Development Archives - AndreaVascellari.com

Top 20 Social Media Influencers and Beyond…

Kristi Hines (@kikolani) published a nice list of “The 20 most influential people in social media” and Simon Kemp (@eskimon) did a good job in this thread reminding us all that since more than 80% of the world’s social media users live outside of the US it would be a good idea to add some other influential names beyond America’s shores to the list.

Brava Kristi and bravo Simon. So far so good.

Krishna De is an outstanding communicator and a long time digital-friend. She suggested that I could be considered as an influencer in Finland. First of all, I’d like to thank Krishna for mentioning me as an influencer. I tend to work with my “head down”, putting all the passion and commitment I have into everything I do in this industry. Ultimately, my greatest reward is to see a satisfied smile on the face of whoever I’m working with because what we did together meant something to them and made a difference. So, when someone points me out for any reason related to what I do, I feel honored.

Secondly, though, after reading the following comment I felt that I should probably clarify my position a bit and give out a little bit more information about what I do since I have been – and still am – very involved in the Finnish social media and technology space…

If you can’t see/load the picture above:

Jaana Nyström – +Krishna De New York in Finland now? 🙂 +Andrea Vascellari has nothing to do with Finland, I think? Must be an error this…

Not wanting to promote myself but I’m the “Google+ envoy in Finland”, according to the local Google Industry Manager… At least I’m diligent! 😀

For those of you who have been connected with me for a while now, you are probably aware that my company and I work on international projects, but for the sake of this thread on G+, here’s my reply which just focuses on some of the ways I’ve been “influential” in Finland.

Hi Everyone,

Hi Jaana,

Jaana I’ve been living and working in Finland since 2005 and I’ve been researching and studying the Finnish information society cluster since 2002.

In Finland, I’m currently running several projects for national and local governments, regional development, B2B, B2C, pharma and education. If you have a look at the people/connections we commonly share here on Google+ you’ll notice that I’m well-networked with the Finnish social media sphere 😉

I’m often a contributor to various international podcasts sharing my point of view from the Finnish perspective (but not only, since I have Italian-Canadian roots) specifically in the fields of PR, marketing and communications. In addition to that, since public speaking is part of what I do, I’ve been invited to speak at some of the largest conferences in Finland i.e. Mindtrek, ITK, etc. If you quickly browse through my Linkedin profile you’ll notice that I’ve been invited as an official blogger to many industry conferences, such as the LeWeb, Web 2.0 Expo, etc. and I’ve also represented Finland at two editions of the Bloggers World Forum respectively in Bucharest and Vienna. So these are most likely some of the reasons why you’ll find a fairly large group of people worldwide referring to me when they think of Finland – it’s the same for me when I think of Ireland and 2 names immediately come to mind Krishna De (@krishnade) and Bernie Goldbach (@topgold).

On the other hand, leading an international digital strategy agency requires me to travel quite often, but my home is currently in Finland. My team and I work across 4 continents and we recently opened a new office in New York (NYC) so the information you see on my Twitter profile refers to that. I hope this explains and clarifies everything.

Andrea @vascellari

– Good to meet you, Jaana. Andrea

Communications Report for March 30th 2011 – AndreaVascellari.com

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Data: How the Advanced Corporations Spend on Social Business – A glimpse into the future.
Top 25 Best Practices for Drafting Policies and Guidelines – The rules of social media engagement.
Pepsi Innovates with Social Media Metrics – Shiv Singh, Head of Digital PepsiCo Beverages America, talked to eMarketer writer/analyst Kimberly Maul about how PepsiCo measures social media and the role Facebook plays in its social media outreach.
The PR Influencer Index: Let Your Peers Rate You – Here is the Lose Weight Exercise for you to share with your peers…
My Blackberry is not working – Fun!
Twitter isn’t very social: study – A whopping 50% of all content consumed on Twitter is generated by only 20,000 users.
Mobile internet stats round up – 84% use mobile search to look for information on local retailers, such as opening hours, address and contact details. 82% look for online retailers, 73% find a specific product or manufacturer website.
Google Page Speed Now Available as Chrome Plugin – Google has finally released an experimental Chrome extension for its popular Page Speed service. Page Speed, which is already available for Firefox, analyzes Web pages and gives developers suggestions for improving performance.
Mobile commerce: ten reasons to choose the web over apps – This doesn’t mean that apps don’t have their place, but retailers should look to mobile commerce sites before they create an app.
Mobile commerce: 25 essential tips – Mobile commerce is continuing to grow, and there are now plenty of compelling reasons why retailers should sell via mobile.
e-book sales exploded by 116% this January, totaling $69.9 million in the U.S. – Paperbacks were down 30.9% from the reporting companies, falling to $39.0 million, $30 million below the sales of e-books. Hardcover sales fell 11.3% in January.
How to Activate Facebook Insights for Your Website – Handy!
New Rules for the New Internet Bubble – We’re now in the second Internet bubble.
US Social Network Usage: 2011 Demographic and Behavioral Trends – In 2011, 63.7% of US internet users will use social networks on a regular basis, amounting to nearly 148 million people. Although the pace of growth will be less dramatic in the next few years than it was in 2009 and 2010, usage will remain strong and shows no sign of declining.
Advertising – B2B Brands Undervalue Online Display Marketing – Only 13% of B2B interactive marketers say they have increased online display budgets in 2011 relative to 2010 levels, in large part due to perceptions of ineffectiveness, according to a new report from Forrester.

Communications Report for November 19th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Analytics for Your Docs with Scribd Stats – Document-sharing site Scribd has launched a new feature – Scribd Stats – that will allow users to get detailed analytics about docs uploaded to the site. The feature will be available for free on any piece of content on Scribd.
9 Strategies to Make Selling Your Ideas More Successful – Stepcase Lifehack – A frequent question from people in all career phases is what a person can do to better sell a new idea, whether to a customer or inside an organization.
Twitter Has A (Secret) Reputation Score For Every User – According to Williams, Twitter’s “science and math people” have systems which gauge who you follow and who the people you follow follow and try to find ‘Who to Follow’ relevance in that overlap. He didn’t make it clear how individual user reputation score was measured.
Netflix CEO says consumers just aren’t interested in long-form video on portable devices — Engadget – In his mind, these results indicate that consumers just aren’t interested in streaming long-form video on mobile devices and instead prefer the experience on bigger screens.
Want to Make Your Location App Hot? Add a Discount – 29% said they found check-ins valuable because of deals and promotions.
Twitter’s Official Analytics Product Has Arrived – Twitter has started inviting a select group of users to test a new analytics product.
Incredible Video Stats You Have To See – Online video is well and truly, having the best time of its life right now.
How to Export Your Friends’ Email Addresses from Facebook – Facebook is trying to create one inbox to rule them all, but for those of us who don’t trust Facebook enough to give them all our communication, taking control of that information is an important step toward retaining your communication freedom.
Google Search Ads to Get More Visual – A company spokesperson says that they’ve “found that people are twice as likely to click on a Product Listing Ad as they are to click on a standard text ad in the same location.”
The Internet in 2020 – Great graphic that draws a good picture on what the web might look like in ten years from now.
Post-media marketing – Brand Republic – What should we be focusing on…
How to Get More Leads From Existing Content – Taking advantage of evergreen content, or content you previously published, can have a number of benefits. Due to the fact that you put a lot of thought, time, and effort into your content, it only makes sense to re-purpose it.
Clearwebstats.com – Information About Every Site. – Free service for webmasters to track and display web data from most websites.

[Communications Report] for November 10th 2010 – AndreaVascellari.com

Do you want to get these report-updates in real time? Subscribe to the live-report RSS feed! This feed includes only report related items. It’s not a substitute but a complement to my main RSS feed which still remains the official one that brings you all my blog posts.

Mobile Users Want Branded Apps that Are Useful, Not Just Marketing – The majority of respondents (57%) noted that apps should be well designed and 74% said that they want apps to be easy to use (leaving us to wonder if there are users out there who want apps that are badly designed and hard to use…). Even more importantly, though, 73% of those surveyed by Harris Interactive think that mobile apps should be easier to use than the brand’s website.
Get ready for TV voting apps, at least in the UK – Ofcom, the UK’s independent telecommunications regulator, has given the thumbs up to the development of mobile voting applications. Before this announcement, TV companies have traditionally set up specific text message short-codes or automated phone numbers that would automatically debit the cost of the vote from a users mobile tariff or land-line call plan.
17 tips for creating a great website tagline – Taglines may seem like a just a few words next to a logo, but they can really help define and differentiate your core brand message in seconds. A slogan can be the difference between grabbing a visitor’s attention or losing them to your competitor.
Adwords Is Dying and Google Knows It (and they are doing something about it) | Fast Company – The new key words will be geo and local.
Google’s Instant Preview May Just Shake Up Web Design Forever | Fast Company – Instant Preview will potentially allow Google to own more of our browsing experience. Instead of leaving Google in order to browse the web, you will be browsing the results, rather than the pages suggested in the search itself.
Qantas A380 incident: a lesson in social media and web PR – Emergency landing of a Qantas Airbus A380 at Changi Airport in Singapore was another example of how travel companies need to establish a solid social and web PR strategy.
How Real-Time Analytics Can Help Small Businesses Thrive – Small businesses can easily take advantage of these tools and benefit enormously from doing so.
YouTube Topics: A Better Way to Explore Web Video? – YouTube will begin testing a new feature Wednesday evening that gives users the ability to explore broad topics and search terms through suggested searches.
4 Creative Social Marketing Campaigns from Around the World – Social media marketing is a global phenomenon, but we don’t always get to see the innovative work that’s happening abroad.
Hasbro Plans 3D Goggles For Your iPhone – If you’ve ever wanted to view 3D content on your iPhone or iPod touch, Hasbro has you covered.
BBC News – Cameron hails ‘revolutionary’ Whitehall data website – David Cameron has launched a website where departments set out business plans and timetables to achieve them.
HOW TO: Become a YouTube Sensation – There are some easy tips…
History of Online Video – The last 5 years of online video history and the result is this awesome infographic.
3 Tips for Maximizing Engagement With Facebook Likes and Shares – “Like” and “Share” are some of the best tools around for driving referral traffic from social networks, opening new communication channels with customers and prospects, and building relationships with your best advocates.
Advertisers Demand Proof of Online Video’s Efficacy – Online video advertising is growing at a fast pace in the US. eMarketer forecasts a spending increase of 48.1% to over $1.5 billion this year, followed by a further boost of about 43% for the next two years.

Cognitive Surplus as Innovation Key

Several of the projects we work on with our team at itive.net imply change. The real difficulty is when we have to deal with systems and organizations that are often trapped by rules, both contractual or cultural that don’t leave space for innovation or paradoxically force innovation to adapt to old paths and 20th century structures. I’m not here to whine about it, in the end this is often a reality that consultants, including myself, are used to dealing with. What I would actually like to do is drive your attention to this TED video by Clay Shirky on how cognitive surplus could change the world.

Have a look at the video and check the notes I shared below…

Here are some of the points that I found interesting:

– Cognitive surplus = free time & talents (motivation/generosity) + consumer & share (tools/tech)
What happens with cognitive surplus? Human motivation and modern tools allowing that motivation to be joined up in large scale efforts.
– Social vs contractual motivation. In the 20th century we thought that the lack of contract would let people operate without any constraints… unfortunately this is not true. They operate with social constraints instead of contractual ones.
The advantage of social constraints is that they construct a culture that is more generous than the contractual constraints do. On the other hand what’s broken by contractual constraints stays broken, and this condition can persist over long time periods.
– So the trick is in understanding where we are laying on the economic side and where on the social side.
– Communal vs Civic value
Communal value: created by the participants for each other. We find it everywhere we have large amounts of public data available online (photos on flickr, videos on youtube, etc.).
Civic value: created by the participants but enjoyed by the society. Goals are not just set up to make life better for the participants, but to make life better for everyone in the society in which the system is operating. This is not just a side effect of opening up to human motivation, it’s going to be a side effect of what we collectively make of the concept.
– Long story short: people have a lot of free time, and they can do better when not trapped by contractual constraints. So organizations designed around the culture of generosity will be able to achieve incredible effects without an enormous amount of contractual overhead.
– The key: Support people who are trying to use cognitive surplus to create civic value. By doing that we’ll be able to change society.

Thoughts? Share them here on the blog or via twitter @vascellari.

Andrea