Corporate vs Professional Individual Twitter Accounts

I’m having a challenge. I know I’m not the only one since this is a much discussed problem among various organizations in our field. I’m pretty sure there is no “one-size-fits-all” solution but I’d love to hear your suggestions.

Our consulting organization CEPSM has a Twitter account (@cepsm); and so do nearly all of the consultants that work here. That being said, we all primarily use our individual Twitter accounts (e.g. @mikekujawski) to build community around our passion/business since individual accounts always beat corporate accounts when it comes to building and fostering professional relationships. So the question is, what is the point of using the CEPSM corporate account when we are all actively involved in two-way business engagement on the same topic via our individual professional accounts?

Modern computer proficiency training for non-techie marketers & communicators

A few weeks ago our organization (CEPSM) sent out an e-newsletter to our database gauging the level of interest for a new workshop we are thinking of offering. We’ve received some pretty positive initial feedback so I figured I’d test this out a bit further with you, my blog readers ( if you don’t already subscribe to the CEPSM newsletter that is).

Here’s the scoop:

First glimpses of useful Facebook applications

A great article just came out in the Wall Street journal on some of the new applications coming out on Facebook. Here is a list of some interesting new ones that were mentioned along with others that caught my own eye. Note that only the first two are from the public sector.

• Causes – Lets you start and join the causes you care about. Donations to causes can benefit over a million registered 501(c)(3) non-profits.
• Ripple – This is essentially a way of donating to a charity without spending any of your own money. Simply, ad sponsors give money to ripple for any ads viewed. Ripple donates 100% of that money to charity (we hope).
• Neighborhoods -This application uses the founding company’s broker-defined neighborhood system to help Facebook members meet other people who live near them and share local information and photos. It also shows properties for sale in the neighborhood from any of Point2′s broker and agent members, which the company says number about 140,000 in 86 countries.
• MyStyle – Lets Facebook’s fashionistas place on their profile pages pictures of items they like from the retailer’s site, such as Oscar de la Renta dresses.
• Trips - Provides a place where groups can set travel dates, create itineraries and post messages to each other. Less than two weeks ago, SideStep added a search box to its application, which, the company says, now drives 2,000 visits to its site each day — where people can search for airplane tickets, hotels and rental cars. SideStep plans to enhance the application and, eventually, show some targeted ads.
• Visual Bookshelf - Helps Facebook members find new books to read by getting recommendations and reading reviews written by their friends.

Upon first glance, none of these bring anything drastically new to the table. However, what is interesting is that the barriers to entry in developing them were significantly reduced. Why? No proprietary software was needed, promotional costs were drastically reduced and community was formed overnight thanks to the power of social media.

Anyone else know any good ones?