Corante Marketing Hub

An outstanding customer service experience

neville@nevillehobson.com (Neville Hobson) — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:27:00 GMT

I bought a new pair of shoes last week, a pair of Anatomic Gel slip-ons. The overall process, from first contact with the eventual retailer to delivery, was so outstanding that it’s the type of experience you really want to tell people about.

I’d seen these particular shoes in the Jones the Bootmaker shop in Reading the week before and tried them on. Oh, what comfort! Soft leather and gel in the soles must all combine to provide such exquisite comfort.

They didn’t have my size, though, and said it would take some weeks to order them. And they wanted the money up front. No thanks.

So I turned to the web and discovered lots of links to places selling this particular brand, which are made in Brazil.

I didn’t know nor have any prior experience with any of the places that showed up in the Google search on ‘Anatomic Gel shoes,’ so I clicked on the first link (non-sponsored) which took me to Walker and Gunn’s listing for these shoes. Even better from my point of view: all at sale prices.

I found the pair I wanted – £20 less than at Jones – and decided to order them. What prompted that decision to buy from a company on the web I’d never heard of let alone bought from before?

A number of things, really, including the various brands they sell, a sense that they’ve been around a while, the list of credit cards they accept, things like that. Plus they use UPS to deliver. So a feeling of an established business and worth the perceived risk.

That was late on a Sunday evening. I ordered the shoes and got an email almost immediately acknowledging the order. A good start.

Even better on Monday morning: an email to say they’d shipped the shoes via UPS and included a tracking number at the UPS website in case I wanted to see progress. The email also said the shoes should arrive the next day.

And they did. I savoured the experience in unpacking the box – tell me of anyone who doesn’t savour such an experience! – and the first thing I encountered was a personal letter from Walker and Gunn’s founder.

This impressed me no end. It may well have been a mail merge type of thing with a facsimile signature, not personal at all, but it felt personal.

Combined with all the other elements – email order acknowledgement, notification of delivery, arrival when they said the package would, the care with which the shoes had been packaged – this gave me a distinct feeling of genuine pleasure in doing business with this company.

So if you’re looking for a great pair of very comfortable and nicely-made shoes, there’s a place on the web you can buy them from that I highly recommend – head on over to Walker and Gunn of Northampton.

As for Jones the Bootmaker, sorry, you’re just too slow. And too expensive. Useful as a try-on place, though.

Coincidentally, I came across an interview in yesterday’s Telegraph with Mary Portas – known as Mary Queen of Shops among other things – who reckons we’re turning a corner in customer service where excellent service will return to the High Street.

I was especially intrigued to read her view of what the customer experience could be like in 2020, just ten years away:

[…] There’ll be so many brands we haven’t heard of yet, and names like Marks and Spencer partnering up with big technology brands. There will be an enormous amount of wellness shops, too, as well as clothing shops incorporating both social networking and musical/visual performances into their remit. It’s exciting.

I could also see the web simply being a natural extension of such physical retail experiences, far more than it is today.

Opportunity knocks.

FIR Interview: Tac Anderson, Social Media Director, Waggener Edstrom

neville@nevillehobson.com (Neville Hobson)neville — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 09:56:00 GMT

Tac Anderson, in his role of Director of Social Media for the PR agency Waggener Edstrom, led an effort to adopt the lifestreaming tool, Posterous, as a communication channel for the launch of Microsoft’s retail stores.

In this FIR Interview, co-host Shel Holtz explores with Tac the uses to which Microsoft is putting Posterous and how the results are being assessed. Tac also talks about Twendz Pro, the new real-time monitoring service launched recently by Waggener Edstrom.

Get this podcast:

Download the MP3 file (9.89Mb, 24:34)
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Subscribe to the FIR Interviews RSS feed

About our Conversation Partner

Tac Anderson is the Director of Social Media at Waggener Edstrom’s Studio D group. Prior to that he worked at Hewlett-Packard where he managed both internal and external social media initiatives. Some of his work was a featured case study in the Harvard Business Review book Groundswell.

Tac has been actively engaged in social media marketing for the last 5 years. He’s a regular public speaker and blogs at www.newcommbiz.com.

Tac has a BA in Communications and an MBA from Boise State University. He currently lives in the Seattle area with his wife and 3 children.

Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe music – On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

FIR Interview: Tac Anderson, Social Media Director, Waggener Edstrom

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:59:38 GMT

Tac Anderson, in his role of Director of Social Media for the PR agency Waggener Edstrom, led an effort to adopt the lifestreaming tool, Posterous, as a communication channel for the launch of Microsoft’s retail stores. In this FIR Interview, co-host Shel Holtz explores with Tac the uses to which Microsoft is putting Posterous and how the results are being assessed. Tac also talks about Twendz Pro, the new real-time monitoring service launched recently by Waggener Edstrom.

Get this podcast:

Download the MP3 file 9.89Mb, 24:34)
Get the show on iTunes
Subscribe to the FIR Interviews RSS feed

About our Conversation Partner

Tac has been actively engaged in social media marketing for the last 5 years. He’s a regular public speaker and blogs at www.newcommbiz.com.

Tac has a BA in Communications and an MBA from Boise State University. He currently lives in the Seattle area with his wife and 3 children.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.FIR Interview: Tac Anderson, Social Media Director, Waggener Edstrom

One step at a time

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:19:26 GMT

I saw a lot of myself in Viv's description of indecision, and the wisdom of accepting offers and doing something... one step at a time.

Trackback URL: http://www.johnniemoore.com/mt/minotaur.cgi/2270.
Comment

BCS launches an ill-advised Twitter account

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:28:17 GMT

An employee for one of my clients tweeted me yesterday, pointing me to “what happens when you jump into social media unprepared.” He was talking about the launch of a new Twitter account by BCS—the Bowl Championship Series—the much-maligned system that substitutes for a playoff system for college football teams.

The account, @InsideTheBCS, launched on Thursday and has, since then, accumulated nearly 700 followers. There’s no hint about who might be posting the tweets, although one blog suggests the BCS may have farmed the task out to PR agency HDMK, since the first two people to follow the newly-minted account were HDMK staffers, neither of whom returned calls.

One tweet seems to be signed by Bill Hancock, the new BCS executive director.

Regardless of who’s behind the account, it has been savaged in a number of quarters since it first appeared. A Twitter search I conducted moments ago produced several pages of messages, even though @InsideTheBCS itself has tweeted only 30 times as of this writing.

To the credit of whoever’s writing the tweets, several are responses to what others have said, and some are responses to critical comments. But with hundreds of comments swirling around Twitter, it’s evident that @InsideTheBCS is picking and choosing which comments warrant response. There seems to be no rhyme or reason behind these choices.

The core problem, though, is that nobody seems to have considered the inevitability of BCS haters piling on the account the instant it went public. (Disclosure: I’m no fan myself.) Outside of the NCAA, there is broad consensus that a real playoff system is needed to more fairly determine a national champion. It’s not just the fans who believe that, but also many college football coaches.

So it comes as no surprise to see a surge of criticism aimed at @InsideTheBCS for its insistence on the complex mathematical computations that it uses to determine who will play whom in the post-season. In fact, one tweet from @InsideTheBCS quoted Florida coach Urban Meyer claiming the BCS “has been great for college football. It’s not perfect, but it has been great for college football.” This led to another tweet pointing out that Meyer told the New York Times, “The system is a failure. You’ve got to blow it up and start over” and another that completed the quote cited by @InsideTheBCS: “Followed by laughing and: ‘Now I need to go prep for Fla International!’”

A third tweet suggested that Meyer’s praise was based on his even deeper disdain for the system that preceded the BCS “that screwed out even more teams because of traditional games.”

Much of the piling on has been led by Yahoo sportswriter Dan Wetzel, who has been tweeting quotes from prominent NCAA coaches expressing their disdain for the BCS and otherwise leading the attack with tweets like this one: “It’s a good thing the BCS hired an executive director to ‘educate the fans.’ This Twitter feed is genius.”

@InsideTheBCS has responded defensively to a few tweets calling for a playoff series, and has otherwise posted tweets trying to convince everone the system works.

But it’s not convincing anybody.

While the BCS may have been unprepared for the volume of vitriol the Twitter feed has produced, it hasn’t surprised anyone else. At one blog by a fan of a college team, a post introducing @InsideTheBCS reads, “Oh no they didn’t!! They can’t be serious. People are going to unload on these guys!! This will be pure comedy…” And a comment left to that post responds, “Read their posts. Total propoganda. Let’em rip!”

The BCS had two choices: Forego a Twitter account of be prepared to truly engage college football fans in a real discussion about the system. The approach the BCS has taken, however, only opens the organization up to even greater ridicule and fans the flames of discontent.

Of course, I’m willing to give the BCS time to figure out its mistake and make a mid-course correction to its approach to Twitter. So far, however, so bad.

A brand is first about why, then about who

Tom Asacker — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:08:41 GMT

Salon.com's CEO Richard Gingras is tasked, like many of his counterparts in the content business, with saving the business. His solution? The "brand," as described in a recent ClickZ article: "[I]ncrease readership by focusing on relevancy and SEO; bring in advertisers by modernizing the ad inventory; and create new revenue streams, such as an online store. What makes Gingras thinks he can accomplish this amidst the most dire ad market in decades? The magic bullet, he says, is the brand." "'I do think that in the content space, as we see the print publications decline, I think brands matter more than ever,' he said. 'I think brands with sharp personalities matter more than ever, and I think that presents an opportunity for salon.'" He doesn't get it. He's living in some 1950s fantasy world of brands. A brand is not primarily a "personality;" not any longer. Snap, Crackle and Pop are impotent in today's age of skepticism and abundance. In addition, content providers are living in an age of free, where writers trade work for attention and marketers increasingly launch their own media properties funded with the same ad dollars that Gingras and others so desperately seek. Here's the reality: Today's readers are searching for unique value; a compelling why to trade for their scarce time, attention and money. The why comes before the who. Where are the whys in Gringas' solution? Relevancy? C'mon. Relevance is simply another word for niche. And every strong brand is a niche brand today.Here's what I think (call me crazy, many have): I think emerging platforms, like Apple's forthcoming tablet, are the whys that will save niche content businesses like salon. When people have the cool, portable media device in their hands, they'll want their who -- their cool content -- to be on it and travel with them.Salon.com presently has about 5 million readers a month, with only 25,000 selecting the ad-free version at $45/year. Fast forward 18 months, and if Gingras gets the SEO and experience right, salon may have millions of people downloading a $9.95 tablet version of the digital magazine.And then, instead of starting an anemic on-line store to "'curate' lifestyle goods from around the Web," salon can create and sell branded APPs for their community; social tools for their community; and other useful and meaningful innovations for the benefit of their community. And that's when the salon brand will matter more than ever.

Sprint Bait & Switch: Unlimited Data is not the same as Unlimited Data

bruce fryer — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:48:01 GMT

I think Dan Hesse and Sprint have been doing a good job. Until today. Last week I called to upgrade 2 of my 3 year old phones. I could put them on my plan and after rebates, etc. the cost would be $29.99. Sounds good. I went out a couple of days ago to look at the phones.

Today I called to order them, and guess what? The cost is $179.99 each (no we won't give you the $150 upgrade credit we said we would) and I would have to upgrade my plan for a 50% cost increase.

You see, I have a phone which has a browser, runs applications accessing the Internet and GPS applications. I have an unlimited data plan. The new phone also has a browser, runs applications accessing the Internet and GPS applications. But marketing will NOT allow the new phone to be put on my existing plan. Instead I have to buy a new plan for a lot more money.

Oh, did I mention Sprint is hemorrhaging customers? Dan, read Seth's post on the value of existing customers.

Fly The Evil Skies

Christopher Carfi - Cerado, Inc. — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:33:00 GMT

On the subject of frequent flier miles, Gary says:

"Miles are evil. They create apathy on the end of the service provider."

The he asks the real question:

"Have decades of frequent flyer programs instilled institutional apathy on the part of customer facing employees? Perhaps we are talking about apathetic DNA across entire corporations or even within the entire airline industry. If one believes customers won't leave even when treated poorly, where is the incentive to 'step it up?'"

Back in the late 1990's, I was flying weekly between Chicago and Palo Alto. 1,846 miles out on Monday, 1,846 miles back on Friday, week in, week out. I racked up hundreds of thousands of miles, was "1K" on United, got an upgrade every flight, and was willing to put up with a lot of their crap.

Flash forward a bit, and then I've moved to the Bay Area proper, and am no longer flying over 100,000 miles a year. Now, all the compensating behaviors have gone away from the United side since they no longer view me as a "high value" customer since I'm no longer part of their super-premier program. I'm still flying a lot, but not on a route that they have a lock on. And instantly, all the poor service that I used to tolerate became untenable.

Since that time, I may have flown on United half-a-dozen times in the last ten years.

So, it's interesting. For me, it was less about "loyalty," and just about the fact that I happened to frequently travel a route that they had a systemic lock on (since I was flying between two of their hubs).

I agree with Gary. The mileage program did nothing to induce "loyalty" for me. Once there were trips on other routes, all bets were off.

Marketers ‘destroy customer relationships online’

neville@nevillehobson.com (Neville Hobson) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:04:00 GMT

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the problem with PR email, the results of a survey on people’s attitudes to the email that PR agencies and others send them.

The survey paints a dismal picture of how email is used in the PR business.

Now, here comes an equally bleak picture on what marketers do with email about their brands according to e-Orchard, a survey by London creative agency Stephens Francis Whitson.

Brand Republic reports:

[…] The report claims to have uncovered evidence of brand owners bombarding customers with irrelevant, mistimed and inappropriate emails.

It splits the brands into ’saints’ and ’sinners’, with the likes of Mini, BA and Ocado showing how it should be done.

While economic pressures are driving more brands online, many of the companies in the survey "are sending out blanket email campaigns simply because it is cheap to do so," the report claims.

The e-Orchard survey covers companies operating across a range of sectors such as retail, financial services, FMCG, travel, entertainment and leisure and argues that some brands surveyed showed:

Scant evidence of differentiated communications depending on customer knowledge, behaviour or value

Poor co-ordination of on and offline communications

Dangerously high frequency of highly repetitive, hard sell messages

Brands stuck on transmit: little attempt to engage in any genuine dialogue with customers

Rare examples of genuinely clever, creative, smart brand and commercial thinking

This looks like a worse picture than that suggested by the PR email survey.

Small comfort for anyone.

[Photo by cole007, used under Creative Commons license.]

Related post:

The problem with PR email

The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #502: November 19, 2009

neville@nevillehobson.com (Neville Hobson)neville — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:14:00 GMT

Content summary: Mitch Joel’s book offer; FIR Interview with Tac Anderson coming; update on the FIR Twitter List; FIR #500: more listener predictions; Dan York reports; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; News That Fits: Ronna Porter’s example on calling on your online community to verify your social media credentials in a job application, social media is influencing business decisions says new research from SNCR; David Philips reports; listener comments; music from Mario Tomic; and more.

Get FIR:

Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir.

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for November 19, 2009: A 65-minute podcast recorded live from Concord, California, USA, and Wokingham, Berkshire, England.

Links for the blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Links pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute – see the show notes home page for info.

FIR #502 show notes at The New PR Wiki

Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 8133 9844 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR, or at Jaiku: fir.jaiku.com. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

Join the FIR Discussion Forum and extend your conversations with the FIR community. You can also join the FIR Facebook Community and become an FIR friend.

To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

So, until Monday November 23…

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #502: November 19, 2009

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:33:39 GMT

Get FIR:

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for November 19, 2009: A 65-minute podcast recorded live from Concord, California, USA, and Wokingham, Berkshire, England.

FIR #502 show notes at The New PR Wiki

Join the FIR Discussion Forum and extend your conversations with the FIR community. You can also join the FIR Facebook Community and become an FIR friend.

To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

So, until Monday November 23…

Grant McCracken — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:29:22 GMT

It's an unpleasant, abominable idea, submitting something as delicate as culture to the rack of metrification.But here's why it's necessary. There's so much going on "out there" in culture, so many different people creating so many different innovations, subject to change so violent and frequent, that unless we have metrics at our disposal, well, we're done for. We have no real hope of canvassing all that water front.It's also true that we can win arguments in the C Suite with heart felt recitations of things we've noticed. We need something that looks like evidence and works like an argument. I was talking to a former student the other day. He works for a company that holds the copyright to popular music. They need to know who's playing what in order to collect royalties. They rely on several data sources including ASCAP which, it turns out, knows exactly at any given moment what's playing and where.I put down my soup spoon and wept bitterly for a moment. The idea that there is a listening device this good astonished and disheartened me. Disheartened? But of course, perfect data, incredibly useful for listening for changes in American culture (imagining using this data to detect a sudden shift movement towards Country in the Northeast?) and sure as shooting, I think it's fair to surmise, no one uses it for this purpose. It just sits there, like some wonderful scroll in a desert cave, like some wonderful device in Steven Spielberg's gigantic warehouse, the one where the US government apparently puts everything that is dangerously useful. What is wrong with us, that we should be blessed with these riches, and should fail to put them to advantage. This, this, is what's unpleasant and abominable!It reminded me of the story about the Dole Pineapple in Hawaii. Some guy was doing a tour of the plantation on the big island, and he noticed that Dole was taking all the juice from their canning operation and pouring it into the ocean. He said, "er, could I have that?"There are lots of good data out there in addition to ASCAP. All the big pipes designed to speak to the long tail (Amazon, iTunes, etc.) must have tremendous data. They can see upturns for a particular title (have you ordered your copy of Chief Culture Officer?), and with a little experience and good training, they should be able to leap to some very useful conclusions about what is happening in American culture. Google search makes there data available in a general way (with Google Trends).These data sources are useful individually but aggregated they are a little like a perfect weather map, an opportunity to mix the data streams and watch cultural developments take on a kind of 3D clarity. Yes, it takes a good eye and lots of experience, but I think this data is so rich, it would make geniuses of us all.Let us get with the program on this one!

A new Twitter app for Windows users from Seesmic

neville@nevillehobson.com (Neville Hobson) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:02:00 GMT

In my experience, the best way of interacting with your community on Twitter is by using a third-party application rather than via Twitter’s website.

My app of choice on the desktop is TweetDeck, a product I’ve been using since it first appeared last year and which I’ve frequently written about.

I also like Seesmic, an app with many similarities to TweetDeck and which is most often compared with TweetDeck in the various app popularity polls and reviews that appear from time to time.

Both TweetDeck and Seesmic are built on the Adobe AIR developer platform, meaning the apps are multi-platform that can run on Windows, Mac and Linux computers – handy from a developer point of view in particular. Both also offer apps for the iPhone.

Now Seesmic has introduced Seesmic for Windows, an application designed to run on Windows computers, and optimized for Windows 7, says Seesmic CEO Loic Le Meur.

If you’ve been using the existing Seesmic app, you’ll see from the screenshot (click for a full-size view) that the new Seesmic for Windows app is very similar from the look-and-feel point of view.

I’m trying it and like it a lot based only on usage so far today. Things I notice are how quick it is compared to the version that’s built with Adobe AIR, and the small memory footprint: 74Mb of RAM, according to Windows Vista’s Task Manager.

It’s missing quite a few things I’m used to – the right-click menu you get when you click a user’s avatar is lacking some features, for instance – but it is a preview, a beta, so expect some wonkiness in the early versions.

Great to see a development like this which reflects a clear need in the market for a Windows app as Loic says the “vast majority” of Seesmic users are on Windows.

I’ll contribute comment and opinion as I get to know Seesmic for Windows.

Start up basics: Managing the Money

bruce fryer — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:18:22 GMT

As COE (chief officer of everything) you are also the CFO. We're not talking about budgets today, instead, where did the money go? Here are some things I have learned:

1) Set up a business bank account for company money transactions only.

2) Only 1 person has checks. You never know when your co-founder may decide to write himself a check to cover a credit card bill (actually happened to me).

3) No debit cards. Ever. You need a paper (or electronic paper trail).

4) Get bill pay service (should be free) to automatically write and record checks.

5) Download and use a simple expense report form that everyone uses.

6) Before any check is processed there must be a corresponding invoice or expense report form.

7) Use dropbox and create a banking folder. All statements, bills, etc. go in here. Now you have a backup of these transactions and if you want to use an accountant, you can share it with them.

I also like to use a separate credit card which has good tracking when I travel or buy anything. That way you always have an electronic receipt. I prefer American Express. One of the better deals is getting a Costco True Earnings American Express Business card. It's free with your Costco membership. As long as you only use this for business activities, finding receipts to support those expense reports is quite easy.

Part 2: If you're Venture backed you need to submit financial reports to your investors on a periodic basis. I tried something a little different this year and it seems to be working. First off, buy the latest Quickbooks. For our purposes, doesn't matter which level. Next, make sure you have a good spreadsheet for your capital showing who paid what, when, for the number of shares of stock.

Instead of doing it yourself and messing it up, or hiring a bookkeeper to mess it up, I'm doing it myself with a black belt in Quickbooks looking over my shoulder. Since they work remotely, this works well. We spent an hour setting it up. And if I need a little help each month, he charges a very reasonable rate in 15 minute increments. In the beginning, doing it yourself, and spending $15 - $30 / month for a coach makes a lot of sense.

When you need to do your taxes or hire a full blown accountant, everything will be in perfect order.

Industries holding off on interactive marketing are poised to spend a lot more

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:17:08 GMT

One of the most interesting observations I gleaned from Forrester’s recent projections is that some of the greatest growth in interactive marketing is likely to come from industries that have been slow to adopt it so far.

I would classify this under “blinding flashes of the obvious,” but it still jumped out at me because Forrester is suggesting that these industries—which include heavily regulated businesses like pharmaceuticals—will get the experience they need and move forward.

The Forrester report—US Interactive Marketing Forecast by Industry, 2009 to 2014 (which’ll set you back $1,749)—projects most growth coming from big offline advertisers, including media and entertainment, consumer goods, automotive, and healthcare. The report projects an 18% compound annual growth rate for healthcare and pharmaceuticals, which (along with the other offline advertisers) are currently being outspent by industries that routinely market directly to consumers. But the online experience these companies are gaining in their early experimentations with interactive marketing will drive future growth, according to Shar VanBoskirk, the report’s author. VanBoskirk notes:

Early social media trials for NEXIUM, Prilosec OTC, and AMBIEN CR have exceeded AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals’ Procter & Gamble’s, and sanofi-aventis’ expectations, respectively, paving the way for more investment.

The report also predicts that business-to-business investment in interactive marketing will remain strong, which flies in the face of all the naysayers who insist that social media works best in the B2C marketplace. Interactive marketing in the B2B space will grow from $2.3 billion now to $4.8 billion in 2014, with adoption of newer techniques and improved sophistication of the efforts already underway, the report says. (Social media, of course, is just one of the categories of interactive marketing, which also includes search marketing, display advertising, email marketing, and mobile marketing.)

Overall, interactive marketing will account for nearly one-fifth of all marketing dollars by 2014, representing $55 billion worth of marketing budgets. The consequences of this shift from traditional to interactive marketing include smaller budgets in general and the demise of agencies that haven’t kept pace, according to the report.

Taking things as read, V, and the consumption of popular culture

Grant McCracken — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:55:39 GMT

I don't think that V, the science fiction series on ABC, is going make it. Here's why.Popular culture demands of us that we take treat many things "as read." We see the protagonist climbing out of bed in the morning. We cut to a scene that shows him beginning his day at work. We take as read all the events in between, showering, dressing, eating breakfast and the drive to work. We accept that he did these things. We understand that they are not germane to the story at hand. We are happy to have them elided from the show, to take them as read.It's amazing how good we are at taking things as read. Even unambitious shows hurl us around with scant exposition and very few sign posts. Suddenly, our protagonist is in a large office building. That's ok. This is probably where he works, we think. We "stayed tuned." If this turns out to be someone else's place of work, we are quite happy to adjust. We are happy to supply assumptions, and we are amiable about it. We don't think, "office building? Wonder if it's in Rio?" No, if the show has been set in LA, we are happy to assume that this building is in LA. We are just that cooperative. (Or philosophically undemanding.) Viewers are active, even when they are not fans. They are active even when they are not especially literate in matters of media. That's what it is to belong to our culture. We are highly skilled at taking things as read (TTAR). But TTAR can be dangerous. Once we have accepted the editing it performs on the story, what's to stop us from editing too. We see a scene taking shape, two people arguing, perhaps, what's to stop us from saying, "Got it. Argument. Let's just take this as read and move on." A virulent form of TTAR can consume the entire show. We need only see the characters and the opening scene to think, "Very well. Good guys. Bad Guys. Conflict. Resolution. Theme music. Fade to TTAR." Indeed the more formed a show is by genre, the more likely we are to respond by issuing a summary TTAR order. Because if we know the genre, and the show is genre bound, we can say quite precisely what's going to happen. Take a show like Law and Order, this is so very predetermined that it's a wonder that anyone bothers to watch it anymore. (But of course we do. A mystery for another time.)I have watched two espisodes of V. This is a show with lots going for it, including several great performances, but it does feel a little predictable, a little confined. Some way into the second espisode, I could hear myself thinking: "Good guys. Bad guys. From outer space. Conflict. Resolution. ..." God, even the criticism begs for abbreviation. This "visitation" genre is now well known. Visitors with terrible powers of control... The plucky band of humans who resist... How many times have we seen this played out? And where can they go with it? It doesn't feel like there are many options here. This genre might be relatively new but it's beginning to feel like its already hollowed out. V feels like a show straight out of the TTAR pits of formulaic television. I could be wrong, and I hope I am. But I don't believe V will flourish.

WalMart's Sustainability Campaign

David Wolfe — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:41:46 GMT

P.S. to yesterday's post: See this piece http://tinyurl.com/ygxdoz4 from today's Fast Company Now Daily email report -- which if you don't get you should. Check out the hot link items as well.

Invading the world of the Mommy blogger

Grant McCracken — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 21:18:11 GMT

Are you watching Mad Men, the hit TV show? Noticed that look of dazed or startled expression that sometimes flits across the Betty Draper's face? I never see it in real life.As a hardworking anthropologist, I spend a lot of time doing interviews in people's homes. Usually this means I am talking to the female head of household, a woman in her 30s or 40s. No Betty Drapers here. My respondents are intelligent and intense. Often they will zero in on my questions, divine my intent, and take over the interview. My job now: take notes as fast as I can.This should not surprise. These Betty Drapers are nothing like Betty Draper. They are well educated with one and sometimes two college degrees. They worked before marriage so they have knowledge, experience, and connections beyond the home. (They may well still work.) They have all the usual media feeds, so they know what is happening outside the home. And they have all the social media feeds, so they are networked everywhere. The domestic home, and middle class suburb, that may have imprisoned women after World War II are now "exploded" by education within and media without. The last point to make here: these women know popular culture. They have new acuity that we now see exhibited everywhere. Frequently, they have that passionately informed fandom captured by Henry Jenkins. If these women are not imprisoned by a siloed suburb, they are certainly not imprisoned by "soaps" and a parochial media. Plus, they are "working closely" with their kids, and therefore well informed developments in youth culture. When I was writing Chief Culture Officer, I kept thinking that these women would be excellent readers for the book. At some point in the evolution of every home, perhaps when the last child starts high school, women begin to think in earnest about returning to the work force (if they have not been there all along). And they would make very good Chief Culture Officers or people who work for Chief Culture Officers. They are in other words ideal readers for this book. I have done my marketing due diligence. I have reached out to the so-called Mommy bloggers and asked them to review the book. I have reached out to neighbors and asked if they would comment on whether and how the book is useful to them. The jury is still out on my neighbors and I have one "mommy blogger" still to check in, but I am feeling underwhelmed. Your assignment, if you choose to accept it: If you were me, what would you do to reach out to this readership?

Join The Revolution

John Winsor — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:40:08 GMT

In honor of walking the walk, we’ve decided to put out a couple of staff-position opportunities to the crowd. Or at least the crowd that follows my blog. Specifically we’re looking for two extremely smart, digitally connected, hard working folks who want to help change the world here at Victors & Spoils. Here are the two positions we’re looking for currently:

Strategy Director

Account Director

These jobs are both full time and based in Boulder. If you’re interested, please visit www.victorsandspoils.com, and click on “Join the creative department.” Then click on “Join the crowd” at the bottom of that section and fill out the form - making sure to select either “Planner/Strategy” or “Account Management.” Then just let us know why you think you’d be the perfect fit for V&S and how you could help us start a revolution.

File Under: MISSED OPPORTUNITY

johnmoore (from Brand Autopsy) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:23:50 GMT

Something doesn’t make sense with this poster ad on the DFW Airport skylink tram. Do you see what I saw?
If I’m advertising a “treat yourself” occasion at the airport during the hullabaloo of holiday travel, I’m choosing something more treat worthy than a low-fat soft pretzel. There are lots of "treat yourself" opportunities at DFW Airport that out indulge a basic pretzel.

Chuck Klosterman and the study of culture

Grant McCracken — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:33:36 GMT

Here's what Michael MacCambridge says about Chuck Klosterman's Eating the Dinosaur.Neil Postman, once argued--in the title of one of his books--that we are "amusing ourselves to death." But Mr. Klosterman's relentlessly thoughtful prose makes a case that our arts and entertainment are more suffused with meaning than ever before. Even as he's fretting over the direction of the culture, his writing stands as an eloquent defense of it.This would put Klosterman in a league with Greil Marcus and other writers who are prepared to take popular culture seriously, to exercise a brute (not a fashionable) curiosity in its pursuit, and find enthusiasms there even when the intellectual's code discourages such a thing. ReferencesAnonymous. n.d. Chuck Klosterman entry. Wikipedia. here.MacCambridge, Michael. 2009. Drenched in Popular Culture. Wall Street Journal. October 24-25. Marcus, Greil 2008. Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music: 5th Ed. Plume. Klosterman, Chuck. 2009. Eating the Dinosaur. Scribner.

In today's marketplace, every game is on the line

Tom Asacker — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:47:50 GMT

“I put my team first.” That was Patriots head coach Bill Belichick's response to reporters on last night's failed decision to go for it on fourth-and-2 from his 28 with 2:08 left at Indy. And I happen to both believe in and respect Bill's decision and intent. Here's the entire quote: "I told the team, and I think they believe I do what I feel like is best for our football team to win every game. I put the team first, I put those decisions first. I just hope everybody understands that." As a leader, did Belichick make a bad call? Absolutely not. A leader's job is to acutely examine the changing situation, assess his or her organization's resources and abilities in the evolving environment, and make a decision that best favors the entire organization's chances for success. Most pigskin pundits have panned Belichick's decision. They're almost unanimous in their criticism of the controversial call, declaring that he should have played the percentages and punted the ball. Some have even called his decision a slap on the face to his defensive unit. Bullshit. Great leaders make decisions for the benefit of the entire team, not to make certain folks feel good about themselves. I know I have many Boston friends seething right about now, so . . . sorry. Now answer me this (and be honest with yourself): If last night's exact scenario presents itself in a do or die playoff game in January 2010, wouldn't you want Bill to go for it . . . again? Especially considering the fact that since 2000 when Belichick has faced the Colts, on fourth down he has gone for it 12 times during the regular season and gotten in eight times. During the postseason he's gone for it four times against the Colts and gotten it all four times. You bet you would. We all want a leader who goes for it. One with an inspiring vision, who makes both informed and bold decisions for the benefit of the entire team. I say thumbs up to Belichick on a courageous and correct call last night. We desperately need more leaders like Bill with the passion, intelligence and guts to go for it with the game on the line. Because for most of us in business today, every game is on the line.

A day for social media monitoring

neville@nevillehobson.com (Neville Hobson) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 22:25:00 GMT

Monitoring and ROI are two hot topics when it comes to social media. They’re two of the hottest topics for an event focused on social media, and there is one taking place in London on Tuesday November 17, where I’ll be as a speaker and panel discussion facilitator.

Monitoring Social Media 09 is organized by Luke Brynley-Jones, and features an impressive line up of people and content all focused on discussion and analysis of topics like these:

The ROI of social media monitoring
Innovations in reputation management
Who controls social media data
Free vs paid monitoring services
Automated vs human sentiment detection
How to identify and contact influencers
The future of social media monitoring
Examples & case studies

It’s going to be quite a day. If you can’t be there physically, you can participate via Twitter – tweet your questions and reactions! – via the hashtag #msm09. There’s a also the Twitter List of Speakers you can follow.

If you can be there, well, see you there!

Power To The (e) Patient!

Toby — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:25:15 GMT

Hundreds of thousands of digital voices are taking medicine to the virtual streets. There's a new cause being fought in social media communities. Not unlike the grass root movement of the '60's this will also influence change but this time in the world of healthcare.

As we've seen with consumer and business brands ePatients are using the Internet for research and social media for peer-to-peer support. On the other side of the street some healthcare providers (physicians, nurses, physician assistants, etc.) are doing much the same. Blogs, social networks, Twitter, along with gated communities like Sermo -an only for docs world- are finding their way into the process of daily communication.

However, the healthcare eco system is complex and goes beyond those two populations to include government agencies like the FDA, Pharma and point of care providers (hospitals, medical centers, out patient facilities).

Simply put .. here lies their social media dilemma .. how to authentically (with no marketing spin) participate in the social discussions while maintaining public safety, patient privacy, transparency .. not to mention ensuring conversations are "people talk." From a lay person's perspective it sounds fairly simple; however, especially for pharma the social landscape can be a slippery slope.

Last week the FDA held a Public Hearing on Promotion of FDA-Regulated Medical Products Using the Internet and Social Media Tools. To their credit the FDA made the 2-day proceedings available to the pubic through live streams. The goal of the back-to-back 15-minute presentations from marketers, pharma companies, government agencies and media companies was to educate by responding to a series of predetermined questions from the FDA.

While some people seemed a bit self-serving, others presented carefully researched conclusions; and others offered specific solutions from creating a task force to developing widgets for adverse events (AE) to designing online advertising. Running in the background were people tweeting the hearing.#FDASM The commentary, often couched in humor (I learned a new buzz word from Mark Tosh : Data Smog), was as valuable to me as the formal proceedings.

From a marketer who has worked in healthcare, as well as, from a personal perspective here are my takeaways:

Monitoring
Some people felt pharmaceutical companies should be responsible for monitoring misinformation and AE comments .. according to pre determined guidelines. Others strongly felt that monitoring should not be mandated or as @rohitbhargava tweeted that brands should not be "cyber sleths." However, if Pharma does come across inaccurate data or patient concerns what should be the response protocol?

Customer Service and the ePatient
How to manage service relationship is an important issue that was addressed only slightly. Perhaps it was outside the scope. Consumer brands are setting expectations for fast, online responses to questions and concerns. My instincts tell me that this will be the next big area for digital/social media healthcare. There are many issues to be explored from: What does digital healthcare service mean? to: How to address questions in public forums. How are AEs addressed and misinformation corrected? Where to address those issues and when to participate in social networks.

To encourage patients to report AEs they must feel as though they are getting value back. How to encourage engagement and what constitutes "value" is critical to understand. All who are involved in caring for and serving ePatients must realize that it is not about the technology but developing a productive collaboration. Whatever means are used must be simple. Social media is about a new set of digital behaviors that begin and end with trust based on transparency.

The social media service relationships between ePatients and healthcare providers will grow in importance .. watch for it.

Physician/Patient Relationship
Most U.S. physicians like the idea of empowered patients who are knowledgeable about their conditions
Patients are utilizing digital resources, including social media, for pre treatment and post treatment
Docs remain the most trusted source of medical information

Pharma
Docs want information when they want it. Consumers want customer service. The big challenge is to correct misinformation without a self serving spin. Seems sad that would be an issue. I can't help but wonder if/how the social media culture will influence the culture of pharma.

FDA
Step into the social media world. Open a page on Facebook so the public will have easy access to information. Don't expect people to search to find you .. go where they are online. A benchmark for success should be sharing experiences vs. filling out forms. The FDA should take the lead in creating a participatory culture.

Consumer education will be critical to the success of this undertaking. Pharma could help with the out reach as could other providers. If creating consumer awaremess and understanding is not an integrated aspect the best of plans will fail.

Keep in mind that regulations should not get in the way of expected interaction (between pharma and customers and pharma and physicians.

Healthcare in social media has certainly come a long way (with miles to go) since I facilitating sessions at the Healthcare Blogging and Social Media Summits 2006-7.

The post about a conversation I had with a doc I met on a flight about blogs seems almost surreal. It went something like this .. The doc said to me - I don't want to give them that information. There's too much on the internet already. Great opportunity to make sure they have correct information, I replied. The old school doc volleyed a last remark, "I don't practice medicine that way."

My response back, "Perhaps you need to change the way you practice medicine. If I were you I'd keep on eye on blogs." Wonder if he changed his mind.

Sidebar: Thanks to Jean-Ah Kang, PharmD, Special Assistant to the Director for her gracious eMail. - There will be transcripts posted approximately 30 days after the conclusion of the public hearing, and the docket will have copies of the presentations/oral testimonies that can be requested from FDA. We would welcome any comments you would like to provide on these issues as our docket is open until February 28, 2010 - please consider submitting comments!

Resources

Spreadsheet of presentations

Story of Two ePatiens by Dr. Val Jones

hcsc - weeklytwitter chat on social media and healthcare

Marci Roth for the illustration

Social media ROI can be entertainment

neville@nevillehobson.com (Neville Hobson)Neville Hobson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:39:56 GMT

You have to hand it to Socialnomics author Erik Qualman – he knows how to tell a compelling story and sell his message, which obviously promotes his book.

Check out his latest video Social Media ROI. Whatever you think of using the acronym ROI with social media – there is lots of different opinion out there – I think you’d agree that Qualman’s story makes it easier to understand a broad argument that social media means greater “financial efficiency” for many organizations, some of whom he names in the video.

Agree?

The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #501: November 16, 2009

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:38:38 GMT

Content summary: Reflections on FIR #500; FIR Interview with Steve Rubel is published; Michael Netzley reports from Singapore; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; more comments from listeners about FIR #500; News That Fits: beating back bad press with Google AdWords, are you actually ready and able to listen and do social media monitoring?; listener comments discussion; music from The Plastic Pals; and more.

Get FIR:

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for November 16, 2009: A 62-minute podcast recorded live from Wokingham, Berkshire, England, and Concord, California, USA.

FIR #501 show notes at The New PR Wiki

Join the FIR Discussion Forum and extend your conversations with the FIR community. You can also join the FIR Facebook Community and become an FIR friend.

To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

So, until Thursday November 19…

The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #501: November 16, 2009

neville@nevillehobson.com (Neville Hobson)Neville Hobson — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:23:00 GMT

Get FIR:

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report, for November 16, 2009: A 62-minute podcast recorded live from Wokingham, Berkshire, England, and Concord, California, USA.

FIR #501 show notes at The New PR Wiki

Join the FIR Discussion Forum and extend your conversations with the FIR community. You can also join the FIR Facebook Community and become an FIR friend.

To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

So, until Thursday November 19…

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

The Maturation of Walmart

David Wolfe — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:42:22 GMT

Who am I – now that I’m not who I was? As indicated in my last post those words form the title of a new book by a friend. Everyone reading this can aptly ask their selves that question because we are indeed never who we were at any point in life. However, certain milestones in our developmental journey through life that stands out more prominently than others. The onset...

Questions your CEO should ask before starting a blog

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 16:35:50 GMT

The question of CEO blogging keeps coming up. Opinions mostly fall in two camps:

All CEOs should blog. As the leaders and chief communicators of their organizations, it is incumbent on CEOs to represent their companies in the social space where so much influence is wielded.
No CEOs should blog. Because of regulations that govern the kinds of statements CEOs can make, and when, there is just too much risk that an innocent remark could result in a fine.

As with most things, though, the question of CEO blogging is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Clearly CEOs can blog, as evidenced by the number of CEOs who do.

If your CEO is considering blogging, have him or her answer these questions before taking the plunge:

Are you the best person in the company to assume this role?

In the early days of corporate blogging, GM launched one of the earliest blogs penned by a senior executive. It wasn’t then-CEO Rick Wagoner, but rather Vice Chairman Bob Lutz. The decision was based on the fact that the most compelling kinds of conversations GM could have would be about cars, not the automotive business. Since Lutz was the most senior executive with direct responsibility for the vehicles GM produced, he became the executive blogger. Wagoner did post from time to time, when it was important for the CEO’s voice to be associated with the message, using a different company blog.

The focus of the blog is also the key to the next question:

Are you willing to blog about what your stakeholders want to talk about?

Far too many corporate and CEO blogs are filled with material the company wants to push to audiences. While this may make leaders feel good about using a blog, odds are that readers won’t flock to it. These messages are being pushed to them through any number of channels. For a blog to succeed, you need to start conversations about topics your stakeholders want to talk about. Do you know what those topics are? And are you prepared to address them, even if they’re not always what you think is important? If you do focus on topics your readers care about, it becomes easier to digress from time to time with topics you want to share with them. The more the blog becomes a locus of conversation and community, the more interested your readers will be in some of the issues you want to put on the table.

Are you ready to engage your stakeholders in conversation?

The point is debatable, but I don’t believe you have a blog unless you’re publishing reader comments. Without comments enabled, you’re just using blogging software to publish a column. Leaders who blog need to be ready to pay attention to reader feedback and input, and even engage in it. This doesn’t mean a CEO needs to actually read every comment left to his blog, particularly if it becomes popular and attracts hundreds of comments for every post. At some companies, a staff reads the comments, aggregates them based on their topics and sentiment, and delivers a summary report to the executive. Some executives engage directly in the comment while others simply write a follow-up post acknowledging what he heard from readers. But to view an executive blog as just one more one-way, top-down channel is to dramatically reduce the likelihood that stakeholders will pay attention to it. These are people who have come to expect interaction as part of the blogging experience.

Are you willing to commit to posting something regularly—that you’ve written yourself?

You can post as often as you like, but you must post at least weekly (three times a week is better) in order to build momentum, to build the expectation that you’re going to be opening discussions.

This is not a task you can offload to a PR staffer, the way you could when your byline appeared under the ghost-written CEO column that appeared on the inside front cover of the employee magazine. The whole idea underlying a blog is that it’s an authentic, honest message that you wanted to deliver and open for conversation. Nothing is more disingenuous than saying, “This is my blog, I’ve started it so we can have a dialogue about our business, but I’m not really writing it; it’s just not important enough for me to commit that kind of time.”

Your blog doesn’t need to take all that much time. In response to CEOs who have told me they don’t have the time to write a 1,500-word blog post, I respond, “That’s good; your readers don’t have time to read a 1,500-word blog post.” Short, pithy observations, explanations, and reports are ideal. What’s more, you don’t have to actually type anything. Marriott International CEO Bill Marriott dictates his posts into a digital recorder, which is transcribed (word for word) by his staff. At HP, a senior executive calls his posts into a voice-mail box established just for that purpose; his messages are also transcribed by staff for posting.

Ultimately, though, your view should be that you don’t have time not to blog. You should recognize what other CEOs—like Thomas Nelson Publishers CEO Michael Hyatt—have realized: that blogging ultimately saves time by reducing the more time-consuming communications that eat into your day. If you blog well, you’ll find that you’ve reallocated much of the time you spent less efficiently with other channels to your blog.

Are you well-schooled in what you can’t say?

Bill Marriott, CEO of Marriott International, writes about topics that will never cause regulatory problems. His posts talk about his staff, Marriott’s corporate social responsibility efforts, and other topics that would never raise an eyebrow at the SEC. Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwartz, on the other hand, does blog about the business side of Sun, but is savvy enough about the regulations that govern his words that he is able to avoid writing anything that would cause him trouble. Do you know enough about the regulations, what kinds of off-the-cuff remarks might be viewed as a material forward-looking statement or a revelation about earnings? If not, don’t blog.

Of course, if you’re with a privately held company not subject to SEC rules, this isn’t as important a consideration, although you should keep in mind that there are agencies regulating your business besides the SEC.

Are you prepared to talk about bad news and unpleasant topics?

Your blog cannot be all happy talk, even when your company is hit with bad news. Candor and credibility are contingent upon your being willing to address the issues about which your stakeholders want to hear from you. Are you ready to tackle bad news on your blog and to hear what your stakeholders have to say about it?

If you answer “no” to any of these questions, then you’re not a likely candidate for a CEO blog.

There are alternatives, however, if you’re bound and determined to have your CEO voice heard in the socialmedia space:

Group blogs—Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly posts an occasional item to the Nuts About Southwest blog, but only when the CEO’s voice needs to be heard. The blog is ready and available to him because of the community of Southwest employees who keep it populated with a wide variety of posts.
Facebook—A fan page on Facebook affords you an opportunity to create content stakeholders might be interested in and then add a CEO commentary only when the occasion calls for it.
Video—If your concern is that you’re not the world’s greatest writer, you could always opt for a video blog, speaking (not reading) your comments to a camera. There’s actually a tangible benefit to this approach: Your stakeholders can look into your eyes while you’re talking to them. You can upload your videos to a YouTube channel and embed the YouTube videos in your blog, making it easy for others to spread your words across other channels.

What other criteria should a CEO consider before undertaking a blog?

Here are some other CEOs who blog:

Paul Levy, CEO, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
John Mackey, CEO, Whole Foods Markets
Mike Critelli, now-retired Executive Chairman, Pitney Bowes
Richard Edelman, Edelman Public Relations

There are many other CEO bloggers. Whose CEO blog would you point to as an excellent example?

Innovation with a capital I

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:37:37 GMT

I've been enjoying James Gardner's blog, especially since he moved from his bank to the Department of Work and Pensions. I get the sense that with this move he's able to speak more clearly about the issues of supporting innovation in organisations.

His latest post, Innovation Backlash recounts the catch-22 in which Heads of Innovation find themselves.

The innovators have no clout when their diaries donât have meetings with senior people. They know they canât âdeliverâ (they are scared the backlash will take out their projects) so they only commit to things which are small enough not to get noticed. Of course, being small, they are also not worthy of the attention of senior folk, so no meetings get set up.

I wonder if the problem is partly the expectation that people with innovation in their title must drive innovation. That so easily puts them in a bind where they're supposed to be powerful but often in practice aren't. It also may reinforce the notion that innovation is something to be organised from above by specialists, and that it is a grand thing, not the sum of a series of small ones occurring in day-to-day conversation. It becomes Innovation with a capital I.

I fondly remember John Jay's brilliant essay on obliquity. Here's the set up:

Paradoxical as it sounds, goals are more likely to be achieved when pursued indirectly. So the most profitable companies are not the most profit-oriented, and the happiest people are not those who make happiness their main aim. The name of this idea? Obliquity.

Jay focuses particularly on profits, and how companies that ruthlessly pursue them end up losing them. I can't help thinking the same may apply to Innovation.

I somehow think that framing Innovation as an exercise in successfully wielding power is not the right approach. I think networking technologies are allowing a lot of innovations (some you may like, some you may not) to emerge peer-to-peer where the drive is a sense of tribal enthusiasm rather than delivering on a corporate goal. Often the sort of stuff that established hierarchies want to put a stop to... in which case, where does your head of Innovation stand if his aim is get top-level buy-in?

Using this fabulous scene from Casablanca is an exaggerated rhetorical ploy and a shameless oversimplification - but it captures something of what I'm trying to articulate.

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Comment

Selling paper

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:07:40 GMT

More pith from Paul Graham:

We can all imagine an old-style editor getting a scoop and saying "this will sell a lot of papers!" Cross out that final S and you're describing their business model.

I think he's on the money with this conclusion:

I don't know exactly what the future will look like, but I'm not too worried about it. This sort of change tends to create as many good things as it kills. Indeed, the really interesting question is not what will happen to existing forms, but what new forms will appear.

Hat tip: David Smith

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Comment

Intuit Quickbooks + Mac + Flash = Disaster

bruce fryer — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 05:04:16 GMT

I had been running Quickbooks on XP. I upgraded to Quickbooks 2010 for Mac so I wouldn't have to fire up the virtual machine and save some memory. Installed great.

It's when I went for some support that things started heading south quickly. Since this is a new company I know I needed some help getting the charts of accounts set up and equity accounts and all that fun stuff. I signed up for an hour of consulting.

Then the wheels started to come off. Intuit has this nifty flash based utility for scheduling time. But it doesn't run on Safari on a Mac. Luckily I had Firefox and it did come up.

I'm amazed that people don't test out their systems on different browsers running on different operating systems. Especially an outfit like Intuit. Just remember to have a very good test plan before you release anything.

Little trust in Technorati

neville@nevillehobson.com (Neville Hobson) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:47:48 GMT

Is Technorati worth anyone’s attention any more? I ask because I no longer have much faith in the accuracy of their data where Technorati’s information about your own site is different depending on where you see it.

Here’s what I mean. This is what Technorati says about this blog in terms of authority and rank:

The figure on the right shows an authority level of 602. The number on the left shows 1495 which, Technorati says, is the blog’s rank compared to the Technorati top 100 list.

Yet the little widget I’ve had in my blog sidebar for the past four years – which pulls in data from Technorati itself – says only 160, a figure unchanged as far as I can tell for most of this year. That’s a big difference.

I asked about this a month ago in Technorati’s support forum, as a comment to a larger thread. Technorati’s response three weeks ago was this:

The widgets are still pulling data from the old site infrastructure — they’ll be replaced soon.

Since then, silence. ‘Soon’ surely should mean quicker than a month – and it’s still not fixed.

It used to be the case that if I wanted to find out anything going on in the blogosphere, Technorati was the first place I turned to as it was the trusted source. Now, it’s the last place I think about: the first place I go to on the public web is Google Blog Search.

Others are wondering whether Technorati is worth anything these days including my podcasting partner Shel Holtz, who raises the important point of trusting the numbers when you’re considering the authority and ranking of another blogger rather than looking at your own figures.

A huge #technoratifail.

Related post:

What’s wrong with Technorati

Advertorial sharp practice

neville@nevillehobson.com (Neville Hobson) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:17:24 GMT

If you ever get a phone call from a company called PSCA International asking you to contribute an article for one of their magazines (which they call books), don’t get suckered into agreeing to do something and then finding out that it will cost you money.

That’s what happened to me on Friday morning, and I feel a bit of idiot for getting so suckered.

This company, whose presence online sits behind the name ‘publicservice.co.uk’, publishes a number of publications in the public sector, as their website explains. According to the person who wasted my time in a 45-minute phone call, a new edition of HR and Training Journal is in the works for which they need content written by knowledgeable people.

The people who use these publications, the person told me, are hugely influential throughout government and make purchasing decisions.

She buttered me up no end on how I was unquestionably The One to write about social media as “that’s what you do at WesissComm.”

The sales person spent a lot of time dropping the names of people like Yvette Cooper, Boris Johnson and Digby Jones, which should have set off my alarm bells immediately. So I should feel honoured to be included in such august company was the message I was hearing.

To cut to the finale, I did agree to write 600 words about social media and behavioural change, in which I would include examples of organizations and their experiences with aspects of social media in the context of change and meeting business goals, that were relevant as opposed to simply dropping big names which is what the sales person seemed to prefer.

Something the person said in response to a question I asked about how her company makes its money made me pause to ask another question. How they make money is based on charging companies a fee for being profiled in the company’s publications. They have no advertising at all, she said.

So I asked for clarity: I’m willing to contribute an article and there’s no cost for that, right? Oh no, she said, there is a fee involved as your company will be profiled.

That’s the point at which my good nature in the conversation disappeared. She never mentioned a cost until I asked specifically whether there was one. She did say she was going to tell me once she’d decided whether I was “the right fit for this important project.” I’ll never know if she was telling the truth. But I feel pretty sure that if I hadn’t asked my question and simply gone away and written the piece, an invoice would have appeared at some point.

I was so angry, I didn’t hang around to hear how much the cost would have been. I think part of my anger was the feeling of being an idiot in listening to all the guff, and being taken in, during a 45-minute phone call.

Sharp practice and deeply unethical, in my view. My recommendation: don’t touch PSCA International with a bargepole.

Needless to say, don’t expect to see anything written by me appearing in any publication produced by this company.

A minimalist approach to PR outreach for Bing

neville@nevillehobson.com (Neville Hobson) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:47:20 GMT

Microsoft formally launched their Bing search engine in the UK last Friday. I saw a number of reports in the mainstream media on the day itself and one or two posts in the blogosphere. But that’s largely it from what I’ve seen.

Maybe there might have been more written and spoken about the milestone, including a post by me, if my experience at the receiving end of some pretty weak outreach by email had been even a little more thoughtful.

Now I have no idea of Microsoft’s PR goals for the UK Bing launch. Maybe a minimalist approach such as the email I received (see the screenshot) is what they had in mind. (Do I really believe that? No, I don’t.)

But such an impersonal approach is hardly a message that would persuade me to do anything other than click the delete button in Outlook:

Hi there,

Please see below the press release for the full launch of Microsoft’s Bing in the UK. Attached is a low res image of today’s (Nov 13th) homepage. If you require a high res version please reply to this email or the email alias below.

If you have any further enquiries please call the Microsoft press line on 0845 602 5628 or email ukprteam@microsoft.com

Thanks,
Xxx

I don’t know Xxx (real name obviously obscured in order to protect the guilty) and as far as I know, this is the first email I’ve received from him. We don’t have a relationship. So perhaps he thought the ‘Hi there’ greeting would be appropriate in such circumstances (and thank God it wasn’t ‘Hey there’).

But what a missed opportunity. An impersonal email with bland press release text and not even any links to take you someone online for interesting content – not even to the published press release (which, by the way, I cannot find anywhere online on any Microsoft website in the UK, EMEA or USA) – just an image attachment.

Even something in this email – a word, a short sentence – that suggested some kind of effort at making a personal connection would have almost guaranteed a positive action on my part. Hello, Xxx, wakey-wakey next time.

Instead, here I am writing about such a wasted effort at outreach. Well, a mass email anyway as the address was the same as the sender (suggesting a bcc email distribution).

Still, at least I mentioned Bing in this post and linked to it. Good result from the PR outreach, then.

Related post:

The problem with PR email

Learning now vs success/failure

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:13:17 GMT

This resonated with me this morning:

Roethlisberger argues that people who are preoccupied with success ask the wrong question. They ask, âwhat is the secret of successâ when they should be asking, âwhat prevents me from learning here and now?â To be overly preoccupied with the future is to be inattentive toward the present where learning and growth take place. To walk around asking, âam I a success or a failureâ is a silly question in the sense that the closest you can come to answer is to say, everyone is both a success and a failure.

Source:Weick, Karl E. How Projects Lose Meaning: The Dynamics of Renewal. in Renewing Research Practice by R. Stablein and P. Frost (Eds.). Stanford, CA: Stanford. 2004.

Reflecting on this a little more, sometimes it may be better to ask "what am I experiencing now?" and see if the learning emerges from that. I'm in a Zen frame of mind I guess.

Hat tip Bob Sutton, via David Smith.

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Comment

High status deadens experience

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:01:54 GMT

That Bob Sutton piece on GM also has a great attack on how the company dishes out free cars as perks. The higher you are in the company, the more attractive the deal. At low levels, you buy your own car and look after it. As you rise, you get a free car but you still have to look after it. Rise further, any you get better freebies and don't have to take care of servicing. As you get near Mount Olympus you get a limo and a driver.

As Bob points out, the higher up the company you go, the less experience you have of what it's like to own a GM car. Crazy.

Bonus link: a previous post inspired by Bob on how easily the smallest amount of power corrupts - as measured in cookie crumbs.

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FIR Interview: Steve Rubel, Lifestreamer

neville@nevillehobson.com (Neville Hobson)neville — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 07:50:04 GMT

If there’s one significant voice in the PR profession that attracts attention and influences opinion within the industry and outside of it on a global scale, that voice is Steve Rubel: PR practitioner at Edelman Digital, blogging pioneer, social media early adopter and evangelist, geek, re-inventor and lifestreamer.

In this FIR Interview, co-hosts Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz talk with Steve on a wide range of topics that stimulate his insight and commentary, including lifestreaming – what is it and why Steve’s doing it – the Posterous platform, the Micro Persuasion and Steve Rubel brands, organizations and public relations practice, his experiments with the iPhone as a unique platform, and much more.

Get this podcast:

Download the MP3 file (12.4Mb, 30:56)
Get the show on iTunes
Subscribe to the FIR Interviews RSS feed

About our Conversation Partner

Steve Rubel, SVP, Director of Insights for Edelman Digital, is responsible for keeping Edelman and its clients in the vanguard. He studies global technology, media and online trends and shapes them into actionable insights and marketing communications strategies.

In his role, Rubel has served as senior strategic advisor to Edelman clients such as Dannon, HP, PepsiCo, Zagat, Unilever, Microsoft and many others.

Rubel supports the account planning processes, intellectual property development and the firm’s innovation and business development efforts. He is a member of the Edelman Digital senior leadership committee.

His writings on emerging technology has been called must-read by the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNET, PC Magazine and Forrester Research. In addition, he is actively followed by more than 28,000 on Twitter, writes a bi-weekly column for Advertising Age and is often sought by the press and as a keynote speaker.

Rubel has been named to several prestigious lists, including: PR Week’s 40 Under 40, The Forbes.com Web Celeb 25, PC Magazine’s 100 Favorite Blogs, Media Magazine’s Media 100, the AlwaysOn/Technorati Open Media 100 and the CNET News.com Blog 100.

Prior to joining Edelman in 2006, Rubel worked for 15 years in a variety of marketing communications positions in corporate, non-profit and small/mid-sized PR firms. Most recently, he spent five years at CooperKatz & Company where he pioneered the use of blogs as a marketing vehicle for clients such as the Association of National Advertisers, simplehuman, and Vespa.

Related FIR Interview podcasts:

FIR Interview: Steve Rubel, Edelman – December 22, 2006
An Open Conversation with Steve Rubel, Micro Persuasion – March 21, 2005.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe music – On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

FIR Interview: Steve Rubel, Lifestreamer

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:30:51 GMT

Get this podcast:

Download the MP3 file 12.4Mb, 30:56)
Get the show on iTunes
Subscribe to the FIR Interviews RSS feed

About our Conversation Partner

In his role, Rubel has served as senior strategic advisor to Edelman clients such as Dannon, HP, PepsiCo, Zagat, Unilever, Microsoft and many others.

Related FIR Interview podcasts:

FIR Interview: Steve Rubel, Edelman – December 22, 2006
An Open Conversation with Steve Rubel, Micro Persuasion – March 21, 2005.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the twice-weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe music - On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

From core competence to core attitude

Tom Asacker — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:29:55 GMT

People are finally realizing that their most powerful assets are not their buildings, bank accounts, or even technologies. It’s their relationships with their audiences. The problems arise when they try to be all things to all people. Instead, they should develop a core attitude with their core audiences and be as many things as possible to them. Conventional wisdom resists most attempts to develop a business concept around an attitude. “We need a defensible position. We need to own a space in the customer’s mind.” Unfortunately, that’s why more than half of the businesses on the Fortune 500 list when I was in college are no longer in business. They stuck to their knitting while their audiences moved on.New and improved products and services will continue to appear at a mind-numbing rate. You'll never keep up as an outsider; by watching and reacting.The future is about being an insider. It's about co-creating with - and for - a passionate subculture of like-minded people. It's time to go deep and discover their hopes, dreams and concerns. And lead them and educate them to new value propositions, new possibilities, for their benefit and for yours.