August
26

Socialcast As A Tool To Bring Groups Closer

Posted By: Wayne Schulz    



Schulz Consulting is one of the founding members of the 90 Minds Consulting Group.  This is a group of 27 Sage Consulting Firms, comprising 415 employees located in 17 different states.

Members of the group initially met at the Sage conferences. Over time we noticed that we’d be sharing a lot of tips and tricks via email. Suddenly what used to be an email to three people had 15 CC: email addresses.

Realizing that this wasn’t a scaleable solution we moved to Yahoo Groups (which we still are using) to automate group emails. Instead of having to be sure that we “reply all” to group messages — Yahoo Groups (free) manages our group and provides one email adress for all members to mail.

In return Yahoo emails out the message to all group members. Or members can elect to read the messages on the web.

This has worked – and continues to work – pretty well for technical emergencies where one of our 27 member companies has a question about an error message.

Where we start to bog down as a group is in the chit chat and off-topic messages. Each month we’re exceeding over 500 messages sent and for individual members that becomes a burden to wade through when all they may want is to see technical tips.

So what we’re now looking at is a free service from Socialcast that is similar in layout to Facebook.

Messaging in Socialcast is private. We are able to form groups for different topics depending upon member (sales, technical, etc).

What’s better about Socialcast is that it also:

Integrates a profile so that any of our 415 individuals can know more about a member they may never have met. This includes phone number, messages the member has sent, a list of specific skills (you can add your own fields – and they are all searchable):

Better applications – while similar services also offered mobile applications – those offered by Socialcast seem to allow for reading threaded messaging with a little less effort. There are also integrations to Microsoft Outlook and Sharepoint for those old school members who don’t yet have smartphones (iPhone, BlackBerry clients are available).

Sadly there’s no Android application (you have to use a mobile optimized web page for Android) – however Socialcast hints that something should be here by the end of 2010.

Socialcast also lets you import almost any of your Social Media feeds (Twitter, Facebook Digg, Flickr) to any of your streams. What I use this for is to setup the group’s technology feed so that any of the items I share in Google Reader go right to the specific group that hosts general technology tips.

By making a separate tech feeds group in Socialcast I don’t over-share with people who may join the group only to learn about the latest technical issues with Sage ERP.

Here’s what the feed setup looks like:

We’re still in the evaluation stage for whether Socialcast will replace our group’s email delivery. Some of the push back we’ve received is that people don’t want “another place to check” or another login and password to remember . The beauty of the email delivery that we were used to is that there was none of the extra place to check or login. Naturally the downside to email is that if you become active enough you start to drown in messages — not all of which are relevant to your interests.

For more information on Socialcast — http://www.socialcast.com

Costs:

Free for unlimited users

Costs start at $299/mo for groups of up to 100 and add primarily support and customization services.

© 2010, Wayne Schulz. All rights reserved. Sage 50, Sage 100, Sage 300 and Sage 500 are registered trademarks of Sage. Have additional unanswered questions about MAS90? You may contact Schulz Consulting here.

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Related posts you might want to review:

  1. Yahoo Groups Message Setup: Reading Via Email
  2. Twhirl beta makes Twitter a bonafide business tool
  3. MAS 90 LinkedIn Group Now Active
  4. Sage MAS Community continues to grow members
  5. FRX to Sage MAS Intelligence Conversion Tool Is In The Works

About

This entry was written by a Sr Consultant who has worked with Sage 100 ERP ( Formerly Sage MAS 90 and MAS 200) since 1986. He provides technical support to companies located throughout the United States on all versions of Sage 100 ERP Contact Wayne via our info request page.The views expressed on this site are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinion or position of any other person or company. We are NOT in the business of providing tax, accounting or audit advice and you are advised to consult with your tax professional in such matters and not to rely on any information here as authoritative tax, technology or accounting advice. Information is subject to change without notice. Google+

Filed Under Productivity, Technology 

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