I’ve explored the similarities between building community and risk management before on this blog. First, I penned Community, Social  Media and Risk Perceptions and then Risk Management and Open Community: More Similar than You Think. My basic premise is that both social media and risk management are association-wide activities. While speaking at the Maryland Governor’s Office on Service and Volunteerism and Maryland Council of Directors of Volunteer Services’ Power Up! Conference for Volunteer Management Professionals , a participant raised the question of who owns social media. MORE >>

Vida Tamoshunas. Complexity:  the ‘silent killer’ of modern business,” Chris Zook and James Allen. came across an article in The Economist recently, “ Simplify and Repeat.” ”   The article, based on the book   Repeatability   by Chris Zook and James Allen, talks about one of the elements of successful companies, an obssession with simplicity. few of the examples cited are Lego, IKEA, McDonald’s and Nike. The authors highlight three virtues of success: A distinctive core business. simple business model. Application of the model to new opportunities. MORE >>

ve been thinking a lot about collaborative marketing lately, and how we can turn co-existing businesses more into partners and less about missed opportunities. think there’s a great untapped market for someone that really wants to grab collaborative marketing and run with it. For example – imagine you’re going on a trip. You have to fly to get there, so there are a few processes you need to go through before, during and after: Buying your ticket. Driving to the airport. In-flight activities. Hotel or accommodation when you land. Rental car. Connection > Collaboration > Customers. MORE >>

Today’s guest post is written by Merritt Allen. As a lifelong Jeopardy! fan and former third-place contestant , I was surprised at how engrossing the 2012 Teen Tournament was. Typically, I ignore the Teen Tournament, turning up my trivial nose at post-2009 pop culture and 7 th grade biology questions. But this year’s tournament was compelling for three primary reasons: 1. Harder material (which means smarter kids; show writers and producers match material to intellect based on pre-show screening). Washington, D.C., locale lent itself to good host-contestant interchange. On a game show! MORE >>

Tasty Placement , a search engine optimization and digital design company, attempted to solve the question “Can social media activity boost organic search ranking?” ” with an experiment. This infographic is a result of that experiment and shows very interesting results. Although maybe not the most perfect experiment, it appears the answer is “Yes” Read more about this infographic from the great blog post by Mind Jumpers. Summary, in order from least effective on SEO to most effective: 100 Google+ Followers yielded a 14.63 rise in search engine ranking position. MORE >>