Tweets linking to specific posts on BryanPerson.com haven’t displayed in the comments stream–until now.

Thanks to the updated BackType Wordpress plugin, which I’ve just installed and activated, “interesting” tweets only (not sure how this filtering will play out) back to my content will start appearing beneath the referenced posts.

You’ll also see a widget box at the bottom of every post allowing you to send an instant tweet about what you’ve just read.

This is a test drive, but let’s see how it goes!

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Thanks to the magic of the MobilePress WordPress plugin I’ve installed, BryanPerson.com should now look a whole lot nicer on your mobile device.

Above are a pair of screenshots of the site that I captured on my iPhone. Neat!

What I like about MobilePress:

* Text is easy to read and the pages load quickly.
* Photos render well.
* I have the option to overwrite the title and description tags just for mobile versions of the site.
* Bonus: The default color scheme matches my blog’s just pefectly!

This edition of MobilePress (1.1.4) hasn’t been fully tested with my current version of WordPress (2.9), so there may be some pages that don’t render perfectly. But overall, I’m certainly pleased. Hope it works for you, too.

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With expert steering from Nathan Wright of Lava Row and an assist from Albert Maruggi, our SMB “traveling goodwill ambassador,” Des Moines becomes the 34th city in the SMB series. And by year’s end, our no-longer-so-little breakfast movement will have stretched to 36 locations, including three in Canada and Singapore.

Not bad for something that began as glorified morning tweetup at a college diner in Boston back in August 2007.

Here’s an SMB introductory video that will be played at the start of today’s Des Moines breakfast.

(RSS readers: You may need to click through to the original post to see the video.)

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* Adam Cohen has a nice commentary for Ad Age: “Big pharma and Google Sidewiki: a sink or swim situation?” Pharmaceutical companies are rightly concerned that Sidewiki comments on their own sites may land them in regulatory hot water.

* I also spoke with Social Media Explorer principal Jason Falls and Altimeter Group partner Jeremiah Owyang about Sidewiki at last week’s BlogWorld & New Media Expo. Here are their takes:

Jason Falls on Google Sidewiki’s impact on brands and marketers

Jeremiah Owyang on the ‘disruptive’ nature of Sidewiki

(Disclosure: My employer, LiveWorld, is a consulting client of Jeremiah’s.)

RSS readers: You may need to click through to the original blog post to see the videos.

Much ado about … ?

For all the buzz about Sidewiki, the real impact will only be felt if more users start to adopt it. Jeremiah says as much in the video above. And at least until Google Chrome incorporates the tool into its browser, using Sidewiki will always require a manual download/update of the Google Toolbar (not necessarily difficult, but still a barrier to entry).

Plus, the experience of using Sidewiki itself will need to become something beyond just “digital grafiti.” We’re not quite there yet–but I suspect this is a long march we’re headed for.

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The backstory

Rob, who is the social media editor at the Austin American-Statesman, executed a terrific “Day in the Sun” storystream for the paper two weeks ago using Posterous, a blogging platform that allows multiple contributors to post photos/text/videos to a single stream using a single e-mail address.

In total, readers submitted 70 photos, all of which were syndicated out to a highly-trafficked Statesman.com photo gallery and some of which also wound up in the print edition.

It was a creative and thoughtful project–one of many that Rob is hatching for the Statesman these days–and so I decided to copy it!

SMB Houston storystream

The project: To create a storystream–primarily with photos–of the Houston Social Media Breakfast on Friday, September 11.

The platform: An SMB Houston Posterous blog, which I created in about two minutes.

The plan: Ask breakfast attendees to send in photos they captured during the breakfast to post@SMBHouston.Posterous.com (an unwieldy address, but it was the default setting from Posterous). I would then manually approve all submissions (I chose to keep moderation on for testing purposes, and also in case a devious Twitter spammer got wind of the plan).

The results: 24 photos were submitted and posted to the blog from five contributors, and we generated a few hundred page views.

Where’s storystreaming headed?

Our crowdsourcing work in Houston was a mere first step toward what “storystreaming” can be. Here’s Daniel Honigman’s more lofty vision:

A storystream helps bring to light, through a chronological narrative, a particular issue, process or concept over a more significant period of time than an eventstream usually covers. Used journalistically, it turns into a collaborative stream of consciousness that tells a story.

So how might I improve and beef up the storystreaming efforts at a future Social Media Breakfast or social media conference or event?

• Get out the word in advance
• Use a shorter or easier-to-remember e-mail address
• Assign an editor or moderator to review and approve submissions more quickly
• Mix in videos and text reviews
• Promote our content online during the event through Twitter

Still, this was a good start, and I’m thankful to Rob for the inspiration.

Disclosure: Rob Quigley was the moderator of a panel for the most recent Austin Social Media Breakfast, which the American-Statesman also hosted.

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Perish the thought.

I suspect that wiser heads will ultimately prevail, but in the meantime … yikes!

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This is a trip I’ve been looking forward to for several months, largely because I’ll be connecting (and re-connecting, in some cases) with professionals whose work I’ve long respected and admired.

Things get rolling tonight with the FIR Listener Dinner. That means seeing Shel Holtz and Neville Hobson in one place (a rare treat!) and trading laughs with the likes of Lee Hopkins and Allan Jenkins, the dynamic roadtripping duo who have been driving down the West Coast this week.

Outta the Gate

If you see me running around the streets and hotel hallways of San Francisco with an audio recorder or Flip camp in hand between now and Wednesday morning, I might just be working on a project for Linda Johannesson’s Outta the Gate website.

Linda originally hails from Canada but now lives in Sydney, Australia. She’s travelled across the Pacific for IABC 2009 and has launched Outta the Gate to document “news, highlights, and ideas” from the conference. I’ll be posting interviews and reflections on the site as I’m able, and some of that content may cross over here and on my Daily Boo podcast, too.

‘Twitter for Communicators’

On Tuesday afternoon at 2:00pm Pacific, IABC outgoing chair, Barb Gibson, and I will be leading an hour-long “Twitter for Communicators” session. Barb and I are looking forward to plenty of questions from communicators who are just getting started in micrblogging.

Saying hello

I’m the goofy guy up and over there (photo taken by my LiveWorld co-worker Jay Bryant during our visit to Minneapolis last month). Particularly if we haven’t met before, please come over and introduce yourself if you spot me at the conference. I’d love to talk shop about your communications challenges and success stories.

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Why, throw a tweetup, of course!  And thanks to the organizational efforts of Kyle Flaherty, Jason Stoddard, and the good folks at Third Base in downtown Austin, we’ll be doing just that tomorrow afternoon, from 3:00-6:00, with the Red Sox in Austin Opening Day Watch Party and Food Drive!

We’ll also be bringing along canned goods — including, yes, Boston baked beans — as donations for the Capital Area Food Bank.

Event details

• When: Tuesday, April 7th, from 3-6pm Central
• Where: Third Base, 1717 West 6th Street, Austin (view map)
• Why: To give to the Capital Area Food Bank….and watch the Sox take Game 1 of 162.

Follow the  #RedSoxATX hashtag to keep up with tweets from the event.

Baseball and the Red Sox are a family affair

Think we’re excited about the start of the 2009 baseball season? I already have Amani (not yet 2 1/2 years old) indoctrinated into ways of Red Sox Nation.

Update: The game was originally scheduled for today, but has been postponed because of impending rain. This video was recorded before that announcment was made. I actually won’t be attending the rescheduled tweetup, as I will be in Toronto for the mesh conference.

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If Tim does share his PowerPoint slides on his blog or SlideShare, they’ll probably provide us with a nugget or two about his presentation. But they certainly won’t capture the essence of his talk, such as the memorable stories that he shares (and I just know Tim will do that) or the humor that he uses. Really, we need to hear or see Tim to get all the good stuff (and here’s hoping someone will record his talk so that can happen).

Slides as support

The presenters that hold my attention are almost always thoughtful about their use of slides — if they feature them at all.

They know that PowerPoint/Keynote slides should support their presentation, but that they have to deliver the real magic themselves.

As Garr Reynolds puts it so brilliant in his book, Presentation Zen, “[p]rojected slides should be as visual as possible and support [the speaker's] points quickly, efficiently, and powerfully. The verbal content, the verbal proof, evidence, and appeal/emotion come mostly from your spoken word.” [empahasis is mine]

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It only makes sense that I do the same in this space.

Why we have guidelines

As a company that’s all about online social networking and community building, LiveWorld has plenty of employees who regularly communicate across the social web — here on SocialVoice, on their personal blogs, on client sites, on Facebook, etc. It’s a natural part of our DNA.

Sometimes we’re representing the company in an obvious way by the nature of what we write or comment about on social sites. On other occasions, we’re producing seemingly unrelated content around own hobbies or personal interests (movie reviews, gardening, family lives, our own athletic accomplishments, etc.) — but we’re mindful that our work is always a reflection of the company as a whole.

We created these guidelines both to support the talents and online freedom of expression of LiveWorlders and to reflect the best interests and reputation of the company.

We think they’re easy to understand, straightforward, and free of corporate mumbo-jumbo or legalese. See if you agree.

LiveWorld Social Media Content Guidelines

Be transparent

• If you’re writing or commenting about Company business, always identify yourself and LiveWorld by name.
• If you contribute to or maintain a personal blog or website that covers the Company’s business space, make clear that your opinions are your own and not LiveWorld’s.

Be respectful

• We encourage you express your opinions, but we ask that you don’t resort to personal attacks, harassment, cultural insensitivity, or discrimination in the process.

Be yourself

• We value your personality and individual interests, including those that fall outside of your primary work responsibilities. Let that personality shine in your online content!

Be smart

• Some company projects, lessons learned, and success stories are fine to share; others aren’t. Don’t reveal company secrets or proprietary information, and make sure you have permission from our clients and partners before mentioning them by name.
• Your words and statements online are a reflection of LiveWorld. Use your best judgment when deciding whether content is appropriate to publish. If you have any doubts, ask your company executive.

Don’t just take our word for it

IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines are the best I’ve ever seen; they were a model for us, as you’ll see.

(Cross-posted to my LiveWorld blog)

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