Elli Grace is a fashion brand that was launched in February of 2009 by designer duo Sojung “Sue” Yang and Lamarr Nanton. Earlier this month, I spoke with Lamarr, who has 19 years of experience in apparel design and development with companies like Giorgio Armani and JC Penney, at the first Elli Grace retail location in Plano, TX.

See the three videos below to learn more about Elli Grace, Lamarr’s personal story, and some of the geeky stuff they’re doing to differentiate themselves in the fashion world (including blogging and tweeting):

Lamarr shows how to use a mobile device to charge customers from virtually anywhere that has a cell signal or Wi-Fi, after the jump..

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Becca Taylor is a Social Media Manager at HP’s Enterprise Business, which focuses on servers, storage, business and IT software/services, and other B2B technologies. On the 32nd episode of “The Social Nerdia Show!,” I had a conversation with Becca and she told me about her role at HP, what the company is doing in the social media world, and her thoughts on community, participation, and personal branding.

Listen to the entire conversation with Becca on the Flash player below. You can also subscribe to us on iTunes, stream from mobiles on Stitcher, and listen to upcoming shows LIVE on blogtalkradio.

HP is a very large company with over 150,000 employees. “The larger the company gets, often, the more difficult it is to really get authentic social media engagement running,” Becca explained. She added that the benefits of social media in business-to-consumer offerings is much more clear than it is in the B2B realm, but her team is helping change that within HP by identifying the value to the company and its customers.

Her team is called “The Social Media Enablement Team” and consists of 6 people with different roles and in different locations. “Our goal is to work with different teams within the division to get them up to speed on the tools, and most of all, understand from a business perspective that they need to approach social media marketing as they would approach any marketing program, with deliberation, responsibility, and objectves,” Becca said.

Becca has been with HP for 10 years. She actually started at Compaq (which was acquired by HP) doing web documentation. She then transitioned into marketing where she “focused on customer advocacy, on how to best use the internet and various tools to enhance the customer experience.”

About a year ago the Enterprise Business division created a team that focused on social media, and Becca was one of the few who joined the team. “I’m thrilled I did,” she told me, “because I love my job. It’s the best job I’ve ever had.” (more…)

Jonathan Crowley is the co-founder of Black20, a multi-platform digital studio that operates out of Long Island City, Queens. There’s a good chance that you’ve seen or at least heard of one of their viral videos or award-winning web series, which have been viewed by over 60 million people. A recent partnership with 15 Gigs means their entertaining content is going to reach even more people. Prior to co-founding Black20 in 2007, J. Crowley was a part of NBC Digital Studios developing comedy programming for the network’s digital initiatives. You can check out more of their programming at Hulu and Black20.com.

1. Black20 recently partnered with Fox TV Studios’ 15 Gigs to produce Web-based pilots like “Heart Felt.” What kind of relationship do you have with FTVS and how has it been working with them?

We partnered up with FTVS to create innovative and cheap-to-produce content for the web, and always with an eye towards its extension to other platforms like television.  We view it as both an opportunity to develop stories and formats that can really speak to a Web-video-consuming audience and also as a chance to play around with a much more cost-efficient development model.

“Heart Felt” is merely one example of a digital pilot we produced to gauge our audience’s appetite.  In this case we wanted to test whether people wanted to watch a comedy about relationships between people and puppets. The viewership and feedback were very strong, so we now look at how to shape this series for both online and television platforms.

2. Black20 seems to focus on the content instead of spending money on marketing. What are some of things you need to do when creating content that is meant to be spread by the online masses?

We’ve never paid a single cent for marketing or promotion. We’ve relied on our content to virally spread itself. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. It’s tricky predicting what videos will go viral, but we’ve realized content focused on nostalgia or topical events tend to spread much faster. Oh yeah, or anything related to Star Wars. (more…)

Cathy Brooks is a journalist, creative media strategist, and host of the Social Media Hour live podcast. She blogs at Other Than That, which is also the name of her consulting firm, and she has worked for companies like Tech TV (now G4) and Seesmic. In last night’s The Social Nerdia Show! I spoke with her about media, journalism, newspapers, technology, business, and much more. Cathy is not only highly entertaining, she is also incredibly insightful and thought-provoking.

Listen to the entire conversation with Cathy on the Flash player below. You can also subscribe to us on iTunes, stream from mobiles on Stitcher, and listen to upcoming shows LIVE on blogtalkradio.

Cathy’s tagline for her podcast is ‘it’s not about the tools, it’s about what you do with them,’ and it very well reflects her views on technology. She has much appreciation and enthusiasm for “the way that technology is used or not, successfully or not, and the impact that has on the way we buy things, share information, communicate with each other, and just evolve as carbon based life forms.”

The Two Medias

The fact that Cathy has much experience in traditional media led me to ask her about the now very widely use ‘social media’ term. She responded that there are two kinds of media, “media with a capital M and media with a lower case m.” The first one is ‘the media,’ and it includes outlets from large organizations like News Corporation and The New York Times Company, as well as blogs like The Huffington Post and Tech Crunch. “Lower case m (media) are the platforms, the technology, the things we use, the social networks, the real-time stream things like Twitter, Blogtalkradio, Facebook, YouTube, and the list goes on and on,” she explained.

While some would argue that the concept of media is not much more than a channel or a means to deliver some form of content, Cathy think that media has always been social. “Social media to me is a rather redundant term as opposed to an oxymoron like jumbo shrimp. Media is by its nature a social thing and it has become more so in its interactivity, crowdsourced nature, and user generated contributions,” she told me.

The Case for Journalism

There has been much talk about the death of the newspaper and the traditional media organization in the last few years, but Cathy thinks this has been “greatly exaggerated.” She continued to say that while “some of these types of media outlets, some of the mediums, may either die or change greatly, the need for journalism has never been more important.” (more…)

Rick Marini is the founder of SuperFan, a site built around the idea that people are passionate about all kinds of things, from bands and celebs, to brands and video games. In short, SuperFan is a social hub for the things you love. It’s also a great way for companies to get acquainted with their true fans. It is no coincidence that Rick, an experienced entrepreneur and Harvard MBA, has gained not only loyal super fans, but also advisors like Dwight Howard and Shawn Fanning. Below are some questions that Rick answered for Social Nerdia. Enjoy!

1. How do you define the word “fan” and why do you think it has become such a key element of the social web?

I define a “Fan” as someone who has a genuine interest or passion for something and is proud to be associated with it. People around the world are passionate about their favorite music, sports, entertainment, games, books, places, products, schools and so on.  Everyone is a fan of something.

2. From Second Life to World of Warcraft and $1 gifts on Facebook, virtual currency is becoming.. normal. What is the future of online currencies and micropayments?

The future of “Web 3.0” will be centered on social games that utilize virtual currencies and micropayments.  Most of these games are free-to-play but also include special features where players can enhance their playing ability by purchasing virtual currency to exchange for virtual goods.  Some examples of virtual goods include clothes for an avatar, plants for a virtual farm or garden, power-packs for more energy, or tools/weapons to complete game tasks faster.  The virtual goods market in the US will be $1 billion in 2009 and is expected to be $1.6 billion in 2010.  The Asian market is already at $5 billion in 2009.

3. As a Harvard MBA, what do you think post-recession MBA programs could do to better prepare technology and business leaders?

“Post-recession MBA’s” have the benefit of experience and that should be applied to business leadership.  The risk-reward ratio was out of line for the past several years and that drove short-term greed.  I think great business leaders have a long-term perspective.  They understand that there can be bumps in the road but they also realize that getting to the final destination takes a lot of hard work and taking short cuts rarely works. And sometimes those short cuts can have an enormous impact on the ability for everyone to drive towards those long-term goals.  We are now digging out of that unfortunate situation. (more…)

Web 2.0 tools and technologies, things like blogs, wikis, podcasts and RSS, are changing the way companies communicate and collaborate, both internally and externally with customers, partners and suppliers. In last night’s The Social Nerdia Show! I was able to speak with Michael Chui about how companies can successfully leverage Web 2.0 and social media. Michael, a McKinsey & Company consultant serving technology and telecom clients, has been co-leading research on emerging long-term technology trends and their impact on clients and some of this research can be found on studies published by The McKinsey Quarterly, including “Six ways to make Web 2.0 work.”

Listen to the entire conversation with Michael on the Flash player below. You can also subscribe to our shows on iTunes, stream from mobile phones on Stitcher, and listen LIVE on blogtalkradio.

For the past 3 years, Michael and his McKinsey team have been surveying over 2000 executives on their use of Web 2.0 in the enterprise. “There has been an evolution; the number one thing that has changed over the years is continuing adoption and usage,” Michael explained.

As more and more enterprises experiment and deploy the tools, it seems like more of them are starting to realize their real value. Michael explained that the results are impressive because “two thirds of respondents actually reported driving real business benefits from the use of Web 2.0 in the enterprise, which is quite a powerful result.”

Some of the benefits discovered include an “increase in speed to access knowledge and expertise, increase in cost-savings related to communication and travel, increase in employee satisfaction, and increase in the effectiveness of marketing and customer satisfaction.”

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Samsung is one of the most admired companies in the world. With a roster of high-quality HDTVs, smartphones, and cameras, it is not surprising that the company’s products speak for themselves, but there is also very talented people making sure the world knows about the latest and greatest from Samsung. Last night, on The Social Nerdia Show! live podcast’s 28th episode, I had a conversation with Matt Moller and Keith Swiderski, Samsung’s Social Media Strategists. They told me all about their customer-centric approach to engaging with people on the social web and provided some advice for making an impact in social media.

You can listen to the entire conversation with Matt and Keith on the Flash player below. You can also subscribe to all our shows on iTunes, stream it from a mobile phone on Stitcher, and listen to it LIVE on Thursday nights on blogtalkradio.

Samsung has been doing several things all over the social web, including campaigns like Tap & Take, Twitter accounts, and even incredibly popular Extreme Sheep LED Art. However, Samsung is not new to social media. From message boards and forums like the ones found on CNET to early social networks, Samsung has always paid close attention to what people say online.

“In addition to listening and gathering, we want to go out and actually engage customers and help them get the most out of their products,” Keith explained. “When Windows 7 beta came out a lot of people were using our netbooks. We found out that people really liked it and it enabled us to know how people were using our products.” He continued by saying that “moving on to Twitter and Facebook was a natural extension to let consumers know that we’re about more than just our products.”

Social Media at a Large Multinational

Because Samsung is such a large company, “a lot of these (social media efforts) evolved from the bottom-up. Samsung empowers its people with getting involved in new things and being on the cutting edge,” Matt explained. Samsung doesn’t have a social media policy with specific details about what employees can and cannot do online. “Samsung feels strongly in its employees right to freedom of speech and being able to express themselves.”

Matt also said that the different territories and regions worldwide are able to take control of how they reach customers with social media. While there is a consistent and unified message for the Samsung brand, Matt also said that he doesn’t think there will ever be a “central entity that will control all social media” because that would not really align with what social media is about. (more…)