How to think of a wiki

In his interview on Federal News Radio, my client, Shahid Shah, described the wiki more succinctly than I have ever heard before:

...word processing document that multiple people can simultaneously edit without having to pass it from one person to another.

That is so simple, and so obvious, but I had never heard it put that way before and I will remember that for future use.

Shah went on to point out that the document stays in the same place, revision managed. In the case of the Budget Formulation Wiki there is an elaborate permission hierarchy that makes visible only those parts of the document the user is allowed to see.

Edit -
More from Behind the Curtain at TCG
Federal Financial Management News Web Log comments.

February meeting of Refresh DC

Will Evans was ill and so Thomas Vander Wal gamely stepped foward at the last minute to talk about Freely Seeping through the Walls of the Garden.

His presentation described the way organizations use social media internally. He said that corporate wikis sometimes were under utilized because employees are fearful of looking like “the company idiot.” It is easier to have social sites within the organization which are limited to small groups. It is easier to share ideas with people you know, and who will vet your ideas without flaming you. Gradually, as employees get more comfortable with sharing information, information can seep through the garden walls so that it can be shared with those higher up in the company.

Vander Wal said that it was important to have the right software to do this and that Sharepoint is not social software. Sharepoint creates silos that cannot be searched. Since I have never used Sharepoint, I have no opinion on this.

The three times that I have attended Refresh DC the presentations have been excellent and well attended. In fact, Refresh DC is the only group I have ever participated in that had attendees standing because there were not enough seats. I would describe the crowd as mostly developers and very Web 2.0. For the price of pizza and soft drinks you could be a sponsor and have your company mentioned every month. If you are considering sponsoring a local group, and your company does significant business with Web 2.0 companies, this might be something to consider.

Edit -
Thomas Vander Wal blogs at Personal InfoCloud.

Presidential Records Act in the digital age

Ezra Klein

If the Presidential Records Act makes IM and Blackberries impossible because it means even the most casual and speculative conversations will be included in future records, then the thing to do is not rip instant messaging -- and all its rapid efficiencies -- out of the White House, but to try and modernize the Presidential Records Act. The PRA, after all, was passed in 1978. There was no IM. No e-mail. No blackberries or text messaging.

I think this is correct, the law will have to be modified. Ezra is just talking about Text and email, but the rules regarding social media will also have to be revisited. Civil servants, not just White House personnel, need to be on Twitter and similar platforms, but the records management implications of social media need to be taken into account. There is a way of dealing with all this, but it needs to be reviewed.

Great moments in media relations

Military gets own social network after YouTube is blocked

TroopTube is designed to help military families connect and keep in touch when separated, according to a note on the new site. Users can quickly upload videos that can be shared privately with a subset of users, or with all users on the site, the note said.

TroopTube is run by Military OneSource, which provides online information and assistance to current and former military personnel and their families.

MilitaryOne directed a Computerworld reporter to the DOD press office for a comment regarding TroopTube. That office directed a Computerworld back to MilitaryOne.

Developing secure software for Macs

10 Things I Learned from C4[2]

Security is scary, but not as scary as not succeeding.

There was a wild presentation on security that said: don’t pretend to be a security expert. Stick to using the Keychain or bcrypt for passwords, use openssl or gpg. Don’t use installers or open up listeners on ports. Don’t write directly into the DOM. But all of that doesn’t matter if your business doesn’t succeed if you don’t have a nice looking application and it is unstable or slow. Also, filter user-supplied content and write a fuzzer for the content you accept. Make sure you have a security contact, use a crash reporter, and use auto-update securely. Finally, turn off Java in your web browser to prevent against some of the newer, crazier attacks like GIFAR.

Good to know that Mac developers are not complacent about security.

How to increase the impact of your monthly meeting

UStreamTV

We are all TV producers now.

Blogosphere, social media, and social networking still in early stage

My distinguished competitor, Geoff Livingston suggests that the market for social media services is mature. I disagree. Here are some trends I am noticing - people are using technology in new ways. For example I am now a member of four groups within the LinkedIn community. Before I just had my profile on LinkedIn and didn’t think much about it; but clearly others are forming communities within LinkedIn to promote their interests. Understanding communities within a social media platform is going to be very important in the near future. Very large PR agencies will not just have social media specialists, they will have microblogging experts, social networking experts, blogging experts, YouTube experts, and so on. Incidentally, I think video blogging is going to be a huge growth area for online marketing, it is so efficient.

I am also noticing a blurring between citizen generated content and professional news organizations. For example, Computer World has Tech Dispenser. CNN is using Twitter and blogs in its reporting. I have mixed feelings about this. I am concerned that cheap corporate management may think they can fill their pages with donated copy rather than paying salaries for reporters who know what they’re doing. Such a trend would not be in the interests of our clients. Journalism is work. You need smart people to do it and you need good salaries, health plans and pensions to attract and retain smart people.

I remain convinced that we are still in the very early days of social media and a year from now our world will be transformed again.

How can you add a 2.0 media room to a website?

Start with your present media room. Are your press releases still in PDF format? Your first priority should be to change the to HTML. Ideally each press release should have tagging icons at at the top or side of each news release (the same way news organizations use social tagging). Photos, in a format suited for news publications, will encourage news organizations to use your stories. Do not use iStock photos in your media room, use actual photos of your personnel and company events.

Use categories and tags to assist navigation.

If you have more than one video, establish a theater room. Videos can be used to illustrate technical concepts.

Make your presentation notes and slides available in the event section of your website before your events. Give each slide presentation its own link and use tagging in the event that readers wish to tag individual presentations.

Wherever you use social tagging you should also use Sphere It; this will enable site visitors to see what others are saying about your releases, which will encourage them to join conversation about your company. It will also convince journalists that your company is newsworthy.

Above, never forget the basics, contact information should be at the top of each news release, name, direct phone number, and email. It is surprising how often otherwise excellent companies forget the basics.

Twitter and disaster preparedness

David Stephenson has some very good tips on the use of text messaging, camera phones, and Twitter in a disaster situation.

Alice Marshall! live at the Tech Council of MD!

Growing Your Business Through Social Media

September 10, 2008

08:30 am - 12:00 pm

Johns Hopkins University, Montgomery County Campus, Academic & Research Building, Room 106-110 9601 Medical Center Drive, Rockville, MD 20850

Social networking websites are fueling America’s next big business and marketing boom. We’ve all been asking ourselves what's next after e-mail marketing and the answer is Social Networking!

Social Networks help people connect over the web in unique ways. Businesses are turning to Social Networks to market to clients they never met and meet new prospects they would have never known.

Learn everything you could ever want to know about Social Networking at the Tech Council of Maryland’s Social Networking Conference. Learn how to leverage a blog, how to build an account on Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, or upload your video on YouTube to drive traffic, interest and money to your business! We’ll teach you how to enhance your company’s reputation, connect with customers and build trusted relationships like never before.

Our interactive morning brings together expert panelists who will teach you how to get started in social networking circles and how to market like never before. Learn best practices and killer marketing techniques to get you noticed in different media. We’ll teach you how to stand out, how to rise above and how to drill into Social Networking circles for big money.

Whether you are a newcomer to the social networking phenomenon or someone who is utilizing multiple sites, this workshop will to you how to maximize social media and how to make it work for your business and your personal goals.

Social Networking Agenda

8:00 - 8:30 am	Registration and Networking
8:30 - 8:40 am	Welcome Rick Harris, Executive Director, Tech Alliance, Tech Council of Maryland
8:40 - 9:10 am	Opening Keynote Marketing Survival Strategies for the Attention (less) Economy Jeremy Epstein, Marketing Navigator; www.jer979.com
9:15 - 10:00 am	Using Social Media For Lead Generation and To Find New Customers Chris Hopkinson, Director of Business Development, DubMeNow Tien Wong, Chief Executive Officer, Lore Systems and Opus 8
10:00 - 10:15 am	Break
10:15 - 10:45 am	Using Social Media to Generate The Right Kind of Press Coverage For Your Company I.J Hudson, former NBC-TV4 technology reporter and current Director of Communications for Garson Claxton LLC Jiyan Wei, Product Manager, PRWeb, Vocus
10:50 - 11:20 am	How To Add New Media To Your Existing Media and Communications Department Marc Hausman, President and CEO, Strategic Communications Group, Inc. Alice Marshall, Founder and President Presto Vivace
11:25 - 11:50 am	Social Network Superstar Case Studies Chuck Kramer, Sr. Vice President &CTO, Social & Scientific Systems Robin Ferrier, Communications Manager, Johns Hopkins University, Montgomery County Campus Chris Frew, Scientific Recruting Manager, Tech USA
11:50 - 12:00 pm	Closing Comments

Sponsored by:

Register for this Event

Member Plus (Individual) $49.00, Member (Individual) $60.00, Non Member (Individual) $129.00

Seachles Discovery comes to Washingtonpost.com

Searchles

Discovery Widget Launches on washingtonpost.com's MyPost Personal Profile Pages
Intelligent search technology powered by Searchles auto-assembles a user-generated tag cloud based on consumption -- both quickly relaying user interests and expertise when viewing profiles as well as serving as a basis to offer a display of related users. A 'searchle it!' bookmark button will also be installed on washingtonpost.com articles, pushing content out to Searchles' community of users as well.

I am not clear on how this is different from Sphere.

Assessing the Gilbane report on social media

Gilbane Dishes on Social Media in the Enterprise in New Report

Maybe the most disappointing part of the report is that small companies were not surveyed for the report. While it does make sense that larger organizations do have a great need for collaboration and information sharing, smaller organizations may take more risks and do more innovative things with social media technologies because they are able to implement faster and make changes faster than larger organizations. We may be missing some important aspects of social media use in business by not hearing from this group.

It is hard to dismiss the thought that small companies were not surveyed because small companies are not prospects for Gilbane's services.

As in so many other things, small companies are leading the way in adoption of social media.

Mysteries of RSS

I have put my collection of local tech, PR, and marketing blogs Blogdigger and Technorati. Both feeds are supposed to have most recent posts float to the top. So why are there different results?

Tech on the Potomac Blogdigger edition

Tech on the Potomac Technorati edition

Why do they currently have different posts floating to the top? And why are some blogs favored over others? Clearly it has something to do with their RSS feeds; but what?

Measuring online influence

This blog has 201 subscribers on Feedburner, and 104 on Bloglines. As of today it has Technorati authority of 53. According to Blogpulse it has a rank of 2435. I have 14 fans on my del.icio.us network, 13 friends in Digg, and 2 friends on Slashdot. My Twitter feed has 204 followers.

Try to think how many meetings you would have to attend to build the same number of relationships. This is the power of online communications. It is a time efficient way to build relationships. It offers readers a low key way to get to know you. That, in brief, is the power of business blogging.

BarCamp: Social Develpment Camp East

May 10 2008

SocialDevCampEast is the Unconference for Developers of the Future Social Web

Where is the social web going? It's going mobile, to geocentric services, and to open platforms. Join a community of like-minded developers for an unconference to discuss the future of the social web.

We're looking for thought leaders from DC to Boston to meet, forge relationships, and envision the future.

For your next event

About Ustream.TV

Ustream.TV is the live interactive video broadcast platform that enables anyone with a camera and an Internet connection to quickly and easily broadcast to a global audience of unlimited size. In less than two minutes, anyone can become a broadcaster by creating their own channel on Ustream or by broadcasting through their own site, empowering them to engage with their audience and further build their brand.

Technosailor broadcast the last DC Social Media Club meeting. I can see how this could be used by millions of groups to increase their reach.

Promoting social media adoption

Brian Solis has a post about Diigo, a new sharing tool. I noticed on their site they have pictures of some of their users. That is a very clever idea. I am not sure how applicable it is outside of social media, but very clever.

Using social media for networking

Notes from the presentation to the Greater Baltimore Technology Council

Alice Marshall, founder and owner of Presto Vivace, Inc., launch Presto Vivace Blog in February of 2004

Blogs and social media are an economical and time efficient way to network.

I started the blog to record local tech events, which I could send out to the event's participants. It was a way to build goodwill and position my agency.

Technorati search led to Media Culpa's list of top PR blogs. Soon received a email from Trevor Cook of Corporate Engagement to participate in an online conference. This led to Global PR Blog Week 1.0 and spread my reputation all over the world.

Linking is the currency of blogs. Use linking to reinforce existing relationship and establish new ones. Link to the reporters who cover your industry, to your fellow bloggers, to partners and competitors, and anything that would interest your readers.

After reading my article on spam, Owen Ambur, then chair of the Federal XML Work Group, asked me to participate in their proceedings. I began to blog the meetings and Owen was kind enough to link back to my notes from the official website. This is visibility that cannot be bought for any price and a perfect example of how blogs can be used to build goodwill.

Originally I used my sidebar to list local tech organizations, now I have moved that list to my corporate website. The Greater Baltimore Technology Council would be an obvious addition to your corporate blog's sidebar.

I wrote a post linking to The Spy Who Billed Me. She subsequently offered to send me a review copy of her book Outsourced (highly recommended). She also subsequently referred a few prospective clients to me. This is an example of how blogs create relationships that would otherwise never exist.

Blogs and social media are an economical and time efficient way to build relationships. A blog works for you twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, all over the world, limited only by language.

A cautionary note - blogs and all social media are dependent upon net neutrality. This is something we can no longer take for granted and a subject for further discussion.

Edit - Jared Goralnick has posted all the presentations.

Note - On February 22, Presto Vivace will be giving and audio conference on Social Media for Government Contractors.

Blogs, wikis, Twitter, and social media

Does this sound like too much work? Hire an expert.

The productivity of wasting time

Justin Thorp has a fascinating post about Twittertale, a diverting Web application that allows you to see who has the biggest potty mouth on Twitter.

It is not difficult to see that Twitterdale could be tweaked to measure who is talking the most about your client, or your client's industry. This could be a valuable tool communications professionals. This is a small example of the sort of tool that comes out of the serendipity of social media.

Perhaps cracking down on perceived Internet abuse is not a good idea.