Celebrating 100 Posts

The GraVoc News Blog is proud to announce that since its inception on November 7, 2008, it has recorded 100 unique blog posts.  This is an exciting milestone to reach, as a common trend is for an organization to start a blog, publish a dozen posts, and either run out of content, interest, or time to continue posting with any frequency.

Over this time, GraVoc has acquired DivergingSoul Media Production, who set up the original architecture of the blog as a service.  Presently, DivergingSoul's blog services are encompassed under GraVoc's media production services that leverage creative media, including social media, to enhance other businesses' web presence.  GraVoc and DivergingSoul have helped several clients with services such as the establishment of their own blogs.

A key to a successful blog is consistency in post frequency, something we have preached slightly better than practiced while customer projects take priority.  However, GraVoc has published two blog posts in each month since the blog's inception except for two.  We hope, however, that as the blog enters triple digits in post count and as it enters its third year of existence, it can be used as a forum to exchange ideas.  No matter your relationship with GraVoc, we strongly urge you to utilize the comments section.

As we mark this milestone, we would like to thank you for your readership.

GraVoc Associates, Inc, based in Peabody, MA, is a full-service consulting firm serving Greater Boston, New England, and beyond since 1994.  Specializing in the practices of media production, information systems, professional/technology services, and information security, GraVoc's goal is to enhance its customers' operations and profitability through leveraging technological solutions.  In 2010, GraVoc acquired DivergingSoul Media Production, who has been on top of innovation in the fields of social media, blogging, and web development since their inception in 2006.  For more information on DivergingSoul, please visit divergingsoul.com, and for more information on GraVoc's other services, please peruse the previous 99 posts or visit GraVoc.com.

The Twitter Business Decision

Within the last two years, social media services such as Twitter and Facebook ceased to exist as solely a medium for the computer literate to broadcast themselves publicly. became increasingly popular as free marketing tools for businesses of all sizes. The challenges for businesses to embark onto this frontier were (and still are) the following:

-Maintenance time
-Risk tolerance
-Knowing one's audience

The first two are rather self-explanatory. The first goes off the adage of "time is money." Even if a business is leaving the social media responsibilities to low-cost labor, the time spent keeping the pages current can become significant on the aggregate. This time can be used on other projects. If the business decides that diligent maintenance of their social media outlet is a more productive use of this employee's time than the next-best option, it is a good decision.

The second is slightly trickier. Many of GraVoc's clients, including many who operate social media outlets, are in highly-competitive markets where reputations and corporate images must be finely manicured and maintained. If an unhappy customer were to post a complaint on the business's social media outlet without it being monitored, edited, and administered, significant reputational risks arise. Many financial institutions with Facebook pages assign a person to check the page every 30-60 minutes during the business day.

The third point is perhaps the most intriguing. A recent Boston Business Journal article drove this point home: Individuals who use Twitter prefer businesses who use Twitter. On the flip side, individuals who do not use social media don't care whether the business they use are using social media. Your business, before deciding whether it's worth investing a portion of your employees' time, should consider its typical customer. It is someone who is interacting with social media sites? If so, it might be a smart business decision.

GraVoc Associates, Inc, based in Peabody, MA, is a technology consulting firm serving Greater Boston, New England, and beyond since 1994. GraVoc's business is divided into four practices of media production, information systems, professional services, and information security. GraVoc maintains a Facebook page and the GraVoc News Blog partially as a way to keep customers updated, but perhaps chiefly as an example of how a business can leverage social media to its advantage. GraVoc has declined to expand into Twitter partially due to the effort required to update frequently. To discover more about the company and the ways it can help your business, please visit gravoc.com.

May Updates

It’s been a busy month of May for GraVoc Associates, so busy that there has been little time to tend to matters like updating the GraVoc News Blog.  Some quick updates on what is happening at the company:

• GraVoc is excited about hosting the Peabody Area Chamber of Commerce’s June “Business After Hours” event.  This version of the business networking event will feature a barbecue in front of GraVoc’s building in downtown Peabody.
• GraVoc attended the Massachusetts Association for Behavioral Health’s Annual Meeting.  Dan Vassallo and Paul Lincoln represented the business there and met representatives for several mental health associations throughout Massachusetts.  GraVoc was at this event to promote the GHR system designed specifically for inpatient mental health and substance abuse recovery service organizations.  Meanwhile, GraVoc’s team has been working furiously on improvements to this application, enhancing its overall functionality.
• The DivergingSoul media production division has initiated an aggressive phase of research and development regarding Facebook’s “Open Graph” feature.  This latest Facebook development, in short, allows a Facebook user to integrate his or her entire web surfing experience into his or her Facebook profiles.  This includes “liking” articles, blog posts, or other websites as one can “like” events on Facebook.  By clicking above, you can “like” this blog post.  DivergingSoul is also headed to Las Vegas for an event in June.
• An update on the last post:  It is debatable who is enjoying retirement more:  Ron Davis, whose retirement from GraVoc has opened up more time to focus on his wife’s business, or Nate Gravel, whose retirement from running (he ran under three hours on May 2nd in the Providence Marathon) has opened up more time to focus on GraVoc’s information security practice.
• This summer, look for at least two pertinent whitepapers becoming available on the GraVoc website.

GraVoc Associates, Inc, located in Peabody, MA, has served clients in Greater Boston, New England, and beyond with consulting services since 1994.  GraVoc’s services are all based in technology, and are now divided into the four practices of information systems, professional services, information security, and media production.  GraVoc utilizes the GraVoc News Blog to announce events and occasionally offer some advice regarding topics relevant to clients and potential clients.  For more information about GraVoc and the wide range of services provided, please visit GraVoc.com.

Social Media Restrictions – Your Company’s Responsibility?

Now might be the best time to address the issue of an enterprise’s employees’ use of social media and whether a business should—or even has the right to—regulate their employees’ use of Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and other sites known as “social media” sites.  This has become a concern as of late because now that Facebook is well over five years old, it does not look to be a fad that is going away.  It has become a breeding ground for computer viruses and worms, such as the one circulating this week.  It has also been a platform for social engineering attack tactics.  Similarly, blogs (including this one) have been occasionally prone to spammers and potential attackers.

Even beyond the virus and social engineering risks associated with social media sites, business are faced with several dilemmas surrounding social networking.  These include the following:

• Content filtering:  Businesses must decide whether to completely block sites such as facebook.com or blogspot.com so that employees spend less time wasted on the internet and more time working.  On the other hand, some Facebook pages or blogs (especially the GraVoc News Blog) could provide helpful information.
• The Organization’s Use of Social Media:  GraVoc obviously has a blog and a Facebook account, as do many of our clients.  In fact, one of the services we provide is helping a business leverage social media as a business tool.  But who is responsible for updating and regulating content posted on these sites?  Is the organization going to devote several hours of labor to monitor employees’ status updates and/or regularly write articles like this one?
• Employees’ Behavior on Social Media:  Organizations don’t want their employees to be posting Twitter updates or blog posts about how much they hate their boss, how rudely they were treated by a customer, or how they are not motivated to be working on a Friday afternoon.  They also don’t want their employees to be posting R-rated material on their Facebook page while listing who their employer is on their profile.

Ultimately, it is most likely going to become necessary for most businesses, even the smallest businesses, to develop written policies dictating what is allowed and not allowed on social media outlets.  For liability purposes, it is probably necessary to document what an employee is responsible for and what the employee can or cannot do surrounding social media and how they can affect the organization’s reputation or information systems.

GraVoc Associates, Inc, a Peabody, MA-based technology consulting firm, uses social media including a Facebook page and the GraVoc News Blog to inform customers, potential customers, and friends about relevant topics such as this one.  GraVoc’s practices of information systems, information security, and professional services interact with social networking from several different directions, as GraVoc provides information security services that could help an organization draft policies or detect social engineering tactics, web 2.0 development services that help businesses generate business through these sites, and IT services that could help an organization safeguard itself with technological risks associated with the use of social networking sites.  For more information about the wide variety of services offered by the organization, please visit http://www.gravoc.com.