You need to be registered to the site and logged on to create a blog. On your Dashboard, click on My posts & Comments.

If you have never logged on to www.cxo-advisor.co.za, go to and click on Register.

If you are a registered User you can invite someone else to register here.

A simple way to find something you've just done is to look at www.cxo-advisor.co.za/activity There is a tab for your own activity under "Mine".

This video answers the question: How do Subscription Notices work on CXO Advisor? A Subscription Notice is an email notification of a content update on the site. Watch this short video below to see hoe they work and how to manage subscription notices.
see www.cxo-advisor.co.za/faq for more on CXO advisor site functionality.

A group is a collection of people participating online, in a common space and the activities of that site. So Facebook Groups or example represent virtual clubs or business pages that showcase activity and content published within that group. On www.cxo-advisor.co.za (this site) Groups have the important function of managing privacy. Content within a group is ONLY visible to Group members. We also use Groups to contain and accumulate functionality as illustrated below:

Social networking is a technology that makes it easy to stay in contact with people, track their interests and developments and communicate online, either privately or publically. Wikipedia "A social network is a social structure made of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige."

When considering whether to join or create a social network, there are two separate learning curves. First, you have to become familiar with using social networks. This usually involves figuring out how to create your profile and how to make and interact with friends on the network.
Secondly, you need to learn how to interact with other members of the network. This goes beyond simply contacting other members. You must keep in mind that most people who use social networking sites are extremely leery of being marketed to. If you attempt to join or create a social network solely to promote your company to other members, it will most likely cause other members to denounce your activities harshly and accuse you of “invading their space.”

So while the learning curve for using social networks isn’t too steep (they’re probably a bit more difficult to get comfortable with than blogging, but easier to master than podcasting), the most difficult lesson for companies that join social networks to understand is that they must check their marketing hats at the door. Failure to do so could easily cause more harm to your company than good.

RSS allows you to quickly and easily distribute social media content, and allows others to subscribe to your content so it’s delivered to them as soon as you post it. For example, if a reader of your text blog subscribes to your blog’s RSS feed, they will be notified in their feed reader every time you post. Likewise, people can subscribe to your podcast’s or vlog’s RSS feed.

FeedBurner (www.feedburner.com) is a service that makes it very easy not only to create an RSS feed for your social media content, but to track a great deal of information about your subscribers. All you need is a URL for your blog, vlog or podcast, and FeedBurner does the rest.

 

 

Podcasts are audio files that can be created and shared online. Just as a written piece of content is produced and published on a blog is called a “post,” a podcast is audio or spoken content that is created with a microphone and saved as an “audio file.” To create a podcast you need a microphone and must understand how to record and post your content.
Podcasts can be delivered via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) to services such as iTunes, or can be hosted on blogs. Popular options for many podcasters (people who create podcasts) include creating a separate blog to host their new podcasts or linking to each new audio file from their existing blog. Many listeners download podcasts to listen to while away from their computers, such as when exercising or traveling. For example, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance (www.kiplinger.com) magazine creates weekly podcasts with audio versions of its most popular stories.

Micro-blogging is essentially about sharing snippets of contextual information, much in the same way as your children use SMS or Mixit.

While still quite new, micro-blogging is already popular as a social media and Web 2.0 tool. With micro-blogging services, you can send others short messages and links, even via your cell phone. Additionally, you can display, via a widget, the messages you and others have left each other on micro-blogging services on your blog or profile.

Currently, the most popular micro-blogging service is Twitter (www.twitter.com). This service is somewhat similar to a chat room, except that only those people who “follow you” can see the messages you send. You can block whomever you choose from seeing your messages. And you can use services such as Tweetscan (www.tweetscan.com) to search messages from Twitter users who post without blocks. This allows you to see, for example, who is talking about your company, and what they are saying to others about it.

Micro-blogging is largely used for sharing or publishing bits of information on  Twitter, updating your status on Facebook or connecting on LinkedIn.

You can also share using one of the many services illustrated below.

Click to share with freinds or colleages.

 

Widgets (also known as "embed codes") are codes that you add to a Web site, blog or social networking profile that pull information or media from another source and redisplay it on your blog, Web site or profile, for example, the current weather for your hometown. You could add a widget to your blog to display how many links your blog currently has. Recently, widgets that pull information from multiple sources at once have become popular, for example, a Facebook profile widget could display the newest blog posts from, say, five blogs of your choice. Or you could simply have the widget in your Facebook profile display a link to your latest blog post.

Forums and message boards allow members to create discussions around certain topics, as well as participate in existing conversations. Many forums require visitors to register before they can post new messages, but some allow visitors to sign in as a “guest” or as “anonymous.” The forum can assign moderators to monitor existing posts, as well as to address comments and concerns raised by members.

On this site you can create forums within Groups

A wiki lets many people contribute to the creation of information or a document. The popular Web site Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) uses wikis to create its entries. Over time, as new information is added and as existing information is scrutinized, the quality of each entry should improve.
Wikis are useful if you need to collect information from many people. For example, if you have a conference scheduled and want to know who will be attending, you can create a wiki that allows attendees to share contact information and travel schedules. PBWiki (http://pbwiki.com) is a popular site that lets you create wikis for free.

On this site you can create a Wiki within a Group that is about furthering the purpose and body of knowledge about that group.

Collaborative and community tools allow your customers and partners to create content with you. They are excellent ways to establish and share knowledge and can help strengthen communication between all parties. While other Web 2.0 tools have collaborative properties, the following are specifically and primarily designed to be collaborative.

Wikis

Forums

Q&A

Groups

Request Commitment

Add an associate, colleague or friend

 
Invite an associate, colleague or friend

As is the case anywhere else, your blog is a highly personal and personalised space. Nonetheless, when blogging here, you would do well to bear in mind the standards and objectives of the community you have joined and to make a special effort to be relevant in that context. That is not to say that every word must be community-oriented - there is space here for personal musings and diversions - but you should never lose sight of your audience and never miss an opportunity to speak to them in some way, as and when appropriate. Remember that, once you have written something here, it becomes part of a permanent record, read and remembered by others. Don't be daunted by that - just be mindful of it.

When should I blog rather than use the Forum, or the Wiki, for instance?

Blogging is a kind of news-reporting but with a very personal perspective. You blog when you want to comment on something, share an idea or an insight, relate an event of importance that might be news to your audience - any time you want to make a coherent, thoughtful statement on a matter of interest or importance to the community - even if only just in your opinion. You can blog about an issue and look to the community for helpful feedback (in their comments). Just be prepared for comments and perspectives you might not have expected. :)

By contrast, when there's a discussion to be had - perhaps something less intense or personal - with a good deal of community participation or a question of common interest to be examined from all angles, the forum is the place to take it. Discussion on the forum can start anywhere and go anywhere, as opposed to the comparative focus and originality of the blog. It's also a common and equally entitled space where people can be a little freer with their thoughts and attitudes than they might be in commenting on a blog, for instance, where they come as guests. Questions asked on the question & answer page can be echoed to the forum, so discussion can start on these even before the answers are returned!

The Wiki is the community's own encyclopaedia. This is not a space for speculation, deliberation or discussion but a declaration and exposition of commonly-held concepts, terms, definitions, and so on. What is interesting about a Wiki is the way it is created and maintained - collectively, with all interested (and, preferably, knowledgable) members of the community participating in its construction and maintenance. Any member of the community can initiate a Wiki topic and any member of the community can edit any Wiki topic in order to update it, correct it or enlarge upon it. Thus, you'd take your writing to the Wiki instead of the Blog when you have knowledge to impart to the community in a reliable and open manner, always remembering that it is subject to community acceptance and redaction. If what you have is an opinion or a vague notion, blog it.

Finally, although a blog is a kind of rolling news report or column, regular news (like articles from formal newspapers, online news services and magazines), if merely repeated for community interest, is best reported on the relevant News and Links pages - though there's nothing wrong with using a blog to draw attention to news of interest (preferably including the URL) and commentiing on it.

How does it work?

•Under your personal profile block at the top of the right-hand column, you'll find a link called, Create content.

•When you click on this link, a drop-down menu appears with several options.

•Down the list is Blog entry.

•Click on this and wait for the page to load.
•The form is headed, Submit Blog entry.

The first thing to do is type in a title for your blog in the Title field. This is very important, as the server automatically creates a link based on the wording of your title and without this link your blog will be lost in the ether. You can change it later, if you need to, but you can't do without a title. Some guidelines for titles:

◦Keep it short and pithy – no more than 6 to 8 words, or you're woffling. The briefer (without losing meaning) the more effective.

◦Keep it relevant to the contents.

◦Be careful about attempts at wittiness – they backfire more often than they succeed

◦Try to grab attention but don't try too hard – everything in moderation

◦Be grammatically correct:

■Use an initial capital for at least the first word – but don't use a full stop.

■Use initial capitals on proper nouns and titles.

■DON'T USE ALL-CAPS – this is lazy, visually unappealing and usually construed in webspace as shouting. Even if you want to shout, don't do it with caps. A single exclamation mark will do. (Multiple punctuation marks of any kind are symptomatic of a disturbed mind...)

■dont use all lowercase or chat or smsspeak unless the context really requires it – this is lazy and disrespectful of your audience.

The Body Field

Next down the page is the “Body” of the Blog. By default, this is set to a plain text/HTML view. If you are competent in HTML or if you wish only to enter raw text without formatting, you can use it just as it is. Most users will find the rich text view easier to use, however, especially when trying to format text and enter web links, and this can be switched on by selecting the "enable rich text" link below the editing frame.

•Assuming you have selected the rich text view, enter text as if you are using a word processor, using the editing icons as necessary. These have “mouse-over” help tips and are self-explanatory. There is an “undo” button for the oops! moments, so don't be tense about it. If you have a lot of text to capture or if you need to spend a lot of time thinking as you write, you should use the Submit button at the bottom of the form at regular intervals to save your work to the server. Every time you do this, you'll be taken to the web view of the blog and will need to click on the Edit tab to return to the edit box.

•You may find it wiser to write your blog off-line in a normal word-processor and then copy-and-paste the text into the blog entry box, especially if you are a slow typist or someone who prefers to mull over every word before committing it. However, if you do this in the rich text view, you may find that your formatting goes a little haywire when you submit the page, in which case you'll need to go to the HTML/plain text view to tidy up line-breaks and spaces. (This is easier than it sounds.) Another approach is to use a browser add-on like Scribefire to compose blogs, rather than work on the blog capture page directly.

•Web links and email addresses copied and pasted into the editing box will be recognised as such immediately and you need do nothing more to them to make them work later. However, if you wish to create a link from a word or phrase in your blog, you can do so by highlighting the word or phrase to be linked, and then clicking on the link icon on the toolbar (it looks like the link of a heavy-duty chain). Take care to select the right one – the other is for unlinking.
◦This will open a small dialogue box near the word/phrase that you have highlighted and present a field in which you enter the URL (web address) for the link, either by copying and pasting it or by typing it in yourself.

◦Just below the URL field is a drop-down options list that lets you determine whether the link is opened in the present view (i.e., replacing your blog post in the browser window) or in a new window. The second option is the better of the two if you want the reader to stay with you, rather than go off to a new page altogether. Some browsers (like Firefox) can or will open the new window in a new tab, without losing focus on your blog. Others (like Internet Explorer 6.0 and prior) will open a whole new page that might overlay your blog but which will not replace it.

•Images and illustrations can be attached to your blog in two ways.

◦Should you wish to include the image in-line (i.e. in the body of the blog itself), you need to position the cursor at the spot closest to where you want the image to appear and then do the following:

■If you are using the WYSIWYG view, switch it off by clicking on the Disable rich-text link. You'll be present with the HTML view of what you have been doing. Don't be overwhelmed. :)

■A new button will have appeared at the bottom left of the editing box, between the edge of the box and the Enable rich-text link. If you mouse over this button, you'll get the message, “Click here to add images.”

■When you click on the add images button, you'll be presented with a dialogue box that contains thumbnails of images already uploaded to the server. If no images appear, either there are no images available or you are looking at the wrong repository, in which case there'll be a drop-down list on the toolbar from which you can choose the right one.

■If the image you want is there, select it. Merely clicking on the image will initiate the next step.

■Another dialogue box will open with details on the image. Three fields are of importance to you: size, alignment and insert mode. You can ignore link unless you wish the image to be a web link.

■Size will offer at least two and sometimes three options. Typically, for purposes of the blog, “Preview” will suit your purposes. If you need only a small image, select “Thumbnail”. “Original” (when present) is usually not necessary and is probably too big.

■Select the alignment you prefer for your image on the blog page.

■Select “HTML Code” from the insert mode drop-down.

■When you're happy with your preferences, click on the Insert button.

■Then, immediately, click on the Submit button at the bottom of the form. The blog will refresh into the web view. You'll need to click on the Edit tab to carry on editing the blog.

■If the image does not appear in the web view (with a string of HTML, perhaps, where it should be), you'll need to click on the Input format tab and select “Full HTML”. (Remember to save the change by clicking on the Submit button at the bottom of the form, or the change won't take effect.)

■If the image is not already on the server, you'll need to upload it.

■Click the Upload button on the toolbar of the image dialogue box.

■You'll be presented with another dialogue that features a Browse button. Click this and browse your hard drive for the image you want to use.

■Enter a short title for the image (this is compulsory).

■Then scroll to the bottom of the image dialogue box (NOT the blog editing page) where you'll find another Submit button. Click on that.

■The dialogue will update and tell you that your iage has been uploaded. Click on the Start over button and then follow the steps for inserting a existing image detailed above.

◦The second way to attach images to your blog is by using the Attached images link below the editing box (just scroll down a little).

■If the image is already on the server, it will be listed in the drop-down box. Select the image and click on Submit.

■If the image is new, you'll need to upload it. Use the Browse button in the dialogue to locate the image on your hard drive and then click on Submit.

■The image will appear as a thumbnail attachment to the blog which will download the image to the user's image viewer if double-clicked.

•Other files can be attached to your blog.

◦Scroll down the blog editing view to the File attachments link and click it. It will expand and give you an Attach new file field with a Browse button. Click this and select the file you wish to upload.

◦Click Attach. Scroll to the bottom of the blog input form and click Submit (this is critical) and the file will be uploaded and automatically appended to the bottom of your blog as a downloadable attachment.

◦You'll need to click the Edit tab if you want to carry on working on the blog post.

Don't be afraid to experiment and try things. In the worst case, you can delete a blog (the Delete button is at the bottom of the form in the Edit view) and start again. Or edit it later.

Just write!

"Blog" is short for "weblog", a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs.

Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) and are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts. As of September 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 106 million blogs. Substantially more information on blogs and blogging is available on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

 

Email loses context too easily. Tracking and filtering all the relevant emails to the context of a discussion in an organisation is a mission. We provide one space per contextual discussion where you can, not only have linear "text" based discussion but also add rich content such as video (from YouTube for example) or publish presentations or have other interactions.

Collaborative and community tools allow your customers and partners to create content with you. They are excellent ways to establish and share knowledge and can help strengthen communication between all parties. While other Web 2.0 tools have collaborative properties, the following are specifically and primarily designed to be collaborative. See video below...

The tools available to members on this site include:

Wikis Forums Q&A Groups Request Commitment Add an associate, colleague or friend   Invite an associate, colleague or friend

 

 

 

See also Using Enterprise Collaboration to Outperform for more, particulalrly the comments and presentations below the articale.

There is a pause button at the base of the presentation frame.

One of the ways this site can be used for collaboration is with a private space that we call a Co-Laboratory. View the presentation below to get the concept.

A commitment request is either a decision needed from a colleague or any other task that you want someone to perform related to information, a method or model on the site.

Requesting a commitment is another way to get advice or support or just ask one of your colleagues to do something for you.

Use the  link wherever it appears on Group content to request an in context commitment or use the Commitment menu item from the Content menu:

Most content has the Links option which appears as:

Click on to initiate the request and get things done!

This is different to Q&A in the following ways:

• Request commitment appears in context i.e. it is associated with the topic and group that you are in
• Request commitment has workflow attached to help manage who does what in a group
• It is useful for getting a decision made (e.g. the commitment may be for budget or other resources)

Under your profile page down to My Groups:

To create multiple Private Spaces or your Groups ..you need to be a Gold member. If you are a Gold member there is a Group option under Create Content, Group

To invite someone to join a group, go to the group by selecting on the main menu bar.

For example, if I select Governance under I get the view below. After the Create options listed in the right hand panel, there is an option to Invite Somebody. This is specific to the Group. In certain groups the Invite Somebody option does not appear, in which case you may use the Group option (above the Group name) to contact the Group Manager and request the desired participation.

To Invite Someone to the site see Invite Someone to join the site?

To create content inside a group that is only visible to that group, go to the group from and select the group that you would like to work in i.e. create the content in to make it visible only to that group.

For example, if I select Governance under I get the view below and can select any of the Create options listed in the right hand panel:

please Click here to ask about generic functionality, add a new question or make suggestions for improvement to site functionality. Give us 24 hours and we'll ensure there is an answer.

Remember this is for a question about site functionality. For questions about business or Information Technology please use our Q&A here.

Under one of the drop down menu options is Invite Someone.

Note that this invite is at the site rather than group level i.e. the invitation is to join the CXO-Advisor site.

Groups on the other hand, are like clubs or special interest groups (known as SIGs on some sites). There are many groups on the site but you can only see the groups that you belong to, usually by invitation or if you have the appropriate level of functionality you may create a group yourself and invite people to participate in that group. Some of the groups created by other people on the site will allow you to invite your friends or colleagues to join, depending on how those groups were setup.

To see which groups you belong to click on 

The best place to see your latest updates is under Adjacent to  there is a drop down menu button with an option for Recent Activity. This shows all recent site activity that you have access to, follow the Recent Activity option and then click on the button for only the updates that you have input to the site.

Click on Edit Profile under My Profile and update the Name, Location, About Me and other relevant fields.

Wherever your Username appears on the site, other users and your colleagues can click on it and view this information. Here's what the profile view looks like when it needs updating:

As you can see the member profile and Personal details are missing. As indicated above click on Edit Profile to update these details.

Go to Create a Blog or use the Content menu:

and click on Blog entry under Create Content.

This will create a site wide blog entry. To create a blog entry within a group that is only visible to the group click on Create Book Page. We've used Books rather than Blogs inside Groups as they have more functionality.