Twitter and Corporate Culture: Match Made in Heaven?

With the nation all aflutter about Twitter, it was only a matter of time before corporations and big business started to jump into the microblogging sensation. A big advantage to the platform is that it gives companies and their HR departments a way to communicate and reinforce their corporate cultures to the general public. Of course, not everyone's going to get it right at first. To help with that, Sharlyn Lauby has compiled '7 Secrets to Tweeting Your Corporate Culture,' a simple series of suggestions for businesses to Tweet effectively. As the latest generation moves more and more toward relying on digital media, having a strong online presence is crucial and Twitter is a great way to reach directly to customers and key interest groups.

What is Card.ly?

Want to have business cards but not kill trees for it? Get card.ly cards. Card.ly is a Web 2.0 service that provides free business cards that you can embed on your website(s) or just share the link with your associates. Signing up is simple and they walk you through the information you need. You have a short bio (140 characters), a long bio, and basic contact information. You can easily put links to the other social networks you use and they create an automatic feed of your activity on those websites. They have different background designs you can choose from and then you are done. They give you your link and links to embed on your website(s).

On another note, sadly my waltz class ended last night, but I met a lot of good people and learned a lot about the dance. I am going to FridayNightWaltz tonight though. I hope it's fun. I'll let you know in another post.

Lifestream.fm vs. Adobe Wave

Need to know what your friends are doing every second of every day? Then get a social and media aggregator. This technology allows you to know when your friend posts a new update in facebook or twitter, posts a picture on flickr or twitxr, publishes a new blog post, bookmarks a website, favorites a video and a variety of other actions that will make you wonder how your friends have so much time on their hands or make your head explode from information overload by feeding you TMI. Lifestream.fm is a SaaS that makes all of this inane information available in a stream when you log in to your lifestream. Adobe Wave sends you desktop notifications of all these activities once you download the software and tell it what sites you want to follow. With Lifestream.fm or Adobe Wave you can fall even further into the time wasting hole of social media. While I normally find social media apps and whatnot helpful and interesting, there is a limit and these apps cross it.

Social Media Synthesis

Hi readers, today we have a guest post from Sophie. We are both members of the Ning community 20 something bloggers. Check out my blog post at her blog which is funny but may be NSFW. I'll be back soon with my own post I hope; finals and presentations are upon me.

Social Media Synthesis

As a new blogger, I've been venturing into social media with gusto. I randomly chose Wordpress as my blog platform, and from what I've heard it's one of the most sophisticated platforms available. So far I have been extremely pleased with my selection! With the many blogging platforms and social media currently available, my biggest surprise in this foray into blogging has been how easily these media interface with each other. Wordpress has made many widgets available to support applications such as Flickr, Twitter, Meebo, and Vodpod to name a few. The widgets in Wordpress sync effortlessly with their respective applications, making my life as a blogger infinitely easier. Many of these applications also promote instant updating and/or uploading via cellular device, which allows bloggers to share pictures or ideas at the drop of a hat. I think this sort of collaboration and synthesis is fabulous, and makes me excited to explore these media as I continue to my adventures in blogging!

What is Bantam?

BantamLive has developed a new FREE social CRM. It is another service that has useful Web 2.0 enterprise technology. It is like Facebook + Yammer for your company. It combines microblogging, workflow and CRM so someone or a team can collaborate and share information about contacts with each other. It has many features including your personal profile, notifications, filesharing, streaming you and your colleagues events, activities, projects, tasks, notes, workflow, deals, etc. It also streams social networking sites such as Twitter, Friendfeed, etc. You can have your contacts and information about them from the web plus notes about them that you have.

This is a very useful service for telecommuting recruiters, temporary teams or virtual teams. It is easy to learn and use. For more information visit their website (linked in title) or follow them @bantamlive.

What is DinkyPage

With the advent of Web 2.0, many different services have made it far easier and more accessible for people to create a presence on the web. With blogger, typepad, wordpress, and other blog-hosting services you can easily publish your thoughts, post news, etc. in a simple to use format. With social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter you can connect to other people online, share pictures, and meet new and old friends at the touch of a button. If those social networks don't capture your interest, you can create your own with Ning. With so many new capabilities, it was only a matter of time before web pages themselves could be created as quickly and easily as blogs and other Web 2.0 platforms. Dinky Page is one of a handful of new web services offering the bold new possibility of creating a custom web page in seconds. You can make a temporary or permanent, big and complex or simple and small website conveniently. Dinky Page allows you to put all types of media content on your page such as audio, video, images, etc. Editing the page is like editing a Word document if you use Easy Mode or if you know some HTML you can go to that mode and make more advanced changes. After you click "Create Page", they give you an URL to the page and that is all there is to it. Compare this page, which was made with only a few clicks, with the laborious process of seeking out a webhosting server, registering a domain name, and countless other slow procedures that needed to be completed in the past to create a webpage. And there you have it, 10 minute webpage.

My HR Systems and Technology class

What is technology and how can we solve problems (using it)? That is what we are learning in my HR systems and technology class taught by Pixar’s project manager Jun Cruzat. This is the second class I am taking for UC Berkeley Extension’s certificate in HRM program. So far we have learned about HR systems and technology, the future of work, project management, change management and processes. In two weeks I will present to the class a problem I (and many others) have had. That problem is how to grow your professional network (I will post my presentation on Slideshare after I have presented it).

Our homework in this class has been to write blog posts that relate to class topics. That is why I started this blog and many of my classmates including Roy, Lara, Vicki and Venni have blogs too. I look forward to learning more in this class and I can’t wait to take the other classes in the program.

Social Networking: Generalization vs. Specification

Today I am going to talk about online social networks. Most people have heard of the big ones like Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc but there are tons of smaller ones that are out there. One in particular that I am fond of is Ning. This online platform lets you create your own social network and many have done just that. There are Ning networks for job seekers, pet lovers, book lovers, movie enthusiasts, people that love exercising, writers, social philanthropists and all types of career gurus. A couple that I belong to are TalentBar, Recruiter Earth, Recruiting Blogs and 20 Something Bloggers. Like most social networks, ning allows you to customize your page within your ning community. You can have a personalized background, banner and/or text/background colors. Another great feature is being able to manage all of your Ning networks by going to ning.com. Ning is a great place for people to socialize with others that share common interests. Is there a Ning community for your specific interest? If not, create one!

Wicked

I went to see Wicked last weekend at the Orpheum theatre in San Francisco with my boyfriend. I give this musical an A. It had many great qualities. It stayed true to the book, which I suggest everyone read. The woman that played Galinda the Good Witch was a great performer. She brought the role to life and really embodied what I imaged the character to be when I read the book. The costumes and stage setting were well done. The songs had wonderful lyrics and all of the performers sang well. It had some comedy thrown in and it was very engaging the whole way through. Overall, there was nothing I didn't like in the about the musical and I suggest everyone in the Bay Area check it out.

For those who still question the useful of social media sites

Social media allows you to connect with others but these sites are about more than letting you know what your friend is having for breakfast. They give us a forum to share knowledge with each other and unlike the past it is knowledge that you want. You seek out this knowledge by subscribing to someone who posts what you want to know about and if you don't like it you can easily unsubscribe anytime. Following people has increased my world view, introduced me to new topics, allowed me to keep in touch with friends and family all over the world, keep abreast of current news, the benefits go on and on. So if you want to keep learning subscribe to others today, who knows what you'll find.

Older people flocking to Facebook

Are older people using Facebook more? A new study by online marketing firm iStrategyLabs says they are.

It is great to see older people embracing technology. Peter Corbett, chief executive of iStrategyLabs, told the Chronicle that the influx of older users could be attributed to job networking during a struggling economy but I hope this is a permanent change instead of a recession-inspired fad. When there have been elderly people in my life that have not used modern technology such as past colleagues, bosses, my parent's and their friends, etc. it felt like it took longer to accomplish the littlest tasks. I hope the new Facebook users will have a good experience and branch out to other forms of modern technology.

On another note, I had a busy week. In my HR essentials class I was very pleased after learning that I got an A on my midterm. I am keeping up in my reading and am currently studying Total Rewards and Compensation, Variable Pay and Executive Compensation and Managing Employee Benefits. I'm starting a new recruiting project at my volunteer gig. And while salsa class ended this week, I finally got to try my dance steps out in the real-world by attending Shattuck Down Low's salsa night and learning some new moves and waltz is still going strong.

My weekend and the future of transportation technology

Hello all,

This weekend I read up on Training, Talent Management & Development, and Performance Management & Appraisal. I also went to the Berkeley marina. Tried some new food, saw circus acts and dancing, paddled on a Dragonboat and saw fireworks.

While surfing around on WSJ I came across this article "Electronic Tolls Trump Cash on the Highways" (link in title) which says that some states are considering moving toward a new toll system. The new system would have commuters install a transponder in their car which pays the toll automatically instead of having them stop. It would free up congestion on toll roads and bridges. This sounds good in theory because traffic is bad in places like the Bay Area which have one access point per area however there are still many kinks to be worked out like tourists.