The Social Media Plus Web 2.0 Business Summit was held in Philadelphia May 25, 2010.

The one-day event promised to put attendees on the fast track to incorporating Social Media into their overall business strategy.

Attendees generated over 2,100 tweets under the hashtag #SMPlus. Twitter only maintains 10-14 days of content so this information will soon disappear. Thanks to Adam Hymans (@LeMulatreGentil) here’s the archive all of them. Like Adam, I was not able to attend the event. But it’s with deep gratitude to all the attendees who posted their messages that this content has been made available worldwide on Twitter. Thanks!

Building on an idea of finding of “top tweets” I experimented with at the Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference earlier this month, I’ve curated a list of 230 tweets I found most content-rich and interesting; adding links where appropriate for easy reference; consolidating others; editorializing.

I aimed for brevity and so none of the twitter handles or attributions are listed below, so search Adam’s archive if you need sources.

Please share your experiences in the blog comments (or on Twitter!) about your follow-up to this event and how you’ve implemented the ideas you picked up at #SMPlus.

Enjoy.

1. Jason Falls presentation (voted #1 by many), “Conversational Marketing” http://bit.ly/agDqOI
2. Shashi Bellamkonda presentation “Social Media and Small Business” http://bit.ly/99JwRI
3. Phil Baumann presentation, “Healthcare Uses of Social Media” http://scr.bi/dATKKF
4. Valeria Maltoni presentation, “Why Social Media is Important for Brands” http://bit.ly/bKsL4e
5. Director of Social Media from GM brings a different take on social media. Big business is more structured but good ideas shared.
6. GM has weekly “Social Club” of all involved w/social media: Brands, Mktg, Comm, Cust Rel, Law.
7. The best person to own social media in your company is the person who wants to – they need to breathe it. Brilliant.
8. Social media ROO: Brand awareness Engage customers; create fans; provide customer service; crowd sourcing product features.
9. Anybody who is listening to their customers will win in social media.
10. Building Trust with Empowered Consumers: Individual engagement for healthy brand relationships http://ow.ly/1POxI
11. Why are students studying Mass Comm anymore? It is all personalized communications now.
12. Social media dashboard – http://www.unilyzer.com (free trial available). Dashboard looks pretty good.
13. Twitter has a “shut up” button, it’s called a 140 chars limitation.
14. Be the MC to build an audience – Master of Content, Master of Ceremonies, Master of Community.
15. Conversational marketing success occurs when our participation in the conversation is GENUINE.
16. Extremely important for SEO by taking the first step towards getting linkbacks. Link out to other bloggers!
17. Twitter = a great way to draft compelling marketing messages. “I wanted to write a shorter note but didn’t have the time.”
18. Fundamentals of SEO: Optimize your titles/content, tag, categorize your content, optimize digital assets like photos and video.
19. Look at http://www.knowem.com. The place to find lesser known social networks.
20. Have a blog? Look at http://www.wibiya.com. Great widget-esque toolbar.
21. Apparently Bozeman, MT thought it smart to require applicants to furnish FB passwords. What do you people drink in the Midwest?
22. Tweets from 10:25-10:35 (East Coast Time) get 15-20% more click-throughs.
23. @jasonfalls Stated Twitter Strategy: “Share good Shit!”
24. Mobility is about context – It’s real time, via location.
25. Bandwidth is the paper of the digital era. If you don’t have enough, get more bandwidth. No need to cut trees to get it.
26. If someone calls himself a social media guru but not a social media STRATEGY guru, then he’s neither.
27. Thought: why do we never hear case studies from gaming industry about recruiting?
28. The era of the destination sites is over. The attention is gravitating towards the edge – social networks
29. You haven’t made it as a blogger until you get a negative comment.
30. T-shirt says it all: Foursquare – I am the mayor of my pants.
31. Avoid pitching. Illustrate expertise not products. Share good content. Create a buyers channel. Offer help if interested.
32. Interject into the conversation. Monitor and search, interject when appropriate
33. One key theme at #smplus is leveraging employees as a social media asset.
34. Yes! Everyone needs 2 think they’re in customer service 4 your company.
35. Tap into your ee’s. Egaged ee’s are your best marketers, salesmen, and service reps – no matter the job title.
36. Sprint employees (termed “social ninja’s“) encouraged 2 engage in social media as company advocates but not company spokespeople.
37. Look at the social network usage of employees at the largest corporations – http://bit.ly/b2nkBU
38. There is untapped gold in your employee social graphs.
39. Everybody is a front line employee today.
40. Pimp your brand and what your company is doing and have employee advocates! Make sure your SM efforts are driven by real people.
41. Identify your evangelists and trust them to lead the charge.
42. Overshare with others, even if they are competitors.
43. Illustrate your expertise, not your catalog.
44. Avoid pitching. Don’t say click my junk all the time.
45. We’re going from contact-management to community management — from simple transactions to relationships.
46. Our intent can be plural. Contribute & market & learn & engage.
47. Not being perceived as an early adopter but an early achiever is a fine line 2 walk.
48. Build trust by being there when your customers have a question.
49. 112% increase of people accessing Facebook thru mobile in 3 months.
50. Advocate communication and training when it comes to setting up a company-wide social media initiative.
51. Tip: if you’re a brand, grab the Twitter handle early – people like to hijack names.
52. Companies should remember that we are serving – it’s the audience that we serve and not product roadmaps.
53. “We can glean trust from even quick little interactions” < The Art of Conversation.
54. I really like what @zappos is doing socially with http://twitter.zappos.com/ – The ultimate in corporate transparency and responsibility!
55. Social Media doesn’t kill productivity; unmotivated workers do.
56. http://www.stopblocking.org – tips to help stop blocking social media sites for employees. Stats on employee productivity.
57. Re: blocking social media at work: At some point, you will not imagine doing your work w/o social media. Exactly.
58. Top 4 reasons for blocking SM: productivity, loose lips, IT security, and bandwidth.
59. Access to social networks leads to an increase in productivity (by 9%)
60. 54% of orgs block access to social media. Can we say epic fail?
61. Love the common themes in sessions – trust, conversations, connections, authenticity.
62. Consumers want like minded people for recommendations and referrals. They don’t want conversations to become SPAM.
63. Every presenter so far has said exactly this, “find out where your target market is and where they are”.
64. No matter how bad the news is, it is better you tell it.
65. On Twitter: re: Customer Service: Easier to be mad at a logo, not a pic of a real person! Personalize your relationship.
66. We live in an area of the 140 character news cycle and if u don’t have it flooded, other people will with their news.
67. Good blog post: “Community Manager Goals and Responsibilities”http://tinyurl.com/288zpcv
68. “…no one cares about your company, we want your content. When u pitch u lose us!”
69. Social Media Rebellion Coming Against Marketers http://amplify.com/u/6dvv
70. Era of destination website is over. Still need sites, but traffic is dropping in favor of social sites.
71. Social media leads are 25% more likely to become sales opportunities (http://www.genius.com).
72. Leaderboard for #smplustweets @wthashtag http://wthashtag.com/smplus
73. Only 24% of people are creating original material – so by RT’ing this I join the 76% – cogito ergo sum.
74. Canadian Rev Agency video contest – http://bit.ly/cej7Ib
75. Social media is here to stay… And more and more, it will permeate everything we interact with.
76. Most orgs completely unprepared 4 what could happen online: e.g. Nestle & Greenpeace.
77. Nestle’s SM failure? Instead of embracing feedback, they picked a fight. Result – substantial negative feedback.
78. Social media will not be the destination – it will be everywhere you go.
79. People don’t want to have a relationship w/all brands. What they want is to have a company address their questions problems & issues.
80. People generally don’t want to have a relationship with the brand. Who wants a relationship with toilet paper?
81. A brand is a gut feeling about a product or service..
82. You can’t control brand message but you can control your brand relationships.
83. When you build value, are you thinking of intangible or tangible value? All value is perceived; make sure your brand has both.
84. People want to be taken care of when they have an issue, and want to be listened to when they have an idea.
85. Are we engaging our consumers with the right conversations? Need to talk about business practices w/consumers.
86. Find out where people are talking about your competitor and join the conversation to offer choices.
87. Word-of-mouth drives 70% of all commerce in US (McKinsey) – why doesn’t marketing $ reflect that?
88. Separate from the connections, Twitter makes you become a better writer because you have to be more concise.
89. Data shows more people go to social sites for product info rather than the brand’s home page.
90. Twitter is here/now and blogs are more legacy. So what about magpie or starring certain positive updates on your brand stream?
91. Word of mouth one of the strongest ways to get people to buy. So why don’t many leaders don’t get? Lack of control.
92. 95% don’t trust ads, 92% don’t trust what cos say, 91% don’t trust cos to act in consumer best interests.
93. Over 90% of people really don’t believe anything that comes from the mouth of a company. Especially BP!
94. Oil spill forced BP to create social strategy.
95. Unfortunately, many companies avoid SM (until a crisis pulls them in), rather than prepare and join-in.
96. 33% of social media users believe cos are interested in them. 93% say cos should be on social media.
97. People are dividing their attention based upon on what resonates with them.
98. The only company that needs a YouTube strategy is YouTube. For the rest of us it is a tactic.
99. Social media helps you get unstuck because there is a community to help you with what you need.
100. “Start with the free stuff first,” social monitoring tools – you bet!
101. Social media likened to a garage. Some stuff used every day, some stuff every once in a while, and all of it is a mess.
102. “Getting it Right: Social Network Recruiting”: http://ning.it/a95fXu
103. Check out these sites: http://hubspot.com http://twitanalyzer.com http://refollow.com
104. Wise words for job seekers: “Don’t go on Facebook drunk”.
105. Cool tip for job hunters. Target company employees on FB.
106. Using RSS to Job Hunt: http://ow.ly/1PABa
107. If you’re not posting blogs every day, find other ways (e.g. comments) to get your name and ideas out there.
108. Don’t get timid. Find out so you can correct it! -> when told, “you suck”, ask, “well how do I suck”.
109. Best place to start social media measurement is with a Brand Audit.
110. Measure: increase revenue, decrease cost, increase cust satisf’n. Arrange tracking. Unique URL, landing page, 800#. Set benchmarks.
111. Top 3 measures: visitors, network size, and quantity of commentary. What, no quality?
112. Data data data! What good is yapping on SM sites when you can’t tell what the results are or who you are reaching?
113. Adding a share button helps you figure out where your customers are talking.
114. Social Media is creating “compression” around customers not “convergence” across Marketing, PR, Services
115. @comcastcares can’t wait to see your new FB page with the service tab & other goodies.
116. How many people does @comcastcares employ? 10 people. 1 person monitors blogs (among other things).
117. If anyone else asks me about a silver bullet, get me a gun. SM takes good, hard work; no more and no less!
118. Turn messaging into conversation starters.
119. Embed bit.ly links into mktg campaigns to track SM response. Wonder if that works with Google urchin tags. Anyone?
120. Great insight into writing content that aligns with buyers decision journey – http://tinyurl.com/yfol4x7
121. If you market to a gear head you better be a gear head.
122. The key to social media is speed – opposite of PR.
123. One of the best reasons to be online is to be found.
124. Use IaaS to scale quickly and then scale down based on trends. Very cool concept. Company jumped from a few servers to 5000 in week.
125. You have 30 seconds to capture someone’s attention.
126. Using Gmail to find your customers on Facebook and Twitter!! AMAZING!
127. Marketing and how SM ties into it. 5 R’s: Relevance, Receptivity, Responsiveness, Recognition, Relate.
128. Oddly enough, my mom taught me a lot of social media policies… but she called them manners.
129. Use the “Mom rule” when posting content online — if you wouldn’t want your mom to see it you shouldn’t be posting it.
130. It’s an oversimplification to say that SM policy is just about being polite, that’s part of it. There’s more to it that for brands.
131. Don’t ask the lawyers “can we do this?” but “how can we do this?”
132. Seems most legal concerns really revolve around the fact Legal can’t install chips in our brains to jolt us when we think.
133. Compliance is always the goal with social media. Risks include control, bandwidth, cybersmearing, negative press, etc.
134. Largest age group using social media is 35-44 at 25%.
135. 65+ men and women – 3rd most visited web page is Facebook.
136. Women over 55 were the fastest growing demographic on Facebook last year; added 10 million profiles.
137. 35-44 age group is the largest age group that uses Social Networking.
138. 30 case social media case studies http://bit.ly/aHR7v4
139. You cannot start with tools. First (after people) define objectives & goals, then strategy/tactics.
140. Not one CEO in the Fortune 100 has a blog. Chickens!
141. No Fortune 100 CEO with social profile including Linkedin. They should – to be more authentic.
142. Advice to C-level Execs: Don’t Say anything stupid, be nice, don’t give away trade secrets.
143. C-suite: don’t fear going into social media – fear NOT going in.
144. Senior Management is blinded by the numbers. They want numbers, but they don’t know what to do with them.
145. C-suite, esp of publicly-traded companies, can B translucent but not transparent on social media.
146. Social Media needs buy-in from senior management to be successful.
147. If there is a theme to #smplus, it is definitely “look before you leap” – don’t get into SM until you have an aligned strategy.
148. “A good reputation is more valuable than money.” Isn’t that in the Bible somewhere?
149. People don’t buy what you make, they buy why you make it.
150. I don’t do presentations…I don’t do “Decks”…I have conversations.
151. Marketing is the ability to bring brands across an increasing # of media.
152. Marketing s/b responsible for Website, Blog and Social Media. Sales should have access to them.
153. What can Marketing do to engage sales in Social Media? Send them a lead that gets them a deal!
154. Why should sales participate in SM? If they could stand next to the fax machine and pull off orders they would. Dated, but yeah.
155. Sales 2.0 is about shift from hard selling to helping customers buy from us.
156. Let mkt people lead the conversation. They lead with the proper messaging. Allow sales to contribute to that discussion.
157. The key to aligning S & M is attacking the process. Getting two groups together: http://yfrog.com/6ghh1zj (grin)
158. Marketing 1.0 “spam cannons”; “what color is our company”; “sales can’t even be in same room”.
159. Favorite piece of knowledge: “Add value, don’t extract it.”
160. I like SM policies b/c they can help cos relax & focus on ways 2 help employees participate
161. After launching SM guidelines, set a date a year later to review and talk about successes/fails.
162. Policy as order makes me cringe in general, but it doesn’t have to. Our policy is 3 bullet points.
163. Nordstrom’s has a one rule corporate policy – use good judgment in everything you do. There is no rule #2.
164. Don’t assume employees know the social web risks, spell it out in your policy.
165. Tell people the real risks of using SM improperly. Use real-life examples (of which there are plenty).
166. Key takeaway, you have to set your employees up to succeed and to do that, you need to educate them!
167. Don’t ban – educate. Study by U. of Melbourne shows that people engaged in social media are more productive.
168. I hate social media policies. It’s the perpetuation of myth that employees need policy to communicate.
169. Only 29% Of Companies Have A Social Media Policy: http://bit.ly/b8hZzT
170. Not a policy to communicate it can dictate what is & is not acceptable to share, relevant in highly regulated industries.
171. Implement a social media policy that reflects the company’s values.
172. Education + guidelines/governance applied 2 asset audit (ID social/digital best practices) + social ideation = blueprint for success.
173. Engage, Contribute, add Value, Join conversation and turn it around really, really fast.
174. In the last few weeks, 1100 social media jobs posted on Monster.
175. Small biz – use your FB page to promote the community as well as the personal. Helps engage 2-way conversations.
176. Are many who believe SM is a realtime thought stream. Sad, but you do need to tell people how to properly communicate…
177. Be transparent and credible at all times.
178. See http://groundswell.com. They lump ppl in 6 categories but it comes down to 90 lurk, 7 contribute and 3 create out of 100.
179. I think the myth is that employers need to control all communication media.
180. Interesting thought – consider separate twitter acct for diff products.
181. New reality for marketers to create and nurture conversations.
182. Not all businesses are or belong on Yelp, not all businesses have easily accessible target audience or content that’s easy 2 share.
183. Banning SM in the workplace is a bad idea. Period. Employees are your brand… When your brand is unhappy… Duh.
184. Some still use Yellow Pages … to prop up broken furniture. Heh.
185. Advice to everyone – get a signup form on your Facebook page.
186. Everyone is in customer service. Conversations with people are the 3rd most trusted source for information.
187. 5 things to create your “Army of David’s” for social media in the work place: [1] Get Senior Mgmt in place [2] Have social media policy in place. [3] Get everyone involved- HR, PR, Corp communications. [4] Determine who will speak on your behalf [5] Have monitoring tools in place.
188. 9 ways brands are using social media effectively: [1] Create more utility: USPS Virtual Box Simulator; Sherwin Williams; iPhone app – iPee. [2] Be bigger than what you sell: Huggies crowdsourcing “mom inspired” ideas [3] Offer talkable surprises: Mr.Lucky’s Cafe at the Hard Rock Café – gamblers special $7.77 not on the menu [4] Answer latent but important questions: DTXTR to translate teen text speak to actual English [5] Recruit through real stories and people [6] Use SM to enhance what you’re doing now, take unique moments, make them special: UK bev. maker had guy w/camera stream annual mtg. [7] Put Use a calendar to create anticipation and map out the content you plan on sharing – helps to strategize [8] Identify your company voices: Flickr page with photos of the people behind the P&G social media account [9] Curate content along w/creating it.
189. Yahoo answers, if you’re not answering questions re: your brand, you’re missing out.
190. Blogging grew 68% in 2008.
191. Follow the UAT formula: be unique, authentic, talkable.
192. Everyone needs to think of themselves as customer service reps. You represent your company. Your people are your brand! So true!
193. 25% of small businesses use social media, which has doubled from last year.
194. Action plan – Join communities, comment on blogs, ans ?s, thank biz reviewers, and look for guest post opportunities.
195. Give more than you extract (from social media).
196. People use data and Internet on phone more than they make phone calls.
197. Setup Google Alerts to track your company and keywords.
198. How many friends you have on fb, etc, doesn’t matter – how many you can build a business relationship with does.
199. Strangers are shaping your brand.
200. Forrester says 16% of online Americans are mass influencers.
201. People are tribal by nature.
202. Create insider moments for your customers to share. IMO…So true.
203. In social media the internet is our database – Never thought of it that way.
204. Be real. Be nice. Tell the truth. Under promise. Over deliver.
205. Companies very active in social media see greater revenue growth, gross margin gross & net margin growth than those that do not.
206. Companies that respond quickly to Social Media comments can gain a follower for just responding! Has this happened to you? I agree!
207. Don’t know if Facebook will be here in 3 years, but we know there will be something else – be willing to shift with the movement.
208. Social Capital – Like the Aunt you love – we are predisposed because people have done nice things for you.
209. Most companies have centralized social media around PR, but that’s limiting and not useful anymore.
210. Personifying your brand can be done by providing content pieces to create a single voice using multiple sources.
211. If you want to be part of the community, you have to play by the community rules.
212. “Common thought == common user experience”. Company standards are important parts of successful SM.
213. Creating videos for corporate use? Brand a YouTube channel. Interesting tip.
214. If you need to search Flickr, try http://compfight.com. It’s been so useful for me. Search for “Creative Commons” licensed content.
215. Yes, but what do they actually sell? Financial client list might surprise you: http://ow.ly/i/1K3K
216. People. Objectives. Strategy. Technology. POST in this order. Not tech 1st.
217. One of the main goals in using social media in HR recruiting: build a pipeline of followers.
218. Unisys estimates they saved a million dollars in HR recruiting costs by using social media.
219. SM & HR: access to competitor’s talent, better tools to attract, easy to get followers, and easy for candidates to contact you.
220. Use http://www.flowtown.com/ to market yourself on the social networks where your customers are. Shape your message appropriately. Connects w @mailchimp.
221. SM can be faster and more frequented than search engines to find content.
222. Transparency matters; Authenticity is more important. Genuine intention trumps nuts & bolts processes.
223. Create blogs, FB, everything … create a social media presence with a purpose.
224. IT folks talking about harnessing rather than controlling online interaction. Refreshing.
225. Faberge Shampoo – Classic social media example, http://ow.ly/1PxX4
226. Social media is not one bucket – it’s lots and lots of different buckets – different for every company.
227. Sharing ‘insider moments’ with customers can be a powerful social media tool for a brand.
228. Virtual trust is real and powerful & being faceless doesn’t work & media is circular.
229. People need a face in order 2 have a connection & loyalty or they don’t want to tell others about your brand.
230. Your challenge on SM is not to suck. Hopefully, by the end of today, you now have the tools not to suck!

Meryl Streep opened her soul to the Barnard College graduating class last Monday. In a compelling commencement speech acknowledging the value of single-sex education, she celebrated both the power of a women’s perspective and the power of empathy to bring real change.

Ethos, Logos, Pathos

Her speech employed the classic Aristotelian elements of persuasive public speaking: ethos, logos and pathos.

She used ethos to establish her bone fides as an Academy Award winner and famous actress (albeit a person suffering a fame that separates her from “friends, from reality, from proportion”).

There was minimal logos in the speech. But she did include data from The Economist about women’s effects on economic growth and, tongue in cheek, on the research she’d conducted in high school on how to attract boys with peroxide hair and brand name clothes from the pages of Seventeen and Vogue – decades before the Devil wore Prada!

Above all, with wit and charm, Streep employed pathos to establish an emotional bond with the audience. She told emotionally appealing stories – of herself as a young girl swaddling her Betsy Wetsy doll; as an undergraduate, unkempt as the Velveteen Rabbit; as a new mother giving a very different commencement speech full of certainty and “earnest full-throated cheerleading”.

Adolescent pretense

Having proclaimed her fame and success, and built common cause with the women in the audience, she invited the graduates to explore the darker side of outward success in life, of what lies behind the inner door:

Cobwebs, black, the light bulbs burned out, the airless dank refrigerator of an insanely over-scheduled, unexamined life that usually just gets take-out.

She invited the audience to identify with her as a woman who had, like them, suffered the pretenses of adolescence, of acting a role to “pretend quite proficiently to be successful … as have many women here, I’m sure.”

For Streep, the pretense reached a zenith in high school. She deliberately set out to become the “generically pretty high school girl” with a child-like cute giggle, lowering her eyes at the right moment to appeal to boys, “at the same time being accepted by the girls, a very tricky negotiation.” So successful was her characterization she later used it in her portrait of Linda in The Deer Hunter, to the delight and fascination of President Clinton.

Celebrating Single-Sex Education

In contrast to her artificial role in high school, attending Vassar when it was still—as Barnard is today—a single-sex school, allowed Streep the room she needed to flourish.

“I didn’t have to pretend, I could be goofy, vehement, aggressive, and slovenly and open and tough and my friends let me.”

Empathy

Streep contrasts her 1978 role as Linda in The Deer Hunter with her 2006 role as Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada. Clinton might have lusted after the submissive Linda but, claims Streep, it’s a measure of how far the world has come that men today tell her they can relate to Miranda – a woman who signifies the thankless position of the misunderstood leader. She finds it a cause for optimism that straight men today have the ability to empathize with a woman protagonist. Women are brought up to identify with male characters. However, it’s rare that men can identify with women characters.

The emotional expression of empathy for strong woman speaks to Streep of a generational shift in attitude:

Men are adapting…They are changing their deepest prejudices to regard as normal the things that their fathers would have found very, very difficult and their grandfathers would have abhorred and the door to this emotional shift is empathy.

Unique Perspective

This newfound emotional capacity for empathy is, for Streep, the transformative light by which consciousness changes. When light shines through the cracks, there is the possibility of a “completely different perspective”. This possibility is heralded by an age when women are awarded more medical and law degrees than men; when “around the world, poor women now own property who used to be property”; when the employment of women has contributed more to global GDP growth than new technology and the rise of India and China.

Streep challenges the graduating class to apply the unique perspective their single-sex education has given them in the world. They can “speed progress” solving the crucial global problems of human rights and gender inequality.

Off-hand delivery

Her self-depreciating speech was delivered in a deliberately off-hand way; speaking to her audience in the manner of shared dorm-room confidences; offering them a glimpse of her own uncertainty and doubt behind the façade of fame; free of conventional oratory in the way that only someone with a couple of Oscars could.

Here’s a video of Streep delivering her speech.

Following my recent trip to the Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference in Detroit I created a listing of 108 “top tweets” from the event – tips, suggestions, ideas and topics which people found noteworthy.

Now, I’m as guilty as the next person of attending conferences and workshops, getting all fired up with ideas and suggestions, and failing to follow through and implement any of them. So, in the spirit of implementing at least some of these ideas from Detroit, I plan to examine some of the tweets in more detail.

Top Tweet: learn Screencasting

The first tip, which came out of Shel Holtz’s seminar at the event, was “Use Camtasia Studio to create audio “screen-casts” of apps – embed in departmental websites as training aids. Create animated preso library.”

I’ve asked my National Speakers Association colleague and uber-geek, Jim Carrillo, to explain in detail how screen-casting can be accomplished. His explanation includes a screen-cast – of course!

Screencasting – the Fourth Dimension in Communication

by Jim Carrillo

You may have seen Screencasting, or screen recording in its generic name, when you’ve watched online training snippets for some popular websites. Screencasting is a name coined by Jon Udell, and is a digital recording of a computer screen’s output that usually contains voice narration.

Before diving in to how you can use it, let’s start by explaining the fourth dimension concept. Communication is the backbone for all we do. The best form of communication is when we’re face to face with our counterpart, which I consider our first dimension. Unfortunately, one of the worse forms of communication is written, or email, which we use far too much. With email, we lose the tonalities of our voice, the excitement in our gestures, and the other forms of visual and audio interaction; this would be the second dimension. The third dimension of communication would be recording ourselves for distribution to a single person or an audience. Recording has been around for quite some time, and with voicemail, or HandyCam video cameras, we’ve all become accustomed to the word “recorded message”. It’s clearly either a video or audio recording of a communication (or both).

What do you call a video communication that doesn’t involve a camera though?, a communication that brings in a new element of reference that both the presenter and receiver can focus on? With the explosion of the integration of the computer screen in our daily lives, bringing this medium into the focus of the communication has become natural. Screencasting is exactly that. It’s a recording of a communication with the focus on the computer screen, not the presenter.

Oddly enough, Screencasting is one of the easiest methods of recording. Bypassing the Video or Audio recording industries, screencasting was born out of the computer generation. Ease of use was top of mind in creating this technology.

Don’t be misled though, just because something is easy, don’t expect professional production ready results. To give an analogy, many people know how to type in a word processing application, but it doesn’t make them an author. Everyone can learn how to create a Screencast in minutes, but don’t start calling yourself a producer just yet.

You can try it right now! The best out of the box (and there is no box), get your feet wet Screencasting system I’ve found is Screen Toaster (www.screentoaster.com) . Screentoaster is completely web based (meaning no software to install), and it’s FREEEEE! What a beautiful word isn’t it? FREEEEE.

Considering becoming a director or producer in Screencasts for a more professional production? I’ve tried many, and with much reluctance, I finally gave Camtasia Studio (www.techsmith.com) a try. The price is inexpensive for professional use (only $300), and is not only packed with features, they’ve made it very simple to use. The simpleness is what brought a tear to my eye.

Interested in seeing a demonstration? In this Screencast, I’ve created both a simple Screencast showing you how to create your own Screencast in about two minutes (ouch, that circular explanation hurts my brain every time I write it). I’ve also added three examples of Screencasts that I often produce. Screencasting is part of my daily communications, and professional marketing services. Not a day passes that I’m not recording my cursor fly by.

Edited highlights from the 1-hour presentation I gave at the Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference, held May 4-7 at the General Motors HQ, Renaissance Center, Detroit, MI.

The speech outline, slides and resources I refer to are available on the presentation home page.

On Saturday I attended the Toastmasters District 57 Spring Conference held at the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo. The winning speech was quite simply the best I’ve ever seen at a Toastmasters Club. Christine is a fellow member of the Speakers Forum club which meets in Concord, CA on the 4th Saturday of each month.

Christine’s speech “The Empty Chair”, evolved as a result of months of preparation and hard work and was a masterful tour de force. It deals with issues of addiction and honesty, of making amends and accepting responsibility for our actions. Notice how she uses her voice and gestures for maximum effect; how she keeps her full emotional impact in reserve until right at the end of the speech; and how she even includes mention of the venue where she was speaking.

Christine rightly won first place in the contest on Saturday, and she now advances to the World Champion of Public Speaking event in Palm Desert in August.

Having spent 30-plus years in organizational communications in Fortune 500 companies, consulting firms, and as an independent consultant since 1996, Shel Holtz, ABC, brings a depth of experience to his engagements. Shel has worked with online communications since the mid-1980s; he currently focuses on the application of social media to strategic business communication. Shel also provides counsel and guidance on traditional online communication and conventional media.

Shel is the author of five books, including Public Relations on the Net, Corporate Conversations, Blogging for Business and the recently released How to Do Everything with Podcasting. (Along with co-author John C. Havens, Shel is currently writing “Web 2.Open,” addressing the role communications play in organization efforts to attain transparency.) He has also written countless articles for magazines and journals. He is in demand as a speaker at conferences and workshops around the world.

Shel keynoted at the Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference in Detroit. I asked him what was new in his world. To hear what he told me, click on the podcast icon below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 5:20 — 1.2MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

This Weekend Financial Times profiled a moving TV advert which honors the role of women:

Set to a cover version of Billy Joel’s “She’s always a woman”, the spot shows the life of a woman: a little girl blows out her birthday candles, marries, moves home, has children, grows older and walks off into a parkland sunset, surrounded by dog, husband and grandchildren.

It is an old-fashioned weepy, prompting a very modern reaction: hundreds of thousands of YouTube viewings and spontaneous outpourings of emotion on Twitter. The song has been hastily released and is shooting up the charts.

Take a look:

The Ragan Corporate Communicators Conference in Detroit (May 4-7) was festival of presentations on Social Media, Speechwriting, Corporate and Internal Communications. Over 250 attended the event held at the General Motors Headquarters in the downtown Renaissance Center and hosted by GM.

Attendees generated over 900 tweets under the hashtag #ragangm. Since Twitter only maintains 10-14 days of content live they will soon disappear. Here’s the archive all of them.

I curated a list of the most interesting 108 tweets,adding links where appropriate for easy reference.

1. Use Camtasia Studio to create audio “screen-casts” of apps – embed in departmental websites as training aids. Create animated preso library.
2. Internal comms compete w/lots of entertaining options for employee mindshare. Videos & Photos need to be quality & entertain to compete w/Rolling Stone & People Magazine.
3. Every internal web page should have star rating system and allow comments.
4. When developing messages for employees, ask the question “What does this have to do with the key audience how does it speak to their concerns?” WIIFM at two levels for employees: 1) What does it have to do w/ me? 2) How does changing my behavior make my life better?
5. Three steps to changing employee behavior: 1) Handle comms logistics – content, design, 2) capture employee attention and 3) do be relevant. Result = change behavior.
6. Comms is responsible for simplifying complexity of business – diagram things.
7. We can no longer have internal comms messages targeted to everyone – the branch office does not see things same way HQ staff do. Gen Y workers diff. from Baby Boomers.
8. Every communicator (esp. long-timers) eventually stops communicating 4 their audience and starts communicating 4 their boss. Do whatever it takes to avoid this. Bonus be damned!
9. 3rd party media training is often more effective. Execs seem more receptive and less defensive/dismissive about their advice. Hire an outside coach for faster results.
10. People now have now gone from having ADD to ADOS – Attention Deficit … Ooh Shiney!
11. Executives need to understand Gen Y. “Connect with the coming tidal wave.” Try reverse mentoring, people!
12. Irrelevant information is not benign. Limited reader attn means messages must be focused on benefits or risk losing readers.
13. Write for the range of target audience that has least understanding of your topic. Duh!
14. 89% of journalists say they turn to blogs for story research. Lazy or smart?
15. 78% of people trust recs of other consumers; 14% trust ads. This is why social media is so important. Who do you trust?
16. 62% of employees who tweet, tweet from work.
17. 66% of employers have monitored employees’ internet use; 1/3 of companies have fired someone (mostly for visiting wrong websites).
18. Make sure to integrate comms channels with each other. Example given: The Petco Scoop blog.
19. Wildfire has a fun ways – sweepstakes, contests and give-aways – to engage SM audiences.
20. Ideal number of words in a graf before losing reader attention: 42.
21. Listening is the most important thing you can do on Twitter – check out http://search.twitter.com/ and http://www.socialoomph.com/
22. Speechwriter Rob Friedman: Eli Lilly’s main purpose is to show “the value of pharmaceuticals” – ask: what is it for your company?
23. “A speechwriter is a playwright for the client – script them well”
24. Era of destination website is over – archival ‘.com’ sites being replaced by social media.
25. 68% of online content read by Millennial’s is created by someone they know personally.
26. Check out cool tool PubSubHubBub.
27. Real-time search engines can tell u the sentiment & reactions to ur org’s news. Look at https://brandmentions.com.
28. Twitter is not a personal communication tool. It’s a news distribution service.
29. AT&T uses Twitter Ambassadors found those already on Twitter and take that passion to help your brand in a real way.
30. Write tweets in ways that add value to the reader to aid optimization.
31. Augmented reality is the next big thing. @shelholtz: “It’s going to be huge.”
32. Are u using http://www.evernote.com/ – It will change ur life.
33. Polleverywhere – Cool live polling technology. Used my phone to txt a vote and watched live results on the screen!
34. General Motors: Changing the public’s perception 1 customer at a time. Personal correspondence with GM execs. Actively seek unhappy customers.
35. Re finding/responding to online complaints, “It costs less…than finding a new customer,” Says GM’s Susan Docherty.
36. SM lessons learned by GM: Don’t be boring, don’t over-promote, cut the hyperbole, respond to people w/real people.
37. Social media “policy” for employees: if you can’t say it at your daughter’s bday party, shouldn’t say it online.
38. “Stop treating customers like a one-night stand,” GM CMO Susan Docherty. Great advice for all companies!
39. “Emerging” media is now traditional media. GM had 8-fold increase in digital media spending since 2001.
40. In communications, if you start with the consumer, you will do the right thing.
41. Qumu – great option for internal communications webcasting: Ragan Conference using them.
42. GM has “social club,” informal, regular meetings of those from all depts w social media responsibilities.
43. Remember you (your comp. or org) are a publisher and you compete with media outlets.
44. PR & Marketing need to have a ‘”happy marriage.” Audiences can’t tell the diff between the two. They just see you.
45. GM lets employees spend worktime in Twitter & Facebook so they can interact w/customers, which is now part of everybody’s job.
46. Viral is a phenomenon, not a strategy…absolutely true.
47. Any GM employee can tweet about the company, says @maryhenige. Co keeps them advised of rules, links them to info & asks them to be smart.
48. In the end – just provide value. Don’t lead w/your messages; community’s needs come first.
49. On Social Media…don’t be a brand, be human.
50. 70% of successful outcome depends on how well you communicate. The last thing u want is 4 execs to be hiding behind their desks.
51. “SM is like having a kid – you can’t just leave them when they’re done being cute.”
52. Writers are ditch diggers. Can’t wait for a muse. Get your ass back in there and DIG!
53. Any speech longer than 20 minutes is too long. If they want longer. Tell them you’ll speak for 20, QA for the rest.
54. How to determine speech length? 100 words = 1 minute is good benchmark. Anyone speaking faster than that needs to SLOW DOWN, pause for audience to absorb message.
55. Speechwriters: Make 3-4 big points. No more. Get them from the principal in ur 1st mtg, or they’ll throw ur 1st draft out.
56. Get a 2nd monitor for your computer (to monitor Twitter).
57. Use flickr to spark yr creativity.
58. Use flip cams for fast ‘scrappy’ videos (caveat: content must be good).
59. Greatest gift of YouTube culture: low expectation for video quality. BUT compelling content + authenticity is extremely high.
60. Using humor in Corp comm is not always a fireable offense.
61. Keeping it real: Bullfighter: – eliminate jargon & b.s. in your documents.
62. Hire a presentation/speech coach to help ur executives improve. Not overnight, but 3-4 months.
63. Use http://bit.ly to shorten URLs and track clicks.
64. Stay current: Read http://mashable.com/
65. Do a short 2 sentence interview with multiple ppl and mash together for a good video on a single topic. Example: http://bit.ly/aqzoCd
66. Create a presentation homepage for upcoming events, preview videos, outline, slideshare, ask for comments. Example: http://bit.ly/aWBAow
67. Flip camera tips: Clean the office behind you; use a desk light to highlight face; watch for b/g noise; bump sound with Windows Movie maker post-production.
68. Keep your language conversational. Test your writing by reading out loud as if you were talking to someone in an elevator.
69. Writers: Get rid of passive sentences; capture the essence of your press release in a Tweet.
70. Stop blocking social media from ur employees. Train them and empower them.
71. Spice up internal comms: Roving reporters and employee film fests: uncovering talent in ur organization.
72. “Who died & put IT in charge of employee productivity?” @shelholtz
73. Amplify employee voices thru low-cost podcasting. Can listen at user convenience, develops trust and community. And cheap to produce.
74. Journalism graduates today are trained to shoot, edit, and publicize. Get a dedicated staff member to focus on video.
75. @MarkRaganCEO on why authenticity matters: “We live in the age of bullshit.”
76. Useful podcasting tools: Wavepad, Camtasia Studio, Audacity, Levelator.
77. On podcasting…the tool is not the message.
78. Podcast Production Lessons: Cozy up to your radio. Get comfortable with being seen & heard. Prepare, prepare, prepare.
79. Podcasters: Think like a marketer. Create full campaign. Don’t 4get your global audience. Measure every podcast.
80. Podcasters: Your leaders make for great content. Look for your influencers. Let employees be the interviewers sometimes.
81. Internal Podcasts: You’ve got experts in your community. Help them tell their stories. Find the moment when the mike goes away.
82. Podcasts complement crisis communications. Can quickly be on the scene or respond to rumors. Easily done over the phone.
83. Time length for videos is controversial. Brevity important in most cases. 90 secs or less. BUT if it’s good, ppl will watch longer.
84. Executive communications is like a high wire act…eventually something will go wrong.
85. Public Speakers: Common mistake – spending more time on slides than on delivery. Dry runs are important.
86. Public Speakers: Conversational tone in a large audience doesn’t always work. Stage presence is important.
87. Speechwriters: Beware of tongue twisters. “Red Buick, Blue Buick”.
88. Speechwriters: Prep your exec in case their time gets cut. Provide a 60-30-15 minute version of the speech as a contingency.
89. Understand Cultural Sensitivity/Diversity issues: Resource: Culture Crossing – Beware of culturally-specific analogies (e.g. Sports US= “4th down”; UK= “batting on a sticky wicket”).
90. Think about mic’ing your exec when they present so u can re-purpose their speech/audio for other things (website, podcast, transcript, etc.)
91. “Opportunities multiply as they are seized”- Sun Tzu. Especially true for the internet.
92. @aribadler suggested we’ve moved from work-life balance to work-life blend.
93. Avoid extended online debates with ppl who disagree with a message.
94. 28 Best Praactices for virtual presentations, WebEx sessions: www.whatworks.biz
95. Best way to brief ur exec? Know them, their style. Personalize ur approach and style.
96. If your employees love what they do, make them ambassadors.
97. Pre-flight checklist for exec-comms events available as .doc source: http://bit.ly/bzzoTh
98. Blogs must be authentic. Don’t ghost write your CEO’s. Ppl expect authenticity. If they can’t write it, look for something else.
99. If ur CEO is a bad writer but a good speaker: have him dictate it + ur comm staff can transcribe to the blog.
100. Comm cascade often fails. Focus on interpretation + location! Help staff take the message, interpret, + pass it on accurately.
101. Branding: Detroit is considered “gritty”. Baby Boomers equate that to dirty. Gen X define it as “authentic”. Detroit’s brand position: Detroit is where cool comes from.
102. Ask your agency to pitch ideas they don’t think you’ll approve. Creativity will flow.
103. Whether it’s online or in print. If you don’t know if people are reading it, why are you doing it?
104. Interviewing tip: Don’t be afraid to go where your answer leads you and not where your question sent you.
105. Complaints are inevitable in any biz. Look at them as opportunities to showcase problem solving and communication skills.
106. Comms must compete for your employees’ attention – Paying employees gets them in the door, but that doesn’t engage and motivate them.
107. Measure communications by business goals/objectives.
108. Consider Prezzi.com instead of PPT: Animated visuals are dynamic and impressive. As shown in @shelhotz closing keynote.

I’ve long admired Jane Genova whose speechwriting blog is featured in my Blogroll. She’s a prolific writer who also writes on career challenges for the over 50’s.

Jane noticed that I reviewed her book, Over-50: How We Keep Working, and asked if I would agree to be interviewed for her profiles of “Fifty people over 50”.

I was honored.

Jane called while I was on a business trip to Detroit and I spent a half hour chatting with her on the phone while outside a Greektown restaurant. The resulting write up is alternately headlined as:

• In England, you fail and you’re finished
• In Silicon Valley you learn to jump from lily pad to lily pad
• The mindset in Silicon Valley is very Darwinian

Same interview, different blog outlets. I love the re-purposing of the material for different audiences.

There’s also a writerly alliteration in the lead: Ian Griffin is our fifth Fifty-Over-50 to be featured.

The Ragan’s Corporate Communicators Conference held May 5-7, 2010 at the Detroit Marriott at the Renaissance Center. Hosted by General Motors.

Full background on my own two presentations – slides, script and references:
Speechwriting in the age of social media: Magnifying the impact of a speech to increase your reach

What can go wrong in executive communications: Common mistakes and how to avoid them

Video of first-hand impressions by 15 attendees.