10th Annual PR Conference

Lawrence Ragan Communication's 10th Annual Strategic Public Relations Conference is coming up on September 20-22 in Chicago, IL. You can register here.

They plan to cover how to:

*Use blogs, podcasts, wikis and other emerging tools to create and enhance relationships with many audiences

*Employ community marketing that helps your executives become message evangelists

*Decide whether blogging is right for your organization and how to get started
Build a podcast that effectively reaches new audiences

*Improve your online pressroom

Robert Scoble will kick off the conference with a keynote session that will focus on how social media are changing the way companies talk to their customers, journalists and key other audiences.

Tag: Lawrence Ragan Communication's 10th Annual Strategic Public Relations Conference

KnowNow to Sponsor Gartner Financial Services Tech Summit

Client KnowNow is sponsoring the Gartner Financial Services Technology Summit 2006 in Boston next week. They will demonstrate how leading banks are improving corporate communications and market intelligence.

During the conference, KnowNow will be presenting a series of financial services-focused capsule presentations, including one that shows how a large US-based bank will distribute branch campaign information, HR policy updates, and messages from key executives to 13,000 distributed branch employees, using their technology.

KnowNow Market Intelligence and the KnowNow Enterprise Syndication Solution (ESS) can instantly connect employees with material market events, such as competitors’ strategic moves and/or viral marketing phenomenon that could have positive or negative impact on a bank’s brand reputation.

Technorati Updates

Technorati just released an updated version. According to Sifry, they're currently tracking about 50 million blogs and they are increasingly including other forms of citizen media, including photos and video.

Writes Dave, which made it to AlwaysOn GoingOn, "we sought to make Technorati easier and more intuitive to search, discover and organize the World Live Web. What we released is a big step in that direction."

They have improved their core search technologies that index new information within minutes of being posted to the Web, as well as a fresher UI that "post more results above the fold, and better sorting options - including sorting by language, authority, and freshness. If you're confused, you can get a deeper explanation of keyword results and of URL results."

There is a new “Discover” section, which organizes the blogosphere into easily recognized categories. From news and tech, to sports, business and life, scanning what’s hot in the global conversation at any given moment in time is one click away.

Technorati’s Favorites feature has also been improved, enabling you to select and organize your favorite blogs, and to view the most recent posts from these blogs every time you return to the homepage. Check out their new release.

KnowNow Announces New Enterprise 2.0 Solutions

Client KnowNow announces three new Enterprise 2.0 solutions, which connect employees with critical information instantly and increase collaboration around material business events.

These three new solutions are designed to connect people with critical information instantly and include: Market Intelligence, Corporate Communications, and Alternative Marketing Channel.

Based on KnowNow’s leading Enterprise Syndication Solutions (ESS) platform, the new solutions eliminate the latency that prevent most organizations from taking action when opportunities first arise. The solutions are offered as on-premise software or as a hosted solution, and customers can get started immediately.

Check it out. Senior VP of Retail Marketing at Wells Fargo says, "KnowNow is a winner for any company that needs a better solution for delivering timely, relevant and actionable information in today’s competitive business environment.” RSS is going big-time when banks and other large companies are using it in a way that means something - meaning they see value. Value is what is going to sell RSS into the enterprise.

Unlike RSS-readers that were popularized by consumer-based news searches, KnowNow’s solutions have several enterprise-class characteristics that large organizations require. KnowNow provides:
• Support for RSS/Atom/XML feeds
• Support for syndication of non-RSS content sources
• Support for multiple-thousands of users within and outside the enterprise.
• Support for millions of customers when used as an alternative marketing channel.
• A cross-platform solution that simplifies integration into existing architectures comprised of technologies from multiple vendors.
• Enterprise-class security that controls views into different kinds of data / information depending on the users’ rights.
• Partner capabilities that extend communications within and outside of corporate firewalls easily.
• Automated content filtering that reduces informational clutter and connects people with the information that is truly most relevant to them.

More on KnowNow's new solutions:

• Market Intelligence: a solution designed to automatically discover newly published Web content about a company’s brand or competitors, and to notify appropriate parties of material information immediately. Benefit: KnowNow maximizes brand value and competitive awareness.

• Corporate Communications: a solution designed for large organizations with distributed workforces where email and intranets add to the informational clutter instead of manage it. Benefit: KnowNow ensures employees are notified of important company messages and other newly published content that affects their decision-making ability.

• Alternative Marketing Channel: a solution designed to provide enterprises with a branded presence on the desktop or device of their customers, as well as an alternative to email communications. Benefit: KnowNow strengthens the relationship between organizations and its most enthusiastic customers by providing a direct line of communication anytime, anywhere.

Tag: KnowNow
Tag: Enterprise 2.0

Web 2.0 and the Enterprise

IBD Network is hosting an evening event on Web 2.0 and the Enterprise on Tuesday, August 1 from 6:30 pm-8:30 pm at Fenwick & West LLP Silicon Valley Center in Mountain View, CA.

The Web 2.0 service and application space is exploding with new products. With this massive proliferation of cool tools, Internet users are becoming increasingly accustomed to a richer experience, clean interfaces, and an architecture of participation that allows them to publish, comment, and engage. And, they also expect nimbleness, reactivity, and accelerated development for all online services. Enterprise systems' distinguishing features, most often, are conversely characterized: large, complex, siloed, rarely updated, and cumbersome UIs, etc.

In this Strategy Series panel, attendees and panelists will discuss how Web 2.0 will affect enterprise computing. The panel will analyze and predict what will happen when we go beyond "deploying wikis and blogs inside the enterprise."

* What features of the Web 2.0 environment are getting traction among users?
* What changes are we seeing now in enterprise? What more can we expect?
* How can your company measure the impact and ROI of a Web 2.0 initiative?

MODERATOR:
Jeff Clavier, Managing Partner, SoftTech VC and Editor, Software Only - CONFIRMED

PANELISTS:
Adam Gross, Salesforce.com
Jeff Nolan, Director, Apollo Strategy Group, SAP

Check it out.

Tag: Enterprise 2.0
Tag: Web 2.0

Beyond Email & Intranets

KMWorld and client KnowNow are presenting a webinar on “Enterprise 2.0: Reach Beyond Email, Organize Beyond Intranets” on Tuesday, July 25 at 11 am PST / 2 pm EST.

Organizations are challenged by information overload, which impacts the effectiveness of both internal and external communications. Critical messages, such as ones from the CEO or an important product release announcement, get lost in the everyday volume of email or in spam filters.

Important information that needs to find its way to a distributed workforce is often lost within massive internal web sites, portals, and/or content management systems.

The web event is designed to address the internal and external needs of marketing and corporate communications and will explore how RSS can be of significant value to their customers and partners.

Attendees will understand why leading organizations are turning to emerging, enterprise RSS technologies to gain competitive advantage, and how to turn an overwhelming explosion of unmanageable information into an organized, shareable, and actionable resource – throughout an organization.

Tag: KnowNow
Tag: Enterprise 2.0

RSS Changes Ad Opportunities

Marketing Shift on RSS changing advertising opportunities.

Main message here: "more and more will concentrate eyeballs away from the general to the specific and greatly increase the opportunity to find targeted audiences by advertising within feeds. They also make it easier for marketers to track what news organizations and bloggers are saying about their products or follow what's happening with competitors."

KnowNow Adds Brand Customers to Roster

In addition to a new CEO, client KnowNow also shows momentum by adding name brand customers as Enterprise 2.0 solutions.

The Company has added several large, name brand enterprises to its customer roster. This is continued evidence that large enterprises are adopting Enterprise 2.0 technologies to increase business collaboration and gain competitive advantage by immediately connecting critical information with the appropriate people.

A sample of KnowNow’s recently signed customers include:

• A Top-5 US-based Bank. This customer has implemented KnowNow Market Intelligence and the KnowNow Enterprise Syndication Solution (ESS). These solutions instantly connect employees with material brand and competitive information, and also deliver instant notifications on customer data integrity and key business indicators.

• A Multi-billion Dollar IT Outsourcer and System Integrator. This customer will implement KnowNow’s Corporate Communications solution for 30,000 employees that will distribute filtered, relevant information that avoids the pitfalls of email. It enables this organization to define some mandatory channels and content, while employees are also given control over additional content they receive.

• A Large US-Based Bank. This customer will implement KnowNow’s Corporate Communications solution for 13,000 distributed branch employees that are restricted from Internet and email access for security and productivity reasons. KnowNow will distribute branch campaign information, HR policy updates, and messages from key executives among other content.

• One of the Top Semi-Conductor Companies in the World. This customer will implement KnowNow’s Alternative Marketing Channel and ESS solutions to enable RSS syndication on their website. Additionally, it will create a direct line of communication with partners, customers, and employees via a branded KnowNow eLerts service.

More details to follow once they can go live with companies in each category.

Tag: KnowNow
Tag: Enterprise 2.0

Todd-Rulon Miller Named KnowNow CEO

Client KnowNow’s Board of Directors officially announced Todd Rulon-Miller as CEO today.

Todd was former SVP World Wide Sales & Services at Netscape Communications from its early beginnings to generating over $600M in sales, as well as a founding partner of the Apogee Venture Group. He has served on the Board of several organizations, including Active Software (from start-up through its initial public offering on NASDAQ) and Oblix (acquired by Oracle Corporation).

Additionally, he served on the Marketing Advisory Board at Epiphany through its initial public offering on NASDAQ. It's a great move at a thriving time. Stay tuned for more announcements over the next few days and weeks.

Tag: KnowNow
Tag: Todd Rulon-Miller

Enterprise 2.0 Webinar

Client KnowNow and the American Marketing Association will be hosting a webinar on July 18 at 10:00 am PDT/1:00 EST entitled: “Who’s Talking Smack Behind Your Back?." You can register here.

This webinar will also feature real-world examples of how one of the largest US banks is monitoring customer and competitor actions instantly, from the CEO down, using Enterprise 2.0 solutions.

Organizations miss significant opportunities to drive market share and customer growth because it takes too long to recognize material market events and take action. The webinar is designed to help attendees discover how to drive market share by helping employees get the exact market and competitor information they need, when and where they need it, as soon as it is published.

Attendees will better understand why leading organizations are turning to emerging, enterprise RSS technologies to gain competitive advantage, and how to turn an overwhelming explosion of unmanageable information into an organized, shareable, and actionable resource – throughout an organization.

You'll learn how to connect newly published information to you and your employees, the instant it is published.....and understand how organizations are taking advantage of hosted, enterprise RSS solutions in as little as two weeks, with minimum risk.

Who Should Attend:

• CMOs and VPs of marketing with responsibility for brand and category success.
• Individuals responsible for driving measurable metrics such as market share, share of wallet, products per household, and customer defection/churn.
• VPs and directors of e-commerce who are looking to leverage Web 2.0, enterprise RSS, and/or publish-subscribe technologies to gain competitive advantage.

Tag: KnowNow
Tag: Enterprise RSS