The gap between intentions (brand and messaging) and actions (product/service quality and public review) is the distance any organization now needs to bridge in their planning.

When checklist cultures meet non-checklist cultures – the clash can be ugly. Much of the difficulty that “digital” people have with integrating their discipline with others (traditional PR or marketing for instance) derives from this culture clash.

Here are four key principles for creating a better business in the network economy:
· Listening beats Talking
· Open beats Closed
· Relationships Beat Transactions
· Questions beat Answers
I have been going into details on each (very …

The last time I saw Charlene Li was in the speaker’s lounge of the Web 2.0 conference. It was March 2008 and her defining book on social technologies, Groundswell, (co-authored with Josh Bernoff) was just being released. There have been tectonic shifts in our economy (and Charlene has moved from Forrester to found the Altimeter group) since then so I wanted to get her sense of the state of social media today.

Imagine resellers, bloggers and trade press being able to host your videos, screencasts and demos on their own sites while you are  measuring response (engagement and demand).    Your company (especially those of you with reseller …

Last week I took a walk with Tim O’Reilly (my boss) and cameraman Kirk Walter (who has perfected the art of walking backwards with a 15 pound camera on his shoulder!). We spoke about a wide range of topics that will be released over the coming weeks. This is the first in that series, “Work on Stuff that Matters,” a subject that Tim spoke about throughout 2008. It seems even more relevant in 2009.

During a client meeting this week on creating an online community I was trying to understand what might motivate their customer to participate.  (Principle: think of your user first when getting into any social technology …

This is a cross-post from Radar:
Recently I spoke with Francois Gossieaux of Beeline Labs about the role of online communities in the enterprise.   Francois has been evangelizing the learning gained from his recent study, The …

Attending the recent Forrestor Roundtable on the future of the Social Web I made an offhand comment that we are all in the business of marketing now – whether we like it or not.   Here …

Thanks to everyone who attended the recent webinar.  Here are the slides from that presentation.  The “slideshare” icon will allow you to download the set from Slideshare.   I would love to hear any follow …