The Mheda Journal

During my extended Thanksgiving weekend, I went to a local theater to see “The Social Network,” a.k.a., the Facebook movie. I wasn’t sure what to expect, as, frankly, I didn’t find the previews to be all that compelling, but I’m glad to report that I was pleasantly surprised. It’s a very well-written script and performed well by the actors, and it gets into a lot of the positive and negative history of the company that I don’t think is common knowledge. I’d give it a thumbs-up.

You’re probably saying, “Why should I care?” Good question. The easy answer is to say that when you’re studying a company that was recently valuated at $25 billion, we all should care. But the real answer is that there are enough business themes in there to make it worth a screening for a business owner. For instance, whether or not Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook or not (the central theme of the movie), his formula for building the company would translate to any business. Good Idea + Good Timing + Lots of Hours + Networking = Billions of Dollars. Granted, there’s never been a company like Facebook before, and that formula might not work quite to the extent it’s worked out for Zuckerberg, but you get the point.

One of the parts of the movie I found most interesting was how they decided to raise money for the company. It started with a little seed money from a friend’s family but eventually Zuckerberg and another partner were able to secure venture capital to support the burgeoning company. A key was moving the company from Cambridge, Massachusetts (where Harvard is) to California (where the VCs are). So lesson #2 might be to “follow the money.” It turns out to be a major plot line of the movie, so I won’t ruin for you here, but they do talk quite a bit about the business side, beyond the programming.

Finally, the film gives good insight to what the consumer of the future will look like. Many people, and in some cases rightly so, still dismiss social media like Facebook as gimmicks or trends. They’re not. They are here to stay. The rapidity with which things spread over Facebook (or Twitter or LinkedIn) can make it and its brethren a valuable tool if used properly. I know I’ve said it before, but now you don’t have to take it from me. Check out “The Social Network” and see for yourself.

Photo is from the official movie site at 500millionfriends.com.

It’s been a busy week, gathering up the final materials for the October issue of The MHEDA Journal. One article that I think MHEDA members will find extremely interesting is an article about best practices distributors are using regarding social media. Loyal blog reader Josh Smith of AK Material Handling Systems put together a few things that are working for their company. Another distributor, Lori Cooney of Maybury Material Handling (East Longmeadow, MA), added a few notes about what her company has found successful on Twitter: 

“We’ve decided to groom a team of five individuals who are comfortable with technology and the Internet and who also are ambassadors for the company. Each person has one day during the week when they are responsible for updating and monitoring our company Twitter account (@MayburyMaterial),” Cooney says. “It’s no one’s single job function—they’re managing multiple tasks in addition to Tweeting like accounting, billing, parts sales, and customer service.”

She has some other interesting strategies in the article as well, including how they come up with subject matter for their tweets, but I thought the team approach was interesting. A lot of small business owners are afraid to dive into social media because they don’t want to take their people away from revenue-producing tasks at the company. Frankly, it’s a legitimate concern. Especially in a down economy, people need to be focused on what they do best. But dividing the task among a committee, training people to be “ambassadors” for the company mitigates that concern, while also getting more employees familiar with the technology. Let’s face it, it’s not going away any time soon. So your employees may as well embrace it.

A quick blog today, and it’s dedicated to everyone who thinks that social media, and Twitter in particular, are strictly a young person’s game. Earlier this week, Ivy Bean, considered to be the world’s oldest “Tweeter,” died in England at the age of 104. It’s safe to assume she didn’t come of age as a technological savant, so it goes to show that anybody can learn it. Granted, the benefits for business are still being debated, but the “I’m too old” excuse surely doesn’t work anymore thanks to Ms. Bean.

There are some reports that this account was a hoax perpetuated by the Geek Squad, but even if that’s true, the fastest-growing Facebook demographic these days is women over 55, thanks to tech-savvy ladies like Ms. Bean.

There are a lot of MHEDA Members on Twitter, but a lot more who aren’t. Don’t get left behind because you don’t understand Twitter!

One of my loyal blog readers (thanks, Joshua) sent me a message yesterday asking an interesting question and I need everyone’s help out there to answer it. He asked, “With all this buzz on social media, the question that arises is how much time should one spend on social media? When is it too much? Can one lose focus in the mix of everything?”

OK, so I guess that’s technically more than one question, but I thought it was an interesting question. There’s been a lot of hype over the last couple of years about Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn and YouTube and MySpace and Plaxo and Foursquare and the list goes on and on. With the explosion of such sites, for both personal and business purposes, it’s hard to know how much time to spend with them and how to spend that time.

Is it overkill to get involved too many, or is better to use as many services as possible? How can you avoid getting buried in an avalanche of social media updates? How can you make sure your message gets through the clutter?

I’m no expert, so let me open it up to the field out there. What advice to have for me and Josh?

photo from blog.cc-efi.com

In speaking with MHEDA Member Jeff Stohr of Conveyer & Caster – Equipment for Industry (Cleveland, OH) today, he relayed the story of something his company recently did to give back locally. It’s always nice to hear such uplifting stories.

Last night, CC-EFI employees presented specially made and embroidered gym bags to a local high school basketball team whose coach had unexpectedly passed away at the beginning of the season. The details can be found in more complete and first-hand accounts at the company’s blog at blog.cc-efi.com.

Congrats to Jeff and his team for raising $1,500 to get this done! In times of economic strife, to step up so generously says a lot about the character of this company. And I hear stories like this from MHEDA Members on a regular basis. It’s a tribute to the industry and the association in particular. Kudos!

I’ve mentioned it before, but after attending David Nour’s very informative Twitter webinar today that MHEDA co-sponsored, just wanted to send a quick reminder out to readers that The MHEDA Journal can be found on social networks Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn. Brand new links to all these sites are now available in the left-hand column of the magazine homepage at www.themhedajournal.org.

Follow us on Twitter: @liftmoveandstor

Become a fan of the magazine on Facebook.

Become my contact on LinkedIn by visiting this page.

Go to our YouTube page to see material handling videos.

I look forward to hearing from you and interacting with you on these social networks. If you’re not out there yet, what are you waiting for?

A recent article on emarketer.com outlines, with plenty of helpful charts and graphs, the penetration of different social media within Inc. 500 companies. The results were pretty fascinating. According to the article, “Adoption and awareness continue to trend upward, with 91% of firms using at least one social media tool in 2009 and three-quarters describing as ‘very familiar’ with social networking.” More than one-half, 52%, of companies report using Twitter in 2009, a phenomenal growth rate.

The survey results discussed in the article suggest that new media like blogs, wikis, social networking, video and podcasting are not merely fads. These are trends and are here to stay. I’ll admit that I was one who was a holdout from getting too excited about sites like MySpace, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter over the last few years. But the numbers are hard to ignore.

There are lots of MHEDA Members already using these social media sites already, but there are a lot more who aren’t. If you’re not there yet, you should be.

Read the emarketing.com article and charts in their entirety here.

In our ongoing efforts to stay abreast of the latest in online networking, The MHEDA Journal now has its very own Facebook fan page. If you’re a Facebook aficionado, we hope you’ll take the time to visit our page and join our fan club. We already have more than 50 fans, and there’s plenty of room for more. Check it out!

According to a recent article on Reuters.com, small businesses are not jumping on the social media bandwagon. The article says that nearly 75% of small businesses do not find sites such as Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn helpful for generating business leads. 

I tend to disagree. More and more people are popping up on these sites everyday, and if not used improperly, can be a gateway to a whole new audience of people. (On a self-serving note, the growing audience of this blog and another MHEDA offering, wikiMHEDA, can be traced almost exactly by their promotion on such social media sites. ) 

On that note, to those of you who are using Twitter, you can follow me! I post updates about what I’m hearing going on out there in the industry several times a week. Click here to see what’s going on and stay informed!

The most recent issue of The MHEDA Journal was mailed out earlier this month. Hopefully, by now you’ve had a chance to take a look at it.

This issue was all about technology, in particular social networking sites like LinkedIn or YouTube. These sites and others like them have rapidly grown in popularity over the last several months. Since we published though, a colleague of mine spoke to David Gewirtz, an author who cautions about the downsides of using such sites. We added a link to the homepage of The MHEDA Journal Online (under the “just In” graphic in the left-hand column) to make sure everyone had access to such timely and important information.

“When communicating information online, says Gewirtz, don’t post anything that could potentially damage your employability: confidential information, company gossip, presenting your employer in a negative light—any of these posts could land you in serious trouble,” the article states. Valuable advice.

Keep reading this blog and checking out our home page for further updates on this and other topics.