Happiness Is Hardly Normal For The #Homeless: Food, Drink & Conversation Around Ending Their Suffering

This is a re-post from the MLF blog.  I want to support Mobile Loaves and Fishes so this is a re-post.  Please feel free to re-post this to your blog as well.

Mark Horvarth (@HardlyNormal) for those of us on Twitter, has been garnering national attention for his efforts to bring voices to the homeless.  His blog and his website have given him a place to explore unexplored stories, and call attention to some of our most overlooked citizens—the homeless among us. Alan Graham, President of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, (@MLFNOW)  invited him to come see Austin and go on a truck run, attend the screening of Happiness Is, and serve the homeless.  So, Mark decided to make Austin a stop on his nation-wide tour!  He’ll be here from the 29th of July through the 1st of August.

Mark, who is, as he puts it “not a solutions guy,” is embarking on his road trip to “see homelessness” and to “help people” by calling attention to their stories.  According to Mark, he has two main strengths going for him: he’s “pushy,” and he’s “loud”—not to mention compassionate.  During our conversation he was particularly upset about the stories he has heard of families “downsizing” by kicking out their eldest children.

So why is he doing this now?  Good question.  As Mark puts it, we are entering into a “perfect storm of homelessness,” with the economy in the place it is, with government out of money.  (In fact, some of his sponsors haven’t even been able to commit because of financial difficulties!)  So, what better time to call attention to this immense need?

Mark will be arriving in town just in time to take part in our social media extravaganza around the movie “Happiness Is.”  You’ll likely be able to have your OWN conversation with Mark at any of the events below:

Happiness Is DVD Signing:

• Waterloo Records Downtown from 5-7 PM on Thursday, July 30th.
• free BBQ from Stubbs and free beer from Shiner
• MLF catering truck and Stubb’s BBQ World Tour trailer

Tweetup

(you don’t have to go to both the movie and the tweetup–stop by for a few!) [I will be at the TweetUp.  You should come too!]

• Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar  from 7-9 PM on Thursday, July 30th
• cash bar + free popcorn
• Here’s a link to the twtvite (#nosuffering), spread the word and RSVP: http://twtvite.com/bn6p48/2

Happiness Is Screening

[I will be watching the documentary as well.  MLF is prominently featured in the movie. Preview here.]

• Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar (directions) at 9:30 PM and 9:50 PM
• Two theaters–one for the movie, and one for social media! You can tweet to your heart’s content
• Reserve tickets by visiting their site at www.HappinessIsTheMovie.com and clicking on the email link for “tickets” on the front page.

For more information on the events visit: www.mlfnow.org/happiness

We would love your help in spreading the compassion and awareness, please help!

• Make a micro-donation to Mobile Loaves & Fishes (www.mlfnow.org/NoSuffering)
• Tweet and Blog the events and the movie–what did you think?
• Follow @MLFNOW
• Follow Happiness Is the movie @HappinessIs_tm
• Help @MLFNOW start a conversation around homelessness and palliative care by interacting on Twitter and the MLF blog
• Help MLF win a $25,000 social media makeover!  Retweet the following: RT to help Mobile Loaves & Fishes win a 25K social media makeover http://ow.ly/4pcs @CommuniCause #cause3324
• Hand out water to the homeless

Community Implementation Strategic Plan: Part 3 of 3

First Installment: Summary and Data Gathering
Second Installment: Membership, Content and Scheduling, and Tools

Rollout Plan

The most successful communities are like a great party.  You know why you’re going, there’s great food and drink when you get there and you’re not the first one there.

Your community needs to be seeded with both content and members when the masses join.  This means creating a rollout plan where each set of constituents knows their role and can help support the community.  Start by getting the entire organization in to join, fill out profiles and seed content. Next, invite a select group of friends and family, those colleagues who are loyal, vocal and will be able to help seed content and be a community advocate.  After the friends and family have had time to participate, a sub-group of participants can be invited in.  This allows you to continue refining the tone and content in the community.  Lastly, open the community to the public and the community can grow in a variety of ways.

Community Management

The last element in preparing for community implementation is community management.  It’s valuable to prepare and train the designated community manager on how to be the voice of the community, deal with negative or imperfect feedback and how to deal with troublemakers.  This usually comes in the form of a plan of action.  Documenting the scheduling calendar as well as a plan and script for dealing with negative(and positive) feedback helps prepare your company for implementation.

Design

Working with either a hired design team or an internal design team, you need to designate a voice of the customer.  The designated VoC helps the designer and the technology team make sure that when the community is developed, the community follows the strategy.

Development

There will be many things to think about in the development phase.  Most community platforms have lots of hooks and switches that can be turned on or off.  The questions about how the community should be set up should match easily to the community strategy.

Launch

Circle back with the team to confirm that the defined strategy has been successfully implemented.  This is also the point that you’re putting the final touches on your promotional material.  This could be both internal announcements and presentations and member emails and banners.

Ongoing Management

Strategy does not end on launch day.  Communities evolve and grow and must be strategically reviewed on a regular basis.  The frequency and depth of a strategic review depends on the type of community and the evolution of the community.  Generally, more frequent strategy reviews are necessary in the first 6 months to a year of a community’s existence.  Communities are always evolving so make sure to keep a pulse on your community and make sure you’re addressing the changing needs of your community as a whole and the individual members.

Caveat

There are so many more elements that go into implementing a successful community.  Don’t think that because it hasn’t been listed here that it’s not valuable.  I also encourage you to read other’s blogs on the subject, such as Tom Humbarger’s blog, Social Media Musings.  He covers many valuable topics and I know, first hand, that he has a proven track record in implementing successful communities.  Here’s a great presentation on the 10 Commandments of Community Management by Amy Muller at Get Satisfaction.

Community Implementation Strategic Plan: Part 2 of 3

First Installment: Summary and Data Gathering

Now that you have chosen a very specific area of your business to focus on in launching your community, you want to start thinking about the people, tone and content that make up your community.  This valuable process determines how employees and other members act, interact and perceive value within the community.  A solid strategy is critical but without thinking about how to execute against that strategy, you will not find success.

Defining Membership

Now that you’ve chosen the business area and audience you want to focus on for your community, you will want to break your membership down to understand who your membership is.  Breaking membership down into the demographics of target members allows the team to begin to understand how members want to be reached, what types of information will interest them, how they want to interact and how often they’ll visit the community.

Work with your project team to define things like:

• Member demographics
• Member interests
• Familiarity with technology
• Frequency of visits

Content and Scheduling

Content and scheduling often drive the initial success of the community.  Members may not have obvious commonalities, so the company must initially expect to provide value.  There are many ways in which content can be gathered for a community:

• You may already have significant information to share with the community.
• You may need to acquire internal or external subject matter experts to participate in the community by contributing content and/or interacting with other community members
• You also want to think about creating new content specifically for the community

Scheduling is just as important as content.  By setting a calendar of events for a community manager to execute, it insures that as members return to the community, there is new and fresh content to consume.  Scheduling can also be in the form of newsletters, webinars, or helping with promotion of offline events.  Scheduling can be formal, like posting a new podcast each week, or it can be informal, like starting new discussions on a regular basis.

Tools

Now that the strategy, membership and content and scheduling have been defined, the decision about what tools to use, how to use those tools and when to execute those tools can be defined.

Community best practices dictate starting small when launching a community.  This means, staying focused on a specific audience, usually even launching to a beta group of members.  This method of starting small should also be applied to the tools.  Launching a subset of the tools that will be used not only allows your company to focus energies on a specific area; it also allows the membership to focus on content and interaction in a specific area.  From that point, the community can grow both in member numbers, tools and available content.

Based on the prior decisions, many of the required tools will be obvious, but at this point, tool requirements should be documented and final decisions will be made.  You want to think about what tools will be used and how they will be used.

Final Installment: Launch and Management

Community Implementation Strategic Plan: Part 1 of 3

Implementing a successful online community is like any implementing any successful project.  The key is making sure you are focused on defining the correct goals and setting you, your company and your community members up for success.  This is a very high-level plan that I have used successfully for many community implementations.  Because this is a long post, I have broken it up into a series of posts that I will publish over the next few days.  If you have questions or want more information, just ask.  This is a basic guideline for a generic community implementation.  Anyone who is managing a successful community can tell you, it takes significant planning and continued community management to find success.

This post does not address picking a platform vendor.  I strongly encourage you to either engage a proven community strategy professional or make sure your community platform provider has the in-house resources to help you create your strategy.  Most platform companies do not have community strategists in-house but they can often point you in the right direction.  Make sure to ask.

Summary

Here are steps in creating and implementing an online community strategy.  Like any implementation, creating a project plan and educating the project team on the project plan allows for better understanding and thus easier execution of the project.

A standard community implementation is broken into five parts:

• Strategy
• Design
• Development
• Launch
• Ongoing Management

A solid strategy for community implementation is critical to the success of a community.  Your community strategy must tie to your business strategy.  If you start your strategic plan with the list of tools you’re thinking about using, your approach may need some adjustment.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s very important to understand the value of each tool available so you can understand how the execution of the tools tie to your community strategy but the strategy really needs to start with a business need, then move to understanding the audience (aka membership) then understanding their content wants and needs, then understanding how to manage and support the community from a content and member perspective.

Strategy

Defining the community is a critical step in a successful community implementation.  Treat your community implementation as any other project.  You want to determine and gather the project team as well as the project consultants.  As in any project, you want to make sure your team members are on the same page by creating a project plan and educating them at a kickoff meeting. Next, you want to do some analysis.

Data Gathering
There are a variety of ways businesses come to the conclusion that they need a community.  I have seen the most success by starting small, focusing on a small group, single product or single business area.  Looking at both the business area that’s most receptive, either because they have expressed interest, they’re already connecting using their own methods, or they have the most pain with their current situation.

Competitive Research
In order to understand the environment in which the community is launched, it’s important to understand both the external competitors to the community as well as internal competition.  What are others in your industry doing?  Are there places where potential members are already interacting?  They could be interacting in another community, or even using a different channel, like face-to-face interaction.

Understanding Overall Business Strategy
The success of the community has a great deal to do with executing the community in a way that’s going to fit into both the organizational structure of the company’s organization as well as the overall business strategy and goals.

Understanding Community Strategy & Purpose
Now is a great time to get a general understanding of the purpose, membership and goals of the community must be defined so that the next stages of strategy can be defined.

This is also an important time to start discussing the tone of the community, the voice of the organization within the community and the interaction the client plans to have with other community members.

Second Installment: Membership, Content and Scheduling, and Tools
Final Installment: Launch and Management

Dear Job Seeker

It looks like another one of my friends may get laid off. It seems like her company is going to lay her off at 5:00 PM on a Friday! Really!?!

I’m not a career coach so I plan to ask my career coach friends to read this and offer some constructive feedback for me and you in the comments section. I suspect I’m not far off on my advice, but they’re the experts, not me.

Anyway, I told my friend that if she did get laid off, I’d have my arsenal of advice ready for her. I immediately started my list of things I wanted to tell her. Then, I realized that others will find this information valuable. Thus this post was born.

Day One

I don’t think you should climb into your pajamas and vegetate in front of the TV on day one. I know lots of people will disagree with me, but for me, taking action on day one was immensely valuable. (Thank you so much Aaron Strout for being my brain when I got laid off.  Aaron gave me a step-by-step list of what I was going to do on day one.  It kept me from having a pity party and got me focused on making progress.)

Tim Walker has some great posts on being laid off. Start with What to do when your friends are laid off. I realize it’s from a different perspective but it’s still good information. Then read his series Notes on job-hunting: It’s not over until you win.

Now that you have read these posts, get your resume in order. Actually, you should always have your resume in order. Someone once told me you should go on an interview at least once a year so that you can stay in the game. If you don’t already have your resume ready, do it right away. Don’t wait.

Tell people you were laid off. I know this is controversial because there is a stigma attached to being laid off but I think it makes it easier for people to help you if they know you’re laid off. Plus, in the 2009 market, I don’t think there’s as much stigma. After all, when people like Rachel Happe and Jim Storer have been laid off, you know you’re in good company. How do you get the word out there? Tell people on Twitter, update your status in Facebook and update your LinkedIn profile. On LinkedIn, update your experience, title, and the “what are you working on?” status sections. Anyone on your network will be able to see that you’re looking. While you’re at it, add some folks to your LinkedIn network. You should have already done this, but better now than never.

People will immediately start asking you what they can do to help. Be prepared to respond. Write a job help email. It’s an email you put together so that when someone says, “send me your resume, I may know someone who’s hiring” or you’re proactively reaching out to someone who may not be hiring but would be willing to help, you can tell them what you’re looking for. Keep it very brief. Offer your contact information and thank them.

Breathe

Now you can take a breath.

Start thinking about what you want to do next. Write down what you want to do. Look at what you wrote. Think about it, then adjust it until it becomes your elevator pitch. You should sound enthusiastic when you say it. If you don’t sound enthusiastic, people won’t hear you. If you’re not enthusiastic, maybe you’re not doing what you love. I credit this advice to Liz Baker McKay, a kick-butt Career Consultant in Austin. (I wish she’d tweet, she’d kick butt at that too.)

Start a list of all the companies you want to work for. I want to stay in Austin, so I started with the Austin, Texas Book of Lists. Narrow it down to 30 (not many more than that). I would even add companies that aren’t hiring, it worked for me. I have been continuously adjusting my list, deleting those where clearly we’re not a cultural match and adding ones as I read or hear about them.

Go to your LinkedIn list and do a search on your 30 list and see which of your friends are 1st or 2nd connected to people at these companies. Then ask your friends and colleagues if they’ll make a connection. If your contacts are local, ask if they’ll have coffee or lunch with you. Don’t expect that they’re interviewing you. Actually, prepare by knowing who they are, what they do, and what their company does, but don’t expect anything. The conversation goes much better this way.

Stay Busy

Don’t just stick to your list. Have coffee or lunch with people who are interesting to you. I have had coffee and lunch with dozens of people and there has only been one meeting that I walked away going, hmmm, that wasn’t that productive. Even if this person can’t offer you a job, you can learn from them, or help them with something you know. Enjoy the conversation, expect to share what you know. You just do not know what that connection might bring. Meet up with them again. Have coffee again or invite them to something they might be interested in. Stay connected. Again, I’ll go back to Liz Baker McKay here. She says, it’s not one meeting, it’s creating relationships, and those don’t generally happen with one meeting.

Throughout this process, review and update your elevator pitch, your resume, and your job help email. I’ve been making small and large tweaks to these throughout my search and I think they’re much better than they were three months ago.

Go to events and activities in your area. Go to the ones that sound interesting to you. Invite others to these interesting events as well.

Appreciate people. Thank them for their time. Meet them when and where it’s convenient to them. Try to offer them something in return.

Stay busy. You may find that you have a lot of free time on your hands. Stay busy. Aside from going to events, conferences, etc. commit to do something for yourself. I’m doing lots of gardening, working out, meeting up with people for coffee. I have also done some project work, not for profit work, volunteering, and learning.

Some days will be better than others. My friends tell me I seem happier now than I did a couple of months ago. I don’t feel much different but I know I’m happy. I feel like I’m learning something by being unemployed right now. It’s been interesting.

Wow, I got through this whole post and didn’t once mention searching for jobs online, or the cover letter. I’m sure others have talked about this but my favorite job search site is indeed. There are also lots of industry specific job lists. I found that most of the traditional job boards, like Monster and Career Builder aren’t for me.

Let me know how it goes for you.

Blog Carnival Week 4: Drumroll Please

The Winner

And the winner of this week’s Social Media Blog Carnival is….

A blog about blogging.  Shocker!!!  Actually, The winner, Jason Baer wrote an interesting post on blog rankings, The Inefficiencies of the Reputation Economy.  He points out that blog rankings still have a long way to go before they’re up to par with other media rankings.

I like his blog post for many reasons.  Here are just a few.  His post is:

• Informative regarding current blog ranking tools, what they’re good and how they’re flawed
• Offers information about each measurement tool
• Brief enough that I didn’t feel like I was reading a book or a magazine article. (note to others)
• Totally relevant to me and almost every other blogger in the world, even if they’re not super interested in their own influence.  He actually tells you why you should care even if you’re not interested in ranking
• Easy to read

I have now started following Jason Baer’s blog, Convince & Convert via RSS.  I suggest you do the same.

Runners Up

In second place, my friend Rachel Happe writes about how Social Software can make businesses more efficient in her post, Social Software – The Value is Not Really About the Conversation.

I like her blog post because it is:

• Prescriptive, and provides relevant examples we all relate to
• Funny, ha ha funny not strange funny
• Relevant, though not as directly relevant as blogging about blogs, any business person can read this post and relate it to their own experience then see how they could use social software to become more efficient
• Easy to read (notice a trend?)

There were also several runners up that I’d like to mention:

• 5 Fascinating Video Lectures from Academic Earth UniversitiesandColleges.org talks about this very cool site where you can watch lectures on a variety of topics.  They offer a sample of these in the post.  I like that two different forms of communication are mashing together. It was very, very easy to read.
• SEO Checklist for Creating a New Website It is prescriptive and easy to follow.  Good even if you already have a site and are trying to optimize it. It was also easy to read.
• Word of Mouth Movements need Strong Identities It’s not a totally new concept but one businesses need to be thinking about as they move into the social space.

Thank You For Playing

I read several really interesting blog posts, some posts that really were not particularly new or interesting, and a couple really awful posts.  With that, I’d like to offer my tips to future submitters:

• Remember, it’s likely I’ve never been to your blog before.  I hate to break it to you but no, not every person in the world reads your blog.  Give me some context about your blog or write the post so it doesn’t matter.
• This is a SOCIAL MEDIA competition, so if it’s not about social media, or somehow directly impacts social media, I fell asleep reading your post and decided to disqualify it.  It also means that this is such a broad topic that I might not know what you’re talking about.  Context is key.
• Submitters, I’m the only one reading your post unless I publish it here.  Thanks for the spam (you 3) I’ll not be promoting your blog post.
• A tip in composing your blog.  Tell me what you’re going to tell me.  The element of surprise isn’t a good technique when you’re writing a blog post.
• Show me proof, show me #s.  I like numbers, shiny numbers that sparkle make me happy. Also, other forms of proof work, like examples.
• Keep it short.  If it is going to be a long post, create a series or break it up into more digestible parts.

Thanks for playing and congratulations to the winners!

Social Media Blog Carnival: I’m a Judge

This is it.  I’m this weeks judge for this year’s Social Media Blog Carnival.

So, here’s the deal.  You submit your best blog post from the past 2 weeks.  I judge your work based on the following criteria (thanks Jack Leblond):

• Originality
  With a possible 15 points, this one is very important.  There is always some duplication in the blogosphere, but we really hope to get original content and not something that has been covered 100 times over already.
• Reach
  Worth 10 points, this is a gauge of how many people this post could possible impact – lots or just a few.
• Measure
  Another 10 pointer, measure is our estimate of how much impact the article might have on each reader.
• Lastly, at 5 points each there is; Entertaining, Informative, Spelling/grammar and Visual appeal

Then I read/watch/listen to all submissions and pick a winner.  Simple as that.

Well… What are you waiting for?  Go write your best blog post ever.  Then submit it so I can judge you.

Twitter: Where should I eat/drink/be entertained in Austin?

I subscribe to the mantra, “Keep Austin Weird.” In essence, this means buy local and support local Austin businesses. I’d like to take it a step further and offer some advice to local businesses.

I’ve been seeing this exciting trend on Twitter lately. Local retailers are getting onto twitter. Judging from their very mixed styles it seems like some (not all) could use help with their twitter strategies. What better time to get the twitter ball rolling than the week leading up to SXSWi when tens (or maybe hundreds) of thousands of twitterers will descend upon this great city?

I came up with a list of twitter suggestions on my own. Then I thought, “I know I’m missing some concepts here, let me just ask my twitter friends.” Here are a few ideas we came up with:

• Search (or use TweetDeck to search) terms like “Austin & Food“, “Austin & Dinner” you get the idea. Then respond to folks who say, “Hmmm, where should I go for dinner tonight in Austin, any recommendations?”
• Then of course, search for your own name and respond to people when they say something about your establishment, whether it’s good or bad.
• Be human, “it’s a gorgeous day in Austin”.
• Make suggestions, “Come on down and have a coffee on our patio. We’d love to see you on this 72 degree day”.
• Tweet specials, upcoming events, favorite food items, etc. Kate Morris suggests using twitter for “event announcements, noting trends, reaching out to new customers and [providing] reviews.” Alex Rock says, “provide time based promotions (e.g. 50%off for the next 120′). Or, answer short recipe questions. Provide directions & reservations, provide customer service.” Austin Kelon would also like to learn about freebies and special events on Twitter.
• Listen and connect. Create loyal followings by being human, listening and offering value. Debbie C. reminds retailers to “make it personal,” she says, “don’t tweet rote ‘come out and enjoy our patio’ multiple days, or auto-tweet messages.”
• Both Debbie C. and Bryan Person suggest learning from others by following @coffeegroundz, a Houston coffee shop paving the twitter way for local retailers. Robert Ayala sent me this great article, Taco truck with a Korean twist, fueled by Twitter, on how a street vendor, @Kogi, uses twitter.
• Follow other Austin retailers not just to learn from your peers but also to create a supportive network. Support each other’s Social Media efforts, your customers will respond positively. You’ll also find that you’ll get exponentially more out of your Social Media and twitter efforts by helping others.
• Reach out to visitors by using and following special event hashtags like #SXSW. Anthony Belindo wants to know the best pizza to eat on 6th street while attending SXSW.

Retailers, want to know more? Ask me a question in the comments. If I don’t know the answer, I’m sure someone in my network will.

Here is a list of local retailers in Austin who are on Twitter. I’ve included their twitter bio as well:

Restaurants/Food/Coffee:

• @NinosPizza A little taste of New York in Texas
• @AustinJava Funky yet Refined. Breakfast All Day, Lunch, Dinner & Desserts. We locally roast organic & fair trade coffees. Catering 472-5282. Catch the buzz!!
• @BelmontAustin Classic American Restaurant & Bar
• @CafeCaffeine Serving up your daily hot cup of cool, with just a dash of (r)evolution to keep things interesting!
• @grovewinebar When we first opened, we called ourselves a wine bar. However, since our inception, we have had a fullkitchen. Operated by Beth Lasita and Reed Clemons.
• @homeslicepizza Home Slice is an authentic NY style pizza place.
• @joscoffee good coffee and people on S Congress in Austin
• @LiftCafe Funky Fresh Coffee and Smoothies in the Heart of the 78704
• @nxnwbrew North by Northwest Restaurant and Brewery is filled with great food and great brews. And yes – we brew them all right here!
• @OpalDivines It’s Worth it at Opal Divine’s!
• @Sodade Independent coffeehouse in North Austin at Gracy Farms (next to Tacodeli) Hours: Weekdays 6:30am – 9:00pm, Weekends 7:00am – 8:00pm
• @SugarMamas the sweetest little bakeshop in atx serving up fresh-baked from scratch yumminess!
• @Tacodeli Best Taco in Austin. 7-3 weekdays, 8-3 weekends.
• @tiffstreats Made from scratch, Baked to Order, Delivered Warm
• @unclebillys Uncle Billy’s serves delicious BarBQ, burgers, & more. Award winning brews from the Brewery. Watch the game & hang out on the outdoor patio. Catering 44
• @wheatsville Austin’s Community Grocery!
• @skishores burgers, pizza, beer, and live music on beautiful lake Austin. Drive, boat, or swim on up to enjoy an Austin tradition since 1954. (added 3/7/09)
• @KickButtCoffee Do you Kick Butt? (added 3/8/09)
• @thegoodknight soul food with classic cocktails (added 3/9/09)
• @TorchyTaco (added 3/20/09)
• @vivachocolato Chocolate is cheaper than therapy. And you don’t need an appointment.(added 3/20/09)

Bars/Clubs:

• @AcesJason Owner of Aces Lounge
• @AntonesNightclb Austin’s Home of the Blues
• @BelmontAustin Classic American Restaurant & Bar
• @emosaustin Austin’s legendary rock club, come see your old and future favorite bands with us.
• @grovewinebar When we first opened, we called ourselves a wine bar. However, since our inception, we have had a full kitchen. Operated by Beth Lasita and Reed Clemons.
• @littlewoodrow Little Woodrow’s Neighborhood Bar is the beer lovers place for the ultimate sports watching experience, featuring drink specials every day with over 100 beers!
• @nxnwbrewNorth by Northwest Restaurant and Brewery is filled with great food and great brews. And yes – we brew them all right here!
• @OpalDivines It’s Worth it at Opal Divine’s!
• @unclebillys Uncle Billy’s serves delicious BarBQ, burgers, & more. Award winning brews from the Brewery. Watch the game & hang out on the outdoor patio. Catering 44
• @thegoodknight soul food with classic cocktails (added 3/9/09)

Other:

• @birdsbarbershop Now you can call ahead for even faster service: BIRD SOUTH: 512-442-8800/BIRDS NORTH/BIRDS EAST: 457-0400
• @BookPeople
• @TXRollergirls Austin’s All Women’s Flat Track Roller Derby League- Ranked #5 in the US (added 3/9/09)
  

I know this is not an exhaustive list so please let me know what you’re doing on Twitter or on other social networks. Also, feel free to comment if you know of an Austin retailer I missed.

My DeepBench Interview

Today I was profiled in Rachel Happe’s blog, The Social Organization.  I had the pleasure of working with Rachel at Mzinga where I formed a great respect for her.  She has strong convictions about what social media can be and where she thinks it should be headed.  It’s exciting to work with someone who has broad talents and is able to quickly provide value to an organization.

Rachel is conducting a series of Deep Bench interviews with folks in the social media space who have recently been let go. She said, “I wanted to profile them so others got a sense for the talent that is currently available.”  Thank you so much Rachel, for selecting me as one of your interviewees.  I’m humbled by your generosity and appreciate you choosing me.

Here is the text of my Deep Bench Profile:

The Strout name may ring bells for some of you in social media/enterprise community circles but you may or may not know that there are two heavy hitting Strouts out there. While Heather is a little less ‘out there’ than Aaron, she is equally experienced and has done some incredible work with customers to get them going in the right direction.  She is dedicated and passionate and takes a true partnership approach to the companies with whom she has worked. I’ve heard many a customer rave about her and seen first hand how well she acts as a customer advocate – both fighting for them and often telling them what they needed to hear in a way they could appreciate it.

Here are her answers to my questions:

What part of the social web world are you most fascinated by and why?

I look forward to seeing the change in the way businesses are run by using social media, online communities and knowledge sharing.  Using new tools to communicate to and with customers is a start but to see that bleed further into other areas of the organization such as customer service, R&D, knowledge sharing, innovation etc. is really what I’m looking forward to.

What are you passionate about and what motivates that passion?

I am passionate about helping people understand the value of social media in a way that affects how they think about personal and business relationships.

If you could construct your own job who would you be working with? For whom? On what problems?

I know that creating online communities can fundamentally change the way that companies do business, employees interact, and stakeholders find value in an organization. The challenge is that it’s difficult to get organizations to change. I’d love to help companies recognize the value and fundamentally change the way that their employees exchange information with each other, and with the company stakeholders.

Since you can’t always make up a job that will support you – what are you looking for next?

I am interested in a job at a company that consults businesses in building social media strategy or a job where the hiring company is looking for someone to build a social media strategy and then execute on that strategy for their own organization.

What project/activity from past jobs gave you the most joy?

Seeing EDR’s commonground hit its stride in the summer of last year was really exciting. The employees that I worked with at EDR understood the affect the community could have on their business. I felt that they had poured their soul into the community, as I had. It was exciting to see all our hard work really come to fruition. I still visit the community on a regular basis and it’s really going gangbusters.

What non-work related activities make you the happiest?

I’m blessed with an extended family and all of them work really hard to stay connected. Being with them is awesome.  Also, traveling is a huge passion of mine. Learning how other people live in other cultures and eating their food is something I’ll never get enough of. Sitting down to a meal with my husband is my daily joy.

What’s your most amusing work-related story?

Sitting in a San Jose, CA motel parking lot and working through business strategy with Barry Libert. Driving with him is a hoot also. He always wanted to hire a driver or get in a taxi when we traveled for business together and I always insisted on renting a car and being the navigator. That was always exciting.  He’s very enthusiastic. He’d be in the middle of a thought, and I’d be yelling, Left, here, now!

What are your thoughts about the US economy and what is going on?

It’s frustrating to lose your job but I’m hopeful that these difficult times bring individuals a deeper understanding of what’s important to them. I also hope it helps businesses shift to become more efficient, sustainable and valuable to employees and customers.

I think we’re going to see an uptick in jobs in social media in the next few months. I think our field can’t sustain this contraction and companies will start hiring in our field as well as in other white collar high-tech jobs.

Anything else?

Thank you to my family and friends who have been so supportive this past month. So many people have offered to help in a variety of ways. Everyone’s support has really helped me land on my feet and focus on my next move. I am confident that my next job will be a great fit for me and it will allow me to progress in my career.

Check out her blog, Social Media Building Blocks or find her on Twitter.

You can read Rachel Happe’s blog The Social Organization, find Rachel on twitter at @rhappe and follow this series at #deepbench.

Structural Change as a Catalyst for Social Change

Today, I had lunch with a professor from business school, Reuben McDaniel, and a mutual friend, Keri Pearlson.  I wanted to get some advice on this subject so I asked what they thought was a catalyst for change within an organization.  Specifically, how to change the way people (employees) share information (aka, knowledge sharing).  What I really wanted to ask was, “what are catalysts for change in the direction a business intends?”  The following list is a marriage of my ideas and theirs:

• Physical Layout – Change the physical layout of the office space.  Changing the layout of an office changes the way people interact with each other.  Yes, cubes can be really good for an organization.  Casual meeting places, cafeterias, etc.  can all change the way folks interact.
• Organizational Structure – Realign the way the organization is structured.  If people are grouped by role, change it up to group them by project or product.  This alone requires them to learn to interact with a new set of individuals.
• Technology – We always say technology doesn’t matter, but it does.  Technology that’s quick and easy to use and allows people to share in the way that makes sense for a business can quickly be adopted by individuals if value is quick to understand.
• Built-in – Some organizations seek out constant change, and not small, evolutionary change but large dramatic change.
• Disruptive – Like a law being passed or major changes in business climate such as a recession or boom.  These types of changes sometimes force business change.  If change doesn’t occur in reaction to these disruptive market changes, it can often be the demise of a company.

Change can be difficult.  Even when you do have one or all of these catalysts for change, the change doesn’t always happen.  Sometimes, people are afraid of change, so they keep doing what they do.  Sometimes they love what they do so much, they’re not willing to change.  Sometimes organizations are able to change, but not in the right way.

The best way to make sure that your catalyst for change works is to pair it with strategic planning.  Plan not only the execution of the process and/or technology, but the strategy behind it; involve others, train, etc.

I know I missed a few. What are other catalysts for organizational change?