Banks are struggling to figure out how to get in the social computing game and where to start. Well we here at Microsoft put our heads together and came up with a couple of initial ideas to help banks get started. So, there are some obvious privacy...

I arrived in Rochester, MN last night for meetings this week with the Mayo Clinic. As I jumped into my cab, I noticed an unusual sight at a small regional airport. Parked to the side of the jet way were two beautiful 747 airplanes. Normally this would...

Press releases, Company Sites, White papers are great forms of communication but Microblogging stands out when urgency and time sensitivity is of the essence. Many people use Twitter for business-to-business communication, and retailers are also experimenting...

For a Retailer, embracing communities can help build better services and boost customer loyalty. Through online communities, customers can participate in defining new features and services. They can also be the source of real-time feedback to help change...

Shopping is a social activity and more and more retailers are realizing that they need to embrace social computing (or the “groundswell” as explained in an excellent must-read book by the same name by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff ). Offline...

I feel compelled to write about my latest healthcare experience. Let me start by saying that the industry group at Microsoft including myself has presented the 5 trends in healthcare many times. Kudos to Dr. Crounse for the deck in the first place. One...

When is the last time you or a family member stayed in the hospital overnight?  Hopefully, the answer is "quite some time ago".  Unfortunately, for me, my father is in his late sixties and was recently hospitalized for 7 nights due...

The way we exchange contact information has changed very little since the Chinese started using Visiting cards (or calling cards) in the 13th century and the Europeans in the 17th century. These evolved into the business cards of today. Enter QR Codes...

ABI Research’s new study “ Location-based Mobile Social Networking ” offers insight into trends, social networking features, drivers, barriers and includes detailed descriptions of solutions and market players, with special focus on...

I tried out Tagga.com today and think its a neat little application for creating quick SMS campaigns. You can tag items in the physical world and create badges like the one you see alongside and have people text in a key word for more details. For instance...

An interesting report on MediaPost from the latest installment of an ongoing tracking study from Interpublic's Universal McCann unit. Link to Report Interesting points from the report: More than half of adults now rely on at least one of the so-called...

Recruiters have been known to mine all information about you via Blogs, Twitters and the other digital footprints that you leave behind. An online identity is a social identity that you establish in online communities. Although some people prefer to use...

You are one degree away from everyone you know, two degrees away from everyone they know, and so on. The trivia game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is based on the concept of the small world phenomenon and is based on the assumption that any actor can be...

By definition, tacit knowledge is knowledge that people carry in their minds and is, therefore, difficult to access. Tacit knowledge has been found to be a crucial input to the innovation process. An organizations ability to innovate depends on its level...

Store Associates and Store Managers are usually the people that have the most contact with the customer in a Retail organization. As a result of observations and feedback from customers, they are usually in a position to make innovative suggestions on...

Unified communications technology enables Store Managers and Store Associates to be connected in unique ways. In this demo, Chris Mayo, the technical evangelist for Unified Communications (UC) and John Rauschenberger from Clarity Consulting  team...

There is an interesting trend of companies using microblogging services like Twitter to monitor customer complaints. One example mentioned in the Boston Globe is that of a customer who griped about his HDTV reception via twitter during an NBA playoff...

Organizations talk a lot about how important their employees are and the contribution they make to overall success. This obviously means that employee retention is one of the key priorities.  To bolster productivity and a more engaged workplace,...

Speaking to bankers who are trying to deal either in proactive or reactive modes to social networking, three basic “feel trends” seem clear. 1. Changing demographics from Baby Boomers (pass book savers to high touch HNW customers) to aggressive, impatient...

Social Computing and Online Communities represent a great opportunity for building better relationships with Customers Brett Bonthron, member of Microsoft's High-Tech Manufacturing Team, discussed during a recent panel discussion at the Consumer Electronics...

NewsGator Technologies, Inc. announced the general availability of Social Sites 2.0, a major upgrade for NewsGator’s social computing solution for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.  Social Sites 2.0 offers new social capabilities to...

The fourth-largest public school district in the United States needed a consistent way to deliver information to more than 1 million students, parents, teachers, and administrators. The district built a Web-based portal to provide a single point of access...

With Store Managers and Store Associates spending very little time in front of computers, mobile applications, speech applications and podcasting become more relevant. Podcasting is a excellent means by which Retailers can communicate corporate information...

The concept of social networking has recently experienced a great deal of visibility as a means to increase the productivity of information workers and organization members. Social networking as a concept involves the ability for a technology platform...

  Heres a great story from Canada: Scotiabank, Canada's largest international bank uses wikis and blogs to create a community without borders based on Microsoft Office Sharepoint Portal Server. Click here for Story