Baby Boomers: trends and opportunities in social media for businesses, organizations and individuals' careers: Digital Wagon Train™

Join the Digital Wagon Train to Social Media

Do you feel like circling the wagons every time someone invites you to join
Facebook,  LinkedIn or Twitter?

No worries. Digital Wagon Train provides social media training, coaching and consulting to businesses, organizations and individuals.

Digital Wagon Train provides the community, expertise, training and guidance not only to get you there safely, but within a nurturing, fun, interactive and safe learning environment.

Digital Wagon Train delivers a successful combination of marketing intelligence, technical savvy, training, mentoring and public relations. All are necessary to fully develop your social media marketing and communications plans.

Social Media is here to stay. The journey can be daunting, but Digital Wagon Train is here to help... we provide the tools, the map and the community to get you there.

Please note. Due to what appears to be TypePad beta issues, we cannot accept comments on our posts at this time. We regret the situation and will open all posts to comments and trackbacks once TypePad has resolved this issue.

Please contact us to discover the fastest, safest and best road to your social media goals.

Offices located in Minneapolis, MN - Atlanta, Ga - Bellingham, WA - Tulsa, OK

Mobile Messaging In Support of Personal Care & Beauty

First, sorry about the delay in posting. I need to become better trained in the art of the regular post. I am very happy to announce that DWT is working with Denny Kemp Salon & Spa and The W Hotel Minneapolis in
launching a mobile text message service for any W guest who chooses to opt on in. The mobile program is a special-offer delivery system, using SMS short-code messaging to deliver great deals on
quality salon and spa services, provided both in hotel and at DK's beautiful salon in lovely NordEast Minneapolis, you betcha. Program launched today, and we certainly have high hopes for its ability to drive business and make lots of guests very happy. 

A tip of the 'ole cap to Trumpia, host app for mobile text creation and distribution. They have created a sweet suite of tools to support this guest service and marketing effort. I'll post up results as they develop. 

Socialnomics: Get Over It

The clarion call of social media's integration into our lives grows louder each day, with each new post, Twitter and new social media application. This groundswell is as much a gift as it is a social phenomenon. We are experiencing the evolution of human communication, unlike anything before. There are very few things that affect our lives that have little or nothing to do with social media.

 Agree or disagree, please watch this YouTube by Erik Qualman, internet wunderkind and author of Socialnomics: How Social Media Transforms The Way We Live And Do Business. Qualman's driving passion is social media and how it will continue to weave our social fabric.

Social Media Governance

An often encountered barrier to an organization's decision to embrace social media is governance and policy, the rules that determine how members or employees may or may not use the vast array of social media tools. The issue is compounded by the realities of organizational stability and the freedom of expression. Does an organization have the right to totally control what is published on their network, using their computers? Do we as individuals have the inalienable and unfettered right of self-expression?

As with most issues of control and rights, the answer lies somewhere in between yes and no. The presence of reasonable expectations, civil behavior and common sense are required, but are unfortunately and quite often misunderstood or flat out ignored.

The Internet was initially developed as a communications tool between government agencies and institutions of higher learning, certainly two opposite poles concerning control and freedom of expression. Yet, the Internet has grown to become the single greatest communications tool in history. There are those who call for tighter control, as there are those who advocate for little or no control. The truth is, it's neither. It's a balance between the two, and it is our responsibility to strike and maintain that balance as well as we can.

Chris Boudreaux, who has led business transformation initiatives at several Fortune 100 companies, has compiled a list of 82 Social Media policies for your edification. It sure helped mine. Thanks Chris.

Image is a painting by the artist Randy Dillon, "Man Typing on Computer Keyboard". Artist's permission granted.

Want The Inside Track To A New Job? Start With Twitter

In the past year Twitter has become the darling of news media -- remember how the news broke when US Airways flight 1549 crashed into The Hudson?

Janis Krums from Sarasota, Florida posts the first photo of U.S. Airways flight 1549 on Twitter from his iPhone . Thirty-four minutes after Janis posted his photo, MSNBC interviewed him live on TV as a witness (see video below). News coverage at Google. Live video at Fox News. TV reports suggest that everyone survived the crash.

Then in June, when Twitter wanted to shutdown for some maintenance, the US Government asked them to delay the maintainers because Iranians were depending on it to get out news during the Iranian Election Crisis.

So it should come as no surprise that businesses are now saying that Twitter is becoming one of the most important tools you can use to land a job.

From a post on my blog FunnyBusiness

According to the latest statistics only about 5% of the population is on Twitter. And, yet, it is being touted as one of the best places to get a job. In the past couple of days everyone from CNNMoney to the WSJ  have run stories about the success the unemployed have when they just tweet away looking for work.

For baby boomers this means its time to take a trip to Twitter to experience its culture, learn its customs and figure out how to unleash its power to help you achieve what you want.

The lighter (funnier) & sadder side of social media

The Onion, America's Finest News Source, has provided us the chance to chuckle about that which we espouse everyday. A shout out to Jay Bridge for sharing this with us and you.

So, You're Still Not Using Social Media?

Mashable marketing director Marta Kagan has put together this helpful SlideShare presentation that should answer many of the questions so many have as to why they should be using social media. Many thanks to Mashable and Marta.

What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later

Preparing An Organization To Step Into Social Media

When most organizations step into social media the work usually begins with developing a plan. That plan will traditionally follow the structure of most typical strategies: define goals/objectives; determine what will constitute success and how will you measure it; and of course identify the tactical execution. 

However, few companies begin their internal social media foundation with HOW social media will impact the organization, the brand and the people. The first question to ask might be not which tactics to use but -

• Are the people within your organization aligned with your social media strategy and do they understand how social media will impact the enterprise?

By people I mean those who actively participate in social media whether through interfacing directly in blogs or social networks AND those whose job now includes analyzing how to (or how not to) integrate the information from consumer generate conversations into product development, customer service, PR, etc. etc. etc.

I also mean your customers and stake holders. Is there a disconnect between your Twitter response time and your telephone customer support hold time? Social media adds dimensions to our business relationships that go beyond negative comments. Opening the enterprise door to social media impacts the entire organization from the way communication is handled to customer service to hiring decisions

7 Tips For Preparing An Organization for Social Media

1. Create cross functional teams
2. Identify impact on specific areas
3. Determine if the right communication processes are in place
4. Determine if employees have the right skills and experience
5. Consider if new job descriptions which include new evaluation criteria are needed.
6. Identify here does social media will reside. Don't discount that there maybe multiple “homes.”
7. Determine which department  “owns” the customer relationship. This maybe the most critical and the answer might hold some surprises.

Social media will disrupt the way you do business .. but if you're prepared it can be a very good thing that helps not hinders the growth of your organization

Ginger Hop Restaurant Relies on Social Media To Attract Job Applicants

The Ginger Hop is going to be a new Thai restaurant in my neighborhood. This is great news! I was struck by their communication that the only way to find out about the job is to go on Craig's List 

This is the other part of the job fair notice on Craig's List that got my attention. Resumes optional.

TO APPLY : Come down to 201 East Hennepin Avenue this Sunday. The process starts at 11:00am and will go until 3:00pm. If that does not work for you we will be doing it again on Monday, August 31st from 4:00pm until 7:00pm. Resumes are suggested but we will also be having you fill out a house application.

What I have been hearing over and over again is that the resume as we know it may be a dying breed. After all many people have their relevant information on LinkedIn. Instead of using paper simply giving the hiring company your LinkedIn info serves the same purpose.

Ginger Hop also has a Twitter presence. So far, we are the 12th follower.

they don't seem to befollowing anyone else and this is a lost opportunity. Social media is supposed to be a conversation. Using it to simply broadcast news usually becomes a failed strategy.

I was surprised that I didn't find an Ginger Hop Job Fair Events on Facebook. Missed Opportunity?

Cross-posted on FunnyBusiness

Wish'd I had a Mac - sigh.

My significant other just got a new MacBook Pro. I've made the terrible mistake of going to the free classes Apple offers to get old PC users up to speed with all of the wonderful Mac features and tools, too numerous to list here. Believe me, my time is coming soon.

Stuart Goldenberg

However, this is not my lament about being chained to a PC. It's a link to a terrific Fortune blog post about the new Mac operating system, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard,  which I believe will be available tomorrow.

The great news is two-fold:

1) If you have OS X 10, the new op system costs only $30. My god, that certainly is an anomaly, in this the era of ridiculously outrageous expensive software upgrades. Thanks Apple.

2) Price aside, the truly incredible thing is that the upgrade is skinnier and faster than its predecessor. When, I ask you, was the last time Microsoft provided an upgrade that was faster, better, cheaper? I believe Apple has finally gotten it, and Microsoft is still lost in the woods.

Interested in reading more? I hope so. Point your browser to http://is.gd/2CHLH to read a collection of helpful reviews. Gonna get me a Mac.

Confused About Web 2.0 ? This 5 Minute Video Will Clear It Up

By way of the Dr. Michael Wesch's Digital Ethnography Group at Kansas State University. Dr. Wesch is a cultural anthropologist who is exploring the impact of new media on society and culture. You can read some of Dr. Wesch's ideas on his blog


From Dr. Wesch's Manifesto

We want to save the planet. For us, it’s not so much about digital learning as it is about learning in general, out in the real world And the only way we can do this is if people participate. Self-government itself depends on participation. And it’s the only way that people are ever going to be able to get knowledge. That is the way of the future, there’s no doubt about it. And moving the discussion from education to learning more broadly, means that it applies to all of us, and all of us can bring our unique perspectives. It is very easy to have a worldwide impact in today’s world, so what will your impact on the world be?