Archives for December 2008

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 18

December 20, 2008 By Steve Borsch

m8_09_predict Your Gang members talk about other people’s predictions, make a few of our own, and generally discuss possibilities and opportunities for next year.

Hosts: Steve Borsch,Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Phil Wilson

On our “2009 Predictions” show we discuss:

+ A quick recap of the Social Media Breakfast yesterday

+ Then we move into a discussion of 2009 Social Media Predictions

+ End with a discussion of “general” 2009 Predictions

+ Say very little how incredibly wrong we’ll probably be, lucky to nail a few, and how we hope this mp3 vanishes into the ether so no one can say next December, “Hey! You guys were WAY off.”

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 54:31 — 31.5MB)

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Show notes:

+ Technology discussed: Identi.ca; NetVibes; Yahoo Pipes; Twitter API and the Twitter Fan Wiki, a directory of stuff built atop that API

+ “Containers”: Adobe AIR; Microsoft Silverlight; Site-Specific-Browser‘s (SSBs) like Prism and Fluid; Sproutbuilder; iWidgets; Gadgets;

+ Peter Kim’s Social Media Predictions for 2009 where he ‘crowdsources’ fourteen big thinkers in the social media space and gets them to predict

+ Optimism: “For Net consultant, a crisis, then a silver lining” Steve Borsch interviewed for CNet article.

Marketing Innovation: Best Buy vs. Target

December 17, 2008 By Tim Elliott

Two of the most difficult marketing jobs in Minnesota right now has to be leading local retail giants Target and Best Buy. Although of different scales, Target is about 60% larger than Best Buy, each is facing the same catastrophic pullback in consumer spending that has resulted in each company reporting some of their worst results in years. How each deals with the gloomy outlook in 2009 will be interesting to watch and I expect to see some innovation in their marketing strategies that will help them ride out this tough economy.

As we’ve written here before, Best Buy is one of the leaders in the adoption of social media in the retail industry. Their CMO, Barry Judge, has started blogging and has taken to Twitter. He’s very transparent in his exploration of conversational marketing in interviews like this one. But probably the best overview is a video we posted here last month that features an interview with Best Buy CEO Brad Anderson who clearly is behind their use of social tools and techniques.

Target, in contrast, is opaque on all things social and their CMO, Michael Francis, seems from the corporate model of a brilliant planner, not innovator. Although they have been involved in conversational marketing — I recall meeting blogger Robert Scoble some 3 years ago after a day of meetings at Target — their efforts to date have been mixed. A well planned Facebook campaign was marred by controversy. And there was that episode with bloggers who took issue with a billboard in New York. Not the kind of case studies you would want from a company who clearly is a leading force in retail brand advertising.

So I will be tracking each company and their marketing efforts over the next several months and posting highlights here. If past is prologue, my gut tells me we’ll be seeing a lot of innovation from Best Buy, particularly in their use of social media. But the folks at Target might also surprise us. In these difficult times, the most innovative will likely win.

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 17

December 13, 2008 By Steve Borsch

Community strategy, management of the ecosystem and paying attention to social media conversations online is no longer a nice-to-have, it’s an imperative for doing business today, for brand management or for building your own personal brand.

Hosts: Steve Borsch,Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Phil Wilson, Garrick Van Buren

Connie Bensen is a woman who is completely engaged in the social media world and has turned it into a thought leadership position as well as career. She’s not only connected with other social media leaders who are geographically disbursed around the globe, but she’s also involved representing social media analytics company Techrigy…and all from her home 4.5 hours north of the Twin Cities! Who said outstate Minnesota people aren’t connected and fully engaged in the 21st century communications revolution!

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:05:42 — 38.2MB)

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Show notes:

+ Book Connie mentioned, “Personality Not Included”

+ Other links mentioned: Brian Brown’s Twitter account (from Ideapark); Graeme’s Twitter account; Fast Company article about “8 Experts Predict How Web 2.0 Will Evolve In 2009“; ComicTwit (and its Twitter account)

+ Connie has several key resources linked to from her home page here…definitely worth reading ’em!

Minnov8 Gang Podcast – Episode 16

December 7, 2008 By Steve Borsch

Social media and networking is pretty fragmented, and it’s important that Minnesota becomes fully invested in using all of it in an innovative way (e.g., Best Buy), and doing innovative startups like OnePlace (think Twitter in collaboration) and Enleiten (group GTD). Thankfully, we’re starting to see a bunch of new approaches that are allowing all of us to gather, consolidate and aggregate our social media and network participation, and keep track of all of these disparate channels of ‘conversation’ as well as all of the digital breadcrumbs we’re leaving all over the Web.

Hosts: Steve Borsch,Tim Elliott, Graeme Thickins, Phil Wilson, Garrick Van Buren

The Podcast

Podcast: Download (Duration: 54:01 — 31.3MB)

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We’re blogging; doing vlogs; publishing photos in Flickr and sending messages on Twitter and Identi.ca; social bookmarking like Cullect and Delicious; on networks like Facebook and MySpace *and* joining specialty affinity groups like, for instance, SMBMSP.Ning.com.

Flock, the browser for Windows/Mac/Linux, came out to try to provide a one-stop-shop of all of our disparate, browser-based social media and networking participation. Friendfeed was the one of the first well accepted, Web-hosted one. Now there’s PeopleBrowsr. We’re also seeing inter-connections between social networks, blogs, social bookmarking and channels like Twitter: posting to a blog can appear in Facebook and be sent to Twitter; Twitter messages can be posted on Facebook; Cullect can capture feeds instantly.

Without a dozen tabs open in a browser — or using a tool like Fluid or Mozilla Prism to create a bunch of SSB’s (site specific browsers) or building a dashboard in iGoogle or NetVibes — none of us have enough time in the day to keep tabs on what everyone is doing, participating within all of these channels of communication, and ensuring we’re EVEN AWARE of them in order to participate in relevant and important conversations.

In this show, the Gang discusses where we are and some approaches to solving this chaotic (but fun) mess.

Sierra Bravo Brings Back Its ‘Website Challenge’ Community Service Project

December 6, 2008 By Graeme Thickins

It won’t be long before area web developers are losing more sleep helping nonprofits. Rapidly growing Bloomington-based web development firm Sierra Bravo has announced the second coming of its very successful Overnight Website Challenge — 24 hours of pure nerd energy applied to creating or spiffing up the web sites of some deserving Minnesota nonprofits. The event is the firm’s signature event to give back to the community. For 100 volunteer web developers and 10 lucky Minnesota nonprofits, the 24-hour clock will count down on the weekend of February 28-March 1, 2009.

“Sierra Bravo is committed to this event as long as there are nonprofits whose websites could be better, powered by nerds,” said Luke Bucklin, Sierra Bravo’s president and one of its founders. In the inaugural Overnight Website Challenge in March 2008, volunteer web pros from Sierra Bravo and the broader Twin Cities web development community donated more than 2,000 hours to nonprofits — providing a real-world market value of donated time worth nearly $250,000, according to the firm’s calculations. … [Read More…]