New Automation Blogger

Thanks to Jim Cahill--I was scanning twitter feeds yesterday and saw where Jim pointed to the brand new blog of Logical Systems, LLC. It's a systems integrator with offices in Tennessee, Georgia, Colorado and China. Got them in my Google reader, now.

Taking Social Media Seriously

The buzz on social media keeps growing. Asok scored a book deal this morning. He's the engineering intern on Dilbert. As the Pointy-Haired Boss was blathering on about customer non-service, the engineering team is tweeting his comments. Dilbert's company hired a social media marketing manager. Marketing people evidently are under increased pressure to find new ways to promote the company message. Like converts to a new charismatic religion, they generate lots of energy.

People want to communicate. "Blogging" was developed merely as a method using the power of Web technologies for an individual to publish her thoughts. Others wrote articles speculating about just what it was--but that's all. I can publish my thoughts on manufacturing, society, innovation, soccer...and need not be a magazine editor or famous author.

Then the energy took off--can we share photos (Flickr), videos (YouTube), short thoughts (Twitter), locations (FourSquare). It's all about self-publishing and sharing.

Now for your advanced marketing course using social media--think back to "The Cluetrain Manifesto." Markets are conversations, they said. Customers want to be treated like adults as part of the conversation, not to be talked at like so much that passes for marketing communications does.

Many rush out and start a blog. Start a YouTube channel. Get a twitter account and hashtag search term. Man, we're in the forefront now. Some large companies have one person on twitter. Some have none. Some don't know if they have customers and prospects who read their blog, check the LinkedIn or Facebook group.

Like everything, if you want it to work, you have to work it. A blog takes time to develop. I probably wrote for six months before many noticed. I'll shortly complete seven years. Some tips:

If you are thinking about tools to promote an event, don't start a blog three months before kickoff and expect to have a huge impact. Find a good writer with a clear voice. Start writing about cool things happening in the company, market, among customers, developers. Write several times a week. Promote the blog on the company home page. Link to it on your external and internal communications. Write informally with lots of information--not in marketing speak. Don't be obnoxious. Try to engage your reader's attention.

If you are doing Twitter. Sign up lots of people. Get 50 internal people. Get the important media people to recognize it. Get 100 customers. Teach them how to tweet. How to search. What those darn hashtags (for example coming up are #EMRex and #OpsManage--they are not case sensitive) are for.

Get people to put photos on Flickr and tag them to your event.

Most of all, like all marketing communications--be consistent. This is a year-round endeavor. Just giving a shot once in a while--like consumer coupon marketing--won't give you the juice you need.

Take, for example, Jim Cahill at Emerson Process Management and the proprieter of the Emerson Process Experts blog. Last year his group put out clear instructions about using twitter during Emerson Exchange. I must have gotten at least 50 new followers from that. And, we could keep a conversation up during the event--cool things we saw, cool topics to hit, where to go. This year, he's building on that success with even more instruction.

Check this out from a recent blog essay:

Visiting the Emerson Exchange Live and Virtually

For those who can (and can't) attend this year's Emerson Global Users Exchange in San Antonio, Texas, Jim Cahill is conducting a Twitter 101 Live Meeting session on Friday, September 17 at 10am CDT / 15:00 UTC. Click to join the meeting.

Ghost of Social Media Future

Many forward-looking marketing people are exploring the varieties of social media. Getting a marketing message out is tough. I don't see why it is necessary to resort to deception and distortion to get a message out. I even see B2B marketers targeting engineers trying tricks at times.

Therefore the value of a good social media implementation. Social media tools can help people in companies develop conversations with people -- either customers or prospects. There are a few companies in our space using it well. Many are trying to find their voice and their way.

And then, there's the Pointy-Haired Boss (today's Dilbert):

Pointy-haired Boss (to attendees at meeting): Beth is our new marketing manger for social media.
PHB to Beth: By the way, company policy forbids the use of Facebook and Twitter at work. And we don't trust you to work from home.
If you blog about how lame we are, you're fired!!!
Beth (to self): First day, not so good.

Yep, that's the problem in far too many places. Happy Monday.

Obtaining news, RSS and Bill of Rights

I enjoy the high tech press (used to be called blogosphere). Sometimes I get news. Sometimes entertainment--abeit unintentional, I'm sure. There's a heck of a flap going on about whether Craig's List should censor certain kinds of content. Should prostitutes be allowed to advertise--even if it's illegal? Should your buddy down the street solicit for sickening acts of inhumanity? The "Wild West" of the Internet culture still wants anonymity and the "freedom of speech" (wish these dunderheads could/would read the acutal words and meanings of the Constitituion) which they interpret as the right to say anything I please about anyone on any subject and you have to listen to me. Check this post for example.What about responsible speech? There comes a time in the progress to maturity in a human's life when it's not "all about me" but we discover there are other people. Most of society seems to be functioning at the level of 2-year-olds rather than 12s or something.

Now the report that Google Reader is down 27%, so RSS is dead and everyone gets all their news on Twitter. These people have taken the newspaper reporter's skill of extrapolating a single data point into a huge distruptive trend. The best I can tell from statistics on this blog--which are a poor as about all Web statistics--is that about 20% of readers read from feeds. The rest visit the Web site from once to several times per week. I have been getting news (not just blogs, but The New York Times, Infoworld, CNET and others) on a feed reader since 2003. On the other hand, I sometimes go to an aggregator such as Google News or Yahoo News, to get a summary of general news. I've tried going to automation company Web sites for news, but that's too hard to do. Mostly I rely on calls and press releases for industry news, that I can then filter and report back to you.

Some writers talk about getting their news on Twitter or Facebook. I get almost no value from Twitter "news" feeds. A few people whom I trust send me news links on Twitter. Sometimes when there is breaking news, you can follow developments on Twitter. I'll be both reading and posting later this fall at the four conferences I'll be attending--Emerson Exchange, IOM OpsManage, Rockwell Automation Process Systems Users Group and Rockwell Automation's Automation Fair. You can watch for my updates at www.twitter.com/garymintchell.

I'm still having some problems understanding automation companies on twitter. I'd love to use my lists and searches to get news. Too many, though either send way too much stuff so that I can't filter the new from the mundane, or they re-send old news or simple promotional items. Perhaps we all need to work on upgrading our use and expectations of twitter?

Facebook is for news from friends--or at least all the people whom you have friended. I have received only a little value from that one. Mostly learning things about nieces and nephews that I'd rather not know ;-)

What do you do for news? How do you consume FeedForward, Automation World, general news, industry news? What can I do better to link up? Let me know.

Social Media, Safety, Change, Jobs

The Siemens PLM social media team kept going long after the conclusion of their event. Here's one of the wrap-up blogs.

Have you noticed the changing sections at bookstores lately? Over the past 18 months or so, I've noticed that the once huge computer sections have shrunk dramatically. Also the business book sections. Lots of fiction. Lots of specialty books. The "philosophy" section is often devoted to Buddhism and Taoism. New Age is still pretty hot. So what happened to computing? No new programming languages to learn? Have we seen enough of the quick solution, light-weight business book?

Jim Cahill discusses the very timely issue of safety at Emerson Process Experts.

Speaking of safety, I've been interviewing for an article. A couple of conversations about risky behaviors. And on how a series of decisions that each one alone may appear to be only low to moderate risk add up over time to a major risk. (Think BP in the Gulf...) I think these exhibit patterns. I've seen it throughout my career. It's not so much the one decision, or even a series of decisions. It's the pattern and acceptable behavior of cutting small corners here and there. Unsafe workplaces, poor quality, poor manufacturing performance are among the results of such sloppy or duplicitous thinking.

Here's a presentation on inspiring kids pointed out by Garr Reynolds on the Presentation Zen blog.

The tyranny of the urgent. Heard that for the first time at the very first motivational management seminar I attended. Michael Hyatt discusses setting time aside specifically written in your calendar to actually work!

Robert Reich argues that "We Can't Rely on Foreign Consumers to Rescue American Jobs." The analysis is sound. You may not all agree on the prescriptions. But that's what makes politics interesting.

Leo Babauta discusses the elements of change in this Zen Habits post.