Publications

I am a prolific writer but I am not a professional journalist. Since 2004 I have been studying the emergence of social technology and its subsequent impact on business as unusual. My blog has over 1,000 post and growing daily. Over 10,000 comments and retweets from over 200,000 readers who find my observations useful.

I don’t claim to know everything about “all things social” rather I do claim to be an avid student and a professional observer, thinker and what I learn everyday I share with others. My aim is to share, learn, collaborate and improve how businesses can transform into more productive social entities.

We’ve produced numerous videos and you can see my YouTube Channel here

We’ve also produced numerous presentations and you can see them on Slide Share here

Below is a list of some of my publications. There are also links on the sidebar to get some of these publications free as Ebooks.

5X6 Social Media Revenue Matrix

This is a summary of a 19 page white paper available here.

New market dynamics are  emerging as social technology and the use of it proliferates. Making sense of the dynamics and the strategic implications is everyone’s  goal. The goal is not an end rather a   never-ending pursuit to learn, share and improve.

Learning and sharing is how people and organization can gain clarity  of purpose on how to continuously improve. The real value in all things social is the sharing of knowledge with clarity for others to use. Imagine if an audience was focused on sharing of knowledge with clarity. What would be the outcomes? The answer: never-ending improvement and innovation.

Thinking About Social Media

Sometimes thinking about social media can be confusing, overwhelming and lacking clarity of purpose. To think clearly we need to understand the “system” and its related parts as well as the strategic elements required to optimize the “system of production”.

Life and business is a “System of Production”. Individually we receive information and produce more information for personal or professional goals.  Businesses and individual engage in a system of production that takes in, processes and puts out information. Some systems are more productive than others based on the quality of related processes that encompass the parts that make up a system as a whole. The intake, processing and passing of information represents communications. Social technology is a system of communications. Communications drive everything. Communications is our collective and personal economy.

Alignment of Strategic Elements

Social media  cannot be efficiently used unless a strategy is  aligned with  intent. Intent are strategic issues that must be thought out thoroughly because strategy drives tactics, initiatives and ultimately results.

A 5X6 Communications Matrix (The Tactics)

Communications start at the point of sharing information that’s relevant, valuable and of interest to the receiver.

The aim of any system is to help people by providing  the right information which earns their attention long enough to create an attraction. The earned attraction helps to form an affinity to the sender. If you repeat the process you begin to engage an audience of followers who respect and want the value you give.

Engaging people with quality information, whether internal or external, is the beginning of innately valuable actions.

Asking the Right Questions

Without considering how, where, when, who and what are your market’s interest, needs and desires, you cannot effectively give a reason why the market should pay consistent attention to you.

Answers to the 6 questions as relates to each  “A” will enable you to discover and learn how to execute an effective social media strategy.

While the 5 A’s and related 6 questions are tactical guidelines for effective thinking about social media they cannot be efficiently used unless your strategy is aligned with the right intent.

Get the entire white paper  that covers more detailed information here

Social Media Directions

The word directions means several things including: guidance or supervision of action or conduct : an explicit instruction : the line or course on which something is moving or is aimed to move or along which something is pointing or facing : a channel or direct course of thought or action : the art and technique of directing a group of people to accomplish an aim.

The marketplace is filled with thousands and thousands of individuals, organizations, products and services all claiming to help other people and organizations with directions on how to use social media. The problem is that not all directions will take you to the place you want to go.

Where Do You Want To Go?

Many businesses jump into social media without knowing what they want to do, where they should do it, who do they want to reach, how will they reach them and why the market may choose to engage with them. Instead too many businesses simply look at social technology as just another channel to “push” out offerings hoping they will catch a few transaction. The market fails to recognize that 96% of all online advertising doesn’t get the audiences attention and thus no engagement is accomplished.

There Are No Quick Answers

Most business leaders want quick answers. When is comes to effectively using social media to accomplish specific objectives to get you where you want to go there is no quick answers rather their is only knowledge to either find or create. You can find knowledge within the marketplace of conversations. You can also take existing knowledge and create new knowledge which in turn will pull the market to you. Either way it takes time, talent and knowledge to find the answers to the questions that relate to the directions you need to follow to get to where you want to go.

For a copy of our white paper that covers the who, what,where,when why and how to find the right answers to the right social media questions click here.

How Do You Sell Social Media?

By Jay Deragon & David Bullock

The issues of social media and how to use it is usually ambiguous, often confusing, and sometimes baffling to business owners. The immediate question on everyone’s mind is how I use it to create revenue. So if your selling your knowledge of social media you are selling to a market that doesn’t understand it and is already programmed to believe it is something it is not.

The right question is what problem social media solve. You can’t recommend a solution if your client doesn’t perceive it as solving a problem they have and want to fix.

So the first issue is to understand what problem a client has that they want to solve. Clearly identifying and defining the problem is half the battle. If you can’t identify a problem that social media may be able to solve then your chances of getting engaged are slim. Worse, though, is giving the impression that social media can solve all the problems, it can’t.

Social media can’t solve all your problems as a matter of fact using it improperly can create more problems that you ever had. Yet everywhere I look many seem to be selling social media as the cure all for everything. Here is a hint. It isn’t!

The Problem with Expected Results

Most of the market is consumed with creating an ROI from social media. Many want social media solutions that drive revenue. The problem with these perspectives is they haven’t identified a problem they want fixed or a solution that want to achieve besides more revenue. ROI comes from lowering cost or improving revenue from investments in new initiatives aimed at solving problems. Social media doesn’t do either without knowledge.

This eBook covers the knowledge needed to sell social media internally and externally.

Get your copy here

The Emergence of The Relationship Economy

<!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]--> The book titled, “The Emergence of The Relationship Economy“, was reviewed by Doc Searls, co-author of the Cluetrain Manifesto, who was kind enough to write the forward to the book.

Part of his comments include “I never got around to writing that book, although I’ve focused intensively on market relationships ever since meeting Sayo. That focus is what led me to meeting and getting to know Scott Allen, Jay Deragon and Carter Smith. And now it pleases me to say that these three men together with Margaret Orem have written the book Sayo assigned me to write. They have explored and unpacked what’s most important and least understood about markets, and have outlined in fine detail the economy that will grow out of relationships in what Cluetrain called the “networked” marketplace.”

The Emergence of The Relationship Economy is having an especially profound effect on businesses and individuals. While individual factors are self-evident, the collective factors are the basis for individual conclusions for strategic opportunities that can be gained from the new economy.

The book provides the knowledge, tools, and suggested skills necessary for improved comprehension of the strategic issues required to succeed in The Relationship Economy. It covers an emerging opportunity for the global community of users/consumers /citizens, consumer brands,media, corporations, non-governmental organizations, and governments to play a critical role in forging this new carbon-neutral economy: The Relationship Economy.

This book details an emergence of a new economy driven by factors that are affecting massive changes to the way people work, play, and live.

This book is a foundational resource for individuals and entities to use as each begins to plan for participation in the accelerated changes brought on my technological advances of the World Wide Web, now known as the social web. The goal of the book is to enable all parties to gain perspective, knowledge, and insight as to the dynamics of technology, the impact of changes brought on by the social Web, and what factors should be considered for the purposes of planning for success or survival.

To get a copy go here..

Leveraging Social Media

Get the white paper:  Leveraging Social Media for Business here
As the landscape of the social web explodes with developments, new entrants and increased utility, business leaders wonder how to capture the attraction of all this “social stuff” to meet business objectives.

Leveraging social technologies is becoming an important aspect of any strategic planning process as more and more markets move to the medium.

Each business factor may produce different results based on the context of “What can we do to leverage social media to our advantage?”

That question establishes the direction of the above example by shaping the context for analysis.

Subsequently the outcomes of the exercises provide the road map for prioritization of initiatives, actions or investments aimed at accomplishing the defined objectives.

Business is no longer as usual. Everything currently is unusual which requires new thinking applied to new knowledge.

Do the unusual! Doing the usual means you can no longer compete, serve or innovate.

Socialutions: Management Methods for the Social Era

“Socialutions” having the definition of people, communities and organizations leveraging technology to interact with people for the purpose of solving problems.

The act of working together with others to create new solutions to old paradigms of communications and interaction without boundaries and with limitless reach. This definition best defines the new paradigm of problem solving and finding or creating innovative solutions through social exchanges.

Socialutions redefines organizational and institutional methods used previously to manage people, groups as well as customers and suppliers. Socialutions is a shift in thinking for people and organizations. The shift is enabled by the knowledge of what drives the social dynamics of today’s web of relations.

The new knowledge transcends thinking much like “the Quality Movement” of the eighties. Transcends in that is is neither a product or process (although processes are involved) but rather it is a philosophy of a new management paradigm. The new management paradigm labeled “Socialutions” includes:

1. Tapping into the organizations greatest resource: people (employees, customers & suppliers) for innovation, problem solving and breakthrough ideas
2. Engaging in open and honest conversations without corporate spin or adherence to past policies
3. Enabling customers and suppliers to assist in the rapid improvement of the organizations feedback loops
4. Changing from spin marketing to conversational marketing
5. Removal of corporate barriers to honest and open conversations i.e. power and political barriers
6. Leveraging “free” technology to improve processes, products and communications
7. Response time to issues and critical conversations is targeted at immediate
8. Finding ways to leverage social media that breaks down barriers and reduces cost forever and ever
9. Learn how to listen to the voice of the people again, again and again. Education is a “must be”.
10. Lead the transformation of your culture and ask everyone to engage in the process, from the top to the bottom, inside and out.

The converging dynamics of open conversations and technological breakthroughs will transform markets at the click of a mouse. If your business can’t see the train coming then it just maybe sitting on the track looking in the wrong direction.

At some point in time your organization maybe surprised as to how fast it is loosing customers to either an existing or new company that has embraced the transformation before you. There is a lot more to learn but even more to forget. Socialutions is a transformation of mind and heart for businesses and their relations with people. Transformation is everyone’s job but only if leaders agree that things need to change.

Get your copy here

Fourth Generation Risk Management

In my book titled “Fourth Generation Risk Management”, published in 1996, a set of predictions concerning risk management practices and the insurance industry were made based on observations at that time.

Since then the practices of risk management have evolved and social media is playing a role both in creating and managing risk.

The question is whether risk managers and the entire insurance industry have used technology to the customers benefit and has the customer lead the transformation.