Janet Johnson | The Art of Marketing

I’m part of a movement.  What kind of movement will be dependent on your POV; but over the weekend I switched from PC to Mac as my primary machine.  I did it for two reasons:

1) My laptop was increasingly fragile - Windows was not launching properly at times, and it took utmost patience (which I have precious little of…) and too much time to boot the doggone thing many mornings.  So I knew I had to upgrade.

2) My Blackberry was up for trade-in/renewal on my cell phone plan… and guess what was calling my name? I bit the bullet, walked into the Apple store the day after their one-day-only sale, and upgraded.

The systems (Mac and iPhone) were a dream to set up. Intuitive isn’t the word for it. Automatic is how I would describe it. Those Apple folks have UI design down. I have largely worked the kinks out of moving information between systems.  I kept most files on a USB drive anyway, and have for months worked seamlessly between Mac and Windows systems. 

My final thrilling acts are pulling bookmarks from Firefox to Safari - a breeze to do myself, thank you. And installing Attensa for Mac for my RSS feeds. I’m so used to my Attensa for Outlook, it’ll be interesting to see how closely they resemble each other on the different systems.

Two Issues (so far..) 

I do have a gripe about the Apple Mail application.  I can’t figure out (on my own) how to move files from my inbox to folders.  Anyone have a clue?  I’m stymied, and it just seems as if it should be possible. 

My .csv contacts file can’t be imported into Apple’s address book.  As I was looking around on the iPhone forums, there were threads about that difficulty, but I haven’t had the time to go back and look into it. I’ve been getting mail (from four accounts - again, easy to set up) and have been adding contacts easily that way.

If anyone has a tip/trick/hint - or a blog/site to go hunting for tips/tricks, please let me know.  I’m converted, and am absolutely thrilled to be back home in the Mac world (that I entered in 1984) again.  

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I’m officially banning serious posts today.  So here’s something that made me laugh out loud this morning.  The Fake Steve Jobs blog is a new guilty pleasure for me, and his post from yesterday (showing engravings on the backs of Zunes - Microsoft’s iPhone wanna be) cracked me up.

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It seems my work life is filled these days with discussions of Web 2.0, social networks, CIOs, and the glue that holds it all together (for me at least), RSS (define).

I’ve read some very interesting articles recently (including two over on InformationWeek, one in the Startup City blog and one over on Attensa’s blog) on “Web 2.0″ and business.

I find the gnashing and ruminating I’m doing in my own mind pretty telling - everyone’s talking up a ‘babblestorm’ about the changing communication forces around us; but few are yet making sense to business decision makers. We’re all talking technology without talking business.

So I’m here (maybe to make myself feel better) to provide some concrete business examples of Web 2.0 tools in early adoption:

FAA:

The Federal Aviation Administration is using a feature called Activities (from IBM) for disaster preparedness. In the event of an emergency, the agency would be able to channel RSS feeds from internal blogs, relevant documents, and plans into an Activities page for everyone to see and discuss.

Thompson Financial:

The financial services firm holds meetings in Second Life - “We found that Second Life allows more user engagement than traditional video or phone conferencing,” says Thomson’s Warren Breakstone, who is testing Second Life as an environment for meetings. “One employee told me, ‘I’ve participated in lots of meetings and I tend to be very quiet, but I felt very comfortable opening up in Second Life.’”

Kraft Foods:

These folks are using Jive Software’s Jive Forums to allow their users to ask questions and share information about products, cooking and such - some of it is quite whimsical to a gal who’s been steeped in technology for too long… But users have embraced the idea - there are more than 16,000 posts on topics that range from “Ask Kraft Kitchens” (’Can I freeze cheddar cheese?’) to “Dinner Tonight” (’Tired of cholent’).

There are many, many other examples, but I’m heartened by these three for starters. One, a great use of collaborative software and RSS for crisis communication planning; another using SL to get beyond boring conference calls and increase collaboration among teams; and another to use consumer generated content (and enthusiasm) to help each other out while building brand awareness and engagement.

What’s for dinner for me tonight? Hmmm… what’s cholent? Maybe I should ask Kraft Kitchens…

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There’s a conversation going on over on Idealware I found quite accidentally, but found it worth sharing. Say you’re considering buying a new technology product and are trying to figure out who’s using it already, in order to ask real users what they think of the product?
The company who built the product has clients listed on their web site, and have likely given you some references. But the lists are never exhaustive, nor are they likely to put you in touch with clients who’ve ever had trouble with the product.

When you’re trying to get a realistic view of the product, it’s always good to have some dissenters to interview. That way you’ll get a glimpse into the service side of the business - which is essential to successful implementations.

Rachel started the conversation:

Rachel asks: Our org is looking into GiftTool as a solution for several of our needs. However, our senior management has requested recommendations from actual users of the product. Other than contacting them directly, do you know of any way we could get some further insight into what it’s like to use the product?

So - here’s the cool answer Laura at Idealware posted:

“….I actually do have a trick. If you’re looking at tools that are used to collect information online, or especially payment processors like GiftTool, you can often find a lot of organizations that are using it simply by Googling the name and paging in to the more obscure results. A lot of organizations will mention what tool they’re using in a privacy policy or as an explanation to their site visitors. For instance, I see a number of organizations using GiftTool on page four of the Google results for “GiftTool.” You can then click through to the site, find contact information, and send off an email. I’ve actually done this a number of times, and, surprisingly, gotten return emails from at least half the people I contacted this way.”

Even better, Robert Weiner recommended this tip for finding even more relevancy:

“Many search engines accept the “site:” qualifier. The search “gifttool site:.org” will only return responses from .org sites. That makes it easier to find donation pages that use the tool.”

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Arketi just released a study of how journalists use the web. I wasn’t surprised by their topline findings at all. But when I downloaded the free report here, I was surprise by some of the details.

Topline findings:

90% of journalists say they turn to industry sources for story ideas, an equal number get story ideas from news releases and a nearly equal number say they tap into public relations contacts.

• 79% of journalists report finding story ideas on newswires
• 74% say from Web sites
• 72% say from other media outlets
• 54% look for story ideas in the blogosphere

Here’s where it got interesting for me:

Only half of journalists surveyed utilized RSS for their research. I’m assuming they’d rather wander about in search engines than utilize smart tools (free RSS readers abound, I use Attensa for Outlook) to keep an eye out for ideas and information for them.

With all the clutter and “noise” online, I would think that those who do research for a living (as any marketer should - at least part of the time) would utilize every smart tool available to increase relevancy, productivity and time to market all at once.

Scott over at Attensa, in a post called “Enterprise RSS: Why Not Just Use Google Reader?” put it very succinctly, as he usually does:

“[RSS] can help identify (and hopefully reduce) occupational spam and be a driver for improving the quality of… communications.”

Frankly, if more editors and marketers would even just use Google reader, they’d be taking the first step toward true productivity. And if news organizations would help their poor editors out by adopting true enterprise RSS tools for their editors, the entire organization would be taking generational leaps forward - productivity drives business these days.

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