#FridayFavourites with an especially diverse and deep collection of what's happened on the Plusverse this week.

#FridayFavourites  with an especially diverse and deep collection of what's happened on the Plusverse this week.
Mick Sharpe's commentary is worth the read in itself.

#fridayfavorites   #googleplus  

Originally shared by Mick Sharpe

Oh, What a May Day!

May! What? How did that happen? Apart from things flying by at an alarming rate it’s a cracking content week as usual on the Plus.

It was Name the Snake day on this week’s The Mia Connect Power Chat (http://goo.gl/d3W7tu). Yes, really! You know it’s never an ordinary show with Mia Voss. This Animal Happy Hour show featured Yvonne DiVita and Tom Collins of BlogPaws, Robert Semrow of PetWorldInsider, co-presenter at the BlogPaws 2015 event Denise Wakeman, #HillsOfAfrica’s Sandy Salle and Executive Director of the Center for Snake Conservation, Cameron Young. Now I’ve had snakes before so knew what was likely to happen - and it did at around 33 minutes! Animals and entertaining, informative conversation - what’s not to like?

And if you need a little more Mia, there’s more entertaining, wine-propelled conversation on the Jess + Scott + You Show: Selfishness: Scott Point / Jess Counterpoint (http://goo.gl/uiQjQ7). Mia joins Jessica Dewell and Scott Scowcroft for a conversation around selfishness, gender and age differences, education and empowerment that really draws you in. Smiling at many points throughout this including this advice from Jess for men, never get catty with a woman. We will outcat you every time! Ouch, been there and have the scars!

Jess and Scott are, of course, regulars on my #havetosee show, The Ray Lunch Bunch. In The Medium is Not the Message (http://goo.gl/715fv2) Mark Traphagen joins Ray Hiltz and the rest of the #RayBunch B.L. Ochman and Randy Bowden for a lively conversation about social media and business. Touching on the negatives of recent times, personal brand representatives and the issues of differing platforms this is, as ever, well worth the 35 minutes. Great takeouts from the panel - I’ve got to take the Are you addicted to Technology? quiz shared by B.L. I’m also glad I can still put my pre-Internet brain into gear when necessary. Enjoy it.

The withdrawal symptoms start to kick in if I go too long without an article from Gina Fiedel. Well, I have my #GinaFix for this week in Target Your Ideal Customer While Harnessing Brand Identity On Your Website (http://goo.gl/5ggRxz). Gina highlights the delicate balancing act between form and function bringing in the #GinaTwist of the Minimalist Art movement (you know you’re going on a journey of discovery with Gina!). The message is clear, your website is your holy ground, the place that should truly express your uniqueness while speaking directly to needs of your ideal customer. The design should marry the two objectives, simply and beautifully. Do take the whole journey to the full article - as always it’s well worth it. The comments are also worth dipping into as well.

Don’t throw your mom under the bus on what is a pretty prominent platform. That’s the humour from Joey Giangola that keeps me coming back to Fearlessly Questioning. Fearlessly Questioning Not Caring (http://goo.gl/FK66fd) has Stephanie Sims in the #Fearless chair. Lots of amusing back and forth between the two as well as some thought-provoking discussion. I have to say I fall squarely in the don’t care camp (in the context of the show). I take very little personally, evaluate everything critically and course adjust as necessary. Cracking discussion and sorry Joey, I am that person that spots the typo on page 25 but, hopefully to my credit, I only disclose the same with discretion.

This post from David Kutcher actually made me get off my virtual a$$ and share to my business page (not done that in a long while). Why? Because it’s exactly the kind of logic-driven approach to developing an online presence that should be the norm rather than the exception. In Focusing on Intent and taking it right to the bank (http://goo.gl/qmeKA1) David outlines the methodology when working with Michlin Metals to re-tune their online presence. I won’t delay you any longer - get over there, read it, absorb it and apply the thinking to the next iteration of your web presence.

Thinkers corner

Two posts got me thinking about what we might expect from search in the future. The first from Mike Elgan Who should decide search engine results? Users? Web site owners? Eurocrats? Google's competitors? (http://goo.gl/3AZVzu) looks at the current obsession with Google’s search results in the Old Guard of Europe. Mike does a good job explaining that the results are ultimately driven by the users and to have continued success Google has to continually improve relevance. Serving results based on any other criteria, Google or legislation imposed, will only serve to reduce that relevance defeating Google’s aims. Show some sense Europe and leave the searchers to decide.

Google’s desire to serve the most relevant results is the subject of David Amerland’s The Mirror Bubble (http://goo.gl/5jgg9S) in which he asks two open questions: Is the need for search to establish immediate value a potential trap? and  _Are the results we are most likely to engage with not also the same as the ones we most want to see?_ I do worry that over time the results will be too much of what we want to see. I relish finding something that challenges my views. If that were to change and the only results being returned were those that aligned with Google’s perception of me would that really be useful? Perhaps that would be the time to elevate the oddball factor in the algorithm!

A late entry! Just spotted this from Ammon Johns who reminds us that Social Networks (http://goo.gl/tSMuVW) are not an online only thing. #MrCommonSense also reminds us that it is all too easy to favour the warm and fuzzy online environment when there is ample opportunity to be the change in the sometimes not so warm and fuzzy offline environment. I certainly don’t get as involved in my real community as I used to. Do you?

And finally…

With any software product there are going to be those unforeseen glitches every now and again. Nicholas Cardot shows us how to handle such a situation the right way in An Update, A Glitch, and the Support of the Community (http://goo.gl/7MHq0n). It has to be said that it’s how a business deals with the customer issues that can make or break the ongoing relationship. Nick did the right thing, kept his nerve and issued a fix in short order. Everyone understands that things can, and do, go wrong but more importantly they now know that Nick isn’t the kind of person to let anyone down. That kind of trust is priceless in an age where slapdash customer support is ever more prevalent.


Have a great weekend wherever you are

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Created by Mick Sharpe of Bitingedge