One of the things that sets my team apart is our ability to dig up remarkably obscure information and use our insight to connect it to other digital resources. Sometimes these resources connect to obvious online repositories (Google, Twitter, Facebook, Yelp), while at other times it connects to second and third tier data (home sales, political contributions, census data, employee lists.)

The most interesting part of our work is between the connection of digital information and real world information that has often been ignored for months, years or even decades. New strategic and tactical information allows us to redesign business models and locate areas of efficiency, risk and opportunity (sample connection points for digital and real world data include human resources, stock changes, executive communication, employee management, customer care, fulfillment, sales, etc.) Continue Reading »

One of the biggest recommendations I can give to any entrepreneur is very simple: learn from other peoples mistakes.

In the world of forward thinking minds, one of the best places to learn is the Startup Deadpool (the place where some once great ideas now lay dead and are barely remembered.) Continue Reading »

Some of my best posts go unnoticed by different portions of my readers:this recaps my most popular posts over on 123 Social Media (which is getting a shiny new look as I write this) and details some the best portions.

Example Social Media Policies – this is a collection of over fifty different policies from all over the globe. While reading social media policies doesn’t sound terribly sexy or interesting… reading five to ten different policies from various companies really sheds a light on how professionals see the risk and benefits associated to social media. The originating article of corporate social media policy was also popular (but didn’t get read by 25k+ people)

Social Media for Demographics – this is honestly one of my favorites (I say that with full realization of being a metrics guy…) as was one of the first times enough information was collected in one place to compare some annual numbers from early 2009. Now that the data is somewhat old, the information it contains is an even better benchmark for seeing where trends are moving (it also led to the on-going collection of data that led to the 2010 demographic report.)

101 Twitter Ideas, Tactics, and Strategies – a collection of some of the “best ideas” on the web regarding how to use Twitter. Looking back at the information, I can personally/professionally say I’ve collected over ten of thousands of followers and hundreds of good contacts using the ideas in this article.

Social Media Training, Five Must Read reports for Big Business - if you had to read nothing else about social media, these five whitepapers would be critical assets for any professional. Each one is stuffed with great tidbits of insight and actionable information.

If you have another favorite article, please let me know. I’m basing the above articles on traffic volumes, commentary and web activity.

I don’t talk too much about the business of making businesses: but having been through the hurdles a few times and having sat on almost every side of the table, I wanted to share some of my lessons learned.

First off… money is nice, but it isn’t the end goal of venture capital or growing a gigantic business. The experience and talent VC’s can bring to a start-up can be immense (or completely void) and the biggest asset usually becomes the investor’s network.

So from my viewpoint, the three main assets in order of importance:

• Network
• Expertise / Talent
• Money Continue Reading »

A lot has changed in the past few years. If you need a crash course in educational videos and statistics about the evolution of communication using social media: the following five videos are guaranteed to have at least a few facts and concepts that make you think.

I recommend sitting down and watching all of these from top to bottom, as three of the videos are part of a series (Do You Know 2.0, 3.0, 4.0) that came from 2007. While the information is old, the reality of trends in 2007 is now a historical footnote for 2010. As we see adoption take root with several technologies moving through 2012/13, some of these videos will find themselves into world economics and business fundamentals training. Continue Reading »