Social capital

What I ?Do? For a Living

The most common conversation I have when I go to an event goes somewhere along these lines: New acquaintance: Tara, I see your name everywhere, but I still dont quite understand what you do.” M ....... read more
3 days ago
The True Value of Social Media Consultants

The other day, I was in a meeting with a group of very smart people and we were talking about how to discern a great social media consultant from a mediocre social media consultant. Ive never rea ....... read more
Wed,
22 Oct 2008
Incentives: the good, bad and the unfortunately necessary

I know I need to approach this topic with kid gloves because there are many of you out there that either perform good deeds entirely selflessly or many of those that truly believe that you do. I used ....... read more
Fri,
29 Aug 2008
You can?t eat Whuffie (but it?s getting harder to eat without it)

The last couple of times Ive come across the border to apply for my TN1 Visa (NAFTA Visa between Canada and US), the border officers have Googled me. And, to my surprise, have actually told me that ....... read more
Tue,
05 Aug 2008
The Whuffie Factor: Matt Mullenweg Talks Wordpress

Enjoy this fabulous discussion with Matt Mullenweg of Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org who told me the story of the birth and evolution of Wordpress as well as his secret to success (hint: its righ ....... read more
Thu,
05 Jun 2008
The Whuffie Factor: Threadless Interview

I had the chance to sit down with the awesome people at Threadless in December in a very snowy Chicago. They are so brilliant. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. ShareThis
....... read more
Tue,
06 May 2008
Interview: Zappos.com?s Tony Hsieh and Rachel Brown

I heart Zappos.com muchly and Rachel and Tony made me heart it even more. I really enjoyed talking with them about the core values that makes Zappos rock so much. Oh&and btw&I finished my book. Yay m ....... read more
Sun,
27 Apr 2008
The Whuffie Factor Interviews: Timbuk2

I sat down with Patti and Perry of Timbuk2 to ask them about their views on customer service, quality and community. Their answers are pretty cool. Bonus link: If you think this is cool, check out th ....... read more
Mon,
21 Apr 2008
Heroes Don?t Work Alone

Im constantly flabbergasted that some people want to give full credit for an idea, movement or event to a single person. It wouldnt have happened without so-and-so!” Well, they are right, but ....... read more
Wed,
02 Apr 2008
Better Barrels and the Creation of (super)Heroes

[Refill your superhero supplies on Flickr by sodapop] This has been one busy, yet transformational, month for me. It all started with my participation in TED 2008 in Aspen, Colorado. TED, for those ....... read more
Wed,
26 Mar 2008
social capital and the Influence of Social Networks

Someone once asked me if reputation is interchangeable with social capital. Yes and no. To me, reputation is merely a dimension of social capital, not truly interchangeable. social capital is much mo ....... read more
Sun,
24 Feb 2008
Why the World Needs Heroes and Where They Are

&or maybe it should be why I need heroes… Im not talking about the television series, although I do heart it very much. But I was watching the finale and waxing to myself why I do love it so mu ....... read more
Tue,
04 Dec 2007
My Seriously Serendipitous Life

So, weve talked alot about Accelerating Serendipity and how many of the things we do or participate in (twitter, dopplr, flickr, coworking, barcamp, etc) is all about creating more opportunities for ....... read more
Thu,
29 Nov 2007
A Company is the Sum of its People

Thanks so much to my friend, Jay Fichialos, now on Ma.gnolia and sending me awesome links like this one that say things like: &the one thing I have been able to extract as the core and essential prin ....... read more
Tue,
27 Nov 2007
You may be a community freeloader if you?

q: What do you call someone who joins communities, adds friends and generally uses social networking tools to promote their own interests solely? a: a community freeloader Now, promoting your interest ....... read more
Sat,
24 Nov 2007
Gary Vee Answers my Questions


If you havent heard of WineLibrary.tv, you are in for a treat! Gary Vaynerchuk, otherwise known as Gary Vee is awesome to watch and has built himself a huge audience of wine lovers&people who may ....... read more
Mon,
12 Nov 2007
The Story of Satisfaction


Here it is! The totally edited down version of my interview with the fabulous folks at Satisfaction. I have loads more footage (this is 1/20th of the footage), so Ill probably be putting out smal ....... read more
Thu,
08 Nov 2007
Open Sourcing my Book Research (video one)


So, I had an amazing meeting with my new editor, John Mahaney, at Crown Publishing Group and he and Shawn Collins (the online guru there) were both very supportive of me publishing all of my resea ....... read more
Thu,
08 Nov 2007
Metrics for Healthy Communities

Ive talked about this topic in a couple of places, but I dont think Ive actually posted what we ended up kind of coming up with as pretty decent measurements of the health of a community. But, per ....... read more
Thu,
04 Oct 2007