You and I have opinions. We have favourite foods (mine’s Thai by the way), books , films and personalities.

We like to play sports – when we can. We love the Sci-Fi channel but don’t understand why Eastenders is so popular (subjective opinion so might see a mass exodus of twitter followers )

We like to talk. We tell each other about the latest books we’ve read, and how ‘2010′ will always be the best space movie of all time…!

We like to be around people just like us and get very excited when we’re around people that share our opinions and our passions.

So organisations that treat us like people will have more success engaging with us and generating positive opinions – that will get us raving about them to our friends and family forever and a day.

Organisations that treat us like machines will alienate us and generate negative opinionm – but we’ll still talk about them just not in the way they would like…

It’s not rocket science really is it, treat people like you want to be treated and don’t leave this part of your brain behind when you leave for work each day…

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You build a community, you create and share great content and identify things that are ‘ahead of the curve’. So how do you inspire others to do your storytelling for you?

This sounds challenging and many will think that to do so is time consuming, but only because they see it as ‘additional work’ on top of what they already ‘have to do’. The fact is, however, that it’s actually about changing the way things are done.

Today, brands and organisations need advice and guidance on ’setting things up’ e.g. Social media policies, practices, integration techniques, guidelines and help setting up platforms and dashboards – but what will they need tomorrow as points of difference like ‘engagment’ become ubiquitous?

So, as social media becomes the norm, the overarching value to communication lies in the ability to innovate rather than the academic ability to define what social media is…

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And social becomes the media?

What does this mean for brands in the social media space? Basically, it means that social media (SoMe) can’t be viewed as a place to be seen, it’s not another media space, it’s a behaviour…

It also means that brands, business etc shouldn’t just start throwing money at it – e.g. Just because Twitter is the talk of the town and it’s a great communication tool, it needs to be reviewed how to use it to it’s best effect – e.g customer services perhaps?

As social media becomes ubiquitous, brands and organisations need to participate by adapting in a much more fundamental way: adopting social media as a ‘lifestyle change’ not as a communications channel.

They need to be more connected, act faster, be more engaged and much more engaging.

Customers and clients – people – move quickly and in order to keep up organisations will not only have to integrate their marketing and communications but also review the time it takes to respond… Because if they feel that they still need to carefully sculpt a message and then have the legal department ‘take a look at it’ – then it will mean that they’re going to be days or months late and that can not happen…

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I was having a chat with my friend Andrew today, and he brought to my attention a website which I think is a fantatsic idea – and one which has a worldwide community.

The site is Book Crossing, and it’s aim is to make the world one big library…! How?

Register with Book Crossing and then register a book, jot its unique BookCrossing ID (BCID) down in it, along with the website url (you can get some labels for the inside cover directly from site). But if it’s already a BookCrossing book, you can skip this step.)

Read your book and then use the BCID (Book Crossing ID) to make a journal entry on it – what you thought of the book etc…

Release the book out into the wild and wait for it to write home to you.

In a world that is rapidly turning digital everywhere we turn, what a fantastic idea that gives life to old books and unites book lovers through the power of social media. Plus, what a great way to launch a new book to an already existing community…

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Effective search engine optimisation involves many factors. And trying to rank highly within search engine result pages (SERPs) is about providing content that is both relevant and informative; with proper page layout and coding. The coding side is generally taken care of by web developers, however, a lot of consideration should be given to your page headings or specifically the use of heading tags: H1, H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6.

Today, I want to focus just on the H1 tag. Although the others can be used to reflect the document structure:

H1 = Chapter Heading
H2 = Section Heading
H3 = Paragraph Heading

(Using this analogy, I suppose I would use H4, H5 and H6 in a cited block of text that contained headings of its own.

An example of the H1 tag in use is the heading I’ve used on this page: “One for your toolbox: Get it into your Head“, used to define the overall content of the page, and for proper layout. to check it click ‘View’ in the browser links at the top of your screen then click Source/Page Source depending on which browser you’re using.)

Although there is no “sure-fire” way to get to the top of search engine results, by understanding the importance of using H1 tags it will go some way to improve your sites visibility within the search engine results.

Firstly, I see a lot of sites that don’t use the H1 tag – as the font size is large, and because of this many site developers compromise site content for aesthetics. However, although, it’s great to have a site that looks the ‘mutt’s nuts’ but if no-one see’s it then … well, you get the idea… And if it’s not seen then your site won’t benefit you or your audience.

Now, just to clarify things, most of what is shown within the search engine result pages (SERPs) is actually indexed by a by a computer, otherwise known as a “robot”, “spider”, or “crawler”. These are only computers that use what you tell them to build a a list of relevant information and display it as results based on what people are requesting. So, if you don’t tell them the right things how can they display the information correctly?

H1 tags inform the robots that it is the top level heading of your page. Try to think of it as a heading in a newspaper or article – it’s the first thing you see right? And when you read it you decide whether it’s of interest to you now or whether you’ll comeback to it later or not at all! If a heading article doesn’t tell you what it’s about within the first few words, you’ll generally turn the page…

This is no different to a search engine spider, in that if the content isn’t engaging, and it doesn’t state exactly why it is there, then it regards it as being of ‘no benefit’ to include it within high ranking search engine results pages (SERPs).

Most search engines, including Google, allow the words used/found within the H1 tag to boost a page’s relevance, so because of this it’s a valuable tool for improving search engine placement.

If you are using wordpress, typepad, posterous, movable type joomla, drupal, E107, plone etc – just to name a few – to manage your websites’ content, then you can select the H1 tag from the drop down menu contained within the post/article editor.

So, if you haven’t been using H1 tags, it’s time to start doing so…

Note: Heading tags represent only a small portion of search engine optimisation and Website usability.

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It took a while creating your business case for using social media internally, with many late nights and hard work, but at the heart of proposal is idea that people will be more productive through collaborating on projects using social platforms and then publishing their findings internally for all to benefit from.

Productivity increases are just around the corner… Or so you think.

However, Jacob Nielsen’s 1-9-90 theory says:

“Out of every hundred people who join a community or network – 1% actively contribute – 9% contribute from time to time – and 90% are lurkers.”

To put this into perspective, that’s like replying to only one out every one hundred emails you receive – and that’s after you’ve deleted the spam!

Take a look at your own networks (personal or business) and see how many contributers you have on there – you’ll probably find his theory unfortunately holds up.

But it doesn’t have to be like that. In fact this theory can and must be broken in order for internal collaboration to be successful.

As advocates of social media we have to educate people on the correct etiquette – which can be achieved by workshops for example; outlining from the start that contribution to this ‘hive mind’ is expected.

In reality we know that most people need some form of incentive in order to get motivated… so could something as simple as performance related bonuses or pay rises be linked to contribution levels – even discussed as part of appraisals…?

Something that my first boss told me that has always stuck with me: He came into my office one morning and noticed my bunch of keys on my desk. He asked me what they were all for? I listed about 11 keys all to do with the office. He then said, “Are you empire building or what? What if you we’re not here one day – could anyone else access where these keys opened…”

Imagine what could be done and how future projects could evolve and benefit from a hive mind …

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Firstly, apologies for the delay in posting – this was meant to be yesterday’s blog – but I didn’t get home until 10.30pm and felt a bit knackered. Promise I’ll catch up by the end of the week What was that saying ‘the road to hell is paved with good intensions’ …!

Since yeaterday. a few people asked how I source images for presentations etc so, I thought I’d quickly run through what I do…

Yesterdays talk started last Thursday. Paul Wilkinson asked me if I could fill in – which I felt very humbled and pleased to do. Normal questions during the call then occurred: audience type, length of talk, any specifc topic. Great, got a picture in my mind…. bugger, 3 days to prepare and I’m away for 2 of them oO

But I do like a challenges

Thursday, 28th January 8:06PM (listening to Kings of Leon)

So, Thursday night I had an hour to put the ‘plan’ together’ 1:05 mins later, as Gordon Ramsey would say …’Done’

Sunday, 31st Jan 7:45AM

Start selecting images. Only one place to go for those in my humble opinion and that is Flickr.com. Fantastic resource, with many, many, many images available under Creative Commons.

After gathering together a list of ‘keywords’: community, eyes, landscape, unique, control, engage, conversations, questions and adverts I was ready to go… (love this bit – I could look at images all day!)

Entered the first key word ‘community’ and checked the results. Now one of the great things about Flickr is you can sort the results by: Relevant, Recent or Interesting – and it’s well worth checking out all three of them. After repeating the same process with all the keywords (like to state the obvious) browsing and the occasional snack…7 hours 15 mins later I had my images that I wanted. 3pm on the dot… done.

Thanks goes to: Slide1: waynemethod slide3: dcdead slide4&5. jup3nep slide7. jeff_engel_2000 slide10. marketingfacts slide11. bigcrustyape slide13. dogfacedboy slide14&16. beija-flor slide 15. flemingcool for such fantastic images.

That was pretty much it… just a little bit of power point, nothing fancy, no fades, no moving images etc – I can do them but didn’t want to detract from the images – what are your thoughts on that?

Monday, 1st February – Be2Camp Day – What you missed?

I have to say that the attention to detail that Paul Wilkinson put in to this event with the energy of Bernie Mitchell was great – it really set the tone. And although Paul couldn’t be there due to #EEPaulFall – he was missed (personally I blame it on one too many shandy’s but my lips are sealed ) Get better soon Paul…

What is Be2Camp?

Check out the Be2Camp website, but here’s an overview from their site:

About Be2camp – Be2camp is for people interested in how the latest web applications and web design techniques (Web 2.0; eg: RSS, blogs, Twitter, Wikis, etc) could help build a better, more sustainable built environment – planning, design, construction, even occupation and management of buildings, infrastructure, landscape, etc.

Be2camp events – Be2camp 2008, the UK’s (possibly the world’s) first ‘unconference’ focused on Web 2.0 and the built environment, was held in London in October 2008. 2009 saw Be2camp North in Liverpool in May, Be2camp Brum in Birmingham in August, and Be2camp@ WorkingBuildings and RIBAforum09 in London in October.

This was the run of the day:

• Tom Inglis (Reorb) (blog)
• Ian Fordham (BCSE) link to Ian’s talk
• Me (M4 Design) – mine’s here
• Bob Thompson (Remit Consulting) Link to Bob’s talk

Construction and property Pecha Kucha – quick-fire presentations

• Jim McHale (Memoori) Link to Jim’s talk (link to be added)
• Dave Glennon (Bovis Lend Lease) Link to Dave’s talk
• Bob Pinkett (Peter Brett & Associates) Link to Bob’s talk
• Nicholas Ayre (HomeFusion) Link to Nicholas’ talk
• Joanne Rourke (Peter Deer & Associates) Link to Joanne’s talk
• William Hawkins (CIC) (link to be added)
• Tim Latham (Prefio) Link to Tim’s talk

Golden Nuggets

Wherever I go I try and collect nuggets: information that can be applied immediately – with immediate benefit; and here are only some of the ones I heard from the other speakers…

“Test it, try it then look at the response”

“The energy that comes through from when you connect with someone with similar interests…”

“If you can’t find an example of how to use social media effectively in your own industry, look outside it”

“It takes something special to reach the inaccessible “

“If you find something useful…pass it on”

“If you bury your head in the sand everytime someone mentions social media – it’s going to be dark for a very long time”

Those are only some – sorry not to provide more – there were wayyyyy too many. Anyway, you should have been there. Talking of which, check out the Be2Camp website to find out when the next one is…

Thanks to everyone I met there – and let’s keep in touch … often

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One of the largest sporting events in the World, Super Bowl,  is almost as important to the world of advertising as it to the sports in America. But this year, one thing will be different… A company well known for its Super Bowl advertising isn’t advertising this year. Instead it’s putting advertising $s into social media (SoMe) networking… It’s like companies are waking up to the fact that people using SoMe platforms are here to stay and they want to talk, and they want to be heard

Since organisations first saw the internet as a space to occupy with ‘push messages’, we’ve pretty much got used to seeing ads of all different guises everywhere: pop-ups, banner ads, roll overs, pre-rolls, post-rolls and even a site dedicated to ad space by the pixel (The Million Dollar Homepage)

But SoMe platforms are different as the traditional ‘push message’ is seen as an intrusion – an invasion of personal space – and like Space – it’s like shouting in a vacuum ‘no-one hears you Aadvertising or trying to ‘hard sell’ in the SoMe space has exactly the same effect. So the first rule of Fight Club applies here, “you do not talk about Fight Club Selling!”

Pepsi's Refresh Everything project . Voting starts 1st Feb 2010

Pepsi (Pepsico) is one of the world’s largest traditional advertisers, but this year their $20 million ad spend is being used for its SoMe project ‘refresh everything‘, promoting “sharing ideas to solve world problems”. Their overall aim? To move customer relationships from impressions to connections… refreshingly refreshing You can download the ‘Idea Toolkit‘ then upload it, promote it and let the people vote for it.

The Director of Social Media for Pepsico, Bonin Bough, said:

We’re always going to buy impressions, but if we can’t drive those impressions and have those impressions be the beginning of a relationship that starts a deeper connection with audiences, then we’ve kind of lost where the real power of social media is at.

Personally, I think this is a great way to engage with people, identify ‘their’ causes – while softly promoting the Pepsi brand at the same time. Take a look, and let me know what you think…

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Yesterday I posted a question on Twitter asking “what would you like to read about…” the most popular reply was “what social media tools do I use?” So I thought I’d make Friday’s blog posts a regular feature ‘One for your toolbox’. So, every Friday I’ll review online web based tools and ones that need downloading to your preferred computer system – I’ll cover both Mac and PC.

This weeks ‘One for your toolbox‘ post is on the website Ping.fm

So what is Ping?

In a nutshell…:

Ping.fm was created for the sole purpose of making it as easy as possible to share your posts with the world.” Now you don’t have to fumble around the web in order to post anymore, you can just post once from wherever you want, and be done with it

It’s an amazing online application that let’s you update your status, blogs, micro-blogs (e.g. twitter, yammer, identica) all from one place!

Registration is quick and easy: enter your email address and password and your in – no verification email is sent. After you’ve created your account, The first thing you’ll need to setup your Dashboard, which can take a little bit of time – depending on how many platforms you’re registered on and errr how quickly you type But as a guide, I’m registered with 25 different platforms that took about 45 minutes to set up in total – but one of the best 45 minutes I’ve ever spent online

Dashboard Setup

List of networks that can be added to your Ping Dashboard

There are currently (29/1/2010) 45 different platforms that you can add to your Dashboard and I recommend before you start clicking the add network buttons to first look through the list and gather all the login details for each of the accounts that you want to add. If you see network in the list that your not currently register on, you can click on the ‘Add Network’ and then you get an opportunity to create a new account on that platform from within Ping – no jumping out of the site and then having to come back again

Adding a platform to your ping Dashboard couldn’t be simpler, just click the ‘Add Network’ and the next screen asks you for your login details  for that network and select via the ‘Use For: tick boxes’ whether this network is a Status, Blog, Micro-Blog (NOTE: you can apply all 3 to a network, but if you do, when you send out your message you’ll get 3 posts in your stream of the same post and so will the people your connected to!)

Adding twitter to your Ping Dashboard

Then keep repeating that process for each of the networks you want to add – hence why I said gather all your login details beforehand

When you’ve finished, click the link to see your dashboard. You’ll see the list of all the networks you’ve added on the left hand side and a text entry box on the right. Write your post and select where you want to Ping to from the drop down menu.

How to post a message to your networks from your Ping Dashboard

Select which of the options to Ping

If you have any questions relating to posting, there’s an extensive Ping wiki.

But I don’t Ping from within Ping.fm – well not directly anyway. I Ping either from my own blog using the Sociable Wordpress plugin or via the iPhone app ‘QuickPing‘

Sociable Wordpress Plugin

When you’ve written your post, and you want to let people know about it,
click on the and all the post information is pre-filled in for you

Ping from your website using the ping bookmarklet using Sociable

QuickPing iPhone app

The QuickPing iPhone app is great – especially if you’re away from your ‘base’ and need to get a message out and costs only 59p! Well worth it

Screen shot of QuickPing iPhone app

Online applications like Ping.fm really help you make the most effective use of your time – which I think is something we all need.

Disclaimer: Just thought it was worth mentioning that I am in no way associated with ping.fm, QuickPing or Scoiable

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Many heads of business view collaboration as a key part of innovating  successfully.  These ‘leaders’ understand that it would be impossible to complete projects or innovation targets just by using internal teams alone.  The answer? To look outside of the organisation for strategic partners…  Successful examples of this include the Mercedes/Swatch collaboration that brought us the SMART Car. Who’d have thought of innovating with a watch manufacturer to develop the idea of a new type of car… maybe it was because they each brought completely different skills and experiences to the table…

Another great example is the Costa Coffee chain of coffee shops. This market is extremely competitive with giants like Starbucks, Café Nero etc each with targets on market place domination, but Costa Coffeehave successful in collaborating with some not so likely partners through its concessionary partners, these include coffee stores in Abbey National banks, W. H. Smiths and Ottakars book stores and Homebase DIY stores. These ‘concession stores’ are managed by the Costa team. They provide the same level of service but with that little something extra: customers in concession stores relax with a cup of coffee and/or food as they take a break from retail therapy or ponder/justify the purchase they’re about to make…

But beyond collaboration is ‘open innovation’.  This idea has been successfully implemented within companies like Proctor and Gamble and IBM as a way of driving innovation forward.  Open innovation changes the humdrum innovation, norm – helping avoid the ‘inspirational block – by injecting a fresh perspective/approach from collaborators to work on innovation projects.  By using ‘partners’ it reduces costs, speeds up processes and introduces ideas that probably wouldn’t have been thought of…

Proctor and Gamble sources 50% of its innovations from outside using open innovation.   A successful example of one of these early collaborations was Mr. Clean Magic Eraser!

Leading organisations, I believe, are leading the way because they’ve identified that in order to progress you need to think about things in a different way.

Through using social connections and platforms you have the chance of meeting people that may look at what you do – or vice versa – in a different way, and by collaborating on a joint venture – it could be the missing link that was needed to make the project a real winner.

On that note I’ll leave you with a final example: Did you know that the humble post-it-not was the bi-product of a failed glue! Just remember this, one mans mistake can be another’s inspiration

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