New Straight to the Point Podcast- Jennie Olson of GovDelivery

Time again for another Straight to the Point podcast. This time I'm pleased to have sat down with Jennie Olson of GovDelivery. Jennie is the Director of Marketing at the company, which is the world's leading provider of government-to-citizen communications solutions. GovDelivery's Email and Digital Subscription Management solution is a Software as a Service (SaaS) platform that provides organizations a fully-automated, on-demand public communication system (Full disclosure- GovDelivery is a client of my employer).

What is so valuable about Jennie's experiences is that she faced the twin challenges of standing up a whole marketing operation from scratch and integrating the latest social media techniques into her overall marketing strategy targeting government buyers while accomplishing the corporate goals of driving sales and raising awareness. A tough row...have a listen and let me know what you think? Is she on the right track? What would she do different?

Nokia and Intel Team Up for New Mobile Platform

I pulled up one of my favorite webpages, Techmeme, just now and found a bunch of stories about Nokia and Intel teaming up to build a new mobile platform using open source Linux operating system.

The reason, according to Brian Caulfield at Forbes, is:

Propelling this all is Apple which has rolled through the smart-phone business like a nitro-fueled tank. The company announced Monday that it has sold more than 1 million units of its latest handset, the iPhone 3G S, since it went on sale Friday in an announcement that included the first public statement from Steve Jobs since the Apple chief went on medical leave in January.

Apple's progress is more than just a direct challenge to Nokia. While Apple relies on processors built by Samsung around designs from U.K.-based ARM to power its smart phones, it has recruited a strong team of chip designers since its acquisition of PA Semi last year. That could pose a challenge to Intel's efforts to put its chips at the heart of the next generation of mobile devices.

There are other challenges the chip maker and Nokia must face in order to make their partnership a successful one. Intel, for example, has to make its processors more power efficient--so they can work well in ever-shrinking devices--and fast. If the company can't do this quickly enough, it may be a while until Nokia puts Intel's processors at the center of its handset lineup.And while Nokia has an enormous installed base, Apple, Research In Motion and Palm are all building software ecosystems around their handsets, making the handset industry look more and more like the early PC industry. The Nokia deal with Intel could give it a stronger position in that game.

Sounds like Apple is forcing people's hands, having sold over a million iPhone 3G S's over the weekend. Of course, James Kendrick, at jkOnTheRun, thinks it's all BS, as they didn't announce any products or is the agreement exclusive to anyone...

something to keep an eye on...

Some Interesting Links for Today- iPhone, Pre, Twitter...y'know, the usual suspects

A quick roundup of some interesting content:

The Customer Collective- Twitter Hype Punctured By Study; - Tweet All About It

Micro-blogging service Twitter remains the preserve of a few, despite the hype surrounding it, according to research. Just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content, a Harvard study of 300,000 users found. Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network. However, the Harvard team found that more than half of all people using Twitter update their page less than once every 74 days.

A great quote: “This implies that Twitter’s resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network,”

The Social Times- Collecta Launches True Real Time Search Engine

Real time search is becoming all the rage, displacing some of the hype around semantic search and catapulting services like Twitter, FriendFeed and now Facebook into new realms when it comes to accessing its content. Today, search veteran Jerry Campbell is helping to launch Collecta, a service he’s claiming to be a true real time search engine unlike anything the world has seen.

As one of the minds behind the patented process that powered Summize, the Twitter search engine that was acquired by the microblogging platform and is now Twitter search, Campbell has long-standing ideas on how search and discovery should operate on the web. He’s seen the evolution of data-sharing as it pertains to things like news within he financial industry and has learned from organizations’ necessity to reach that “aha” moment as quickly as possible. It’s that “aha” moment Collecta is trying to give you, for any topic, in a very short amount of time.

Instead of focusing on Twitter or FriendFeed, Collecta performs its real time search for the wider web. From Wordpress to Flickr, Collecta searches comments on blog posts, images, and more. When you perform a search, you’ll find your initial results along with a time stamp displaying the time your search was initiated. Watch the page as it adds more results, each of which can be expanded to show the details of your search query.

BTW, the author never included a link to Collecta in the article, which I find odd. Here it is- the site itself is pretty slick: http://www.collecta.com

Ten Hidden iPhone Features from Daniel Ionescu at PC World. Loved his Rhinoceros play.

iPhone Versus Windows Mobile 6.5 Video from PocketNow.com. I've been spending a lot of time and angst researching and thinking about buying a new iPhone 3G S or a Pre or getting a newer version of my current HTC Windows phone. There has been much rending of garments...anyone have a opinion on what's a better purchase?

Here is Gizmodo's review...arrrrggghhhh!!!! What to do?

Healthcare Social Media

In a world where Facebook is bigger than Myspace and, together, they have 400 million global users, it's obvious that the healthcare industry is acknowledging it has to adopt these new communications channels... and is starting to do so. 60% of doctors say they want or use social networking sites...

While consumers were quick to embrace social media, doctors were initially skeptical about its value. Now, prodded by the need to be smarter and more competitive in the complex world of modern medicine, doctors are becoming converts. The two largest doctor-only social networks, Sermo and Medscape Physician Connect, have more than 100,000 members each nationwide...

The enthusiasm spans generations. The average Sermo user is in his or her late 40s or early 50s. Many are solo practitioners in rural areas with little time or opportunity to hang around the hospital cafeteria for impromptu consults with other physicians.

Richard Schoor, for example, is a solo practitioner in Smithtown, L.I. The 41-year-old urologist frequents Sermo, blogs as the Independent Urologist and runs his own online forum, the Physicians Entrepreneur Group, which has about 60 members who exchange advice on running a medical practice. Dr. Schoor says he's gotten valuable information from the online forums, including advice on equipment that has prevented costly mistakes.

Combined with the well known use of social networking sites by patients, along with the push for electronic health records, it's becoming obvious that companies that sell goods and services to the healthcare industry are going to have to integrate social media into their marketing strategy and communications tactics.

Here are some social media business applications that healthcare and biotechnology companies need to start looking at now...

• Lead generation
• Enterprise sales support
• Competitive intelligence gathering
• Deal capture
• Distribution partner identification and cultivation
• Search engine optimization (SEO)
• Executive visibility and thought leadership
• Customer Service
  
• Reputation management
• Employee recruitment
• Team, culture and morale building

On the association side, it's critical that member-based and issue associations leverage all the communications options at their disposal. From member retention to public policy, social media should be a central part of any healthcare associations marketing strategy. Indeed, here in DC, all sides in the fight over healthcare reform are using social networks and tools to spread their messages, keep coalitions together, and achieve their goals. From Senator Grassley calling out President Obama on Twitter to healthcare LinkedIn groups with thousands of members, it's clear that social media is being used by the biggest players in the most important situations...

why aren't you?

Facebook and.....Bing!

Tonight is not going to be normal Friday night. No, instead of heading downtown with the beautiful people and getting my "crunk on", I'll be home at my computer, along with millions of other nerds, waiting to jump on Facebook at exactly midnight to grab my custom Facebook URL. You haven't heard of this? Well, here is the link to the story on the WSJ blog and a link the Facebook blog. There aren't too many Jeff Majkas in the world but I'll be damned if I don't get facebook.com/jeff.majka nailed down...

I'll also be there to grab a URL for my agency's fanpage on Facebook...check it out if you haven't visited lately-- we just uploaded some pictures from Susan G. Komen Walk last weekend!

Hey, what do you know, there is a new search engine in town! Bing! And the initial reviews are in- generally positive- Bing! I checked it out and my initial review is - Bing!- I like it! Here is a link to Bing! and a story about the new search service.