Timi will share… | Social Business Strategy

…analysis on social business, interactive media, games, e-democracy, poetry, food, passions

July 19, 2011 • 5:00 pm 0

Use service design to envision social business programmes

A lot of time and resources are spent on thinking of clever marketing / PR gimmicks, but less about harnessing the real potential of social for your business: making social a core part of your services and products.

How to integrate social into services and products? To quote Clay Shirky, give your customers “a plausible promise, an effective tool, and an acceptable bargain.” Learn more from James Dellow in this well-written and insightful post ‘Using service design to envision socially integrated services and products‘.

Filed under: Social / online media analysis, social business, Strategy, , , , , ,

July 17, 2011 • 3:01 am 0

Twitter at five: 200 million tweeps, 350 billion tweets a day (Infographic)

Five years ago, you would’ve been called a twit if you insisted that the words ‘tweet’, ‘follow’, ‘reply’, and ‘mention’ were associated with a blue bird.

I joined Twitter on Sat Dec 20 10:37:41 +0000 2008. I postponed joining for a long time because then, I lived on Jaiku, which I joined on June 9, 2007.  My Jaiku stream is still online, and reading it brings back a lot of memories. http://delunna.jaiku.com/ But after switching to Twitter, I never got to go back again to Jaiku.

by visually via

//  

Filed under: Digital worlds, Social / online media analysis, , , , , ,

July 12, 2011 • 12:34 pm 0

Pharmacies can be more social: talking with your customers can be more important than giving answers

I was customer #5 at the neighbourhood pharmacy this morning. I wanted to get a ‘herhalingsrecept’ (repeat prescription) for my brand new and ridiculously expensive medication for treating my high cholesterol levels. I have to shell out my own money first before it can be shouldered by my insurance, and getting the reimbursement requires filling and sending paper forms. Also these days, I have to request medication, even my insulin shots, a week in advance. Otherwise, the pharmacy can’t guarantee availability. So, I dutifully proceeded to the pharmacy at 8 a.m. to make sure I get my repeat prescription. I thought it was strange to not have gotten it right away the last time, but I wrote that off to my forgetfulness and to the pharmacist’s busy schedule.

My turn came up and I explained myself to the pharmacist. I said I wondered why I didn’t get the repeat prescription, and how can I get it. “Then it’s not meant to be ordered again”, the pharmacist knowingly replied.

I gave her a blank look; luckily, my brain was jolted enough from its sleepy state to manage a retort, “But that’s the second time I ordered it. That means the original prescription stated that it’s meant to be used regularly — monthly in my case.”

To which she replied, “Daar ik ga ik geen gesprek voeren,” (“I won’t go into that discussion”).

Ah, the magic words that would compel me to stop asking and accept the facts of life. It was meant to be the end point of a flowchart, the conclusion of a Q&A triage.  Although having grown up with tyrants in government has taught me that silence is argument carried on by other means, I luckily managed to also develop a questioning nature and an ability for indirect resistance. So I skipped the step ‘No discussion’ in the flowchart and created a new flow. I told the pharmacist that my new medication was not meant as a one-off.

Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Ideas, Social / online media analysis, social business, User experience, , , ,

June 30, 2011 • 2:09 pm 1

Social Business Series 1: Social media behaviours around the world

[Note: Aside from blogging about the impact of social media in society, I also want to popularise the concept of Social Business. I’ve decided to post regularly about a series of topics related to ‘Social Business’, which will be a combination of curated information and reflections about my own experiences as a freelance Social Business Analyst / Strategist. I hope to explore the different aspects of Social Business and help you gain a better understanding on how to optimise social and network productivity in an organisation. In this post, I'd like to give an overview on social media behaviours and underscore the importance of knowing your target audience.]

Social business as a concept and framework is, first and foremost, an acknowledgement of the profound impact of social technologies on our culture, the way we communicate and the way we work. Secondly, it’s a recognition of the potential of social media and networks for consumer engagement, workforce engagement and change / operations management.  Last, but not the least, it is a framework for effecting genuine and holistic transformations in organisations.

Global social media behaviours 2010/2011

Global state of social networking

Know thy customer
The holy grail of social media is – surprise, surprise – not media but social. By social I mean people and the networks they participate in. Before an organisation should even attempt to create a social media campaign or set up account profiles across social web, it should first be clear about its audience and their socialgraphics. This means having an in-depth knowledge of what people do online, where they converge, what they talk about, who they talk to and trust, and how they connect with each other. These are fertile grounds for consumer/user insights, which are fundamental in any online business. If there’s anything that best practices in online and social business have taught us, it’s this: don’t cut corners in project activities aimed at attaining a real understanding of the local market.

But since digital and social technologies are helping us live in increasingly proximity with each other, we must  also complement local knowledge with a global perspective on how consumers use social technologies.

To get you started thinking about Social Business, above are two very relevant infographics on global use and adoption of the social web. The first is a 2011 global snapshot of social media activities in Europe, Latin America and Asia-Pacific (using the GlobalWebIndex, Comscore and Nielsen). I got this from Michael Brito‘s brilliant blog for his book, “Smart Business,  Social Business”.  (More details in the later part of this post.) The second is from GlobalWebIndex that visualises the global state of social networking in 2011.

While you would naturally have to conduct more local and group-specific research on your target customer’s social and online behaviour, global statistics always come in handy for comparative analysis or as a springboard for deeper investigation. Always be on the look-out for information that shows interesting trends in social network growth, adoption, and engagement that can reveal insights on customers’ relationships and their ever-evolving user behaviour.
Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: campaigns, Digital worlds, Ideas, Philippines, Social / online media analysis, social business, Strategy, User experience, , , , , ,

June 9, 2011 • 10:34 am 2

A smart infographic for Social Business

Back from a month-long holiday in the Philippines and now faced with a huge backlog of brilliant posts to read from my favourite thinkers and writers. Thank goodness for smart infographics such as this one by Michael Brito, which set my mind again on the fundamentals of Social Business. It has inspired me to start working on one myself. It’s not only an essential for presentations, but also a good mind exercise for checking ones thinking and challenging ones notions about Social Business.

Thanks to advocates of Open Research, Creative Commons and the Open Web for continuing to share knowledge and insights freely – and beautifully, too ;-)

And if you like this infographic, then maybe you’d like the book, too. It has genuinely piqued my curiousity. In this case, it’s an effective tool for promoting the book! [I hope Headshift and Lee Bryant will publish a book on social business, too.]
The Social Business Book
The Social Business infographic created by Online MBA

Filed under: Digital worlds, Social / online media analysis, social business, , , ,

April 21, 2011 • 2:32 pm 0

Social web and social change: from the personal to the political and back again

[Originally published in Munting Nayon Magazine for the Filipino community in the Netherlands]

I’ve been writing a lot about how the social web has become an inherent part of this generation’s politicisation and mediation of the world. Actually, it’s helping everyone of all ages from all over to see the world from different perspectives in ways that are fast, easy, and in most cases, real-time. It’s contributing profoundly to the development of a networked way of thinking, observing and doing. For example, social technologies help expose people to various societal problems and current events, so much so that local issues become global concerns. This has become evident in the way we’ve experienced the social uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and all across the Arab world. Likewise, it has impacted how natural calamities are seen and reported, and its stories documented, shared and remembered. The recent natural disasters that devastated New Zealand and Japan attest to this new way of understanding and mediating the events that happen around us.

Whether suffering and tragedies are turned into mere spectacles is another matter. By the same token, though there are various levels of accessibility to the social web, it’s not a part of the everyday life of the majority of the world’s poorest sectors. However, what many critics of social media miss is that while the media and tools are new, the social is not. Neither is the end goal of transformation. For this is ultimately one, if not the most compelling aspect, of the social web’s existence and development: mediating and remediating our experience of the world and our relationships, and changing ourselves in the process.

Here are a few of my favourite examples of how the social web is interwoven in our day-to-day political, work or personal experiences. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Digital worlds, e-democracy, Ideas, Philippines, Social / online media analysis, , , ,

March 23, 2011 • 3:09 pm 0

Motherhood: How does a new mom carve out her niche in the workplace when returning to work?

I posed this question on Quora some time ago and got some great response. The context:

A lot of moms going back to work find it challenging, if not difficult, to claim back the niche they carved out for themselves in the workplace. I think many feel the need to prove themselves once again, especially those who led a very hectic career before giving birth. But as every mother knows, it’s a different ‘now’ we’re dealing with. How should one go about returning to work and striking a balance between career development and raising her child?

After having just read Tamar Weinberg’s post on her ‘must-have tools’, I decided to share an answer myself. ;-) I found her post so helpful, I just have to spread the goodness. I bet you will, too.

“I’ll just focus on some ways that can help moms get organised and be more productive. There are a lot of tools – online tools especially – that can make the transition better. Think of time and task management tools, invoicing, and communication and collaboration tools. For those involved in online business or are entrepreneurs, Tamar Weinberg (internet/community/social media consultant and author who’s a work from home mom) wrote an awesome blog post about the online business tools she uses to make her more productive: http://www.techipedia.com/2011/business-owners-web-toolbox/

Some of it are naturally quite specific to the work she does, but you can easily find personal use cases for most of the tools she listed.”

Filed under: Digital worlds, social business, , , , ,

February 18, 2011 • 11:37 am 2

Digital and social activism: no small change

The social upheaval that exploded in Tunisia and Egypt is spreading across the Arab World. At the time of this writing, dissent is snowballing in Libya, Bahrain and Iran.

In the wake of these extraordinary events, a myriad of discussions on the role the Internet and the social web has emerged. Cyber-utopians are praising Twitter and Facebook to the heavens; cyber-sceptics are pooh-poohing the contribution of social networks in spawning social change.

While I would never use ‘Twitter revolution’ or ‘Facebook revolution’ to describe these social uprisings, I would also neither dismiss nor trivialise the role of social media in social transformation. Social media is not the alpha and omega of causes and revolutions, but it is an inherent part of this generation’s politicisation and experience of social change. Instead of simply shrugging it off, real critics (and not cynics) should call for a more thorough review of how exactly the social web was used by the groups and organisations behind these movements just like what the Meta-Activism Project is doing.

Social media allergy
I’m struck, though, by the growing allergy to the idea that social platforms can help carry out democratic change. It’s one thing to cast a critical eye and not romanticise this notion, but it’s a totally different story to be cynical and outright dismissive. Read the rest of this entry »

Filed under: Digital worlds, e-democracy, Ideas, Politics, Social / online media analysis, , , , , , , , ,

February 18, 2011 • 2:51 am 0

“Social business design means humanising the enterprise”

Social business design is about humanising the enterprise by creating structures that have both intimacy and scale: doing the right things (effectiveness) and encouraging positive behaviour and talent. How do we create this new ‘business operating system’? Lee Bryant of Headshift gives us some basic pointers and insights.

Filed under: Digital worlds, Social / online media analysis, social business, Strategy, , , , ,

January 18, 2011 • 10:11 am 1

The Dot Loop, the simplest process possible • Intense Minimalism

The Dot Loop, the simplest process possible • Intense Minimalism.

Taken from http://intenseminimalism.com/2010/the-dot-loop-the-simplest-process-possible/

This is a stimulating read on the Dot Loop model, embodied cognition & Agile methodology. Do-Observe-Think is fractal: a simple, complete & powerful process of knowing-doing/perceiving-behaving that exists on different levels. Think of how this impacts project flows, design, learning…everything acually. The more I think about it, the more I realise how intensely personal it is. Well, it manifests as biological and neurological processes, but what I mean is that one doesn’t have to look far to see its implications. You don’t have to think in terms of projects or organisational workflows. Just take a look at yourself. When conflcts or problems arise in our lives, it can often be traced back to a break in the loop. For example: failure to give and receive  feedback, and the inability to assess or measure the gravity of a situation; lack of planning or understanding; and not acting on the solution, not intervening on time, or refusing to change.
Love it when I realise that the things I need have always just been within my reach.

Filed under: Digital worlds, Ideas, Social / online media analysis

About this blog

analyst, poet, dream-dweller. a.k.a. 'delunna'

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 1,465 other followers

Topics

Older posts

Timi Tweets

What I'm reading

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,465 other followers