Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Conducting a Search, 3 Things to Consider

Whether you are looking for a high level candidate, or to find a new apartment, search is the way to go. You rely on search when it's something you are looking for, and also when others are doing the looking - with the answer preferably to be your product or service. In search, you may feel that more choice is a good thing, when in fact less is more - as in more precise and in saving time and effort. True, sometimes you stumble upon an interesting bit while you sort through information, but most of the time, finding exactly... Read more →

365 is the New 360

I was scanning the headlines in my reader and Noah Brier's rating systems and personal rules caught my eye. We do have personal ways of designating value to things. Moreover, once you attempt to aggregate ratings from many onto one system, you may not be getting the full picture. I know what you're going to think - but we have average. Yes, we do, indeed. Now think about how certain rating systems in organizations rely on the concept of 360-degree feedback. This is an assessment of a person generated by multiple sources. According to the entry on Wikipedia, a study... Read more →

The Exception to Every Rule

[TED, invest 20:45 with Barry Schwartz] My advice in listening, if you have time, is to do it with soft ears - filter, and do not take it all so literally. That will make it an enjoyable and personal experience. These are almost verbatim the part that most impressed me about the talk. Do you know when and how to make the exception to every rule? Brilliance isn't enough - you need wisdom. A wise person knows when to improvise. When things go wrong we reach for two things - (1) rules, more rules, and (2) incentives. The truth is... Read more →

How Big Brands can Start Testing Social Media

We're now in what I am starting to call the perfect storm for social media. On one side we have lots of very smart and accomplished professionals who are and have been using these tools to network, learn, and some to market themselves successfully to new jobs and careers. On the other we have many companies that are starting to see the need for different answers to growth than the diminishing returns not guaranteed by traditional channels. Traditional marketing was done mainly on top of media that is now facing a changed reality as well. Buzz of social media is... Read more →

Customer Loyalty Comes from Conversation

What if instead of focusing on loyalty programs, companies focused on customer rewards? The best reward of all being a loyal company that looks out for its customers, understands their needs, and works in alignment with partners to deliver on them. How many loyalty cards do you have in your wallet? Do they work for you or are you working to get anything out of them? Often at the (company and personal) cost of the very thing they were created to promote - loyalty. Conversation leads to brand experience, which in turn may lead to loyalty. Card or no card,... Read more →

Truth is More than What Happens

True/Slant is a new online publication slated to launch at the end of March. You don't hear too much about new print publication launches these days. The full migration to digital news is well under way. Billed as a cross between The Huffington Post and Slate, True/Slant sounds intriguing. It looks like Springthistle Design is building initial html/css/images for the customized WordPress build. Some of the early contributors are Mark Drapeau and Leafy Living. Another characteristic of the digital environment and new media model is the emphasis on who contributes. The old model was built around a process and distribution.... Read more →

My Top 3 Digital Marketing Tactics for 2009

Lee Odden published a reader poll at TopRank asking you to help him identify the 3 digital marketing channels & tactics will you emphasize in 2009. At the time I took this screen shot with the top 30, 159 votes put Blogging at #1, search engine optimization (SEO) at #2, and Twitter at #3 over 45 items on the list. It's finally hitting home that all that great work people do with blogs is also great for your SEO, especially when your blog is specialized and written by someone who is passionate about their subject matter and understands search. The... Read more →

Contribution and Connection are the New Currency

People are no longer a company's best asset, they are its best technology. Is it time perhaps to rename human resources something like human resourceful? I was reading the McKinsey Quarterly article about making Web 2.0 tools work (guess they didn't get the memo about the end of the term Web 2.0). In it the authors talk about a wide range of technologies. I beg to differ on the terminology, I think they mean tools. Technologies may enable tools and they exist on two sides of them. The application/tool platform side and that of the human using it. A dry... Read more →

Making the Pie Bigger

We all face difficult situations at work and in life. The context in which we operate also plays a role in rendering what we see different. I often talk about the importance of culture in an organization. That goes to context - people watch the walk. Culture and environment are especially important today, because the best way for many organizations to get out of where they got stuck is to make the pie bigger - not fight over whatever smaller slice anyone can get their hands on. This is also innovation-thinking. Chris Guillebeau wrote his thoughts about expanding the pie.... Read more →

How do You Feel About Facebook Owning Your Content?

As reported by several sites today, including the Consumerist, Facebook amended its Terms of Service (TOS). Now apparently they own all of the content you uploaded there and use it however they want. I closed my account after a brief period because of the spam I was getting and to focus more on other networks. I doubt there is anything there of value to them. This issue raises an important question. How do you feel about Facebook owning your content? Several discussions ensued about the amended language. According to Aaron Brazell at Technosailor, Zuckerberg issued a statement later to clarify... Read more →