On January 31, I will say farewell, but not goodbye, to Eastwick. After a year leading the agency’s social media and strategic services practices, I’ve decided to forge out on my own as an independent consultant in social media and executive communications.

I’ve worked with some incredible Eastwick clients, like Seagate, Fujitsu, JDSU, StrongMail, Ustream.TV, and so many others, so thanks to all of you for letting me be a small part of your success. Through my new venture, Socialized, I will continue to provide social media counsel and implementation to Eastwick and its clients, so I will continue to work with many of you.

I want to thank Barbara Bates and Elaine Cummings for bringing me in and letting me learn about agency life. I’ve enjoyed my time here, and I have learned an awful lot about world class media relations.

Eastwick already has a great 2008 under way, aided by the leadership of new president Lisa Hempel. And there are so many people inside Eastwick with great social media experience and aptitude that makes the agency ideally poised to lead the industry in helping clients adopt these technologies for real business value.

Stay in touch!

Joel

Agency Social Media, barbara bates, Careers, Eastwick Blogs, eastwick communications, elaine cummings, Joel Postman, lisa hempel, Media Artifacts, socialized

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Ran across a very clever use of Twitter as a small business marketing tool. I received notification that John Harris is now following me on Twitter. Interested in seeing who he was, I checked out his profile and found he is a tax accountant the CEO of J.K. Harris, a tax representation firm. Harris posts income tax hints on Twitter, like:

“IRS allows Alternative Motor Vehicle Credit for 5 GM vehicles: 2WD/4WD Chevy Tahoe, 2WD/4WD GMC Yukon and Saturn Vue Green Line.”

So I added him to the list of people I am following, and I now get tax hints delivered on my Twitter stream. I’ll probably stop following John after I file.

What could possibly be a simpler social media vehicle for an accountant, attorney or other professional who wants to reach potential clients and provide a useful service? Twitter is free. It takes about three minutes to set up. Updates take less than a minute. And the “follow” function is set up in a way that you don’t get “commercial” messages unless you opt in.

Business Communications, income tax advice, john harris, Social Media, Twitter

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1:49 P.M. PST. Expect insurrection, global capital markets in freefall.

I really like Twitter’s humility and friendly approach to this:

This was up within two minutes of Twitter going down and contains links to help and ways of contacting Twitter. Nice job of transparency and admission that something is wrong.

Much better than Facebook apps’ “working out a few bugs, if the problem persists, come back in a few days.”

Updated: 1:59 p.m., it’s back up.

Updated again: 2:03 p.m., sort of.

Microblogging, Social Media

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“I have been an Apple watcher for years. I freelanced for Mac pubs in the mid 1990s. Now that doesn’t make me more of an expert than anyone else. However, I am inclined to believe this alleged Steve Jobs keynote leak. It sounds real. Jobs’ keynote is tomorrow at the Macworld Expo.”

read more | digg story

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Chris Wilson blogs that Twitter helped find Manessa Donovan after police investigations turned up nothing encouraging. If you’ve been following this saga, you know how dramatic it has been, and the role Chris and his social network played in helping find Manessa. Congratulations to the Donovans and Chris.

aithene, chris wilson, manessa donovan, Social Media, Social Responsiblity, Twitter

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The NCAA has released its 2008 Blogging Policy, putting specific limits on the permissible frequency of blogging for various sporting events. For example, credentialed journalists who are bloggers have the following limits imposed by the policy:

• Soccer: Five times per half; one at halftime
• Field Hockey: Five times per half; one at halftime
• Volleyball: Three per Competition; one in between Competitions
• Football: Three per quarter; one at halftime

The policy includes all NCAA sports, and applies to both men’s and women’s competitions. It goes on to warn:

“All media entities observing NCAA championship competition should recognize that any still picture, motion picture, audio, film/videotape/digital capture or drawing (collectively, Representations) may be used only in connection with news/sports coverage within a 72-hour period following the Competition for which credential has been issued (“Competition”) and the Representations portion of each such showing will not exceed three (3) minutes in length; All Internet media entities and new media entities (e.g., companies providing content for mobile and PDAs) observing NCAA championship competition recognize that Representations may be used only in connection with news/sports coverage within a 24-hour period following the Competition , and the Representations portion of each showing will not exceed three (3) minutes in length.”

bloggers, blogging, Blogs and Blogging, Ethics, limits, ncaa, policy, sporting event, sports

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I guess my Google Alert for “Giovanni Rodriguez” needs to be refined. It yielded a story in the  Amador Ledger Dispatch that reported “Souza then pinned Giovanni Rodriguez in 23 seconds.” Giovanni is a versatile guy, but I was surprised to see that he is still doing high school wrestling.

Giovanni Rodriguez, Google, google alerts, tcg

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Since I’ve been using Twitter more seriously lately, thinking about how it can be used commercially, and how it would be more useful to me, there’s a feature I’d like to see that I’m calling “tabbed channels.”

Right now, Twitter has two separate streams, the people you are following (Home) and everyone in the world who is twittering, (Public Timeline.) This doesn’t give me the flexibility I want. What would be awesome is the ability to create certain channels (categories) and then tag my Twitter names, so that I can have separate, topical conversational streams.

Here are the channels/tabs I would create right away:

• Colleagues - PR and social media people
• Friends - Co-workers, family, friends (this is where the “pizza guy is at the door” tweets go)
• Playlists - I’d put my SomaFM playlists here

The reason for separating out playlists for example is because including it in my regular stream is too distracting.

I can see all kinds of other channels. Why not a sports channel and people could tag their tweets accordingly? I know Twitter’s simplicity is what makes it so appealing to some people, but ultimately, a lack of features and functionality will limit its commercial viability and will have people scratching their heads and saying “what’s the business model?”

business model, Communications, Social Media, soma fam, tabbed channels, tags, Twitter

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Adweek Magazine today released its Top 10 Trends for 2007, with a typo in the headline of its online edition. It’s an interesting and well written piece, and very down to earth and unsurprising in its predictions, but worth looking it because it does such a good job of talking about the trends that really are important. This is the time of year for Top Ten Lists and trend reviews and analysis, but so many of them are designed to be clever, or to make wild predictions, like Yahoo acquiring Facebook, so that if they come true, the author looks like a genius, and if they don’t no one notices.

As for the typo, come on guys. You’re in the big leagues. Doesn’t anyone proof your web site? It’s early I guess.

adweek, Language, Technology, top 10 trends

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If the slides from December 11’s Hewlett-Packard Securities Analyst Meeting are any indication, HP is undergoing a refresh on its oft-tweaked logo. Here’s the logo shown in one of the slides:

On its web site, HP currently uses this retro logo which hearkens back to the logo used on HP’s early test and measurement products:

The SAM logo looks like a stylized version of the HP Invent logo:

Of course the SAM version could be a renegade designer’s touch, or maybe the “new” logo is in use and I haven’t seen it.

Business Communications, Corporate Identity, hewlett packard, hp, logo, new, securities analyst meeting

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