Schux

Simplicity in internal communication

Rosie Sherry — Fri, 21 May 2010 10:41:18 +0000

Who says ’social technology’ is for brand building, marketing, sales and fun?

The rise in popularity of things like Twitter (ie – microblogging), RSS (think the news being brought to you) and dashboards (updates relevant to you) are changing the way businesses communicate.

There are three tools out there worth considering for any size organisation:

Yammer & SocialCast

These are both very similar products. Yammer, I believe has been around a bit longer. Think Twitter with a bit more (like longer messages, file attachments and groups) for internal business use.

At Software Testing Club we’ve been using Yammer for several months now – we all work in different locations so face to face contact is virtually non-existent. The amount of emails flying around was very difficult to cope with. Now that we have Yammer, we have reduced our emails by around 99%.

Chatter from SalesForce

This one isn’t out yet, but it looks very interesting and I really want to get my hands on trying it out. It seems to go a few steps further by integrating with popular Social Networking sites (I believe Facebook and Twitter) to help communicate with customers or potential customers.

Personally I would like to see SocialCast and Yammer follow the route of integrating with social networks or having the opportunity to create an internal social media dashboard. That would really scratch one of my big itches.

Like all tools, they are just tools. Often the biggest challenge is user adoption – it can be really hard to get people to use them consistently and effectively.

Share those books!

Rosie Sherry — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 23:44:35 +0000

Seth Godins post on sharing his Linchpin and other books very much aligns with what we at Schux do.

We love books and find Amazon very (and dangerous for our bank account). I don’t know about you, but once I read a book I know that I will never read it again. Even if it is really good I find that there are just too many other books that are on my priority list.

So at Lewes Werks (a coworking space we work at) we put all these books that we have read so that anyone else within our community can borrow or share them. Books often never come back, but that’s ok. Sometimes new ones appear, but even if they don’t we feel that sharing is the right thing to do.

Useful online photo editing tools

Rosie Sherry — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 23:38:32 +0000

Editing of images is essential to maintain any website or online presence. The standard image editing tools that come as standard with Macs or PCs simply don’t do the job well.

There are a couple of online tools that come with generous free access. There is the option to upgrade to premium/paid versions, but quite often the free versions are sufficient.

We’d recommend checking out Picnik and Photoshop.com.

If you’re looking for a downloadable and easy to use app for the Mac then Pixelmator is worth a look. (This is what I use on a daily basis).

Happy image editing!

Social Media Meetup

Rosie Sherry — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 23:35:26 +0000

Next Meetup: Thursday 27th of May @ 7pm

Following on from previous workshops we are trialling out the idea of Social Media Meetup.

The idea is that up to 10 people can come along and share their situation.

Rosie will be on hand to provide support and answer any questions.

Spaces are limited to 10 people. It’s free to attend, but donation of £10 is expected on the night to contribute to costs.

Introduction to Wordpress

Rosie Sherry — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 23:33:34 +0000

When: Thursday 13th of May @ 7pm

Where: Lewes Werks, 47 Western Road, Lewes

Register: Free & Limited Registration (see bottom of page to register), donation of £10 on the night.

Wordpress is a great tool for building websites. It’s open source. Has a huge community behind it. Lots of plugins which can easily turn your website into much more.

This is an introductory workshop, ideal for people wanting to start a website using Wordpress or are looking to get more out of their existing website.

“I have no friends” – A practical hands on social media workshop

Rosie Sherry — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:12:07 +0000

When: 11th of March, 7 – 9pm at Lewes Werks

Cost: £20 + VAT for cowerkers, £25 + VAT for everyone else

Presented by Rosie Sherry and Emma Wallace

Introduction

A 2 hour hands on and practical guide to using the web.

You’ve signed up to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. You have a website. But what next?

Aimed at individuals and small businesses, this workshop will look at practical things you can do to help you start making friends and connections on the web.

Lets face it, friends are good for business.

Contents

We will look at your websites and your online presence and discuss ideas and ways of becoming social on the web with a strong focus on building and promoting your business. There is no power point presentation. We will be armed with a projector (and laptops if you can bring one) to show you step by step how to make friends

If you would like your own website/situation to be discussed do let us know before hand.

Email questions to rosie[at]schux.com

Got a business? Need the social web?

Rosie Sherry — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 04:55:16 +0000

Schux are collaborating with Egg Box Marketing to bring a lovely, practical and down to earth series of workshops for using the social web for your own business benefit.

It’s called Doing Business on the Social Web. First event is on the 24th of September at Lewes Werks.

Empty forums are a no-no

Rosie Sherry — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 00:31:30 +0000

There are certain things that should be done before officially launching a community. One of the most basic things is to not launch with a ghost community – ie – where there is no visible activity. This will not give people the confidence to join.

I’m not sure how long Virgin Money Giving has been around, but they have a forum that is completely dead.

There are some simple actions that can be taken here, like:

staff or community managers could start off some conversations to lead by good example
if it’s a paid membership (which it looks like in this case) why not recruit some founding members and give them an incentive to participate – like free access
the forum looks a bit daunting with so many options. Usually it’s best to start with a small amount of forum categories and add to them if there is a need as the community grows
is a forum even necessary at this stage, would something else be more suitable – like a blog?

(Thanks to Steve Bridger)

Old models can come back

Rosie Sherry — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 22:55:01 +0000

It’s interesting to read that Dave Eggers is enthusiastic about print making a come back.

As long as newspapers offer less each day- less news, less great writing, less graphic innovation, fewer photos- then they’re giving readers few reasons to pay for the paper itself. With our prototype, we aim to make the physical object so beautiful and luxurious that it will seem a bargain at $1. – gawker

It’s interesting because there is so much for free out there. It has fast become the norm. But how good is free really?

Free almost naturally loses the quality that we once upon a time expected. Everything is rushed. The competition is tough. It’s about being first, not the best. Just like Dave talks about a different experience for printed newspapers. I’d like to see different and better experiences online.

All the things that I desire for aren’t available because everyone seems to be trying to cater for an audience of thousands and millions. I want them to cater for me. Mostly me and perhaps some others

It would be nice if we all knew each other a bit better. Put a face to the avatars, but more importantly know the personality behind these people communicating on the web and to have some kind of trust with them.

Copycats

Rosie Sherry — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:53:20 +0000

My younger son (aged 4) is such a copycat. He looks up to his older brother (aged 5) in adoration and will often mimic his every word and move.

You may think this copycat syndrome is just for kids. It is clearly not. It’s visible all around the social web.

It’s not a bad thing to adopt what others are doing, but only if it is suitable for your context.

Organisations quickly jump up to create a Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Bebo, YouTube, etc presence. They happily link into them and shout about how ‘socially aware they are with the web’, but upon quick invesitigation there is nothing worth the effort to look into further.

If you create a Twitter account that you widely promote be sure you Tweet.

If you create a YouTube account be sure you have some kind of video to post.

You catch my drift.

You will look worse if you maintain a dead social media account, so why not focus on what you know you can deliver?

Think before you copy