Today at the smartercities forum, Berlin

Today was the first day at the SmarterCities forum in Berlin, being held in the Grand Hyatt hotel.

We are staying down the road at the Marriott, which is a good job as the walk between the two hotels is the only time we have seen daylight in the last two days.  We get a little in the room we are in between sessions but it’s not much. Coffee and water on tap makes up for it and keeps us going. Have to say the breakfast was great this morning, lots of fruit, juice, meat, fish and lovely bread.

Sam was late to kick off the event today because of a problem with the plane he was on but Martin Jetter took over and did a great job not just opening the event but also taking on Sam’s speech.

Oh and btw, if you want to follow what is going on we are covering it on twitter, #smartercity and on asmarterplanet.com.

One of the things that got me today was the feeling of pride coming from the Berliners that the event was being held there. I guess an easier option from a language point of view would have been London. But the reasons for holding it Berlin are all around. The building, innovation and growth.  I really like anywhere that has cycle lanes which are for cycles, not for people to wander around and knock you off your bike.

So back to the pride, we had Dr. Richard von Weizsaecker, former President, Germany and former Governing Mayor, Berlin, which to be honest started off a little like a history lesson, and a lesson one had heard many times.  However, it turned out to be one of the funniest, most interesting and engaging talks I have heard from a politician, former or current.

In the backroom, on the w3 / social media side of things we have an international crew, Me from UK, Rebecca Reyes from USA, Thorsten Zoerner from Germany and of course, Charlie Ung from Canada who is always at these events sorting out the video for us.

Day two is an early start, apparently we have to go to rehersal for the breakouts at 7am!

Social Media workshop next week

I can’t go to the Melcrum Workshop next week as I’ll be in Berlin for smarter cities event but this looks like an interesting event and Abi Signorelli is a very keen proponent of social tools at Virgin Media.

Here’s what they will be covering:

• How are companies actually using social media to engage employees and other stakeholders?
• How do you convince a sceptical manager that social media can make a difference?
• What works and what doesn’t?
• How do you get started?
• And how do you measure your results?

Just blocking Twitter doesn’t work

So another example of why every organisation needs clear social computing guidelines on how to USE this media. Simply stopping the access through computers just directs people to their iPhones or other mobile device.

A school teacher posting up to 38 post a day (not sure if I am supposed to be shocked by that statement but it’s what was on the web site) was talking about her pupils.

The BBC web site reports:

Argyll and Bute Council said it has a policy of blocking the use of social networking sites in all its schools.

It is thought the language teacher, who has not been named, may have accessed the site via her mobile phone.

You would think that the advertising billboards around most towns and cities telling you how just about every mobile phone service provider will get you on Facebook or Twitter for next to nothing or free would have been a hint.

What this really points to are problems in the school, disenfranchisement of students and staff with a situation that is not rewarding to either. The teacher needed to get something off her chest but didn’t have the policy that supported her.

With a policy that says you can only blog about professional topics of value Argyll & Bute seem to have a rather ridiculous policy. Especially for a school. What is professional and what is personal? It is hard enough to tell in industry but where you job is to handle the emotions of teenagers I doubt the divide could be even finer. Just saying someone can’t have their own blog is similar to saying you can’t have your own phone or email account.

The 21st century is here A&B, would you all please hurry up and join it.

Run it through the business

Just read this Q&A with Sandy Carter:

And finally I think that companies don’t realize that this is brand new. It is not what they studied in college and is bigger than marketing. It encompasses the business. Social technologies should be part of your market intelligence, your strategic delivery, your development cycle, your customer support, your marketing and your sales. It is a cultural change in how we create business.

Which I think sums up what people miss so often. You can’t just use social media for marketing, you need to engage customers and influencers at every stage now. 

In a meeting last week where someone said that it has become a cliché to say “join the conversation” but also that it is still true.. that’s what you need to do.

The rest of the interview with Sandy is great. If you haven’t heard of Sandy before she is something of a legend in IBM.

CoTweeting

Blogging has slipped lately. Due mainly from a huge influx of work in new areas and not a few new toys that I’ve been playing with like our latest pre-beta of Lotus Connections that is causing quite a stir with all it’s new features.

Tweet together

Externally I have also started using CoTweet to manage the ibmevents twitter id I set up almost two years ago (where does the time go?).  I have to say it is a great tool.

The assign (screenshot) feature that lets you put ownership next to each tweet you get is very useful and means that your team isn’t answering the same tweet twice – but as I’m the one usually using the id I now have a way to hand off questions I can’t answer.  As the number of people using the ibmevents id has increased these sorts of problems come up. 

Built in stats for links and a nice way to follow id’s across a variety of your own id’s makes life simple.

The aggregation of conversations between tweeters keeps you on the ball and makes referencing chats easier.

Sending updates at a set time in the future means you don’t need to be online all the time.  Great especially for when you want to announce something but you are stuck in a meeting or driving somewhere.

But the most useful feature for me has been the On Duty roster, where you can sign yourself in or out so that you know who is available – and in addition get email notifications of replies and dm’s.  It means you don’t miss anything.

The search part of the tool is probably the weakest link. Being on another page I find it not as user friendly and other sites like twazzup do possibly a better job.  But you can’t be all things to all people.

Will have  to give some more meaningful feedback to the CoTweet guys and gals when I get sometime.

In other news

Have you tried Seesmic Desktop for twitter? You should.  Like TweetDeck but with multiple accounts.  Already the latest version has got rid of some annoying bugs and the general idea is working so well I rarely, if ever use anything else.

SOA is forbidden, virtually

Something I’m looking forward to in a couple of weeks is the IBM Virtual Forbidden City event which takes place at the end of this month (April 28, 29).  Here ithe host of the eventIBM’s John Tolva to tell you more.

So what’s it all about?

• Discuss SOA with IBM’s leading architects and strategists
• See a real-life SOA case study in action and learn the business benefits
• Learn how to solve complex architectural challenges through SOA without disrupting your existing systems
• Network with your peers in a unique virtual, SOA-based environment

Each session will be about 40 mins long and if nothing else will be a great chance to meet up with similar minded people from all sorts of organisations and a few of us from IBM.

Creating social capital in the recession

Not often I promote an event but this one I have an interest in, Somesso London 09, well feature my colleague Andy Piper (IBM) who will be talking about security and information privacy.

As well as Andy, my bet for 2008, socialmedian, will also be represented by it’s founder and now Chief Product Officer at Xing, Jason Goldberg.

The event will focus on how social capital and earnings can be made in the relationship economy during this time of particular hardship. This is something that has been recognised for a while in IBM but even here it is gaining more and more momentum even with nay-sayers.

Also on the agenda will be Stowe Boyd “Evolution of the responsive brand” and Lee Bryant (Headshift) “Communities, Market Insights.” Plus many more..

In all it looks for a very promising first London event for Arjen and the Somesso team. Congrats on getting such a fantastic line-up.

Follow somesso on twitter

Everything you wanted to know about twitter but couldn’t put in 140 characters

I’ve mentioned twitter a lot here recently, then again so has everyone. But here is one page you need to tag, The Ultimate Twitter Resource.

Although the title talks about attracting and influencing people, but when you get down to the actual content you will find much more than just a way to build up numbers. Being a good citizen, encouraging and inspiring others, giving something to the community.. hopefully it will make plenty of corporations and individuals rethink the way they are currently operating.

This is a superb resource, well structured and laid out. There are other “resources” which are nothing more than a list of twitter related articles.

Contents (on prevential.com)

• Chapter 1: Twitter for Newbies
• Chapter 2: How to Use Twitter Effectively
• Chapter 3: How to Increase Your Twitter Followers
• Chapter 4: Why Twitter Helps Bloggers (and How they Can Use It)
• Chapter 5: The Ultimate Guide to Twitter for Business
• Chapter 6: Here are the Best Twitter Marketing Resources… Period
• Chapter 7: Does Twitter Provide Any SEO Benefits?
• Chapter 8: Where Else Does Twitter Apply?
• Chapter 9: Twitter Case Studies: What are People and Companies Doing?
• Bonus Chapter: More Twitter Tips

Thanks flip – you are great

Yesterday when I got home I found a package for me. 

Couldn’t think who it might be from, wasn’t expecting anything, then noticed the post mark was Windsor.  Could this be the flip cam I sent to flip to get fixed? Only sent it last Thursday.

Opened up and yes it was, but it wasn’t my cam it was a brand new one along with a nice letter thanking me for supporting flip and apologising for not being able retrieve the videos off the old one.

Why is this so great?

1. I bought the camera for work last year, about July or August.
2. Flip have a stated 90-day warranty. 
3. When I originally asked for help they replied directly to me, quickly with clear instructions.
4. When I couldn’t reset the cam I had a simple process to follow to send it back.
5. The new cam arrived within a week of sending the old one back.

Other companies take note.. this is customer services as it should be.  Exceeding my expectations and keeping my faith in flip – not just a vision or a slogan but words in action.

Flip – keep it up guys, you rock.

Back to work

I’ve been back a week but it feels longer.. just because so much was crammed into last week.

Started off with the usual email mountain but thankfully nearly all my 824 emails were notifications, only 20 or so were directly to me and of those 3 or 4 needed action.  The rest, as they say, happened and I’ll move on.

After day one it was a transformation meeting in the UK for our Marketing and Communications team.  Lots going on, not least I know work in Workforce and Field Enablement, rather than Internal Communications. Only one problem, explaining to everyone what that means!

End of the week I was asked to join the Managers Institute in London to talk about social media.  We have a good turn out for the Communications Clinic and some great insights – as well as some new contacts who I shall be seeing this week.  A lot of what I will be doing has probably already been shaped by what was talked about in our two sessions – the abundance of tools, the way to decide what to use and helping those not on the IBM network stay connected.

Friday was a time to get things back together and ponder what this week would bring. It was also a terrible day for the network, one of those once a year days where the things you want seem to be out of action. It allows you time to think and reflect on what you have already done. Something I think I probably need to do a little more of.

And with that I’ve decided to work a little less on the computer and take time to do other things. Spread my self a little thinker in the places I got most from last year. Getting some perspective on things will be important in the organisational changes we will see and part of that will probably mean getting out to see the conditions and situations people really find themselves in at work.