As I watched, it made me think about how great social media is for companies such as the ones that were high-lighted and for those that have not yet engaged. When you have all sorts of content rich information tools, you have  an opportunity to not only engage with the people that work for you (especially in large companies and corporations) but with the people that shop with you too. You can find out how and when you are exceeding expectations and when they, or your business, disappoint. Where there are disappointments, you have the opportunity as a business to say, “I am sorry” and take immediate steps to make it right. Today!

Imagine if you could highlight the great people that are dedicated to your business—who you want to reward—by letting them know that YOU know how great they are? By showing how much you appreciate what they do. And giving the customers they interact with an opportunity to share their favourites nation—or city—wide. It would certainly encourage me to be the best I can be and PASS it on—both as a customer and as an employee.

One-to-one engagement focusing on a human element that allows all of us to be heard, respected and acknowledged—is one of the easiest ways to bring a positive flow of give and take . To address the challenges and celebrate the successes that take your business from good to great. To create enthusiasm for your brand and enlist new customers—which helps create more sales and, yes, more money.

Who wouldn’t want to get started tomorrow? What are you waiting for?

Best Nicole

Business Week features a great article about building a brand through public speaking. Such a great idea. The article talks about the CEO of Zappos, Tony Hseih. He says he tries to book 3 or more speaking engagements a week to help build his brands profile. Many of us are now familiar with Zappos. What hit home for me in this article is the fact that he talks about delivering happiness in a box. His company’s theme for  inspiration is  happiness, service and culture. He finds ways to tell stories that connect each of these themes with how his company does business so successfully.

We all want to be inspired. We all want to be attached to something we believe in. Who doesn’t want to be apart of a brand or service that will inspire them? It’s a real recipe for a visitor to want to come back over and over again!

Best Nicole

“Happiness in a box.” That’s how one customer described the feeling of receiving her shoe order from online retailer Zappos.com.

Much has been written about how Zappos cultivates a culture dedicated to exceptional customer service (it famously offers $2,000 to employees who quit during its mandatory four-week training program for new hires, although few people take the offer). What’s less known about Zappos is just how much time CEO Tony Hsieh has dedicated to spreading the Zappos gospel to most anyone who will listen.

During a recent interview, Hsieh told me he gives anywhere from one to four presentations a week, speaking at a variety of conferences and “pretty much anything” in Las Vegas (the company is based in the Vegas suburb of Henderson, Nev.). According to Hsieh, entrepreneurs and business owners should give as many public presentations as possible to support and help build the brand. “It’s one thing to read about your company, but when a customer can associate it with an actual person, it creates a deeper, more meaningful connection to the brand,” Hsieh told me. Here are Hsieh’s three tips to building a brand through public speaking:

•Speak about topics you’re passionate about. Although Hsieh started an online shoe retailer, he’s most passionate about customer service, corporate culture, and happiness. Yes, happiness. “Tony, what does happiness have to do with selling shoes?” I asked. “At Zappos, our higher purpose is delivering happiness,” said Hsieh. “Whether it’s the happiness our customers receive when they get a new pair of shoes or the perfect piece of clothing, or the happiness they get when dealing with a friendly customer rep over the phone, or the happiness our employees feel about being a part of a culture that celebrates their individuality, these are all ways we bring happiness to people’s lives.”

Speaking about a topic he’s passionate about, Hsieh engages his audiences and teaches them something new in the process. In a 55-slide PowerPoint deck, Hsieh devotes no more than five slides to a corporate discussion of Zappos data. The rest is dedicated to explaining how Zappos achieved its success ($1 billion in gross sales in 2008) and, most important, what the audience can learn from the Zappos story.

•Tell personal stories. Hsieh begins and ends every presentation with stories that reinforce his themes of happiness, service, and culture. He typically kicks off his presentations with the story of working at a company he founded and finding that, once it had grown to a hundred people, he dreaded going to work because it wasn’t fun anymore—the company had stopped hiring people based on how well they fit the culture. That story serves as a bridge into a discussion of why culture is so important to him today.

Hsieh likes to end his presentation with what he calls his pizza story. One night, he and some vendors returned to a hotel room late. Someone in the group was craving pizza and was told room service had ended. As a joke, Hsieh suggested calling Zappos. You can probably guess the end of the story—even though Zappos doesn’t sell pizza, the customer service rep found a list of local pizza places that would deliver to the hotel. It’s a fun story that seriously reinforces Hsieh’s theme of customer service.

•Don’t “sell” your product. Hsieh’s goal in a presentation is not to sell shoes; it’s to inspire his audience. Inspire them to do what? I asked Hsieh. “Inspired to provide better customer service, inspired to improve your corporate culture, inspired to learn more about the science of happiness,” Hsieh responded. Most presenters fail to make the distinction between selling and inspiring. According to Hsieh, a brand is a shortcut to emotions. Decide what emotion you want your brand to stand for. Hsieh’s presentations hardly touch on the subject of e-commerce, and neither do his blog or Twitter posts. Instead, he takes every opportunity to write and speak on customer service, culture, and happiness. “Ultimately, it causes people to be more attached to the brand and the company. You’d much rather support a company that inspires you than one that doesn’t,” says Hsieh.

Best Nicole

January 13, 2009 at 5:09 PM EST

SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo Inc. confirms that it has hired Silicon Valley veteran Carol Bartz as its new chief executive.

The decision ends a two-month search to replace Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang.

His short reign as CEO was marred by his refusal to sell Yahoo to Microsoft for US$47.5 billion — about $30-billion (U.S.) more than Yahoo is worth now.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company would be luring Ms. Bartz, 60, from Autodesk Inc., which specializes in making design software for architects and engineers. Ms. Bartz was the San Rafael, Calif.-based company’s CEO from 1992 until 2006, when she stepped aside to become executive chairman.

Ms. Bartz’s appointment could set the stage for Microsoft to renew its efforts to buy Yahoo’s Internet search operations as a way of mounting a more serious threat to Google, the market leader. Microsoft had been reluctant to deal with Mr. Yang because he rebuffed several previous overtures, including a $47.5-billion offer to buy Yahoo in its entirety last May.

Microsoft subsequently withdrew that bid, valued at $33 a share, and now Yahoo’s stock price hovers around $12. Mr. Yang had hoped to placate shareholders by using Google’s superior technology to sell some of the ads alongside Yahoo’s search results, but that idea unravelled in November after federal antitrust regulators threatened to block the deal.

Investors didn’t seem convinced Yahoo would be better off with Ms. Bartz. Yahoo shares fell 27 cents to $11.95 in Tuesday afternoon’s trading.

Ms. Bartz’s track record indicates she likely would act quickly to build upon Yahoo’s strengths while doing her best to shed the weaknesses.

“She is able to see the essence of things because she doesn’t spend a lot of time worrying about how people are going to feel,” said Nilofer Merchant, a former Autodesk manager who is now CEO of technology consultant Rubicon. “She is driven by doing the best thing for the business.”

Under Ms. Bartz’s leadership, Autodesk’s annual revenue has ballooned from $285-million to $2.2-billion. Perhaps more importantly to Yahoo’s long-suffering shareholders, Autodesk’s stock price rose by an annual average of nearly 20 per cent during Ms. Bartz’s stint as CEO, beating the 10.6 per cent annual average for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

Ms. Bartz had established her management chops before joining Autodesk. She spent nine years at Sun Microsystems Inc., where she eventually became the No. 2 executive behind the server maker’s then-CEO, Scott McNealy.

Despite Ms. Bartz’s resume, she will likely face questions about whether she is a good fit at Yahoo because she lacks any background in advertising – the primary source of Yahoo’s income.

Yahoo also is far larger than Autodesk, with annual revenue of more than $7-billion and roughly 13,000 employees, nearly twice the size of Autodesk’s work force.

As one of the first women to run a technology company, Ms. Bartz is used to being underestimated. Even after she had been Autodesk’s CEO for years, some of her male counterparts occasionally mistook her for an administrative assistant while she was attending industry conferences.

Before graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1971 with a degree in computer science, Ms. Bartz was a cheerleader, homecoming queen and a cocktail waitress – a job that helped pay her college tuition.

In her corporate life, Ms. Bartz talks more like a sailor, said Mr. Merchant, who recalls Ms. Bartz starting days with profanity-laced phone calls demanding to know why a sale hadn’t been closed. After dressing down a worker, Ms. Bartz usually found a way to end the conversation on an encouraging note. “She always wanted to make sure the job got done,” Mr. Merchant said.

Ms. Bartz hasn’t hesitated to get rid of employees incapable of executing her strategy. Within six months of taking over at Autodesk, she had purged its management ranks.

If Yahoo turns its search operations over to Microsoft, many analysts expect the company to lay off thousands of workers to save money. As it is, Yahoo just dumped 1,500 workers to help shore up its profits during the recession. The company also has lost many top managers during the past two years as Yahoo’s malaise worsened.

Yahoo’s decision to bring in an outsider could alienate its president, Susan Decker, who also was a candidate for the CEO job. Ms. Decker’s close ties to Mr. Yang and Yahoo’s previous CEO, Terry Semel, probably worked against her, because her appointment wouldn’t have appeased shareholders clamouring for a shake-up.

Ms. Decker, though, already has a working relationship with Ms. Bartz because both women sit on the board of chip maker Intel Corp.

Ms. Bartz also would have to coexist with Mr. Yang, who will revert to his titular role of “chief Yahoo” while remaining on the company’s board. Those two also share a boardroom together as directors at Internet gear maker Cisco Systems Inc.

This wouldn’t be Ms. Bartz’s first daunting challenge. When Autodesk hired her in CEO in 1992, the company was facing a shareholder revolt amid concerns that Autodesk was overly dependent on a single software product that accounted for nearly all of its revenue. Now, Autodesk offers an array of design software as well as computer programs that help add special effects to movies and TV shows.

To compound her initial problems at Autodesk, Ms. Bartz was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after taking the job. She had a mastectomy and was back in the office in four weeks.