by Cathy Brooks (@CathyBrooks, CathyBrooks.com) This is not another post about the “issue” of why there are fewer women in business and technology. This is a post about doing something about it. You would think based on coverage, like this article last April in the New York Times and this more recent post in the Wall Street Journal that women had made little to no progress in Silicon Valley. Hogwash. To be fair, if we’re talking raw numbers women are…
BusinessWeek Seeks Guidance on Who To Profile in Social Media
Stephen Baker and Helen Walters of BusinessWeek recently asked readers to nominate those individuals who are driving the evolution and pervasiveness of Social Media as part of its “voice of innovation” series. Who is truly the most innovative force within social media? Who’s really making a difference? Who really gets it? Who do you think your fellow BusinessWeek readers NEED to know about? The submissions are in and I’m honored and humbled to be included in the list of candidates. Now,…
SolutionsStars Video Series Helps Businesses Embrace Social Media
During Blogworld Expo 2008 in Las Vegas, The Network Solutions Team shot footage for SolutionsStars, its online Web series designed to help small businesses harness the potential of Social Media to identify, understand, participate, and excel in the communities that impact their bottom line. I was asked to participate by good friend Geoff Livingston (the man behind the book Now is Gone). Portions of the resulting footage were edited into two videos as part of the series, The Social Opportunity…
Reinventing Crisis Communications for the Social Web
Source Businesses, individuals, and organizations will, from time to time, make honest mistakes or in some unfortunate cases, intentionally support unethical decisions to dissuade or conceal something significant from its public. Whether it’s an oversight or a matter of deception, savvy companies usually employ and deploy a crises response team to prepare for, manage and attempt to positively spin the potential backlash from customers, partners, and employees related to almost anything. Crisis communications is a branch of PR that is…
In the Social Web, We Are All Brand Managers
Source Effectively organizing, curating, showcasing, and managing a strategically curated online personal, professional, and corporate brand is critical to how our peers, those we already know and the others we have yet to meet, perceive us in the real world. Everything we share online, the comments we leave, the posts we publish, the pictures and videos we upload, the updates we tweet, the statuses we broadcast in social networks and lifestreams, contribute to disparate digital recreations of how people perceive…
Where the Streets Have Names: Learning from Bono’s Facebook Dilemma
Source What happens in the real world can usually end up on the Web for all to discover, share, and assess with or without your knowledge. According to The Mail, even Sir Bono, lead singer of U2, couldn’t escape the global distribution and network effect of Facebook. The rock star, humanitarian, and family man inadvertently shared a portion of his St. Tropez holiday, courtesy of a 19-year old and her Facebook profile. Jane Smith (name changed for purposes of this…
Nike, Just Do It: When a Local Story Runs Away on the Web and Leads to Change
Nike, this may be one of those times when you follow your own slogan. Every year, I attend the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco to support my wife and my mother who run this incredible event with conviction, passion, and diligence. It’s a privilege, they believe, to participate in a special and dedicated event such as this that celebrates each other as well as the athletic achievement and capabilities of women, past and present. It’s quite the spectacle and…
Twitter Tools for Marketing and Community Professionals
Twitter is nothing short of a phenomenon. At the very least, it connects people to each other through a rich and active exchange of ideas, thoughts, observations, and vision in one, highly conducive ecosystem (known as the Twitterverse). The social fibers that weave together this unique micromedia network is strengthened by the expertise, respect, trust, admiration, and commonalities. These fabrics bind the people who breathe life and personality into the global community as well as fueling the disparate micro communities…
Redefining the Echo Chamber to Excel in an Economic Crisis
My latest post is now up on TechCrunch. What follows is the unedited director’s cut. The point of this article is to redefine how startups (not solely tech companies) view and define early adopters and the “echo chamber” in order to gain momentum in order to “cross the chasm” to the next tier of evolution, adoption, and monetization. This is about uncovering the very people who can benefit from what they’re introducing and in turn, evolve the product/service based on…
In A Down Economy, Tomorrow’s Leaders are Born Today
Thomas Kinkade According to news makers, analysts, and experts and their constituents, the sky is falling. You can’t run away or hide from this very grim reality. While we are in throes of a major financial crisis, it is during the most difficult of times when character is truly tested and defined. Panic only leads to the further declination and eradication of progress. Yes the market is slipping. Yes, the financial market is resetting. But the U.S economy, actually, the…
