Introducing Timely.is: Tweet in Your Sleep

Are you one of those hit-snooze-at-least-three-times types? If you're anything like me, the early mornings can be rude awakenings. At least before a cup of coffee.

When my colleague introduced me to Timely.is, I was amazed. The application, in a nutshell,  schedules tweets "automagically" for the time of day when your network is most likely to see them and posts them for you throughout the day. I hate to admit it, but my first thought was "brilliant! I could sleep in and be 'tweeting' and no one would know the difference." As Jeff says, timelied.

But, on a more serious note, time flies. I've spent my whole life, and will continue into my adult years, learning how to manage my time well. It's not something of natural evolution, at least for most people. It's just part of the human struggle, making the best use of our time with what hours we have in a day's work.

So, Timely.is may just be an application but it has two major benefits for the user: it saves us physical time, and it allows us to focus on what tasks we have at hand, by being completely present.

An Application With a Mind of its Own

Developed by Flowtown, a team of social marketing innovators, Timely.is is a smart application. It allows us to schedule a given number of tweets (three by default,) and delivers them at spaced intervals throughout the day. What may seem like random times, are actually the product of specific calculations.

Timely.is relies on an algorithm that takes data from our Twitter accounts, and calculates what times of the day we are most likely to reach our audience and followers. It gets to know us based on when we tweet, and how often, and takes all of that data into account. For a more detailed explanation, you can read about it here.

So, we make the best use of our time. When we have a free moment or two, we can add tweets to our queue. There are surely things your company should be sharing; whether it's relevant news to potential partners, customers or clients, or a simple statement. Realistically, what working professional has the time to constantly engage with their community via social media? Not many.

Listening and Engaging is a Balancing Act

It's important to stress that applications are here to assist us, not replace authentic human transaction. Social media loses its value when only used to broadcast messages on a schedule. This will only work in conjunction with (a bigger role) in listening. Responding to those in our community is essential to grow the relationships we want to have with clients and customers.

Respectively, no one likes the guy in a board meeting whose eyes never move from his phone. We can't let ourselves become so attached to new technologies that we forget how to be social in real life.

As a kid I was often told, "You can tell a lot about a person by the way they shake your hand." I still believe it. I've always believed in authentic, face-to-face communication. Our interpersonal demeanour is certainly important, both online and offline. Adopting these new technologies can help us in balancing our social demands.

Finding a Voice Through Social Media

I sat down with four local professionals to pick their brains about jumping on the social media bandwagon. I wanted to know why they chose to put themselves out there and engage in these new relationships, and what they've learned through the experience. Here's what they had to say:

Finding a Voice Through Social Media by Sociallogical

A few great quotes from what they had to say:

"If you've outsourced your voice, you're not the one building the relationship" - Mel Norton, Lawson Creamer

"We put the megaphone in everyone's hands so we could all speak and represent the brand" - Greg Hemmings, Hemmings House Pictures

"The results have been amazing. Just terrific." - Glen McLean, Java Moose Coffee

What has your experience been using social media? Have you hired others to speak for you or have you been able to find your voice already? Let us know in the comments below.

Social Is Meaningless When Technology Is The Focus

For a long time now, I thought that many businesses were reluctant to use social media because the technology and its adoption scared them. But now that many businesses have plugged in, I think the issue for many is that people scare them.

Bringing people into the organization that weren't there before is the phenomenon that businesses need to really understand and get comfortable with. The implementation of technology, believe it or not, is the easy part. Like any other product; you can buy it, if you need to, and consult with others on best practices.

But nothing will save a business in this new social world if they really, deep down, don't want to get to know their customers and partners on a personal level. Developing a relationship is essential to understanding what people want and how we can help them.

A Friend Who Forgot What 'Social' Meant

I was talking to a friend in business recently who felt overwhelmed by all of this social business stuff. They were using all the technologies available to them and growing in their understanding of it. But they were without a strategy to respond to an immediate need, and couldn't figure out where to even start.

"Talk to people who have had this problem before," I said.

"Through Twitter, Facebook, how?" was the reply.

"Pick someone, call them and ask them if you could take them to lunch. You know them, they are a friendly acquaintance, and they would probably be happy to help."

Surrounded by new media, we have forgotten how to be social. Many of us have forgotten that the relationships we build are what drives social business. And the quicker we can get our technology in place and our teams comfortable using it, the sooner we can start transforming how our businesses run so that people and relationships are the focus and the reason, once again, for what we do.

I'm a Brand, You're a Brand - First Impressions In a Social Media World

Jeff Roach said something to me recently that stuck. In his experience, it’s easier to spot a fake online than in real life. I think he’s on to something.

Think about getting ready for an interview. Essentially, you can be whoever you want to be. We’re given an empty canvas to paint ourselves however we see fit. When it comes to landing a job, first impressions are everything. The way we dress, speak and use body language all converge; working in our favour or against us.

But you already knew that.

We’ve had our whole lives to test social reactions in real life. It’s in our nature to appear a certain way to please those around us.

Let me give you an example. Some people are actors from birth, whether they want to be or not. Imagine a man who lived his whole life as a heterosexual male, married with kids. Then, one day in his fifties he comes to work dressed as a woman. It shocks the hell out of everyone around him, and it should. But it happens.

Social media is still so new in our lives; we don’t have the experience or the “tried and true” tactics to rely on. It’s all an exercise in experimentation. It will be a while before online behaviour has been studied in a way that’s useful and significant. We don't know enough about it.

But one thing is certain: how we act on social channels will inevitably affect us.

Most people see your Facebook profile before they see your resume.

Diane Cole is one of the most driven people I’ve ever met. She’s also one of the few twenty-somethings I’ve encountered who takes social media seriously. Having worked as a journalist at Here magazine and now as a producer at Accessible Media, she knows that being a professional applies online as much as offline.

“Everyone is their own brand now as a result of social media. You have to maintain your brand in order to get anywhere now. You have to keep up with trends and new or popular platforms and learn how to manipulate those in new, fresh ways in order to get noticed.”

When you think of online profiles as "personal resumes" it's kind of scary. Interactions online feel very informal, so self-monitoring is essential. We have to think seriously about how we market ourselves, keeping in mind that authenticity is everything. People don't connect to a brand. People connect to people.

Bain & Company is a world leading business consulting firm. They also believe in social media. The company studied over 3,000 consumers to establish what makes social media effective in the industry.

"We found that customers who engage with companies over social media spend 20 percent to 40 percent more money with those companies than other customers. They also demonstrate a deeper emotional commitment to the companies..."

We want to help your business grow a community around your brand. Social media is the avenue for building these relationships. It's the fastest way to engage customers, and more importantly, it's on their terms. Learn to inbound market and let people come to you.

Sociallogical is founded in helping business professionals find a voice in their community. We don't believe in speaking on behalf of our clients. Who better represents you than you?

We exist in an era where an online presence is integral. It's become a pre-requisite; basic, elemental, expected.

But jumping onto social media platforms without a roadmap would leave anyone feeling overwhelmed. Dialogue on social channels consists of a lot of noise. The challenge is in understanding how to tap into the right conversations. We have the tools and the expertise to show you how. Let's talk.

New Year Plan: What Sociallogical Will Do in 2012

In 2012 we will be useful to people who want to learn how to grow social, community-empowered businesses. Not that we weren't in 2011, but usefulness will become our obsession as we put the work of setting up a business and figuring out who we want to be behind us.

1. Our courses will be essential tools and our partners will be fellow mentors.  In 2012 our online courses will become platforms for other consultants and team leaders to use to educate and mentor their own people. So people can learn when they want and connect with people who can mentor them for many years to come.
2. New courses we produce this year will be even more helpful. Online social business courses that drill down into professions such as public relations, human resources, as well as skills such us understanding video in daily story telling will all be part of our releases in the New Year.
3. We will share what we learn through our social channels to keep people on top of current ideas, approaches, strategies, and tools. And we'll do it in a way that makes sense for each network. For example, we will share and converse a bit differently on Google+ than we do on Twitter because people relate differently and have different expectations on each network.
4. We will make sure that our people are available and accessible. Using new tools like Clarity.fm we'll be helpful when people need us most.
5. We'll be online and in the flesh, building relationships and sharing our insight with people who want to change and grow, and become more human in how they approach business and the people that they help.

A Growing, Collaborative Work Culture

To try to explain the culture we intend to grow in 2012, I couldn't say it better than Jason Fried in explaining how his company, 37signals operates (below). We use their products and consider them the most useful and helpful tools in our daily operational toolkit. It makes sense that they are bulit by a culture that is the model we are growing Sociallogical on.

Jason explains it best himself in this interview with Inc Magazine:

Useful, Partner, Produce

Following Chris Brogan's suggestion, our 3 words for 2012 are: Useful, partner, and produce. In addition to being useful, we will seek to partner with great people with great insights who can help us produce useful products, content, and advice.

It's going to be a great year!

[pics] Cool photos from the elephant parade in London awe.sm/5ceuP #learnsocial

— Sociallogical (@soclogical) December 31, 2011

What is #learnsocial? A Community For Learning Social Business.

#learnsocial is a hashtag used by people who are learning social and mentoring each other on growing social businesses. If you want to get in on this conversation, listen to users who use the tag in their posts on Twitter and Google+ and start using it yourself.

A hashtag is a community. By using tags and listening to them, we all stay connected to conversations around a community's interests.

Twitter

Create a stream in your Twitter client for #learnsocial and pay attention to the conversation and information that might help you grow in your social business practice.

Google+

Search #learnsocial and hit the 'save to search'. In the left margin you will then see #learnsocial that you can click any time to see what's being posted to the community there.

Linkedin

We also created a Linkedin Group where anyone can join and mentor each other on social business. Post an article, ask a question or answer a question on the leading business network.

Why We Started This Tag

Two simple words that describe what everyone will need to do in the coming years: learn social

Our intention is to create a community, starting with students who get a kickstart learning the ropes in our courses, who can support each other with what they are learning, useful tips they've found, and perspectives on what works, what doesn't and why.

We Are Listening

The team at Sociallogical is listening to these streams and helping wherever we can. We're also encouraging our students to jump in and share with each other while they're learning and long after they've finished a class.

In a few years we won't even call it social. It will just be business and life. But it's a big adjustment for businesses and their people. Changing how we run and grow businesses is best learned from other people. And mentorship is something we believe in.

Join us in using #learnsocial and tell us how we can help you learn.

Nobody "Gets" Social Media in the Beginning. Nobody.

Everyone you know who loves using social media didn't understand it in the beginning either.

Especially in business, most people still don't quite grasp how to use it to grow a company and serve people better. And those who do were once as confused and curious as everyone else.

Turning On The Lightbulb

The first time I saw Twitter in 2007 it seemed very silly to me. At the time, people compared it to the status updates on Facebook, which to me were the most annoying feature of the new network. I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to read a stream of status updates.

Until 2008 when my friend David explained it to me. We were on a trade show floor and he said "look around this room at all of these people having conversations with each other. Now imagine if you could listen in on any of those conversations and interject when you like." It blew my mind!

Now Twitter blows my mind as the most efficient way of keeping me in touch with the news and media that the people I know share.

Mentorship Is The Only Way To Learn Social

Last night I asked a few friends online if they had a eureka moment when the lightbulb went on and they really understood social media for the first time. Most of them did. But ALL of them said they learned as they went with advice from friends. It's just not something that comes naturally to most of us.

@davidalston on learning social: "Twitter was october 2007 at the PRSA show in Philly. Marcel set up my BB and I took in the show while having to work the booth. I also made new connections at the show and watched how Kami Huyse performed PR for the show on the fly."

And why should it? When we were children our families mentored us on how to socialize: "smile when you say hello", "It's not polite to stare", "look at people when they are speaking to you", "don't fidget", "open the door for the person coming in behind you". How would we have known these things if someone who cared about us didn't tell us?

No Metaphors

It makes sense that people wouldn't understand social media at first and how it applies to business. We have nothing we can compare it to. So learning how to use it is a challenge.

@davergallant on learning social: "It was a progression for me. I always knew it was a massive shift in the way we communicate. One lightbulb moment was when I recognized how much easier it was to reach our degrees of separation than before. Another was when I started investing as much in my online relationships as my offline."

Everything else the internet has brought us resembles something we already understood. Email made sense because it was the same as postal mail that we've exchanged for hundreds of years, except electronic. In Web 1.0 websites were just a new way of sharing brochures and the type of static content we find in print materials.

Blogs were the first personal, social tool that I remember having a hard time adjusting to. This new form of self-publishing seemed kind of narcissistic to me and I couldn't see myself doing it. I wondered who really cared about my opinion? Now the opinions of others make up most of my daily reading. We all adjust.

But Web 2.0 and the online social revolution has brought us a connectivity that the world has never known: Mass two-way communication!

That has never happened. Ever. And it takes some getting used to.

I'm curious to know about other's experiences getting online in a personal way. In the comments below, please tell me if you remember a moment when the lightbulb went on and you "got" social media?

Accelerating Mentorship - Clarity.fm Connects People to Guidance

The Sociallogical Team is for hire at any time by anyone who wants our mentorship by using a new service our friend built called Clarity.fm. I just added a link to my Clarity account from my Google+ profile and labelled it 'Mentor for Hire'. Anyone who signs up, can call me and pay by the minute for guidance, advice, or to just pick my brain about a big or a small decision that they know I can help them with.

Clarity handles the call from start to finish. Just hit the 'Call Now' button and Clarity will call me first to check that I'm available and, if so, we'll talk! If not, I can call you back later. So there's no need to even schedule an appointment. It handles the transaction between us and anyone can have access to my help any time I'm available!

The nature of our business is guidance and education. In transforming to social business practices, our clients are all learning how to be themselves online and how to represent their businesses in a personal way. Fear weighs heavy for some and others just don't have a sense for what works to build relationships. Strategically connecting to our communities of support isn't something we all just naturally know how to do and it's often a lonely and confusing time when you're getting your feet wet in this very public, personal media world.

Mentorship is the perfect approach for social business consulting and is the backbone of Sociallogical's new courses, the support teams we build for our clients, and now we are available at the drop of a hat to mentor our clients when they need us.

A Mentor In Your Pocket

Designed with the smart phone UI top of mind, clients can bookmark Clarity on their home screen, open the web app from their phone and contact any mentor they need - who could be anywhere in North America - as a local call (see below screenshots of how I did this on my phone)

Future plans for Clarity will make it an increasingly indispensable productivity tool for people who make a living on the value they provide with the advice they have to give. New functionality is added to the service every day.

A true consumer-based web service built in New Brunswick, Canada using a lean startup approach, Clarity isn't in alpha or beta, it's just being built, one piece at a time. It's being used by friends who understand it and share passion for its growth, and anyone who hears about it and wants to be part of making it better and better. The company is making money and enabling mentors to make a living, right now, right out of the gate. That's a model we need more of on the east coast.

This is an exciting new development in the world of connected business and we are very excited to be early adopters and supporters of such an incredibly useful tool. Try it. Call me.

Client Connectivity | Reflecting The Think City Back To Itself

The Think City is a project that has consumed most of the last decade of my life and it finally went live last month.

It is the online community for the ICT industry of Saint John that reflects the confidence, ambition, and unique characteristics of our community here. Here is an excerpt from the proposal we provided to Enterprise Saint John last Spring:

"Saint John is the East Coast’s urban technology sandbox. Heritage architecture, professional service support, the most advanced Internet infrastructure in the world to the greatest proportion of homes and businesses, all in a vibrant urban setting and a connected community." - Sociallogical

While the RFP spoke heavily about a website, our proposal made it clear we wanted to build an online community so the people and their activities show wants happening here and the energy of this place. If we know each other and share with each other we will offer countless points of attachment for visitors and partners who wish to plug-in to what we have going on here.

Identifying Our Best Assets With Our Brightest Activists

I have been growing New Brunswick's ICT sector for over a decade, chairing an ICT conference, as propel ICT's Executive Director and now as founder of an ICT company. These roles have put me in relationship with the people most active in building our ICT businesses. So on the first day after being awarded the contract, I requested meetings with 10 of our thought leaders from Saint John, Fredericton, and Moncton.

My list was not determined by influence, wealth, or number of employees under their command. Instead, the people on my thought leader list were people who I have learned also obsess about growing our community and helping others to grow their businesses and careers. It was a pretty long list for such a small city and it was hard to choose my top 10. (So I continued to add to my list over the summer).

I asked each person 3 questions:

1. What are our most unique assets in Saint John that are important to the ICT sector?
2. What are the main challenges to bringing people to join ICT here?
3. What are our 3 biggest opportunities for growing ICT in Saint John?

I came up with a 4th "bonus" question to satisfy my curiosity as we talked: "if we get this project right, what would be the ideal outcome?"

Amazingly, the answer to that question was almost unanimous: "people would stop asking if there is really an ICT industry in Saint John." And that became the goal for The Think City.

I wanted to take that goal a step further. As Chris Boudreau said, "all the excitement, investment, and priority created in this city by the 'Energy Hub' needs to be repeated, focused this time on our very real, very measurable ICT opportunities." This is how I continue to measure the success of this project.

Pulling Our Stories Out of Our People

The Think City is home to dozens of amazing stories such as:

• The inside scoop on our big wins like radian6 and Genesys and their roots in the people of Saint John and New Brunswick.
• Our leaders who laid fibre under our streets decades ago when their colleagues around the world thought they were nuts.
• Our big brains who have created intellectual property that has fueled amazing innovation and wealth in companies outside our region.
• The non-ICT business leaders whose careers have been uniquely shaped by simply being amoung such collaborative, creative people here.

In August 2011, we helped Enterprise Saint John and the City of Saint John decide that the time was right to throw its hat into the Intelligent Communities Forum ring to be named a Smart City.

We benefited from great advice and encouragement from people such as Ben Champoux of Moncton who shared with us how positive the experience was for his city and offered his help. Lisa Hrabluk put the application together and her research turned into some of the best early content for The Think City.

What It Is

People. Think City Ambassadors are what we are calling the growing list of people who make themselves available to anyone, from here and away, that wants to reach out and talk to someone about what it's like to live and work in ICT here.

There are strong leaders and energetic champions in every corner of our ICT companies and a lot of us here know who they are. But for those who don't we hope The Think City pulls them out and gives them a vehicle to use their leadership skills and passions to lead more, do more, and attract more people to their causes and help us all grow.

Our local ICT community has always had glue that pulls people together - in the past, NBTel and propel ICT have been the glue of our coming together (propel continues to be with an amazing passion and focus for new business acceleration).

The Think City takes advantage of the scale, reach, and familiarity that social media provides us and floods us with our own stories and successes that many of us have never known or have forgotten. We are remembering again and sharing so everyone can know and be motivated to build on our amazing heritage. The Think City  is the new glue for urban ICT.

What It's Not

There is no grand plan to suck ICT workers away from our neighbouring cities and to steal the thunder from the successes of our region. In this global market, if we see our neighbouring cities and businesses as our competition, we are all in huge trouble.

Instead, it identifies our unique value as what truly is the only urban ICT campus on the east coast. While most North American cities have struggled to cluster their ICT businesses, Saint John, for some reason, finds itself with a significant majority of our ICT companies naturally clustered all in one neighbourhood with the professional resources and cultural amenities that feed a potent creative energy around them.

Urban is not for everybody and many people and companies are going to look for alternative environments and resources. But for those who want urban and are drawn to the advantages of a talent pool physically located near each other, this is the place for that on Canada's east coast.

To date we have featured Fredericton and Moncton as our neighbours with strengths and assets that we rely on here and can't grow without. We have maps that show how close we are and how easy it is to commute between our cities and we plan to go further in building ties with our partners. It is the role of each community to decide their own unique value and to share it. And The Think City will amplify those communities as they grow online and include them with our own.

What We Hope It Will Become

On each channel - Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, Google+ - the people who work in ICT will talk to each other, share their stories, successes, challenges, job posts etc. People will plan seminars, milestone events, tweetups, Startup Weekends, and more and we will all know about them, attend them, and support them by sharing and feeding them with our personal perspectives added.

We also hope that it will attract our neighbours to join us. Every day people drive down the road to and from our neighbouring cities and work with people to build ICT companies throughout our region and the world. We hope that the identifiable community we start here will be a benefit to our neighbours in demonstrating an attractive urban option nearby and a resource for collaboration.

The purpose of The Think City is to create an identity and a community that we can put our finger on and say "that's the ICT community of Saint John, New Brunswick".

Saint John is going to stop trying to be all things to all people and we are now focusing on what we really are and reaching out to the those who want that. When the world finds The Think City, they will find a community. A social, urban ICT sector that wants new people to come join us in building our businesses and actively helps people who show an interest.

During our thought leader discussions the words "gritty", "determined", "survivor", "social", and "global" were often repeated in an endearing way, especially by those from our neighbouring cities. That's what we are so that's what we need to represent. And I, like many others here, find those qualities incredibly attractive.

The project isn't 100% complete and, if things go the way I hope, it never will be. There's always something we could make better, new functionality to add, new layers for the maps. But if we engage the community we'll have a lot of talented people who can help add these things and tell their stories into our social channels in whatever way interests them. Sociallogical's contract is complete. We are all members and builders of The Think City now.

Why This Project Matters

We stumble into each other every day and talk business standing in the street as we cross paths between meetings. We talk in our gyms, our coffee shops, restaurants, boardrooms, and parks. We collide with each other because we are an urban campus at a time when place matters more than it ever has in history. And we work in a collaboration economy that depends on strong social fabric for success.

We talk to each other proudly and supportively every day in Saint John. Let's take it online and become champions for each other and a fine way of life.

Client Connectivity | Putting the Real Value Out Front

Judithmackin.ca went live this week, bringing together 12 years of creative work, unique experiences, and collaborative relationships of a very gifted person who I am very proud to have had the opportunity to assist.

The new site is the focal point of a carefully considered strategy  to help Judith become as accessible as possible and to extend the collaboration and dialogue on design that Judith has been sharing with her clients and friends for many years under a collection of successful companies she has built: Punch Productions (events), Punch Inside (interiors), Into the Wild (construction) and - coming soon! - Tuck (decor).

How We Started

What we identified early on is that Judith Mackin is, above all, a curator of design. The question we answered in the early days of planning this strategy is "If you were to recommend Judith Mackin for something, are you recommending Judith or one of her companies?"  For example, if you want a fantastic event planner do you call Judith or Punch Productions? Our view is that Judith is the creative talent that you are hiring and her businesses are the vehicles for service support and delivery.

It's actually a great model and there was a simple answer to solving the problem of how to connect with people socially while bringing the businesses with her: put Judith in front of the brands.

As I've said before, people connect with people, not companies. For businesses to be social, their people need to be social. And as the lead character in a cast of creative companies, Judith needed to put herself out front where she could develop personal relationships and share her insights and recommendations straight from the source.

Like every one of us who is socially online, there is only one Judith Mackin and she needs to express herself without splitting her voice or her interests. Her clients need to connect with her, clear of her many involvements, in a way that they are capable of doing with the social platforms we now have.

What We Did

As always, we started with the content available and it was plentiful. 12 years of great clients and super-interesting work will eventually find its way to the new site over the summer (Judith estimates about 30% of it is currently there, so stay tuned as more interesting work gets added).  On top of these stories are the ones she wishes to tell in the coming years as she meets new collaborators, new inspirations, and learns new things to share. We looked at how best to tell the stories behind it all and built a connectivity plan around it.

Again, people are interested in people and Judith's talent is definitely interesting. But it can feel limited when constrained by business units. It's hard to see the forest for the trees and I feel that we were most helpful to Judith in helping her to develop this focus, to understand social business, and to help her invest in relationships the way she has been all of these years - but now also doing it online.

We actually didn't do a lot of design work. As Judith has acknowledged, the great talents of previous collaborators on site design and corporate identity were brought into this site that Judith herself  had a greater hand in designing than we did. Doug Estey skillfully brought it together and understood Judith's design direction perfectly, but it was Judith's direction and her personality we were representing. Kelly Lawson, as always, took some amazing photos for us to choose from (including the one above) that grabbed Judith's true personality.

What To Expect

With this new online connectivity, expect to hear from Judith regularly and to enjoy a good conversation with her - not an assistant or colleague. Judith is fully connected and actively sharing her work and her inspiration online. Just like the President :)