“Listening is a really underrated marketing strategy” said Diane Hessan of Communispace during our podcast.

As you have told me by your responses to my content – communities are very important to you. Or perhaps you are thinking about implementing one or doing your own investigation of communities.

Well then you need to check out Communispace, a full service solution.. They build and run private online customer communities, one of the fastest growing marketing strategies for engaging with customers.

Creating a Private Community, a podcast with Diane Hessan of Communispace

About Diane

Diane Hessan is President and CEO of Communispace, “one of the fastest growing marketing and technology companies in the country, with a Blue Chip client list that would make a Madison Avenue giant jealous,” according to Advertising Age. A pioneer in creating online communities to help marketers deeply engage customers, Diane helped found Communispace in 1999 and hasn’t looked back.

The most informed buyer is one who can access the experienced-based knowledge of his or her peers. That’s the message of my podcast with George Krautzel, co-founder and president of ITtoolbox. George and his team have just released a new survey on the adoption of social media in cooperation with PJA Advertising and Marketing.

Some of the results might surprise you:

– IT decision makers spend on average 3.5 hours per week consuming or participating in social media.
– IT decision makers reference vendor websites more than user-generated content for making purchasing decisions, but trust user-generated content more than either vendor websites or editorial publications.

This is fantastic news. To hear more just listen to our podcast…

New Study on Social Media, a podcast with George Krautzel from ITtoolbox

About George

As co-founder and president of ITtoolbox, George Krautzel guides the company’s execution, overseeing daily operations, directing companywide implementations, and ensuring long-term business growth. Under his leadership, ITtoolbox has continually advanced its network services to meet the needs of both its expanding user base and its impressive list of advertising and staffing partners.

George directed the implementation of proprietary utilities such as a contextual matching engine and keyword ad targeting to help advertising partners realize the benefits of the significant volume of community-generated IT content at ITtoolbox. Prior to his experience with ITtoolbox, he held various roles at Accenture and co-founded an IT consulting company. He received a Bachelor of Science in Finance from Villanova University.

Copy of the Survey

Whitepaper on the benefits of advertising in social media

The opening speaker last week at the World Innovation Forum was Clayton Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor in Strategy and Innovation. In his speech Clayton discussed the principles of his two books: The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Innovator’s Solution.

When you listen to Clayton speak about the dynamics of a strategic market such as steel, and how the mini-mills disrupted the big steel mills, it’s a lesson that is one part history and one part common sense. Of course the mini-mills entered and disrupted the low end of the market, and of course the big mills were happy to get out of the low end because it was not as profitable a business. From there the mini-mills march up market until they totally disrupt the big mills at the high end!

Well folks, you see the same thing happening in technology. The mini-mills this time are the offshore firms that are pushing onshore with strategy work. So I couldn’t help but ask Clayton how this is playing out. What you will hear makes perfect sense, but listen closely. There are lessons in there for all of us.

Exclusive Interview: Clayton Christensen on Innovation

About Clayton

Clayton M. Christensen is the Robert and Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, with a joint appointment in the Technology & Operations Management and General Management faculty groups. His research and teaching interests center on the management issues related to the development and commercialization of technological and business model innovation. Specific areas of focus include developing organizational capabilities and finding new markets for new technologies.

Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the World Innovation Forum by the HSM Group. Participants at the World Innovation Forum came away with new understanding of how businesses can pivot and become more innovative as well as plenty of insights about what the future holds.

As a blogger, and member of the virtual media, I was delighted to hear that I was welcome to interview 2 of the guest (my top 2 picks) Malcolm Gladwell and Clayton Christensen.

What follows is a very raw and unpolished podcast, because that’s the way it happened. You are getting the full experience I had at sitting down with the man himself. I hope you come away inspired by Malcolm’s view of Web 2.0 and his heartfelt feeling on how the blogosphere can act as a self regulating body.

Malcolm Gladwell discusses Web 2.0 in a podcast

About Malcolm

Malcolm is a writer for the New Yorker magazine, and the author of two books, “The Tipping Point: How Little Things Make a Big Difference” and “Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking.” He was born in England, and raised in southwestern Ontario in Canada. Now he lives in New York City.

Malcolm’s great claim to fame is that I’m from the town where they invented the BlackBerry. His family also believes (with some justification) that we are distantly related to Colin Powell. He invites you to look closely at his photograph and draw your own conclusions.

Dont miss my podcast with Clayton Christensen later this week!

Go to Portland, Oregon, and you’ll find everyone there talking about Voodoo Doughnut. They talk about the caffeinated doughnut. The chocolate-glazed chocolate doughnut rolled in Cocoa Puffs cereal. Or the voodoo-doll-shaped doughnut that bleeds raspberry filling when impaled with a pretzel pin.

Then there’s Innocent. The UK company launched a campaign called “Supergran,” in which English grannies knit little woolly hats for its seasonal winter smoothies (so the bottles don’t catch a cold).

I’m not talking a couple of grannies, either. Because of the demand for the hats (and the smoothies), Innocent lined up enough grannies to knit 230,000 of them in 2006. Even better, it donated a portion of sales revenues, 50 pence per hat-wearing smoothie, £115,000 ($225,000) total, to Age Concern, a charity dedicated to keeping older people warm in the winter.

And you never thought a bottle of juice could be a conversation piece.

The point is that people talk about the exceptions or the unexpected. In B2B technology, either services or products, it’s a little hard to wrap your technologists in woolly hats or roll them in Cocoa Puffs. So we asked the expert, Lois Kelly, for her opinion on how to give your sales team more tools to create conversations. So for some tips, check out our podcast …

Want more sales? Give sales something to talk about. A podcast with Lois Kelly of Foghound

About Lois

Lois Kelly is the founder of Foghound, a communications consulting firm that helps companies more easily talk about their business or products in interesting ways. Clients have included Sun Microsystems, FedEx, and others. Previously, Lois was senior vice president of The Weber Group, one of the largest PR firms in the world. Her articles have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Brand Week, Advertising Age and other publications. Don’t miss Lois’s new book: Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word of Mouth Marketing