What can happen when you have a failure to communicate

Growing up, a poster displaying the following quotation from Nixon adorned my wall because I loved its provocative message:

I know you think you understand what you think I said. I'm not sure you realize, though, that what I said is not what I meant.

Okay, now I don't know if the ex-pres actually said that or not but here's the point I want to make.  Are you finding you need to say that your various communities, be they customers, partners, or employees? 

Is your messaging being misunderstood or corrupted? ...

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Resources required to maintain your successful online community

In a previous article, we discussed some of the benefits of building an online community.  Among these are the opportunity to increase the visibility of your company with your customers, partners, and employees.

Today, let's have some straight talk about the resources your company will need to grow and maintain a thriving online community.  Your friendly neighborhood IT specialist can give you the skinny on your technical resource demands so let's focus today on the personnel resources you'll need to grow and maintain a success online community.

This resource is probably more important in many ways than the technical one -- but it's also the one many companies are likely to short change.  Because no matter how wiz bang cool your online community site is, if you don't have people maintaining it, then your community members will abandon you and your community will die.

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General features and benefits of collaborative community solutions

The other day, I blogged about why the benefits of building a collaborative online community.  Today's let's dig into the features and benefits for the various dimensions of collaborative community solutions.

First, a quick review.  Community solutions are multi-dimensional and most are modular in nature, allowing you to take the ones you want and scale up later if desired.  You can elect to push information out, pull it in or do some combination of the two. 

Common options include: ...

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Why companies should build collaborative online communities

As a marketing professional, I spend large chunks of my day thinking about my company or client's corporate brand or identity and finding ways to communicate the essence of the brand to customers, prospects, partners and other audiences.  When I do my job well, then the company readily attracts prospects and retains customers.  If I don't, then we lose business opportunities because others won't recognize who we are or what we do.

One way to successfully communicate is through collaborative online communities.

Now, if you're a company with a strong consumer focus, the idea of creating online communities is more obvious.  What if you're focus is B2B?  And what if you're organizational focus isn't business at all? 

Does an online community make sense for you? ...

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Showcasing Cynthina S. Heinsohn -- Developer extraordinaire

As part of our introduction to Network Community, the Intellicore Design's blog, you're going to want to "meet" Cynthina S. Heinsohn, Intellicore's found and developer extraordinaire.

You can read Cynthina's official bio here but let me give you my view as someone who has known her for years as both a friend and co-worker.

She's brilliant!  Cynthina is one of those rare designers who creates solutions that can successfully manage complexity in the background while keeping the user experience straightforward, intuitive and visually appealing...

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Partnering with Intellicore Design to help companies accelerate at the speed of community connection

I'm pleased as punch to partner with Intellicore Design to offer companies collaborative community solutions, offered on Salesforce.com platforms.

Intellicore Design is the brainchild of Cynthina S. Heinsohn, software developer extraordinaire.  My marketing and communications and sale expertise compliments her design skills. 

We've worked together for too many years to acknowledge and in a variety of roles.  One of the things we enjoy the most with each other, though, is collaborating.  With our long-time friendship, we're able to zip into the heart of a situation, stimulate each other's creativity, and get things done.

What we're most enthused about right now, is finding ways to stimulate connection...

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Welcome to Big Cat Chronicles

Hi and welcome to Big Cat Chronicles.  It's a new look for a blog I resurrected from its dormancy.

The first time 'round, I launched the blog to roar my opinions on a variety of topics.  This time, though, I'll keep a tight reign to subject matter related to marketing, communications, and sales. 

Additionally, I'm particularly interested in finding pathways to energize transformation.

What that means is: ...

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