FredericMartin - Blognotes 2.0

Linkedin 10+ Tips For Your Business, Brand, Consultancy or Jobsearch

No matter if you're an independent, starting a new business, working for a large company or looking for a job: Linkedin should be fully integrated in your business  strategy and considered a major piece in your communication. The leading platform for business networking has much more to offer than just a static page where you would describe yourself, your career path and company profile. Linkedin can dramatically boost your business, brand and personal attractivity. I would like to share here a couple of tricks, some you might not be aware of.

A Business Check-List for New Times

I've been thinking all I would be doing during those crisis times if I were running  a business.  I came up with this list focusing on marketing and sales management points. It' s a mix of own experiences, thoughts and readings. I will try to upgrade and enrich it with third parties articles and best cases later on. And some points I will detail in separate posts. I chose to concentrate especially on mid and long term action points: you shouldn't expect too much from your short term activities in those crisis times if your markets are really depressed; but it's highly important and the right time to prepare for better times and set ready to harvest later on. And it's not just about crisis and after-crisis times; it's about a new paradigm: not only the financial system has collapsed, but many other parameters have actually changed dramatically, driven by the global hyper connectivity and competitiveness, by the emerging power of the masses and by a new generation that has a stronger voice to denounce failing models and to claim new values and perspectives as a citizen, as a consumer and as a worker.  Therefore, It's important in those deep times to think on that new order and adapt your business practices accordingly.

An Efficient Web Intelligence in 5 Steps

I research quite a lot online. Over the years, I've developed a structured approach which I call the '5 steps from the single Google Search to a Collective Intelligence'. I will detail that approach and related tools in this article. 

Coming back soon with new thoughts

Want to apologize to my readers for not posting since April here. Was extremely busy,  working and thinking in various areas including web 2.0 and digital technologies. I will come back soon and hopefully more regularly with new articles that I will try to make deeper and more interesting. I would especially like to share my thoughts and experience in leveraging web 2.0 for business purposes: web and collective intelligence, consumer insight and brand reputation, knowledge and collective information management, social networks (Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter) for real business, self productivity, innovation & sourcing, six sigma & collaboration 2.0, realtime business tracking, etc. In the meantime, you can follow me on Twitter and check lots of resources and links on this blog. Hope to interact with you soon.

How the Next Gen. Enterprise is Different

Don Tapscott (co-author of "The Wikinomics", refer to my related posts) and Steve Papermaster (CEO of nGenera Corp, a business innovation platform for next-gen. enterprises) have a fantastic white-paper on the next generation enterprise - also called enterprise 2.0 which I´ve embedded in this post. This is a must read to understand the concept and how companies must reinvent their management so as to harvest the global pool of talents and resources and co-create in a  global connected world. They also started a great community of thought leaders who write on enterprise 2.0.

How digital technologies can help companies in crisis times

In crisis times as we have now, I feel too many companies are only going the "easy" way: lay-offs, cost-cutting, price adjustments, wait and see attitude etc. Many don´t have a specific and proactive plan to counter-attack, with a clear destination. The usual way is rather to downsize the original plan by X % and wait to see if this was the right assumption. It´s clear we are not only in the middle of a very difficult economic situation but also at the crossroads of fundamental changes: globalization, digital revolution and social mutations that strongly affect all industries. Under such circumstances, companies that don´t reinvent won´t survive.  And we see in most sectors how dramatic changes quickly happen and how business models mute, not only a consequence of the financial crisis. "New Times, New Ways": it´s time to be more innovative and creative than ever, that's the way to go through those difficult times and prepare for the after-crisis period. One first thing CEOs should do is a strong internal and external communication plan where they detail their specific anti-crisis project with clear goals, metrics,  assignments and milestones so as to boost their troops and get their full commitment. Psychology is key. A second thing CEOs should do is to leverage social technologies and web 2.0. Going digital and web 2.0 can bring five types of advantages: new business opportunities, cost effective PR and marcom channels, customer listening and direct conversation, collaborative management and working speed, and ideas & innovation sourcing.

Future Of Social Networks - presentation by Charlene Li

Social Media guru Charlene Li held an interesting presentation on the future of social networks at the SXSW. You can join the conversation on her blog where she's hosting a meebo chat room on that subject.

SXSW09: The Future Of Social Networks

View more presentations from Charlene Li.

Best twits, march 14-22th: Twitter, Productivity, Marketing, Social Media etc

This is a selection of my best twits of the last week: you find here great resources for Twitter, productivity tools as well as articles on new  marketing practices and social media.

6 Weeks Top100+ Twits on Twitter, Productivity Tools, Social marketing, E2.0

Out of my hundreds of twits over the last six weeks, I' ve extracted the best ones which I have categorized:
Twitter & co (of course), various productivity tools, key-articles on advance marketing, social media and enterprise 2.0.

A Corporate Portal for Collective Intell.

I'm finalizing - or at least upgrading, it's an ongoing process - a corporate portal to enhance the collective intelligence at my company. I will describe the construction and implementation hurdles in this article which I will upgrade progressively (Come back again to see the final status). That portal consists of 20+ different web2.0 tools to track, discuss (microblogging), cross-fertilize and build up a collective knowledge. The portal is split into 14 tabs which I will describe hereafter.

Interactive Advertising Outlooks 2009

The Interactive Advertising Bureau has just published their outlooks for 2009 in this slideshow. Interesting figures jan-sept08 vs. PY which underline the continuous shift to new media with a +7% spending growth for the Internet (Display ads only). TV spendings still growing in 2008 with a +2%. The shift comes mainly from newspapers (-10%), radio (-9%), magazines (-4%). Total spendings declined (-2%) during the period.

Obama: the new school marketer

This excellent slideshow on Obama's social marketing campaign is a good source of inspiration for brand marketers.

Web 2.0 & Enterprise relationships

Back to 1981: primitive Internet report

1981: "you dial a number (on your thick wired telephone), and then you can download a newspaper ... that will cost you 2 hours and 5 dollars to download"". Those funny Internet premises are described in this 1981 video.

Queensland Seeks Applicants for "The Best Job in the World" - Island Caretaker

Still 2 weeks to apply for that dream job on the great barrier reef.

I see where you are my dear

Google is launching a new application called Latitude which is based on their maps. It helps track your friends in real time through their mobile location. Google knows quite a lot on your online life, now they even track you outside. Somehow brilliant.

Leo Burnett's video on Future Trends in Advertising

Leo Burnett - a leading creative agency - is publishing an interesting video on YouTube about Future Trends in Advertising. Enjoy.

Nice to see you dear Twitter friends!

Thanks for following me on Twitter. Here you are in that nice mosaic provided by Sxoop Technologies. (We know a couple of faces here  ;-)

10 tips to read more, better and become an expert

Keeping and developing a high level of expertise in areas such as marketing, management and digital technologies is a challenging exercise: those areas are moving fast, information channels are exploding with good and bad stuff, whom and what should you follow, where should you focus? Without any consistent approach, you´re rapidly lost in the digital age and you might lose to other people who have a better control of information. The new age is about knowledge, is about information control. I keep upgrading a structured approach which I´ve clustered into 10 steps as follows. I will detail later on each of those steps and related tools. Methodology and adequate tools are both important.

Starting a blogpage dedicated to Twitter

Microblogging is establishing as the new modern way to socialize, keep current and communicate. No frontiers, no social barriers and the world is the playground. Among all microblogging platforms, Twitter is the absolute leader and is widespreading at light speed. It looks like Twitter is on its way to establish as a mass media. If you're a politician, an expert, a brand, an enterpreneur or just a a chatter, Twitter is the place to be. For those reasons, I'm starting a new blogpage where I will post on key-tools to become a top microblogger or user. I will also post on company best practices, how Twitter is used for brand marketing, business etc. Follow me here.

Time for marketing changes. At last.

This 3-min. clip is a good summary of the marketing shift from the sixties up today. Unfortunately, many marketers are still not aware of such shifts (or don´t dare trying something new) and keep using the old recipes that don´t work anymore AT ALL. I´m scared when looking at all those book shelves in European shops and keep seeing the same old guys from the 90s or even 80s with edition number 10 of their old stuff. In hard times like we have today, it would be time that all those old marketers stop wasting all that money that keeps flowing massively into mass marketing. They should focus more on their user experience, have true & intensive conversations and CO-innovate.

Every (online) marketer should read this

Edelman Digital Public Affairs recently posted an excellent whitepaper which details Obama´s digital campaign. Despite reading quite a lot on such subjects, I was really astonished by the precision, the intensity and the 360° consistency of Obama´s campaign as described in that paper. Tremendous traffic figures where achieved, interactivity was brought to new levels and brilliant ideas where added to the existing best practices. All this is the result of a strong vision - social media democracy - and of a large team of top guns. I feel this paper will establish as a reference for marketing experts. And surely it will influence many brands and other political organizations across the world.

Mini Cooper Augmented Reality Ad

In Germany, Mini Cooper is running a revolutionary advertising based on augmented reality: just scan the Q-code you would find in newspapers. For that, use your pc webcam and the tag turns into a 3D mini cabrio. Impressive.

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is a strong buzzword right now. What is behind? this brilliant video explains it in simple words.

What are the latest trends in consumer electronics?

The big Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas (CES) has unveiled the latest consumer tech trends this week. I´ve twitted the most interesting products including pictures: follow me at www.twitter.com/FredericMartin. Key-trends include LED-TV with more competitors on board, internet capable TVs with embedded Yahoo widgets (Samsung, Sony, etc), 240Hz TVs (!), Netflix and YouTube streaming (on  TVs, players and camcorders), ultra thin TVs (1inch-), netbooks with new competitors on board (Sony, HP etc), picoprojectors (cute and tiny, Samsung, Toshiba etc), iPhone new rivals (Palm, Samsung etc) as well as compact & cute HD camcorders. An interesting and major point at CES: Cisco is entering the consumer electronics markets with big intentions (and big cash) and with a clear focus on video. By the way, they are showing a home theatre! Very Interesting move. I think  the point is not whether they succeed in establishing a strong consumer brand but how fast they will (to that matter, read my previous post on Cisco).

10+ reasons why you should use Twitter

I started using Twitter two years ago. I mean NOT using Twitter. It sounded like a gadget at that time, it was unclear what it would bring. Twitter has now matured to a solid discussion platform where millions of people interact worldwide on a daily basis to report on any crap or interesting things second per second. I use it now on a daily basis and have identified 15+ reasons why everybody should use it.
1. Twitter is an easy bookmarking tool but also
2. a fantastic note taking tool and
3. a socializing platform
4. It enhances productivity: to do´s, reminder etc in combinations with platforms like Remember The Milk
5. With it, you listen to the whole world in real time, millions voices from single individuals
6. It helps stay at the forefront by listening to experts and opinion leaders
7. You can collect new ideas and best practices in specific fields by following the right people
8. Social, hierarchy and racial barriers fall down, it´s an open world
9. You contribute to a collective knowledge in real time
10. Being on Twitter is a sign that you´re in.

What else?

Top Tools for better blogging in 2009

I´ve collected quite a long list of tools to blog quicker and better. I will upgrade it here progressively and would appreciate your comments on your own tools.

1. TOOLS FOR PUBLISHING TO BLOGS
LiveWriter - the best desktop client for blogging
I´ve added following plug-ins to enhance the LiveWriter experience:
Zemanta - suggests articles and links related to what you are writing
Polaroid Picture Live - to nicely integrate pictures with a Polaroid touch
Fireshot - to capture and integrate a webpage or some portions in a  post
Picasa plug-in - to integrate your Picasa pictures

2. TOOLS TO ORGANIZE INFORMATION
Delicious - to bookmark and tag webpages
Diigo - to organize articles into list and highlight best portions
ReadThis later - a Firefox sidebar to read a page later
Evernote - to organize quick notes
Zotero - Firefox extension to record & organize links, captures and notes

3. TOOLS TO FIND NEW SUBJECTS
Netvibes - RSS news portal to organize your web watch

... in progress

Obama 2.0 09

Let´s see how far the new US president achieves implementing all his innovative ideas this year. At least, he´s brilliant and successful in leveraging technology to "crowdsource" ideas and viewpoints from hundreds of thousands US citizens via his interactive portal. This time, he´s asking what you would like to see changed and how you think it could be changed. Politics 2.0 is born.

Happy new year! [web 2008 flashback]

Europe has now entered 2009. All my best wishes to you, thanks for visiting here last year and welcome back in 2009. I´ll do my best to raise the level and regularity of publishing this year. And I hope to interact more with you here and via Twitter. A nice flashback: this 4 min video reminds of key-sites and events in  2008. I feel Twitter was the most impacting web site with millions of people chatting around across the world, with amateur journalists reporting on the attacks in India minute per minute and with the future US president getting an amazing traction. What else?

A Top 10 books 2008 on innovation & management

Business Week is publishing a top ten of the best books 2008 on innovation [Click each picture to learn more]. Three of them have drawn my attention: 1. Groundswell is on how companies utilize social technologies to create, promote and share new ideas 2. Here Comes Everybody describes the impact of social technologies on contemporary culture 3. The new Age of Innovation is about driving co-created value through global networks. I will comment on those later on. My favourite management readings 2008 I shared in a previous post here. And here is another interesting top 10 of management books on the excellent BNet - management blog.

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