Chris Brogan on Social Consciousness as part of Social Media

SXSW Flash Panel: Corporations & Social Media on Vimeo on Vimeo

Chris Brogan is one of many who are actively committed to supporting social causes

Chris Brogan has a big voice. He’s a top blogger, marketer, and entreprenuer/innovator around social media.  But one thing Chris does, usually in the background, is to support the OTHER kind of social – helping the community and in particular those who need our help.

This partnership with the community represents the best of the web – using our influence, access and personal relationships to drive good. Here, Tyson Foods works to help end hunger, and Chris starts a fascinating panel with a nice, long discussion about Tyson and their great efforts.

As social computing is becoming more and more mainstream, people want to know how it fits into what they’re already doing. The short answer … it helps your audience understand you better and find reasons to like (or not like) you. When it comes time to make a purchase decision, who will be chosen?? The nameless, or those who have made a positive impression on you one way or another??

I’d love to start a list of philanthropic efforts that are supported by people and enterprises. Got some to share?? Post them (and their links here)! Tag them “philanthropy”!

And watch the video – it’s pretty great!!

Build-A-Beard Campaign: the best kind of partnership

Because it makes the impossible — or at least the impossibly difficult — possible.

The Build-A-Beard campaign is fun and creative, a definite plus, but it’s such an innovative way to bring the world in as partners to help those who really need it. Nice job guys, and a special thanks to Seth Godin for bringing it to my attention, Kiva for helping people to help themselves, and to Atto for making it fun. 

My bearded daughter Jessica has donated to the cause …

Build-A-Beard ... Help a budding entrepreneur

http://buildabeard.helloatto.com/

The Proof Is In The Pudding – building a directory of E2.0 Successes

OK. Enterprise 2.0 is coming to Boston next week. My mission has become clear … and with it, my opportunity. Here goes. Let me know what you think, and feel free to start providing your own stories. You’ll see what I mean in a second.

So, I’ve been in the ECM business for 20 years now (how is that possible when I’m only 27, right?!). I am so excited about how Enterprise 2.0/Web 2.0 builds  on that to enable companies to be more socially responsible, relevent, and capable of supporting the real communication, collaboration, and WORK that people do. By giving the outside world a way IN, and the INSIDE world a better way to create and share content, a whole bunch of new opportunities arise.

The piece I want to own is this one … collecting the stories of those who have successfully implemented E2.0 solutions — traditional content, socially oriented platforms, SaaS-based solutions that let even the smallest companies realize the huge potential of WCM internally and customer-supplier-partner facing.

I’m going to travel around E2.0 with my handy dandy camcorder and interview as many people as I can about their success with E2.0, focusing on it’s value to them. Do I care how things work?? Not so much. Do I want to capture the essence of users implementations so someone who’s on the fence about E2.0 can feel more confident about their decision to move forward. ABSOLUTELY. Logos and contact info/links to your own blogs are welcome. Let’s push this agenda forward together!

So stay tuned. This will be the blog. The content is forthcoming. Feel free to start by sending me a comment that includes your name and company (or some legally acceptable, reasonable facsimile), the problem or opportunity you used E2.0 to address, and a short description of what you did, what problems you overcame, and a note or two about your solution (let’s give credit where credit is due). I’ll ping you back if you need more info, and I’ll be eternally grateful for your support in helping me build this valuable directory.

Thanks!

Caring for Our Parents (and others), and the partnerships that make it easier

I received an email this morning that really drove home the power of alliances — between the internet, brilliant technology, thoughtful people, public television, a corporate sponsor, and a marcomm/PR agency that brought it all together. This alliance promotes an issue that potentially impacts all of us — caring for our parents.

Thanks and kudos to Sandy Lish (co-founder of The Castle Group and fellow alum of UMass Amherst), for helping to get the word out on such an important issue and providing access to some great resources that can help. Check out Sandy’s message:

( Friends and colleagues:

Recently, one of our Castle clients, HouseWorks, (www.house-works.com) sponsored a public television broadcast that many of us here found to be highly informative and moving. “Caring for Your Parents,” which ran locally on WGBH-TV, featured five families all dealing with the challenges of caring for their aging parents.  Following the documentary, WGBH aired a panel discussion which covered many of the issues involved, specifically, caregiving and related financial, interpersonal and health challenges.

As someone who, a few years ago, had to address an aging parent’s changing health and housing needs, I personally found this insightful and helpful to watch.  I know many of my friends and colleagues can relate to this issue, and if you haven’t dealt with it already, may have to eventually.  So I send this as a “public service” to those of you that might need guidance and insight.

The program is on WGBH’s website (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/caringforyourparents/).

If you are in a caregiving role yourself, or are concerned about someone who is, you may also be interested in visiting www.lotsahelpinghands.com (another client), which provides a tool for online caregiver support.

Sandy

Personal note:  Lotshelpinghands ROCKS. Not only do they help caregivers organize their own efforts and help them focus on giving care instead of managing the details, they eliminate huge hurdles and provide an incredibly easy and unobtrusive way for us on the outside to assist without getting in the way. How powerful is that ?! Check ‘em out.

             

FreshBooks: Partnering, Web 2.0 and social networks to find great talent

 

FreshBooks is using US to help THEM find great talent!! 

Partnering with the web-connected world to virally promote their needs is a smart option indeed for FreshBooks, a rising star in the web-based services-on-demand world. Their use of Social Networking tools to find an ace developer for their online billing solutions, and a finder’s fee to those who serve up the winning candidates, seems to be working – they’ve had thousands of views of their video on YouTube alone!

Not only is Mike McDerment (CEO/Founder) using Web 2.0-ishness to push his agenda, he’s using the community!!

To me, this is a no-brainer. I love the fact that FreshBooks is using their blog to find talent, and they’re showing a fun, personal video (hosted on YouTube) to promote the FreshBooks way of life. I’m a huge proponent of SaaS (software-as-a-service), hosted services, and Web/Enterprise 2.0 solutions too, and FreshBooks is using all of these to put the right content out there, for the appropriate audience, so it can be useful, actionable, and valuable.

Great solutions, low barriers to entry, fun and people-friendly tools to explain what they do and actually help people be successful using their stuff…

Wow!! I’m glad I found you. Keep up the great work and let us know how it goes!! I’d love to hear from you re other cool partnering initiatives FreshBook (and others) are running to drive business, communities, and growth.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ebyj_idJbgc

Thanks! Happy Spring!

Melinda