MAD Perspectives Blog

Do you use LinkedIn?  If so, you're one of the 90M+ people, in over 200 countries, that have a profiled on LinkedIn.  If you are a business person and you crave an online professional networking destination - LinkedIn is it.  You can:

     - Tell your professinal story
     - Get and stay connected with business colleagues - even if you, or they, change jobs
     - Pursue career opportunities
     - Get informed about people and companies before you actually meet them
     - Identify decision makers or influencers and get connected to them
     - Ask questions about ANY business related topic

There are competitors who offer business networking (i.e., Plaxo, Naymz, Xing) or job search (i.e., Monster, CareerBuilder, Ladders), but LinkedIn has created (and continues to enhance) the site for professional networking.  It is a critical part of your online social identity - particularly as it relates to your career.



I joined LinkedIn while i was still working at Hewlett-Packard.  I was happy in my job and was not particularly interested in online networking.  However, I responded to an invitation from a colleage and so began my LinkedIn journey.  It started as an "online rolodex" - a place to capture the details about the business contacts I made while jetting around the globe on behalf of HP.  Now, it is an integral part of every business day.  How?

LinkedIn provides me with insights about people and companies.  I learn about an individual's experience (roles, companies, responsibilities, value), education, social behavior (do they blog?  tweet?  join discussions?), personal interests, travel schedule and their connectivity (how many LinkedIn connects do you have?).  With the introduction of Company Pages last year, I can gain quick insight into the companies for whom they have worked.

I am about to head out on a business development trip to California.  As I was thinking about this trip, I prowled through my list of contacts on LinkedIn.  I was seeking colleagues that worked at companies that might be interested in my consulting services.  In many cases, my connections had changed companies and I had contacts at many companies that were of high interest to me as potential clients.  I used LinkedIn to reach out to these contacts and set up meetings.  I did not need to know their current email addresses - LinkedIn was my intermediary.

I also learn a lot about people simply from the way they have created their profile.  Many colleagues, who are extremely happy in their current jobs, have profiles that I consider placeholders.  They share the bare minimum of information about their professional background and interests.  They have less than 50 connections.  They do not have linkes to their company page or website.  I'll know they are job hunting when they beef up their profile and their connections! 

Have you worked on your profile lately?  If you need to connect to a key decision maker, increase your professinal visibility or are seeking a new job, check out your profile and think about what it says about you.  Chances are that your new contacts are going to check it out too.  Here is a quick look at the most important features:

     - Professional headline - this is who you are or who you want to be, it is not necessarily your current title
     - Picture - this should be a headshot and yes, you should have a picture.  Proessionals like to do business with people, not profiles!
     - Links - reference urls for your company's website, its blog (or your blog!), twitter, etc.
     - Summary - this is about you and the value you provide.  This is your opportunity to highlight what makes your special, what gets you excited and your dream role.  It should not be a description of your current job as you will have the opportunity to share that under Experience
     - Experience - reflect not only your title and responsibilities, but the value that you provide to your customers (we all have customers, some are external and others are internal to the company)
     - Recommendations - request references from your colleagues, customers and partners.  Their comments will be revealing to you and to your connections!
     -  Contact Seetings - indicate the types of contact you are interested in receiving

LinkedIn vs. Resume - LinkedIn is living and dynmaic, just like you.  The resume is not dead, yet, but it is a static snapshot of your skills, education and experience.  It is still relevant to have both a resume and a LinkedIn profile.  they should be omplementary.  You can walk into a meeting with a resume and your resume can include a pointer to your LinkedIn profile.  Like all things social, your LinkedIn profile should offer transparency and authenticity.  Let the real you shine through!

Go ahead, go check out your profile.  Then check out the profiles of some of your connections.  What do you think?  Let me know what your learn!

What's your perspective?

Stay tuned, next week I'll take a deeper look at LinkedIn value for companies.

I recently read an IDC Whitepaper about the 360º Approach to Video.  I've written about companies using a 360º approach to define marketing strategies  and was definitely interested in IDC's opinion on video.  I consider video one of many tools that any company can use to connect and communicate with customers, partner or employees.  Video is memorable and is used for executive communications, customer education, employee training, product demos, customer testimonials and more.  Video is personal and can be consumed live or on-demand in the form of streaming media, webinar or teleconference.

The IDC whitepaper, which is sponsored by Online Video Platfrom vendor Kyte, primarily highlight features of privately funded Kyte.  However, it also touches on some relevants shifts in the market place:

1. Websites have become more interactive.  The days of one-way communication are gone and customers or consumers have an expecation for enticing, visually appealing, interactive sites.

2.  Video is everywhere.  This means video is on your website, on YouTube or Vimeo channels, on Facebook,on mobile devices and many other locations or devices.

3.  Content comes from many sources.  While companies produce a lot of their own content (i.e., executive communications, product training, ads, customer testimonials, etc.), they also invite customers to submit their own user-generated content

If you are thinking about how to incorporate video into your communications strategy.  Consider the following tips:

1.  Purpose.  What are you communicating with the video?  Are you educating, informing, inviting, or sharing?  These are all different types of stories and each story may be best told using different styles.  For example, if your video is to share your quarterly financial status, this is likely a professionally produced event with a well structured script.  However, if your are sharing information about an upcoming event or new product, you might decide that authenticity and personality are more important.  While you still have a script the style of the video may be more casual.  Alternatively, you may invite customers to share their experiences at an event or training.  They thoughts could be capture live and in person or via video uploads to a defined site.  If you define your goals for using video, it will make it easier to make decisions about what kind of content to create. Tip:  Align purpose and video style.

2.  Customer.  Where and how will your customers consume your video?  Are they in an office, at home or on the go?  Will they access content using their PC or a mobile device?  What operating system, browser, video player or video codecs will these devices use?  Is there an expection for live or social network interaction?  Understanding the answers to these questions, will help define the requirements for any online video solutions that you consider.  Tip:  Undertanding your target audience and their communication needs will drive business and technical requirements.

2. Infrastructure.  How will you handle video content?  Will you produce and manage your video assets on an in-house system or will you leverage an online service?  In either case, consider its features and functionalities (i.e., codecs supported, bitrates, end user interface, ease of use, server requirements, metadata model, social/community features, digital rights management, analytics and reporting, etc.) related to your goals.  In addition, consider how it will integrate with other enterprise applications, impact on corporate network, level of expertise required and support models.  Tip:  Align infrastructure requirements to your goals to identify the relevant solution.

Content is valuable.  Video is memorable.  Create a valuable and memorable online video strategy thinking about who your customers are, where they are and how will you need to be able to share video content with them.  For a list of leading online video platform vendors check out:  www.streamingmedia.com, www.onlinevideo.net ir www.vidcompare.com. 

How are you using video to communicate your story? 

What's your perspective?

If you ask media pundits about THE big innovation of the last millennium, they will tell you it was the TV.  Social media is garnering a lot of attention in the early part of the new millennium, but where does social media go next?  A natural assumption is that TV and social media will have a marriage of sorts.  One thought is that news broadcasters will incorporate social media more prominently into their every day actions.  Most local broadcasters take advantage of user generated video, regardless of quality, to capture traumatic events.  Here in New York, multiple amateur videos of US Airways Flight 1549 were incorporated into local broadcasts about the event.  But, is this enough? 

Morning “news” programs and talk show hosts, such as the last hour of the Today show or Oprah, now incorporate email and tweets into their daily routine.  Typically the hosts have an assistant, on or off screen, who is online following the discussion and informing the hosts on-air as the hot topics.  This seems to be a natural fit as these programs already have a well defined communities.   From another perspective, marketers are using social media networks to gauge interest and popularity of network programs.  American Idol and Lost are just two examples of programs that have huge followers on both Twitter and Facebook.   And, 77% of broadcast newsrooms are using social platforms to microblog news links to their followers. 

In fact, one could assume that broadcast TV is a natural fit for social media.  TV has driven coffee room and water cooler conversations for years.  Now those conversations happen on Facebook or Twitter.  However, the challenge remains that TV, for now, is” lean back” experience regardless of watching on the network’s pre-determine schedules or our own ad hoc DVR-enabled schedules.  Social media is a “lean-forward” experience.  We need to be on our PCs or mobile devices to post content.  How do we bring the experiences together?

Software vendors at broadcast conferences such as the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and International Broadcast Conference (IBC) in Amsterdam have been demonstrating user interfaces which incorporate both Facebook and Twitter.  Are we ready to give up part of our 42” HD viewing space to tweet on the TV screen during our favorite sporting event, reality TV program or sitcom?  Of course, this means sitting on the couch with a keyboard.  The interest in internet connected TVs will certainly enhance the functionally.   However, today’s 18-30 year olds aren’t watching network programming on their TVs, they are watching on their PCs or mobile devices.  Is an integrated social media/TV experience needed?  Do we even care?  Perhaps it’s about trying out new tools and seeing what works.  And, maybe what doesn’t work will drive innovation to something beyond social media on our TV screens.

MAD Perspectives' charter is to help companies define and plan their digital media strategy.  But, I often am greeted with quizzical looks.  These looks are that individual's request for further definition about my business.  Their primary question is, what is digital media?!  Interestingly, this is a term that has been around for quite some time, but with new buzz words emerging every day, it is no wonder that this term has been lost in the shuffle.  Let me take a few minutes to share my opinion on what digital media is and how it can help you and your business (btw, you use digital media every day!).

Digital Media is an amalgamation of tools that allow us to communicate, electronically, using text, images, audio and video.  These tools include software, hardware and hosted platforms to create, edit, store, manage, deliver, protect and distribute digital content.  These tools allow individuals and companies to connect, collaborate and communicate for fun or for business.  Let's explore a bit more.

The term digital media is the result of the marriage of technology and creative arts.  It is the digitization of compelling content (i.e., pictures, graphics, audio or video) for distribution across a network.   It is assumed that these are not analog radio or tv networks, but IP (or some evolution there of) networks.  As the internet became commonplace and networks became more sophisticated, businesses and consumers alike, eagerly consumed online content.  We looked forward to the old AOL message "You've Got Mail".  We took email a step further and started attaching files, pictures and video.  Digital media made the world seem a little bit smaller.

Websites evolved from static, brochure-like pages of information to interactive destinations that enabled consumers to post opinions, share recommendations and download information.  Depending on the site, we could watch video.  I remember watching clips from the 2003 World Series between my NY Yankees and the Florida Marlins (yeah, the Yankees lost, sigh!) on a PC while I was traveling in Europe.  Performance was sketchy at best, but it was awesome to be able to see at least a little bit of the game.

Technology has advanced.  Forget the arguments over formats, codecs, bitrates, bandwidth, editing suites, platforms, etc. They can all be sorted out.  Now, we take online video for granted.  In some cases we still have high expectations for video quality, but YouTube has taught us that quality may not always be the primary concern.  Many business websites incorporate video, flash or animation to augment their story.  User-generated content is de-rigueur for consumer sites and broadcast television.  Our perspectives, our thoughts and our images are all part of the story, regardless of whether it is entertainment, news, B2B or consumer oriented.  We do this via online video, social media, web conferencing, video conferencing or interactive marketing.  This is digital media.

Digital Media is our ability to share information, images, pictures, presentations, videos, animations about our companies, our products, ourselves while we are online, regardless of network or device.  What's your strategy for using digital media to tell your story?

What's your perspective?