April 30, 2011 – This post is inspired by a random Foursquare update I happened to see this morning. Foursquare is a location-based cell phone app game which allows you to check in to locations and share it with your friends.

Generally we think of Social Media as a way to connect with our customers, but in this instance, a business is using social strategies to connect with their competitors!

Danica Sattui

The update I saw was posted by lovely Danica Sattui. Danica is the niece of Dario Sattui, owner of V. Sattui Winery and Castello Di Amorosa Winery/Castle both located in St. Helena in the heart of the Napa Valley.

Danica’s Foursquare post read:

“Delivering cheese plates to say thank you for sending us people! @vsattui1885 — at Robert Mondavi.”

and then another one:

“Delivering cheese plates to say thank you for sending us people! @vsattui1885 — at St. Supery Vineyard Winery.”

This, to me, is *Social* Media at it’s finest. Smart, smart, smart! Not only is V. Sattui Winery giving recognition and appreciation to other wineries for their referrals, they’re also likely to get more referrals from these wineries because of this!

Old-style marketing/PR/advertising would never have given any recognition or appreciation to other similar businesses(wineries in this instance), they would have seen them as competition to be trounced on!

Now some of you smart cookies are saying, “Wait a minute Laura, how is this “Social Media”? I see the social, but where is the media?”

I’ll tell you! Although it is true that V. Sattui did not use Twitter or Facebook in this instance – but – Danica Sattui DID! Because of her random Foursquare check-ins, I was prompted to write this blog. Her Foursquare check-ins also feed onto her Twitter and Facebook pages. I know when I read her posts I was impressed. Impressed with her, and impressed with V. Sattui. I thought, how NICE! I have no doubt that others seeing this felt the same.

Danica was gracious enough to talk to me about her deliveries later that day. She said that the winery has been delivering treats to neighboring wineries once a year, for at least the last five years. Besides Danica, five or six other employees were also out making deliveries. She herself delivered cheese plates to nine wineries. She mentioned that she really enjoys making these deliveries and happily volunteered.

This friendly, generous, personal attention generates positive feelings, likely more referrals and increased business and profits for V. Sattui Winery. In turn, V. Sattui Winery will likely refer customers to visit wineries that send customers to them. It’s a lovely circle of good will.

I love it! Innovative personal touches like this are seeing social media cross boundaries that make it a win-win situation for all involved. In this instance with potential competitors!

June 23, 2010 – It’s iPhone 4 Eve, and all around the country, or maybe world, people are lining up and preparing to camp out to be the first or at least the front of the line when the Apple store doors open at 7 A.M. on Thursday, June 24, 2010.

What’s all this fuss about? Why are people willing to go without sleep and brave the weather to stand in line all night, hoping to be one of the chosen to receive one of the first iPhone 4′s? Well Apple itself says, “The future is in the details.” These details include special glass, the highest-resolution phone screen ever, a stainless steel band created with Apples *own* alloy, A powerful power-efficient A4 processor that lets you perform multiple tasks while maximizing battery life, A gyroscope plus accelerometer for advanced motion sensing to dramatically improve gaming capabilities, two microphones to minimize excess background noise, and all are contained in a 9.3 millimeters thin case, making it the world’s thinnest smartphone!

Now I left out the feature *I’m* most excited about – the camera! The new camera gives you 5-megapixel photos, and now we even have an LED light for flash or video illumination! Is that exciting or what??? There is even a camera screen on the front of the phone for those self-portraits, so that you can actually see if you’re in frame and get it right the first time! They even mention it can be used for FaceTime calls and I’m not really sure what that is, but it sounds like a video chat!

I visited the Emoryville, CA Apple Store tonight to see a Genius about my current iPhone. He was able to help me immediately and I was in and out of the store in about 15 minutes. I asked my Genius about the iPhone 4 and they said they were preparing for it and were going to open the doors at 7 A.M. He said that they were not going to be offering any Genius help in the store tomorrow due to the iPhone 4 frenzy, but gave me info how to schedule an additional appointment if I needed one. He mentioned that Bay Street is a private street and that people were not going to be allowed to line up or camp out overnight in front of the store, that the security guards wouldn’t allow it. This did not seem to deter the five souls standing in line as I left. One man told me that if they made them leave, that he would return at 3 A.M., he said he was staying at a hotel nearby and that it wouldn’t be a problem for him.

Am I going to stand in line? Well, no. Even though I’m excited for the new iPhone 4 and want one badly, I have a AT&T contract that is expiring in October, so I may as well wait for that and give them a couple of months to work the bugs out!

I truly *love* my current iPhone. It is almost like a friend to me. I seriously had no concept of how much I would love it until I had it. I’m constantly checking my Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, texts, SMS messages, playing games when I’m bored, checking voicemails, calling friends…with just a touch! The smartphone capabilities make it just like carrying around a mini computer! It’s all that and a bag of chips! And, I can’t wait to see all the fun I’m going to have with the new iPhone 4! (Especially the CAMERA!!!)

So what about you? Are you going to wait in line?

For more iPhone 4 details, please read Apple’s iPhone 4 page here.