The Anatomy of a Perfect Landing Page
And first one to leave…if you have that mentality, you will get more done in a shorter period of time and are able to do more with less time and resources. Think about it…make an appearance, show up fashionably late and leave early to go to another event. Try it next time and see the results!
Having just completed two feats that required a lot of stamina and training and I can say I am a better man for it! The first question I get when I tell people I was just at The SharePoint Conference(SPC) was “How was it?’ and “Did you survive?”, and upon hearing I just completed The Chicago Marathon are “How was it?” and “Did you finish?”
I am not going to recap either event except some high level takeaways…First, The SharePoint Conference…there were something like 7500-8000 attendees(compared to 45,000 runner in the marathon), so as daunting at SPC was, it pales in comparison, and due to the inclement weather in Anaheim, most attendees were not in shorts. Back to the conference….I attended many sessions, mostly on social and collaboration…my favorite was a Birds of Feather with Raymond Dux and Rob Foster. The idea around social and SharePoint is not just adding on a wonderful third party tool like NewsGator or Yammer, but to increase productivity, and really drive user adoption and employee engagement. Too many times organizations fail to ask the simple question of the end user, “What’s in it for me?”. The process generally takes a culture change(that is for another post).
Running the Chicago Marathon also takes a personal culture change…whether it is never running more than a 10K, or taking the time and long hours to train to be able to run, walk, jog, skip, hop, crawl the 26.2 long miles(I did them all!), it takes practice. To answer the above questions, I did great at both events…although I did not win either, I felt like I am both smarter and YES, I did finish(both).
Here are tips for Google+ new users from smart savvy technologist Robert Scoble:
My tips for newer users of Google+:
1. Learn what circles are and how to put people into them. When I first started out I went crazy with circles, opening up something like 20 of them. That wasn't very smart, it turned out. Now I'm back to seven. Simple ones like "friends, family, coworkers, geeks, VCs, tech press." Etc.
2. Learn how to distribute content to circles, or public, or certain people. When you post here you don't need to send it to everyone. You can send it just to people you've put in a specific circle, like "friends" or you can send it to a specific person, like me.
2b: Learn not to use your home feed as your main place to visit. Start a circle called "my home circle." Now when you add people you can add them to multiple circles, but if you don't want to see someone every day you can keep them out of your home circle (unfortunately if you follow people they will always be on your actual main feed).
3. Find a few "seed followers" that you like to follow. Then look at who they are following. You'll find lots more people to follow that way. For instance, I'm following 3,200 geeks, including most of the execs, tech press, VCs, etc. If those kinds of people float your boat, look through my list and pick and choose who you also want to follow.
4. Remember, posts with photos or video do better than just text posts, so see if you can figure out how to get other media in here.
5. If someone gets too noisy, let's cover how to handle that.
A. Too many posts. Sometimes you'll follow someone like +Chris Pirillo who posts a lot. What I've done with those folks, is put them into a "Noisy buttheads" circle. That way they don't pollute all your other circles, although they still will show up on your home feed. Feel free to put me in that circle for now.
B. Too many comments on some posts. Some posts will go viral here. It won't just happen to me. For instance, it might happen to you now that I've pushed you into 33,000 people's view by resharing your post (more on that in a second). If this happens to just one post, you can click the drop-down-menu over to the right of a post and choose "mute." You'll never see that post again. This is a good way to get rid of some things that are cluttering up your feed.
C. Consistently high engagement noise (there are already about 50 people who are consistently getting high engagement, folks like me, Trey Ratcliff, Leo Laporte, etc etc) and for us you just need to segregate us into our own circle. Or just put up with that kind of noise (I enjoy engaging in a lot of rapid-fire comments).
6. Turn off email notifications, or learn to filter them with Gmail's filters. I have turned them off. Too much email, too fast, especially if you get hit by one of the whales here (sorry for hitting you on the first day).
7. Setup your profile and make sure it's hyper complete. Look at mine at https://profiles.google.com/scobleizer and then go set yours up at https://profiles.google.com (I've spent a lot of time on mine).
8. Try to talk about something other than Google+. Try to say what you'll be doing with this. Post something original. Or, start a good debate about something that you care about. Etc. I'm really trying to do this because I'm getting bored with talking about Google+, but I see a lot of new people coming in here, so wanted to write down my thoughts based on my first 13 days.
9. Try using keyboard. J moves down. K moves up. I'm sure there's others coming.
10. If you use Google Chrome as your browser, there are a bunch of extensions you should try: http://pear.ly/fDvaa
11. Learn how resharing works. For instance, I took your original post and reshared it with my audience. Right now that causes some duplication noise (folks following both of us will see your post twice, once from you, once reshared from me) and there will be separate comments under both. Fragmentation is gonna be a problem until Google fixes that here. But resharing is how things are getting very viral. For instance, I just reshared your item with 33,000 people. Now, what if 10% of those reshared it with THEIR audiences? This is why things get crazy very quickly.
Anyway, that's some things. I'm sure you'll hear lots of other advice today. Have fun and looking forward to seeing what you post here.
What a great weekend if you are a sports fan! Derek Jeter hits his 3000th hit in style, a home run, and the women’s soccer team representing the stars and stripes wins a most improbable game, that many of us that witnessed will not soon forget!
Unfortunately the real Derek Jeter does not Tweet, but fortunately many of the Team USA women do, and we can follow them as they prepare to play France in the semi-final on Twitter…below is a list with their Twitter handles…make sure you tell them @jwillie says hello.
Goalie with amazing safe to ensure win vs. Brazil: Hope Solo, 29 years old www.twitter.com/hopesolo
Midfielder and game winning assist: Megan Rapinoe, 25 www.twitter.com/mPinoe
Forward and game tying goal: Abby Wambach, 31 www.twitter.com/awambach_dc
Forward: Alex Morgan, 21 www.twitter.com/alexmorgan13
Defender: Christie Rampone, 36 www.twitter.com/christierampone
Midfielder: Cari Lloyd, 28 www.twitter.com/carilloyd
Midfielder: Heather O’Reilly, 26 www.twitter.com/heather_sbfc
Midfielder: Tobin Heath, 23 www.twitter.com/TobinHeath
Defender: Becky Sauerbrunn, 26, www.twitter.com/beckysauerbrunn
Forward: Kelley O’Hara, 22 www.twitter.com/kohara19
Goalkeeper: Jillian Loyden, 26 www.twitter.com/jloyden
May 4 Illinois Technology Association Marketing Roundtable: What is new in social media: how to use the tools: http://www.illinoistech.org/event.aspx/3349
May 9-11 WOMMA The art and science of creating talkable brands http://womma.org/schoolofwom/faculty.html
May 12-14 UnGeeked Chicago: Social Branding: http://www.ungeekedelite.com/chicago
May 18 Leveraging IT/SharePoint for a More Efficient Human Resources Department: Minneapolis, MN https://www.clicktoattend.com/invitation.aspx?code=154714
May 19-20 SharePoint Fest Denver: Employee Engagement and User Adoption around SharePoint www.sharepointfest.com/Denver
May 24 Social Media Club Chicago with Tim Sanders: www.twar.com www.socialmediaclub.org/chicago
June 7 Intranet Benchmarking Forum: Interactive, visual online live broadcast http://www.ibforum.com/?ibflive
June 7 SharePoint User Group Chicago www.meetup.com/sharepoint
June 11 SharePoint Saturday Chicago http://sharepointsaturday.org/chicago/default.aspx
June 20-22 Enterprise 2.0 Conference, Building Social Business Boston http://www.e2conf.com/boston/
July 27 SharePoint Fest Chicago: Social Computing Inside and Outside Your Four Walls www.sharepointfest.com/Chicago
July 30 SharePoint Saturday New York City http://sharepointsaturday.org/ny/default.aspx
August 2-4 How To Leverage The Latest Social Media Tools To Drive Employee Engagement Across Your Organization: Chicago http://www.aliconferences.com/conf/employee_engagement0811/day1.htm
Having just come back from my first real vacation in one year, I thought I would talk about a few things that have been on my mind. Originally with the Charlie Sheen brooha, I thought about all the similarities Charlie Sheen and SharePoint have in common, and there are actually quite a few. The most prevelant ones are they both appear to be state of the art and new and easy to use, when in reality, they are both complex and difficult to use, which means that eventually you just want to throw it out the window…Next option...on to Swimsuits and SharePoint…below is a list side by side comparison:
|
SharePoint |
Swimsuits |
|
1. Sometimes hard to deploy |
Sometimes hard to deploy |
|
2. Can look very sexy |
Can look very sexy |
|
3. Can look very scary |
Can look very scary |
|
4. Microsoft relies on SP for sales |
SI relies on swimsuits for sales |
|
5. SP makes it easy to connect |
Swimsuits make it easy to connect |
|
6. Simple is better |
Simple IS better |
|
7. Can bring to the beach via mobile |
Definitely beach worthy |
|
8. Goes great with cocktails: SharePint |
Goes great w/ cocktails: margarita |
The Blackhawks did not win the Stanley Cup and the Bulls did not win a championship, nor the Yankees or the White Sox but I was blessed to be able to go to many games this past week. Starting with Bulls vs. Suns in Chicago with Bulls holding on for a win. The day after I went to the Blackhawks must win game vs. St. Louis Blues and we won in OT. Thursday April 7 was opening day at US Cellular and watched a gem, in the fog, as the White Sox defeated the Tampa Bay Rays. Made it back to the United Center to see a close game vs Boston Celtics with the Bulls pulling away in the fourth quarter truly establishing themselves as the team to beat in the East. I then hopped on a plane to speak in Boston at SharePoint Saturday and see some clients in the Boston area and lucked into a seat for opening day at Fenway Park playing my beloved Yankees. At this point the Red Sox needed the win more than the Yankees and happy the Sox got their first W. I completed the ultimate double–header by hitting the Garden and watched the Celtics defeat the Washington Wizards. On Saturday after speaking I secured a single seat for the Yankees getting revenge on the Bosox before hopping back on a flight to Chicago where today(Sunday) I saw my Blackhawks take a hard loss to the dreaded Detroit Redwings, but managed to squeak into the playoffs thanks to my friends in Minnesota-the Wild beat the Dallas Stars to have the ultimate first round match-up vs. Vancouver Canucks. You will be I will be at one of those home games. In fact, the ultimate sports fan is available April 19 for the second home game!
There is a reason Facebook has 500 million users. It is relatively easy to use, and pretty fun(on occasion) to connect with people and share links on articles of interest, songs, blogs with your friends that you are connected How does your company use its intranet site to connect employees to the business of collaboration and sharing and the company vision?
* Taking an intranet from functional to findable and fun
* Putting the spotlight on its product and its people
* Making the call to use social media…or not to use social media
Intranet 2.0 was once cool and nice to have. Now, it’s no longer an option. Web 2.0 is a must-have. Social media tools are becoming a point of differentiation and competitive advantage as organizations learn to use the new technology to engage employees in cost effective and innovative ways.
* Blogs
* Wikis
* Social bookmarking
* Discussion Forums
* User Comments
* User Ratings
* Video / Vlogs / YouTube Channels
* Podcasts
* Social networking (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn groups, Yammer)
The tremendous momentum built by Intranet 2.0 has resulted in an explosion of solutions, challenging organizations to sift through their options to find the best fit technology for their requirements. Compounding the difficulty of how to utilize the new tools is that consumers are adopting social media faster than companies have deployed them for business applications – forcing Communications, Marketing and IT departments to play catch up.
The net result is that many organizations know that they must adopt Intranet 2.0, and know that the solutions they require are out there, but they don’t know how to acquire and implement the best fit solutions for their needs rapidly and within a defined budget.
SharePoint is the glue that ties together your intranet
The expense and effort to effectively implement MOSS requires careful thought and continual diligence. If implemented without the proper governance and planning that goes beyond site a launch, MOSS can create more problems than it solves.
The key for successful deployments of SharePoint are aligning MOSS and employee collaboration needs with organizational goals and strategy. The specific scope of the project will vary based on the client’s unique requirements and budget, are generally found in a SharePoint Road map.
Jeff Willinger
Other passions include the New York Yankees, Chicago Blackhawks, NY Giants, college basketball, tennis, skiing, part time runner/triathlete, live music and the Sunday NY Times. (not necessarily in that order)
Most of his blog posts remain in his head.
Jeff Willinger's blog
