Dion Hinchcliffe in a recent article in ZDNet discusses - What if customers were often the best people to help other customers? That’s the basic premise of an emerging class of enterprise software usually referred to these days as “Social CRM” and which I covered in some detail late last year.

Full article - Social CRM

By James Manyika, Kara Sprague and Lareina Yee - McKinsey&Company

Knowledge workers fuel innovation and growth, yet the nature of knowledge work remains poorly understood—as do the ways to improve its effectiveness. The heart of what knowledge workers do on the job is collaborate, which in the broadest terms means they interact to solve problems, serve customers, engage with partners, and nurture new ideas.

Full Article

The November McKinsey Quarterly interviews Andrew McAfee.

Noted scholar, blogger and Twitterer Andrew MCafee has just released his first book  "Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges" .

A recent interview provides a very good insight into the contents and direction of this much anticipated book.

Level Zero Technologies is pleased to announce the release of Skype integration for it’s Voice Server® VOIP platform.

This new functionality allows seamless, bi-directional, integration between the Voice Server® and the Skype community including low cost PSTN access and free calling to more than 400 million registered Skype users worldwide.

Features include:

• Make Skype-to-Skype calls.
• Receive calls with online numbers (SkypeIn).
• Make world-wide PSTN calls to landline and mobile phones (SkypeOut).
• Make and receive multiple concurrent Skype calls from the same Skype account.
• DTMF support for incoming and outgoing calls.
• Read Skype profile fields from incoming calls.
• Set and retrieve online status.
• Set privacy settings.
• Handle incoming Skype calls using Voice Server® applications such as voicemail, ACD, MeetMe conferencing, etc.
• Simultaneous access from both SIP software clients and the Skype desktop client.
• Save money:

o        Free calling to more than 400 million Skype registered users worldwide directly from your Voice Server®.

o      Great rates for worldwide inbound calling DIDs via online numbers (SkypeIn).

o      Make world-wide PSTN calls to landline and mobile phones (SkypeOut).
Please note: Skype for Business subscription prices do not apply.

• Add a click-to-call button to your website or email so customers can quickly contact you.
• Allows customers to call via a local online number.
• Perfect for the remote employee as the office is one click away with free calling.

Note: This will be a standard feature for all new projects and can be retrofitted for existing installations.

To find about more about Voice Server® or any of our other real time collaboration and communication solutions, please visit our website at www.lzt.com.au or call us in

Perth 9467 4999 • Sydney 8022 8411 • Melbourne 9948 4033 • Brisbane 3503 6733

Hhh

Social Media Audits

Social Media Polices and Usage

Social Media Marketing

Social Media services such as Facebook, Twitter, Myspace and YouTube have become common place on our personal computers over the past several years. These and other services such as LinkedIn, Delicious and Technorati are now appearing (or some might say “invading”) our work desktops as more employees bring the social aspects of their lives to the office.

Some Statistics:

• Social networks and blogs are the 4th most popular online activities, including beating personal email. 67% of global users visit member communities and 10% of all time spent on the internet is on social media sites.
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the fourth most populated place in the world. This means it easily beats the likes of Brazil, Russia and Japan in terms of size.
• 80% of US companies use, (or are planning to use), LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees during the course of this year. The site has just celebrated reaching its 45-millionth membership.
• Around 64% of marketers are using social media for 5 hours or more each week during campaigns, with 39% using it for 10 or more hours per week.
• It took radio 38 years to reach 50 million listeners. Terrestrial TV took 13 years to reach 50 million users. The internet took four years to reach 50 million people... In less than nine months, Facebook added 100 million users.
• Wikipedia currently has more than 13 million articles in more than 260 different languages. The site attracts over 60 million unique users a month and it’s often hotly debated that the information it contains is more reliable than any printed Encyclopaedia.
• The most recent figure of blogs being indexed by Technorati currently stands at 133 million. The same report into the Blogosphere also revealed that on average, 900,000 blog posts are created within a single 24-hour period.
• YouTube is likely to serve over 75 billion video streams to around 375 million unique visitors during this year.
• The online bookmarking service, Delicious, has more than five million users and over 150 million unique bookmarked URLs.
• Since April this year, Twitter has been receiving around 20 million unique visitors to the site each month.
• Formed in 2004, Flickr now hosts more than 3.6 billion user images.
• Universal McCann reports that 77% of all active internet users regularly read blogs.

So should we fear what is happening or plan to make the best use of this opportunity?

Well it is going to depend on what type of business or organisation that you have and how you go about managing access to these new social media services.

Let us help you understand what social media is all about with our range of services that will:

•           Audit your current social media use

•           Assist in the establishment of social media policies and usage practices

•           Determine if social media can provide a suitable marketing and communications channel for your business or organisation

Services start from a low $375.00.

We can be contacted by telephone on 08 9467 4997 or email info@lzt.com.au for bookings or further information.