Memorial Day. For those of us in America, it’s the holiday that marks the gateway to summertime – a season of lazy days at the shore, backyard barbecues, and road trips to visit the world’s largest ball of twine or maybe the Mystery Spot, a three-day weekend providing welcome respite from the rigors of our hectic work-a-day lives.
One of the things I seem to do a lot more as I age is to theorize, and sometimes that involves a bit of self-reflection. Recently, I was thinking about the things I enjoy in life, both personal and professional, and it got me thinking about what would be the first three things a new acquaintance might learn about me during the course of an initial conversation.
It starts with one snarky tweet, or maybe an angry post in the /r/rage subreddit. The next thing you know, your inbox is choked with Google alerts, your company is trending on Twitter (and not in a good way), Buzzfeed is snickering at you, your PR director is blowing up your phone, and your boss needs you in the conference room right now.
In Part I of this series, we introduced WeChat (Chinese: 微信; pinyin: Wēixìn; literally “micro message”), the challenger all-in-one mobile communicator from Tencent. WeChat seems to be able to do everything a smartphone user can possibly want, such as free video chat, text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, photo/video sharing, location sharing and contact information exchange.
You’ve seen them on reddit, Slideshare, Twitter, and Facebook. You’ve probably rolled your eyes, laughed ruefully, and shook your head, wondering why, oh why, would anyone post something so stupid on (insert your favorite social platform here)? Didn’t they know what would happen? Didn’t they stop to think before they sent that tweet or posted that update? Didn’t they know any better?! Oh, the outrage!
The future of business will depend heavily on a new wave of innovative mobile communication platforms and applications, like China’s cutting-edge mobile platform, WeChat. However, these emerging platforms and applications also add up to a much more complex world for businesses. Smart phones, tablets, hybrid devices such as Windows Surface, and multiple environments including Android, Android China, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple’s iOS, as well as an ever-evolving merry-go-round of features, updates, and apps mean additional levels of multifaceted marketing. So, where should businesses start, and how can they guarantee that their budgets won’t disappear down the digital rabbit hole?
More than just music. More than just film. And more than just technology. SXSW is the crossroads of creativity, art, science and passion. Rather than having a bird’s-eye view from behind a monitor, Interprose took a truly interactive approach to the 2014 SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas—reporting from the events via social media and capturing the whole experience through the lens of a Polaroid High-def Professional Action Camera (and an iPhone).
I busily attended the trade show, sessions, panels, networking gatherings and, most importantly, nightly parties. But, among all the learning, collaboration and interaction, I discovered what I believe is SXSWi in its truest, most raw form: the SXSW 2014 Accelerator.
Have you ever been in an interview with a reporter where you thought, “Damn, why didn’t I take the time to understand their interests more?” Although this happens to even the most media-savvy among us, it doesn’t have to. And here’s how to prevent this from happening to you.
Imagine this: tomorrow you have an interview with a journalist who’s writing a story for one of your A-list publications.
As the 22nd Winter Olympics in Sochi have now come to a close, it’s a perfect time to pause and reflect on what businesses can learn from the Olympics. I can’t help but to draw parallels between the critical elements required for a successful road to the gold, and those needed for today’s businesses: teamwork, focus, perseverance, leadership and strategy.
Teamwork
Without teamwork and great teammates, a team will struggle to win an Olympic medal, or even succeed at all, no matter how bright one or two individuals may shine.
In part one of a two-part series discussing the importance of Wikipedia, we explored the reasons why your organization might – should, really – want to add a Wikipedia article to its communications toolbox. Its status as the sixth most-visited website on the Internet, prominence in organic search engine results, and frequent use as a research resource by the media should make the decision to join the hallowed pages of Wikipedia a no-brainer.