It’s people like Diane Hessan who make me look forward to opening up my computer, firing up Twitter, and listening to her stream of of consciousness. She’s the best of the best when you think of CEO’s on Twitter. I’m honored to call her a friend, a mentor and one of my favorites in the  ongoing “7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers” Series. Thanks Diane!

About Diane
I am CEO of Communispace. We help many of the world’s most admired companies listen to, and get insights from, their customers — by building and managing online communities. We have about 100 clients and over 250 employees.

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I love to laugh.

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
I hang out at the coffee machine with employees and find out what they are working on that excites them – because it inspires me.

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
I have the best executive assistant in Boston. He is patient and super smart, and he anticipates every possible thing that could go wrong with my day.

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
First, my 12th grade physics book Concepts like momentum, critical mass, vectors, energy, and force are key to building a growing and profitable company.

Secondly, Customer-Centered Growth, which I co-authored in 1995, because it was an enormous intellectual challenge for an extrovert like me.

Thirdly, In Search of Excellence, written by one of my mentors, Tom Peters, which first raised the notion that some companies are intentionally more amazing than the rest of the pack.

5. 3 things on your desk right now/3 things you can’t live without
My blackberry
my laptop,
and my Red Sox Trivia Calendar (The record for the most strikeouts in a single season is Pedro Martinez in 1999).

6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
When I start our 8:30 a.m. bimonthly all-staff meetings, I say “Good Morning Everyone!”, which really bothers our employees in Europe and Australia.

7. Habit you want to form for 2010.
I want to pick up the phone at least 3 times a week, call a client, and tell them how much we value their confidence in us. I also need to take more vitamins.

Many of you may not recognize this photo of Mike Schneider because he spent the better half of the fall growing a moustache for “Movember“. Now that he’s clean shaven, he is setting his sites on bigger aspirations, like being one of the Top 20 Karaoke singers at SXSW’s “Cog’aoke 2“. While he’s not mastering the art of social marketing and more, he’s QUITE the entertainer, and likes to “sing in the shower and in the car and on stage and at the mall and in meetings and on the phone”. If any of you are reading this and heading to SXSW, please vote for him.

On to interview # 17 of the “7 Habits Series“…

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
Fearlessness. I am just not smart enough to understand that there are things that cannot be done and that I should not be able to do them. I rarely shy away from a challenge and do not accept “no” or “can’t”. I heard those a lot growing up in the Midwest. I wanted to learn Chinese as a kid and I remember people telling me “that’s impossible”. One day I just decided that that line of reasoning was something that I could not tolerate and that if I wanted something, it would be better to take a risk and make it happen.

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do?
I think. I start in the shower. I also think in the car, preferably with some new modern rock blaring. I let my schedule whirl around in my head a little bit and usually a few good ideas fall out from between the dates and times.

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
Efficiency. The bar is set very high for me. My efficiency role model is my best friend, Gregory Ng I’ve never seen anyone ideate, create and deliver like that guy. Assuming I’m somewhat efficient: devices, gadgets and software help me attain efficiency. I love the shiny. Evernote, a tool that syncs thoughts, notes and audio clips between devices is one of my favorites. I am using it now because I suspect I won’t finish this task before I have to move on to the next. If I cannot, maybe I will bang out a few questions from my iPhone later. DropBox is brilliant for sharing. Heaven forbid I ever forget my machine at work (power cord is another story), but if I do, the most important files are accessible via DropBox from any machine. As a look-ahead guy, I am aching for a tablet. I can imagine a bunch of ways that will make me more productive, particularly in sharing concepts in groups and in content consumption.

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
That’s like asking my favorite song of all time. I will not be able to answer with just one.

The Art of War.
Groundswell has a few good points.
Wisdom of Crowds and Black Swan are also highly worthwhile for any measurement / experiment junkie. Empirical thinking for the win!
And of course I enjoyed #Crushit by Gary VAY NER CHUK.

5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
Flip/Zi8
iPhone
moleskine

6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
If I can do something, one of my tendencies is to go ahead and assign the task to me. That’s not always good.

7. Habit you’d like to form for 2010
Balance. A little less work. A little more family, friends, beer and modern rock. Oh. Flossing. I need to floss regularly.

If you are a small business on a shoe-string budget, look no further than Duct Tape Marketing. Today’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers” continues with
the 7 Habits of John Jantsch.

About John
John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
Paying attention to what’s going on around me and writing about it daily

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
Coffee – I have a routine of sites, email, engagement, Twitter, etc that I run through – I guess it’s part of my overall systems approach

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
GTD and Central Desktop – I’ve always been a list maker

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
The Practice of Management – Peter Drucker – although it may not seem like it, it’s the best marketing book I’ve ever read

5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
24″ Monitor, Moleskin notebook, Jug of green tea

6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
Coffee

7. Habit you want to form for 2010
Increase Yoga and running practices

Remember when you first heard about LinkedIn and signed up, thinking it would be convenient to have your resume online? And remember how you haven’t spent much time there since?….

You can wring so much more use out of our profile than you think; here are 10 tips to get you started.

1.) This tip could be an entire post on its own, but thinking about reordering your profile to highlight your best attributes.This is like getting getting dressed up for a big event. Horizontal stripes are bad, unless you want to accent width…LinkedIn started offering reording earlier this month, and there’s a handy video guide with tips on the company blog.

2.) You may have synced your blog feed with your LinkedIn profile, but did you know you can add video too? LinkedIn added a video application last spring, and its’ been generating a lot of buzz since, though the concept of video resumes has been around for a while. Reel Social Media has step-by-step instructions (with its own handy video guide). Important to remember: just becaue you can, doesn’t mean you should. Adding video is great for showcasing artistic talent, past speeches or presentations you’re particularly proud of, or could be a unique way to add reccomendations. Five minutes of you answering your own interview questions isn’t a good idea.

3.) LinkedIn also lets you tag your contacts with unique labels. Want to walk up to the speaker you just heard at a conference but can’t remember how you’re connected? Scroll through your tags and jog your memory.

4.) Be active. This sounds like a no brainer, but bear with me: how many of you check the site when you get a notification about some connection making another new connection, scan your profile, then log out? LinkedIn and social media are changing the way people communicate and the way people find jobs – if you’re not a frequent participant in that conversation, then no one knows just how many interesting things you have to say. Don’t get left behind.

5.) Use LinkedIn to drive more traffic to your own website, specifically the qualified traffic that will add content and conversation to your growing community. The gist? Make connections, first by linking yourself to people you know, then by answering the questions of people you don’t. And by joining groups that cater to your niche.

6.) Or start your own group. Lewis Howes, who literally wrote the book on LinkedIn, has a lot to say about this. Groups on LinkedIn are the same as groups on Facebook.  Use them to show your support for something or to meet others who think the same way. Lewis recommends that you should use LinkedIn to not just connect with people you know, but with EVERYONE. It’s the equivalent of walking up to a stranger and introducing yourself.. Just write a well crafted introduction, and don’t worry about tripping and falling on your face as you make your way toward someone to shake hands; remember, all your accomplishments are published for the world to see too.

7.) All of this advice is useful, of course, for someone trying to get a job. The bottom line is that LinkedIn makes it easier than ever to network continuously. Regardless of whether you are employed or not, you should be on LinkedIn as often as you’re on Facebook, creating a strong network that can support you when you need it.

8.) And because social media is sometimes about stoking egos, you can also see who’s viewed your profile.

9) You may have seen that you can upgrade your LinkedIn account, for a small fee… I just signed up for a premium account last week. We’ll see. (There is some good commentary here)

10.) LinkedIn is a great place to figure out WHO you are, WHAT you want out of your career, and HOW you can get there. Howes continues to list a few good questions to ask yourself when you are setting up a profile.

Your thoughts? How do you like to use Linkedin?

For those of you interested in being a lean, mean entrepreneurial machine, read on.

You’ve just started your own company,  and now the bills start coming in. Rent, internet, computer, software, cell phone and more. Your cell phone is terrific. Good reception, a good plan and you are reachable all the time.

But every now and then you lose a call.

OR

The battery on your cell phone dies.

OR

Business is really good, and you are thinking about upgrading to an unlimited plan with all the minutes you need. Hello $200 cell phone bill.

Before you upgrade to that new plan, or put in a “land line” in the office. Take a look at Skype.

A $30 yearly plan is all you need to start saving money on your phone bill and start ramping up on efficiency.With a yearly $30 subscription you can make all the calls you need from your computer. If you’re in some sort of office at least three to fours a day, consider investing in it.

A couple things to keep in mind- If you have a bluetooth headset for your mobile phone,  this works nicely with Skype. Simply sync up your headset to your bluetooth-enabled laptop and you are talking through your computer. The reception is better than your mobile phone (no more dropped calls) and you can talk to your client ( hands free) while skimming through that powerpoint presentation, invoice, or pile of mail on your desk. Even better? You can sync your mobile phone with your skype account so that when you call, it looks like you are calling from your mobile phone.

Last time I checked, $30 for unlimited calls for an entire year wasn’t such a bad idea, was it?

Verizon, Comcast, AT&T and others have plenty of business customers.  Be a lean, mean and smart entrepreneurial machine.

Go give Skype your business.

Ok, Interview #5 of the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers” series. Today’s interview is with none other than Jim Long, NBC cameraman for the White House.

About Jim
Jim is a self described “new media soul trapped in an old media body” or a “human satellite truck.”  When he’s not flying around the world covering the President and White House News, he’s running his own business, Verge New Media. If you happen to track him down, ask him about his hair-rising trips to Afghanistan aboard one  of the Air Force’s “doomsday planes.

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I don’t know if I can peg my success today on just one trait.  I believe that it is my persistence, my fierce dedication to my craft and client, and the faith that exceptional work will lead you to personal success – it’s these qualities that have gotten me where I am today.

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do?
The start of my day is linked to the ebb and flow of news.  Some days are planned out, other days we’re putting out fires.  I’ve learned to expect the unexpected, but i generally start my day loading up my camera, then logging in to Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
Efficiencies in my newsgathering role are less dependent on web technologies than many other jobs;  yet every assignment requires that I make judgements about how much, and what type of gear I need to bring to bear to the task.   Paramount in this process is the question: “Could I get on the air with what I have with me?”  Beyond the camera, blackberry has become indispensable.

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
The Long Tail”  has put the current state of my business in perspective, putting a fine point on the opportunity and uncertainty media and other businesses face.

5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
Sony HDW F900r Video Camera
iPhone 3G, Blackberry World Edition
Powermac G4 1.67Ghz

6. Habit you want to kick in 2009
I’m terribly disorganized,  I need to work on that.

7. Habit you’d like to form for 2010

NOTE: for those of you who know Jim well, suggestions for a new habit for New Media Jim?

Ok, Interview #1 of the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers” series.

Our first interview is with Aaron Strout. I call him a friend and mentor, but also an evil arch enemy because he’s a Red Sox fan and I can’t seem to shake my allegiance to the New York Yankees…without further delay, Aaron Strout…

Tell us about yourself
I am the chief marketing officer at an Austin-based company called Powered. We are a full-service social media agency helping big brands succeed with their social initiatives. I’m also a diehard Red Sox and Patriots fan (the Celtics also hold a place in my heart). I’m a serial blogger, podcaster and Twitterer which drives my wife crazy but helps me learn the things I need to know to do my job well.

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
This one is easy. Networking. Ever since I started my first real job at Fidelity Investments back in 1997, I’ve been focusing on building my network. The approach I take is always to provide value to the folks I connect with, whether that’s helping them find a job, introducing them to another key contact or responding to interview questions for a blog like I’m doing now.

2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
My work day usually starts when I first get up — somewhere between 6:15 and 7:00 AM. I traditionally do two things: check e-mail (both personal and work) and then head over to Twitter. I’ve worked hard at not feeling the pressure to answer most e-mails, comment on blogs or follow people back on the various social networks right away. Usually taking this approach gives me a sense of what my day will look like and also lets me know how much “firefighting” I’ll need to do that day.

3. What makes you efficient with your day?
I’m not necessarily the most “efficient” person I know but I am a good multi-tasker. One thing I’m trying to do a better job of these days is to pick 2-3 things that I know HAVE to get done (yet might be things that aren’t my favorite things to do) and just sit down and bang them out first thing in the morning. That way, I have time to focus on the other things I enjoy doing. One tactical thing I do that seems to help with staying organized is keeping my work inbox to no more than 25 e-mails and then using that as a bit of an ongoing “to do” list.

4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
This is tough one as I’m not actually a huge fan of business books. From a practical standpoint, I think Groundswell does a nice job talking about ways to think about social that include measurement and ROI. The World is Flat is also one of my favorites.

5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
My iPhone, My MacBook Pro and my SavvyAuntie Coffee Mug.

6. Habit you want to kick in 2009
I swear this is the year I will find a better balance this year between work and family time. In particular, not being so plugged in all the time. This has been my New Year’s resolution for about 5 years running but I’m hoping this year it might actually take.

7. Habit you want to form for 2010
A greater commitment to blogging about things that people care about.

NOTE- for those who want to follow along in the Twitter conversation use the #sm7habits hashtag

About a year ago, Aaron Strout, a friend (and one of the best in the social media space) did a terrific series of interviews of some social media luminaries called “45 in 45″. Aaron interviewed the movers and shakers of the industry and came up with some terrific insights.

I’d like to take Aaron’s “experiment” one step further.

Some of us have wondered to ourselves…

• “What makes a good Social Marketer?”
• “Is it something in their DNA?”
• “Do they HAVE to have an iPhone?”
• “How do they get so much done in one day?”

In short, what habits do they have? What makes them who they are and who they want to be?

Well, I don’t have the answers, THEY do. And when I say “THEY”, I mean some of the best and brightest minds in Social Media. I’ve asked them to give us their honest answers to the following questions.

1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do?
3. What makes you efficient with your day?
4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
6. Habit you want to kick in 2009
7. Habit you’d like to form for 2010

So over the next month or so, we’ll get some answers. Perhaps there is a shared trait or habit worth picking up?

Here is an abbreviated list of  a few of the people participating, (We’re still hearing from people). If you’d like to see someone added to this list, please let me know.

NOTE- for those who want to follow along in the Twitter conversation, and be updated when we post new entries use the #sm7habits hashtag

Aaron Strout, CMO, Powered (interview on 1/28/10)
Phil Johnson,  CEO of PJA Advertising (interview on 3/5/10)
Ann Handley, Chief Content Officer at MarketingProfs
Melanie Notkin, CEO, SavvyAuntie (interview on 2/1/10)
Jim Storer, Principal at The Community Roundtable
Jeremiah Owyang, Partner, Altimeter Group
Justin Levy, General Manager, New Marketing Labs
Kate Brodock, President, The Other Side Group (interview on 1/29/10)
Laura Fitton, Founder, One Forty (interview on 2/17/10)
Doug Haslam, Blogger, Social Media/PR Consultant
Bill Johnston, Chief Community Officer, Forum One Networks
Tim Walker, Editor and Blogger for Hoovers (interview on 2/3/10)
John Jantsch, DuctTape Marketing (interview on 2/25/10)
Christine Perkett, Perkett PR (interview on 2/4/10)
Mike Volpe, VP, Marketing, Hubspot (interview on 3/8/10)
Greg Matthews, Health Revolutionary at Humana
Colin Browning (interview on 2/23/10)
Paula Berg, (former Social Media Manager at Southwest Airlines) Now Digital Media Lead at Linhart PR (interview on 2/22/10)
Jim Long, Videographer, NBC News, Principal at Verge New Media (interview on 2/8/10)
Adam Cohen, Partner at Rosetta
Todd Defren, Principal, Shift Communications (interview on 2/1/10)
Rachel Happe, Principal at The Community Roundtable
Libby Delana, Partner, Mechanica (interview on 2/11/10)
Steve Garfield, SteveGarfield.com, author of Get Seen (interview on 2/8/10)
Paul Gillin, Speaker, writer, and Social Media Consultant(interview on 2/12/10
Adam Zand, PR and Social Media Consultant
Carissa Caramanis O’Brien, President, Red Box Communications(interview on 2/19/10)
Scott Stratten, Owner of Un-Marketing, (interview on 2/16/10)
CC Chapman, Social Media Maven, (interview on 3/24/10)
Diane Hessan, CEO of Communispace, (interview on 3/9/10)
Connie Bensen, Director of Social Media & Community Strategy at Alterian, (interview on 3/2/10)
Mike Schneider, (interview on 2/26/10)
Scott Henderson, Principal of CauseShift, (interview on 2/18/10)
Christine Major, Marketing Comm. Manager for Awareness,(interview on 2/9/10)

NOTE: We’ll be updating this list regularly as new names come in