Month: May 2011

An Upgrade for SMUGgles?

When I visited the SMUG Facebook group this evening, I saw a message that gave me pause (click to enlarge):

From the language of the alert (and what I found when I read more), it appeared that the archiving function would migrate the posts on the wall into the new group format, but that everyone would be kicked out of the group and would need to be added again.

In other words, ALL OF THE SMUGGLES WOULD BE EXPELLED!

I couldn’t let that happen, so I went for the upgrade. One thing I saw immediately was that there was a LOT more activity. Here’s a screenshot of what happened in the next 26 minutes:

With, on average, one comment every two minutes, this certainly was an upgrade in terms of activity and engagement. Clearly that’s because of the change in email notifications, as evidenced by my Inbox:

We all do have the ability to control our level of email notices, as you wee when you click the Settings button for the group:

So, this will be an interesting experiment to see how a group with more than 1,200 members works in the new format.

What do you think of the new SMUG group? Are you going to adjust your email notification settings? If so, how?

United Breaks Guitars. Delta Saves iPads. And Psyches.

Dave Carroll’s experience with the baggage handlers (and customer service staff) for United Airlines has become legendary thanks to his ballads about the matter, which have accumulated 12.9 million views together. Here’s the first and most famous of the videos:

And here’s the sequel:

And finally the third installment:

I had a somewhat different experience this week on Delta, as I flew into La Guardia for a couple of days in New York. It seems I had tucked my iPad behind me after using it during the flight, and I hurriedly got off the plane and left it behind. About a half hour after I left the airport, I got a call from the gate agent who said they would hold it at the Delta baggage office until I got back to the airport on Friday. Definitely nicer than Ms. Ihrlweg.

I hadn’t yet noticed my iPad was missing, and wouldn’t have until i got to my hotel room and wanted to use it. Then I would have freaked out and been frantically calling Delta, or possibly would have resigned myself to the loss, or at minimum would have been anxious and distracted for two days until I could back to the airport and check at the baggage office. So it was great that Delta saved my iPad. Also great that someone called to tell me they had it, to save me the anxiety.

Thanks, Delta!

Bringing the Revolution to Jersey

This morning I’m presenting to the Healthcare Planning and Marketing Society of New Jersey, as part of a program they are calling “Employing Social Media to Build Customer Satisfaction and Community Outreach.” I’m also moderating a panel that includes:

  • Margaret Fontana, Director of Social Media, Meridian Health Care and winner of the 2010 PeRCy Award for Best Use of Social Media
  • Chrisie Scott,Vice President, Marketing and Corporate Communications at Meridian Health
  • Loren Fisher, Web and Social Media Specialist, Somerset Medical Center
  • Victoria Allen, Vice President, Marketing and Public Relations, Somerset Medical Center

Here are my slides. It might be a new record for total slides in a single presentation.

Note: If it says the slides have been removed, just click through to view on Slideshare. Seems to be a Slideshare glitch with embedding.

Bringing the Revolution to New Jersey

View more presentations from Lee Aase

Chancellor’s Choice: Keynes vs. Hayek

This has got to be the best thing to come out of George Mason University since 2006, when the Patriots made the NCAA basketball Final Four. It’s a fantastic example of how a creative video can make a dry topic (economics is called “the dismal science” after all) vibrant and interesting.

This one definitely gets a Chancellor’s Choice Award for Best Use of Video in an Educational Context:

As of this writing, Fight of the Century has racked up 621,000 views in just two weeks.

Here’s the first video in the series, which has had more than 2.2 million views:

And this video, also from the EconStories channel, includes an interview with the George Mason professor and his creative sidekick behind the series:

Together, these videos — which range from 7:33 to 10:10 — demolish the conventional wisdom that a video needs to be short to get traction, or that the “ideal” video is less than three minutes, or two minutes, or whatever a supposed “expert” says.

Length doesn’t matter. It’s more important that a video is interesting. And it isn’t necessary to be interesting to a mass audience. You just need to be interesting to your audience.

This video on myelofibrosis is about the same length as the Keynes/Hayek boxing match. Not funny at all, but extremely interesting to people who have myelofibrosis. As of today, it has more than 8,200 views, which has made it extremely successful. It has reached and interested the right people.

What’s your favorite video that’s more than four minutes long?