In December, the New York Giants were playing terrible football. The whole football world had written them off. Today, the New York Giants are Super Bowl Champions!  I was watching the NFL Super Bowl with the family today, and while most fans were interested in the amazing plays, and unbelievable mistakes even the most veteran team seamed to make, I couldn’t stop but see how the lessons on the field, apply to lessons of life and success.

What Everyone Does

Everyone worries so much about the social media tactics, strategies, ninja moves, search engine optimization, Facebook dominance, twitter conversations, and overall communication with your customers. But not a lot of people worry about what separates a champion, from a finalist. You see even the mighty Goliath’s can be defeated if you truly believe in yourself, and have that secret ingredient that simply can’t be taught. Passion.

What Winners Do

The winning team isn’t always the “best” team on paper. The team that wins is the team that had the most passion and determination to win. Especially when you get to a level where everyone is just as good as everyone else.

Just take a look at the New York Giants, and the amount of energy they came out with. The energy caused one of the most focused teams in the NFL to give away 9 points almost immediately with a safety, and a penalty of too many men on the field.

Of course the skill of the Patriots kept on pushing, but the passion that the New York Giants had, the determination, kept them in the game. Ultimately at this level of play, passion and determination is what sets the champion apart from the finalist.

What You Should Do

So are you a champion, or are you a finalist? Runner-up? Are you even showing up in the playoffs? Do you believe in yourself? Do you have what it takes?

Definitely take the time to study, seek out new information, and learn as much as possible, but make sure you keep that passion and fire ignited in your belly. If you find yourself losing that passion, you wont reach your goals, and worse: You will never reach your true potential.

I wish you all the best, and I hope you dream the extreme.

Television is Revolutionized

Television for the most part has been pretty stale. TV Guide has been digitized, there is a guide button on our remote, but besides ever more complex remote controls, an ever expanding list of channels, and incredibly complex channel tiers structured to rip as much money from your hands as possible, there has been no innovation to the experience of watching television since it’s inception.

2012 will bring social experiences to the television. Imagine watching television with your friends, watching YouTube on your television, creating custom recordings based off of your social preferences automatically. UFC has already taken incredible steps partnering with Microsoft on the XBOX 360. Pay-Per-Views can now be ordered right on your XBOX, and the experience is incredible. Look at the fight cards, pick who you think will win, compete with your friends, watch the weigh-ins.  Once a match starts, simply wave your hand on the screen, and complete stats and fight histories load for the fighters.

Televisions are about to become incredibly immersive, with social sharing, gamification, user created content, and the ability to create your own “channels”. Within five years, traditional broadcast stations better be watching their back, as I predict “channels” will cease to exist, as broadcast stations become irrelevant.

Convergence of Social Media and Marketing

Social Media is now everywhere. While current day you hear a lot about social media, social media is becoming ubiquitous and therefore a part of everything we do. We live in a new world where the idea of “Social Media” is about to die, and become a part of something much larger. Can you even run an advertising campaign anymore that doesn’t have social sharing?

But how can Social Media be dead you ask? Isn’t Facebook launching its IPO? I went into detail on this topic last week on my post, “Social Media is Dead”

Simplification

As we evolved and created amazing new advancements in technology, somewhere we lost sight that in order for things to truly make an incredible impact on society and culture, they need to be simple. Steve Jobs really believed in the idea of making things beautiful by simplicity. Just take a look at the Apple iPhone. The iPhone remains the easiest to use, most attractive, simple, and powerful smartphone on the market.  The iPhone alone is now more profitable than Microsoft in its entirety!

2012 will see further destruction of many of our “modern day” goliath companies, by David’s that take simplicity over complexity.

Search Driven by Page Rank Dies

In a way, traditional Search Engine Optimization is already dead. Backlinking still works, and sure you need great keywords, descriptions, and awesome content.  However, what will get you on the front page of Google before the end of 2012 will be how strong you company is at marketing and social connections via technology.

A Few Quick 2017 Predictions

There are a few things I’m tracking for the next five years. Let me share a few quick ones with you:

• Apple will peak at 600 Billion Market Cap, then begin a slow decline.
• Samsung well become the second largest technology company, slightly behind Apple. Samsung will create much of the new interactive screens that will be seen on your kitchen tables, restaurants, and even windows.
• Devices and hardware will be largely irrelevant. Many of the surfaces we use today will begin to have interactive display capabilities. We will simply login, and use the systems we want to use.
• Facebook will have a Market Capitalization of 300 Billion, becoming the worlds first global operating system in the cloud, handling payments at restaurants, app stores, and more.
• Microsoft continues to dominate the enterprise market space, but begins to shift half its business to become a big player in consumer electronics and consumer entertainment.
• Consumers begin to demand products that are not only good for the environment, but also good for the humans making the products as social responsibility becomes a hot topic.
• Public school systems can no longer keep up to the incredible demands and competition on a global level. Companies begin creating education systems that will eventually lead to the end of the public school system as we know it.
• We wither start to realize we are one world and begin to help each other instead of taking advantage of each other, or we end up in World War 3.

Social Media has become one of those buzz words everyone loves to throw around. Social Media Guru, Social Media Manager, Social Media Agency, Social Media Web Site, Social Media Platforms, Social Media Analytics.  A few months ago I stopped to think to myself, “Hey, isn’t all of this just getting merged into traditional media?” The answer of course when you stop to think about it, is “yes!”

Social Media sites used to let you do unique things like check-in to a restaurant; others would let you tag friends in pictures. Social media “platform” sites would let you do a multitude of things, including playing games with your friends, and chatting. Software was released touted as “social media analytics” software, like Radian6. And don’t get me wrong; all of these things have been phenomenal for our industry. But the reality is all good things must evolve, and social media is about to be sucked into much larger things, and in essence cease to exist.

When “Web 2.0″ became a buzzword, sites cropped up everywhere making lists of Web 2.0 web sites. Sites were defined as “Web 2.0″ web sites. Today, all sites are mostly “Web 2.0″ web sites. What is Web 2.0 anyway, can you remember? What was Web 1.0?

Everything is Now Social

Are there buildings that are built without electricity or running water anymore? Of course not. In the same manor, social media is now a part of everything we do. Gaming is now social, web sites all include social aspects, television is going social, even Hollywood has gone social. Next to go social is education and healthcare.

In essence, everything we do and every piece of software written moving forward will include some form of social media. A great example is “Social Media Analytics”. Customer Relationship Management software like Salesforce has now added “social media” tracking, and in fact purchased Radian6. “Social Media Managers” and jobs of the like are about to be sucked into the marketing world, and marketing professionals will be expected to be proficient in social media.

So while the principles of social media will remain forever a part of media, advertising, and our daily lives, social media as a stand alone term with specific job roles, and careers, is dead.

What does this mean to you?

If you are someone that focuses on social media, and has spent the last few years honing your skills and knowledge around social media tactics and platforms, you rock! Now is the perfect time to broaden your skill set and dive deeper. Dive deeper into marketing, dive deeper into software development, dive deeper into media. If you want to survive the next five years, you are going to have to expand your horizons, and think convergence.

McDonalds Twitter Campaign Backfires

Today, McDonald’s social media team decided to put out a tweet that directed people to a story about a farmer, and how much he cared for the potatoes he was growing for McDonalds. McDonald’s decided it would be a great idea to add the hashtag #McDStories to the tweets featuring these stories. The first few tweets seemed fine:

Meet some of the hard-working people dedicated to providing McDs with quality food every day #McDStories mcd.to/zEckNn

— McDonald’s (@McDonalds) January 18, 2012

The biggest issue was this tweet. Can you spot the problem?

“When u make something w/pride, people can taste it,” – McD potato supplier #McDStories mcd.to/zIlXXu

— McDonald’s (@McDonalds) January 18, 2012

McDonalds produced a professional video, and tried to pass the video off as an authentic farmer that works with his two bare hands to produce potatoes for your McDonald French Fries. Now the video may very well be true, but the problem is McDonalds made the video far too “professional”, and tried to mix it with Twitter. The thing about social media, is it’s all about being authentic and real. Rough video, real people, real messages. As I always like to tell our clients “build a platform for your customers to talk about you, don’t talk about yourself!”.

The other major problem was the fact McDonalds created a channel for people to broadcast their #McDStories, and share their good, and bad, experiences. If McDonalds was an amazing brand that people love, it would have been a great idea. The problem is, McDonalds is fighting a new culture where fast food is not cool, and eating at McDonalds is frowned upon for the most part. Let the tirade of nasty tweets begin:

#McDStories Working drive-thru shift as a teenager. Arch Deluxe fell off the conveyor belt onto the floor. Re-wrapped it and sent it out.

— Curtis Townson (@ctownson) January 24, 2012

I use to eat McDonalds every day for lunch and gained 45 pounds, I stopped and have lost 30 thus far! Damn Fries!!#mcdstories

— Josh Bruner (@cyberjob) January 24, 2012

One time I walked into McDonalds and I could smell Type 2 diabetes floating in the air and I threw up.#McDStories

— Skip Sullivan (@SkipSullivan) January 18, 2012

Anyway, I don’t need to continue. Simply search twitter and prepare to laugh, or cry, or wonder if that really was a fingernail you ate last week at McDonalds.

Social Media is not the Magic Bullet

Social media won’t make your product better. It won’t make people think your food is healthy. And it won’t instantly change people’s perception of your brand. When you look at engaging with social media, you need to look at your company first. You need to look at your product, your culture, your people. If these things are not ready for prime time, then you should really re-evaluate your reasoning to joining twitter, facebook, and Google+.

In extreme cases like today, if you apply social media to company that has some internal work to do first, you could end up doing much more harm than good. McDonalds is large enough that it can handle the negative publicity, but your company might not be so lucky.

For end users, the Microsoft Windows Phone is the dream phone they’ve always wanted, but probably haven’t seen. It’s brilliant. Apple fans can’t stop raving about the OS. Even the The New York Times published an article raving about the new Windows Phone. If you haven’t read the article, you should. Windows Phone is incredible because it lets you perform tasks that take numerous steps on an iPhone or an Android device, in one step. It merges social media with everything in the phone. Active tiles that give you real time information make icon’s feel dated and old. If you want to see a full review of the phone that will make your jaw drop, just check out this video. It’s a sleek phone that continues to improve, while at the same time running faster and faster on the same hardware you purchased a year ago!

So a great question would be: “If this phone is far superior than an iPhone or an Android device, then why isn’t it selling?”

Why Windows Phone has stalled

There are two major reasons the Windows Phone has not been selling. First off, phone carriers like AT&T, Rogers, and more, have no incentive to sell Windows Phone. And by no incentive I mean the carriers don’t want to sell them. And to make it worse, they make it hard for the sales reps to sell them. Read further to find out why they have no incentive.

Secondly, Microsoft hasn’t been able to get Samsung, HTC, or other hardware vendors to build a killer device that runs Windows Phone. With Nokia now exclusively using Windows Phone as their smartphone operating system, this problem may go away soon.

My experience trying to buy a Windows Phone

I was in Chicago a few weeks ago and I thought I would try and buy a Windows Phone. I walked into an AT&T store. The first thing I saw was the Apple iPhone display. A massive display that made it hard to notice anything else, followed by rows and rows of Android phones. I had to look incredibly hard to find the Windows Phone. When I asked the sales guy about the Windows Phone, he said, “Hey, you don’t want that phone, you look like a guy that needs an iPhone, or an Android, what are you looking for?”

So after hearing his pitch, I told him that I was a Microsoft MVP, and that I did a lot of work with Microsoft, and I honestly wanted to know how many Windows Phone’s he’s sold.  He said he had sold one, in the last 6 months. I then asked him why.  His answer? “Why would I sell this phone, hey I love Microsoft and all that, but the reality is I’ve received no training on what the Windows Phone does or why it’s better. I sell iPhone’s to people that don’t want to customize things and just want things to work. I sell the Android to people that want to customize their phones.”

I won’t even tell you how hard it is to buy a Windows Phone in Canada. You basically can’t unless you are willing to go through a lot of pain and aggravation.

Android’s problem

The problem with Android is it’s a brutal phone operating system. It has done well only because carriers love it, not consumers. Carriers love the phone because they can customize the phone however they want. They can load all of their junk software like music players, custom web browsers, custom weather applications, and more, that make the user think these are the official applications to be used for those purposes. They can lock down the phone. They can even block updates so that certain phones simply won’t get updates forcing consumers to buy another phone.

A perfect example: If you own an Android Phone in the USA, there is a 90% chance you will not receive the latest version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich for your phone.

Microsoft changing the game

Microsoft has figured out what’s going on and they are about to make some incredible changes in 2012. Later today, Microsoft will unveil the Nokia Lumia 900 at CES in Las Vegas. AT&T will also be making a similar announcement around the Windows Phone from Microsoft. Microsoft will also kick-start its $200 million marketing campaign for 2012 today. The campaign will feature a cash incentive for every sales agent who sells a Windows Phone.

Let me summarize

Basically Microsoft built the perfect phone operating system that consumers would love, and phone carriers would hate. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter what consumers want, it matters what phone carriers want. Carriers want to sell more phones, and force consumers to use their software, and decide when consumers get new software. Microsoft has figured this out, and is going to try everything they can to get around this issue by delivering products that are far superior to Android or iPhone. Partnering with Nokia will finally allow Microsoft to create the perfect phone hardware, tied with the perfect operating system. Adding the clout that Nokia has around the world, with Microsoft’s operating system, carriers will have to start carrying the phone. With Google buying Motorola, carriers will soon be looking to get off the Android bandwagon.

Maybe next time I walk into an AT&T store in Chicago, the sales guy might try and sell me a Windows Phone, and I might just buy something.

1. Add your LinkedIn URL to your business cards.
2. Add business cards to LinkedIn.
3. Keep LinkedIn up to date.
4. Connect with Groups on LinkedIn.
5. Sign-up for LinkedIn Business or Business Pro.
6. Customize your LinkedIn URL.
7. Don’t copy and paste content to LinkedIn from other social networks.
8. Help others connect and find each other. Become the center of the hub.
9. Use LinkedIn Answers to show your strengths and knowledge.
10. Provide value, engage in conversations, network.

Google is on an incredible streak right now with Google+. Google+ continues to release improvement after improvement. Today Google announced the ability to add brand managers to your Google+ Pages. If you are a business, this means Google allows you to assign up to 50 people to manage your Google+ Business page. The new notification flow is also very impressive, allowing your community managers to stay connected with your customers, and each other. If you are a business, you should get check all these new features out on Google+ right now.

Why Google Will Dominate Social Media For Business

But here is the thing. Many of you are still skeptical on Google+, and whether or not it will mean anything to your business in the next year. It blows my mind to be honest. Months ago I explained that Google would integrate Google+ with Google Search in such a way that it would drive search.  This has now happened. Many of you are spending thousands of dollars on social media campaigns, search engine optimization experts, and digital marketing tactics in order to get more eyeballs to your websites, and ultimately drive conversions. Yet you continue to ignore Google+. Why?

Google is going to continue to push and evolve Google+, focusing on new features that are clean, and make sense to businesses. This is their focus. Maybe you should ask yourself why you are focusing on Facebook so heavily, and Google+ so little. If you do one thing different in 2012 with your social media strategy, I highly recommend you at minimum claim your spot on Google+, and start to truly engage with your customers.

If you know me, telling me your dreaming about something, wishing, and hoping to get lucky are pretty much with worst possible things you could say to me. I proceeded to try and motivate him into taking action by telling him my whole life story. And while yes you could say some of it was luck, but the reality is I believe you create your own luck. You could say I’m lucky to live in Canada, and you could be correct. But by saying that, you would be missing the fact that my mom and dad took huge risks to immigrate from Chile to Canada many years ago. You could say my dad was lucky to be allowed to immigrate to Canada, but then you would be missing the fact that my mom was a nurse specializing in child care in Chile, and my dad was an engineer. My uncle was a lawyer.

You see, in the end, luck has nothing to do with it. Watch the video I made trying to get my point across on video. If you have a dream, something you want to do, something you want to achieve, there is nothing stopping you in life. You can do anything you set your mind to. You can Dream The Extreme.

If you follow my blog, there are two things that I am incredibly bullish about lately. Google+ and Google’s ability to add “Social Media” to everything they do, and the upcoming media revolution that will see cable television networks turn into the equivalent of an AM Radio broadcasting station. I’ve been speaking for a while about the upcoming evolution of television. Imagine sitting down to watch television, and you simply say, “Record all Winnipeg Jets Hockey Games”, or “Watch Criminal Minds with Erin” and instantly the pre-recorded episode loads on both our televisions and we can watch the show together. Imagine being able to subscribe to your friend’s custom “channels” that automatically get created based on their viewing habits.  YouTube isn’t there yet, but it’s one step closer after the update earlier this week.

YouTube Channels

Where as most of you used to go to YouTube to watch one specific video that someone shared, YouTube now is completely immersed in the idea of channels. Channels in essence make every user of YouTube a television broadcaster. And I wont stop there. The reality is YouTube has added some incredibly powerful features that the big players in the industry, like HBO, Comedy Central, and more, have been asking for. You are about to see a swarm of high quality content make its way to YouTube. For the consumer, this will mean you are not far away from a world where YouTube will have all your video content. Sporting events, concerts, personal videos of your kids, prime time television. Is this a problem for content creation companies? Not really. Is this a problem for cable companies and other distribution channels? You bet.

YoutTube Adds Social Media

With the complete re-design, Google has also added some deep integration with Social Media. Google+ is front and center, but they are also supporting Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, making content easier than ever to share and go “viral”. Want to watch videos with your friends? Simply start a Google+ Hangout with the video you’re watching and you are off to the races.

YouTube Comes to XBOX 360

If you didn’t know by now, Microsoft XBOX is the king of the video game universe. The gaming console is over 7 years old now and continues to sell ridiculously well. Just last week it sold nearly 1 million units in one day! The Kinect was the fastest selling piece of consumer technology ever. YouTube coming to XBOX 360 is a big deal. It’s a huge deal. Combining the over 60,000,000 XBOX 360 consoles all over the world with YouTube is going to create an incredibly powerful distribution network.

My Final Thoughts

I don’t have much more to say other than: I am excited! Over the next 5 years we are about to see our world flipped upside down. Finally, we will be freed from watching television on set schedules, with the same Hollywood actors. We will finally be able to watch television together and share the experience with each other.