Go Paperless

The simplest and the most efficient way to help the environment is use less and less paper products. There is absolutely no need to print all project status and related documents for everyone attending the meeting. Try to get the most essential information in print and the rest can be shared in the meeting through mounted screen display. This brings to my next topic.

Go Sharing

Another key step that can be so useful in going green is the use of laptops. It is not necessary for every team member to bring their laptops to the meeting room. For presentations, coordinate all files through a single share folder. Saving energy consumption saves environment.

Go Virtual

If the meeting attendees are scattered over multiple locations, there is no need to travel for the meeting. There are so many tools available today that allows project managers to conduct meetings efficiently and in a productive manner. In fact these tools also have other features such as  meeting notes, chat capability and desktop sharing that are very very handy.

Conclusion

Of course there are many factors that has to be considered but keeping the above points in mind will certainly help. Anything you do be customer centric and add only to their value. I am positive following some basic rules, the customers too will appreciate and value the effort towards building a green eco-environment for all of us.

So what makes someone a “Twitter Hypocrite”:

Sour Follower: For any reason a person decides not to follow a fellow Tweep and in return gets the same favor, no need to condemn the action. Remember, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Simple Sexists: A person only following one gender while expecting everyone to follow him/her clearly is being a hypocrite. There are other network sites where the person can join and fulfill their social desires.

Star Snobs: A celebrity following only celebrities is a hypocrite. Fans help with the image and it will be a great gesture if there were non-celebrities in the mix. Remember, before stardom he/she too was a fan and an individual with less news coverage, paparazzi and income of course. (Unless the person was born in Kennedy’s).

Cheap Marketeers: A person who does not follow other marketing buddies for whatever reason perhaps has not heard of “keep your friends close, enemies closer” however in Twitter there are no enemies. 

Some Kind of Principle: A person who self promotes their own site and services while condemning others when they do it. A strong personal principle with a weak social principle. Don’t stop following someone because they are promoting their work, if that is what you want then have a tea party with friends in the backyard where no one bothers you.

Well, next time you decide to follow or stop following a fellow Tweep, make sure it is for the right reason. Twitter is a form of conversation and people do take notice and pay attention to what you have to say. Try not be in one of the above category.

Social Adopters

Companies like Dell that recently claimed a revenue of 1 million dollars through social campaigns at Twitter are the early successful adopters of influential marketing. They used Twitter as email, sales alert system and even offered discounts to social community based users such as exclusive discount to My Space and Bebo. Ford launched their new Fiesta model through a Tweep Up again targeting Twitter community with their eye on influential marketing.

Social Object Architecture (SOA)

Social object architecture allows various social sites and services to cross pollinate and exchange not only their social audience but also opinions. Tweedeck is a great example which is a non mobile Twitter tool recently released it’s Facebook integration. This cross pollination will become more and more visible in the near future.

Social Investment & Revenue Generation

With more and more sites, tools and services designed around social media and networks, investors are going to welcome new opportunities, advertisements will grow and revenue will build.

Social Branding

Opinions are going to play a huge factor on how companies define their brands. The reverse effect of influence over brand will become more prominent where opinions will be shaping the brands more than brands shaping them thus forcing companies to deliver much stronger value propositions to their customers.

Social Advertisements

Still in its early stages, the social advertising is trying to redefine the format for better ROI’s. Through blogger communities, link exchanges, widgets/tools and content syndication, a hybrid platform will become important driving social experiences and awareness in the web and other platforms. 

Social Influence v/s Measurement

It will not be accurate to say that measurement will become  secondary in case of social marketing. Even though there is no point in measuring social channel like TV, print, radio or digital channels, still the measurement unit will be redefined. Marketers do care about opinions rather than emotional sentiments and real time feedback will drive the change in marketing campaigns, product development and customer service.

Social Executives

Don’t be surprised if you see a blog or a tweet from your CEO or CIO. It’s not just because employees are joining social networks that compels executives to be involved, it’s also because competitors are expanding their social existence rapidly forcing the decision makers to be an active participant.

The above shifts are just few we will see in the social marketing space and the key driver will be social influence and relationship. It’s the polymorphism nature of social media which makes this so versatile and adaptive in today’s market.

The key principal social landscape uses is basic communication and interaction in a society. When combined with technology to build the core platform for various business to market and operate their services, social media has become a very powerful channel. Based on today’s flourishing sites and networks, it is very clear that the social mantra can be summed as:

“RELATE+ INTERACT+ RESPOND”

Customer Relationship, Competitor Relationship and Professional Relationship complete the relate circle on the mantra. Once the relationship is established, Interaction becomes not only natural but also essential in social society. Evaluating, listening and connecting are all part of interact circle of mantra. Finally, adding a human or personal touch closes the communication circle. Sharing, feedback and comments complete the final respond circle of mantra. So Let’s take a look how this all fits in some of the very well known Social Media and Networking sites and why marketers are taking this as a great opportunity.

Blogs and Microblogs are excellent examples. Twitters growth in the past 1 yr has shown why more and more marketers are drawn it to it. Where blogs are great for information sharing, it is still a selective medium for users. The chances of an IT professional to search for insurance data unless required is very low almost 1-2% but Twitter allows the same search to be increased by a substantial 30%. Allowing information to be available at a single platform but connecting to the various larger blogs or social news hubs makes it such a great success for Twitter. Users can build relationships, interact multi-directionally and respond effectively thus making it ideal playground for companies and marketers. Competitors can actually see the user responses on not only their products/services but also others. 

Linked In is another prime example of social network’s success as it follows the social mantra. A place where professionals and businesses can build relationship, interact and respond effectively for growth. Apart from being a great job search site, it’s a place where groups can be formed, information can be exchanged, recommendations can be made and markets can be evaluated. 

For companies, social sites engage consumers by making them smarter about what they buy and own. They allow brands and publishers educate consumers, enable them to collaborate online, get advice from trusted individuals, and research and purchase products.

The Social landscape allows users to be selective on how to use the information provided by the results of search done by themselves and by other users. The social mantra enables and facilitates the marketers to penetrate and use it as a marketing channel. There are certainly lot of factors to be considered and I don’t expect companies making strategic decisions purely based on social community but it is certainly an important market to look into.

It’s almost like a secret society that existed with very few members trying to spread its word in literally 140 characters almost got a heavy doze of Red Bull and soared to a level in such a short time that is anything less than worth talking about. I read in a CNET article by Neilsen that Twitter increased 1,382 percent year-over-year, from 475,000 users in Feb 2008 to almost 7 Million in Feb 2009 making it the fastest growing site in the members community sites over a month. These are some staggering numbers folks including it’s usage through mobile phones (735,000 message sin Jan 2009) and the age group of users (35-49 making 42% of it’s population). Beyond all the usage growth, Twitter’s real influence is in it’s popularity growth and the wide spread attention it has received globally. Here are some other areas one must look into to understand Twitter’s magnetism.

• Tools Available: From Mobile applications, analyzers to Widgets, the number of tools have increased tremendously since Oct 2008 by 60%. Entrepreneurs are gluing their eyes to Twitter and finding ways to be creative and innovative.
• Networks/Exhibitions: More groups are embracing the Twitter phenomenon that is putting much needed spotlight to social economy. SXSW is a prime example.
• Websites/Blogs: When was the last time you ran a search on WordPress or even Google. The staggering amount of articles one can find on Twitter is unbelievable. Here’s another one from me.
• Media Attention: Twitter has gotten more media attention that any of the Internet moguls have. Twitters popularity among celebrities like Ashton and Demi Kutcher, P Diddy, Justin Timberlake to name few is another example and I even heard about it on Golf Channel thanks to Stewart Cink.
• Domain Names: Actually, this one is my favorite research. I recently tried to register a domain name of some of my Social Media work and it was amazing to see the names run out so quickly. I am sure the Domain registrars made a good run with Twitter mania.
• Marketing Gurus: For every 7 followers you can see 1 Twitter marketing expert from what I have seen. Twitter’s demand is making marketers expand quickly.

I am myself  a huge Twitter fan and have connected to so many amazing people and hopefully my followers list grows organically through interest rather than robots. But I do wonder with such a rapid growth, is there a concern of short life-span. I hope Twitter is not living in dog years and lasts longer than doctcom boom. Regardless, Twitter phenomenon is a breath of fresh air especially in hard economic times and it’s secret society life gone public where every user is a stock holder. I am certainly enjoying it and glad to be a part of the revolution.

My efforts and contributions can be found at my Blog and some of my abstract observations can be seen at Social Media Expressions.

I welcome you to follow me at Twitter and allow me to share my thoughts and ideas with you.

I followed this story afterwards for few weeks in various sites and blog’s across different geographical regions. The amount of response this hoax stirred was phenomenal. What was more astonishing were the remarks themselves. I studied them very carefully and realized even though majority of them were non-believers, there was a group out there that actually believed in the theory more than the article itself. As a refresher, here is that graph.

All the way from “Good one” to “nicely done”, “is this a joke?” to “April fools is not here yet”, “stupidest article ever” to “R U an Imbecile” the list continued. All of a sudden I actually hit a pile of comments that were serious and referred to past predictions and statements made by actual economists. Here are some notables:

1. There was a comment on how computer games were predicted to affect the employee performance way back in 80′s. 
2. Self admittance of decrease in productivity due to Twitter caught my eye.
3. Quantity v/s Quality comment by a statistician who actually wanted to see the data sets.
4. A CEO agreeing to the article and admitting his staff’s decrease in productivity.
5. An analyst who dissected the chart and proved Wall street was to blame for economic down slide. Just amazing all through that chart.

There were more but I’ll stop here. I am by no means criticizing any remarks(LOL) and perhaps they too were jerking around just like the original article itself, who knows? On the other hand, if there is any truth in those comments and what people believe in (even it is a small portion of believers), does that mean the article had any reality to it? Yes, we know the why economy is in such a shamble but I am talking about the concern of productivity going down, which in turn drives profits and results, which drives our economy, has that in any shape or form made the hoax real remotely.

Let me know your thoughts.

1. Singularity doesn’t work: When it comes to who is estimating and how the estimation is done, singularity never works. You can take my word on this especially on mid to large scale projects where client brand and quality is a huge priority (not that it’s not in small scale projects). It is important to engage the team that brings in different point of views, experience and contributions that can easily be missed if one person is estimating. The other advantage of team engagement is, allows multiple estimation process to surface. Story boarding, project comparisons, bottoms up, scenarios etc. allow teams to find an intersection that can be used to reinforce estimate ranges. 
2. Same parameters of estimation: Let’s face it, no one wants estimations done for all work tasks in different units. Developers shooting for hours while testers in days. Project manager is going crazy trying to understand how it all comes down in the end. It is important to make sure the team knows what parameter is used for scoping their tasks. Also, make sure everyone is using same assumptions and on the same scale of ability. This will stop you from revisiting the estimates half way down the project.
3. Know the use of “Emergency Breaks”: Projects where requirements change consistently (like my cell signal, don’t ask), it is critical to balance against the diminishing results and false accuracies of over analysis. Get an common ground for agreements and continue the process. It is completely alright to revisit the estimation as an update due to changes rather than over analyzing all the factors at once.
4. Go for ranges: Remember you are not predicting the outcome of a game, this is real world and real business (I am a sports fan too) and you are given the responsibility to drive the project home successfully so create ranges. It’s acceptable to say 90-120 days with 100K-155K budget (no clue how I came up with those numbers). Let’s face it, anytime ranges are presented, stakeholders would like to see the shift closer to lower value of the range. Don’t let that discourage you, focus on the likelihood and the information in hand. Stakeholders like that a lot.
5. Not too early and not too late: Last but not the least, don’t create estimations the very first day. Make sure you have the requirements, team process and outside factors weighed in. As project moves along, revisit your estimates and reiterate your priorities based on the progress such as code development, resource status, test results etc. This must be part of the project status report. 

So here you have it. Agile process can certainly help in estimating project time lines and budgets more efficiently. Keep the above points in mind next time you are involved with the estimation process.

Last week, it happened again but this time I went for it. My family is hearing about Twitter a lot, over the radio, on the Internet, it’s everywhere and they finally decided to bring it up over the dinner. This time the moment was right. I not only had everyone’s attention but food kept them more attentive with listening part. A true classroom conversation where the professor shares the topic and engages the students on questions as the class goes along. What came to me as a big surprise is the receptiveness of the topic as compared to just few weeks ago. My giving up on the conversation was the best thing that happened for this whole process. My family decided to do their own research and learn more about Twitter and Face Book. Of course thanks to media as these topics are getting tremendous spotlight, I had my work cut out.

My role shifted from teaching about social media to focusing on Twitter and the lingo’s used. By the time the dinner was over, I had everyone convinced how the face of web is changing and how the companies are adopting social networks as a marketing medium to share their products and services. On top of it, they understood “following” on twitter is not creepy and is very similar to the conversation we had during dinner but  in a larger community and in just few characters (140 to be precise).

The final chapter to that conversation was my “social expressions” that jumped on them as a virus.  Now I am getting ideas left and right from everyone. Overall, I feel more connected with family creatively as compared to just emotionally.

· Power of a well designed social application is more effective than traditional marketing tools. Social programs leverage the voice of the customer to get messages carried further than ad impressions. If your message resonates with consumers, their word-of-mouth is a more effective medium than any of the traditional media.

· Low cost of investment is a big factor. Advertising campaigns often run into millions of dollars. But Twitter, Facebook and blogs are great examples of social programs that you can start for next to nothing. Even more sophisticated programs like a full-blown customer community typically don’t cost more than a quarter million get going.

· Social applications motivate consumers in the middle of the funnel and helps turn the potentials to actuals. Social applications like discussion forums are better than advertising at helping people in the consideration phase when they’re on the fence about purchasing. In a recession, improving consideration will be more cost-effective than blasting awareness messages at resistant consumers.

So next time you read about Twitter or Facebook on news or a blog, hear your friend rave about them or see marketers using them as their channel, don’t be surprised. The social media marketing is here to stay and will be a key participant in economic repairs.

In a survey done few years ago by Forrester, it was indicated that 17% of North American and European enterprises used Agile processes and that another 29% were aware of them. However, this study was conducted by interviewing one IT decision-maker at each of 1,078 firms. Because Agile processes are often adopted at the grassroots level, they frequently fly below the radar. This makes it unlikely that a single IT decision-maker knows what methodology every development team is using. For this reason, it was believed that Agile adoption was actually higher than reported in the study. It was also estimated that most large enterprises have some projects using Agile but that very few large enterprises used Agile for most of their projects. 

Well, in that case where is Agile process most suitable and has a higher success rate?

Let’s first get the myth cleared out about agile process that it’s applicability is limited to a very thin circumstances. Actually on the contrary agile process has been very successful on a broader range of companies and projects. 

1. Uncertainty related to requirements: Because agile process allows incremental release, it allows revisiting of requirements to make sure what’s being delivered is truly what business promised.
2. Mid size projects: Well let’s face it, why break the project into iterations when the project life-cycle is not more than 1-2 months. For projects that include more than 10 team members and multiple features that can be delivered simultaneously, it is perfect to break down teams  and follow SCRUM techniques to coordinate the effort.
3. Management collaboration: I have seen agile to be very effective when project steak holders, management and other groups such as PMO is involved in this process. It not only allows them to integrate themselves in the process but also a fantastic leaning curve to understand the modern development techniques.
4. OOP’s world: Teams using platforms and technologies such as JAVA and .NET are very well versed with object oriented programming concepts which very well allows modularity. Like I mentioned earlier, multiple features can be delivered as parallel development and incremental releases.
5. Collocated teams and clients: Yes, it is difficult to adapt agile process if all the stakeholders are scattered globally. Even though technology today allows virtually to connect with anyone at real time, coordinating agile process requires lot of effort. It is not impossible but certainly time consuming. Where teams are collocated, agile process can be easily put in place.
6. Right set of tools: Companies that invest in their software infrastructure are well suited for successful adoption of agile process. Proper project management, testing, software configuration, build and deployment tools are excellent catalyst that help team execute their projects using agile method.

In today’s economy and market, agile process probably has a better success rate as it allows team and companies to manage their resources, time and deliverable’s effectively. So if your company or team is not using agile process OR using not to it’s full potential, I will recommend to give this a serious thought.

So what characteristics make a project manager a shining star?

Focus

Ability to see and maintain the big picture and at the same time to break it down into smaller ordered pieces; ability to keep moving despite challenges and constraints.

Discipline

Ability to plan, track numerous tasks, and balance time and cost factors.

Strong Communication Skills

Ability to communicate clearly, respectfully, and in a timely fashion to keep all team members fully informed.

Empathy

Ability to understand and respond to the needs, viewpoints, and perspective of all the  players in the project.

Effective Management Skills

Ability to define needs, priorities, and tasks; ability to make decisions; ability to flag problems; ability to hold people accountable.

Flexibility (adaptability)

Ability to stay focused and in control when things go wrong or change in midstream.

Creative Problem-Solving Ability

Willingness to see problems as challenges to address rather then as obstacles.

Insight

Understanding of policies, procedures, corporate, culture, key people and politics.

In a large interactive media company or agency, a dedicated project manager is a key client contact. The project manager must be someone with authority who can make things happen, given the enormous amount of coordination, scheduling, and information gathering. Although the project manager may not be the ultimate decision maker, they must have access to the key decision makers which includes the client.

A brand program encompasses a unique promise that will express itself across all solutions especially in the online world. Regardless of medium the application must reflect the same promise brand gives to its customers. The challenge is to design the right balance between flexibility of expression and consistency in communications. 

Design is Intelligence made visible and the application supports it.

Some key points to know when designing online websites or applications.

The Essentials

• Convey the brand personality
• Align with positioning strategy
• Create a point of view and a look and feel
• Make the design cross-media
• Demonstrate understanding of target customer
• Stand out, differentiate and differentiate

The Usual Suspects

• Follow the iterative process between the big picture and minutiae
• Design real applications simultaneously with identity systems
• Ensure all assumptions are achievable
• Be open to additional discovery as it gets more real

Design Imperatives

• Seize every opportunity to manage perception
• Create a unified visual structure 
• Start thinking about launching strategy
• Create balance between consistency and flexibility
• Produce real applications before finalizing standards
• Work on the highest visibility feature first
• Know when to identify outside experts for collaboration
• Use the right right tool to keep track of the progress
• Never show any application without showing alignment with brand strategy
• Be obsessive about quality
• Adopt the right technology as platform

Many projects never see the sunlight as they fail to match up with the brand strategy and the differences are clearly black and white. It is important for application designers to understand not only the business model but also the promise it brings to the customers.