Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Making Social Media Work for You – Be Crafty

This is a story of how Jim Long is reinventing his career with the help of social media. He inspired today’s post at The Blog Herald on what you can do to become famous. During the presentation at DMAW a couple of weeks ago, Jim talked about one of his recent entrepreneurial projects, Crafty Nation. We watched the video where his partner, Toni Lyn, visited a hand glass worker in her home, which doubles as her laboratory. Seeing the skill and craft made me want to go back to making earrings -- I sold many as a teenager. Crafts are... Read more →

Surveys are for Buildings, Conversations are for People

Maybe I'm exaggerating a tad. I stand on solid ground when I say that we are often asked for feedback and then never given the opportunity to dig deeper into it and receive feedback ourselves. It's all well and good when things go well. Yet, I suspect that we'd be more interested in learning how we can make them better. Hard to do with surveys. Today at FC Expert blogs I talk about how Customer Surveys are Dead. If survey are hypothetically dead, polls may not be. How do we do some polls today? We put a question out there... Read more →

3 Trends and Top Ten Reasons to Work with a Smart Agency

Three major trends are affecting the way we think and talk about social media and conversation. That leads me to ask 3 main questions: 1. Are blogs useful? Gerald Baron at Crisisblogger asked himself the same question not long ago in a slightly different format -- is this the beginning of the end of blogging? Despite more people having joined Twitter and being somewhat satisfied with micro blogging and others being immersed in the multiple stimuli that Facebook affords as a platform, I agree with Gerald -- "Ain't no going back" blogs or a similar form are here to stay.... Read more →

M20 Interview by Peter Kim

I did not attend this year's Forrester Consumer Forum, in part because I work in the B2B space. David Armano did a good job of providing live coverage from the floor, and a recap. Thanks to Critical Mass web cam, I was able to touch base with Debbie Schultz, Karl Long, and Peter Kim. Jeremy Pepper wrote a couple of solid posts on the sessions, and I learned that my long time friend Heath Row was also in attendance via Twitter. Although I was not there, I was able to see what was going on and communicate with many of... Read more →

Blog Action Day: How Social Media is Greening the Planet

I've known of companies with a focus on sustainability for several years. And to be quite frank, many needed help in marketing themselves. Their appeal remained quite localized and their efforts associated with an unfashionable past -- that was green the movement. Now there's green the market -- big difference. In Europe, the green market has been around for much longer -- organic agriculture, differentiated recycling collections, and having less stuff -- out of necessity from living in smaller spaces. These collective forces have all have contributed to a different mind set. Less space, more past, greater conservation efforts. Thanks... Read more →

Connection Kata: Can You Keep a Secret?

We live in a 24/7 world -- companies and people are getting requests for more information at any hour. The expectation is that if we are to wait one minute more, we might decide to take our business, and connection, elsewhere. Small aside -- have you noticed how impatient people are these days? I thought that Italians were aggressive drivers. I'm finding more and more people who stop at a light right on your rear bumper and literally push you forward as soon as the light is about to turn. Not to speak of the impatience when you slow down... Read more →

Why The Media is not Telling Your Story

I've now been on a Twitter stream for a couple of days and got to read what my peers, colleagues, friends and new acquaintances are thinking about and doing in real time. And to those who say that we're constantly distracted when online, I say bullocks. What is coming through is admittedly raw, yet it is what each person is immersed in and contending with at that moment. There is value in seeing that, especially if you consider that your customers are on the same boat -- their flight may be late, their day sucked, and now they have only... Read more →

What You Read Reveals Who You Are, or Does it?

Aren't we all business executives now? According to a recent survey by Ipsos Media American business executives -- CEOs and other C-suite officers from mid- to large-size companies, including many from the Fortune 500 –- seek quality business information from a variety of media sources, including magazines and journals, the internet, and digital and satellite television. From the release [emphasis mine]: The survey also examines the typical business leader's way of life -- showing they travel frequently, spend more nights in hotels, and are heavy users of technology as part of their work life. They also enjoy the perks of... Read more →

Get Out of My Phone! 5 Ways to Add Value

36245 is the code sending me SPAM text messages on my mobile phone. Note that it is a code, anonymous, not a person. I registered my phone with the "do not call" list -- would that apply to text messages as well? I surely hope so. Reporting the incident with Cingular, the new AT&T, got me no response from the company. They used to be quite attentive to this sort of incident as Cingular. Then again, as I said before, it never was about the logo. UPDATE: it seems that insisting helps. I was able to take care of blocking... Read more →

Product Displacements

As consumers we are constantly trying to avoid the latest pitch and ad pushed at us by marketers. However, I know that as people we are curious to find out what's going on, we want to be up to date on gadgets, and learn about the best deals in town. Some consumers may want to get involved at creation level, many prefer to "test" an idea first hand before embracing a product or service. As marketers we're trying to figure out where social media fits in with the goals and ROI of the businesses we serve, and the needs and... Read more →