Paul Gillin

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

About 15 years ago the CEO of the company where I worked decided that it was important that employees should learn to use the technology they were writing about. He asked my business unit to build a computer lab that employees could use at any time to play and experiment. A large rectangular block of space was annexed in the middle of the open office and a spacious facility was constructed with spot lighting, tinted picture windows and all the latest PCs and Macs with large color monitors, color

Enterprise Management 82

Enterprise Management Social Networks Webcast Paid Search Agency 82

Paul Gillin

JANUARY 16, 2012

Seeking accelerate its pole position as a leader in the emerging concept of “social business,” IBM introduced new programs, services and partnerships to help organizations grasp the concept and make it work for their organizations. The company is rolling out a series of technical workshops and consulting services to help customers develop a culture that fosters open collaboration and sharing among employees, clients and partners.

Work Management 80

Work Management Marketing Management Demand Generation Agencies Service 80

Paul Gillin

MARCH 13, 2012

Outdated perceptions about emerging markets blind North American technology companies to the substantial IT investments being made there, according to a top International Data Corp. researcher. Latin America, Central & Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa (CEMA) and Asia Pacific economies are will spend nearly as much on IT as the US in 2012, said Sandra Ng , Group Vice President of the Information & Communications Technology Market Group at IDC in an address to the research company’

Planning 79

Planning Forecasting Mobile Marketing Paid Search Agency 79

Paul Gillin

JANUARY 17, 2012

When it comes to innovation, everyone wants to know what the leaders are doing, and you won’t find many firms with a better innovation track record than Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing (3M). At Lotusphere today, two representatives to 3M outlined some ways the company is using collaboration platforms to improve access to expertise and information across the far-flung company, which has people in more than 60 countries. 3M’s track record of innovation is legendary, but globalizat

Wiki 77

Wiki Peer-to-peer Work Management Marketing Management 77

Paul Gillin

JANUARY 25, 2012

Most small businesses are terrible at marketing in general and online marketing in particular. That’s understandable: The founders are usually more passionate about what they do than about promoting themselves. But with Facebook becoming the place you just have to be for businesses of all sizes, a little marketing know-how comes in handy. I recently spoke to Mark Schmulen, general manager of social media at the small-business-focused e-mail service provider Constant Contact about how to go

Small Business Marketing 76

Small Business Marketing Facebook Tips A/B testing 76

Paul Gillin

JULY 18, 2012

I love LinkedIn. It may not be as fun as Facebook, but it has so much utility, particularly for B2B professionals. LinkedIn does a great job of maximizing the value of all the data it collects so that you can sift through the status updates, discussions and events and find ways to connect with the people you need to reach. Alan Belniak of PTC has just posted a free e-book about how to get the most from LinkedIn.

Linkedin 76

Linkedin Profiling Facebook Tips 76

Paul Gillin

APRIL 27, 2012

It’s no secret that the factors that motivate salespeople to change the way they work have to be pretty simple: Help them spend more time selling and less time scrounging for information and telling managers what they’re doing. So when IBM began to introduce the concept of “social selling,” it chose a test base of a few hundred salespeople and their managers to build a set of integrated systems that improved productivity and reduced administrative overhead.

Process 76

Process Word of Mouth Forecasting Lock-In 76

Paul Gillin

APRIL 13, 2012

A Chicago company called Unmetric has just raised $3.2 million so it can develop yet another secret metric that purports to measure online influence. Unmetric monitors brands, not people, but it has the same shortcomings as Klout, PeerIndex and the others: Its methodology is a mystery. The distinguishing feature of its website is a leader board that shows the relative Unmetric scores of various brands in different industries.

Advertising Benchmark 75

Advertising Benchmark Opinions Social Media Twitter 75

Paul Gillin

MAY 15, 2012

I’m presenting a session at the CIO Solutions Gallery at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University tomorrow on the topic of “Measuring Social ROI: The CIO’s Role.” The subject got me thinking about a topic that’s close to my heart, which is the low profile IT executives have assumed in driving social business at their organizations.

Business 74

Business Leads Lead Marketing Qualified Leads 74

Paul Gillin

MAY 16, 2012

One of my favorite CIOs is Tom Murphy , who long headed IT at AmerisourceBergen and who is now in transition to a new role (any company will be lucky to have him). Tom addressed the CIO Solutions Gallery at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University this morning on the subject of the role of CIOs in social media. Earlier in the day, a show-of-hands poll of his audience had indicated considerable skepticism among the audience about the value of social business in general and a clear

Business 73

Business Social Media Opinions CMO 73

Paul Gillin

JULY 9, 2012

I followed Microsoft closely for many years when I was in the technology press, visited the company every year or so and even sat down with Bill Gates for interviews a few times. I was always impressed by the competitiveness of the Microsoft culture and wondered whether Microsoft it would resist the disease that killed companies like Digital Equipment, Wang Laboratories and Compaq, and that nearly killed IBM and Novell.

Work Management 72

Work Management Marketing Management Thought Leadership Blogger 72

Paul Gillin

APRIL 27, 2012

This was submitted by the folks at Wishpond , a maker of social marketing tools with specific emphasis on Facebook. It’s a pretty good anatomy of the new Facebook timeline. Click to enlarge.

Facebook 71

Facebook Social Marketing Tools Marketing 71

Paul Gillin

JANUARY 12, 2012

Want a low-cost, fun and effective way to reward your most active Facebook contributors? Steal a page from Cisco, whose corporate page is one of the best B2B presences on Facebook. Last year, Cisco started the SuperFan program to recognize its best community members. Each month, administrators recognize one fan and highlight him or her at the top of the page.

Facebook 71

Facebook Cable B2B Cost 71

Paul Gillin

MAY 4, 2012

I picked up Erik Qualman’s Digital Leader expecting a very different experience from the one I got. Qualman is a thought leader on the transformative potential of social media whose 2010 bestseller, Socialnomics , is considered a textbook in its field. I expected Digital Leader would instruct me on how to further immerse myself in these tools of change.

Social Media 70

Social Media Demand Lead Scoring Lead Ranking 70

Paul Gillin

MARCH 7, 2012

Wichita State University CIO Dr. Ravi Pendse last month issued a provocative challenge to educators to rethink their tools and tactics if they are to remain relevant a decade from now. Addressing a regional edition of the popular TED conference in Wichita, KS, Dr. Pendse , who is both the CIO of Wichita State University and an award-winning professor, said he chose the term “relevant” deliberately.

Education 70

Education Relevance Social Networks Conference 70

Paul Gillin

MARCH 1, 2012

This graphic, which appeared in The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday , says a whole lot about Facebook’s success and Google+ ‘s struggles, but it’s an incomplete picture of the true value of social networks. Here are some thoughts on what the numbers indicate and what they hide. The Journal piece was mainly intended to dramatize how badly Google+ is performing in the market despite Google’s huge search footprint.

Social Networks 69

Social Networks Twitter API Facebook 69

Paul Gillin

JANUARY 16, 2012

When building a collaborative workplace, a “build it and they will come” attitude is a recipe for disappointment. Effective deployment strategies demand a mix of promotion, training and tolerance of the adoption strategies that employees choose. Speakers at Lotusphere today offered tips on rolling out collaboration platforms to employees who aren’t accustomed to the concept.

Peer-to-peer 69

Peer-to-peer Wiki Enterprise Management Communities 69

Paul Gillin

MAY 31, 2012

Christina Kerley is a leading voice in B2B mobile marketing, and she’s starting posting engaging educational videos that show how mobile devices can be incorporated into the B2B marketing mix. For example, conference organizers can replace those thick (and expensive) packages of conference materials with a mobile app that delivers latest information to the devices users are already carrying and builds in goodies like QR codes that people can scan to download slides and get bonus information.

Mobile Marketing 68

Mobile Marketing Video Marketing B2B Thought Leadership B2B Marketing 68

Paul Gillin

JULY 10, 2012

My settlement check in the CLRB Hanson v. Google case arrived today. The lawyers got $5.25 million and I got this. Any suggestions on how to spend it?

Class 73

Class Google Spending 73

Paul Gillin

JUNE 22, 2012

At the risk of beating a dead horse, here’s further evidence that IT organizations need to take a more active role in supporting social business. IBM just released a global survey of more than 360 marketing practitioners and one of the key findings is that marketers want to be better aligned with their IT organizations. You can see a 28-slide summary of the top findings here.

Correlation 66

Correlation Research Multi-Channel Paid Search Agency 66

Paul Gillin

JUNE 28, 2012

There’s a crisis brewing for Progresso, and it’ll be interesting to see how – and if – the soup maker responds. The trouble was kicked off by a recent NPR report that looked at the potential health risks of eating food stored in cans that uses the industrial chemical bisphenol A (BPA). BPA is an industrial chemical that has been linked to everything from infertility to cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Facebook 65

Facebook Demand Research Brand Identity 65

Paul Gillin

MAY 26, 2012

When we moved into an old urban home nearly six years ago, we knew one of the disadvantages was a postage-stamp-sized front yard. The previous owners had done some very basic landscaping – and for some reason had installed a full irrigation system – but what can you do with less than 600 ft.² of space? It turns out a lot. We engaged Nancy Warren and Janice Welenc of Green Velvet Gardens of Holliston, MA to apply their imagination and experience to the problem.

Service 65

Service 65

Paul Gillin

APRIL 24, 2012

Who are social customers? According to Paul Greenberg , they: Are savvy using social channels. Trust differently than they used to. Communicate with peers. Communicate with companies. Get what they want. Are social, mobile, local. Expect immediate response or nearly immediate response. Expect information available nearly instantly when searching. Increase velocity of consumerization of work.

Peer-to-peer 65

Peer-to-peer Social Networks High Quality Lead Advertising Channels 65

Paul Gillin

JANUARY 20, 2012

As he retires from IBM after 10 years as CEO, Sam Palmisano reflects on what he’s learned about leadership, making tough decisions and thinking strategically (video, transcript and downloadable audio). Palmisano is disarmingly modest and candid in an interview with Wharton management professor Michael Useem as he discusses his “temporary stewardship” of the IBM legacy.

Impressions 63

Impressions Profiling Video Marketing Research 63

Paul Gillin

JUNE 11, 2012

Coca-Cola is dealing with a minor crisis this week because of comments by a former marketing executive expressing remorse over his contributions to America’s obesity problem. Todd Putnam, who was a top marketing executive at Coca-Cola from 1997 to mid-2000, told an audience at the National Soda Summit last week about a Coke strategy to replace all beverages in the American diet with its own products, a campaign the company called “share of stomach.” New York City anti-obesity a

Effectiveness 61

Effectiveness Opinions Paid Search Agency Advertisements 61

Paul Gillin

JUNE 5, 2012

I’ve probably spent at least a couple of thousand hours with PowerPoint over the last 15 years and believe me, familiarity breeds contempt. I find conference organizers’ obsession with “getting the slides in advance” to be a bit annoying at times, as if the slides are more important than the message, but I suppose that’s the world in which we live.

Conference 58

Conference Education Order Organization 58

Paul Gillin

JANUARY 16, 2012

Michael J. Fox kicks off as guest speaker, telling about his diagnosis with Parkinson’s Disease at the age of 29 and how it sparked his interest in the Internet. “I found out I was part of a community.” Web activism has enabled him to raise $270 million to battle Parkinson’s. Fox’s brief speech isn’t very relevant to social business, but the audience receives him well.

Enterprise Management 69

Enterprise Management Work Management Social Networks Ideal Customer Profiles 69

Paul Gillin

AUGUST 9, 2012

The following is an excerpt for the forthcoming book, Attack of the Customers: Why Critics Assault Brands Online and How to Avoid Becoming a Victim , by Paul Gillin and Greg Gianforte. The target publication date is late 2012. I’ll be posting a few excerpts here during the next few months and would appreciate your comments. We’ve all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare.

Twitter 92

Twitter Work Management Paid Search Agency Tagging 92

Paul Gillin

OCTOBER 10, 2012

I spent some time with comic video whiz Tim Washer (also @timwasher ) at B2B Forum last week, and he followed up with a few questions about how B2B companies are using online video as part of their content marketing programs. I shared some opinions with him, but why not share them with everybody else as well? I’d like to hear your answers to these questions, too.

Video Marketing 90

Video Marketing B2B Storytelling Youtube 90

Paul Gillin

AUGUST 4, 2012

My last e-mail exchange with Peter Morrissey was disconcerting. Peter always responded to my newsletters, and he didn’t let me down when I sent my latest one three weeks ago. But there was something wrong this time. It had been months since I had been able to get a newsletter out the door. In the meantime, a friend had told me that he heard Peter was pretty sick, but I hadn’t had a chance to confirm that rumor.

Cross-Selling 92

Cross-Selling Newsletter Ad Agencies Public Relations 92

Paul Gillin

APRIL 4, 2012

I had the pleasure of being invited to a dinner last night with some local technology luminaries and guest of honor Reid Hoffman , the co-founder of LinkedIn and already a Silicon Valley legend at the age of 44. The meeting was hosted by Larry Weber , a local PR legend and founder of the company that became Weber Shandwick. It was a great evening on several dimensions, but I particularly want to compliment Larry Weber (right) on the masterful way he ran the dinner.

PR 83

PR Opinions Linkedin Spending 83

Paul Gillin

FEBRUARY 2, 2012

I spent 15 months as a sales manager, which was just long enough to learn how little aptitude I had for the job. The experience did give me an appreciation for the difficulty of selling, though. In 20 years as an editor I had developed an attitude that’s common for people who produce products: I believed that most salespeople were overpaid, under-worked and basically lazy.

Cost per Lead 75

Cost per Lead Sales Qualified Leads PointClear CPL 75

Paul Gillin

AUGUST 6, 2012

Anyone who follows my blog knows that I’m not a big fan of Klout , or any service that oversimplifies the complex process of assessing online influence by boiling it down to a single number. However, I do think it’s important that organizations be able to understand the online influence of people they want to build relationships with. Awareness Networks just announced a tool that takes an intelligent and customized approach to influence assessment.

Marketing Automation Services 70

Marketing Automation Services Salesforce.com Ideal Customer Profiles Social Networks 70

Paul Gillin

JANUARY 17, 2012

Day Two of Lotusphere kicked off with a celebration of business transformation enabled by collaboration technology. Representatives from TD Bank Group and the author of a hot new book told stories of businesses that are rethinking the way business is done. TD has grown to become North America’s sixth largest bank through acquisitions and a focus on listening to customers.

Enterprise Management 58

Enterprise Management Transparency Social Networks Barriers 58

Paul Gillin

MARCH 25, 2012

Sports Illustrated has a great profile of Albert Pujols in this week’s issue. It includes a line that dramatizes just how much the game has changed since the days of Ted Williams: Williams, for example, played until he was 42. He retired having played 544 night games, and faced 268 pitchers on seven teams in 11 ballparks, none west of Kansas City.

Profiling 66

Profiling Examples 66

Paul Gillin

FEBRUARY 16, 2012

A list of tips for building a quality business Twitter following that I recently contributed to The CMO Site mentioned the value of being the eyes and ears of your followers. “When you attend a conference, play reporter and tell your followers what you’re witnessing,” I advised. An experience from this morning demonstrates the value of what amounts to sharing notes you would probably take anyway.

Marketing Proposals 83

Marketing Proposals Storytelling Advertising Mediums Tagging 83

Paul Gillin

JANUARY 4, 2012

The Internet is the most measurable medium ever invented, but the perception that returns on online social interactions can’t be quantified stubbornly persists. Those who still harbor this misconception should do themselves a favor and pick up Measure What Matters , a guide to digital ROI that puts common sense ahead of the current fan/follower frenzy.

Social Media 95

Social Media Media Peer-to-peer PR 95