Handshake 2.0

More Local Twitter Story

"News7's Natasha Ryan is doing a little experiment.  She's going to tweet the question, "Who's watching right now?"  We'll take a look at the responses tonight on News7 at 11."

Local Twitter Story

"Twitter is a social media network that's taken flight."

Read the rest of the story from WDBJ7.

Tweet from Stuart Mease - Watch WDBJ7 at 6:00 PM Tonight

smease watch WDBJ 7 at 6 pm for a story on twitter by natasha ryan... help us get traditional media in our region online... 33 minutes ago from web

From the banner on the WDBJ7 site:  "News7's Natasha Ryan wants to know:  Can you tweet?"

 

A Pitch vs. A Value Add

Handshake 2.0 is helping organize the New River Valley Triathlon.

I’m an early riser and as I scanned the lengthy triathlon to-do list, I realized at 7:00 AM on Black Friday, the only company that might answer the phone was a potential host hotel.

I will admit dreading it.  I had read Seth Godin's post on how companies answer phones, or don't, and I feared getting stalled.

I had already done a physical tour of hotels near the Christiansburg Aquatic Center.  I used Google Maps to get my bearings and to find contact information for the hotels.  I called one.

Just by the authority and assurance with which she answered the phone, I knew I was speaking to the manager.  I felt heartened and relieved.  Not only was the phone answered, but it was answered by a decision-maker.

Had I ever negotiated a host hotel deal before?  Nope. 

For negotiating deals, pundits offer all types of advice about strategy, usually involving withholding information.  I tend to be a mono-strategist:  “This is what I want.  Have you got it?”

I described to Cary Hoge, General Manager of Hampton Inn - Christiansburg/Blacksburg, the 200+ triathletes I expected to stay in our hotel rooms on the night of July 11, 2009 and to race the next morning, July 12, 2009.

I expected a pitch.  I engaged my ho-hummer for "You should choose us as your host hotel for reasons a, b, and c.”

It didn't happen.  Cary Hoge went straight to the value add:  Information.

In minutes, Cary Hoge told me about standard industry practices with regard to room reservations, standard practices for making group reservations in a particular locale, what the room fee would be before a group rate, and, when asked, who her competitors were.

She spoke the perfect blog post.

It was all about me, her potential client, not all about what her company could do for me.

Cary Hoge did in actuality what the best blog posts do virtually:  Establish the writer as an authority, provide industry context, offer specific guidance for specific situations, practice transparency about pricing, and include links to other sources, which could well be competitors.

I learned in my phone conversation with Cary Hoge that I had met the Director of Sales at an ABWA meeting.

I’m going to be able to complete this task better and more efficiently thanks to Cary Hoge.

A seed of loyalty was planted in a potential customer.

Value adds of information can plant seeds of customer loyalty?  Good to know.

Cary Hoge and I have never met.  Yet I already have a business relationship with her.  I e-mailed her the press release about the New River Valley Triathlon.  She replied.

Let’s see, which hotel will likely be the host hotel for the New River Valley Triathlon?  The one that was first to market, offered information as a value add, established an online relationship via phone and then e-mail, found an it’s-still-who-you-know connection, and never once made a pitch?

Or unknown hotels which may certainly offer equal value?

My to-do list is long and my time is short.

A pitch vs. a value add?

As a potential customer, I want the value add.

***

The New River Valley Triathlon will be held on Sunday, July 12, 2009, 7:00 AM, at the brand new, state-of-the art Christiansburg Aquatic Center in Christiansburg, Virginia.  A sprint triathlon featuring swim, bike, and run sections, the NRV Tri is open to individuals as well as relay teams, and includes a corporate relay competition for the Valley Cup.

Online registration begins Tuesday, January 6, 2009, at 7:00 PM.  Some Virginia triathlons fill within an hour.

You can easily stay updated about the New River Valley Triathlon because it, of course, has a blog.

A Smart Company

“There isn’t a smart company today that isn’t implementing some kind of online community, wiki or blog strategy.”
--From The Wall Street Journal, November 29-30, 2008

For me, that's too global.  I know lots of smart companies that don't have online strategies.

Yet.

Marketing 3.0

Excerpts from the Wall Street Journal, 11/29/08, Marketing in the World of the Web, on how retailers need to move their marketing online:

We have been studying the challenge and have concluded that very few of the traditional techniques of classical marketing (call them Marketing 1.0), or even of eCommerce (Marketing 2.0) will work in the world of social networks. A very different set of tools, concepts and practices is needed. Call it Marketing 3.0. Here are five:

- From loyalty to attention. Before you can win consumer loyalty, you have to capture and reward consumer attention. Old propositions -- network television's tired offer of 22 minutes of canned sitcoms in exchange for eight minutes of untargeted commercials -- won't cut it. Consumers are demanding a better deal...

- From crowds to clouds. Once you get that attention -- once you generate heavy traffic to your site, gather a large league of "friends" on MySpace, or spawn a dedicated following on Twitter -- how do you monetize the crowd?...

- From places to spaces. Consumers are increasingly organizing themselves into new communities -- not just the big generic social communities, but myriad idiosyncratic slices of narrow, passionate interest (i.e., BlackPlanet, Inpowr and MomsCafe)...

- From memes to bemes. In the Age of Broadcast, good advertising could occasionally manufacture memes of tremendous social impact. Think of "Where's the Beef?" or "I can't believe I ate the whole thing." If you can't recall an irresistible or effective turn of phrase of late, it's because it is exceedingly difficult to spread a meme in today's fragmented media environment. Marketing 3.0 is now the science of devising and managing directed business memes: call them bemes. Bemes are sent by members of social communities to each other and typically contain a reward or exclusive offer, which, when redeemed, also results in a reward coupon for the sender. This encourages members of social communities to propagate a "viral" ad. One well-documented beme was "The Subservient Chicken" from Burger King...

- From silos to simultaneity. Too many retailers today persist in believing that online shopping is merely a virtual extension of real world shopping. That is a big mistake...

All of this suggests that Marketing 3.0 is not only different from its predecessors, but actively undermines them. If your marketing program fails to adapt to this new world, it won't just become irrelevant -- it will actually work against you.

Defining the Local Social Entreprenerur - The Burnout Problem

From Melinda Marcus, intern with Handshake 2.0:

I have a problem.

I have a hard time saying "no" to great volunteer and leadership activities. Just this past week, I was asked to be part of a volunteer leadership team for one of the many organizations with which I am involved here at Virgina Tech. I love the opportunity to serve others and gain experience, and I am therefore having a hard time figuring out whether I should do it or not. I really want to say "yes," but I know I should say "no." The thing is, though, that I don't even know how to say "no" in this situation.

Realizing that I have a problem, I wondered if professionals in the non-profit and social entrepreneur world have this same issue - overcommitment and the inability or difficulty to say "no".

As it turns out, they do.

In a blog entitled Mental Meals: Brain Food for Your Business, Bart Gragg, President of Maverick Business Advisors, writes that "because they (non-profit professionals) are givers they are also giving time and energy to other organizations, or individuals...  When they don’t have the energy to give anymore, because they give more than receive, they begin to burn."

So, people in this sector like to "do do do" and give themselves passionately. Those are great things - but there seems to be a fine line between passion and burnout.

I don't want to become burned out in my future career, so I'm looking for a cure, or at least a method to prevent burnout.

Here is some radical advice from Ken Goldstein: "I suggest a new movement today: The nonprofit Selfishness Movement. We all need to set aside certain times and days to something entirely selfish (and legal). A little "me time" to guiltlessly get away from the stress of constantly being other-focused." Goldstein has a blog entitled The Nonprofit Consultant Blog in which he writes tips, stories,  and advice about managing and running a nonprofit organization. 

To me, Goldstien seems a bit selfish. But then again, maybe that is my problem. Maybe I am not selfish enough.

After being close to burning out myself this semester, one of the best pieces of advice that I have received came from my supervisor Anne Giles Clelland. In the midst of my almost-burnout she told me this: "The over-committed, with the best of intentions to serve everyone well, under-serve everyone."

I still have this "problem" of being a giver. But it seems as though practice and prayer are the best things to avert burnout. So, this week I am going to practice saying "no," starting right after I say "yes" to playing in the snow!

You can follow the entire Defining the Local Social Entrepreneur series by Melinda Marcus.

The Hypothetical Entrepreneur - Blogging Businesses

From Adam Scouse:

In an effort to better familiarize myself with the so-called blogosphere, I described in a previous post looking into what my buddies were reading online in their spare time.  However, the power of blogs has not been limited to those within dormitory walls.  Businesses have also embraced and encouraged blog writing within their company for a variety of reasons. 

According to Social Text’s Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki, 12.8 percent of the Fortune 500 companies are currently blogging.  Topics vary by company and post; however, they seem to correlate mostly with current events and recent product developments.  A fascinating example is General Motor’s FastLane Blog .  Recent posts address the looming economic downturn and its effect on the car industry while the blog fosters reader discussion through commenting. 

Not all blogs are created equal.  Social Text also offers links to blog reviews that base ratings on ease of finding, frequency, engaging writing, relevance, focus, honesty, social-interaction design, and responsiveness. 

Author David Kirkpatrick wrote about the evolution of blogs within companies in his article for Fortune.  He mentions the multiple applications he has witnessed for blogs and refers to managers who strongly encourage blog writing to their employees.However, Kirkpatrick is quick to mention that there are trade-offs and examples where lay-offs have occurred after personal posting.

Coming from an academic perspective, I originally did not associate much validity with what I read in blog posts.  In fact, Internet sources in general are frowned upon by professors.  However, research done by Thomas Johnson and Barbara Kaye during the 2004 presidential election investigates how the public perceives blogs.  Realizing that this study is specific to presidential topics, the study sheds some light on the typical blog reader. 

According to the study, blogs have maintained credibility among those “politically interested Internet users, journalists, and public officials.”  The study even mentioned that readers prefer blogs to traditional media sources.  It appears that readers believe writer bias within blogs is somewhat of a strength over traditional media sources and the depth of blogging material is greater. 

While I may not be able to use blogs in my traditional research as a student, I certainly do use blogs to do research in my everyday life much like one might use Wikipedia.  As long as I understanding the strengths and weaknesses of blogs, I can use them as an effective tool for keeping informed on a daily basis. 

You can follow the full series of posts by Adam Scouse for Handshake 2.0 at The Hypothetical Entrepreneur.

Adam Scouse is an intern for Handshake 2.0, a member company of business acceleration centerVT KnowledgeWorks, located in the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center, a technology park, a research park, and a science park on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Connecting People in the RNR - Holiday Fair

Handshake 2.0 brings you the third edition of Connecting People in the RNR with Stuart Mease.

Stuart Mease offers free booth space to regional exhibitors for the 3rd annual Roanoke Holiday Career and Lifestyle Fair, sponsored by the Renick Group, Express Employment Professionals and WDBJ7, at the Roanoke Civic Center on December 30, 2008.  for further information, please contact Stuart Mease at stuartmease@gmail.com.

"RNR" refers to the Roanoke Valley and the New River Valley of Virginia.

Stuart Mease writes the blog Connecting People.  On Stuart Mease's about page, you can find myriad ways to connect with him online and in person.  You can find out more about Stuart Mease on Handshake 2.0.

Connecting People in the RNR
a video show by Stuart Mease
for Handshake 2.0

The opinions Stuart Mease expresses are solely his own and are not necessarily shared by Handshake 2.0 or its sponsors or advertisers.

Parametric Hand Turkey

From Handshake 2.0's Web 2.0 Developer:

The quintessential childhood Thanksgiving arts-and-crafts project is the hand turkey, so I decided to make one. Unfortunately, a rigorous scientific education has enabled me to suck all the fun and child-like innocence out of any enterprise, so I ended up making a graph.

The graph in question is of a parametric equation. Whereas the graphs we are most familiar with give one variable as a function of another (y in terms of x, for instance), a parametric graph gives x and y in terms of another, or in our case, two other variables. I've parameterized in terms of r and t.

 

 

 

 

The parameterization, in terms of t, graphs the "shape" or "outline" of our mathematical hand turkey. It's a modification of a polar function that would normally give us a "rose" with nine petals. My fingers are not all the same size, though, so I tweaked the function with a square root of t to vary the petals a little bit. A few more changes gave me five "fingers."

Then, I multiplied by my second parameter, r. Since it ranges from 0 to 1, then for every possible value of r, the "t" function it is affecting will be drawn with a slightly different radius. When we put all these functions on top of each other, we get a continuous series of "outlines" which smoothly merge into a solid region.

Not entirely devoid of childlike aesthetic taste, I then used Mathematica to graph the function and, more importantly, apply a gradient of "Thanksgiving colors" to it.

All in all, though, you're still probably better off asking your kid to make a hand turkey.

***

If you're interested here's a high-resolution .pdf of the Mathematica notebook. It's big (8559K), and requires a little crunching from your computer, but the image it produces is gorgeous.

And for the sake of complete documentation, here's the original Mathematica notebook, in case readers of H20 use Mathematica.