Breaking through the scattering of silver-lined rosy pink clouds on the horizon on this invigorating Autumn morning, the sunrise over Lake Michigan bathed downtown Chicago in a soft amber glow reflecting off the peaks of its soaring skyscrapers as they stood out against the bright blue backdrop of the firmament above.  It was early on this November morning – not even 6:35 AM, but already the streets and sidewalks were starting to fill with motivated Chicagoans and out-of-town visitors looking to get a jumpstart on their day’s activities.

Both the U.S. and general global economy were enjoying a second year of robust growth.  While the early part of the recovery, which officially began early in the 3rd quarter of 2009, had gotten off to a slow and somewhat rocky start, few back then had foreseen how strong the U.S. economy would come roaring back, and how pronounced innovation was being credited with in accelerating this economic expansion.

For those associated with the gleaming new Networlding Innovation Center in Chicago that had opened the year before in the prominent location formerly occupied by Borders bookstore on Michigan Avenue, the fact that innovation had played such a key role in reinvigorating the US economy wasn’t really all that much of a surprise.  They knew that the effective management of business and technology innovation could yield enormous benefits for virtually any company and industry.  And the unprecedented confluence of global recession, capital market lock up, stock market crashes, failure of hundreds of once iconic companies plummeting real estate values and rising unemployment had prompted a countercurrent increase in the level of effort and resources being dedicated to innovation by a growing number of government, academic and private sector leaders.  Their efforts were now paying off in a large way.

Melissa Giovagnoli and I were sitting at the Einstein Espresso bar on the 3rd floor of the Innovation Center, sharing an early morning cuppa java and reminiscing about the period of time leading up to the opening of the Center on October 10, 2010.  The last couple of years had seemed to roar by in a blur of fast-paced decisions, chance meetings, not-so-coincidental coincidences, memorable events, unexpected setbacks, and exhilarating triumphs.  Not to be overlooked was the herculean amount of hard work that had been done by an ever-expanding team of dedicated innovators who embraced the vision for this Center as their own — and had truly made it a success beyond anyone’s expectations.  And now, exactly a year, a month and a day after the formal opening of the Center, we had set aside time on this early Friday morning to reflect back on how far we’d come and recounting the sequence of events during the early conceptualization and planning phases of the Innovation Center.

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Want to start from the beginning? Go to:

Notes from the Future Prologue: http://www.networldingblog.com/innovation-center-book/

and Notes from the Future Intro: http://www.networldingblog.com/innovation-center-book/intro/

We are very happy to connect with you and have lots to offer!

Dear friends,

As you’ve probably noticed, we’ve run into a series of technical problems over the past 7-10 days. Because of that, we wanted to take a break from our normal newsletter to bring you a personal message from both of us. So let us start by stating it as plainly as we can: we’re sorry.

There’s no way to sugar coat it – the site’s performance as of late has been poor. We’ve failed to provide you the crowdSPRING experience you’ve learned to love and we are both disappointed and humbled as a result. Please rest assured that we’re aware of these problems, and we are doing our very best to fix them promptly. Everyone at crowdSPRING is focused on these issues and we won’t rest until we have them resolved. Period.

We’ll spare you the technical explanation of the problems we’re having but, in the end, they’re almost entirely related to the increased usage that the site is experiencing and they’ve had a cascading effect, touching everything from our database servers all the way down to our email notifications. We should have foreseen this possibility and built things with more flexibility in the event that we needed to scale more quickly than we anticipated. We were so focused on our refactoring project (which will have us roll out completely new code in the coming weeks) that we underestimated the extent of our growth. As you know, we’ve added more hardware servers, but this didn’t address all of the issues with which we are now dealing. And we’re now paying the price. This is undeniably a lesson hard learned and one we do NOT intend to repeat or ever forget. And most importantly we’re embarrassed that we’ve put our credibility on the line with you.

We’ll give you an update within the next 48 hours on where things stand and, in the mean time, we’re certain that many of you may have questions about these issues and how they affect your projects. We encourage you to talk to us – we’ll do everything we reasonably can to make sure that our failure does not impact you, so don’t hesitate to reply to this email, write us personally, or contact us through the site. We consider everyone who has supported us this first year a friend and it’s never fun to disappoint your friends. You have our personal promise, and the promise of every person who works at crowdSPRING, that we will work tirelessly to make things right and to regain your trust.

Ross and Mike
co-Founders

You’re receiving this email as a friend of crowdSPRING. Feel free to unsubscribe at any time.

• people to network regularly to create new jobs, new products and services, new connections and ideas, new ways to create and grow a green environment.
• daily live and virtual events that teach people how to leverage the many online tools available to them at no cost.
• facilitated support for those want to connect with others to “co-develop” new products and services.
• harvesting of huge amounts of wisdom (the 20% that can yield up to an 80% return) that will grow from the thousands of weekly conversations, brainstorms and planning that will occur in the center.

I have been working on a center for over ten years. Three years ago I was gifted a pilot center at 401 N. Michigan Avenue compliments of Regus Shared Office Space experts. I am now forming a coalition of people who want to be some part of this initiative. Here is what we need:

1. One, two or three top companies in Chicago that will take monies from promotional budgets (all of those products that are disposable and just go into landfills after they are used anyway) and put just a portion of the millions spent into a physical center that can yield them highly loyal customers.
2. A star team of thought leaders who have influence with major companies who, first, want to introduce us to their connections and, second, fully support the center, providing their thought leadership for startup and growth.
3. Support from local universities. I have sat on a board at The University of Chicago. I have also been involved with Northwestern.
4. Verbal commitments from vendors for special rates for services and products once we have the team assembled to open the center.

Note that although it would be good to have a non-profit center, I now believe after 22 years in business that it would be better to open a for-profit business. I am convinced that a for-profit, socially responsible initiative is the best way to grow this center which needs to go up faster.

Let’s start something, first, in Chicago. Then let’s share this around the country and the world. Let’s not wait to revitalize our economy. We need to make something happen now.

Please comment, below, if you have ideas or want to offer support!

There is no question that selling today bears no resemblance to selling a year ago. At the same time there has been one area in business that has realized a decided growth–the development of social networking. Social networking most simply defined as online networking has grown and will certainly continue to grow perhaps even more so during these fearful times. So what can you be doing as a business owner to capitalize on these low-cost, no-cost marketing and sales tools that are like super express trains helping accelerate top line sales success? Following are three key strategies you can implement immediately to capitalize on a real “Network Effect” for your sales initiatives.

First, choose just one social networking platform to master. Why? Over the last twenty years I have worked with some of the best companies–Motorola, CNA, American Express, Hewitt, UBS and so on with leaders who were constantly searching for the best and most successful tools to grow their markets.  When they asked me to offer my suggestions, the successful results I have seen kept leading me back to social networks and social networking strategies, but more specifically, the strategy I have found even more successful is to master just one platform rather than try to learn and then leverage mutiliple platforms.

My number one prediction since its inception has been that LinkedIn would become a leader in social networks for business.  Now with more than 35 million users, the average age being 41, with all Fortune 500 companies represented with literally hundreds of employees going up to the C-Level, LinkedIn is a platform that can help cut sales cycles by 30% or more. For the last six years my organization has used LinkedIn to help more than 3000 professionals use  how to use LinkedIn to grow their sales and recruit top talent.

Second, because networking at its core is based on building trust, I have seen that social networking strategies can help with not only generate new leads, prospects and customers but also upsell new account opportunities. The real question to ask when growing your network today would be, “Who are the super connectors who my company’s sales professionals can build trust with to create continuous introductions into new and existing accounts?”

With the many leaders I have met over the last two decades it was not until the development of online social networking sites that any of us discovered there would be millions of people who have top-level networking skills and be  “ready, willing and able” to make introductions to key decision makers, or at the very least, are people who are Two Degrees or just one person away from the key decision makers at almost any company. Semi-conductor companies, insurance , high tech–you name it, all industries have top-level networkers who are accessible. Why are these people so willing to help others? They see the networking as “opportunity expansive” instead of “opportunity limiting.” Another name for these people is “Open Networker.” ,The good news is that anyone can build a base of connections to these professionals who will make valuable introductions. And now an introduction has become the new referral. And the cost? Nothing. And the time? Well if a cold call would be considered a Six-Degree Connection what would be the time savings to realize, instead, a Two-Degree Connection?

Third , perhaps the most interesting reality is that social networks are just hitting their stride. As business professionals move from becoming aware of social networks for top line sales to a recognition that they are relevant to building trust faster to acquiring and taking ownership of new accounts to leveraging even more new sales as your customers begin to see you as a leader in your market and then choose to leverage your brand out to even more new potential customers, you will be well on your way to realizing your top line sales vision through your relationships.

Social Networks are here to stay. The only real question is will you be one of the early adopters who leverages their usefulness or will you be one of the Laggards (a company who progresses slowly and falls behind the others)? It’s really as simple as that.

Top Learning Point: Know the Four Stages of Branding to Take Optimum Advantage of Top Line Sales

1. Brand Awareness – Your market needs to first be aware you are out there before they can begin to recogize that you have something that might be of value to their business.
2. Brand Recognition – Once your market is aware you are out there they need to recognize that you offer products and services can help their business become more successful.
3. Brand Ownership - Once your market recognizes your value they are willing to engage you as a vendor partner. Youare first, more of a vendor than a partner perhaps, but, if you know how to continuously listen to your customers’ needs and respond sometimes even create new products and services to serve them, you will quickly turn into a partner.
4. Brand Leverage - And when your customers become real partners with you, you will then find even more opportunities such as co-creating with them through joint ventures and, most certainly, realizing the very real benefit of them naturally spreading word-of-mouth endorsements for you fine work. In other words you will realize the best top line sales opportunities.

If your job depends on making business decisions based on analysis of unstructured data, you probably thought immediately of SAS, the leader in business analytics. And once you connect with this company in one way or another–by visiting their web site or blogs, talking with them by phone or reading one of the many articles written about their award-winning corporate culture, the company and its employees will stand out in your memory.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing David B. Thomas, SAS’s new social media manager. I was connected to Dave by Steve Polilli (a cool 6 degrees story) when I put up a blog post a week or so ago on the organization. Within 3 minutes I received an email from Steve thanking me for showcasing the company’s socially responsible initiatives and asking if I would be interested in interviewing Dave. Of course I said yes and below you can find answers to several questions I had as to their online user experience. I hope you enjoy it as much as I had fun interviewing Dave.

What three things would you want people to have done to optimize their user experience on your site(s)?

First, take a look at our blogs at blogs.sas.com and see the collection of thought leaders we have writing about the big issues in healthcare, banking and risk, performance management, business intelligence and business analytics, and more.

Second, take a look at our customer success stories and videos and see how companies and organizations partner with SAS. No matter what industry or field someone is in, they will probably see a company with similar goals and challenges who has used SAS software to accomplish their goals.

Third, visit not only www.sas.com but some of our affiliated sites, like http://support.sas.com and www.sascommunity.org , a collaborative online community of SAS users worldwide. You’ll get an immediate understanding of how much our users love and value our software. They are our best brand ambassadors.

Let’s focus on the your users. What do they look like?

You’ll find SAS users and evangelists at all levels of an organization. They could be a CMO talking about how SAS software helps them meet their marketing goals, a CFO talking about how SAS helps them make money in a difficult economy or a CIO, IS or IT manager, a statistician or analyst or a programmer talking about how SAS software helps the people on their team get their jobs done faster or more efficiently.

What brought you to this position?

I’ve been in marketing communications in the technology industry for about 13 years, and a professional communicator for the past 20. I started with SAS in May 2007 in the corporate public relations group, supporting our overall corporate message and working with journalists who wanted to know more about our corporate culture and the company as a whole. If people don’t know anything else about SAS they know we are a great place to work.

We’ve been listed on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in America since the list began. We had onsite daycare beginning in 1981, for instance. We have an onsite health care center providing primary medical care free of charge to employees and covered dependents. We also have a 66,000 square-foot recreation and fitness center, miles of walking trails, onsite massage therapy and yoga, personal trainers and more.
Jim Goodnight, our founder, started the company in 1976. He has always said that if you treat employees as though they make a difference, they will make a difference. That philosophy permeates everything we do.
How does having a great workplace translate to growing a successful business? There is a feeling of dedication to the customer I have not seen anywhere else. It is a very positive working environment. People come in and write better software and treat customers better as a result.

What’s one thing you would like to see happen going forward?

I would like to see SAS employees contributing more than they already do in the many places on the web where the people are talking about SAS. I would like our employees to get involved in the conversation and provide insight and support. Some are doing that now. I would like to see it become even more widespread. Our employees are so passionate about the company and the software, and so knowledgeable, that the more they get out and communicate the more people we can reach and assist and impress.

What are you doing to get people more involved?

We’re working on a company-wide communications plan to let people know how they can – and should – be communicating in Web 2.0 and social media channels. We’ll be sharing our guidelines and recommendations and then encouraging them to get out and communicate.
If there is one thing–the 20% that a company can do to yield an 80% return to create a great online user experience, what would that be? Make sure you have great content and make it easy for people to get. It doesn’t do you any good to have a great white paper on your web site if no one can find it. Have a presence in the places on the web where your customers and prospects are already interacting.
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To me, the bottom line with SAS is that because they have taken time and have accomplished developing great people they created a wealth of human and social capital and now are mobilizing that capital, encouraging further investment through online communities and dynamic conversations. Stay tuned for Dave’s new external blog.

To this end his focus is on such things as "developing cheaper renewable energy, commercializing plug-in vehicles, increasing capital to small business in the developing world and predicting and preventing emerging threats such as environmental conditions and climate change" as Brilliant offered in Carter’s article. This is a wonderful set of goals.

However, the question I have is how can we achieve these goals faster with better results? I offer the concept of Networlding as an approach. First, let me preface my thoughts by saying that the Networlding methodology which we sell to the for-profit world is free to the non-profit world. Any non-profit professional wants to have our e-guidebook and e-booklet can email us (www.networlding.com) to get a copy. We also have consultants who are willing to help with initiatives that want to use the methodology.

To this end some of the key pieces would look like this:

• the creation of an action plan that is grounded in values; we recommend the four values that have been used with great success by my friend and colleague, Susan Davis which are: "making a difference, integrity, collaboration and innovation." We have found these values accelerate the success of any group initiative.
• the development of a leadership team that mentors in small, manageable groups other small groups of "leaders-in-waiting."
• constant, incremental support and facilitation of small groups working together for a common goal while also getting support from one another to achieve individual goals.
• sharing the best practices back to all the participants.
• and finally, "doing well by doing good." As Carter commented, "Many corporations have learned that investing in philanthropy attracts concerned investors and talented employees, builds brand loyalty, burnishes reputations and helps create a healthier and more prosperous economy for all of us." Why is it so simple for some to get and others its a foreign language?

Of course there is much more detail in the methodology and non-profits such as Brilliant is running would benefit from the many learnings we have had throughout the last couple of decades by the growing members of The Networlding Partner Alliance. So, if I only could work with Larry Brilliant . . . .

Stephanie Leavitt is the Social Networking Strategist at Carnival Cruise Lines in Miami, Florida (www.carnival.com). Her background includes experience in youth marketing, public relations and social media.

How did you get started? It goes back to an internship with Gollin Harris, which was about seven years ago. That internship was for anti-tobacco work around youth activism. The project focused on viral and online social marketing efforts, but was before social networking as a media trend came about.

? Did you see social networking on the horizon? Yes, as I went to my next internship at Fleishman Hillard in NY the department focused on youth marketing. At that time we were going and finding online communities and posting on message boards for fans of certain bands playing for such events as Vans Warped Tour. Our client was Cingular who was focusing on the youth market. I started to see a growth in the number of people who were on message boards. Although most were considered "youth", the age span of the participants ranged from children to grandparents. This was also around the time that blogs first emerged.

What happened next in your evolution around social networks? I then had my senior class in college, Florida International University, got involved in the IAA’s InterAd student competition contest with our client being Yahoo! who wanted to focus on the youth consumer. We did a lot of research; spoke with a lot of teenagers and found they really wanted a lot of free stuff. Yahoo wanted more users for a variety of their products so we put together an integrated campaign to encourage users to involve their friends in actually using more Yahoo services. Our team ended up winning first place in the U.S. and Canada and second place in the global contest. We didn’t realize it then, but the underlying theme of our campaign was social networking.

So what happened next? I graduated and got a job in public relations and marketing, but the more and more experience I got the more I noticed the big change to online media. People started believing in it more—especially the youth (many of whom were transitioning into the entry level workforce). They see this form of marketing as more authentic than traditional advertising and marketing.

I was, however, continuing to do traditional pr and so I decided to blog on my own. I launched my own blog on Generation Y’s influence on marketing and pr and I also joined the Public Relations Society of America where I served as the vice chair for the New Professionals Group. There I spearheaded the launch of the new pros blog. I continued to see the decline of traditional media and decided that I would look for a job in social media, which was the on the rise.

When did you end up at Carnival? It was June of 2007 that I was hired by Carnival. At that time they had a social media site that had launched in 2006, www.carnivalconnections.com, which focuses on building community for those interested in cruises. Carnival also had a few other social media projects in development, including a popular travel blog.

What is special about the site? For a corporate website we are pretty open. People are free to say what they want so there are negative as well as positive comments. This is rare as many organizations are hesitant to have these types of comments on their sites.

We have a very popular blog written by our senior cruise director, John Heald, (www.johnhealdsblog.com) that launched in March 2007 and has resulted in a "Bloggers Cruise." Over 800 attended that cruise. Another example is Carnival Connections. There was a group of users who gave themselves the name "Coconut Monkey Head Group" based on a popular cruise drink they had when sailing. These people met on the site (have never met face-to-face) and are now planning to take a group cruise together. These are just two examples of social media helping grow bottom line sales.

What are you passionate about in the future in business and then in your personal life? In business, it would be creating authentic two-way communication with our guests. In my personal life it would be travel and spending time with my family, friends and my dog, Cocoa, a mini-dachshund.

Bonus Question: How do you like using LinkedIn? I like it and am not as involved as I would like to be, but I plan to use the question and answer tools more in the future.

First, think of the very best vendors you have bought from. What sticks out in your mind most about them? If you are like most of my clients they would first say what great people they were BEFORE they commented on the services or products they sold.

Second, ask yourself if you were ready to buy something that you have been wanting for awhile, looking forward to buying, almost salivating at the mouth to buy, but, unfortunately, you meet up with one of the worst salesperson you ever met. I mean this salesperson is rude, ignorant and disinterested. They almost go out of their way to make you miserable in purchasing something you were so excited about purchasing when you went to the buying table. At this point would you want to buy that product? I bet you would think twice.

Third, imagine vendors who, instead of treating you with disinterest or disdain, do just the opposite. They call you regularly to see if they can be of service. They email you with insightful articles or resources that compliment the work they are doing with you. They are proactive and responsive. They connect with you socially as well as professionally. They are good business friends.

These examples just help us realize the importance of someone who is good at building relationships. They are good at making you look good and, in return, you enjoy doing business with them. These are good networkers and the reason they can be so effective is because they are “exchanging” with other people in their network resources, connections and professional support on a regular basis. The net effect of their networking is that you benefit because they know how to network well.

And, now, more than ever, because of online social network tools like LinkedIn, Facebook and others, you can connect more effectively, looking like the best sales people in your own business or career. It’s all about getting started with your own community of learning a practice.

What’s New? We are now offering you the ability to start your own Networlding Community of Learning and Practice. Email us info@networlding.com for details or call us. We would be happy to have you call us 312-421-4213.