Yes, I know the report is delay (a fair few months) and it may be slightly out of date, but in the past 30 days there has been an increased interest in our review so I’ve decided to upload the report.

To view the report click the following link: Team NVPH – Stack Overflow Report

If there are any questions, comments or concerns feel free to let me know.

• http://www.jason-v.com/2009/08/01/have-you-googled-your-name
• http://www.jason-v.com/2009/08/10/web-presence-update

To give a bit of re-cap the site was started and the first post went up on July 30th, 2009. At the stage a search for my name on google didn’t turn out to well, and that is to be expected. So how have things gone in this short period?

In the graph below you can see how I’ve gone on a month by month basis. It might be a little early to tell but you can see a steady trend in the amount of visitors to site each month. If you double the current month (roughly halfway through it) this trend continues.

The amount of bandwidth being used though hasn’t been steady as I’ve seen this go up and down. Recently I started uploading more images and photos which has seen the amount of bandwidth being used jump up a fair bit (realistically though it is such a small amount for a website). It might be worth mentioning that I now have caching working on the site as well as a few other optimisations done with some help from Shane (Hosting Guy).

Monthly websites statistics measuring the amount of hits, visitors each month and bandwidth used each month. - 16th October, 2009

So how searchable is my name? Has it improved? Below is a list of searches on two different variations of my name. Jason Van Dyk & “Jason Van Dyk”. I’ve also compared to the results taken on the 10th August 2009.

• Search on www.google.com for – Jason Van Dyk = 6th & 7th vs. 18th & 19th (Improved by 12 spots)
• Search on www.google.com for – “Jason Van Dyk” = 3rd & 4th vs. 25th & 26th (Improved by 22 spots)
• Search on www.yahoo.com for – Jason Van Dyk = 1st, 2nd & 4th vs. 1st, 2nd & 7th (Maintained 1st & 2nd, Improved by 3 spots)
• Search on www.yahoo.com for – “Jason Van Dyk” = 1st, 2nd & 5th vs. 1st, 2nd & 6th (Maintained 1st & 2nd, Improved by 1 spot)
• Search on www.bing.com for – Jason Van Dyk = 2nd & 4th vs. 3rd (Improved by 1 spot and added an extra hit)
• Search on www.bing.com for – “Jason Van Dyk” = 1st vs. 1st, 5th & 10th (Maintained 1st, lost 2 hits)

In summary doing a search for my name will either bring up my site, a profile on a social networking site or some other form a hit which is directly related to me. The results have improved dramatically to have top 10 hit amongst all search engines. This is great and has meant that achieving my goal is working.

How have you gone? What are some of the steps you’ve taken to increase your web presence?

I’ve committed to my goal and have reached it within the time frame. You can now google my name, and results appear. So what is going to happen now? Well I will be posting less about Enterprise 2.0 related topics and instead will broaden the topics to cover more of my interests.

Jeremiah Owyang has posted a list of A Chronology of Brands that Got Punk’d by Social Media which you should take a look at, but here are 5 of my favorite stories.

• United Airlines Gets the Viral Video Treatment It Never Wanted
• The naked NOKA chocolate uncovered
• Louis Vuitton gets Brandjacked in Anti-Genocide Campaign
• Furniture Company Habitat Self-Evicts on Twitter
• Brit ISPs censor Wikipedia over ‘child porn’ album cover

So a word of warning for companies out there, to perhaps think about your approach to a customer or act as it may blow back on you. Just to finish it off, this blow back effect resulted in the term the’ Streisand effect‘ in 2003 when Barbra Streisand sued a photographer over privacy concerns.

Imogen Heap – Hide and Seek (Live at Fearless Music, NYC)

So Imogen Heap has done some amazing stuff as a musician and more importantly she is using Enterprise 2.0 concepts. She is engaging in two way feedback with her fans on a daily basis and has created a sense of anticipation that surrounds her day to day life.  So what has she done? How is she a great example of enterprise 2.0?

She as created a lot of accounts on the web where she allows fans to follow, write comments, give feedback and more importantly she interacts back with everyone (myspace, twitter, youtube, etc) . Imogen Heap is putting a lot of time and effort in communicating what is going on in her life through these technologies which seems to be paying off. Through the use of twitter she keeps fans informed and has even asked them for advice, guidance, ideas in relation to her latest album. Back on myspace you can preview her latest album (which has now been released) and get a feel for the music.

I only knew about Imogen Heaps use of these technologies after reading an article called The New Music Business Model: Imogen Heap at Deep Drive Marketing which is really well written. I recommend you head over to their site and read it as I don’t want steal the light away from the effort put into the post by the author.

So is Imogen Heap takings things to far by letting people know what is going on in her life? I don’t think so, because she is doing so of her own back and enjoys it . I actually prefer the way she is engaging fans compared to Britney Spears. If you don’t know already Britney Spears has a twitter account that has 3,079,749 followers compared to Imogen Heaps 997,892 followers (as of today). So what is the difference between the two? Britney has someone manage the account for her and the tweets are generally broad and informative, Imogen Heap on the other hand are personal. She invites people to help out or give feedback, contribute photos, etc and “talks” to people.

Imogen Heap also has an account on youtube, where she posts video blogs (vlogs) – http://www.youtube.com/imogenheap It is a place where you can see inside of her home as she posts, but also get a look at her latest music as she officially releases it.

So is this method of using Enterprise 2.0 concepts and technology going to change the music industry? Personally I don’t think it will change the industry but it will change relationship between fans and musicians forever. For those of you who are starting a band, this concepts Imogen Heap has used can be applied easily to your group and I wouldn’t be surprised to hear of some up coming stars who get popular through the use of Enterprise 2.0 over the next few years.

Well this checkpoint will be a subjective one taken by your personal impression. Before I get you let me know what you think, I would like to tell you how I’m feeling so far.

Practical ability to leverage off web 2.0 to enhance personal branding.

• Bought a domain (jason-v.com) and found hosting within Australia (Sydney)
• Established the site using a leading open source solution (WordPress)
• Created a Twitter account (jasonvandyk) and integrated into my site
• Made available RSS feeds for users to subscribe to
• Established a Facebook account
• Regular two way feedback on both my site and other blogs through various commenting systems

Manner and consistency of participation in weekly workshops activities and your contribution.

• Regular posts on Enterprise 2.0 topics based on workshop activities and self inspired topics
• Regular feedback on workshop activities, through digitalorgs.net and student blogs
• The using of trackbacks to highlight relative posts and relation to workshop activities (only student so far)

Ability to appraise Web2.0 strategies and solutions for organisational and personal success.

• Continuous engagement in self improvement of my personal brand
• Ensured Andrew McAfee’s SLATES has been used and applied to my site
• Used critical thinking to post on the effects of “negative web presence” when most of the focus has been on creating a positive
• Created topics / posts which are relative and trending (above post) which has become a page 1 ranking using basic / common key words

Ability to engage successfully with the wider community (including  people outside of QUT) using Web 2.0 tools and techniques.

• The use of twitter to raise an issue with the font colour of the comment box which received feedback and highlighted additional fields the needed to be modified
• Posting feedback on other blogs, which has been constructive – ie: http://brendanread.wordpress.com/2009/08/19/wiki-at-worki
• Received feedback on most posts on my site (finding various styles/ posts enabled greater engagement than others – ie: long posts/ no images = less engagement)

Leadership via the ability to contribute to the structure and format of the workshop activities, and the smooth running of the online community.

• Provided feedback to surveys posted by the lecture
• Identified problems / hurdles students are having and created posts to aid – Your blog – Getting over the first hurdles
• Suggesting ideas to improve or expand on the current activities – http://www.digitalorgs.net/wp/?p=97#comments
• Comments on student blogs to give additional value on their posts – http://benmccallum.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/to-twitter-or-not-to-twitter/
• Creating posts, that help inspire others. The result in similar topics or mentions – http://enterprise.anotherbyte.net/2009/08/ways-i-promote-my-blogs/
• Posting this checkpoint post early and allowing students to read this. Providing a baseline and example.

There are many posts, which address the criteria and I find it hard to highlight each one. I’ve categories all relevant posts in the “Study” category. A lot which have already received feedback from Jason Watson and students.

Overall I’m making good progress and my site/posts as a whole is an example of this. I’m using existing web 2.0 technologies whilst exploring new ones constantly. I would appreciate any comments or feedback as I’ve taken the steps in making this publicly accessible for everyone. (let me know if you want me to comment on your reflective post!).

This got me thinking about the importance of creating a strong brand name. A brand, an image, something which stands out and makes consumers want it! There are some very good examples of how companies brand themselves well such as: Coca-Cola, MacDonalds, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Apple are another great example, but not only do they manage their company brand well they create a very strong product brand for each of the product lines they sell. One way they do that is by engage an emotional response. They associate a great experience, easy to use and a product that makes your life more enjoyable with it. So how quickly did it take for you to look at the picture of a person’s silhouette, bright background, with white head phones before you realised it was for Apple, and then related to iPod / iTunes? I bet that you would of picked up on it before I asked the question (maybe I should of removed the iPod wording).

So besides creating a company brand or a product brand, how can you create your own personal brand?

• Get yourself a business card (paper, electronic, etc) – People need to establish who you are and how to get back in contact with you
• Network yourself, before you need to network
• Create yourself a resume! Nearly every job requires one, so give this some attention
• Get yourself a domain (www.mydomain.com) and ditch (subdomain.com). If you don’t want to blog, create a static page at least
• Produce your own content, don’t just consume what you read. Add value to yourself by sharing
• Integrate your social profiles / online profiles (eg: Twitter, Facebook, LinkkedIn)
• You don’t always have to agree
• Remember your brand isn’t just your web presence
• Become an assets for your co-workers, business and clients

I would love to hear your thoughts on how you have created your own brand. Any stories in how branding work in your favour when you least expected it?

Your blogs (66 enrolled)

–        17 enrolled but no blog URL provided (26%)
–        31 blogs look inactive (only 1 or 2 posts) (47%)
–        18 blogs tracking well (27%)

The results above at this stage mean that 73% of students who have enrolled (INB346 – Enterprise 2.0 @ QUT) are in trouble at this stage and there was a bit of discussion on this before the lecture started.

In reply to the discussion I thought I would post some of my opinions and some hurdles I’ve come across. Tips to get your site out that and hopefully get you in the right direction. I’ll keep it fairly generic so this can be applied in other areas, in other situations.

Site platform: What to use for your website? Is it free? Should I get hosting? What about a domain name?

There are a lot of choices out there. Perhaps that can be a bit of a problem. I decided before looking what to use I was going to buy a domain and host the site on the web. To purchase the domain I went to www.godaddy.com entered in a few details and there it was. I already had hosting organised, so it was fairly easy for me to point the domain to the correct name servers and other stuff.

My next choice was to pick what software to use. Open Source, stable and already established. I could quickly short list this to: Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, Blogger, Mambo. As I knew Blogger was owned by Google and didn’t really allow full control I crossed that out. Mambo was a fork of Joomla made a year or so ago and Joomla itself did a fair bit more than blogging so I took that off the list. That left Drupal and WordPress. WordPresshad a great write up and had both hosted solution (of their domain) and a version you could download and host yourself so I gave that a try (and stuck with it).

Once I had purchased the domain and installed WordPress. My main goal was to make my site searchable. Now that it was on the web, getting it on the search engines was the next challenge. This brings me to the second hurdle.

Content: Remove standard content, writing posts, integrating twitter, categories, tags

Removing the standard content such as “hello world”, the standard links and all that for me was a must. I didn’t want Google searching my site and identifying it as a generic installation that is going no where. I didn’t want to “give the wrong impression” and get black listed as such. I quickly changed the about me page, knowing that this can be changed later. I wrote up a first post (and edited it a few times after it was published) and I was on my way.

So how do I pick what to write about? I attend the lecture and listen to Jason Watson talk and if I get some thoughts going on a particular topic I wrote some points down. I look at the workshop activities and take things from there. Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 concepts are everywhere, and we interact with them daily. I know some students voiced that they didn’t want to get shot down in case the said something wrong. Instead I think of it is an opportunity to voice what I know where someone else can agree, disagree or even provide feedback to further my knowledge (best case scenario).

Categories and Tags. To be honest this is something that I might not have done the best at this stage, but one thing I make sure I do with every post is to make sure I put it in a category, and I tag it with key words which summaries the post. This way you can find that article by looking in a specific category or specific tag. Having more ways to find your content, and search for it isn’t going to hurt.

Integrating twitter – well first I had to join which was easy, and the next step was getting my updates to display on the site. This took a bit of searching around but in the end I decided to go with a plugin called ‘WordPress’. It does what it says, and after installation it was very easy to set it up as a widget on the side of my site.

Web Presence: How am I increasing my web presence? How to give yourself feedback?

One of my main goals is getting a web presence and the site on to google.com and very high up there in the rankings when you search for my name. I believe this is achievable so I’m going to achieve it…. and I’m monitoring my progress so I know if I’m getting closer or further away. This is one thing which I set up from the start with my Have you googled your name? post and have followed up on it later with a Web Presence Update post. This is a way of personal feedback and I way to assess how your blog is going. If you get the feeling of movement and progress you might find you get a bit of snowballing effect. I also have stats running on my site “called AwStats” in the back end which monitors who visits the site, time of the day, what pages have been viewed, etc which allows me to judge where I’ve gone right or wrong. This is how I found out that my Negative Web Presence Example – Abbey Sherwell post was suck up by Google and spat out in the search results.

Exposure: How will Google find my site? How will my search engine ranking increase? Comments? Pings? Trackbacks?

Very similar to my last hurdle, but I thought I would break it up.

So how do you get your site on Google? I bet most of you haven’t thought about actually telling Google have you?

1. It does sound crazy, but once you got a few posts on your site tell Google it is there. You can do that by clicking here and adding your URL.
2. Pings – your WordPress site also sends out pings when you publish a post – More info here, but if you’re not using WordPress it might be something you can look out.
3. Add your blog to the Google Blog Search (yes there is a separate site on Google to search blogs) – by clicking here
4. Submit to other sites like Yahoo! (I didn’t do Yahoo! but my site has come up there already), Bing (click here), others?
5. Trackbacks – If your post is related to someone elses, or you link to someone elses post make sure you “send trackbacks”.
6. Links – Link to other peoples posts, site. If you join up to another site (twitter), make sure you’ve put your website in your profile.
7. Comment – If you comment on other peoples site (leave url link in the URL field if possible) and you might get comments back. Network
8. Keep the content going. Search engines need a reason to keep coming back to your site and you need a reason for people to come back also!

Other: Something I’ve missed? Forgotten? What about comments?

Well these were some of the first hurdles I’ve had, and I think this is what other will come across too. One thing mentioned in the lecture was comments. We all like comments and like to here feedback (I know I do) but this shouldn’t be a crucial aspect of your site. Think of it as a bonus if you get any. We also have a fair amount of students in this subject, so once you get the ball rolling have a look on other students site and leave a comment. If you receive a comment, try and return the favour. If I’m going to comment, I try and add extra value to the original post which I would like to recommend my readers in doing.

Outro:

There are plenty of tips, how to’s, screenshots, guides, tutorials, posts and resources on the net to help you get started. I’ve only touched on on a few things here but if you feel like there was something I’ve missed let me know and I can update the post. Also if you are struggling to get started let me know and I might be able to assist (or point you in the right direction).

I thought I would give everyone a bit of an update of what is happening behind the scenes with my site. One of the key objectives was to entertain the idea of creating a web presence. So how will I know how I’m going and if I’m heading the right way?

Monitoring with stats, checking search results and finding out where I stand. As there are fellow QUT Students doing this, and a few have decided to create their own domain I thought it would be interesting in sharing:

• First Post – July 30th, 2009
• Total Number of Unique Visitors since the site creation – 182
• Most Popular Post – http://jason-v.com/2009/08/05/negative-web-presence-example-abbey-sherwell

The last one took me by surprise, not only is it my most popular post it ranks on the front page of www.google.com when you do a search for “Abbey Sherwell”. I’m quietly happy with that, and I’m not going to complain about the 100+ hits it has received (hits are different to Unique Visitors I mentioned above). This also means that the google bot has been trawling my site for some google juice.

So I thought I would share some results (searches on Jason Van Dyk & “Jason Van Dyk”):

• Search on www.google.com for – Jason Van Dyk = 18th & 19th
• Search on www.google.com for – “Jason Van Dyk” = 25th & 26th
• Search on www.yahoo.com for – Jason Van Dyk = 1st, 2nd & 7th
• Search on www.yahoo.com for – “Jason Van Dyk” = 1st, 2nd & 6th
• Search on www.bing.com for – Jason Van Dyk = 3rd
• Search on www.bing.com for – “Jason Van Dyk” = 1st, 5th & 10th

It would be safe to say that I’ve clearly entered the web and my rankings are on the rise (considering there were next to nothing).  I plan on writing a post to highlight some of the things I’ve done and things which you can do as well to increase your exposure but first I wanted to be able to say that “yes” it does work, and it has worked because my site is there.

I would be interested to see how other people have gone, and the steps taken by others to get them name out there.

Twitter is a micro blogging web 2.0, social networking, latest trend, etc…. site….. that allows you to post short messages (think sms), videos, links, photos ‘Out There’ (the Internet/twitter sphere). If you are more of a video person, the guys at http://www.commoncraft.com have put together a great video which you can watch here – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

Or just click play – below:

So in short, it is a way read and share messages from people you know to see what they are up to and also a way to see what the rest of the world is up to. Of course not everyone is doing that, or believes there is a point in doing that. If you have the time, take a look at this interview that David Letterman had with Kevin Spacey: Letterman on Twitter: “A Waste of Time”

It is a great video and well worth the watch. But it does raise the question. Is Twitter a waste of time? Before I answer, I would like to point to another video by Common Craft which can be watched here – http://www.commoncraft.com/twitter-search

or just watch the video below:

So if you had to ask yourself as a business is Twitter as waste of time? I would strongly advise you to rephrase that and put forward the question ‘Can we ignore twitter?’.

I would like to focus on Dell. They have embraced the web, and have been a great example how distribution/warehouse costs can be managed effectively to create a ‘just on time’ business model with its partners. Until this year, they only sold their products online. Now they have changed that and have Dick Smith Electronics, and Officeworks where you can walk into a store and buy a PC.

So what have Dell done with twitter? Embraced it! Here are a few of the Dell twitter accounts (there were at least 20 different accounts I found I could follow depending on my needs):

• http://twitter.com/Direct
• http://twitter.com/DellHomeSalesAU
• http://twitter.com/Direct2Dell
• http://twitter.com/DellYourBlog

Dell has been tracking the amount of people who have clicked through their links and it has raked in a cool $3 million (Mentioned on ViralBlog). With results like that it puts Dell up there in the top 100 most mentioned brands on twitter. For a full list of sites you can check out www.revolutionmagazine.com where you can see the likes of Starbucks taking up first position.

The contents in of the e-mail displays Abbey’s opinion that the client is a ‘complete dick’ and is asking how to deal with him. Shortly after Craig received the e-mail he has forwarded it on to his contacts. From there, they have forwarded it on, and so forth until it has landed in my inbox (Brisbane, Queensland). After forwarding this e-mail on again a co-worker started a search on the web with her name.

Straight away he was able to find her name in the search results and it appears that Abbey has sky rocketed on search results, but hit rock bottom in creating a positive web presence. Not only has these made it on twitter, digg and blogs. Newspapers and the media have posted this on their own sites (and most likely printed it in their paper) across the world. I’ve copied some of the search results are below:

Abbey Sherwell

Abusive email accidentally sent to client goes viral

Leaked Entertainment Books email trail

Account manager sacked after accidentally abusing client by email

Fans defend Geelong worker sacked over email

Geelong women sacked for sending obscene email to client

How not to do business: a lesson by Abbey Sherwell

Do Your Own Search – http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en-us&q=Abbey+Sherwell

If you want to read the e-mail yourself, there are plenty of links above. Two links I didn’t include are the facebook groups which have now been created. The are a ‘Save Abbey Sherwell’ and ‘Don’t Save Abbey Sherwell’, which at time of writing has a 173 members vs 86 members respectfully. These numbers for me represent an example of a basic poll on how people feel about what has happened. How do you feel?

This is a great example of how powerful and viral the web is becoming and it doesn’t look like it is going to slow down. It also means that a creating a positive web presence is becoming an essential thing in our everyday world. Future employers don’t just look at resumes any more, they do a search for you on the net to see what is out there. They want to know who you are and what you do.

For me reading this article made me feel a bit sorry for Abbey, but as a gentle reminder that keeping professional practice in the workplace (both internally and externally) is essential as you never know what could happen. If you have other examples or can share your own story be sure to leave a comment.

How would Abbey Sherwell combat this?

Has it made you think differently how you act in the workplace?

Do you think what has happened is fair?

Have you been forwarded the e-mail yourself already?