WOM-buzz

Pairing Les Clos de Paulilles 2008 Banyuls Rimage with Anette's Chocolates' Micro Brew Beer Brittle

2012-01-24T23:07:00.000-08:00

Les Clos de Paulilles is the winery, restaurant, and B&B of Jean & Bernard Dauré in Banyuls, in a communal wine-grape growing area within the larger AOC of Banyuls that also encompasses the communes of Côte Vermeille, Cerbère, Collioure and Port-Vendres, sitting in the penumbra of the Pyrenees on the Mediterranean coast, a few kilometers north of Empordà, Catalonia, Spain.

This southernmost AOC in Languedoc-Rousillon is best known for its' dessert wines, madeira-like ports, and steeply terraced old vines. On the 80 acre Dauré estate, the winery produces its' signature 100% Black Grenache at 16% alcohol, which in a Rimage (a very good year) yields a bouquet redolent of black currants, accompanied with hints of Arbequina, while the palate ranges from Medjool dates up front, transforming to Mission figs in the middle, followed by Darrow Blackberries in the finish. This full bodied wine stands up to strong cheese and chocolate, yet begs to be challenged with new ideas.

Last night, with Les Clos Paulilles in hand, I stumbled across Anette's Chocolates' Micro Brew Beer Brittle, and remembered both how much my wife enjoyed this confection as well as how nothing every really seemed to go well with it. The idea that a madeira-like port would pair with the body of a brittle appealed to me, seeming worth the risk that it might entail. Arriving home a bit late, as it had been Napa Facebook Wine group meetup night, I assembled my tasting panel of the four curious wine enthusiasts who are my family. They rose to the occasion, and in no time, neither Les Clos de Paulilles nor Beer Brittle remained. The unanimous opinion was that I should have brought more of everything home with me.

Wine-Food Pairing: Lucien Albrecht Reserve Riesling 2010 with Steamed Spare Ribs in Black Beans and Chili

2012-01-22T12:51:00.000-08:00

Spicy and aromatic dim sum needs to be balanced with a wine whose likeness in body and nose stands with a floral fruit forwardness, acidity to cut the animal oils, and a long smooth mineral palate that complements the entire meal.

Lucien Albrecht Reserve Riesling 2010 is a very good choice in this situation, where a very good value in wine goes further to make an economical appetizer or main course perform on the diners' senses with the impact of haute cuisine.

Football Game Pairing: Niners-Giants with Prospect 49 2010 California Zinfandel

2012-01-22T08:12:00.001-08:00

For full-bodied, spicy, or even gamey foods during the game, a good economy wine may be a better match than a fine wine. For Niners fans, think about snagging a Prospect 49 2010 California Zinfandel. Good fruit, hearty nose, and sufficient acid for washing those animal fats down the gullet. For Giants fans, this wine will be a go well with humble pie.

Upgrades in VinTank Social Connect

2012-01-19T11:57:00.001-08:00

For 5 months I have been monitoring visitor intentions in many different AVAs and aggregates thereof for the hospitality sector of northern California winecountry. The VinTank Social Connect system has been a real lifesaver, allowing me to craft the record selection language from blogs, forums, discussion groups, websites, micro-blogs, and social media platforms. Recent improvements to this system have improved both the quality as well as the number of qualified records found. Here is a summary infographic from one region this morning.

One might say that Napa, Mendocino, and Lake County is an unusual aggregate. I do this because these are the counties surrounding Sonoma, where the client for this monitoring service is located. The vast majority of the hits actually take place in Napa, even when Mendocino or Lake county are having large events.

Nonetheless, if it's important to pick up on the level of buzz surrounding a business or a vicinity, it's essential to have a listening tool that clues you in to where activity rates or intentions are changing.

Thanks, VinTank, for making my work more productive.

Has Wine Enthusiast Lost Some Modicum of Their Objectivity?

2012-01-07T17:33:00.001-08:00

The word from Wine Enthusiast is out. They have named Virginia one of the world's top ten wine travel destinations. Alix Bryan, WTVR.com/CBS6 Web Producer published a video replete with testimonials by Jason Tesauro, Bartholemew Broadbent, and other dignitaries. It might have been edited to modify audience perceptions of the intended positions of those speaking. The media splooge left me cold. Please bear with me while I frame my POV on the matter.

I love Virginia. I lived and worked in Arlington for 8 years. I frequently went hiking, climbing, camping, and spelunking in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I attended the 2011 North American Winebloggers Conference in Charlottesville, tasted many of the fine wines from all over the state, and thoroughly enjoyed visiting many of the nearby wineries, as well as speaking with many of the winemakers at the conference.

Pictured above, 400 bloggers rally through the streets of Charlottesville to find key tasting spots in the Rioja Crawl late on a Saturday Night July 23, 2011.

At the same time, I'm not entirely convinced that I myself would prefer to tour wineries in Virginia over British Columbia, Oregon, New York, or Washington States where the natural beauties are formidable and larger numbers of internationally recognized wineries have received a great number of higher accolades than those attributed to Virginia. I still love Virginia, but I am not convinced of the Wine Enthusiasts' choice in their award. #Respect but #Skepticism

Use Case: Driving IRL Visitation through Colonized Community Activation

2011-12-30T08:56:00.000-08:00

When potential IRL visitors plan ahead or make ad hocdecisions, they visit the online communities that they trust for reviews,recommendations, and scores. These potential IRL visitors observe:

The number of reviews
The height, trend and stability of the scores
The sentiment, recency and specific attributes of the reviews
Who the reviewers are, because potential IRL visitors identify with influencers:

whose tastes have proven to be compatible with their own
whose opinions score well with large numbers of other members in their community
with whom they have become friends

Social Media Managers (SMM) are becoming increasingly moreaware of, as well as participatory in, those online communities where potentialIRL visitors hook up with the reviewers, recommenders, scorers, and othercritics whose collective wisdom is marshalling a great deal of actual consumerspending flows. When one can launch or contribute value to an activity in the right community, they are elevating the readiness of their consumers to take their relationships to the next step at a new position in the sales funnel.

Some of thesecommunities are:

Groupon
TravelZoo
Google Places
Trip Advisor
FourSquare
Yelp
Chowhound
Quora
Posterous
Circles and Hangouts in Google Plus
Private Discussion Groups in Facebook
Regional/Metro Community Organizations/Meetups/Tweetups
as well as other forums and blogs

The challenge for the SMM is to stimulate fresh flows ofreviews, ratings, and positive sentiments around specific and immediateopportunities that are resonant calls-to-action for the potential IRLvisitor. To accomplish this, the SMMmust understand what the various classes of potential IRL visitors are lookingfor in the present moment. To do so,they must be active participants in communities that they have colonized. Just as with their own websites, twitter feeds, and facebook pages, vital content must always be fresh and worthy of revisitation.

Honoring Value and Quality: Languedoc Day

2011-11-16T10:14:00.001-08:00

#LanguedocDay totally rocked November 10, 2011. Two days ahead, it all came together. Rick Bakas (@BakasMedia) partnered up with Tia Butts (@WineInkByTia) from the Benson Marketing Group (who organizes events in the U.S. for CIVL, Conseil Interprofessionnel des Vins du Languedoc).

The @NapaMarriott offered their internal patio as our venue, and some excellent food pairings.

With the selective influence, persuasion and genius of Tia's associate, Ross Wasserman (BMG-NYC), CIVL came through with two cases of fine Languedoc wines.

Ross Wasserman knows his schist.

The fourteen people who showed up were greatly appreciative.

I found four (4) favorites in the lot:

Chateau La Liquiere Vielles Vignes Faugères 2007 I like the ancient vines, as they give the wine its' intensity and age-ability. Berry aromas and mineral notes. 40% carignan (50 to 100 years old), 40% grenache, 10% syrah and 10% mourvèdre aged 90% in vats and 10% in barrels for a period of 12 months. 14% abv.This vintage should age well for another three or four years.@LanguedocWines tells us that Faugères is defined by the schist rocks and soils which cover 80%. These conditions give the wines characteristic acidity I am thrilled to find such a great wine as well as to know that I can afford it, and find it at a store in my home town.

Domaine de L'Ortus, Grand Cuvee 2007, Pic Saint Loup

Tia Butts recapped the romantic history of L'Hortus, as it was her favorite in the lineup, as well as one in whose ecosystem she is intimately experienced and well-versed. It is 50% Mourvedre, 40% Syrah, and 10% Grenache.

We float away on the complex and rich Gérard Bertrand, Cigalus 2007 Rouge brought to the table by Mark Buckley (aka @spiritandwine) Rick Bakas' called this wine "one of his highlights" for the day, and so felt all of us.

Filmmaker and photographer Anita Gouloomian (aka @gogoanita) loves to be drinking Wine with friends Tristan Fairbanks and Mark Buckley

The larger group includes, from left to right, Nathalie Vaché, Alan Spence et Madame, Rick Bakas, Espen FøgeJensen, and Tia Butts.

Crémant de Limoux "Cuvée Eugénie" 2008toasty, crisp, creamy, floral, mousse-likestands marvelously on its' own, and goes great with mussels in curry sauce. It's simply more delicious than Champagne, whose method was actually invented in Languedoc. 50% chardonnay, 40% chenin blanc and 10% mauzac.

Picpoul is a great accompaniment to Crispy Calamari, and I let everyone know. While it's not as good as the top four, it is a mighty fine table wine.

Showing up once it became too dark for photos were: Adam Reiter, Vanessa Ochoa, and Ed Thralls.

Small Artisans Step up to the Pouring Tables

2011-09-12T17:46:00.000-07:00

Twenty-five retails stores in Calistoga, California opened their doors to "Cheers to Taste" on September 7, 2001 and hosted the pouring tables of wineries from all over Napa County. "Cheers to Taste" is a monthly meeting of the membership of CANVAS (Concierge Alliance of Napa and Sonoma) which facilitates how the members learn to compete collaboratively shoulder-to-shoulder and assist each other in their trades, which span travel, tourism, lodging, transportation, recreation, spas, wine, retail, municipal, industry, food, and beverage sectors.

It's always a good sign when you can visit with winemakers whom you had not ever before seen performing in either "Cheers to Taste" or "Cheers Saint Helena". Entering Chateau Sainte Shirts, to shop for some short sleeves on this warm evening, I met Bill Tristant at his pouring table. He is the proprietor of Tristant Vineyards on Bale Lane in Calistoga, where he produces Mirifice, which is his blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot that grows in a deep gray sandy loam topsoil above a deep bed of white gray gravel, where he summons generations of know-how from recollections of his French Basque winemaking forbearers.

Further along Lincoln Avenue, I wandered into Zenobia (even though I had no gift shopping in mind), and met Charles Johnston of the Helena View winery and Johnston Vineyards.

Charlie grows Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Merlot organically for his red wine blends on his estate at Highway 128 and Big Tree Road.

What's most refreshing is to listen to their stories, and to get a clue as to why their wines are different from those of everyone else. Cheers.

Cabernet on a roll south of the Pyrenees

2011-09-10T00:13:00.000-07:00

On September 1, 2011 at #Napa #CabernetDay Tasting Sessions in the Marriott, a question arose about where Cabernet Franc is grown and used in wine. In the course of this global overview, Deborah Parker Wong mentioned the spread of Cabernet in Spain, which re-energized this topic on the heels of North American Wine Bloggers Conference earlier this summer, where the Wines of Navarra presented Viña Parot Reserva 2003 from Bodegas Nuestra Señora del Romero in the Cascante growing region, in which Cabernet tops this label's marquee. This Parot is a fabulous marriage!

I relayed the question of Cabernet south of the Pyrenees to Albert López Gálvez at Uvinum in Barcelona. He pointed out the Abadal Cabernet Franc Tempranillo 2009 from Pla De Bages, Catalonia. Alongside of the other Bordeaux and indigenous components (Picapoll, Sumoll, Tempranillo, and Nuat), the Bodega Abadal is blending fine wines with Cab Franc to the great pleasure of many european aficionados.

What experience or recommendations for other Spanish Cabernet might you wish to share with the rest of us? What say you who know feel strongly about South African, South American, New Zealand, and Australian Cabernets?

Yannick Amirault Saint Nicolas de Bourgueil 2009 Cabernet Franc Les Malagagnes

2011-09-03T13:30:00.000-07:00

Presentation on "The Cabernet Franc of the Loire Valley" for global #CabernetDay at the Napa Marriott on September 1, 2011 by Deborah Parker Wong The event was organized at this location by Bakas Media.

Yannick Amirault Saint Nicolas de Bourgueil 2009 Cabernet Franc Les Malagagnes (srp $30 U.S.), is on the north side of the Loire River.
The vintage was warm, dry, picture perfect, like 1990. The spring was hot, but the vines are so mature that they were not harmed. Best vintage since 2005. Seductive red fruits, supple tannins and flavors says Deborah Parker Wong "If what I smell is repeated on the palate".

Monsieur Amirault, beginning at age 22, promoted sustainable practices. No chemical management, he uses leaf thinning and canopy management to get his grapes to ripen optimally. He also uses inter-row ground covers like grass to soak up the nitrogen, so as to manage down the "green" flavors. Yields are low at 44 hectaliters per hectar. Harvest are multi-pass, to further that optimal ripeness at picking times.

Amirault's Les Malagagnes vineyard is clay-limestone, the gran terroir, the holy grail of the winemakers. He ferments in wood and uses indigenous yeast (considerably more difficult fermentation than with corporate yeast). The wines are unfiltered and unfined, which further supports all the evidence of high quality.

Deborah reports a lean flavor profile She says that "To me these wines are like Greyhounds. They are very, very lean. .... there is a wonderful midpalate on this wine that is a direct indicator of the ripeness and the styles that this winegrower is producing ... and also the finish ... I'm getting the mineral purity that I so look for and so admire in these wines."

We owe our thanks to Deborah for selecting and presenting with her sense of purpose and commitment. A big tip of the hat also goes to Ross Wassermann at the Benson Marketing Group in New York, who worked assiduously to make these wines available for us at this meeting.

What we saw could make an excellent video shelf talker, which might be an important add-on to our awareness about such under-appreciated wines.

Incoming Tasting Alert for Cabernet Franc Enthusiasts

2011-08-28T12:29:00.000-07:00

On Thursday, September 01, 2011 at 3:00 PM, Deborah Parker Wong (Northern California editor for Tasting Panel Magazine) will be leading a high-quality tasting and education section on Cabernet Franc from the Loire Valley. Her presentation is the stellar kickoff section in the #CabernetDay Napa HQ Tasting Sessions at the Napa Marriott.

The occasional will be insightful and transformational. Come and get it.

Framing Critical Wine Tasting Reviews

2011-07-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

At the North American Wine Blogger's Conference in Charlottesville, Virginia on July 24, 2011, Tom Wark led a group discussion on "How to Exercise Wine Blogger Responsibility in the Critical Review of Tasting Wines". The unofficial topic was "How to Trash a Wine that Exhibits Hints of Fresh Manure Aromas or that Tastes like *ss".

We got deeper into the responsibility and ethics of fairness, balance, and respect - for the readers, winemakers, the wine, and the review writers.

However disappointing previous encounters might have been, most of these are eventually capable of improving at some future occasion on which we meet and partake of each other.

The participants were active and deeply concerned with the approach to assigning appropriately merited criticism to a wine in a manner that is fair, acceptable, and well understood by all parties.

Especially of interest is the framing of a review on a wine that has no broad defect, where it either does not connect with the reviewer's palate, or it simply needs more bottle aging before it can be both more fully accessible to the public palate as well as be more fairly reviewed for the potential that it will exhibit.

Standing in close oversight of the wineries as they release new wines, we expect that the youngest and more tannic wines will appeal more readily to certain Taste Tribes. The inventory of such wines may draw down over the period of more than two years, in which time the value of the wine may ascend for the patient buyers as well as for the winemaker. These conditions are inherent in the risks and rewards for all.

Many deeply felt thanks to all who participated. Bravo!

(Please note that when the You Tube embedded player performs poorly, the direct link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzy5fn5f8Yo , which will frequently play more smoothly or indicate that you may need to update your Adobe Flash Player).

The is the first in a series of short clips from that discussion.

Adopting Social Business Technology in Transforming Enterprise Culture

2011-07-18T21:24:00.001-07:00

Today in Smart Business, Social Business Michael Brito sets the world on fire, and rightly so, with his article on Choosing the Right Social Business Technology. Though my own graduate school degree is in Industrial Organization, Michael has brought me face-to-face with the brave new world of Social Industrial Organization.

Not only is it breath-takingly difficult to choose the right technology for driving the strategic vision to include social business transformation process, but it is remarkably challenging to redefine everyone's roles, responsibilities, and reporting methods as well as to communicate and lead the whole enterprise in such goals and objectives in a way that everyone understands and thrives. LBE (Leading By Example) should be designed carefully, yet flexibly and responsively, with an allocation for engagement with employees on a one-on-one basis when and where the situation requires it to be done. It is like a modern re-invention of fundamentalist "born again"-ism because of the deepening of relationships inside the social enterprise. If this depth is foregone, customers will recognize the faux transformation, and distrust instead of engage more deeply with your business.

While the technology choice is crucial, it is but the tip of the universe compared to getting the cultural transformation right. If the technology helps to implement the right choices, that's wonderful. Let's just be careful that we are making the right transformational goals and objectives, and that our technological choices are truly helping us to optimize the more fundamental change in our structure, performance, and conduct.

Vendor selection should be at least as much about conceptualizing/implementing a strategic social vision as it is about installing a technology. I am the first to support rich feature sets for community and collaboration, as long as a clear set of use and test cases are developed for the roll-out, regrooving and training. Behind the execution, quality assurance must measure the adoption process while business process re-engineering talent has to determine what the gaps and fails are, and how to evolve the vision.

I also agree with Mr. Brito on the customer support model, but would like to add that the customer support team also needs to come up the learning curve on going beyond the "break-fix" mentality, and move forward into understanding how the customer uses your product and service to the extent that you care about making that customer succeed in their job in a way that integrates a deeper grasp of how your product/service/technology accelerates their mastery of their jobs. It's what Bill Johnson (Director of Global Community at Dell) calls "Building Global Audience & Brand Supremacy through the Development of Client Expertise, Use, & Mastery". Bill brought this to the table in our discussion at PariSoma during Social Media Week last February. We'll want to have him in on the deeper dive, because he is such an amazing talent/leader when it comes to understanding social business transformation.

Michael Brito is preaching to the choir when he tell us to invest in organizational intelligence, but the "C"suite is not always together on this. Remember that social business technology may be disenfranchising the Information Technology mafia in your enterprise, and that you may have to re-invent that division if they are not ready to integrate with the larger program.

Finally, I made a donation to the "Not For Sale" Campaign and urge you to do the same.
Great overview, Michael. Thank you so much.

#WBC11: Getting Over What Holds Us Back

2011-07-13T11:47:00.000-07:00

From July 22nd through 24th in Charlottesville, Virginia, the fourth annual North American Wine Bloggers' Conference will take place. I am stunned by the honor to attend, bestowed by the generosity of conference sponsors, that I may report to you about the proceedings and charming digressions of #wbc11 through my own aficionado's lens and lingua franca.

Like many of us, I rarely have the opportunity to taste North American wines other than those from the state or locale in which I reside. This conference has a reputation for allowing its' participants some relief from isolation, and liberates us momentarily of our parochial blindness. Its' one thing that we should support localness and greenness, but quite another that we allow ourselves to embrace relative mediocrity in the defense of localness. Our commercial and social milieu has become too sophisticated and authentic for us to continue with the elements of such thinking, as it retards continuous improvement in the industry, the trade, and its' appreciation (regardless of local and state laws).

If we should have a theme for 2011, I'd nominate "Let's Get Over It". We look forward to some extraordinary eye-openers, and new favorites, accompanied by impassioned differences of opinion in hot debate. I would like to discuss with my peers the classification quandary, how we elevate our advocacy of a particular wine, varietal, winemaker, pressing technology, fermentation style, aging philosophy, domain, or region on a universally valid basis. I am especially eager to find how the participation of #VibrantRioja will facilitate such thinking.

Use Case for Collaborative Competition in Hospitality - Cheers Saint Helena

2011-06-27T12:03:00.000-07:00

Cheers Saint Helena is a marriage made in heaven for the merchants, entertainers, restaurants, and winemakers meeting first Fridays throughout the growing season from 6 to 8 p.m. It's a unique way for everyone to join their brands together in a composite. It's also a great opportunity for the public to compare wines that they like in large number and close proximity. It's a beautiful place for the public safety officials to relax their restrictions on open containers. Most of all, it's where we can see how our competitors serve the public, which helps us to learn to do a better job, so that everyone benefits.

The Hess Collection's Botrytis Affected Carneros Reserve 2006 Chardonnay

2011-06-01T01:02:00.000-07:00

I interviewed senior wine educator Michael Jobes on Global #Chardonnay day (May 26, 2011) at The Hess Collection winery in the Mount Veeder AVA of Napa Valley. Working our way through the portfolio, my jaw hit the ground upon diving into this rare gem of noble rot.

2006 was the first and the last time that such a Chardonnay could be made at The Hess Collection, and in very small scale production at that. The right conditions rarely occur. Thus it is only available at the winery, as if one needed any kind of extra reason to visit The Hess Collection. It was a perfect first stop among the many wineries that welcomed me to meet with them on this day, with a greater appreciation for this varietal building throughout each of the meetings.

A Commitment to Value and Quality Appreciation - Julianne Laks

2011-05-29T12:16:00.000-07:00

On May 26, 2011 (aka #Chardonnay Day), Julianne Laks, winemaker at Cakebread Winery, presented an overview of how their philosophy guides their practices in pressing, fermentation, and aging of Chardonnay. Each wine should be made with an eye toward quality improvement, longer lifetimes, and higher valuations from release going forward. Many of the metrics that assist or guide timing are couched in terms of intensity, phenols, esters, acid profiles, flavor profiles, aroma profiles, pH, and brix. The presentation was re-inforced by tasting certain Chardonnays to illustrate the core concepts which she adheres to in her craft of this varietal:

Nightpicking improves flavors, acids, and intensity, which leads to greater age-ability
Delicate cluster pressing minimizes skin rupture, reducing the introduction of potassium into the juice, the avoidance of which lends toward better acidity profile and aging, leading to greater freshness, vibrancy, and age-ability.
Malolactic Fermentation is applied in a light style for modifying and smoothing out acidity in a few lots.
Reserves must barrel-age without displacing the fruit aromas and flavors which are at the heart of the wine's balance. Higher percentages of denser oaks from the northern most wine oak forests of the americas, as well as greater participation of neutral (older-oak) barrels. In any event, barrel-aging takes place in fairly low percentages and rarely for more than 14 months.

The slam dunk of the presentation was the taste and aroma contrast in their Carneros Reserve, 2006 vs. 2008, where the only substantial difference between the wines was the 2 additional years of bottle-aging due to the vintage. The value added by two years would be much less dramatic in the absence the above-mentioned practice wisdoms. Reserves made inside of this framework should continue to appreciate in market value and overall quality for 5 to 10 years, provided proper storage.

Emphasizing its' Strong Suits: Boisset Family Estates

2011-05-18T22:02:00.000-07:00

On May 14, 2011 Raymond Winery briefed a contingent of the wine press on transformations taking place throughout the Boisset Family Estates. Approaching the visitors' center, a Daliesque landscape offers clues to the innovative programs which lay in wait ahead.
In the fermentation room, tanks and scaffolds are adorned with mirrors and mannequins, while a museum of fine crystal frames a tasting/presentation bar.

Peggy Gsell, brand and exports manager, kicked off the meeting with a demonstration of reserve Sauvignon Blanc and an appellation collection of Cabernet Sauvignons all served in fine crystal stemware. A mannequin swings from a trapeze hung between fertilization tanks.

A status report about the ongoing conversion of BFE vineyards to biodynamics emphasized how their winemaking attention focuses heavily on cultivation architecture, planning, process, and execution.

Stephanie L. Putnam, director of winemaking, presented a high-tech laboratory within the winery where blending education programs will train consumers and trades to create their own blends in either bottle or case execution. Cabernet, Merlot, Cab Franc, and one additional yet-to-be-determined varietal will be available to the trainees palate, with which they will express their emerging talent. A restaurant which wants to dial up a custom blend for a particular customer set creates their own imprimateur by their choice and custom labelling. In some cases, this arrangement may also serves as a personal branding partnership in which the consumer merges their own identity with the winemaker in a mutually beneficial act of recommendation and reputation building, but much more forceful than wearing a designer's logo. Can custom blended Barrel-to-Barrel refill packaging be far behind?

In a garden outdoors, Jean-Charles Boisset showed us where outdoor kitchens and dining areas are planned to adjoin a swimming pool and Bocce court. He added that the French parallel to Bocce, known as Pétanque, will also be played here.

In a design center adjacent to the gardens, the new Barrel-to-Barrel home and trade delivery system was introduced. Peggy Gsell explains the inner workings of barrel-to-barrel This is a more economical approach to serving wine-by-the-glass from small barrel which protects wine from oxidation through the delivery of product with flexible 3-liter and 10-liter replacement cartridges. Additionally, this delivery format reduces the carbon footprints. Always eager to engage visitors playfully, the whole BFE team encouraged us to decorate several barrels.

A friendly competition in Barrel-Dressing gets the teams excited

Thea Dwelle delights in the joy of competitive barrel decoration.

This day was the soft pre-launch of the JCB lounge, a golden environment in which the new partnership with Baccarat Crystal will permanently enshrine the public facets of this program's content. The foundation of mutually relevant cross-branding between BFE and Baccarat Crystal is a masterful strategic lesson. It is one more case of how the Boisset Family Estate conveys aesthetic, creative, entertainment and educational benefits to niches in their expanding target set of consumers and visitors.

Jean-Charles explained how crystal became prominent in wine culture during the post-Borgian Europe when wealthy wine enthusiasts sought to detect poison in their wine glasses by spectral observation. He also taught us how such observation became reflected around the Burgundian customs in voice and gestures at the feasting tables.

The press vacillates between being amused and ill-at-ease in digesting the history of poison in wine especially after tasting about 20 different wines.

To add a layer of modernism to these traditions in culture and entertainment, a selection of Michael Jackson videos played continuously on a wide screen projector, to further integrate the BFE identity of the past with the future.

Jean-Charles with Alana Gentry relaxing on the Dali sofa

I recommend a visit to the JCB lounge!

The most earth-shaking news is what Boisset has done on the Healdsburg Square with the inception of the "Taste of Terroir" tasting room, where the flights are intercontinental, exposing the consumer to the evolution of their favorite varietals in multiple international terroirs from within their family of wineries around the world. As if you needed another good reason to go to Healdsburg, this is the most compelling argument for making the trip. It is also a preview of a new trend in the world of wine, as the greatest artesans seek out venues for the product of their crafts elsewhere in this northern california domain that the european winemakers refer to as the "Disneyland of Wine". Boisset has unleashed a new excitement among their peers abroad and domestically. We don't know exactly when the big wave will land somewhere nearby next, only that it is either in the making or on its' way.

#RiojaBuzz: Emerging Victorious in the Afterglow of Enophilic Shamanism

2011-05-04T13:13:00.001-07:00

A #VibrantRioja energized opinions about Tempranillo, Garnacha, Graciano, Viura, Mazuelo, Malvasia, and Macabeo on May 2, 2011, as the Regulatory Council members of the Rioja DOC winemakers presented their best to the wine trade and press in San Francisco at the Westin Saint Francis. Many importers, distributors, wholesalers, hoteliers, restauranteurs, winemakers, journalists, sommeliers, and other industry experts filled the 32nd floor salon to learn from the council members first hand and first palate.

It was instructive to see the @CarpeDiemNapa wine bar portfolio acquisition team seize the afternoon fiercely & passionately. Led by my friend Stephanie Kendall, co-founder/proprietor of Carpe Diem Wine Bar (Napa), her advisory group which includes wine broker Josh Phelps (takenwine.com) and aficionado Gianna Dalla Gasperina sought a break-out Rioja wine to introduce into the Carpe Diem Wine menu. They embraced the Colección Vivanco with great pleasure. This intrepid, adventurous group of food and beverage entrepreneurs threw themselves palates first into the grasp of many winery products from the DOC of Rioja, Spain, and emerged victorious.

These are the plain and simple facts. What follows are the opinions of at most a few, but mostly these observations are but my own.

I liked best the Colección Vivanco Parcelas de Graciano 2006 from Bodegas Dinastía Vivanco, because it shows how Rafael Vivanco pursued the perfection of his craft through component deconstructionism. I asked Rafael to serve me but a small taste of the Graciano. He explained to me very carefully that the Graciano is the coup de grâce(final step) in the tasting flight of the Colección Vivanco, because it demonstrates how his Graciano serves as the structure for his more complex blends, and why the line would be considerably less amazing without it. He relented and let me taste just the Graciano, only to have me screw it all up by returning 10 minutes later to taste the rest of the Colección. Mr. Vivanco is a brilliant and most articulate presenter in a flawless Castillian. Tuning-in to Rafael, one cannot help but applaud his artesanry. Rafael is shown below in the company of José Peñín listening deeply and with serious intentions to Gary Vaynerchuk:
Almost as outstanding was the Berberana Rioja Gran Reserva Viña Alarde 2003. Third off of my match was the Bodegas Bilbaínas La Vicalanda Reserva 2003, which didn't have so much as an off-palate hint to be found from front to back. The bonus coup was that of Bodegas Franco Españolas (Logroño) in their Rioja Bordón Gran Reserva 2001. All of these wines will be improving for at least another 5 to 10 years.

I also concur heart and soul with: Colorado Wine Press on the Rafael López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Gran Reserva Blanco 1987; @WineTom in his commitment toward the magnificent '78 Albina Rioja Gran Reserva; as well as with Alana Gentry (@girlwithaglass) on the Cerrado del Castillo Cuzcurrita 2001. We are fortunate to be able to rely on each others' good judgment to extend our reach and our palates beyond what we could accomplish individually in an afternoon, especially in light of the negative bias against Tempranillo and most Spanish wines which has been visited upon us by rampant global Parkerization. Now my shopping list is complete.

Speaking with Rioja's winemakers, it became apparent that some of the "oak-free" movement is a by-product consequence of "the stampede to market" with wines that might have benefited from extra years of bottle aging prior to release, as well as different types of oak and longer in-barrel maturities. Of course, only a small fraction of a percent of the global wine output is of the intensity and acidity that would have been the pre-requisite to such aging regimes. These false perceptions are herding many of the world's wineries lamentably toward commoditization (i.e. doom). But not the Riojans.

What is most amazing about Rioja is the overall high level of quality. The rest of the world has no other domain so large of equal quality and value in all of its price points. This is THE breakout domain.

Michael Rubin's Video Master Class

2011-04-24T01:20:00.000-07:00

Michael Rubin teaches "How to Make Professional-looking, Compelling, Entertaining, and Educational Short Videos without Tears". His course is being offered by The San Jose Tech Museum of Innovation as part of their Science of the City Video Contest. This first day took place on Saturday, March 23rd, 2011. I produced livestreams on JustinTV to support those who could not attend physically. A second day for more detailed team planning and productions will take place on Saturday, March 30th, 2011.
The livestream of this first day of classes is spread across 4 embedded URLs:

Livestreams are not high-quality, just quick distribution. We will produce the HD, exposure/color-corrected highlights later.

Directory of Articles

2011-04-15T12:36:00.000-07:00

A Commitment to Value and Quality Appreciation - Julianne Laks

Re-imagineering Smart Brand Partnerships as a Social Business Model that Wins: Boisset Family Estates

#RiojaBuzz: Emerging Victorious in the Afterglow of Enophilic Shamanism

Pairing Finca 21 Malbec 2005 with Little Star Deep Dish Classic Pizza (April 2011)

Minervois Rocks (April 2011)

Round Pond Estate Launches 2011 Friday Evening Patio Sunset Events (April 2011)

International Ecological Wine Fair in Pamplona, Spain, April 12-13 (March 2011)

Cuvaison's Dry-Farmed Bald Mountain Vineyard Zinfandel 2009 (March 2011)

Wrestling with Promiscuity and Monogamy through Artisanry in the Battle against Commoditization in Wine (March 2011)

The Miracle of Slow Aging in the Top Vintages of Tondonia Blanco (January 2011)

An Ode to Going Off the Beaten Path - case in point: Howell Mountain (January 2011)

Food pairing report on Ladera Cabernet Sauvignon Lone Canyon Vineyard '04 (December 2010)

Food pairing report on Acorn Winery Syrah from Alegria Vineyards (December 2010)

Tasting notes and food pairing for Maison Boachon Châteauneuf-du-Pape La Tiare du Pape 2004. (December 2010)

Report from “How Wine became Modern” on Branding and Imaging in Labels (December 2010)

My Pinot Moment – a global online sharing event (December 9, 2010). Many aficionados from around the world blog and tweet about the apex in their relationship with Pinot Noir. Mine was Celebrity Wine Review TV (October 2010), where I was interviewed by Charity Winters on HR5034 and presented extemporaneous tasting notes on Wente Nth Degree Pinot Noir ‘06

Food Pairing for Filus Torrontes 2009 (December 2010)

Stalking the Petit Verdot in Dry Creek Valley (December 2010)

Innovating Towards Incremental ROI in the Wine Industry November 2010

Yates Family Vineyard at Harvest Time (Mount Veeder, Napa) October 2010

HR 5034 - A Wicked Murderer OR A Poor Player That Struts and Frets? October 2010

Pine Ridge Vineyards: Fine Tuning Preserves Brand Consistency September 2010

Von Strasser – Diamond Mountain District – August 2010

Innovative Winery Design & Practice – Jarvis – August 2010

Driving Relationships, Creating Ambassadors, Sales & Wine Club Memberships with Summer Food & Wine Pairings on the Round Pond Estate (July 2010)

Gustafson Family Vineyards (northern Sonoma) July 2010

Produced video Building the Ideal Vessel through the Art of Cooperage at Nadalie USA June 2010

Opening the Senses to the Enoteca Signorello June 2010

Produced video tasting notes Rick Bakas on Ameztoi Getariako Txakolina Rubentis June 2010

Produced Winemaker Profile Videos for William Hill Estates May 2010

Cheers to Taste Napa (trade association of winemakers and merchants) June 2010

Enriching Customer Experience Face-to-Face in the Wine industry (May 2010)

Ready to Rock with "Reaching for the Epic Win in Relationship Management"

2011-02-11T10:14:00.000-08:00

Registration into Reaching for the Epic Win in Relationship Management is almost full, which I'll have to close after the final 5 sign up. The dream panel is locked & loaded, and some amazing folks will be in the audience. It's almost too bad that the venue is as small as it is, but the intimacy of this room makes up for the immediate unscalability. This sweet little event will help to bring a booming close Social Media Week. I also have a special lightning preso ( 5min.) on tradition-based strategic innovation. BTW - some very cool wine and craft brews will keep our tweeters humming.

See you at 3 p.m. today, or not.

A Cabernet Franc Takes the Lead for February 2011 (in my book)

2011-02-05T15:55:00.000-08:00

Weeks often go by without a new favorite wine of the month(of any varietal)for me. Last month was exceptional in that so many presented themselves. The first week of every month gets its’ own favorite as long as I work diligently through the tasting proceedings in the monthly collaboration of wine makers at Cheers-to-Taste in Saint Helena on February 2, 2011. It’s not fair to say that we all taste equally well from start to finish through a two-hour walking exam, but we all end up with a favorite of the evening, though probably not the favorite of the month.

Early in the going I found Crocker Starr Cabernet 2007, 98% pure with 2 percent Malbec to round out its’ otherwise well-shaped palate.

It has a “creamy” texture and delivers a bold potpourri of fruit, nut, and herbal flavor. I’ll have to try it again to be sure. They produce only 2400 cases per year, so this wine will be found in few stores. Thank goodness for the DTC market.

I recommend it to friends who especially like Cabernet Franc, as well as to wine fans looking for something different. Thanks to Mark Simon, Crocker Starr’s Sales and Hospitality director for sharing this at Cheers-to-Taste.

It’s been more than a few months since a new favorite Cabernet Franc has leapt into my hand, which in the penultimate case was Jarvis. Cabernet Franc is produced much more as a Bordeaux blending component than it is the predominant varietal on a label, but given social pressure and taste evolution, a shift could be ready to take place. When more fine boutique, geek, and artisan winemakers/growers find their comparative advantage in CF, then more of us aficionados will have a decent chance of knowing just how fine an experience we should be in for.

The Miracle of Micro-Oxidation in the Top Vintages

2011-01-26T17:23:00.000-08:00

Julio César López de Heredia, general manager of Viña Tondonia in Rioja, Spain speaks at a wine conference in Brazil to honor the vintages of 1973 and 1954. I translate his words loosely, while expressing his feelings with every drop of honesty that I can press from this mature berry that I call myself.

In this interview, Julio César says "We carry a lot of Tondonia Blanco vintages in our blood because of the marvelous sensations that they have bestowed upon us. My own favorite for the moment is the 1973. It's the most suprising vintage that we have in our bodegas. It's very lively, and offers a strong and at once refreshing mineral character, with both the complexity of a very old wine as well as a youthful spirit that no one can believe would emerge from such a mature vintage.

From the private grand reserve in our family cellars, our 1954 vintage leaves "surprising" in its' rear view mirror. The '54 is miraculous because it continues to gain intensity while blessed with finesse in each subsequent year. I tell myself that the wine couldn't possibly continue to improve. In each subsequent occasion my family and I are forevermore blown away by the wine that our grandparents made. We become very emotional about the legacy of our forebearers which we witness with such authentic pleasure."

A Primer of Spanish Aging Classifications

2011-01-12T23:39:00.001-08:00

Mark Middlebrook in the Paul Marcus warehouse, explains the Spanish aging classification conventions in the context of wines from Rioja. "Crianza" is the mezzanine tier above "Joven" (young). Pointing to the higher tiers, he tells us that, the legal descriptor "Reserva" indicates 3 years of aging, of which, one year must be in an oak barrel. The top tier is the "Gran Reserva", which requires at least 5 years of aging, with no less than two years having been in oak.

In the case of López de Heredia, Gran Reserva is only to be made with the vintages of the highest quality.

Mr. Middlebrook's presentation got the better of my curiosity, so I brought a López de Heredia Crianza Viña Cubillo '04 to share at lunch this past Monday at Vintank, my favorite wine industry consulting firm in Napa.

li>

One would have to look far and wide to find five enthusiasts working together, who are so ready to help out an aficionado gather perspectives quickly, as is clearly the case with Paul Mabray, Clay Wallin, Evan Cover, James Jory, and Peter Alig.

This marvelous bottle made us wonder what bachannalian deity we would have to sacrifice to approach the higher tiers of classification in López de Heredia.

An Ode to Going Off the Beaten Path - case in point: Howell Mountain

2011-01-05T10:18:00.000-08:00

With its' 1400 foot elevation, steep slopes, micro-climate, red volcanic soil, fog inversion layer, lower yields, mineral flavors, and smaller but more intense fruit, Howell Mountain earned the appellation designation for which its' growers and vintners collaborated so originally as well as effectively. It was the first sub-appellation of the Napa Valley AVA to gain certification, which is the form of classification that we can all rally around.

From the historic restorations to the bold modern departures that dot the mountain, down to the dramatic vintages that emerge from so many of its' small enterprises, the attractions of this area are a treasure to behold and a joy at which to marvel. My recent exposure to Ladera encourages me to dive deeper into the whole AVA.

Like Spring Mountain, Mount Veeder, Atlas Peak, Diamond Mountain, Pope Valley, Chiles Valley, and Wild Horse Valley, Howell Mountain is iconic of off-the-beaten-path and under-appreciated destinations for wine lovers everywhere.

Thanks to the Howell Mountain Vintners and Growers Association for telling their story so beautifully. You may hear these sirens' songs as if one were navigating her/his way between Scylla and Charybdis, as these poetic attractions beckon those who stumble in.

I recommend that you seek the off-the-beaten path experience wherever you might go, regardless of what your ultimate agenda might be. Don't you just plain love it when little discoveries help us to delight our spouses, families, friends, co-workers, and communities of every persuasion? My new year's resolution is to do a better job of sharing those experiences with you.

Can you recommend your special places to me? One that I am overdue to study is Montemaggiore in the Dry Creek Valley of Sonoma County.

Wine becomes Modern through Branding and Imaging

2010-12-09T00:37:00.000-08:00

In the current exhibit entitled "How Wine Became Modern" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, one wall is dedicated to groups of labelling images that have craftily and categorically advanced brands.

The categories are:

Good Guys, Bad Guys
Femme
Fame
Cheeky
Sex
Animals
Weather
Bold
Understated
The Grape
Truth or Consequences
Sport
Good and Evil
Family
Science

I'll have to take the deeper dive into this model on another visit to the SF MOMA soon, get a better look at the labels in each of these categories, and look at which of the wines that I'm finding in the market fit into this view. For now, there's only a closer look at this wall.

Stalking the Petit Verdot

2010-12-05T23:51:00.000-08:00

It's a varietal that shows up in many of our favorite wines, but almost always taking a back seat to the other Bourdeaux blending components. Few of us ever get to taste Petit Verdot as the principal (or even secondary) component in any wine. Several weeks ago, as I toured and tasted at Truett-Hurst Winery in Dry Creek Valley, an amazing apparition materialized near the tasting bar.

Truett-Hurst acknowledges that it acquired some portion of the inventory from Stonegate after it left the wine business. They were amazingly kind to let me have a taste of this 2004 Reserve Petit Verdot, which has since set my curiousity ablaze.

Stonegate was a beloved artisan winery in Calistoga. Not much information about the demise of Stonegate is readily found. Wappo Vineyard covers less than 100 acres in the the Chiles Valley District, and is known for its' Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot.

Two days later, another amazing Petit Verdot experience lay in wait for me as I approached the tasting bar at Mauritson, which I dropped in on to placate my Rockpile Zinfandel monkey. The most expensive wine on the tasting menu was the "Rockpile Buck Pasture Red Wine" with 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Petit Verdot, 10% Malbec, and 10% Cabernet Franc.

This menage a quatre is a marriage made in heaven, and a surprise for me to find Petit Verdot taking a near-top billing on a premium marquee.

Getting an Edge into Tasting at Global #Zinfandel Day

2010-11-24T18:28:00.000-08:00

On November 19th, 2010, wineries and advocates all over the world celebrated Global #Zinfandel Day. As luck would have it, Adam Reiter (who is a digital marketing pro in the wine industry, known throughout northern California) caught up with me in the middle of a Zinfandel tasting at the Girard Winery in Yountville, with his Flip camera ready at hand to preserve the moment. He knew what I was up to, as we have been exploring together the role of pure chocolate in tasting rooms and wine industry events for several months.

The Girard Old Vine Zinfandel 2008 Napa Valley is already a tremendous wine, and will continue to mature for the next five years, as the pure chocolate testing method shows to us. It's also a real steal at $24/bottle. Earlier that day I was at Robert Biale Vineyards on Big Ranch Road in Napa, also for Global #Zinfandel Day, where their club practically blew the doors off the cellar by their strong attendence. The 2008 Biale Monte Rosso Zinfandel ($50) is to the Zinfandel variety what the Louis Martini Bin Number One is to Cabernet Sauvignon. I only regret that the rest of you dear readers couldn't join into that tasting with me at Robert Biale.

My thanks to Adam Reiter for helping to get the word out on the importance of having the right tools on hand when evaluating those red wines that are still on the long march toward their peaks.

Innovating Towards Incremental ROI in the Wine Industry

2010-10-22T16:23:00.000-07:00

Is your inventory overhang exclusively the product of the recession? Has your brand lost ground in the never-ending battle for acceptance? Have your customer's tastes shifted? Are your brand's advocates as passionate and influential as ever, or have their followers drifted onto other paths? Has your percentage decline in sales outpaced the decline of your peer group or nearest competitor? Depending upon how this landscape is changing under your feet, your preoccupation with asking "How do I improve the ROI of my business?" may be leading you in the wrong direction. You may need to test your your commitment to ROI in the context of how you innovate toward your business objectives. The wine business has two channels of innovation that improve incremental return on investment (ROI) and increasing returns-to-scale (RTS) within the spectrums of process, product, and service. When beneficial innovations call for cross-functional, interdisciplinary teamwork which demand empowerment, funding, and passionate leadership, will the call-to-action land on deaf ears in your enterprise?

In the first ROI channel, technological innovation, small increments in capital investment save labor and/or expense, improve timing, and partially optimize results. The second ROI channel is organizational innovation, whereby breaking down the opacity of independent fiefdoms (i.e. winemaking, finance, visitor relations, trade relations, education, research & development, marketing, brand management, industry/governmental relations, and sales) opens avenues of information, co-operation, and teamwork across departments (and increasingly, collaboration amongst competitors when none hold a lead in intellectual property). This latter class of innovations are also referred to as "Knowledge Flows", where the rewards may be cost savings, expense reduction, yield improvement, talent formation, industry accolades, market acceptance, niche colonization, tribal bonding, product/service valuation enhancement, increased imitation/knockoffs, or a positive shift-in-share.

Everyone listens to the technological innovation channel, as long as changes to business-as-usual are minimal. Do your independent fiefdoms hide sacred cows inside impenetrable silos? In the face of the social innovation channel, the path toward the more substantial increasing returns-to-scale leads to growth and sustainability. In too many cases, there is but slight exaggeration in maintaining that "Everything You Know is Wrong". My apologies, in advance, to The Firesign Theatre

This defect of traditional organizational thinking and Keynesian economics comes from:

the static nature of how departmental roles are rigidized or ruggedized.
what metrics are used.
the inability of the accounting systems to distribute, to track program budgets, and to attribute results in an agreeably shared fashion across departments.
the inabiliity of the enterprise back office (Finance, HR, Legal, IT, et al) to form collaborative teams, and to fund/empower those teams to succeed.

Notwithstanding the fore going, the benefits of overcoming such defects are becoming appreciated and addressed. Let's set aside the whining, and move on into actual use cases (kudos to the Altimeter Group and the Google group of Social CRM Pioneers for articulating the importance of illustrated use cases).

A great use case of technological innovation is that of the new wireless monitoring devices emerging from the R&D workbench of T. J. Rodgers,

chief executive of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. While the current device development iteration focuses on controlling fermentation, Mr. Rodgers' next round addresses optimizing extraction in barrel aging and cellarage. We should all celebrate this new high-water mark in how this emerging class of devices will empower the winemakers to hit their targets on-the-nose, driving their wineries with Grand Prix racing precision. In terms of ROI, much less labor will go into winemaking metrics formation, collection, and process actions. These developments will surely open the way to new innovations as the inventors, winemakers, winery owners and venture capitalists take notice, grasp the scope, evaluate the wealth of opportunities, and how they will capitalize in this new era of product/process innovation.

Social gaming is to be introduced to the wine industry by the budding partnership of VinTank and SCVNGR (pronounced Scavenger), a mobile platform whose API includes location based services, checkins, challenges, badges, and earned premiums. The surest route to the rewards of engagement relies on fun, entertainment, education, recognition, and reward, which are the five (5) pillars of social innovation success. VinTank is charged with the design of games, their appeal, and marketing. If there was a prediction market on how to build a social strategy in wine, you can be sure that the implementation vision would include social gaming. From where I stand in the Global SCRM world, several partners in Singapore, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Sydney are already giving early accounts of how enterprises are engaging employees in mission-critical games that allow individuals to earn recognition and to enhance their reputations through their contributions outside of their current performance metrics. Soon we will see a flood of critical metrics for the fans and individual tribespeople who play into the social games of wineries. We need to apply our imaginations, create practical visions, and sell the value to the decision makers. Those who simply scoff at this notion have lost the game before the first move, or before the rules have been written.

Another important technological innovation is the platform change for winery data collection: the iPad, with applications that facilitate recordation, sharing, collaboration, and original thinking, all of which are also inextricably linked to social innovation. So many of these are happening in the tasting rooms, vineyards, wine bars, labs, and events that I wish to refrain from concluding that one application is superior to another. It is the new choice that is winning.

For stimulating user experience, I commend the Round Pond Estate program of Wine-Food Pairing. The gastronomical sciences and visual arts have been brought together in remarkable ways such that visitors can experience the value of a newly released wine when it will appreciate rapidly in value over the next few years. It would be hard to over-estimate the ROI of how their program drives relationships, creates advocates, increases sales & club memberships.

For their hybridizing of consumer and trade education, the big winner is Conn Creek, through their "Barrel Blending Experience", which has contributed significantly to:

the sales and consumption of their wines.
the viral force of reputation and recommendation increasing the membership in their wine club and the visitorship to their winery.
the elevation of their brand image by consumers, experts, critics, media, and competitors.

Recently Conn Creek was named, most rightly so, the "Innovator of the Year" by the Napa Valley Register. Did they accomplish this with traditional ROI accounting? No. Has this program paid off for Conn Creek at the enterprise level? Most definitely.
I'll be visiting again soon with Paul Asikainen at Conn Creek for an update on how their valuation has soared.

Cross-pollenization (aka collaborative competition, as described in The Power of Pull) has been taking place in the wine industry for many years. We would not have the degree of reduced chemical and energy consumption were it not for the socially-enabled impact of the green movement to expand natural, organic, and biodynamic approaches to cultivation and land management. Tremendous examples of people watching each other, learning from each other's performance, and introducing new techniques are exemplified by Mike Grgich, Robert Sinskey, Michel Schlumberger and others. Tours of their vineyards and wineries are required learning for winemakers everywhere.

Another fine example of Cross-pollenization is the "varietal day", where advocates, ambassadors, experts, bloggers, social media pros, and excellent producers of a particular varietal will meet face-to-face and globally through the internet (and perhaps one day via telepresence) to present, pour, and better explain how that varietal is interpreted, shared, and appreciated. The lift that the varietal receives is tremendous for the cumulative expense that the participants incur, a veritable tide that floats all of your ships. I had the privilege of participating as the presenter for the Tedeschi Family Winery on #CabernetDay at Saint Supery, and served as witness to the power of social media in outperforming traditional advertising alternatives. Other examples are the monthly varietal tasteups at the Quent Cordair Gallery in Napa,
and #MerlotMonday at VinTank.
What's on the horizon for 2011? Don't bet against "The Wisdom of the Crowds" and prediction markets (as we have seen work so well in elections) taking a foothold in brand innovation through virtual tasting rooms and blending labs. Certainly, wineries will continue to use their traditional, time-proven methods for maintaining the most consistent product possible from vintage to vintage (which is demonstrated beautifully by Pine Ridge).
However, substantial and detectable shifts in tastes (and perceptions) among loyal club members and other niche fan groups will erode the basic demand for existing brands. It's already happening. The shift-in-share struggle to maintain or gain at the winery level will lead to new blends, clonal variations, and varietals. The alternating lock step of social technologies, changing tastes, and the evolution of fan communities will facilitate, make practical, and necessitate new products/services.

Are you over the idea that there is no accounting for taste? Is your online community ready to deepen its' engagement with customers so as to better serve your winery? Is your social media strategy robust enough for your enterprise to weather this perfect storm? Staying ahead of the curve is everyone's responsibility. To follow through, attend the 2010 Innovation Summit in Healdsburg, California, November 12th through 14th.

Celebrity Wine Review TV party in SF

2010-09-15T12:24:00.000-07:00

Celebrity Wine Review TV, threw a wine party at the Hotel Rex in downtown San Francisco on Friday, October 1st from 6-9PM. I was there with a great group of friends (including Gary Chevsky, Desiree Anderson, Charity Winters, James Marshall Berry, Mike Westerberg, and Andrew Lazorchak) who enjoyed each others stories.

Desiree Anderson and Charity Winters helped me to educate the audience about the importance of opposing HR5034. The challenge is that big businesses with outrageous amounts of money are buying out our federal legislators at a breath-taking pace. Nonetheless, we raise our glasses in a toast to the anticipated demise of this despicable legislative proposal. Our cheer is all that much greater with the outstanding Nth Degree 2006 Pinot Noir by Karl Wente that fills our hands and passes to our gullets with gusto.

Desiree and Charity have draped me in a towel to protect my yet-to-be clobbered white shirt, which might not have gone unscarred after another toast or two.

Celebrity Wine Review TV converted the hotel into a 1920's style speakeasy. Attendees were encouraged to dress in period costumes; especially with the pouring of Wente Vineyards wines all night, and the service of select artisan goat cheese from Cypress Grove Chevre.

The event included winery owners, wine bloggers, critics, reviewers, meet up groups, and other folks that are doing interesting things with Social Media and wine ... a real news, celebration, wine tasting, networking and media event all rolled into one.

The Six Pillars upon which "The Power of Pull" Stands

2010-09-08T15:08:00.000-07:00

John Hagel III, speaking to TEDxBayArea on August 10, 2010, tells us that the economic shift from push to pull is determined by six pillar-level propositions. I recap the highlights of Mr. Hagel's presentation now. I will be applying this general theory begining the fall of 2010 to specific cases regarding innovation, collaboration, and sustainability in the wine industry. This is an important area for test cases, as this industry is very much in need of new approaches, which we'll get into in group discussions in the near future in Napa and Sonoma counties. First, I want to let Mr. Hagel layout the framework of the general theory.

The first proposition is that management practices are broken, as evidenced by the Shift index.

The second proposition is that we need to learn how to improve our performance more rapidly. His research group found that the ROA on knowledge stocks has been depreciating at an accelerating rate for 40 years. Thus, economic value has been moving from knowledge stocks to knowledge flows. The new thesis is that businesses need to focus on becoming more effective in the creation of knowledge flows, which dictates that we become better connectors and collaborators (especially with people who are our competitors) so that we can accomplish three things: (A) learn faster; (B) develop more value more quickly; and (C) improve our performance more rapidly.

Mr. Hagel goes forward with the observations on how and why innovation has shifted from the United States to India and China. For depth on this transformation, please see the following link at Edge Perspectives, August 2005 . The decreasing Returns on Assets (ROA) has driven the shift from "push" to "pull" which influences how the value of knowledge flows continues to transform business. The third proposition is that we need to become adept at fostering, developing, and scaling these knowledge flows.

The fourth proposition is that we need to manage the scaling of knowledge flows toward increased returns. Most other business strategies rely on scaled technological innnovation at diminishing returns. In industries where most of the enterprises are small, collaborative competition fosters better performance when the participants experience each other engaging in their best practices or tests thereof.

John Hagel promotes institutional change around the pursuit of accelerated learning and talent-development-by-example (learning from everyone’s mistakes and successes). He cites case studies for a global SAP developers’ network where it is readily demonstrable that knowledge flows are scaling successfully. This finding may be generalize-able toward online and face-to-face communities where the ability to triage members’ needs toward collaborative solutions attracts the participation of the passionate mavens and leaders (e.g. community self-service in Q&A). It might also be inferred that capital flows do not scale to increasing returns, or at least, lend no discernable incremental performance benefit to scaling knowledge flows.

The fifth proposition of the “Power of Pull” asserts that enterprises seek talent as the scarce factor in obtaining the increasing returns performance curve. Mr. Hagel excorciates the captains of industry for adhering to the traditional channels: “top ‘B’ school” recruitment; raiding competitors; and relying upon golden handcuffs to retain the so-called talent.

He cites the Dilbert Paradox – "How do you develop talent in the face of the stultifying effect of the work environment?" In the vast majority of enterprises, talent acquisition and retention take place without talent development from within. Traditional training programs are of decreasing relevance to the problem, while the rare improvements to the work environment can work wonders (when given a chance). Paradoxically, if the enterprise environment fomented talent development, then your business would attract more tremendous talent than it could possibly handle because of the word-of-mouth that would result. He asserts that if you design and construct the work environment so that you maximize "on the job" talent development daily, as opposed to maximizing the “efficiency of operations” and predictability. Furthermore, if your business developed talent better than anyone else, then your company’s talent would be retained organically because the great passionate geniuses who work there would have no reason to leave such an ideal environment.

The sixth proposition of the “Power of Pull” asserts that workers become stressed out and ineffective when their passions are totally disconnected from their jobs. John Hagel asks executives to think about the increasing pressures that accompany the long term shift. How do passionate workers cope with the suppression of their questing dispositions amid unexpected challenges? How do the impassionate workers rationally avoid the challenges, ignore them, paper them over, hide from them, and wish that they would just go away. Passionate workers see challenges through a different lens, as matters of intense interest for which they will stretch beyond their comfort zones, and seek out the team members who will help them to overcome said challenges. Rather than waiting for these challenges to come to them, the passionate seek out the challenges.

The final piece de resistance is the relationship between passion and connection. How much one attends professional conferences; how deeply one participates in social media; your propensity to meet outside of the workplace with colleagues of your industry who are not employed by your company; these are important metrics for passion. Those who see themselves as passionate about their work are twice as connected as those who do not see themselves in this way.

The problematical aspect came when we went out to survey levels of passion in the workforce. In the United States during the survey period in 2009, we found 20 percent of the workforce as passionate. We also found that the level of passion is inversely proportional to the size of the company (ed. note: employees in this meeting room from Oracle, HP, Cisco, and Intel broke out in a not terribly loud, yet distinctly uncomfortable, laughter at this moment). Thus, the larger the institution, the lower the level of passion; whereas the most passionate people are those who are self-employed and working on their own.

Thus, if you are part of a large company and facing increasing pressure, then you have a real problem on your hands.

Fine-tuning Preserves Brand Consistency

2010-08-31T21:35:00.000-07:00

On a recent tour of the cave at Pine Ridge Vineyards, I had to ask Chris Purdy (Guest Relations and Social Media) why so many single-vineyard/single-varietal/single-vintage triads are aging in barrels of different toasts, forests, and tonnelleries. Many were from Nadalie and Demptos.

Chris shared with me an insight into what's up with that: growing conditions alter the results of each season on each vine, so the controls of barrel-aging help the winemakers to minimize differences between years, allowing a more consistent brand image from year-to-year than could otherwise be produced.

Mr. Purdy also demonstrated the barrel-rolling racks

as well as a filtration pump that they roll from tank to tank

The greatest Pièce de résistance of the cave tour is the wine-food pairing chamber, whose visual aesthetic, a fantastic blown-glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly promotes the character of the wines and elevates the visitors' appreciation.

In so many ways, some more subtle than others, Pine Ridge educates the consumer effectively about the balance of finesse and power in barrel-aging, connecting with them on all the right levels, and paying off handsomely. I'll look forward to another fine demonstration by Mr. Purdy tomorrow for #Cabernet day which he will be presenting in the VIP room of Saint Supery.

Stumble Upon Great Wine Between AVAs

2010-07-18T23:11:00.000-07:00

Having overnighted in Healdsburg, California

View Larger Map
7/16/2010 after the Sonoma #FB Wine meetup, it was time to explore. Though our local Healdsburg friends recommended more of the Dry Creek Valley, (our meetup was at Michel-Schlumberger, a completely organic estate in the Wine Creek Canyon section of Dry Creek), Lupe and I sought to find the Rockpile AVA. Miraculously, we stumbled into the sustainably-farmed Gustafson Family Vineyards at an 1800-foot elevation overlooking Lake Sonoma,

on a backroad heading toward Point Skaggs on the coast.

Sean, their extraordinarily knowledgeable tasting room associate de jour, was in charge of the whole estate for the day (only open to the public on Saturdays). We were the only visitors present. This afforded a quiet and careful inspection of 5 fine wines, over which we sat transfixed at the tasting bar for an hour, swept up in exotic aromas, our faces buried in complex nuances. While couples may disagree on all matters of taste, we came together on the selection of the 2008 Zinfandel Mountain Cuvee. It's a remarkable bargain at $18. Sean explained that while the label showed that Dry Creek Valley was the AVA, some DCV vineyards took exception to allowing the Gustafson Family Vineyard into the designation, given their extraordinary elevation, unique micro-climates, soil chemistry, slope, and overall terroir. Who could imagine why someone in DCV wouldn't want the prestige of this excellent peer sharing their appellation and conveying that much more prestige to one of the most reputable wine-producing districts anywhere in Sonoma County? There's no predicting foolish behaviors.

The topology of the Gustafson Family Vineyard is one of the most complex and steeply-sloped at any elevation in the county. I had hoped to capture for you a better view of the terrain, but this block map of the estate should suffice temporarily.
We're of the opinion that Gustafson deserves their own AVA.
Exploring the grounds, we delighted to find butterflys slurping on lavender nectar, especially after detecting hints of lavender in the Zinfandel 2008.
With less than 10 percent of the acreage dedicated to wine grape cultivation, it was a sincere pleasure to see that the estate was so handsomely architected as a winery, cellar, and family home.

Tuning-in to the Bench Blend Philosophy at the William Hill Estate Winery

2010-05-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

In the 1970’s, William Hill returned from years in France with a commitment toward the slope grown school of thought, which has led to deeper winemaker engagement with the vines, more “sweet spot” designation, longer harvest cycles, selective multi-pass picking, lot-tracking, experimentation, production, and blending. This experience led the William Hill Estates Winery in Napa, California to become architected around this more complex and artesanal workflow so as to allow the winemaker to get more work done in a day, and to exert more collaborative influence among those that she/he works with. To acquire a better appreciation for how this takes place, and the results that it obtains, I set out to interview their winemaker for a mind’s eye view at the first opportunity.

On Cinco De Mayo, 2010 my wife Lupe and I had the pleasure of meeting Ralf Holdenried, the chief winemaker at William Hill Estates. We were surrounded by several hundred attendees of “Cheers-to-Taste” (a monthly meetup of wine country tasting room managers and industry hospitality professionals/directors), participating wineries, tasting room managers, and Napa Valley Tweetup Numero Dos.

photo by Guadalupe Susana Reader

While I wanted to speak privately and in detail with Ralf, the moment was better prioritized toward feasting on outstanding foods superbly paired with extraordinary wines while celebrating the "bud break" with an incredibly focused and fun-loving tribe.

photo by Guadalupe Susana Reader

Ralf and I agreed to schedule time to discuss his winemaking for a near future date when he could afford to more carefully consider and entertain my questions. Two weeks later, we chatted for an hour under the arbor above the William Hill Estate’s vineyards.

photo by Kelly Conrad

I was enlightened with the complexities and subtleties of his craft. Immediately afterwards, I was treated to a one-on-one private industry tour by Ralf’s associate, Lindsey Jessup, trade ambassador for professional education.

photo by Kelly Conrad

Lindsey forever changed the way I look at fermentation and barrel-aging, as well as how I understand the William Hill Estates brand of winemaking. As days go by, I reflect upon the personal stories of their winemaking team, and appreciate ever so much more what they do in their very special corner of the Atlas Ridge AVA on the bench above the Silverado Trail.

Ralf Holdenried, Kelly Conrad (manager of public relations for fine wines, E. & J. Gallo Winery) and Lindsey Jessup invested their time and effort into WOM-buzz and the Napa Valley Tweetup fan group for this special interview, very much in the spirit of why media should be social. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for sharing their innermost thoughts and intentions of their winemaking, as well as for elevating the experience of and appreciation by the wine aficionados everywhere.

Please enjoy as I uncork eight video vignettes from this visit in front of you:

Ralf Holdenried on Tracking Grapes from Blocks and Lots to Bottles

Ralf Holdenried on Timing the Harvest at the Sub-Block Level

Ralf Holdenried on Toiling Toward the New Blends - a Labor of Love

Ralf Holdenried on The Lifecycle of a Wine Barrel at the William Hill Estate Winery

Ralf Holdenried on Winemaker-Grower Relations

Ralf Holdenried on Aficionado-Winemaker Relations

Lindsey Jessup on the Aromas in a New Barrel

Lindsey Jessup on the Extraction of Oak Essence in Barrel Aging

Cheers,

Rich Reader

May 24, 2010

Ralf Holdenried on Tracking Grapes from Blocks and Lots to Bottles

2010-05-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

Ralf Holdenried, head of the winemaking team at the William Hill Estate in Napa, told me that because of the complex contours of the vineyard, maturity takes place at different rates, in different spots and on opposing sides of the vines. Picking becomes an exercise of choice to select certain bunches for today, tomorrow, and beyond, even in the smallest of sweet spots (around which the “lots” are designated). Ralf explains to me how they record the flow of juice from small block and lot segments through the crushpad, fermentation, barrel aging, and blending processes so that every bunch from each picking has an audit trail that contributes to making better wines, and assures better experiences for the customers and the trades. He says that they work throughout the growing season in the vineyard to bring each small block to its’ full potential. As each block fraction or lot is scheduled for crush and fermentation, identity tags move with the fruit at every step. It's hard work, fine art and science.

Ralf Holdenried on Timing the Harvest at the Sub-Block Level

2010-05-24T14:03:00.000-07:00

Ralf Holdenried, head of the winemaking team at the William Hill Estate in Napa, introduces us to the detailed considerations he makes in planning, scheduling, and reconsidering the order and timing of the harvest. During the six-week harvest cycle, he thoroughly enjoys long days in the vineyard examining the vines and tasting many varieties of grapes. He tracks sugar levels and tannin development; chews on berries and skins to determine which parts of which blocks are the most ripe and ready for harvest. As he sets the schedule for harvest, he reviews that decision over the next day or three. The onset of heat waves, rain, and likelihood of frost forces adjustments to these decisions.

Ralf Holdenried on Toiling Toward the New Blends - a Labor of Love

2010-05-24T13:41:00.000-07:00

Ralf Holdenried, head of the winemaking team at the William Hill Estate in Napa, tells me how they collaborate in the field, the laboratory, and the blending bench to determine which blocks and lots are to be married, and in what proportions. They make small batches from the different blocks, which are produced separately from the moment of selection, through crush, fermentation, and barrel aging. During the barrel aging process (a year for Chardonnay; two years for Cabernets) the winemakers are continuously experimenting in the lab and the tasting room to discover and agree upon which lots will make their way into a blend. The losing barrels will find their purpose in bulk elsewhere, though not with the William Hill Estates name. Ralf and his team work tirelessly as they home in on the blend that best expresses the layers and nuances of its components into a work of art. A 2007 Meritage is about to be released, and it will mark a very happy milestone in the history of winning blends. Those of us who attended Napa Valley Meetup Numero Dos - Cinco de Mayo – Cheers to Taste, may have sampled the pre-release of this Meritage, and know of what I speak.

Ralf Holdenried on The Lifecycle of a Wine Barrel at the William Hill Estate Winery

2010-05-24T13:10:00.000-07:00

Ralf Holdenried (winemaker, William Hill Estate) explains that from the crushpad, Chardonnay goes directly into oak barrels for fermentation, while the red varietals go to steel fermentation tanks before they are ported to the barrels. Both new and aged oak barrels receive the freshly pressed white or fermented red juices. At blending time, Ralf’s team evaluates the wine aging in the new barrels and the aged barrels separately, with an eye toward discovering which combination of the two are best for their target blends. Generally speaking, a new oak barrel is used once as such for aging wine, and then only one more time as an aged barrel, after which it is recycled or repurposed in other endeavors. Thus, the expected wine-aging career of an oak barrel lasts for between two and four years.

Ralf Holdenried on Winemaker - Grower Relations at the William Hill Estate winery

2010-05-24T12:44:00.000-07:00

Ralf Holdenried (winemaker, William Hill Estate) talks about how he sources Chardonnay fruit ready for their crushpad from Carneros and mid-Napa Valley. Some of the wines that they want to make call for fruit which merit a different terroir than that present on the estate. Once you taste their Bench Blend of Chardonnay, the beauty of outsourcing certain fruit becomes clear. Accordingly, blending these outsourced lots requires a long, intense and productive exchange with a large number of growers. Ralf collaborates with the growers as they unify with many of the same vineyard practices that place on the William Hill Estate, where all of its own red varietals are grown on 140 acres that they dedicate to cultivation. Ralf has a strong day-to-day relationship with all of the outsourced supplying vineyards and their managers, and enjoys an intimacy with all of the terroirs from which William Hill Estate produces wine.

Aficionado <--> Winemaker Relations at the William Hill Estate Winery

2010-05-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

Ralf Holdenried (winemaker, William Hill Estate) enjoys sharing his passion for the wine with the tasting visitors, whether they be casual, fun-loving, formal, expert, or serious. In the few years since this winery has entered the E. and J. Gallo winemaking enterprise, the winemaker's resources for engaging with the public have flourished, even though the winery itself is somewhat beyond the more popular visitor paths of the Napa Valley, atop the Atlas Peak AVA ridge on the Silverado Trail Bench. Ralf explains the wines to different audiences using different phrasing to be better connected with newbies, collectors, and fanatics. He wants to focus on their tasting the wines, and helping these tasters discover for themselves the nuances that they will enjoy, rather than telling them what they should look for. He takes pride in showing off his work to everyone.

Lindsey Jessup on the Aromas in a New Oak Barrel

2010-05-24T02:02:00.000-07:00

Lindsey Jessup, wine trade education ambassador for Gallo, leads me into the fermentation room of the William Hill Estate winery, and points out tanks of different sizes:

500 gallon
1,000 gallon
3,000 gallon
6,000 gallon
10,000 gallon

These are for different-sized batches of freshly crushed red varietals pouring in from the crushpad. It speaks volumes as to the control that the winemaker has to work with micro-lots as well as major blocks, and reinforces the intention of the winemaker-architected winery.

A few behemoth 20,000 gallon tanks sit at one end of the fermentation room. Lindsey explains that this is where barrel aged wines come to be married in the final blending. It’s so romantic, I want to weep (though quietly, so as not to disturb the wines aging around us).

We turned a corner, and stepped down into the barrel room.

The aromas of oak immediately filled of our olfactory senses. We dove deep into the whys and wherefores of the barrel lifecycle. Lindsey builds a framework around oak essence extraction in barrel aging. She says that “a new barrel smells like sweet baking spices”

and that during barrel aging the oak removes less-desirable nuances while gracing the wine with its’ own essence.

Lindsey Jessup on the Extraction of Oak Essence in Barrel Aging

2010-05-24T01:30:00.000-07:00

Lindsey Jessup, wine trade education ambassador for Gallo, explains that there is only so much that an oak wine barrel can give to and exchange with its’ contents before the day comes when it must be retired. On our tour of the cellar at the William Hill Estate winery, she employs an analogy of the barrel being like a tea bag, that can only be used a limited number of times. When you meet Lindsey, be sure to ask her for the “Tea Bag” explanation. It’s absolutely priceless, and extremely helpful at bringing home the meaning of barrel aging.

She then proceeded to demonstrate the key points of barrel-aging with tastes of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, bringing a perfect morning to logical closure.

Passion Drives Connectivity and Performance in Knowledge Flows

2010-05-09T03:13:00.000-07:00

"Another piece of the passion that you alluded to, I wanted to draw it out because it came through in terms of the Shift Index, where one of the metrics that we used was the passion of workers." John Hagel told the attendees while he spoke with panel moderator Tim O'Reilly at the Churchill Club on May 4, 2010 in their discussion about "When Push Turns to Pull" at the Computer History Museum of Mountain View, California. "Most executives looked at us (ed. - like we had lost our minds) and asked why we were looking at that. We showed in the Shift Index a very strong correlation between the level of passion of the worker ... We are not talking about happiness, we are not talking about satisfaction.. The most passionate people are the most frustrated people because they see all the potential and they see all the barriers that have been put in place by this institution. The correlation which was very powerful, and ties into the broader theme in the book (The Power of Pull), was that the most passionate people are the most connected people. They connect in all forms, whether it's going to conferences, going out to lunch with people outside their companies, social media, etc. They are more connected than people without passion. If you believe as we do, (you would believe ) that the key to performance going forward is participating in knowledge flows, then if you don't have passionate people working for you, you will inevitably not be as effective in connecting". The implication is that failure to pull together the team of passionate players is the equivalent of planning to fail. I've done the best that I could to quote John Hagel exactly, but you owe it to yourself to watch and hear him argue this case:

Mr. Hagel and his Co-Chairman at The Center for the Edge, John Seely Brown, showed us how and why it is with teams of passionate people one breaks through problems and obtains increase in ROA. While the supporting evidence for this assertion takes about an hour to work through (and as such, would span six additional posts to document) their presentation convinced me that their new book, "The Power of Pull" will be the at the top of everyone's business reading list very soon.

I first became interested in Mr.Hagel's work when he spoke to the Social Media Club of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley on April 21, 2009 at Duarte Design in Mountain View about the necessity of building networks to accelerate talent development through co-operation and collaboration. We were still struggling with the idea of "If you get it, share it", which is now taking hold of our attention, commitment, and action.

Presently, as I speak with other practitioners of Social CRM, I'm finding that everyone wants to get better faster by practicing together, because it works in everyone's best interest much more rapidly than our fear of IP loss works against doing so. Thus, I am increasingly more confident that the "Center for the Edge" is on the right path.

Removing whatever interferes with our knowing what it is that we need to know about how to define success

2010-05-07T15:34:00.000-07:00

At a discussion about engagement and open leadership in the closing of Web2.0 Expo on May 6, 2013, Brian Solis observes that “aside from the science and the studies, it’s all open to interpretation (ed. - he’s so polite). We read about how business are using social media (and their claims that) ‘we are the social media leader of this because we have done this’ or you’ve googled case studies or success stories of social media …. The truth is that this is only an opinion. “ …. But this is not to say that they were embracing social media in a way that should inspire you. We assume that they knew what they wanted to accomplish … that they knew what they felt success should look like. We assume that they measured success. We’d like you to take from this session a greater ability to find your own answers, your own success stories, without having to rely on inspiration from those companies whose measures of success are neither effective nor interesting in your case”.

Please note that I have paraphrased Brian’s remarks in junctures where the written word reads differently than the way that the spoken word is heard.

Make Time, Make Do, and (When All Else Fails) ... Meditate

2010-05-02T03:03:00.000-07:00

Purnima Kochikar manages her long days, keeping the work-life balance in equilibrium through the wise application of three rules. She tells us this from her panelist seat on the stage of the Churchill Club’s Women Tech Executive Roundtable: What’s Top of Mind in 2010, which met on April 29th. Purnima says that at Nokia, as in many global enterprises, there is neither a beginning nor an end to the day, but only a time continuum. Thus, you must know how to find your “sanities in the middle of all of this”.

Her rules are simple:

Make time for what matters.
Make do, carefully not to beat yourself up, and know that people will understand that you can’t be there for them at every moment.
When all else fails, meditate.

Her Nokia associate, Billie, (a v.p. of HR) told her a story about being a woman and a mother struggling to find and maintain the work-life balance. Upon returning home from 5 weeks on the road, Billie ran to her eleven-year-old daughter (who was playing on the swing in the yard) and said to her: “you know that you are one of the most important things in my life”. Her daughter thought about this for a moment, and responded, “You are the second most important thing in my life”. Billie flashed on many possible interpretations, and broke down to ask what came in first. The little girl answered, “Water, of course. We can’t live without that”.

Helicoptering into the Field of Urgency with SCRM tools

2010-04-29T12:53:00.000-07:00

At the SCRM tool showcase discussion in Mountain View on April 27, 2010, Laurent Pfertzel (COO and Co-founder, eCairn) shows how to profile influencers. By way of example, he demonstrates a case in which he has built a panel of 679 beauty cosmetics subject matter experts (bloggers / key influencers) from a client's virtual internet rolodex by using the eCairn platform. The application tracks, filters, classifies, and aggregates what the bloggers are saying, which helps clients to apply that data to business intelligence and actions.

As a social media research panel looks carefully at a sample, they discover who are the most relevant and impactful, perhaps a group of 100. This is a specific case of how you find people who are talking about you and who are passionate about your problems. Using these filtering capabilities you can classify influencers into categories such as fan, advocate, ambassador, detractor, and antagonist.

You also want to investigate how the members of your virtual panel are connected: who among them influences each other, and in what way. Toward this purpose, it is simple to build maps of who has influenced whom inside of each sub-topic. Over time, it becomes important to rescan these connections as the influencers relationships evolve and how they form smaller, tighter, more highly specialized interaction clusters that speak more directly to individual discussions that have stepped forward in your momentary priorities. (ed. note: this reminds me of a discussion at #NapaValleyTweetup in March 2010 on planning for detractors). This is "helicoptering" into the field of urgency.

Embrace Customer Perceptions and Sentiments, Don't Stick Your Head in the Sand.

2010-04-24T02:12:00.000-07:00

Speaking to the Social Media Seminar of #NapaValleyTweetup on March 12, 2010, Michael Brito (VP, Social Media, Edelman Digital) tells the audience how to face up to the buzz swirling around your brand. Mr. Brito recalled how in the early years of social media at HP Printer division, he embarked on a path of discovery, acceptance, and evolution with his associates after a rocky start. You, too, should accept openly the likelihood of a rocky start. Without that discovery, you won't know which rocks to clear from your path, much less how. This is the way that social media finds its' use cases and test cases by which we narrowly select and optimize the path to improving relations with our customers, employees, suppliers, and surrounding communities.

This event was part of a two-day charitable program made possible by the generosity of the Robert Mondavi Winery.

To find out more about where this research is leading in the wine industry, follow the #NapaValleyTweetup hashtag on Twitter and become a fan of Napa Valley Tweetup on Facebook.

Endless Race to the Best Experience in Online Video

2010-04-18T14:37:00.000-07:00

For Independent and Social Video producers, delivering the best user experience remains a shoot-out between two platforms: YouTube and Facebook. The former makes it easier to display in HD (although the switch exists on Fb), while the latter makes it easier to viralize in a "fan page".

I'm leaning heavily toward Facebook, because it displays better than YouTube

How do you interpret and leverage the difference?

Farm Lobby Ambushes the Yellow Tail Wine Company for Supporting the Humane Society

2010-04-02T01:17:00.000-07:00

Can you identify this use case for Social CRM?

We've had some serious discussions taking place recently around the emerging importance of "Social CRM" as a framework for monitoring and acting upon conversations that carry negative sentiments about brands. Normally, businesses are not well-organized to detect potentially harmful buzz quickly, nor prepared to embark on damage control before serious losses have been inflicted. We all remember the recent Maytag, Toyota, and other crises illustrating how fractured the lines of communication can be between public relations, business communications, marketing, customer support, engineering, manufacturing, social responsibility, philanthropy, community affairs, investor relations, human resources, legal, and other enterprise divisions. The consequences can be seen in terms of loss of life, jobs, reputations, relationships, customers, and share value. Two hours after I initially posted this WOM-buzz vignette this morning, the Whirlpool CRM robot tagged this story because of the Maytag reference. It was late in August of 2009 when their Maytag subsidiary's customer support line was incapable of handling @dooce (Heather Armstrong) and her one million twitter followers who flew most righteously into a rage over a washing machine problem. Now Whirlpool is doing a better job of listening for their name mentions, assigning sentiment, and presumably routing the item to proper handlers. Here's the Google Analytics clue to the fact that Whirlpool noticed my mentioning their name:

Do you know how to accomplish this with your social CRM for your business?

Jeremiah Owyang pronounced his commitment to remediate this class of communications defects, in front of a large audience at the January meeting of the Social Media Club of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley.

In a private discussion that I had with Jeremiah early in February, I asked him who was taking the lead in Social CRM. He said that no one was doing anything globally efficacious as of yet, and those who did something were generally creating "point solutions" that were of no use beyond that which was intended for the party that created them. But he was encouraged to find a way forward.

Early in March, Jeremiah Owyang and Ray Wang (two partners in the Altimeter Group) launched a discussion environment called "Social CRM Pioneers" on Google groups. This was one of their most recent responses to the realization that something had to be done now. So I joined and began to think about where I might contribute some effort. As of yesterday, there were hundreds of participants and quite a few discussions with multiple threads in progress.

In mid-March, at the inaugural Napa Valley Tweetup Social Media Seminar, Paul Mabray (Chief Strategy Officer, Vintank) told a story that reminded the large audience about how crisis can arise suddenly and without warning in this brief Social CRM allegory for the wine industry. Trouble brewed in January 2010, when Yellow Tail Wine donated $100,000 to the Humane Society of the United States to support their Animal Rescue project.

I'll do my best to annotate Mr. Mabray's remarks:

"We do have some tragedies, especially on Facebook.
A recent one was the Yellowtail.
Does everyone know about that?
Did everyone see that happen?
Yellowtail supported the Humane Society of America.
It doesn't sound like a very controversial thing to any of us.
There was a farm lobbyist group that obviously engaged in animal slaughter.
They organized their entire membership In a very acute strike
and told everyone about The Humane Society being "Anti-Farm"
and so the (YellowTail) facebook (fan) page lit up
with all these people saying that "I would never buy your YellowTail because
you're anti-farmer or anti-farm for the support of The Humane Society".
Normally, I wouldn't fiind this correlation but there must be something to it
or how they responded was very difficult.
There's this recent tragedy that exploded all over Facebook,
and not a lot of people know about it except for people who
are watching Yellowtail."

I'm now working to assure that in the near future #NapaValleyTweetup will have discussions and begin workshops on how to anticipate conflicts, avoid counterproductive battles, prepare crisis intervention, rapid response for resolving sudden conflicts, and engaging otherwise-innocent parties. How this will be done is likely to evolve in coalition with the Silicon Valley Tweetup at their American Cancer Society "Relay for Life" fundraiser on April 21st, as members of both the Silicon Valley and Napa Valley groups begin to pull together in ever larger numbers.

Why the Silicon Valley Remains Relevant

2010-03-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

At the monthly meeting of the Social Media Club of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley in the TiE Center of Santa Clara on March 23, 2010, a crowd of 200 was enlightened by the panel discussion "Stories from the Frontline: Building A Social Media Business", which was moderated by Ben Parr of Mashable.com. The panelists included:

Blake Cahill, Senior VP of Marketing, Visible Technologies
Louis Gray, Managing Director, New Media, Paladin Advisors Group
Emily Melton , Partner, Mayfield Fund
Augie Ray, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research
Jeremy Stoppelman, CEO & Co-Founder, Yelp

When the floor was opened to questions, one of the first to reach the stage was “Does the Silicon Valley remain relevant, and if so, why?”

Louis Gray took the first cut into the question by inferring that while other locations may be able to do a better job at implementing the latest and the greatest technologies, the U.S. (and especially the Silicon Valley) is the capital of innovation and invention because it’s where the highest quality of talent wants to work.

Emily Melton closed off whatever debate might have existed by reframing the issue in terms of culture “There’s something unique about the consumer in the U.S. that allows these paradigm shifts to happen” Ms. Melton suggests the clash between China and Google as a case-in-point for the openness and freedoms that make the U.S. unique for innovation. She sees it as rooted in “Reality TV” (it matters not that “Reality TV” is a phenomenon which began elsewhere), which preceded Social Media and transformed the cultural landscape so that the general population became willing to be open and exposed. Our attitudes to the publicness of our personas and the details of our private lives are merely an extension of that openness. This aperture is the cultural basis for creating such services that allows the innovation to take place. “It’s not just infrastructure, but it is the ecosystem that drives creativity through social media”.

Augie Ray on the Inappropriate Application of ROI Measurement to Social Media Business Objectives

2010-03-24T12:32:00.000-07:00

Speaking to the Social Media Club of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley at TiE Center in Santa Clara on March 23, 2010, during a panel discussion entitled "Stories From The Frontline, Building A Social Media Business" Augie Ray, from Forrester Research, cautions us against being sucked into inappropriate discussions about ROI in social media business applications. Correct expectations for marketing should be formed around increasing:

net promoter score
purchase intent
brand awareness

These are what we should continue to invest and measure against as we market our brands.

The Social Media Club of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley

What other measures are you working with for the social media components of your media mix, and why are you confident that they are reliable?

Enriching Customer Experience Face-to-Face in the Wine industry

2010-03-14T11:35:00.000-07:00

in the #NapaValleyTweetup Private Tour and Tasting on March 13, 2010, we visited with Hall, Krupp Brothers Estates, and Chappellet. Each winery went many extra miles to give us a deeper and richer appreciation of their very best wines. Organizer Steven Kellam (evp, PlanIT Solutions) concocted a masterful choice of smaller, unique vineyards and winemaking operations.

At Hall, Katie Sieu (hospitality manager) showed us the wine-making operation from end-to-end, helped us try a dozen or so exceptional examples of their craft, explained how they obtained LEEDS and natural certifications. She tells us about how the barrels are made from oak slats imported from France, resulting in barrels that are used for only two (2) years, and costing a thousand dollars each. If you would like a used barrel (still great for aging wine IMHO or gardening, Katie sells 'em for $20 at the winery. We are confounded and delighted by the result of perfect cooperage, as Dalene Tafoya demonstrates with her huge and brilliant smile.

Up toward the hillside we see mustard, vines, and trees in front of modern sculpture (photo by Lupe Reader):

At the Stagecoach Vineyards, concierge Amber Lanier and founder/owner Jan Russell Krupp drove us in jeeps to the top of their largest vineyard, where we tasted their best while hearing about how they made such distinctive wines and the mechanics of artful blending. Here Jan is warming up to the presentation of 6 wines for our tasting (photo by Lupe Reader):

Jan explained their departure from the "hang time" controversy, as neither brix targeting nor "rush to crush" but rather a more subjective approach to deciding when a cluster of grapes had reached its' peak of character development. (photo by Lupe Reader)
We flex our muscles as we prepare for six tastes, beginning with Chardonnay.

I was in awe of Jan's original approach and genius in this difficult creative choice.
On a hillside high above the Chappellet winery, Candice Pannetier (Director of Hospitality) painted a broad view of how geology, terroir, and microclimates have made the land is so special, which we all appreciated while tasting their wines. I am most fortunate to have done this in the company of @LaSandraBrill, @jbrill, @sunshinemug, @leormug, @actafoya, @ShanaDanekari, @norys, @lauralovesart, and few of a their most excellent loved ones. Adrian Tafoya readies a taste to pour into the glass set forward by Laura Iriate's extended arm.

It was easy to see from this picture of Jon and LaSandra Brill just how much the members of our group enjoyed being in this place at this time, and doing what we were doing together.

One day earlier, we joined with another 120 folks in the #NapaValleyTweetup Social Media Seminar in which Gabriel Carrejo (from Bonfire Interactive Media) moderated a discussion panel featuring Jennifer Leggio, Paul Mabray, and Michael Brito. That evening, Robert Mondavi Winery venued the charitable tweetup for the Napa Valley Education Foundation. We raised money with a raffle of fine wines. The winery educated us on the many fine scents of red and white wines (at different tables) using wine glass sniffers to hold small samples against which we could expose our olfactory gear (noses). Those of you who know me, know what a hideous wine snob I am (and proud of it), but I was truly humbled throughout this weekend. I also had the pleasure of diving deep into the B2B data analytic applications of the wine industry with Paul Mabray (Chief Strategy Officer, VinTank)

Shortly thereafter, Evan Cover (CEO, Cruvee) explained to me how Cruvee is mining business intelligence from peer-to-peer wine tasting notes on their free-to-the-end-user application, and funding the requisite cash flow by analyzing the data composites for the wineries.

Evan's presentation reminded me a little bit of Brad Pitt's character in "Fight Club" explaining the soap business model. My head was about to explode over having vaguely grasped how their enterprise functions financially, but it was in a good way. (both of the preceding photos by Lupe Reader)

All of these social benefits were made possible by the vision, compassion, and emerging social media strategy of the Robert Mondavi Winery. Working together, we will build the Robert Mondavi Napa Valley Tweetup into a permanently beneficial social media organization that everyone will be proud to participate in.

Engagement Begins Wherever and Whenever The Customer Wants

2010-03-12T17:41:00.000-08:00

Speaking to the inaugural meeting of the Napa Valley Tweetup Social Media Seminar on March 12, 2010, Paul Mabray (Chief Strategy Officer, Vintank) tells the audience that we need to originate our conversations with customers and prospects when, how and where those persons wish to engage with us. With proper conduct and good fortune, these engagements lead us back to the sites where we can later provide these customers with a richer, deeper experience. This event was underwritten through the generosity of Robert Mondavi, and set the stage for a charity benefit for the Napa Valley Education Foundation that evening at their winery's "To Kolon" cellar filled with oak barrels which are three stories tall. But that's another story.

Mr. Mabray gave his views about Social Media in the Wine Industry while in a panel discussion (moderated by Gabriel Carrejo from Excite Social Media, and including both Jennifer Leggio and Michael Brito) with an audience of about 140 persons (not characters) present and approximately another 140 persons participating via Twitter and my Justin.TV channel.

Social Media: The Next Big Thing is Dead. All Hail the Next Big Thing!

2010-02-19T17:09:00.000-08:00

At the February 16th, 2010 meeting of the Social Media Club of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley, in the Automattic Lounge, there convened the panel entitled “Everyone’s Doing It, So Why Don’t We?"

Deep into the Q&A section, attendee Cheryl Contee (@ch3ryl) asks the panel: "what is the future & next on the horizon for social media"?.

Moderator Jennifer Lindsay (@jennifered) recollects a recent interview on the A-List with Stowe Boyd, in which he explains his migration to the east coast in terms of his perceptions that it provides a better environment for innovation.

Panelist LaSandra Brill (@LaSandraBrill) says that the mega-enterprises like Cisco and Dell are still figuring out the best way to re-purpose, re-configure, and adapt wildly powerful tools like Radian6 around conversation identification, monitoring, analysis and applied business intelligence.

Panelist Janet Fouts (@jfouts) surmises that Stowe Boyd’s disaffection for innovation on the west coast comes from his boredom, which is rooted in his understanding of the Open APIs long before anyone else had a clue. She steps up to the plate and knocks one out of the park with her prediction that “Augmented Reality” is the breakout “wave of innovation” in new social media application services. Janet points to the big challenges being:

“Where will we go with it”?
“What will we do with it”?
How will we tolerate the information overload, like trying to take a leisurely drink with a firehose, from so many networks at once?

She’s sure that the ease of aggregation and manageability has to be addressed early on, because it will have to make our lives more enjoyable rather than pile on additional struggles, if AR is to gain the next level of acceptance, adoption, and integration into contemporary consumer lifestyles.

Panelist Erin Robbins (@texasgirlerin) prefaces her remarks dryly with “my crystal ball is broken tonight” She tells us “what should be next is adoption” because user surveys and test studies show that the explosion of gadgetry has made life too difficult for too many people. “We have to make user interfaces for tools usable and understood by” a sufficiently wide audience that needs innovation. She laments that the test groups are not adequately representative of the mainstream audience in consumer markets. We have to stop focusing and over-investing our innovations around the perceived needs of the bleeding edge. “A focus on adoption and usability by a broader segment of the population would be greatly appreciated by most customers and business owners".

Panelist Violet Blue (@violetblue) observed both of the bubbles burst in the current millennium. She feels that “nothing is as awesome as failure in San Francisco because it gets rid of people who just don’t care … the people who show up and just want to punch a clock or just make a website so that they can be a social media guru & make money & move on … Failure just weeds those people right the ʞ>ʌɟ out, and it’s great. So I’m a big fan of failure…There’s nothing that makes people hungrier and toothier for success and innovation in this respect than failure. We’re watching it and there’s people doing incredible things right now. It’s an exciting time to be here.” Violet is generally in agreement with Erin and LaSandra about adoption, but also feels the pull of AR, especially in mobile media.

(ed. Note: my way of slicing tofu into the crock pot) Do you look forward to personal discovery, new choices & optimal redirection of your time/resources through data mining what your friends and associates have recommended and gauging how all of that alignment is genuinely “in synch” aligns with your own interests, proclivities, and disposition? Most of that which each of us does is only interesting to a small handful of our friends, and we are only interested in few things that any of our friends do, so joint initiatives are liable to be rare, but may be worthy of such discovery and consideration. There’s the potential for magic, boredom, and failure. It’s all do-able, but why bother with the presently existing social platforms, networks, and tools. The writing is on the wall.

Sincere thanks to Arnie Clomera and his production company, the Film Factory Film Festival, for their kind partnership in the videography and livestreaming of this event.

I like getting to know people who think that they might want to get to know me, and so they take a chance on it being a wise use of time. Let’s chat it up face-to-face. I’ll be waiting for you in the rooftop sculpture garden and café of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010, at 11:30 a.m. General admission is free on the first Tuesday of each month, and it’s the best damn place to think and to chat in downtown where they brew Blue Bottle to its’ finest possible outcome. Please let me know if you think you can come, or hey WTF, just show up.

Young-Bean Song: Starving the Funnel in the Race to Claim Knowledge about ROI

2010-01-25T23:12:00.000-08:00

Young-Bean Song tells us (at OMMA Performance in San Francisco on January 25th, 2010) that everything we know is tragically flawed. Mr. Song's story is about how we got to be a raging Godzilla around the purchase funnel. He asks us "Why is it that the only thing that we care about is the very bottom of the funnel?" Adding that "We are focusing on a very tiny fraction of the energy that we are creating. In the next few years we will begin to have a better way to see what we've been missing." (Ed. note: from here forward I will quote Young-Bean Song or paraphrase his words).

The two big trends that we have as takeaways from today are:

We will be bringing traditional media metrics to online media planning, and doing that in a way that actually leverages the data which we are collecting now.
We will have new standards for ROI measurement.

Right now we're talking about cost per acquisition, cost per lead, and cost per sale, but we've been doing it in a fundamentally flawed way. So I will show you an alternative way to do that.

First I want to show you what's in this purchase funnel. Looking across 200 advertisements, we looked into all of their conversions, sales, leads, and all of the ads that each conversion was exposed to. We found that the median number of touchpoints in the history of any conversion history is almost 14. Some were as high as 40 or 50. There are a lot of interactions between a brand and a buyer before there's a conversion. Where are all these touchpoints occurring?

We're creating a lot of value that's being obscured because we're focusing on the bottom of the funnel. In reality, people are buying after seeing lots of ads across lots of sites, and nobody knows about them.

Young-Bean Song on the value of data throughout the purchase funnel

Rafe Needleman's Prescription for Character Acceleration: from 140 to 300,000 in Nothing Flat

2010-01-22T14:00:00.000-08:00

Rafe Needleman's Prescription for Character Acceleration: from 140 to 300,000 in Nothing Flat

Rafe Needleman graced the raw wonkiness of the Social Media Club's glittering geekerati who met at The Altimeter Group auditorium in San Mateo on January 19, 2010. Brian Solis chose to interview Rafe, the author of Pro PR Tips, after having read this exceptional work that Rafe has produced. Brian hails Rafe as "the model for future journalists" who reports on Web2.0 "live from the trenches". He asks Rafe "when I say 'I'd like to have you meet our PR person', what first comes to mind?". Rafe retorts, "You want me to meet a PR person?".

I love it when the person being interviewed answers a question with another question, but only when doing so gets as good laugh as Rafe did in this moment. Rafe adds, "Come back when you have a story". This reply hits Brian's chortle switch, and reminds Rafe not to "hold anything back, though". The room is getting warm. There is that smell you sense in the air just before a flash mob pulls off a spontaneous group ROFL. I'm starting to sweat along with everyone else, but it's all in good fun. Rafe adds, "If it's you, since you actually know what I write about (which is not true for all PR people, but it is true of a goodly number or a good proportion of them), that a PR person will potentially have something that is of interest to me. But Brian, even you wouldn't say 'meet my PR person', you would say 'Rafe, meet my PR person because so-and-so is going to be showing you such-and-such which we think, or I think, will be cool for you' .... even you wouldn't do that".

Brian set the stage around Rafe's new book (which he advises us that he has read, though the truth is that Brian is a voracious reader). Brian also follows the blog which is the vessel from which the book has sprung forth. Brian asks Rafe to explain the relationship of the blog to the book. Rafe says "That occasionally someone throws a bad pitch, and it gets under my skin" which he would eventually "tweet" about in the format "Pro PR tip #nnnnn - Don't even be caught dead doing xxxxx". He credits Chris Heuer for advising him to archive this collection of tweets. Rafe started his Pro PR Tips blog, "setting a goal to do one hundred tips, in Twitter, meaning that they have to be short, and then I'd see". About half way to that milestone, he said to himself that he felt a book coming on. He got a sponsor to help him make it happen. "A bunch of random brain farts became a Twitter feed, became a blog, and the blog became a book. Apparently that's the trend now... Twitter-to-book."

WOM-buzz coverage of this interview is brought to you through the kind sponsorship of
Innovation Through Real-Time Feedback Loops, a February 4, 2010 event in Social Media Week of San Francisco.

Jeremiah Owyang's Best Bets for Social Media Business in 2010

2010-01-19T23:41:00.000-08:00

At the Social Media Club of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley on January 19, 2010, Jeremiah Owyang announced that he had placed his bets on social CRM. He told us about how Heather Armstrong wasn’t getting decent customer service on a new refrigerator, and how Maytag customer service didn’t care about her 1 million Twitter followers until she dropped her T-bomb in Forbes. This points to the need for integration between disconnected systems (e.g. PR and support) through social CRM.

I place my bet's where Jeremiah stacks his chips on the table.

Betting on Social CRM in 2010 with Jeremiah Owyang

#NBCU-Anti-Social

2010-01-17T14:13:00.000-08:00

The hypothetical proposition that NBC Universal has become Anti-Social in its' deconstruction of The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
.
Many television viewers have begun to sense that #NBCU-Anti-Social is a present and real danger to consumer preferences & interests. A discussion has begun about how certain types of collective response and effective counter-actions should be undertaken to persuade NBCU's controllers, owners, handlers, stockholders, directors, sponsors, and agencies that now's the time to turn that problem around and return to consumers' best interests and clear preferences.

What's Your Story as a Community Manager? - Don't be an Egghead

2010-01-13T10:51:00.000-08:00

Speaking in the Community Leadership Summit West Ignite "Lightning Talks" at Google SF on January 9, 2010 Sudha Jamthe (Paypal developer communities' social media strategist) opens with the observation that she "is not funny". The audience snaps instantly into #ROFL mode. It's the biggest laugh of the evening, and toward the end of a long day, at that. Ms. Jamthe tells us that many community managers persist in the traditional belief about our creating community and managing it on one website.

She tells us that social media has brought with it blogs, pictures, and videos which find there way into our community sites, and that for this, customers are everywhere (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, and at physical meetups), and so community goes local.

She cites 3 companies to exemplify distinct use cases of social media:

Twitter is (first and foremost) a social site where they manage the API users and developers who expect a degree of transparency that sets the site apart from a non-social one. When upgrades to the API take place, developers applications are impacted, and the community manager needs to get out in front of the members to let them know that the responsibility lies with Twitter. What was not expected (when Twitter changes its APIs, causing applications to break) is that developers go to an external developers' blog to scream and moan. Thus, Twitter found that it had to participate in places where it would be beyond the comfort of its own firewall and generally not in charge. So they created a handle for that colonial explorer persona.

Google supports local meetups taking place in the physical realm.

Kodak does social right. While they are a traditional hardware (and supply) company, they are active everywhere in social media and events everywhere.

What's your story as a community manager? Are you going to be an egg head, or be transparent and accept that community is social?

Sudha Jamthe, Pay Pal Social Media Strategist sets Enterprise Guidelines for Community Manager Posture

Befriending a Corporate Giant

2010-01-12T21:21:00.000-08:00

Peter Kellner explains how to understand the corporate giants at the Community Leadership Summit West Ignite "Lightning Talks" at Google SF on the evening of January 9, 2010. He counseled us to know their orientation, methods, staffing, affiliations, and how they collaborate. Mr. Kellner advised that we team up with our partners inside these enterprises through publications, getting reviewed, developing more relationships, helping out at trade shows, tapping into training programs, watching for other people like ourselves, and posting in their forums. In the dynamic perspective, Peter told us to stay ahead of the curve and in front of the rhythm when the marketing departments are figuring out what they're going to spend money on next, not what they're already invested in. He said that we want to know what the company is working on, what's being developed, and what marketing is doing next. Peter reminded us that big companies are made of lots of little people like yourself, "They're very easy to work with once you find them". Peter's experience with Oracle, Microsoft, and other ultra-scalar enterprises support his opinion.

Community Leadership Summit West 2010 Ignite "Lightning Talks" at Google SF

What's in a Name?

2010-01-12T14:49:00.000-08:00

Speaking in the Community Leadership Summit West Ignite "Lightning Talks" at Google SF on January 9, 2010, Ann Winblad ( Co-Founder and Managing Director of Hummer Winblad Venture Partners ) explains why her job as a venture capitalist is so wonderful for her. She starts with the connection between names, image, purpose, and strategy. She asks why animal names are so popular at open source software companies and why they are so meaningful in open source communities. Ms. Winblad points out that some logos talk about leadership without hubris. Sometimes their mission changes, as has been the case with SDForum, where the supported membership goes beyond that of developers, and extends to the point that name changes are necessary. When companies figure out what they're really doing and for whom, again name changes are also called for. Venture capitalists need to stand behind the entrepreneur, and support their need to change.

Ann tells us that people keep asking her why her nickname is "Hummer".

Community Leadership Summit West Ignite Lightning Talks at Google SF 1/9/2010

Comments can be (at times) the New Spam

2010-01-05T09:29:00.000-08:00

We shouldn't be alarmed, but aware of new pollution in the WTF department.

Today I found two comments in my WOM-buzz inbox which were recommendations for their authors' own websites, one of which was actually an affiliate site that aggregated links to other sites (all pornographic, all in Chinese ... which I don't read), while the other was simply a re-direct to an affiliate marketing program (in English). Of course I won't publish such comments. For the moment I will forego rejecting those comments until I get some feedback on my abuse reports from Blogger, the platform which I use.

It's not totally unlike some segment of the audience at conferences. These are attendees who are driven by the express intent of pitching their service when they get to the microphone under the guise of asking the panel a question. It's like piracy of the air, and there ought to be a law. Maybe tow them from the stern, were there such a thing in that context :} .

Both cases exemplify the same problem with media access, that with freedom there will be abuse. How do you deal with it, and what do you think should be done in a more collective framework?

Real-Time Feedback Loops Raise the Value of Panel Discussions

2009-12-29T09:04:00.000-08:00

Real Time Feedback Loops Raise The Value of Discussion Panels

View more presentations from RichReader.

Nearly every program or mission either has or needs events, yet those events’ objectives often fall short of satisfying the goals for which they were conceived. Organizers and program owners struggle with their concrete objectives before, during, after, and between events. Resources are scarce and sub-optimally allocated. Through years of event development and production, I've been working on how to elevate the effectiveness of panel discussions toward the purpose of accelerating the pace of product/service innovation (or the accuracy of discoveries), where the principle benefits are to reduce both the average cost of innovation and the latency in realizing innovation. What do you believe can be done to improve the relevance, resonance, originality, and uniqueness of the collective intelligence emerging from these conversations? Many of us working in business communications and public relations have also been seeking other media objectives in accelerating and/or cost-reducing targets (e.g. impressions, minutes-viewed, and funnel-advancement for customer service, call centers, announcements, demonstrations, releases, policies/procedures).

Regardless of what your intentions or objectives might be, real-time feedback looping (#rtfl) can make the difference between success and failure, depending upon the requisite efforts that surround the loops, the expectations, and other factors. Real-Time Feedback Loops occur when responses to posts from a discussion are injected into that discussion while it is in progress. Provided the team desire, forethought, planning and commitment to pull together around the context of #rtfl for an event panel, that panel can yield a higher net on practically any objective. You will also find that the design, construction, testing, operation, measurement, and analytics improve with experience.

Recent forays that orchestrate video livestreaming with additional methods often improve the ROI for groups, organizations, enterprises, teams, and individuals around their objectives, provided that they have agreed upon what it is that their ROI is made from, how they intend to accomplish it, and how they will measure their success. One method doesn’t “fit all” because each program, sequence of events, or individual events is unique, which drives the determination of the appropriate methods, policies, and procedures that are called for.

During the autumn of 2009, events have expanded their impact and payoff by integrating live media with communications, whereby a larger appropriate and relevant audience tunes in, often dwarfing the physical audiences by a factor of hundreds, thousands, and even tens of thousands. This has happened several times in the past 2 months for events in which I planned and executed video livestreams, so I suspect that it is also true for many others as well. Remote audiences contribute more original feedback in the presence of real-time audio and video broadcast than they are otherwise capable of producing. Similarly, higher rates and longer multi-level strings of imitative response (e.g. RTs) take place. Anecdotally, I have received similar reports from other practitioners as we regularly share and compare our notes and/or statistics.

There are some key phases, such as the formation, execution, cultivation, processing, and follow-through of real-time feedback loops, which elevate the value produced by event panels and even keynote addresses. The path to this results from teamwork from start-to-finish. It's not a "one-person" job. One team member, given time to prepare, can oversee and orchestrate the workflow.

Obtaining a huge remote audience which is highly responsive requires mass targeted awareness, and relies even more heavily on 9 of the same components that the physical event calls for:

Distributed team development. The talent that you will need to call upon might be anywhere in the world. What is required to secure the right degree of, and timing in, their participation?
Audience definition and analysis: How do you know where the prospective audience browses? How does your subject matter prove to be beneficial to these audiences? How will your content fit into the browsing landscapes of the tribes in the target audience?
Sponsor targeting/recruitment/contracts for segments, panelists, and key phrases. Who are the enterprises that should be associated with and who wish to be associated with, and/or authoritative in, the development and delivery of your program content? What are the boundaries for appropriate participation of event sponsors in delivering value to the participating tribes and earning authority?
Panel construction: Who has the industry props and sectoral credibility to represent the interests of a particular audience? How does a panel individual and group fit with a moderator?
Topic Planning: SEO/SEM for meta-data segment planning titles, tags, descriptions and inclusion of the “phrases that pay off”, that are most likely to stimulate real-time feedback.
Advanced blogging on topic, linking to the upcoming event, establishing broadly agreed expectations about what’s to be accomplished “in-event”.
Targeted event publicity, promotion, and advertising in the well-chosen platforms, mediums, and communities. What existing online resources (text, audio, photos, video) will be called upon to support this effort?
Hash-tag registry should be unique, elegant, and intuitive.
Real-time micro-blogger, photographer, and press-recruitment for composing appropriately tagged messages and posts to trigger at the right moments.

Prior to the event, five (5) additional steps must take place:

Obtaining necessary upload bandwidth.
Extending the Public Address audio feed correctly to the video cameras, and assuring the signal quality from end-to-end.
Obtaining an experienced and equipped livestream technician.
Interfacing the overhead projector output to the livestream for real-time switching. This can also be accomplished with screencasts or with slideshares in parallel players.
Obtaining featured-event status and promotion on video livestreaming platforms. This may take a week or two of advanced communication/marketing with the platforms. A good professional livestream producer may be needed to assure that this is made to happen.

During the events, five unique #rtfl sections of the team come into play:

Real-time micro-blogger, photographer, and press just-in-time actuation of composed (as well as spontaneous) messages and posts.
Livestream videographers and audiographers recording and transmitting.
Feedback monitors who collect and aggregate the tagged real-time feedback.
Moderation assistants who score and classify the sentiments of aggregates for relevance and priority, and direct those priorities to the moderator at the podium for inclusion in the discussion.
Loop documentation.

Once these aggregates are injected into a panel's ruminations of the moment, one feedback loop has been completed. As these loops connect into longer threads, the likelihood and acceleration of innovation increases, thus raising the value of the panel discussion.

In the not-to-distant future, strong feedback events will embrace the following roles:

I will be producing an evening discussion panel to delve into the human interactions of feedback loops at Social Media Week #smw10 #smwsf in the San Francisco Bay area for early February, 2010. More news soon.

2009-12-19T22:21:00.000-08:00

Stephan Jenkins (Third Eye Blind) counsels the independent musicians attending #SFMusicTech Summit V (12/7/2009) to play live, travel, engage fans one-on-one, and maintain direct connections. Just as one would in every other social media guidance.

Click on this player to see Stephan Jenkins on the richreader channel at Justin.tv
My interpretations may miss what he was actually saying, so I will attempt to quote him here verbatim:

"When you see an opportunity to take a short-cut, don't take it. It won't be a short-cut, it will cut you down. If you maintain what you are about, if you sit quietly on your bed. If you hold on to the things that move you, and you keep the authentic sense that gave you the urge to make music, then you will be eligible to travel to other people. If you keep it small and precious, then you are at a great time right now because through all the new kinds of technologies that you need, that small thing is eligible to reach other people. If you back off, if you back down from your sense, and you don't keep yourself engaged in the core feeling that you have and continuing to develop it, you will be diminished... and you will fail. You will get yourself worn out. I don't know how much of an opportunity that you will have like we did to have that come back around. Playing live is very important. It's going out and having a direct connection with people."

Make Your Band Make Tim Quirk Want to Buy Them Beer

2009-12-11T13:09:00.000-08:00

At SFMusicTech Summit V on December 7, 2009, Tim Quirk, from the Alt-Rock band Too Much Joy, tells the audience that he "wants bands that make him want to buy them beer". This opens his view that artists must reach out and be actively engaged with fans both on the web and in person. He insists that bands need a Facebook strategy, and need to practice that strategy.

Click on the "Whale" to play this 2-minute clip from my channel on Justin.tv

Mr. Quirk also tells us not to believe in big labels, big royalties, and artist attitudes:

blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2009/12/tim_quirk_h...

Ushahidi named by World Economic Forum to Technology Pioneers 2010: Embracing Disruption

2009-12-05T10:59:00.000-08:00

Ushahidi is one of 11 "Information Technologies and New Media" enterprises that have been named by the WEF to their Technology Pioneers awards for Embracing Disruption. They share this award with Amiando, Amobee, CollabNet, Dilithium Networks, Innovid, Obopay, Playfish, RingCentral, StreamBase, and Twitter.

Ushahidi won first place winner at N2Y3 (NetSquared's third annual technology innovators conference held at Cisco Systems in May 2008).

San Francisco Google Wave November Meetup 11 /19/2009

2009-11-20T08:07:00.000-08:00

Like clockwork, #SFGWMG ran like chrome, thanks to gracious hosting by Twilio at beautiful Dogpatch Labs (doesn't resemble L'il Abner's hometown one little bit) with generous sponsorship from O'Reilly

6:30-7:00pm Refreshments and networking
7:00-7:15pm Introduction, Announcements, Lightning Talks
7:15-8:15pm Presentation

Army of robots and pocketful of gadgets from the Wave sample gallery
by Lawrence Wong
Twilio demonstration
Appirio Wave Robot by Kyle Roche from Team Appirio

8:15-9:00 p.m. Discussions

Do you have a great idea for Google Wave platform but in need of technical skills to build it?
Come and pitch to the meetup group, find developers to collaborate!

Our organizer, Lawrence Wong, says

Video Clips 1 2 3 4 5 6

The Music That Moves Us, Online and Off

2009-11-18T10:45:00.000-08:00

7pm to 9pm, PST 11/18/2009 LIVESTREAM at http://bit.ly/1RiOhG

The Social Media Club of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley conducted an expert panel discussion this evening for musicians and their fans to discuss their collective love of music, as well as new ways that the artists and their supporters are connecting.

panel includes:

Tom Conrad, CTO of Pandora
Victoria 'VDog' Haller, music fan and in the Chris Mann video 'Heartless'
Chuck Fishman, musician
Christel Vanderboom, online promotion for Blame Sally
Jean Shirk, Public Relations for the SF Symphony
Keiko Takamura, singer/songwriter and virtual celebrity in the world of Second Life
Jonah Matranga, musician

How has social media impacted their interaction?
The discussion led by Adina Levin covered, among other things:

The Role of the Artist as Recommender and Curator
Music as both Art and Entertainment
The Need for more Meta-Data on Fans
Engagement Dynamics
Fan Pages as Communities
Hypem.com as the music database
SecondLife and Ustream as performance spaces
How we discover music that is new to us
Attitudes toward "freemiums", redux "The End of Free"
The Future of MySpace in Music (i.e. does it have one?)
The Pandora-Amazon Conspiracy
LastFM
Facebook

The video record of the event is contained in the following sequence of clips on my JustinTV channel, unaccompanied by any artificial improvements to the audio characteristics, like decent microphones and amplifiers:

clip 1 http://bit.ly/3GEiDk
clip 2 http://bit.ly/3JVNAn
clip 3 http://bit.ly/1isy08
clip 4 http://bit.ly/3JVNAn
clip 5 http://bit.ly/3JYgV4
clip 6 http://bit.ly/3AhkE3
clip 7 http://bit.ly/2LL0Ez

According to Justin.TV, the statistics for the livestream are as follows:

Chat Messages: 487
Average Viewing Time: 2.67 minutes
Total Viewing Time: 213,540 minutes
Unique Views: 45,242

Thanks to Caitlin Edwards and Caleb Elston for collaborating with us and bringing #smcsfsv to their homepage for the first hour of the program.

And, finally, the raw Tweet stream for instances of #smcsfsv during and since the meeting:

· thefamous: Nice to finally meet @TwangNation & @alevin in person at #smcsfsvevent last night! Good to see @Xtel and @coreydenis again too.
about 1 hour ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
CoryOBrien: @sunshinemug Glad you liked the pic! It came out a little dark, but what can you do w/ a GIANT chandelier in the background? #smcsfsv
about 2 hours ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet · Show Conversation
·
JonahMatranga: Good fun at #smcsfsv Thx @kristiewells @KeikoTakamura@carlainsf @svrocks @jennifered @sanfransymphony @vdog @coreythrace keep in touch.
about 3 hours ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet
·
coreythrace: great fun meeting @KeikoTakamura irl at #smcsfsv. The Shebangs have a show this Sat 11/21 @ South First Billiards in San Jose, CA
about 4 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
coreythrace: @ravit_ustrategy physical cd amazon provision not necessarily a bad thing. "spin counts" & data, however, would create opportunity #smcsfsv
about 4 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet · Show Conversation
·
svrocks: RT @CreativeSage: Follow @SMCSFSV - #smcsfsv and watch "The Music that Moves Us" with @richreader on Justin.tv: http://bit.ly/2uZdUR (expand) # ...
about 4 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
·
SanFranSymphony: RT @alevin Decompressing after fabulous #smcsfsv music event - Thanks @kristiewells, @coreydenis, @gwachob, @thefamous - Thank YOU, @alevin!
about 4 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
jennifered: @svrocks: #smcsfsv @kristiewells great session tonight.@jonahmatranga thanks for keeping it real - Thx for the help!
about 10 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
jennifered: RT @gwachob: The #smcsfsv music event tonight was awesome! Thanks to @alevin, @kristiewells, @coreydenis & all the panelists & participants!
about 10 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
jennifered: RT @alevin: decompressing after fabulous #smcsfsv music event tonight! Thanks @kristiewells, @coreydenis, @gwachob, @thefamous, & all there!
about 10 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
alevin: decompressing after fabulous #smcsfsv music event tonight! Thanks@kristiewells, @coreydenis, @gwachob, @thefamous, & all there!
about 11 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
·
gwachob: The #smcsfsv music event tonight was awesome! Thanks to @alevin,@kristiewells, @coreydenis, and all the panelists and partcipants!
about 12 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
svrocks: #smcsfsv @kristiewells great session tonight. @jonahmatranga thanks for keeping it real.
about 12 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
·
coreythrace: great dialogue tonight at #smcsfsv, lots of insights & interesting points. Sorry to miss the grammy party but need to sleep!
about 12 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
chrisheuer: #smcsfsv @kristiewells @vdog @chrisheuer at Social Media Clubhttp://yfrog.com/359u9j (via @sunshinemug)
about 13 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·

bean: #smcsfsv @kristiewells @vdog @chrisheuer at Social Media Clubhttp://yfrog.com/359u9j (via @sunshinemug) Fun and stimulating conversation!
about 14 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
SanFranSymphony: Thanks to Social Media Club SF/SV folks - great meeting with fascinating people on social media and music tonight. Pumped! #smcsfsv
about 14 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
VDog: RT @sunshinemug: #smcsfsv @kristiewells @vdog @chrisheuer at Social Media Club http://yfrog.com/359u9j
about 14 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
sunshinemug: #smcsfsv @kristiewells @vdog @chrisheuer at Social Media Clubhttp://yfrog.com/359u9j
about 14 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
CreativeSage: In #music industry for yrs., in artist mgmt., concert prod., PR, mktg., publishing +nonprofits & #musician - let's share resources. #smcsfsv
about 15 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
·
CreativeSage: Glad panel notes at #smcsfsv being aggregated on@SocialMediaClub blog & email adds. being shared. Will add mine even though I'm not there.
about 15 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
·
carlainsf: Theme: The artist as recommender and curator who is sharing music they love, and the fans are now experiencing that on their site. #smcsfsv
about 15 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
netzkobold: Tip from musicians: http://www.hypem.com - Seems a good place to discover new music apart from http://www.pandora.com #smcsfsv
about 15 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
CoryOBrien: http://hypem.com/ getting lots of love as a music discovery tool. Check it out! #SMCSFSV
about 15 hours ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet
·
NadjaB: Hypem.com is music blog aggregator with great analytics for musicians,@fascinated is getting a lot of love. #smcsfsv
about 15 hours ago from Twitterrific · Reply · View Tweet
·
carlainsf: Discovery happening via: Last.fm, Hype Machine, Pandora; Ustream concerts; tastes mentioned on Twitter, Facebook; Second Life #smcsfsv
about 15 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
sunshinemug: #smcsfsv Aggregator for music hypem.com--sounds great!
about 15 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
ravit_ustrategy: hypem.com: What the music pros use to discover music.#SMCSFSV
about 15 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet

·
sethsocolow: #smcsfsv Just learned that in order for an artist to get their music on Pandora they must have a physical CD for sale on Amazon.
about 15 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
Newer « Page 3 » Older
·
carlainsf: Tune into "The Music That Moves Us, Online and Off"http://www.justin.tv/richreader #smcsfsv
about 15 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet

RichReader @ravit_ustrategy The live music/concerts stream is the channel, the collective spirit of all the hearts touched is the destination #smcsfsv

·
ravit_ustrategy: Great question: is live music/concerts streaming online a channel or a destination? Hmmmm... #SMCSFSV
about 15 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
sunshinemug: RT @ravit_ustrategy: Keiko T is an avatar-based performer who started her music career on 2nLIfe and makes . http://ow.ly/Dzxo #SMCSFSV
about 15 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
CoryOBrien: Lots of talk about concerts on Second Life. Not something I've ever tried. Might have to check it out. #SMCSFSV
about 15 hours ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet
·
ravit_ustrategy: Keiko T is an avatar-based performer who started her music career on 2nLIfe and makes . http://ow.ly/Dzxo #SMCSFSV
about 15 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
sunshinemug: #smcsfsv people in secondlife love their anonymity. Getting a whiteboard explanation here!
about 15 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
sunshinemug: @CoryOBrien nice pic! I'm leaning down and tweeting about this in it! #smcsfsv
about 15 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet · Show Conversation
·
RichReader: #smcsfsv The Music That Moves Us on richreader channel from 8 pm on when we lose our homepage position
about 15 hours ago from Seesmic · Reply · View Tweet
·
carlainsf: Not into the whole "freemium" thing. You have to set a price [for your content] and value that. - @JonahMatranga #smcsfsv
about 15 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
CoryOBrien: The #SMCSFSV club: http://twitpic.com/q2enm
about 15 hours ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet
·
sunshinemug: @vdog talking about how she performed/got tips playing music on secondlife #smcsfsv
about 15 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
NadjaB: Level of expectation between consumers of social media and artists, who are producing art and not just sm, is very different #smcsfsv
about 15 hours ago from Twitterrific · Reply · View Tweet
·
carlainsf: Recommendations from musicians with deep taste are powerful. - @alevin#smcsfsv
about 15 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
CoryOBrien: Best way to find new music: Look at links that artists are sharing. Anyone want to build a Twitter based link aggregator/ranker? #SMCSFSV
about 15 hours ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet
·
sethsocolow: Talking about music discovery and recommendations from friends at#smcsfsv. Have a look at the http://mobilemusicmessenger.com #iPhone app
about 15 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·

carlainsf: I think MySpace is just really, really dead and we need to give up. -@Vdog #smcsfsv
about 16 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
ravit_ustrategy: @vdog: "My space is really really dead and we just need to give it up" #SMCSFSV
about 16 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
CoryOBrien: Interesting concept: MySpace should release a client like iTunes that lets people stream the music on its service. #SMCSFSV
about 16 hours ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet
·
carlainsf: @Xtel There's still a debate on where to put the info. We point everyone to our Web site + Facebook fan page. #smcsfsv
about 16 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet · Show Conversation
·
carlainsf: @Xtel notes that the Facebook fan page has worked really well for the band she promotes http://blamesally.com/ http://ow.ly/Dz6u #smcsfsv
about 16 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet · Show Conversation
·
CoryOBrien: #SMCSFSV — at @citizenspace http://gowal.la/s/aB3
about 16 hours ago from Gowalla · Reply · View Tweet
·
RichReader: #smcsfsv it helps so much when fans share email addresses with a band
about 16 hours ago from Seesmic · Reply · View Tweet
·
carlainsf: A few yrs ago, culling email addresses was very important. Now, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter ARE the newsletters. #smcsfsv
about 16 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
ravit_ustrategy: "God help the band who based all their marketing on MySpace because MySpace is over!" In favor of newsletter. Jonah Matranga #SMCSFSV
about 16 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
NadjaB: Email harvesting, newsletters, no longer necessary to connect with fans. New challenge is connecting while respecting privacy #smcsfsv
about 16 hours ago from Twitterrific · Reply · View Tweet
·
CreativeSage: Follow @SMCSFSV - #smcsfsv and watch "The Music that Moves Us" with @richreader on Justin.tv: http://bit.ly/2uZdUR (expand) #music #socialmedia
about 16 hours ago from bit.ly · Reply · View Tweet
·
carlainsf: @chuckdafonk Found there is a need for more in-depth meta data on fans -- when they engage, who they are #smcsfsv
about 16 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
CoryOBrien: On my way to #SMCSFSV, and melting on the bus. Turn the heater down!
about 16 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
ravit_ustrategy: 63% of the people who subscribed to the SF Symphony NIng social network were new patrons. Great patron lead gen. #SMCSFSV
about 16 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
carlainsf: @JeanShirk started social network on Ning @sanfransymphony, 1 of first major arts orgs to do this http://community.sfsymphony.org #smcsfsv
about 16 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
Newer « Page 5 » Older
·
NadjaB: SF symphony was the first major orchestra to start a social network, 63% were new to the symphony -community.sfsymphony.org #smcsfsv
about 16 hours ago from Twitterrific · Reply · View Tweet
·
netzkobold: Arrived late because of traffic at Social Media Club panel discussion: The Music that Moves us. Follow live streaming on Justin.tv #smcsfsv
about 16 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
carlainsf: Attending #SMCSFSV "The Music That Moves Us" panel discussion moderated by @alevin on what works, what doesn't in promoting music.
about 16 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
ravit_ustrategy: At Social Media Club: Panel discussion: The Music that Moves us. Follow live streaming by @richreader on Justin.tv #smcsfsv
about 16 hours ago from HootSuite · Reply · View Tweet
·
NadjaB: At #smcsfsv - panel on #sm and #music is just starting.
about 16 hours ago from Twitterrific · Reply · View Tweet
·
sethsocolow: Seth recommends Push by Matchbox Twenty #smcsfsvhttp://bit.ly/4biExO (expand)
about 17 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet
·
TinaHui: Headed to help setup #smcsfsv social music discussion @citizenspace. Stopping by Two for social media marketing then home.
about 17 hours ago from SimplyTweet · Reply · View Tweet
·
gwachob: Setting up for the music panel/discussion at @citzenspace #smcsfsv
about 17 hours ago from Tweetie · Reply · View Tweet
·
CoryOBrien: @MariahKeith Indeed. #SMCSFSV, here we come!
about 18 hours ago from TweetDeck · Reply · View Tweet · Show Conversation
·
chrisheuer: getting ready for multiple events tonight. our #smcsfsv social music discussion @citizenspace and #sfnewtech at mighty
about 19 hours ago from web · Reply · View Tweet

Better, Cheaper, Faster Picks and Shovels: Elemental Technologies Eclipses the Crowd in High-Quality Video Production and Post-Production

2009-11-17T13:55:00.000-08:00

Elemental Technology has released a breakthrough product in video streaming, encoding, transcoding, formatting, compression, image processing, scaling, and de-interlacing. Their new server creates these lightning fast, cost-effective, high quality video solutions by harnessing massively parallel off-the-shelf hardware, focusing on very detailed embedded programming on GPUs.

At NewTeeVee Live, November 12, 2009, in the section entitled "The Next Big Thing, Session 1", Elemental Technologies CEO Sam Blackman shows off the new hybrid GPU/CPU server. It is built around the Tesla parallel GPU card from Nvidia, which has 240 stream processors on it (todays dual and multi-core CPUs rarely have more than 4 such streams onboard) . This dramatically accelerates processing for internet videos.

He goes into the techniques that support Elemental's strategy of focusing on disruptive innovation. By combining GPU and CPU processing, one Elemental Server replaces up to seven dual quad core 3GHz CPU-only servers in parallelizable applications like video. Elemental leverages the newly programmable nature of the GPUs to build general purpose applications like: video compression, image processing, scaling, and de-interlacing. On this day, the Elemental Server has been released from Beta (where it has been for the last few months). Mr. Blackman asserts that this innovation is presently the most cost-efficient and best available transcoding/encoding/formatting solution for video in big enterprise data centers that need to publish a lot of streams for adaptive bitrate streaming, mobile devices, online and mobile delivery. Morevoer, the workflow integration has been greatly facilitated and streamlined (a huge advantage). Moreover, Elemental has highly reliable scalability for aggregating multiple servers into a high-performance data center, as well as very high-quality video-encoding (the equivalent of the holy grail, for us video geeks).

Key strategic partners have been Nvidia, Adobe, and Microsoft. With Adobe, Elemental has teamed up to create a plug-in for Adobe Premiere Pro in the Creative Suite (which is the program that I use for editing HD content from tape). This same partnership has produced very powerful integrations with the Adobe Flash Server team to accelerate encoding and output of all formats simultaneously. New deals are afoot with Brightcove, Citrix and others.

Mr. Blackman predicts that "the Internet will not destroy the PayTV models because consumers want and need a high-quality, easy-to-use experience across a number of platforms". Mobile, IP, and Television are now thought of as "The Three-Screen Experience" which people are going to continue to be willing to pay for so that the infrastructure required for this seamless integration can move forward.

The End of Free: Bitch-slapping Unsustainable Silicon Valley Attitudes about Video in Venture Capitalism and Affiliate Fees

2009-11-14T07:00:00.000-08:00

In the section about "What won't be funded", in the VC Panel "Money Talks" at NewTeeVee Live 2009 (on Nov.12) led by Allen Delattre (Managing Director, Electronics and High Technology, Accenture) tells us that there exists a yawning gap of understanding between the Silicon Valley and Hollywood about the lynch pins of economics in the video business. Allen asks Bill Gurley (General Partner, Benchmark Capital) to "Tee up" the "Affiliate Fee" issue.

The video runtime of this clip is under three minutes, but Bill's observations have been turning over in my mind through sleepness nights since then. Bill Gurley challenges the absurdity of the public perception that everything will be free, countering that free is coming to an end. Of those that I heard speaking on this day, he is the smartest person in the room. From here forward (within the context of this particularly brief bit of critical discourse) I will quote Mr. Gurley literally almost verbatim, as the originality of how he turns a phrase is, in itself, a wonder to behold:

This is a bit of a ramp for me, mainly because I live in Silicon Valley and I watch people say "don't you know it's just going to be free, and it's just that you're fighting yesterday's war?". People in the Silicon Valley don't have a true understanding of the economics of the video business.

The U.S. video market is worth about $200 billion a year in subscription fees. 40 percent of that ($80 billion each year) is paid out to content partners as affiliate fees. The notion that you are going to go direct and disrupt these fees is hard to fathom.

"A la carte": I haven't met a content party yet that has a relationship with a broad-based distributor that is excited in the least about a la carte. They LOVE to be part of a broad package ... It's distribution ... It's like saying "I sell a piece of consumer hardware, but I don't want to use Best Buy, I'm just going to setup my own store on the corner". That's just not how anyone would think about it.

We have a lot of ideals because we're thinking about what the technology can provide for us, but it's hard to disrupt $80 billion dollars and it's changing now even more because almost all the content that's not associated with affiliate fees is already on the web, and I personally believe that there are efforts under way by broad distributors to conflict some of the ones that are free by giving them "Over the Air" affiliate fees, and therefore pushing people like Hulu into a subscription model. So whereas most people in this room might think that the free stuff that's out there is going to lead to a "Domino" effect of there being more, I'm here to tell you that there might be strategic moves underway to take it in the opposite direction, because as you know, the title of this panel is "Money Talks", because it's a big, big effin' deal and if you don't get that and you try to mess around in this space, then you can get into a lot of trouble.

While the story reads clearly, you need to watch and listen to Bill Gurley tell it like it is

(ed. note: Tell me which part of this you disagree with or fail to comprehend. The contributions by the other VCs in the rest of this section on "What won't be funded" generally followed these conservative postures. If the VCs and their clients can "put an end to free" does that mean that the rest of us will be able to do so equally well?)

Money Talks

2009-11-13T15:43:00.000-08:00

at NewTeeVee Live 11/12/2009 - Television Reinvented, GigaOm continues its' tradition of VC panels, which on this evening is moderated by Allen Delattre, Managing Director, Electronics and High Technology, Accenture.

The panelists include:

Chris Hollenbeck, Managing Director, Granite Ventures
David Horowitz, Managing Director, Comcast Interactive Capital
Dan Beldy, Steamboat Ventures
Bill Gurley, General Partner, Benchmark Capital

They speak on what caught their eye in the conference, what they want to invest in next, and what opportunities are unlikely to be funded. Has the capital side ignored what the customers' want? Allen Delattre talks about capital cost recovery and about consumers voting with their feet. Bill Gurley casts a light on the importance of innovation in content discovery. Dan Beldy pitches for picks and shovels that boost both scalability and discoverability.

The presentation spans the following sequence of three (3) clips cut from the stream RMTP'd yesterday to JustinTV:

Clip I of III from Money Talks

Clip II of III from Money Talks

Clip III of III from Money Talks

TV Network 2.0

2009-11-13T14:10:00.000-08:00

at NewTeeVee Live 2009 - Television Reinvented (11/12/2009) Om Malik chats with Quincy Smith, CEO, CBS Interactive about what's next for him after he departs at year's end.

The discussion is embedded in the following two (2) clips from my channel on Justin.TV:

Part I of II in TV Network 2.0

Part II of II in TV Network 2.0

VC Panel at PayPal X Innovate Tells Developers what they will Fund

2009-11-05T10:04:00.000-08:00

Om Malik, interviewer extraordinaire, moderates the VC Panel at PayPal X Innovate on the morning of November 4, 2009.

Cash is still king in transaction volume. Venture capitalists see the need for innovations that will reduce the number of cash transactions, because those transaction costs (mostly upon the seller) are sufficiently high, allowing more room for fees-for-transactions to take place. The message went out like a shot to the developers in the conference hall who are looking for "what to build".

Cutting Permanent Clips From Live Video Streams: case of #fbmeetup

2009-10-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

For any group that transmits their presentations and discussions over the internet in real time, there exist options to make readily accessible permanent records from their archives. It's less time consuming than editing from media and uploading to encode and deliver via a streaming server, although it may deprive you of some of the features and functionality that you get in the studio (like titles and comments, which most organizations can't afford).

Last night I streamed video from the Facebook Application Developers' meetup (#fbmeetup) at WilmerHale in Palo Alto. Dan Olsen of YourVersion.com explained how he bootstrapped his startup on zero hard dollars, and demonstrated his online service. Brian Molloy of APIgee showed how his application helps API developers and app operators manage secure and assured delivery.

Using JustinTV, the 62 minutes of stream (based upon the inpoint and the outpoint that I set in their editer) was separated into 5 clips by the JustinTV. They may liberalize this process in the near future.

Clip 1 of 5
Clip 2 of 5
Clip 3 of 5
Clip 4 of 5
Clip 5 of 5

While streaming, I also record locally to video tape. It's partly superstition, and partly to have a higher quality if needed later.

The recorded stream results are of especially good quality because the host, WilmerHale (a venture capital law firm), served a consistently high bandwidth upload to JustinTV. Check with your IT or Telecom people to get benchmarks and run a few tests before you start broadcasting, or you may be surprised to find the sound drop out or have the stream stop.

#smcsfsv Reality Check - Mobile Video Use Case Discussion

2009-10-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

This month the Social Media Club of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley met at CBSi (fka CNET) to discuss why & how we create, transmit, share, consume, and reuse mobile video. Rishi Mallik (Qik), Lacy Kemp (Real Media), and Justin Kan (Justin.TV) give perspectives and chat with attendees. Chris Heuer moderates. I am livestreaming the event on JustinTV. The remote audiences zooms past the 1000 mark quickly. We talk about the need for content marketing, notification, moderation, and aggregation to optimize the value-added. Justin also points out the need for a superscalar, well-organized chat system that can make sense out of thousands of simultaneous conversations pointing back into a single stream, such that the wisdom of the crowds can have a strong, sensible, and immediate impact on the quality of the discussion.

How might a potential viewer subscribe to notifications for a specific upcoming livestream event, and how would the delivery be assured?

Note: this was one of six or more tremendous threads in the discussion panel.

Production and Use of Mobile Video in our Business and Personal Lives

2009-10-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

On the evening of October 19, 2009, the Social Media Club of San Francisco and the Silicon Valley convened a panel discussion at CBS Interactive with Justin.TV, Qik, and Real Media to examine current mobile video use cases and expectations. I streamed the proceedings live onto Justin.TV, thus this segment of the meeting is separated into 3 clips due to the platforms current configuration. Over the coming days and weeks we will be digging deeper into the discussion, but I wanted to serve it up now and fresh, albeit raw and unanalyzed.

First Clip

Second clip

Third clip

Social Media Smackdown Brewing between Twitterville, Tribalization, Groundswell, Appvertising, and Cause Marketing

2009-09-10T00:06:00.000-07:00

How should an enterprise set tradeoffs in their social media strategy between direct customer engagement and influencer-leveraging relations?

Considerable disparities in point-of-view are emerging among leading social media analysts, authors, and journalists regarding the right mix of program components for improving long-term customer relationships, perceptions, and attitudes. On September 8, 2009 Shel Israel opened up to a field of questions stimulated by his presentation at the Society of New Communications Research about how he came to write "Twitterville".

I asked Shel to share with us his views about how an enterprise should set tradeoffs in their social media strategy between direct customer engagement and influencer-leveraging relations. He framed his approach as being very different from that of the:

Tribalists (e.g. Francois Gossieaux, Beeline Labs and Deloitte).
Social Colonialists (Forrester Research, & possibly still including Jeremiah Owyang, but it's too early tell if he still advocates their new "Five Eras" framework).
Groundswell theorists (Josh Bernoff at Forrester Research, and perhaps still including Charlene Li, CEO of The Altimeter Group).

Shel contrasted the approaches to social media strategy citing Dell vs. HP, where he sides with the former because of the trust, respect, and authority that they have gained in the hearts of their customers by foregoing reliance on influential intermediaries to leverage public perceptions of their brand (even at the expense of short-term profits). Mr. Israel also suggested that the enterprises which rely too heavily on attempted shortcuts to transparent communication (e.g. through leveraged influence) are risking a substantial long-term loss of credibility, and that the social media powerhouse consultancies should take heed of those risks.

Our social media counterparts in the integrated digital media industry must also be wondering about what these prognostications mean for appvertising (Michael Lazerow, Buddy Media), cause marketing (Angela Courtin, SVP of Marketing, Entertainment, and Content at MySpace), and hybrid strategic partner-oriented approaches. In the coming weeks and months, I will round up some further variations in the strategic outlook from other practitioners. Let me know how you feel about who might be on the smarter path.

Hyper-targeting Ads in The Facebook Era

2009-08-31T18:22:00.000-07:00

Clara Shih, CEO of Hearsay Labs, and author of The Facebook Era addresses the Facebook Application Developers' meetup at fbFund on August 18, 2009. She speaks to the need for better targetability in online advertising, and describes how this is presently accomplished using the self-service advertising wizard on Facebook. In one case, she created a campaign to put copy about her new book in front of logically-targeted prospective purchasers. In another case, Clara tells us about how a blogger friend used a highly-targeted ad to get her attention.

Making Communities Work - Some Inconvenient Truths

2009-08-27T10:21:00.000-07:00

Francois Gossieaux, founder and partner at Beeline Labs, presents an early peek of the year 2009 results of their Tribalization of Business survey and studies (with Ed Moran at Deloitte). He discusses the survey results regarding "The Top 5 Obstacles to Making Communities Work" at the New Comm Forum 2009 of the Society for New Communications Research, where he is a senior research fellow. Francois finds clues to misperceptions about community management, measurement, analytics, and planning as he reads between the lines in the survey's statistical results.

As in year 2008, the #1 "obstacle" chosen by survey respondents was "getting people to engage and participate". Francois thinks that community directors and managers miss the value of "lurkers" when their site measurements have not been built to capture "lurker" actions, so those actions are not being analysed and understood. Only 18% of companies capture data on lurkers, so the blind-sideness among the other 82% of respondents is earth-shaking.

Obstacle #2 is "Attracting People to the Community", while #3 is "Getting People to Come Back". What if there were a continuous stream of fresh, high-quality content for people to engage with after that huge splashy enrollment campaign?

Just as hideous as the first few obstacles is #4, "Finding Enough Time to Manage a Community". About 20 percent of the survey respondents have either no person whatsoever, or something less than an FTE (full-time equivalent) managing the community (notice the expression on Francois' face when he tells us this). He relates the story of a pre-mature pilot by a membership rewards program, in which 20,000 members of a multi-million target universe were chosen to participate. The program had less than one FTE managing the pilot. A crisis ensued when pilot participants began to engage, because the rewards program was not prepared to respond to the volume of questions, ideas and concerns coming from the 20,000 enrolled participants. Francois asks us to recognize that a successful community is one in which the users invest their own social capital through their actions. In the face of such opportunity, the community operator has to be prepared and enabled with the power to serve and to engage.

Obstacle #5 "Getting People to Populate Their Profile"

If we allocate enough resources to provide content, value, outreach and engagement, then all of these obstacles should be simpler to overcome.

Mr. Gossieaux has provided the "Early Peek Tribalization of Business 2009" slide deck for public access.

Optimizing Viral Loops Via Multivariate Analysis

2009-08-24T20:56:00.000-07:00

Speaking to the Facebook Application Developers' group meetup at fbFund on 8-18-2009, Brett Keintz (CEO and co-founder of ShareThrough) explains how virality is indexed using invites, page hits, and open rates. Mr. Keintz goes on to describe the isolation of effective components for raising likelihood yields and compound virality, through rounds of tests and analytical measurement from application and server databases.

Tap into the bigger picture when WOMbuzz explores how collective, independent, and corporate enterprises identify the viral components needed to spur relationship development with their tribes.

An Ode to Picks and Shovels: Rationalizing the Proposed Google Acquisition of ON2

2009-08-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

Today in MediaPost's Online Video Insider, Eric Franchi (senior vice president of business development at Undertone Networks) writes about Google / YouTube's proposed acquisition of the ON2, a leader in video compression technology. Mr. Franchi highlights streaming, encoding, storage, and technology licensing costs arguments for the deal. However, when the strategists and analysts have looked into the matter more deeply, they might find higher values from a different position. So smile as you bear with me while we roll up our wonky business sleeves and dive in.

The only money being invested in online video is for those services which make operations more profitable after capitalizing/writing down/depreciating the acquisition, licensing, customization, and incremental operating costs on a post-tax basis. At the end of the day, dollars and sense fly off the ends of one's acquisition picks and technology licensing shovels. The clues to which solutions' comparative advantages will win come from the practitioners, engineers, tax, and financial analysts.

At the end of the day, dollars and sense fly off the ends of one's picks and shovels. The clues to where these comparative advantages can be found come from the practitioners and engineers.

Mr. Franchi points out "it's clear that YouTube is expensive to run because of the sheer volume of video that is uploaded and viewed each day". Given the importance of moderating the size of files uploaded to YouTube and Google, they would serve themselves well to support ON2 rendering of FLV which is often as small as a tenth of H.264, MP4, WMV, and QuickTime. Additionally, Chrome and Wave need to step up to both the FLV endoding and the .SWF streaming plate.

Content Creators upload and encode to FaceBook using ON2-generated FLV because transmission and encoding times are lower (because it's already Flash), and because this practice delivers a superior stream in 720P and above. (ed. note: most of the past 9 months of video on this site is post-produced via this technique).

These would be big benefits to YouTube and Google, which have yet to embrace and enable this approach to profitability.

Hog Island 8/8/09

2009-08-09T09:57:00.001-07:00

Hog Island 8/8/09
Originally uploaded by gravity7

A couple of picnic-goers at Hog Island, in Marshall, California on the Tomales Bay deep in the ecstasy of slurping bivalves washed down with wine. Thanks to Adrian Chan (aka Gravity7) for his set of photos on Flickr.

The Era of Social Colonization, as previewed by Jeremiah Owyang

2009-07-29T23:53:00.000-07:00

Beginning in 2009, and maturing in 2011, Forrester Research predicts the "Era of Social Colonization", as reported by Jeremiah Owyang to the second quarterly meeting of the Society for New Communications Research. In this era, (with an assist from mobile devices) you and your friends are virtually portable in multiple simultaneous instances (you can go everywhere with each other all at once, and enjoy omnipresence of some sort). Your identities are your passports to the open web, as witnessed by identity systems such as Facebook Connect, Open ID, Google (OpenStack), and many others, which allow you to share information more easily than ever.

Jeremiah offers an example, in which his friend Marsha's Facebook profile page points to and displays some information about a page on Mashable that she wants all of her friends to become aware of. He notes that the actual URL of Marsha's news item is rooted in Facebook, not Mashable. Thus, from her colony on Facebook, Marsha gives an interpretive view into content, which serves to strengthen her relevance, relationship, or authority with her friends. He says that this illustrates how Facebook has invented a unique "browser-like" user experience. Another type of associated link shows which of Marsha's friends liked and/or commented upon her post. These types of tools can be used to support brands, products, services, events, stories, ideas, et cetera.

Every page on your website is already (potentially) a social experience that is ready to be "LIKE"-linked or commented upon from such colonies. He asks us "Since you can't stop it, what will you do about it?". After all, this is how social networks accentuate trust relationships. Another example of these social features is found in the "DIGG bar". Such experiences allow you to leave a comment on an enabled site or page without logging on to the content-originating site because the network identity device has that requirement covered. The visitor need not register credentials with the publishing site when such portalling functionality is agreed upon. This is further evidence to the notion that registration pages are on the decline. The implication for product marketers and support organizations is that the way in which leads are generated for CRM is bound to change. Similarly, the traditional process of gathering and maintaining email information is on its' way out.

Jeremiah offers another example, IRL - In Real Life, a Dutch mashup where friends connect multiple social networks like Twitter and Facebook to support better visualization of one's social graph. Further, in the locational context, he can now rely on Yelp to show him which of the restaurants close to any point are most highly respected by the people that he trusts.

Mr. Owyang summarizes the three basic modes for facilitating social colonization:

Inlays
Websites allowing interconnections with social networks
Browsers, which are pioneered by Flock rather than the leaders.

One day, the entries in your email address book will assist your friend queries about where they've been and what they're doing. A New York startup called "GetGlue" helps you to find books, music, and movies through your friends, share opinions with them, and browse for suggestions. Jeremiah point to his friend in the audience, Michael Brito from Intel, and tells us about how Michael reviews web, TV, and theatrical content. He can rely on GetGlue to aggregate film reviews which Michael has published on eBay, Rotten Tomatoes, Amazon, his blog, Facebook, and Twitter. In general, it helps him to discover which of his friends have something to say about almost any type of content.

The social web will potentially aggregate most of the conversations from your email and newsfeeds (e.g. Facebook and LinkedIn), which may merge into a previously unimagined entity that Google Wave might jump into. Now we are certain that traditional brand marketing is being replaced by trust-based advocacy through WOM (Word-of-Mouth).

I'm wondering how these new capabilities portend opportunity and risk for online communities. Will we be able to do a better job of understanding the key segments, the channels for bringing relevant and useful information to members, and what the new bridges to our relationships might be built from? Will we learn from these tools how to capture sentiment trends that affect how we allocate scarce resources to better serve the membership and deliver greater value? Let me know how you feel about it.

Introduction to the Five Eras of Social Networking and Community

2009-07-28T09:12:00.000-07:00

In his presentation to the second quarterly meeting of the Society for New Communications Research this past June at SAP, Jeremiah Owyang (Senior Analyst, Forrester Research) began by introducing the five eras of social networking and communities. Please forgive any bias that you may find in my interpretations of Jeremiah's report to SNCR, as I am watching and listening through the (sometimes myopic) lens of an online community strategist.

Power continues to shift away from brands, while shifting towards communities & social networks, which are the new institutions. Brands can regain some of their power by participating in social networking and communities.

He explains the methodology of discovery and definition for the five eras. This leads towards practical impacts, learnable lessons, and recommendations which will help brands to stay ahead of the curve as dominant paradigms rise and fall.

The core research has concluded that, as expected, "Social Networking Adoption" is a trend that is absolutely here to stay. Not that long ago, his clients were much more skeptical about whether this was so. Now the most frequently asked question from his clients is "how do we do these things ?". Monitoring and recounting the questions that clients and community members ask contributes to the trending conclusion.

Reviewing the timeline, Jeremiah marvels at the extreme recency of the defining events. He definitely got my attention by highlighting venture capital investment in community platforms.

Forrester choose to interview engineers at client organizations to include consideration of their perspectives. Among those in this group allowing acknowledgment are Dell, Cisco, Facebook, Twitter, Six Apart, Salesforce.com, Federated Media, ReadWriteWeb, Pluck, Plaxo, OpenID Foundation, MySpace, Microsoft Live, LinkedIn, and KickApps. Those who facilitate and empower social networks and communities have a great deal to say about how they conceptualize and envision the future of social networking. When the interviews were completed and the data was assembled, Jeremiah faced an unabashed case of TMI (too much information), so he went to the beach in Half Moon Bay with his canine advisor. Observing the sedimentary layers of the palisades, it occurred to him that the social web is like a reef, with different layers (eras) ebbing in and out. This led to a model allowing eras which begin and end at different times in separate silos.

Before diving into the details, Jeremiah gives us concise definitions of the five eras:

The Era of Relationships: People are connecting and talking to each other. They are sharing information.
The Era of Social Functionality: Social Networks enable the development and execution of applications that serve all of that networks' members.
The Era of Social Colonization: Social Networks expose the open web to their "user experience" by embedding interfaces beyond the walls of their own platform.
The Era of Social Context: Portable Identity is the universal passport which facilitates a personalized or contextualized user experience when one travels in the colonies.
The Era of Social Commerce: Communities will own the authority and exercise the influence to define/specify what products and services their members will buy. They will sell their ideas to producers and providers in marketplaces that their community controls.

I would also like to thank Adrian Chan for offering critical discourse on how the underlying processes of these eras might or might not function, which we will explore soon.

Only the first 7 of 35 minutes were sampled in this edition. I hope to follow through with some additional vignettes to complete (in the near future) my interpretation of Mr. Owyang's entire presentation.

Changing How We Do Business with Each Other

2009-07-24T17:54:00.000-07:00

In his closing remarks to the Pay Pal Platform Preview in San Jose, on July 23, 2009, Osama Bedier, V.P. of Product Development, warmly embraces the creative desires of developers to innovate with the new API. He tells us that we need to encourage the developers to lead the way in realizing how our payment systems can fulfill our business visions.

Playing into the Future

2009-07-20T19:55:00.000-07:00

Role-playing and ARGs (Alternative Reality Games) are increasingly chosen as a catalytic force in collective intelligence which transforms geek clusters into innovative problem-solving teams. Mei Lin Fung ( Program for the Future ) and Tiffany von Emmel ( Dreamfish ) led a group session at the Community Leadership Summit to experiment on the framework in this subject matter at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California on July 18th, 2009. After a brief overview and a brainstorming session, the practice groups delivered the presentations shown here.

Encouraging Connections and Friendships in an Online Community

2009-06-30T14:07:00.000-07:00

Facilitating potentially creative connections and friendships is one of the high value challenges that online community managers aspire to. So we always want to hear from our peers how they work their magic. Brad Selby, senior product manager from Flixster.com, fields this question from Susan Tenby, (Senior Online Community Manager, TechSoup Global) during the monthly meeting of the San Francisco Online Community Report on June 24, 2009.

Brad mentions two specific routes toward familiarization in the context of Flixster.com:

one user can challenge another user to test their "movie compatibility", an application that Flixster has greatly popularized in Facebook.
the community search engine can match pertinent parameters of one's film, actor, producer, director, and genre preferences to recommend introductions.