More Than Marketing » Life At SocialSphere

All quiet on the blog front

Todd Van Hoosear — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:11:00 +0000

Don’t worry, faithful subscriber (all 22 of you so far, but I hope that grows–it’s only been a bit more than a month), this blog is not going dark. I am heads down working on fulfilling some promises that I made to you and to my boss. These include:

Setting up a research calendar for 2009 reports, which will focus on particular segments of social web technologies
Launching our weekly Social Media Business Tool review, which will focus on how to get started with individual services, sites and tools
Kickstarting one podcast series–in which SocialSpherites will interview book authors–and adding a few more interviews to the B-2-B social media successes series I started for Tech PR Gems and PRobecast
Reviewing existing, and ultimately proposing SocialSphere’s own, frameworks for evaluating social media tools and services for businesses
Formalizing the processes around our daily Social Media War Room, including a headline news feed and other notification and subscription services

In the meantime, please check the SocialSphere Blog for updates from the other crew.

The social media war room

Todd Van Hoosear — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 18:30:08 +0000

I am surrounded by political junkies at my new job. With the election in full swing and inspired by past successes, John Della Volpe came up with a great idea–the social media war room.

Every day at 9:30am, we all come together at the table to review the day’s news, priorities and challenges. We share the clips, comments and objectives for each of our clients. We’re still working out the kinks, including automating the clips and speeding up the process (we’ve only been at it one day so far), but I think we’re on to something. In this Web 2.0 world, it’s easy to lose touch with the people immediately around you. Plus, when you’re ADHD like me, forcing yourself to come to the table every day with concrete plans for the day will keep you focused!

I’ll let you know how things go, but I think this idea–reinforcing interpersonal and group interaction–is critical to the success of any organization. Excuse me while I slip back into email hell…

Impressions from day one at SocialSphere

Todd Van Hoosear — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 02:41:02 +0000

Well, I survived day #1 at SocialSphere, and I can safely say they didn’t scare me off.

It was a whirlwind day of meetings on the Marine Corps, thoroughbred racing, auto clubs and sick kids–all the while texting back and forth with Liz Koch, who headed up today’s Social Media Club Boston event at Gillette Stadium while I was busy getting briefed and decompressing.

First of all, this is a hell of a smart team! Smart, but also creative and collaborative. Our clients, at least the ones they’ve let me speak with already on day one, are also sharp and willing to learn.

The best thing about the culture here is the emphasis on learning, thoroughness and collaboration–as just one example we had one of our interns standing up in the conference room showing off sites many of us had never seen before.

So far, no regrets! I do miss the antics at Topaz, but there’s so much to learn and do here. I’m looking forward to tomorrow!