Last call for online network stories and examples for our book

This week is the last call for success stories about use of social software (blogs, online communities, online networks) for my forthcoming book.We’re down to the wire — our manuscript goes to our publisher next Monday. We’ve got a complete book — but we think a few more real-world examples and stories will help make it a great book.

Here’s our laundry list of what we’re looking for (list drafted by my coauthor Scott Allen):

• An example of a business-oriented personal website from someone who is an employee, not an entrepreneur or solo professional, and that is NOT a blog, e.g., it contains articles, a personal profile, etc.
• A story about someone who has had repeated success selling big-ticket items by leveraging social software / social networking sites.
• A story about how online communication differs from face-to-face communication at a very personal level, e.g., you didn’t realize the person you were dealing with had some sort of disability, because it never came up in the online interaction.
• A business-to-employee community that has some kind of public face. Doesn’t have to be much publicly visible – just need something to point to that’s not entirely behind firewalls.
• A success story from a university alumni network about finding a job, business partner, new client, etc. We’d prefer one using the school’s own private network, but one from someplace like Classmates, Friends Reunited, or The Square would work, too.
• Someone with a very compact, business-oriented, archetypal blog — probably a fairly new one so that the archive and blogroll section aren’t too long. It needs to have: categories, search, calendar, archives, blogroll, comments, TrackBack, etc., and if possible, fit all that in “above the fold”, i.e., on the first screen full without scrolling. Tall order — I know!
• An example of a distributed conversation between two or more bloggers on a non-technical, but business-oriented subject, e.g., blogger #1 person posted something, blogger #2 commented on blogger #1’s post and also created a longer response on their own blog, which blogger #2 linked to when he “answered” on his own blog.
• A real example of an introduction following this model pretty closely. Of course, my Sent Items folder is full of them – but I need an example from someone else! src=”smilies/wink.gif”>
• Unusual success stories from social network visibility sites/software, i.e., LinkedIn, Spoke, ZeroDegrees, VisiblePath, Contact Network Corp.
• Success story about the use of social software inside a large organization, e.g., Autonomy, Tacit, Entopia, etc.
• Business-oriented success story about using online tools, e.g., Meetup, to organize groups for face-to-face interaction.
• Success story about benefit of using real-time technologies, e.g., web conferencing, as a relationship-building tool — NOT as a “sales tool”. I’m looking maybe for people holding unstructured or semi-structured regular meetings (like Rob Frankel’s Monday chat sessions).
• A story about how two people built trust based upon their respective histories and other information that was readily available about them on the web, thereby accelerating their ability to enter into a deal that required high trust, e.g., a business partnership, buying a business, etc.
• A story about how someone uses social software both to increase and demonstrate their professional competence.
• One of those biting examples of British humor that borders on flaming, probably in response to an Ecademy blog post. src=”smilies/wink.gif”>
• An anecdote about someone who handles a huge volume of email.
• An example of a really great, fairly detailed, HTML email signature.
• A positive story about someone who proactively protected/reclaimed his online privacy without sacrificing online visibility – maybe after an identity theft incident, for example.
• An example of trusting someone online a bit too quickly, e.g., they revealed proprietary information or intellectual property which the other person took advantage of.
• An example of viral marketing / buzz generation for a product within business-oriented communities — NOT tech-oriented and NOT consumer-oriented.
• The absolutely greatest, most interesting, most unique, most powerful story you’ve ever heard about online (not hybrid) networking.

If you have experienced one of these stories yourself, or can point us to someone who has, or can accomplish it yourself by this Friday (!), please submit it to us ASAP. The deadline for submissions is this Friday, August 20, at 4pm Eastern. In the interest of time, please submit the complete story/example, not just a query to see if we’re interested. Be sure to include your email and phone number so we can follow up with any questions.

a) This is a great opportunity to tell your story in a major publication.

b) Please help!

Whichever of the two statements above motivates you, ignore the other one!