Posted by Ted Hopton on June 23, 2008
Why is it that in an age when we can create community anywhere, we often don’t know the people who live next door?
This is an extraordinary story about a man who decided to make a big change in his neighborhood by truly getting to know his neighbors: he asked to spend the night at their houses.
I really don’t think I could do what he has done, but I wish I had the boldness that it takes, because what he has accomplished is a really good thing.
Posted in Human Interest, Networking | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on May 28, 2008
Wish I had read this good advice from Valeria Maltoni’s Conversation Agent blog before I wrote a bunch of LinkedIn recommendations last weekend, but I’ll certainly keep it in mind for the future. Some good suggestions — I recommend reading the post.
For a recommendation to be useful in a practical way to both the individual recommended and the potential buyer/employer, it needs to answer one main question first: why? Why would you hire him/her instead of someone else? Why would you engage his/her services? It’s because… tell them exactly why.
Posted in Career, Networking, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on May 26, 2008
Roger Cohen’s NYT column, “The Obama Connection,” starts off with a play on Bill Clinton’s famous line from his first presidential campaign (”It’s the economy, stupid”): “It’s the networks, stupid.” Ironically, it’s Bill’s wife and heir-apparent, Hillary, who is implicitly the “stupid” one this time.
More than any other factor, it has been Barack Obama’s grasp of the central place of Internet-driven social networking that has propelled his campaign for the Democratic nomination into a seemingly unassailable lead over Hillary Clinton. Her campaign has been so 20th-century. His has been of the century we’re in.
I’d already been following Obama’s use of the Internet for fund-raising and organizing and energizing volunteers (see, Adios, Sound Bites & Fat Cats - Obama is Changing Politics and Barack Obama Is Rocking the Youth Vote and Obama Supporters Are Hip and Artistic and Home Agents Calling for Barack Obama). Cohen’s column nicely connects the dots and lets the picture emerge more clearly.
As Joshua Green chronicles in an important piece in The Atlantic, Obama has used social networking and his user-friendly Web site to develop the money machine, and the youthful engagement, that has swept him forward.
So, I found Green’s article, “The Amazing Money Machine,” and read that, too. It’s Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Innovation, Networking, Politics, Technology, Trends, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on May 25, 2008
I finally got tired of seeing my LinkedIn progress bar stuck at 90%. The explanation offered said that if I recommended someone in my network, then it would go up to 95%. I kind of assumed that if I wrote two recommendations, it would get to 100%, and then I would feel a sense of accomplishment — a social networking task crossed off my “to do” list.
So, with my motivation all about me, I set out to recommend someone by looking through my connections on LinkedIn. I didn’t even get past the A’s before I saw someone worthy of recommendation. “This one will be easy,” I thought, and in just a couple of minutes I was done, having summed up succinctly what a great job this person had done for me in the past.
“OK, I’ll go for 100%,” I thought, still focused on me. I found another connection Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Human Interest, Networking | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on May 8, 2008
Another interesting story from eMarketer, this time about the large numbers of people who are joining all kinds of online communities.
Nearly half of US Internet users surveyed for the USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future’s “2008 Digital Future Project” report said they belonged to a hobby-oriented online community. A full 41% of respondents belonged to an online social community, and one-third belonged to an online professional community.
I liked this point, too, given my own experience with Multiple Profile Disorder: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Marketing, Networking, Trends, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on April 19, 2008
It’s old news that Obama is popular with younger voters. But this article on Search Engine Watch by Liana Evans explains how much more effective Obama’s use of social media websites has been than his competitor’s.
No longer is it just a TV advertisement, a radio ad or a full-page ad in the local city newspaper that is influencing the youth vote. Heck, it’s not even MTV that is affecting the youth vote anymore. It is the world of social media that is having the greatest effect on energizing that youth vote.
It’s a good case study of how to market effectively using social networking sites — and how not to, in the case of Clinton’s campaign. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Marketing, Media, Networking, Politics, Strategy, Technology, Trends, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on April 19, 2008
There are many reasons why LinkedIn can be ideal for maintaining and possibly developing the loose ties or weak links you have in your network.
Posted in Career, Networking, Technology, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on April 19, 2008
Serial entrepreneur Evan Sohn believes that selling is a broken trade. He’s here to fix it, and he’s attempting to do it with an intuitive venture that is an experiment in sales all its own.
Posted in Innovation, Marketing, Networking, Sales, Technology, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on April 19, 2008
At first I agreed with Michael Rubin’s opinion about the way the crowd acted at Mark Zuckerman’s SXSW keynote when Sarah Lacy did a horrible job as the interviewer. However, the more research I did on what actually happened, the more inclined I am to think that Lacy got what she deserved. Times have changed and I think Rubin has missed that badly.
Posted in Ethics, Human Interest, Media, Networking, Standards, Web 2.0 | No Comments »
Posted by Ted Hopton on April 19, 2008
The historic rivalries of the Ivy League have reached the Internet in the form of an online computer game that is a riff on classic territorial-conquest board games, such as Risk.
Posted in College, Human Interest, Networking, Technology | No Comments »
