1. Welcome Sam Eder to the Austin Anthill!

    Monday, 20 Jun 2011 2 Comments Posted by:

    Do you know what Ants do when it reaches 100 degrees? Look for water and add more Ants. I am pleased to announce that Sam Eder joins the Austin Anthill today as a Senior Social Business Consultant where his marketing and community management experience will bring immediate value to Ant’s Eye View clients seeking to improve community health.

    my mugAfter graduating from the University of Virginia with a degree in Anthropology, Sam has dedicated his professional life to understanding the behaviors of online populations (humans and ants). Over the last 10 years, he has honed his experience as a marketer and community manager including start-ups to Apple, Inc. A self-confessed analytics and marketing technology fanatic, Sam is an active participant in many user groups and has presented at events like Social Media Club and the Eloqua Success Tour.

    Outside of work, Sam can be found wandering the streets of Austin, TX reviewing new food trailers and restaurants for his Tumblr  blog (TheEater), watching Julie (his partner of over 10 years) play for the Texas Roller Girls (Jule Regretit of the Hustlers), playing/watching soccer  or taking his dog Mia out for swim.

    Sam is actively involved supporting the Austin community.  He currently sits on the board for Latinitas, a nonprofit dedicated to inspiring young women through media and technology training. In addition to Latinitas, Sam regularly fundraises for the Search Dog Foundation and can be seen growing a pretty mean mustache to raise awareness for prostate and testicular cancer during Movember.

    Connect with Sam directly:
    http://www.linkedin.com/in/sameder
    http://twitter.com/#!/sameder

  2. Breaking the mold at SXSWi using Gamification Techniques

    Wednesday, 16 Mar 2011 3 Comments Posted by:

    We’ve all heard naysayers scoff at the recent gamification trends, but whether it’s Starbucks offering customers virtual badges for visiting retail stores or the most basic Frequent Flyer programs, gamification is growing increasingly more popular as a way to motivate and incite engagement. In fact, website builder, DevHub saw the number of user-completed activities increase from 10 percent to 80 percent after adding gamification elements in August 2010.

    That’s why back in July/August 2010 when the 2011 SXSW panel picker process started, I decided to make gamification an integral part of my SXSW Interactive presentation. Don’t get me wrong — I wanted to share information and insight, I just didn’t want to do it by the traditional formula of me talk/you listen. At the same time, there continued to be the ongoing debates (published in blog posts and pontificated at live events) that fall under the category of  “the world according to social media experts.” In my mind, the endless debates and questioning of “what makes a social media expert?,” and “what is the ROI of social media?” – amounted to a lot of talk, but not a lot of help.

    So I decided on a panel that aggregated all three things — games, industry insight, and my feelings on the overabundance of people calling themselves social media experts. Here is the short write up that captured the spirit of my emotions:

    Tired of @#%ing Social Media Experts?

    You cannot swing a dead cat without hitting a “social media expert” (that is an expression, I am not suggesting kitty homicide). These “experts” are self anointed, often re-publishing sound bytes. But perhaps the best answers come from practitioners, like you. Join this session to get real answers from your peers on the toughest questions in social media. Format will be a quiz game show where audience volunteers are asked a question. The worst answer will lose their seat. There will be a final round to anoint the “social media expert”. The winner (determined by the audience) will win a valuable prize, in addition to the glory. You will learn real answers to real questions, but perhaps most importantly learn that the real experts getting business results are not necessarily the ones who spend the most time pimping themselves on Twitter. IMG_2545

    So with the comical talents of Sam Decker (CEO Mass Relevance, wearing the Elvis wig and shades), we designed our panel to educate through entertainment. Sam and I used props (wigs, pieces of flare, game show antics, prizes) to help people laugh and not get hostile to the same questions that are often debated online. We let the audience participate and by doing so, we demonstrated that inside each of us there is an “expert.”

    IMG_2542 To demonstrate the Ant’s Eye View  way (we believe in empowering our clients), we included one of Ant’s Eye View’s clients, Rich Yang, Small Business Marketing at VISA, as the game show judge. We felt Rich was uniquely  qualified in that both he and VISA often struggle with the same questions. As such, Rich’s role was to listen to contestants and pick the winner (and filter out any BS). And in our estimation, Rich did a wonderful job explaining that every organization is on a Social Engagement Journey and that we should not expect to be a fully engaged enterprise overnight. Rather, organizations should recognize that it’s not just about hiring social media experts; it’s about assessing your brand/company on the journey and then determining how best to proceed from there. Many times this does require hiring a more experienced practitioner, but that’s not always the case. Ultimately, it’s most important for a company to aim towards particular business outcomes.

    Which leads me to assessing the outcomes of our 2011 SXSW panel — Sam and I are already thinking about SXSW 2012. If you were at our panel this year, any suggestions for improvements in 2012?

    Disclosure: I do not claim to be a social media expert. I am a practioner and a coach that has had the experience to design and operate social media inside the enterprise. My background is marketing, customer service, and corporate communications. I applied social engagement to these business disciplines to create new operating models that included social media.

    Special thanks to SMMCast for the summary of our session: Tired of F@#king Social Media Experts?

  3. Dell – a leader in Social Media Innovation

    Monday, 7 Feb 2011 8 Comments Posted by:

    Disclaimer: I used to work at Dell and was an early member of the social media team. Now I’m an admirer.

    Dell's SMAC work zoneLast week, Sean O’Driscoll and I spent 90 minutes with the social media professionals at Dell. Manish Mehta (VP of Social Media and Community) provided us with a tour and update of Dell’s social media operation. Joining Manish in our discussions were members of the “Dell All Star” team, Richard Binhammer (aka @richardatdell), Adam Brown (Director of Social Media), and Lionel Menchaca (Chief Blogger and perhaps the nicest guy you will ever meet).

    Dell has been an innovator in customer relationships and social media dating back to their core business model “be direct.” And now under the skillful leadership of Manish, Dell continues to build on its early roots of social media leadership and customer engagement. A lot of positive news recently about Dell Social Media and Communities (SMAC).  Back in December, SMAC debuted the Dell Social Media Listening Command Center – a coordinated effort to remain vigilant on conversations that matter to Dell (from Dell earnings, new product launches, and of course customer feedback). In our visit, Manish clarified to me that the purpose of the listening command center is not to triage, but rather to remain vigilant, identify discussions early and give tools to employees across the globe. Dell’s innovation was not the hardware inside the listening center. Instead, innovation was and still is exemplified by the company’s global coordination and standards building for web monitoring to support numerous business objectives.

    Dell's Engagement Conference RoomOne of the hardest challenges Ant’s Eye View hears from our clients is “how do I scale my social media operation?” You will never fully scale your operation by just adding more headcount to a central social media team. You scale smartly when you enlist your existing employee population to listen and engage on behalf of the brand.

    Engagement is the key to unlocking value in your listening operation, but getting large groups to adopt and engage is difficult and takes time. Manish has created a work environment to have a lot of visual reminders of key activities that Dell (not just his team) focus on (Listen, Engage, Act). In addition to visual reminders, the team has created a social media training and certification program for employees.

    Coordinated listening and employee engagement might not sound like important social innovations, but this is where most companies stall on their social Dell's Engagement Conference Roomengagement journey. Dell’s SMAC identified the tools and processes for broader employee participation, while continuing to improve their existing social media operation.

    We ended the 90 minutes with Manish asking both Sean and I a great question; “if you were in charge of Dell’s SMAC team, what would you do/recommend?”  We discussed further ways to drive both employee and customer advocacy and participation with the Dell brand. What would you suggest?

    Thank you Manish and Dell SMAC team for sharing.