Leverage Software - Point of View

You wanna share - really? Share your Top 5 mistakes (lessons learned) of 2008 - now that's sharing!

I'm seeing a flood of "Top 10" lists for 2008 and predictions for 2009. I find them interesting and valuable. I learn a ton - maybe more, however, from my own mistakes and mistakes of others. I want to share my Top 5 mistakes with you so that you can avoid making them, or at least think twice before you move to action that might be costly. I would be very grateful, as would our readers, if you did the same. I think learning through mistakes is often more effective than learning through success but none of us can afford to make 100 mistakes in 2009 so let's learn from each other and share the costly mistakes, and ultimately the powerful benefits.

Be bold - be courageous - tell us what to avoid, or just share your comments with us.

Cheers and Best Wishes for a Kick Ass 2009!

In no particular order:

1. I made some bad travel decisions

Though it's never easy to determine how to most effectively spend one's time, I could have avoided a couple of trips that had a low probability of a meaningful ROI. Sometimes it makes more sense to run the probabilities and opportunity costs, multiply the "gut" factor and determine the probability for a high Return on Investment; than to just go for it. I could have saved a bunch of carbon, gotten more sleep, and taken care of more people that deserved my time and attention if I had run the numbers. That said, just going for it often does pay off so I'm likely to make this same mistake in 2009. Next time I consider flying across the planet, I'll ask a couple more people what they think.

2. I spent too much time with potential investors

I could have redirected 200 hours of investor related activity toward spending with my customers. Our customers and employees ARE Leverage Software, our investors are not. We are grateful for our fabulous investors, but our customers and employees deserve more of my time than do existing or potential investors. If you are a potential investor reading this, you best have a REALLY good pitch planned for me, otherwise, I'll see you in 2010 if at all.

3. One bad hire

I am really pleased with the growth of Leverage Software and our hiring decisions. We continued to add great talent to the team in 2008 and will continue to do so in 2009. That said, I made one hiring decision that went against my gut. It didn't work out. Fortunately, we recognized it quickly and terminated the relationship several months ago and within only a few months of the hire. The two learnings here are 1) listen to your gut - chemistry is everything and 2) if you make a bad hiring decision then address and resolve it fast. Bad hires can cause huge cultural problems.

4. Not spending enough time with those I should have

In general, I didn't spend enough time with people that I should have. The reason for this is that I spent too much time with people I shouldn't have. For 2009, I'm going to try to make better decisions about my time allocation. If anyone has any suggestions for the readership, please let us know. For example, I'm planning to attend TED, SXSW and other conferences in 2009. Should I be spending my time at CES instead, or avoid conferences altogether and spend that time with customers, partners, prospects and employees? In some cases, I can and do meet with customers, partners and potential customers and partners at these events - so that seems reasonable. At TED, however, this typically is not the case and it is a significant investment of time and energy. I can't imagine missing TED, but maybe it's not the best use of my time (I think it is, by the way). These are decisions that I find difficult to make. How do you decide? Perhaps we should all conference through Twitter?

5. Cobblers shoes

We did not take enough time in 2008 to completely launch our customer community. We fully launched our employee community and partially launched our customer and partner community but it is not yet fully interactive. We are committed to launching fully in Q1. We now have the appropriate resources in place to manage the project and we certainly have an outstanding client base whom have asked for it and have patiently awaited the launch. I commit to delivering this to you in Q1. We want your feedback, your recommendations, and to see you collaborate with your peers - we're looking forward to harnessing your enthusiasm and ideas in a more efficient way!

I hope that this "Top 5 (lessons learned)" saves you some time and money. Feel free to share. I want to hear your lessons learned.

Cheers,

Mike

Top 10 Ways Associations can Use Online Communities to Increase Member Acquisition and Retention and Drive Revenue

Online communities can be incredibly powerful ways to allow association members to meet, share ideas, and connect with one another.

Here are the top 10 ways to begin using social networking and online communities at your organization.

1) Promote peer networking to members.

Networking builds relationships and advances careers. By using an online social network to promote peer networking, your association can provide a unique value to its members, adding an online component to a pre-existing "off-line" capability.

2) Unify members that are geographically diverse.

Since many members may not have the opportunity to connect face-to-face, online social networks enable you to connect members who are distributed across a number of cities in a meaningful way.

3) Increase attendance at conferences and other events.

Events are an excellent way to use online communities to encourage association members to connect with one another. Online communities can help extend the importance of your conferences because members can pre-arrange meetings before the event and follow up with one another easily after the event. In addition, an online community provides an exceptional outlet for idea sharing around event topics.

4) Drive membership renewals.

Because they provide the opportunity for 24/7 peer networking, online communities can make an association more visible and more relevant to your members, making an association "top of mind" to individual members throughout the year.

5) Create "private places" for members to collaborate around new ideas or initiatives.

Advanced social networking tools provide for both "open" and "private" areas within an online community, so that officers, project leaders, and employees might have a space to collaborate with one another.

6) Encourage members to promote themselves to each other.

Many online communities thrive because certain key members of an association – in the online world, these are typically called "community evangelists" – have a mechanism with which they can contribute new ideas, connect with members, and drive their own professional status within an organization. An online community makes it easy for top contributors and influential thought leaders to shine.

7) Be the first to offer a unique social networking application for your industry.

Here is a surprising fact: many of the most successful association online communities thrive because its members do NOT spend a great deal of their time behind a computer. This is because these members are frequently neglected by many technology providers – and thus they have limited communication outlets to utilize. Use online communities to increase the value of what your association offers.

8) Use an online community to promote member retention.

In those areas where association members can turn to local organizations, competitive associations, and other venues to network with one another, an online community can be useful in preventing member attrition. Use your online community to encourage engagement among members and as a channel for promoting thought leadership from within your association and with key partners.

9) Develop new offerings to attract and retain valuable sponsors.

Because an online community provides a set of "online spaces" where its members can collaborate and connect, sponsors frequently find these highly used and very visible areas attractive for sponsorship opportunities. In addition, sponsors can review user-generated content to gain added insight into their own products and services.

10) Use social networking to learn more from your association members.

One of the strongest values that an online community can provide is that it offers a communication channel for real-time feedback and member insight – as members will frequently share ideas and suggestions for which aspects of the association are the most important to them. To ensure the greatest success, play an active role in your online communities and be open to what your members have to say.

See how some of your peers are benefitting by enabling a member community.

"Over 2,000 participants from around the globe are already connected and using ToyConnections to network with their peers, build valuable relationships, share ideas, and find new products and services that can help grow their businesses. ToyConnections is quickly becoming an indispensible tool for anyone who wants to keep the pulse of the toy industry."

- Joan Wyche, Registration and Buyer Relations Manager, Toy Industry Assocation, Inc.

"HIMSS uses ‘HIMSS Connect,’ to enable members to share insights and knowledge throughout the year. HIMSS Connect is especially helpful to members prior to and during HIMSS’ large national conference and exhibition, which draws over 29,000 attendees. A member may call for a connection with other members who have recently undergone a major software implementation, to share implementation strategies and lessons learned. Others use the tool on site to learn about job opportunities and career trends in other areas of the country."

- Vish Kalambur, MCP, PMP, Senior Director of Software Applications Development, HIMSS

Kids Rock - a celebration at Town School for Boys

I love seeing kids join together with a common goal. Whether it's to play soccer, baseball, provide community services or entertain; kids know how to share and work together to meet their common goal. I was really impressed and moved by this group of 5-6 year old boys at the Town School of Boys in Pacific Heights in San Francisco. When we enrolled Zack in private school we were tentative, but public school in certain neighborhoods in major cities is, sadly, just not an option.

We couldn't be more pleased with Town or more proud of Zack and his classmates. Suffer through the poor video quality for the important message.

Get out and do something important TODAY - not tomorrow, today!

cheers.

mike

Town School for Boys Winter Concert from mike walsh on Vimeo.

Brady Come Back - Patriots Nation

There's no community more important than family. Check out this hilarious video of my Brother-in-Law, Matty Bleakney, a comedian from Boston. Enjoy it - I did.

Paris Hilton's use of Social Media - this time the video distribution is intentional

This is worth a watch. I'm not sure whether Conde Nast is an official sponsor (likely the case) or just happened to be the magazine of choice by Paris, but I'm sure they received some benefit from this. I'm posting this simply because I think it's funny and interesting how quickly this stuff spreads. Create something, anything, and see what happens. Enjoy!

See more Paris Hilton videos at Funny or Die

The Value of Social Sharing through Online Communities

There is a ton of value that can be gained through sharing through online communities. Whether you are a project manager looking to collaborate with your clients and prospects on product features, a marketing manager wishing to enable customer to customer sharing, or the host of an affinity group or media property enabling your audience to share - everyone wins through sharing - you win, your clients win, and the industry wins.

There are many academic theories on why sharing works, such as Game Theory (Nash Equilibrium) and the theories behind Reciprocity (ever why every vendor wants to hand you that sample of food? it's not because you will like it so much, it's because you will feel compelled to but some to return the favor). It's also why some non-profit organizations send stamps or a dollar in mail.

The presentations below take a look at the value of Sharing through Online Communities and Social Software.

We would love to know what you think - good, bad or otherwise.

Cheers - thanks for Sharing!

Social Networking - Social Sharing through Online Communities

view presentation (tags: social networking sharing online)

Here's another that you might take a look at:

Designing for social sharing

view presentation (tags: webvisions rashmi social tags)

Top 10 Ways that Social Networking will stretch your Marketing Investment during a Recession

This Top 10 list describes ways in which an online customer community will stretch your marketing dollars. Social applications such as Online Customer Communities are about people connecting with other people and with information for the purposes of sharing. Buyers may resist advertising messages when budgets are tight, but if a trusted peer makes a recommendation then a peer is likely to respond, and buy. See, below, the ways that Social Networking and Online Communities allow you to stretch your marketing dollars in a down economy.

 

1. Listen to the ways that your customers (and potentially prospects) are talking about you. It is much less expensive, and likely more accurate, to do this through an online community than by conducting research panels and through expensive local user conferences. Listen and take action.

2. Develop case studies with your engaged community members to help spread the word about your company. User generated content that can be developed through a wiki, through an “ideas” functionality or a peer discussion can be much more authentic and less expensive than outsourcing to marketing resources.

3.  Engage your customers in a two way dialogue and allow them to engage with each other to build loyalty and connection to your company. No amount of advertising can build connection the way that one to one or one interaction can.

4. Allow your customers to create their blog around your brand. This is an inexpensive way to build momentum around your brand while giving your customers a voice.

5. Create educational podcasts about your products and your overall space, and distribute them throughout the community. For cost-free creation, invite your customers to create these through a contest series.

6. Use widgets to distribute content inexpensively. Distribute your community content and message through widgets and RSS feeds into facebook, your newsletters, your homepage or other customer, prospect and partner touch-points.

7. Create video interviews and video press releases and other bits of video to build more personable relationships. Video creation is inexpensive as is distribution through YouTube and other channels. Create video with you partners and customers to strengthen these customer and partner relationships.

8. Let your customers tell your prospects about their success. Invite your prospects into the community. Your customers are the least expensive and most educated sales staff that you have. Word of Mouth Marketing is the most cost effective method of selling.

9. Get your customers to self-support each other. Why pay a support staff when your customers can more effectively support each-other? Share-source your support function with your client base.

10. Enable your customers to add and rate feature requests to allow them to build your next products. Your customers can now work with you and augment your product development and product marketing teams for free. These mechanisms show your customers you care about which products are useful to them, which – in the end - drives loyalty.

Recommended resources to learn more on this topic: 

Jeremiah Owyang – Forrester Research - http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/ 

Chris Brogan – CrossTech Media - http://www.chrisbrogan.com/ 

Jake McKee – Ant’s Eye View - http://www.communityguy.com/

Josh Bernoff – Groundswell & Forrester Research - http://www.bernoff.com/

The Value of Community - Craigslist

Here is a story about the tangible value of the Craigslist community - it may be unique, but let's hope not.

My buddy, Andy, had set out for a 45 mile bike ride to Marin on a beautiful San Francisco day in February. When he went to jump on his $3,500 bike, however, it was gone. The bike had been stolen from our garage (we own a building together). We have no idea how it happened, really, but it did. We immediately thought, how could it have happened, what about insurance, etc.

Andy thought he would check Craigslist to see whether the bike had been placed for sale - and it had been! ok, big deal - this happens all the time.

Here comes the magic of Craigslist and any kick-ass community - people helping people!

The guy who listed the bike for sale purchased it from the thief, a homeless guy, for $40 for the purpose of returning it to it's owner. Andy made the call, arranged for pick-up and paid for bike and kicked in some pizza. What an amazing thing for someone to do - go through all that effort with the goal of helping out another.

On behalf of Andy, thanks to the community rock-star and thanks to you Craig!

Community through the eyes of a 2nd grader

The primary focus of my blog is to provide offline examples of community that provide, in my opinion, excellent examples or anecdotes to consider when creating an online community or social network. I began my day, today, touring a neighborhood school for my boy Zack whom will be entering kindergarten next year. Though it's an important personal task, I don't typically consider it work related (although the entire process really is about community since everyone is experiencing the same process, anxiety, decision making, interactions, etc.). Today, however, it was much more tangible.

Similar to the first tour that I had taken at a different private school (the school's strategic themes are globalization, sustainability and technology - pretty impressive, or daunting, for k through 8) this school also emphasized the importance of community. As the tour progressed, we checked out the interactions among students and between students and teachers and student and parents. The sense of community was absolutely apparent though posters and messages hanging on the walls. Most impressive and most relevant were the ways in which the 2nd grade class defines what is important to them in their classroom and in their environment . As you see below they have defined the most important

criteria of their environment. They have also defined their "privacy circle". Both of these conversations are important to have when defining the criteria and goals of an online community.

They also have a very impressive approach to helping each other foster community throughout the school. They create mini-communities or groups which they call a Grove. A Grove consists on 9 kids, 1 kid from each grade, k through 8. These Groves meet every couple of weeks to mentor, share, help, learn and develop friendships across grades. What a fabulous idea - gathering all stakeholders and discussing how they can create a stronger and more valuable community - I love it!

I learned quite a bit during the 60 minutes that I spent with a bunch of little kids - and enjoyed every minute of it. This is a great reminder of keeping eyes wide open. Turn off the Blackberry and listen to your little kids. It turns out that they're pretty smart.

Come Join The Party At AJAXWorld

Joe is scheduled to speak at AJAXWorld on Tuesday, September 25th at 9:15am in Santa Clara.  If you haven't already registered for your "Golden Pass," do so today and save $500.  To take advantage of this offer, enter ajaxreferral (case sensitive) when you register.

See you there!