I help you get to know “Social” for your business or Government Organization. I help you manage and massage your social behaviors into a cohesive social message for your brand. I am not coming to you with me being a social media maven who will get you a million twitter followers and max out on how many fans you can have in Facebook. No, I am helping you focus and develop an all-inclusive strategy. A strategy that begins with understanding what it is you do (your mission) and applying the best practices you already have with marketing and your products or business processes, into social channels.

Not only do I help you with that, but I especially focus on getting the corporate or small business environment up to speed on how to communicate and collaborate effectively behind your firewall to make sure tight and well planned external communications.

If this sounds like something you would like to know more about, please contact me at andrearosebaker at gmail dot com or call 310-439-8309 and ask about my introductory social business workshop. Workshops are custom tailored to your organizational needs and can run from as little as an hour to an all day intensive.

OMNI Hotel at CNN Center

Today is officially day one of the ALI Social Media for Government Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. This morning, I went around the room of about 40 attendees to ask them what questions they have as they attend this event and what they expect to learn. I jotted down the questions with the promise to make sure everyone has an answer or at least a place to go to, to get more information if no quick answer exists.

I can haz a question

To help this group get their questions answered, I am putting this list out to my social networks to share in the conversation. I ask of you, if you have a presentation, story, anecdote, or anything else to share to help answer these questions, please do so in the comments below and pass on this blog post to your circle to continue to build the answers to this list of twenty questions. If you have the answer to the question, in your comment, please put the question number and then your answer. If possible, please link liberally to more information. While this is a Government audience, I think we can agree that no matter what industry you are in, these are universal problems. I have been able to answer some of these questions in the little time I have as chair between sessions and hope to discuss others at the end of each day. Tomorrow morning, I present another session in which I hope to focus on the Return on Investment (ROI) of Social Media.

When I get enough information to complete the answers to the Q, I will take that into a permanent page on my website as a continued resource that I can bring out and refresh now and again. I thank you in advance for your time.

Here are the questions I culled from the group:

1. How can I get/use an editorial calendar to manage my social media content?
2. How can I get my peers onboard, get excited, or keep their interest with using social media?
3. How can I enhance my blogs with Twitter and Facebook?
4. How can I create a group blog and make it a successful one?
5. How can I get past management’s reluctance to embrace social media as another content outlet for our information?
6. How can I put social media policies or create guidelines for management of social media into place?
7. What else should my organization be doing in social media besides a presence on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube?
8. What are some of the best practices available?
9. How do I get the most bang for my buck?
10. How can I do effective measurement and analytics, how do I measure twitter?
11. How do I handle all my daily requirements and run our social media presence? It’s just me! How do I manage this monster?
12. How to I bring IT on board and convince them social media is not an evil thing?
13. What is the most effective way to cross-broadcast our information using multiple social media channels?
14. How do I address the generation and cultural gaps of my target audience?
15. How do I shift the paradigm from email to social?
16. How do I reach my rural constituents when they might not even be web connected?
17. How do I boost the effects of Follow Friday or other audience gathering techniques?
18. How do I select the right tools for the job/audience?
19. How do I maintain success once I achieve it?
20. What is the next big thing/trend in social?

Photo Courtesy of PeterP Photography

September has been a busy month for me, so I would be remiss if I didn’t share with my readers what I have been up to, where I have been speaking and where I will be speaking.

Last week (September 11-13) I gave back to back 2 hour presentations on the “Social Business Roadmap” and “How to Conduct a Social Business Assessment“, both were based on a whitepaper I wrote with my colleague at AIIM International this past March 2011. These presentations were part of the #Optsum conference in Glendale, Arizona. It was a beneficial trip from the networking connections I met at the conference over lunches. It was also beneficial to me on a personal level because I got to reconnect over the two days with former Army buddies. I drove from Glendale to Tucson for the first visit, my former roommate Andria and the next night in Glendale with my friend Gian and his family. As much as in the desert you can get that Glendale is, I found my stay enjoyable as the Renaissance Hotel is right next to a fun little town center called Westgate and my hotel room had a stone’s throw view of University of Phoenix Stadium, where the Cardinals played their opener.

As always, I post my presentations to Slideshare.net and I let my attendees know where they can get the materials. I do from time to time tweak the presentations to be specific to audience, but the ones I post to slideshare fill the general conversation spectrum.

This week I am in Atlanta, Georgia for the Social Media in Government Conference where I not only ran a workshop on Monday, but I am the Chair of the event for the first time. I have spoken for the ALI Conferences in the past for Social Media in Government, but this is my first chair. I feel very comfortable in this role as I have chaired other events, as well as had my share of event planning. The conference is being held in the Omni at CNN Center which is a quite an impressive venue. I am hoping I could run into Wolf or Piers in the hallways.

I am also grateful this event is in Atlanta where my sister lives real close, so I have been able to stay with her and bond with my nephew. As I am a Maryland resident, Atlanta is 11 hours away from me and so seeing my family and watching my nephew grow into a little man has been at least easier through social media. I am thankful technology keeps us connected. However, since this is only about the 6th time I have seen him and him me, having him remember who I am to him or who I am at all at 2.5 years old is a learning process every visit. Each time I see him, by the time he warms up to me, it is time to leave town.

I will be rounding out the end of this week in NYC for a project I hope I can be a part of and share with you about sometime soon.

Next week, I will be speaking on Social Media Return on Investment at Digital East from September 28-29, with my colleague at SMCDC Former President Larissa Fair.

After that, I plan to slow down a little and take a much needed vacation in October back to the West Coast for time with our family and friends in California.

Since releasing the whitepaper, we have traveled and blogged in support of our research and are still supporting that with our participation at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference next week in Boston, MA. My boss, Director Systems of Engagement, Jesse Wilkins and I will be at the AIIM booth (#521) on the expo floor where we will be happy to talk with you about your ideas of Enterprise 2.0, Social Business, and what ever is coming next.

At AIIM we also are in the works of  TaskForce II headed up by Andrew McAfee. The father of Enterprise 2.0 and keynote at this 5th year of the #e2conf.  We are working to define the responsible use of social content with some brilliant minds. We last met in person in Boston back in April and we are continuing to develop our research and discussions. As you might know, the first AIIM TaskForce with Geoffrey Moore was a huge success in defining that we have moved from Systems of Records to Systems of Engagement. As such, my position at AIIM was identified and I am now working hard to fulfill my every growing task load. It been challenging at times, but its also very much something that requires the amount of energy I have and my experience.

Now that we have delivered on setting guidance on the roadmap, I have to major projects underway. One is that I am working on developing part of our new Social Business training offerings. I am working on a community management set of modules that I am very excited about and we will be releasing to our community members this summer. The second, is our Social Business Conference this September 8, 2011. This event is unique in that it is completely virtual and our cost is very affordable for our members and non-members at the price points of $85/$95 respectively. I challenge you to find a better deal anywhere else that offers the stellar lineup of speakers and content. I will also be speaking at this event, under the Governance track. We are offering three tracks for the best content and information under use cases, strategy, and governance.

As the event is less than three months away now, I have started a  series of blog post interviews of those who are presenting at the event, so far we have heard from:

• Andrea Baker
• Jesse Wilkins
• Steve Ressler
• Jacob Morgan

… more to come with a new interview every Monday and Wednesday until the event is live on September 8, 2011.

Sign up now to register for this event. This event is for all levels of engagement of social media and social business. Whether you are new or an old pro there is something for you to hear. Additionally this is also for all target audiences from non-profits, to educators, to Government, to the fortune 500, to small business. We want you to attend, network, and share with us your stories.

Position: Senior Accountant

Department: Finance  and Administration

Staff:                          Open

Reports to: Chief Financial Officer

Supervises: None

FLSA Status: Exempt, Full Time

Travel Required: N/A

Location: The employee is required to work at the AIIM headquarters office. Deviations from this requirement must be approved by supervisor.

Infrastructure: AIIM provides standard office equipment.

Summary: Working on the Finance team with involved knowledge of Accounts Payable, Cash Receipts, and Payroll, this position will be responsible for administering all aspects of the General Ledger process, month close, reconciliation, financial reporting and taxes.

Job Duties:

1. Prepares and records asset, liability, revenue, and expenses entries by compiling and analyzing account information.
2. Maintains and balances general ledger accounts by verifying, allocating, posting, reconciling transactions; resolving discrepancies
3. Maintains general ledger through closing process; preparing month end reports; resolving discrepancies; account analysis and trends; monthly reconciliation
4. Summarizes financial status by collecting information; preparing balance sheet, profit and loss, other statements and analysis for CFO review.
5. Records daily cash position and reconcile cash account
6. Produces and transmits semi-monthly payroll through  associated reporting and audits
7. Assists with annual audits and budget process through completion of requested materials, reconciliations and reports.
8. Designs and produces financial reports for increased efficiencies, maintains proper internal controls.
9. Manages and records fixed assets, policy and procedure
10. Identify and prepare monthly, quarterly and annual tax reports

Other

1. Must meet monthly, quarterly and annual reporting deadlines
2. Assist in special projects as needed to enhance financial operations
3. Other duties as assigned.

Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Accounting Required
• Minimum 5 years experience in non-profit accounting field
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Working knowledge of non-profit accounting standards
• Experience with Microsoft Office (Excel and Word)
• Experience with Great Plains accounting software
• Experience with FRx Financial Report Writer
• Experience with Aptify database preferred
• Foreign Currency experience preferred

Please note, we have also developed an infographic to download and post in your cubicle. Or if you telework like me, post on the wall of your home office. Additionally, also as noted below, we do offer customized briefings for your organization in support of the roadmap.

As mentioned below, we are collecting your feedback, case studies and examples on the AIIM wiki and we hope you take part in this as we shape future versions of the roadmap.

To download the roadmap and contribute to the AIIM wiki, please go to www.aiim.org/roadmap or with your smartphone scan this QR code to take you directly to the AIIM site.

The social business roadmap consists of eight primary steps. Each step is briefly described here and is addressed in substantially more detail over the course of the document. Links to the eight steps take you to our wiki, where we discuss the “what’s next”, case studies, and your additional thoughts and feedback.

1. Emergence. In this step the organization is not using social technologies in any formal or organized way. Instead, individuals or small groups within the organization are experimenting with social technologies to determine whether there is business value to them.
2. Strategy. Once the organization begins to develop experience with social technologies and has identified potential business value from their use, it is important to create a framework that identifies how it expects to use these technologies, and the goals and objectives for their use.
3. Development. With the strategy in place, the organization can make informed decisions about what tools to implement, how to implement them, where to implement them, and how they will potentially scale more broadly within the organization.
4. Monitoring. Initially the organization should spend time monitoring and listening to the conversations taking place in and around a particular tool to get a sense of the nature of the tool, the content of the conversations, the target audiences, and who the leading participants are. This is perhaps more visible in externally focused processes but is important for internal ones as well.
5. Participation. Once the organization has done some listening it will be able to participate more meaningfully and should begin doing so according to what it has learned about the target market and the nature of the conversations on the various tools.
6. Engagement. The goal is for participation to move to engagement – from speaking at or to customers to engaging with them. This means creating processes to respond to issues, both internally and externally, and ensuring that communications are clear, accurate, and authentic.
7. Governance. This step describes the process for developing an effective governance framework for social business processes. Some of the steps are specific to certain tools or capabilities, while others are more broadly applicable, such as an acceptable usage policy.
8. Optimization. Once social business processes are in place, they should be actively managed and reviewed to ensure that the organization is realizing the expected benefits. This includes but is not limited to monitoring the tools in real time, identifying and measuring specific metrics, and training users on new or evolving tools and processes.

In addition to the roadmap document, we have also created a detailed infographic of the eight steps. Please feel free to download this graphic and share.

Contact

Please contact Jesse Wilkins, Director, Systems of Engagement, to schedule a briefing for your organization. Andrea Baker, Manager, Systems of Engagement Development is available to present classified briefings for organizations with security concerns.

• • Cell: +1 (720) 232-9638

Email: jwilkins@aiim.org

Government Social Business will be a strong focus for 2011 and I believe that was kicked off nicely at the Gov20LA event two weeks ago in Santa Monica. I led a session there called a Structured Brainjam (a term we borrowed from one of my online mentors – Chris Heuer of Social Media Club fame), in which I presented the attendees a chance to weigh in on a topic raised during the two day event. One of the points up for discussion was changing the name of calling what we do in the aspect of Government 2.0. I have been on the record that I do not like iterative numbering of programs or content.

We know something is going to change, everything changes. Garbage’s second album was Garbage’s s “Version 2.0” (probably their most successful and well known album mind you), but they did not go on to make their next album 3.0. That would be silly. So we should approach all 2.0 programs and ideas as what are we trying to achieve. Well for me, I am trying to achieve the education of Social Business processes and programs under my division, Systems of Engagement for AIIM.

On a much larger scale, I think what is known now as the larger Government 2.0 community, there are several thrusts of what groups are trying to achieve. Open Government being one, but for me and several others, we will be focusing on Government Social Business (GSB). GSB is the evolution of current Government processes with the inclusion of social media and social collaboration to meet constituent needs and transparency when warranted.  I mention when warranted, because there are several mitigating factors to consider with GSB to include, but not limited only as FOIA and Privacy, not to mention the daunting task of Records Management that will have to be re-evaluated with the evolution of data that is now being created out in the open.

I do plan to blog and continue the discussion about Government Social Business on my various blogging platforms and twitter (@immunity), if you care to share your opinions.  I look forward to the conversation.

All in all, there are just a few days left in February and my survey of collecting your top business problems. I appreciate your 2 minutes to help answer just 10 questions.

Photographer: Ben Schumin

A little venting about my experience on the metro this afternoon. So on the metro this afternoon (Yellow Line – 2:50pm at L’enfant plaza) in my car there was a woman whose backpack was stuck in the metro car’s doors.

No one stopped to help her and the announcement of door’s closing kept repeating. I got up and yanked on her back and pulled the doors to no avail. I yelled to the back of the train, to push the call button for the driver’s attention and to let them know what car number we were in.

The driver of the train never opened the doors full again when “trying to clear” the doors, instead chastizing the passengers for not getting out of the doorway in time and also if we miss getting on a train with our entire party to stay behind for the next train to come. I think this is irresponsible and I am glad a second gentleman came to help the lady and I get her bag from the door. Most of the car just sat and ignored my yelling to press the call button, at the opposite end of the car.

But once finally someone understood our car was the hold up to not moving, action was taken to push the button. A stark difference from the article I read yesterday about an Orange line last week where a group of passengers aided a fainted woman, called the box and unloaded her off the train, only causing an additional 10 seconds on the platform.  Our issue, caused another 3 minutes.

All in all eventually people came around to helping out and the situation was resolved, but by our actions, not metro. The lady who was stuck thanked me and the people who watched told me good job as I left the train. I did not do it to be thanked, nor as I tell this tale to you now. I did it because I noticed a woman in need of help and it was the right thing to do. Please share your stories of your metro woes and good experiences if you like.

And please, maybe we can keep a count of how many escalators are out of service and where, or maybe you can link me to where they keep track of this. I mean its a great workout for me to do the stairs, but there are worse-off people with knees more crazy than mine.

This is me now. My most recent headshot.

I’ve lost an Oompah Loompah. If they were about 100lbs or so, which I am guessing they could be with all the chocolate / cocoa beans they can eat now working for Willy Wonka. In December 2009, I had a Gastric By-Pass. I chose to have the surgery to get my life back and remember the girl I was in the Army and who was very active and healthy. Its now almost a year later and I could say that October 2010 was the month I reached my goal.

Just letting everyone know this blog will be active again very soon. I have been on a hiatus of writing as I have gone through so many life transitions for most of this year.

In addition to the weight loss, I have grown out my hair, changed the style, color, celebrated a year and some change now with the love of my life Joseph Higgs, gone on disability and about to change careers… details coming soon on a future post.

Here I am in early 2009, as I prepped for surgery going to see a nutritionist. I still lived a normal life of activities

If you have connected with me on Facebook you have been able to see the changes virtually all along. I have been posting my progress pictures to an album there. If you are not friends with me there, you have only my flickr to go by and here are some examples from there.

Picture from November 2009, before surgery

Joe and I on my grandmother's porch, October 2010

BTW, Doesn’t JOE look HOT himself. I think he has been getting cuter as I get thinner!

I post now, because I have been re-engaged with the speaking circuit and my Fall and Winter calendar has been exploding (my events page will be updated immediately). I have already been to a couple of events in as many weeks and those who haven’t seen me in a while have not even recognized me. I take that as a compliment, believe me.

I also plan to put up a section on this website that answers many of the FAQs of my weightloss and life transformation. I get emails, PMs and DMS, weekly about my success and I am very willing to share my story.

I am very proud to say I am now at the same weight I was when I got out of basic training. Although that was solid muscle. I am looking now to find ways to stay fit and toned throughout Winter, so your advice and tips will be welcomed indeed.

There is a lot more news to celebrate and share to come, but all in due time. I can’t let everyone know everything yet. Don’t want to jinx the good. So stay tuned.

The goal of the 2010 WIRe conference is to propel the Intelligence Community (IC) beyond the static use of tools toward a more dynamic point of cultural transformation and repurposing of the ways that we utilize online intelligence. As we investigate the differences between how the IC and the rest of the world use social media, we will pinpoint best practices across the social networking spectrum and examine how constantly evolving Web and social media tools impact the intelligence mission.

Who Should Attend:
The 2010 WIRe conference will foster networking opportunities for members of the IC, Department of Defence (DoD), military, and academic communities, as well as Government contracting and industry representatives.

This event is completely unclassified.

Just announced: WIReCamp — a networking & open brainstorming session during the WIRe conference next week! Bring your fresh ideas 4 #gov20

This moderated networking event will take place during the conference between 12-5pm each day. I am looking forward to moderating the event. Hope you can come with your ideas.

I will be attending this event, always moving forward in making Government more efficient and less redundant.

I am also looking forward to seeing Dion Hinchcliffe and Marcia Conner speak as well as the progress for the Apps for the Army and IDEO presentations.

If you are in the United States Government, Contractor, or state or local… DHS included, please think about registering and attending. Its not too late.