RonAmok!

Recently, I’ve been experimenting with Google Docs to help illustrate how Social Media activities can be measured, tracked, and analyzed. By combining Google Spreadsheets, Google Gadgets, and a little HTML, my Social Media Dashboard offers an at-a-glance view of my client’s social media efforts. Here’ s a screen-shot of what my dashboard should look like:

Unfortunately, it hasn’t looked that way since last Tuesday morning, when I noticed that Google Gadgets stopped working. Today, my dashboard now looks like this:

I first noticed the problem while calling it up live in front of a business prospect. Having just talked-up the use of these great tools, I felt a bit red-faced, but shrugged it off as a minor hiccup in technology. Software breaks and I figured that Google would have my dashboard back up and running within a few hours. Unfortunately, 96 hours 120 hours six-days one-week ten-days later and the problem still persists.

I’m not the only person affected by outage. The following thread on the Google Docs Help Forum shows four examples–just from last Tuesday:

“I was going to do a training which included motion charts tomorrow morning.”
(newbopke)

A part form the disruptions this problem is creating to my website, what I find amazing is that after 24 hours Google doesn’t come out with a solution, and none even says “well, we will find a solution in 48 hours, and we will do this and that” or so.
(Jorge from Burgos)

I’ve been using “Gantt Chart” to follow projects progress of an ONG I’m working with. Gadget stopped working yesterday! Please! Jules: Help me, Help US!
(sosa.0991)

Is google working on this? I too have a presentation tomorrow using motion gadgets. Very stressed! Any alternative motion chart options out there for the computer illiterate?
(wmkay87)

I believe in cloud computing. I also understand the risks involved with new technologies. But if cloud computing is going to be a viable option for companies, downtime will need to be measured in hours not days.

Tags: Google Spreadsheets Gadgets Cloud Computing Broken Ron Ploof Orange County Social Media Social Media Dashboard

Two weeks ago, I attended the Social Media Day event held at the Orange County Register in Santa Ana, CA. The event drew more than 300 people from diverse industries and with varying levels of social media experience.

The Orange County traffic gods must have been smiling upon me that day because I arrived early and found myself seated next to three women who were all part of a local professional networking group. All were experienced professional communicators eager to learn how to incorporate social media into their day-to-day business communications activities.

It didn’t take long for them to figure out what I do for a living and that’s when the question floodgates opened. They peppered me with questions about LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. We talked about blogs and online video. Energized by how passionate they were about their craft and their clients, I answered happily. Their flow of questions were temporarily interrupted by the event, yet resumed during the intermission. Heck, I didn’t even have a chance leave my chair before the next panelist session started!

We exchanged business cards; I went home; and they went to dinner to discuss the event. All three contacted me separately during the next week and it was through these little conversations that I heard about the dinner conversation.

One of women summarized the discussion in an email to me:

The panel consisted of “enthusiasts” and “experts.” More of the first, if you ask me…I think it’s those “enthusiasts” who give social media it’s bad rap or negative connotations.

Their assessment is one of the largest inhibitors to corporate social media adoption. If professional business owners feel that social media is tied more to “enthusiasts” than business “practitioners,” they’ll be slow to consider social media adoption.

Are you a social media enthusiast or a practitioner? Do you play/dabble with social media, or are you seeking better ways of communicating with your customers?

There really isn’t a right or wrong answer. Enthusiasts play. Practitioners work.

Photo Credit: Ed Yourdon

Tags: Social Media Day Social Media Enthusiasts Ron Ploof Orange County Public Relations Marketing Social Media

The emergence of social media technologies has happened so quickly that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The same executives struggling to keep their organizations afloat during this economic downturn are simultaneously trying to make sense out of a radical communications revolution. But, when seeking advice on business uses for these new communications channels, execs are frequently left wading through cliche-infested social media waters, wrestling with terms such as conversation, community, and transparency.

The problem with these colloquial explanations is that they focus more on the social aspects than they do the media ones.  The approach is backwards, because social change didn’t drive the revolution, massive advances in the triple-threat of media production, storage, and distribution did. Therefore, the best way to understand social media is to study changes in media technology first, and then apply those changes to what society is choosing to do with them.

1977 Media

I produced a movie in 1977 called The Bionic Girl. It wasn’t a blockbuster or anything; rather, it was a silent film, funded with the money that I made on my paper route. The movie’s cast consisted of friends and family. I wrote, filmed, edited, and produced it. And after completion, I presented it to an audience seated on folding chairs in my parent’s basement.

I chose Super-8 film as my “medium.” Super-8 film came in a cartridge containing fifty feet of coiled celluloid, which limited its capacity to three-minutes twenty-seconds of moving imagery. Since The Bionic Girl lasted about twelve minutes, I needed to purchase four of them! Each fresh cartridge was inserted into a Super-8 movie camera that I had purchased at a local yard sale for $6. Unlike today’s mediums such as magnetic tape, hard drives, or solid state memories, once a cartridge finished running through the camera, it required lab processing after exposure. If my memory is correct, each cartridge cost $3.00 to purchase and another $3.00 to process and the total turn-around time from exposure-to-developed-reel averaged one week.

But the expense didn’t stop there. The four processed reels also needed to be manually spliced together then re-spooled onto its own, much bigger take-up reel. That’s when I learned the business lesson of “total cost of ownership.” Realizing that I had a film yet no way to present it to an audience, I was forced to allocate $99 of budget to purchase a Super-8 film projector!

Finally, since I had chosen the medium of film, I only had three options for distributing The Bionic Girl:

1. Use my $99 projector to share it with family and friends
2. Send the original film via the post office to folks who had access to their own Super-8 movie projectors
3. Send the original to a processing facility for duplication, and then send those copies to people with access to Super-8 movie projectors

2010 Media

Now let’s compare and contrast the my 1977 medium choices with those available today–to everyone, from teenagers to the largest corporations. Today’s cell phones not only contain the ability to create and store text, audio, and video, but a resident ability to distribute that same content to an audience instantaneously. There is no delay for such things as film processing. Consumption of the content doesn’t require special devices like film projectors.

Individuals and corporations can embed their videos onto their blogs and Facebook pages, both which are designed to notify friends/fans/followers/subscribers automatically. If the content is good enough, that first connection of people can in turn forward it to their connections. In 2010, advances in communications technologies allow anyone to capture, store, and deliver their content creations around the world for the nominal cost of internet connectivity.

The barriers to entry for creating and delivering one’s messages around the world have been eliminated. The revolution has created the proverbial level playing field. And therein lies the rub.

Most business owners don’t consider the revolution from the “media” side. Instead, they’re thrown a head fake by the word “social.”  They’re urged to use Twitter and Facebook for “social” reasons, without considering the business advantages and responsibilities associated with such channels. Without understanding that these communications technologies offer new ways for the creation, storage, and distribution of content, business owners will never be ready to learn about the “social nuances” required to use them successfully. But, by understanding the media benefits first, then they can address the social implications of their choices.

Tags: Distribution Super-8 Ron Ploof Orange County Public Relations Marketing Social Media

Photo Credits: Svet (film), TheDoctor856 (splicing), and rwhitesi (projector)