A few minutes ago, word broke out that Technologizer’s Harry McCracken, former Editor-in-Chief of PC World, was named Time’s  Editor-at-Large. For a little less than a year, McCracken had been writing weekly columns for TIME about technology and it seems to be a very good fit for the two parties. According to a distributed memo by Time’s Managing Editor, Rick Stengel, McCracken’s “expertise is matched only by his versatility: he writes long, writes short, knows the inventors and the consumers, offers the expert product review and the high altitude perspective on the forces that are changing the industry and the culture.”

In his blog post, McCracken says that while some might think he’s going to leave Technologizer for Time, you better think again. Rather, he’s going to pull a Jack Dorsey and run two successful ships. A big part of his day will be to continue writing for his site which will merge with Time and be part of the tech section. Is there any stopping McCracken? Probably not since he’s not just writing for Technologizer and Time…he’s producing content for AllBusiness and also CNET!

For a lot of the news being tech and gadget related, it’s great to see that Time is adapting to the way of the world and bringing on someone well-respected and understanding of the industry to produce some invaluable content for the publication.

Congratulations Harry!

Business can be rough, especially when dealing with customer service. Whether it’s failure to provide adequate Internet service or airline mishaps or even catching a cab, people are getting tired of the status quo when dealing with a company’s representative. They’ve taken to going onto social media sites like Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and even on blogs. So when technology is being used to revolt against customer service, shouldn’t the technology also catch up to benefit it as well?

This is where UserVoice comes into play. This enterprise service has been used by many brands and businesses to reach out and connect with their customers in order to help stem the tide of anger against them. Since 2008, UserVoice has been around to help empower customers to speak and help businesses understand. Through the use of feedback forums, support systems, and other tools in their arsenal, UserVoice allows you to offer your feedback and lets the community contribute to what’s important and what’s not as much. In a sense, it’s like letting the crowd handle your customer service, but in a constructive way that the business can pay attention and easily respond or implement the needed changes. And just about a year ago, the company launched a brand new service designed to help companies better respond to feedback: Helpdesk.

As part of their new package, Helpdesk is designed to give companies a bit more control over their customer service, but without all the unnecessary tools for integrating feedback and case tracking. But on the other hand, it offers businesses more than simply receiving feedback from the customers. Helpdesk is geared towards allowing people to submit support tickets, allow for service rating, and also promotes humane treatment of customers.  And it looks like this gamble has paid off for UserVoice. After a year out in the market, Helpdesk has received it’s 1,000,000th support ticket. According to UserVoice CEO, Richard White, the fact that the usage of Helpdesk has been so great is because companies are recognizing that they need a better experience for both their team and customers. He says in his post, “these are people who want to have a conversation with their customers…and they want the tools to make this easy.”

It makes perfect sense what he says because back in the day, we’re all used to picking up the phone and speaking with a live representative, which soon turned into an automated message that never allowed us to speak with a human (so impersonal). Now, in the digital age, we’re demanding better and through social media, we’re using the technology to force our way back to speaking with humans–because customers don’t want to be treated like they’re just a number anymore. When we want help with a problem with a business’s product, we’re going to want to receive it somehow and that could be through a company’s support forum where the more users that have that problem can vote it up, or by submitting a ticket that receives a much needed response in a timely manner. The technology and practice that UserVoice has is surely picking up steam as their customers are still growing: from Worksmart Labs to Blackbaud to Seesmic, Posterous, and even Rackspace…the growth is becoming phenomenal.

Congratulations UserVoice on your success and your one millionth Helpdesk ticket!

Photo Credit: Call center workers by contrapart/sxc.hu

You might have missed it, but last night, one commercial aired during the Super Bowl that had a direct tie to the Silicon Valley. It was the Best Buy “phone innovator” commercial and aired featuring Philippe Kahn, the inventor of the camera phone, Ray Kurzweil, the inventor of text-to-speech synthesis, the founders of Shazam, Jim McKelvey, co-founder of Square, Kevin Systrom, co-founder of Instagram, and the creators of Words with Friends (with a great hat-tip to Alec Baldwin). It was a great spot that featured some of the tech world’s biggest, brightest, and legendary inventors and mobile pioneers. It kind of is a backhanded compliment to have it be associated with Best Buy though, in my opinion, but it still is a great commercial. Nice of them to also focus on some of the people you didn’t know were part of the startups – like with Square, the only founder most people know is Jack Dorsey.

Anyways, what did you think of this Best Buy commercial? You can watch the whole thing here.

Many here in Silicon Valley are eagerly trying to get funding for their startups. Out of those few who are able to get funding from Venture Capitalists, I wonder how many actually hear what’s in the above video. Following in line with the “Sh*t” memes that are the flavor of the month on YouTube, August Capital’s David Hornik posted this hilarious one about “Sh*t VCs Say”.  There are some really great gems in this video like poking fun at the negotiating process (e.g. “$10 million pre”) and much more…here are a few of my favorites:

• Is an 11 good on Klout?
• Is that the biggest plane they got?
• I got one word for you: participating preferred
• That’s what you’re doing? Are you kidding? I had that idea 3 years ago.
• S-1, baby!
• What if we put it in the Cloud?
• Mary, can you come here for a second? I need you to tweet something for me!
• I just got back from Paris.
• You’d be better off with Snooki on your board.
• What? You only have 7 million users.
• Why in the world are people skiing on the weekends when the lines are shorter during the week?
• You gotta check it out, it’s like the AirBnB for cosmetics

Thanks David Hornik for the laughs this Saturday morning. You can watch the whole video here.

It’s that time of year again – holiday dinners, holiday spirit and, of course, holiday parties! Trendy Lime is excited to be entertaining its global fans with a tri-continental series of Holiday parties this year—in Brazil, Europe, and the place where it all began– San Francisco, at our beloved Harlot club.

Please join us at Harlot on December 20, 7-11 pm, to enjoy this festive event. The highlight of the party: 10 amazing prizes from our sponsors handed out by Santa Claus and his lovely Elves. So be sure to get your raffle ticket at the door:

• Main prize: two $250 vouchers towards your adventure experience with Zozi.com
• Two sets of sparkly jewelry from Chic Gems
• Two 14-day passes to the elite Bay Club Financial District
• Two beauty baskets from Jurlique, organic care from Australia
• Voucher from CocoVine,1673 Haight Str. for Coco-Luxe delicacies and Blue Bottle Coffee
• Delicious dinner for two @ Morac Lounge

Program:

• Presents raffle handed out by Santa & Elves
• Complimentary appetizers courtesy Morac Lounge
• Photo shoot by Sergei Krasii Photography and Julie Blaustein Photography

Admission:
Complimentary with password sent through Eventbrite. Please RSVP at http://holidaysoireesf.eventbrite.com

General Sponsor:
Our Holiday Soiree is kindly supported by Royse Law Firm, integrated legal solutions for domestic and international clients including start-ups.

Partners:
Zozi.com
Bay Club Financial District
Morac Lounge
cocoVine @ 1673 Haight Street
ChicGems
Jurlique

Media Partners:
Graffiti PR
Eclectic a la Mode
Bub.blicio.us
Sergei Krasii Photography
Julie Blaustein Photography

Trendy Lime:
TrendyLime.com is a social network of 4,000+ international influencers and producer of upscale social and networking events. We enjoy a track-record of 40 sold out events on Fashion, Technology, and Professional Networking in the most exquisite venues of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo, and Vienna. Our Mission is to provide unique event experience for the most discerning guests, while supporting good cause initiatives and charities and collaborating with local businesses.” Ourr diverse and international team is comprised of experts in Marketing, Branding, Event Planning, Fashion, and Travel.  We also enjoy the support of our advisors, followers, and evangelists. Past Trendy Lime sponsors and clients include: HP, Intel, Bay Club, Red Bull, Bloomingdales, jetBlue Airways

Contact:
For inquiries, please contact Liana Burtsava at liana@trendylime.com. Information on Trendy Lime events at www.trendylime.com

Imagine a day without access to your computer? The One Laptop per Child San Francisco Bay Area community (olpcsf.org) sees to it that no child goes without a computer in under-developed countries and even shows them how to use and fix them.  This is a community of volunteer educators, technologists, anthropologists, enthusiasts, champions and others. Monthly meetings are held at the SFSU downtown campus where they share stories, exchange ideas, solve problems, foster community and build collaborations around the One Laptop per Child project.

Sameer Verma, Ph.D. Professor of the Information System at San Francisco State University is the force behind the grassroots group that has organized the OLPC SF Community Summit 2011. The Summit is a combination of panel discussions, “Birds of a Feather” sessions, speed-geeking and much more. A few of the topics that will be covered include Education, Technology and Outreach & Deployments of OLPC programs. Last year it was a local meeting, this year the Summit is open to an audience worldwide.

Verma, who is passionate about the cause due to growing up in India where many children still lack educational opportunities.  says, “The Summit will bring together people who want to help make education for the world’s children a priority, not a privilege. They share the belief that the One Laptop per Child is one of the most revolutionary endeavors going on in the world today.”

WHEN: Oct. 21st to  23rd.

WHERE: SFSU Downtown Campus in San Francsico

COST: General $40 and Students $25

REGISTER:  Eventbrite: bit.ly/plMJnH

By Julie Blaustein

The Social Media Club Panelists: Moderator Chris Heuer, Peter Kim, Jen McClure and Michael Brito

The Social Media Club of San Francisco held their monthly meeting at PeopleBrowsr offices on Tuesday, May 17th. in SOMA. It was a conversation that included Chris Heuer, Founder of the Social Media Club as Moderator, Peter Kim of Dachis Group, Jen McClure of Thomas Reuters and Michael Brito of Edelman.

There appears to be a shift in the way that companies are messaging themselves; rather than conducting Social Media its preferred to be known as conducting Social Business. Much of the discussion centered around how each of the panelists define social media in terms of their companies and how it relates to social media. All agreed that social media has evolved from when it first came into our consciousnesses around 2004. Brito saw that when it first debuted to companies it was creating chaos but now companies are making sense of it and embracing it. McClure whose company has a large workforce felt that the term itself is being used less and its now more about it becoming part of the social organization and enabling employees to communicate with one another. Kim shared how the social media term is on the “outs” with the story of  how his client, Zappos‘ CEO Tony Hsieh, fined $1 to anyone who even uttered the term social media.

The panelists also shared their own definition of Social Business. Kim saw it similar to how you connect consumers but in the business world. Its how you communicate with employees through technology such as Jive Software that provides social networking, collaboration software, community software and media monitoring. Kim said, it “pains him when people use social business as social media which it is not.” McClure sees social business as a platform to connect and help employers learn from. Brito shared his definition of social business from an infographic that he has created. As he defined it, its the natural evolution that companies go through internally to equip themselves with customers. It starts with the people internally in a company such as the CMO and as a result processes are established within and technology brought on to manage it results.

Google Trend Comparison of Social Media vs. Social Business

A comparison between Social Media and Social Business in terms of search and news interest demonstrated how Social Business is barely a blip, yet its most definitely of importance to those in the enterprise social world. In the end perhaps the discussion was mostly about the semantics of language as it was agreed that social media is the umbrella term, with social business being a niche version of it. Some examples of those companies as seen in the forefront of this focus on Social Busienss were IBM, SAP, Cisco, Intel. Kim though felt at tis time no one is doing Social Business Particularly well but just getting started such as Disney and AT&T. There is still a huge amount of opportunity for companies to join the social world in a business way in the near future.

Join the Conversation with the Social Media Club SF at #SMCSF, view the video and photos from the event.

The following is a guest post by Melanie Notkin, founder of SavvyAuntie.com and author of SAVVY AUNTIE: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers and All Women Who Love Kids.

My life changed this week. And I owe it all to social media.

I’m at the precipice of one of the most thrilling times of my life and one of the most important days for my business and brand. My book, SAVVY AUNTIE: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers and All Women Who Love Kids is being released on April 26^th.  I can honestly say that I owe everything about this book and therefore my entire company, to social media.

It all started almost four years ago on June 12, 2007, when I decided to invest my life savings in developing the first online community for aunts and godmothers, specifically the nearly 50 percent of American women who are not moms but love the children in their lives, by relation and by choice. Savvy Auntie is now an award-winning multiplatform lifestyle brand for an influential and long-neglected segment of women I’ve dubbed PANKs®: Professional Aunts No Kids.

On August 20, 2007, I discovered Twitter through a blog post by Jeremiah Owyang @jowyang .  It was the perfect “Peoria” testing ground as a marketer. As I was developing SavvyAuntie.com, I was able to leverage my innate curiosity (so important to marketers!) and ask my new Twitter friends about the role they play as aunts or as moms who rely on the aunts in their kids’ lives. It really helped me build a better online destination. Over time, I met true pioneers in new media such as @ScottMonty @AaronStrout @ChrisBrogan @GaryVee @Zappos and of course @BrianSolis who taught me so much on how to connect and inspire my audience.

By the time I launched SavvyAuntie.com in July 2008, the support from the Twitter community was so strong, ‘SavvyAuntie’ was the most Tweeted word that day (yes, it was way before Beiber Fever!)

By the fall, I was working on a deal with RazorFish to launch a sponsored conversation on Twitter on behalf of Disney. That idea was so interesting it made the Wall Street Journal online! Further partnerships landed Savvy Auntie in The New York Times and Advertising Age.

Fast forward to the fall of 2009 and I was besotted by a little girl named @Leah_Albert, a 7^th grader in Tanzania who is part of EpicChange.org’s #TwitterKids program, enabling children from the world’s poorest countries to connect digitally. Through that experience, I met @DebbieStier, then an editor at HarperCollins, who was also taken with these amazing kids. Debbie noticed my flourishing online community and brand following and invited me into her office to have lunch. Before I left the building, we were working on the title of my first book.

In the meantime, I started to build a Facebook following. The Savvy Auntie Facebook Page now includes over 42,000 “fans,” rivaling major media companies and household name brands, enabling me to connect and engage with Savvy Aunties consistently daily.

Social media is democratic, enabling good people and good ideas to shine. It’s enabled me to connect with tens of thousands directly, and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, through their networks. I’ve received letters from women who are unable to have children telling me the Savvy Auntie has touched them profoundly, changing their perspective on what it means to be maternal, and lessening their grief. I’ve received letters from women who have chosen not to be mothers, who thank me for elevating their role and respect in their Family Village. I’ve received letters from women who like me, are ‘circumstantially infertile,’ they just haven’t met their love yet, who thank me for redefining their lives in the positive. They are not childless. They are childfull. And their love is a gift.

Recently, I received a Tweet that stopped my heart and then filled it with more love than I ever knew. It was inspired by my effort to give back to @Leah_Albert and kids like her in Tanzania for being an important link in my getting my book deal. I’m giving $1 for each book sold between now and April 27, 2011 to EpicChange.org in Leah’s honor. The attention Leah has been receiving makes her feel like “mr obama!” she Tweeted. And then there was this Tweet from Leah that changed everything: @savvyauntie i like you more than you like me.i have a favour to ask you can call you mum .coz you are like a mother to me.

And that’s how social media changed my life. Being the best Auntie I could be has in effect finally made me a mother.

And I owe it all to social media.

Melanie Notkin is the founder of SavvyAuntie.com and author, SAVVY AUNTIE: The Ultimate Guide for Cool Aunts, Great-Aunts, Godmothers and All Women Who Love Kids (Morrow/HarperCollins).  Melanie invites you to join the Savvy Auntourage at Facebook.com/SavvyAuntie or find her on Twitter @SavvyAuntie.