The SWOM Lobby: Say hello

If you're new, introduce yourself and mingle. You're among friends.

Permalink Reply by Laura Bennett on March 15, 2008 at 8:54pm: Hello everyone, my name is Laura and I'm Chief Embracer and Co-Founder of Embrace Pet Insurance. We are out to change the flighty image of pet insurance in the US, one pet parent at a time. An optional product like ours is built on trust, performance, and word of mouth. Our customers are our competitive edge.

I'm looking forward to learning a lot from this eminent gang. It's going to be great!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Joe on March 17, 2008 at 8:22am: I really hope that A LOT of THE RIGHT traffic finds this site! I am so excited about this! I have been in business for 6 weeks and let me say that things are sloooooooow! You can spend a lot of money on advertising to build a client base, but none more effective (so I'm told) than WOM. So, if anyone needs a carpet cleaner in the southern Atlanta area, pop me an email and I'll work out a deal for you.

Joe; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ben McConnell on March 19, 2008 at 1:32pm: Welcome to SWOM, Joe. Glad to have you here.

Sounds like you could pose a question in the My Question Is forum that asks: How would you build word of mouth for a brand-new carpet-cleaning business?; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Joe on March 21, 2008 at 5:48am: Ben, that is a GREAT IDEA! I will do it now...Thank you!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Randy Muirhead on March 17, 2008 at 12:47pm: Ben,
Got your site from a daily Wonderbranding of M. Miller. Think it is super. As a Family Service Counselor for a Funeral Home I assist people in pre-arranging their funerals; gathering information, selection of merchandise (caskets, urns) and suggest funding options to control cost at today's expense. I also guide the Home's Advertising and Marketing Dept., radio , TV, newspaper, and internet. Glad to have you by my side.
I work with some great people here. Now you're included.
Randy; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ben McConnell on March 19, 2008 at 1:24pm: Randy, welcome to SWOM. Glad to have you here via Michele Miller!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Corinne Weisgerber on March 17, 2008 at 1:45pm: Hi everyone,

I'm Corinne Weisgerber and I'm a communication professor at St. Edward's University in Austin, TX. I developed a new course called Social Media for PR last semester and adopted Ben & Jackie's book for the course. Great book BTW! You can find me and my students at our course blog.

Great to meet y'all!; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ben McConnell on March 19, 2008 at 1:27pm: Welcome, Corrine!

Note to everyone: Corrine is an early adopter and thought leader in teaching the value of social media and authentic word of mouth in public relations. Higher ed needs more profs like her.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jon Gabriel on March 19, 2008 at 5:15pm: Hey SWOMies, I'm Jon.

I've been interested in Word of Mouth Marketing since launching WOM efforts at Cold Stone Creamery. After working with Honeywell, I now lead marketing for Anasazi Software in Phoenix, Ariz. I've enjoyed Ben and Jackie's ideas via books, Web seminars, podcasts and WOMMA conferences, so I'm happy to join them here as well.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ben McConnell on March 21, 2008 at 5:56pm: Welcome to SWOM, Jon!

Cold Stone is a neat story and doesn't get enough credit for its success. Would love to have you think about how you might share with your fellow SWOMies the word of mouth work you did with CSC.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Sylvia Martinez on March 19, 2008 at 8:46pm: Hey all - Sylvia here.

I'm president of Generation YES. We work with K-12 schools primarily in the US and have technology curriculum for students with an overarching mission of empowering students to take charge of their own learning. The students learn technology skills and then apply them in service-learning projects where they teach teachers to use technology, do tech support in their schools, or are peer mentors for other students. In doing so, the students have authentic experiences that empower them and teach responsibility. In return, the schools get needed help to use more technology in lessons and class activities.

Almost all our customers come to us through WOM, but that sort of just happened without a master plan. I'm here to find out how to make it a more thoughtful part of what we do, plus use technology to make it better.; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Ben McConnell on March 21, 2008 at 5:53pm: Welcome to SWOM, Sylvia! Great to have you here, especially since word of mouth education is going to be a big part of SWOM's future work. We hope you'll be inspired to get involved with our work in that area.

Your company sounds interesting. The EduSWOMies group is getting off the ground (as are all the other groups here, since SWOM is two weeks old as of this writing), and might be a worthwhile SWOM group for you to join.; ▶ Reply to This