predicts, we fans, followers and customers will actually be encouraged to “like” more pages.

How about you?  What do you think of “Become a Fan” becoming “Like?”  Are you encouraged to “Like” more pages?

Here’s an example of an all Flash site that is annoying and borderline useless. I was scheduling lunch with a friend, who asked me to recommend a restaurant and send him the physical and Web addresses. No problem, right? Wrong.

Check out the Web site for Kora in Crystal City - http://www.korarestaurant.com/ The Web site is pretty, but if you’re trying to get an address and send it to a friend, it’s not user-friendly at all!

• It took me 5 minutes to find the address.  It’s not on the home page, nor under Hours and Directions.  It’s under Contact Us and Reservations.
• Because the site is entirely in Flash, I couldn’t copy the address and paste into the e-mail I was sending my friend.
• I also could not copy and paste the address into Google maps so that I could send my friend directions from Reston.
• Forget being able to bookmark specific pages because the URL never changes in the single Flash file for the entire site. So I couldn’t send my friend the URL of a menu page.  Aaaargh.
• Oh yeah, you can’t print Flash pages either unless print-friendly pages have been specifically created; most designers don’t bother.  So if you want to print Kora’s Hours and Directions page, you’re out of luck.

Since I’m lazy and did not want to re-type the address, I simply went to Google, typed “Kora Arlington, VA” and got a link to a map and directions from Google maps.  God bless Google.

I’m sure Kora paid good money for its beautiful, all Flash site, but I bet it’s a pain to update and it’s not very accommodating for visitors who just want to copy and paste an address.  Good grief!

How about you?  Got your own rants against an all Flash site?  Post links and comments!

I got an iPad last week and I’m already in love with it.

I find it fascinating that Apple has managed to capture the zeitgeist of our age and intuit our desires for computers and devices.  And yet, in a review of the iPad, Time Magazine reveals that, “(o)ne of the things that makes Apple unique is that it never holds focus groups. It doesn’t ask people what they want; it tells them what they’re going to want next.” 

So how does Apple know what customers will want?  And what lessons can mere mortal companies learn from Apple’s product development process?

A few years ago, the MatrixMaxx team at Matrix Group was developing the product road map for the coming year.  A couple of us were arguing for a total redo of the system’s user interface.  We also advocated a lot of new reports that basically repackaged data already available through exports.  The rest of the team argued that clients weren’t asking for these enhancements and it would be risky and a lot of time for little benefit to move forward with such a radical overhaul of our association management software.

After a lot of bargaining re: scope and timeline, the entire MatrixMaxx team agreed to a redesign of the system’s user interface and a new export/report framework.  The effort ended up  behind schedule and it introduced a lot of bugs into the system.  And yet, when the dust finally settled and we got the bugs under control, the end result was fabulous and clients loved it.  The new interface makes it much easier to find information and gave the product a new vibrancy.  The export framework has been universally applauded by clients.

In the end, we learned that sometimes, despite all the customer interviews that we conduct, clients can’t tell us what they want because they can’t even imagine it.  It’s up to us, the product developers, to learn as much as we can about our clients’ needs and wants and literally make stuff up.  Don’t get me wrong, once we make a decision to move in a certain direction, we get client feedback and buy-in, but it isn’t always client requests that drive the major decisions.

Today, some releases are dominated by client-requested enhancements, while others are packed with features that we have determined in-house will be fundamentally good for the product.  Some staff-sponsored features are a hit, while others turn out to be duds.  It’s the risk we take, it’s the risk we must take.

How about you?  What’s your take on Apple’s iPad strategy?  Do you have yours yet?  Or is the iPad a gadget you’ve decided you can live without?

That’s when I realized that I nearly never watch TV shows during regular broadcast hours.  Instead, I rely on recordings and purchases to watch shows I’m interested in, when I want them.  And since the networks now stream shows on their Web sites and Hulu, who needs to be a slave to the TV schedule anymore?

In a report titled “Television, Internet and Mobile Usage in the US,” Nielsen calls this phenomenon “timeshifted TV” because viewers are watching shows on their own schedule.

Who’s been hurt by this phenomenon?

• The networks that rely on advertising since so many of us fast forward through commercials or purchase commercial-free shows.
• Providers of schedules, like TV Guide and the newspapers, since we use our devices to view or purchase what we need on demand.

Who’s benefiting?

• Companies that allow us consumers to watch shows on demand, like Netflix, iTunes, Comcast, Verizon, etc.
• Companies that can develop non-traditional advertising and PR campaigns and don’t just depend on viewers watching shows and sitting through commercials.

How about you?  What are your viewing habits?  What other disruptive technologies and trends are helping us say bye-bye to traditional forms of leisure?

For my son’s Spring Break, my family spent a week in San Francisco and we flew round trip on Virgin America.  After two flights, I am a total fan, so much so that I told my husband that from now on, whenever possible, we will fly Virgin.

Just what makes the Virgin America user experience so different?

Virgin America doesn’t use different or larger planes.  The airfare was comparable to other airlines when I was booking on Orbitz.  We had to pay $20 to check our bags.  The legroom on the plane wasn’t more than on other planes I’ve flown recently.  The food and alcohol weren’t free.  And I didn’t get a blanket or pillow.

What made Virgin America different was the entertainment and how food and beverage were dispensed.

• The beverage carts only  made one pass through the plane.  But for the rest of the 5+ hour flight, if we wanted food or drink, we used our touch screens to place an order.  If I wanted water, I touched water and a flight attendant came by within minutes with a bottle of water – for free.  When my son wanted cookies, chocolate or a sandwich, I swiped my credit card, and the flight attendant came by with his order.  So for the entire flight, instead of just the couple of times the carts come around, we had access to food and beverages.
• There was Wi-Fi on the plan! For about $8, I could get wi-fi and check e-mail and surf the Web!  Unbelievable!  And each seat had regular AC power so I could keep my laptop plugged in during the whole flight!
• I loved the free Dish Network. No kidding, I caught an NCIS marathon the way to SF and a House marathon on the way back.  Truly decadent!
• There were also first run movies for rent and an awesome library of songs. I was able to make my own playlist of songs and listen to some great music!
• Perhaps most important, my son enjoyed music and shows appropriate just for kids.  He listened to Schoolhouse Rock, played games and watched videos for hours!  Hours!  While mommy and daddy enjoyed their own shows!  Priceless!
• And did I mention the purple mood lighting in the main cabin?

So here’s what struck me about the Virgin America experience.  Virgin didn’t try to change all aspects of the flying experience.  They focused on changing just one thing — entertainment — and ended up transforming the whole user experience. They also managed to get me to spend a whole lot more money, willingly and happily, than I have ever spent during a flight.

How about you?  What one thing can you change about your customer’s user experience that could radically transform your company and catapult you ahead of the competition?

I want to offer a great, big, heartfelt THANK YOU to all the businesses that supported the auction. What strikes me about the list of donors is that the vast, vast majority are small businesses.  Once again, they answered the call when we asked them to support a worthy cause, despite the awful economy. And once again, they came through in a big way.

Abaca Imports, my favorite furniture store in the world, once again donated two Asian-inspired lamps.  Salon DeZen, where I get my hair cut every couple of months, donated a haircut and facial.  Signature Theater donated 2 subscriptions to their 2010-2011 season.  Marrakesh Restaurant donated dinner for 10.  Rosenthal Jaguar donated the rental of a 2010 Jaguar for the weekend.  Liberty Tavern donated a progressive dinner for 6.  Thrive Pilates and Yoga donated ten classes.  Amber Association Partners donated two front-row tickets to see the Wizards.  And on, and on.  (You can view the entire, amazing list on the Doorways Web site.)

Matrix Group works with several, prominent trade associations representing small businesses.  If there’s one message that resonates constantly, it’s this:  small businesses are a vital part of our communities because they are more likely to support local charities and groups. As one exec put it:  You never see a big box retailer’s name on the uniform of the local little league team; it’s always a small, local business that put up the money.

Don’t get me wrong.  The auction got great support from large corporations, particularly hotel chains.  Marriott, Sheraton and The Hotel Hershey were very generous.  (God bless these guys, they  must get thousands of solicitations each year.)  The vast majority of our donors, however, were small businesses.

So thank you to all the businesses that supported Doorways, a small, local charity doing great work.  And thanks to all the small businesses out there who support local charities and causes everywhere.

Now that I’m signed up for all of these services, I’m asking myself these questions:

• Which social networks should I be on personally and professionally?
• Most of the social networks let me share out updates from one network to another; should I share out my tweets or does that defeat the reason to be on multiple networks?
• Am I reaching a different audience on each network or will I be talking with the same group of social network-obsessed friends and colleagues?
• Just how many networks is practical for me to keep updated without losing my mind?

To try and get some perspective on these questions, I turned to my friend Jill Foster, social network guru, video blogger, and co-founder of DC Media Makers.  Jill has over 5,000 followers on Twitter, nearly 600 Facebook friends and she’s prolific on what seems like every major social network.  Here’s what she has to say about being active on at least a half dozen platforms:

There are online networks where my content may overlap but that’s intentional and less frequent.

Twitter:
It’s my central hub of online conversation plus a place to observe other users’ content -  and share content I produce.  Twitter frankly goes beyond a business platform for me.  Twitter is a liberal arts engagement pool (with a water cooler chat mentality mixed in) that never stops.

Twitter Search:
If I want to virtually attend a conference – I follow that conference’s hashtag or the feeds for those able to attend in person.  Also, to observe and engage on core topics of interest with people, I keep certain Twitter feeds active, e.g., women entrepreneurs, public figures, public speaking, social media.

Amplify:
It’s not a water cool chat mentality when I use Amplify.  It’s an excellent platform and opportunity for sharing deeper perspective.  I forward links to these conversations (which include entire clipped excerpts) to Twitter or, if content is more on the personal development front, to Facebook as well.

Posterous:
I enjoy Posterous for sharing mobile content – audio, video, and pics – which forwards to Twitter, where I can respond and engage.

Facebook:
I use Faceboofor more personal engagement,  although my professional drive/views may be shared there.

LinkedIn:
It has a fantastic array of subject-centric, professional groups. I am starting to use LinkedIn to join groups and be part of discussions.  It’s less a place to share regularly or engage through content (vs. Amplify or Twitter).

So there you have it.  A social media maven’s primer on the major social networking platforms and how to use them.  As for me, I’m slowly getting hooked on FourSquare and I’m trying to find time to post on Amplify.

How about you? How many and which networks are you on?  How do you distinguish between them?  How much time do you spend updating each day?  And which one is your favorite?

Why do we get so upset when Facebook changes its interface?

In looking at some of the blog posts and news articles, I can understand many of the complaints. For my part, I cannot figure out the difference between News Feed and Live Feed. But I love that it’s easier to get to my Inbox and see which of my friends is currently online. I also think that Facebook generally does a great job of explaining why they have implemented specific changes.  I thought this Guide to the new Facebook Home Page was especially good.

Psychologists tell us that most humans are averse to change. With over 350M users, any change then to Facebook, no matter how small, is bound to upset some segment of the user base. And if just 1% is unhappy and vocal, that’s still 3.5M people.  If 0.1 were unhappy, that would be 350,000 people!

All of this got me thinking. Matrix Group is in the business of redesigning Web sites. We work with clients who want to redesign their sites for all kinds of reasons: name change, the navigation is not intuitive, the company’s focus has changed, yada, yada. But if Facebook users are any indication of how averse we are to change, no matter how rational, articulated or needed, there is always going to be a segment that is unhappy. This unhappy user base may be vocal about it, which I think is a good thing because then you have an opportunity to respond to the concerns.  If the user base is unhappy and silent, then you’re in trouble because you don’t know you have a problem.

If you know you need a redesign, here are my thoughts for managing the change:

• Let your user base know that change is coming and explain why.
• When the new site is live, announce the change multiple times and keep explaining it.
• Provide narratives and videos that explain how to get around the new site.
• Provide a way for your customers and members to provide feedback and suggestions for tweaking the new site to make it better.
• Log search results so you’ll get an early warning that visitors can’t find specific content and services.

How about you?  What kind of reaction did you get to your last site redesign?  What did youdo to prep your audience?

• My friend Tanya runs a blog called NitpickyConsumer.com.  Tanya blogs about good and bad customer service, companies that don’t seem to care, companies that just don’t get it.
• This disillusioned Dell customer created a Dear Dell rant on YouTube that has garnered over 32,000 views and nearly 1,600 comments!
• Check this one out.  Dave Caroll wrote a song and created a video about United Airlines breaking his guitar.  The video has been viewed over 8 million and generated nearly 43,000 ratings (average 5 stars).  Ouch.
• And don’t forget the millions of updates that subscribers to various social networks fire off every day about their experiences.  Many are about lousy customer service.  Do a search on Twitter for “comcast sucks” or “verizon sucks” and you’ll never run out of tweets.

As marketers, we’re always trying to position or brand our companies.  But Harvard Business Review says “your brand is no longer your own” because anyone can go online and talk about your company and its offerings. And when our family, friends and colleagues talk, we listen.  A recent survey sponsored by Tealeaf.com found that “74% of online adults said negative comments read online have an influence on whether they will do business with a company.”  Wow.

What’s a business to do? My recommendations:

• Adopt an aggressive listening strategy so you know what’s being said about your company, by whom and on what platform.  Tune your Google alerts, Twitter searches and other social searches.
• Become nimble with your social networking strategy and toolkit so that you can respond quickly in the event of social media storm or viral campaign gone crazy.
• Make it easy for customers to give you feedback directly so that they don’t feel that their only recourse is to go online and rant.  And for God’s sake, take the calls and the e-mails and respond to them!

How about you?  Got a favorite customer service blog or video?  How do you voice your complaints and rants when a company has treated you badly?

Ugh, so what’s an advertiser to do?

This morning, I had the pleasure of seeing Dave Nelsen, President of Dialog, talk about social media for business.  While discussing YouTube, Dave showed us a video that he called “the future of advertising.”  The T-Mobile Dance is a 2:41 minute video of commuters at Liverpool Station in England dancing their hearts out.  As more and more people join in, onlookers snap photos, take video and share the experience with their friends through their T-Mobile phones, of course.

Dave made the point that this video represents the future of advertising because:

• The company got me to willingly watch a loooong ad. This would never happen on TV!
• Because YouTube allows comments, over 16,000 people have commented on this video, creating incredible buzz and feedback for the company.
• The video was so successful that T-Mobile created a YouTube channel for its “Life’s for Sharing” campaign.  Fans can even create their own videos and T-Mobile posts the best of the bunch.  There’s a video of a Korean baby singing Hey Jude and a singer jamming from atop a bus. How’s that for a user-generated content strategy?

And it’s not just large companies that are using YouTube to promote their products. My 5-year old son eagerly watches what are essentially product ads from a company called Trains Galore on their YouTube Channel. My husband Maki loves the YouTube channel of Ten-Tec, Inc., a manufacturer of high quality radio equipment for amateur radio operators.

These small retailers likely don’t have big budgets for advertising, but they have clearly found a following on YouTube.  This video advertising wooden Thomas the Tank Engine trains has gotten nearly 300,000 views and 50 comments!

All of this is not to say that the future of advertising is YouTube.  But YouTube represents an incredibly flexible way that companies are promoting their products through inspired creative, a viral strategy, and a user-generate content strategy.

How about you?  How are you using social media to promote your company?  What’s your YouTube strategy?

The Olympics are for the Young

Although there are a few 30-something and 40-something athletes, the Olympics are dominated by elite competitors in their teens and 20s. After a dozen years of competing, their careers are over. I’m grateful that after 18 years in the online business, I still have many years ahead of me. Perhaps I’m a late bloomer, but I feel like it’s really only in the last five years that I’ve really hit my stride and seen Matrix Group really thrive and expand.

In Business, Teams Rule!

Although there are a few relay races, the Olympics are dominated by the talents and achievements of individuals. In business, you can’t complete projects of any significant size and scope without a team effort. Take any redesign project at Matrix Group; these projects involve a project manager, an information architect, multiple designers, at least one front-end developer, at least one developer, and at least one tester. The work of one person affects every other team member and if one team members screws up, the whole project is threatened.

In Business, You Want a Lot of Winners

It’s easy to compare the world of sales with the Olympics: lots of competitors, one winner. But I would argue that the true race or competition begins once the sale has been made and implementation begins. Paradoxically, at this stage, you don’t want any losers. You want the client, the vendor, the third party partners, and the customers to all win with whatever widget, Web site or product you are building.

In Business, I Get to Win Gold Every Week

If Shawn White hadn’t won gold in the Halfpipe competition, he’d have to wait another four years for his next chance. Sure, there are other competitions, but only one Olympics every four years. Me? I heard from two prospects last week that we didn’t make the final cut. But this week, we landed a new account and heard from another prospect that we made it to the next round. More important, we get to “win gold” pretty much every week when we launch new Web sites and apps or solve problems for clients.

The Whole World Isn’t Watching

Can you even imagine doing your job while millions of people watch? Imagine how it feels to be a figure skater and take a fall in front of a crowded auditorium and a worldwide TV audience. Thank God that my team and I get to do our work (mostly) without an audience.

I love the Olympics, especially the Winter Olympics. I’m a couch potato for two weeks as I cheer for my favorites, hold my breath and hope nobody takes a spill. When the Olympics end, I’ll be happy for the winners, and glad that I get to be a winner, in my own way, in my day job.

While I’m sure most of my staff would have loved a snow day or two, as a small business owner, I know that when my staff isn’t working, we’re not generating billable time, which means a bad month in revenues, or worse.  So, since Friday, I’ve kept the Matrix Group office officially open but let everyone work from home. Here’s why:

• Most staff appreciated not having to battle the bad roads to keep working and avoid taking vacation days.
• Although most of our clients are in the DC area, we have clients all over the country; the latter expect us to be open.
• It’s precisely when our clients are not able to serve their customers and members physically that they rely on their Web sites to be open for business virtually.
• Letting staff work from home let us put our pandemic/DR plans to the test.

The results have been mostly good. With the exception of staff who lost power at home, everyone scheduled to work has been able to work.  Here’s what helped:

• The Matrix Group network administrators worked hard to give the entire staff VPN access to their desktops and the network.  In fact, until today, the network admins somehow made it to the office every day.
• We established a protocol for keeping in touch via Instant Messenger (IM).  We each announced to the entire staff when we started work each day, we stayed on IM, and we kept our statuses current to let other staff know if we were AFK (away from keyboard) for lunch, shoveling, etc.
• We used a free conference call service to conduct conference calls between staff and with clients.
• We use Webex to review documents and pages together, as well as Skype and Yahoo!Messenger to do group chats.
• Staff kept in close touch with their managers to discuss their plans, priorities and workload.

On Tuesday afternoon, I polled the entire staff and asked for their feedback re: working from home.  I learned some surprising things:

• Nearly everyone complained about latency on the VPN.  It seems we saturated our two T1 lines with all the remote access connections.
• Many staff members have cell phones only and they reported difficulties doing lengthy conference calls on their cell phones or were worried about running out of minutes.
• Most people missed the energy of the office, being able to conduct business face to face, and the convenience of nice computers, multiple monitors and fast access to the Internet.
• Several people complained about missing their chairs!
• Many staff members reported greater access to their managers (although I suspect it’s because managers were less likely to be on the phone with so many clients not working!).
• By Day 3, many staff were experiencing cabin fever in a big way.
• Those of us who are parents tended to take longer breaks AFK to take care of the kids.

All in all, I’m pleased with the Work From Home experiment.  If we do have a pandemic flu, we’ll be ready.  I’m grateful to have such a hard-working and committed staff; I feel like they’ve stayed in good spirits and have been very productive.  As for me, I miss the office, I miss my staff, I miss my chair, I miss my quiet office and I’m ready for my five-year old to be back in school!

How about you?  Did your company stay open or close during Snowcalypse?  How are you dealing with all this craziness?

This got me to thinking.  What are all the ways, big and little, that we make it difficult for our customers and potential customers to do business with us? Consider these examples.

• A few years ago, my husband and I were shopping around for a mortgage.  I called three bankers.  One was only available between 7am and 3pm.  Another sent me 20 pages to fill out about our assets.  The third asked me when it would be convenient to call (7pm), asked me to send bank and 401(k) statements so that he could fill out all the paperwork.  Guess who got the business?  At that point, I knew each banker would give us a competitive rate, but Craig Miller from BF Saul made it easy for us to work with him.
• During the planning for our office move, I called several vendors about office furniture systems.  One never called back.  One asked me to send her the architect’s drawings and information on what we wanted (I didn’t yet know what we wanted so I didn’t call back.)  The third, Michelle Ferrari from Office Images, offered to come by with catalogs, look at the architect’s drawings with me and discuss our needs.  There was no contest.
• I called a company to get a reference for someone applying for a job at Matrix Group.  It took me 3 tries before I could figure out how to leave a message in the general mailbox.  I couldn’t even imagine calling as a prospective customer.
• I’ve had a relationship with Insurance Designers for a very long time.  Every time I have a question, I call or e-mail Neal or Wendy Cohen and they get back to me promptly.  One time, Matrix Group was applying for some new type of insurance and Neal’s office sent over a very long questionnaire, which I couldnot figure out.  I called Neal and he said, “don’t worry about it, let’s fill it out over the phone.”  I love the guy.
• I was looking for a specific Thomas the Tank Engine train for my son and I found it for less money (than Amazon) on a small retailer site.  I had questions about the train (because a certain 5-year old had a specific request) but, for the life of me, I could not find a phone number on the Web site.  I gave up, ordered the product from Amazon and prayed that I had ordered the right thing.
• I love that live chat is available on so many retail sites these days.  I can get my question answered asap, place my order and be on my way.

The lessons for all of us who sell products or services?

• Make it easy for our customers and prospective customers to contact us the way they feel comfortable doing so (phone, fax, e-mail, Web form, smoke signal).
• When a customer calls your office, make it easy to navigate the automated attendant voice mail system.  Better yet, have a human answer the call, find out the caller’s need and route the call to the right person.
• Call people back (yeah, I know, this one’s a no brainer).
• Don’t put too many any obstacles in the way of you sending a quote and closing the deal. I’m legendary in the office for not being quite human before 9am, but if a customer wants to do a call at 7am, I’ll be on the line at 6:55am.  I’ll be in my PJs, but I’ll be on the line.

As a CEO, I’m always on the lookout for ways to make it easier to say “yes” to Matrix Group.  We sometimes stumble, but for me, the important thing is to constantly look for ways to make life better for Matrix Group clients.

How about you?  What site or retailer do you love to do business with and why?  And who makes it impossible to do business with them?  Got any horror stories?

I got to wondering if the home page, the single that we, as Web designers, spend soooooo much time wire framing and designing, has lost its luster. So I started checking our usage reports.  Sure enough, the home page of this blog gets represents between 7-10% % of the total traffic in any given month and 6-9% of total entry pages.  It makes sense given that most of the traffic comes from the blog’s RSS feed, e-mail updates, social media pages and search engines, all of which direct visitors to specific pages,  NOT the home page. The Matrix Group Web site home page gets 28% of total traffic, and that number makes sense, given that many people come to the site to learn more about the company as a result of our direct marketing efforts.

I started checking clients’ usage reports and I found that of all the sites I checked, the results were similar.  The home page gets between 17-40% of total traffic, and 15-30% of entry pages.

It turns out that lots of other people are thinking about this phenomenon and some are even declaring that the home page is dead.  Rick Stratton from Feed.us says, “(y)our homepage’s homepage is dying” because search engines, social media, RSS are linking directly to content pages.

While I don’t agree that the home page is dead, here’s what I do believe:

• As Web designers, marketers and communicators, we need to give a lot more thought to the user experience on sub-pages.
• We need clear calls to action on sub-pages, not just the home page.
• We need to have a banner ad and sponsorship strategy that incorporates the entire site, not just the home page.
• We need to look at our usage reports regularly to see which pages, topics and headlines are generating traffic

How about you? What are your usage reports telling you? What do you think of the importance of your home page vs. your content pages?

Me: Hello, Joanna Pineda, here for a 3:15 appointment.
Receptionist: Hello, please sign in. Has any of your information changed since your list visit?
Me: No.
Receptionist: Okay. Wait, you need to fill out new forms. (Hands me blank forms)

I sit down and sigh as I realize that I am giving my doctor all the information she already has.  Not one thing in my profile has changed.  I also have to agree to a 4-page HIPAA privacy statement, which infuriates me because I have about three minutes to review the document.  C’mon doctor, can’t you:

• Print out my information and let me confirm that nothing has changed or let me tell you just what has changed?
• Send me the HIPAA privacy statement ahead of time so that I can really study it?

Thankfully, because of my work, I’m familiar with HIPAA privacy statements and my rights, but what normal person takes the time to read and understand the document and his/her rights?

This doctor visit makes me think of how Matrix Group clients want and expect that we will know them, their organization, their contact information, their projects. It’s a joke around the office that many clients have achieved one-name status around here, kind of like Madonna or Cher.  All the receptionist needs to say is, “Rajani (Rick, Pat, Sue, Merla, or Adrianne) is on the line” and pretty much every staff member knows who she’s talking about.  Of course, more common names like Dan or Tim need a client name, but if you’re a frequent caller, our First Impressions Officer will probably know you by voice.

And when a client sends in a request for an enhancement to an existing design or application, they expect that we know the app inside and out and will think of all the nuances associated with the request.  Even if the app was created five years ago.  Only makes sense, right?

Remember Cheers?  The bar where everyone knows you’re name?  I think that’s what every client wants — to be known, to feel special, to not waste their time explaining information you should already know. So at Matrix Group, we’ve spent a lot of time on our systems, communications and intranet so that clients always feel known when they call or visit the bar called Matrix Group.

Of course, we stumble every once in a while.  A few years ago, when our current receptionist was new, she asked a longtime client the name of his organization, which of course he provided.  But when he got to me, he needled me about how the receptionist didn’t know him.  Mr. client was very sweet about the whole thing, but the message was clear: I’m a longtime client, your staff should know me.

How about you? What do your clients expect from you? And how do you make them feel comfortable that you “know them?”

This afternoon, the MatrixMaxx team at Matrix Group held a Town Hall meeting with clients to get feedback on about a half dozen features slated to go into the 10.1 version

Instead, we decided to crowdsource the specifications.  Crowdsource?  What does this mean?  Wikipedia defines “crowdsourcing” as the “act of taking tasks traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, and outsourcing them to a group of people or community, through an “open call” to a large group of people (a crowd) and asking for contributions.”  Wikipedia also uses this definition: “the trend of leveraging the mass collaboration enabled by Web 2.0 technologies to achieve business goals.”

In the past, Tanya (the Director of MatrixMaxx) and I would sit down, discuss requirements, maybe make a few calls, and then decide on the specifications for each release.  This time around, we decided to get immediate feedback from as big a group of clients as possible to validate our ideas and generate new ones.

The Mechanics of the Town Hall Meeting

• We sent an e-mail invitation to all MatrixMaxx clients, inviting them to an hour-long, online Town Hall meeting.  The e-mail provided details on the half dozen topics under consideration, with a general discussion of the options available.
• Clients were invited to provide feedback in real-time during the meeting, before the meeting via phone and email, and after the meeting via phone and e-mail.
• About 60% of the clients registered at least one person to the Town Hall meeting, which was conducted via conference call and Webex.
• Tanya ran the meeting, leading the discussion and taking notes, which were shared out via Webex to all participants.

Immediate Benefits of our Crowdsourcing Experiment

I don’t think the meeting could have gone any better.  Even I was surprised at the level of engagement from clients, as well as the thoughtful feedback on our proposed changes.  Here’s what we learned:

• A bunch of brains are definitely better than 1, 2 or 3. In one hour, we explored topics and prevented duh! moments in February.  For example, we proposed making the CID (the security code on credit cards) required on all meeting registration forms, but several clients correctly pointed out that they have already sent out paper forms for many meetings. If we require CID and they get back a bunch of reg forms back without the security code, they’ll have to call members and cause a lot of extra work. So, could we require the CID on the WWW side but not the intranet side? Honestly, we had never considered splitting the requirement between WWW and intranet.  What a great idea!
• The Town Hall meeting got the attention of clients we rarely hear from, despite regular outreach. When we have little contract with specific clients, that’s a red flag because we don’t learn about their issues and problems, which means we don’t have the opportunity to fix them.  The meeting was a great way to re-connect with clients and show them we want to hear from them!
• Clients liked hearing other client perspectives. In the past, when we decided to implement a feature one way, we made some clients happy and others unhappy.  Today, clients didn’t all agree, but they seemed to appreciate hearing about why another organization didn’t share their point of view.

The biggest benefit to the software team?  We got resolution on a bunch of requirements and the developers can plow ahead with their coding.  We are definitely going to do this again in the future, maybe even do a Town Hall meeting prior to the planning meeting for each release.

How about you?  What do you think of our experiment?  Have you participated in a crowdsourced event or project before?  If you participated in the Town Hall meeting, what did you think?

Does the social Web mean the end of privacy?  Are MySpace and Facebook to blame for all the personal revelations we spew out every day?  Or should we blame Google and Bing, which manage to index the Web and let anyone find out gobs and gobs of information about each of us?  When I Google my name (Joanna Pineda), I find lots of information that I WANT the search engines to find and index.  But I also find pages that have my address, my political contributions and address, yada, yada.  I’m not happy that Facebook changed its privacy settings and defaulted some of my information to be available to everyone, but I actually appreciate the more granular control that I now have over my posts, link and photos.

What do you think?  Is privacy dead?  How much do you reveal on social networks?  Are you doing anything to keep out of the search engines?

• The Pew Research Center has some of the best research about all kinds of trends shaping the US.  The Pew Internet and American Life Project has great information about technology adoption, Web 2.0, social media and the technology divide.
• Ad Age is one of my favorite sites.  The daily e-mail newsletter is one that I read nearly every day.  This article on Where Digital Marketing is Heading in 2010 is a must read.
• When I’m looking for numbers and visitors demographics for a particular Web site, I go to Quantcast.  For example, Quantcast estimates there are 23.3M Twitter users, of which 53% are female, 44% are between the ages of 18-34, and 75% are Caucasian.  The data can be a stale by a few months, which is a problem for fast-growing sites, but the data is usually pretty solid.
• Although I live in the DC area, I’m a huge New York Times fan.  Check out the 9th Annual Year in Ideas (the best!) and an awesome infographic that shows search terms related to cooking and Thanksgiving, by region of the country.
• TrendWatching.com puts out a monthly briefing on trends related to consumer behavior, marketing and advertising.  Although I’m underwhelmed by their 10 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2010, the site generally has good onsight into what’s hot or will be hot.
• Ars Technica is one of the best tech news sites/blogs on the Web.  Check out this August 2009 article that showed Microsoft’s Internet Explorer now has a less than 67% market share.
• We often think of Nielsen when it comes to TV ratings, but the company has amazing research about consumers, technology, marketing and advertising.  A study back in March of 2009 reported that social networks and blogs are now the 4th most popular online activity, ahead of personal e-mail.
• If you love data visualizations, you’ll love Flowing Data.  I love the perspective you get when you plot data points on a map; the insight grows when you are able to see data change over time, or across geographic boundaries.  I love this data visualization of the State of the World.
• Google Trends shows you the top search terms in the Google search engine and lets you compare the world’s interest in topics of your choice.   Google even maps flu trends based on people googling for search terms related to the flu.

These are just some of my favorite trends/statistics Web sites.  If you’re interested in seeing what else is on my bookmark list, check out my account on Delicious.

How about you?  What sites do you rely on to know what’s hot, what’s in, what’s not, and in what direction the winds of change are blowing?

On December 9, Facebook rolled out new privacy options to its 350 million users.

• You have always been able to limit what information from your profile was public and private.  But now, Facebook lets you control access to every status update, link, photo, video, etc.
• When controlling access, you can grant access to different people or groups: Everyone (as in the world), All Friends, Friends of Friends, and specific friends or lists of friends, or deny access/hide from specific friends of lists of friends.
• Facebook eliminated regional networks, which allowed users to unwittingly share their profiles to entire cities, states, countries, etc.

Advocates for the new privacy changes praised the simplified settings and the increased control over every single post.  Critics, however, are livid over the fact that the default option was to make nearly everything on a person’s profile available to Everyone (that is, until users edited their settings and posts) and the fact that some information is strictly public and can’t be edited.  For example, you can no longer limit who can see your list of friends and your public profile always shows the Facebook pages that you are a fan of.  I know I was ticked off that even though I edited my privacy settings so that my photo albums are globally only available to Friends, Facebook made my existing photo albums publicly available until I edited each one manually.

If the new privacy settings and changes confuse you, here are my recommendations:

• Review your Privacy Settings by clicking on Settings, then Privacy Settings in the top right menu. Ignore Facebook’s Guide to Privacy and privacy recommendations and set-up your settings they way you like.  Facebook, for example, recommends that “Everyone be able to see information that will make it easier for friends to find, identify and learn about you. This includes basic information like your About Me description, Family and Relationships, Work and Education Info, and Website, as well as posts that you create, like photo albums and status updates.”  For me, this is way too much information for the public to see.
• Create lists within your Friends list. To do this, click on Friends in the top menu, then click on Friends under Lists in the left menu.  At the top of the page, you’ll see an option for Create New List.  You’ll be able to name your new list then select the friends who should be on that list.  For example, I have created lists for Family, Matrix Group staff, Close Friends, Business Associates, etc.  Create lists that make sense to you and think in terms of this question: “When posting updates, links, photos and videos, how would you like to group your FB friends so that you can easily share information with the right people?”  For example, I might share a photo album of my son just with Family and Close Friends but not Business Associates.
• Be mindful of the lock icon when posting anything on Facebook. Click on the little padlock anytime you post anything and keep in mind that Facebook defaults aren’t always going to match your privacy settings.  For example, I have set-up my status updates and photo albums to only be available to Friends.  When I post an update or link, the default is set properly to Only Friends, but when I create a photo album, the default is still Everyone.  Grrrr…..
• Check your public profile on a regular basis and don’t rely on the Facebook preview. I can preview my public profile (or the profile that anyone can access even if they are not logged into Facebook or what the search engines can crawl) from different sections of Facebook and they don’t always match; this could be a legacy of the old settings and Facebook will synchronize them up sometime soon.  But I also know that when you’re logged into Facebook, you get a different view of Facebook.  So I log out of Facebook and access my profile: http://www.facebook.com/jmpineda on a regular basis and monitor what’s available to the world.  I also ask friends who are not my FB friends to check out my profile and verify what is available.

If you want to learn more about the new Facebook privacy changes, here are some good articles:

• Facebook’s Guide to Privacy
• PC World announces the Facebook privacy changes
• The Electronic Frontier Foundation on the good, the bad and the ugly of the new changes; this one is absolutely worth a read
• PC World on how to protect your privacy on Facebook
• MSNBC on why you should check your privacy settings now; it appears that Mark Zuckerberg himself left some photo albums available to Everyone for a period of time, giving the world a peek into his private life; oops!

How about you?  What do you think of the new privacy changes?  Have you reviewed and tweaked your privacy settings?  What do you like about the new changes?  What’s making you crazy?

You’d think that sending out an e-mail over paper would be an easy choice.  But the holiday cards were a big deal.  Each staff member signed the cards for all the clients they supported and partners they worked with.  The new biz, net admin and administration teams signed every single card.  I am famous for signing every card and writing notes on many of them — yep, nearly 900 of them last year!  Clients and friends have told us that they love the Matrix Group holiday card precisely because they are signed by the staff who support them.

So what happened this year that we abandoned a decade-old tradition? I was meeting with Jaime, my Director of Administration, to pick the card design and go over numbers.  It hit me that we were about to spend close to $2,500 on cards.  It seemed like a lot of money.  I also thought about how many of our charities and non-profit clients struggle to raise every dollar and consider gifts of $250, $500 or $1,000 major gifts.

So I did what I always do when I need guidance on a work issue: I consulted with the staff, who promptly agreed it would be a good idea to spend what we otherwise would have spent on printing and postage and make donations to local charities. The choice of the charities proved more difficult.  During a late afternoon discussion, we decided to support our three pro bono charities plus two others.  We focused on charities that are providing the most basic of services to those truly in need during these tough times — organizations providing food and shelter. Our final charity list is:

• ALIVE! House
• Capital Area Foodbank
• Doorways for Women and Children
• Washington Animal Rescue League
• Women Empowered Against Violence, Inc. (WEAVE)

Our decision is not novel or revolutionary, but we’re proud of it.  It’s green to send e-cards and we hope that we’re making a small difference on our community.  If you haven’t been introduced to these organizations, I hope you’ll take a minute to click on the links and learn more about them.  They’re well managed, they have great leadership, and they have effective programs.

How about you?  Is your organization sending paper or e-cards this year?  What organizations are you supporting during these tough times?

Over the past year, content on demand has matured a lot.  I can now rent and purchase movies, many of them in HD, using iTunes on my Mac, on my Apple TV, and my PS3.  The Apple and Sony networks each have a large database of movies, although the Apple inventory seems larger and the shopping and viewing experience is far superior on iTunes and the Apple TV.  Movies become available on my devices the same time they become available through Netflix and my  neighborhood Hollywood Video.

Which makes me wonder if the Blu-Ray vs. HD battle almost missed the mark.  Blu-Ray is a storage format and scripting platform and it’s fabulous.  But when I purchase or rent an HD movie from a content on demand network, Blu-ray is irrelevant because I don’t need a storage format; I get the movie directly to my drive.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love Blu-Ray.  My new Sony VAIO laptop plays Blu-Ray discs and I love, love, love the clarity of the audio and video, as well as all the cool extras on the discs.  So for now, I will continue to buy my favorite movies on Blu-Ray, but for the random movie rentals, I will likely go online and have my movies of choice downloaded to my Apple TV or PS3 in 20 minutes.

How about you?  Are you buying or renting movies online?  Who is your preferred vendor?  Are you still buying movies on disc?

• Mini USB Monitor – Need a little more real estate on your monitor? You’ll love these mini monitors.
• Lego Death Star – If you have a little one who loves Legos and you love Star Wars, you’ll enjoy making the Death Star together.
• Our Network Administrators say that NetBooks are super hot this season.  NetBooks are a class of laptops that are super small, lightweight and inexpensive.  You can get them from Dell, Acer, HP and Sony.
• WikiReader – This little device puts the 3 million+ articles from Wikipedia in the palm of your hand, along with regular updates.
• PS3 Rock Band Precision Bass – If you love Rock Band, you’ll love this upgraded bass.
• The Geek Handbook – This handy little reference is a great user guide and documentation for the geek in your life.
• A Slashdot Cap – If you get the reference, you’ll love this cap. If you don’t, don’t worry about it.
• HD Flipcams – It was bound to happen. Now you can take HD videos with a teeny device.
• Portable Solar Charger – This universal charger will keep your portable electronics charged anywhere there’s sun. So you can go camping and still keep your phone and iPod fully charged. Sweet!
• Simon Game – This is a through-hole soldering kit for the true geek in your life who needs a little soldering practice.
• Dragon Age – This is the latest video game from Bioware and it is hot, hot, hot.

How about you?  What are you giving the techie in your life?  Got a good lead on a fab gift?  Please share!

What do you do if you make candy, most of your sales in grocery stores are from the checkout lane, and RFID is poised to eliminate checkout lanes?

I attended the holiday reception of the Grocery Manufacturers Association earlier this week.  In addition to mingling with GMA staff and other sister association staff, I got to meet reps from several GMA members, including Tom from The Hershey Company.  I told Tom that Matrix Group has got to be the biggest buyer of the dark chocolate Hershey’s kisses (the dark chocolate kisses are wrapped in purple foil).  Purple kisses are a staple at nearly every Matrix Group meeting because a) they’re purple and b) meetings always run better when there’s chocolate involved.

Tom reported that Hershey’s chocolate is doing well because even during (or perhaps because of) the recession, chocolate is an indulgence most people can afford.  I asked him what’s new in the business of candy/chocolate marketing and he said candy makers are in for a rough ride in the next few years because the grocery store user experience is changing dramatically. Consider this:

• Most candy sales in grocery stores come from the checkout line. Why? Because most people avoid the candy aisle, especially if they’re moms with kids.  So the checkout line becomes the most important place to market candy.
• Grocery stores have been experimenting for years with self-checkout.  Shoppers Food Warehouse has had self-checkout for years.  Tom says we should expect self-check-out to be more common in the future.
• Even with self-checkout, there’s a check-out lane.  BUT, RFID promises an end to the checkout lane as we know it. Last year, for example, Microsoft announced a digital grocery cart that lets shoppers access grocery lists created at home, receive targeted coupons, and scan products as they go into the cart.  With the digital shopping cart, the checkout lane becomes a payment lane; no more waiting, no more scanning.

Yikes and wow!  So if you’re The Hershey Company, Mars or Wrigley, what do you do?  What kind of R&D and marketing initiatives do you start developing now — for the day when checkout lanes are gone forever or at least changed dramatically?

As I thought about candy makers, I realized that grocery stores and manufacturers have been significantly affected by the decline of another industry:  newspapers. Think about it.  Newspapers(especially the Sunday supplement) used to be the way consumers learned about store sales and coupons.  With fewer people subscribing to newspapers, how do they promote their products and promotions? Today, there are zillions of Web sites and mobile apps that will tell you about in-store promotions, offer you coupons and even comparison shop for you. Great for consumers, but a confusing landscape for marketers, for sure.

Finally, if candy makers are being affected by the demise of the checkout lane, what happens to the tabloids and magazines? I think the only time I pick up Southern Living or People is when I’m in the checkout line and passing time.  Ugh, another blow to the publishing industry.  (Hmmm…. did I really admit to my blog readers that I read People?)

How about you?  What technologies on the horizon could significantly impact your business?  And what are you doing about it?

Finally, do you buy candy in the checkout lane?  How will your candy purchases change if and when checkout lanes disappear?  Inquiring minds want to know…

So, you’ve set-up a Facebook fan for your company, now what?  Here are some of my favorite Facebook fan pages and reasons I think they’re terrific and effective.

Stanford University – http://www.facebook.com/stanford

• The status updates are a mix of campus news, alumni news, sports updates, research and university news.
• The page has a good mix of updates, links, photos and videos.
• I love the office hours with world-renowned professors.  Each week, there is a short video of a professor discussing some important work; the professor takes questions from fans throughout the week.
• I also appreciate the handy list of Stanford Web sites and the photo albums.

Dunkin Donuts – http://www.facebook.com/DunkinDonuts

• When you visit this Facebook fan page, you are not taken to the Wall by default, but rather to a promo.
• This fan page uses a custom Tab for Maurice, the Dunkin Donuts mascot.
• Dunkin Donuts encourages fan posts to the Wall; there are even videos posted by fans.
• To manage fan posts, “DD Facebook Etiquette” is posted right on the front page; this makes it clear that DD welcomes fan interaction, but within specific parameters.

Aquilent – http://www.facebook.com/Aquilent

• It’s clear that Aquilent is targeting potential recruits and existing staff with its Facebook page.
• This government contractor does a great job of showcasing the company’s culture and events.
• The posts are a mix of updates about events at Aquilent that cover technology, health and fun.
• The photos are great and seem to generate lots of great comments from fans.

PBS – http://www.facebook.com/pbs

• I love how the PBS fan page encompasses PBS’ different offerings, including TV, Web site and online store.
• Many of the posts actively solicit fan engagement.  A recent post asks “NewsHour correspondents detail their favorite books, films, concerts and plays of the year. What do you think of their picks?”
• Facebook fans were recently offered a 20% off coupon +free shipping.  Nice insider post with a custom coupon code that lets PBS track the source of the sale; great e-commerce tie-in!
• PBS sponsors a discussion forum where fans can start discussions about any topic related to PBS and its programs and services.
• The fan page also lists online events that fans can participate in, including live chats.

City of Alexandria – http://www.facebook.com/AlexandriaVAGov

• As a resident of Alexandria, I think the city does a great job of posting the most important city news, updates and events.  I get weather advisories, health updates, and highlights of city events.
• I’m still subscribed to the City’s emergency alerts and still get my Alexandria Gazette weekly; the Facebook fan page complements these services really nicely.

Matrix Group International – http://www.facebook.com/MatrixGroup

• Since I run the place, I better like my company’s Facebook fan page. :-)
• But seriously, I think the Matrix Group marketing team is doing a good job of highlighting company culture and events, Web site launches to showcase our work, and individual staff accomplishments.
• We try to post a mixture of updates, links and photos.
• We also promote all of our webinars through Facebook to try and reach a wider audience.

How about you?  What are some of your favorite Facebook fan pages? What do the pages do and feature that make them so effective?

If you want more tips for creating an effective Facebook page, check out these articles on All Facebook and Mashable.  There are also great resources directly from Facebook.

So how do you customize your Twitter profile page to maximize followers? Here are my top tips:

• Make sure you fill out your name so it’s searchable. This sounds so simple, but consider this:  The Humane Society of the United States is @humanesociety, but the profile name is listed as HSUS.  If you use the Find People search on Twitter and type Humane Society, the HSUS page does not come up because the Twitter search only searches the Name field, NOT the username.  A better name would have been Humane Society of the US.
• Fill out the Bio and Web site fields. This is a perfect opportunity to link your Twitter page to your company Web site or blog AND provide a short elevator speech.  The bio and URL add perspective and credibility.  You can be formal, you can be clever, or you can be funny in the bio field.  Check out other bios for good ideas.  I like @pmohara and @neagle.  In addition, I hear from many, many people that if someone has not provided a bio or URL, they are much less likely to follow that person.
• Upload a thumbnail photo, image or logo. If you’re tweeting as a person, your followers can associate your tweets with a photo.  If you’re tweeting as a company, you get another opportunity to display your logo on your followers’ tweet streams.
• If you are in the Web, design, marketing, tech or social media business, then I highly recommend uploading a custom background. Otherwise, use one of the backgrounds available in the Twitter gallery to make your page stand out.  The background is another opportunity to provide information about your organizaton, list your services and passions, and have a call to action/contact information.  I love @adamplitt,   @alexslemonade, and @discover_police.

How about you?   What are some of your favorite Twitter pages?  Do you agree that you are less likely to follow someone if they don’t have the name, Web site and bio fields filled in?

I actually hear it all the time from friends, family and clients: why can’t this (insert name of site here) work like Amazon?  Okay, forget for a moment that that Amazon has spent tens of millions on their site.  Here’s what I’ve come to expect from Amazon and would love it if other e-tailers followed suit.

• Much as I hate to think that my shopping patterns can be predicted by a computer, the personalization on Amazon rocks. Yep, the site pushes all kinds of merchandise on me via e-mail and the Web site, but it’s not crap if I’m even mildly interested.  I’ve been introduced to new bands and authors, and I love that the related items often lead me to what I’m really looking for.
• Amazon fulfillment is lightning fast. I placed three orders on Black Friday and they all arrived Monday morning.  Meanwhile, another retailer tells me I have to wait 7-10 days for regular shipping.  7-10 days, are you kidding?  What are the people in the warehouse doing?
• Amazon embraces user-generated content. I rely on the reviews and ratings from my fellow consumers, esp. fellow moms.  And I’ve used lists created by Amazon customers for great gift recommendations for family and friends.
• Amazon does a great job of communicating the status of my order. I get an e-mail when I place the order and another one when the order ships.  I’ve never left guessing about where the heck my stuff is, and I have handy links that let me check on the order directly.

Some of my other favorite retailers embrace a lot of the practices above.  I think Land’s End does a particularly good job, as does Snapfish.  The smaller retailers, not so much.  Do I do a lot of my shopping on Amazon?  You bet, and the superior user experience on the Web site is the reason why.

Does your company have an online store?  How can you make the user experience more like Amazon?

We tend to think of traditions as part of our personal and family lives.  But if we look closely, most companies have traditions as well and they bind staff to the company and to each other. Here at Matrix Group, over the past ten years, we’ve amassed a set of traditions.  These traditions include: a pumpkin carving contest during Halloween, funny awards and a white elephant exchange during our holiday party, pie during the June birthday celebration, naming each server after a Star Wars character, and creating a special glass after an especially important launch.

The traditions have become part of our lore and our culture.  It’s part of what we as staff have come to expect, and they bridge the gap between staff of differing seniority.  I, for one, think that we ought to recognize these traditions, no matter how small, and celebrate them, for they make work a better place.

How about you?  What traditions does your company observe?  What do they mean to you?

Happy Thanksgiving!  And may your holiday be full of Thanksgiving tradition, family and togetherness.

I realized about 12 years ago that my life was not a dress rehearsal, that this was my life and I better start leading it the way I wanted to.  I also realized that I better get serious about my health because I wasn’t going to stay invincible forever.  That’s when I quit smoking, started going on at least one international vacation each year, and stopped missing important events in the lives of those near and dear to me.

A few years ago, friends invited me, my husband and my then 2 year old son to their wedding in Playa del Carmen, Mexico.  The wedding date fell during a busy time at Matrix Group and I was tentative about going to Mexico with a toddler.  Could we spare the time?  How would my son handle the flight, the water in Mexico, the wedding?  Yup, you guessed it.  We went on the trip and had an amazing time.  The trip emboldened us and now we jump at the opportunity to travel to neat places.  I want a life that will be fun to describe to my future grandchildren, a life full of stories and adventure.

How about you?  Are you leading the life you want to lead?  Do you have the right work-life balance so you can enjoy work, play and family?  What are you putting off doing?

Facebook says that the average user has 130 friends but I know people who have hundreds, even thousands of friends.  500 friends?  I can’t imagine many people who have that many friends with whom they would willingly share personal updates, photos, even their full birthday.  So I asked around and got some good insight into the friending and unfriending business.  These findings don’t represent a large group, just my friends! :-)

• There is a group of Facebook users who will accept friend requests from anyone and who actively try to expand their friend network.
• There is another group that views Facebook as a place where they can communicate freely so they only connect with true friends.  For these folks, Facebook is a place for personal communications, often about self, family, kids, friends.
• There was a general consensus that the new Facebook homepage, which splits updates between News Feed and View Live Feed, makes it harder to see updates from your entire network of friends, which makes it more challenging to have a large network.
• Many people have been cleaning up their lists on Facebook, Twitter, and other social network recently.  They’re actively unfriending people so they can manage the communications and flood of updates.
• Even if  a person has a large network on a platform like Facebook, they are more than likely only interacting with a small subset of friends. Indeed, the Facebook sociologist says that no matter how large their friend network, Facebook users tend to “comment on stuff from only about 5-10% of their Facebook friends.”

So just how does one end up on an unfriend list?

• If you never respond to direct messages.
• If you never update your status.
• If your relationship with a person is tenuous at best.

BTW, if you unfriend someone on Facebook, the person does not receive a notification, but they can no longer look at your profile and they can’t request to get connected again.  If you unfollow someone on Twitter, they don’t receive a notification and chances are, they won’t notice since many people have so many followers and people they are following.  It is quite another thing, however, to block someone on Twitter; if you block someone, they can’t follow you.

As for me, on Twitter, I let most people follow me on Twitter and I follow nearly 700 people back.  On Facebook, however, I only accept friend requests from people I know, people I would gladly have lunch with, and with whom I don’t mind sharing information about my son.  So while I’m connected to nearly a thousand people on Twitter, I only have 170 people in my Facebook network.

How about you?  How large is your social network on the different platforms?  What criteria do you use to assess friend requests?  Are you doing any unfriending lately?

What on earth does the Miss Universe pageant have to do with running a business?

Well, it turns out that if you run a business long enough, no matter how successful you, there are times when you don’t take home the prize.  I can remember deals where we came soooo close to winning the account, but ultimately, we came in second place, or 1st runner up.

But unlike a Miss Universe pageant, the 1st runner up in business often has a good chance of taking the prize when:  the first choice can’t deliver, the client’s needs outpace the capabilities of the selected vendor, or a change in staffing triggers a review of the account and the contracts.

When Matrix Group comes in second, yes, it totally sucks, but here’s what we try and do:

• We ask for a debrief so that we can learn why we didn’t win the account. We learn a lot from these debriefs and the prospects know that we care about their feedback.
• We ask the prospect if they’d like to stay on our list and continue receiving news about our launches and webinars, and sign-up for our RSS feeds, blog or social media pages.  This strategy allows us to keep in touch with the prospect with little effort and in a non sales-y way.
• We ask the prospect to please keep us in mind for future projects; this lets the prospect know that we’re not upset (even if we are), that we still want to do business with them, and the door is always open.
• We check back every six months or so and monitor the site to find out when the new site goes online.  If we don’t see the site launching according to the scheduled timetable, we drop an e-mail or check-in with a phone call.

Matrix Group has been a proud 1st runner up that ended up taking the crown in many, many instances.  We landed the Catholic Charities account over nine years ago when the first vendor stumbled; we still have the account today.  Just this week, I heard from a prospect from 2005 that had selected another firm for their redesign; the redesign is still not done and they’ve selected Matrix Group to finish the work!

How about you?  Has your company come in second (1st runner up) and then taken the prize?  What strategies do you use to take the prize away from Miss Universe?  Finally, do you ever watch the Miss Universe pageant and would you ever admit to it?

One camp says that clients need to have all of their content prepped and ready to go before design on a Web site even begins.  The other camp says this view is not realistic, content is always behind, and clients often need the design to inspire them to update their content.

So which view is right?  I actually think that both sides are right.  But I think the question is misdirected.  The real question is: how do we make content more important, earlier in the Web site design and development process?

Here’s something every Web design and development firm knows:  Content is often the responsibility of the client, it’s often delayed, and it’s the most common reason for delayed launches. A List Apart has a whole section on their site devoted to content strategy.  I love Bronwyn Jones’ article on how good design is not possible without good writing.  And I think Erin Kissane is on to something when she discusses content templates (not design templates) as a way to help subject matter experts put their knowledge down on paper.

Here is what I have learned about content, the importance of content to design, and coaxing good content out of clients:

• It is NOT realistic to expect that all content will be ready and done before design begins. It’s never going to happen, period, end of story.
• Putting lorem ipsum text on designs may be easy, but it doesn’t give the client a feel for how their content will fit into the design.  It’s better to use real content, no matter how dry, in the design comps. Just as some homebuyers can see beyond the blank walls and rooms, others need a home to be staged before they consider buying it.
• Even if the client doesn’t have budget for a copywriter or editor, include a few hours of copywriting in your design budget so that the text used on the designs is punchy and has clear calls to action.  Good copy will inspire clients when they work on the content themselves and will encourage them to bring in assistance.  (And outside help almost always moves the process along.)
• Designers must design all content elements that will be used throughout the site and include them in the designs.  This inspires clients to make their content interesting because they’ll aspire to the designs we present.
• We must include content discussions and reviews during the entire user experience (UX) process (content inventory, navigation development, wireframes, design).  Just as we get together to review designs, we must look at pages of content and get internal staff and client feedback.

How about you?  What content strategies have worked for your organization?  How do you get good content out of your subject matter experts?  And how do you blend your content development and design processes?

So what does it mean to have my ham radio license? Amateur radio, also called ham radio, was created by the FCC to create a pool of volunteers that can provide assistance during emergencies, disasters and public events.  Ham radio also has a less serious face.  Ham radio is meant to foster international goodwill and encourage learning about telecommunications and electronics.

In this day and age, what with cell phones and Internet access, do we still need amateur radio?  It turns out that hams provide critical assistance during and after disasters that cause massive power outages and destroy telephone and cell phone systems. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, this video explains how hams provided much needed communications between medical facilities, law enforcement and relief organizations. During the inauguration of President Obama, ham radio operators were enlisted to create a backup communications network in the event that primary communications were disrupted.  During the Marine Corps Marathon a couple of weeks ago, a hundred or so hams volunteered and provided communications support, especially to EMS (emergency medical service).

I’m still very new to all this and not transmitting.  My husband got me a radio for my car and my desk, and for now, I’m doing a lot of listening.  I’m hoping to participate in a contest in a few weeks (the goal is to make as many contacts as possible) and I want to volunteer at the Marine Corps Marathon next year.

Before studying for the exam, amateur radio felt like a dusty and obsolete hobby.  But I’m slowly learning just how much this community of volunteers is doing behind the scenes.  As the slogan of a ham radio Web site says: When all else fails, amateur radio works.

If you’re interested in learning more about ham radio, check out these great sites:

• Welcome to the World of Ham Radio
• ARRL, the national association for Amateur Radio
• Emergency Radio
• Wikipedia on ham radio

Any hams out there?  What’s your call sign?  What are you doing on the amateur bands?

Then I attended a presentation by Barry Deutsch, CEO of Impact Hiring Solutions, an executive search firm.  Barry’s presentation had such an impact on me and my company that Barry Deutsch is now a verb at Matrix Group.

When a job announcement is not pulling in the candidates we need, I tell my staff to “Barry Deutsch” the description.

Barry says that the top hiring mistakes companies make are:

• Failing to define the job properly, i.e., not defining what will represent success in the job.
• Falling victim to first impressions, i.e., the candidate looks good, talks well, she must be terrific.
• Desperation hiring, i.e., making an offer because you think it’s better to hire someone, anyone.
• Not asking deep and penetrating questions during the interview. This happens because managers don’t know how to conduct success-based interviews or lob softballs at the candidate because they “like” them.
• Failing to check references deeply. Many companies skip reference checks or don’t properly validate the claims by candidates. And if a candidate can’t provide references, RUN!

Ultimately, we all want to hire and retain top talent.  Here is what Barry has to say about top talent:

• Top talent is working; it’s rare that they’re unemployed so don’t pin your hopes on the resume database of a job board or rely on a recruiter that doesn’t have access to working candidates.
• Top talent is usually already well paid and working on amazing projects so don’t believe that paying more money is going to be enough to shake top talent from their current employers.
• Top candidates look for 3 things in order to make a move: Is the new job a better opportunity? What kind of impact will I have on the company, on the clients, in the world? What will I become if I take this job?
• Top candidates ultimately take new jobs because: the opportunity is terrific, they will be working for a boss they can respect, and the company is one they can respect and admire.

Barry has a whole methodology for finding top candidates, interviewing them, checking references, making the offer, etc.  He even has a great, funny, insightful book that I highly recommend: You’re Not the Person I Hired.  It’ s a must read if you are involved in your company’s hiring process in any way or if your company is struggling with recruiting.

So what happened to our open Network Administrator job? We completely rewrote the job announcement and instead of listing minimum requirements, we made the job aspirational. We talked about the opportunities and challenges of working with so many technologies, managing a diverse hosting environment, and the crazy launch schedules.  We even gave the job a new title: Network Admin Superhero. We rewrote the interview questions.  And we spent a lot of time on the phone with references.  The result?

We got amazing candidates within a few days and we filled the job in three weeks. (I am not making this up, just ask Deb, my IT Manager.)  My staff will tell you that I swear Barry Deutsch changed my life and he really did.  We continue to use the Barry method and recently made an offer to an amazing candidate for the MatrixMaxx Project Manager/Brewmaster.  We also recently hired a Project Manager/Cat Herder/Master Juggler.

How about you?  What kind of hiring challenges does your organization face? Do you need to Barry Deutsch your hiring process?

Twitter was super smart when they created their API

API stands for Application Program Interface.  Wikipedia defines an API as “an interface that a software programs implements in order to allow other software to interact with it.”  In the Web world, APIs allow systems to talk to each other, request each other’s data, write to each other’s systems, etc., within a defined structure.  In Twitter’s case, the Twitter API allows software developers to request information from Twitter, especially the tweets by Twitter subscribers. The API allows requests by date range, keyword, usernames, etc.

Why on earth would anyone want to build a program using Twitter data?  It turns out that Twitter data can be amazingly interesting once it’s sliced and diced in different ways.  There are hundreds (perhaps thousands) of applications that take Twitter streams and do “stuff” with them: sort them, visualize them, analyze them, count them.  Here are some of my very favorite Twitter applications.  Note that I specifically don’t list applications that help you manage your tweets, replies, direct messages, etc.

• Twisst gets location information from the profiles of its followers, then tweets @ specific persons when the international space station will be in their vicinity
• TwitterCounter lets you get statistics on specific users, including Twitter rank, number of followers, etc.
• Twistori is a real-time visualization of tweets across the entire Twitter universe that mention love, hate, think, believe, feel, wish
• Twitter search lets you conduct real-times searches for keywords and phrases in everyone’s tweets
• TwitterReach lets you see how far your tweets have traveled by typing a specific keyword, phrase or hash tag; you’ll even get the total number of people your message might have reached, based on the followers of the tweeters
• TweetStats lets you enter a Twitter username to see that person’s Twitter stats, including tweets by month, day of week and time; who they most reply to and who they most retweet
• WeFollow is a user-powered directory of Twitter users, tagged by categories
• OneHourTranslation has built a business around translating tweets and sending them back to you in the language of your choice
• HappyTweets lets you enter a Twitter username and get that person’s happiness score; mine is 560 – ridiculously happy
• Twitoaster is a great way to see the threads in your Twitter conversations
• Trendistic is a great way to keep up with trends on Twitter, including trending topics

Can’t get enough of these Twitter applications?  Oneforty.com claims to be the best way to find Twitter applications.  TechCrunch has its list of the top 21 Twitter applications.  Finally, Twitdom is a database of Twitter applications.

How about you?  What are your favorite Twitter applications? What’s the coolest or prettiest thing you’ve seen that uses the Twitter API?

In e-commerce lingo, my Snapfish shopping cart was abandoned because I left the site without completing the order.  Some of my clients consider it creepy to let their customers know that they know about the abandoned carts.  But here was a non-creepy, really helpful e-mail from Snapfish that prompted me to complete my order!  What made the e-mail reminder successful?

• The cute photo of a girl next to the large caption that reads “Did you forget something?” Yes, the girl looks like she just realized that she forgot something and she’s got a hilarious expression on her face.
• The friendly, personalized message.
• The links to complete my order and forgot password.

The Snapfish e-mail reminded of an e-mail I received from a newsletter publisher some time back.  I was trying to reduce the number of e-mails I receive and unsubscribed from one of their newsletters.  Instead of a regular confirmation e-mail, I got a message that said something like “We’re just crushed that you’ve decided to unsubscribe from our newsletter.  We’re wringing our hands and wondering what we did wrong…” The e-mail was hilarious and so well written that I promptly re-subscribed because in addition to serving up a funny message, they reminded me of the benefits of their newsletter.

Both of these companies remind me that providing customer services doesn’t have to staid or dry. We can talk like real people in our messages, we can express emotion, and we can use humor to get the point across.  Heck, our message will probably stand out in crowded e-mail inboxes full of jargon and marketing speak.

How about you? Received any fabulous customer service e-mails recently? Received any that made you laugh or angry?

Okay, so this does not make any sense:  discounted parking costs Union Station more money because a real person is needed to process the transaction. (Besides that, it’s just not right to advertise a discount and then not tell consumers how to actually get the discount.)

So it turns out that a lot of companies spend a lot more time processing charges from people who pay less.  Here are more examples:

• The meeting registration system that can’t process discounts properly so you have to call the organization to get the discount.
• The discount code that you can’t use on the Web, only by phone.
• The publication that gives you a quantity discount, but you have to call.

My take on discounts is this: you’re getting less money already from discounted transactions, so figure out how to automate the processing. The more you need people to handle the details, the less money you actually make.  Talk to your vendor and eliminate the extra staff time.  You’ll probably also get a bump in sales because more people will take advantage of the discounts!

How about you?  Does your company have a process that makes you work more for less money?  Run into any good (ahem, bad) examples?

But then I read a study by Nielsen that reports “member communities, which includes both social networks and blogs, has become the fourth most popular online category – ahead of personal email.” Whoa!  Social networking and blogging have overtaken personal e-mail?  Could this signal another monumental shift in our communications?

Perhaps.  But yet another Nielsen analysis reports that “the heaviest social media users actually use email more” than other segments. My God, how could this be?  And where the heck are these people finding the time to be on both social networks and e-mail so heavily?

Here’s my take on what’s going on:

• E-mail isn’t close to being dead because while I can broadcast a status to my Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, I can’t direct message everyone in my universe because they’re not all on social networking sites, nor are they all on the same site.  My contact list, however, is pretty much all on e-mail.
• The social networking sites make heavy use of e-mail to let me know that someone has commented on my update, sent me a direct message, written on my wall/profile, etc.  I actually find a lot of this e-mail annoying because on Facebook, for example, if I “like” something, I get all the follow-on likes and comments.  On some days, it’s just a lot of noise.  On the other hand, I like the e-mail reminders because I won’t necessarily revisit a status update, link or friend’s wall regularly.  And RSS gets overwhelming and another place to check!
• MarketingSherpa sees a pattern of “aggregation and adoption rather than replacement” when it comes to social networking and e-mail. “Some media suffer in the exchange, but none are eliminated entirely.”  In an interesting survey, MarketingSherpa respondents overwhelmingly said that when they want to share a link, 78% say they use e-mail, while 22% say they use social media (there is overlap in these numbers, of course).
• As more and more of us conduct our daily lives online, e-mail is used for confirmations of purchases, meeting reminders, notes from teachers, yada, yada.  Somehow, I have a tough time imagining that Amazon is going to send me a tweet about my most recent purchase.

I am one who makes heavy use of social networking sites to keep in touch with family, friends, client and colleague.  My e-mail exchanges with certain groups have probably suffered as a result.  But the hundreds of e-mails that pour into my inbox each day tell me that e-mail is alive and kicking.  E-mail is my lifeline and still supremely critical to my business.

How about you?  What’s your ratio of e-mail to social Web usage?  Has your e-mail time declined?  Is e-mail dead?