It's Time to Try Social Technologies

Maybe you've already seen this great video by Kevin Jones? If not, go ahead, watch and reshare it!



Great, eh?! It's something I say in my workshops about social media strategy. Yes, it's important to think about social media concepts and strategy. What do we want to achieve with social media? Which social tools are we going to use? Etc.
But if thinking about these things keeps you from doing and experiencing social media, you're on the wrong track. So, I stress the trying, experimenting, doing part of social media. Hopefully this video will get you going! I loved it.

Social Media Silo's

Social Media should support networks within companies and over its boundaries. It should break down silo's in companies. The same goes for the silo's in people's lives, work and private life. But does it really?

I've been wondering about this topic for some time. I've been rereading The Cluetrain Manifesto and found it's been mentioned there as well. And now with the arrival of Google+ people are wondering if this will be the social backbone (must-read piece BTW!).

What am I talking about? Well, we have all these social tools that support parts of our lives. Some only work on the intranet, some only on the internet. Some are more for personal, private sharing, others are more work-related. Many have approximately the same functionality. So, you always get the question: Where should I share my information (without pushing the same information to all these services at once)? And where do I get an overview of all my social interactions?
I was hoping something like Friendfeed would solve this issue. It did, but then everybody left. I even tried to read tweets in Google Reader for some time. That didn't work well. So my silo's are still in place.
These silo's don't only affect creating of social content, but also consuming. A good step in the right direction is what Disqus is doing for blogs: collecting as much of the social interactions around a blogpost as possible. But what I can't do there is reply to a tweet directly from a blog comment.
And then Google+ popped up. Will Google+ solve this problem? I agree with this piece Google has a good chance. It's at least what they are headed for.

In my experience the overlap in functionality and social silo's are a huge barrier in the adoption of social tools. It's one of the reasons people stick with traditional tools, like email and even Facebook (compared to G+...). Everybody's in the email space, so why move to a space where only part of my social graph is?

I'm curious what your thoughts are on this topic. How do you solve this issue in your daily life?

iPad experiences

I love my iPad! What a wonderful gadget it is! When we got it (with a newspaper subscription) I was wondering: Is it really worth it? I have an iPhone and a laptop, what do I need an iPad for then?

But, again I experienced that using is believing.The iPad (- I have the iPad1) fits perfectly between the iPhone and laptop. In lots of cases it takes over usage time from the iPhone and laptop.

For instance, reading email is great on the iPhone and the iPad. Instant-on is a killer. Even my wife hardly fires up the (Windows) laptop to process email. Although typing longer emails is still done on the iPad, most emails can be processed by a quick and short reply using the iPad.

Reading news and feeds is wonderful on the iPad as well. Apps like Flipboard are mindblowing. I'm amazed by how quickly I can go through feeds, tweets, etc. using Flipboard, compared to Google Reader or Twitter itself. And I love the way news is presented. It feels and looks right. And I'm sure we haven't seen the end of iPad app development yet. That's one of the things that really strikes me. The real app development for the iPad has only just started. There are some cool and innovative apps, but we're still figuring out what its real potential is.

I mentioned my wife. I must also mention my kids (2 and 4 years old). They love the iPad! They watch videos, play games and read interactive books on it. The user-interaction seems to be made for them. Flipping through pictures is completely obvious to them, for instance.

The size and weight are ideal. We took the iPad along on our trip to the US. Using a laptop in the car or on a plane is OK, not great. The iPad fits there perfectly. And it kept the kids satisfied the whole way... 

Reading on the iPad is great as well. For example, I've been reading Wired on the iPad for some time. Every Wired issue shows what the iPad means for publishing. I really like the way they are playing with the magazine navigation, interactive articles and infographics, etc.

My newspaper (NRC) is a strange one. They have a website optimized for mobile devices, especially the iPad. But the newspaper itself is currently not much more than an interactive pdf.

In short, the iPad is great for browsing, reading, processing and typing short notes/emails.

We haven't even seen 1% of the potential of the iPad, I think. (Just compare the number of iPhone apps that don't have an iPad counterpart yet...) Some things I'd like to see:

• It would be great if you could search through your iPad content. Most apps are closed and walled. Even within apps search is often poor. For instance, why can't I search through all my Wired magazines, as I can on the web?
• Adding notes, highlighting and underlining content, etc. could be easier. Sometimes you can type comments, but that's not as easy as scribbling some notes with a pen. I think we need something like a pen. This is definitely the case when using the iPad in business environments, I think. Or will voice control do the trick here?
• Sharing content from many apps is horrible. Again, I hope the walled feeling to the iPad and the apps will go away. Why can't I share a Wired article right from the app, like I can do on the web? Just to give one example. 

Does this relate to your iPad experiences? I'd love to hear them. Please, leave a comment or share a link to your post(s) about your experiences.