2011 was an amazing year of learning and growing at Astek. In our industry things change pretty much daily, even hourly. We are lucky to work with so many forward-thinking clients and partners who understand that building real success in this market takes time, discipline, and communication. Oh yeah, and we think life’s too short not to have a little fun along the way.

Early in the year, Rachel and I attended SXSW Interactive, a top-tier conference for all things Web, mobile and social in Austin, TX. One of our top goals was to find the ideal social media management/monitoring/analytics platform with enterprise capabilities and agency pricing. We’ve met some talented people along the way with some pretty cool products, but there is a lot of room for growth in this space. We’ll be rolling out a new social media event product of our own in the coming weeks — stay tuned!

Supporting an ongoing effort to get more social at Astek, we started video recording the strange and mystical things that happen at Astek staff meetings. Here’s a glimpse:

In June, we kicked our relationship with SIPA up a notch and have worked since then to increase their social media efforts. It’s greatly rewarding to work with a group that understands social media are about creating relationships, and just like relationships in the “real world,” there is no easy button or shortcut.

Who is SIPA, you may ask? SIPA, the Specialized Information Publishers Association, is the international trade association dedicated to advancing the interests of commercial information providers (paid content) serving niche communities. These are primarily B2B trade journals, but members also include consumer-oriented Kiplinger and publishers serving other markets. There are numerous SIPs (specialized information publishers) out there serving all kinds of niche community information needs, whether or not they identify themselves with this group.

We’ve been SIPA members for years, teaching and learning along with top publishing talent, and in June we started managing social media for SIPA’s annual publishing conference in Washington, D.C. We applied what we learned at SXSW and other places along the way, creating a robust social media event experience. More recently, it seems like a dream that I was swimming in the Atlantic just a few short weeks ago following the SIPA Miami Publishing Marketing Conference, where we had four Astek team members speaking, learning, and helping.

At the Miami conference last year, I led a roundtable discussion on mobile publishing and met a publisher called The Medical Letter, who needed help building mobile apps on all major platforms (iPhone/iPad, Android, Blackberry). We worked diligently with them and our friends at FanWide to create cutting edge publishing apps and successfully launched the iPhone/iPad and Android versions. In the spirit of mutual learning and sharing, my client and I presented a webinar hosted by SIPA to inform other publishers about how to step into the mobile space.

In the four years I’ve been on Twitter, I’ve seen it grow from an esoteric geek-oriented communication platform to a widely adopted and ubiquitous brand imprint on websites everywhere. Yet many people I talk to still question its worth for driving revenue. As we’ve embraced Twitter as the ideal communication platform for events and conferences, I’ve noticed that finally people are able to grasp the potential for this simple, yet powerful medium for enhancing communication at an event and also bridging the communication gap between cyclical events in ways not before seen at this scale.

As we continue to connect the dots for publishers and other event promoters, we continue our decade-long focus on content management solutions facilitating the digital publishing revolution. Astek’s own CMS, Webany, is ideally suited for the Web-first editorial trend that continues to gain momentum. Basically, rather than thinking about getting your print publication onto the Web, publish in real-time on the Web and build your print publication from there.

We’re so excited that our lady, Webany, is growing up right in the middle of the dramatic shifts in the publishing industry, and is flexible enough to handle them. Haven’t been introduced yet? Just ask. We’d love to show you some of her newest features including robust digital rights management and the ability to export articles and other information directly to Adobe InDesign, the preeminent desktop publishing platform, via XML.

Reversing a publisher’s workflow is not a task to be taken lightly, so we lend our expertise to the process in addition to the technology, which is a combination that’s future-proofing editorial teams around the globe. As publishers figure out the moves that work for them along the way, we enjoy learning and teaching as we go. 2011 brought many clients to Webany, including Wiley Publishing, The Alter Group and Staff Management.

Contributing to our community is a core mission at Astek, so recently we were proud to launch a new brand and website for Promethean Theatre Ensemble, our 2011 Astek Grant recipient. Along the way, we greatly expanded the digital marketing program for The Chicago Dancing Festival and got new websites launched for The Jeanine Sheridan Foundation, DanceWorks Chicago and Chicago Human Rhythm Project (CHRP) as well. Yep, we like to move.

And last but not least is a particularly rewarding combination of app dev and do-gooding. This multi-year project with My25, which is partially funded by the USDA, has engaged Astek to help tackle the growing obesity epidemic in America. My25’s approach is to use software and community tools to encourage better eating through realistic meal-planning based on simple and proven plate portioning techniques. We designed a prototype for the next generation of the software and created this video to help with fund-raising (yes, we spent more time on this than the staff meeting video).

Thanks for being a part of our ongoing exploration and we look forward to connecting you with your goals in 2012!

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Andy Swindler Categories: ePiphany Featured Story, Marketing, Mobile, Social Media, Technology

Like so many other people out there, I subscribe to probably 100 more RSS feeds than I need to. However, I just love the idea that everything I may or may not be interested in is at least is one place. It stands for “Real Simple Syndication” for  a reason right? Unfortunately, sometimes organizing can lead more towards organized chaos versus simplicity. Therefore earlier this year I decided to make a commitment to not only organize my RSS feeds, but to do so through apps that made reading them not only enjoyable, but simple!

So I started with my MacBook. I admit I mostly use my RSS reader on my Mac to find relevant articles on specific topics for either our company or for clients. With that being said, I think NetNewsWire is quite literally, the bomb. You can download it to your computer and it synchronizes with your reader (in my case, I synch it with Google Reader).

The selling feature to me is the Smart List functionality. It’s a similar set-up to iTunes, in which you can create Smart Lists with keywords and phrases that automatically gather in these folders to show all the content in your feeds that contain these keywords. It’s perfect for finding those articles mentioning B2B news or highlighting competition mentions. And don’t worry PC users, you can use FeedDemon similarly with tags versus smart lists for finding those keywords.

The other feature I like about NetNewsWire is that it synchs with Instapaper. So if I’m reading something interesting, and I want to save it to tweet about later, write a blog post about, or actually finish reading the article, it’s a click of a button and POOF! It’s saved in my Instapaper feed. And yes, I do have many-a folder in my Instapaper account with titles such as “Facebook Posts”, “Tweets”, “Newsletter Links”, etc. for both Astek and clients. That way I don’t have to worry about a back-log of links in my Instapaper account. But that’s a whole other blog post.

Now, to my iPad. Personally, I am a newspaper kind of girl. I have a degree in Journalism, and there’s something about reading a real newspaper…you know, one with ink. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a digital subscription to the New York Times (I do). It does mean that I scoured the App Store for an RSS reader that made reading my RSS feeds an actually pleasant experience. Lo and behold, Early Edition. Now, no matter how many RSS feeds I have, they will always look pretty on my reader. Just add a cup of coffee and it’s almost as Sunday-morning-esque as a real newspaper.

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Rachel Yeomans Categories: ePiphany Featured Story, How To, Technology

I owe a lot to Steve Jobs. My family got an Apple IIc computer when I was in the 1st grade (thanks Mom and Dad!) and it defined my entire career. I was an early card-carrying member of the cult of Apple. It wasn’t just about being cool or different. There are hundreds of tangible reasons why that platform was and is superior. Not just for artists, but for everyone. An evangelist was born.

In the 2nd grade, my 1st grade teacher came to get me out of class to help her “fix” her Apple IIe. Remember those guys with the green and black monitors? Turns out she just didn’t have the monitor on, but I found it remarkable that she came to me rather than any other adult in the school.

That was my first consulting gig.

I often don’t write about “big news” since I figure everyone is doing it and the world probably doesn’t need one more blog post. But in this case, this isn’t just news. This is the end of an era.

But it’s not all sadness. Steve’s legacy is so strong, inspiring, and lasting that his untimely passing also marks the beginning of a new era — for Apple and all technology companies and geeks.

We’ve seen social media take hold in the past few years, and I believe we have yet to realize the true potential of that technology. In its infant state of exploration, experimentation and fundamental learning, social media remain anyone’s game.

Apple fueled the growth of new technologies such as social media by exploding the potential of open mobile app distribution. I clamor to ideas like this — philosophies, frameworks, and factories working together to empower everyone and level the playing field.

At the center of all this was Steve, whose singular vision and demanding standards merged artistry and technology into some of the most empowering devices and software ever created.

Being a life-long Apple fanatic means I’ve been there in good times and bad. I saw Steve get booted from Apple, and then triumphantly return to save the company from disappearing altogether. I painfully tried to help my college buddies with their late-90’s Mac’s that just weren’t very well-built.

When the Mac came about in 1984, I became mesmerized by desktop publishing and later PageMaker. The Mac made that world possible at the time, and once again I found it easy to dazzle people by doing what I enjoyed most – using the things that came out of Steve’s mind to solve problems and create.

This lead me to pursue journalism through high school and college. I was also an Apple Student Rep at Northwestern, which is the only time I received a paycheck from Apple. While I didn’t specifically pursue journalism as a career, my life has led me along the path of the new journalism in the form of social media and communication technologies. I apply these lessons on behalf of my company and clients every day.

And yes, I still use a Mac. Now I have several. I feel like much of the world has come to understand what I’ve known all my life. Vision like this is rare and deserves to be revered.

Steve would be the first to tell you that his path was not without mistakes. Whose life isn’t? But his journey is an extraordinary one worthy of reflection. He had a unique way of bringing teams of varied talent together to create something profound around a singular vision. It’s no surprise that Pixar is one of most successful film studios and business success stories in any industry.

Five years ago, who would have thought that thousands of executives would be walking around with an Apple logo on their phones?

If you’ve never seen it, take a few minutes to watch Steve Jobs’ address to Stanford graduates in 2005. These words continue to inspire me.

Thanks Steve for all you’ve given me and the world. We’ll never forget what you did and we’ll do our very best to carry your torch of innovation.

Update:
I was going through some old Apple memorabilia (yes, I have a lot of it), and found this photo of the rock we painted at Northwestern University in April 1997 before they changed to a single color logo. We made the student newspaper, The Daily Northwestern, the next day. However, the article was titled “Macintosh Misery” due to our decision to create hopeful art during a dark chapter in Apple’s life. Steve’s return and recovery of the company shortly thereafter thankfully make these mere anecdotes of history.

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, ePiphany Featured Story, Gadget, Technology

Wow…. just wow. Well, and ouch. And, HECK YEAH!

Ok, who wants one?

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Katie Hawkey Categories: ePiphany Featured Story, Fun, Technology, Web

Office Blogmaster: “Sara- this month we’re focusing on QR codes, so make sure you include them in your next blog post”

Me: “Um, what’s a QR Code?”

That’s right.  I, Sara Gorsky, am the only person in the world apparently who doesn’t know what a QR code is.  It’s shocking.  However, thanks to this marvelous thing called the “internet” I was able to discover a whole new world of technology that I was looking at the whole time but could never see.  Just in case some other people out there are in the same boat as me, here is what I have learned…

What is a QR Code? In simplest terms, a QR Code is INFORMATION!   It could be any kind of information, and it’s in the form of a sort of modern bar code.

How can I access this “information”? QR codes are designed to be read by mobile devices with a camera.  In order to do this, you will have to download an app designed specifically for this purpose. There are a plethora of free apps out there that do this. I simply went to the app store on my iPhone did a search for “QR Reader” and up popped a free app called “QRReader“, which took a mere five seconds to install.  Once you have this app installed, open it up and scan the QR Code.  The app will read it and translate it into english and/or action.

Action? The most common information contained in a QR Code is a link to a website. For instance, a QR code on a movie advertisement might link directly to the official website for that film.

Might? Well, as I said before the QR Code could be any information.  That same movie poster QR Code could link to a special trailer that can only be viewed by people who scan it, or maybe a coupon for discounted movie tickets.

Coupons?! Yup.  More and more companies are using QR codes in this way.  As smart phone platforms expand, QR Codes could become the next circulars.  Some grocery stores are already swapping out those old coupon dispensers for a cleaner, more eco-friendly QR code (grocery stores have also starting posting recipes next to items.  How convenient!).

How Else are QR Codes Being Used? There is a new use for QR codes almost every day. Here are a few super cool ways they have been used so far…

• Tours and Museums: Historical tours, factory tours, museum tours, you name it- they are adding QR codes next to buildings, objects, artwork, display cases, etc…these QR Codes often will pull up a paragraph or two about the specific object and/or links to a webpage with this information.  Some of these codes even link directly to a wikipedia page, or a video of a historian discussing it’s significance. Soon those giant placards will be a thing of the past, too.
• In gardens: QR Codes have started popping up at gardens and often contain the detail about that specific plant. QR codes have also started showing up at nurseries, where they contain information about how to care for the plant (how much sunlight & water it needs, what time of year it blooms, etc…).
• On tags: Clothing designers have started using QR codes on their tags.  These QR codes often contain price, material type, and sometimes links to the designer’s website or online store. Social media gurus predict that soon we’ll be able to use QR codes to check if that piece comes in a different size!  AMAZING!
• At transit stops: A few cities have started posting QR codes at bus and train stops which will automatically pull up the next arrival time.
• In advertisements: These codes often contain coupons for the product they advertise or might link to that company’s online store where you can purchase the item.
• On business cards: Gone are the days of business cards being packed with information, one QR code can contain all the pertinent contact information as well as link directly to your website.
• On bottles of wine: Scanning one of these QR codes often pulls up information about that particular wine, what foods it pairs well with, how it was made, and information about it’s vineyard.
• There are hundreds and hundreds of other possibilities.  Check out a few more in this handy article.

This QR code links to a petition to save the gulf after the oil spill.

This edible QR code links to information about the origin of food being served.

Can I create my own QR Code? YES! It’s very simple. Some QR reader apps also have the ability to create them as well. My handy app will let me create a QR code for text, for a website, for my contact information, for a location, for an email address, and even for a phone number!  That’s right – I can create a QR code that will automatically call me from that person’s phone if they scan the code.  Whoa!

In conclusion- soon Star Trek will be real life.

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Sara Gorsky Categories: ePiphany Featured Story, General

The fashion label, Zophia, will be featuring the following signature red zipper’d QR code on the tags of its spring line:

We at Astek have been in major QR code discussions as of late, particularly where they lead and what the goal is of that funny little square of code. Being quite addicted to the fashion industry, I’ve seen other designers doing the “QR codes on clothing tags” route. They usually lead you to similar items in the collection, or to a the list of materials used to make the clothing, or to the designer’s website. With this planned code, when you scan it you see what the inspirations were for the line before seeing other items in the collection.

This is a very good example of thinking outside the box…in this case the QR box. What examples have you seen? What have you liked or not liked? Share in the comments below!

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Rachel Yeomans Categories: ePiphany Featured Story, Marketing, Social Media, Technology

We’re big fans of the Specialized Information Publishing Association (SIPA), an organization focused on the ever-changing needs of niche publishers, typically in the B2B space. As members and speakers, we’ve enjoyed getting to know the diverse groups involved, and I often learn as much as I teach at their seminars, since publishers are in the middle of a bone fide revolution.

Tom Lynch and I attended the national conference in Washington D.C. this month, and added “exhibitor” to our list of credentials. Astek’s growth has always been fueled by word of mouth from our happy customers (thanks!), but we felt it was important for us to add another layer of support for SIPA, as well as to get some extra exposure for Astek by having a booth that stood out and quickly became known as “Astek Lounge.”

I’m thrilled with how well our booth turned out, thanks largely to Vin at Vin Design, who is an expert in experiential design.

First things first. Tom and I headed over to IKEA to pick up some essentials. We were creating something very different from the blue table we were provided — a space that would invite people to come in and stay awhile. And it worked!

While we were giving away real apples (on the right), we decided to have a contest and give away another Apple in the form of a new iPad 2. People entered by scanning our QR code (on the left) to register for our ePiphany newsletter. This gave us an opportunity personally to help several SIPA members get their QR code readers installed and working on their smart phones, which proved most painful on Blackberries.

Check out Astek iPad winner Brad Forrister, of M. Lee Smith Publishers/Business & Legal Resources, basking in his new toy (green cover of course):

We had fun experimenting with colorizing QR codes, and used them on the table tents strewn throughout the lounge to make it easy to learn more about Webany CMS, ePiphany, and the people at Astek:

I gave a talk on mobile publishing to a standing room-only crowd. Every couple of years publishers are thrown for a new loop in technology: SEO, CMS, social media, and now mobile. We’re helping many publishers figure out how to go mobile, which is the fastest growing content consumption market.

SIPA is a very progressively-minded organization, and hired Astek to run Twitter for the whole conference. Rachel was putting in 12-hour days back in Chicago, but it was a raging success. Several members participated, both those at the show and ones who could not make it. We had two Twitter walls (one shown below with Kati and Anne), and hashtags for the conference and each seminar to facilitate macro and micro topical real-time conversations.

I tweeted the awards ceremony in real-time and Rachel picked up the broadcast to retweet through @sipaonline. It was a blast and really demonstrated the power of Twitter to the attendees. We’re racing with it, offering this service to all kinds of conference organizers. Twitter has come a long way since I first wrote about it in 2008, and the conference aspect has become the clearest way for me to explain its true potential to people.

We had a tiny bit of downtime in the booth, which Tom used to show me how to juggle apples:

At the end, we donated the IKEA furniture to the local Boys & Girls Club of America, who were as thrilled to get it as we were not to ship it home. Now that’s a win-win.

See you in Miami!

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Andy Swindler Categories: Entrepreneurship, ePiphany Featured Story, Fun, How To, Marketing, Technology

I graduated in the year 2000 (In the Year Two Thousaaaaaaand). This means I am on the cusp of the generation we have self-titled “The Millennials.” According to Wikipedia and 24% of Millennials (which is like saying the same thing twice) “technology use” is by far our generation’s defining characteristic.

(Note: Unless otherwise attributed, the charts in this post are taken from the Pew Research study “Millennials: Confident. Connected. Open to Change.” Published February 2010. An excellent free read!)

So as the leading edge of the Millennial generation begin to celebrate our 30th birthdays, what lessons can we share with the previous generations about how our lives are improved by our distinctively intense “technology use”?

Millennial Modo #1: Don’t just adapt, adopt.
Millennials don’t just adapt to new technologies, we embrace them with fervor:

As with most things, the benefits you get out of technology depend on the efforts you invest in using that technology. With 75% of Millennials on social media and 55% of those users checking those profiles at least once a day it can’t be denied that staying connected is part of our generational identity. Rather than being distracted and distant as some feared we would become, we’re a generation known for our ability to multi-task and work with a team. So get in there, fire up your iPhone, your laptop, your Crackberry, and use technology. You will get faster and more efficient, you will meet more people and find better, newer ways to use the technology to improve your daily life.

Millennial Modo #2: Embrace the Observer Effect
As stated above, Millennial’s lives are an open (Face)book. The downside of this: I can’t name a single person my age that I couldn’t locate an unattractive photo of them looking intoxicated (or worse) in less than 5 minutes. From Michael Phelps to our own Fickr accounts, photographic evidence of my generation’s “finest moments” are plastered across 500 million Facebook walls.

So you may be asking, “What upside could outweigh that downside?” Here are what I see as three huge benefits of the near constant observation my generation has and continues to endure:

1. More Moderation: The old ”nobody knows you’re a dog“ adage couldn’t be less true for our generation. As Facebook photo tagging and (potentially scary) image search advances like Google Goggles make it harder and harder to hide our behavior, Millennials have accepted the fact that we are always observed – by our friends’ cell phone cameras, by our credit card companies, even our search engines. It’s not surprising that our generation is more likely than the previous two generations to respond well to structure and rules – shortly after the first coach suspended the first players due to drunken Facebook pics, we’ve had to impose rules on ourselves. Lord knows we aren’t going to stay home from the party, or take less photos – we just had to learn to either practice moderation, practice pulling it together for the camera or at least practice pulling our hung-over selves to work the next day since the boss would be all too aware of the root cause of our ”sick day.“

http://www.unc.edu/depts/jomc/academics/dri/idog.html

2. More Tolerance: Millennials have an almost constant connection to a wider and more diverse America (and world) than any generation before us. We are more racially diverse than previous generations and significantly more welcoming of immigrants and members of the LGBTQ community. Also, more than any generation before us, we are and I think we will continue to be, forgiving of the indiscretions of others. With all of those photos and videos of us at 20 floating in cyberspace for the rest of our lives, it will be too easy for our friends (or our children) to call shinanigans when we start getting too high up on our high horses. However, this tolerance doesn’t really extend to hypocrisy…

3. More Honesty: As any good parent knows, the less you let your kids get away with, the less they will attempt to act out. Millennials can’t get away with anything – those darn camera phones, GPS check ins and general lack of privacy get us caught every time. I’m not sure this means we have less tendencies to ”sin” than previous generations – we are still human after all. However, rather than pushing misbehavior underground like the Boomers, or ignoring the rules like Gen X, I think we’ll just make the rulebook our own. I predict in the next 30 years you’ll see the legalization of many currently illegal practices such as drug use and prostitution as an attempt to control these practices through honestly confronting them, rather than driving them underground. I think open marriages will become more accepted and prevalent as adultery becomes almost impossible to hide. And I predict in politics, hypocrisy will become an offense in the public’s eyes that is worse than any law breaking. As the popularity of programs like The Daily Show among our demographic demonstrate, Millennials love to lambast a hypocrite.

“Support for legalizing small amounts of marijuana for personal use is nearly twice as high among young adults (57 percent of those under 30) as seniors (30 percent), with middle-aged Americans split about evenly.” (source: http://whatareyoulookingatpolitics.blogspot.com/2009/04/how-millennials-are-shifting-american.html)

Millennial Modo #3: Take your news with a side of humor.
And speaking of lambasting hypocrites, a PewResearch study conducted during the 2004 election season found that “one-in-five [Millennials] say they regularly get campaign news from the Internet, and about as many (21%) say the same about comedy shows such as Saturday Night Live and the Daily Show. For Americans under 30, these comedy shows are now mentioned almost as frequently as newspapers and evening network news programs as regular sources for election news.“

And the Daily Show seems to be an excellent place to get one’s political news as regular audiences of the show score quit high in Pew’s survey of people’s political knowledge:

Pew states that ””The Daily Show” performs a function that is close to journalistic in nature — getting people to think critically about the public square.“ I couldn’t agree more. I don’t think I’m speaking just for myself when I say Millennials want to stay informed while keeping things in perspective.

Millennial Modo #4: Tap into the collective consciousness.
As a new mother I find myself constantly turning to my fellow ”FB Mommies.“ At least once a month I post a question on my status update along the lines of ”Are there drawbacks to only bottle feeding?“ (There are.) ”Should I worry about my baby’s dandruff?“ (I shouldn’t.) ”Isn’t my nursery cute?“ (It is!) The insta-support and access to the mommy knowledge base is invaluable as I embark on this new part of my life. I see this Facebook ”crowdsourcing“ as our generation’s answer to the issues that crop up when young people regularly move hundreds of miles away from their hometown and the support of their extended families.

Though I personally prefer Facebook where I can get the advice of people I know and love, Twitter is becoming a very common resource for this sort of practice for both people’s professional and personal lives. I often share this anecdote from an awesome 2008 New York Time Article:

Laura Fitton, a social-media consultant who has become a minor celebrity on Twitter — she has more than 5,300 followers — recently discovered to her horror that her accountant had made an error in filing last year’s taxes. She went to Twitter, wrote a tiny note explaining her problem, and within 10 minutes her online audience had provided leads to lawyers and better accountants. Fritton joked to me that she no longer buys anything worth more than $50 without quickly checking it with her Twitter network.

“I outsource my entire life,” she said. “I can solve any problem on Twitter in six minutes.”

Millennial Modo #5: Call Your Mother (or at least message her)
And one final Millennial tip I thought I’d share as Father’s Day approaches…. honor thy mother and thy father. Only 9% of Millennials say they have serious disagreements with their parents, compared to 19% of those ages 30+ who said the same (Pew Study 2010). Facebook is an essential communication tool for my parents, in-laws, extended family and me, more than ever now since the recent birth of my daughter and subsequent flood of photos and videos.

Additional Millennial factoids from:
http://apps.americanbar.org/lpm/lpt/articles/mgt08044.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_Y
http://www.edelmandigital.com/2011/06/01/by-the-numbers-50-facts-about-millennials/

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Katie Hawkey Categories: ePiphany Featured Story, Fun, Social Media, Technology, Web

I’m going to keep this short and sweet, since other blogs have already rehashed the recent Juniper Networks mobile threats report. I first heard about it this morning on NPR and figured it’s worth a mention. The big scary number is the 400% increase in Android malware observed from June 2010 to January 2011. There are Android security apps that you might consider to safeguard against malware, but as far as I know the only way to get a nefarious app on your phone is to actively download and install it yourself. There is no Android virus yet, and I don’t believe that’s something to be worried about.

I would again harken back here to the point that I (and Tom Hickey) keep coming back to: be skeptical and use some common sense. Don’t download and install something if it doesn’t have overwhelmingly positive reviews in Google Marketplace or Amazon Appstore.

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Andrew Crowe Categories: ePiphany Featured Story, Gadget, Technology

For those of us who work in social media and are asked to come up with these BIG ideas and these GRAND campaigns…we usually hit the same roadblock at about the same time of the planning process. You have this big idea and grand campaign, and it’s fabulous. It is planned to engage your existing customers, bring on new ones, and truly provide a unique and fun experience – pretty much what social media is meant to do!

Then…you run it by your PR and Legal team for approval. And you hear phrases like this:

• “You have to make sure that the link to the Terms & Conditions is only one click away from the message promoting the contest, so you need two links in your Tweet.”

• “You have to remove that photo from your Facebook Wall because we didn’t get written permission from the individual in the background to show them on Facebook.”

• “Once you select a winner you can not ask for their mailing information via email as that’s exchanging personal information and is illegal. You have to get their phone number and call them.”

• And so on, and so on.

Yes, these processes are tedious, and they can be extremely frustrating. However, they are there for a reason. Yes there are times I myself want to pull my hair out by making sure that this amazing contest has the appropriate Rules written to accompany them. It definitely seems to take the ‘fun’ out of social at times.

However, when you work for a company, for a brand, or for any professional entity, your business or even yourself have the potential to get sued for what is said on social media platforms. It has happened. And if it happens to you, you may not speak so quickly when bashing PR and Legal.

For example, if you post an image from Google Images on your company’s Facebook Page, that photographer can sue you for not paying them for the photo credit, for not giving them credit for the photo, or by misrepresenting the photo itself. And that’s just one little photo. For specific examples of social media cases that provided quite a bit of notoriety in the law, check out Glenn B. Manishin’s blog post on the 2010′s top four law cases in social media. A more recent case you may have heard about is the case of Ryan Giggs suing Twitter for breach of injunction.

The issue of legal issues within the realm of social media is quite timely to the point that GSMI just last week hosted a conference in Boston on social media risks and strategies. For latest updates from GSMI, check out their Twitter handle. One of their posts from last Friday may not surprise some of us:

Social media is a new industry meaning that everyone’s catching up to it including the industries that are using it and those who are fighting to protect themselves and others from it. So before you start bad-mouthing Legal and PR during your next campaign, think about what may happen if you received the court notice because you didn’t have them in the beginning.

This post was featured in ePiphany, Astek’s Monthly Newsletter |  Other ePiphany Articles

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Rachel Yeomans Categories: ePiphany Featured Story, Marketing, Social Media