My Starbucks Idea shines: How to do social media right

I've been talking up "My Starbucks Idea" as a great example of how companies can engage their customer base using social media techniques.

The sites about a month old and they are already touting the changes they are making and planning to make in their stores, etc. based on user ideas. The cynic might say these are changes they were going to make anyway and are just making it seem like the customers drove them, but that's not the impression I get.

Check it out.

(Also of note, they built this site on Salesforce.com's force.com -- the newest thing in software development is this idea of platform as a service.)

The magical life and quick death of 'Elitist'

One of my posts over on Dow Jones Insight Election Pulse shows how fickle the press can be. One day's "elitist" is another day's "electability." This election seems at times to be all about buzzwords. Buzzwords are the new talking points. He's an elitist. She wants progress. He's bitter. And on it goes. This graph really shows how fast a word can come on the scene and disappear.