So...What's Next?!?

Baby, I'm a Star

for those of you younger than me, that is a Prince song.

I Work for Concept Hub, Inc

I have been working on separating my "personal" brand from the Concept Hub, Inc brand.

The past 3+ year journey has taken me from the "idealist' brand who was bound and determined to create a company to simply the "Sherry Heyl" brand which I learned early-on that in such an adventure as this it is simply impossible to  separate the personal brand of the "visionary" from the brand they are trying to develop. I mean look at Steve Jobs and Apple, Bill Gates and Microsoft, Sir Richard Branson and Virgin (Airlines, Records...)

I am not saying I am a Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Richard Branson...yet :-)

However, each of their brands are separate from who they are. Bill Gates has slowly stepped away from Microsoft and Microsoft carries on. Unfortunately Steve Jobs has stepped away from Apple, and that did cause some heartache amongst many, but Apple will carry on.

No I am not saying I am stepping away from Concept Hub, Inc - but I am looking toward bigger visions - which I have from the beginning, but now I guess you can say I am mature enough to understand how to take things to the next step.

Throughout the years Concept Hub, Inc (formerly What a Concept!) was NEVER just me. I have had some amazingly talented people support me and work alongside of me throughout the years. Many have contributed to the corporate blog and have worked alongside me at client sites and contributed their knowledge and insights to  Concept Hub's products and processes. This agency has never been a one woman show.

Recently  Mallory Perkins has joined the team as our Account Manager. We are now partners with Fuzebox Inc and share office space with them. We have also formed partnerships with i3 Logic, iFive Alliance, and are in the process of a creating a couple more strategic alliances.

I would not say I have "aggressive" growth plans for 2009 - but I am ready to put together some aggressive growth plans to be implemented late in 2009. This includes separating the "Sherry Heyl" brand from the "Concept Hub, Inc" brand.

I am also toying with the idea of another business idea. Something that I have launched once before...which if you know my background - that is a pretty HUGE hint....I will let you know more as or if that thought continues to bloom or grow wings.

In the meantime - you can join the Concept Hub Facebook Group Here

Follow the Concept Hub Twitter updates here

Join the Concept Hub Flickr photos here

Join the Concept Hub ATL YouTube here (Yes I am thinking of a local brand and a national/international brand...)

Follow Concept Hub's Delicious bookmarks here

AND of  course the blog is still here.

Thanks everyone for all the support, guidance, belief, recommendations, and advice - even the advice I did not follow. I hope you will continue to stay on this ride with me.

Sherry Heyl,
CEO Concept Hub, Inc

Why I Don't Tweet very often and other Social Media Confessions

Social Media is now mainstream for all ages lately.

Twitter is definitely going mainstream. I know so many people, young and old, tweeting away.

I met a gentleman at a CXO panel I was on yesterday and he made the comment that everyone over 35 joined Facebook the past 90 days. He could not believe how many people are jumping in the water.

It's kinda funny for me to be in the position I am in. When everyone is finally jumping in I have been rapidly backing away from many of the sites I used to be on. I abandoned, or hopefully donated, my idealist twitter handle. More than a year ago Idealist.org asked if I would be willing to give up the handle. At the time "idealist" was my brand that I was using in most networks and I was using Twitter quite regularly with a good network of people so I had to say no. A few months ago I told them they could have it. I believe they are trying to figure out how to handle the change over. I changed my twitter id to sherryheyl - yeah original huh-

I dropped idealist because it was not a fit for who I am now...not that I am not idealistic, I just was going through a phase at the time and now I am through that phase.

"The phase" Hmmm... I guess you could say that during  the phase I needed "input" of any kind. I needed distractions from my own self absorption. It was definitely a phase where I was very focused on myself and at the same time needed to be distracted from myself. I was very active anywhere I could be. But now I am back to the old me. I guess you can call it the old me with a new perspective.

A few weeks ago someone asked how they could connect with me on Twitter. I told her how but with the disclaimer that I rarely use Twitter. She was shocked. My being the social media "guru" how could I not be on twitter all the time!?!

I am not someone who needs or wants to be plugged in all the time. I like my alone time, a lot, like daily. But when you consider I work with a team at an office and I have two boys to care for and a husband who likes to have me around, I do not get my daily alone time as much as I would like. The last thing I need is to try to stay up to date with 500+ (which is what Idealist was up to) of my closest friends.

The other thing is I am not someone seeking to be everywhere all the time, to be the center of attention. I like speaking at groups and events but I am not seeking those opportunities out. I like getting media attention but I am not seeking it out. I do need to prospect and sell more but I still prefer the traditional ways of selling. At the same time I am still a small business and can only handle so much business and so much prospecting and managing so many relationships. So the opportunities that exist in being involved in online networking is actually overwhelming.

I know what has worked for me. I have my stories about finding good people when I need them on Twitter, and getting the news that is relevant to me from Facebook. I have no good stories about MySpace, I have never liked MySpace. I use LinkedIn often enough. I do 80% of my research with delicious. I manage ALL of my projects using social media tools. My business plan is written in a wiki. But I am not managing my own social media brand because at this time I have no personal or business social media objective.

The thing is I know how to use social media effectively when I have a reason to use it. I know how to decide when social media is an effective tool to reach a goal. I have lots of experience in social media, usually under the radar though as I consult with my clients. Over the next year I will be looking to find a new phase in my life, one that is a little more polished and with more focus and definitely a different voice than what is already out there. As I develop that side of me I will also be developing my personal social media plan, but right now I am enjoying managing social media projects for other people and spending my time with a little more me.

Book Review - Secrets of Social Media Marketing

I saw some sort of ad awhile ago, Paul Gillin was giving away his book - Secrets of Social Media Marketing. Why would I ever turn away from such an offer?

In return, Paul requested that we blog about the book. I have spent this past week reviewing it and taking some notes for my training classes. Here are some of my thoughts or my "review" of the book.

It is one of the first books that I have read that goes into the nuts and bolts of social media. There are still many areas where he has to go high-level because to get in too deep would require volumes of books, but he at least guides the reader into the trenches of social media.

I do not agree with many of the opinions and assumptions that are sprinkled throughout the book mostly because I  do not feel they are helpful to the reader. Right from the start Paul write his disclaimer that this book could be outdated before it is even printed because of how fast things move, and yet many of his assumptions actually pigeon hole his advice. For example he stresses over and over again that MySpace is mostly for teenagers, and the reality is even the teenagers are moving away from MySpace. What I am seeing is MySpace is keeping it's stronghold on an industry, the Entertainment Industry to be exact, and not so much a demographic.

I am loving the case studies in the book. What I think would be more thought-provoking is presenting a case study and not just showing what worked, but also exploring what opportunities were missed. Every social media campaign that has been launched has broken new ground in some form or fashion, which means that missed something along the way. Yes let's celebrate the success, but let's play a little Monday morning quarterback with the case studies also.

Overall - yes it is a book I would recommend to anyone, my clients and even social media consultants - it has helped me fill in a few gaps in my lessons and presentations.

Thanks for the book Paul!

Small Business Ideas Review

There is a site called Ideablob,  where you can post your small business ideas and win $10,000.

Today, I would like to play "social media judge" of the latest submissions and reflect on how these small businesses could leverage social media to their benefit.

Idea to Promote Unsigned Bands I can appreciate where this person's heart is, but their strategy is, well, short-sighted and limited.

"I just want to raise money to be able to promote these bands making posters, and promoting shows for them between others."

"If I win $10K, my next step would be to sponsor a tour for some of the bands I promote."

There are all kinds of stories about stars being made on the Internet lately yet most artist still have no clue how to do much more than upload a song on MySpace. Bands should launch their "tour" on the Internet - showing up on iTunes, Pandora, Last.fm, YouTube, MySpace, they should be giving interviews to bloggers and showing their behind the scenes story. They can begin to "live" the life virtually which would gain them  the exposure to live the real life of a Rock Star. Traditional ways of promoting a band do not work anymore - if they really worked well at all. Once the money goes down the drain on posters and a sponsored tour, all you have left are memories. An online promotion can continue to grow momentum.

Reusable Condom - I don't know what to think about this one. The person who submitted it was not taking the contest seriously, but still - this would be an interesting idea to put out there for an online focus group to see what people think of the idea. It would also be another way to continue to promote safe sex - just having new reasons to talk about condoms.

Mobile Hair Salons - Yep - I have been that person on the way to a meeting and my hair just went blah - or I look down and realize - yeah - it has been awhile since I have had a manicure. But will the mobile hair salon be there when I need them? I am thinking they could send people mobile alerts about where they will be and when, times that are available, they could post pictures on Flickr and geo-tag them so people can see where the magic was happening. It's an interesting idea.

Maintenance - this one is hard to imagine because atmosphere is everything, at least for me, if I am going in even for a manicure. I do not want to be greeted by a greasy mechanic hand over my keys and then walk in another room to get my nails done - but what if my car was valet to the back where they changed the oil, washed it, rotated the tires while I walked into a nice entrance for my own facial and massage. This is a really great idea. On the social media side - I don't know, I am really seeing some fun commercials of the car getting a massage that would be on YouTube, perhaps a social network where people can discuss best practices for car care and personal care.

Pick'N'Grin MicroBrewery - I would say this one should start out as a hyper-local blog - showcase the musicians and the community of people who visit. Pictures, blog posts, social calendars, fan pages. Then they can look to go national by creating buzz around their beer and talent. They should have contracts in place with their talent.

This is the fun part about social media - it is limitless. Almost any idea can grow wings.

Everybody has a voice

The past couple of days I have been on a little bit of an emotional roller coaster because of the project I am on.

I am writing a social media business plan for The Atlanta's Children's Shelter. I fell in love with their mission back in the Spring when I attended a fundraising breakfast. From there I offered some training pro-bono and then they hired me to do some research and to put a plan together.

What I have found while researching for their plan is that of the 650 LOCAL nonprofits that I reviewed there are 24,000 Blog posts linking to them. Most, in fact almost all of these nonprofits have no idea that they are part of this online conversation and are not leveraging it for their benefit.

I also believe that people feel that if they do not hear or see a nonprofit taking action they will choose to start their own grassroots effort to solve a problem as opposed to supporting their local nonprofit. I am finding hundreds of groups in Flickr and Facebook of people doing just that and again, no nonprofit has joined the grassroots causes - which in many cases I see the grassroots causes getting more attention and interaction.

I see SOME nonprofits ATTEMPTING to tip their toe in social media by setting up their own groups, but they are still simply broadcasting their message. They are not reaching out to the community of people who care so much about the cause that they have taken it up themselves.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I am even finding blogs that are written and maintained by homeless people. People are taking their cause to online communities themselves. I have said it many times to many nonprofits, on location is now online. If you want to find your donors, volunteers and even your clients - meet with them online. 

Broadcasting messaging does not work because people now have the opportunity to be engaged in conversations online and that is where their attention goes to. Also you can not simple set up a group and expect people to come to you, because everyone has a voice, they have their own ideas  and can set up their own group. 

So, yeah - at times I have feelings of frustration but then there are times when I feel very blessed. I am and have been  in a position to make some significant changes. Maybe not all at once, but with one client at a time.

What I would do if I were trying to promote a streaming video show

So I have learned that people (including myself) are not always appreciative of unsolicited advice. But when I see things that could work well I still do not know how to keep my mouth shut.

So as a compromise I am going to outline a promotional plan for a streaming video show here and allow anyone who finds it worthy to learn from it and apply as they like.

If I had a streaming video show that I aired twice a week, especially one that was sports related and geared toward people with busy lives, I would definitely have an RSS feed on it so people would be alerted when a new show was posted. I would probably also include the ability for people to sign up for email alerts on the show, and encourage such a thing at the end of the show.

I would also have a fan page about the show on Facebook. Did you know you could aggregate those RSS feeds into the Fan page which would extend your reach to an audience and alert them when a new show was posted.

On that note I would set up a friend feed account and room and get the fans to discuss the show with you - which you could aggregate all kinds of information into.

The facebook group is ok - it is more for invites and posting pictures and letting people post things on the wall, you can also start discussions there but there are still many limitations.

I would definitely have the hosts of the shows create Flair buttons to send to fans of the show.

On that note, why not go to widgetbox and create a widget for people to post on their websites and blogs.

I would probably even turn the audio portion of the video into an MP3 so those busy people would have an option to download the content and listen to it in their car.

And consider the advertising is in the video, why limit the video to just a player? Perhaps load it in various video sharing networks.

 

Just a few ideas off the top of my head. I know this seems like a lot of work, it's not really once you kow more of the tools and also as a side note, this is what Fuzebox does. They create a single sign on dashboard so you can manage all your communities.

My New Favorite Site

When I see a cool new tool, I tend to throw it in my Del.icio.us account to review later....whenever...eventually.

Today I am preparing for my Market Intelligence class that I will be delivering tomorrow, which would make today a good day to review some new tools.

I am LOVING Quantcast....here is some info it has provided me about my stats (no they are not impressive, I actually prefer less attention on this site).

Most of my visits come from high-income cauc.,  men, age 35-49.

Only 1% of the people who visit are addicts, which I would assume is a white man with high income age 35-49 :)

and 13% of my visits come from the 1%

Anyway, this site will prove to be very helpful when evaluating other sites, but I am curious about it's accuracy and how it gets it's data.

Outlining the Next Few Months

So much to juggle, however they are things that keep me motivated.

First the house...the house is a perfect example of "be careful what you ask for." We wanted a house that was pretty much a blank slate that we could work on to make our own. Boy was it...complete with white walls. I hate white walls. That was the first thing we accomplished when we moved in was putting color on the walls. But the carpet does not match. We have picked out the new carpet and bamboo floors. Yesterday my husband ordered a new front door. I have been tearing wallpaper down in my bathroom - I do not understand why people want wallpaper in their house, but...

All of this should be done in the next couple of months. Personally I am excited to get our dining room area set up. We are not going to use it as a dining room, but more of a library. It is attached to the kitchen which we have set up like a coffee shop and the dining room will be like our little Barnes & Noble.

Next my personal goal of getting and staying in shape. I delayed meeting with my trainer, but he has not given up on me. I have my first meeting with him tomorrow night. The goal is to get my endurance up, work on getting my strength back and then I will join their HIT class. I am looking forward to the end result. Start with the end in mind, right....

As far as the Bennigan's sitcom, I figured out how to make it come to life. It is perfect for sketch comedy! My husband and I are fans of Sketchworks here in Atlanta and they have sketch comedy writing classes and acting classes. My husband has agreed to taking the acting classes with me, so stay tuned.

Also related to creative writing - I am working on another performance piece that was inspired by the STIR event. This one is on the sensitive side, but I think is important. When it is complete and ready to be read I will let you know. I have also decided to start attending more spoken word events.

Vacation...boy do I need one, or two. We have planned our beach trip finally. In a couple of weeks I will be spending 4 days at St George Island with friends and family. I also started planning the trip to NYC with my son for his 14th b-day. It is a bit more expensive than I anticipated...but I will keep researching.

Personal finances. I am excited to announce that we are in the best shape we have ever been with our personal finances! wahoo! That includes the business cash flow as well. That is only more motivation to keep building. Believe me, this has been a long learning curve for me.

Associations - I just resigned from my post as programs chair for AECF. I love that group enough to know it is time for me to step down because I could no longer give them what they deserve.

Currently my focus is on the Enterprise 2.0 society. We have a huge event coming up in September where we hope to partner with other associations. We are reserving space for over 200 people at GA Tech. From there we  have a number of initiatives for the first part of next year which are very exciting.

It is also time to start gearing up for SoCon09. Also, if you read this blog regularly you know that I am part of the Social Media Club's Interim Board and we are hoping to re-launch a new chapter here in Atlanta.

That is enough to keep me busy as far as associations go - but expect to see me networking a bit more.

In regards to the business I am focused on enhancing the online training. I also am putting a plan together to "drink my own koolaide" and start marketing the company through more social media channels.

If you have read this far you will get to know that I am also looking at a very exciting strategic alliance. In the next couple of weeks I will be aligning my business with a company that completes my offerings. I will be working from their office space at Studio Plex in Inman Park. We have a video production and podcasting studio, which is cool, but more importantly is the technology for market intelligence gathering and for distribution that has been developed. It's very exciting. I hope to start scheduling meetings to demo their offerings and my services as soon as this week. I am also working on ideas for us to go to market together.

All of this is gearing me up to go national. I am currently working with 3 clients on long term projects and have 2-3 in the pipeline. Now that I have an office space to work from I am looking to bring on a junior account manager - which I have already identified a couple of good candidates.

So yeah - I am busy - but having lots of fun.

Keys to Creativity

Growing up I always thought a talented person or creative person was someone who was good at art or music or sports. What I have come to realize is that creative people express their creativity in almost everything they do in life. They agree to see things differently, to ask more questions, and to continuously explore options.

I am re-reading a book called The Universal Traveler - a Soft-System Guide to Creativity, Problem-Solving, and the Process of Reaching Goals.

There was a line in there that I read last night that I think speaks to so many people who get stuck (including myself).

The habit of believing you know something so well that it preempts discovery always works against you in terms of behaving creatively.

This is exactly the attitude I struggle against when I am introducing new and/or foreign ideas to people. They know their world so well they can not see how something new and foreign could fit it.

I do believe it is in the acceptance that we do not know that we find the answers to questions we did not know we should ask.

How does that work? What does that do? Where will that go? and simply - I do not not know, but I can't wait to find out are normal thoughts in my everyday life. This is why I get that funny look on my face when people introduce me as an "expert." All I have been doing is exploring. It is like calling a kid a sand box expert.

A couple of days ago I read, yet another post, by yet another person, who wants to be positioned as an expert and to do so she positioned herself as the almighty naysayer - above the "hype." This particular person was saying virtual worlds were not the future of business - her reasoning...virtual worlds are "creepy.'

It seems this person knows her world so well, is such an expert, that she has no time for discovery and creativity. Meanwhile the innovations that are happening all around will simply pass her by.

So, although I appreciate the sentiment when others call me an expert, I do get scared of that idea, not because of lack of belief in what it is I do know, but because I want to make sure that I am always of the mindset that I need to know more.