The new website went live at midnight last night! Take a gander, take a peek, and, if so inclined, let us know what you think.
If you’re new to Tribeca Insights, you probably didn’t see our old website, which was, in my humble opinion, depressing. It was very gray, with a stock photo header featuring two businesspeople sitting in chairs on a beach (why?). And while the site was probably just as informative as the new site, it didn’t exactly compel people to look much further than the homepage. It might have even driven people away, since we’d always get feedback saying that people couldn’t tell what we do based on what they found on the site. So, you know what? We decided to make a change.
“More accessible, more engaging, more user-friendly,” was what we had in mind when we designed the new site. A bolder top navigation with drop-down menus displays all the links you need to learn about TI, and if that’s not enough, we now have featured Knowledge Leaders, featured projects and our most recent news. In addition, if you register on the site or for a particular project, even more information becomes available to you. You can read Knowledge Leaders’ full bios, see project descriptions and questions before you apply, discover ways to connect with TI via our various social networks and provide feedback about your consultation experiences. Even just now, we received the following feedback from a registered Knowledge Leader:
Was a very positive experience, and believe client was satisfied.
We are VERY excited! I’ve been clapping my hands all morning like a child at Disneyworld, unable to contain my enthusiasm for the new tribecainsights.com. We hope others like it, too, and that it will engender confidence and trust in our company and services. If all goes well, we will continue to add new features—let us know what you’d like to see! Also, we’ll continuously be on the lookout for Knowledge Leaders who’d like to be featured on the site, so if that’s you, send us an email and a headshot. In the meantime, happy surfing to all our clients, experts, potential clients and potential experts!
technorati tags: Tribeca Insights, new website
In a fit of frustration over a particularly tricky (and fruitless) recruitment project, I lashed out in lament—on Twitter. To my astonishment, the micro-blogging (140 characters or less) community immediately rallied and responded to my cry; two experts engaged me directly, and several industry Twitter users began following my posts.
We’ve gradually been exploring using social networking as a recruitment method. Our Twitter account (http://twitter.com/TribecaInsights) has generated some positive publicity and useful connections, but this was the first time a very niche expert was engaged and recruited via this new milieu. I think that a keen foundational notion behind playing with various expert recruitment methods—e-mail, telephone, Facebook, and now, Twitter—is that industry experts—like television-viewers, food critics, university professors and elementary school students—may be segmented. Consumer segmentation, as most companies already know, is increasingly important and relevant to media consumption, sales and marketing as the power of the internet becomes more widespread.
I remember attending a seminar on segmentation and demographics analytics during my days as a publicist. They presented some interesting supporting statistics on the effectiveness of targeted marketing by contrasting the number of magazines and television stations available in 1940, 1960, 1980 and 2000, along with accompanying data on the (impressive) industry revenue generated through spending, advertising, subscription and merchandising. Needless to say, the exponential growth in media options targeted to very specific users (entire magazines devoted to featuring bridal accoutrements for brides-to-be; golfing destinations catalogs for golf enthusiasts; even eerily comprehensive pet parenting periodicals aimed at Labrador owners, poodle breeders, and terrier trainers!) have transformed the formerly modestly-sized media industry to a multi-billion dollar, globally-linked machine.
Applying the same mentality in expert recruiting—by tapping into the social networks and industry-specific virtual communities target experts are likely to frequent—could uncover caches of previously un-reachable, un-discoverable, or un-responsive experts. We’ll be experimenting and finessing our recruiting procedures into the summer—stay tuned for updates!
technorati tags: Twitter
We used to hear quite frequently that there wasn’t enough information about us on ye olde Internet. And, it’s true: When you would google us a few months ago, there certainly was very little to be seen except for maybe our homepage and those threads I mentioned in my first post. So, obviously, we’ve been working really hard toward remedying that unfortunate situation in order to bring you the latest and greatest in TI news and accessibility. Below, I will identify and illuminate the various resources there now are for reading about and reaching out to TI and our people:
1. Facebook. Okay, so, we only have 23 friends as of right now. Which is sad, we know. Also, there aren’t any fun pictures or videos of us yet, but we’re working on it. What we’d really like is for our experts and clients to befriend us on FB so that we can more easily keep in touch (so please, if you’re on FB, please find us and befriend us). In this business of global research and remote consulting, it’s easy to think of people as faceless entities, only known to us by their professional bios and screening question answers. Wouldn’t it be nice if we all knew a little bit more about each other and could see each other’s smiling faces? The answer here is yes. Be our friend!
2. Twitter. We use this exceedingly popular microblogging tool to tell our followers what we’re doing—that is, what industries we’re recruiting for, when we’ve put up a new blog post (I’ll be tweeting about this little gem in a minute) and whatever other tidbits we feel like sharing with the world. Our Twitter is linked to our Facebook, so even if you’re not down with the tweet, you can still receive updates on all our activities. Let’s hear it for technology!
3. Yelp. While we don’t have any reviews posted of us yet, we’d like to start getting some. In fact, we encourage all of our experts and clients to post reviews of our services and the interactions we have with you all. We hope everyone we work with has a pleasant experience doing so, so please let us know what we can do to help make your dealings with TI better!
And, in addition to the above, we’re redoing our website, which was redesigned in-house, thank you very much. Given that our current website looks pretty depressing and isn’t exactly web 2.0, we’re going for a more colorful and informative approach. At this time, we’re still working out cross-browser functionality and some other minor issues, but it looks like we’ll be able to launch the new site within the month. Keep your fingers crossed!
Basically, social networking makes it easier for all of us to be engaged with one another and interact regularly. We want you to know what’s going on on our end, and we also want to find out what’s happening on yours. We want to be able to share information easily and quickly, to keep our experts and clients informed and in the know. On that note, let’s connect!
technorati tags: social networking, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp
Hellooo, new readers and Knowledge Leaders! I’m sure everyone is as excited as I am about the launch of Tribeca Insights’ new blog, The Insight Scoop. (I’m probably more excited than you are.) Particularly because…well, there’s very little content on the web about us currently (except, of course, for those nasty forums that certain skeptics post when we offer to pay them more than a penny for their thoughts and they, in turn, repay us by causing expletives to show up in our Google search results). Amazing. So, we decided to do something about it! You know, speak to the people directly. Open the lines of communication!
The purposes of this blog are variegated, but simple: 1) It’s to prove that we, at Tribeca Insights, are not dirty spammers who are out to get your money or confidential information, 2) to create a positive atmosphere where people can share their thoughts and, um, insights—on any topic, not just the ones we recruit you for, and 3) to provide transparency into Tribeca Insights as an organization—the company, the people, the Knowledge Leader Forum and our expert antics.
At the end of the day, we really just want to bring people together. That’s it! And this venue is just another means for making that happen. Look forward to regular posts from Tribeca Insights’ in-house bloggers, including an illuminating future post by our principal, Dazhi Chen (he’s a busy man to pin down for a blog post, but he says he’ll do it for all you fine folks, and soon). In the meantime, feel free to follow us on Twitter and/or befriend us on Facebook! Or you can just call me for a chat, like many of you already do. We love hearing from you!
Also: If you get any LinkedIn requests from a Dianne A. Lee, it’s NOT ME. I think that person is, in fact, a dirty spammer, so please shun this person like the plague. I will never actually contact you directly through LinkedIn (only via email) or ask you to be my friend (I mean, if you ask me, I’ll obviously accept), so you’ll know it’s not me. Just looking out for you guys. Thanks and good night!
technorati tags: Tribeca Insights, The Insight Scoop, Knowledge Leader Forum, Dazhi Chen, dirty spammers