I always like the “Before” image of the room before the Boot Camp starts. There’s something peaceful about it – expectant, hopeful, perhaps the calm before the storm.

"Before"

There’s just so much to cover in 8 hours. Crowdsourcing, always a favorite, Rivers of Information, Online Reputation Management, Organizational Voice, Socially Facilitated Selling, Socially Directed Buying, Rating Systems, a Case Study in Affinity Marketing using Social, and then deep dives into Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and a live Blog Post. It’s a fire-hydrant of information. But I think past attendees will agree – it’s worth it. At the end of the day, you’re just a WHOLE lot smarter about Social Tech relative to the insurance business, especially from a marketing and sales POV.

Here’s a question for the Social Tech Boot Camp for Insurance Executives Alumni: What would you like to see in 2013 for the “Advanced” Alumni-only session? (Maybe it doesn’t have to be Alumni only, but then again, it probably does.) Do you want more small group applications exercises – a challenge to solve? Do you want time to focus on marketing strategies, like Contests, Content, and Cause Marketing? More about tools like video editors, podcast creation, infographics and Meme’s – so more on creating Social Media? What does it take to get the holy grail of “Earned Media”? More on Tools, especially enterprise tools like HubSpot, Shoutlet, Socialware, and others?

What are your thoughts? Alumni only, with exceptions given to demonstrated expertise? What would interest you as a next step? Thanks in advance. Excited to hear from you…

If anyone has an interest in joining me on this, please reach out to me – immediately. Here’s the deal:

Hurricane Sandy Google Image

I’m trying to raise cash today – it’s a today only thing – to bring to Philadelphia tomorrow. Perhaps by God’s providence, many weeks ago I planned a Boot Camp in Philly for this Thursday. This morning a pastor friend of mine in Central NJ was greatly encouraged when I offered to come a day early (Tuesday v. Wednesday) with a car-load of stuff for him. In a text message, when I asked what I should bring, he said, “Canned goods, Tuna, Soups, Baked Beans, etc. Cash is also easy as we can purchase food gift cards at stores and distribute to needy families.”

I’ll be going to Costco here in CLE to buy the supplies this evening and head out in the morning. I need to meet the pastor in Philly at 1pm tomorrow, Tuesday. Any help would be great.

Here is a link to the church if you want to check them out. http://www.stonecrestchurch.com Pastor Brent Haggerty. I know Brent via my son’s Houghton College soccer team. Good guy, solid, no issues (as much as any of us can claim this, right?)

Thanks so much.

WebWisedomLLC at Gmail dot com

216-659-4360

First, remember the folks in NY/NJ. Donate to the ARC here.

All right. I’m going to let out a big secret. Ya’ ready?

Physiognomy

What do you see?

That’s it!

The incredible thing for a sales person, really anyone, in the era of Social Tech is that people are sharing a close-up picture of their face in their Social Profiles. Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter – they all feature a headshot. Look beyond the surface. It’s stunning, amazing, and helpful if you know what to look for.

I can’t believe I just shared one of my best secrets.

That’s all I’m gunna say.

Happy to answer questions and share more insights if prompted. Better yet: Come to one of my Boot Camps. That alone is worth the price of admission.

Cheers.

Continuing the conversation from last week, (albeit a little one-sided for my taste), the question is how is Social Technology a Game-Changer in business? Here’s 5 more to consider…

The Next Five:

8. Reputation Management

I rarely shoot weddings...

Who hasn’t “Google’d” a person or brand that they were unfamiliar with? Most Boot Camp attendees I ask not only raise their hands,but further say they did it with ME! We all do it – often. So what do people find about you or your enterprise. Do you care? Absolutely. And what if there is a negative mention on the first page of your results? Can you use Social to knock that item down to page 2 of the results? Absolutely.

9. Environmental Influence

Here I’m not referring to the green movement. Instead, this is about impacting your personal sphere of influence. You see, once you have established the connections with your network, how to you leverage those for influence. For example, we’re seeing this in a big way on Social with the 2012 election in the US. We are also seeing it with “Frankenstorm” and Hurricane Sandy. One insurance agency that does a nice job with Social, The Murray Group in Albany, NY, is putting out some solid content right now on Hurricane preparedness. Obviously there are so many other ways to exert environmental influence – notable sales and marketing.

10. Work Spaces

Many thought-leading companies are starting to use virtual work spaces that leverage Social Tech in an effort to improve efficiencies with time, money, and real estate. Working ‘virtually’ from a home with ubiquitous broadband internet is a great way to improve productivity – of course depending on the home situation. But we’re starting to see more and more executive suites being used to distribute work spaces closer to the home so as to reduce travel time, expense, and drain on productivity. And I’m just touching on the surface here.

11. Efficiencies

I tell you what – one of the greatest efficiency gains I’ve seen in recent times is the powerful HTC S1 droid I’ve been using. I can do SO much with this device, anytime, anywhere. I’d imagine the Samsung Galaxy 3 is similarly powerful. As I’m coaching busy executives, that’s the first thing I go after, especially if they are on a Blackberry. But iPad’s as well. And let me just tell ya – the Macbook I bought almost three years ago now has been nothing short of brilliant when it comes to speed and efficiencies. Technology is a big key – but also getting right to the point in communications. I think that’s another benefit of Twitter, blogging, public speaking – they force you to be extremely efficient with the written and spoken work – saving time and money.

12. Cost of Doing Business

We all know by now the story of Netflix and Blockbuster. While that was more of a pure technology versus real estate issue, it seems fair to say that Social definitely helped spread the word about Netflix faster than Blockbuster could unload its real estate and adapt. But clearly eWord-of-Mouth is reducing sales and marketing costs. Crowdsourcing is reducing IT development costs. Linkedin is reducing recruiting costs. We are only bound by our creativity here.

I will ask the questions again:

How is Social impacting your day-in-day-out activities?

What’s the next big thing?

What are your comments and questions, barriers and obstacle?

Perhaps I, or another reader, can help answer them.

OK, I haven’t used that line yet and I’ve been blogging for 7 years. Hey, everyone else uses it on me!…

Btw, “LinkedIn currently has more than 175 million members, with 50 million of those members joining the service in just the past year alone. To put that growth in perspective, in 2009, LinkedIn had just 32 million people.” – Mashable

I also read recently that the Social Web has reduced the classic “Six Degrees of Separation” to 4 (Can’t find the reference off-hand.)

My Linkedin Endorsements as of 10/26/12

1. Credibility is a powerful under-current, perhaps even currency, of the new Social business model. Ratings are becoming critically important. Endorsements are yet another example of Rating systems.
2. Clearly, Linkedin is trying to ramp-up the new Skills feature. It’s a great marketing strategy for Linkedin in terms of increasing the utility of the system. But IMHO it’s gumming up the system with a lot of notifications.
3. It’s an interesting opportunity to see the alignment between how peers actually see you versus how you see yourself.
4. As with anything that comes from the crowd, it needs to be managed. Some endorsements might not be optimal for a variety of reasons. Some might be specifically sought after, as with Recommendations. I recommend that it merits attention like anything else, but not hyper-focus.
5. It’s yet another interesting and competitive data-point to the profile viewer, although must be taken in context and with a grain of salt.
6. It’s yet another reason to make connections with, and nurture, your network on a persistent basis, just as with off-line activities time immemorial. The more Connections, especially strategic ones, the more potential Endorsements.
7. Thank-you’s for Endorsements seem appropriate. As always, it’s an opportunity to engage with your network, though it’s a lot harder to say “Thanks for the Endorsement” than it is to simply click the Endorsement button. So with a large network and lots of Endorsements, that becomes problematic.
8. As far as the ubiquitous quid-pro-qua concept, that’s something to consider as well. I’d be curious what others have to say on that one.

In fact, I’d be curious what others have to say on the whole thing. Please Comment. Thanks in advance.

(Side note: I’d be curious to know if insurance companies and agencies are updating their internal Social Tech policies to accommodate this new feature.)

This is a really good article on the feature. Good Comments there as well.

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