Social Strategies. Altimeter’s great & ugly compendium.

Mai 25th, 2011 • Social, Social Business, Strategy
Tags: Altimeter, Diy, Presentation, Report, Social, Social Business Design, Social Influence Marketing, Social Networks

Charlene Li – one of the spiritual mothers of social media – has achieved two things with the following presentation: She simultaneously wins the award for one of the best and one the ugliest presentations I have seen on this topic in a while. Seriously Altimeter – I know you guys listen: I love your thoughts. But there are designers out there who can help you out with a Powerpoint template or a new logo or something… (via We are social)

No joke. This book exists.

November 30th, 2010 • Books
Tags: Books, Diy, Funny, Microsoft, windows, World

The tech industry never ceases to amaze me. The book pictured below is an actual book by O’Reilly. Even though Win 7 makes me quite happy I do remember horrible experiences with WinXP and Vista. Oh the horror. Get it on amazon.

Working Wired. How I Model Real Time Brain Infusion.

Oktober 11th, 2010 • 3 comments Intelligence, Jobs
Tags: Diy, Information, Jobs, Knowledge, Strategy, Tools, Truth, World

Yes, we are all going insane. 27,053 tweets per day. 3,214 blog posts and 6 million status updates from your friends. There is absolutely no way on earth you can keep track  or even make use of this universe of stuff anymore.  Good news. There is a simple solution to working wired – train your knowledge ecosystem and model it to serve your needs. Real time knowledge infusion is possible. Even with a job. This is how I work wired. How about you?

Do you know these moments? Somebody you respect leaves a comment that is so odd that you start asking yourself why you hang out with this person in the first place? In my case this was 3 weeks ago when a friend from university asked if I ever work at all, since I sent out 4 tweets from 9am to noon.

Comments like that amuse me in a way. They are a metaphor on how we define work. Even though we pretend to work in a more enlightened society it still seems to be acceptable to work unwired. That means we sit in front of a computer screen and try to solve a problem when it pops up. We are not trained to set up a model of constant knowledge infusion. Wired working still does not fit into the average employee’s day job. But it should.

Why we usually don’t work wired
Theoretically it all makes sense – constant reading and learning will eventually make you gather more knowledge. And we are not talking about this one particular presentation seminar that you attend once a year. A constant stream of knowledge is what I am talking about. Knowledge about the latest trends in tech, music, advertising…whatever might be relevant for you. Just like reading a newspaper…you remember that concept, don’t you?

So where is the problem you might ask? The answer is simple – reality is the challenge for anyone trying to stay up to date with what is happening outside.

• As an employee in an agency and many media companies you are usually measured in billable hours. If you aren’t working on a billable client project your value all too often is considered zero.
• Learning real time is not part of our working culture. Social networking all too often is perceived as threat to productivity. Reading your tweets is all too often defined as something you do during a downtime. Even though statistics prove the opposite.

Why we need to work wired anyway
We work in a realtime era. Things change quickly overnight. This one particular piece of information might save your ass the next day or may guarantee a headstart in the next project. I have spent quite a while in my past to cultivate real time knowledge infusion. The objective is obvious. To know relevant stuff a bit earlier which is increasingly important personally as well as for the stuff that we are doing.

The key challenge of working wired is to minimize the efforts of generating knowledge while simultaneously maximizing the output. It is in fact not about reading twitter or blogs 24/7. Your task is to build a model to simplify real time knowledge infusion. My first recommendation is to integrate reading into every your working schedule. Generating knowledge must not be something you do if nothing isn’t left to do – it is part of your job.

The following methods are just some concepts I use. There will be many more and I am happy to learn how you simplify this process to maximize efficiency of real time knowledge generation. But they have worked well for me. And I think they highlight the importance of a calibrated information ecosystem in order to work wired.

• Step 1: Be the king of your knowledge ecosystem – In my world blogs and twitter are essential to stay up to date with what’s happening outside. When I first started using twitter I did not understand the platform at all (as most do) and could not quite figure out why people exchange bits of information about their lunch. I learned later that twitter is an extremely powerful source of professional knowledge – but you have to turn it into one. Reading blogs is similar. You can subscribe to TheChive (you should) or to Techcrunch (you should too). But whatever you subscribe for will define the type of information that you are going to read in the future. It may sound obvious – but if you are willing to integrate real time updates into your professional life you should think about what types of tweets and blogs will support your professional (or not completely unprofessional) needs best.

• Step 2: Use the right tools - Constant real time learning means you should be able to read updates wherever you are. The tools you use should offer interfaces to other tools/plugins and they should synchronize themselves automatically. My tip – use google Reader on your desktop to keep track of your favourite blogs. Intertwine it with the awesome Reeder app for iPhone/iPad. Reeder is an extremely handy application that synchronizes with google Reader and keeps you up to date with your google reader feed on the go. I personally use tweetdeck for twitter since it is extremely simple to setup lists and sources of inspiration here. Not much magic involved by now. Read more »

Great Tools. What the Fuck is my Social Media Strategy?

August 2nd, 2010 • Tools
Tags: Business, Buzzwords, Diy, Funny, Presentation, Social Media, Strategy, Tools, Truth, World

Thanks Sean. My colleague pointed me to the wonderful What-the-fuck-is-my-social-media-strategy-generator that generates pretty realistic buzzword creations ready to be used in your next deck. It’s like the web bullshit generator…only closer to what we call reality. I think I can go home now, can I?

Promoted Tweets. Finally explained in 140 Seconds.

Juli 8th, 2010 • Media, Tools, Twitter
Tags: Diy, Media, Promoted Tweets, Social Media, Tools, Twitter

Promoted Tweets are already live for about two months now. But I (as most of you) did not have the chance to take a deeper look at it by now. Check out this crisp little tour to our kind-of-favourite new social advertising vehicle…or whatever you make out of it. (via)

google Wave. Come on google, give me an invite.

Oktober 3rd, 2009 • Allgemein
Tags: Diy, google, google wave

Hey google, I am still waiting for my google Wave invite. While I wait I watch a couple of videos of what google Wave actually is and write articles about what I expect it to be…But others obviously have the same problem. (via lifehacker and kwerfeldein)

Facebook Connect. #OMFG.

Oktober 3rd, 2009 • 4 comments Tech, Tools
Tags: Diy, Facebook, Facebook Connect, Fail, Tools

I finally made it into white & nerdy paradise. I just wrote a Blog article about Facebook Connect not working well with WordPress. I promise to return to more important topics. But I still hope rants like that are being monitored and help to improve things. So here we go.

Deep in my heart I know Facebook Connect is the big thing. I am absolutely convinced of the idea of decentralizing stuff, no matter what that stuff is. I think content should follow me not the other way around. So, Facebook: Yay! Actually.

For a couple of months now I have tried to install Facebook Connect on my blog. I know that when it works, Facebook Connect adds about 15-20% readers to your Blog, it leverages conversations and it makes a lot more stuff possible. So, let’s go for Connect.

No developer = No Facebook Connect

Problem is I have a creative background. I used to be a copywriter, not a coder. I know a couple of lines of HTML but that’s basically it. Everything else should be self-explanatory, friends help me…or whatever. Frankly, Facebook Connect was a challenge for me!

By today Facebook has only managed to come up with a couple of third party WordPress plugins. None of them worked out fine. The so called Sociable plugin didn’t have any reasonable functionality while Adam Hupp’s plugin was the one I should finally be able to use (but I didn’t know at that time). Fact was when I installed the plugin it generated a king size error and nothing worked -> Deinstall.

Read more »

Guy Kawasaki. The 10/20/30 rule revisited.

September 27th, 2009 • Ideas
Tags: Brainfood, Creativity, Diy, Guy Kawasaki, Idea, Presentation, Tools, Truth, visual

It’s not exactly new, but I still dig this little clip of Guy Kawasaki explaining his 10/20/30-rule. It’s supposed to turn dull Powerpoint presentations into something you would like to listen to. Won’t work everytime. But I just remembered how good this rule is. (via Holykaw)