Amazon owns 1-click shopping on the web. So its not a surprise for
Amazon to make our long-due dream of making our household appliances
smart - with 1-click push of a button. The Amazon Dash Button launched
today!
How we hate to go shopping for Diapers and Garbage Bags
The
product person is me is impressed by the design of the slick button,
the tap of the button synonymous to the 1-click action we associate with
Amazon brand and how it reduces friction in purchasing non-fun
essential items like soap, coffee, garbage bags, printer paper, shaving
cream and diapers. And it seamlessly extends Amazon's commerce business right into our home.
Have you seen Flic the Wireless Smart Button on IndieGoGo?
This is a generic 1 click IOT button a startup is planning to build.
Watch the video, it is hilarious!
Amazon
offers the IOT device, the App, the platform and owns the inventory of
the brand consumables. So they are able to offer a seamless frictionless
experience for the consumer setting it up for success.
My Take on Whats Behind the Dash Button
It
looks like the button is a Bluetooth device that communicates with
Amazon App on your smartphone and uses the Phone's connection to order
online. Amazon is giving a custom button for each brand so it
simplifies it for consumers to order particular consumables. So you get a
button for Tide and stick it to your washing machine and another button
for your coffee maker. Each Bluetooth device has a unique Mac address.
When you set it up first time, it will tie to your Amazon identity and
let you configure (I am guessing here) some sizes/quantity/type of the
item to get to a particular SKU in Amazon's catalog. Subsequently when
you press the button it tells the App to order that item and sends an
alert giving the user the freedom to cancel the order.
Once
you order the item, subsequently the order tracking comes via mobile
alerts using Amazon app. This is comparable to alerts from shopping
sites on Messenger Platform that Facebook launched last week at their
F8 conference.
IOT Design Simplicity extended to Commerce Experience
The
beauty of IOT devices compared to all tech innovations of the past is
how we are seeing simplicity in design and the good ones tie seamlessly
to a mobile App.
Amazon Dash Button is a simple button you can
stick anywhere on any appliance to remind you to order the refills. It
ties to the Amazon App and allows you to cancel your order giving user
the choice to do comparison shopping. This is such a subtle feature that
builds trust with users challenging them that Amazon has the best
price. It builds on Amazon's delivery convenience. It offers features to
track the purchase which all ties back to existing Amazon App.
Why this is win for Amazon and not any Retailer?
Amazon
owns the distribution of Prime customers where they have solved for the
delivery problem. Any other retailer will have the problem of
on-boarding users to adopt a new technology. And this ties seamlessly to
Amazon's inventory (for most cases). So they are deploying it for Prime
Customers only at launch, thereby strengthening the value of Amazon
Prime memberships.
Questions from a skeptical data mind
You know I love new innovations but also become schizophrenic trying to look at other sides
of every product roll-out. That's the best part I love working with
many different teams with multiple, smart viewpoints. The analyst in me wonders what Amazon data says (we'll never find this out) about the buying habit of people who buy consumables online. Do we go to Amazon to buy Diapers and end up purchasing lots of other stuff merchandized to us? Now will there be any cannibalization of such spending from users? It is possible that some product manager inside Amazon looked at this data and said, this is still the right thing for the customer
so lets do it and went ahead. Maybe they estimated the upside from the
scale of new purchases from the Dash button and the increased trust from
Prime customers offsetting this loss (if any).
Innovation Ecosystem - Dash Replenishment Service (DRS) for Device Manufacturers
Amazon offers a Platform API for device manufacturers called "Dash Relinquishment Service" to connect to leverage Amazon's authentication and payment systems, customer service, and fulfillment network.
Whirlpool
plans to offer re-ordering detergent. Brita is planning a connected
water filter that will measure water usage and re-order filters. Quirky
is planning a new connected device series called Poppy that offers a Pet
food dispenser, baby formula maker, pour-over coffee maker that can
measure usage and refills. Brother Printers will re-order ink cartridges
and paper refills. All of them plan to use Amazon's DRS service to
seamlessly order from Amazon.
Amazon has
left control with manufacturers to decide if they want to build in an
Amazon Dash like button in their device or bake the counting of usage
and ordering refill automated inside the device so they can manage their
own design for their brands while using DRS.
Are you as excited as me about this progress in IOT and Commerce? Share your thoughts in comments below.
Wednesday, April 01, 2015
Monday, March 30, 2015
F8 2015 Launches - Messenger for Commerce, Parse for IOT and Drones for Internet.Org - What more can you ask?
F8, Facebook's annual developer conference shows a glimpse of
Facebook's innovation for its own products and for its ecosystem of
entrepreneurial developers and marketers. This year's F8 (Mar 25, 26) top announcements
are Messenger Platform and support for Internet of Things to connect to
Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg shared a vision of how Facebook is now a set of apps on mobile and his team presented different innovations upon different Apps.
Messenger and Parse for IOT ( Day 1) and Drones for Internet.org (Day 2) are the top announcements that excite me most because of the beautifully designed products and strategic business opportunities.
Here's a 3 min summary of Day 1 #F8 announcements. Read on as I share what it means for you as a user or as a business.
What this means:
A. Messenger can call other Apps seamlessly from inside Messenger which allows users to share fun content like customized videos.
This will allow us to create multi-media content (video, modified pictures or fun annotations in video or pictures) using other apps and share within messenger. The receiver will see the content but also a link for the app that was used to create the content. This is similar to Applink, the deep-linking capability Facebook added last year. But this is very strategic for Facebook's business because now they can help other App developers download more of their apps right from messenger (like they offer with Mobile Ads) and can monetize it.
Another subtle implication of this brilliant design is how Messenger will show top apps to create new content for users. This is like Firefox showing a search box and can decide which search engine they show as the top choice driving traffic to that search engine. Now Facebook can impact the ranking and distribution of Apps in that category or decide on a ranking algorithm or charge for App developer to get more downloads and clicks.
B. Messenger can communicate to Businesses.
This has a huge Commerce implication and also a strategic shift in Customer Support facilitating 1:1 interaction with customers after a purchase.
When you buy a jacket from Patagonia, you now choose to receive the receipt via messenger. Then you can refresh the same message to track the purchase and delivery of the item.
From a product design perspective this means that the business becomes your 'friend' on messenger and now has a 1:1 channel to communicate with you, their customer. This brings a huge business opportunity for Facebook to monetize this traffic, engagement, customer support and influencer referral channels with businesses.
I am so excited about this!!! I'll play with the new Messenger Platform options and write a separate article.
More details here
What this means -This is exciting because of the goodwill of bringing internet access to remote locations. Also the sheer audacity of the idea and execution is exciting showing us that Facebook has innovative people and gives them room to execute their ideas taking us on the ride with them and building trust on all their other offerings as an innovative technology company.
Here's the Internet.org video showing the drones.
What this means:
Parse offers notification for mobile apps. Notifications are the alerts that reminds us about products we wanted to buy, games where our friends have out smartened us and email and message reminders, all bringing engagement back to Apps.
Now developers can use the Parse IOT library and send notifications from Internet of Thing devices to Facebook apps. IOT devices have several sensors which send alerts to companion apps. This offers the alert platform and saves developers the trouble of building this server side component.
This also offers a whole new feeds channel for Facebook and ties developers closely to Facebook via the Parse Platform. e.g Chamberlain App offers an IOT for your garage that can send an alert when the garage is open.
Here's an example code for a water planting IOT device shared on stage at F8
More details here
What this means:
Developers can understand how people in aggregate are using their Apps and make informed decisions on targeting users, or improving app product flow. For example cross device online Retailer Zulily is a Facebook beta partner. They found that for every 10 men and 10 women coming in 4 women add items to cart only 2 men added items to cart, then both men and women get the same purchase conversation from that step forward. This is analytics provided by Facebook. Zulily can use this insight and decide whether to add more inventory for men or focus marketing on women or take a different action to drive more revenues to their business.
More details here
What this means:
We log onto several web sites and mobile apps using Facebook Login. The conversation on an article stay on the web site, different from conversation on Facebook on the same topic. Now the conversation on a site (where we login using Facebook) will continue under the article shared on Facebook.
This is a complex piece of privacy logic that Facebook has implemented seamlessly. A comment on the web site will show up on Facebook for all to see. A users' comments to articles shared by friends in Facebook will show up on the site only if they allow for public sharing else it will be visible on the site only for their friends or friends of friends based on their setting.
This is a useful feature and a complex one to create a seamless user flow, so it is a good win for improved user experience from Facebook.
This is good for marketers as the conversations will not be fragmented and they can check holistic engagement of users.
More details here
What this means:
We can now share Facebook videos one external web sites similar to how we can put YouTube videos or Vimeo videos on our blogs or websites. Users share 3Bil videos shared every day on Facebook. This will create more video views and inventory for Facebook to potentially sell video Ads competing with Google.
More details here
Mark Zuckerberg shared a vision of how Facebook is now a set of apps on mobile and his team presented different innovations upon different Apps.
Messenger and Parse for IOT ( Day 1) and Drones for Internet.org (Day 2) are the top announcements that excite me most because of the beautifully designed products and strategic business opportunities.
Here's a 3 min summary of Day 1 #F8 announcements. Read on as I share what it means for you as a user or as a business.
1. Messenger Platform
David Markcus made this *huge* and strategic announcement! Messenger has opened up APIs for developers to connect their Apps to Facebook Messenger App.What this means:
A. Messenger can call other Apps seamlessly from inside Messenger which allows users to share fun content like customized videos.
This will allow us to create multi-media content (video, modified pictures or fun annotations in video or pictures) using other apps and share within messenger. The receiver will see the content but also a link for the app that was used to create the content. This is similar to Applink, the deep-linking capability Facebook added last year. But this is very strategic for Facebook's business because now they can help other App developers download more of their apps right from messenger (like they offer with Mobile Ads) and can monetize it.
Another subtle implication of this brilliant design is how Messenger will show top apps to create new content for users. This is like Firefox showing a search box and can decide which search engine they show as the top choice driving traffic to that search engine. Now Facebook can impact the ranking and distribution of Apps in that category or decide on a ranking algorithm or charge for App developer to get more downloads and clicks.
B. Messenger can communicate to Businesses.
This has a huge Commerce implication and also a strategic shift in Customer Support facilitating 1:1 interaction with customers after a purchase.
When you buy a jacket from Patagonia, you now choose to receive the receipt via messenger. Then you can refresh the same message to track the purchase and delivery of the item.
From a product design perspective this means that the business becomes your 'friend' on messenger and now has a 1:1 channel to communicate with you, their customer. This brings a huge business opportunity for Facebook to monetize this traffic, engagement, customer support and influencer referral channels with businesses.
I am so excited about this!!! I'll play with the new Messenger Platform options and write a separate article.
More details here
2. Drone for Remote Internet Access from Internet.org
Facebook is building Drones for remote locations to hover at 60000 feet and provide Internet access.What this means -This is exciting because of the goodwill of bringing internet access to remote locations. Also the sheer audacity of the idea and execution is exciting showing us that Facebook has innovative people and gives them room to execute their ideas taking us on the ride with them and building trust on all their other offerings as an innovative technology company.
Here's the Internet.org video showing the drones.
2. IOT for Parse
Ilya Sukhar announced Parse for IOT (Internet of Things). They offer a library for IOT devices and underlying chips of IOT like arduino to talk to Facebook's Parse platform to send notification alerts.
What this means:
Parse offers notification for mobile apps. Notifications are the alerts that reminds us about products we wanted to buy, games where our friends have out smartened us and email and message reminders, all bringing engagement back to Apps.
Now developers can use the Parse IOT library and send notifications from Internet of Thing devices to Facebook apps. IOT devices have several sensors which send alerts to companion apps. This offers the alert platform and saves developers the trouble of building this server side component.
This also offers a whole new feeds channel for Facebook and ties developers closely to Facebook via the Parse Platform. e.g Chamberlain App offers an IOT for your garage that can send an alert when the garage is open.
Here's an example code for a water planting IOT device shared on stage at F8
More details here3. Facebook Analytics for Apps
App developers will have a single dashboard to see Ad campaigns results across all apps and all devices with detailed analytics.What this means:
Developers can understand how people in aggregate are using their Apps and make informed decisions on targeting users, or improving app product flow. For example cross device online Retailer Zulily is a Facebook beta partner. They found that for every 10 men and 10 women coming in 4 women add items to cart only 2 men added items to cart, then both men and women get the same purchase conversation from that step forward. This is analytics provided by Facebook. Zulily can use this insight and decide whether to add more inventory for men or focus marketing on women or take a different action to drive more revenues to their business.
More details here
3. Unified Social Login with new version of Comments Plug-In
Facebook comments on sites and on Facebook will continue seamlessly with a new Comments Plugin for websites.What this means:
We log onto several web sites and mobile apps using Facebook Login. The conversation on an article stay on the web site, different from conversation on Facebook on the same topic. Now the conversation on a site (where we login using Facebook) will continue under the article shared on Facebook.
This is a complex piece of privacy logic that Facebook has implemented seamlessly. A comment on the web site will show up on Facebook for all to see. A users' comments to articles shared by friends in Facebook will show up on the site only if they allow for public sharing else it will be visible on the site only for their friends or friends of friends based on their setting.
This is a useful feature and a complex one to create a seamless user flow, so it is a good win for improved user experience from Facebook.
This is good for marketers as the conversations will not be fragmented and they can check holistic engagement of users.
More details here
4. Embedded video Plugin
Zuckerberg shows a futuristic sneak peak of spherical video taken using 24 cameras saying we can such videos on Facebook in the future. The announcement was about the capability to share Facebook videos on external web sites.What this means:
We can now share Facebook videos one external web sites similar to how we can put YouTube videos or Vimeo videos on our blogs or websites. Users share 3Bil videos shared every day on Facebook. This will create more video views and inventory for Facebook to potentially sell video Ads competing with Google.
5. Audience Network
Last year Audience Network launched for apps to monetize Apps. LiveRail also part of Facebook, will manage mobile banner ads. Facebook calls it 'People based approach' to monetization of user's audience network.More details here
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Fun Time in World of Tech with Meerkat and Periscope Video Broadcast Apps
Its a crazy and fun day to be a Tech consumer!!! Meerkat (launched last week in SXSW) and Periscope (launched today Mar 26th) offer live video recording making anyone into a TV broadcaster.
People are going crazy testing out video recordings while strangers watch, follow and send hearts. The videos range from dogs, cats, wife making soup, a girl offering to write any comment text in Chocolate as you watch, traffic updates, night sky view from many places round the globe, sleeping friends,.... I did a periscope of my garden and our dog and got 14 live viewers in a minute. (See montage of Day1 of Periscope below)
The funny one for me was this guy from Mexico who was talking non-stop and switched topic to whatever words we typed in comments. He was talking about bald head, dinosaurs as pet, and I said 'dry beans' and it was so hilarious to see him switch the topic and he said "Dry beans... Are ... Not Wet. The difference between dry beans and wet beans is ... moisture ...."
It is early early days! Periscope archives the videos for 24 hours while Meerkat does not. Periscope sends a stream of hearts allows us to click the hearts and the broadcasters line up hearts building a Leader board. Meerkat has a intuitive easy interface allowing us to find twitter friends to follow and I got 76 followers even before my first video but ran into crashes. Periscope got my video stream working right away after a minor audio hiccup. Periscope is now owned by Twitter so they cut out Meerkat's Twitter Social Graph access. Both have no parental control or ways to tag or access or search videos live or archived. Yet.
Both teams will iterate in typical silicon valley style (Meerkat is an Israeli startup) to understand who their real customers are what are the use cases to build upon.
2. P2P Video Communication In theory this is like Google hangout but with a super cool social interface. So people could use it for video communication of families, friends, events from around the globe. Meerkat looks like a video version of Snapchat as the videos are not archived but there is the added angle of 1 to many streaming adding interesting possibilities.
3. Real Time Events coverage/Activism We cannot forget the fact that both of these apps are riding on Twitter so the benefit we are seeing is all that we have seen and experienced on Twitter. Activism, Events live stream bring global news and communities together. People sharing live traffic updates etc are all common on Twitter now available in video format as the world is moving to videos.
4. Distance Education I am going as a judge to UCSC "Social Partners" class on Saturday and plan to live stream the students final presentations (hopefully students will be ok with it). Live videos of educational seminars, classes are low hanging fruits. Khan Academy was built on the backbone of YouTube, wonder if there will be a real-time version of it next?
The sheer diversity of possibilities and crazy ideas and being able to see the world from the eyes of so many others is the most fun, intoxicating part of this new real-time video broadcast from our mobile phenomenon.
Katch, a service calling itself "record button for Meerkat" was launched last week at the heel of Meerkat which launch at SXSW. You don't need to download a separate App. If you include the words #katch in your Meerkat video titles Katch picks up the videos from Twitter feeds and automatically uploads and creates a Youtube video. (Note -This katch app is different from the Saas Ad platform Katch.com)
Nostalgia
Do you remember Qik, they came up with the same concept of real time video recording on iPhones before iPhone officially supported videos and allowed us to upload to youtube and several sites as an option. I used to have a channel on Qik and record local Silicon valley events and video interviews live. Qik sold for $100Mil to skype in 2011 and Skype absorbed the video cloud platform technology and shutdown the consumer app in April 2014. Qik connected to many different carriers globally and had amazing features like video between two phones and store recordings for live watch by followers on the web. Another one is justin.tv when Justin Kan built a camera he wore on his head and livestreamed his life and scaled it to a Y combinator company (also 2007).
Part of me is nostalgic but if you are someone who has seen the Phoenix like rebirth of technologies you will share my optimism that the Qik team must be using their learning of technology problems solved to create some other innovation and the new Meerkat and Periscope teams will do something different with fresh new minds and we as consumers will find some different killer apps aligned with times today.
Let me know if you have tried Periscope or Meekat, Share your thoughts and some use cases you see evolve.
People are going crazy testing out video recordings while strangers watch, follow and send hearts. The videos range from dogs, cats, wife making soup, a girl offering to write any comment text in Chocolate as you watch, traffic updates, night sky view from many places round the globe, sleeping friends,.... I did a periscope of my garden and our dog and got 14 live viewers in a minute. (See montage of Day1 of Periscope below)
The funny one for me was this guy from Mexico who was talking non-stop and switched topic to whatever words we typed in comments. He was talking about bald head, dinosaurs as pet, and I said 'dry beans' and it was so hilarious to see him switch the topic and he said "Dry beans... Are ... Not Wet. The difference between dry beans and wet beans is ... moisture ...."
Products Innovating Live as we use it
Ruth Reader of Venturebeat has done a nice feature comparison between Meerkat and Periscope. I like having two options. Competition is good and will help drive good product features for both.It is early early days! Periscope archives the videos for 24 hours while Meerkat does not. Periscope sends a stream of hearts allows us to click the hearts and the broadcasters line up hearts building a Leader board. Meerkat has a intuitive easy interface allowing us to find twitter friends to follow and I got 76 followers even before my first video but ran into crashes. Periscope got my video stream working right away after a minor audio hiccup. Periscope is now owned by Twitter so they cut out Meerkat's Twitter Social Graph access. Both have no parental control or ways to tag or access or search videos live or archived. Yet.
Both teams will iterate in typical silicon valley style (Meerkat is an Israeli startup) to understand who their real customers are what are the use cases to build upon.
Early Use Cases
1. Citizen Journalism On a serious note, a building explosion in NY injured 30 people today. Persicope video streams starting sending notifications live from the scene instantly creating so many citizen journalists. Ben Popper of TheVerge wrote about how he saw periscope live video of the fire and his thoughts on evolving citizen journalism.2. P2P Video Communication In theory this is like Google hangout but with a super cool social interface. So people could use it for video communication of families, friends, events from around the globe. Meerkat looks like a video version of Snapchat as the videos are not archived but there is the added angle of 1 to many streaming adding interesting possibilities.
3. Real Time Events coverage/Activism We cannot forget the fact that both of these apps are riding on Twitter so the benefit we are seeing is all that we have seen and experienced on Twitter. Activism, Events live stream bring global news and communities together. People sharing live traffic updates etc are all common on Twitter now available in video format as the world is moving to videos.
4. Distance Education I am going as a judge to UCSC "Social Partners" class on Saturday and plan to live stream the students final presentations (hopefully students will be ok with it). Live videos of educational seminars, classes are low hanging fruits. Khan Academy was built on the backbone of YouTube, wonder if there will be a real-time version of it next?
The sheer diversity of possibilities and crazy ideas and being able to see the world from the eyes of so many others is the most fun, intoxicating part of this new real-time video broadcast from our mobile phenomenon.
Developer Ecosystem
Periscope founders in an interview to Product Hunt, the product launch site have said a developer API is coming soon. You can catch the periscope video of the interview for 24 hrs only from the interview link.Katch, a service calling itself "record button for Meerkat" was launched last week at the heel of Meerkat which launch at SXSW. You don't need to download a separate App. If you include the words #katch in your Meerkat video titles Katch picks up the videos from Twitter feeds and automatically uploads and creates a Youtube video. (Note -This katch app is different from the Saas Ad platform Katch.com)
Nostalgia
Do you remember Qik, they came up with the same concept of real time video recording on iPhones before iPhone officially supported videos and allowed us to upload to youtube and several sites as an option. I used to have a channel on Qik and record local Silicon valley events and video interviews live. Qik sold for $100Mil to skype in 2011 and Skype absorbed the video cloud platform technology and shutdown the consumer app in April 2014. Qik connected to many different carriers globally and had amazing features like video between two phones and store recordings for live watch by followers on the web. Another one is justin.tv when Justin Kan built a camera he wore on his head and livestreamed his life and scaled it to a Y combinator company (also 2007).
Part of me is nostalgic but if you are someone who has seen the Phoenix like rebirth of technologies you will share my optimism that the Qik team must be using their learning of technology problems solved to create some other innovation and the new Meerkat and Periscope teams will do something different with fresh new minds and we as consumers will find some different killer apps aligned with times today.
Let me know if you have tried Periscope or Meekat, Share your thoughts and some use cases you see evolve.
Tuesday, November 06, 2012
Congratulations Mr.President Loved Your Acceptance Tweet Today!!!
President Obama accepted the election victory with a tweet today.
Note: Tweets at @BarackObama are by Obama team but the one by the President are signed with - bo
Here are my favorites tweets and facebook updates as we celebrated the election results today.
This funny Tweet was how I found Obama Won from @@kellyanncollins! (Screengrab from her blog)
While he waited, Obama posted a Thank You message on BarackObama.com (Twitter, then Web)
My Favorite is a quick Limerick from Jeannie on my Facebook Feed.
For those who complain about Tweets being limited to 140 characters, checkout the victory excitement in even fewer characters!
Below is THE fastest ReTweeted Tweet in Twitter history (over Justin Beiber's past record)
My personal favorite is a spontaneous Geeky Tweet by Kim.
How can this election results be complete without a Binder full of Women!
Last but not the least is the Funniest Tweet Ever!
Note: Tweets at @BarackObama are by Obama team but the one by the President are signed with - bo
Here are my favorites tweets and facebook updates as we celebrated the election results today.
This funny Tweet was how I found Obama Won from @
While he waited, Obama posted a Thank You message on BarackObama.com (Twitter, then Web)
My Favorite is a quick Limerick from Jeannie on my Facebook Feed.
For those who complain about Tweets being limited to 140 characters, checkout the victory excitement in even fewer characters!
Below is THE fastest ReTweeted Tweet in Twitter history (over Justin Beiber's past record)
Thursday, August 09, 2012
Loving the iPhone is still cool
I have been part of the amazing experience of geek innovation at Iosdevcamp hosted at eBay for the fourth year in a row.
The iosdevcamp is an intense community driven event with 500 developers coming together to pitch ideas and form teams and build and launch 70 new IOS Apps on Sunday night.
All the hardwork is done by the volunteer team lead by Dom, Raven and Christopher and Jennifer
This year I organized a girls mentoring program from eBay Women in Technology.
Here is the full story (on ebayinkblog) and some video of the event.
The eWIT girls mentoring Montage bringing girls 5 to 15 to innovate and launch apps and win awards.
You can get a feel for the amazing entrepreneurial energy and ideas as they were developed on Day 2 here
I am happy with the eBay Women mentoring program and how the young girls inspired us.
I am not sure what I love more - Iphone community, entrepreneurial energy, tech innovation, community helping each other.
The iosdevcamp is an intense community driven event with 500 developers coming together to pitch ideas and form teams and build and launch 70 new IOS Apps on Sunday night.
All the hardwork is done by the volunteer team lead by Dom, Raven and Christopher and Jennifer
This year I organized a girls mentoring program from eBay Women in Technology.
Here is the full story (on ebayinkblog) and some video of the event.
The eWIT girls mentoring Montage bringing girls 5 to 15 to innovate and launch apps and win awards.
You can get a feel for the amazing entrepreneurial energy and ideas as they were developed on Day 2 here
I am happy with the eBay Women mentoring program and how the young girls inspired us.
I am not sure what I love more - Iphone community, entrepreneurial energy, tech innovation, community helping each other.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Top 3 of 5 Metrics to Measure Social Business Success
Businesses are struggling with how to evaluate the effectiveness of
their social media campaigns and several social media activities. Currently, most companies are using a
variety of metrics to measure diverse campaigns across multiple
departments. There are five
metrics that accurately measure success in terms of ROI and revenues
from social media for all enterprises, both big and small, B2B and
consumer web, and across multiple geographies.
I recently blogged on Gigaom about 3 of the 5 metrics to measure Business success.
I have outlined the issue with measuring this metric and interviewed some industry expert on what is the best practice today to arrive at each metric.
I am beginning the part 2 blog to outline the remaining two metrics.
I find that social media permeates businesses across all channels and we all have our view of it from our different corporate functions. In the end we all make money for our businesses while serving our customers and staying within ethical boundaries of the company and our own values.
So I find it fascinating at the discussions I got on the blog comments and Twitter on what people think about the remaining two metrics.
Read on and let me know what your thoughts are about what the other Top 2 metrics should be.
Also, let me know if you or someone you know should be interviewed for the Part 2 blog post.
I recently blogged on Gigaom about 3 of the 5 metrics to measure Business success.
I have outlined the issue with measuring this metric and interviewed some industry expert on what is the best practice today to arrive at each metric.
I need your valuable input now!
I am beginning the part 2 blog to outline the remaining two metrics.
I find that social media permeates businesses across all channels and we all have our view of it from our different corporate functions. In the end we all make money for our businesses while serving our customers and staying within ethical boundaries of the company and our own values.
So I find it fascinating at the discussions I got on the blog comments and Twitter on what people think about the remaining two metrics.
Read on and let me know what your thoughts are about what the other Top 2 metrics should be.
Also, let me know if you or someone you know should be interviewed for the Part 2 blog post.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Social Business Evolution Starts with Good Social Service, Thank You @CathayPacific
I had a recent experience with Cathay Pacific and want to share how Social Customer Service made a difference and some lessons for any business offering Social Service.
Cathay Pacific and me as a customer
First, I am fan of Cathay Pacific. I love flying on Cathay Pacific for my international travels. In the past, everytime I got to talk to a real customer service person on the phone or at the airport they were awesome. Service online is excellent.
However, web and phone which are traditional customer support channels fell short for Cathay Pacific support when I needed it this week.
1. Cathay's web site is functional but does not communicate well if something does not work because of a business rule. I ran into just that trap and began spinning my wheels early this week.
I changed my mother's Cathay Pacific ticket to a new date and could not get seat assignment done online. The online site told me I was eligible to get special seat assignment but gave no details.
2. Cathay Pacific has several local phone numbers for US and I recalled from my past interaction they have a separate number for eservice for tickets purchased online.
The eService number failed repeatedly saying the number does not work from the number I called (which was a local US phone I called from).
They have several local US numbers and the California number seems to work only from 9 am to 5pm California time. This number hung up on me saying there is large wait time everytime I called.
As a final resort I found Cathay Pacific has an international support number which is a Hong Kong number. I reluctantly called them as an international call staying up late at midnight my time. I had to choose several options which did not lead me anywhere.
Enter Social Media Customer Support
Frustrated and helpless, I did what I always do. I tweeted. I called out @cathaypacific and complained. My Twitter friends tweeted back empathizing saying it is bad if I had to do an international call for support.
@CathayPacific tweeted me and brought in @cathaypacificUS to the conversation.
Over the next 2 days I kept tweeting as I tried their various 800 numbers.
As I felt alone and helpless as the 800 numbers failed or hungup on me, I tweeted (see screenshot below). At it escalated I called out MarshaCollier who is the guru in Social Customer Service. So when my problem was solved Marha ReTweeted to her 42,000 followers.
@CathayPacificUS kept the engagement with me during this time. They sent me direct message on Twitter and found out that my ticket was of a particular class and hence I could get not get seat assignments. A twitter Direct Message in 140 characters could not solve my problem. I had more questions on why my ticket was of that class with the limitation.
But it served one purpose. It kept me engaged with CathayPacific. It did not make me lose faith in them as a brand. It did not encourage me to continue negative tweets.
They tweeted me saying a rep was going to call me and they did after a day. My ticket class type could get seat assignments only 48hrs before the flight time. This was never communicated to me on the web site or in my eticket. It was flaw in their online system, it was a flaw in their 800 numbers line management, it was a flaw in their communication to customers.
But this experience proved to me Cathay Pacific cared for me as a customer. They went out of their way to solve my problem. Thank You CathayPacific Twitter Support team.
Setting up Social Business Process for Social Customer Support
As I work in social media in a large company I wonder about these questions about Cathay Pacific:
1. How @CathayPacific and @CathayPacificUS are connected, what is their internal workflow to transfer a US customer complaint from their social listening platform?
2. Did they treat me differentlty in their Customer Service response because I had a large Twitter following? Or were they able to give such a response to all customers?
3. I wonder how they escalated across the Twitter Service and their regular phone reps to arrange for a rep to call me and I am thankful for that.
4. Calling a customer back is expensive, how would they measure the ROI of supporting me? I am happy and going to stay their continued customer and will likely tell a lot of others that Cathay Pacific is a good airline. Do they measure this differently or I was a spike in a call center cost because I was noisy on a social network?
5. Do they monitor their customer conversations and will my tweets add to the sentiments they track?
6. I have given valuable feedback on their online system that did not tell me my ticket class allowed me to get seat assignments only 48 hours earlier. I have given feedback on 800 numbers that do not work for US customers. Do they have a process in place to send my feedback to the correct departments? If so do they listen? Again, how do they measure the value of this customer feedback?
7. Now my perception of Cathay Pacific has changed from this cold website and 800 number to a personable brand with real people who care. Do they know and have a way to track the sentiment change of a customer served via
First, I am fan of Cathay Pacific. I love flying on Cathay Pacific for my international travels. In the past, everytime I got to talk to a real customer service person on the phone or at the airport they were awesome. Service online is excellent.
However, web and phone which are traditional customer support channels fell short for Cathay Pacific support when I needed it this week.
1. Cathay's web site is functional but does not communicate well if something does not work because of a business rule. I ran into just that trap and began spinning my wheels early this week.
I changed my mother's Cathay Pacific ticket to a new date and could not get seat assignment done online. The online site told me I was eligible to get special seat assignment but gave no details.
2. Cathay Pacific has several local phone numbers for US and I recalled from my past interaction they have a separate number for eservice for tickets purchased online.
The eService number failed repeatedly saying the number does not work from the number I called (which was a local US phone I called from).
They have several local US numbers and the California number seems to work only from 9 am to 5pm California time. This number hung up on me saying there is large wait time everytime I called.
As a final resort I found Cathay Pacific has an international support number which is a Hong Kong number. I reluctantly called them as an international call staying up late at midnight my time. I had to choose several options which did not lead me anywhere.
Enter Social Media Customer Support
Frustrated and helpless, I did what I always do. I tweeted. I called out @cathaypacific and complained. My Twitter friends tweeted back empathizing saying it is bad if I had to do an international call for support.
@CathayPacific tweeted me and brought in @cathaypacificUS to the conversation.
Over the next 2 days I kept tweeting as I tried their various 800 numbers.
As I felt alone and helpless as the 800 numbers failed or hungup on me, I tweeted (see screenshot below). At it escalated I called out MarshaCollier who is the guru in Social Customer Service. So when my problem was solved Marha ReTweeted to her 42,000 followers.
@CathayPacificUS kept the engagement with me during this time. They sent me direct message on Twitter and found out that my ticket was of a particular class and hence I could get not get seat assignments. A twitter Direct Message in 140 characters could not solve my problem. I had more questions on why my ticket was of that class with the limitation.
But it served one purpose. It kept me engaged with CathayPacific. It did not make me lose faith in them as a brand. It did not encourage me to continue negative tweets.
They tweeted me saying a rep was going to call me and they did after a day. My ticket class type could get seat assignments only 48hrs before the flight time. This was never communicated to me on the web site or in my eticket. It was flaw in their online system, it was a flaw in their 800 numbers line management, it was a flaw in their communication to customers.
But this experience proved to me Cathay Pacific cared for me as a customer. They went out of their way to solve my problem. Thank You CathayPacific Twitter Support team.
Setting up Social Business Process for Social Customer Support
As I work in social media in a large company I wonder about these questions about Cathay Pacific:
1. How @CathayPacific and @CathayPacificUS are connected, what is their internal workflow to transfer a US customer complaint from their social listening platform?
2. Did they treat me differentlty in their Customer Service response because I had a large Twitter following? Or were they able to give such a response to all customers?
3. I wonder how they escalated across the Twitter Service and their regular phone reps to arrange for a rep to call me and I am thankful for that.
4. Calling a customer back is expensive, how would they measure the ROI of supporting me? I am happy and going to stay their continued customer and will likely tell a lot of others that Cathay Pacific is a good airline. Do they measure this differently or I was a spike in a call center cost because I was noisy on a social network?
5. Do they monitor their customer conversations and will my tweets add to the sentiments they track?
6. I have given valuable feedback on their online system that did not tell me my ticket class allowed me to get seat assignments only 48 hours earlier. I have given feedback on 800 numbers that do not work for US customers. Do they have a process in place to send my feedback to the correct departments? If so do they listen? Again, how do they measure the value of this customer feedback?
7. Now my perception of Cathay Pacific has changed from this cold website and 800 number to a personable brand with real people who care. Do they know and have a way to track the sentiment change of a customer served via
I am still pondering who are the kind souls behind the Twitter Support in Cathay Pacific, how many of them are there and did I make their job difficult and do they know how much value their support and that they have earned me back as more loyal customer back for their company and brand.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Top 10 Consideration to build out Google+ For Business
Dear Google+ Business Page Team,
I have worked with Brand Managers and Marketing Execs on Facebook fan pages since its early days and have built brand pages for DEMO conference, AOL, PayPal, Intuit and several nonprofit brands. I want to share my experience here to help shape Google+ brand page experience to be better than that of Facebook fan pages and LinkedIn’s company pages today.
I have always loved Facebook fan pages but my heart goes out for its limitations. Facebook started with Groups then added fan pages, relaunched Pages and has adapted to growing demand from brands since then without (so it appears) a thorough customer study of enterprise brand processes and team roles.
So, Dear Google+ Team, I would like to offer these suggestions to help you create the best experience for brands. Please do not replicate the current Facebook Fan Page experience but build it based on a deeper understanding of customer use cases, roles and enterprise/team processes.
Top 10 consideration to building business brand pages:
10. Analytics is huge and Google+ team has made a great start in identifying analytics as one of the top two upcoming features. Please note that it is important to offer analytics from a brand’s perspective not replicate the Facebook insights offered in their pages today. Facebook added analytics after the fact and lot of Facebook insights are not actionable.
For example, Facebook analytics do not tie into a multi-channel campaign to compare how that channel is performing. So Google’s plans to connect your analytics to AdWords is a great start but please plan on a holistic approach to help us compare channels. Webtrends integrates Facebook Analytics by using Facebook API but it is not the same as offering an integrated analytics for multiple channels.
9. Facebook analytics for 'likes' when the fan page widget is embedded in a web page is awesome. This is a huge win for Facebook with their Open Graph Protocol. The metrics showing scale of growth of impressions is very important to get buy in for pilot projects before they scale social media ad budgets.
8. In Facebook for the longest time when a user creates a page, they became the admin and could not be removed (easily). Companies use agencies, students and consultants to create fan pages so the creator’s user profile has to be independent of the brand page once they are not associated with the brand or project. Facebook has since added this functionality and offers the page admin a choice to share feeds as two personas one as their consumer profile and one as the brand page. This gets confusing for people as they create and manage multiple brand pages and can be done with better usability.
7. Every brand has many pages for their main brand with several shared admin and several pages for brand extensions and different regions and languages owned by different groups inside the same company.
Please understand the roles of different players involved in the brand pages to set right access control. One admin adding many other admins in Facebook fan page as done today does not work for real enterprise social media teams. This will not come up easily in your market survey as this is a boundary condition and a pain of the social media guideline provider taking care of employees who transition out. Many social media pages have multiple employees as admins and not many brands worry about the liability of the ownership of the pages. They usually wake up to it one day. I have been part of the rush of many brands that go through a brand audit to check which of their pages are owned by someone inside their own company. Expect management time on your policy team’s part unless you build a self management module for a master admin for a large brand. LinkedIn company pages is a good example of adding company admins in one place.
6. Fan page today is not setup to run campaigns, this is a major design flaw in Facebook.
I have experience running a campaign connecting Venture Capitalists and entrepreneurs on a Facebook fan page. It was difficult for users to engage on the page until they fan the page. Then based on the admin access of whether the fan can post pictures or videos etc users could engage with the page. This is reverse to how user engagement should be done by creating easy call for action, much like the web. So we cannot measure page views of users visiting a fan page untill they fan the page missing out on people who leave without becoming a fan.
At DEMO, we tracked fan count when VCs with large friend counts responded to an entrepreneur question on the Facebook fan page, which was DEMO’s real campaign goal. We had to track it manually and not in the Facebook fan page insight. So in summary, we need fan growth tracking on campaigns for a variety of campaign situations.
5. At AOL we had a scavenger hunt at events and got users to friend the fan page. At Intuit we had a different quiz game at conference booths to increase fans. These again were not trackable with direct metrics. So metrics should have several attributes - location, time, device and custom fields to be tracked by campaign manager. The campaign manager should be able to track the metrics based on the campaign goals of whether it is lead gen or engagement and define what that means for the particular brand.
Palm Norchoovech from SAP says “We have several fan pages for different regions and languages and spend lot of time to sort the fans into multiple lists. If Google+ page can follow back all fans and sort them into groups automatically based on the criteria in their profile info (locations, languages, etc) it will save business page admins valuable time. Then, we can use only one business page for one brand and not multiple pages based on languages. It will allow admins to send updates to the right target fans.”
4. Sun Microsystems used fan pages to communicate with their base like a newsletter. We used this at DEMO minimally, although this again is not easy in Facebook fan pages. Communication in a company is done by a marketing communication or marcom team that is different from the brand page admin. The comms team makes the creative of the newsletter in HTML. But Facebook messaging for fan pages is primitive and non-HTML making it extra work for the admin to make a text of the message to update fans via Facebook Fan Pages. This should be improved with Google+ business pages. Google+ could integrate standard email programs directly instead of offering basic messaging options from brands to fans.
3. Facebook struggled with differentiating between Groups and Fan pages in the beginning, so some business were stuck in Groups unable to transition to pages. So Google+ should look very closely at Facebook Groups and Pages to understand the various brand profiles and use cases.
2. Branding the brand page is a killer need. I remember endless conversations within companies explaining how a brand name cannot be translated to a vanity URL. Worse is to beg friends inside the company to fan a page to get 100 fans (now 25 fans) to claim the fan page.
This again is against standard enterprise behavior and worse is that leaves many employees as fans of the page influencing decisions of what consumers really want. You will need to ensure there are enough fans so there aren't empty brand pages. But why not get creative to allow brands to run campaigns to get fans as part of their fan page creation process?
1. I love how Google+ calls it Google+ pages for brands, bands and beyond.
Facebook allowed fan pages by real fans as an afterthought to allow for community of fans of a brand to maintain a fan page. This is good for me as a consumer and not an easy thing to accept as a brand. It offers a dichotomy of brand adoption and brand dilution in one.
So Dear Google+ team you cannot plan ahead for all kinds of pages types, so plan a flexible structure to adapt to change. Be prepared or Google’s loyalty will be torn between consumer groups and Google’s customers who will want to control the brands.
I hope Facebook Pages team reads this and brings innovation to Facebook Fan Pages too. I join the many brands and social media enthusiasts as we wait for innovation in brand pages to truly bring social media to connect us to our customers to let our customers lead us.
Readers: Share your thoughts on what else you would add. Comment here or Tweet me @sujamthe
I have worked with Brand Managers and Marketing Execs on Facebook fan pages since its early days and have built brand pages for DEMO conference, AOL, PayPal, Intuit and several nonprofit brands. I want to share my experience here to help shape Google+ brand page experience to be better than that of Facebook fan pages and LinkedIn’s company pages today.
I have always loved Facebook fan pages but my heart goes out for its limitations. Facebook started with Groups then added fan pages, relaunched Pages and has adapted to growing demand from brands since then without (so it appears) a thorough customer study of enterprise brand processes and team roles.
So, Dear Google+ Team, I would like to offer these suggestions to help you create the best experience for brands. Please do not replicate the current Facebook Fan Page experience but build it based on a deeper understanding of customer use cases, roles and enterprise/team processes.
Top 10 consideration to building business brand pages:
10. Analytics is huge and Google+ team has made a great start in identifying analytics as one of the top two upcoming features. Please note that it is important to offer analytics from a brand’s perspective not replicate the Facebook insights offered in their pages today. Facebook added analytics after the fact and lot of Facebook insights are not actionable.
For example, Facebook analytics do not tie into a multi-channel campaign to compare how that channel is performing. So Google’s plans to connect your analytics to AdWords is a great start but please plan on a holistic approach to help us compare channels. Webtrends integrates Facebook Analytics by using Facebook API but it is not the same as offering an integrated analytics for multiple channels.
9. Facebook analytics for 'likes' when the fan page widget is embedded in a web page is awesome. This is a huge win for Facebook with their Open Graph Protocol. The metrics showing scale of growth of impressions is very important to get buy in for pilot projects before they scale social media ad budgets.
8. In Facebook for the longest time when a user creates a page, they became the admin and could not be removed (easily). Companies use agencies, students and consultants to create fan pages so the creator’s user profile has to be independent of the brand page once they are not associated with the brand or project. Facebook has since added this functionality and offers the page admin a choice to share feeds as two personas one as their consumer profile and one as the brand page. This gets confusing for people as they create and manage multiple brand pages and can be done with better usability.
7. Every brand has many pages for their main brand with several shared admin and several pages for brand extensions and different regions and languages owned by different groups inside the same company.
Please understand the roles of different players involved in the brand pages to set right access control. One admin adding many other admins in Facebook fan page as done today does not work for real enterprise social media teams. This will not come up easily in your market survey as this is a boundary condition and a pain of the social media guideline provider taking care of employees who transition out. Many social media pages have multiple employees as admins and not many brands worry about the liability of the ownership of the pages. They usually wake up to it one day. I have been part of the rush of many brands that go through a brand audit to check which of their pages are owned by someone inside their own company. Expect management time on your policy team’s part unless you build a self management module for a master admin for a large brand. LinkedIn company pages is a good example of adding company admins in one place.
6. Fan page today is not setup to run campaigns, this is a major design flaw in Facebook.
I have experience running a campaign connecting Venture Capitalists and entrepreneurs on a Facebook fan page. It was difficult for users to engage on the page until they fan the page. Then based on the admin access of whether the fan can post pictures or videos etc users could engage with the page. This is reverse to how user engagement should be done by creating easy call for action, much like the web. So we cannot measure page views of users visiting a fan page untill they fan the page missing out on people who leave without becoming a fan.
At DEMO, we tracked fan count when VCs with large friend counts responded to an entrepreneur question on the Facebook fan page, which was DEMO’s real campaign goal. We had to track it manually and not in the Facebook fan page insight. So in summary, we need fan growth tracking on campaigns for a variety of campaign situations.
5. At AOL we had a scavenger hunt at events and got users to friend the fan page. At Intuit we had a different quiz game at conference booths to increase fans. These again were not trackable with direct metrics. So metrics should have several attributes - location, time, device and custom fields to be tracked by campaign manager. The campaign manager should be able to track the metrics based on the campaign goals of whether it is lead gen or engagement and define what that means for the particular brand.
Palm Norchoovech from SAP says “We have several fan pages for different regions and languages and spend lot of time to sort the fans into multiple lists. If Google+ page can follow back all fans and sort them into groups automatically based on the criteria in their profile info (locations, languages, etc) it will save business page admins valuable time. Then, we can use only one business page for one brand and not multiple pages based on languages. It will allow admins to send updates to the right target fans.”
4. Sun Microsystems used fan pages to communicate with their base like a newsletter. We used this at DEMO minimally, although this again is not easy in Facebook fan pages. Communication in a company is done by a marketing communication or marcom team that is different from the brand page admin. The comms team makes the creative of the newsletter in HTML. But Facebook messaging for fan pages is primitive and non-HTML making it extra work for the admin to make a text of the message to update fans via Facebook Fan Pages. This should be improved with Google+ business pages. Google+ could integrate standard email programs directly instead of offering basic messaging options from brands to fans.
3. Facebook struggled with differentiating between Groups and Fan pages in the beginning, so some business were stuck in Groups unable to transition to pages. So Google+ should look very closely at Facebook Groups and Pages to understand the various brand profiles and use cases.
2. Branding the brand page is a killer need. I remember endless conversations within companies explaining how a brand name cannot be translated to a vanity URL. Worse is to beg friends inside the company to fan a page to get 100 fans (now 25 fans) to claim the fan page.
This again is against standard enterprise behavior and worse is that leaves many employees as fans of the page influencing decisions of what consumers really want. You will need to ensure there are enough fans so there aren't empty brand pages. But why not get creative to allow brands to run campaigns to get fans as part of their fan page creation process?
1. I love how Google+ calls it Google+ pages for brands, bands and beyond.
Facebook allowed fan pages by real fans as an afterthought to allow for community of fans of a brand to maintain a fan page. This is good for me as a consumer and not an easy thing to accept as a brand. It offers a dichotomy of brand adoption and brand dilution in one.
So Dear Google+ team you cannot plan ahead for all kinds of pages types, so plan a flexible structure to adapt to change. Be prepared or Google’s loyalty will be torn between consumer groups and Google’s customers who will want to control the brands.
I hope Facebook Pages team reads this and brings innovation to Facebook Fan Pages too. I join the many brands and social media enthusiasts as we wait for innovation in brand pages to truly bring social media to connect us to our customers to let our customers lead us.
Readers: Share your thoughts on what else you would add. Comment here or Tweet me @sujamthe
Sunday, June 26, 2011
My random lines of wisdom influenced by that of @BenParr
Ben Parr blogged about his philosophy in life as "Random Lines of Wisdom". That has promoted me to write my own philosophy. Thanks Ben! People reading this: you should think about yours and share if you are comfortable.
1. Be yourself
This seems the easiest to say but hard for many to follow. I am most happy when I am true to myself. I get my full potential when I follow my heart. This philosophy has led me to constant introspection of who I am, stay humble, keep learning and be honest to myself.
It has helped me in time management as I look at what I am doing, is it true to myself or do I feel butterflies in my stomach when I get ready to do something. I go all out in full bloom when I am myself and stick to jobs that bring out my passion for them, for teams and environments that help me be myself. I challenge myself if is this me often and see if I can expand myself better as a more open person.
2. People matter the most in life
I am a big extrovert, so I love meeting new people and helping them is so fulfilling. I have built a habit of tweeting out names of authors as I read articles or books I like, meeting new people all around me - coffee lines, strangers, friends of friends. I love finding ways I can help people unconditionally. I refer people to jobs or help anyone looking for connection to anyone else. Once I reminded a guy who tweeted to remind him to take beer out of his fridge in 30 minutes; I checkin on twitter if someone sounds sad or complains about their lack of sleep.
I learn so much from the new people I meet. I am surrounded by such positive energy from the people I interact daily. I am humbled by many conversations online and offline.
For example I found our cook in the PayPal cafe has traveled and lived in 7 countries and has amazing passion for various spices he uses in his daily cooking. The starbucks server Anahi got her name from a movie character her mom loved making me wonder about mothers, movies and brand names (which brings me back to my job and social media).
One thing I try hard and need to get better at is at staying in touch with my friends. Of all the people I meet many stick, social networks makes it easy for me to engage and stay connected but I struggle with staying in touch with a large inner circle of friends.
My network seems to expand not because I add new people to it but because I help them by connecting them as a habit and they get bonded well or work together and recall me when they meet, strengthening my network with them even when I am not in touch with each of the two as much the two I connected.
The people who impact us make us who we are, and the people we impact shape our world so it is such a blessing to be able to help and being helped by people.
3. Be Thankful
I have learned this recently. We all have so much to be thankful for. It gives us perspective to be respectful of people who helped, our jobs, our family, our mentors, our guides, our past colleagues, several people who set examples good and bad and guide us to be who we are.
I believe in paying forward and appreciate my early managers who have taught me the value of teamwork, several new friends who inspire me daily and help me stay on top of new technologies by their passion and innovation and for my family and friends who let me be myself.
Thanks to BenParr for getting me started to think about my philosophy.
1. Be yourself
This seems the easiest to say but hard for many to follow. I am most happy when I am true to myself. I get my full potential when I follow my heart. This philosophy has led me to constant introspection of who I am, stay humble, keep learning and be honest to myself.
It has helped me in time management as I look at what I am doing, is it true to myself or do I feel butterflies in my stomach when I get ready to do something. I go all out in full bloom when I am myself and stick to jobs that bring out my passion for them, for teams and environments that help me be myself. I challenge myself if is this me often and see if I can expand myself better as a more open person.
2. People matter the most in life
I am a big extrovert, so I love meeting new people and helping them is so fulfilling. I have built a habit of tweeting out names of authors as I read articles or books I like, meeting new people all around me - coffee lines, strangers, friends of friends. I love finding ways I can help people unconditionally. I refer people to jobs or help anyone looking for connection to anyone else. Once I reminded a guy who tweeted to remind him to take beer out of his fridge in 30 minutes; I checkin on twitter if someone sounds sad or complains about their lack of sleep.
I learn so much from the new people I meet. I am surrounded by such positive energy from the people I interact daily. I am humbled by many conversations online and offline.
For example I found our cook in the PayPal cafe has traveled and lived in 7 countries and has amazing passion for various spices he uses in his daily cooking. The starbucks server Anahi got her name from a movie character her mom loved making me wonder about mothers, movies and brand names (which brings me back to my job and social media).
One thing I try hard and need to get better at is at staying in touch with my friends. Of all the people I meet many stick, social networks makes it easy for me to engage and stay connected but I struggle with staying in touch with a large inner circle of friends.
My network seems to expand not because I add new people to it but because I help them by connecting them as a habit and they get bonded well or work together and recall me when they meet, strengthening my network with them even when I am not in touch with each of the two as much the two I connected.
The people who impact us make us who we are, and the people we impact shape our world so it is such a blessing to be able to help and being helped by people.
3. Be Thankful
I have learned this recently. We all have so much to be thankful for. It gives us perspective to be respectful of people who helped, our jobs, our family, our mentors, our guides, our past colleagues, several people who set examples good and bad and guide us to be who we are.
I believe in paying forward and appreciate my early managers who have taught me the value of teamwork, several new friends who inspire me daily and help me stay on top of new technologies by their passion and innovation and for my family and friends who let me be myself.
Thanks to BenParr for getting me started to think about my philosophy.
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Social listening for Product Managers from Silicon Valley PCamp
I was happy to be immersed by smart product managers all day long with awesome sessions and learning.
My panel was called "Social Media Listening for Product Managers". I hosted this along with Stephanie Shum, Yahoo! Mail Product Manager and Van Riper of Google.
Below is the slide deck we shared.
Here is my learning from Pcamp and my session:
1. Yahoo uses http://suggestion.yahoo.com to gather feedback from existing customer base of 270Mil users with 5/7 PMs listening.
2. You listen and then decide how you prioritize the features.
3. Social Media listening tools are evolving, people are hungry for such tools so they can filter around specific products.
4. I met PMs from many companies and it is a real issue that the company has to be ready to be transparent from the highest level.
5. I am pleasantly surprised to hear about Tweetchats, how several people are hosting tweetchats and learn about tools for it.
Cindy Solomon hosts weekly Product Manager Talks weekly over Twitter at 4pm pst. Follow her at @prodmgmtalk She co-hosts this with her host from Australia and is developing the science behind Tweetchats for companies.
I also learned about Twitter chat
It was good to see all the local community and product management influencers.
Thanks to the tweetwall by @socialping we could engage the larger community via Twitter.
My panel was called "Social Media Listening for Product Managers". I hosted this along with Stephanie Shum, Yahoo! Mail Product Manager and Van Riper of Google.
Below is the slide deck we shared.
Here is my learning from Pcamp and my session:
1. Yahoo uses http://suggestion.yahoo.com to gather feedback from existing customer base of 270Mil users with 5/7 PMs listening.
2. You listen and then decide how you prioritize the features.
3. Social Media listening tools are evolving, people are hungry for such tools so they can filter around specific products.
4. I met PMs from many companies and it is a real issue that the company has to be ready to be transparent from the highest level.
5. I am pleasantly surprised to hear about Tweetchats, how several people are hosting tweetchats and learn about tools for it.
Cindy Solomon hosts weekly Product Manager Talks weekly over Twitter at 4pm pst. Follow her at @prodmgmtalk She co-hosts this with her host from Australia and is developing the science behind Tweetchats for companies.
I also learned about Twitter chat
It was good to see all the local community and product management influencers.
Thanks to the tweetwall by @socialping we could engage the larger community via Twitter.
Social listening for pms for pcamp
View more presentations from sujamthe.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Updated 3/12: Sudha's Guide to Geekdom at SXSW 2011
I want to share my list of geekiest tech activities at SXSW as I am making sense of it all. So all your own suggestion in the comment if you think I am missing something cool!
My own panel is on Sat at 3.30pm at The Hyatt with the awesome Dave Peck (details below). Hope I'll see you there, else ping me on Twitter. I plan to be at Tweethouse friday evening and livestream interesting peeps at PayPalX #Livebytes channel, so let me know about interesting people to cover!!! Best way to reach me is Tweet me @sujamthe
Sudha's Recommended List of SXSW sessions and talks (not all parties covered)
=================================================================
Thurs 3/10
7pm: Girls in Hack e 6th St, Austin, TX
3/11 Friday:
2 to 5pm Tweet House Sponsored by Chevrolet from (several panels) then party at 5pm by Steve Broback at 501 Studios – 501 I-35, Austin, TX, 78702
9pm “American Express Presents the Tweet House After Dark” party will feature iPad D.J. Rana Sobhany (I've heard @rana at Iosdevcamp last summer she is awesome) (#chevytweethouse, #sxsw details: http://bit.ly/h6Vl2E)
3/12 Saturday:
9.30am: iPad Design Headaches (2 Tablets, Call in the morning) by Josh CLark, OReilly author at Salon J, Hilton
11am: Abeywickrema, Punsri at panel: The New Sharing Economy at Hilton (500 East 4th St) Salon K
11am: Banks: Innovate or Die by Bob Weinschenk of Smartpigs, Rob Garcia of LendingClub, Brett King Author Bank2.0 at Hilton,Salon F/G
11am: Startup America, Reducing Barriers by our USA CTO Aneesh Chopra at AT&T Conf Center Grand Ballroom, 1900 Univ Ave.
11am: The King of Lean Startup at AT&T Conf Center by McClure, Scoble, Stacy Higginbottom Room 2.04
12.30pm: The Lean Startup Pirate Metrics by Dave McClure AT&T Conf Center Room 2.04
12pm: Surviving Hockeystick Growth by Reddit founder Alex Ohanian at Hilton Salon AB
12.30pm: Why can't startups and brands play nice? by Charlie Taylor, GM Digital Marketing, Volkswagon Jay Adelson Hilton Salon C
3.30pm: Building Community Ass: Building Better Influence by Sudha Jamthe (me) and Dave Peck at Hyatt Hill Country CD, 208 Barton Spring Road
5pm: Lurkers, your most important community members at Hyatt, TX Ballroom1 208 Barton Springs Rd
5pm: Flipboard Fad or not by Flipboard CEO Mike McCue and Kara Swisher at Radisson, Town Lake BallRoom, 111 E. Cesar Chavez St
5pm: Welcome to the EGOSystem by Brian Solis at Austin Convention Center, Ballroom D
7pm to midnight - Diggnation Live at Stubb’s - 801 Red River, Austin, TX
Sun 3/13
10am to 4pm: Ebay SpeedHackat Lucent Alcatel Lounge, Room 406 4th floor Hilton
All Day: DogPatch labs Treehouse Pub 501 E.6th Street. Startups go an make a pitch there.
1pm to 6pm: Google Developer event (several sessions) (at Speakeasy 412 Congress Ave at w 5th · Austin, Texas
5pm: Boston in Austin Tweetup at Fado at 214 W 4th (updated new)
7pm to midnight: League of Extraordinary Hackers/SHDH@SXSW by Chris Messina & Boris Smus
10pm+: Red Laser Party with Chromeo
3/14 Mon thru Tues 3/15
From midnight Sunday to Monday Mashable House SXSWi 2001 (public free events ) at Buffalo Billiards, 201 6th Street, Austin, TX 78701
3/14 Monday
BizSpark Startup Accelerator Emceed by Tara Hunt, supported by Frank Gruber's TechCocktail delivering happiness teaming with Zappos Tony Sheih. Included PayPal developer Yapper as one of the finalist. Judges include many notables.
11am What’s In Your Virtual Wallet at Town Lake Ballroom, Radisson, Town Lake Ballroom by Richard Brewer Haye, Laura Chambers and Red Laser's Rob Veres
=========
Closing remarks: Let me know if I am missing any event thats a must-attend and I'll add it here.
Check RBH (@ebayinkblog) schedule of SXSW here
==
Updated:
Peeps I am adding new events as I hear from you here!
My own panel is on Sat at 3.30pm at The Hyatt with the awesome Dave Peck (details below). Hope I'll see you there, else ping me on Twitter. I plan to be at Tweethouse friday evening and livestream interesting peeps at PayPalX #Livebytes channel, so let me know about interesting people to cover!!! Best way to reach me is Tweet me @sujamthe
Sudha's Recommended List of SXSW sessions and talks (not all parties covered)
=================================================================
Thurs 3/10
7pm: Girls in Hack e 6th St, Austin, TX
3/11 Friday:
2 to 5pm Tweet House Sponsored by Chevrolet from (several panels) then party at 5pm by Steve Broback at 501 Studios – 501 I-35, Austin, TX, 78702
9pm “American Express Presents the Tweet House After Dark” party will feature iPad D.J. Rana Sobhany (I've heard @rana at Iosdevcamp last summer she is awesome) (#chevytweethouse, #sxsw details: http://bit.ly/h6Vl2E)
3/12 Saturday:
9.30am: iPad Design Headaches (2 Tablets, Call in the morning) by Josh CLark, OReilly author at Salon J, Hilton
11am: Abeywickrema, Punsri at panel: The New Sharing Economy at Hilton (500 East 4th St) Salon K
11am: Banks: Innovate or Die by Bob Weinschenk of Smartpigs, Rob Garcia of LendingClub, Brett King Author Bank2.0 at Hilton,Salon F/G
11am: Startup America, Reducing Barriers by our USA CTO Aneesh Chopra at AT&T Conf Center Grand Ballroom, 1900 Univ Ave.
11am: The King of Lean Startup at AT&T Conf Center by McClure, Scoble, Stacy Higginbottom Room 2.04
12.30pm: The Lean Startup Pirate Metrics by Dave McClure AT&T Conf Center Room 2.04
12pm: Surviving Hockeystick Growth by Reddit founder Alex Ohanian at Hilton Salon AB
12.30pm: Why can't startups and brands play nice? by Charlie Taylor, GM Digital Marketing, Volkswagon Jay Adelson Hilton Salon C
3.30pm: Building Community Ass: Building Better Influence by Sudha Jamthe (me) and Dave Peck at Hyatt Hill Country CD, 208 Barton Spring Road
5pm: Lurkers, your most important community members at Hyatt, TX Ballroom1 208 Barton Springs Rd
5pm: Flipboard Fad or not by Flipboard CEO Mike McCue and Kara Swisher at Radisson, Town Lake BallRoom, 111 E. Cesar Chavez St
5pm: Welcome to the EGOSystem by Brian Solis at Austin Convention Center, Ballroom D
7pm to midnight - Diggnation Live at Stubb’s - 801 Red River, Austin, TX
Sun 3/13
10am to 4pm: Ebay SpeedHackat Lucent Alcatel Lounge, Room 406 4th floor Hilton
All Day: DogPatch labs Treehouse Pub 501 E.6th Street. Startups go an make a pitch there.
1pm to 6pm: Google Developer event (several sessions) (at Speakeasy 412 Congress Ave at w 5th · Austin, Texas
5pm: Boston in Austin Tweetup at Fado at 214 W 4th (updated new)
7pm to midnight: League of Extraordinary Hackers/SHDH@SXSW by Chris Messina & Boris Smus
10pm+: Red Laser Party with Chromeo
3/14 Mon thru Tues 3/15
From midnight Sunday to Monday Mashable House SXSWi 2001 (public free events ) at Buffalo Billiards, 201 6th Street, Austin, TX 78701
3/14 Monday
BizSpark Startup Accelerator Emceed by Tara Hunt, supported by Frank Gruber's TechCocktail delivering happiness teaming with Zappos Tony Sheih. Included PayPal developer Yapper as one of the finalist. Judges include many notables.
Tues 3/15
11am What’s In Your Virtual Wallet at Town Lake Ballroom, Radisson, Town Lake Ballroom by Richard Brewer Haye, Laura Chambers and Red Laser's Rob Veres
=========
Closing remarks: Let me know if I am missing any event thats a must-attend and I'll add it here.
Check RBH (@ebayinkblog) schedule of SXSW here
==
Updated:
Peeps I am adding new events as I hear from you here!
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Developing a Social Media Plan
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Developing a Social Media Plan
View more presentations from ifPeople.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
The Birdie In the Mirror
I saw a bird in my yard pecking at her own image in a mirror repeatedly this afternoon. At first, it was funny. She came and gave a look at the bird in the mirror, fluttered her wings to scare it, pecked at it from all heights. Then she left, sneaked back to check if her opponent was gone!
I have been working on a social media plan for work very obsessively focused getting input from many internal teams excited to "do social". So naturally I saw the parallel with companies doing social. Well, now you know what this post is about, read on if it interests you!!!
Watching the bird hit me - All Social Media campaigns which are not listening are all birds in the mirror.
Companies plan elaborate tweets to push their product information. They build plans and schedules and execute the campaigns with their small set of friendies and PR support. The get metrics, report internally but no new real customers and don't move the needle of their business.
They are like birds looking at themselves in the mirror! Whatever they do, they see an impact, they stare and the birdie stares back, they fly high and the birdie flies back.
They get RTs and reach numbers to quote but are looking at echos of their own push messages.
Real Social Media is about conversation!
Each of us has a personal communication style as unique as ourselves. Some are short, some curt, some prolonged, some courteous, they all count if you have a listener and you engage in a conversation.
Same is true for social media. Chat with your ecosystem, and if they care and listen and engage back, you are on a path to success.
So if you are like me planning your social media plan for a company, build listening campaigns if you need a campaign for focused tracking. Some initial ideas about listening campaigns are:
1. Set 30 min of your time to engage with your users and listen and help them where you can, share your excitement for their success. You will be surprised to make real friends of your customers who care and appreciate you, the real human representing your brand.
I remember my customers at Dash Navigation who appreciated the conversation and would go to great lengths to help be our advocates with media folks to do test runs in traffic with our product, a traffic telling GPS device.
2. Plan a fun campaign to engage your users on issues that they need help with. I am thinking of this as your FAQ on your web site but on steroids. Engage in a conversation to answer FAQ questions but with real user. The trick is to go on till you find the first real user who has a real question.
3. Start a Tweetchat. SAP called these online meetups. These are events with programming, speakers and schedules but on social media. There are several variations of them. Again keep them as a conversation not as a broadcast.
I hope this is the start of a fun conversation between you, me and likeminded folks who care about listening and customer engagement. Please share your suggestions/examples of listening campaigns. Post a comment below of tweet me @sujamthe.
I am looking forward to our conversation about social media conversations (Ah I like how that sounds)
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
What is a not a conversation is not social media
I spoke to Ben Parr recently about B2B social media and it got me thinking!!! This morning I woke up to ChrisBrogan's blog about conversation and innovation (not to mention the twinkies picture I saw before breakfast). I am hungrily looking to find ways on how companies engage with their customers using social media. If you are one, please read on and do share your comments.
I have used social media in several different ways in the past 3 years.
Many are for marketing, from events and sharing new products and features. That is useful but not a conversation!
While at Intuit I've done alpha testing of messages using Twitter to test what message worked, at what hour to what segment of audience. Audience reacted and we learned. Not a conversation still!
While at DEMO we built community on Facebook with a campaign called "Entrepreneur asks, VCs answer". Users posted questions and VCs answered on the Fan Page. It built community and followers but not a continued conversation.
Two weeks back we completed PayPalX Innovate conf and are still wowed by the engagement from our users and the echo of the excitement from our echo system. I loved the conversations, the passion and the real time speed of the echo by our partners, global customers and friends.
We had a dedicated team that had the joy of monitoring tweets and responding to users, listening, monitoring beyond our social media presence to scout all conversations and become part of them! We had a separate team that captured the excitement of the 2000 audience and brought videos, live ustream, Tweets, facebook, photos, blogs and tweeted everything out to Millions out there!
Now as we take a step back after Innovate I am looking to find how we can continue the monitoring daily to build that listening and social media conversation into our DNAs?
How can we go past social media being a job to making it a way of life to have daily conversation with our customers? Can we create processes to listen and metrics to track to see what works to course correct?
I know several brands that monitor Twitter to provide customer support:
1. Bank of America is my favorite example as they always respond and excel in their service using Twitter to go out of their way when I am looking for their ATM or reporting bugs on their mobile app or asking for their service.
2. BestBuy is known for it monitors in their CMO office monitoring all tweets.
3. Kodak is my favorite as they have transformed their business by listening to tweets and letting us name their products, offer deals and for quick support.
4. Intuit has an army of Tweeters listening and providing support and product info on all products. My favorite is @alisonatintuit
Do you know of companies/brands beyond CS that uses social media? I am hungrily looking for models here. I'll update here or write another blog summarizing my finding.
Which Product Managers use Social Media to listen to customer feedback to build products?
Which companies use social media with their suppliers?
Who all connect with their partners to extend their relationship across connected communities?
Let me know!!!
I have used social media in several different ways in the past 3 years.
Many are for marketing, from events and sharing new products and features. That is useful but not a conversation!
While at Intuit I've done alpha testing of messages using Twitter to test what message worked, at what hour to what segment of audience. Audience reacted and we learned. Not a conversation still!
While at DEMO we built community on Facebook with a campaign called "Entrepreneur asks, VCs answer". Users posted questions and VCs answered on the Fan Page. It built community and followers but not a continued conversation.
Two weeks back we completed PayPalX Innovate conf and are still wowed by the engagement from our users and the echo of the excitement from our echo system. I loved the conversations, the passion and the real time speed of the echo by our partners, global customers and friends.
We had a dedicated team that had the joy of monitoring tweets and responding to users, listening, monitoring beyond our social media presence to scout all conversations and become part of them! We had a separate team that captured the excitement of the 2000 audience and brought videos, live ustream, Tweets, facebook, photos, blogs and tweeted everything out to Millions out there!
Now as we take a step back after Innovate I am looking to find how we can continue the monitoring daily to build that listening and social media conversation into our DNAs?
How can we go past social media being a job to making it a way of life to have daily conversation with our customers? Can we create processes to listen and metrics to track to see what works to course correct?
I know several brands that monitor Twitter to provide customer support:
1. Bank of America is my favorite example as they always respond and excel in their service using Twitter to go out of their way when I am looking for their ATM or reporting bugs on their mobile app or asking for their service.
2. BestBuy is known for it monitors in their CMO office monitoring all tweets.
3. Kodak is my favorite as they have transformed their business by listening to tweets and letting us name their products, offer deals and for quick support.
4. Intuit has an army of Tweeters listening and providing support and product info on all products. My favorite is @alisonatintuit
Do you know of companies/brands beyond CS that uses social media? I am hungrily looking for models here. I'll update here or write another blog summarizing my finding.
Which Product Managers use Social Media to listen to customer feedback to build products?
Which companies use social media with their suppliers?
Who all connect with their partners to extend their relationship across connected communities?
Let me know!!!
Thursday, October 28, 2010
PayPalx Innovate - Its all about the Developers and theres THE BenParr and MarshaCollier
Innovate 2010 rocked thanks to all of you who helped make it happen, showed up and immersed us in Innovation. What an awesome two days! Can't believe its over!!!
Here is a tweet size summary of both days:
Day1 - Oct 26 - 2000 developers came, wowed to hear about Mobile Express Checkout and PayPal's Digital Goods beta with all demos with developers Payvment, Ooyala on stage
You have to Watch the Day1 Montage to see the energy and passion - here
Day2 -Oct 27 - Developers hacked and launched 15 apps overnights, 22 DevChallenge Global Winners showed cool innovations, the winner walked away with a cooler mobile (yeah its real) and the winner was IConcessionstand who won $100K.
I don't remember any other conference that had so much developers on stage and part of the show all day long. Watch the Montage of Day2 and decide for yourself.
I am humbled by all the teamwork I experienced behind the scenes with fellow PayPalians and the innovation and ideas that sparkled the air all two days.
We had fun too, with our parties (too many) . Catch a glimpse of it with the "Live from Innovate" we ustreamed on Day1 with Edwin Aoki, Marsha Collier and THE BenParr with many surprise guests.
Live from Innovate - Part 1
Live from Innovate - Part 2
Live from Innovate - Part 3
Enjoy!
Here is a tweet size summary of both days:
Day1 - Oct 26 - 2000 developers came, wowed to hear about Mobile Express Checkout and PayPal's Digital Goods beta with all demos with developers Payvment, Ooyala on stage
You have to Watch the Day1 Montage to see the energy and passion - here
Day2 -Oct 27 - Developers hacked and launched 15 apps overnights, 22 DevChallenge Global Winners showed cool innovations, the winner walked away with a cooler mobile (yeah its real) and the winner was IConcessionstand who won $100K.
I don't remember any other conference that had so much developers on stage and part of the show all day long. Watch the Montage of Day2 and decide for yourself.
I am humbled by all the teamwork I experienced behind the scenes with fellow PayPalians and the innovation and ideas that sparkled the air all two days.
We had fun too, with our parties (too many) . Catch a glimpse of it with the "Live from Innovate" we ustreamed on Day1 with Edwin Aoki, Marsha Collier and THE BenParr with many surprise guests.
Live from Innovate - Part 1
Live from Innovate - Part 2
Live from Innovate - Part 3
Enjoy!
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Social Media for Business by Michael Brito @britopian at Ebay Social Media Council
Michael Brito is here as our guest speaker at Ebay Social Media Council. Here is my summary of interesting learning from the talk about "Social media for business".
How do you make your customer that you listen to them?
Be Authentic - we are authentic with our families, with our kids teachers, with neigbors. We need to bring that authenticity to the online world.
How to make a brand believable?
Stay engaged with your customer, that is key to make your brand believable. Ebay is No.3 in Altimeter's Top 10 brands measuring breadth and depth within the social web.
Purchase Funnel is changing with Social Media
The traditional purchase funnel is linear - awareness
If you love your customers, they will love you and tell others. Focus on your advocates more than influencers, they love your brand and tell others.
Crowdsource and listen to customer to build product/brand
Starbucks splashstick was a crowdsourced customer developers product. GM canceled a car they were designing based on user's feedback.
Intel did Ajay Bhatt (founder of USB), was surprised to see users wanted a tshirt seen in the background, moved fast ran a global contest and gave away those tshirts and built Intel Advocates. Smart! Nice success story of how they built brand advocacy by listening to users.
Advice I got and loved from this talk:
Build a Social media council with cross functional teams across marketing, pr, community, legal to build process, infrastructure and governance to scale social media inside the company. It requires a lot of conversation and collaboration across groups inside the company. It helps when top management gets it and makes social a top mandate in the company
How do you make your customer that you listen to them?
Be Authentic - we are authentic with our families, with our kids teachers, with neigbors. We need to bring that authenticity to the online world.
How to make a brand believable?
Stay engaged with your customer, that is key to make your brand believable. Ebay is No.3 in Altimeter's Top 10 brands measuring breadth and depth within the social web.
Purchase Funnel is changing with Social Media
The traditional purchase funnel is linear - awareness
If you love your customers, they will love you and tell others. Focus on your advocates more than influencers, they love your brand and tell others.
Crowdsource and listen to customer to build product/brand
Starbucks splashstick was a crowdsourced customer developers product. GM canceled a car they were designing based on user's feedback.
Intel did Ajay Bhatt (founder of USB), was surprised to see users wanted a tshirt seen in the background, moved fast ran a global contest and gave away those tshirts and built Intel Advocates. Smart! Nice success story of how they built brand advocacy by listening to users.
Advice I got and loved from this talk:
Build a Social media council with cross functional teams across marketing, pr, community, legal to build process, infrastructure and governance to scale social media inside the company. It requires a lot of conversation and collaboration across groups inside the company. It helps when top management gets it and makes social a top mandate in the company
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Trends in social commerce
I enjoyed presenting Social Commerce Trends to Social DevCamp Chicago last week to an awesome roomful of audience.
here is the presentation as I promised to share! Let me know any other trends, companies shaping social commerce.
here is the presentation as I promised to share! Let me know any other trends, companies shaping social commerce.
Trends in social commerce
View more presentations from PayPalX Developer Network.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
First 25 hour summary of IOSDevCamp - awesome community innovation!!!
I am very thrilled to bring a quick summary of the awesome energy and excitement of Iphone and Ipad developers from IOSDevCamp, a project my team has been involved to foster community driven innovation.
Iosdevcamp is the 5th in a row of IphoneDevcamps organized by a non-profit group of four community leaders - Raven Zachery, Dom Sagella, Christopher and Whurley. It is hosted at PayPal campus (where I proudly work) this weekend Aug 20-22.
300 developers are charged with amazing ideas, forming teams and working hard to build 40+ awesome applications with 55 hours to launch tomorrow night.
Here is a montage of the kickoff from friday night kickoff!
Today I hosted a BlogTalkRadio show with Raven Zachery of IOSDevCamp, Naveed Anwar and Edwin Aoki of PayPal and met a flow of developers who stopped by and shared awesome ideas they were working on! Daniel Bru who is the most inspiring teenager I've met ustreamed the show live too!
Come join us tomorrow (Sunday Aug 22nd) 2 to 4pm as the IOSDevCamp opens the door for friends and family to join us for free to watch and support the launch of the awesome applications to show a sneak peak into awesome future apps and startups in the mobile world!!!
If you are far away, you can watch the live stream on the iosdevcamp.org site or watch the twitter stream here.
Iosdevcamp is the 5th in a row of IphoneDevcamps organized by a non-profit group of four community leaders - Raven Zachery, Dom Sagella, Christopher and Whurley. It is hosted at PayPal campus (where I proudly work) this weekend Aug 20-22.
300 developers are charged with amazing ideas, forming teams and working hard to build 40+ awesome applications with 55 hours to launch tomorrow night.
Here is a montage of the kickoff from friday night kickoff!
Today I hosted a BlogTalkRadio show with Raven Zachery of IOSDevCamp, Naveed Anwar and Edwin Aoki of PayPal and met a flow of developers who stopped by and shared awesome ideas they were working on! Daniel Bru who is the most inspiring teenager I've met ustreamed the show live too!
Come join us tomorrow (Sunday Aug 22nd) 2 to 4pm as the IOSDevCamp opens the door for friends and family to join us for free to watch and support the launch of the awesome applications to show a sneak peak into awesome future apps and startups in the mobile world!!!
If you are far away, you can watch the live stream on the iosdevcamp.org site or watch the twitter stream here.
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