Chris Heuer's Insytes

The Conversation Group: Excited to be working with Utterz!

Posted by cheuer in Clients, The Conversation Group on January 1st, 2008

I am very happy to announce we signed an agreement between The Conversation Group and Utterz a week or so before the holidays where we will be providing Utterz with Market Relations, Marketing, Business Development and Consulting services. This is the perfect example of the types of agency services we are providing clients in the age of conversational marketing – a mix of strategy, relationship development and communications that helps an organization grow by getting closer to the markets (or more specifically, the people) they serve. Both our organizations believe we have a great opportunity to demonstrate how smart startups can effectively engage customers in the modern world.

Talking with several friends over the last few months (the blog post is still in draft), I have stressed how important it is in the modern world to really respect any company for whom you are working. Whether it is traditional PR, Advertising, Consulting, Branding or Social Media work, a true passion for a company’s products, services, employees and values is incredibly valuable in providing great service. With Utterz, I not only respect the product and the company, I am also a raving fan.

As you know from reading my blog, I have been an active Utterz user for the past 2 months since being introduced to them at BlogWorld Expo by Chris Brogan in early November. It really is the exact sort of service I was waiting for – providing an easy to use system for mobile content creation and publishing. Better still for me personally, they are at the right place in their development where some of my ideas and insights as a “Social Media Guy” can hopefully make a difference in the product development and road map. Now that I have seen a bit of what is coming, I am even more excited because they are already working on, or soon will be working on, many of the things that I really need/want as a user of the service.

In working with the some of the members of their team (Michael Bayer, Randy Corke and Simeon Margolis) over the last few weeks, I am very glad to now think of them as friends as well as colleagues – I am also extremely grateful for the opportunity to work with them, as they truly ‘get it’, which makes our job at The Conversation Group so much easier. There are too many client opportunities out there to waste our time working with people who don’t ‘get it’. I feel truly blessed that at The Conversation Group, we have such an amazing group of clients – I am even more excited, that we get to contribute to the growth of a great company like Utterz...

BTW – this post is intended as both an announcement and a disclosure

client announcements, conversational marketing, social media, The Conversation Group, utterz

2 Comments

Will Tagging+Attention Make 2008 the year of Smart Agents?

Posted by cheuer in Future of Media, Insytes, Social Media Tools, SocialMedia, Web2.0 on January 1st, 2008

I have been noodling on what 2008 might bring for the wonderful web world in which we live and I think I finally hit on it this morning after reading Marshall Kirkpatrick’s excellent post called Five Ways You Can Fall in Love With Tagging Again. His five (and a half) ways are:

1. Re-enforce your learning at the end of year
2. Build a collaborative tag stream for a community of practice
3. Create a shared items feed and put it on your web page
4. Tag into a mobile reader
5. Tag your microblog posts
5 1/2 The future

I am very glad he has brought this important topic back into the spotlight as we enter the new year. The lull in uptake of tagging, particularly in some new applications I have seen lately has actually troubled me. It is a feature that can provide so much added value for the people who use it (and those who will casually benefit from those who contribute to it) that I think it can be the difference between a success and a failure.

In reflecting on the adoption (or lack thereof) of tagging systems, I believe we won’t see a real rise in usage until we see the next generation of apps. Yes Twine is one potential member of this class of apps, but real knowledge management folks don’t trust systems to do classification for them (yet). I think Marshall’s point 5 1/2 is heading in the right direction which he describes as:

In a future that leverage our Attention Data, we’ll be able to tag things in order to influence our Attention Profiles. What does that mean? It means that once you’ve exposed your Ma.gnolia APML (Attention Profile Markup Language) to your Bloglines RSS reader – then you’ll be able to influence the feeds that Bloglines recommends to you by tagging certain things in Ma.gnolia.

The future Marshall references as point 5 1/2 is a very important one to consider – one that I think is indicative of a broader vision. It is, I believe deeply, the goal we should all be moving towards, especially in 2008. What we really need is smarter systems that do more for regular people automagically, tools that will recommend and deliver useful information, resources and services to us when we need it most without having to express more then our intentions, learning from everyone’s attention and explicit descriptions.

If 2007 was the year of the widget, I hope that 2008 is finally the year of smart agents…

, apml, attention, smart agents, tagging, tags

4 Comments

Favorite water cooler moments?

Posted by cheuer in Uncategorized on December 30th, 2007

Am interested in hearing your stories and thoughts about favorite water cooler moments of all time. In addition to the tv shows or news stories that inspired them, what was it that made you congregate at the water cooler (or break room, or copier, or coffee machine) and what was the best thing about that whole experience? Best responses will probably make the book…
Mobile post sent by chrisheuer using Utterz.

Replies.

No Comments

My Resolution, Focus on Health

Posted by cheuer in Uncategorized on December 28th, 2007

I have been running around doing a ton of different things and enjoying it, but it has been tiring and taken its toll on me in more ways then one. So my new year’s resolution is to focus on better health – mental, physical and financial. It’s all easily doable and I know what it will take, the key is simply making it a higher priority then all the other things that we get attached to so easily as we go about our day.

Many of my friends have told me that I am too giving, of my time, of my money and of my emotional self. I can’t imagine changing this very much, but I am going to remember the important airline safety instructions, "put your own oxygen mask on first before helping others".

Further, I am going to invest a lot more time in taking time out for me – for meditation, for yoga and for fun activities that I don’t regularly fit into the busy schedule. Of course, I have always been one to enjoy the roses as I am rushing about the world, but I have done so often with too much worry about all the other things on my mind. So, when I reference mental health, I mean to strike down that demon called worry and do my best to be present, focusing on the here and now rather than on what did or didn’t happen and/or what may or may not happen.

I hesitated a bit in writing about this challenge I face, but it is real, it is me and I know I am not alone in dealing with this issue. Removing worry is an utterly essential step for everyone to take in order to get the most out of life – something we all need help remembering from time to time…
Mobile post sent by chrisheuer using Utterz. Replies.

No Comments

HaPEA Friday Frm Frozen Mountain

Posted by cheuer in Uncategorized on December 28th, 2007

If you don’t yet know about the Frozen Pea Fund, it’s time you did – let’s make it a HapPEA Friday for everyone out there. If you can afford to, give a little donation to the good folks behind at the <a href="http://frozenpeafund.com/">Frozen Pea Fund</a>

Mobile post sent by chrisheuer using Utterz. Replies. mp3