Archive for April, 2009

Karen Bartleson is senior director of Community Marketing at Synopsys and a blogger since 2007. She has been in the EDA industry since 1980 when she joined TI’s design automation department after graduating from Cal Poly with a BSEE. Since 1995, much of her attention has been focused on EDA standards, and today she freely admits that she has become a “standards-lifer.” Karen’s blog, The Standards Game, is currently followed by over 2,100 RSS subscribers and has become one of the cornerstones of Synopsys’ Blogs & Forums community.

In the following interview, I had a chance to ask Karen a few questions about some of her experiences as a Synopsys blogger.

Rick: Nothing like asking the big question first: What is the number one revelation you’ve absorbed as a blogger writing for the worldwide EDA, semiconductor and standards communities?

Karen: Wow. That is a big question. I’d say my number one revelation is that I’m a social media natural. Blogging got me started in the emerging area of social media for business, and I’ve become enamored with it. It makes so much sense to me on a base level that we can use social media to engage our customers and build communities in non-traditional ways.

Rick: When you originally launched The Standards Game, what were your greatest concerns at the time?

Karen: Most new bloggers I’ve talked to have two concerns: what will I write about and will I have time to write? My two concerns were different (are you surprised?). I wondered what would happen if my boss disagreed with something I wrote, and I worried that my posts would have to go through a corporate review and approval process. Fortunately, my boss said that if I wrote something he didn’t like, he’d fire me – teasing, of course, and our company’s social media leaders somehow made it possible for me to publish my posts without oversight.

Rick: How have those concerns changed and evolved since then – and what is your greatest concern today?

Karen: My original concerns have diminished to the point where they are almost non-existent. Today, I worry only that I might not deliver content that is interesting to my readers.

Rick: So there’s blogging, and then there’s micro-blogging (i.e., Twitter). How do you think about the two platforms in terms of your objectives for how to use them?

Karen: You’re really making me think! I suppose I see my blog as a more permanent and in-depth means for communicating subject matter. Twitter is great for getting short bursts of ideas out there. It seems more fleeting than a blog, and replies can lose context if they’re not thought out. If a tweet generates a retweet or a reply, I could be on to an idea for a blog post. I’ve also found that I’m using Twitter instead of email whenever I can. Both platforms allow me to inject my personality into my content, and Twitter gives me the opportunity for quick fun with my colleagues.

Rick: What’s one of the coolest things that has happened for you as a result of a Twitter tweet?

Karen: So many to choose from… I’d say the coolest thing from a work perspective was “meeting” a customer that I hadn’t known before and having him give me some important information about a standards activity. I never would have gotten this information any other way, and it helped me make a good decision for the standards group. On the personal side, it was way cool when my daughter told me she enjoyed “stalking” me on Twitter without being one of my followers. There’s nothing better on this planet than knowing your children love you.

Rick: What’s ahead for The Standards Game in the second half of 2009?

Karen: Since it seems to be working, I don’t think I should change what I’ve been doing. I’ll continue to provide a variety of posts about the world of standards, from summaries of technical activities to my opinions on standards “battles.” And I’ll continue sharing things I’ve learned over the years about how to better create standards through my Ten Commandments for Effective Standards.

Rick: Thanks Karen.

If you would like to follow Karen on Twitter, her address is: http://twitter.com/karenbartleson

Technorati Profile

Twitter is the social networking and micro-blogging service that allows people to send content (called tweets) and follow the tweets of others has been gaining steam in recent months. According to site analytics from Compete.com, over 14 million unique visitors logged onto Twitter last month, including some from the EDA community.

As I was grabbing some lunch in the Synopsys cafeteria last week, a senior-level colleague who has been at the company forever mentioned that he had just established a brand new Twitter account. He’s not sure yet how he wants to use it, or even if he wants to use it.

Fair enough. How and when are two excellent questions to have in mind when checking out a new tool. Add why to the equation and helpful answers soon follow.

Some will find that Twitter provides a useful medium for forging and maintaining relationships through social interaction. To the extent that “who you know is often as important as what you know,” Twitter can help.

If you have interesting things to say and can add value to the river of thought enabled by Twitter, micro-blogging can expand your field of influence as you attract and build new followers. As you follow and interact with others, you gain an opportunity to learn and be in the know ahead of the curve about a wide variety of topics and developments. If you need a hand or want to test a new idea, Twitter can provide an instant focus group to collect feedback from many valuable points of view.

Yet Twitter is clearly not for everybody. In a recent post titled Top 10 Reasons Your Company Probably Shouldn’t Tweet, blogger B.L. Ochman summarizes some considerations worth examining, like the observations that Twitter is a tool, not a strategy, and that it helps to be interesting: Make only every 10th tweet about you, and you’ll gain and keep a following.

In addition, forging and maintaining relationships on Twitter takes a considerable amount of time and intention. To reap those benefits, you must participate (and often). No coincidence that forging and maintaining relationships in other areas of life requires pretty much the same.

Finally, whether you’re tweeting in cyberspace or standing at the water cooler, quality generally trumps quantity. Not even Twitter can cure the mundane.

With the rise of social media, blogging, and user-generated content, everyone who uses the Internet now has countless online resources at their fingertips to find information and interact with others.

The concept of “Web 2.0” is said to have begun in the wake of the dot-com bubble collapse in 2001.  Although much has happened since then, businesses large and small are still experimenting, strategizing and otherwise trying to figure out what it all means to their current business models and future opportunities.

Of particular interest to Synopsys: what does Web 2.0 mean in the world of EDA?

Within engineering communities around the world, how are online social media capabilities affecting the ways people communicate and interact? How do people and teams want to be engaged online? How are customer expectations and experiences changing as the web evolves and offers new possibilities for how things are done at work, at home and beyond?

I’ve had the good fortune of working in various communications and marketing roles at Synopsys since 1994. In recent months, I’ve been looking at the potential of social media to enhance our connection with the various communities with whom we engage.

The goal of the Listening Post is to expand this inquiry by turning it into a conversation. How is the social media-enabled web changing the way you work, or solve issues, or network with others? What new possibilities do you see? What refined expectations do you have? What’s working, and what’s not?

Drop me a line at rjamison@synopsys.com or post a comment here on the site. Either way, I look forward to hearing from you.