Dirk Röhrborn is the founder of Communardo where he is involved with Communote, an internal microsharing application. In this interviewFAQ, he provides insights into the application and decisions for its implementation and execution.

Q: Why did Communardo develop a new micro-sharing platform?

A: We have worked extensively with quite a number of social media tools, e. g. open source and enterprise wikis and weblogs, in projects for our clients. We have been using tools like these also internally for many years. However, a lot of very important project team communication cannot be captured. People use (sometimes abuse) e-mail and instant messaging and many good ideas, reasoning behind decisions, risks, problem solutions etc. is buried in mail boxes and IM log files. We wanted to capture these parts of informal communication. We’ve got some very good inspirations from the Wordpress Prologue theme which is in fact a great tool, but we do need a platform with better manageability and scalability. Therefore we developed “Kenmei” which we will now offer as online-service at communote.com.

Q: Why don’t you just use Twitter.com?

A: We love Twitter for personal use and business networking purposes. There is no better communications platform around. However, for our internal project work we rather need a tool that is topic-centric rather than people-centric like twitter. Further, we need confidentiality. Don’t misunderstand me; we are enthusiasts about information sharing and knowledge exchange. But we are also bound to legal agreements with clients that demand confidentiality. Therefore we must use a secure micro-sharing platform either behind the firewall or at least as secured service private to our teams.

Q: Why should busy users use another tool for communications?

A: Good question. People say: “all these users generating own content takes up our time”. But, user generated content is nothing new. If you look at today’s companies you will find many people writing notes into large paper notebooks. Some changed these for a shiny new notebook computer or smart phones and type notes into files, email messages etc. This is all UGC. But it really takes archeological capabilities to find and share important information this way. So what we need is a tool that our colleagues can use to write down their notes into one space easily, ideally using the client of their choice.

Q: What makes communote.com different from other micro-sharing tools?

A: First of all, there is this topic-centric approach that in our opinion fits the needs of internal communication better than a pure people-centric approach. Second, we have invested heavily into the development of the tagging and filtering tools to make sure that every note can be found instantly when needed. Third, we make sure that micro-content can be exported for later processing. RSS can be used to integrate micro-content into news readers and web portals. Further, we added an access control feature as well as LDAP integration to meet enterprise requirements.

Q: How do you use Communote in your own company?

A: Well, mostly in project communications. However, other teams are catching up, such as sales / marketing, HR and finance. One very interesting use is the “IT systems log”. This is a microblog where our technicians are noting any system change and extraordinary event into a microblog rather than another logbook. This makes later analysis and sharing within the team much easier.

Q: When will it be possible to use communote.com?

A: Our team is currently busy with completing the platform and setting up a stable systems environment. We plan to start the public beta-test in November. During the beta-phase we will be introducing a number of new features. The release of the commercial service is scheduled for January 2009.

Q: What are your future development plans?

A: We are currently looking into the development of certain APIs to allow for better integration with other systems, e.g. instant messaging and email. Further, we are developing micro clients for mobile and desktop use right now. The next big thing with 6-12 months ahead will be dashboard applications that provide us knowledge workers with a mash-up of better personalized information feeds than today’s tools.

I admit that I’m a car guy; there’s nothing like a ride to help clear your mind and forget the drama of the workday. Several months ago I met Eric Miltsch, IT-Web Director for Auction Direct USA, a multi-state auto retailer focused on the used car segment. Eric was kind enough to share his thoughts and experience with micro blogging and how it’s helping to transform their engagement with customers.

Background

“Our unique selling proposition is communicated in a casual, yet professional way. We answer questions, share valuable information, and get instant consumer feedback about their experiences, habits and desires. Online car shoppers are looking for information without the fear of being aggressively sold something. They also have a powerful voice and aren’t afraid to use it when it comes to making a recommendation or comment.”

Twitter

JK: How did you get started with Twitter?
EM: Auction Direct USA discovered Twitter late in ‘07; however we didn’t start using it until early ‘08. Twitter needed to be tested to determine its worth. Our “A-ha” moment came once our follower base began to rapidly grow.  The positive feedback helped and the stats showed it was worth the effort.

JK: How are you using Twitter today?
EM: Twitter is one element within our unique online strategy. It lets us build depth to our social media reach by engaging new customer segments otherwise not tapped. We (try to) contribute valuable and relevant automotive items such as industry news, new blog articles and company specific updates. I feel it’s important to add the human element if we want to build any confidence - we’re not there to blindly sell product. The goal is to educate and inform the automotive consumer, while also getting their feedback. People are very willing to comment and review. I’ve asked for feedback on new design mock-ups and even conducted online polls.

I also use Twitter to share and contribute ideas. I’ve spoken with and met new people that I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to otherwise.

Innovation in Micro sharing and Engagement: Tweet and Greet

What caught my eye about Auction Direct was something called Tweet and Greet. I love the concept and how it uses Twitter to generate a common community interest.
JK: What type of results have you seen?
EM: I’m asking 10 simple car-related questions to get to know our followers better. The answers, and their feedback, are incredible; there’s so much detail. You can really learn a lot about people when you ask them about the vehicles in their life. It began by inviting 20 early followers to share their answers. I hoped for one or two replies. Nineteen people responded, some within minutes. I kept asking and they kept coming in, so I put up TweetandGreet.com. Once published, the individual posts are tweeted. Many even link back from their sites. The traffic to our used car blog and our used cars website is tracked very closely with analytics. Not only have I learned who our followers are and developed many new relationships, I’ve also learned from our followers. Most notably, we recently had our 100^th interview completed.

Measurement

JK: How do you intend to measure Twitter’s impact on your business?
EM: This isn’t meant to be a sales channel, Twitter is another communication channel for us. I’m still measuring the traffic to our website, blog and other online properties. The key factors are obviously traffic and conversions. Our conversion rates confirm its success so far as our conversion rates fill within industry expectations. However, I consider the comments, feedback, and relationships to be the most important factor in all of our online efforts, and that’s where the real impact is realized.

Lessons Learned Along the Way

JK: What advice would you give other companies that are thinking of using Twitter or something similar?
EM: The best lesson is to get started. I’m very happy we started when we did. It gave us a nice jump on our competition. I’m sure our follower count would rapidly drop if the value of our core messages also dropped. I wear my common sense hat and simply “Think Before I Tweet.” [Having the right person to deliver valuable content ranks high as well. Shameless plug.]

Essential Tools

JK: How do you manage the time spent on maintaining the account?
EM: Good question. Without a plan, one could lose days watching the public’s tweets. My list of must-have tools are:

• TweetDeck: Neatly organizes messages & groups making it possible to see items quickly.
• TwitterFeed: Automatically distributes new blog content and new inventory updates for our “Cool Whip of the Day” tweets. (Corny - but very well received.)
• TweetLater: Every follower receives a welcome message (I send a personal note as well).
• TweetBeep: Alerts notify us when specific keywords are mentioned.
• TwitterTise: Message scheduler with built in stats.
• FriendOrFollow: Manager your network by seeing who follows who doesn’t,
• TwitGrid: Track multiple keywords within custom grid views.

JK: Most importantly: That’s an RS4 in your twitter background, right?
EM: Ohh, so close. That’s an R8.

Summary

Do’h, so maybe I don’t know cars as well as I thought. What I do know, however, is Auction Direct USA’s understanding of micro blogging extends beyond Twitter and provides an example for other organizations to follow. It’s about engaging the community and storytelling; and it’s about creating an opportunity for customers to share their stories and be heard. How do you find the right story? Look at your organization’s focus and objectives. The rest is easy.

Jonathan Kash is Director of Web Services at a non-profit based in Washington, D.C., and writes the blog Fluent Simplicity. He also created the Social Media Brand Index (originally the Twitter Brand Index). Interests include brand identity, online reputation and strategy.

Congratulations (sort of) Motrin:

You are trending on Twitter!

Congratulations Motrin…

I’m going to take a wild guess that McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a Division of McNEIL-PPC, and their agency of record (Taxi NYC, from what we can tell at the moment) are not carefully monitoring Twitter right now. I’m also going to guess that you’re going to hear a thing or two more about this in the business press (WSJ, Forbes, AP, NYT) before it subsides.

The Fuss.

Many moms (and dads) who blog and tweet and are fans of “babywearing” are finding this Motrin ad (currently it’s right on Sunday afternoon it was pulled from the Motrin.com home page, which was more or less down for the next 16 hours and now displays their apologia) patronizing and disrespectful of the practice of babywearing. It’s kicked up some relatively strong feelings among the community, and a resulting loud racket on Twitter and blogs. (I’ll disclose: 1) I agree the ad is a bit dumb, 2) that I was a babywearer, and 3) that frankly, carrying those g-dmn “bucket style” infant carseats wrecked my back way more than any of my slings and backpacks ever did. But that’s not the point.) UPDATE: Follow the Twittering here. Skimbaco (Katja Presnal) compiled the Twitter screenshots and babywearing photos video below, and collected a long list of blog responses, including her original post. (Found via Jet With Kids)

The Reponse.

On Twitter right now, nothing has appeared from Johnson & Johnson, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, Motrin or Taxi.

Huh.

The Lesson.

Even if your brand or agency isn’t ready to engage formally and integrate the business applications of Twitter throughout your campaigns, community building and other market engagement efforts, you need to get clued in — fast — to the reasons, times and ways that you can listen. Maybe you’re not even ready for full-time social media monitoring. That’s your call. But not tuning in while you launch a new tactic borders on gross negligence, in this day and age.

Rolling out a new tactic is THE most important time to lend an ear. Smart SuperBowl advertisers could have gained instant consumer feedback on their efforts during the game last year. After every ad Twitter lit up with opinions. Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang prepared this formal analysis based on responses sent to his experimental account @superbowlads. His colleague (who co-authored Groundswell) Josh Bernoff shared his assessment here. Searching or watching Twitter’s search tools for your brand at the moment your ad aired would have yielded even more results.

I’ll update this post as I hear more, and when the companies involved begin to respond. Meanwhile, if your company doesn’t have a good understanding of how your full range of market engagement needs to be informed by sensitive consumer sentiment engines like Twitter, you might want to give your agency a call.

Coda

(Evolving: I’ll spare you all the “UPDATE” notations)

• Lesson #2: the Twitter chatter is not to be dismissed as an angry mob. There are TONS of productive ideas being shared. The company that listens, learns. (and, earns!)
• AdeleMcAlear Searched YouTube for “Motrin baby ad” and noticed the protest videos have already been up for 12 hours (at 3:30 EST Sunday), including Twitter screen shots. She also uncovered this blogger’s (awkwardly self-promotional) report that she called Taxi’s Director of Corporate Communications at home who had not, then, heard of the fuss.
• McNeil marketing VP responds. In an email to Katja Presnal:
  

We believe deeply that moms know best and we sincerely apologize for disappointing you. Please know that we take your feedback seriously and will take swift action with regard to this ad.

• Later, McNeil posted that apology on Motrin.com
• Seth Godin weighs in: not a very useful apology.
• Josh Bernoff breaks down the events, and agrees with Godin.
• Jeremiah Owyang’s analysis with screenshots and brand impact context

Related articles by Zemanta

• Forget Motrin, Take a Deep Breath
• Motrin learns about Twitter
• “Motrin moms,” a-Twitter over ad, take on Big Pharma–And win

To Claude Malaison and his team at Webcom Montreal, congratulations on a successful conference and thanks kindly for the privilege of speaking.

I spoke (no shock) about microsharing, interpreting some of the “big picture” business potential for this audience of Canadian business and government leaders.

My slides are below. I’ll add the video as soon as I can get it to offload from my camera.

Yammer, the Enterprise Microsharing platform, has just released some needed functionality, Yammer Groups. Yammer, which connects employees of the same organization based on their email domain, now has gone a step further to provide for both public and private groups within an Enterprise. To my way of thinking, this is certainly “right to play” functionality. In the hopes of becoming part of an Enterprise 2.0 backbone for organizations of all sizes, grouping functionality is absolutely essential. Without it, there’s no way to cleanly and precisely provide direct team support capabilities.

The functionality provides for more granular sharing of information between work groups and teams, collaborative units, and parties of interest. As you can see above, it’s extremely easy to use. Simply provide a group name, a short description and if creating a private group, enter the emails of the folks you’d like to invite. Yammer then takes your description and enters a message into your timeline so that members of your organization know the group has been created, as well as issuing the appropriate invitations. I like the fact that it creates a group “@” address so that one can message all members of the group directly – a microsharing DL of sorts as well as a traditional group email distribution list. Both are a nice touch.

Now for Yammer to really become an integral part of an Enterprise 2.0 Collaboration backbone I think it needs to add related functionality, such as corporate Social Bookmarking. In fact, I suggested this to the Yammer team via their Feedback tab (prominent on every page). I immediately received an email back from an actual human which I appreciated.

At first the team tried to convince me that providing and saving links was a form of social bookmarking. To me, the answer is “yes and no.” It definitely meets the criteria of sharing content but there is no real organizing principle around that content and no way to access it via those organizing principles beyond tagging. Tagging is essential but a user experience needs to be developed to be able access the bookmarks effectively, share them or keep them private – all along the organizational folksonomy that develops within Yammer for a particular organization.

What I liked about my experience with the Yammer team was the rapidity of their response. Within half an hour the team had gotten back to me and told me they were planning to prototype the functionality in short order. Rapid Response baby! And with today’s market conditions, it is imperative to be able to deploy functionality quickly and efficiently and either make it a success for your users or fail fast. I think the Yammer team has the corporate DNA to do succeed with this model.

Steve Mann is a 20-year veteran of the high tech industry. Currently he is a Global Vice President of Marketing for SAP, focused on driving SAP’s Social Media Strategies to market. Steve has led or created numerous innovative organizations at SAP including its Total Customer Experience team, competitive Strategies organization, services marketing and Global competitive and market intelligence.