Social Media Musings

Enterprise 2.0 is still alive and well, thank you very much

I am just back from a week in San Francisco attending the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Fran as a featured speaker along with a whole host of other industry experts. Those of us that were on the keynote stage got “backstage passes” and felt a bit like rock stars walking around. Thanks to everyone who made it possible for me to attend a great conference!

For my part, I participated in a panel with five other members from the 2.0 Adoption Council entitled “Is Enterprise 2.0 a Crock?”  I’ll share more on the panel and the whole idea of E 2.0 “crock-i-ness” in general in another post, as I’d like to get my overall conference thoughts down here first as well as share some advice based on ongoing discussions I had with folks at the conference that I hope to be helpful to them, as well as anyone else trying to do this. 

Photo courtesy of @adunne's Flickr Photostream. Panel left to right: Greg Lowe, Megan Murray, Bryce Williams, me, Bruce Galinksy, and Claire Flanagan. (I took a few photos, too, at the conference, though not nearly as good as Alex's.)

I have to say that I enjoyed the conference and the city of San Francisco. The weather was exceptionally nice and the city is amazing, even though I only saw a very small portion of its loveliness due to being inside most of the time.  But nothing compared to the opportunity to meet not only my friends from the 2.0 Adoption Council - Susan Scrupski our Founder, Andy McAfee, Greg Lowe, Megan Murray, Bryce Williams, Bruce Galinksy, Claire Flanagan, Timo Elliott, Hamilton Pridgen, Bert Sandie, and Donna Lucas - in person, but also so many other folks so passionate about the topic of Enterprise 2.0. I am proud to be a member of the 2.0 Adoption Council, and a part of the Enterprise 2.0 conference, as both have done great things for me on many levels.

One thing that’s still very clear to me from the conference, and the folks that I talked to there, is that Enterprise 2.0 is alive and well in terms of both interest in “cracking the code” of rollout and implementation as well as interest in and a hunger for examples of companies that are doing it and doing it well. It’s refreshing to work for a company (EMC) that’s considered to be ahead of the curve in terms of strategy, deployment, and adoption of Enterprise 2.0 tools and behaviors behind the firewall. I know that we still have a lot of learning and work ahead of us, but it’s neat to hear what folks think of what we’ve done so far, and of course to know that I’ve been in the thick of it.

So, how does one go about thinking about and preparing to launch an Enterprise 2.0 initiative? Here’s my advice on questions you need to ask yourself and be able to answer before moving forward. I’ll be elaborating on these questions in future posts:

How do you pitch the idea and to whom?

Understanding the key stakeholders and influences that need to be involved in the initiative and decision-making will go a long way towards a successful rollout. My recommendation is to define your goals and try to include key stakeholders from as many cross-functional teams as makes sense for your organization. This will hopefully reduce the number of times you may have to go back and re-pitch and refine the plan.

How do you determine what tools to use?

Understanding your goals will lead you towards tools. My recommendation would be to start smaller and more concise to meet specific goals you’ve identified and add new functionality as your users request it - providing too many bells and whistles up front will likely turn users off.

How do you secure executive sponsorship and program funding?

Getting an executive sponsor for your initiative who “gets it” and can articulate the value of the tools you’re proposing, as well as actually use them, is going to be key to your initiative.  You’ll also want to be honest with your budgetary needs – nothing is free, not even if the software’s free – it’s still going to take someone’s time (and time is money, after all), to roll out the initiative. My recommendation is to start with a pilot or beta program to get folks interested in the offering and then scale up as needed as new users join.

How do you educate on the tools?

Educating on the tool(s) that you choose is going to be key for a successful initiative. Too often, we make assumptions about people’s level of knowledge on any particular tool or subject. My advice is that you’re going to need to prepare beginner, intermediate, and advanced training materials in multiple formats to have a truly successful educational program.

How do you roll it out to the company?

When it’s time for go-live, you’re going to need to determine how you’re going to roll it out and to whom – will it be the whole company or a sample group of folks? You’ll also want to consider any marketing and communications channels you’ll be able to take advantage of to increase awareness. My recommendation is to also have a plan in place with consistent messaging for your advocates and evangelists to take advantage of when they share the tools with others. This will help to keep the messaging consistent and avoid confusion as to what the tools are for.

How do you handle the naysayers, those that don't see the value or support the idea?

See my previous blog post on this one.

How do you measure the impact and success?

You will inevitably want to consider the measurements you will take into account to consider your initiative a success. There are lots of different measures that can be captured, and each organization is different. My recommendation is to gain insights from your key stakeholders as to what they might consider a measure of success and then propose a phase 1 list to folks for consideration. As the tools and their use evolves, so too can your measures of success.

In summary, the key ingredients for any Enterprise 2.0 initiative are:

• Executive sponsorship
• Funding
• Defined goals/purpose
• Defined “rules of engagement”
• Partnerships are key (IT, HR, Legal, PR, Business Units, etc.)
• Group of passionate folks
• Patience
• Perhaps a leap of faith

---- 

 Jamie 

 Blog: http://www.jamiepappas.com

 Twitter: http://twitter.com/jamiepappas

Innovation, Passion and Social Media come together at EMC's Third Annual Innovation Conference

Yesterday I had the absolute pleasure of attending EMC’s Third Annual Innovation Conference at one of our facilities in Franklin, Mass organized by friend, fellow blogger and social media enthusiast, Stuart Miniman(who did an amazing job pulling everything together!!! Kudos Stu!). This was my first Innovation Conference and I have to say that I cannot wait for next year’s!

 

From the moment I arrived, people were abuzz with the excitement of being in the midst of so many talented individuals, as well as anxiously awaiting the news as to whose idea had won the both the Innovation Showcase awards, as well as the naming of this  year’s prestigious Distinguished Engineers and EMC Fellow. A big congrats to all of the folks who achieved these honors and won awards yesterday!!

 

It was truly a worldwide event with people from all over the world participating in idea submission (there were over 1,400 ideas submitted!) and the conference itself both on local levels and globally. It was also very neat to see how diverse the teams of submitters were – folks from all over the company were coming together to collaborate on innovative ideas to improve EMC products and services for our customers, as well as introduce new ideas into the mix for what could become new products one day. One of the neatest moments of the conference was when folks all over the world connected live to EMC Sr. VP and CTO Jeff Nick to hear the award winners announced. Another highlight of the conference was that I loved meeting so many folks that I've talked to over the years on EMC|ONE, Twitter, or any other online tool in person for a change! It felt like getting together with a bunch of old friends. How great!

 

I also had the pleasure of participating on a panel moderated by Rob Masson along with Distinguished Engineer Steve Todd, NAS Advanced Development Manager John Cardente, and Ionix Technologist in the CTO’s office Ronen Artzi around “How we innovate at our local centers across EMC.” We discussed such compelling questions as “Are there areas within EMC or technology in general, that you feel have the greatest potential for innovation, and why?” and “Why is innovation important?” We all agreed that innovation is a key element of any successful company looking to stay in the game. We also discussed ways in which innovation can be enabled by social media tools and how they can connect you to people that you would not have otherwise met, but share similar passions, interests, and can help you propel your innovative ideas forward. Social media is a good way to both meet new folks, as well as carry on the conversation after an event such as the EMC Innovation Conference. In fact, our internal community EMC|ONE is very much abuzz today with folks talking about the conference yesterday.

 

The passion, creativity and drive of all of the folks that submitted the over 1,400 ideas to be considered is so humbling and awe-inspiring for me. It’s hard to put into words what a feeling of pride there was in the room as we sat there together talking about what an innovative company EMC is, as well as how we continue to propel the notion of innovation forward and make it a 365 day event instead of a once a year gathering! More on that soon, I’m sure, but what an exciting opportunity we have before us! Overall a great time had by all! As I said, I can’t wait til next year!!

 

Posts by Fellow Bloggers (will be updated as more posts are published):

Len Devanna

Steve Todd

Polly Pearson

Dave Spencer

Irsan Widarto

Stuart Miniman

Kathrin Winkler

 

Multi-media from the conference:

A few photos from me @ the Franklin Event

Len Devanna @ the Santa Clara Event

Irsan Widarto @ the Rotterdam Event

Executives on Innovation at EMC

Sandra Ferraro & Vijay Bharadwaj

Captivated by the force that is Gravity Summit, Boston 2009

This past Monday, I had the absolute pleasure of attending Gravity Summit at the Harvard Faculty Club in Cambridge, Massachusetts put on by social media wizards Beverly Macy (also teaches social media marketing at UCLA) and Rodney Rumford (also co-founder of TweetPhoto which I’m looking forward to checking out!) 

The line-up for the day included big name brands sharing their social media experiences, strategy and advice for using social media successfully.  And the folks in attendance literally came from all over the country to witness the event, which speaks of the level of information one can achieve when attending.

Me, Hammer and Carina Cristiano Leoni @ Gravity Summit, Harvard

MC Hammer – Life-long entrepreneur, blogger, tweeter, rapper, and all around nice guy - need I say more?

Gary Vaynerchuk – Also a life-long entrepreneur, creator and host of the famous Wine Library TV, and newly published book author

Troy Kelley – EVP & Chief Digital Officer @ Arnold Worldwide

Andy Mitchell – VP of Digital & Development Marketing @ CNN

Todd Defren – Principal @ Shift Communications

Josh Levine – Rebel Industries

Scott Gulbransen – PR & Social Media @ Intuit

Wendy Harman – Social Media Manager @ American Red Cross

Christi Day – Social Media Maven @ Southwest Airlines

Mike Spataro – VP @ Visible Technologies

David Puner (aka Dunkin Dave) – Social Media Manager @ Dunkin Donuts

Ramon deLeon (aka The Pizza Guy to Know in Chicago) – COO @ Domino’s Pizza Chicago

Polly Pearson – VP of Employment Brand & Strategy @ EMC Corp

If you missed the live streaming of the event on CNN.com/live on Monday, you can view videos of some of the folks on my YouTube Channel (some also embedded below). Hard to pick a favorite…Of course, I know EMC’s story very well, since I live it every day and am proud to be a part of the force and strategy.

Rather than do a play-by-play of the day, I thought I’d summarize the key points by picking a few keywords to describe the ongoing message of the entire day at Gravity Summit. I’d have to say they are listen, learn, engage, and empower.

Listen

Listen to what people are saying about your brand, whether it’s your personal brand or your company brand. Listen. Listen to what is being said, take it in, and use it as an opportunity to learn. In the opening remarks with Beverly Macy and Rodney Rumford, it was said “even if you’re never going to use social media in your business, you need to know how to listen to what your customers are saying.” I couldn’t agree more.

Learn

Learn from what is being said by others. There is an unprecedented ability to gain insights into what people are saying about your brand like never before through all social media channels. It’s like having the ability to finally be the fly on the wall we’ve all wanted to be at some point. As Rodney Rumford said “use social media to solicit feedback and be ready for what you’re going to hear – the good, the bad, and the ugly.” Take it as an opportunity to learn how to be a better brand and educate. Negative comments are such a huge opportunity to learn and keep people engaged. And, as Polly Pearson said, if people are complaining, it’s a sign they still care.

Engage

Engage with people via social media. I’ve always said that people want to connect with people, not nameless, faceless brands. Troy Kelley shared “markets are reporting getting more engagement out of social media than any other traditional marketing tools,” so now is your chance to get out there, engage, and be the central voice for your brand. As Hammer said, “perception has trumped reality, and if you’re allowing somebody else to control the perception of your brand, you’re in trouble […] being at the center of the flow of information about you and your brand is the key to managing your brand.”

Empower

Empower others to not only find out about your brand via social media, but also empower your employees to use social media in a transparent way. I agree with Gary Vaynerchuk that “social media’s power and potential are massively underrated.” I love Todd Defren’s take on social media: “social media is not about public relations, it's about public relationships […] social media is not about creating something new every day, but leveraging what you already have in creative ways.” It’s all about empowering people to take advantage of the opportunities social media presents to them and using social media to enhance information and relationships as we know them.

The only constructive feedback I have is that it seems like people were jumping out of their seats to engage with the presenters a bit more, and at times things felt a bit rushed. So, perhaps having one or two fewer presenters with a touch more time for Q&A would be a good thing? Hard to say for sure, but I’d love to see a bit more interactivity in the summit. After all, social media is about having conversations and building relationships.

All in all, a fantastic summit! My first of many, I hope! Kudos to Beverly and Rodney for a fantastic showing and event!

A few vids I shot from the event. See more on my YouTube Channel. 

MC Hammer Keynote, Part 1

 

Gary Vaynerchuk Keynote, Part 1 

 

Polly Pearson, EMC Case Study, Part 1

   

Todd Defren, Shift Communications, Part 1 

---- 

 Jamie 

 Blog: http://jamiepappas.typepad.com/ 

 Twitter: http://twitter.com/jamiepappas

 

Reflections on Enterprise 2.0 2009 in Boston

I’ve been looking forward to the Enterprise 2.0 Conference this past week in Boston for some time. I had the pleasure of being on the panel organized by Peter Kim (@PeterKim) - “Lessons Learned from Internal Communities” – with the likes of extraordinary women like Joan DiMicco (@JoanDiMicco) at IBM and Patricia Romeo (@PatricaRomeo) at Deloitte.

 

Photo courtesy of Alex Dunne.

Lessons Learned From Internal Communities

View more presentations from Peter Kim.

 

In addition to the panel session, which went very well, I enjoyed quite a few other sessions. Rather than recapping each session, I’d like to call out my overall observations from the conference.

 

Many companies, both big and small, are interested in social media as a business tool. The general feeling I got though, and still do, is that they’re not sure where to start. People are hungry for the knowledge of those that have gone before them on where to get started for both an internal and external social media presence – be it communities, how to use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, etc – it’s all on their minds. I imagine that’s one of the many reasons our panel was jam packed.  Types of questions that were consistently circulating around (of which these will make an excellent future post):

• What are some steps to get started?
• How do I convince executives that we need to do this?
• Who funds the initiative?
• Who manages/staffs the initiative?
• Who monitors/moderates?
• Where do HR and Legal come into the picture?
• How do we treat international participants? Is there translation?
• How do we deal with international laws, regulations, etc.?

 

Analytics are a hot topic.

Everyone’s trying to figure out how to measure success of these initiatives. Nearly all of the vendors offering community solutions, also offer some sort of analytics package to go along with it, and some (although few and far between) even offer independent analytics packages.

 

One huge miss I was feeling is that the push was on the numbers themselves, but there were no actionable recommendations coupled with the tools to suggest what could be done with the analytics. Numbers are only numbers without a keen understanding of what you want to gather, why you want to gather it, and what you want to do with the numbers to improve.  You need not only to know what you’re trying to measure, but what your goals are and why they are important, and then you need to take action and be willing to modify your plan if you’re not getting where you want to be. Key questions that need to be answered include:

• What are your goals?
• What are you trying to measure?
• Why is the measurement important?
• What will the measurement tell you?
• What actions can you take as a result of the measurement?
• What changes will you make if you’re not meeting your goals?

 

There was a keen interest in understanding the complete social media/social strategy package.

Many folks seemed to be interested not only in what the tools are that are available for use, but how they are being used currently. There definitely seems to be a tendency to want to be “everywhere” (have a presence on all of the tools) NOW vs. slowly moving into using each of the tools as one is mastered. I’d personally recommend the second option – get involved in a few and see how that goes rather than joining all that are out there and attempting to master them all simultaneously.  Key questions on a social strategy include:

• What are your goals for using social media?
• What are the tools available to you and what can they be used for?
• Who is your key audience? Or who are you trying to communicate/converse with?
• Where are they already conversing?
• Is there anyone that has experience/expertise in these tools at your company already? Find them – you’re going to need them!

 

Twitter is still huge, but…

There was hardly a person in each of the sessions, myself included, that was not busy on their laptop or cell phone tweeting their way through the sessions.

 

…How do we use Twitter as an enterprise tool?

Clearly at the forefront of everyone’s mind was how can people use Twitter to achieve business goals. The first step to that is, of course, defining your business goals. My strong recommendation is that you do not need a Twitter account just because “everyone else is doing it.” You need to instead, answer the following questions about Twitter and then create an account:

• What are your goals for using Twitter? How do you want to use it?
• Who is your target audience? Are they on Twitter already?
• Are others (companies) doing it and can we learn from their example?
• Who will be responsible for monitoring and engaging?

 

It's about the people and the technology!

It’s not practical or even possible to just focus on only the people or only the technology. For the longest time, many have said it's about just the people, and the technology doesn't matter...but a consistent theme at the conference this year was that if you're not also paying attention to the technology, you're missing out.

 

My favorite quote on this topic was by Peter Kim "If its just relationships and technology doesn't matter, we should all go home."

 

A good social media strategy will take into account both the people and the technology. The people you expect to use the tools on behalf of the company, the people you expect to communicate with, the people that will be impacted by your strategy. The technology you wish to use to support your strategy, the technology people are already using, or will need to learn to meet the organization’s goals. It must be about both the people and the technology.

 

Enterprise 2.0 tools are an extension of other tools, not a replacement for them.

There has been buzz off and on that these tools will replace other tools we use to work and live, such as email, phone calls, traditional media, etc. However, the consistent theme at the conference – which I wholeheartedly agree with – is that these tools will not be replacements, but that they will and should work in harmony with other, existing tools as supplements to them. Amen.

 

Social interaction in-person is just as important as online interaction.

Might seem like a no-brainer for those of us that use these tools and talk to people, but we’re all aware of the perception that is out there than people would rather interact online using social tools instead of chatting with folks face-to-face. The response to that theory - and also self-evident by the participation at the Tweetups during the event – is an overwhelming I don’t think so.

 

This is particularly important to make note of companies who may be relying heavily on community or Enterprise 2.0 tools in and of themselves to help with employee satisfaction and employee retention. Keep in mind that they are only a part of the bigger picture. Sure, they’ll help, but they’re not a replacement for face-to-face interactions and discussions.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the sessions and conference in general. Although the sessions were great, my favorite part of the entire conference was finally meeting, in-person, folks that I've chatted with for weeks, months, even years online or via phone, but never had the opportunity to meet until this wonderful event!

 

Seeking Voluntary Donations for Life-Saving Heart Transplant for 2 Year Old Son of EMC Employee

Hou-chan's Heart Disease

Houku Katagiri (Hou-chan) is a 2-year-old boy who lives in Mitaka, Tokyo.

In October 2008, he had sudden heart failure and was diagnosed with

restrictive cardiomyopathy or RKM

- an incurable disease that takes the lives of 50 percent of those afflicted within one year.

  

Hou-chan’s condition is serious, and a heart transplant is the only way to save his life.

Heart transplants for children are not permitted in Japan, where by law organ donors must be at least 15 years old. A bill has just been approved by the upper house to work towards changing this law, although likely still a long way away from completion.  Hou-chan's condition is deteriorating and he is currently hospitalized at Kyorin University Hospital. He needs a transplant operation as soon as possible. 

Devastatingly, Columbia University in New York has refused to carry out a heart transplant on Houku, reportedly saying it had filled its quota for overseas transplants. Imagine!

Seeking Voluntary Donations to help Save Hou-chan - every little bit helps!

Loma Linda University Hospital in California, USA will perform the life-saving surgery, but first Hou-chan’s family must secure the USD 1 million required to cover his estimated medical costs. 

In Japan, health insurance does not cover this operation and government support is unavailable.  Katagari-san’s family needs your voluntary donations to help raise the funds required for his life-saving surgery and recovery.  

Below are details for how to donate to the support group that has been established in Hou-chan’s name, Hou-chan wo Sukuu-kai.  

Thank you for your consideration and support!

Making a Donation

Below are details on two options for making a donation.  

Option 1: Donate through PayPal

You can also use PayPal, an on-line service for transferring money safely and easily.

Please note the transfer fees from overseas before calculating your donation:  3.9% + $0.3 per transfer

How to Use PayPal
1. Create your own Personal Account on PayPal. 
2. Please transfer your donation to paypal@hou-chan.com

PayPal	Account
https://www.paypal.com	paypal@hou-chan.com

Option 2: Donate through bank transfer - recommended for group/collective donations 

You can directly transfer payment to the Hou-chan's bank account.  Please note that Hou-Chan's account is charged approximately USD 15.00 per transfer so ideally individuals can combine their donations and remit in groups to reduce the banking fees for every overseas remittance and normal banking transfer fees. 

Bank	Branch (Branch #)	Account	Account Type	Account Holder
Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ	Mitaka branch office (222)	0046571	Saving   account	HOUCHIYANOSUKUUKAI DAIHIYOU ABETOMONORI

Spread the word! 

Flyer in English

Flyer in Japanese

"Hou-chan wo Sukuu-kai" website（Japanese only): http://www.hou-chan.com  

東京都三鷹市の片桐鳳究(ほうく、以下ほうちゃん）は、2008年10月に突然、原因不明の心不全となり、拘束型心筋症と診断されました。

拘束型心筋症は、特定疾患指定の難病で、発症すると約50％の患者が１年以内に死亡すると言われています。病状の重いほうちゃんの場合、心臓移植手術をするしか命を救う方法がありません。

しかし、日本では15歳未満の脳死臓器提供が法律で禁止されている為、国内で手術を受けることができず、海外での渡航移植しか残された道がありません。

ほうちゃんは現在、杏林大学医学部付属病院に入院していますが、心臓は日々弱り続けているため、早急な心臓移植が必要です。

 

募金目標金額1億円100,000,000円

ほうちゃんを救うために、米国のロマリンダ大学病院から受け入れの内諾を頂くことができました。しかし、その為の費用は1億円という莫大な金額で、健康保険や国からの補助が一切受けられません。これは、とても個人で負担できる金額ではなく、皆様の善意におすがりする他ございません。

私たちは、ほうちゃんが心臓移植を受け一日も早く元気になることを願い、「ほうちゃんを救う会」を結成しました。皆様に、日本の臓器移植の現状とほうちゃんの状況をご理解いただき、ほうちゃんを救うための募金のご協力をお願いしたいと考えております。何卒温かいご支援ご協力をよろしくお願いいたします。

 

銀行名	支店名（支店番号）	口座番号		種別	口座名
三井住友銀行	三鷹支店(２４７)	７２２９４９２		普通	ホウチヤンオスクウカイ,ダイヒヨウアベトモノリ
三菱東京UFJ銀行	三鷹支店（２２２)	００４６５７１		普通	ホウチヤンオスクウカイダイヒヨウアベトモノリ
みずほ銀行	三鷹支店（２４７）	１５５５４９８		普通	ホウチヤンオスクウカイ
ゆうちょ銀行(同銀行内)			００１７０-７-３４５９２２
ゆうちょ銀行(他銀行から)	〇一九店(０１９）	０３４５９２２		当座	ホウチャンヲスクウカイ

 

 

救う会の活動情報はこちら

http://www.hou-chan.com/

 

■お問い合わせ

「ほうちゃんを救う会」事務局

住所：東京都三鷹市下連雀3-28-23-604 TEL： 0422-49-5372

代表：安部智規

The search for a donor for Nick Glasgow Continues - We need your support!

The search to find a matching donor for Nick Glasgow continues.

Please use the Twitter tag of #helpnick when posting on Twitter.

We've also decided to use the banner graphic above on our future posts to further increase awareness, even for posts not specifically related to Nick. We want to welcome all bloggers (company or affiliation is no matter) to use this banner and to link it back to Mark's blog, where official updates will be posted.

As a part of the ongoing efforts, our creative videography department made this video so that others can listen to Len Devanna share Nick's story, as well as the inspiring story of support in folks getting tested for donor matching, even at EMC World!

Using Social Media to Save a Life -- And you can help!

One of our fellow EMC family members is in dire need of your help. Nick Glasgow, a 28-year-old EMC employee in California who, in the span of just weeks, has been diagnosed with Leukemia and now is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant.

Nick was a healthy 27-year-old when he came down with what was at first believed to be strep throat about nine to ten weeks ago. Eight weeks ago, he was informed that he has Leukaemia and was admitted to the hospital immediately for chemotherapy. Nick has endured two rounds of chemotherapy, and received blood, platelet, saline, and antibiotic infusions. These have all failed to put Nick into remission. Nick's white cell blood count is too low for another round of chemo, and has been sent home as antibiotics have been stopped and his immune system is compromised.

The outpouring of help and support has been amazing, but unfortunately a donor has not yet been found. And the race is at a critical stage.

Here are the essential facts you need to know to support Nick:

• Any person whose ethnic background is a mix of Asian and Caucasian, and is in good health with no history of cancer or major illness, and is between the ages of 18 and 60, is a potential donor for Nick. Expanding on the initial information, one does not need to be 75% Caucasian and 25% Asian -- any potential mix could work. While the most likely match would be from a person who is 75% Caucasian and 25% Japanese, it is absolutely possible that other combinations of Caucasian-Asian background in different proportions could work. The Asian background should be Sino-Asian, rather than Indo-Asian. Finding an ideal match with all of Nick's markers is very difficult, and we do not want to exclude any potential donors.

• Go to the "Be The Match" National Marrow Donor Program. Rather than ordering a test kit (time is too critical for that), read the facts about donating and then you can register yourself and enter your zip code here to find drives in your area in the next few days. If there is not a local drive in your area within the next few days, please call one of the labs listed and request a time to drop in for urgent testing. (These instructions apply to people in the US. Other countries have similar programs.) People who join the registry can help any person, not just Nick.

• The test is a simple cheek swab. The actual donation can be a blood draw or a more complex procedure, which would have some side-affects from which people bounce back quickly. This link has facts about the procedural aspects of bone marrow donation.

• Testing is going on RIGHT NOW @ EMC World in Orlando in Room 206B. You can also stop by the Bloggers Lounge in the main pavilion for more information.

Colleagues of mine are also helping to spread the word for Nick:
Mark Frederickson - the official update spot for all the latest information
Len Devanna
Storagezilla
Polly Pearson
The Storage Anarchist

Please pass this information along. The farther we reach, the more we can help!

Jamie
Blog: http://jamiepappas.typepad.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/jamiepappas

The Social Media Club

We’re trying something new here to get folks more interested in social media and all that it has to offer – we’ve started a “Social Media Club” here at EMC. To give credit where it’s due, this (hopefully) monthly event was the brainchild of Stuart Miniman a.k.a @stu here at EMC. Stu had the vision and I help with the logistics and execution of this fantastic idea!

It’s pretty straightforward – it’s a public “club” with a group on EMC|ONE for anyone interested in learning more about and/or currently using various social media tools to connect, share experiences, ask questions, make recommendations, and just generally be social!

We approached the first session not really sure of the level of interest this might be, but we were pleasantly surprised at the turnout! We had well over 100 folks worldwide dialed into the event, watching via webcam and sitting in the room with us.

As it turns out, there are lots and lots of folks here at EMC who are interested in social media, not sure where to start, and find it helpful to converse with folks who are already “in the game” so-to-speak.

The focus of the first get together was how interest in social media started at EMC, with Chuck giving a chat on where it all began many moons ago. Folks were very interested to learn more about how this all came about, the challenges that we’ve faced thus far and how well it’s working now, understanding that we still have room to grow.

The feedback was positive on the session and we have lots of great ideas for future sessions, the next of which we’ll be having in a month with a focus on “other” social media tools available to use besides blogs, namely twitter and facebook in this session.

One thing that's clear to us is that people have an interest in learning what’s out there, but are often times not comfortable or interested in starting their own blog right out of the gate - they prefer to ease into things a bit, know their options, and how to use each, and make the decision on what's right for them - a stellar approach if you ask me. So, one of our primary goals is to educate folks on what else is available to them to participate in and take advantage of - who else is using it, how they're using it, what they can expect, etc. All good stuff.

I am definitely looking forward to these chats, and will share more as we have future sessions.

In the meantime, however, I’d love to know - are you doing something like this at your company? Any lessons learned and best practices to share?

Getting Word Out About Your Community

One of the challenges that our community managers often face is figuring out how to increase awareness of their community once they’ve created it and started some good discussions or collaborative projects. It's what I call the "now what" syndrome. Ok, I built it, now what...?

This is a list of things I share with them as ideas to get the word out. I always suggest that they'll need to try multiple avenues to reach a wider audience. Do you have a similar list? Have you tried other things that have worked? Please share!

• Respond to emailed questions (where appropriate) by posting the question and answer to your community on EMC|ONE, then respond with a link to the thread you created
• Showcase your community via an article or announcement about the community (be sure to include links!) in relevant EMC newsletters you participate in
•  Include the link to the community in your email signature, when appropriate
• Promote the community and provide links in any meetings you attend when the audience is relevant
• Email SME's on specific threads you know they have an opinion on or a stake in and personally ask them to jump in and provide their expertise on the subject
• Email an announcement to your key audience (sales or pre-sales, for example) when you have the community populated with some content and discussions that are valuable to the group
• Post a link on your Powerlink page, if you have one, or other relevant Powerlink landing pages (Powerlink is our extranet where all sales supporting collateral is shared with the field)
• Share it with a co-worker in the lunch line or at the water cooler

One of the challenges we always have to remember is that people are busy -- they only have so much time in the day to do everything that needs to get done. If you manage your community with the idea that they're always going to be thinking in the back of their head "what's in it for me?" and then meet those needs and demonstrate value, the people will come, and they'll stay.

Lessons from the Upgrade Trenches

First things first

First of all, I owe all of you an apology. I have been operating in stealth mode these past several weeks. Ok, who am I kidding; it’s been well over a month. And for those that were looking for more from me, I apologize. My only defense is that there's a really good reason, I swear. And it's got everything (yes, really, everythign!) to do wtih the mega-upgrade we just completed for EMC|ONE. After a few speed bumps, we are up and running succesfully and I'm happy with where we are - now.

 

As you may recall, we’re running Jive Software’s Clearspace platform for both our internal community (EMC|ONE) and our external EMC Community Network (ECN).

 

The good, and it is very good

Overall, I’m quite pleased with the upgrade coming out of it with a few “wish list” items (see more in The bad below) and a really, really big “what the heck were you thinking!?” item (see more in The downright ugly below).

 

We got a lot of what we were hoping for in this upgrade, and for that, it was worth it. What did we get, exactly?

 

Well, we got the ability to easily customize our home page of EMC|ONE, whereas before it was just the out-of-the-box fire hose of content and communities. Think all 130+ communities scrolling for pages on the left, and ALL of their most recent posts mixed together on the right two-thirds of the page. Not exactly optimal, especially for new users first coming to the site. Now we can change the page whenever we want with widgets and customized layouts. Total thumbs up on adding this functionality!

 

We also got a customizable home page for each end user to design as they like using widgets. They can also set it as their default. This was a major ask from just about everyone in our community. So, total thumbs up on this one, as well!

 

We got way more people functions – more robust profiles, friends, status updates (think Twitter), and social groups.  All very good, and highly desired by our community.

 

Finally, we got a much improved and much easier to use text editor, which presents our users with a more intuitive interface and allows them to use keyboard shortcuts they already know for formatting. Very nice, guys!

 

The bad, otherwise known as my wish list

Along with the good, we lost a couple of things that I wish we hadn’t. Not sure why the decisions were made to remove them, but I’m not alone in missing them.

 

We lost the ability to easily track the number of views and number of comments on any given post within a community. This used to be a key tenet of one of the widgets available for community design, but has disappeared and is causing some major bumps in the road for some of our community managers who liked to gather these kinds of stats to see what was working and what wasn’t in their venues.

 

My personal philosophy is that it’s more important to take into account who is saying what about your content and conversations than how many people viewed it, but not everyone using EMC|ONE as their information portal for all things EMC agrees.

 

We lost the ability to aggregate more than one blog into a given community or space. As we all know, it’s nearly mandatory to follow more than one blog, and you will find more than one valuable blogger on any given topic that you’d like to enable your readers to have access to by simply aggregating a feed into the community you manage. Sorry folks – not anymore. It’s a strict one-to-one ratio now, no exceptions.

 

I miss it. I loved this functionality. Unfortunately, there’s no good workaround for it right now, either. Apparently, I’m not the only one that misses it - I did hear there might be a possible widget under wraps that may address this wish list item in the future. That would be a swell Christmas present.

 

The downright ugly, which I have recently been referring to as "what were you thinking!?"

 

Blogs were not a smooth transition. Personal blogs remained largely untouched, but boy did we get killed with the community blogs that we had on EMC|ONE.

 

The title of this section says it all – it was ugly, downright ugly, and that has not changed much. Admittedly, it was ugly enough that I lobbed off a few “what were you thinking” emails to our lovely vendor last week and this week.

 

Why was it ugly? Not only did we have to re-assign every blog to the community it was appearing in, but the process renamed the blogs, re-assigned a new URL to the blogs, and wiped out the author list. Wouldn’t have been great had I know this before the re-assignment, but at least I could have prepared for it. We launched with people not being able to find their blogs, not being able to write to their blogs, and having to scramble to fix things only to find that there’s no “undo” if we make a mistake (I’m only human) thanks to those darned software bugs we all love so much.

 

So where does the “what were you thinking” come in? Communication, my dear friends - had I known these things before re-assigning the blogs to their homes, I would have definitely thought twice about doing so. Not knowing it ahead of time has caused me to down more chocolate and coffee than one woman should ever have in a 24 hour setting. I’ve also uttered the cliché “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” more times than I care to admit.

 

And then there’s the question that I might never know the answer to – why oh why did you break what didn’t need fixin’? I loved, the community loved the old blog functionality. What were you thinking breaking it? Sigh.

 

What sayest the community?

For the most part, the feedback around the upgrade has been positive. There has been some frustration at first with the “new” functionality. But, once folks calm down, they realize all the basics are the same, and they can choose (or not) to take advantage of all the extras at their own pace.

 

Why so successful? Well, we put out a call to our community for volunteers for testing. There were some annoyances found, some personal nits, but no deal breakers. I think it’s a success because we involved our community. We asked them point blank for their honest feedback, and they gave it to us. And it helped to make this great big endeavor work. And now we all get to reap the benefits.

 

The final verdict

 

So, if given the opportunity, would I do the upgrade again? Yes. But I’d make a few changes to how I approached things. I guess that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Learning from our mistakes and improving upon our weaknesses.