The Bing Maps team has released two separate slide shows, unfortunately powered by Silverlight, that detail how a developer can leverage Bing maps to their advantage. The first is just more or less a normal introductory course in Bing Maps development. The second gets a little more advanced by showing developers how to use SQL server spatial data in their Bing Maps applications.

The introductory course explains the benefits of using Bing Maps while showing you how to get started on development. The rest of the slides are dedicated to the AJAX7 Control method in Bing Maps alongside the REST interfaces that you will be using. It even has a test at the end to make sure you were paying attention.

Bing Maps Learning Snack
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Snack Owner

The second explains how SQL server spacial data works together with Bing Maps to create advanced data applications. It then spends some time on explaining the finer points of working with data in SQL Server 2012. Finally, it will show you how to combine the two to create great Bing Maps applications.

Bing Maps and SQL Server Spatial Data
by
Snack Owner

And this year is no different. I’ve been glued to each game. And, despite the Vikes 2-5 start, I continue to hope there’s a chance they could run the table or go 7-2 and close out the year 9-7, secure a play-off berth and make a run to the Super Bowl in Big D.

And then came the drama that has been the last week in Minnesota.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve watched the Vikes make blunder after blunder-on the field and off. But, since this isn’t a Vikings blog, let’s stick to the PR lessons we can learn from what happened off the field this week. The Vikes made a few mistakes this week-no question. What can we take away from the situation and learn from? Quite a bit, it turns out:

* Communicate quickly and effectively with key audiences-from the inside out. Coach Childress actually had the right idea here-he just didn’t hit all the internal audiences (allegedly). In this case, the counselor in me would have encouraged Coach Childress to sit down with management first. Then, the team. Then, the media. Maybe even single out a few players that he knew Moss meant a lot to (Percy Harvin, for one). Bottom line: Make sure you’re communicating key information in a timely fashion with the right people-in the right order.

* Build consensus before making key decisions. Local MinnPost columnist, David Brauer, had a great tweet the other night: “Say what you will about Chili cutting Moss, but the move was gangsta.” Sure, cutting a player without informing much of anyone (again, allegedly) is pretty bad-ass, I’ll agree. But, if you’re planning to cut a player with the talent and fan adulation of Randy Moss, you better make sure you’re standing shoulder to shoulder with management and the director of player personnel before pulling the trigger. A little consensus building would have went a long ways here.

* Erase all opportunities for speculation. This is probably one of my biggest beefs with Coach Childress’ approach to date. OK, so you cut Moss unilaterally and don’t inform too many people. Not ideal, but I can live with it. But, you cut him and you don’t explain why? Not to the team (allegedly). Not to the public. Not to anyone, as far as I can tell. Why is that a problem? Because it opens up the opportunity for *massive* speculation, which is what’s happening now. If Coach Childress comes out hard Tuesday talking about exactly what happened and why, and starts focusing squarely on the game this Sunday, this is all swept under the rug fairly quickly. As it stands, this probably won’t go away until after the game Sunday (and if they lose, it may extend in the news cycle for another week).

* Admit your mistakes (when possible). Coach Childress did say that trading Moss for a third-round draft pick was a “poor decision.” He did own up. And, look at the result: People seem to be dropping that piece of the story. Why? Because it leaves nowhere for reporters and the public to go. He admitted he was wrong-end of story (on that piece, at least). Just not much to report or talk about. Plus, I always argue, admitting fault isn’t a sign of weakness-it’s a sign that you’re human. And, keep in mind, people (fans, coaches, organizations, etc.) will forgive you for your mistakes. Sports figures and coaches have proven that to be true over and over again.

Note: Photo courtesy of David Erickson via FlickR Creative Commons.

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Similar to blogging, podcasting is a medium that B2B marketers remain on the fence about. Are they worth the time investment? Should you start a podcast to generate leads? I would say probably not, at least if that’s your only motivation.

Podcasts work because they have an appeal of authenticity. There is power in the human voice. And that’s why they are a great way to positively inform and educate your audience. If that’s a goal you have, then read on.

Think of podcasts as content pieces to use as part a lead nurturing program. If you’re going to start podcasting don’t just do one and see what happens. A good podcast requires a commitment to do more than one to build your audience.

Here are some podcast ideas you can try:

• Ideas or tips of the day, week or month
• Talk radio complete with topic and call-in listeners
• Short interviews with thought leaders and industry experts
• Recording speeches, webinars or teleconferences for later distribution
• Promote an upcoming event by giving a preview of the speaker or content

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Most encouraging about SEMPO Institute‘s efforts at education has been participation from major search engines in building the courses. SEMPO’s Terry Plank told WebProNews that Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft among others have worked with the Institute on the launch of their newest class.

It’s called Advanced SEO, and offers the next step from the prerequisite Fundamentals course. The fifteen-lesson online course covers a slew of topics, from keyword research and website architecture, to analytics and brand management.

Since participants will have taken the $499 Fundamentals class first, the $1,750 Advanced SEO builds upon the organic search lessons learned there. This allows SEMPO to confidently offer the course to technophiles and non-techies alike.

Catherine Donovan has been working on developing SEMPO Institute as her full-time task since September 2006. We asked her about the main points SEMPO believes will justify the investment one would make with a course.

Donovan highlighted two key points about the curriculum. The material created for it has been peer reviewed. Any issues that need improvement get it before the work becomes part of the course.

Members of SEMPO write the material. The people who are actively working in the industry can address the needs of students better than someone who has just read about search marketing in general.

Their approach seems to be working. Fundamentals students have noted at an 80 percent clip they would recommend that course to others. Plank said the student body have covered a breadth of people, from search marketing novices to professionals who know the field now.

Those students come from a variety of places to SEMPO Institute. The popular Search Engine Strategies conference series has led many to check out Fundamentals; referrals and of course search engine traffic brought people there too.

In May, SEMPO Institute will launch Advanced Search Advertising, covering the paid side of search marketing. SEMPO will continue to update material, and should branch into other courses as areas like social media mature over time.

Every once and a while I come across a simply excellent white paper.

I found one that really is over the top.

I was working on a project for one of my clients, regarding word-of-mouth marketing.

The paper is titled Consumer-Generated Media (CGM) 101: Word-of-Mouth in the Age of the Web-Fortified Consumer and written by IntelliSeek (now Nielsen BuzzMetrics).

This is one of the best pieces I have seen for a number of reasons:

• It is highly educational and informative
• It establishes the sponsoring company as a thought leader
• It very subtly inserts sales messages
• It’s formatting and layout is simply incredible

I would like you pay close attention to the following items when examining this paper:

• The first page: Note the very large text in the opening sentence and large type on the rest of the page. Also notice how the problems are clearly identified.
• Writing style: The words are very easy to digest in this paper.
• Creative use of columns: I am not a big fan of multiple columns, but these guys did it right. There is space on the left for call outs and hand written notes for those who print the piece. Note that page one has no columns (an important point to draw in the reader).
• Exceptional use of sidebars: Nearly every page uses sidebars (extra information to bolster the story). Note the full page sidebar on page 6 AND the “Consumer-Generated Chicken Buzz?” on page 9.
• A quiz: What a quiz you say?? Yes, there is a quiz on page 9, titled “A Marketer’s Quiz: Questions to Ask Yourself.” This is an excellent example of adding valuable content for the reader.
• Use of photography: Nicely done to add to the story in a few places (including the cover).
• Case studies: Page 14 has a few simple case studies.

Folks, I suggest you carefully study this white paper. Much can be learned. It is one of the best examples I have ever seen.

What are your thoughts about this piece? Do you apply any of these tactics?

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First the 9 points

1. It’s only an initial fear
2. You have something valuable to say
3. When in doubt, post.
4. Use the comments for refining your point
5. Everything is beta
6. Have a schtick
7. Correct English be-damned
8. Show your greatest hits
9. People are listening

Both Joshua and Darren offer some good comments on each of the above points and I’d encourage you to read both of their posts. I’d like to focus my thoughts on one of the themes I see running through these 9 points. As the title of this post asks, is a blog post ever finished?

If you look at points 3, 4, 5, and 7 all are an indication that a blog post isn’t necessarily meant to be a finished piece of work. I like one of the comments Darren made in reference to posting even when in doubt and I’ll use it as the jumping off point for my own thoughts.

I do subscribe to the theory that blogs are not just for finished or refined thoughts. One of the wonderful things about blogs is that when you track them over time you get to see the journey that a blogger has gone on. Good blogs will track the evolution of thought of a blogger.

A Blogging Evolution

Darren’s comment echoes my own feeling about blogging. I do want to get something from an individual post and in truth it’s probably going to be one of your better posts that gets me to click the subscribe button, but I also like to see the evolution of the blogs I read consistently. We’re all human and we all change our mind. In the year+ I’ve been blogging my thoughts on seo and web design and blogging have changed. The industries themselves have changed so why shouldn’t my thought.

A comparison between an article and a blog post might be in order. Even though it would be easy to consider a post an article, and admittedly I often interchange the two words, I see a difference. An article to me should be more a finished piece, more well researched. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t research the topic of your post, but I think it’s ok to get away with a little less on a blog.

I tend to think of an article as something I would submit to another site (even if it’s something I’m submitting to my own site) and something that may be your one and only encounter with me. Because of that it should expect a less forgiving audience. Where an article is focused solely on the ideas within, a blog post carries with it a person and voice behind the writing and the thoughts of that person are carried through the blog and not just in any single post.

A blog should be more informal. While I hope you’ll learn something in reading here I also want you to get to know me. While you may read only one post and move on I’d like to think if I’ve captured your attention with a post you’ll come back for a little more and get to know me and my thoughts over time.

I’d also like to get to know you and I think leaving ideas somewhat open allows for their continued discussion. A blog is not about a single voice, but rather a community of voices, perhaps directed by a single voice. Many times someone here has made a comment that’s gotten me to rethink something I said and rethink an idea I had held as truth. That allows me, my ideas, and this blog to grow and evolve.

Recently I’ve asked you a few questions about blogging. First I asked if you prefer full or partial feeds and then last week the question was if you thought there was an optimal length for a blog post. You can probably guess I have another question now.

Do you think blog posts are finished pieces of writing? Do they need to be your final thought on a subject or should the ideas in a post be allowed to grow? If a blog post is meant to be informal how important is it to use proper grammar when writing a post? Ultimately do you think a blog post is ever finished or should the ideas in it be revisited as a blogger’s thoughts on the subject evolve?

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Too bad the blogosphere is also a glass house.

It’s a little tough to follow Scoble’s initial Saturday rant entitled “Big gadget sites don’t link to blogs,” what with the out-of-sequence numbered updates and so many strike-throughs that the post looks like it was built around railroad tracks.

The saga begins with a three-part video webcast at the Scoble Show, which included a walking tour of Intel and the scoop on Intel’s development of a 45-nanometer processor. Popular gadget blog Engadget posted their own news the following day with no link love for the Scobleizer. Engadget said they didn’t find the videos newsworthy.

Worse, neither did the New York Times, whose article about the subject was linked to en masse by bloggers, all of them committing Unpardonable Blogosphere Sin #2, selling out your buddies for the mainstream media.

And so, the Court of Scoble was called to order, a list of non-linking blogs and publications read before the public for judgment. List of defendants: Engadget, Gizmodo, Slashdot, AnandTech, Hot Hardware, Daily Tech, Silicon Valley Sleuth, Tech News Journal, PCLaunches, BDUO, GPUWiki, SEO Blogger, Fanboy Tech Web, Bit Tech, ZDNet, Digg, JD Lasica, Overclock.net, Vinnie Mirchandani, Flexbeta, ITNews.

Well, he’s at least thorough in his calling out, even if he had to go back and apologize to Engadget and Gizmodo, admitting he had gone “overboard.” Interesting. That doesn’t usually happen until March. Anyway, you gotta admire the stones.

On Sunday, Scoble chronicles his own flogging, while creating a detailed list of those that ignored his video in favor of the New York Times, which forced perhaps a more honest blogosphere than he was looking for.

Among the more blunt responses:

Ouch.

Ryan Block, managing editor at Engadget, brings the situation back to earth a bit:

Though perhaps inadvertent (but maybe not), Scoble has brought out some valuable lessons in this wild west, and hopefully, that takes the sting out a bit for him.

Lessons:

1. Link to bloggers and they’ll love you for it.

2. Find the earliest source, link to it.

3. It’s okay to ignore the chain: Blogger 1 writes a sentence, links to Blogger 2 who also wrote a sentence and linked to Blogger 3, who maybe has two sentences about the topic and links to Blogger 4, who began the discussion. Skip Bloggers 1-3, link to Blogger 4.

4. Links are an editorial decision, i.e., a silent but poignant way to validate one source, and by default, invalidate another by not linking.

5. Sometimes content is overlooked. Sometimes it is ignored (I’m talking to you New York Times!). But it’s difficult to tell which has happened and why.

6. A good old fashion blog-fight can get you a lot of attention.

7. But depending on your position and situation, it’s not always a good idea to start one.

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Here are a few of the lessons learned in that time:

• Blogging has been the single most effective marketing initiative for our search marketing agency second only to providing top service to clients who then refer us to other companies. In fact our top sources of new business are:

  1. Referrals

  2. Blog

  3. Articles

  4. Web site

  5. Conferences

• Blogs can serve as a very effective platform for connecting online social networks and offline interactions.
• One of the most effective ways at getting into the media is to become the media in your industry via a blog.
• Finding your “blog voice” is important. People will visit and interact with your blog based on whether your regular communication patterns resonate with them or not. If you’re all over the board, you’ll hold some people for a while, but not long.
• A rushed blog post that is not well thought out can quickly cause the wrong kind of attention or misinterpretation.
• As your blog grows in popularity (RSS subscribers and visitors via links and search engines) the more you have to lose or gain with the quality of your posts.
• The whole transparency thing is great in theory, but is only as effective as your ability and willingness to articulate.
• Don’t do it all on your own. Invite guest bloggers and include other bloggers from your company.
• Don’t blog when you’re mad, really tired and especially not if you’ve been out on the town.
• Blogs can be excellent conduits to connections and friendships with people that you may never meet in person.
• Blogging is forever. Once you hit publish, it’s out there. There’s no taking it back.
• The feedback loop to blogging can get addicting and like other addictions, can have serious side effects. Consuming a large part of your productive and free time without a corresponding return on effort is one of those side effects. These effects can be abated by having a clear blogging strategy and following blogging guidelines.
• Blogs can be exceptional tools to boost visibility on search engines as well as social media channels.
• Poorly configured, badly optimized and infrequently updated blogs are nothing more than spam magnets.
• It’s just as important, and maybe more, to link out from your blog as it is to get incoming links.
• Widgets and plugins can be very effective if not necessary enhancements to default blog configurations that will assist in building community, making administration easier and for blog optimization.
• Online Marketing Blog has been a very effective tool for building credibility and opening doors to connections with search engines and people in the search marketing industry that would otherwise might not have happened.

If you’ve been blogging for a while, what lessons have you learned?

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Lee Odden is President and Founder of
TopRank Online Marketing, specializing in organic SEO, blog
marketing and online public relations. He’s been cited as a search
marketing expert by publications including U.S. News & World Report and
The Economist and has implemented successful search marketing programs
with top BtoB companies of all sizes. Odden shares his marketing
expertise at Online Marketing Blog offering
daily news, interviews and best practices.

In 1999, Armstrong became frustrated with the “dysfunctional” nature of corporate systems and decided to see if he could figure out how people naturally organize and communicate in an environment without access to the technology and tools of modern communications.

He moved for a year to St Agnes, an island with 72 inhabitants that is one of the Isles of Scilly, an archipelago of islands off the southwesternmost tip of the United Kingdom.

While there Armstrong started an initiative to build local IT training skills but mostly he watched and listened to how the locals interacted and shared information in their daily comings and goings. One of the “big events” of each week was the arrival of a boat from neighboring St. Mary. When the boat was cancelled, which it sometimes was, there might be six people in the village who needed to know. Armstrong found consistently that they would all have that information within hours, even without a formal distribution system, and there would be no ‘verbal’ spam for uninterested people. This feat was accomplished without any formal or even conscious processes.

Armstrong reasoned that employees of modern corporations have the same native instincts and tacit intelligence but they seem to have become crippled by the formal structures and electronic information systems. Based on his observations, Armstrong patented a new technique for distributing items through a social network that aims to harness social behavior to manage information better.

He also formulated a set of of basic principles which the British Knowledge Management guru Richard Cross describes thusly:

• The requirement to understand useful social mechanisms in the enterprise
• The nature of implicit authorization parameters within groups or communities
• How Groups pool intelligence on relay targets
• How Groups can function as targets for relaying
• How Relaying is activated by semantic triggers
• The notion of trigger thresholds governed by social network and the need to access activity, content and user preference data from across the whole corporate ecosystem

Armstrong and chief technologist Craig McMillan formed Trampoline Systems in 2003 with seed finance from funds and private investors in San Francisco, London and Tokyo. Further investment was raised in April 2006.

The company’s main application is called SONAR (Social Networks And Relevance), an appliance that plugs into the corporate network and connects to existing systems such as email servers, contact databases and document archives.

SONAR analyzes data in the systems to build a map of social networks, information flows, expertise and individuals’ interests throughout the enterprise. Basically, it looks for trigger words and phrases that recur frequently, then, like gossip spreads on an island, passes on the information to the people for whom it will be relevant.

As Richard Cross describes it: “This alert mechanism mimics a core, element in natural communications: the ‘delight’ of discovery, the joy of serendipity. Users can also set levels of authorization on their data, to ensure intimate messages don’t inadvertently become ‘broadcast news’.”

In mid-November, Trampoline uploaded the 200,000 publicly available Enron e-mails and created an amazing SONAR testbed called the Enron Explorer that allows you sift through the wreckage to find the smoking guns. If you’ve ever wondered what Ken Lay knew and when he knew it, this is your chance.

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Jerry Bowles has more than 30 years of varied experience as a writer, editor, marketing consultant, corporate communications director and blogger. For the past 20 years, he has produced and written special supplements on new technologies for a number of magazines, including Forbes, Fortune and Newsweek.

http://www.enterpriseweb2.com

On the one hand, the message is about the community: the community is what matters, it is the community that we are reaching out to, to include them on various things (messages, events, news … things that they might want to know).

On the other hand, it is about measurement. And, well, when you get into measurement, it becomes a Technorati A-list, inside baseball (blogging) circle that really only helps propogate the A-list mentality.

Now, yes, I know these people. Yes, I talk to these people. But, no, I do not exclusively outreach to these people when doing work for clients. Why? Because it is stupid. It is being unclear on the concept of the blogosphere. You know, reaching communities, no matter how big or small.

This is about applying old-school, old-media practices to a new medium that people “claim” is all-inclusive (everyone has an equal voice) but these lists prove they don’t mean it … and, well, this should be of concern for PR people. With the recent announcement of more Technorati 100 in various locales and languages … it says “it ain’t about the community or reaching the right audience, it’s only about reaching the biggest dog.”

Is that not what got PR and media in trouble in the first place, ignoring the masses but only concentrating on the large press? You get a bigger bang for your buck with the smaller local press, because you can reach a localized audience. You can get a bigger bang for your buck if you do outreach to a specific audience – Mommy bloggers, Photo bloggers, Candy bloggers … depending on what you want to do outreach for or whom.

So, reading this today made me think of that. First, let us forget the lack of transparency – but I guess it’s about being a team player - but the event itself seemed odd. Let’s do something for a photo company, but let’s invite top bloggers … that may or may not be the right target. But, hey, it does not matter about the target (they are gonna be up here anyway for Blog Business Summit!) but it’s about paying homage to the A-list.

Where do I get that impression – well, I read the post, the link from the link blog. Now, I know these people. I think of many of them as friends. And, yes, I do do outreach to these people … when appropriate. Heck, I am a slacker and need to respond to Thomas Hawk, and get together with him for some stuff that we have talked about in the past.

But, how does this help PR and help companies understand social media (or new media or emerging media)? It does not – it shoves the square peg of emerging media into one of the usual round holes. It says that we just don’t get that the blogosphere is about the enthusiasts and the right communities, but we will only work with big names and we will ignore the audience to be able to continue link love to promote ourselves (second to clients). Well, okay, that’s harsh.

But, for a photo company, does it make more sense to invite the A-list bloggers, or some of the photo bloggers and enthusiasts that I know and love? Well, you make the call – I do not know who was there, but the post thus far makes it seem like it was the usual suspects (as I understand it, the NDA ends on Monday, and maybe we’ll see something better … right now, though … .)

And, my disclaimer? Worked with Getty and Corbis at Ofoto. Nice PR teams, both of them.

Okay, back to the Blog Business Summit – there have been some great talks, and despite the dichotomy, people are learning more about measurement and more about communities, and while there’s always going to be some inside blogball feel, there are people here that are asking questions. Taking a page from another panel I sat on, I lead a panel (disclosre: with two clients) where I opened up the floor almost immediately for the audience – to engage the community. If people walk away with anything, it should be that the blogosphere is about the community, and getting the community involved. And, I think people are getting that here. More can be found and – all good reads.

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Jeremy Pepper is the CEO and founder of POP! Public Relations, a public relations firm based in Arizona, USA.

He authors the popular Musings from POP! Public Relations blog which offers Jeremy’s opinions and views – on public relations, publicity and other things.