Digital Skin…Are You Ready?

We held our sales meeting in Miami this year and introduced everyone to the Digital Skin concept, explaining that we need to embrace this technology and use more of what the web has to offer in all of our business practices.

Just think, each day we are exposed to some sort of electronic message. Do you nostalgically look back and think, how did we function in the business world without all of this electronic media at our fingertips? How did we get by communicating only by telephone and snail mail?

Today most e-information services operate under Web 2.0 and social networks, like MySpace and Facebook, interlinked data is the new business model.

I recently came across a business networking site, LinkedIn. This is a great social site to connect with former classmates, old and current colleagues. LinkedIn also allows you to recommend people you have worked with in the past. LinkedIn has millions of visitors and allows me to pose any type of question to anyone in my network, suddenly I can have feedback on our products or business methods.

Friendster used to be the social network, but Facebook (which used to only be open to individuals with a .edu email) upgraded their profile and many marketing professionals are starting to use the site. Large corporations like Proctor & Gamble even have a Facebook page.

Instant messaging is nearly 10 years old and teens have suddenly found a close friend in Twitter, which allows members on some social networking sites to broadcast real time updates in under 140 characters. As a business you can Twitter-scan and see what folks think of your products if they have been exposed to them. Imagine real time complaints can be corrected as they occur. We developed something very similar 4 years ago called ControlSmart™ which alerts machine operators by email the moment a pouch machine starts deviating from the agreed standards. The money saved from this real time alert system can be counted in millions.

As an entrepreneur, I see many opportunities to plug our companies in to this social media or digital skin. The only cost appears to be time, as we spread our name and products throughout web forums, online networking sites, wikis, blogs and podcasts.

However, be warned I have found that after four months with new web sites updates, our web traffic is up, but not staggering.

After much analysis as to why we need to build our digital skin, we realize we are going to have to be more proactive and think reciprocal—one message out and two in—hopefully.

Our MySpace site is run by 3 talented young men, known as the Shotpak GuyZzz (an actor, a radio show host and a rapper). Our page now has over 2000 friends and many are global. The ShotPak website (www.shotpakinc.com) also allows visitors click over to our Beverage Pouch Group, the machinery division at www.ppitechnologies.com

Since starting in earnest to develop my digital skin I have found a number of other sites you might be interested in for business purposes like gather.com, digg.com, twine.com and tbd.com. Each of these sites has a web position and suddenly we found additional members through these sites.


The following are a few other sites I have been exploring: ning.com allows me to set up in-house social network, basecamp.com, allows users to keep track of how much time groups are spending on tasks, Jigsaw.com allows me to have an online directory of business contacts and Jobscore.com allows me to exchange resumes of job candidates we have not hired, with other business people.

Finally as I move from my east coast head office to the west coast sales warehouse about every 10 days, I have been advised that I should use Dopplr.com for sharing my travel itineraries. On Dopplr, friends can send advice on restaurants, golf or packaging shows and even arrange meetings at my destination.

Amazement used to be expressed as 'WOW' and with social networks you use 'WOM' for Word of Mouth. I would like to bring 'WOW' back as Words on Web sites to describe all these social networking activities.

I started by asking how did we do all of this before the world wide web and I end this by saying I can't live without it! My Digital Skin grows more efficient every day. Think WOW!