Archive for September, 2009

Communities only work when those you want to engage actually participate. This may sound obvious. However, many businesses forget to ensure that the communities they create area actually compelling and rewarding to their target audience. Here is an explanation why and some examples of business that remembered, “it was not just about themselves…”

One of the biggest mistakes I see when business create social communities is thinking they have to create yet-another-copy of Facebook. There or many social network business solutions at our disposal. The key is picking the right one to solve the problem on hand and achieve the metrics identified for success…

What will Oracle do with MySQL after they complete their purchase of Sun? Will this cause you to re-think what database platform you use? Will it make you more — or less — inclined to use open source? I would like to know…

It is not sufficient to simply understand the scope of the business problem or opportunity you are trying to address with your community. You also need to identify how you will measure success BEFORE you start building. This enables you to know “where you are going” and plan a route (mapping your community against your enterprise value chain) before you begin spending time and money…

When a new, hot technology appears, it is easy to jump on the bandwagon and focus solely implementing it for your enterprise. However, if you do this you are likely to only do just that, deliver new technology. To use technology to create business value you have start by putting your finger on a problem to solve (then providing all that is needed – technology and otherwise) to solve this problem…

This is my first in a series of 10 posts about how to build effective Social Media communities for business (and government). My first point is that is important to BEGIN with the understanding that Social Media does NOT “change everything,” — it simply adds several new channels for you to interact with your stakeholders…