Munir Ahmad Blog

This is another official update to the original “Shift Happens” video. This completely new Fall 2009 version includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist.

Below is a very interesting TED talk by Daniel Pink. In December Dan has a new book coming out called Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. In this TED talk from the summer in Oxford, Dan overviews some of the key ideas in the new book. This talk will make you (re-)think about work, management, and what motivates you — and those you work with — to excel. Watch it below.

We don’t need sweeter carrots and sharper sticks, Dan says. We need a whole new approach, an approach that puts more stock in intrinsic motivation. Dan identifies three elements that comprise a new way of thinking about management:

Autonomy: The urge to direct our own lives.
Mastery: The desire to get better at something that matters.
Purpose: The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.

Traditional ideas about management are great, Dan says, “if you want compliance; but for engagement, self-direction works best.” Dan focuses here only on Autonomy and gives a few good examples, and touches on the ROWE (Results Only Work Environment). People working under a ROWE system do not have fixed schedules per se and can work at any time. They can show up when they want, essentially. This would not work for all professions due to fixed schedules (teachers and airline pilots come to mind), but it works for a lot of folks in design and software and other creative fields.

Google Wave is an online tool that lets people communicate via video, instant messaging and wiki style editing, or as Google describes it “how e-mail would look if it were invented today”.

Google Wave is designed to transform the way we communicate online, and the developer behind it has described it as a ‘communication and collaboration tool’

Check out the video below to see what it is all about.

Facebook does provide a place for you to represent your business, and that is Facebook Pages.

Here’s the #1 reason to have your own Facebook Page (as well as your own Profile):

More people can find out about your business because your Page gets indexed and is searchable inside and outside of Facebook.

Other reasons include:

• Because the number of Fans you can have is unlimited (whereas the Friend limit is 5,000).
• Activity on your Page helps increase what I call “viral visibility” on Facebook.
• You can establish your brand even further.

As a Summary:

1. Pages are public. Most of Facebook is behind a login, preventing search engines from indexing.  However, some Fan pages are not behind a login and thus search engines can index the page.  Hopefully, people will stumble on the result in SERPs, visit the Facebook page, and then get to your site via the link (see reason #2).
2. Pages include links. Because the pages are public, you can get some nice facebook.com link credit.  You can’t use an anchor text, but hey, it’s free.
3. Send “updates to fans”. One of the greatest features is that you can send “updates” to fans whenever you want.  It’s a nice way of building a database of interested users.  Send messages about new products, updated website, etc.
4. You control the page. Making the page before a Fan or a competitor is critical.  You want to be able to send the messages, edit or remove sections, and control the information to an extent.
5. News feed. When a someone joins a Fan page, it’s published in their News feed for all their to read (unless they have turned this off).  It makes someone joining your Fan page somewhat viral.
6. It’s free and easy. Making a Fan page takes just a few minutes – add some information, URL, and upload the logo and you’re done.  You can make your page here.