DaveBirchall.com on Business Technology

Archive for June, 2009

WAIT! I’m not here to evangelise Twitter or to pick news items out of it merely because it seems to be a slow news day. There’s enough of that out there already. The merits of Twitter still need to be demonstrated to me. To me, it seems like the digital equivalent of entering a sports arena full of people all shouting random things at the top of their voice in the hope that someone is listening. This goes against the very basics of marketing – segment then target.

What I’d like to share with you is an experience I had last week that made me think there may be something more in this after all.

Last week it came to my attention that St Vincent de Paul held an annual fundraiser to give CEOs an experience of what it’s like to live on the street. A quick web search revealed that the annual CEO Sleep out was happening that night.

Later, in the lift, I joked with our CEO that he should attend. He said nothing but instead just gave me ‘that look’. You know, the one that says, ‘Stop talking. Now.’

An hour later he was back at my desk with a challenge. If I can raise at least $300 in sponsorship, he would attend. Within minutes, his profile was registered and an email went out to staff, friends and family asking for donations to put a CEO on the street for the night. I copied this email to my blog and used that as a gateway page. I created a tiny url to my blog and announced my evil plan to the twittersphere.

My profile has over 1,500 followers, so it made sense to twitter from that account rather than his. Using one of the fundamentals of offline networking, I asked for the referral and asked followers to spread the word with a retweet. Within minutes I was getting replies passing on the requirement to donate and make a CEO sleep rough.

In the next hour, I saw the fundraising total move past my $300 baseline target, and it didn’t stop there. The total continued to grow, $400 … $500, and I started to wonder how far we could push this.

I kept the updates flowing as the totals climbed and climbed. Before I knew it we were looking like we could be on track for $1,000. By the end of the afternoon we had raised $1,250 for charity from nowhere. It seems this Twitter thing could have legs after all.

Lessons learned

So what lessons can we take away from this experience? Lessons that we may be able to apply to using Twitter for business?

• First and foremost, understand that my tweets were not about selling anything or self-promotion. Instead, we used our twitter networks to spread the word about a greater good or worthy cause. To put it another way, get to know your network and deliver value to them. Send them links to news articles that you find which you think will be genuinely valuable to them. By default we raised our profile, but that was really a secondary outcome.

• Count downs. Twitter seems to be great for counting down to events or deadlines. “Only $125 to go before we break the $1k mark!” or “2 days left to register for the Business Solutions showcase.”

• Hash tags and keywords. Advanced users don’t really follow other users, they follow trends by using keyword digest tools or hash tags. Tweets relating to this event used the hashtag #CEOsleepout. In this way we knew that people who followed us from this activity were likely to be Sydney-based and networked at CEO level.

• Ask for a retweet. The benefits are obvious.

• It’s not about you. Nobody likes a show off, so start getting to know people and discover what you can do for them. Karma will pay you back, I promise.

• Use opposing concepts. A little trick I learned for writing an attention grabbing headline is to use two seemingly contradictory concepts in the same sentence. In this case, the CEO and the concept of sleeping rough were at odds with each other and invited people to click through to find out more.

• Use a landing page. There’s only so much you can do in 140 characters, so explain what you mean in more detail before you invite people to take action.

• Surprisingly, this didn’t take all afternoon. I still met my deadlines and had a full, productive afternoon. I simply took time out for a few tweets here and there.

Originally posted at http://anthillonline.com/how-i-used-twitter-to-put-a-ceo-on-the-street/

Tonight CEO’s and business leaders will sleep rough in order to raise money for charity. Every year St Vincent de Paul invites CEO’s to experience the hardship that is endured daily by Australia’s homeless for just one night. At the eleventh hour, I have registered our support!

Kareem, our CEO has pledged to take part on the proviso that at least $300 is raised for the cause. I have started the ball rolling by donating $30 to his fund. If you wish to support St Vinney’s and help counter the problem of homelessness or simply to see Kareem Tawansi sleep rough for your own personal enjoyment, please donate by following this link:

https://www.ceosleepout.org.au/donate/donate2/ceoId/4404

Please also feel free to forward this email in order that we can raise as much as we can.

p.s. Its tax time and deductions are available for donations above $2

I guess you have to be in IT sales to get this. All it takes is an afternoon of cold calling to understand why I find this funny.

Gatling Gun comic strip, war to fight

Most business leaders are so head down fighting the war that they forget to take a moment to think about the bigger picture. Maybe, you don’t need 1000 archers… maybe you need to keep pace with technology and do more with less

This is also a great reminder for me to get to the point and explain ‘what’s in it for them.’

I don’t have time to explain this but the video says its all. I’ll say one thing – This is cool!!!

Watch the video and then search for “Augmented Reality” on YouTube to see a world of new possibilities

Microsoft reveals its search for answers – web – Technology – smh.com.au.

This week we have seen a major development in the world of online search as Microsoft lifted the lid on their 2 year secret squirrel project.

Despite the fact that there has been very little hype of lead up to the launch it seems to have become very big news in the media and the blogosphere.

The new search experience from Microsoft

Perhaps the reason behind the hype is not so much what it does but who is behind it. Its clear that Microsoft is taking a huge swipe at the Google incumbancy of online search and for good reason…

According to SMH the Australian search market alone is estimated to be worth around $800 million. Its probably worth noting that this is not the first time that our Redmond friends have had a stab at this. It’s not that long ago that Live search was called MSN after all.

So is this just a re-branding exercise or is there some innovation that MS is bring to our search experience.

Well actually its seems that this is a space worth watching after all. In search, relevancy is everything. The relevancy of the results that google returned, combined with a fresh brand and interface was a large part of why Yahoo got knocked off its perch not so long ago.

Microsoft claims that you can ask Bing a question and it will return an answer, but I have to admit that my experience of Bing so far has returned a page of links. The experience is really no different to Google.

More functionality is due down that track that will similar technology to mash-ups or aggregation sites so I think its a bit early to make a full assessment. On thing is for sure, if MS want us to start ‘binging’ things, they have one hell of a fight on their hands!

Like I say, watch this space.