KRyanOutLoud

And the Winner is...

kerri@kryanoutloud.com (Kerri Ryan) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 02:39:29 GMT

Thanks to everyone who gave all that fantastic feedback on the Noah's Kitchen logo! Just a quick note to let you know that the team at Noah's Kitchen agreed with the top picks by you guys (with a slight modification).

For smaller uses like avatars, the orange circle version was chosen. Again, thanks for the feedback, we fixed the Kitchen to read upright.

We also created a header for Noah's Kitchen's new website. Be sure to check out their new content, and by all means, feel free to contribute to them in any way you can!

Thanks again for your help on this project, it is very, very much appreciated. This community shines more and more with each new day!

- KR

TEDxHouston 2010 - A Welcome "Protest"

kerri@kryanoutloud.com (Kerri Ryan) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 01:40:43 GMT

If you've never heard of TED, it's a small non-profit with the vision of "Ideas Worth Spreading." It includes an educational series that started back in the 80's with the intent to expand discussions within Technology, Entertainment and Design, and has since grown to include other topics. You can see videos of the international discussions here. Over the past year, TED has created TEDx, which is the prefix for community-based conferences.

I had been traveling the week before the first TEDxHouston slated for June 2010, and quite frankly I had forgotten to apply to attend until my PR gal-pal, Aimee Woodall of The Blacksheep Agency, sent me a friendly reminder. She also needed some volunteer "actors" the morning of the event to welcome attendees.

If you didn't get to experience the crazy antics The Black Sheep Agency used to tie into the event, let me try to explain...

Volunteers were asked to act as protestors. Our disdain: G.A.S., or General Apathy Syndrome. The antidote: TEDxHouston. This seemed the perfect intro to the TEDxHouston attendees interested in improving their community, and who were new to the live TED experience. The protesters directed attendees to see the "doctors" who could administer the antidote: a sticker indicating the greek delta symbol for change along with educational material about eliminating that pesky G.A.S.

We all noticed that some people tried to avoid us by walking another route to the entrance. No dice, everyone was educated on the implications of G.A.S. The protest was taken literally by some folks until they actually read and listened to the light-hearted yet relevant signs and rants.

This mock "confrontational" approach that welcomed attendees was the perfect tie-in for the topic of the day: Expanding Perceptions. You never know what's in front of you until you stop and observe.

Photos courtesy of Paul Viscontini of The Loop Scoop

TEDxHouston 2010 - Certainty vs Uncertainty

kerri@kryanoutloud.com (Kerri Ryan) — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 01:04:33 GMT

I didn't know what to expect from the TEDxHouston event. I'd seen videos of the international TED talks, but still had no real concept. I only knew the theme: "Expanding Perceptions." But in all honesty, that lack of information was a good thing; I walked in with no pre-conceived notions.

I notice from reading other blogs on this event that we all came away with a different theme that struck a chord. Is this the law of attraction? Do we all gravitate to the theme we struggle with in life? Or do we recognize the gap that was just brought to light like the black mass in space that's filled with galaxies? Maybe it's a bit of both.

I won't bog down this blog with all my notes from the event, but here are some of the details from certain speakers that struck a chord with me. The theme I noticed was the conflict and impact of certainty vs uncertainty. Uncertainty is messy and can't be put in a box with defined construct, so we shy away from it. We all strive for perfection on some level and decide to apply constructs to uncertainties so we feel less messy. It's the easy way out. That "certainty" may be our undoing.

(Disclaimer: This is paraphrasing from my notes, so please excuse me if I don't get it exact...)

DR. BRENE BROWN - University of Houston

- The more vulnerable we allow ourselves to be, the more connections we have. Connections require risk.

- The one thing that people who feel they're loved and "belong" have is the belief that they deserve it. What these people have in common? Courage, compassion, connection. The courage to be imperfect. The compassion to be kind to themselves, then to others. The connection to others and willingness to let go of who they think they "should" be.

- We make uncertainty certain as a way to discharge pain or discomfort, we strive for perfection.

- We pretend that what we do doesn't impact others.

- What we should be thinking: "I AM ENOUGH"

DAN PHILLIPS - Pheonix Commotion

- Perfection creates waste

- Repetition creates pattern, even with imperfections

DRs. REBECCA RICHARDS-KORTUM and MARIA ODEN - Rice University

- Every year, 9 million children under the age of 5 dies

- 98% of those deaths occur in developing countries

- Rice U. students are developing medical equipment that is inexpensive to manufacture and maintain

MARK JOHNSON - Hometta

- Build a home that will impress your family, not your neighbors

- Large-scale homes going up all across Houston are built with a short lifespan...builders "moving product"

- Older, smaller homes are more sustainable compared to most being built today

DAVID CROSSLEY - Houston Tomorrow

- Downsize and relocalize!

- The way we've been living and expanding is not sustainable

DR. DAVID EAGLEMAN - Neuroscientist and Author

- Consider an exploration of all science and religious narratives

- Tired of the "certainty" of religion

- If scientists don't know what dark matter contains, and 90% of the universe is dark matter, how can we have certainty?

- The three most important words in science: "I don't know"

Need Your Feedback: Noah's Kitchen Logo

kerri@kryanoutloud.com (Kerri Ryan) — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:10:26 GMT

Noah's Kitchen, a non-profit organization in Houston that started earlier this year, provides meals to the homeless. Here is the organization's official mission statement:

"Providing the less fortunate with nourishment, nutritional education and other assistance as needed."

The organization is quickly gaining momentum thanks to many other groups such as the Ford Fiesta Movement and WeSLGT. The team behind the Houston Ford Fiesta Movement is giving a car to Noah's Kitchen if they win against other cities competing for the prize. (Be sure to check them out so you can show support as well!)

Amber, the founder of Noah's Kitchen, mentioned to me that she only had a low-res image of her logo and needed help. I asked her permission to play with the logo. Here were the basic parameters given to me:

keep the child-like quality
include the original blue
keep the chef idea w/the key elements of the wisk/bowl/heart

Below is the original logo, followed by the first rough drafts of the new logo. I gave that kid a bit more character (because the real Noah has a lot of that, to say the least!). I also moved the bowl w/love over his heart. I'll tweak the text when we decide on which version to evolve.

We'd all appreciate your input! Tell us which one(s) you like and why, or if you have any other creative ideas, feel free to share. Leave your comments below (waaaaay down at the bottom), and please make sure to reference by number.

Thank you!! ~KR

ORIGINAL LOGO:

NEW LOGO IDEAS:

(click on each to see larger images)

Graphic Designers and the Great Disconnect

kerri@kryanoutloud.com (Kerri Ryan) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 17:07:31 GMT

Keep your business and reputation on track - make sure your designer has your business’ best interests in mind.

One of the first full-page ads in the April 2010 Print Magazine is for The Little Tree, the tree-shaped car freshener. What’s the message in the ad? “This is privately owned property.” The entire ad is apparently intended to threaten designers from using the registered tree image that is owned by an agency and/or designer. That’s it. Nothing else.

Apparently this isn’t the first time this ad has run. So either The Little Tree company, or perhaps the agency, is spending thousands upon thousands in print advertising to avoid taking trademark infringers to court.

Meanwhile, I have to wonder how much money other designers are making off this image in other uses (does it surpass court costs and legal fees?). But then, hey, someone should be making money on the image because this ad certainly doesn’t inspire me buy anything from The Little Tree company. In fact, it’s had quite the opposite affect.

To top it off, I went looking for more on this story, and Google’d this term: print magazine ad little-trees (hyphened because their website is www.little-trees.com).

The results? The Little Trees website didn’t come up in the first page’s results. Neither did Print Magazine’s website.

People who wrote blogs about the ad had better SEO than the two companies mentioned in the search term, meaning I found the people talking about the companies before I found the companies. And I’m sure that over time, this blog will do the same.

I also Google’d the name of the agency/designer listed as the trademark owner, and all I found were court cases, not a website showcasing the agency’s work.

This is the great disconnect. Some designers focused on art don’t think in business terms; their ego sometimes trumps these efforts. In this case, I think The Little Tree’s money would have been much better spent improving their SEO, retail space, and positive ad messaging that influences people like me to buy.

While this is an extreme case of design going off-track, it serves as a simple reminder to continually evaluate the message you attach to your company, visual and otherwise.

Notes from HiMA’s “The Future of Interactive Marketing” Panel

kerri@kryanoutloud.com (Kerri Ryan) — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 15:10:59 GMT

I attended the Houston Interactive Marketing Association’s monthly luncheon on April 7, 2010 - here are some of the nuggets I gleaned from it. The interactive marketing panel was comprised of Scott Berg (HP), Ben Smithee (Spych Market Analytics), and George Benckenstein (Administaff).

Interactive Impact:

Budget shift: Interactive marketing went from a few percent to 50% of the budget at HP.
Consumers in general hate irrelevant advertising. Think in their terms… It’s not who you want to interact with, but who wants to interact with you.

Influence Marketing – who influences the consumers you’re trying to reach? For instance, our parents never used to influence their parents, but in this age of technology, we do influence our parents.

Target people with large numbers of friends/followers
Example: Kentucky’s head coach Calipari has 1.1 million followers he influences to help his school
Use incentives to engage, like a Twitter contest or use FourSquare where users can get a special deal if they “check in.”
Afraid of the risk? The only way you succeed is by risking and doing

B2B Interactive

Use LinkedIn to engage in discussions, give tips
The idea of engagement scaring you because the time involved? Your community will answer many of the questions for you.

Ideas to consider moving forward:

Consumers want their phone to become a personal ecosystem; do anything with the phone, including scan and pay for groceries with the phone, eliminating checkout process
Is social computing the next big thing for corporations?

Type. Read. Rethink. [Send]

kerri@kryanoutloud.com (Kerri Ryan) — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 18:09:06 GMT

Thanks to recent political events, some professionals who would otherwise keep their social media messages to middle-of-the-road business comments have suddenly decided to use the platform as their political soapbox. I think this is a good time to revisit a tip I proposed in a past blog: Think before you tweet, rather than regret and delete.

In my opinion, if you don’t discuss non-business religion and politics with your clients, then do the same within your online business profiles. If you can't hold back, post your views in a separate online profile that's detached from your business. Crossing very personal views into your business profile could be crossing a line with your followers.

Let’s look at this more in-depth with an example: I started following a local high-profile person on Twitter because he posted great links to events and valuable research. In my mind, looking at his tweets over several months, he was speaking as a business person. Then last night, he retweeted a link to a site that made disparaging and biased remarks about government officials and abortion rights. This nugget of information conveyed to me that he wanted to engage in a personal discussion, but it’s a discussion I don’t care to have with someone I barely know. To avoid seeing any similar messages, I promptly “unfollowed.”

This ‘unfollow’ ideology is becoming part of the social media evolution. As each of us comes to understand social media more, we focus more on information we want to see, and discard the rest. One bit of input I agree with Umair Haque in his recent blog titled "The Social Media Bubble" is that our social media connections are weak because we have little emotional investment with each other. Just as with real relationships, if a follower hasn’t met us in real life, and hasn’t engaged with us, he or she can just as easily let us go.

Keep this in mind if you’re promoting your business in the social media space. Many of your followers are yet to become loyal to your business; they’re there to check you out and decide if they like you. It takes time to build trust, and there's always a portion of your followers in that phase of the business relationship.

I’m sure everyone, including myself, has posted a message that can be misread and misunderstood, but this blog is a simple reminder for us all to “type, read, rethink…then send.”

Social (Media) Etiquette

kerri@kryanoutloud.com (Kerri Ryan) — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 22:02:52 GMT

Seems like I’ve been having more and more discussions and questions posed lately about Twitter etiquette (or as my friend @mrc0 put it: Twitterquette).

Unless you “direct message” a single user, your tweets will be public and searchable by anyone in the world. The process takes some thought as to how you should approach it.

The idea of etiquette within social media seems to have evolved over time, as I’m sure it will continue to do, but here are some timely suggestions. Feel free to comment, add suggestions, and pose more questions. You may not agree with some of these, so please provide an alternate perspective.

1. Think before you tweet, rather than regret and delete.

Every time I send a tweet, I think of it like this: If I said this in public, and knew it might be on camera, would I regret it knowing that those I respect most could see it? Go ahead and be bold, but understand this: even if you delete the tweet on Twitter, it’s still searchable on Google.

2. Cause trouble? Apologize.

If you look back at a tweet and realize it wasn’t the most respectful thing you could have said, apologize.

3. Be polite and respectful

If someone retweets your info or says nice things about you, be sure to thank them with a tweet.

4. Be honest and transparent

If you’re disingenuous, you will be called out. Don’t try to hide information - be forthright and show integrity.

5. Religion and Politics Aside?

Again, it’s just like being in public. Do you discuss religion and politics with people you just met? Or do you hold back in fear of offending someone? Act the same way on Twitter as you would in public.

6. Don’t be creepy.

Creepiness is in the eye of the beholder, as always. Think of how you'd like to be approached. Tweeting into a discussion being held by others who follow you in return will likely be considered okay on Twitter. However, doing the same to those who don’t follow you may come across as intrusive. It’s like that neighbor who’s always in their yard, waiting for you to come out of your house so they can dominate your time.

7. Be discrete.

If you’re tweeting on behalf of a company you work for, and you have a personal account, remember whom you represent when you tweet. Applying your personal views to the corporate account will likely backfire.

8. Share content – don’t be selfish.

Social media is considered a community, so share ideas, tweet other people’s articles you like and give them kudos. Spread the word!

9. Play nice.

I’ve had various feedback on this discussion. Some people agree with @gabriela_cast when she says “if you don’t have anything nice to say, bite your tweet!” Others will contend that if you need to “have words” with someone, do so with a DM, or direct message. This will keep the discussion between the two of you rather than in public.

Twitter is self-policed by its users. If you’re simply being mean, users will likely unfollow you and shut you out of their space to make their point. But if you’re threatening to others, Twitterites will come to the aid of a victim, just like people do in the real world. This can range from public humiliation to contacting the "real" police.

Sidenote: check out tweeteffect.com – it can tell you when you lost followers and how your tweets impacted your community.

10. When to follow or unfollow?

You’re going to get a lot of “fake” twitter users who follow you. Don’t feel like you have to follow them back. Check out their profile, and follow them if you like what they have to say. In return, don’t be offended if someone doesn’t follow you back. They may eventually do so.

If you’re following someone and you find their chatter to be offensive, boring, or just clogging up your Twitter feed, feel free to unfollow them. We’re all on Twitter to find something fruitful, which leads me to the next point:

11. Quality vs Quantity

Tweeting every 10 minutes discussing which room you just finished cleaning will likely annoy your followers. Ask yourself: does this tweet add value or at least a laugh?

12. Ask questions, don’t just tweet your own horn.

Social media users are many times looking for input and valuable information on a topic. Be part of the discussion.

Why Should I Choose You?

kerri@kryanoutloud.com (Kerri Ryan) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 21:26:45 GMT

I pass this billboard every day. And every day, I cringe.

Would you choose to use this company based on this billboard? I'm fairly new to Texas, but here's my knowledge of realtors: A licensed residential real estate agent should be able to show me any home listed on MLS. It's a minimum expectation. Is this not true everywhere? Am I out of the loop on a common scam? Are there rogue "unlicensed" folks with limited viewing power taking advantage of this "hot" housing market?

If you're a business owner, don't waste money blending in with the flock. Promote the aspects of your business that make you stand out as well as motivate customers to come back.

In other words, answer this: Why should I choose your company over your competitors?

Facebook: Does it work for businesses?

kerri@kryanoutloud.com (Kerri Ryan) — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:57:37 GMT

I attended a luncheon yesterday sponsored by the Houston IABC (International Association of Business Communicators). I especially wanted to attend this one because a marketing and management professor for Rice University, Dr. Utpal Dholaki, was the slated speaker. The topic: "The Fans Know Best: Building Online Brand Communities, What Works & What Doesn’t"

Now granted, in that one hour, the view on what works and what doesn't was explained more in theory than with case study. Dr. Dholaki did identify some major shifts in the approach of marketing theory. He stated that we were all trained to treat the consumer as something to be talked at, not talked with. We tell consumers that they should like our product, rather than developing the product to the consumers' need and letting the consumer organically promote the product on our behalf.

It's the same thing with online communities. There are two approaches: those run by companies that focus on self-promotion; and those run by consumers where topics surround interests, needs, and concerns. Products enter this discussion secondarily.

As we all know at this point, the consumer has changed. Today’s consumer fast-forwards through commercials, buys commercial-free satellite radio, and avoids junk mail. Speaking at them no longer has an impact, unless we happen to be "on topic" for them at that moment. As Dr. Dholaki mentioned, ninety percent of marketing messages aren't believed, because we're talking “at” the consumer.

Dr. Dholaki calls this change in consumer perception "Customer 2.0." These consumers are empowered and connected, require performance transparency (think Yelp!), and can create strong consumerism movements. If a group is created, those within the group tend to be influenced by its leader.

Dr. Dholaki ran a small study on a business, where he surveyed customers before and after the business created a Facebook Fan Page and campaign. What he found was most of the customers for this business weren't on Facebook to begin with. And while yes, those customers who were on Facebook tended to join the business' fan page, the overall impact was small (no real ROI numbers were provided in this discussion). In the end, and I'm paraphrasing here, Dr. Dholaki concluded that Facebook is akin to another PR channel. It can help build brand loyalty, and should be part of the marketing plan, but don't expect it to make or break the business.

I have viewed social media in much the same way. These are new channels that speak to certain segments of consumers, and each business needs to assess where their customers can be found in today’s array of media. If your customers are on Twitter, you should be there, too. Not sure if they are? It can’t hurt to try, it’s a fairly simple experiment.

What do you think? Are there certain Fan Pages on Facebook that you follow avidly? Or do you wish no businesses were in that space, that it’s strictly personal? If you’re a marketer, what are some surprises you’ve experienced in your campaigns?