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Hi, 

First, thank you for opening this message.

I truly value your willingness to hear from me from time to time and I hope that on at least some of those occasions you get some value.

But I've been doing some soul-searching about these updates and decided I needed, for your sake and for mine, to lift my game.

Which is why I have re-thought the whole focus, style and timing of these updates.

The result of that re-thinking is that the previous Des Walsh Updates is now Social Business Bites - fresh, tasty, nutritious! 

As I hope the name suggests, it will be "bite-size" items of information about the world of social business, which I and others use as a handy term to signify the way business is now and is evolving. As a colleague said to me just a couple of days ago, "Des, all business now is social". (And if it's not, the owners should consider the fate of businesses that fail to change with the times.)

Want a more satisfying definition of social business? There are quite a few being thrown around. I typed "social business means" into Google and got 50,800 results. But as with any emerging buzzword/buzzphrase, a lot of the "definitions" dance around without pinning the term down.

I think the concept of social business is still evolving. For now, the following explanation of what social business looks like in action (rather than a "definition") works for me, and I hope for you.

Social business is here - it answers to the major technological and economic shifts that define innovation today. Social ways of working harness the explosive growth of mobile, cloud and big data, and serve as the foundation for effective employee and customer engagement.

            IBM Social Business http://www.ibm.com/social-business/us/en/

In other words, it's the future we're already in

The content 

I don't want to be too definite at this stage about the content of Social Business Bites - things in this field change so much, so often! - but I am determined to have more focus, so the general plan is for content to mainly cover:

• items about social media, social networking and social business
• items about business, as reported and discussed on the social web

It will be a weekly event.

And the style of the update is changing.

Content creation move over: here comes content curation

I like creating content. Which is why I blog and podcast.

But sometimes I feel less than inspired to write or podcast, and I hate the idea of sending something just for the sake of it. So that in turn can lead me to procrastinate on the newsletters/updates.

On the other hand, I spend a lot of time on line and I never seem to get tired of finding interesting items for others and sharing those, ideally with some brief commentary about how these items might "fit" into the business plans of the people who are likely to be reading. 

Without wanting to get too high-falutin' about this, or too geeky, I see that as fitting what experts call content curation, as explained in thought leader Beth Kanter's excellent Content Creation Primer:

Content curation is the process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme.

What can you expect to receive in your weekly Social Business Bites?

The basic format I'll be using, at least to start, will be pretty simple, which means you will be able to scan quickly and decide quickly which ones if any you might want to explore more fully.

It will be basically items from the web (blog post or article), each with its own link, and some comments of mine to put the item in context. As I say, you can then decide quickly whether that looks interesting enough for you to click through.

It will not be re-cycled blog posts of mine, although I may list the occasional post of mine that I think could be of interest.

Here are a couple of examples of what I have in mind.

____________________________________

Employees are More Productive When They Can Tweet

This is an interesting article, reporting on a study done with 72 workers from various industries in South Korea. The study was about smartphone usage, not about tweeting (editorial licence!) and a comment of one of the study's authors, Sooyeol Kim, was not as dramatic as that headline, but of potential interest to employers and managers: Having workers take small breaks on their phones throughout the day may positively influence their perceived well-being at the end of the workday.

When Times are Good, Consider Change

This is a short, illuminating and challenging interview with Jason Fried, founder of the very successful software company 37 Signals, whose products included the phenomenally successful Basecamp, which claims the title of the world's #1 project management tool and is used by millions of people. It was a shock to the software industry and no doubt more broadly in the world of business when, just under a month ago in early February, 37 Signals announced they were selling off all their product lines except Basecamp and renaming the company after that product, their most successful. Why change when things are going well? Fried says:  

When you're forced to change because things aren't going well, you're often rushed and unhappy. When you decide to change when things are going great, you can do it on your own schedule and your own way.

__________________________________ 

As well as... 

• mentioning upcoming events that could be of interest
• letting you know about any special offers I have to share with you

I will value any suggestions for honing Social Business Bites

I hope you will decide to stay around for a while at least and see how this new format goes. I do believe it has the potential to be more interesting for you and more manageable in your busy daily schedule. But you will have to be the judge of that, so I hope you will give me feedback and suggestions: just email me at [email protected]

I realize and fully respect that the new format for my updates might not appeal to everyone and that some may choose to unsubscribe (see link below). Which is fine and I won't take it personally. :)

Until next time, wishing you good business, good health and good vibes!

Des

PS: Do you have one question about social business that you would like to get answered? If so, please email me at [email protected] and I will do my best to answer. No charge, no strings :).

PPS: If you are not on the list yet to receive this regular update in your email inbox, and would like to try it, you can register for that at this link (there is an easy unsubscribe link in every update) .

My contact details

Phone: International +61 413 089 355    Australia 0413 089 355

Skype: deswalsh (if you want to connect with me there, just type in "Social Business Bites" - or email me and we can set it up).