Dustin Farivar

at Macy’s

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 10:13:07 -0700

at Macy’s

Right to Play

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 15:45:33 -0700

Most people know I am obsessed with two things Semester at Sea and One World Futbol. You might remember them from my post Monkey Business. I just did a guest blog post on their site about our journey on Semester at Sea with this indestructible soccer balls and the impact it made when we took them into one of my home stays in South Africa.

You can read the post HERE

Let me know what you think and get one of these awesome One World Futbol’s They are pretty amazing.

Sharing a moment with @DeepakChopra (at Hyatt Regency San...

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 22:53:42 -0700

Sharing a moment with @DeepakChopra (at Hyatt Regency San Francisco)

Pay Attention

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 16:36:50 -0700

I get asked a lot by friends and colleagues - how to “get” certain opportunities, build certain relationships, or be in proximity with people that the admire. For the longest time, I didn’t really have an answer. Usually, I would say something like - work hard, do well, and it will come.

The real answer is - pay attention. Sounds simple, but it is really a bit more complicated than that.

Fundamentals Beat Fancy Tools

Sun, 30 Dec 2012 23:16:50 -0700

If you know how to swim, you don’t need to build a boat. My reflections on 2012 and what is in store for 2013.

Ripple

Mon, 17 Dec 2012 15:44:27 -0700

In light of Sandy Hook I am reminded of an evening I spent with the family of Steve Curnow, a victim in the Columbine Tragedy. Please join me in my support for @20Children in an effort to give all children positive choices.

You can read my latest @Medium post about Steve Curnow: HERE

12:12 12/12/12 #12

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 00:14:23 -0700

12:12 12/12/12 #12

Dear the Five NYC Taxi Drivers who Refused My Fare While I was Standing in the Rain,

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 18:21:00 -0700

My new @Medium post about @Uber - Dear the Five NYC Taxi Drivers who Refused My Fare While I was Standing in the Rain,

Concretize, don't Compromise

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 16:50:21 -0700

When building your startup, concretize, don’t compromise. My new post is up via Medium: Concretize, don’t Compromise, check it out and let me know what you think.

Flirt Your Way to a Box of Cookies

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 17:38:00 -0700

I am not sure if this is something I should be proud of or embarrassed about, but I guess I am going to tell you anyways. I can have entire conversations with some of my friends in Friends quotes. I guess I just grew up at the right time in history. But one thing is for sure Ross was really bad at relationships and flirting because he was afraid of who he was, constantly changing himself to be the person that he thought the girl he was after wanted. Remember the leather pants and the baby powder… yeah exactly.

Flirting isn’t just for you and the guy or girl across the bar – its about making observations. Paying attention to the little details about your surroundings, environment, and the people who are around you – and making a statement, a playful declaration, or a risk that ropes those around you into your observation. You create a journey that you can walk together and remember because you made them FEEL SOMETHING.

This is skill is one of the most under practiced in business and life, and why most people are self conscious of doing so – therefore failing at making a genuine, memorable, and authentic connection with others that lasts longer than the encounter. At the end of the day, whether you realize it or not, we are all in the people business. Make people feel valued, important, and most of all give them permission to feel something.

I have been feeling nostalgic lately, and no not for the Twinkie, which somehow is selling for way too much money on eBay. I have been nostalgic for one of my favorite bedtime snacks when I was a kid, the Nilla Wafer.

I have a very clear memory of being at King Soopers (Kroger for the rest of you), and my parents telling me I could pick out cookies. I was choosing between some chocolate chip cookies, some wafers with cream, and Nilla Wafers. I chose Nilla wafers because I remember the glass of milk pictured on the box. Which is what I always drank while eating my wafers. Anyways, I hadn’t eaten Nilla Wafers for years until recently when a friend mentioned them.

Immediately I was nostalgic. The kind of nostalgic that makes me want to play Goldeneye on Nintendo 64. I drove to the store, bought one box, and walked out. I ate the whole box. I’m not ashamed. But then I jumped online to see what they were up to and I was pleasantly surprised. Streams on streams on streams of engagement, and then I saw it – a romance was happening and they were trying to keep it a secret.

There is a romance that has been brewing for a while now and I am not one to dip into other people’s relationships, but I will make an exception for this one. Nilla Wafers and Buzzfeed – get a room already. Seriously I’m pretty sure there is a marriage proposal coming soon. Buzzfeed, the famed viral content system that has a team of editors uncovering what you should be paying the most attention to. But what you wouldn’t know by looking at their site is that their employees have an obsession for Nilla Wafers.

How would I know such an intimate thing about a company as to know their inside snack secrets, I pay attention – and so did Nilla Wafers. Nilla Wafers found all the employees who work at Buzzfeed and watched what they talked about… WITH EACH OTHER. Surprise, guess what they were talking about Nilla Wafers.

Nilla started to flirt and took a what some might call a risk – I call it smart - with a company that could honestly help or hurt them. It could have backfired and Nilla could have been forever dismissed by the decision makers at Buzzfeed, but they did it right. Nilla and Buzzfeed made incremental commitments toward one another and Nilla was patient, until they recognized their opportunity:

I just can’t RT @nillawafers: Retweet if you still have a crush on the guy in the leather jacket. #TimeTested #StillFun twitter.com/NillaWafers/st…
— Ross Neumann (@rossneumann) November 30, 2012

@rossneumann @ryanhatesthis We’ve put some thought to this, @taylorlorenz: twitter.com/NillaWafers/st…
— NILLA Wafers (@NillaWafers) November 30, 2012

Nilla cold have just said thank you, but they took it one step further with the editor at Digg, a social media strategist at Mcgarry Bowen, and a writer for Buzzfeed. The 5 Reasons Nilla is Criminally Underfollowed sounds funny, and so does number three. But the rest of the points, are real tactics that actually matter. The best part was, the strategic romance and engagement resulted in this meme being shared by those very people, not just on twitter but on their blogs and websites furthering Nilla’s reputation as a playful brand and one serious wafer.

This just proves that you can flirt your way to popularity, but its easier with someone who you have a real relationship with – established over time these relationships will payoff more than just an extra box of cookies.

As a sidenote, Nilla has under 200 followers, it goes to show that quality matters matters more than quanity and real engagement, real relationships matter. Don’t judge someone by their follower count, judge them by who is paying attention to them and how well they engage. Good job Nilla.

Popular v. Valuable

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 21:09:00 -0700

Do what is valuable to you not what is popular for you.

I have again posted on Medium. This time a little unsolicited advice to recent graduates that applies to us all. Wear your cape in public, not in the dark of the night. Click HERE to read more.

Arrested Development

Sun, 02 Dec 2012 00:11:00 -0700

I am still really loving Medium and thus wrote another post on startup life, rules, reality and defining your own beliefs. I call it Arrested Development and if you read closely I might tell you about the first time I was arrested and how it shaped my view of entrepreneurship. READ IT HERE

Remember Your Training

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:26:00 -0700

I recently got early access to Medium a new publishing platform founded by Ev Williams and Biz Stone, best known for co-founding Twitter. I love the concept and how it organizes information, super intuitive and easy to use. HERE is my first post on the new publishing platform about a recent brush with death.

Circa, 2012: The Future of News

Mon, 29 Oct 2012 17:21:00 -0600

“Extra! Extra! Read all about it!” This was the battle cry of newsboys on the street corner telling the passerby about the afternoon, evening editions or “extra” to the local paper. People woul pounce at the developing story, a new story, or the latest gossip was printed in black and white for all to see. People would rush the newsboy if their battle cries carried the weight of influence or the news was really newsworthy – but it was the job of the newsboy to bring people to the paper. The first newsboy was Barney Flaherty a 10-year-old who was hired by the New York Sun in 1833. While there are still little boys and girls across the world with paper routes – the way in which we are enticed or enchanted by news updates hasn’t changed. Attention grabbing headlines, tweets, posts, or memes all geared towards getting us to click and read (~~view~~ ignore ads) so newspapers and news channels can generate revenue. I am not sure if this is quite what Johann Carolus envisioned when he published the first newspaper in 1605.

We have trusted the way news comes at us, or at least put up with it for a long time because it has been our best option. But can we be honest with each other for a moment. News and information has shifted – and there are a lot of stuff out there that is either unable or unwilling to shift along with what we desire as readers – and after a while even all that money wont be able to buy an understanding of our intrinsic needs as news readers. We have moved from reading newspapers available in our local circulation, to websites, to aggregated news, “curated” content, and the future will not be defined by the news – but rather the reader. People liked me who consume so much news that we see all the holes and repeats just at a glance. I’ve grown tired of it and we aren’t quite where I think we could be but we are getting closer.

Most people who know ~~me well~~, that I’m alive, know that I live on my phone. I tend to keep more track of my battery life than I do my own energy levels, and if I can’t do it on my phone, it’s probably not worth doing. Granted, I am exaggerating – but only by a little bit. Ironically, I am a minimalist when it comes to apps. My apps and home screen are organized in the order in which I use my apps and so that I can see my wallpaper – apps always seem to get in the way. I download and delete a lot of apps. Mostly because a lot of them are, well, how do I say this nicely – not worth the time I commit in the free download.

But there has been one app and startup that has had my attention for several months, Circa. To reduce Circa to an app is naïve – because what they are doing is one of the smartest things I have seen in a long time.

Circa came out a couple weeks ago and bloggers and technologists were quick to post reviews and skepticisms. I waited. Mostly because I got it – but I didn’t truly understand its potential until something clicked. Everyone asked me what I thought of it and I kept saying something was missing – I couldn’t put my finger on it – but now I see. I also know that Circa is well positioned to capitalize on this missing piece in future iterations of their technology to make it news for the way we intrinsically understand it and want it.

A little background, Circa has had a bit of anticipation building up because of an all-star startup team and a group of investors that reads like a who’s who of tech and social. Essentially – a lot of people I respect and trust for a variety of reasons. In short Circa has reimagined news. They do create original content, and it is only consumable on your phone in little points or snippets. Think sound bites of the most important information without all the fluff. The Interesting part about the app – is it curates the most important news AND the most important points of those stories. They put a lot of care into making every word fight for its spot in the single sentence blurb and cite their sources in “popular” media and news sites. You can share each story or just an individual point on social media (not email, sadly for me).

In a bit of a twist, Circa allows you to follow a story. So if a story is developing, you can be sure to have an alert when new information is available without having to check back.

With each alert, the app takes you right to the new information – cutting through all the now noise that you have already read.

Let me say that for as small of an editorial team that Circa has, they have been surprisingly fast and accurate. In some cases – I have been alerted of important news faster on the Circa app than in my New York Times or CNN alerts. It’s pretty cool.

I love the ability to follow the arc of a story and if I want to, only pay attention to what matters to me without having to look at anything else – at all. This is where Circa takes the cake – they put care into curating content – absolutely – BUT – I AM CURATING MY OWN CONTENT. No other site or service that I know of allows me to do it in this way. Furthermore, Circa can if they want build those news graphs into my interest graph and begin curating what they show me on the open stream even more intelligently – I am sure this is coming in time as they build out. Let me state this outright so there is no mistake – any news site, or site for that matter – that doesn’t allow me to curate my own content and consumption is missing the boat. This doesn’t mean adding blog feeds to my RSS feeds – this means allowing the content arc I consume to be tailored to my own social and interest arc. It is data rich and it is not easy – but its simple for user experience and that is what matters.

So, with this praise, you might be asking what’s my beef. Yes I have beef with the app. But its good beef, grass fed. I have a few challenges. I want more content – I am not sure if they can keep up with my consumption – so that is why it hasn’t been my primary choice yet – but Circa is 2 weeks old so I wont hold it against them - they are building out editors and content fast.

My second beef actually has to do with social. I follow people in the news, their blogs, on twitter and the like partly because I care about what they say. Not just the content they create, but the content they consume. So here is an example:

Lets say I want to pay attention to what Robert Scoble. I don’t just want to know what content he produces; I don’t just want to see the articles he tweets. I want to read the things he is keeping a secret – not on purpose - in the recesses of his mind. What are the stories, articles, topics, or people he is paying attention to that I can’t already see? I want Circa to take that role for me.

Traditionally, news sites will show you which of your friends have liked an article – but what they wont show you is which articles your friends like. I cannot go the other direction. I want to see what my friends, what thought leaders, and what other interesting people are following in the news - on Circa - and which parts of those story arcs matter to them most. Why does this matter? Because the people I respect and listen to have that role in my life because they have been right over and over again way before anyone else was. They aren’t necessarily magic – but they are doing and consuming differently than I am in some ways for sure. I want to consume the way they do. This would be interesting to me and I hope Circa is at least thinking about it if they are not already working on it.

Circa does a fantastic job and while the reviews and comments may have slowed down a bit, I know that the usage is rising and will continue to as traditional news is going the opposite direction. We have just scratched the surface, the future of news is going to look much different. Pay attention to this one.

Work Horses v. Show Ponies

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 22:25:06 -0600

As a child who grew up in the late 80’s and early 90’s I remember all the classic toys. My favorites were obviously the Ninja Turtles – I even had a Ninja Turtles themed 5^th Birthday Party – it was so awesome that Santa came to the party to give gifts to all my friends and I. Oh my Birthday is the day after Christmas and my Mom is a friend of Santa so I always had the best party favors - but I digress. One toy that has stood the test of time and still sells millions today is My Little Pony, and no I don’t have one.

Most people remember the jingle, and the toy – but few can name who makes it (HASBRO) – fewer can name the people behind it: Bonnie Zacherle, Charles Muenchinger, and Steve D’Aguanno. It is the collaboration of this illustrator, sculptor and product manager that created a legacy for one of the greatest selling toys of all time. Their work in all years prior prepared and positioned them to create the My Little Pony – the My Little Pony took center stage and didn’t prepare them to do anything but take their place in toy history.

I’ve spent the past month in a little digital hibernation so that I could be working, learning and hustling. Four weeks of travel, meeting with startups, founders, companies big and small, and the people who tell their stories. Then I topped it all off with four days researching on the couch sick because of something I probably caught during all the hustle and bustle. My favorite part about taking a peek behind the curtain of companies is getting a sense of whether the people in front of the camera are the people who are behind the desks doing real work – not just scheduling more camera time. Sort of a Wizard of Oz thing.

In an age where you can create anything you want out of a little smoke and mirrors – it is easy to see the difference between the people who are looking for smoke machines and the people who can make a fire. All you have to do is take a peak behind the curtain

So many first time, and even repeat entrepreneurs are more concerned with getting their name up in lights than they are with building a product good enough to stand on its own. This isn’t to say that great products don’t need great storytellers and showmen to pitch them – because they do. But, be weary of the entrepreneurs who spend more time seeking opportunities to talk about ~~what they have done~~ themselves, than actually turning away opportunities to talk so they can let their work speak for itself.

Often these types of entrepreneurs will find a way to be around the corner from every great event, willing to “make time” for every little chance to not do something that benefits business. Being busy doesn’t equal progress. Being productive is about shipping. Making real progress on your product requires you to focus on real results. The funny thing is, all those opportunities will start being around the corner from you, people will come to you, partners will come to you, cash will come your way, and even the opportunities you still need to work for will be easier to get to.

I watched a great interview on 60 Minutes about the Madoff’s the other day. You remember them, Bernie Madoff was the one who ran a huge Ponzi Scheme for years until the whole house of cards collapsed – stealing the hopes, dreams, and future from everyone it touched. Well, entrepreneurs who are purely show ponies are running a bit of a social Ponzi Scheme – talk a big game but really full of hot air. Usually this cycle of false hopes is all a farce born years in advance because that trick worked on someone on something smaller.

In the entrepreneurial community people are pretty open about talking smack. But to your face, they will often lie to you. Why? - Because they want to arbitrage your show pony ways. You never know who might throw a mention or wad of cash your way these days. But the ~~one hit wonders~~ real winners, the real entrepreneurs, and success stories are the ones who are able to spot a spade and call it out in a crowded room – not just behind the curtain. It’s the reason why Lou Pearlman sits behind bars today after a LIFETIME of social Ponzi Schemes and why Justin Timberlake is still entertaining millions.

There is a difference between workhorses and show ponies. Show ponies are easy to find, workhorses are harder to find – but a rare gem to be treasured. The key is, each of these equidae have something to teach us. You must know how to be a showman and a workman, a show pony and a workhorse, and not just to follow the carrot to pull the load but to build a real business.

Pull back the curtain – ask the tough questions – a show pony will buckle – a work horse will show you their true strength – and a true entrepreneur who is built to last – never stops building something usefully remarkable – so that others not only recognize it as worth making a remark about but actually use it.

Say Less and Do More

Fri, 14 Sep 2012 13:03:00 -0600

Last week I had an afternoon lunch with my friend Nikhil, which turned into a four-hour conversation that involved the waiter leaving his shift before we left the restaurant. Nikhil is easily one of the smartest people I know and gave up a future of operating on people to operate businesses. He is a colleague at Tuition Specialists and Co-Founder of the Unreasonable Institute, with a few other friends and colleagues of mine. Unreasonable just finished their third summer cultivating social entrepreneurs. They are also taking their institute aboard my second home the MV Explorer with Semester at Sea to launch Unreasonable at Sea this spring. But I am not here to talk about that today. There is something that Nikhil does better than just about anyone and it is why he is continually a resource for many entrepreneurs.

Whenever I am starting a new project, idea, or imagining I start pitching scotch taped ideas to my friends to see if they even make sense. Usually I get great feedback, a few thoughts, and some resources to think about. In this process people tend to self-select into two groups. The first group is people, who want to work with me, want experience, want a job, or just want to be involved some how and the second group is the people who actually work with me and are involved.

The difference between the two, is the difference why many of the people in my peer group and myself get to participate in some of the most interesting experiences with some of the most interesting people that make others wonder how we got into the rooms and communities we are a part of. It really is simple. The second group says less and does more.

I can’t tell you how many times I hear from friends and random people I meet “Oh wow, that sounds like a great idea, your company is awesome – let me know how I can help.” Some of it is fake, some of it is genuine, and some of it is code for “give me a job.” I have other friends, or people I only kind of know, who have outright asked for a job, asked for a position and said “Let me do your finance” – code for: “when you raise capital – pay me to do things because I am your friend.” I usually kindly say “Ok, I will let you know” and then I don’t.

The second group does a whole different thing. With people I already work with a lot like Nikhil, I hear “How can I help?” This is code for “Tell me what you need and I will do that or find someone who can.” It also – puts the onus on me, only I know exactly the challenges I am having or help I need and knowing the person’s skillset and my previous experience with them, I can say “yes, here are three things you can help me with.” Or, I have people, who I know or don’t know, send me emails and with ideas, articles, thoughts that they had, and feedback to take the idea or company further based on their own research. They show up with work already done, which says to me: “Here, I took some time to think about YOU and what you are doing and I did this to help.” I also will get introductions to people out of the blue who can help me on my path from others because they think it will add value – and it usually does. These people ask for nothing in return, and consistently show up ready to give. Which group do you think I create opportunities for and want to work with? Thats right, the people who showed up as a friend, not as a fan or even worse a feeder (someone who only feeds off of what you do)

I am fortunate to have some great peers and mentors and have had them all my life because when I showed up ready to give and do work, more than I showed up to ask for favors. Show up ready to build relationships, not milk them and you will build friends who will be there with you for your whole journey and the caveat is – you will get the privilege of being a part of theirs. This isn’t to say that I have never been in that previous group, even now I sometimes mess up, and usually it is because I get impatient or more often, don’t understand the person or the community I am trying to join on their journey as well as I thought I did. It’s ok, it happens, just own up to your mess up and get back to giving. Make sure the last memory you leave everyone with is of you trying to help them. You also have to do your research and show up knowing what you are talking about and ready to give, without expectation of any return.

With these people, my network is wide open to them. They have an all access pass and I will always introduce them to anyone who they want to meet – even if I don’t know them, I will go out of my way to build that relationship just for them. Why? I can trust them to execute. I can trust them to follow up, do more than their fair share and add value to the person they want to build a relationship with.

Back to my lunch with Nikhil – we sat and ate for hours talking about everything under the sun and swapping pitches for different projects we are working on and providing feedback and resources to each other. Nikhil’s new passion is so interesting to me that I am going to tell you about it. Our conversation obviously shifted to the topic of Newsroom on HBO and how amazing it is #LOVETHATSHOW. Nikhil said that it is so good; he wants to receive all his news Newsroom style. I have to say I agree. Which leads me to “Your Daily Three.”

For the past year or so Nikhil has been sending out exactly three articles each day to a list of close friends. Each day I receive an email with three articles that as an informed person I should know about and understand. Now, let me preface this by saying – I am a heavy reader and there aren’t many topics, headlines, and backstories that I haven’t read, learned about, or at the very least am familiar with. When I receive Nikhil’s articles, I get super pumped – just about every time they are articles or issues I have not read about or if I have – the perspective taken in article is different or more enlightening than what the average news consumer will get. I learn something every day.

Nikhil has now opened this up to the masses and is building the groundwork for an amazing new strategy to inform. “Your Daily Three” or as we affectionately call it “YD3.” YD3 curates exactly three articles each day that either enlighten readers on what the facts mean, in context – or shed light on something the news completely ignored, but usually matters a lot more than what they are reporting on.

The beauty of YD3 is it does what it espouses to do: enlighten and put facts into context. Each day there is a new theme that stretches across topic and industry and it is not overwhelming. I am almost guaranteed that if I reach a lull in conversation I can bring up one of the articles I read and know that it will shift the conversation to something interesting that the other person likely doesn’t have the same context or pespective around. The best part is, each day Nikhil scours the internet sifting through hundreds of articles and thousands of headlines to find the best fit – going as far as to research the authors and journalists to assure the accuracy and validity.

I have been lucky enough to get a peek at Nikhil’s path forward and the type of value YD3 is going to provide to its readers – curation and context from authors, journalists, and experts in a way that informs and engages it’s readers in an incredibly accessible way.

Check out Your Daily Three and Nikhil on twitter: @YourDailyThree and at their website: www.YourDailyThree.com

You will definitely learn something.

You Can Either Clear the Field, or Run Down the Field. You Can't Do Both.

Sat, 25 Aug 2012 00:30:00 -0600

I have been head down the past two weeks. Back to reading, back to designing, back to social mapping, back to advising and consulting - and enjoying it all. I tend to focus my support for companies and people on identifying opportunities rather than barriers. Partly because experience has taught me that you cant embrace opportunity and defeat at the same time, as much as you may want to think you can hold those two emotions at the same time, you can’t – so don’t even try. Most people spend too much time thinking about their defeat, the competition, and the barriers to opportunity and let it define their path forward. They worry about the startup halfway across the world that has the same half idea, or the colleague in the next office who is outselling them. They think the field is too crowded and they wont stand out, so they don’t even try. They quit or get beat, usually they beat themselves. The reality is, the field is usually wide open, because everyone else is worried about each other, quits, or doesn’t even try - you just have to put in a little bit of the right work.

As much as I want others to succeed at their venture, their dream, their idea, what have you, they have to make the decision to do it. Unfortunately, the first decision most companies, entrepreneurs, and people starting out on something new make is to map the field and then copy people who are doing something that is working, trying to keep up. Or, they focus on the people who are in the crowded space trying to understand what isn’t being done yet so that they can try that – even if they have no idea what that is and don’t believe in it when they figure it out. Even worse, is when companies look at the competition and try to focus on all their efforts on cutting them off instead of building their product the way they believe it should be built.

The result: poorly built products and services, unhappy clients, lack of clients, and lack of progress. They look around and wonder “Wait, we built it, its good why isn’t anyone using it?” or “How come we can’t move forward, we can’t make progress and are seeing no results.”

I’ll tell you why: You spent more time focusing on your competition than you yourself. If you care so much about what they are doing and how what they are building is better – go help them build it, because you will get nowhere with your own product. You didn’t focus on your audience, your customers, and what they wanted – you built a product defined against your competition, not as a reflection of your values or your customers needs. Keep in mind, it isn’t just sartups and individual brands who fall victim to this, large companies do it to, politicians do it too, even actors and musicians. If you try to be something you are not, try to copy someone you are not, and fail at achieving what you desired – it’s pretty obvious why.

I found myself saying one thing over and over this past month:

“You can either clear the field or run down the field. You can’t do both.”

The irony of this analogy is, if you actually do succeed in clearing the field, you still have to run down the field at some point if you want to win. Why not just start by running. Focus on running down the field, with better technique, greater speed, and a fervor that brings fear to anyone who stands in your way. If you aren’t strong enough yet, hit the gym – do your pushups, focus on fundamentals – then start running. Let someone else worry about trying to stop you, let them look over their shoulder, and let them call an audible on their game. Your job is clear, get down the field - there will be other people out there doing the blocking, you just run down the field.

To make it simple I’m going to stop telling you what you shouldn’t do and start telling you what you should do:

1. Identify what you believe (why you do what you do).

2. Identify what you want to build.

3. Identify who you need on your team and recruit them.

4. Define each teammate’s role and let each do what they do best.

5. Start running down the field, building your product, your brand, your idea.

6. Keep your head up and see the field, seize opportunities.

7. If someone is trying to tackle you, run past or through them, don’t turn back.

8. If you get hit, get up and do it again, learning from what you did wrong.

9. Run down the field.

Remember you are on offense, play like it, and let your team all fill in the roles accordingly – you run down the field - the blockers will take care of the rest.

How Tender Greens Made me a Promoter in 5 Minutes

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 11:35:00 -0600

A couple months ago I came to Santa Monica, CA to visit @BenWhitehair and @AustinBis. We went to lunch at @TenderGreens because is said their salad was going to change my life. Just to be clear I am not a vegetarian, salad is usually an afterthought. Anyways, we went and the food was amazing – p.s. their mashed potatoes are like nothing I have ever had.

This weekend I came to California for @AnnieVovan’s wedding and found myself craving Tender Greens so I went with @BenWhitehair and @DanikiaBrysha for a salad. Like any #Foodie I snapped an @Instagram photo and posted the following tweet:

Tender Greens - enough said #foodie instagr.am/p/OHp-YXI60_/
— Dustin Farivar (@DustinFarivar) August 9, 2012

Within a few minutes I had a response from @TenderGreens – which if you notice I didn’t tag in the tweet.

@dustinfarivar You photo is great! You should enter it in our #TGPick contest!
— Tender Greens (@TenderGreens) August 9, 2012

By pure coincidence TG was running a photo contest and asked me enter the photo – so I did. They engaged with me around the photo and thanked me for it.

This means something:

Tender Greens is actively asserting themselves into conversations even when they are not tagged in a post.
Tender Greens cares about customer engagement.
Tender Greens recognizes opportunity and acts upon it.

Low and behold – I won the contest – granted my photo belongs in a gallery so of course I was going to win, but the real story I want to tell you isn’t about this response I got on twitter but what Tender Greens is doing right with a separate twitter strategy.

After I won, I started reading Tender Green’s feed. I saw something that they were doing well that many other brands are totally, and I mean TOTALLY failing at. So many companies have way too many identities online – from multiple Facebook fan pages, to multiple twitter accounts and sometimes they are different because they are running a different promotion, or are localized like Century Link does for each state or many restaurants have a different twitter account for every single location or divisions of the company. This is the wrong strategy.

As a consumer, It doesn’t matter if I engage with your customer service department at one location, on the phone at a different location, or in person on a completely different medium – my belief about your brand is applied to you as a whole – not a specific location, not a specific division, and not based on medium. Don’t divide your brand and make me follow so many different confusing feeds just to keep up with one company. You might think you are making it easier on me but you are not – I really don’t care about you that much to want to follow you several times and it all just works against your brand because I get confused - #unfollow

If you are leading an organization that is franchised, has multiple locations, or has several aspects of your business take a page out of Tender Green’s model and UNIFY your brand.

It looks like this:

Only have 1 twitter account, 1 Facebook page, 1 Pinterest page, etc. Yes only one account on each.
Curate the ENTIRE conversation on that single account – positive and negative – stories and service – announcements and aspirations.
Localize conversations by searching out your brand and associated topics by zip code and city then #hashtag specific topics to organize separate feed.
Don’t stop – catch every single tweet, respond to every comment, and take an interest in your users – beyond the tweet.
Give 1 or 2 people the full unfiltered authority to engage with a unified voice that all members of your team can emulate.

For Tender Greens – this shows up by using tags like #TGHollywood or #TGCC to signify conversations around specific locations – like daily deals, specials and feedback as well as inserting themselves into very specific conversations.

It is a small shift – really small – but as a consumer, I can go to one place and see their brand, one page, one feed, one set of Pinterest boards. Keep doing it and over time it will pay off long term – develop the relationships and put forth the effort – people will notice and give you feedback with comments and dollars. More importantly – back up what you say with action – great service, a great product, and empower your front line to meet consumer needs the same way.

Tender Greens made me a customer because @BenWhitehair told me it was good, so I tried it. I had excellent food and enjoyed my experience. I return for the food, which is nice because they make money – but Tender Greens turned me into a PROMOTER. They made me care about them as a brand because they cared about me as a person – and it wasn’t the contest – that is meaningless to me – it was the fact that they searched me out, found an opportunity to engage and executed – making it easy for me to engage with them as well. Oh, and this earned media - took them a total of 5 minutes to cultivate, for free.

They had no intention of anything other than building a relationship. Funny how that pays off when you do it right – 24 hours later I am writing a blog post about my experience with them and telling you – GO EAT AT TENDER GREENS.

Lifetime value goes further than lunchtime coupons. I will gladly pay the $20 for a salad at Tender Greens any day, the food is amazing and I have a real relationship with them that will develop further over time.

Great job Tender Greens – keep it up! You are setting an example other brands need to follow.

An Open Letter to @BizJournals

Tue, 07 Aug 2012 15:13:00 -0600

Dear @BizJournals,

Can we speak candidly? Great! The fact that we can speak candidly means we are friends, though you may not like me after this.

Here’s the thing, you are running #SocialMadness – a month long campaign that does exactly what consumers hate.

“Like Me!” “Friend Me!” “Follow Me!”

Hey, you just followed me. And this is crazy. But we wanna win #socialmadness. So vote for us maybe? cot.ag/OK0YJ7 RT if ya LUV us!
— Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) August 7, 2012

Me, Me, Me, Me!

So here is what you have set up. Small, medium, and large companies all competiting to gauge “social influence” not sure how you are calculating it, but to be honest IT DOESN’T MATTER! Why? Because all the companies are just saying:

“Like Me!” “Friend Me!” “Follow Me!”

You are encouraging the wrong behavior. You are asking people to bother me - so they can market to me – thanks for that, I really appreciate what you are doing for the brands – trying to get them more engaged on social media. The intention is there – AWESOME. But you have executed incorrectly.

The value of any social media isn’t media isn’t the numbers, it isn’t the likes, and it isn’t the people who click like just because you tell them to. The REAL value cannot be measured the same way, and to be honest isn’t measurable very easily, ENGAGEMENT.

If you REALLY want to help these brands (AND YOURSELF) teach them to use social media the right way. Its funny that the brands that actually use it effectively aren’t competing in the game you are playing – because the game is stupid and we know better than that. We don’t need to know how many likes everyone has or how many followers. All that DOESN’T matter because none of them are paying attention anyways since many of these brands (and you) are just pumping out stuff that is selfish and not about THE CONSUMER.

1 Million likes means nothing if no one is reading what you are posting. I would rather have 100 people who I have REAL RELATIONSHIPS with and who I engage with as a company and as an individual and scale the depth of my relationship not the number of my connections.

Here is a perfect example, @SouthwestAir answer Paul - address his concern:

@southwestair No.Start caring as much about fixing your horrendous IT department as you do about winning a meaningless Social Media award.
— Paul L. (@MrItty) August 7, 2012

I challenge you to run a new campaign. Develop a model to teach brands how to truly engage with clients, how to LISTEN to their followers, how to challenge what everyone else thinks social media is and harness the true power of being in the PEOPLE BUSINESS.

For all these brands doing this competition, many of you I shop with and its not because of your pushing, for the ones I stay with it is because of your customer service and because you care about me as a person when I talk to you. Treat social media the same way – do what you do naturally – stop bothering us just because it is part of a competition and it gets you a momentary blip.

@BizJournals – I say this not just to call you out – I want you to get better, I want you to do better – start investing in people and teaching others to do the same – don’t just drive traffic - build relationships - endear yourselves to people BECAUSE YOU TRULY CARE ABOUT THEM NOT BECAUSE YOU WANT THEM TO CARE ABOUT YOU.

Love,

Dustin

Cat's Meow: Jungle and Jingle Kings

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 17:48:00 -0600

For the past couple weeks I have been talking with a few different companies and individuals about identifying opportunities. All too often, we look at what we can do based on what we have seen being done, what we see our peers do, and what we are told or shown is possible. Because we are trained to see with this lens, we miss opportunities. Important ones. From a very young age I have been what some classify as “opportunistic” – I like to say that I pay attention. I usually am tracking what people are doing, where they are going, what their starting, what companies are doing, who their partners are, who’s invested and to what degree. I pay attention to relationships by nature and believe that most people don’t because they are too focused on their own relationships to pay attention to anyone else’s.

If you remember back to my first post, you will recall that I LOVE introducing other people who should be talking to each other. I love it even more when I can recognize a potential relationship before they can and set a vision for them. Today, I am going to set a vision for the most unlikely of mates, cats and dogs, an unlikely pair. It isn’t news, unless you are watching NBC Tape Delay, that cats and dogs don’t get along, but I think after this past week we might have just the opportunity.

Snoop Dogg, scratch that, Snoop Lion! (RAWR), is back in full force. Funny how his name changed right after I downloaded Apple Lion and just after I started to forget the many identities of Diddy, or is it Sean, wait…. P. Diddy, Dirty Money…. No its Puffy…. Ummm…. Ok you get the picture. Snoop Lion is someone the media tends to give a hard time given hip hop culture and his own run ins with the law, but I have been paying attention to him since the 90’s. The one thing that has stood out the most, isn’t his music, it’s his love for his community. He has spent years building a youth football league for some of the toughest cities in California, to teach young people leadership, teamwork, and the value of hard work. This is amazing. So what does this have to do with cats?

I don’t know about you but this jingle is by far one of my most memorable advertising jingle’s of all time. There are very few catchy tunes out there in commercials, but this is one of them. Meow Mix is also a company I have been paying attention too lately. Del Monte Foods has been doing an excellent job tuning a new generation into this jingle and authentically engaging them online with social media. They aren’t just going for the numbers, they are going for relationships, and paying attention to other people’s relationships as well. So much so, that I had to go through a few pages of @Reply’s (this is a good problem by the way) to dig up this tweet they sent to Snoop Lion:

A big meow for Snoop Lion as he mixes it up! We know he’ll be pawesome.
— Meow Mix (@meowmix) August 1, 2012

Notice something here, they did not tag Snoop Lion, they did not expect any response, they were just paying attention to an opportunity and entered the conversation. Low and behold, Snoop Lion, was paying attention too. Just like he has been paying attention to his community for a long time. He noticed, and retweeted them, and more importantly - Meow Mix said THANK YOU.

@snoop_lion We’re so happy to call you the king of the jungle! We’ll meo…roar to that. :)
— Meow Mix (@meowmix) August 3, 2012

Now, Meow Mix doesn’t have that many followers on Twitter, yet, but I know they saw an uptick after this tweet. They saw an increase in likes on Facebook, and created a few smiles. Pay attention to Meow Mix, they are doing it right, just like a few other companies I have shown you. Over the next several months, I wouldn’t be surprised to watch their numbers grow, but more importantly the depth of their relationships with their community. Great job Meow Mix - way to pay attention!

Since Snoop Dogg is now Snoop Lion and Meow Mix has hired The Voice’s Cee-Lo Green to remix the jingle, I think it is the perfect time for The King of the Jungle and of the Jingle to join forces.