Pai… de ce scriu acest blog? Hmm… buna intrebare. Raspunsul ar putea fi atat faptul ca de cateva zile nu am mai scris nici un post (serviciul asta te face de nu mai ai timp sa postezi), cat si faptul ca, logic, ca si fotograf amator, mi s-a pus pata pe un Nikon D40.

Totul a inceput intr-o dimineatza la servici cand printre dragile mele solicitari zic, hai sa arunc 2 secunde o privire pe twitter. Ce mi-a sarit in ochi la ora aia? Ei bine, ultimul post a lui @new_dada, care zicea “concurs pentru Nikon D40″. Ei bine, era un link la postul acesta scris de neamtu. Tot ce trebuie sa faci, este sa urmezi regulile acestui concurs. Il gasesti pe sandilai.ro. Scurt si la obiect. Ce? Nikon D40 pe gratis? Logic ca ma inscriu .

Chiar am stat si m-am gandit… sunt cam putine concursuri de genul asta pe la noi. Ok, ok, poate eu nu am dat de asa multe concursuri in tara asta dar, totusi, putina lume face ceva de genul asta. Si ca sa ma dau in spate si sa privesc acest concurs din mai multe puncte de vedere ca si un “reviewer” ce sunt, gurile rele ar spune “bah, asta vrea sa aiba cat mai multe comentarii si vizite pe blogul lui”. Pai… asta e ideea, si o sustin. Ai auzit de “social community”? Ei bine, daca esti un geek ca si mine fa-ti conturi pe o gramada de site-uri, urmareste bloguri, posteaza si tu, fi in pas cu noua tehnologie, fi parte a unui grup care are aceleasi pasiuni ca si tine, fa parte dintr-un grup social online. Ceea ce face acest concurs, urmareste chair unele reguli ai acestei comunitati online.

Ca sa inchei, cu acestea am bifat punctul “c”. Si nu numai pentru a participa la acest concurs, dar aceasta mi-a dat oportunitatea de a spune “rock on in stil online”.

Thanksgiving is next week, and it marks the start of the mad dash to the end of the year. As I look towards 2010, I see B2B marketers, in the tech industry and elsewhere, face increasing pressure to reach decision-makers, justify spending, and deliver high-quality leads to an increasingly dissatisfied sales organization. Compounding these demands is a lingering recession and increasing pressure from product commoditization, new business models, functional outsourcing, and a social groundswell where buyers turn to peers to validate purchase decisions.

To turn these changes to marketing’s advantage, 2010 will be the year where B2B marketers must expand their focus from the intake of the pipeline to a broader range of activities that flow across the entire customer life cycle. This requires fundamental changes in people, process, and technology to stem marketing’s slide into mere makeup and wardrobe responsibilities. Next year, socially savvy B2B marketers must:

1) Move out of the corporate ivory tower. Globalization, Social Computing, and buyer control make community marketing essential. Our interactions with buyers must become more inclusive as internal subject matter experts, engineers, and external voices will participate more often in the formerly exclusive realm of polished marketing communication. To adapt, we must adopt community management roles and evolve our companies’ communication style to become more open, transparent, and focused on relationship building — not just offer promotion.

2) Use communities to combine the best of user conferences and support forums. B2B buyers are a busy, overburdened crowd. If you want them to join your communities, you had better make it worth their while. Expect membership in business communities to be comparatively shorter-lived — and more episodic — than consumer counterparts. Marketers must accommodate this “sometimes active but mostly passive” pace by merging online events — like virtual trade shows run on software platforms from ON24 and Unisfair — with collaborative, conversational capabilities from social software firms like Communispace, HiveLive, Jive Software, and Lithium.

3) Use technology to enable digital selling with a personal feel. Prospect databases and lead management automation let marketers create personalized online experiences that replace traditional first and second sales calls. Customer-generated video, print on demand, and microsites that deliver one-to-one content replace four-color brochures as core marketing tools. Where will you be in this transition come 2010?

If you would like to hear about the 5 ways to take your business marketing efforts to the next level in 2010, check out my December 1 teleconference. During the presentation, I will take a closer look at the forces tech marketers must be able to overcome and why becoming customer centric, adopting integrated marketing, better managing demand, upgrading measurement, and embracing social is key to your ongoing success.

There is a charge for non-clients to attend, but if you reply to this post, I will put you in touch with the right folks can help you qualify for a reduced rate. (Yep, gotta talk to one of my salespeople.) Hope you will listen in or join the conversation on Twitter at #B2B2010. Happy Thanksgiving and see you December 1.

Barack Obama’s Social Media Toolkit

Looking back at the lessons from the Obama Social Marketing Success

Barack Obama won the presidency in a landslide victory (by a margin of nearly 200 electoral votes and 8.5 million popular votes) by converting everyday people into engaged and empowered volunteers, donors and advocates through social networks, e-mail advocacy, text messaging and online video.

The campaign’s proclivity to online advocacy is a major reason for his victory.

Since the election, the social media programs adopted by Obama’s transition team have foreshadowed significant changes in how Obama, as president, will communicate with – and more importantly – through the mass of supporters who were collected, cultivated and channeled during the campaign. Obama wants to be the first president to govern with BlackBerry in hand; he will certainly be the first with a legion of 13 million advocates at his fingertips.

Obama Campaign Social Media Lessons

Social Marketing Success Story, Social Marketing Whitepaper / Research Post by Warren Raisch: November 12, 2009

WINE SIPPING: TASTING ROOMS TO SOCIAL COMMUNITIES

Today, being one year older, I head to my most favorite place on earth to taste some wine and turn off my phone. Five years ago, the movie Sideways released and a furor of wine tourists flourished to Los Olivos, Santa Barbara wine country.

I’ll head to my favorite winery, Rusack Vineyards, and like I always do, stand in their tasting room and gush over their Anacapa using such proverbial phrases as “awesome town” and “I dig it.”

Wine tasting is a tradition trending from the 14^thcentury and onward. There are typically four stages in a wine tasting from appearance, smell, mouth feel, and finish.

But in the age of online media, wine tasting has evolved from the traditional tasting room experience to social communities of online wine-drinkers. Here are a few sites helping to transform the industry and introduce wine to a whole new generation.

Online Video

Gary Vaynerchuk, online entrepreneur, debuted the “Thunder Show” in 2006 attracting some 100,000 viewers per episode. Weekly online episodes attempt to deconstruct wine tasting and the entrenched associated wine lingo. I mean, when’s the last time you described a wine as tasting like “wet clay”?

In this, my favorite episode, Gary attempts to pair his favorite cereals with the proper wine. Riesling and Captain Crunch? Yes please.

Social Community

Cork’d allows wine tasters an online tasting room experience. Rate and review wines that you’ve tasting creating a library of your wine tasting experience. Share your notes with friends to get your wine community on.

Twitter Search

While there are sites that aggregate wine tweets like Wine Twits, a simple Twitter search is usually by far more effective and interesting. As I soon plan to be holding a delightful Pinot in my hand, I figured a little Twitter search was in order. @Wine Bistro I’m on board. Let’s go tasting!

Apart from simple searches, some are taking the onslaught of Twitter communication to the tasting room itself. Instead of walking around the winery, pen in hand, now wine tasters can tweet their tasting notes. City Winery in NYC tried their hand at this concept just last week with their Spit & Twit event. Alex Baldwin, Marketing Director at City Winery tells me, “It was a very successful initial effort in connecting the online and offline worlds. Participation was very high during the event and afterwards. All of these things are experimental in the world of the unproven but overall we were very happy with the turn out.”

Wine Blogs

There are several choices to choose from when looking for a good wine blog. Tyler Colman has a PhD in political science and is a wine educator at New York University and the University of Chicago. He has written about wine in many publications from The New York Times to Food & Wine. So, yes, he’s highly accredited. But simply, I like his blog better than the other highly rated wine blogs because he speaks in a manner in which the non-wine educated masses can understand. He also tends to run a visually driven site, which I firmly believe to be the best way to communicate.

So, I tip my glass to you. It’s time for me to go get my birthday party started. Hopefully, this doesn’t all end with me drinking from the spit bucket…

This morning, I read a little item in Page Six about Sienna Miller reuniting with her alleged ex, Slinky Wizard (George Barker). It was an innocuous little report about the two of them shopping for vintage lingerie together, and how it looked like Sienna and Slinky were still together, despite the reports that they had split.

That was fast! Just days after Sienna Miller reportedly gave DJ Slinky Wizard the kiss-off, the PDA-friendly couple was shopping for vintage (but never worn) underwear in SoHo. Our spies caught the Broadway beauty and the Brit disc-spinner (real name, George Barker) snapping up the old-style undies, a “Heart Print” crop top and other items at Only Hearts on Mott Street yesterday.

“They seemed very much a couple,” said our snitch. “George was talking about how he was excited about their plans for the night.”

Last weekend, reports out of London had Miller dumping the Slink-man because she wasn’t up for a transatlantic romance.

“That didn’t look to be the case,” our spy said. And, despite seeming to be a bit behind schedule, Miller “was very pleasant and kind,” said our witness. “She left some pieces in the dressing room when she left and apologized to the staff for not bringing them back out to put on the selling floor.”

[From Page Six]

She tried on underwear and then left it on the floor of the dressing room? God, Sienna is so gross. Anyway, when I talked about Siennas alleged Slinky split earlier this week, I even noted that I thought there was a possibility that Sienna and Balthazar Getty could be secretly dating still. Now the Blathy has hit the fan! Michael K at Dlisted pointed out that Gawker has a source who claims that Sienna was actually with Balthy at Only Hearts, not Slinky. Gawker claims: We don’t know who’s right, but our snitch says she also saw Sienna shopping at the Only Hearts store in SoHo, but she wasn’t with Nobody Beats the Wiz, but with Balthazar Getty. We don’t know who is right, and actually it is kinda hard to tell them apart. Michael K even pulled a report from Pop Sugar (photos here)from earlier this week – where Balthy and Sienna were getting manicures together! Son of a

Sienna Miller was in a shaggy coat to walk her dog Bess in NYC yesterday, but her company this afternoon was a little more unexpected she was spotted getting manicures and massages alongside none other than Balthazar Getty.

The duo tried to go incognito and looked a little shaken up when they realized they’d been spotted. Sienna took off with Bess for another stroll, leaving Balthazar to head elsewhere in his Dodgers cap.

It was recently rumored that Sienna has officially parted ways from her Summer fling, George “Slinky Wizard” Barker, and Jude Law’s reps shot down whispers of their reconciliation. Sienna’s love life is never dull, but it looks like Balthazar’s back in the picture even if George and Jude aren’t.

[From Pop Sugar]

I totally believe that Balthy and Sienna are still together. I think theyve always been together, and theyve just been keeping their affair on the downlow because of all of the horrible press they both got. I think Sienna may have briefly dated Slinky Wizard, but her heart wasnt in it, probably because there was too little drama. I cant wait for Siennas next round of f-ck off, I was nave about Balthy interviews. Theres probably even a topless vacation with Balthy in her future!

Heres Sienna taking her dog for a walk in New York City this morning. Images thanks to BauerGriffinOnline.

I’ve got a female friend that wants to get into the adult webcam biz. I’m thinking about ways to help her make money and of course make some myself.

Maybe a JV with someone already driving traffic to affiliate sites, and to models etc?
Or maybe someone e-whoring that wants to JV?

Looking for some advice or opinions etc.
She’s willing to do niche type stuff (milf, nurse, etc. costumes) no hardcore tho.

I’m thinking twitter profile, dating site profiles, CL ads etc. Pre-recorded videos, selling her own content to webmasters etc.

Looking at the imlive scenario, they take quite a bit of commission and you have to sit in free chat and convert etc. in order to produce $$$ at a higher per minute rate.
I don’t think there’s enough $$$ in that unless customers get driven to her page.

Maybe someone can drive paying customers and we set up a partnership or commission for a partner? or partners?

pm me if you have any ideas, or JV etc.

Jono Bacon over at ArtofCommunityOnline.org, has published a new book called the Art of Community which he is making available for a limited time for free on his site at the below URL.  Check it out and download it now while it’s still free.  Enjoy and let us know what you think of the book!  Thanks Jono for sharing!  As an author myself I am not sure I could have gotten McGraw-Hill to agree to a free download version.  If you like the book please buy a copy as a gift to support Jono and his publisher.  Not everyone will read a book online.

The Art of Cummunity Book Free Download

http://www.artofcommunityonline.org/2009/09/18/the-art-of-community-now-available-for-free-download/

Here are a few words from the author; 

When I started work on The Art of Community I was really keen that it should be a body of work that all communities have access to. My passion behind the book was to provide a solid guide to building, energizing and enabling pro-active, productive and enjoyable communities. I wanted to write a book that covered the major areas of community leadership, distilling a set of best practices and experiences, and illustrated by countless stories, anecdotes and tales.

But to give this book real value, I was keen to ensure the book could be freely accessed and shared. I wanted to not only break down the financial barrier to the information, but also enable communities to share it to have the content be as useful as possible in the scenarios, opportunities and problems that face them. To make this happen O’Reilly needed to be on board to allow the book to be freely copied and shared, in an era in which these very freedoms threaten the publishing world.

But they came through. Thanks to the incredible support of Andy Oram, my founding editor for the book, O’Reilly were hugely supportive of the project and our desire to break down these barriers…

Warren Raisch Social Marketing Success Stories: Post: November 6, 2009

SiteTalk ist eine multifunktionelle, mehrsprachige Social Network Plattform (Community wie Xing, Facebook, Wer-kennt-Wen, MySpace usw.), die weltweit alle Menschen kostenlos miteinander verbindet.
Inklusiv ist ein kostenloses Geschäftsmodell für jeden. Jeder User bekommt sein persönliches Back-Office mit Einblick auf den Umsatz und die mögliche Provision. Der Start steht unmittelbar bevor und es werden folgende Funktionen nach und nach verfügbar sein:

- Videos, Musik, Up- und Download
- Chats, Blogs, Foren
- Webshop mit Megaproduktpaketen
- Spiele wie Poker etc.
- Kontaktanbahnung wie bei Xing

Folgende Features sind ausserdem geplant:

- Anzeigenmarkt ähnlich wie bei Ebay
- Jobbörse
- Kontaktbörse für Vertriebler
- Hobbykalender
- Chat im Freundeskreis wie bei Skype – Online Radio, Online Fernsehen und vieles mehr.

Es finden auch regelmässig Online-Präsentationen statt, zu denen Sie herzlich eingeladen sind und wo Sie ausführliche Informationen zur Plattform und der kostenlosen Geschäftsgelegenheit bekommen.
In der Woche vom 02.-08.11.2009 sind am Dienstag, Mittwoch und Donnerstag 20:00 Uhr Präsentationen.

Um die Zugangsdaten anzufordern klicken Sie bitte HIER.

Have you ever wondered where all your friends from college are? Or have you wondered if anyone is looking for you? With today technologies, looking for your old friends becomes much easier to manage.

MyLife website makes this task possible to locate anyone on your wish list. Not only this website allows you to search for old friends, it also lets you see who is looking for you! It is one of largest sites on the internet to search for people that you want to reconnect, or curious about.

One very special person to me that I periodically looking for is a lady that I’ve met through our marriages. Since both of our marriages failed, and we moved many times during these times, we both lost contact. Therefore, I went on MyLife website and entered the information that I last known about her for a search.

The returning results were overwhelming with so many people with the same name, location, and age. Therefore, I narrowing down a bit further to her maiden name, her home place in Pennsylvania, and finally tracked her to her home in California!

It turned out that she has also been searching for me, and we are both happy to be able to get back in touch. Our relationship is a once in a life time special bond when we share so much of the same thoughts, feelings, and passions, and it is not easy to establish.

We have planned for a reunion this Fall to reminisce the first time we met! If you are looking for someone special in your life, check out this website, and reconnect with that person.

I’ve received too many Christmas Cards last year 2008. I got 63 Chirstmas Cards greetings from online friends and friends here in Carolina too. In the year 2008 i only got 25 Christmas Cards maybe because i was not active anymore in any online networking so much. Because i was busy making online money on blogging world. In this year 2009 i hope i will still receive few greetings from a friend to all my online friends. Friends from neighborhood, friends from every where around the world.

Last year its was very meaningful to me. Because i found a lot of true friends around the corner. Friends you know who you are…hope your not going to be changed. I hope that our friendship will last forever and it will not wither in one spun of test, trial along the way. Friends is hard to find.

Might Caught your Attention…

A woman meets with her lover,
who is also her husband’s best friend.

They make love for hours.
Afterwards, as they lie in bed, the phone rings.

Since it’s the woman’s house,
she picks up the receiver.

The best friend listens,
only hearing her side of the conversation:

“Hello ? Oh, hi… I’m so glad that you called… Really ?
That’s wonderful…

Well, I’m happy to hear you’re having such a great time…
Oh, that sounds terrific…

Love you, too. OK. Bye-bye.”

She hangs up the telephone and her lover asks,
“Who was that ?”

“Oh,” she replies, “That was my husband telling me
about the wonderful time
“
“
“
“
“
“

he’s having on his fishing trip with you.”

As Lilu always says: ***Alright, folks, you know the rules. Join us all in humiliating the crap out of yourself every Thursday by sharing some completely tasteless, wholly unclassy, “how many readers can I estrange THIS week??” TMI story about your life. Or hell, about someone else’s!

Make sure you check out Lilu’s site today for her special post secret TMI edition, and check out her TMI Thursday archives for all sorts of hilarity!

***Carissajaded here. As today is my best friend LA’s Birthday, and I am poor, I granted her the only wish I could. Oh yes, I have handed my blog over and given her the opportunity of a lifetime, to tell the most embarrassing story she can about me. And she knows a lot. I am not allowed to edit this story in any way. I now hand the mic over to LA!

It might have been a regular hungover Sunday afternoon.  Either way, it’s a great story.

I should take this one small moment to say, this is not a CarissaJaded.  I was given an opportunity today to “guest blog” because it’s my birthday. I’m taking full advantage.  Karma is a bitch.

And without further ado… I need to start at the beginning.

We had a friend who was soon to be married.  I know, I know… To many, that’s the scariest part of the story - it gets better – trust me.

We, of course, did what every best friend does and threw a bachelorette party.  To mix things up, we decided to go to the River Walk in San Antonio, TX.  There were 8 of us in total and I will leave it up to your imagination as to whom the star of this story is.  However, this is obviously CJade’s blog so I’ll go ahead and make the point that she was definitely a witness to what happened (insert dubious smile here).

It was a wonderful night filled with stories about exes, “do you remember the time you”, and about twenty or so shots.  You know?  The norm.  At around 2am we went back to the hotel because it was closing time.  Everyone, of course, cozied in for the night.  (Note to the reader: I may or may not have omitted some key moments that occurred this evening.  Excessive drinking may or may not have occurred after 2am.  Because I have not chosen to write a blog about my life, I do not necessarily want to share those things with the world.  I am, however, giving you the option to read between the lines and use your imagination about what could have possibly happened… until around say…5am that following Sunday morning.)

We all awoke that Sunday, hungover and wishing we were dead bright eyed and bushy tailed.  It was a 3 and 1/2 hour drive northward – not a big deal- and we were all at that point in a vacation where you just want to be home.  This is when it gets scary.

We had an hour left to go.  Wait, did I forget to mention that at hour 2 we stopped at the “Beef Jerky Farm” to buy a pound of habanero beef jerky?  Who wouldn’t?  Duh!

We’re cruising right along (45 minutes left) when I notice that something isn’t right.  My nostrils are twitching. They have somehow caught wind of something that my brain has yet to catch up to.  It’s unmistakable.  It’s a fart.  Yes, I said it.  It’s a fart.

I immediately do what EVERY person does when one is laid in their car.  I roll down the windows and yell.  “Eeeeew!!!! You are soooo disgusting!!!  You have to warn me before you do that!!!  What did you eat (habenero beef jerky)???”  And after a few seconds of us laughing and fake vomiting, I roll up the windows.

The windows are up.

My nose begins to twitch again.

I’m confused.

I look at her curiously.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

She looks at me with a look of horror.  “OH MY GOD!”

The look is unmistakable.  In that one instant I knew what she could not say.

I yell, “LIFT UP! LIFT UP! DO NOT SIT ON MY SEAT!”

She says, “PULL OVER! PULL OVER!”

I say, “GET SOMETHING! PUT SOMETHING UNDERNEATH YOU!”

And I did.  I pulled over to the nearest exit.  And she did.  She grabbed the paper sack the beef jerky came in.

I should also mention that there is a third party in the backseat at this time, the bachelorette, who has been laughing so hard that her her shrieks and tears could easily be mistaken for those of someone in labor.  Mine however, could not be.  I was of course, very worried about my light beige cloth seats.  Neither one of us, the bachelorette or myself, are of any help at all.  All I can do is yell and shove my passenger from my car.  All the soon-to-be-married girl can do is gasp between her laughter and tears.

And this is where the story ends my friends.  I pulled over at the closest, yet most inconvenient place.  She got out and changed her pants using my car door and the nearby dumpster as her cover.  We met our friends who were driving in front of us (and wondering about the hold up) at the Chili’s that was an exit ahead of us.  ”She” passed on the queso they’d just ordered.  Amidst her embarrassed tears and nervous laughter she retold the story just as I’ve now told you.

I love you friend for allowing me to put this story out for all to read.  And oh yeah, you deserve it.

Megan Fox appearing as host of Saturday Night Live proves that if there’s one person who’s an authority on new, hot starlets, it has to be… Lorne Michaels. Even though the legendary ‘Saturday Night Live’ producer looks like your benevolent uncle, he has quite the eye for the young ladies, as this week’s host Fox proves. Here’s a look at some of the other hot actresses that Lorne tapped to host at the height of their sexiness.

Natalie Portman

It’s one thing to host ‘Saturday Night Live,’ but it’s quite another to be involved in one of the most memorable and buzzed about skits of the decade. Thanks to her image-shattering rap for this 2006 digital short, though, Natalie did just that, putting her at the top of the ingénue hosting heap.

Lindsay Lohan

When Lindsay served her first stint as host back in 2004, she was a fresh-faced new voice in Hollywood and generally considered a rising star. Of course, her career has hit a few speed bumps since then, but with that ‘SNL’ gig under her belt, we can never doubt her comic timing.

Scarlett Johansson

It wasn’t that long ago that Scarlett Johansson was the It Girl in Hollywood, and her stint as host in 2006 was just further confirmation of that lofty status. Now, of course, she might not even be the hottest person in her own marriage. But don’t worry, Scarlett is sure to be invited back to ‘SNL’ soon – perhaps when her husband Ryan Reynolds hosts the show next week, for instance.

Anne Hathaway

Anne followed up her commercial success in ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ with critical acclaim for ‘Rachel Getting Married,’ which was released the first Friday of last October. Proof that ‘SNL’ has their fingers on the pulse of Hollywood? She hosted the show the next day.

Jennifer Garner

Back when Jennifer Garner became an ‘SNL’ host in 2003, she was still on the cusp of stardom, with a cult show (‘Alias’) and supporting roles in mid-sized films (‘Daredevil’). As usual, though, Lorne Michaels showed impeccable timing – within a year she had gone supernova thanks to her starring role in ‘13 Going on 30′ and was well on her way to a life of tabloid supremacy.

Anna Faris

As we’ve seen all too many times over the past 35 years, any celebrity can trot up on stage and be carried through a few skits by ‘Saturday Night Live’s’ cast. What’s truly rare, though, is to have a host that is also the funniest person on the show. The ‘House Bunny’s’ Anna Faris managed to pull this off last year while also adding another level of difficulty by being both funny and smoking hot at the same time.

Paris Hilton

We’re going to refrain from making any cheap jokes at Ms. Hilton’s expense, partly because we think she’s gotten enough of that already, but also because no matter how cheap our jokes get they still can’t match up with the jokes that Hilton played on herself with the help of the SNL cast. She managed to wrangle a gig as host in 2005 thanks in large part, no doubt, to her performance in this tryout as a guest on Weekend Update.

Kate Hudson

Like the rest of America, Lorne Michaels must have been enchanted by Kate’s star-making turn in ‘Almost Famous,’ because he instantly booked her to host the show when the movie went big in 2000. Since then, sadly, none of her roles have captured us the way Penny Lane did, but we’re still holding out hope. It’s not too late, sister!

Amy Adams

Considering her first film was titled ‘Drop Dead Gorgeous’ and she’s often been cast in roles such as “Gorgeous Woman”, you’d think we all would have noticed a little sooner just how hot Amy Adams is. Luckily, ‘SNL’ is there to point out the obvious; when she finally forced us to sit up and take notice with ‘Enchanted’ in 2007, Amy was one of the first hosts brought on to help re-launch the show after the end of the writer’s strike. Maybe some flowers just take longer to bloom.

Eva Longoria Parker

If there’s one thing French basketball playing rappers and jaded television executives alike can agree on, it’s the allure of the stunning Eva Longoria Parker. Just a year after she came out of nowhere to star in the breakout hit ‘Desperate Housewives’ she was in the catbird seat on ‘Saturday Night Live.’

Moments ago, Josh Bernoff posted this year’s winners of the 2009 Forrester Groundswell awards on the Groundswell blog. If you scroll down to the middle of the post (be forewarned; it’s a long one) you will see the winners and finalists in the B2B category winners. The images are great to look at as well.

In my research, I see marketers approach social media with a mix of enthusiasm and skepticism. Most want to know which firms execute social pursuits well and what tangible outcomes occur. Take a look and I think you will agree that these winners show how B2B firms can lead the way in achieving real business results.

As social activity expands – and business people seek out peers online to exchange ideas and validate their purchase decisions – these award winners and finalists demonstrate 6 types of objectives B2B marketers can use to connect – and ultimately change their relationship – with customers. Briefly, here’s what those 6 objectives are and why our winners took home the prize:

1) Listen to what customers talk about.  Listening to prospects and buyers may seem boring, so B2B markers tend to overlook this objective as an important start to setting social strategy. Yet, researching and analyzing what customers talk about pays off in deeper insight that leads to measurable benefits. CDW teamed with Communispace to listen to customers who participate in its community and apply those lessons to their sales interactions. As a result CDW increased the average of their total customer purchase revenue by 17% when comparing June 2009 to June 2008.

2) Talk with your customers (not at them): Successful marketers turn online activity and content into rich conversations. Eloqua’s self-guided sales tool, called the Conversation, treats users to an interactive discussion that hones in on their most pressing marketing problems using a combination of tongue-in-cheek humor and straight talk. Between 18 and 20% of buyers who engaged with an integrated campaign featuring this tool became prospects for Eloqua’s solutions.

3) Energize your best customers to talk about you. In B2B, using social media to energize customers around user meetings and conferences is a great example of making social media produce results. Depite restrictions on travel due to the economy, Sonic Foundry boosted Unleash 2009 attendance by 15%, and created a healthy pipeline of opportunity riding in on the coattails of this event.

4) Help your customers support each other. Social tools will accelerate the transformation of support forums from simple question/answer tools to communities where business-minded individuals network, share best practices, and seek business-oriented advice. In EDR’s case, commonground — a communityfor environmental professionals – resulted in over 90% of its customers giving EDR’s service a big thumbs up.

5) Encourage your customers spread success. In B2B, community succeeds when participation gets customers in a market — or users within buying organizations — to help others to adopt a product or service. ComplianceOnline, which I have written about previously, demonstrates this very well by attracting 500,000 subscribers, allowing members to share/purchase each other’s services, and generating approximately 30% of MetricStream’s leads.

6) Embrace customer ideas and suggestions. Ask customers for their opinions and ideas, and you will likely be overwhelmed with a huge number of responses. This was a hard category to judge because most of the submissions seemed to prove this conventional wisdom. Archer Technologies stood apart because, in their entry, they talked about how 2400 members contributed 1529 ideas resulting in new mobile and continuity products. That’s how to use the social power of your customers to drive business.

Will you join me in congratulating our new, B2B Groundswell Award winners?  And thank all of those who participated, especially after I badgered — uh, “reminded” you to do so . . .

And let me know about other B2B examples you find winning in the groundswell; I’d love to hear — and share — more.

Another tough one to swallow (but sometimes the Truth hurts)…

Another RandomStarMusic.com Critic’s insight…

Just in case you’re tired of hearing what I have to say, here’s a Critic from RandomStarMusic.com…

Without this TidBit…you’re just spinning your wheels and going nowhere.  Let’s move forward with TidBit#4…

May not like this one too much, but I wouldn’t steer you wrong…=)

Advice TidBit #2…

Here is the first piece advice that I have for Indie Talent (Artists/Models) in the journey from beginning to SUCCESS: TidBit #1…

The Summit on Customer Engagement continues Tuesday, October 21.  From yesterday’s session, here are my takeaways from the panel discussion where Jeff Tinker, SVP Wholesale Product and Market Strategy, Wells Fargo, Asim Zaheer, VP Global Product and Competitive Marketing, Hitachi Data Systems and John Pasquarette, VP of Product Marketing for Software, National Instruments talked about their current, direct experience with customer programs. Bill Lee moderated and took questions from the audience.

What do your customer programs look like and what are the best practices that you see work?

Wells Fargo started by focusing customer engagement programs at the B2B user level, but has shifted more dollars and attention on the decision maker level .  They have built online community destinations that successfully attract users (of small business banking products, for example), but now face the challenge of involving large business decision makers and creating deeper relationships with them online. Right now, customer engagement with decision makers happen offline.  To ensure maximum value for participants, they interview advisory board members before each meeting, synthesize what members want to hear from bank and each other, and facilitate this discussion.

Wells launched user community 2 years ago as a separate site with separate registration.  Flat growth in community membership resulted. Recently, they integrated the community into the main Wells Fargo portal to make the community more accessible.  The Wachovia acquisition, and increased interest in industry-specific topics, led to a doubling in their advisory board numbers. To meet this increased demand, Wells is looking at how to do customer advisory meetings virtually.

Jeff sees written case studies get less interest than in the past; current clients want to interact and ask questions of each other — whether about Wells products, how the merger is going, or a host of other topics.

National Instruments –  which John describes as “the Home Depot for engineers” – produces tools that engineers use to develop and test products. Like Wells, customer engagement with end users is going very well.  Unlike Wells, NI needs to help their salesforce, who are all degreed engineers, to have higher-valued, business-level discussion. NI sees community tools and technology as a way to help resolve this.

John says NI executives, marketing, product managers, etc. spend a lot of time with their key customers. For example, an NI team just spent 2 days onsite with Harris learning how Harris uses their tools to reduce cycle  and test time.  Adoption is critical – once engineers move onto the NI platform, they don’t move off. So references — and demonstrating a vibrant community of like-minded engineers to new prospects —  is key to getting them to become customers in the first place. Customer references and case studies help to build that community identity and following. 

Hitachi Data Systems sells storage solutions to large enterprises, deals topping hundreds of thousands of dollars on average. Asim is accelerating their customer engagement activities to learn about – and adapt to — what customers face in this changing economy. HDS customer advisory boards are high-touch, but now HDS needs to move this activity down stream and engage the midmarket. They are working with TechValidate to see how automation can help them to reach into the midmarket further.

So far, HDS has created about ½ a dozen communities on LinkedIn and is currently montioring how prospects and customers use this social network to share successes and horror stories on a community-by-community basis. Community members know HDS sponsors the LinkedIn groups, but HDS actsl simply as an observer and moderator; they do not actively “participate” on these community pages. Currently, the LinkedIn experiment is not connected to customer reference activity.  Beyond this, HDS hosts gated, online communities. Keys to success with these private communities are: 1) Give the participants something of value that they can’t get elsewhere, 2) keep participation volume high– get more than 2-3 folks talking, and 3) make the feedback mechanism direct to HDS short and uncomplicated. HDS finds good customer references actively come from this community.

What do you do about customers/prospects who complain or make disparaging comments in communities?

Jeff talked about how the principles of good customer support/relationship building applies in the online world just as well as the offline.  You have to talk to the people with complaints or gripes; you can’t ignore them.  Don’t defend, but don’t justify either.  Jeff says, “If we are wrong, we admit it. We respond within 24 hours.” At first Wells’ legal department put together 7 pages of guidelines about how to interact in the community – but the executive sponsor stepped in and said “I want simple terms and conditions; we don’t want to stifle dialog”.

John says NI welcomes disparaging comments. Many times a customer, not an NI employee, jumps in to respond.  NI has changed a policy – or said why they can’t – when the customers bring up issues on the community. We regularly survey our customers on satisfaction, which is the final scoreboard for this activity.  John said, “The community provides one avenue of input to our strategy and direction, but we don’t knee-jerk react to all of it.”

Asim advises “don’t get into arguments with them.” Listen, address the issue, admit mistakes when you make them, and let other customers chime in.

How do you concisely explain the ROI of this activity to your executives and board? Especially when putting forth a budget?

Asim explained that justification is not that big a problem at HDS because HDS executives on down all agree they need and want to talk to customers. Customers are HDS’s biggest asset and customer engagment programs help them grow this investment.  But they do look at both hard-dollar and soft-impacts. For example, when some customers had trouble traveling to executive briefing centers to spend time with HDS engineers and execs, HDS looked at the numbers and found they could afford to take the program on the road.  Visiting a dozen cities for in-depth customer meetings is not cheap, but HDS track deal flow and revenue impacted by these events and has seen a very positive impact.  So much so that they plan to expand the executive briefing center roadshow to more cities in 2010.

Jeff said that Wells definitely increased its level of investment and involvement in customer engagement in 2009. To demonstrate the payoff, they highlight the role customers play in the development of products and how much customer interaction help them reduce time to market for new products. Customers cut the guesswork out of the development process.

Following this panel, Bill Lee hosted a “fireside chat” with Dan Crain, former CTO, Brocade and Tim Thorsteinson, Harris Broadcasting, on the topic of “What do Decision Makers Want from the B2B Relationship?”

Bottomline: Decision makers want trustworthy relationships and relevant discussion about industry topics.  They don’t want to engage in customer programs that are product or transactional in focus.

Dan Crain has bought a lot of IT equipment in his career, and gets invited to customer programs all the time. If sales sponsors them, he’s not interested. If the program is run by product marketing or the technical people, he finds much more value.  The most attractive programs center on discussion around industry-level issues.

Regarding social activity
Dan: “Social media is not good for putting out managed information or messages about your company. It’s more about getting closer to customers.”  Communities are not a new thing: the techn industry has had bulletin boards and forums for a long time.  They are a great way for users to interact, although it is debateable whether the new host of social software tools really enhances this.  Microsoft is a great example of how to use forums to interact with users well. In contrast, Dell putting out coupon codes for refurbished equipment on Twitter is not about getting closer to customers. But listening to customer suggestions and request on Dell IdeaStorm is.

Tim said Harris has used social media to automate getting feedback on products or specific ideas.  He feels it social media is better used for automating a focus group than blasting out messages to the community on social channels.

Tim and Dan agree: Buyers who select a vendor to work with want that vendor to be successful. So executives and decision makers will take time to provide references or to participate in customer advisory.

Today and tomorrow the Customer Strategy Group is hosting its inaugural summit on customer engagement – an intimate, executive conference designed for B2B marketers who manage customer reference programs, advisory boards, and the emerging area of online communities.  I will speak later today to about 70 t0 80 marketers and sponsors about “Understanding the Value of Customer Engagement”

Business marketers know customers who give references, participate on advisory boards, and engage in online communities are more valuable than those who are bystanders. But how do you quantify this value and socialize it to the rest of the business – especially in a tight economy when all the focus is on revenue and pipeline?  This forum takes a close look at this question.  In my presentation, I will introduce a model for measuring customer engagement that includes four components: involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence. Each component requires data collected from online and offline sources that — when done successfully — give marketers a more holistic appreciation of their customers’ actions while recognizing that value comes not just from transactions but also from actions customers take to influence others. I show how marketing messages become conversations, and dollars shift from media buying to customer understanding, when firms adopt engagement metrics to capture the value of customer relationships

Here are the highlights from the morning keynote sessions I attended:

1)       Sean Geehan, who helps B2B executives understand what it takes to drive revenue, growth, and shareholder value. In his work on customer engagement, he has shown that companies that target their customer programs at their “top 20%” customers outperform the market by several factors.  He profiles companies like Harris Corporation, HCL, and Oracle in his upcoming book to demonstrate this.   He sees firms that specifically target decision makers in customer engagement programs (versus end users or middle management) see retention rates of 90% (vs. 72%) and account growth of 12% (vs. 4%).  Most importantly their reference rates are 94% vs 28% — underlining the vital importance of creating customer engagement at the executive level, not simply among worker bees.  I think this has BIG implications for community development in B2B.

2)  Tim Thorsteinson, President, Broadcast Communications Division, Harris Corporation talked about the benefits of customers engagement in face of the seismic shift in the broadcasting market from conventional, US-based TV stations to cable, satellite, government, international and sports. His division sells video equipment in all these markets and 50% of their revenue now comes from products introduced in last 24 months. (They spend about $90M on R&D). Approximately 10% of customers generate 90% of revenue. His main point is that Harris could not have made this shift successfully without creating an executive advisory board – focused on this 10% — to draw insight from and validate their decisions. And these customers deliver value: EAB members drove 16% of Harris Broadcast revenue in 2009.

Observations: He enjoys fairly exclusive access to his dozen or so EAB members since Harris’ competitors don’t actively pursue customer advisory boards. He says face-to-face, intimate, offsite meetings with deep content – but that also feature a fun, inviting locations or activities — is very important to keeping these relationships strong.  No stand-ins allowed; members can’t send substitutes to the meetings. In between Harris uses quarterly conference calls and newsletters to stay in touch. Content includes technical issues, industry trends, but is not salesy.  He knows the EAB is successful because networking happens outside – and Tim believes this would continue without Harris’s sponsorship. EAB members talk about how to make their sector more attractive to Wall Street.  They also want a seat at the table with other industry leaders, where relevant dialog can happen, and where they can talk about the real business problems they face (not technology/ products.)