Friday, July 11, 2008

Two more Fruitful Seminars

by Suw on July 11, 2008

Here are the dates for my next two Fruitful Seminars in September:

The Email Problem and How To Solve It
Wednesday 3rd September 2008

As we move towards a knowledge-based economy, email is becoming an unavoidable part of business life. But not only do some people have to deal with hundreds of emails a day, many of them unnecessary, the ‘always on’ culture of the Blackberry means they can never escape their inbox.

Reducing people’s dependence on email is easier said than done, however. Arbitrary rules like ‘No Email Days’ or tight inbox limits just add to people’s stress and don’t reduce the amount of email people send. This is because the problem with email is psychological, not technical, so such solutions treat only the symptoms and not the cause.

Social media expert Suw Charman-Anderson will take a look what’s at the root of the email problem, and how it can be solved using social tools. During the day you will hear an alternative view of email and will be able to discuss the issues you face in your own company. By the end of the seminar you will have a thorough understanding of the behavioural problems related to email and a clear set of next steps to take.

Who should come?

  • CXO executives
  • IT executives
  • Managers
  • Team leaders
  • Decision makers
  • Social media practitioners
  • Social media vendors

Or anyone in situations similar to these:

  • You are responsible for managing email infrastructure and have problems such as over-full inboxes or unnecessary file duplication across accounts.
  • You have observed poor ’email health’ amongst team members, perhaps including obsessive email checking coupled with delays in processing email.
  • You are concerned about unhealthy patterns of email use across your business and related inefficient use of IT resources.
  • You are an executive or manager who just can’t cope with all your email, much of which is a waste of your time, and you want a better way to work.

Making Social Tools Ubiquitous
Wednesday 10th September 2008

You may have heard that social tools – such as wikis, blogs, social bookmarking and social networking – can help you improve business communications, increase collaboration and nurture innovation. And with open source tools, you can pilot projects easily and cheaply. But what do you do if people won’t use them? And how do you grow from a pilot to company-wide use?

Social media expert Suw Charman-Anderson will take a practical look at the adoption of social tools within your business. During the day you will create a scalable and practical social media adoption strategy and discuss your own specific issues with the group. By the end of the seminar you will have a clear set of next steps to apply to your own collaborative tools project.

Who should come?

  • CXO executives
  • managers
  • team leaders
  • decision makers
  • social media practitioners
  • social media vendors

Or anyone in situations similar to these:

  • You have already installed some social tools for internal communications and collaboration, but aren’t getting the take-up you had hoped for.
  • You have successfully completed a pilot and want to roll-out to the rest of the company.
  • You want to start using social tools and need a strategy for fostering adoption.
  • You sell social software or services and want to understand how your clients can foster adoption of your tool.

If you want to be kept up to date with Fruitful Seminar news and discussion, then please do join our Google Group. And don’t forget to sign up to Lloyd Davis’ social media masterclass on 16 July!

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I’m pretty sure that there isn’t anyone in the country who doesn’t know that the iPhone 3G went on sale this morning. I know a few people who have managed to order one, but for me, no such luck. And as far as I can tell, it really is down to whether Lady Luck was smiling on you earlier this week that determined whether or not you got to even see the iPhone order page, let along actually get the damn thing to work.

Yes, unprecedented demand. We know that. Indeed, O2 and CPW knew that too, given that you could sign up for an alert and 200k people did so. Did that not give them an idea that things could get a bit hectic? Clearly, it didn’t give them enough of a clue. Maybe I should pop round and insert one by means of a good thumping with a cluebat.

I was in Prague at a conference, and I couldn’t spend enough time online to get the damn shop to work. There was much talk on Twitter about it, with many of my friends having the same problem, although a lucky few managed to get an order in.

Today, I could have got up really early and camped out in front of CPW in Holloway waiting for it to open at 8:02. I’ve had a long couple of weeks, though and to be honest, I’m feeling iPhone Malaise – a sense that it would be futile to try and get hold of an iPhone, so why bother?

And what have O2 and CPW done to help customers who couldn’t order online or get to a store in time today? Well, precious little. CPW is providing iPhones for sale online only to customers who buy new contracts, so those of us upgrading have to wait.

iPhone 3G is currently available as a new subscription only. Please come back or call us on Friday 11 July to upgrade.

Oh, thanks for rewarding my loyalty, way to go CPW. Oh, and by the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, it is Friday 11 July today. Morons.

The O2 website has a lot of excuses but precious little actual information on it. So what do I do now? Is there a waiting list? Any hint as to when we’re going to get a second chance to get an iPhone? Any fricken information at all? Nope, nada. I can’t find a damn thing.

I have to say that O2/CPW’s management of this has been completely incompetent. It’s been a total debacle from the moment the online shops opened. And no, O2, grovelling apologies by text won’t help. Come up with some sort of waiting list or pre-order system so that we can at least bloody register for an iPhone when one becomes available. Saying that new deliveries will happen weekly isn’t much help – you expect me to queue up each week just in case? Come on, the internet is really good at doing things like taking pre-orders, so just let me register for an upgrade, notify me when my turn comes, and let me get on with my life.

It just should not be this difficult.

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