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Telligent leadership team
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Posted by
George Dearing
on September 2 2008
Below is some quick information I compiled recently after a conversation with one of my Telligent colleagues, Mike Johnson. Mike works in Telligent's Interactive Gaming group and is working on a corporate blogging project.
In his words:
"The executive wants to launch a blog and he’s excited about it, but a Corporate Communications staffer is a bit hesitant because she’s not sure what the story would be on a weekly basis."
Ah, the dreaded, "we have a smart executive that can actually talk about our business but I'm not sure if he actually will" fear.
In my experience, it really comes down to institutionalizing that commitment as you move toward high profile corporate and leadership blogging. I've listed some things to think as you consider your own corporate blogging initiative.
-Discuss the topics to be discussed and decide the amount of depth to be explored.
- Create and publish an editorial calendar. This creates some transparency internally and will put the right pressure on the executive to get it done.
- Pull in the Corporate Communications and Legal group early to set some guidelines and discuss best practices.
- Perform a content audit that covers not only existing content that should be surfaced, but external content (RSS feeds,blogs,industry sites) that needs to be distilled down by the executive.
- Perform a broad-based analysis of other peers blogging in the executive's circle. ( Telligent recommends using a social media monitoring tool to provide ongoing insight and conversation monitoring)
- Decide who else will be involved in the executive's workflow. In other words, make sure there's a community manager to perform day-to-day activities like moderation, posting, etc.
- From a technology perspective, make sure you have a sustainable plan for extending the blog's reach. Too many times, the technology has limitations that hinder the ability to wrap other community elements around the executive's blog.
- Have the executive and the blogging team talk to customers. Think of this as a blog-oriented focus group. Many times the company's customers will have specific business issues and challenges they'd like to see a real executive address in a public forum.
- When all else fails, start the blogging initiative behind the firewall and help your executive get comfortable with the process. If it crashes and burns, you've only got internal egg on the executive's face.
And while I was compiling the content, I started by performing some quick Google searches and then moved on to more specific tag-based searches for things like "executive blogs" and "corporate" blogs". Those two tasks uncovered the links below:
Baseline Magazine article on executive blogs:
Delicious search for "Executive Blogs".
5 corporate blogs that built buzz (Dell is a Telligent client)
I hope you'll provide some feedback as you flesh out the pieces of your own social media strategy.
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Posted by
George Dearing
on August 22 2008
Hat tip to my fellow social computer Jim Gross for pointing us to a recent video interview conducted by Uberpulse at a Dell event in San Francisco. Open (minds, finds, conversations) emphasized a quote from Lark below that portrays Dell's reliance on social media to drive its marketing strategy.
"The social media stuff is probably the most important thing we do today, from a marketing standpoint. A lot of the other elements of our marketing mix has sort of become more and more transactional and more and more tactical in nature. The social media stuff is much more strategic... It's about how to use social media to power the fundamentals of the business. That’s what we’re focused on."
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Posted by
George Dearing
on August 21 2008
In the latest McKinsey web 2.0 report, "Building the Web 2.0 Enterprise: McKinsey Global Survey Results, the research is mostly positive relative the 2.0 climate. The downside of the report had to do with adoption issues, which to no one's surprise, presents the biggest challenge for all of us, especially for internal enterprise 2.0 efforts. We just discussed some of the things you can do to prepare for your enterprise 2.0 efforts in case you missed it.
Also, web services got some of the best press because of the connectivity it provides to existing applications and web 2.0 platforms and got the highest marks in Europe. The overall adoption of Web 2.0 infrastructure is clearly growing, albeit slower than I would've thought. The other trend I noticed was the notion of IT owning and introducing web 2.0 tools to the business units. We'll see more of that as social software continues to settle inside the firewall. Things like governance and application integration, already managed by internal IT, will increasingly be mapped to social technologies and therefore expand IT's role.
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Posted by
George Dearing
on August 21 2008
I presented some thoughts on choosing a white label social networking platform recently at Adtech Chicago and thought I'd elaborate on some of the pitch points. You can tell the focus drove deeper than product comparisons and suggested a more thorough look at the vendors themselves. How do they use their own product? How do they go to market? Who are their partners and how do they play off one another to create value?
What's The Platform's Sweet Spot?
Does the vendor's strength play unevenly towards certain elements of social computing. In other words, did they start out as a blog provider and magically reinvent themselves as as a platform play?
Can They Play Inside and Outside the Firewall?
The lines between external and internal communities are becoming increasingly blurred. If your vendor doesn't have an answer for playing nicely with SharePoint and can't turn that around and go external, move on.
What Are Their Social Media Credentials?
You can quantify this pretty easily. Do they blog? Are they good at involving customers in the conversation? If they haven't synchronized their own communications, there's a good chance they can't do it for you.
Is The Platform Geared For Particular Verticals?
Did the vendor grow up in a particular industry? If so, you might find the product cluttered with unnecessary or thin layers of specific applications you don't need. You'd be surprised how much big paychecks from certain clients influence a product roadmap.
How Strong Is Their Channel?
A good sign of a platform's maturity is how many partners have latched on. The key here is to let the solution providers, integrators and digital agencies make the platform hum. While most of the time you can find a good contingency of subject matter experts (SMEs) on the vendor side, the channel is the ecosystem that makes things tick.
Have They Worked With Agencies Before?
One of Telligent's strengths is our agency network. Ad agencies, PR firms and interactive shops use Community Server everyday to deliver online campaigns and automate processes internally. Make sure your vendor understands the agency workflow.
What About 3rd Party Alliances?
This is critical as you expand your online efforts. Whether it's a CRM integration,or an e-commerce application, the odds are you'll want to extend your social computing platform as your community grows. Take a close look at who the vendor goes to market with and how they leverage each other.
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Posted by
George Dearing
on August 20 2008
There's certain times when you have that gut feeling about something. That time when you just know there's better ways to do things but you can't seem to decipher the right approach to get there. One shift in today's business landscape that doesn't make it any easier is enterprise 2.0, big brother of its more publicized and consumer-oriented Web 2.0.While few of the digerati would ever debate enterprise 2.0's worth, a lot of businesses still struggle with where to start or how to build a team of technical communicators and media creators.And if you're a buyer, you're acutely aware of all the tool sets, software and services at your disposal,something that certainly doesn't help enterprise 2.0's signal to noise ratio.
So how do you 2.0-ify your approach to do doing business inside the firewall?
* Start with clear-cut business objectives
This is one you'll hear us harp on. Too many times we see businesses rush towards technology and tool sets before ensuring there's a comprehensive look at what the business really expects to gain from an enterprise 2.0 project. A lot of times it can be simple objectives like cutting down on the number of weekly meetings or reducing the amount of emails sent. For every departmental batch of emails you show me, I can give you plenty of ways to move that information into a more conversational and interactive channel with things like blogs, forums, or a wiki.
* Educate and inform
This is your chance to use enterprise 2.0 techniques to socialize your goals internally.Don't push out an email and cross your fingers you'll get responses. Create a blog and show the skeptics how easy it is to create content and receive that content automatically through RSS.
* Find the right people
One of our recent webinars with BtoB Magazine included a poll question that asked more than 1000 attendees about their biggest challenge related to creating an online community. Almost 30% said personnel and staffing is the biggest roadblock they're facing as they develop an enterprise social media strategy. As you put together you're plan of attack,do an analysis of your colleagues and map their skills back to a social media task or activity. If Jane in corporate communications is almost too good at articulating her thoughts in long emails, there's a good chance she could lead some of your blog efforts. Let's call it the social computing "skills audit".
* Focus on the low-hanging fruit
This one's about looking at your business processes and figuring out simple ways to incorporate some collaboration and conversation. Marketing, sales and corporate communications are good candidates to get on the enterprise 2.0 bandwagon because the flow of information tends to be fast and furious and collaboration is essential. As you begin socializing enterprise 2.0, make sure you quickly identify the pain points of each group. Try not focus on the technology too much until you have things teed up and can demonstrate how processes will be improved.
* Think of your vendor as a long-term partner. It's about more than technology.
As you develop your enterprise 2.0 approach, there's no doubt you'll need to supplement your talent pool with things like professional services or strategy. The vendors (like us) are often times the best source of readily accessible horsepower. Look beyond vendor roadmaps and dig for subject matter experts (SMEs). These are the folks that have been in the trenches and can quickly identify and uncover industry standards and common practices to build a strategy around.
What else would you add?
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Posted by
George Dearing
on August 5 2008
We landed last night in spite of some nasty weather, and will be blogging the show today and tomorrow. Stop by booth #406 if you're interested in meeting some of the team -- we'll be happy to discuss how we're helping brands like Intel, Microsoft, Dell and Electronic Arts (EA) engage their audience and drive sales. The CoverItLive Widget below will have updates over the next few days, so send us some comments or let us know if you have any questions. Hope to meet some of you this week.
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Posted by
George Dearing
on July 29 2008
ABI didn't include us in their recent social software report, which perplexes me a bit, but we'll chalk it up to the characteristics of a nascent market. But as early as it is in the social software arms race, there are clear cut leaders beginning to emerge. Whether it's enterprise social computing, online communities, or web 2.0 platforms, I think most of us agree that its fundamentally about creating better ways to communicate. The companies that are able to innovate their platforms quickly enough and stay flexible when it comes to playing nicely with other vendors are the ones that will grab the most market share.
If anything, the strong enterprise 1.0 message espoused by ABI analyst Zippy Aima should give customers confidence as they move toward selecting an enterprise partner for social computing. Aima poses her top 3 questions you should ask when you're ready to begin your social software strategy.
- What specific features does the enterprise need or want? Each platform has differentiating feature sets and applications. Also, consider integrating enterprise applications with the networking platform. Some providers have greater integration capabilities than others.
- Consider security measures. An organization -- especially a large enterprise -- will want to ensure that content and messages exchanged across the platform remain within the network. Research the level of security that each solution offers.
- Evaluate the ease of implementing the platform throughout the enterprise. What if it becomes a burden to log in and access? Also consider the amount of time it will take users to learn and adopt. As for cost, Aima says that most of the available solutions are delivered in the software-as-a-service model, offering low-cost subscriptions.
What else do you want to know from your social networking vendor?
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Posted by
kvernon
on July 17 2008
Telligent's evangelist program is in full swing. A few weeks back, George Dearing came on board as Telligent's Senior Corporate Evangelist. Two weeks prior, we welcomed Burt Barnes on as our Community Server Product Evangelist. This gives us a solid team to spread the Telligent message far and wide. Burt comes to us with a solid business background as a director of interactive marketing. And you may have read George’s column in InformationWeek about Telligent back in March. You will start seeing the results of their work in this blog, the Community Server blog and all across the Web. Welcome to Telligent, gentlemen!
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Posted by
Adonis
on May 20 2008
Telligent and Community Server were sponsors of the Sports Marketing 2.0 VIP Summit in San
Francisco this last week. 100 attendees engaged in conversation through four
panels hosted by a number of industry experts from Telligent, Microsoft, Intel,
General Motors, IBM, Omniture, the NFL, the NBA and others.
There were some great topics. We spent time talking about measuring the
impact of social marketing. We discussed that, often, social marketing is "top
of funnel" marketing that can't be measured simply by counting click-throughs.
So, how do you justify investment in social computing? Harvest can help! We
talked about engagement and keeping members active and drawn into sites. When
talking about killer apps, a lot of time was spent discussing open framewo.rks
and utilizing sites like Twitter and MySpace and Facebook. Finally, in my panel
about Social Networks, we talked quite a bit about how teams, fans and sponsors
can build successful communities. Dan Harbison from the Portland Trailblazers
talked about how he used his network to encourage fans in the lean years giving
them a place to interact with still-rabid fans even though the team was
struggling. We talked about the ability for a regional site to build off-line
community in addition to the on-line presence and the ability for teams to build
direct channels to their fans for commerce and PR. In the past, teams
communicated to fans through media outlets. Today, those walls can be broken
down and teams and players can communicate directly to fans and vice versa.
Personally, I had a great time. I got to share how Telligent has provided
solutions with Community Server for Electronic Arts
and Gridiron
Greats. We talked about how Mike Ditka, Eric Dickerson and Steve Young used
the site during the week leading up to the SuperBowl to bring attention to a
very worthy cause. The location was awesome; AT&T Park is gorgeous. We had
cocktails and a nice meal in the visitors locker room and I got to meet with
various partners and companies I'd like to see us partner with.
If you're involved in Sports Marketing, you should seriously consider
attending the next event in Chicago on June 12. I can't
give you details yet, but Telligent is planning a special treat for attendees.
Brenda - can we talk about this yet? No? Ok - well, let me know you're coming
and we'll bring you a Mike Ditka "Bad Ass" cigar and try to find a place to kick
back and enjoy the city.
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Posted by
rhoward
on April 15 2008
Early this morning (at about 3:45 AM Central Time) we launched the new communityserver.com web site along with officially releasing Community Server 2008!
The Community Server 2008 release includes:
- Enterprise reporting and analytics to help dissect, analyze, and trend user and community behavior.
- Deep integration with Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.
- For developers, Community Server 2008 includes a complete Web Services (REST) API for easily integrating and extending the platform.
- Social streams enable people to quickly see what friends or others in the community are actively contributing to.
- Robust media gallery for sharing content published in the community or from external sources such as YouTube, Flickr, and more.
- Enterprise file storage enabling both local storage as well as integration with services such as Amazon S3.
- Widgets for easily sharing data between applications. Included widget support for Google, and more.
- On demand groups / social circles make it simple for intranets and even large-scale public communities to quickly form small micro-communities.
- Community Server 2008 is one of the first software platforms to include built-in support for OpenID.
- Community Server 2008 includes many improvements to existing features such as multi-user blogging tools, robust message boards, and person-to-person messaging.
You can read more about the new version of Community Server at communityserver.com.
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Posted by
rhoward
on April 14 2008
Is the #3 on their list of the top 10 most disruptive technologies in 2008.
Chaotic coproduction rules the roost in social software. Users post content to a tag cloud or a wiki to share with others. This data may be altered several times, creating an emergent structure. But beyond the traditional blog or wiki are rich personal profiles that provide an expertise network for enterprises. Don't know who in human resources to go to for 401K data? An enterprise social network could help find that information.
We expect 2008 to be a very strong year for Telligent and our products as well as the industry as a whole.
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Posted by
rhoward
on April 12 2008
Earlier this week we published the Graffiti CMS Blogging Extensions. Graffiti is a publishing platform that makes it really easy to create great looking, interactive web sites. Graffiti can also be used as a blogging platform, as Jeff (of Channel9 fame) and other's have done.
We heard from some bloggers using Graffiti that they wanted more blog-specific functionality. The new Graffiti CMS Blog Extensions is just that - it adds additional blog specific features into Graffiti!
For more specifics, Jeff Kazimer wrote up a great post detailing what all is included.
We also thought it would be great to publish the code for this Graffiti plug-in/add-on so others could see how it's done. We also heard that people wanted to help contribute... so we published the code on Google Code:
http://code.google.com/p/graffitiblogext/
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Posted by
rhoward
on April 12 2008
The OpenID open source project for ASP.NET (DotNetOpenID) now supports the OpenID 2.0 specification and is available for download on Google Code:
http://dotnetopenid.googlecode.com/
For businesses or developers that use the library it would be great if you could donate to this Open Source Project. Telligent is contributing to this project both financially and with our developers and we'd love to see more people support it! We've added OpenID support to Community Server 2008 (natively).
You can contribute via PayPal
You can also help spread the news:
Digg | Kick it | Stumble It! | Save to del.icio.us
Some notes from Andrew who is the primary developer:
This release adds full support for OpenID 2.0 while preserving full backward compatibility for OpenID 1.x. It is a mature library with lots of help for diagnostics and debugging, and a balance between simplicity and extensibility. For a complete list of enhancements from the last release, check out the Version Changes page.
Here are the highlights of this library and particularly this release:
Support for OpenID 2.0 Relying Parties and Providers, including but not limited to these features:
- Xri and i-name support
- Directed identity support
- More secure hashing algorithms (SHA-256)
- Interop with Yahoo and other OpenID 2.0-only providers
- Better security against replay attacks.
- Send unsolicited positive assertions from providers to automatically log your users in to relying party web sites.
- Much more comprehensive testing of common scenarios and possible security exploits.
- More comprehensive HTML-based identity discovery.
- Completely stateless mode support for Relying Parties (not even HttpApplication state).
- New OpenIdMobileTextBox ASP.NET control.
- All relying party ASP.NET controls now support immediate mode.
- Improved support for custom stores that have to serialize associations (for databases, etc.)
- Debugger attributes to make stepping through the code easier.
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Posted by
rhoward
on March 27 2008
We just officially announced that Community Server 2008 will also have an awesome integration story for Microsoft SharePoint. You can read more details in the post, but we're obviously very excited to announce this -- it's been in the works for quite a few months now and we'll have a beta ready a few days after we launch Community Server 2008.
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