If I win, do you lose?

Free Throw update from Court Crandall on Vimeo.

What always seems to divides us is a line. Sometimes the line is a border, a property boundary, a perceived sense of difference between co-workers, ethnic or religious groups, or sometimes it's as simple as a free throw line.

Eight high school students stood at the line. They threw their hopes in the air and took a shot at one $40,000 college scholarship.

According to Rob Kuznia's article, Free-Throwing His Way to College, any high school senior with a GPA of 3.0 or better at Compton High in Compton, Calif. was eligible to enter the competition. Out of approximately 500 seniors, only 80 qualified. The original 80 had been boiled down to eight who lined up to get out of Compton.

I don't blame them. Compton High would not make my list of 'schools I want to send my kids to.'

Education.com reports that on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, Compton scores a three on when it comes to test scores. In 2008, only 69% of the teachers were fully credentialed, and more than half the students were eligible for free or reduced price lunch programs.

Yet, despite these challenges eight Compton high schoolers had been accepted into college. They just didn't know how they would pay for it. For them, the line was drawn between sad reality versus unlimited potential — if they could only out shoot their biggest competitor, who had also qualified, Allan Guei the basketball captain.

They took their best shots.

Then the basketball athlete stepped up.

It wasn't all doom and gloom. By showing up and trying, each one of them had automatically earned at least $1,000 towards college. But $1,000 is not $40,000 and college isn't cheap.

Sure, they had a chance. But really the basketball star?

Court Crandall, one of the owners of Wong, Doody, Crandall, Wiener, a Seattle/Los Angeles advertising firm conceived the contest, produced the event and subsequently the documentary that will be shopped at places like Sundance.

"I thought the free throw is a good metaphor in a world where there's a bunch of lines that are kind of dividing us," mused Crandall.

He was right, the free throw line rallied the students behind a common cause and like every bad contest it divided the winner from the losers. The winner in this case was indeed, Allan Guei, the basketball captain.

Guei sounds like a good kid. The columnist who wrote about this, Rob Kuznia, reports that after winning, Guei said, "Today was an exciting day. Last night, me and my parents, we prayed about it. We just left it in God’s hands.”

In this case, God's hands are as intriguing as Guei's. Three months after winning $40,000, Guei opened his hands and released his winnings. He's not dividing it, he's giving it all away. The students who competed with him at the free throw line will split it. The rest of the story is that Guei received a full ride at Cal-State Northridge, he felt blessed, it led him to share.

Like a mom who winds up to warn her kids about choices and regrets, I worry that something bad will happen to Guei, and he'll wish he hadn't done that. But I don't want the documentary to end with regrets. Nor do I want to be cynical about the acres of press this has generated for the marketing firm.

I want to say, sometimes the lines that divide us can be as artificial as a line drawn on the floor. I'd like to muse that when a co-worker steps up to the line to perform, if they do a good job and shine, it doesn't leave the rest of us tarnished. I want to banish our fear that if someone else 'wins' we lose. I want to applaud the kid who started with so little and had his plate of blessings piled high, but didn't take all the winnings home.

We need to fight against self-interest and be a good team member or at least a good sport. If we're going to compete, we need to compete with ourselves to be the best simple, human being we can be.

Who knows what will happen when we cross that line.

---

Read more:
Student splits 40K in winnings runners-up 
Free-throwing his way to college

Social Media for Authors

Vancouver Writer's Mixer

Social Media for Authors

Saturday, December 4

5-6:30 pm

Featured Speaker: Carol Doane

Saturday Carol Doane speaks to the Vancouver Writer's Mixer. She's got the internet wired for fun, for feedback and success! She's the doyenne of Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, and many other virtual publicity websites.

Carol will be demonstrating the basics of navigating these treacherous technical waters. Find out why you should dabble, even just a little, on-line. By the time we're finished, you'll be amazed and eager to get out there and start networking!  It's so easy, even Smedley the bookstore cat tweets. Carol will touch on hot social media topics such as Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, YouTube, Plancast and blogging.

Learn quick tips, easy to use shortcuts and what to do if you hate the idea of marketing yourself.

Carol was a top finalist in the 2010 SoMe Awards (Social Media Awards of the Pacific Northwest) for her volunteer campaign for the Southwest Washington Blood Program. Winning campaigns awarded to Air New Zealand, Travelocity, PAX East, Mio Gelato, Portland Fit, Hotel Max, Mio Gelato.

She is also a published writer (chapter in Laughing Nine to Five: The Quest for Humor in the Workplace) and she has two completed fiction manuscripts now in the hands of literary agents on both coasts.

Many, many thanks to Angst Gallery owner Leah Jackson for allowing Cover to Cover Books to hold their monthly mixer in the gallery. The bookstore remains closed due to smoke damage until renovations can be completed. Cover to Cover is taking special orders via email: mail@covertocoverbooks.net.

If you want to chat with Carol after the event we'll be taking over the couch in Niche Wine & Art next door.

Online event registration for Social Media for Writers powered by Eventbrite

The Big Boys and Girls in Social Media and me

Pictured left to right: Carol Rossio, Ed Borasky, Ken and Wilma Doane.

The SoMe Awards—Pacific Northwest Social Media Awards—night was a fast-paced adventure of meeting new people, making first time connections with Twitter followers, rallying for future meet-ups, and waiting to find out if I won the Scrappy & Engaged category.

I LOVE marketing people. They know how to make you feel good. I'd social media'd my birthday party into a blood drive for Southwest Washington Blood Program and I was running with the big boys and girls. I received an email from organizer Sean Lowery stating I was a TOP FINALIST for a SoMe Award.

My present? Standing toe-to-toe with the men and women of social media agencies who deftly crafted winning campaigns for Intel, Air New Zealand, Travelocity and local Portland businesses such as Hotel Max and networks such as Portland Fit.

I arrived ten minutes early with my posse (Mom and Dad) ready to move the People's Choice Award votes to Carol's Save a Life Birthday Party. My parents have no idea what social media is, and while trying to explain it on the way over, Mom gazed out the car window as we passed Propstra Stadium, and said wistfully, "Look at the baseball players."

Yes. Baseball they understand. Social media makes my posse A.D.H.D.

Ed Borasky, met us at registration swearing he wanted his money back if I didn't win, which brought my fan base to four (counting me), but you have to minus two because Mom and Dad don't have iPhones, let alone a concept of Twitter, and the People's Choice Award votes would be tabulated using a hashtag.

When I patiently began my explanation of a Twitter hashtag, Mom glanced desperately around the room for a ball player, or anyone in uniform. She grabbed the sleeve of a Multnomah Athlete Club employee and held on until he'd guided her to the dessert bar. Chocolate. Lemon. Vanilla. A vast array.

I ran into Jeff Bunch, Web Editor of Columbian.com, and we traded a few quips on web tactics. Our engaging conversation enveloped jazz singer Carol Rossio a friend of Carri Bugbee, president of Portland's Social Media Club. Carol didn't bring a phone, I noted and concluded, no votes from her.

Two big screens promoted the finalists by client and hashtag. I fingered my glass. Jeff plus Ed and me equals three votes. I downed my wine, and left the safety of the high-top table to work the room. I flitted from group to group asking, "Who are you voting for?"

"Ourselves!" said 90%.

I raised my brows, curled my hand into a fist, thrust it their direction for a fist bump, and enthused, "I hope you win something!"

If they paused too long, I suggested, "Vote for me, I'm #SM24. Carol's Save A Life Birthday Party."

"Okay!" noted one very nice stranger.

I scrutiznied her face to see if she was joking. I realized I knew her. She was a Twitter follower I recognized from her avatar. We introduced ourselves, orienting each other to our jobs and other people we had in common. She pulled out her phone and voted. I gave her a huge smile, thanked her for her hastag, and floated off musing, Ed, Jeff, Carmen Hill and me. That's four. Good grief. I could shamefully lose this People's Award for lack of proper scheming, er, planning. I flipped through my Twitter stream and noticed that Step Change had promised that supporters would be entered into a raffle for a pony. Dang, why didn't I think of that?

#SM24 was short lived.

An astute audience member noticed duplicate numbers. The big screen screeched to a halt for course correction. I got knocked from #SM24 out to #SM26. Adriane assured me she'd counted my four votes before she made the change. I scanned the room, conversations buzzed in a happy roar. I could not insert myself into everyone's private space again, so I quietly slunk off to find my seat.

Music, snappy introductions and awards flowed with cheers and laughter.  Rob Sample, crooner and emcee, did a fabulous job. He dove straight into the internet ocean with a SoMe rendition of the Love Boat theme. When he leaned in toward Dad, his voice slowing into a smooth vibrato, and warbled, "♫ exciting and new," I thought I might bust a gut. 

Proving that results count, Anvil Media shone as a great example of creating a winning social media strategy. Their fabulous campaign for Hotel Max produced 4,000 retweets, 80 guests, and a 37% increase in hotel revenue, which they detail in this after party video.

Those results won them an award, The Scrappy and Engaged category.  Congratulations!

Can social media motivate?

The Pacific Northwest is known for beautiful landscapes, diverse, rough-hewn history and nature-loving populations with large hubs around Seattle, which boasts 3.3 million coffee lovers, and farther north a hub of 2.3 million around Vancouver, British Columbia which can boast about not being original.

Vancouver, B.C. has the dubious distinction of usurping the name 'Vancouver' from the original: Vancouver, Washington.

My city.

A slightly smaller grouping of people, barely over 400,000 in the entire county.

Vancouver, Washington grew organically from the outreach and marketing of the Hudson's Bay Company, the oldest commercial corporation in North America and one of the oldest in the world.

Vancouver, Washington benefits from the proximity of Portland, Oregon, a mere 2.2 million, and just an interstate bridge crossing away from great modern day advertising agencies such as Wieden + Kennedy.

I swim in that pool. Advertising. Marketing. Media.

Marketing is a staple of our lives. Millions of messages pound at us everyday. Experts try to estimate how many. Who can be sure? It's pervasive in every part of our lives. So, how can any ONE be heard?

Brian Solis, principal of Future Works, suggests in his blog post The 10 Stages of Social Media Business Integration that we find a voice and a sense of purpose. Someone in Seattle found their voice and spoke to me. Sean Debutts of the Puget Sound Blood Center asked me to spearhead a local event. Our connection came through social media. I decided to dive deeper into social media, use it, test it for this event, and discover if social media can motivate someone else to take action.

I chirped, twittered and cajoled the Portland/Vancouver hub to celebrate my birthday by donating blood. A month later, I'm wondering how many more would have come forward had we used traditional media. Actually, that's a lie. I'm not wondering, I know. A series of ads in the local paper, a jingle on a targeted group of radio stations and public service mentions on any of the local television stations would have pumped up the numbers. But this event had no dollar budget. Only time and complimentary venues.

Irregardless of the results that traditional media provides, businesses are flocking to social media as if it's traditional media's dynamic replacement. But it's not. It's not targeted (yet), it's not controllable (yet), and message frequency is not viewed as a good campaign, it's viewed more akin to spam. It's like standing inside the ramparts of Fort Vancouver (pictured above) with a single shot rifle and trying to connect with one 'prospect' at a time. It takes a lot of effort and determination as you fine tune your aim.

My blood drive event was a mash-up of crazy shots as I tried every gun in every arsenal within reach. The results? I had a blast.

My efforts placed me as top finalist for a SoMe Award – Pacfic Northwest Social Media Award. Included on my resume are many awards from PNNA, Pacific Northwest Newspaper Association, and I'm proud of them, but all happened when I was in sales and madly dashing from 'post to post' trying to create something spectacular to motivate businesses to market together. There's strength in numbers. If everybody fires a lot of shots we will hit something. I guarantee it.

The number of participants in the blood drive was very small. But, I think we can say there's strength in those small numbers, too. The potential affect on the overall community for each person who participated as a blood donor is priceless. Each donor's gift could save up to three lives.

Saving one life makes a stronger community.

Social media is our new community. It's still an untamed venue whose impact has not fully been explored, exploited or fully exported into traditional marketing campaigns. It's also very personal. It's a conversation. It's putting the advertising gun down, coming out of the tower and having a conversation with the person you want to connect with. It builds a stronger relationship.

Okay, wish me luck. SoMe winners are announced tonight. We get two drinks and dessert. I hope one is coffee, and when it's all said, awarded and done, I know what I will come home with—more connections, more friends and more victims to hit up for my next blood drive.

What motivates you to use social media?

The new media of traditional media congratulates social media

The e-newsletter BusinessTODAY produced by The Columbian, the largest daily newspaper in Southwest Washington, included this information about the Pacific Northwest SoMe Awards . . . and me :-)

 


People
Carol Doane, advertising sales manager for The Columbian, is a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Social Media Awards' Scrappy & Engaged Award category. Doane is being recognized for her response to Sean Debutts, Social Media Coordinator at Puget Sound Blood Center. Debutts had sent a direct message to Twitter follower Doane asking if she would spearhead a blood drive.The Scrappy & Engaged category salutes best brand awareness/user engagement for less than $500. Doane dubbed her campaign, "Carol's Save A Life Birthday Party." The awards will be announced Thursday, May 6, at an event at the Multnomah Athletic Club, 1849 S.W. Salmon St.in Portland. The event starts at 7 p.m. Registrations are accepted online at  http://www.someawards.com/.


(View the slideshare that describes the birthday event: http://www.slideshare.net/TheClassicCarol/carols-save-a-life-birthday-party)

Carol Doane top finalist in Pacific Northwest Social Media Awards

It's real. Here's the Press Release for the SoMe Scrappy & Engaged  Award (I'm a top finalist!)

Every two minutes someone in Western Washington needs a blood transfusion. Sean Debutts, Social Media Coordinator at Puget Sound Blood Center, sent a direct message to Twitter follower Carol Doane to secure Doane as a champion to spearhead a blood drive. Carol Doane, the Advertising Sales Manager and Social Media Strategist at The Columbian in Vancouver, Washington, quickly agreed.

Doane's social media campaign and resulting blood donation event placed her as a top finalist for the Pacific Northwest Social Media Awards in The Scrappy & Engaged Award category. Winners will be announced after the Portland, Oregon InnoTech Conference. InnoTech is a business and technology innovation conference and expo sponsored by top brands IBM, Microsoft, Integra Telecom, Advanced Systems Group, Smarsh, MSI and others. Besides Portland, InnoTech conferences also take place in Austin, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

The Scrappy & Engaged category salutes best brand awareness/user engagement for under $500. Doane dubbed her campaign, "Carol's Save A Life Birthday Party," and estimated the cost at $14.99, the cost of a birthday cake. As part of her submission she created a SlideShare to describe the event, http://www.slideshare.net/TheClassicCarol/carols-save-a-life-birthday-party. "A crew of social media enthusiasts in Texas and beyond were the SoMe Awards judges," reports Sean Lowery, Executive Director of the InnoTech Conference which is spotlighting the awards.

"Social media is very personal and this campaign struck a chord for me," says Carol Doane. "I have an innate curiosity to see if I can drive people out from behind their computers to share a cup of coffee and many will, but this project asked them to extend past surface conversation and participate in a needle-in-the-arm way."

Sean Debutts, the initiator of the direct message that launched Doane's participation notes, "Carol deserves the honor after all the hard work she put into her drive and all the visibility she gave the concept."

The Puget Sound Blood Center maintains eleven donation centers in Washington and continues to benefit from Doane's efforts. "For an hour the SlideShare I created to describe the campaign was Hot on Twitter and featured on SlideShare's Health and Medicine category," notes Carol Doane. "It's all these little wins that makes diving into social media fun."

What's next on the agenda for the Social Media Strategist? "The hardest part now," she muses, "Is explaining what a social media award is to my parents."

Social media is an all encompassing term for the mixing of technology and social interaction to add value to the community. The SoMe Awards honor the best social media projects, programs and campaigns in the Pacific Northwest. The SoMe event takes place at the prestigious Multnomah Athletic Club, 1849 SW Salmon Street, Portland, Oregon 97205, Thursday, May 7, 2010 from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM.

Registration is $20 and includes two drinks and dessert. Event registrations are accepted online: http://ow.ly/1FZ1s

Information about the awards can be found on the SoMe website: http://www.someawards.com/

Award categories include:

• Best Brand Awareness/User Engagement (over $25k) – The Sugar Daddy Award 
• Best Brand Awareness/User Engagement (under $25k) – The People Like Me Award
• Best Brand Awareness/User Engagement (under $500) – The Scrappy & Engaged Award
• Best ROI (over $25k) – The Rich Get Richer Award
• Best ROI (under $25k) – The Keep Your Job Award
• Best ROI (under $500) – The Soon-to-Be Wealthy Award
• Best Social Media App – The Next Big Thing Award
• Best Agency – The House Party Award
• People’s Choice Award
• Best in Show

Carol Doane blogs on business themes at 360Convos.blogspot.com and as @TheClassicCarol on Twitter.

Angst Gallery: 360 Biz of the Month

Angst: an acute but unspecific feeling of anxiety.

Gallery: the moment after.

When I first envisioned 360 Biz of the Month I imagined it as an opportunity to recognize start-ups creating awesome technology—the new stuff that gets you excited if only for its simplicity and cleverness.

April appeared with a couple of nominations, but the timing wasn't right for the interviewee or interviewer.

The second week of April rolled in, and all available resources focused on finishing taxes.

Foursquare Day, April 16, took the collective pent up tax anxiety and funneled it into a hashtag: #superswarmpdx. I headed toward Whiffies and cherry fried pie. All kinds of people and entertainment awaited, but no inspiration.

Does it have to be technology? I asked myself on the drive home. Or, can I change the 'rules?'

Rules are made to be broken, I decided, or at minimum to be enhanced.

So, it is with pleasure that 360 Convos announces Angst Gallery as April's 360 Biz of the Month. This honor is awarded for demonstrating that a small space on Main Street can change the landscape, if not the world.

It's not technology that drives the Angst Gallery but a community of creativity, environmentalism, and active loyalty to Southwest Washington.

Owner and Gallery Director, Leah Jackson, opened the gallery in 2008 after she curated a masterful Baby Boomers exhibit at the Clark County Historical Museum. Prior to that she co-founded and directed Sixth Street Gallery, a Southwest Washington artist co-op.

I met Leah Jackson when our kids were in grade school. I picked up my darling in a car, she picked up hers via bicycle. Jackson is an avid fan of green transportation and championed PARK(ing) Day in Vancouver, Washington. PARK(ing) Day is a global event that originated in San Francisco and temporarily transforms metered parking spots into temporary public parks.

Three years later, the City of Vancouver rewarded Jackson's efforts by capturing on-street parking for bicycles directly in front of her gallery (pictured above). Today, anyone who rides a bike to downtown Vancouver can park it on the street at 1015 Main Street, Vancouver, Washington 98660. The bicycle parking will be officially celebrated in June during Angst Gallery's annual "Bike Love" show. For this event fees are dropped and any bike related art is welcome to be juried for the June show.

Angst Gallery features unique offerings from traditional oil on canvas, pen and ink, watercolors, ceramics and jewelry to steel sculpture, mixed media, and fiber art. The gallery also hosts interns from Vancouver School of Arts and Academics. Their work included learning how to jury a show and they actually juried the April show.

The gallery promotes local poets such as Christopher Luna and offers gallery space off-hours to hold poetry workshops. The deadly duo, local mystery writers Carolyn J. Rose and Mike Nettleton, also found a spot in the gallery to sell their latest book, The Big Grabowski. The ancient upright invites keyboardists to finger the ivories and browse the gallery's collection of CD's and LP's from local musicians that litters its immense top.

Environmentalism carries over into every segment of gallery life. The gallery has in its collection a remarkable piece of wearable-recycled art. Jackson approached Sherry Mowatt, the Artistic Director of the Fort Vancouver Tapestry Project, to create her incredible idea: a form-fitting, sexy dress made out of recycled bicycle tires.

Seriously. Bicycle tires.

Leah Jackson wore it to the 2007 Bicycle Transportation Alliance Alice Awards Event, and it was also on view during the Clark County Fair that year.

Angst Gallery has infused itself into the economic success of the area. It was a founding member of LOCALS, Lower Columbia Alliance for Living Sustainably, best known for advocating diverting 10% of business expenditures into the local area. Angst Gallery also co-founded BikeMe! Vancouver. The front room on the gallery is home to a plethora of bicycle publications from many organizations. Most of the publications are free and available to all gallery visitors.

So, what's next for Angst Gallery and owner Leah Jackson? Well, that is a surprise, but it has her out front of the space next door scrubbing tile.

Angst Gallery
1015 Main Street
Vancouver, WA 98660
360.980.8352
Leah.AngstGallery@gmail.com

Vehicle (and bicycle) parking. First 20 minutes on meter FREE.

Open Wed-Sat Noon-5.
Open til 8pm on First Fridays.

View Larger Map


REFERENCES:
Angst Gallery:  Website
SW Washington Zest: 10 minute conversation with Leah Jackson
SW Washington Center for the Arts; Doc published Summer 2009
Art is in the eye of the beholder: Student interns at Angst Gallery
Bike Love event June 2009: Bike Portland.org photo gallery
Leah Jackson: Director Angst Gallery

PRIOR 360 BIZ OF THE MONTH:

March 2010 

Nozzl Media

February 2010 Moment of silence for bankrupt newspapers

January 2010 Gist

Nozzl Media: 360 Biz of the Month

The Nozzl Media dream team pictured left to right: Brian Hendrickson Visionary and Lead Developer, Greg Griffiths Vice President of Sales and Marketing, Steve Suo Executive Vice-President and Editor, Steve Woodward, Chief Executive Officer.

Formed in Portland, Oregon, Nozzl Media celebrates its anniversary today, March 21, and can add the distinction of 360 Biz of the Month to the festivities.

Nozzl Media resulted from the spontaneous combustion of journalists and programmers who answered the challenge to help news organizations survive. The rapidly changing media landscape has proven that people want information in real time, they want the opportunity to decide—at any given moment—what is important to them, and they want community media companies to ever more finely define: local, local, local.

Nozzl Media has given local a new definition and moved it into a real time stream of local news, local public records, and local social media conversations. Users of the Nozzl product can open up the flood gates and experience an onslaught of information as if rafting over whitewater. Or, the nozzl can be filtered to reduce the rapids to a steady drip of the desired mix of news and information.

At the first of the year, the beta version of the web widget (v1.0) was released into the wild for open testing. Jeff Bunch, web editor at The Columbian Newspaper was one of the first to beta test it. “I like the real-time aggregation and streaming of information, beyond Twitter, as their product's functionality extends to public databases.”

The team is focusing heavily on enhancing the features and usability of the web widget and mobile app. You can read more about the Nozzl Medai solution here, and sign up to try the real-time stream here.


Read our two part interview with Steve Woodward here and here.


REFERENCES:
Welcome to the Age of Robot Reporters ReadWriteWeb
Nozzl Media Corporate Web-site
Steve Suo Editor of Nozzl Media

PREVIOUS 360 BIZ OF THE MONTH:

February 2010 Moment of silence for bankrupt newspapers

January 2010 Gist

NOTE:

I receive no remuneration for the companies I recommend. Whenever possible, I do readily accept and heartily drink coffee with company representatives.

Gist: 360 Biz of the Month

                                                                                                                    

For a generation taught to demand privacy from the companies it transacts business with, Boomers have readily abandoned that concept and joined Gen Xers and Gen Y in a very vibrant, public information sharing performance. Transparency is touted as the answer to what ails us and everyone is encouraged to step out on the information dance floor and boogie.

With each rotation of the mirrored information globe the dance hall twitters with life and we attempt to catch the flickers and make sense of them. In one ear interesting voices chirp in 140 characters, in another social media presentations sing. Associates are LinkedIN, family and friends are Facebooked, and everyone wants to know where and when via Plancast, Foursquare or Gowalla, and we blog all about it.

We share a lot, but most of it is lost in the mayhem.

Garnering salient information about the people who are important to us, especially in business, can be as illusive and dazzling as chasing the mirrored reflections of the disco ball. Gist, a Washington State corporation founded by T. A. McCann, created software for "relationship-centric professionals" to address our need to sort and prioritize the dazzling information mayhem.

For its unique, relationship deepening, innovation, Gist is my choice for 360 Biz of the Month.

I was introduced to Gist by a fellow Twitter-mate turned real-life friend, Ed Borasky (@znmeb). Boraksy is geekedIN and has enough online influence to beta test new products. He received a first round Googlewave invite and tossed one my way before I barely knew what a wave was. Right on the heels of Googlewave Borasky gifted me with Gist.

I like being among the first to know things and seeing the big picture puzzle in a comprehensible map. Gist provides me with all that and a scorecard. My relationship with the people and businesses in my database are weighted or scored based on a proprietary algorithm. A yellow or red alert tells me when too much time has passed between interactions with my inner circle. A detail screen offers an in-depth look of who our shared contacts are, and constant information monitoring keeps me abreast of their blog posts and news mentions.

Gist integrates inside Outlook, Salesforce, and the iPhone, and allows me to focus on my contacts one at a time—in order of their importance to me.

It's most valuable asset is that it saves me time. Instead of me plowing through a sporadic stream of Twitter submissions to find the person of the hour I want to connect with, then tracking down the latest piece of news on them, or signing up for constant Google alerts, Gist allows me to review that individual’s entire online interactions and news spotlights in a date sort that includes a company profile from Dow Jones Business & Reltationship Intelligence. Gist creates a clear portrait, a complete dossier of my contact, and reduces the time needed to pull the varied pieces together to the time elapse of a log-in. The information can be browsed lightly or explored deeply by following provided links.

Gist can be used as a brand monitoring tool, too. I had no intention of using it for this, but it unearthed a dozen copyright infringements for the company that employs me.

Because I have a native bias of Washington State businesses, I took the time to reply to the emails Gist sent asking for feedback. As a result, I connected with Greg Meyer, Customer Experience Manager. He was easily coerced into doling out a generous number of Gist invites for my network. Don’t be shy. Gist is ready for more people to test its beta product. And it’s offered free to my blog readers.

Click the link for complimentary Gist invite:
https://beta.gist.com/signup/360ClassicCarol

Congratulations Gist and T.A. McCann for earning 360 Biz of the Month for January 2010 status. I was too enthusiastic about your product to hold this post until after the first of the year. Wishing you much success in product development.


REFERENCES:
About Gist Corporate Web-site
T.A. McCann Gist Profile
Microsoft Case Study: Gist Document published October 2009
Testimonial: Michael Michaels, recruiter at Verticalmove and organizer of Seattle Job Social YouTube 

NOTE:
I receive no remuneration for the companies I recommend. You can’t buy me. You can wow me.