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indymike's blog

Six Ways to Get More from LinkedIn Groups

I manage a couple of big LinkedIn Groups. Here are a couple of things I see people who consistently get value out of the groups do:

Cool Mapping Tools for Social Media

I've been playing around with mapping tools. Here is one of the more interesting ones:

I always wondered where all my twitter friends are located:

This is powered by @andymurd's Yahoo Pipe.

Some more great Firefox Add Ins

Here are a few more very useful add ins for Firefox that I've been using for the past few weeks. Let me know if you like any of them:

Scribefire - It's a blog editor that lives in Firefox.  It's how I posted this article.  Easy doesn't begin to do it justice.

Fair Weather Friends on Twitter

There are a few things that really get under the skin of Twitter users. One is really annoying: people that follow you for a few weeks, then suddenly quit following you, expecting you to keep following them.  The fastest way to spot this is the quick direct message inviting you to view their ultra cool way to get rich.

Social Media Makes a Difference

As the Mumbai terrorist attacks unfolded, I was struck by how much information hit Twitter - the 256 character microblog.  You could literally watch as people arround the events reported in little bits of information - resulting in a much more clear picture of what was going on. 

Changing a Business

I'm in the middle of a business transformation from an internet marketing agency to a full service blogging agency.  I can't believe how powerful the process has been.  So far in order to get the new business right, we've had to look at everything, and one thing has really stuck with me:

Good enough isn't good enough.

For most of my career, I've been one of those people who believes in the two rules of marketing:

Killer Thunderbird Plug Ins

I use and love Mozilla Thunderbird for email. It's flexible, fast, compatible and with a little extra plumbing, slices, dices and cleans up the mess.  Here are a few add ons I've found indispensable.

NotTo - Ever want a way to make sure you don't send emails to a specific person? Even if they are on a list?  NoTo prevents accidental message forwards!

Why Humans are Easily Duped

Having come off several awful business relationships that have just sucked the life and cash out of my business, I ran into an article that actually explains why people are easily duped. Turns out the culprit is a "circuit" in our brains called THOMAS - one that releases ocytocin when we are trusted.  In other words, the con man trusts you and your brain makes you feel good. From the Article:

Some Vindication

Last year, we pulled the plug on MySchoolAlert.com, a system that was to be a text message alert system for schools.  The reason we pulled the plug on the project was:

LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman on Recession

High growth startups are particularly prone to bad news. One big question is how will social media respond.  LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman (who owns several other social startups) says LinkedIn is good to go:

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