The Wisdom Of Our Personal Crowds

Wisdom is defined as knowledge combined with judgement that allows us to choose the option that is best.  Certain crowds are said to possess wisdom, and given the proper tools this wisdom can be extracted (or created).
Many people inherently believe and trust that crowds can decide better than individuals: judges’ decisions can be appealed to [...]

The Amazing Power Of Belief

The inspiration for this write-up is the Forer effect, which is the tendency for most people to identify with otherwise-general descriptions that are said to be about them.  In other words – if someone says we have various personality traits, we are inclined to believe them if the person says the description is truly about [...]

Your Semi-Social Visitors

A lot of people won’t ever use Twitter, Facebook, Digg, or (insert your favorite social networking site here). Don’t piss them off. They’re visiting your website, watching your television show, or visiting your location. And they, like all of us, bring their own expectations about social experiences.
The reasons behind being what could [...]

Social Media Strategy

Do you have a strategy to effectively participate in and use social media?  Yes.
Whether it is written, or not, if you are using social media then you have a strategy.  The key to excellence starts with how much time you devote to something, and this area is no exception.
There has been advice out there on [...]

Brand Conversations – Teacher & Students

Back in school, us kids talked behind the teachers’ backs… unless we were caught, in which case we had to speak in front of everyone.
  “Johnny, what were you saying to Eddie? ”
 ”Nuthin’” 
  “I want you to repeat it loud so the whole class can hear you!”
…this was the type of social experience that we sought to [...]

Homophily Happens – a Homogeneous Web?

Will online social networking make us all the same?
Or, will we elect to stay in mostly same-thinking groups?  As we join up in communities online, the homophily aspect could kick in.  Homophily is defined as the tendency to be friends with others who are similar, and is described futher in this New York Times article.
Birds [...]

TechCrunch50 wins the ratings race!

Over the last three days there have been two major startup demonstration events – DEMO and TechCrunch50.
The presenters are among the top of the crop for this year’s startups (notwithstanding the ones we will showcase on Startup Rockstars!).  If you step back and realize the sheer volume of new tech ideas that are [...]

5 Goals of Social Growth

For a social network, community, or website you may be trying to grow, sometimes it helps to determine your goals for growth, and the reasons behind these goals.  This analysis may help in better planning for social media marketing campaigns & engagements. 
The objectives may include one or more of the following:

Participation – If [...]

Facebook Disconnect? Connecting to the social ROI

The recently-announced platform service, Facebook Connect, will allow people to be social across sites on the internet in a new way. But will corporate offices and other workplaces allow access? And will the other similar services interact with each other, or find reasons to not interact reminiscent of the early days of instant [...]

Online Social Capital and Influence

What is online social capital? It’s a new term that contains an older term. The wikipedia definition of social capital refers to gaining influence (access to power) “through the direct and indirect employment of social connections”. Offline capital has been around for thousands of years, and extends beyond personal into business, political, [...]

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