It’s a tad after midnight and this will be the only post of the day. The response to yesterday’s call to create a community wiki was stonkingly good. 312 page views and as you can see, there were 20 responses directly to the post. I got a load of email and am still sifting through it. Statistically, that’s a 3x better response rate compared to direct marketing campaigns. At zero cost. But I digress.
An interesting response came from Microsoft UK. I know everyone loves to hate ‘em – me too – but I will talk to them if it means I can leverage their gigantic megaphone. Rex Hammock, the guy behind the US smallbusiness.com passed on a wealth of knowledge about how to make this work. The response from the traditional UK PRs was…abysmal. It may get better tomorrow. Not that it matters because there’s enough eager beavers here to make this a runner. And I still have a few people to press gang persuade into helping with this worthwhile venture.
So where are we at? David Terrar and I had a number of Skype chats about this and about an hour ago I left him ferreting around the SocialText system trying to figure out how to use it. i’ve had a quick look – it’s pretty easy to use though there are a few concepts that might need explanation.
- Name – Start Me Up – anyone got a better suggestion?
- Categories – this will be an evolving list but you can count in the usual suspects like business registration, VAT, insurance, finance, marketing, PR and so on.
- Content – needs to be conversational and not preaching. We’re trying to reach an audience that will find the bureaucracy daunting at best and frightening at worst. We will edit but only lightly. Contributions needs to be short, sharp and to the point. We’d like to get stories that reflect people’s experience. These add authenticity and value.
- How you can help – I’m working through the responses and will reply individually to everyone with some thoughts. There are some exciting possibilities. For instance, Tom Raftery, Irish podcaster to the high tech gliterati is on board. I’m thinking can we get some 5-10 minute conversations between Tom and high profile entrepreneurs? Anyone got Sir Richard Branson’s cell phone number? What about Sir Alan Sugar?
- International – with so many people trading on eBay and the exodus from the UK, it’s definitely worth including some stuff around exporting/working offshore. I’m in Spain after 7+ years in France so that’s my immediate job. Plus I know ex-pats in the US I can tap up. Then there’s the issue of outsourcing.
- Keeping it simple – I’m a great believer in the KISS principle. So if you have material on your blog sites you think could be useful then use it. No point re-inveting the wheel.
- Contributor acknowledgment – there will be a contribs page where you can put up a brief biog plus a headshot. This is your opportunity to either do a blatant sell or be a bit clever. Your choice – I’m pretty sure I know which readers will prefer.
- Internal blog/collaboration – SocialText includes blog capability and the means to collaborate on whatever. This looks exciting so anyone who has a great idea – let me know.
- Access – I’ll give each of you an account which will carry a unique password only you know. That allows you to get onto the site and edit. This facility is open to anyone but for the moment, it makes better sense to keep it controlled. Hence the only way you get on at the moment is through invitation. My view is that anyone who can make a valuable contribution gets on.
- Syndication – SocialText includes RSS and contribs will receive a daily update when changes have occurred in the previous 24 hours.
Can’t think of anything else at the moment and to be honest my brain is pretty much fried. Any questions?
Once again, thanks to everyone – if nothing else, this is proof positive this medium works when the topic is right. Now lets’ get the show on the road.
Technorati Tags: innovation, wiki
