technology

Upon checking into the Courtyard Marriott, I noticed this fine print on the back of the door:

In an earlier post  we discussed “Free Inc”. and asked “Could Free Be An Organization?” We mentioned that theories of business have shifted over time as globalization sparks more competition and technology fuels innovation but the three fundamental elements remain the same: people. processes and power.
We’ve witnessed the era of [...]

There’s some things that you’ve got to experience for yourself. No written review, video clip, or radio spot can tell you anything of value.

We just “leaked” the first episode of our upcoming podcast to the folks over at Mininova.

In economics, utility is a measure of the relative satisfaction from or desirability of consumption of goods and services. Given this measure, one may speak of increasing or decreasing utility using the World Wide Web, and thereby explain social behavior in terms of attempts to increase one’s Youtility.
Each new function and feature added to our [...]

The past couple of weeks (and the next couple, for that matter) have been (and will be) the most active professional and personal periods in my life that I can remember in many years.  Reminds me very much of when I began Sumner Systems Management some dozen years ago.

Bloggers like traffic, readers, followers, comments and being quoted by others. People like to be followed on Twitter, Friendfeed, Social Median and the host of other “social media” conduits appearing in the space. All of this related activity helps individuals and companies “rise to the top of the heap” which becomes an important position in [...]

The word ridiculous means literally, laughable, from rid?re to laugh, arousing or deserving ridicule : absurd, preposterous.
Everyday we watch the news and announcement of developments surrounding the social web. Some of what we see is ground breaking progress while other stories seem absolutely ridiculous.
Subsequently we’ve decided to [...]

Given that “social business practices” are a new dynamic with little history there is little to point to as best practices. However, beyond the “technical tools and know how” there is a baseline of truisms for relational and communications issues fundamental to successful business practices…relations.
Now that “people” have been empowered by all this “social [...]

In other words the network of relations you maintain will have to be more than satisfied with the value your bringing to said networks. Otherwise you may loose your rank whether you’re a business or an individual. The stakes just went up several notches. Get it?

• Twing - Forum Search and Community Discovery
  Search forums. Sweet.

Social Media applies to strategy, learning, understanding and executing, not just marketing.
It appears as though marketers and advertisers are consuming the conversations with methods and madness about social marketing Businesses are responding and buying the marketing hype while ignoring the fundaments of the landscape of human behavior intersecting with social technologies.

It seems like there are a blue million technology groups in Nashville these days and I love it. There is also lots of talk today about all of the different pieces and how they fit together. This is a post about how I see it.

Yesterday I had yet another conversation with executive #5 in a Fortune 500 company who was still hung up on all this social stuff. His remarks started out this way: “We’re still trying to figure out how we make money from social media initiatives.”

My response: Do you charge for customer service? He said [...]

• Flickr: Michael Mistretta’s Photostream
  Take a moment and look at Michael’s photos. Then tell me you’re upset with the price of gas. Some times it just takes a moment to stop. STOP.

This afternoon, Predators lead owner David Freeman went on 104.5 The Zone with host George Plaster to answer questions about the latest on the Del Biaggio ownership mess, and even touched on the Radulov issue briefly.

Many thanks to 104.5 for having Freeman on, and i hope they don't mind me posting this. I guess i'll hear from them if they do :-)

I hope you can make the 8th Nashville Geek Breakfast. Please be sure to RSVP in the Facebook group or comment here, so I can be sure there’s plenty of seats available. We had over 30 people last time. Don’t miss this growing group of enthusiastic tech heads.

Your client or employer asks if you could provide them an assessment of how effective are they using social media and related technology. They ask “Do you have a check sheet of tools we should use?” How would you respond?
We asked that similar question to a consulting firm who asked for our help in launching [...]

An assessment of "needs" should always come before launching a social media campaign or using social technologies for whatever purpose. If you don’t do your own assessment the market will do it for you.

Feeling especially contemplative at the Sixpence None The Richer show at 3rd and Lindsley, so rather than continue to clutter Twitter, just gonna run a bit of a random thoughts blog. Enjoy.

Many times we portray business as a faceless entity without properly expressing it as an entity of human needs and expectations. The ironic chasm is that sometimes when people get organized as a business the subsequent behavior doesn’t always seem human.
From Galvin O’Malley at Mediapost: Forrester: B2B Blogging Takes Nose Dive , B2B marketers should [...]

Read the transcript here.

Sometime you wonder how the minds of leaders were programmed to think, or should we say, not to think about the customer experience first. The blogosphere screams with stories of major brands being anti-social to the customer.

Check out this one: Want To Win Customers? Don’t Be Like A Wireless Carrier Posted July 11th, 2008 [...]

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  I’m loving AideRSS! Way to go guys and gals.

• U.S. Exports Hit Record High | Yahoo News

I waited 4 hours at an Apple store to buy what I thought was one iPhone, when hey what the heck, get two new ones... And pay it forward on the old iPhone.

I have been buried under a TON of stuff this week.

The week began with me leaving my house at 4:00 AM to catch a flight to Orlando for the sole purpose of leaving town with a contract on a house - mission accomplished.  I arrived back in Nashville around 11:00 PM.

I had a 9am meeting this morning so I was not able to be one of the first in line for the iPhone. That didn’t stop me from at least checking out the festivities. Here are pictures from the Apple Store in the Green Hills Mall and the AT&T store in Green Hills: