Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world’s bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. One day. One issue. Thousands of voices. October 15, 2009

The theme of this year is “Climate Change”. I think that it is overused but still important.

We encourage you to write about climate change in the context of how it relates to the topic of your blog. To help you start thinking, here are a few ideas about how you might connect climate change to things that you might already write about:

• A Technology or Business blog might write about emerging clean tech and how innovative companies might be able to help address the problem of climate change.
• A Health or Lifestyle blog might write about how climate change will affect our children’s health and daily living.
• A Nonprofit or Political blog might write about how climate change is deeply connected to many other issues – such as poverty and conflict.
• A Design blog might write about new trends in eco-friendly or sustainable design.
• A Travel blog might write about the places you want to see now before climate change makes them difficult to access or, well, under the sea.

This is also a great opportunity for companies in Sustainable Business industry to participate, promote and support this ‘online event’. ImNikos.com will participate in Blog Action Day! These are some very well-known blogs that will participate too.

Dear Kodak,

You made a mistake and you named your camera Zi8. It’s ok.. Everybody does mistakes but is this the right way to say it?

Kodak Zi8 is a competitor of the very successful Flip camera and Creative Vado. Boston Globe didn’t like the Kodak’s name and they said:

When Kodak needed a name for its new pocket video camera, its marketing geniuses came up with something dreadful: the Zi8.”

And now Kodak creates a new model and they decided to find a new and better name for this. According to them, maybe they cannot find the name by themselves. What? How can you say this? It sounds like: “We tried to name a model and we failed.. We think that we cannot make it..” Come on.. You cannot say this. You are Kodak and you must be capable to find a name.  For this reason, they created a contest. I totally agree with the contest. It is a great way to create a buzz, involve your community and spread the word. But the post on Kodak’s blog (A Thousand Words) was a fail. This is what Jenny Cisney, the chief blogger, wrote:

You may have seen a recent review of the Kodak Zi8 by the Boston Globe where it received high praise for everything… except it’s name. “When Kodak needed a name for its new pocket video camera, its marketing geniuses came up with something dreadful: the Zi8.”

Woah. Ok. With our next pocket video camera in development we started thinking about the name. A few were run past our discerning CMO Jeffrey Hayzlett who said “Are you serious?” Back to the drawing board. Or is it?

Maybe we don’t have the answer. Maybe YOU do! We are asking people on Twitter and on this blog to tell us… what do you think the next Kodak pocket video camera should be called? What would you call a video camera that is rugged, simple and ready for action and adventure? (Hint – we like the letter “Z”!)

Is this the right way to say it? I guess not. I agree that you have to admit your mistakes and be honest but this is not the right way. Kodak could just announce the contest in a more fun way without mentioning the Zi8 mistake. (At least don’t write it as an introduction in your post)

According to many ‘Social Media Gurus’ (if this term exists) you have to build your community in order to be successful! This is not new. The community building happens since the creation of the world. People used to build communities in order to be more powerful and more protected. Some years ago, companies used to build communities through events, exhibitions, sponsorships and many more. Nowadays, the trend is called Social Media. Why? It is easy, inexpensive and with better results. How? It is very easy! You just communicate with your audience and you add value on this communication. Be real and show that you care about them. Make them to trust you! And if you have great products and services, you are a winner! The drawback of this is that many companies (your competitors too) try to do the same and you have to be creative, unique and fast! There are several examples of winners and losers on the game of community building!

Zappos is a clear winner! It is the company that uses Social Media better than everybody else. The culture of Zappos is ‘communicate with the customer and do it well’! Zappos encourages its employees to create Twitter account and tweet! Until now 438 employees use Twitter. There is the ‘What employees are doing right now’ page that shows all the tweets of employees. There is a ‘start’ page that the CEO of Zappos explains to his employees what is Twitter about and how you create an account. Is this amazing? YES! Twitter is a great way to communicate with people and Zappos knows this. For Zappos is not only Twitter. They have 13 blogs, Facebook accounts, YouTube channel and many more. You cannot do anything more than ‘Love Zappos!‘

Dell is another winner. They try to segment the market and create multiple accounts for Twitter and Facebook. Dell has a very organized Community page. They try to communicate with people in as many places as they can. (Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, LinkedIn etc.) Strong brands need strong communities and Dell knows that very well.

Let’s find a loser. Sony can be one of them. Do you see Sony around? No. Sony made many mistakes and some of them are about communications. Sony has a community page but they are not successful because as I mentioned before they were not creative, fast (just started – beta version) and unique. Sony has few Twitter followers, few Facebook fans and unfortunately this is SONY! I am most of my everyday life online and I rarely hear something about Sony. It is their mistake and they have to fix it. (Along with all the other mistakes)

This picture doesn’t mean a lot (Twitter is not the only measurement). I just want to compare the accounts.

What about Apple? Apple is a unique company. It is the company that uses NO Social Media and has one of the strongest and fanatic communities. How? Through their fans. Apple doesn’t have to do anything for this. Apple fans create the Social Media buzz and this is phenomenon. No Twitter, blogs, Facebook, and Videos are owned by Apple.. It is crazy that everybody talks about them without doing anything. Of course Apple has its own way to build its community but this way is unique.

Successful brands build strong communities, offer great products and services and they win!

Event: WordCamp 2009 (San Francisco)

Date: Saturday 30th of May

The ‘WordCamp 2009‘ is the event of the year for the bloggers of Bay Area (and the rest of the world). I was there as a volunteer! I was excited to be there, meet people, help on the event and listen to all these different speakers. The list of the speakers was long and very interesting!

More than 700 people attended the event. There were very interesting presentations. John Lilly the CEO of Mozilla spoke about Firefox and the use of blogs. Chris Pirillo talked about Online Communities and Tim Ferriss talked about his blog and his experience with WordPress. The two most exciting presentations were the ones from Matts! Matt Cutts and Matt Mullenweg rock! The one is an expert of Google SEO and page rank and the other one is the CEO of Automattic (WordPress)

Pictures of the event and the video with the highlights!

We were expecting something like this.. The WordPress.tv is On Air for all the WP bloggers. Instead of visiting the forum (support) website or reading the hundrends of pages of tutorial, bloggers can now visit the WordPress Tv and watch the videos. For instance, if you want to know how you will create a static front page you can watch this video !

Enjoy!

(L to R: Leah Culver, Pownce; Rashmi Sinha, Slideshare; Dina Kaplin, blip.tv; Marissa Mayer, Google; Cyan Banister, Zivity; Lisa Stone, Jory Des Jardins, and Elisa Camahort Page, BlogHer; Caterina Fake, Flickr; Gina Bianchini, Ning; Kaliya Hamlin, OpenID; Mena Trott, Six Apart; and Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post.)

Askmego.com is an online community in which people can ask and answer questions in real-time. At AskMego, users can post questions on different topics and answer questions posted by other users. Its a fun way of sharing opinions and point of views with other people. Need an advice? Just post your question or dilemma at AskMego, you may find an interesting question to share your expertise with or give an advice too.

Enjoy..