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Social Media Marketing isn't Customer Collaboration
Telling your customers you want to engage and collaborate with them and then marketing to them are two very different things. The concept of wanting to collaborate with customers sounds great and at first everyone nods their heads and says, "yes we want to do that." But when it comes time to actually doing it (collaborating) we oftentimes revert back to the idea of using social media to market or send out messages to our networks, not quite the same thing as collaborating with them. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with just using social media for marketing, but in my opinion it can be used for greater and deeper impacting business purposes.
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Date: 2011-05-31
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Comodo Brazil Breach Reminds Admins to Guard Against SQL Injection
Back in March 2011, the Italian reseller of trusted, authorized, security certicates, Comodo was compromised through a simple SQL injection attack. The relevation that such a visable figure in online security could be breached with a simple SQL injection attack prompted SQL injection attempts at other Comodo resellers around the world. The latest to fall victim was Comodo Brazil. Both of these attacks involved a security auditting tool, sqlmap, Python script; and similar SQL injection points can be found by searching Google for script filetypes and generic paramaters names. A simple attack on a significant authority figure should give database administrators more to consider when securing their servers.
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Date: 2011-05-27
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A Look into Windows' Accessibility Tools
Many people in today's population use Microsoft Windows without a hitch; however, there are many people out there who need a little extra help navigating through this quality operating system. Whether a person needs more visual aids around Windows or more audio assisting, Microsoft Windows provides its users with various tools so that they can get the best and most out of this product.
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Date: 2011-05-26
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The Complete Small Business Marketer's SEO Toolkit
Business owners and marketers don't necessarily need to become SEO experts, but they do need to equip themselves with enough knowledge, data and access to simple SEO tools to allow them to understand how and why one site ranks higher over another, what's holding a site back and the most important ways to quickly analyze any page they land on.
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Date: 2011-05-26
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The Most Underrated Quality of a CEO
You usually hear a lot about the early days of being a founder CEO, but I'm going to try to write more about the days of being a founding CEO as a company grows. The articles will probably be shorter and more frequent. Earlier today, someone asked me on Formspring what the most under-rated quality of a CEO is and I responded very simply with this: The Ability To Let Go. Late last week, I was lucky enough to get advice from a very successful CEO that told me: only focus on tasks that you yourself can specifically do. If it's something someone else can do and it constantly eats into your time, then you should find someone to fill that role if you have the resources. It resonated with me heavily as I find Onswipe growing faster than ever before and thinking about what tasks I should be taking on every day.
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Date: 2011-05-26
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What It's Like To Be A Founding CEO As A Company Grows
You usually hear a lot about the early days of being a founder CEO, but I'm going to try to write more about the days of being a founding CEO as a company grows. The articles will probably be shorter and more frequent. Earlier today, someone asked me on Formspring what the most under-rated quality of a CEO is and I responded very simply with this: The Ability To Let Go. Late last week, I was lucky enough to get advice from a very successful CEO that told me: only focus on tasks that you yourself can specifically do. If it's something someone else can do and it constantly eats into your time, then you should find someone to fill that role if you have the resources. It resonated with me heavily as I find Onswipe growing faster than ever before and thinking about what tasks I should be taking on every day.
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Date: 2011-05-26
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Cross Platform System Administration with Cfengine
Managing system security, system configuration, software deployments, and documenting it all, are enormous tasks on any network. Cfengine is a free tool that attempts to automate those tasks, and more. There are a number of other configuration tools to choose from, but few have the breadth and power Cfengine does. Though Cfengine is used by large organizations like Yale University, the State of New York, eBay, and IBM, it's commercial or free version may be a viable solution even for small networks.
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Date: 2011-05-26
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Foreign Languages As A Competitive Differentiator
A common issue online marketers have is coming up with unique differentiators. SEOs have this problem - it takes virtually no effort for an intermediate or advanced SEO to understand a competitors' main link acquisition strategies in an hour or less. That allows new entrants into the field to easily duplicate your hard, pioneering efforts. Affiliates have this problem - there are so many people vying to sell the same thing that it's hard to stand out. User friendliness and pricing no longer help - price comparisons, coupons, deals and reviews are now commodified. So let's define the problem: Differentiating your site in a lasting way is difficult, because competitors can copy you without much trouble.
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Date: 2011-05-25
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Using Foreign Languages To Differentiate Your Site
A common issue online marketers have is coming up with unique differentiators. SEOs have this problem - it takes virtually no effort for an intermediate or advanced SEO to understand a competitors' main link acquisition strategies in an hour or less. That allows new entrants into the field to easily duplicate your hard, pioneering efforts. Affiliates have this problem - there are so many people vying to sell the same thing that it's hard to stand out. User friendliness and pricing no longer help - price comparisons, coupons, deals and reviews are now commodified. So let's define the problem: Differentiating your site in a lasting way is difficult, because competitors can copy you without much trouble.
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Date: 2011-05-25
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Notes from 2011 MIT Sloan CIO Symposium: Academic Keynote Panel
The MIT Sloan Alumni Club of Boston, The MIT Center For Digital Business, SIM Boston and MIT ILP, are hosting the eight annual MIT Sloan CIO Symposium today. The event is sold out with over 900 people registered. Here are my notes from the session: Academic Keynote Panel: MIT's Perspective: What Every CIO Should Know About the Future Impact of Digital Business. Participants included: Moderator: Jason Pontin, Editor-in-chief & Publisher, MIT Technology Review, panel: Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson, Schussel Professor of Management, MIT Sloan, Dr. David Clark, Senior Research Scientist, MIT CSAIL, Prof. Gregory McRae, Professor Emeritus, MIT, and Prof. Alex (Sandy) Pentland,
Professor, MIT Media Lab. The notes are done real time so apologies for any typos
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Date: 2011-05-23
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I/O Virtualization as a Solution to Data Expansion
Data creation is exploding, and more than likely that data is tailored to a specific app with a specific location it needs to be stored. System virtualization, separating physical resources from the operating system, has been around for a while, but I/O virtualization is a very specific form that is rather new. Perhaps taking another look at why I/O virtualization for data centers can be of benefit.
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Date: 2011-05-23
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7 Tenets Of Framework Selection
As you develop any application, you will need to choose various tools, libraries and frameworks that you want to integrate into the application. In some cases, this could be a very simple task of choosing the most popular and widely respected tool. However, this is not often the case. In most cases, there are several tools that could fit your basic requirement, and they all have their own unique issues. The question then becomes, how do you choose between the various options? I have talked about this concept before, but it was long ago and had a slightly different focus. So, today I give you these new and improved 7 tenets of framework selection.
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Date: 2011-05-23
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New Bill Could Force ISPs Keep User Data
A new user data-logging bill that is being introduced is heating up the Net Neutrality deabte. Rep. Lamar Smith of The House Judiciary Committee, is preparing a bill which would require internet service providers to retain information about their users to aid in criminal investigations.
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Date: 2011-05-20
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IBM Covers the Transformation of Business Email
Business email remains big despite some attempts to get stuff out of an overcrowded inbox. As IBM mentioned, organizations still consider email to be their most important, mission-critical application. In 2009, there were over 800 million business email users worldwide, and that number is expected to jump to almost 970 million by 2014, according to IDC. For perspective, on the consumer side the numbers are almost identical. There were approximately 760 million consumer email users in 2009, with an expected 950 million by 2014.
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Date: 2011-05-20
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Japan's Situation May Impact Technology Supply Chains
It appears that, at least in the technology world, supply chains will be affected due to the recent tragic earthquake in Japan. In an article exploring the impact it will have on Apple it is stated that "[o]ver 40 percent of the world's NAND flash and roughly 15 percent of the world's DRAM are manufactured in Japan." In this instance, and with others, companies with the size and resources of Apple will likely be able to evade supply shortages. However, small players, and some big players, may experience critical supply issues.
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Date: 2011-05-20
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Knowledge Management Done Right
You may have noticed how, over the course of the last couple of weeks, I have started to share over here in this blog a whole lot more video (related) content than anything else, to the point where I can imagine how there may be a few of you folks out there who may be wondering whether this blog will turn itself into a videoblog eventually.
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Date: 2011-05-19
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Do You Need A Business Problem Before Using Social Media?
I had an interesting dinner meeting with a prospect today about how they might use social media. They are a b2b subscription based publication and they were wondering if they should be in the space. I thought about it for a minute and resisted the temptation to just say "yes." Because after all just "being" somewhere and having a few accounts online doesn't really mean much. One of the folks at dinner asked me a simple and point blank question which I'm sure many people would have said yes to. He asked me, "should we have a facebook page or a twitter account?"
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Date: 2011-05-19
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Do You Need a Business Case for Social Media?
I had an interesting dinner meeting with a prospect today about how they might use social media. They are a b2b subscription based publication and they were wondering if they should be in the space. I thought about it for a minute and resisted the temptation to just say "yes." Because after all just "being" somewhere and having a few accounts online doesn't really mean much. One of the folks at dinner asked me a simple and point blank question which I'm sure many people would have said yes to. He asked me, "should we have a facebook page or a twitter account?"
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Date: 2011-05-19
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Connecting Buyers And Their Wants
Marketing for small business is about satisfying wants. Most of us are lucky enough to be in the want business, not the need business. Marketing is connecting a buyer to a want. And strategy? Strategy is your approach. It's how you get from where you are to where you're going.
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Date: 2011-05-18
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Chromebooks Have A Role To Play In Your Enterprise
Reaction to Google's Chrome book announcement at has ranged from wildly positive to, shall we say, less than positive. To naysayers, I'm reminded of Clayton Christensen writing on sustaining vs. disruptive innovation. Chromebook is a disruptive innovation, and will play a growing role in tomorrow's IT department. I've said it before, and I'll repeat it now - plan ahead to use ChromeOS/Chromebooks in your enterprise.
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Date: 2011-05-17
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Web Analytics and CRM: Customer Intelligence Just Got Smarter
The dawn of Web 2.0 bid the need for Web Analytics 2.0. The previous analytics approach was elementary and insufficient to capture valuable decision-making information. Similarly, CRM has largely been characterized by nearly blind campaigns that produce little or no valuable data to make informed decisions. The integration of analytics and CRM answers all the unknown questions.
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Date: 2011-05-17
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A Global View of the Social Customer
We talk a lot about the social customer, but rarely do we look at their behaviors within the global landscape. What's important to note about the below data is that it is based on regions, not countries. When devising a social media strategic plan, it's important to understand the social customer at the country level because their behaviors change quite dramatically.
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Date: 2011-05-16
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Unity and Ubuntu Will Fail
Mark Shuttleworth has set Ubuntu up for a tragic shortcoming. At the Ubuntu Developer Summit in Bupdapest, Hungary, Shuttleworth set a goal for "200 million Ubuntu users in 4 years". This may have been a realistic goal on the previous path Ubuntu was taking. However, Natty Narwhale's release in late April took a huge step in the wrong direction. Ubuntu has long been considered the flagship Linux distribution that could potentially compete as a desktop/workstation alternative to Microsoft Windows. Why is this is no longer a possibility? Unity.
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Date: 2011-05-13
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Responding to the Growing Threat of DDoS Attacks
Sony PSN, Qriocity, MasterCard, PayPal, Visa--what do these have in common? They have all sustained DDoS attacks in the past 6 months, PSN and Qriocity just this past month. McAfee reported in a global survey that "[e]ighty percent of respondents have faced a large-scale denial of service attack (DDoS), and a quarter reported daily or weekly DDoS attacks." DDoS attacks can have a lasting impact and are nearly impossible to defend against.
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Date: 2011-05-13
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Web Marketing For Service Professionals
Service professionals often struggle with how to market themselves online. In fact, marketing-whether it's web marketing or traditional marketing-is often the Achilles' heel of service professionals, whether they are doctors, accountants or sales trainers.
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Date: 2011-05-12
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Marketing Professional Services On The Web
Service professionals often struggle with how to market themselves online. In fact, marketing-whether it's web marketing or traditional marketing-is often the Achilles' heel of service professionals, whether they are doctors, accountants or sales trainers.
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Date: 2011-05-12
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Microskype? Skyprosoft? Microsoft Buys Skype
This is one of those cases where we get to see why rumors are just rumors. Last week we reported that a potential deal between Facebook and Skype was on the table. Today, Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft and Tony Bates of Skype have concluded a deal with Microsoft purchasing Skype for $8.5 billion. This would be the largest external purchase by the former IT behemoth Microsoft.
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Date: 2011-05-12
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My Top 10 Reasons Why I Bought an iPad 2
If you have been following me on Twitter for a little while now, you would probably know by now how much in love I am with my new shiny iPad 2 that I bought in Madrid almost a month ago, after having tried in multiple places. I guess that's one of the perks of travelling on a regular basis, that you keep trying to get your hands on it at multiple venues, till it eventually happens heh Anyway, I am sure you may still remember the blog post I put together over here, almost a year ago, when I bought my iPad v1 under the title "My Top 10 Reasons Why I Bought an iPad 2". Well, since a few folks have asked me what that experience has been like with v2, I thought I would venture today into putting together this particular blog entry, as a nice follow-up, where I can share with you folks my "My Top 10 Reasons Why I Bought an iPad v2".
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Date: 2011-05-12
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Will We See 'Microsoft Skype' Soon?
On Tuesday, May 10, 2010, the software giant Microsoft announced a deal that they would be buying the large communication software Skype, which is a commonly used for face-to-face interaction. Skype was originally owned by an investment company called Silver Lake, and, as of this week, Microsoft now owns this quality communication software.
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Date: 2011-05-12
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Titanium: The Application that Redefined Application Development
Application development has historically been defined by a platform basis. One doesn't just do application development, they develop an application for Windows, Linux, or Macintosh. Now, the "baby boomers" have arrived: iPad, iPhone, Android, Galaxy, Blackberry, Playbook, and many other mobile and tablet platforms. This makes app development a nearly impossible task, because even though some of those platforms use the same OS, development has to be done specifically for each.
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Date: 2011-05-10
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Give Customers What They Need
While it's great to know what people want, when you give them what they want, you only give them a partial solution. The want is the symptom. But, when you address the need, you are addressing the underlying problem and providing a much more holistic solution.
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Date: 2011-05-09
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Questions to Ask When Developing a Social CRM Strategy
Social CRM means different things to different people. If you ask three people to explain social CRM chances are that you'll get four different responses. The thing to remember is that all of this "social" stuff is about solving customer facing problems that address people's change in behavior, expectations, technological fluency, and communication methods. These problems are solved with strategies that include BOTH new technologies (such as Facebook, Jive, Lithium, Twitter) AND older technologies (such as CRM systems).
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Date: 2011-05-09
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Smart Filtering - On Humanising and Socialising the Web
In yesterday's blog post under the heading "5 Reasons Why Activity Streams Will Save You From Information Overload" I mentioned how crucial and critical collaborative and social filtering of relevant content and people would become within the Social Computing realm in the coming years, if not already altogether, in order to allow knowledge workers manage their various streams much more efficiently and effectively. I still believe it's going to be one of the Holy Grails from a successful Enterprise 2.0 deployment within whatever business. However, serendipity, once again, did its magic, and yesterday it pointed me to a couple of resources that have got me somewhat worried, quite a bit, to a certain extent, thanks to a different scenario: what happens if us, human knowledge workers, are no longer in control of that social / collaborative filtering? Would it still make sense? Can we rely on the system to set the stage and the landscape of those filters of content that should be relevant to us, but that we haven't got much to do about it all? Can we trust those hidden algorithms that are not very open and transparent in the first place while presenting the supposedly desired results? Well, it looks like we may need to "Beware online "filter bubbles"". And pretty seriously!
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Date: 2011-05-06
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How Big is the Cloud?
The global cloud computing market will grow from $40.7 billion in 2011 to more than $241 billion in 2020, according to new Forrester forecast data reported in Sizing The Cloud by Stefan Ried, Ph.D. and Holger Kisker, Ph.D. Based on Forrester's cloud market taxonomy, this new report outlines the different market dynamics for the three core layers of cloud computing - the public cloud, the virtual private cloud, and the private cloud. The total size of the public cloud market will grow from $25.5 billion in 2011 to $159.3 billion in 2020. The market for virtual private cloud solutions will grow from $7.5 billion in 2011 to $66.4 billion in 2020. The market for private cloud solutions will grow from $7.8 billion in 2011 to $15.9 billion in 2020.
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Date: 2011-05-06
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How To Use Twitter
If you're a business owner breaking into the world of Twitter you've probably set up your account, uploaded your avatar (using your photo), written your short bio and are now sitting in front of the screen scratching your head.
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Date: 2011-05-06
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500px Shows Promise as Sort of a More Artistic Version of Flickr
For the past week or so I've been spending some time playing around with the photosharing site 500px and am really starting to like it. The site has been around awhile (since 2003) but went through some major redesigns, most notably in the Fall of last year. The result seems to be a very elegant photosharing community that is far more focused on fine art and artistic oriented photography than Flickr is.
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Date: 2011-05-05
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5 Reasons Why Activity Streams Will Save You From Information Overload
I heart Activity Streams. I mean, I *love* them to bits! From the very first beginning that I got exposed to them over at Twitter, over 4 years ago, till today, where I am using a bunch of various different microblogging / microsharing services, both internal and external, I couldn't work, nor get much done!, without them. I live them. I think they are probably one of the most fundamental, critical and relevant 2.0 capabilities that any company can turn into, if they would want to dive into the fascinating world of Enterprise Social Computing, and start seeing the business value right away. It probably cannot get any easier than that. In my own experience, next to my blog(s), they are the most significant component from the 2.0 world that have managed to help me live, rather successfully, "A World Without Email" for the last 4 years and counting… Now, do I feel overloaded because of them? Do I feel they are heading the same way our Inbox has been heading for the last few years? Absolutely not! Quite the opposite. It's been, all along, if I can say so, quite a liberating experience so far altogether! And here is why.
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Date: 2011-05-05
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Advanced MySQL in PHP
Let's face it, we all know the basics of connecting to a MySQL database in PHP. That's development 101. But how many times have you looked at your code and wondered "there must be a better way to do this" to yourself? These are a couple PHP functions that I have found to be indispensable as my career as a web developer have progressed.
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Date: 2011-05-05
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Owning Multiple Domains Can Harm Your SEO
While working on SEO campaigns, one of the most common things we see is customers owning a number of different domains for the same business. These additional domains actually provide very little benefit and in some cases can even harm your SEO campaign.
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Date: 2011-05-03
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14 Days Later - Post-Panda UK
It's been a fortnight (two weeks) since the Panda was unleashed in the UK. As predicated, there was and still is a lot of wailing and bemoaning from sites that have been hit hardest by the newest Google algorithm update.
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Date: 2011-05-03
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The Secret of Conversions: It's About Relationships
There are a lot of things that go into operating a successful business. But, when it's all said and done, the thing that really matters most is building relationships. Sure, your customers are concerned about price, quality, service, etc., but the most successful businesses are those that work to create some kind of strong rapport with both their customers and potential customers alike.
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Date: 2011-05-02
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IDrive Simplifies Mac Backup To The Cloud
The maker of the popular IDrive online backup service, Pro Softnet Corporation, has announced that users of their Macintosh client now have full support for Apple Time Machine backups. The way it's described, backing up your data sounds fairly simple. Once you have the Time Machine folder selected for backup to the IDrive online account, IDrive automatically keeps your data protected for a redundant backup.
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Date: 2011-05-02
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