What is an open organisation and how can you achieve it?

You can take a variety of channels and mediums and become impressed to hear various voices bubbling with enthusiasm and knowledge for change. It is most impressive when these voices have an outlet, and channel for open dialogue.

Change is a good thing, change brings goodness and change brings challenges for everyone, not least the identity (or brand) of the organisation, in this connected world.

Large organisations the world over are struggling with traditional forms of advertising, it is no surprise to find the branding and marketing conversation rampant in the online world, where daily large institutions are having to employ, consult, embrace, the currency of trust, which is of course transparency.

Marketing is now a dialogue, marketing is now a conversation, the product has to be engaged with, with the client, there is now a NEED, an absolute requirement to have interaction with the prospects.

Web 2.0 is here to stay, and those who embrace it will win, those who ignore it will fall, without a shadow of doubt.

So what’s needed?

A few things…

1. SELL TO YOUR STAFF - senior management need to engage with their staff transparently, and lead the transparent and open dialogue, effectively leading by example and encouraging feeding (fuelling the conversation). Traditional management cascades are one way, very old school, the conversation stops, immediately!

2. ENCOURAGE STAFF TOO SELL FOR YOU – here this is where you actively support and promote the soldiers to champion and engage in representing the organisation in the online space.

3. TOOLS – you need tools in place which allow the above to take place, including, blogs, podcasts, videocasts, wikis, and not only.

4. COMMUNITY DEVELOPER - you need someone full-time working in and around the community (the staff), who not only brings people together with all of this technology, but more importantly documents, showcases, makes aware of all the wonderful activities going on and spreading that externally within the important spaces. You need this person popping in board meetings, nipping into lectures, filming activity and pumping it out on an organisational channel.

I have been community developing with my online businesses for some time and relish the environment of connecting people and extended the conversation, it's empowering for all.

The point is how to move mountains, how to mobilise a community to act and engage with the product.

Now tell me what you are doing in YOUR organisation to promote change, are you just hoping it will happen, or are you actively pushing for change, is that difficult to accomplish, if so why?

Technorati Tags: advertising change channels community developer dialogue media open organisations product sell social social-media tools transparency Web 2.0 social media social-media tools community transparency organisations developer sell product Web 2.0 advertising change c

Ok so I have had to “buy in” to Halloween this year, of course I did, I have a 14 month old daughter and a qualified school teacher for a partner, these type of activities are essential!

So we bought a pumpkin from the local Pumpkin Grotto (lovely sideline a local farm is laying on this year, rammed with the orange orbs and various other spooky delights), and whilst there I grabbed a set of pumpkin carving tools to go with it (great idea).

The carving kit came with a bunch of template which I strapped onto the said fruit ready for daddy to carve! As you can see the tools are comprehensive.

Carving was a piece of cake, well fruit actually, and surprising to me didn’t take that long at all. The conversation between me and Jo then went on to what to use for the candle, she wasn’t keen on a candle as there will be a group of babies, and a gaggle of mums, so she wanted it to be safe!

If you read my blog a fair amount you’ll probably know I like risk to an extent, I enjoy unpredictability and in this case I fancied a flickering candle inside the lovingly carved fruity.

However, pressure won over and cleverly Jo thought that my Google Light/Radio would be a great idea to use inside Peter Pumpkin.

Now this Google Light/Radio is actually my first gift from Google way back in the first year of entering their Adsense program, (yep they supply gifts if you earn well), and well, anyway I’ve always cherished my Google Clock Light Radio device which pulsates changing pastel shades.

In fact it's so neat it turns on off off depending on how you orient it through 90 degrees.

So there we have it, it turns out that we have a Peter Pumpkin of the Google Web2.0 variety, well the party will be social anyway, and of course have the web connection.

Made me chuckle so thought you might too.

Technorati Tags: adsense daughter farm google halloween mums pumpkin social tools web2.0 web2.0 halloween google social pumpkin farm mums daughter tools adsense

Having been involved with the web, in a business sense, since the mid 90s I’ve found that it has been essential to practise search engine optimisation (SEO) in every aspect of my online work from forums, blogs, articles and links, you name it, my head is in SEO.

If you are reliant on the internet for your traffic it makes crystal clear sense that you ought to optimise all of your content for the search engines, to provide them tasty food that will keep them coming back for more, time and time again.

Ignoring appropriate SEO is akin to taking cash and setting fire to it, if your site is not optimised to rank very well you are simply throwing away prospects and essentially income, from whatever means that may be, affiliate links, google adsense or product up-selling.

I’m also fully aware of the power of “word-of-mouth” or new/social media communities and I am an advocate for that approach 100%, but the secret really is in a blended approach, you can have a large community all digging your content for you with various tools, but that community is infinitesimally small to the power of ranking on the first page of google within a competitive niche, period.

The other thing many people working exclusively in social or new media don't always get is that their own tight-knit community of "diggers" are often not the prospects, not the customers, so hence no income generation!

I have operated for a variety of clients over the years helping them to optimise for their niche market, tweaking code and content here and there and creating a variety of campaigns and methods for organic growth of back-links (essential activity), of course social media now helps immensely with the later IF the rel="nofollow" tag is omitted.

I am available for SEO and Social Media contracts, just inquire and we can have a chat about what you want to achieve.

I’ll gently challenge you and leave you with the tools to empower yourself too.

Technorati Tags: engine forums google links media online optimisation prospects ranking search social tools traffic seo media social optimisation search google engines

I would like to make you aware of event which may be of interest to you.

Media Camp Bucks 07
http://mediacampbucks.com.

This is a new-media event taking place Sat Oct 20, Buckinghamshire UK, hosted by a not-for-profit organisation of which I happen to be the Founder, known as the ACHUB. The organisation has been active in putting on new-media events, concerned with sharing knowledge, practise, resources and social networking tools.

So what is Mediacampbucks07?

It is an "unconference", a term which loosely implies that the participants themselves, i.e. YOU, run the day, YOU, interact and YOU, embrace the sessions. There is no "expert" talking to you for 40 minutes, the sessions are more like brain-storming sessions where you are encouraged to engage.

Bucks New Uni are kindly sponsoring this event to take place at the Technology Centre on the main High-Wycombe campus, and I cannot thank the University enough for this sponsorship, the facilities are great and it is a progressive move, and already the new-media community are buzzing about it,
people will be walking away back to industry having gained an awful lot.

Already many professionals have registered to attend and take part, including bloggers, web design companies, ad agencies, Internet TV people, SecondLifers, HR people and even Microsoft, and not just
Brits!

The best bit, it is GRATIS, not a penny required, well your lunch and drinks aside!

We have also secured some additional sponsorship including Chinwag (the UK's leading community media company for the new media industry, which will help pay for some goodness.

To register simply visit the mediacampbucks07 wiki and add your name, and if you fancy running a session add yourself to that too.

If you have any questions please do get in touch with me through email, more than happy to answer, if your business/institution is interested to sponsor do get in touch.

Cheers

Chris Hambly
http://mediacampbucks.com

Technorati Tags: advertising blogging casting community educational event learning media mediacampbucks07 new media pods sessions social media tools unconference web2.0 mediacampbucks07 media unconference community social media