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Just a brief salute to mark Ada Lovelace Day. I know hundreds of admirable, inspiring women in technology. Frankly I’m amazed when conference organizers and others complain about a “lack” of women in technology to serve as executives, authors, speakers and entrepreneurs. That’s just a pretty lazy cop-out. There are plenty of women who inspire me every day and set amazing examples for the world through their intelligence, integrity and leadership.

Selecting one is almost impossible, so I’ll fall back on the woman whose tech leadership in the web’s early days first caught my attention: Esther Dyson. Reading about her in the pages of Wired in the late 90’s, her name and intelligence and leadership stuck with me like nobody else’s. I was gushy (and as a result, tongue-tied) when I got to shake her hand at TechSet NYC last year (thanks Stephanie and Brian!). I continue to look up to her, and am grateful for her example. Thanks Esther.

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It’s World Water Day. Leaving 1 in 6 humans without safe drinking water is a time bomb. Letting thousands of children under 5 die every day is a time bomb. Share this video, get involved with Charity: Water, and make a difference.

With love,
Pistachio

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So you’re home (or you got to stay for SXSW music in which case I hate you. you’re not really reading blogs anyhow) from SXSWi, missing your friends and recovering from 5 days of (pick all that apply) hangovers, sleep deprivation, inbox neglect, slipped deadlines. What’s a geek to do? Don’t drown yourself in the Twitterstream. Try these creative (hastily scribbled, I’m busy working on my own #1, below) cures…

10. Grab a 6-pack, jump into your neighbor’s RV, sing loudly and off-key and add #RVIP to your next tweet

9. Put a chainlink fence in front of the office bathrooms and tell co-workers “sorry, VIP only.”

8. Find a rooftop bar, serve Caipirinhas, invite friends and call it #GeeksLove[activity name here]

7. BBQ and Shiner Bock. ‘Nuff said

6. Blog the 5 most valuable things you got out of SXSWi and dig deeper with links to more information, then compare with what your friends learned, and keep the energy going

5. Continue trying to figure out where the people you’d hoped to meet are hanging out by stalking following their Tweets and FourSquare streams.

4. Watch online videos of TED Talks, past SXSWi and best-of videos from SXSWi presenters like Kathy Sierra, Merlin Mann, Gary Vaynerchuk, Tony Hsieh…

3. …and “live-tweet” them

2. Move to SF

But what’s the single BEST way to cure your SXSWi homesickness?

1. Rock out your new project so you can bring the Thunder at SXSWi 2010!!

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UPDATE: The campaign kicks off at the Mashable party tonight, 10 PM central

Twice I’ve spent a week at Children’s Hospital in Boston, once each with my daughters “S” and “Z.” Both times I had the healthiest kid in the joint, and both times I was truly humbled and inspired by the heroic children and families who spend much too much time there.

I was humbled to see guys my age on the elevator discussing their kids’ blood counts as “normally” as sports scores. How do you normalize life when your kid lives in a hospital? Where do you find strength to battle their serious and chronic illness? How can you give your baby joy and respite from their battle?

So I’m on Team Petty in the in the SXSW Charity Smackdown. Please join me! Please tweet, blog, donate and tell your friends that we’re fighting to give seriously sick kids a chance to go to Victory Junction (modeled on Paul Newman’s Hole-in-the-Wall-gang camps.)

NASCAR fans need no introduction to Kyle Petty, a popular 3rd-generation race car driver. In 2000, Kyle had to bury his son Adam after a tragic accident at the New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

Adam’s dream had been to build a camp for seriously ill children in North Carolina. So just five months after his untimely death his family met with Paul Newman to establish Victory Junction in Adam’s memory. The first camp opened in Randleman, NC in 2004, and a second camp in Wyandotte County, Kansas is coming.

At Victory Junction, children 6-16 battling serious disease get a small break in their fight. They get to go to camp for free and just be a kid for a little while. Kids that would otherwise never be able to have a normal fun summer experience. Kids who bear some pretty heavy burdens.

Join me in battle alongside Kyle and Rutledge Wood of the SPEED Channel. Help us give courageous kids and their families a few moments away from their own fights. Grab a badge, make a donation, tweet, blog, just please, spread the word.

Please tweet:

Charity Smackdown! Kyle Petty and @pistachio are fighting for sick kids and Victory Junction. http://bit.ly/Jthqi Please RT? http://bit.ly/VictJ (or just click here to tweet it)

Social media pals Pete Cashmore, Chris Brogan and many others, I DO love you guys… but THIS is a SmackDown.

Thanks!

Warmly, Pistachio

When Twitter really is your village…

I LOVE the Twitter integrations that www.rentwiki.com just announced. One is “neighborhood talk” — a simple widget on their site that searches Twitter for mentions of the neighborhood. That means you can peek at what’s being said, and if you want, you can immediately reach out to the folks who are saying it. You can view the page for North Beach, SF that’s also pictured below:

RentWiki Twitter Integration

From their (excellent, by the way) pitch email:

“Wouldn’t it be nice if you could go into the coffee shop of a neighborhood you were interested in moving to and listen to what the locals are saying without feeling seriously awkward?”

You have to pick a city, drill down to “Neighborhood Review” and then click on a specific neighborhood to find the Twitter integration, but once you do it’s pretty sweet. In my talks and webinars I explain Twitter’s 5 “off-platform” benefits (SEO, Research, Content Generation Engine, Word of Mouth and PR Gravity) that help business whether or not your customers are even on Twitter. This is a GREAT example of what I mean by “content generation engine.” RentWiki’s readers don’t have to know a thing about Twitter to benefit from this integration.

But if they do, it gets even better…

Advice: WWTD?

What would Twitter do?

You can also get your friends’ opinions. Twitter’s GREAT at social shopping and getting advice. Right on each neighborhood reviews page there’s a button to autogenerate a Tweet asking your readers for advice:

I’m thinking about moving to [Neighborhood, City]. Any advice or feedback on this area?

It does this the right way too, without surprises or spammy* links. It routes you to Twitter.com and fills out the update box for you, but you have control over rewriting the tweet and posting it yourself. The suggested text is included in the URL (see below) and posting control remains with you.

http://twitter.com/home?status=I%27m+thinking+about+moving+to+University+Place,+Houston.+Any+advice+or+feedback+on+this+area?

(*I’d actually recommend they include a link back to the neighborhood page on RentWiki, so your readers know exactly what you mean, and to subtly but usefully promote their site.)

RentWiki Founder Eric Wu:

Once a place to start conversations, Twitter has quickly evolved into a market research tool, wholesaler of goods, search engine, news site, and even a rental search. The goal of RentWiki is to give people searching for a place to live real advice from renters living in that area. By integrating with Twitter, we are expanding the conversation beyond just our site and into the real-time social web.

Kudos to them for “getting it” and for creative use of Twitter in their business.
If you liked this post, please consider subscribing to the TouchBase blog

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Woke up to find #skittles and Extreme Social are trending on Twitter search. Why?

Agency.com and Mars replaced www.skittles.com with a mashup of redirects to social media channels overlaid by a small navigation widget:

HOME: The already famous skittles Twitter search link. This is your home page. Take it away, folks.

PRODUCTS: Product information on your first click, then it becomes Wikipedia. What do YOU think our products are? Have at it. Wikipedians will keep us safe.

MEDIA: Video is their YouTube channel and Pics is, naturally a Flickr redirect. (Yes, of course I got pictures for thie post there. Who needs a social media press release when the assets are this easy to pick up and embed?)

CHATTER: Same as HOME: the Twitter search page

FRIENDS: Facebook page

CONTACT: well, ok, no social media hack here.

Terrific, self-propagating buzz, making the home page a Twitter search. It predictably stirred the Twitter community right up, the word Skittles “trended” to the top of Twitter Search and lots and lots and lots of word of mouth ensued.

Searching Twitter for Skittles and agency quickly reveals that Agency.com is behind the campaign and that agency Modernista did pretty much the same thing with their site. But as Brian Morrissey of AdWeek blog AdFreak puts it:

The Skittles site is an interesting case study for a consumer goods company. Let’s face it: Why would anyone go to a packaged-goods Web site? But nowadays, in social media, people are talking about all sorts of stuff. Agency.com gets that with a “chatter” link that pulls up the results of a “skittles” search on Twitter. It could be on to something. Does it really matter if Modernista or Zeus Jones got there first?

Did they realize the Twitter search would get graffiti’d and spammed? Of course they did. People like to see their mark on the wall. A floating box requires visitors to reveal their age and opt into a disclaimer about the content.

My first impressions? (In tweets, natch):

Waking up to word about the #skittles Twitter marketing stunt rt @kitson Here’s @Mashable’s take: http://sn.im/mashskit0302

If you’ve not seen it: www.skittles.com.is =a twitter search page for skittles. WOM + Buzz: generated. Curses: posted. Agency: Agency.com

re: skittles PRODUCTS links go to a wiki. FRIENDS: Facebook page MEDIA: YouTube. quite the social media diving in.

Lots of comments pro and con. I think it’s a great campaign, will get them LOADS of press, and experiments with some fun concepts in skating out a brand’s social media territory.

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When we get the link to The recorded webinar:

Click To Play

Slides from Slideshare.com:

UStream Video:
Live TV : Ustream

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• PR Squared: Laura Fitton - Pistachio in Residence (tsurch.com)

Really excited about our “Wednesdays at One” webinar series — a program of tightly focused, high-value webinars and clinics to help your business make the most of Twitter and microsharing. We’ve announced two dates already, with lots more to come. Expect specialized classes like Twitter for PR, Twitter for Executives and more, as well as small-group Q&A consulting calls. I hope you will join us! My speaking schedule is also filling up fast. Below, the Wednesdays at One series and my other public speaking events…

Wednesdays at One Webinar:
Twitter for Business 101
February 25, 2009 1 PM EST
FREE register now

MITX Panel: (in Boston)
MITX: 2008 Elections and Digital Technology
February 26, 2009 6:00 PM

Social Media Jungle: (in Boston)
Jeff Pulver’s Social Media Jungle Boston
March 10, 2009
Use referral code ZHNWGFCD for $50 off registration

Wednesdays at One Webinar:
Advanced Twitter for Business
March 11, 2009 1 PM EST
$250 register now (earlybird discounts available)

Wednesdays at One Webinar:
Twitter for Business, TBD
March 25, 2009 1 PM EST

ICA Panel and Interview: (in Boston)
ICA/AIGA event Design as Social Agent
–Social Networking for Social Good
–The Many Mutations of Viral Marketing
April 4, 2009

Wednesdays at One Webinar:
Twitter for Business, TBD
April 8, 2009 1 PM EDT

Wednesdays at One Webinar:
Twitter for Business, TBD
April 22, 2009 1 PM EDT

Keynote Discussion: (in San Francisco)
SNCR New Communications Forum
April 27-29, 2009

Wednesdays at One Webinar:
Twitter for Business, TBD
May 6, 2009 1 PM EDT

Panel Discussion: (in Chicago)
BlogHer
Chicago, July 23-25

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I’m long overdue announcing some of this, so I’ll roll it all out at once…

(and then jam over to @bostontwestival, organized by @justinmwhitaker and part of @Amanda Rose’s PHENOMENAL global Twestival movement. (Check it out NOW!) 20,000 Twitterers are gathering over a 24 hour period around the globe. The aim? raise $1 MILLION for Charity: Water, my absolute favorite charity)

Todd Defren and I are excited to officially announce* that SHIFT Communications is hosting Pistachio Consulting as a “specialist in residence.” In return for sharing space (and inspiration) in their beautiful offices in the New Balance building in Brighton, I’m working with their executives and teams on what Twitter can do for SHIFT’s clients. Since a majority of SHIFT-ers already Twitter, it’s awesome to dive right into sophisticated and strategic ideas that can rock out what they do for their clients.

We’ll do a few structured sessions that dig deep into Twitter’s utility for PR (yes, we’ll offer these to the public later on in our upcoming webinar series), as well as informal brainstorming sessions and lunch-and-learns.

(*Todd is very silly to use the “Q” word in his post. I blame Brian, Tara and a dollar store sash she gave me. Plus the fact I’m not nearly funny enough to score “Court Jester.”)

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, lots going on:

• Welcome, new Pistachio client Johnson & Johnson

Image via Wikipedia

• I’ll guest lecture at Harvard Business School this spring on Twitter for business. Prof. Andrew McAfee’s students will work with Twitter and enterprise microsharing tools throughout the semester, then lob tomatoes at me give me a rigorous grilling about the business applications and cases we’re seeing. I’m also speaking at the ICA April 4th in a special AIGA program around the Shepard Fairey exhibit.

• Monitor Talent signed me to their roster in December. Contact Mel Blake for high-energy, high-level briefings on Twitter’s business significance. It was completely humbling to meet folks like Dan Ariely, Dan Gillmor, Ethan Zuckerman and dozens more at their Access to Minds event.
  

• Mainstream media attention to the business use of Twitter is at an all-time high. Just my own personal recent clips alone include CIO Magazine, MassHighTech, Entrepreneur Magazine, US News & World Report, NECN, NPR, and CNET.com. Look for Forbes, WSJ and the GQ (UK) soon, too.

• TipJoy We had such a great time collaborating on the @WellWishes campaign (thanks all — YOU raised $25,000 and a whole lot of awareness for Charity: Water!) that Ivan and Abby Kirgin invited me to become an official advisor to TipJoy alongside Chris Sacca. I’d been looking for Twitter to get its own payments system for a long time, and have very high expectations for TipJoy.

• Society for New Communications Research included me in their 2009 Fellows lineup, along with Pistachio collaborator and Fast Company blogger Marcia Conner. Congrats to all the new Fellows, it’s amazing company to be in.

• TouchBase Blog and LinkBlog — Articles, ideas, case studies and links to what businesses need to know about Twitter and microsharing. Don’t have time to scour the social web for that latest information or sort through piles of Twitter news to discern what businesses need to know? We’re your one-stop-shop. Follow @touchbase to find out when we post or add valuable bookmarks to our TouchBase Link Blog (Delicious account). Tamar Weinberg holds house and home together on all of the above as our Editor in Chief alongside more than 25 AWESOME contributors and guest bloggers.

• Twitter for Dummies (old news, but never formally announced) We are writing Twitter for Dummies. I’m thrilled to be working with Michael Gruen (who is also on Pistachio’s advisory board) and Leslie Poston. The book is due out in July, and there’s a even a brainstorming community where you can add your ideas. Also follow @dummies on Twitter for updates when we have them.

We have some great stuff coming up - things that will add business value really cost-effectively, including webinars, hands-on trainings and seminars (starting in NYC) and a new series of white papers and eBooks on the business use of Twitter, enterprise microsharing and more. Also, look for us to (finally) post a team page soon to let you meet the people working hard behind the scenes over here. Speaking of “behind the scenes,” I hope to have even bigger news soon…

Please stay tuned!

Warmly, Pistachio

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Publicist extraordinaire Ariel Hyatt (CyberPR) and I sat down last fall to talk Twitter for Musicians. I distilled  what I said in that interview into this quick-start guide for musicians wanting to make a splash using Twitter. Also see Ariel’s excellent Musician’s Twitter Road Map, here.

UPDATE: I mis-linked to the database of musicians on Twitter

BEST TIPS

1. Surround Yourself with Successful People
One of the oldest rules in the book of business success is to surround yourself with successful people. Find someone inspiring to watch and enjoy the little snippets of their life that they share.

2. Join or Organize a Tweetup. Get out there and Network
Invite people to come out for a drink or to watch a show. Any meeting in a public place provides an opportunity to meet and network with potential fans. Famous already? Do this the way you might do an in-store or other more controlled public appearance

The really major friendships and business relationships that have come to me have been a lasagna of different layers building on each other: connecting online, connecting in person, hanging out online, seeing each other at another event… it builds up to some very powerful, loyal connections.

3. Use Twitter to Share Audio and Video Links
Twitter is primarily text based, but that doesn’t mean you can only share text. Use Twitter to share links to other material, including photos, audio files, and video clips. You can even share a live video stream that you can deliver using nothing more than a cellphone using technologies like Qik.com or Flixwagon. Imagine letting fans watch (and then later embed on their own web pages) an impromptu jam on the tour bus. Your authenticity - and access that YOU get to control - is very enticing.

4. Use Twitter to give your fans a Sneak Peek
Speaking of which, imagine being backstage at a gig warming up and letting fans experience the sound check without any hassle or cost on your part. Again, that mobile video cellphone, or webcam live streaming, or even just links to audio, Twitpic.com put your fans there.

That type of content can make fans feel connected and it costs almost nothing to make available. It also lets you take back a fair share of the “Papparazzi economy.” Good money is made exploiting stars’ privacy. Go straight to your fans instead and use the content the way YOU want to.

5. Take Twitter on the Road with You
It’s hard to sit down and compose a blogpost when you’re on the road on tour. With a phone in your hand, it’s easy to share snippets as the mood strikes. And since it’s Twitter, people don’t expect well-thought out, composed and polished updates. They just expect you to be genuine.

6. Twitter is powerful because it’s not in-your-face
Don’t try too hard. Don’t be pushy. Just be authentic. Talk about stuff that you would remark on out of the power of your own heart. All the soulful things about musicians are the very same things that will make you successful on Twitter.

People want personality; they want authenticity; they want a genuine look at the person behind the music. You’re not dealing with the paparazzi coming in and invading. You’re saying, “I want to share something personal, and I’m going to let it get out there in a way that is totally on my terms and in a way that benefits by business as a musician financially.”

7. Don’t push; Pull instead
Get people involved in your life, in your artistic ideas and expressions. Share a photo and say, “this is where I write most of my songs.” You can get people excited and involved by letting them know when you have a new album, when you do a signing party, when you have a tour going… don’t send tweet after tweet saying “buy my album, buy my album,” because you won’t get an audience that way.

People can get a real sense of what you’re like just from reading 4 pages of tweets. It always astonishes me how well I know someone by the time I meet them, just fro those little offhand remarks.

BONUS: Be creative.

Creativity is what you do for a living, right? Try using your name, a song, album or venue to “tag” your tweet by putting a # in front of the word, especially when you ask a question. Instant communities have formed on Twitter by sharing a tag in common. Searching http://search.twitter.com for your tag (see hypothetical for The Beeristas: #Hartfordshow) lets everyone follow the conversation.

There are even ways to exchange money on Twitter, including TipJoy and TwitPay. You can use these payment tools for a charity drive, to sell things and to share the love by tipping other musicians you admire.

OK, LET’S GET STARTED

1. Choose your Username carefully
Use your brand name, your band, or whatever name you want people to easily find and Google. Choose something you’re comfortable with. If you know about Google AdWords, choose whatever word you would spend your last dollar of beer money on. Your username has really strong influence on Google search results. Want to see what I mean? Search “pistachio” on Google.

2. Set up an engaging Profile
You will want people to follow you, and what they see on your profile page will help them decide whether or not to click that Follow button. Think of your Twitter profile as a “free website” where you can have maybe an album cover or a candid photo of you on the road as your background image. Use a good profile picture. Write a couple of things about yourself. Make sure there’s a link to your web page.

3. Write a Few Interesting Tweets
Twitter asks “What are we doing?” to help us figure out what to write. One of the big things that I think we’re all doing on Twitter is answering and asking the question: “What do we have in common?”
I’ve been in situations that I find fascinating, but when I tweet about it, a couple of people might say “that’s cool.” But when I tweet about something really dumb like “why do we throw rocks into water?” I can get 40 replies because everybody knows that feeling of standing on the shore and just lobbing rocks into the water. So my advice is to start with things that people can really identify with.

4. Use Twitter Search to Find Like-minded People
Go to http://search.twitter.com and search for keywords about the music you play, whether it be the genre or the instrument. Look for brand names of your band equipment, for example. You’ll find other people who have made remarks about similar equipment. That gives you a starting point.
You can click on their names to see their profiles and start following people whose tweets seem interesting and whose personalities give you a good vibe. If it turns out they’re not the type of people who are interesting to you, you can simply un-follow.

5. Syndicate! Add a Twitter widget to your website
A widget is just a little box that contains your latest tweets and displays them anywhere. It can start out on your site, but ideally go anywhere - MySpace, Facebook, fan sites, blogs - so think big. Using this you can engage your audience wherever they hang out and share more with them.

The widget makes it possible for your fans to see what you’re sharing even if they don’t even have a Twitter account. Definitely use a widget that they can “grab” for their site too (look for a button that says “get this widget.” Then, whatever you’re sharing on Twitter can “self-syndicate.” Each time a fan displays your widget on their site, you’re reaching more and more and more and… you get the idea.

6. Find other musicians already on Twitter

Who tweets? As of this writing there are more than 500 bands and artists on Twitter. (Coed Magazine ran this list of 406 and Pitchfork Media rates 14 of them.)

Check out people like Dave Matthews, Matthew Ebel, Samantha Murphy. Look at their streams and see what they do. It may surprise you to see really ordinary, boring, slice-of-life tweets from rockers, but in a way it’s better because fans will be interested (to a point) and talk about it.

7. Make it about your fans

Most best-loved and most effective Twitter streams aren’t selfish. They’re giving the reader something: interest, value, relevance, fun!

Say you’re promoting a specific show. You could post ticket-buying links with the date and venue, sure. But that’s about you.

It’s better if you tweet (for example) questions about the experience of going to a show. “What was your favorite live show ever?” “What songs should we play on ___ in ___?” “What’s your favorite memory from any concert?” “Check out this new track, should we play it next week in ___?” Questions like that will draw people in and they will engage with that, and you can still deliver the same content with the show date and the link to buy tickets. They’ll be thinking about their experiences — it’s back to “What do we have in common? You can do the same thing with MP3s, albums, merchandise, causes or whatever stuff you want to share with your fans.