It is an exploit that is both easy to fix, and very easy to utilise to cause widespread disruption.  We have seen this exploit cause networking issues for us, both through the amount of packets as well as the physical amounts of data sent to remote locations; and that is only considering the malicious DDOS attacks that can be caused as part of the exploit, without considering the possible contents of any files or their purpose that are downloaded to the exploited server.

As it has been some time since the exploit was first announced, and we have seen recurring issues relating to it – we’d sharing a guide on how to fix the issue yourself.  Happily, it is very simple to achieve this – just install one simple plugin, and you’re there.

The Tim Thumb Vulnerability Scanner

Wordpress Plugin Manager

You can either install the plugin manually using the link above, or install it using the built-in WordPress plugin manager.

Installing the plugin through WordPress is very easy; just click on Plugins, then click on Add New.  Search for:

Tim Thumb Vulnerability Scanner

Install the plugin automatically through your admin panel (you will need to know your FTP details to do this!).  Once the plugin has installed, click on Activate Plugin.  Hover your mouse over Tools – you should now see Tim Thumb Scanner listed.  Click on this link.

In our tests, we have found that when you first approach this page you may get a permissions error, for the Tim Thumb Vulnerability Scanner plugin folder.  To remedy this, log in to your webspace for the relevant site via FTP, and change the permission of the following folder to 775:

httpdocs/location-of-your-wordpress-site/wp-content/plugins/timthumb-vulnerability-scanner/

Once you have reached the Tim Thumb page and resolved any potential permissions issues, click on Scan.  The scanner will check the contents of your wp-content folder for instances of Tim Thumb.  This is a very important feature, because the vulnerability could affect any themes that are installed to your WordPress site – which includes all of the old, testing and otherwise unused themes that you haven’t uninstalled!

Tim Thumb Scan Results

Once you’ve run the scan, one of three things will happen:

1. No results – you don’t use Tim Thumb in any of your themes.  You’re fine.
2. All instances of Tim Thumb on your site are listed, but all of them are using a version that doesn’t suffer from the vulnerability.  All instances have a status of Up to Date.  You’re fine.
3. One or more instances of Tim Thumb on your site are not up to date.  Any that require updating are listed on the page, with a status of Vulnerable.

If you get the third result, just check the tick box next to the affected file(s), and click on Update Selected Files (lower down the page).  This will replace the relevant file(s) with the latest version of Tim Thumb.

That really is all that is required – simple!

NuBlue are an Award Winning Digitial Agency and Web Host. If you have a Design or Hosting requirement, please get in touch and we will be happy to help you achieve your online goals!

Like any love affair, there are downsides. As anyone who has experienced Magento will be aware, it can be incredibly unfriendly, particularly for new users; upgrades are difficult, and, most importantly, speed is a critical and constant issue. Magento is a resource heavy solution, requiring hosting specifications and configurations that are, arguably, more demanding and expensive than other solutions. Certainly anyone moving from an old html site to Magento will be in for a shock!

So we’re going to spend a bit of time posting regular features about alternative Shopping Carts that are available on the Internet. We’re going to look at the cart, mainly from a Hosting department’s point of view, but with some Design based insight too. How easy is it to install? How do the features compare? What useability and functionality is on offer? Is it extendable and open source? Does it cost? And just how quickly does it run under some specific conditions?

The eventual aim of these series of posts will be to evaluate a few alternatives and then return to Magento, to look at the platform with the same criteria in mind. We’d like to know if there are any carts out there that we consider to be serious contenders for use instead of Magento for new eCommerce ventures.

We’re going to only consider carts that have acceptably high quality free versions avaialable (i.e. Magento Community is the ‘original’ free version, though there are more advanced (and expensive) Professinal and Enterprise versions available); that are LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) based; and that are Open Source. If you can’t get it for free, run it on our servers ‘out of the box’, and pull it apart how you see fit, then we’re not interested.

Stay tuned for our first contender…

NuBlue are a Magento specialist. If you have a Magento design and development project or a Magento Hosting Requirement please get in touch and we will be happy to discuss your requirements.

Fund raising is the cornerstone of Charitable work, and with the Bath Half 2012, we had a perfect opportunity to contribute some more to Mercy in Action’s work.  Based in Bath, they have a number of tickets for runners who will compete on behalf of their Charity.  The Bath Half is a one of the most establish Half Marathon events in the UK, and is the largest single fund raising event in the South West of England; and as a seasoned veteran of 1 Half Marathon, I jumped at the chance to run for them!

My previous Half Marathon experience was the Leeds Half Marathon in 2011 – it looks like a very different course; the Bath Half doesn’t feature many hills (it conveniently skips them, which is a good thing for anyone who has been to Bath!), and it’s also a two lap race, which will be a pleasant surprise.  I’m also looking forward to running the course for a charitable cause again; it certainly makes the experience more rewarding, as you know it’s not all about overcoming a physical challenge on your own.

At the Drop In Centre

To make the fund raising even easier, I’ve set up a Just Giving page.  Donating money is very easy and secure (honestly). They won’t sell your details (good), and once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the Charity.  This is also really important, as it cuts down on admin work at their end, which means that less time and money is being used to run the Charity, and more of it ends up helping those in need.

So, we’ve set an initial target of £500 – we’re hoping that we will exceed the target very soon!  But please – if you’ve ever had a great experience with us, if we’ve helped you out, built you a nice site, sorted a problem you were having or provided you with a service that you’re happy with – please consider donating some money through this page.  And if you do – don’t forget to Gift Aid it!  It costs you nothing, but the Charity gets a little bit more.

NuBlue are Web Design/Development and Web Hosting specialists, but that’s not why we’ve posted this (or this! Please, please donate to our Just Giving page! Thanks!

Their work has grown to encompass projects which are vital for whole communities, such as house building, small business enterprises, and schooling and feeding programmes.

Mercy in Action patron Tim Jones approached NuBlue for a new website and the team here have been so moved by the stories we heard and the work that was being done it was impossible to say no! In fact, we bought into their mission so much, we did it for free!

The new WordPress powered website has now gone live with an incredible range of images from the various projects, a blog with some really moving real life accounts and plenty of ideas for how you can get involved.

NuBlue will be supporting Mercy in Action as one of our chosen Charities at various events throughout the year. Kicking off with a half marathon on 11th March by our Hosting Manager Ewan MacLeod. Watch this space for more details.

NuBlue are Web Design/Development and Web Hosting specialists. If you have a web design or development project or a Web Hosting Requirement please get in touch and we will be happy to discuss your requirements.

Designing for Magento takes time and the best designs start with a good plan. To give you a head start we have created a set of Magento Wireframes using the Balsamiq wireframing tool. In order to open or edit the wireframes you will need to download a copy of Balsamiq (which is awesome!)… and that’s it!

The wireframes zip includes a wireframe of the default Magento templates which you can use as a base for your custom Magento design. The zip includes:

• Home Page
• Product Category Page
• Product Page
• Cart Page
• Checkout Page
  
• My Account Page

You can download the zip for free by just giving a tweet (or a facebook message)

NuBlue are a Magento specialist. If you have a Magento design and development project or a Magento Hosting Requirement please get in touch and we will be happy to discuss your requirements.

The NuBlue team will be drawing a daily prize winner at random each day and announcing the result here!

You can enter the competition here and then make sure you check this blog to see if you will be getting an early Christmas present!

25th December

It’s the final day of the #NuBlueXmasGiveaway, and today’s Grand Prize Draw winner is Brian Timmer.

Congratulations Brian, you have won a Kindle Wi_Fi, 6″ E Ink Display and £20 Amazon Gift Card from NuBlue.

Also, a big thank you to all of this year’s prize sponsors , and of course all you guys for taking part!

Merry Christmas!

24th December

A big congratulations to Claire Gibbons who has won a £50 iTunes voucher donated by NuBlue.

There was no task to win day 24 of the #NuBlueXmasGiveaway, everyone who had previously entered the#NuBlueXmasGiveaway were put into a random draw.

Only 1 day to go till the big Christmas day prize. Good luck everybody!

23rd December

Sarah Green is the winner of day 23 of the #NuBlueXmasGiveaway.

Sarah has won an iPod shuffle from Mercy In Action, well done Sarah!

Also, thank you Mercy In Action for contributing this great prize!

22nd December

Well done @MySonsSpongeMad Yvonne Brownsea, who is the winner of day 22 of the #NuBlueXmasGiveaway.

Yvonne has won a Nitendo Wii from Digibug by tweeting ‘we followed the @ digibug  because  we want a Wii! But I’ve now seen you do fantastic web design, so you’re now  bookmarked!

A big thank you to Digibug for donating this amazing prize!

Also, day 23, 24 and 25^th winners of the #NuBlueXmasGiveaway will be drawn after Christmas.

21st December

Congratulations to Josie Towell who won Day 21 of the  #NuBlueXmasGiveaway.

Josie won a pair of “Jennifer Jayne” Freshwater Pearl Earrings from Pearl Magpie.

Thank you Pearl Magpie for giving away this lovely prize!

20th December

Well done to Gemma Hibbert who has won Day 20 of the #NuBlueXmasGiveaway.

Gemma has won a John Lewis Festive Hamper from Strategic Planet.

Congratulations Gemma, and a big thank you to Strategic Planet for donating this great prize!

19th December

The winner of Day 19 #NuBlueXmasGiveaway is Lisa King.

Congratulations Lisa, you have won a £50 istock credit kindly donated, well by us here at NuBlue.

Only 6 more days to go until the Christmas Day Grand Prize draw, exciting stuff!

18th December

Well Done Anthony Bravender who is the Day 18 winner of  #NuBlueXmasGiveaway.

Anthony has won a Fujifilm FinePix AV200 Digital Camera from Black Zest.

Thank you Black Zest for contributing this amazing prize!

17th December

Rowan Pellegrin is the winner of Day 17 #NuBlueXmasGiveaway, and has won 3 x Rock + Run Smart phone cases from Rock + Run.

Rowan successfully answered that the Gétû Valley is found in China.

A big thanks to Rock + Run for donating this smart prize!

16th December

A big congratulations to Rachel Claire Lamb!

Rachel has won  a Toshiba BDX1200 BluRay Player with BD from Big Dude Clothing, and first up on this player Rachel said she would watch the all time classic Miracle on 34th street.

Thank you Big Dude Clothing for donating this amazing prize!

15th December

Well done to @zeeski who has won Day 15 of the #NuBlueXmasGiveaway.

The correct answer to ‘which animal was Google’s 2011 major algorithm change named after’ was indeed Panda. @zeeski has won a £50 Amazon voucher from Copify.

Many thanks to Copify for donating this great prize!

14th December

The winner of day 14 is Natalya Moroz. Well done Natalya, who has won a £50 voucher to spend at Fresh Purple.

Natayla said if she won the voucher she would love to buy the resin rose and white baroque fresh pearl necklace.

A big thank you  to Fresh Purple for donating this lovely prize!

13th December

Big congratulations to Richard Stevens who won a fabulous M&S Italian Hamper  from HypeForType !

Thank you HypeForType for donating this tasty prize!

12th December

Well done to Matt Debouge who correctly guessed that the port picture on Cruise Connections facebook page was Geirangerfjord, Norway!

Matt has won a Morecambe Bay Hamper kindly donated by Cruise Connections.

Thank you Cruise Connections!

11th December

Well done to Rachael Fielding who has won an iPod Shuffle and £15 iTunes voucher donated from Uni Groups.

Rachael added the caption “I am somehow curious on what is it that I’m exactly looking at…”   on the Uni Groups photo on their facebook wall.

Thank you to Uni Groups for donating this musical prize.

10th December

Congratulations to Natasha Walton who has won a lovely 3/4ltr Full Cut Lead Crystal Ships Decanter from Crystal Galleries!

Also, a  big thanks to Crystal Galleries for donating this prize!

9th December

A big well done to Stephen Downey  who has won a 13 month subscription to Web Designer Magazine, donated from all of us here at NuBlue.

8th December

Well done to Matthew Palmer who has won a Retro Sweet Hamper from Treasure Island Sweets!

Matthew guessed the correct number of sweets in the jar! The answer was 276.

Thank you to Treasure Island Sweets for donating this tasty prize!

7th December

Congratulations to Clare Edwards who has won a £25 voucher to spend at www.inbriefboutique.com/.

Many thanks to In Brief Boutique for donating this lovely prize.

6th December

Congratulations to Adam Houlton who has won a £50 voucher to spend at www.voijeans.co.uk.

Adam answered correctly that ‘Voi’ stands for ‘You’.

Many thanks to Voi Jeans for donating this prize.

5th December

Well done to Wendy Clark who has won a canvas print from the Print Lounge.

Many thanks to Print Lounge for donating this great prize.

4th December

Congratulations to Lorraine Johnson who has won a £50 iTunes Voucher!

Lorraine told us the best Christmas present she has ever received was Play-Doh when she was little.

Thank you to Buzzmart for donating this fantastic prize.

3rd December

Congratulations to Yvonne Clark who has won a £25 voucher to spend at www.aiofficesupplies.com

Today’s task was to guess how many coloured paper clips are in the jar by commenting on the photo on Ai Communications Facebook wall. The correct answer was 483. Yvonne got the closest to this by guessing 481!

Thank you to Ai Communications for donating this prize.

2nd December

Congratulations to Jason who has won a £30 Voucher for http://www.hasbean.co.uk/.

Has Bean Coffee have a new roaster that needed naming – check out the roaster and name suggestions here. Jason’s winning suggestion for the new name was ‘Erik the Red’.

Thank you to @hasbean for donating this great prize.

1st December

Congratulations to @amyLcool who has won her choice of Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, courtesy of NuBlue!

Each day’s winner will be announced on here as they are drawn.  Keep an eye out to see who wins what as we go through December.

Our very own digital advent calendar is here for you to open every day to get you in the festive spirit – with the added incentive of some great prizes donated by ourselves and our lovely clients and partners.

How To Enter

The idea is simple – all you have to do is click on the relevant day’s date to see what the prize is for the day and complete the task for that day to be in for a chance of winning the prize.

• Visit NuBlue every day in December.
• Click on the advent calendar door with today’s date and complete the task.
• If you complete the task correctly you will be entered into a prize draw for that day and the winner will be draw at random.
• The winners will be announced on the NuBlue blog no later than 2 days after the daily prize draw has taken place.

Every entry per day will also be entered into the Grand Prize Draw on Christmas Day to win a Kindle Wi-Fi, 6” E Ink Display and £20 Amazon Gift Card. The more day’s of the competition you enter, the more chance you have of winning this fantastic prize.

The Prizes

Whether you would like an early Christmas present for yourself or want a bit of help with your Christmas shopping, we have some great prizes for you to win. These include…

• Abode Illustrator CS5 or Adobe Photoshop CS5
• M&S Italian Hamper
• £50 itunes voucher
• “Jennifer Jayne” Freshwater Pearl Earrings
• 13 issue subscription to Web Designer Magazine
• Toshiba BDX1200 BluRay Player
• £50 iStock Credit
• Nintendo Wii

Follow NuBlue on Twitter, Facebook and Google+ for daily prize announcements so you don’t miss a day.

Happy Christmas!

The NuBlue Team

The new Google+ pages are similar to personal Google+ profiles in that they let people engage with a business much as they would with anyone else over Google+, but there are some differences: business pages have an overall Google +1 count that shows on their profile page. However business pages can’t +1 other company pages, don’t support notifications and are automatically linked to personal Google+ accounts.

Here’s our initial tips and thoughts after setting up our own Google+ Page:

Create a Page

To create a Google+ Page is really simple; you first need to have a personal profile on Google+. Once you have this you need to head to http://www.google.com/+/business/

Create a Google+ Page

To start you will need to pick a category that your business fits into. You will be prompted to fill out some basic details about your page. You then have 10 words to summarise your business and you can upload an image / logo. Now this is complete your page profile can be edited allowing you to add information to ‘About’ and photos to your page.

When creating albums, upload the images in the order you want them to appear – currently there is no way to change the order, and the first image appears in a larger box. I realised this too late when I saw my large photo in our team photos!

One flaw in the sign-up page for Google+ Pages is the lack of verification required to set up an account. Google have said they will be providing verification badges so users can confirm the authenticity of a page.

Another thing to note when creating a Google+ Business Page is that is it not possible to create multiple admins. Multiple administrator support is promised in the near future, but until it arrives, note that whoever creates the page will also be the page administrator. No one else will be able to administer that page, at least to begin with.  Nor can that page be transferred toanother user account.

Unlike Facebook, vanity URLs are not available, so currently you can’t use your business name for your URL rather than a long string of numbers. Google have provided no update on when this might change.

Grow your Circles

People can add pages to one of their personal account circles and there is a built-in circle called “Following”, made up of all the people your page follows. From your business page you cannot add people to circles until your page is added or mentioned by them first. Circles make it possible to add potential customers to various circles and address them in a segmented way.

In order to grow your followers/circles you can place the Google+ badge on your site similar to the Facebook/Twitter badges. Another way to grow your circles is search on Google+ for posts about your industry and share/comment on them (as your page) to grow your presence.

Hangouts

Like personal Google+ accounts, Pages also allow Hangouts. A Hangout is one of the more innovative concepts of Google+. This allows for video based group chat, you can invite users to join the hangout. This could be used to interact with your clients and potential customers.

Google+ Direct Connect

You can now use ‘+’ in Google search to find Google+ pages. For example, if you searched for ‘+pepsi,’ you could be immediately taken to the Pepsi Google+ page and you are given the option to add the page to your circles. At present this only works for a small number of pages.

It is very early days for Google+Pages but it is already showing huge potential with big brands on board like Pepsi, Burberry and FC Barcelona.

Have you created a Google+ Page for your business? Tell us about it and let us know if you have any tips.

Using Google+? Add NuBlue to your circles for web, marketing, and hosting chat and news. 

Return on Investment or ROI is a common feature of boardroom meetings. But it becomes a very different concept when you’re talking about digital.

With digital projects or campaigns, it is usually quite easy to track the cost of an investment. It might equal the direct costs from your agency, plus the staff time put into the project, plus supporting promotion for example. Not a difficult sum.

Forget the financials and think outside the box

The problem comes when we try to measure the return on a digital project. Parts of this are easy – if you are promoting a product and ask people to use a promotional code when ordering, the sales total is the return. If you are promoting an event, the money from ticket sales is the return. But in pharma, when the Code limits what and how you can promote, it really is difficult to measure.

The problems go further than this – a company may take someone on specifically to run their social media presence. What is the return on that? Increased brand awareness? Better digital connections to the marketplace? Try putting a value to one of those for your company.

As with many aspects of digital, the concept of ROI doesn’t really translate in a way that makes it useful. So how can we measure the ROI of digital, particularly in Pharma, where digital campaigns and presence is so different to other industries? You change the way you measure it.

Social Media Monitoring – a Case Study

Rather than measuring the number of direct sales resulting from a leaflet, you can measure the number of visitors to a site (which is the number of people receiving your message). Instead of measuring the increase in profit, try looking at the increase in Twitter followers. ROI for digital is still a concept – it’s just a different concept than in more traditional arenas.

Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) built a Social Media (SM) Dashboard to monitor their online social activity. The dashboard monitored the quantity of SM activity about BI and tracked the emotion of the activity. The dashboard was configured to distinguish between positive, negative and neutral comments by picking up on tonality based on key words. This means it can show, at a glance whether the general SM perception of BI is positive, negative or neutral on any given day.

Boehringer Ingelheim Social Media Dashboard

How does this help? you might ask. BI can track the positive and negative feedback and discussion that is out there. They can see how this changes when a certain tweet is sent out from the corporate Tweeter. They can see what the mood is about a certain product at a certain time. They can track the impact of a new website’s launch or a new Facebook page.

In other campaigns you can track the number of people who have accessed a specific campaign’s micro-site. The genius of Google Analytics gives you all the stats you need to know whether your digital is achieving. If you spend £30,000 on an interactive micro-site and get 400 visitors, that’s not a great ROI. Alternatively you could spend £10,000 on a simpler site that gets the message across, and with a few hundred pounds spent on pay-per-click you get 12,000 visitors in a month, 45% of who view 6 pages or more, for example, you know you’ve done well.

DIY Market Insights

There are several morals to this I guess – forget the traditional measurements and benchmarks when you are trying to assess the impact of digital. Work with those who understand it to look at ways you can measure the success of what you are doing and see how those measurements are significant and how you can use them to impress even the most cynical and anti-digital managers. If you’re on this blog, the chances are you know the power of digital, you understand the potential market that is lurking out there waiting to be tapped up. The chances are you just need that little bit of extra insight to see how you can persuade those above you that it’s all worth it.

Many pharma companies pay consultants to conduct market research.  self-analysis of your digital can give you a great insight into your market – you can spot their trends, you can see where they go.  You can see how they react to different things.  Invaluable.  And free. How’s that for ROI?

So it’s not about measuring the monetary return – it’s about measuring and putting into context the statistical data that is readily available to you. And the evaluation doesn’t need to cost a fortune either. SM analysis is free, quick and easy. You can do it yourself, just by searching twitter for mentions of your company and key products.

Gartner Social CRM Magic Quadrant July 2011

SBS (social business software) is web browser based software which facilitates familiar social media style interaction, with a strong emphasis towards features which aid productivity and collaboration in business. Increasingly corporate intranets and customer facing communities are being replaced with SBS systems by enterprises looking to embrace the power of social media for business rather than ban its personal counterparts from the office and deny its power of engagement, global organisation and collaboration.

Jive software is a leader in social media, indeed according to Gartners Magic Quadrant for Social CRM (published in July 2011) Jive is the leading company in the social business software arena currently.

NuBlue has deployed a Jive powered public community using Jive 4.5 and are now assisting with Jive deployment strategies for enterprises looking to use Jive as an internal intranet solution as well.. so we were chomping at the bit to go to Jiveworld 2011 to see the new features in Jive 5 and hear the experience of enterprise customers in their social business roll outs. Oh yes.. and.. Jiveworld 11 was in Las Vegas (which didn’t add to excitement at all)!

Vegas

The Bellagio Fountain at night

I touched down in Las Vegas for Jiveworld 2011 the day before the conference.  It was my first time in Vegas and it was fairly clear to me by the one armed bandit machines in airport arrivals that this wasn’t likely to be a ‘normal’ town.  When I first got there I was more than a little awestruck by the sheer scale of this feat of human engineering!

The day after arriving I went to the first Jiveworld 2011 session still a little jet lagged and a bit uneasy about this new environment.  I walked over to the Cosmopolitan hotel (the venue for Jiveworld 11) from the world famous Bellagio which despite being directly ‘next door’ took  nearly 30minutes to get to (just to give an idea of the scale of hotels on the strip!).

The Jiveworld 2011 main stage sessions of the conference opened with an incredible intro performance by street dancer Lil Buck. Jive created an edgy forward thinking vibe for the conference right from the start, and it definetely felt like we were part of an exciting new direction in enterprise software!

Jiveworld

Jive Software term the Jive SBS platform as ‘A new way to business’.  While at Jiveworld 11,  Jive presented their vision for the future, the new features of Jive 5 and there were also presentations and workshops by enterprises who have already deployed Jive, focusing on lessons learned and best practice.

Jives Vision

Jiveworld 11 Main Stage

Jive CEO Tony Zingale opened the main stage proceedings where he outlined Jive’s vision for the future, re-iterating that Jive’s vision was “systems built around people” and not the other way around as is often the case with current enterprise crm and intranet solutions. His message was “in systems of the future the people are the platform“.

Jive’s vision is that Jive becomes the focal point where people work during their day at work for collaboration, documents and communication in general. Jive’s vision is that enterprise embrace their entire eco-system (employees, partners and customers) all using Jive as a central portal to conduct work in.  This is something that NuBlue believe is crucial for high level employee engagement with Jive.

Tony went on to talk about how Jive releases social capital, bringing to the forefront information which is relevant (at that time) to an organisation, information that could easily be buried away in the old style intranets and document storage solutions.

Other noteworthy points were Jive’s intention to bring social to where people are.  One very significant example being the aquisition of office sync and how that now enables Jive from within outlook and the office suite, putting Jive directly in the faces of the users who are still in the process of being convinced of the benifits of social business. Iphone, Android and Blackberry apps were also mentioned for users away from the office.  A sharepoint integration was also promised for users of this platform who are looking to transition to Jive.

New features of Jive 5

The first day of Jiveworld 11 started with practical training sessions particularly focusing on the new features of Jive 5. I went to a couple of practical sessions on the first day but the highlight for me was the Community Building Blocks session by Jeff Ritter.

Jive Training: Community Building Blocks

The session focussed on how to setup a community in Jive, showcasing the new Jive 5 features.

Particular pieces that stood out for me were using the new Labels feature which kind of reminded me of Google+ circles mainly just because it allows you to group users together for the purpose of sending specific content to them. With Labels you can send direct messages to a group of users you’ve put under a label to aid collaborative working. This seemed to me to be a powerful step forward for Jive and it will be interesting to see if and how this feature develops going forward.

Another interesting feature highlighted in this session was the ability to use twitter style people addressing such as @user or even @group to send to a whole group which can be used to direct specific users to content you have just created etc.  Again this seems a great feature which is already very familiar to anyone who uses twitter.  This isn’t the only feature that appeals to people who are already well versed with consumer social media.  The presentation started with covering Jive – What Matters which seems a good way for users to stay on the pulse with things of concern to them in Jive and has some similarities to the facebook notification area in the way it functions,  again making using Jive comfortable for anyone familiar with existing popular social media, yet providing the features in a much more conducive-to-business way.

Enterprise Experiences

Various large enterprises were present at Jiveworld including T-mobile, CSC and Pearson,  from the people I spoke to at the conference and from the talks by enterprises who have already deployed Jive,  there were some clear recurring messages. Some of the Jive advice that stood out for me (much of which is already known) was as follows:

• Build anticipation of the launch of your community
• Give your Jive deployment a custom brand and work hard to build that brand
• Get Leadership buy in and have them lead by example, one example of this is a CEO refusing to be contacted in any other way accept through Jive
• Don’t provide Jive as another intranet/crm option make it the only option
• Don’t just use Jive for work: encourage social groups, one company saw their Jive implementation replacing Facebook in their office for some users because they were able to communicate with colleagues in their company globally in a social capacity using the system, this is a good thing – embrace it
• Get company experts onboard with Jive early (and ensure that some of the difficult ones are on board too!) to help lead the development of your Jive platform
• Give proper freedom like consumer social networks and allow everyone in the company to create groups
• Make sure there is proper education provided in the system for best practice use of the platform
• If you have rules and terms & conditions of use, make sure they are short and don’t put people off engaging with your system
• Use a move to Jive to start again with a user centric approach in your enterprise
• Support and encourage, don’t try to overly control users
• Reward Teams as well as individuals for contributions to the platform
• Keep the number of spaces in your Jive deployment to a minimal amount to keep a focussed community where everyone feels part of something bigger

Conclusion

Jiveworld concluded with an amazing closing party sponsored by Alcatel Lucent on the top of the Cosmopolitan Hotel, and I left the conference feeling that Jive’s rapidly developing approach to social business definitely is the future, even if not all the issues are ironed out just yet..