Disruptive Conversations

Question for readers - do you have any examples of "corporate blog portals" that you think are done "right"?

One of my tasks with Voxeo will be to create a "blogs.voxeo.com" portal with some of the blogs that we are looking to launch. Obviously, I'm looking to learn from what others have done and come out with something that works well. Back in April, I posted the second round of my "Design Requirements for a Corporate Blog Portal" and that naturally serves as a background for my development, but I'm curious for feedback six months later... are there more items you think should be added to the list? (For instance, I'm thinking that a "tag cloud" would be a worthwhile addition.)

Do you have examples of companies you think did it well? I listed Cisco and Sun in my post, and a commenter suggested Edelman... and then there's the rather minimalist Microsoft MSDN portal. Do you have other suggestions?

Also, if any of you have built corporate web portals, do you have any suggestions for software? Anyone done it with open source solutions like Wordpress? Or have you used commercial software? Any and all suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks in advance if you have any suggestions for either corporate blog portals or software.

P.S. Ultimately, my aim is to capture all this inside of The New PR Wiki so that others can learn from this exchange.

Technorati Tags: blogging, blogs, blog portals

Are there any readers of this blog in the Burlington, Vermont, area who want to head up to Facebook Camp Montreal on Wednesday? I'm planning to go and given that the event starts at 6pm (and goes to 10pm) I'm figuring to start driving up around 2 or 3pm to avoid rush hour. Normally it's only about a 1.5-2 hour drive, but I've always found the traffic in the late afternoon to be horrid in Montreal.

Anyway, if there are any Vermonters reading this who want to head up, I wouldn't mind the company. Please drop me an email or call (802-735-1624).

P.S. If you don't speak French, no worries... neither do I. (Outside of the 20 or so random words I picked up from living in Ottawa for 5 years.)

Technorati Tags: facebook, facebookplatform, facebookcamp

Unless you have been under a rock for the past few days, you should by now be aware that Google released an API called OpenSocial. There is a new Google blog that had the announcement, which included this:

OpenSocial is a set of common APIs that will work on many different social websites, including MySpace, Hi5, Ning, orkut, and LinkedIn, among others. In addition, this allows developers to learn one API, then write a social application for any of those sites. Learn once, write anywhere, if you will. And because it's built on web standards like HTML and JavaScript, developers don't have to learn a custom programming language.

The list of OpenSocial partners is quite extensive... basically everyone in the social networking space except Facebook, but also including other companies such as Salesforce.com and Oracle. Having the big players like MySpace and LinkedIn is definitely key. Google has also provided a wealth of information:

• FAQ
• Articles (including tutorials to help get started)
• Documentation
• Developer's Forum

I find it all intriguing. There is a great amount of talk in the blogosphere about how this "tears down the walls" of social networks... and it does - in one aspect. It seems to me that this is really a direct shot at the Facebook Platform in that it gives application developers the ability to create applications that work across multiple networks. So from the point-of-view of a developer, this truly does open up the world of social networks. You can now write an app that is not just restricted to the confines of Facebook's walled garden, but instead can run in any of the other social networks out there (that support OpenSocial).

So it solves part of the problem out there in social networking... and it looks like quite a compelling way to do so. I'm certainly going to be reading the tutorials and experimenting with sample code.

But please let's remember that there are other issues with the walled nature of social networks. For instance:

• Why do I have to sign in with a different username and password to each of them? Why can't I just have a common (and secure) username/password that I use? (such as OpenID)
• Why do I have to recreate my friends list in each social network? (something the "social network portability" folks are looking at)

OpenSocial lets apps be created that work across multiple networks. I commend the folks behind it and supporting it. But let's please remember that it solves only one part of the overall "open" issue.

I need to really play with it more before I can comment further. In the meantime I'm capturing here a number of links related to OpenSocial that I have found useful:

• Marc Andreessen: Open Social: a new universe of social applications all over the web - and also a screencast and screenshots
• It’s Official: Google + MySpace = OpenSocial
• Facebook’s dilemma: To be OpenSocial or not to be
• Read/Write Web: OpenSocial: Three Big Concerns
• Read/Write Web: Confirmed: MySpace Joins Google's OpenSocial (includes link to video from Scoble)
• Wired: Salesforce and LinkedIn: OpenSocial Means Better Business-Centric Apps and Services

Stay tuned for more...

Technorati Tags: apis, applications, facebook, facebookplatform, google, opensocial, socialmedia, socialnetworking

UPDATE: My camera did return to life. Based on something I saw on some web forum, I popped the battery in and out several times, after which it mystically returned to normal operations. It still makes me rather concerned... but I'm just glad to have it back!

UPDATE #2 - April 5, 2010 - I wrote this post back in 2007 and have actually switched this year over to using a Nikon D90 as my main camera. However, judging by the comments this post continues to receive, the Canon SD1000 still has this issue, and... many people seem to solve the problem by simply giving the camera a good solid whack on a hard surface or blowing compressed air on it.  I didn't have to do that, but others did.  Read through the comments for various suggestions and links... and obviously use your own discretion with regard to the risk you want to take (or not take) with your equipment. (i.e. the responsibility and choice is entirely yours if you whack your camera too hard and break it...)

Woke up this morning to find that my Canon SD1000 point-and-shoot camera that I carry with me all the time at conferences seems to have died. When I start it up, I hear 6 beeps and then get this error "Lens error, restart camera". Yikes! Switched out the battery. Switched out the memory card. Tried various incantations. Still dead.

Judging from comments I see in online forums here and here, this is indeed a bad thing. I'm not getting the "E18" error that people mention, but I'm getting the "Lens error, restart camera" error.

Suggestions are welcome if anyone reading this has had the issue and figured out how to fix it (outside of bringing it back to the store... which isn't an option for me until next week when I'm back in VT).

Technorati Tags: cameras, canon, e18, e18error

I am finally about to get in my car and head down to Boston. It's about a 4 hour drive and in the end I'll be checking into the Westin hotel adjacent to the BCEC where PodCamp Boston is being held tomorrow and Sunday. I'll be at the Social Media Breakfast tomorrow morning at 7am in the Westin, I'll be at the Podcamp party at the other hotel tomorrow night... and I'm giving a presentation first thing Sunday morning (9am) on recording podcasts using VoIP/Skype. I'll also be there for the rest of the day Sunday.

However, I won't be there during the day on Saturday due to another passion of mine. Instead, I'll be over at The Country Club where I be in a training session all day to be certified as a Level 1 Curling Instructor by the USA Curling Association. You may or may not know that I got bitten badly by the curling bug while living in Ottawa for 5 years and have been involved to a degree in helping with the efforts of the Green Mountain Curling Club to get the sport of curling going in the state of Vermont. Having a passion for teaching (of all subjects) I have wanted for some time to get certified as an instructor so that I could help teach clinics for the GMCC. Unfortunately the only date in the northeastern US for an instructor clinic that lined up with my schedule was tomorrow. (And I actually signed up for it back before PodCamp Boston planning had really gotten underway.)

So that's where you'll find me tomorrow... starting out talking about social media and podcasting... then throwing rocks at houses... then back in the social media world!

Right now, I'm heading out on the road... Good news is that I've got a couple of episodes of FIR queued up that will keep me going for most of the trip.

Technorati Tags: curling, podcampboston

In the "cool uses of Twitter" category, you can now follow the stream of conversation about this weekend's PodCamp Boston 2 via Twitter. Just go to http://twitter.com/podcamp to see the posts. If you are a Twitter user, follow the podcamp account and those posts will appear right in your normal Twitter feed.

The cool thing is that to contribute to the "podcamp" stream, you simply need to start following the 'podcamp' Twitter user and then type "pod" followed by a space and a message as a Twitter update. Your post will appear in the podcamp feed after a minute or two. This was apparently set up by kosso and uses the Twitter API. Neat to see this kind of "group" functionality...

Technorati Tags: podcampboston, twitter

Over on my Disruptive Telephony blog, I posted about who my new employer is - Voxeo, and you can read the details over there. Here, though, I thought I'd just mention a couple of items.

First, one of the exciting aspects of my new role is that social media is an explicit part of my job description. It's not all I'll be doing... or even the primary thing I will be doing (although it will be one of the primary tasks initially)... but it will certainly be part of the role. Some of the work will be to set up external blogs and podcasts for Voxeo focused in a couple of different areas. More on that as it evolves. Other parts of the work will be to look at using social media behind the firewall for internal communication and capture/retention of corporate knowledge. It will be both fun and challenging and I'm looking forward to it.

Second, I think it's interesting to note how I wound up with the job. They found me through my blogging. They said in part that they found my blog through the post I wrote about how the phone no longer matters, which wound up getting some good distribution and links within the blogosphere. Once at my blog, they saw my posts about being let go from Mitel and the type of roles I was seeking... and it happened that they had been talking about bringing someone onboard to do those precise type of roles. They hadn't posted a job description but were considering this... and contacted me as a result of seeing my posts about being available. I haven't really distilled that all down into specific "lessons" yet, but it is interesting to me to see that the experiment of being very open in blogging about the whole employment transition did in fact work for me. There's also a lesson there about writing provocative posts that are done as deliberate link-bait to try to bring in readers to the blog. It all seemed to work... at least this time. It was definitely an interesting experiment.

In any event, that's the story. Again, you can read more about my new employer over on my Disruptive Telephony blog.

Technorati Tags: danyork, voxeo

Anyone see any issue with this web page? (click on the image to see a larger version)

So if I don't have a choice... if I can only sign up for 1 day, why give me the illusion of choice and require me to enter something in a useless field? Sheesh...

(And yes, I realize it is probably because this "SmartCity" software is deployed in many locations and in this particular location of Orlando, Florida, whoever is running it set the maximum allowed to one day. Still, you would think that someone could have made the software so that if "max = 1", the user wasn't given a choice. It's just bad design in my opinion.)

Technorati Tags: web, userinterfaces

Life takes very interesting turns. Yesterday afternoon I faxed off my acceptance of an offer from ... (Read the rest over on my Disruptive Telephony blog. :-)

Technorati Tags: danyork

If any of you: 1) are attending the IABC Heritage Region Conference next Monday and Tuesday near Cincinnatti (it's actually in Kentucky); and 2) are a Facebook user, I have now created a Facebook event for the conference. Given that the conference is happening so soon, there's obviously not much pre-conference networking that can be done. Still, it will be interesting to see if IABC members in this region (northeastern US) are also Facebook users (and are going to the conference).

I'll be there... getting in late on Sunday (missing the opening reception at an acquarium that sounded rather nice!) and doing my "Podcasting 101" session on Tuesday. If you are an IABC member attending the conference, please do say hello!

Technorati Tags: conferences, facebook, podcasting, iabc, socialmedia