experience architect weblog

Paring, Pruning, Planting - Managing Digital Growth

2012-01-10T13:00:00.004-06:00

We planted a Weeping Pussy Willow in the rock bed adjacent to our deck a few years ago. At the time it was just slightly taller than waist high... with green leafy branches that gracefully floated down to the ground. Here's the cute little tree when we planted it (just to right rear of dog):

A few years later, this tree stood over six feet tall, a thriving monument to our landscaping efforts, and a monumental maintenance pain: Prolific in its growth and planted a bit too closely to the deck railing ... it stood unruly most of the time. Here it is a photo taken a few weeks after a serious trimming.

We had aptly named our tree "Cousin It" (after the classic Addams Family character) because when it grew out, it looked like the picture below -- only green and leafy -- and missing a hat:

To be attractive, Cousin It needed to be well groomed - at least monthly and with great care. If I trimmed too much, it seemed to grow faster. If I didn't trim it enough, it would begin to take over the railing, deck and everything else nearby, as new chutes sprang up and the long, extending branches grew down into the ground and took root! Because the tree grew just off the deck adjacent to my home office, I spent a lot of time taming this beast on my breaks.

One day, I emerged from my office bleary eyed and exasperated. I had been conducting a user experience evaluation for a major brand, and desperately needed to clear my head in the fresh air. I had found some unbelievable problems with my client's digital media presence that were not easy to explain prioritize or correct; the outcomes of poor information design, technology issues and some bad thinking. I stood there, contemplatively... as Cousin It stared back at me: gangly, unruly and defiant.

Perhaps as an outlet for my frustration, I grabbed my clippers and engaged in a pruning fit. As I furiously clipped and trimmed, I ruminated on the somewhat overwhelming and prolific challenges my client faced. Some seemed unfathomable...and yet they were also way too familiar to me.

The fact was, in different iterations, I found the same challenges on many of the other, highly reputable. large client websites and digital outposts I surveyed:

Bad logic in the decision tree which created hurdles and challenges for users
Navigational methods that conflicted with each other, resulting in serious usability issues
Lack of visual cues to adequately support way finding
Multiple properties repeating the same static message
Robotic, content full of "enterprise speak" - no sense of real humans working there
Poorly written or unclear content, instruction or communication
Conflicting messages and offers
Non-functioning or absent links
Pages that did not function or load properly
Sites that failed to load or function properly on mobile channels
Registration, opt-in and transactional forms that didn't function properly
Access issues and complications related to user permissions (log in, sign-up, etc.)
Lack of SEO and page optimization
SEO counsel that had actually worked to undermine usability
Lack of social integration (like, plus, share) across digital properties
Lack of ability to drive users effectively down key paths to drive business outcomes

I realized the problems my client faced were a lot like the branches and chutes I was hacking away at: They were natural outcomes of rapid growth, poor communication, poor planning and execution and even some outright negligence. However, the truth was, this client could no longer see clearly or objectively. They knew there were problems but they didn't know where to start to correct things. Using Cousin It as an example, they couldn't see the tree for the branches!

I suddenly realized the honor of my position. They'd asked me to focus a trained eye to overcome what had become their own blind spots. They knew I could help them, and I would. Reaching this good place in my head... I ended my clipping frenzy and threw out the pile of offending branches. Then, with renewed energy and a true sense of purpose, I went back to work.

It took time, a lot of discussion and problem solving, but we began to fix things gradually....starting with the things that mattered most. Sometimes, we had to compromise and fix things slower than I would have liked. As we went along, we also needed to periodically take a break and assess the work from a distance to make sure things were taking the right shape for the business and the people they served.

Today, this client is making great progress along with many others. It has been my pleasure to see the fruits of our labor, which seemed so far off in the season of paring, pruning and planting.

Sometimes, all we need is some outside perspective (myself included) and a carefully trained, caring eye to help us overcome the hurdles in front of us. It's true for gardeners, information architects, experience designers ... and it's true in life, too.

Fresh Post & a Fresh Start for 2012

2011-12-30T18:30:00.003-06:00

The last few months have been super eventful and way cool and may partially explain the lack of posts of late. I relocated with my family to sunny Santa Cruz, California and resumed my consulting practice here. I've always been a beachy person and we love it, to say the least. Fall is a beautiful time here. We had unseasonably warm weather, bringing the sardenes -- and the whales in within 1/5 of a mile out! I have watched them breach and flip and tail slap -- along with dolphins, seals, otters and sea birds to my heart's content.

I spent Christmas day on the beach with my family - built a bonfire, set free a floating lantern....and chuckled with glee over not having to blow snow this year! Yes, we'll take sand over snow, thanks!

We have always loved this area -- and it's not just because of the beauty or weather - the business atmosphere, culture and people are such a draw! Living in the bay area, I am now closer to many of the smart people I have worked alongside for years. This includes my friends at gotomedia, an outstanding digital experience company founded by my good friend, Kelly Goto. Kelly and I have worked together in a variety of capacities for over 15 year. Now, we get to raise our kids together. #Awesome.

Beyond packing/unpacking and selling/renting houses and doing my normal strategy/design work for clients over the past months, Kelly invited me to facilitate a design thinking workshop she hosted for the Tofu Project in November (photo below). It was awesome... and the subject of a later post! I also keyed up three new projects in addition to lining up some very cool SXSW 2012 activities for the spring, which I'll be sure to share about later.

In my spare time, I have been working on a personal venture and trying to support my husband in a new venture of his own. I was also featured a few times in a new book on Customer Experience management! In those spare moments, I bone up on social neurology and neuromarketing with a keen interest on their implications to customer experience design (embracing my inner geek). I'm also trying hard to attain a greater level of focus as I attempt to balance everything on my plate.

Ben Franklin once wrote "Never confusion motion with progress." Words to live by!

In 2011, it was refreshing to attract new business in addition to maintaining relationships my own, amazing clients. I realized this year that not only have 100% of these clients have come through word of mouth, the majority have been clients for over 3 years. This also makes many of them friends. This feels like success to me.

I'm very thankful for The IEEE and IEEE Standards Association, Marketing Profs, RightNow Technologies, gotomedia and others I cannot mention. I'm proud of the work we've done together:

Conducting outstanding analysis and developing informed, people-centric, strategic direction
Driving meaningful shifts and change (operational, cultural, technological)
Creating connections that drive networking, growth and success
Joining together to help people in need
Delivering people friendly experiences that secure bottom line results

It's also been a pleasure to see so many friends and/or consorts achieve so many amazing personal and professional accomplishments this year... people like Jeff Widman, Carla White, Shelley Ryan, Jason Hungerford Valeria Maltoni, Beth Harte, Ann Handley, Kellye Crane, Ekaterina Walter, Becky Carroll, Jason Falls and Rob Wu (an honor to work with you on SXSW4Japan), Mack Collier, Lauren Vargas, Christina Kerley and many others. Further -- a hat tips and props to all the Daisies and MSVP's -- you know who you are. ;-)

I also met so many new folks his year - several highlights include Ken Lingad (smart, beautiful soul!) Nancy Duarte (positively inspiring), Sunni Brown (talented super coolness), Hugh Forrest (standup guy), Esteban Contreras (bright, talented, humble & faithful) Natalie Petouhoff (determined, strong, brilliant, unflappable) and Christopher Barger (Intelligent, humble, approachable, honest, asset) and Dean Kamen (luminary, genius, innovative, unpretentious, hero).

In short, I count my blessings to be surrounded by some of the most brilliant, talented, plain speaking, innovative, cool and non-pretentious people in the world. Thanks for your support, readership, tweets, likes, hugs, props, butt-kicks, brain hockey, silliness, jokes, intense conversations, sarcasm, meaningful chats, pokes and comments.

What's next? Well, all I can say right now is this: In 2012, I intend to better #OCCUPY my faith, family, friends and profession. Further, in defiance of all a admonishments that tell me what I must do for the attention of the search engines, "klout" and/or to attain the adulation of the social web, my implicit objective for this year is to say more by doing more great, meaningful and honest things. Hopefully, I won't disappoint anyone and manage to focus on what really matters!

Wishing all of you a truly successful 2012. May you break through the forces of inertia with great determination as you move closer to your potential and purpose!

- Leigh

Top photo - Christmas on Seabright Beach, Christmas Day 2011.

CX Word of Mouth. Words to the Wise.

2011-07-05T18:24:00.002-05:00

As I've stated repeatedly, we live in an era of business shift. Not only do companies have the power to know us better than ever before -- "We the people" have the power to make ourselves heard in an unprecedented manner. We can do this when we are wronged, and bring a company to its knees like Dave Carroll did with United Breaks Guitars. We can also make ourselves heard when we're happy, as my buddy, Shelley Ryan did this week to celebrate the Customer Service Wizardry of Chicos. I've embedded her entertaining story below.

Now, it's entirely possible that both Dave's and Shelley's stories are, in reality, rather un-unique in their facts --- if compared to the ocean full of good and bad customer experience stories out there. After all, other people have had guitars broken, and others have faced great customer service. However, Dave and Shelley have something in common in the way they handled their situations: They coupled their unique skills with creativity and the low-tech tools at their disposal to tell compelling stories that resonated with people. This added dimension, reality, meaning and emotion to what otherwise may have been considered every-day customer experience testimonials. They created something compelling that was instantly sharable, likeable, spreadable....and they began to spread like wildfire.

This illustrates that it's not always what you tell -- but how you tell it, and who you share it with that matters most! This creative storytelling explains how Shelley and Dave drove a wave of interest, engagement from other people -- and why those people shared those stories, magnifying them and making them more grand with every like, tweet, share, view, comment. In Dave's case, that magnification turned his story into a business legend! In Shelley's case, well, hopefully it will yield a great pat on the back to the dedicated, customer-focused employees at Chico's. Kudos to them!

We can all (people and brands) take a page out of this book, and learn from Dave, Shelley and people like them. We already know we'll be seeing this more and more. The question is, will we ourselves shoot for legendary in our story telling? Will we apply what we've learned here to differentiate our stories from the sea of sameness? Just a thought -- or maybe a challenge -- for your day.

Forrester's CX Forum - CCO's and Things that Make You Go "HMM"

2011-06-23T13:36:00.011-05:00

Forrester Research's recent Customer Experience Forum in NYC just ended.. I wasn't able to attend due to a recent deluge of travel and client obligations, so I was keenly interested in hearing the outputs of the forum, so I've been reviewing some notes and key takeaways from the Twitter hashtag #cxp11.

You might find the notes from Harley Manning's session on "The Rise Of The Chief Customer Officer" somewhat interesting. Harley is the Vice President and Research Director at Forrester. Here are the raw notes from the Forrester website:

On average, chief customer officers (CCOs) have been in their jobs for two years or less time.

Very few have backgrounds in customer experience. Instead, they have backgrounds as general managers, marketers, and sales leaders.

CCOs are heavily concentrated in the business services, IT, and financial services industries, although you can find them in many other industries, as well.

The majority of them sit on the executive management team at their firms, and they are highly likely to report to the chief executive officer (CEO) or the head of a line of business.

They spend their time evangelizing customer experience, creating a shared understanding of customers, defining customer metrics, breaking down organizational barriers, building a customer-centric culture, and demonstrating a long term financial impact.

My first reaction? HM! I can't help but wonder how someone with no background in CX can tangibly, meaningfully and action-ably evangelize CX beyond the use of hype and buzzwords..... much less build a CX focused culture inside an organization.

My next reaction? Questioning. Why didn't this presentation cover the hiring criteria the companies had for these positions? Boy, that would have been insightful! I'd like to know how these companies define the criteria that qualify a candidate as a potentially strong CCO -- quantitatively and qualitatively!

My next reaction? Perplexed. Why aren't companies aren't appointing more CCO's who have a background managing the SERVICE END of customer management. We can argue that sales is a front-line arena -- but there's no mention of CCO's coming out of SERVICE-CENTERED arms of business. Wouldn't that be a natural approach, if service is truly critical to creating great experience.

My final thought? Challenging. Why we aren't appointing CCO's to positions who have an understanding of Customer Experience management --- or in this technical age, at least experience with Information and Interaction Design or even Human Factors? Are they that hard to find? Is this a failure in leadership's understanding of the critical nature of such skills? Is it an inability to FIND people with these skills PLUS a mature understanding of business and industry?

Filing this under "Things that make you go 'hmmm'."

You can find Forrester's Key Takeaways here.

Marketing Profs B2B Forum - Follow Up & Slides!

2011-06-17T13:11:00.002-05:00

I'm home from the Marketing Profs B2B Forum in Boston. I have to say, I love the Marketing Profs conferences. After speaking, writing and teaching for them since 2006, the team feels a bit like virtual family to me.They keep it real, bring in fresh, smart speakers, focus on providing real value targeted to their audience. The value the broad array of attendees get is real and tangible. They treat their speakers well and keep things relaxed. So, kudos for a job well done, guys.

I met so many great folks there and was happy spending time with friends Ann Handley Mack Collier, Christina "CK" Kerley, CB Whittemore, and new friends Laurie Kingsman from Ritchie Brothers Auctions, Kate Putnam from Package Machinery Company, Micheal Brenner from SAP, Sam Fiorella and Brandi McCallum from Sensei Marketing, Mika Lofton, Katie Clark, Bob Knorpp and many others. I'm so fried right now I can't possibly list everyone. So I will probably edit and add more people to this post later!

Gotta say, though -- one of the big highlights of the conference for me was meeting Nancy Duarte, author of "Slideology and her new book "Resonate." Nancy is a brilliant communicator, an inspiring author and a darned nice person. I cannot say enough about her but sufficed to say, I'm enough of a fangirl - to stick my feet in my mouth in front of her when trying to be witty. (Fortunately, she's very gracious, too.) I bought her new book -- and I took time to read a bunch of it on the way home. It's smart and inspiring -- and ANYONE that wants to be a better communicator should read it.

The Workshop I ran at the B2B Forum was full of smart, motivated people and I was honored they attended. Again, we did a real-time session reviewing the digital media footprints of 2 brands, distilling down some ideas for fostering a better experience within and across those digital and social properties. We spent about 30 minutes on each brand.

I want to thank Ritchie Brothers Auctions (Global leader in Auctioneering with $3.3 BILLION in revenue) and Package Machinery Company (Machinery Leader for Consumer Packaged Goods Industry) for putting themselves in the hot seat. The feedback from everyone was very positive and I earnestly do hope I provided the brands and the session attendees with some valuable insights. Here are the slides:

Digital Media Makeover Marketing Profs B2B Forum July 2011

View more presentations from Leigh Duncan-Durst

Note: the wireframes that were provided weren't design recommendations but a visual "AFTER" idea to get the brands thinking about what could be -- what treatments might change on a few screens.

While it was a smaller crowd, I had a 35% rate of request for services from this session. So the ROI of this gig was terrific.

Got thoughts, insights? Did you attend? Would love your comments!

Digital Makeover at Marketing Profs B2B Forum in Boston

2011-06-14T14:13:00.001-05:00

I'm currently attending and speaking at the Marketing Profs B2B Digital Forum in Boston. It's great to hook up with some old friends and colleagues and meet other friends face-to-face that I haven't had the pleasure of meeting with yet. The session I'm doing is a Digital Media Makeover Session - a 75 minute live workshop looking at the comprehensive web, blog, Facebook, twitter, linked in, Wiki (and more) presences of two very different brands. It should be fun and we have a lot to cover.

So far, I sat in two great sessions. The first, Enterprise Social Media with David Thomas and Mike Barlow raised some great issues individuals in B2B enterprise face when trying to embrace, execute and coordinate social media-driven activities. I loved Christina Kerley's session on Mobile. CK is a fount of knowledge and a fireball of energy that lights up a room. I'm sitting here next to Paul Gillin (Doh!) and realized that my session runs concurrently with his and several other great ones! Do you think it'd be terrible to hang up a sign outside the door that says "FREE BEER?" I mean, no pressure or anything.

For the swarthy, motivated folks that show up, I'll be reviewing the digital media footprints of two brands in real time during my session. The goal is to provide some customer-centric feedback that will help guide them as they take their presence to the next level, from streamlining specific paths to increase conversions and results or improving execution within digital properties like the Web, Blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc. The good news is, for those that made the hard choice to see someone else over me -- any conference attendees that miss our session can re-stream it on the Marketing Profs site here. ;-)

Blog World Recap: 10 Tips for Awesome, Grassroots, Online & Offline, Social Mobilization

2011-06-03T13:07:00.001-05:00

In my last post, I mentioned that we (Me, Rob Wu of CauseVox, Esteban Contreras of Samsung and Chris Noble of Cause Media Group) were presenting a case study on SXSW4Japan at Blog World Expo last week. We were flattered to be asked to present what we learned in the course of our activities there, and were delighted to see Blog World Expo start its own charitable effort to raise funds for the Red Cross to support Tornado Victims after the tragedy in Joplin and the southern US States.

At the end of our panel, we provided "10 Tips For Awesome, Grassroots, Online & Offline Social Mobilization" which can apply to any social effort or movement - and especially for cause mobilization. For your convenience, I thought I'd provide those tips here. If you have thoughts, leavea comment!

1. Move Quickly. Speed is critical as situations build momentum and people look for a way to offer support – especially when it comes to disaster relief. The quicker you offer an immediate outlet where people can help -- the more successful you are likely to be in drawing attention, engagement and participation. Start by developing a reasonable, clear goal (ours was $10k for Japan) and make sure your goal, charity and scope is clear to everyone. Rather than starting from scratch, find turnkey ways to build out a donation site. For example, anyone can use a platform like Rob's CauseVox platform to set up a customized fundraising effort in minutes -- and transition all online donations to a charity of choice. The site even allows people to start fundraising pages under your main page to rally their own circles of influence. Set it up, make the communication on the page crystal clear, and get people talking about it.

2. Stick to the Cause. Everyone involved should be about the cause and little else. The people willing to lend themselves, or their brands, to promote and further your cause should be your target audience – not people willing to lend their brand to promote their own cause. Learn to quickly distinguish motives. There are some complexities with say, negotiating corporate sponsorships that cannot be avoided - like processing transactions, agreeing on communication points, etc. Beyond this, however, we found that, in general, there seemed to be a connection between the time people wanted to spend “negotiating terms” and the level of self interest they presented to us. Kindly encourage parties with their own goals, motives or selfish-interests to start their own project if you sense there's not a match.

3. Keep it simple. Ideas that require jumping through hoops, a ton of discussion, complicated production, distribution or crazy acrobatics may waste time and/or money that should go to your cause. For example: We had some ideas for things we wanted to do on our fundraising page that equated to customization that would have taken up too much valuable time, so we scrapped the ideas, settling for “good enough.” We also discussed having t-shirts made. However, when we considered production the complexities of ordering, cost, sizes, distribution and the rest ---> it became a non-starter for our particular cause. Our focus was to raise as much money as we could for Japan. T-shirts were a nice idea, but it would have taken us away from our vision and redirected funds that should go to help people. We decided to invest our time in a manner that drove more momentum for the charity, and that served us very well, in the end.

4. Empower People. When people came to us to ask what they can do to help, we answered with a question: "What do you do BEST?” We did our best to find a way to focus peoples’ energy in a way that best leveraged their natural talent or skill. On our team, it fell together in a somewhat divine manner. Rob was the technologist with the platform. Deb Ng is a conference organizer for Blog World, and she knew everyone in the Blogger lounge. Natalie Pethouhoff was the PR pro, with an impressive array of business and media contacts. Hugh McLeod (of Gaping Void fame) drew us a logo. Jessica Lin had this incredible knack for juggling things like community management and Denice Crowell is a copy writer and music freak. Me? Well, I am a prolific multi-tasker with a gift of coordination and a few influential friends. We divided and conquered together in a pretty synergistic way and we kept our minds open when others approached us with contribution ideas. As people step into roles – make sure their mandates are clear to everyone – and let them become the go-to-resources for specific things. Having clear roles will help prevent confusion and make sure messages being delivered are clear and consistent.

5. Partner Creatively. We worked hard to foster the practical and strategic partnerships that would fuel our success. Beyond forming a partnership with the Red Cross, we also teamed up with SXSW Leadership, and later, the City of Austin through the Mayor's Office. To their credit, they bent over backward to support our cause at every turn, and also supported our extension into the music track at SXSW. We worked with Hurricane Party and other grassroots fundraisers at the conference. From the lounge, Samsung promoted our efforts, hosted an impromptu panel on our efforts, tweeted about our cause and initiated a campaign on our behalf that drove an additional $5,000 to our effort. Joseph Jaffe auctioned off a keynote for $15,000 to Lifelock for our cause. Natalie not only paid for our printing out of her pocket, she worked magic to secure a number of corporate sponsors who donated about $500 each from the trade show floor, which drove up online donations significantly. Later in the game, the very talented Hanson brothers were introduced to us. They linked their effort to produce a 12 hour streaming online telethon with SXSW4Japan, and did an amazing job. They even produced a 40 track album with proceeds going to SXSW4Japan, which is also available on iTunes. In the end, everyone brought something unique to the table, and together accomplished much more than any of us would have done individually.

6. Embrace Your Community. We started the fundraiser because we were all, in some way, connected or touched by to the tragedy in Japan. We started it while we were in the company of thousands of friends who were champions of technology, cultural change, social media, business in the cloud, iterative development, crowd sourcing and much more. We had a chance to make those connections more meaningful and engage the community online AND offline. Through interaction and discussion, we fostered tighter connections with the people in our networks, even reaching beyond them to build new, meaningful connections. This was especially true with regard to our interactions with Japanese attendees at SXSW. Their input and appreciation for our efforts increased the immense burden we felt for the Japanese people and galvanized our determination to make a difference on their behalf. The relationships we built we will take with us long after the campaign is over.

7. Become a Story Teller. This is something we would have done better if we'd just had more time in the day. We met so many people at SXSW with compelling stories to share. We were so busy it was hard to post updates on our sites and share those stories with others. However, if we had to do it all over again, we would have shot more video (ugly or not) and posted more updates as we went along in the process. We did manage to get a few posts up and later in the game, even shot video interviews with some of the Japanese attendees we met at SXSW. We strongly recommend determining up front to share your story as it unfolds (the cause, your activities, key “happenings”) and reserve the time to do this. Share it in as many channels and formats as you can (Twitter, Hashtags, Blog Posts, Media, Video), so the word can spread more readily to other people. As you do this, people will discover your effort and get to unwrap it – one layer at a time, and experience less fatigue as an ever-fresh, real, human message is delivered.

8. Iteratively Build on Success. In any grassroots, rapid, crowd-sourced movement, you will rarely score perfection. Without question, there were weaknesses in our approach, but we didn’t make that the focus of our effort. Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Aim for excellence but be okay with good enough. Quickly note what works and what doesn’t work. Accept your limitations and when something works well, improve upon it. Working with SXSW and the city of Austin to extend our effort to the music track led to our involvement in the Hanson Telethon, which rallied an array of impressive, talented artists and musicians to our cause. Go with the flow, as new opportunities present themselves attempt to keep your mind and heart open to new ideas and activities.

9. Be Respectful. When you're engaged in something like this it's easy to get wrapped up in your own reality. You can push for donations, push for tweets, push for mentions at speeches, but you can also be too pushy. I'm sure some people got sick of us blabbing about this outreach and I know on at least one occasion, I went too far in talking about it. It’s important to realize that some people may not share your convictions or your perspective. For example, we ran into a tech editor for a large media outlet that was highly suspicious of our effort. Prepare to meet those who are apathetic, or skeptical of you or your cause. Be prepared for people who will misjudge your motives or criticize your work (while offering nothing constructive). Smile at them. Be gracious. They are usually a very tiny minority. Be open and honest and address their concerns respectfully. The best you can do is share your story, make your mission and requests (Tweet, share, donate, watch video, buy, etc.) clear. After that, respect people's right to form their own opinions and take action as they see fit.

10. Celebrate Giving. We can't say enough great stuff about the community that contributed to our effort with promotion, volunteering and by making donations. In fact, we found ourselves walking around with wide-eyed gratitude and using the words “Wow” and “Thank You” frequently. We made an earnest attempt to give everyone credit. We attempted to thank everyone (which became an impossible task) for their overwhelming support. We did our best to place everyone in the spotlight – which is why the array of blog posts and media articles highlighted different angles of the effort – and different personalities – involved in our campaign. We loved this because it celebrated the community that was involved in the charity. After all, it was all about people helping people from the very start. In the end, that’s what successful, grassroots, crowd sourced efforts are about.

We hope you find these insights helpful, as we continue to support Japan while returning to our client work, blogging, etc. We also want to thank Blog World Expo for hosting us.

Please keep in mind that while the conference and campaign are officially over you can still make a donation on the SXSW Cares / SXSW4Japan website. We are still waiting for one outstanding $5k corporate donation, which will put us at just under $130k in online donations alone. This doesn't include the hundreds-of-thousands that were donated via text message direct to the Red Cross or funds raised through the SXSW4Japan Benefit Album.

While we've said it before, thank you to everyone who participated - there are literally thousands of you - and we hope you will remember Japan and continue to support this country as they rebuild for the future.

Meet Me at Blog World

2011-05-20T16:45:00.001-05:00

ve been heads down with a ton of client work lately and have had regrettably little time to post. However, there's new stuff coming on Customer Experience and business shift very soon, as well as upcoming Customer Experience chats on Twitter to look forward to.

In the mean time, I will be speaking on a panel at Blog World Expo, with Rob Wu, Founder of Causevox, Esteban Contreras, Social Media Manager from Samsung and our moderator, Chris Noble, CEO of Cause Media, about our SXSW4Japan effort next week. Our session Tuesday is called "SXSW4J: A Case Study in Rapid, Iterative Development, Crisis Response, Crowd Sourcing and Social Good." We look forward to bringing some of the great lessons learned on our journey and are putting a "Ten Tips for Rapid Social Mobilization" presentation together, which I'll share after our presentation. If you'll be at Blog World Expo and would like to connect, drop by our panel at 3:45 Tuesday, or send me a tweet @livepath.

Tonight: Is Customer Experience Management the New Marketing: 8pm ET

2011-05-11T13:40:00.001-05:00

Tonight, I'll be hosting #IMCChat on Twitter with hosts Anna Barcelos and Beth Harte at 8pm ET on Twitter. This week, we'll be talking about "next-generation" marketing... specifically, the topic will be: "Is Customer Experience Management the New Marketing?"

You can join us on Twitter by searching for the hashtag #imcchat. You can also use Tweetchat or other tools to follow the hashtag and respond.

To foster some good discussion, one of the things I'd love everyone to check out is the chart I've been using with my clients to help describe the business shift we are seeing today.

Post-Millennial dynamics are driving change in all aspects of business today -- from product development to front line sales and Marketing. In tonight's chat, I'd like to discuss how these shifts are changing marketing, and marketer's perspectives of their role in Customer Experience Management.

Also, for discussion purposes, we'll define customer Experience Management can be defined as follows:

Customer Experience Management (CXM or CEM) is the discipline, methodology and/or process used to comprehensively manage the exposure, interaction and transaction between people and brands -- over time, and across channels. The goal of CEM is to measure and optimize experiences to minimize attrition and maximize satisfaction, loyalty and business outcomes.

Looking forward to perspectives and insights that will be provided tonight! You can also follow me on Twitter @livepath.

SXSW4Japan ROCKS!

2011-04-05T11:13:00.003-05:00

A brief update for those who are following my new "side job" coordinating SXSW4Japan fund raising efforts with Rob Wu and Hanson Music!

Joseph Jaffe, author of Flip the Funnel, donated his keynote for this cause, has auctioned one of two keynote speeches to Lifelock, for $15,000, bringing our SXSW4Japan total up over $123,000 in just 3 weeks..and that's just in ONLINE donations. Text donations have yielded hundreds-of-thousands to the Red Cross, and soon, our album sales will, too.

Also, today we released our SXSW4Japan benefit album, featuring 47 tracks from artists like Ben Folds, Natasha Bedingfield, Micheal Stipe of REM, Bowling for Soup, Widespread Panic, Ozomatli (a new favorite!) Rayland Baxter, The Lonely Forest and many more. Check out the full lineup and buy the album here:

Finally, today (April 5) at 12pm CST our Live Streaming Telethon begins. We'll feature 12 hours of the hottest musicians from SXSW along with some special guest contributors you won't want to miss. For your convenience, the stream and schedule are below. You can get the stream for your own site here or share it on your facebook page.

Watch live streaming video from sxsw4japan at livestream.com

Schedule:

Hour 1	John "Jojo" Hermann / Widespread Panic
1pm ET	An Horse
12pm CT	Michael Stipe
11am MT	Miles Zuniga
10am PT	Rooney
	Emergency Blanket
	Orianthi

Hour 2	Tracy Bonham
2pm ET	Johnny Polygon
1pm CT	North Mississippi Allstars
12pm MT	Imani Coppola
11am PT	The Parlotones

Hour 3	Andrew WK
3pm ET	Jenny O
2pm CT	Michael Stipe
1pm MT	Bowling For Soup
12pm PT	Charlie Mars
	The Boxer Rebellion


Hour 4	Stephen Kellogg And The Sixers
4pm ET	Jimmy Gnecco
3pm CT	Grand Atlantic
2pm MT	Alpha Rev
1pm PT	Drawn From Bees


Hour 5	Ben Folds
5pm ET	Leslie Stevens
4pm CT	Anna Nalick
3pm MT	Locksley
2pm PT	papercranes
	Amanda Palmer

Hour 6	North Mississippi Allstars
6pm ET	Rooney
5pm CT	Philip Nelson
4pm MT	Taylor Locke And The Roughs
3pm PT	The Gay Blades
	Kina Grannis

Hour 7	Andrew WK
7pm ET	papercranes
6pm CT	Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr
5pm MT	Michael Stipe
4pm PT	Luke Rathborne
	John "Jojo" Hermann / Widespread Panic


Hour 8	Orianthi
8pm ET	Cary Brothers
7pm CT	Andy Grammer
6pm MT	Natasha Bedingfield
5pm PT	Rayland Baxter

Hour 9	Rayland Baxter
9pm ET	Hey Battlefield
8pm CT	Laura Jansen
7pm MT	Andrew WK
6pm PT	Ben Folds
	The Hours
	Jackson Harris

Hour 10	The Lonely Forest
10pm ET	Michael Stipe
9pm CT	Kina Grannis
8pm MT	Orianthi
7pm PT	John "Jojo" Hermann / Widespread Panic
	Imani Coppola
	Keaton Simons
	Michael Stipe

Hour 11	Bowling For Soup
11pm ET	Ozomatli
10pm CT	Keaton Simons
9pm MT	Johnny Polygon
8pm PT	Jonny Dubowski / Jonny Lives!
	Michael Stipe
	North Mississippi Allstars
	Amanda Palmer
	Rain Phoenix

Hour 12	Ben Folds
12am ET	River City Extension
11pm CT
10pm MT
9pm PT

Giganto Update - On Grassroots Caring via SXSW Cares SXSW4Japan

2011-03-24T15:47:00.001-05:00

In my last post, I talked about some of the work we were doing at SXSW 2011 to raise support for Japan Tsunami Relief. Here's a rapid attempt at an update:

Here's an interview from Day 2 with Esteban Contreras that describes how it started:

Our team continued to work like mad to field media inquiries and promote SXSW Cares / SXSW4Japan. The name stuck differently for different people -- but it was the same movement.

Rob Wu (who wasn't available during our first interview) did an admirable job parallel tracking with me on all this -- but especially making sure his team kept our site up-to-date, adding features and functionality that extended the site socially, liaising with cause advocates to set up new fundraising pages under our site. He was also doing interviews, posts, shooting video and hustling all over with with me to interviews with the media and participation on two panels. He also coordinated on-site donation relief efforts with Japan Nite, Hurricane Party, The Etsy Party and other grassroots fundraisers who donated to the Red Cross in the name of SXSW Cares -- bringing together the community in a greater way. Some of them raised substantial funds, and we appreciated their desire to express solidarity as a SXSW Community.

On her own time, Jessica Lin had helped us with - well, everything, but she was especially great at monitoring and managing the tweet streams and fielding incoming opportunities and requests. She did this while managing her work load with grace and style and she is one smart cookie. In parallel, Dr. Natalie Pethouoff took her own time to talk to companies on the trade show floor and procured several sizable donations from companies like RightNow (disclosure: client), GetSatisfaction and the Pepsi Refresh Project (among others). She paid out of her pocket for the cards we printed and circulated. She was also a driving force in our CNN coverage for SXSW Cares and SXSW4Japan. We were also joined by Denice Crowell, who worked sacrificially to create banners and help coordinate on-site activities on the music track as the Interactive session came to a close and everyone began to leave. Denice was a tremendous help, and even drove us around when needed.

Looking back, I'm not sure what I did, but the best way to describe it might be cat herding: Liaising between the Red Cross, SXSW leadership, City of Austin, brands, media, donors, organizing impromptu panel discussions, writing copy, tweeting (as I could), coordinating with volunteers and coordinating media releases, promotions and on-site outreach. I remember any of this, however, so I can't be sure.

I do remember spending a lot of time. Waiting. Here.

The SXSW Leadership team called me Sunday and asked if we could organize an impromptu teleconference and panel to be held in place of the full keynote scheduled with Bill Keller, Editor in Chief of the New York Times. I don't have any video of that right now, but Deb, Rob and I rallied and we were very honored to do this.

Later we returned to the blogger lounge where we met up for a second time with Chris Noble who had been busy working to find donors as a tireless advocate for our cause. Laura Fitton joined him, and swung by to give us Samsung Galaxy Tab as a giveaway, courtesy of the 140 Conference. While we were working the lounge, we were asked to do an impromptu panel in the blogger lounge with Chris, Howard Greenstein and Drew Olanoff. It was a lot of fun.

As you'll note from the footage, Samsung's own, local SXSW team also kicked in a sizable donation to help our cause, as they watched us work feverishly together in the lounge. This was over and above the incredible pledge Samsung has made toward the devastated country of Japan. The Samsung team was awesome to us, along with their PR team from Weber Shandwick and we can't thank them enough.

On the 15th, the leadership at SXSW donating badges to award for specific donation amounts. Just prior to making an announcement in the lounge, I met up with Joseph Jaffe, author of the best-seller, "Flip the Funnel." As a prior advocate for fundraising for Haiti, Joseph generously volunteered (on the spot) to auction off keynote engagements with all proceeds going to SXSWCares. There's one remaining keynote being auctioned. The first one went for $15,000. Thank you, Joseph.

Over the days that ensued, we were actively promoted in posts, tweets and panels by an incredible (and impossible to count) community of smart people, including Brian Solis, Guy Kawasaki, David Meerman Scott, Stephanie Agresta, Drew Olanoff, Ann Handley, Mack Collier, Valeria Maltoni, Kellye Crane, Ekaterina Walter, Shelly Kramer, Beth Harte, Geoff Livingston, Kami Watson-Huyse, David Armano, Aaron Strout, Meghan Scibona and so many others I can hardly count. (If I forgot you, please forgive me, I'm only now catching up on things -- as well as sleep). In short, the collaboration and teamwork have been simply amazing.

On Wednesday the 16th, the Interactive types flowed out of SXSW and it was like someone flipped a culture switch. There was a totally different vibe at the convention center, at parties and meetings. We had been asked by the SXSW leadership to help extend our outreach to the music track. Unfortunately, Rob had to leave for the Non-Profit Technology Conference, so continuing with a lack of sleep and facing a dizzying array of opportunities and requests, we began working remotely together. So, it was truly a blessing to see people like Matt Curtis, Kevin Connor and Denice Crowell standing up to help drive band support, announcements, additional fundraising, on-site donation at concerts

Our team continued to promote our cause on the floor and with the media. With SXSW's help, we also set up a Red Cross/SXSW Cares booth at the large venue concerts at Auditorium Shores. We also partnered with the Mayor's office during the Mayor's Reception to kick off SXSW Music and did promotion on the KGSR Live Broadcast from the Four Seasons. By last Saturday (March 19th) morning, we'd raised about $83k for the Red Cross Earthquake and Tsunami Relief.

On Friday afternoon, I got an email from Hugh asking me if we could connect with Hanson Music. Zack, Issac, Taylor (Members of the Band, Hanson!) and Rebecca were organizing a live, streaming 12 hour (!!!) music telethon that featured some of the most awesome bands and artists at SXSW. Rob arranged to host the stream on our site, they announced at the Four Seasons and printed flyers and started the stream around noon on Saturday. It ran until midnight.

In the middle of doing press, packing to leave and nearly missing my flight, I only caught the beginning. I got in around 10pm and caught the end. It was really impressive. Steady stream of great bands and artists - all coordinated out of a small studio in Austin. Catching the tail end, I was delighted to watch Ozomatli tear it up -- and Ben Folds' customized "how to text the Red Cross" demo and entertaining musical antics.

Check out the Flickr set by the talented Jeremy Charles here!

Working with the Hansons has been terrific and the telethon proves both (proving both their resourcefulness and their talent) and we are delighted to have partnered with them in this endeavor. It was a big success, and went far toward our goal of uniting the music community around Japan and reaching our goal of $100k in online donations for Japan.

Note: Since the broadcast, we've been talking and we're happy to announce that we'll be re-streaming this broadcast (with a host of other little surprises) very soon. So, please stay tuned for more announcements!

So.... that's what's been happening here. It's so bizarre, looking back. Rob and I figured we could raise an easy $10k for the Red Cross. We hit that goal in two days. We just kept raising the bar, and people kept giving. Today, we're at $105k with an additional $35k in commitments. Incidentally, Our donation counter doesn't include the money raised via text donation to Red Cross at 90999. Those donations are received directly by the Red Cross and are difficult to track. However, we did hear from the Red Cross that last weekend alone (16-17th) the Red Cross attributed more than $400,000 in text donations as a result of SXSW4Japan.

Thats. Just. Awesome.

When I got home after 10 days in Austin, I was welcomed by the smells of home, the hugs and kisses from my attention deprived three year old, beautiful step daughter, my super supportive husband and our ever faithful, ball-obsessed Labrador Retriever. As I hugged them all, it was a sobering reality to consider how many people in Japan and other devastated areas are now deprived of such a homecoming. We have so much we can easily take even the smallest comforts for granted. My prayer is that God will prick our hearts and help us all understand.

We encourage you to give -- your time, your talents, your money. Do it wisely - as there are some parties skimming 15% or more off the top of donations right now! Please keep in mind that 100% of online donations go directly to the American Red Cross Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster Relief fund for Japan. As far as SXSW Cares / SXSW 4 Japan -- we're still taking donations online and will be making more announcements soon.

Again, to the team who has worked alongside me over the past 10 days, sacrificing their own time and resources, to raise funds for Japan - THANK YOU:

Rob Wu - CEO, CauseVox and Co-Curator of sxsw4japan / sxswcares
Deb Ng - Conference Director, Blog World Expo; and Social Networking Diva
Jessica Lin - Director of Strategic Planning, McCann Erickson; Community Manager
Natalie Petouhoff - Director, Strategy, Weber Shandwick and Corporate Donations Diva
Denice Crowell - Writer, CCH TeamMate and On-Site Coordinator for Concerts
Hanson Music/ 3G Records - (Zac, Issac, Taylor & Rebecca) for a masterfully coordinated streaming 12-hour telethon, incredible talent and fortitude
SXSW - Hugh Forrest and Kevin Connor who offered unparalleled personal and professional support, advocacy, promotion, displaying zero ego in the process. It was an honor working with them.
City of Austin - Matt Curtis, Communications Director, Mover, Shaker and Masterful connector and super nice guy
Red Cross - Nina Lior, Marty McKellips, Debbie Immel and Stephanie - you were all terrific and ultra responsive. Thank you!

Thanks also to everyone who tweeted, re-tweeted, clicked, donated, volunteered, wrote blog posts and offered words of encouragement to our team in this endeavor. Personal thanks to my family, especially my Cousin Lance Ray and his beautiful wife, Amy. They are two of my favorite people in the world and let me come in and out of their home at all hours of the night and day as their dogs barked protectively and woke them up. If I've forgotten ANYONE please let me know.

Winded, overwhelmed, blessed and grateful.

Me (Leigh Durst) with SXSW Cares / SXSW4Japan with Co-Curator, Rob Wu - Courtesy: Austin Statesman

The True Spirit of SXSW - The Genesis of #SXSWCares

2011-03-12T13:26:00.004-06:00

I'm admittedly behind on posting and I apologize. Lots of good work going on at Live Path, and travel has also beckoned. This week, I find myself at sxsw doing some client work and meeting up with some of the best and brightest minds in digital/interactive. However, I have found myself distracted and deeply saddened by the news from Japan. Turns out, I'm not the only one.

Early on Friday, I stopped into the Blogger lounge and met up with digital pal and Blogworld Expo diva, Deb Ng. We talked about how surreal it was carrying on our lives when people's lives were being literally wiped away in Japan. I told Deb, "We oughta start a hashtag - like 'sxswcares' and drive donations to the Red Cross." Deb loved the idea, and a movement was born. We began pushing people to text donations to 90999 (Red Cross) and planning our next steps. I reached out to media relations and the Red Cross and working toward getting a site setup. Buzz began to spread around the blogger lounge and we had tons of leading bloggers, PR experts, social media specialists and technologists spreading the news on our hashtag.

About an hour later, I heard from Jessica Lin about Rob Wu, who (in parallel) had started a #sxsw4japan hashtag and donation site on the same track as us. I asked him to meet me in the Samsung Blogger Lounge and pooled our resources, using his platform, CauseVox to build a website to direct donations to the Red Cross. It was such an awesome collaborative experience. It turns out that in addition to having the same terrible feeling when we woke up Friday - we'd both had training with the American Red Cross AND we had highly compatible skills. We decided to unite the efforts.

As I continued to talk to the Red Cross and write copy to tweak the website... Rob procured domain names and started with a new logo that we coerced Hugh McLeod (Gaping Void), to create on the fly. I wrote copy and got a finalized the partner agreement with the Red Cross for Rob to sign (running things through CauseVox) while Deb circulated and told people about the movement and stimulated some great buzz. We worked ambitiously all day and launched the sxswcares website (sxsw4japan) officially at 6:30pm.

Before we launched, we had driven the donations on our site alone from about $600 to about $2k in donations. In just 24 hours, we have generated more than $7k in donations. On Friday night, during interviews for the Statesman... We created some sxsw cares cards and are circulating them, and watched mentions in posts, articles and tweets at the hashtag #sxswcares skyrocket on Twitter. Since then, we've all continued to work proactively and inclusively in a joint initiative to drive support for Japan.

While we can't track text donations to 90999 - we are tracking donations on our site and working on corporate matching grants. We will surpass our goal of $10k - I'm hoping to double it. I hope you will help.

UPDATE - We are now over $12k in donations and it's not slowing down. More announcements from our partners tomorrow!

While we're missing out on panels, discussions and even a few meetings -- all of us involved here agree that this is THE MOST important work we may ever do at SXSW. In the true spirit of crowd-sourcing, collaboration, rapid, iterative design and development, we are excited about the future,

Blogger Outreach: 8 Tips for Managing Brand Promoters & Detractors

2011-02-15T15:59:00.002-06:00

Today, I posted an interview with Melody Overton, on the Marketing Profs Daily Fix. Melody is a non-profit lawyer who lives in Seattle. She has been running Starbucks Melody, an unofficial Starbucks fan blog since 2008. I met Melody in a recent twitter chat, and was intrigued to know more about her brand advocacy for Starbucks and her mission as a dedicated fan blogger. You can check out that article as a precursor to reading this one, if you like, but it's not absolutely necessary.

Lately, I've been talking to more than my share of companies attempting to deal with online brand detractors and fans - especially bloggers. After all, they're not all as positive as Melody. Without question, I feel the inclusion of the blogosphere in a Customer Listening Program is key to getting a handle on brand buzz. However, brands must do more than just monitor if they wish to encourage the efforts of brand evangelists, and neutralize (or even turn around) brand detractors.

Can detractors be turned around? Well, Right Now (a client - disclosure) reports that 92% of consumers said they would be willing to go back to a brand after a negative experience if they simply:

Received a follow up apology/correction from a supervisor/head office
Were offered a discount
Were offered proof of enhanced customer service

In a day and age where an average of 1560 people *may* hear about your customer experience failures, turning those detractors around can be a powerful thing. But going beyond detractors, brands must also consider the power unsanctioned brand promoters have today. We live in a post-Enron era, where consumer confidence is much higher for people than it is for brands. So, beyond neutralizing detractors, fortifying relationships with unofficial brand evangelists is should be a highly compelling focus.

I started thinking about how hard it is for many companies to know where to start when dealing with vocal, online, unsanctioned brand evangelists (and haters!).   Then today -- sitting in a hotel lobby, I came up with Eight Tips for Managing Vocal, Digital Customers. This places an emphasis on bloggers, intentionally, although there are plenty of vocal customers in many different social channels. I talk about some of those, too. While I'm sure it's not exhaustive, I hope it's a good start and that you'll add your comments and feedback.

1. Survey the Landscape.
Conduct an analysis of the unofficial blogs and other destinations that show up on Google, Bing and Yahoo where people are talking about your brand. You might want to dig several pages deep into the search results a bit, or use creative terms like " sucks" or "I love ". If you use reputation management software like Radian6 or Techrigy, this exercise becomes easier and more robust, allowing you can look at volume, traffic and number of mentions. You can even search for mentions by the same individual (by name or handle) across destinations, and identify trends for location, persona, sentiment, etc. As you find these digital hubs, you'll also begin to find your most vocal brand detractors and advocates.

As you survey the landscape, I recommend adding the blogs you find to an RSS Reader, like Google Reader. This will help you track and access these blogs in the future. Second, I recommend cataloging these sites in a comparison grid that records the name, link, number of pages, author information, domain information, contact information (and/or link) and many of the considerations I'll ask you to make below, so you'll have it readily available later on. Creating a private Google spreadsheet works well, especially if you've got more than one person working on the assessment, or if you want to share the spreadsheet:

2. Assess the Content.
Now examine the blog's content to assess quality, quanity, frequency of posting, activity and accuracy. Add scores for these items to your grid, if you like. If the site isn't graphically beautiful, don't assume it isn't influential. There are plenty of highly active, well trafficked ugly sites on the web. Read the posts (especially any "most popular" content, if it's available to you) and how frequently the author posts. Check out activity on posts - are there a ton of comments? How do the posts score on Google? Is the content syndicated on other sites, like Facebook or LinkedIn?

Most of the time, what you find on a site is merely speculation or criticism that may be otherwise present in traditional and digital channels. In these cases, it’s probably not hurting anyone and you'll be forced to ask whether any misinformation warrants your attention or not. If you do find significant misinformation, copyright issues or other infractions, reaching out first with a friendly, positive note or comment that addresses the misinformation usually goes far to remedy the situation. It also shows that your brand is listening and can help hold the author accountable in the future.

If you find a blog is giving out routine misinformation, stands in violation of copyright or trademark laws, or if someone has gotten a hold of insider trading information or sensitive information, it may be a serious problem. You'll want to address any serious problems with legal counsel, and resolve any leaks inside your company directly. As merited, the brand can push harder using legal means to correct the misuse of intellectual property or brand assets, malice, slander or misinformation that can negatively impact the brand..

By spending a little time, it's possible to sort through active posts for new ideas, trends, areas of specific concern or passion. This may stimulate new ideas, or draw the brand's attention to new areas for exploration. The blog's content may stimulate questions on the part of the brand, as well. For example, spending time looking through StarbucksMelody's blog, for example, you'll find a ton of comments and activities around Starbucks Mug collections as well as terrific feedback about the recent logo change.

3. Generally Classify Sentiment.
I'm not a fan of sentiment rankings using software because they rely on natural language queries that can be inaccurate. As you attempt to weigh sentiment, therefore, I encourage a lot of sampling, digging and reading. Many sites contain a "mixed bag" of feedback - and it's important to get a feel for the character and nature of each one in order to be fair minded about your future outreach or approach to them. Note the overall personality of the blog. Is it fun, irreverent, evangelistic, snarky or mean-spirited? How has it changed over time? On your grid, you can align the sites to a sentiment ranking on a spectrum from 1-5, positive to negative, adding notes and disclaimers as needed.

As you assess sentiment, you will also begin to identify individuals (authors, commentators) that are more active and vocal than others. Catalog these individuals on your grid is important, as well. While manually, it can be difficult to get an accurate handle on the most vocal -- but you'll begin to notice trends (both positive and negative) in tone and pattern over time. Using reuptation monitoring software can help you examine the content a single individual has left, over time and across digital "hubs". If possible, probe into their histories of the most prominent individuals with your company and find out about their past experiences with your brand. For example, if an individual is a high profile brand detractor who has been offended, and no amends have been made -- maybe there's room for relationship repair.

4. Examine Potential "Influence."
I was going to stay away from this term because of the way it is used and misused in social media circles today. However. influence, as a measure of how much of an impact an individual *may* have on your target audience, is exactly what we're trying to get a handle on here. Unfortunately, there is no magic tool or formula that will accurately tell you how much influence an individual may have - and an individual's influence is likely to shift and change over time.

Nevertheless, it's important to attempt to understand the following, level of engagement, voice and following a brand evangelist or detractor has. If an individual has started a blog with successful and significant following (as measured by traffic, social following, mentions, search engine listings), they're more likely to be more influential than say, a regular commentator on a blog. If they've successfully kicked off a movements, like a boycott or event -- or if they've influenced "trending" or created a "critical mass" of comments or activity on a digital hub, they're likely to have some influence. If they are a notable public personality or "friends" with notable public personalities, they may carry more influence. What you're trying to do here is determine who has more critical mass -- and potential influence for, or against your brand online. You can align an individual's potential influence rankings on your grid on a 1-5 spectrum, as well. Just keep in mind that influence tends to shift and change over time, sometimes very rapidly.

If you aren't using a Reputation Management tool, there are a myriad of free tools that can help you examine the influence of brand promoters and detractors. Check out blog traffic on compare.com or Alexa. See if there's an active Twitter or Facebook following but keep in mind that it's easy to "buy" followers -- and a large following is not an indicator of influence. Look for the level of mutual engagement the individual has with their online audience, and how engaged the individual's audience is. You can do this by looking for active dialog on the blog, as well other social sites. You may examine retweets (RT's), comments and mentions over time.

I'm not a big fan of using Klout to measure "influence," for a number of reasons. However, seeing if a brand detractor or promoter has a Klout Score is one way of examining how socially engaged a person is. An individual's level of social engagement may indeed be a greater indication of influence. Use all the tools at your disposal, plus your own common sense, to develop a high level understanding of how influential your promoters and detractors may be. This will give you a better understanding of the potential influence these individuals have, and help you prioritize your outreach approach.

5. Sort & Prioritize.
Examine your grid and add an "Action" and "Priority" column. Put notations on any site or individual that requires follow up with any critical issues that require immediate attention. Prioritize the rest and align the most appropriate response to each outpost or individual on the list. For example, your "Action" column may include next steps like "Contact Legal", "Send Friendly Correction Note", "Leave Comment on " , "Thank You eMail", "Make Amends". You may want to add certain individuals or blog sites (as some blogs have multiple authors) into a Campaign, such as a "Neutralize Detractors" campaign. You might want to "Add to Blogger Outreach Program", which brings me to my next point.

6. Plan Your Outreach.
A good blogger outreach program focuses on encouraging and fueling the activities of brand advocates while turning around or neutralizing brand detractors. It should not - and I repeat NOT - consist of merely adding the bloggers to the distribution list for your press releases or including them on a list of bad PR pitches that fail to consider their unique bent, interests or angle. The latter, in fact, is likely to make you the butt of a joke instead of the recipient of praise. Instead, a good blogger outreach program is heavily goal and objective driven, and sufficiently focused on both detractors and promoters, and is accompanied by measures that will help quantify outcomes.

Approaching detractors is best done on a case-by-case basis and is generally a very "high touch" activity. Before approaching detractors, it's essential consider that lending a brand's official response may elevate attention to a blogger's cause, and a poor response may escalate a volatile situation. Two examples of this include Amazon's recent response to a book for pedophiles as well as the "Motrin Moms" scandal. In some cases, a response is warranted and timeliness is critical - in other cases, saying nothing (or little) may be in order. In general brands often benefit by demonstrating actively listening and a willingness to positive and negative feedback, as Domino's Pizza Turnaround Campaign reflects. In some cases, however, some bloggers are proud of the distinction they have earned by being detractors, and have no intention of turning things around. There are a number of different cases to consider. This is why developing a decision and response tree that includes an escalated path for crisis management for dealing with detractors is critical to a successful outreach program.

Approaching brand advocates is certainly more happy business. In general, blogger outreach programs are listening focused, personal, transparent (to the degree that brands can be) and not overly "sell" or "self" focused can create healthy connections with brand advocates that generate even more positive and more accurate dialog. Giving bloggers a personal contact inside the organization (or an email address where they can ask questions) can create an open, healthy dialog that mitigates risk and allows individuals to conduct fact checks with the brand. Touching base periodically with bloggers makes it easier to spread the word about new developments, products and activities that are relevant to them. This can be done by email, phone, through online events (e.g. web conferences) and real-world events. Bloggers are always looking for inspiring new content to write about. However, it's important not to be perceived as hijack or control the content on a blogger's site and to always express gratitude for positive and negative feedback.

When it's appropriate, brands may also send test product or incentives to blog about. Larger brands have been doing blogger focused campaigns for years. For example, Ford's Fiesta Movement and Global Drive Event are two, highly popular campaigns. Just remember that such provisions (trips, perks, samples, product, etc.) must be actively disclosed by the bloggers based on FCC regulations.

6. Engage!
You don't have to wait for a fully initiated plan to engage with brand promoters or detractors. This is where common sense comes in. Working within the conscience and communications policies of your company, you might just consider dropping certain authors an email, or leave a comment on the blog. Thank the author for posts that properly represent the brand. Make your presence known! Your brand's participation doesn’t necessarily “endorse” the blog but shows you are paying attention and that you are engaged. This almost always lends credibility to brands with the engaged audience. You don’t have to comment on every post or piece of misinformation. Stick up for the brand and clarify when necessary but don’t dive into a hornet's nest of contention unless it's absolutely necessary.

7. Monitor and Measure.
As I've mentioned repeatedly, listening is key but measuring the success of your outreach program is also important. I'm a big fan of monitoring technologies such as Radian 6 and Techrigy as well as business intelligence and data mining tools like Clarabridge (disclosure, this is another client). Use social monitoring tools to keep an eye on the blogs focused on your brand. Take a deeper look at natural language trending to get a finger on the pulse of your extended community. Keep your grid updated, and be sure you're measuring outcomes, such as increases in mentions by topic, increasing positive mentions, detractor conversions, etc. Your individual measures should tie directly to the objectives you assembled for your blogger outreach plan and be as measurable as possible, and will be customized for your company based on your goals and objectives.

8. Learn & Respond!
Remember that while you may have your own channels and tools to measure the pulse of customers -- the people that gravitate there may not be the same people who gravitate to other digital outposts where your brand is discussed. Keep an open mind, open eyes and you just may learn something new, and be prepared to respond by adding something new, enhancing your experience, etc. For example, Starbucks recently responded to their vocal online and offline audience by making Wifi free. The action your brand takes will often speak more loudly than your words. There’s a lot to be learned from the free-expression of your customers on unsanctioned sites and blogs. You might be surprised at the ideas you find, and the new relationships you may build that can tell you something about your audience you didn't know.

So there you have it. Eight tips for dealing with Brand Promoters and Detractors, with an emphasis on bloggers... drafted hastily in the lobby of a Santa Cruz hotel. Your input -- additions, comments are most certainly welcome and appreciated!

Amazon and Social Business: #Fail

2010-11-23T13:46:00.001-06:00

My position on social media is pretty straight forward. I do believe that we face unprecedented opportunity today to strategically extend our businesses and improve customer experiences using emerging technologies. Digital and social media, including the web, mobile, tools and apps are an essential part of this. However, I don't view social media as an anathema, and there’s no one-size-fits-all formula for success.

We live in an era where 10% of web tasks fail completely (and I'd say that's a conservative estimate). The potential down-side of the 10% task failure alone is massive. When we add mobile, apps, social media and maintenance tools and attempt to manage the dynamics of authorization, privacy and user behavior, we are forced to manage brand new task dynamics that complicate not only stand-alone web execution, but how we do business within the cloud. Putting it all together and making it work (well) is a daunting task that is an ongoing, somewhat experimental journey for most companies.

How we will approach, harness and manage the channels and tools and the dynamics they create for users -- as well as within the enterprise -- is a real challenge for businesses small and large. However, regardless of the tools we use, there's got to be some clear picture of how they will be used --- BEYOND marketing and PR purposes – to strategically extend, listen, learn and respond to the people we serve.

This is a central theme in an article I posted today at Marketing Profs, which evaluates Amazon’s use and integration of social media. You can read “Why Amazon Doesn’t Understand Social Commerce” here. One of the key areas of examination in my research was using social media to identify and respond to “point-of-need” mentions, which are defined as individual mentions, comments, or messages that express an explicit or implicit desire for a brand's attention, consideration, action, or response on the open social grid. I believe getting a handle on these point-of-need issues and figuring out how to manage them effectively across channels is one of the best ways to latch on to social media success. After all, this is what people expect. For example, check out this this chart US Consumer Preferences for Company Use of Social Media from Customer Think’s July 2009 Customer Survey.

After spending almost 20 years in emerging media, I can’t help but reject a lot of the hype and misinformation that circulates today – and there is a LOT out there. At times, my neck hurts from shaking my head over companies positioning the use of emerging technology in a manner that is unfortunate and terribly short-sighted. What hurts the most, however, is when a brand I respect gets so big, it begins to sacrifice watching and listening on the altar of automation and efficiency. This destroys their ability to learn and apply critical thinking, damages customer relationships and contributes to the kind of business apathy and atrophy that destroys customer experience over time. That's why, if we care, we should speak up.

So...

While the Amazon article is a bit long winded in its analysis, contains illustrative screen shots, charts and analysis, completed with the help of my friends at Radian6. We hope this will help illustrate (not with surgical precision but as a base of consideration) the missed opportunity Amazon may be ignoring and serve as food for thought for other companies. It is my sincere hope that the ideas presented -- along with your commentary (please leave some!!) -- will encourage Amazon to reconsider its approach to the social grid!

Influence, Schminfluence. People Matter.

2010-11-08T18:33:00.004-06:00

Two years ago at an industry event, an executive from a major airline told me frankly the company would NEVER go live on a platform like Twitter. “It’s Pandora’s Box” the executive exclaimed as we sipped glasses of wine, "There's no way we'd be on Twitter." I felt my eyes widen as I responded:

I understand your concerns, and here's the problem with this thinking: “Pandora’s Box” is already OPEN! Conversations about your brand are happening, right now, without you on the social grid. You can stick your head in the sand like an ostrich, but will only be a matter of time before the audience will demand your response. Wouldn’t it be better to enter the discussion proactively? Will it take a crisis to drag you into the conversation? Can’t you see that these tools, like the Internet – have the potential to strategically extend your business – specifically in the area of Customer Service?

While my thoughts admittedly made a dent in this executive’s conscience – they didn’t make a dent in the company’s approach. Sadly, within a year, United Airlines was dragged into the open - totally unprepared - as Dave Carroll’s song, “United Breaks Guitars” became an overnight, viral phenomenon.

Prior to the summer of 1999, few people knew who Dave Carroll was. United Airlines did, but they didn’t seem to care – even though he’d been working to gain resolution on a customer service issue with United for almost a year. Dave had a band with a small following. He didn’t have a Top Marketing Blog listed in Ad Age’s Power 150. He didn’t boast more than 5,000+ Twitter followers or a kick butt Facebook Fan Page. In short, by current standards, Dave Carroll wasn’t an “influencer.”

United didn’t flinch when he warned them that, if he could not get satisfactory response, he would write a series of songs about United’s poor service and post them on You Tube for open consumption, votes and ratings. Perhaps United believe him. Perhaps they didn’t care because they were locked in the world of policy and procedure. Perhaps someone just decided that Dave Carroll didn’t really matter.

But boy, did he turn out to be influential.

It’s been a year and I’m resurrecting an old story by Internet standards. However, I'm doing so because I think Dave’s story illustrates some points about “influence” that many of the pundits in social media don’t seem to actively consider; primarily the fact that, in the present economy – and with a totally unstable level of predictability -- almost anyone can become an influential force overnight. Dave Carroll was an ordinary guy with a simple recipe:

A good story, artfully told
A clear plight or frustration that resonated with others
Access to / proficiency with You Tube and other social tools
Creativity and personality
Some good friends
A little dumb luck

So if we know this, why don’t we treat people better?

Today, I leave you with this thought, but I’m following up with another “People Matter” post. Until then, consider Dave's lesser known "Video 3" from the United Trilogy. For those of you who suffer from short attention spans, my favorite part of this video occurs at (:50 – 2:10 minutes) where he makes some good points about customer service:

Companies: How does your company treat people like they matter? How do you use market segment, CLV, influence measures to enhance the service or experience you provide?

Consumers: How do the brands you support make you feel valued and respected? How much of this is "going beyond the call of duty" vs. "providing a base level of good service"?

All: This "broke" Dave Carroll's career. So, what do you think of his (relatively) new, non-musical, customer experience venture "The Right Side of Right?" Check it out and weigh in!

Comfort Spaces and CX: Lessons from the Bathroom Blogfest.

2010-10-30T23:25:00.005-05:00

After reading my humor-driven posts on Bathroom Usability and Cottonelle on Crack, friends Becky Carroll and CBWhittemore asked me to participate in the “bathroom blogfest.” This year’s theme is “Mad Men: Bathrooms of the 1960’s”. You can read all it here, and access the Blogfests 30+ participants, as well! In short, it’s all about bathrooms and customer experience.

So I admit -- I'm the straggler. It's 11:30 pm on Saturday night, I'm just getting this post in under the wire. I’ve been on-site at a client for six days and have penned this first draft at an airport... However, I did ponder over this topic sporadically during the week. Here's the insight I drew from the writing challenge:

The architects and designers of the 1960’s knew how to use space, color and texture to create comfortable, luxurious spaces for relaxation and conversation. They used form, shape, color, pattern, texture and rich materials to create depth and warmth. They accessorized with over the top details and accessories. These trends are clearly seen in the bathrooms of that era – bathrooms that became more than just functional – but in escape from the frenzy of a pressure-filled decade.

Consider these images I found on Flickr last week (click to view the slideshow):

From chandeliers to mirrors, wood paneling to textural wall paper, granite to marble, luxury abounds in the bathrooms of the 60’s. Space was used creatively to establish zones for personal care, pampering and relaxation. Lounge seating was often installed. Traditional vanities and credenzas became more “furniture like.” Fixtures like chandeliers add a touch of glamour. Floor coverings like carpet and flokati rugs were brought in warm, luxurious comfort.

Perhaps this extra attention to luxury and comfort are why the bathrooms of the Mad Men Era were commonly called “Lounges.” Perhaps these reflect the needs of an unsettled generation, looking escape the realities of a pressure filled decade if only for a minute. At home, and in public places, restrooms became luxurious personal “comfort spaces” where people felt at ease, secure and free to relax and even converse.

These rooms were less focused on the perfunctory and became more about the emotional and physical needs of the people that used them. I think this is where there's a take away lesson for all of us managing Customer Experience today.

We live again, in an era of distress and turmoil. We also live in an age where we are bombarded by stimulus. We cannot count the messages we have to process, the things we have to do, learn, know and understand. We are overwhelmed by information, stimulus and the pressure to make decisions, and we must do so quickly as we attempt to manage the onslaught. As a result, the brands that make us feel even more overwhelmed, pressured, “sold” and pushed are more at risk of earning our ire, rather than our affinity.

Instead, creating “comfort spaces” where the people we serve can interact with our brands can be instrumental in capturing affinity and attention today. This principle transcends the physical environment, extending into the virtual environments in which we connect with and serve others. When we focus on the experiences people have, rather than how we will “push” our messages to the masses, we focus less on blasting people with selfishly-driven messages (which creates discomfort) to meeting people in a more natural, organic way. Here are just a few modern day types of comfort spaces:

Starbucks is perhaps the king of the Comfort Space, as a huge public proponent of the “Third Place” theory creates comfort zones online, too. “My Starbucks Idea” lets customers share ideas and desires in a way that helps them impact the business. It has resulted in many new product ideas and has measurably changed the way Starbucks listens and responds to customers.
The Choppe Shoppe and other men’s grooming lounges make male grooming and pampering a macho thing. Smiling stylists in chic wear hand patrons a beer while football broadcasts on the big screen, and copies of GQ and Car and Driver grace the chrome coffee table. Suddenly, "manscaping" isn’t so scary.
Home Depot and Lowe's both offer classes to help customers complete “do-it-yourself” projects without totally screwing up. These classes drive loyalty and can result in increased product sales.
Best Buy’s Twelpforce helps people of all walks of life make decisions about new technology purchases with a no-pressure sales approach. This comfort zone is driving sales and reinforcing Best Buy’s thought leadership.
Tirerack.com (while not the best site from a usability perspective) offers several configuration applications that help users select everything from replacement tires and wiper blades to new wheels and preview the items on a schematic of their own car. It makes purchasing really easy.
Caribou Coffee – My husband and I often take our 3 year old to Caribou in the morning. We can enjoy a coffee and catch the news on our Droids while our little one munches on breakfast and plays with high quality educational toys in the play area near the fireplace. They offer leather lounge seating and even a quiet meeting space that can be used as needed, or reserved in advance by work shifters (like me) and other groups.

From lounges for frequent flyers to clubs for frequent buyers.... there is no end to the types of Comfort Spaces we can create to serve the needs of our customers. From bricks to clicks, just what kind of comfort spaces are best to create depends on the unique needs of the audience, juxtaposed with the core competencies of the business. Keep yourself grounded in reality, combine the two, and opportunities can become very clear. Comfort Zones can be useful in helping people with:

Discovery
Learning
Product Selection
Transaction
Co-Creation
Service
Sharing

… and when Comfort Spaces are designed effectively, they are very useful in merging your brand with the lifestyles, rituals and habits of your target audience. Comfort spaces can enhance and support the customer experience at key points in the adoption continuum. And of course, they can also be instrumental in driving positive business outcomes.

Business has shifted, and business people must find ways to ease into the cramped headspace of others in a manner that feels less invasive and more natural, comfortable, and even personal across channels. From the traditional mediums of communication to new channels that can help us extend our businesses strategically into the lives of those we serve. Here's one example of that strategic extention at work in a bathroom. I took this today, just prior to my flight in a very clean, well designed bathroom at Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport....

Perhaps not a true "comfort space" but I loved the use of mobile here....

So, using thatbrooms of the 1960's as a muse -- name your favorite brand-driven comfort space. What does it do for you -- and how does it motivate you to do what's good for the brand? Are there any aspects of it that don't work? (E.g. the equivilant of the "flokati rug" in the space)?

Water: The Gift of Life & Blog Action Day

2010-10-15T09:41:00.013-05:00

I wrote about Blog Action Day yesterday to get things flowing as we come together to take action on a single topic: water. Our goal is to get clean water, safe water, enough water to under served people across the globe. Since it's Blog Action Day and not just blog "write about it for a day" or blog "make someone else do something day" I wanted to write about two things I am doing to take action.

1. Charity:Water

As I mentioned yesterday, my co-authors and I are donating 100% of the proceeds from the sale of Age of Conversation 3: Time to Get Busy to charity:water. This is a smart business book, great for your library or as a gift for business associates, clients, partners and friends. Because all proceeds are donated, purchasing it is a bit like giving two gifts in one!
I purchased my copy, and a few extras for friends. You can get yours in hardcover, paperback or for the Kindle. (Note - these are affiliate links and the affiliate proceeds are also donated! Image above courtesy of Charity:water)

2. GFA's Water Program

My family and I are long-time supporters of Gospel for Asia, which has a tremendous water program that is bringing life and hope to many across Asia. It's no secret that many villages do not have ready access to water, and people must walk miles to gather precious rations to sustain them each day.

While lack of water may be an availability issue - very often gaining access to available water sources is a larger one. Tribal, caste, feudal or even faith issues prohibit "unclean" individuals from gaining access to drinking water - whether they are men, women or innocent children. As a result, people suffer. GFA's Jesus Wells are established in the Spirit of their namesake. They are open to everyone - without discrimination. They often found near churches and become a center of communal life, and outreach, building bridges between peoples, supporting a better way of life, promoting economic growth and bringing hope to all who thirst. Here's some field video from a GFA photographer in Ragasthan, India that will tell you more (This is pretty long - from a conference, I think)

GFA's well program is one of the most efficiently run water programs around. Donate a well to a village for $1000 . Send a BioSand filter for $30 to a family, and help them purify polluted water. All of your money will go to the cause you select. There is no money subtracted for overhead, administration, marketing (etc.) because every GFA staff member raises his/her own support. GFA also employs native workers and uses native resources for its work, creating employment and economic growth in each country. Supporting GFA has been some the best money we ever spent. They even call to ask how we are doing, periodically!

Purchasing Age of Conversation 3: Time to Get Busy, supporting charity:water and GFA are just three places to take action today. If these don't line up with your vision, passion, faith or conviction, there are many other terrific charities on the Blog Action Day website. Take action today!

Blog Action Day - What Are You Thirsty For?

2010-10-14T10:46:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow, on October 15th, it's Blog Action Day - and thousands of bloggers are uniting to discuss one thing: Water. Our goal? To rally people to the cause, in a single day, to raise awareness, action and funds to help get safe water to the underprivileged and under served people.

Nearly 1 Billion people do not have safe water to drink? In fact, every day 42,000 people die for lack of safe drinking water - and 38,000 of those are children. In many countries, the scarcity and quality of water is a life or death issue. Water is a vital resource that is the cause of wars, strife and conflict that take many lives.

That might seem foreign to us here in the USA, where for the most part, we seem to have plenty of clean water. In the name of "healthy" and "convenient" we consume, on average, 200 bottles of water per year, per person. 86% of those bottles are never recycled. The 14% that are, require the consumption of 17 million barrels of oil per year to re-purpose. Imagine the funds spent on bottled water alone could do to support clean water projects all over the globe!

My point is this: It's time to get thirsty for the right things. Every one of us can afford to take some kind of action in the name of responsible stewardship. At a minimum, we can all make a difference in the areas of water conservation and follow the conscience we all to often ignore. We can do so much more together to support the delivery of clean drinking water to people around the globe.

I am happy to say I've teamed with my co-authors on the book Age of Conversation 3 to donate 100% of the proceeds from our book to Charity: Water. The Age of Conversation examines how the global marketing landscape is changing. The book features articles from over 300 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators and is rich with information on a variety of complex topics faced by business people in all walks of life. We're proud of the book, and delighted to supporting charity: water and the great work they do. Here's more about it:

Together with Change.org and the community of bloggers participating in Blog Action Day, we are encourage you to ask what you can do to make a difference, today. Here are a few ideas:

Spread the word at home, work, school & online.

Visit the Blog Action Day site help with fund raising and even sign or start new positions to support a charity supporting water related projects.

Tell your friends about Age of Conversation and help get the word out.

Purchase "Age of Conversation 3" knowing your funds are going directly to charity. It's available in hard cover, paper back and for the Kindle.

Participate in our "BUM RUSH" for Age of Conversation( Valeria Maltoni explains that here) to drive book sales and $$$ to charity: water

Donate to a water related charity of your own

Finally, if you're a blogger, participating in blog action day is easy. All you have to do is register on the Blog Action Day website and write a related blog post on the 15th. The site includes a list of helpful facts and water related topics you can write about, to get those juices flowing. Whatever you write -- do it from the heart! And if you're a fan of AOC3, consider mentioning it!

Beautiful things happen when beautiful people come together. Please join me and make your mark, as you feel led. I'll share more of my family's personal involvement with water charities tomorrow. ;-)

Engage or Strategically Extend?

2010-10-13T06:00:00.030-05:00

In the words of a former mentor, "Words mean things." This is really simple but profound if you consider how seldom we really weigh what we say. I think it's important not to take things at face value, which is why I previously tackled the charge to "Be Transparent" in a two-part post dealing with new levels of transparency in the business cycle. Last week, I responded to the lemming call to "Be Authentic!" addressing our need to instead embrace "authentic goodness." Now, I'm responding to another call I see regularly.... and the call is this:

"ENGAGE FOR SUCCESS!"

Raise the sword from the high horse and shout it loud as you lead the charge of businesses everywhere! This is the magic formula for success. It's not like it costs anything, right? Wrong. This statement has zero context. Engage in what, with whom, and for what reason?

I often see this blanket charge is issued by people (including someone recently) who employ formulas and follow schemes to garner a massive audience. They leverage follower numbers as a platform to try and establish "authority" or "influence" and broadcast messages out to a faceless sea of names in a manner that largely mirrors traditional one-way marketing. They engage in a largely unfocused dialog that leads to little and usually to demonstrate their own knowledge, self-promote or attempt to game some influence. They follow far more people than follow them back. They rarely respond to DMs, (although they spam people with them) and haven't had meaningful discourse with 80% of their network. Beware of these people - they don't understand business shift.

Any fool can employ a follow scheme and garner a massive audience overnight using bots and apps online - but without a plan, and decisive focus, it's a waste of energy.

ENGAGE WITH FOCUS

Engagement is one part art and one part science and it must be driven by a larger picture for how it engagement will drive measurable outcomes. Perhaps this is why brainiac Brian Solis dedicated an entire book to the topic of engagement. That's right, an entire book. In fact, a number of smart people have written about this. Whether your focus is broad and expansive or narrow and deep - - there's got to be a a plan in place clear goal, a set of measurable objectives in place guiding engagement.

A number of people have complained about Guy Kawasaki, accusing him for a lack of focus and taking him on for his methods on Twitter. Guy has garnered a tremendous following through his own reputation and effort, and by employing the use of follow bots, auto responders and not-so-ghostly support staff to manage communications to his network and manage tweets around the clock. I don't personally love his approach -- but I really do respect Guy - because he does have focus. His entire goal is to target (in his own words) "anyone who can click" - largely to drive traffic from all walks of live to Alltop   -- although this network is also instrumental in promoting his books and other efforts.  He's got massive focus.. and massive followers. He works in a direct-to-mass capacity --> and it works for him. My only caution for those watching is this: Guy's approach may work for a huge persona, or a mega brand -- but it's not likely to work well for the the majority of us in business today.

We can all challenge ourselves to employ better focus. Identify the audience(s) that matter(s), understand the needs of each audience, approach engagement with a plan, use the tools that help you communicate better and engage in a manner that emphasizes testing, learning and improvement. Most importantly, establish your reasons for engaging. Here are a few broad ones:

ENGAGE TO LEARN

If you want to build a network that will serve as a valuable resource, attempt to build a following of smart folks who will readily engage with you to answer questions and solve problems. They should dare to challenge what you say, probe with you, debate with you, give you ideas and promote you when you say smart things. This is true whether you are an individual learning from others, or a person representing a company whose goal is to harness the input of the masses to better inform your brand's customer. As you learn from them, celebrate their savvy and contribution to further bolster your network.

Engaging to learn means you'll be thinking, listening, probing, dialoging and debating as you fish for wisdom and insight within your interaction streams. It also means you won't be fishing merely within your own stream. Smart learners also mine available wisdom from other streams (related, competitor, etc.) using available technology and tools (disclaimer: both Clarabridge and RightNow are clients). After all, there's a focus group happening online every day -- and smart people can readily use the knowledge exchange to create, innovate, capitalize, grow, reach and extend more strategically.

ENGAGE TO SERVE

Business is all about people: People serving people. If you are not engaging in social channels to serve, you're not doing business well. Whether you're providing helpful knowledge, directing people to channels for resolution, or solving people's problems -- you will be called upon to serve others in social channels. Some of what your assistance may not even be your job. Some of what you do may not lead to a sale - but it should lead to affinity. When you behave in a stupid, insensitive manner, you may be called on the carpet, with ruthless public exchange on Facebook, Twitter or one of the thousands of websites, communities, networks or customer service portals out there. . Take a page from the winners or the losers: Serve first, or die!

ENGAGE TO SELL

This is placed intentionally at the center of these admonitions - because this aligns with the objectives you must have in mind as you focus.  When I sale - think of it this way.  Everyone is selling something. You might be selling your post, an ebook, a product demo, the menu of the day, or a product directly. That's why all of us should be able to drive measurable and meaningful transactions - from clicks to comments, cvisits to conversions, calls to foot traffic, leads to sales.You must master the art of the sale by presenting the right message, to the right person, at the right time - and that takes finesse and practice.  It also takes trust. So, outside of NOT assuming everyone wants what you have to offer, there's no magic formula, here. Leverage what has worked in the past but think outside the box. Experiment, measure and improve - and as you do, make this your mantra:

ENGAGE TO ENDEAR

Whether you are large or small, the goal of engagement is to endear the right audience, by providing value in a thoughtful manner. Contrary to popular thought -- this doesn't mean everyone will always like you, or that you should please everyone.  In fact, if we're being honest, for most brands - and even people - there's an aspect of acceptable loss in all relationship building efforts. However, in the shakeout, you must manage all relationships in a manner that leaves you with a pretty loyal group of followers who support you for what you bring to the table. If you play your cards right with your end-to-end experience, you may just find yourself emerging with a raving group of fans who will take a bullet for you - or at least brave the wait to buy your product.

ENGAGE TO MEASURE

By all means, it's okay to look at the qualitative and esoteric benefits of engagement, such as the friendships you have built, and their contribution and enrichment to your existence, how they make you feel.   However, it's essential to go full circle to and measure your performance against your plan and objectives using real data. Are you moving the needle, driving desired results? What trends do you see, and how can you boost results? What have you learned, about yourself, your competitors and your audience? What did it cost you? What did it take to manage it and, forecasting ahead -- what's it going to take to better what you've done in the future? How can this and how should this grow or change over time?

DRIVE SUCCESS BY STRATEGICALLY EXTENDING YOUR BUSINESS

In the end, our engagement must be about adding value and improving the experiences we offer. If we are not engaging in a focused and intentional manner: to learn, to serve, to sell, to endear, to measure... we may just be engaging for nothing. What do you say? Please Add your thoughts... links, etc.

Be Authentically Good

2010-10-04T13:43:00.011-05:00

You've seen it in conference presentations, tweets, facebook posts. You've heard it in discussions, webinars and conference calls:  It's the new mantra -- the new admonishment - the key to success for all of us developing the next great brand or the next great customer experience -- especially in social media circles:

"BE AUTHENTIC!!!"

Say it with confetti, fanfare... raise the pom poms high -- as I gag audibly ... Perhaps it's my mood, or the fact that I don't have time to write an overly sensitive post, but I have to call "foul!" here. The truth is this:

AUTHENTIC ISN'T ALWAYS GOOD!

When I have a bad experience, it's authentically bad. Perhaps the whole thing sucked.... or maybe a chain of experiences sucked.   I was disappionted. It was sucky ....and authentically ugly: None of it was "inauthentic" at all.

THERE IS PLENTY OF AUTHENTIC BAD!

If the experiences we offer our prospects and customers fail to authentically aligned to the values we claim to have, they've gotta be fixed. If you are on twitter auto following everyone, DM spamming people, and merely tweeting your press releases, you are making some authentically bad decisions. If you have a broken communications infrastructure where various departments aren't talking to each other -- you've got some authentically bad issues to deal with. If your customer service is flawed and you are breaking promises and creating ill will - it's authentically ugly to deal with. The good news is this -- you can choose to...

BE AUTHENTICALLY GOOD!

Authentically good people and brands understand ethics, boundaries, and how to build relationships based on open exchange, giving and reciprocity. Authentically good people and brands know that they won't always be perfect, but they can admit fault and fix things.  Authentically good people and brands don't rip off the competition -- they learn from the competition, and do things better. In fact, authentically good people and brands are working hard to "create better" every day.

WHERE ARE YOU TODAY?

Dump the "lemming speak" and focus your energy -- regardless of where you are in the pecking order of your company -- on being authentically good and doing authentically great work.  Speak the truth with love, produce your best, serve others well, think outside your box (and your comfort zone) and strive to make things better. The best brands alive are defined by the outstanding experiences they deliver. Make this your focus and you'll feel the difference. Your customers will feel it, too!

A personal post: On Consumption & Conscience

2010-09-22T10:22:00.000-05:00

Last week, I broke my pattern of business related posts and dumped my guts out on at This Mommmy Gig in a post about conscience, and how/if we allow our conscience to determine our patterns of consumption. This post doesn't belong on this site. However, many of the points I raised, about the power of consumers and our ability to destroy markets for the reprehensible... and create new markets for the praiseworthy is something that any marketer or business should pay close attention to. This is going to increasingly drive the marketplace within which we all function... and knowing how we will respond to concerns like the ones raised in that article is something to think about. You can check out the article here and I would really value your input and feedback. :-)

Social Media Celebrity - Infographic of the Day.

2010-09-10T11:25:00.007-05:00

While I'm sure there are some exceptions (and they probably wear superhero capes), I was ruminating on the subject of web celebrity today...while chatting with @Marc_Meyer on Twitter. We both expressed the delimma of being buried in the "real work" and not having time to be more active in the online and offline social grid.

So, I drew this up afterward. Does it make you want to laugh... or throw rocks at me? (click to enlarge)

Thanks to @geoffliving for reminding me that some of us go through intense periods of intense engagement.

Crossing the Social Divide: Assessing Your Current State

2010-08-16T14:07:00.011-05:00

In my last post, I reacted to the question "Who Should Own Social Media." I won't attempt to minimize this topic, as I believe there's a great need for discussion here. As a consultant in this arena, I'm currently helping two large clients put together different operational models to help lead and guide web and social business within the enterprise - and they're both doing it very differently. There's some rich discussion going on around the different operational models that can be applied to support digital media, especially in light of the subject of social CRM... and I hope to talk about these in future posts.

But first, Horse, Meet Cart.

While this is all very pithy stuff -- taking the issue of ownership without addressing the organization's need for a comprehesive understanding of (and strategy for) digital and social media is putting the cart before the horse. Good operational models (and ownership strategies) are designed to be facilitative, by nature. That is, they're designed to help the organization collaboratively drive desired business goals and respond to people's needs in a timely, satisfactory manner. So, when we talk about who should own the model -- and whether our ownership model should be distributed, centralized or coordinated, we are really trying to define an end result that should be an outcome of a solid strategy and tactical plan.

The most successful companies in social media have shifted emphasis away from tools and the issue of "ownership" to emphasize the experiences they are creating for various audiences in the digital space. These are the companies who are learning how to effectively extend their businesses in digital channels. They are the companies that are realistically and innovatively positioned for the future. These are also the ccompanies who are effectively managing to drive better outcomes. And across the board, they are the companies who are grounded in the understanding of their current state: they know where they are -- and where they are going.

Strategy, Smategy -- Let's Start with the Current State

While many companies think they understand their present state and experiences well, objective, third-party analysis often proves otherwise. I've encountered more than my fair share of companies that don't even have an accurate ready inventory of the digital access points (sites, apps, tools, etc.) they currently manage. They're usually shocked when they conduct a count -- and usually have to add a list of "stragglers" at some point - especially in the areas of "tools" that help manage and monitor digital, social and mobile media.

Beyond the numbers, this lack of grasp on digital media means these companies are highly likely to possess an immature perspective of the time and resources required to properly manage these properties, an unclear picture of who is managing them, and an unreliable set of metrics that will tell them how these properties are performing. This makes determining how to move forward strategically (much less in an "integrated" manner) pretty difficult.

Perhaps more importantly, many of the same organizations fail to understand the experiences people are having within and across these digital properties, and how those experiences drive business results and satisfaction. This includes the provision of "free" or value-add content (webinars, white papers, tips, etc.) to prospects, and allowing people to accesss purchasing or post-sale service and support.

To combat this lack of understanding, a current state assessment can be a highly useful tool. In short, this examines what we've built, how people are responding to the experiences we offer, and how we're managing things today and can consist of a number of tasks.

What Does a Current State Asesssment Entail?

As food for thought, here is a list of some of the exercises a Current State Assessment may include. Lest you be overwhelmed, think of this as a Chinese menu - you don't have to do it all -- just pick the right exercises to fuel forward progress. You can right size the work based on your budget and goals. Just make sure you keep the assessment of your audience's needs and experience at front and center of your activities.

Stakeholder Interviews (Because every department views the "customer" differently)
Digital Media Audit (High level assessment of the digital media footprint)
Heuristic Analysis (Profesional reviews of individual properties)
User Research (Interviews / Contextual Observation)
User / Usability Testing (Remote, On-site, Contextual)
Simple Segmentation (Focused on digital properties across spectrum of need)
User Personas (Including Technographics, Footprint Analysis)
User Needs Assessment
Competitive Analysis (Direct and indirect)
Operational Assessment
Market Analysis

With a clear understanding of our current strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and risks, a company is well informed to develop a grounded, future state vision. The company's strategy and long/short-term planning wraps around this vision, includes not only our go-to-market approach but an operational model and plan that will align and support the organization (owners and contributors) in delivering and measuring the digital experience. This fuels solid delivery and helps the organization collaboratively coordinate, plan execute, measure and improve digital media in an ongoing manner.

What Benefits do Current State Analyses Drive?

Objectively and unilaterally reviewing the current state can help drive the "aha" moments that pave the way to future success. In short, they make future state vision and startegy easier by helping companies realistically identify:

The true scope and nature of the digital undertaking
How the organization is handling digital properties across the company
How the digital presence meets the needs of the company's audience
The resources, time and investment that are required to manage the digital presence
Areas of inconsistency, inefficiency, weakness and shorcomings
Competitive and market opportunities that may exist
Results that can serve as benchmarks for future evaluation

As we gain this realistic picture of how we currently serve others, motivate desired behaviors and drive desired business outcomes, we become much more clear minded about our future approach, in a manner that is grounded by, but not limited to, the reality of the present.

Can We Develop an Objective Current State Using Internal Resources?

As a consultant who is often hired to bring in fresh perspective, usher in people-centric insight, I readily admit my own bias in answering this question. Having worked on both the client and consulting sides, I have found it difficult to manage bias on internally executed projects -- especially ones managed by a department or division within a single area of the business. The natural alignments and perspectives people have as corporate employees with various levels of "skin in the digital game" - makes it very difficult for internal resources to be objective across the board.

Again, what we're trying to do is look unilaterally at what we're doing across the organization and view it fairly and objectively -- and align resources to deliver better. To do this right, it's essential to neutralize bias - even the perception of bias. Otherwise we can undermine results as well as organizational collaboration.
While I do think that companies can be objective in some areas, and there are tasks that can be internally managed or collaboratively executed, I am usually a proponent of bringing in an third party agency or consultancy to help. I'm also a fan of using objective research methodologies to evaluate the current state, audience sentiment, and existing CX.

Contrary to popular opinion, this doesn't have to cost much, and doesn't require a huge team of resources. In fact, obtaining outside perspective can be a highly effective way to burst bias bubbles and bring business stakeholders into a more reality-based, aligned, collaborative state of mind. It's also a great way to break up "analysis paralysis" and "he said, she said" logjam inside the organization.

Weigh In!

Have you done a current state asessment on your digital media approach?
How do you balance your need to be tactical (execute) and strategic (plan/improve for future)?
How are you structuring to support your footprint?
When are you bringing in third-party agencies or consultants, where has support been most valuable?
Where do you insist on managing things internally?
How do you manage internal bias or "silo-based thinking" so that it doesn't compromise your digital experience?

Who Should Own Social Media?

2010-07-21T14:05:00.009-05:00

An interesting discussion started up yesterday during social media chat led by @marc_meyer and @adamcohen. You can catch the transcript here. While there was a ton of good discussion, one of the larger questions that came up was this:

Who should own social media inside the organization?

I hear this issue raised constantly. To me, asking this question is a bit like asking "Who should own the Internet inside the company?" This can only lead to more questions, like "What are we specifically are we talking about owning?"

The Infrastructure?
Supporting tools and applications?
Which Website?
Usability and IA?
The Audience?
Content? If so, which content?
Customer Communication?
Customer Service?
Marketing?
Policies / Governance?

In short, it 'aint that simple.

Approaches to website ownership vary from one company to another.  For one thing, in most companies, there are a number of web properties. There are also a host of supporting technologies, databases and shared services used to publish content or facilitate transactions on these sites.  So, rather than being centralized, web ownership is almost universally shared. Web management responsiblity is also dispersed across a number of "executive owners" and aligned, from a task perspective, across an array of functional and technical stakeholders.

The same principles hold true for Social Media.

Especially in larger organizations, it's unrealistic to assume all digital media channels will be centrally "owned" by a single entity or department. There are too many moving parts. This is especially true when one considers the nature of social media, the dynamics of applications and tools, the broad scope of their application and their capacity for exponential expansion. So, there's no canned ownership answer to the ownership question; no "one size fits all approach" to managing social media that will work for every company.

While many of us will offer a compelling argument for centralized oversight, accountability and governance, reality is usually quite different. In fact, the companies that really "get" social channels will have many "hubs" of social business activity -- and dispersed involvement and ownership - just like the "traditional internet."

But isn't the CEO ultimately the owner? What about the C-Suite?

Without question, the CEO is accountable for delivery and performance within digital channels. But what does establishing this really do?   When we talk about the nitty gritty aspects of ownership -- like providing real thought leadership, strategic direction, setting expectations and goals for performance, driving organizational participation and awareness, and coordinating delivery -- the CEOs of most organizations are challenged to deliver!  These areas are typically where most companies need the help.

So the CEO relies on the C-suite. The challenge is, the C-suite is too busy reactively managing organic growth in digital media, pertaining to their individual areas of responsibility. This is why there's often poorly aligned leadership, coordination, competency, organizational collaboration, metrics and delivery of targeted results.

While most of us would agree that a strong, '"top-down," strategically driven, leadership approach (and solid strategy) would be ideal, this is far from the reality in most companies today.  Without question, there needs to be executive led strategy and strong ownership in the C-suite... but it's a mistake to create the impression social media owned by a single person.

FWAP!! (This is where reality slaps ideality in the face)

While there may be a few outstanding organizations that have phenomenal top-down leadership in the area of digital media (especially in the high tech space), it's the exception to the rule.  What's more common is a bottom up approach to managing digital media. Perhaps this sounds familiar:

...Select individuals within the company realize the potential of new channels and begin develop new digital outposts and properties. They may do this in a manner that is accountable to leadership, but there's typically not a cohesive strategy in place and there are often multiple pockets of activity - each with different lines of accountability.  These early-adopters are typically under resourced, under appreciated, and sometimes under cover in their efforts... until they achieve success. When this happens (by art or incident), they gain a new level of credibility, turning executive heads and garnering executive support that may have been previously lacking. Then, (tadaa !!) they're suddenly in the spotlight, speaking at social media conferences and expected to have answers to every question...

In some companies this leads to social media's transformation from the "ugly, red-headed, step-child" to the "prom queen" overnight. Worse yet, because the tools are accessible, cheap (or free) the explosive interest in social media often sets off more unchecked development and experimentation across the organization.

Perhaps "How do we get this under control?" is a better question to ask.

If it's true that roughly 80% of companies are actively engaging in social media right now - we're already behind the eight ball on a "top-down" leadership approach. If this is true -- most companies aren't starting from scratch! Their social media efforts have grown the way Internet sites did:  organically, often within silos, originating from either the bottom or mid-level up, and typically without a ton of executive oversight.

While this has led to some incredibly successful and promising social media efforts, the organic growth and scattered ownership has also led to the development of digital channels that may be collectively described as:

scattered
silo driven
narrow or limited
not collboartive across departments
difficult to coordinate
redundant
questionably focused
questionably valuable
not well integrated with other properties
difficult to measure and justify
not strategically driven

In truth, the train left the station awhile ago.

There is no easy way to seize ownership or control as it chugs down the tracks. In truth, most companies are doing well if they manage to run along side runaway social media in an effort to mitigate risk and keep pace with the level of proliferation and change. In most organizations, even with savvy, early adopting leadership at the helm, success is found in silos -- many people are playing catch up... and there are plenty of people who are totally in the dark. So, even when a core group "gets it" there are still many practical challenges relative to mobilizing and coordinating solid, organization-wide delivery and service within digital and social channels.

Before enterprise steps in to "own and control" it needs need to make sure it knows how to drive!

One of my current (very large) clients has over 50 digital media properties (no, this is not a joke). Out of this mix, I'd guess that maybe 25 are websites in various forms...from the main, branded corporate site to product sites, channels, lead generation and microsites, audience-specific sites, support sites and everything in between. Then they have a number of different, audience specific Twitter Channels, several Facebook Fan Pages, multiple YouTube Channels, Slideshare, and other stuff.

There are many different owners and even third parties involved in the development and maintenance of the company's digital media presence, from marketing, sales, development, support, product, customer service and everything in between. It all grew organically, and exponentially in a short period of time, with little executive oversight. There are incredible pockets of knowledge, experience, insight and core competency here, and there is a strong sense of ownership aligned to various properties.

As a consultant tasked with helping the organization streamline the digital media footprint I have been challenged to help this client figure out how to create more accountability, reign in development and drive better results within various properties.

Asking "Who should own social media"isn't really productive or conducive to progress.

It would be absoutely foolish of me to come in blathering about centralized ownership. It would only result in stakeholder resistance and discussions that get personal, tense and politically charged. This approach could very well lead to stakeholder rebellion as the various owners assume that we (The executive sponsor I serve, his team and myself) are trying to take away ownership, control, "call their babies ugly", slow them down, tell them how to do their jobs, destroy their innovative spirit, kill their time-to-market.... or insert a relevant complaint or expletive here...

We must shift the conversation.

To provide pithy, useful answers about ownership, I assert we need to first to get very real about what we'er doing, and figure out how to collectively drive digital and social media to the next level. In my next post, I'll offer some practical recommendations for this but first...

I want to know what you - my smart, insatiable readers think. What's your reaction to the "ownership" question? What has been your experience? What's your response to this (rather hastily assembled) rant? I'm all ears!

CMO JOE AND THE DM SPAM - Part 2: Joe Speaks

2010-05-20T09:48:00.002-05:00

If you haven't read Part 1 yet, it might be a good idea. In short, last Friday, I was DM'd a self-promotional book message from a CMO of a major corporation, which led to some twitter discussion on DM "Spam" and the way this high profile personality handled things. I've assigned him the name "CMOJOE" because frankly, I don't thrive on conflict or picking on people (and this is not the point anyway).

Interested in hearing his perspective, I politely tweeted CMOJOE a third time on Monday morning, mentioning a post I'd considered writing. This time, almost two hours later, I got a DM response. After a few DM's and some phone tag, he asked me if we could talk in person.

It's always interesting adding voice to an online persona. CMOJOE was bold and direct. While initially, I found him a bit defensive, perhaps he expected me to be hostile or write a scathing personal attack. In time, however, our tone became more upbeat, and instead of mutually interrupting each other with negative assumptions, we started banging around thoughts and input.

In a very direct fashion, CMOJOE made his position on the DM very clear to me. His opinion, as summarized is this:

When we follow people, we give them permission to DM us.
Direct Messages work - it's been proven time and again
A single DM is not the same as "spam" which he referred to as "repeated" (unpermissioned) messaging
His position has been adamantly against Auto DM, although he admits to conflicting opinions about its use -- as well as the potential value and benefit improved DM messaging tools might have in the future
He did not use auto DM tools - He manually pasted 3 different messages into individual DMs, over a 3 day period (to a list of about 21k followers)
He has no recollection of being a member of the FB "I Hate Auto DM's on Twitter" Fan Page
The positive response far outweighed the negative: Hundreds of congratulations, thousands of books sold and only 17 people offended from his follower list.
He responded personally via DM to most detractors and spoke a few by phone.
It is very easy to take his responses out of context - especially responses to some very rude, personal assaults, and fragments of threaded 140 character messages
He supports and welcomes open dialog and debate
In the end, people who don't like his answers are welcome to unfollow him
In retrospect, we can all do things differently - That's how we learn.
If he could do it over again, he would - but he would would adjust/improve his message.
In the end, his excitement trumped caution - He admits he was "really excited" about his book's success and wanted "to tell everybody"

It was a good discussion. I didn't agree with his angle on all points but I appreciated his candor. I found him to be a good match to my own energy level, frankness and intensity. While he defended his position in a largely unapologetic tone, he did express some regret for offending a few people with his message. He also asserted that the majority of those who are complaining, including those "polled" in subsequent blog posts were not on his Follower list.

We talked about South Dakota and continuing some brain hockey around dinner sometime, and that's pretty much how it ended - on a friendly note.

I'm trying hard to be objective with this. The truth is, whether you or I agree or not with CMOJOE, there's a lot of fodder for discussion in CMOJOE's case. Here are a few things that jumped out to me:

1. IT'S NOT ABOUT THE TOOLS
CMOJOE underscored that he did not use an auto-bot to tweet DMs to his follower list. I'm pretty sure people's issues were related the content of the DM itself, rather than the means of delivery. Tools can be an issue when they fail (e.g. sending duplicate messages to same account), but it is primarily the messages we that we're judged on. Our messages are always interpreted within the contexts of our relationships. The value we place on our audience is inherently attached to our communication. Even though CMOJOE didn't use an auto DM, his message felt mechanized. In the words of one tweeter "If it looks like spam, feels like spam - to me, it's spam."

Even if he had chosen to used an Auto DM tool, the outcome would have been the same with that message because it created a perception for some people of spam. Even if, in the future, DM tools mature to enable segmentation and testing, so our messages are sent with more care --> they'll still just be tools. They'll never accurately interpret the "context" of our relationships, they won't write messages for us and they can't replace common sense.

Bottom line: Avoid the illusion of spam! Nobody wants to talk to an auto bot. Make sure your messages, regardless of delivery engine, do not undermine the personal nature of social channels.

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE "RULES"
While technically, I understand where CMOJOE stands on the topic and rules of opt-in and spam, I believe he placed undue emphasis on this issue. I may have opted in for DMs when I followed him in return. However, as CMOJOE admits, the rules for social engagement are still evolving. The old definitions of spam applied to email don't map neatly to new channels - just like there's no magic formula for the size of a blog post. So, while the "rules" may permit to DM your follower list with solicitations, social ettiquite may suggest otherwise. In the end, it's all about who follows you, and how you handle it.

Using DMs to self-promote requires a lot of thought and care -- because it can really turn folks off. This is really important to consider in the age of transparency, because offending the wrong people can be incredibly damaging - and news travels fast! It's not about the size of the audience... it's about influence, voice and tenacity. Fortunately for CMOJOE, there doesn't seem to be any significant collateral damage - other than managing responses, which had to be a time sucking effort - and the good seemed to outweigh the bad.

Bottom line: Don't let "rules"dictate your approach - let relationships. Message others in a manner that builds and preserves trust and relationship.

DON'T GUSH IN A RUSH
CMOJOE admitted he was excited and busy. Frankly - if my book rose to the top at Amazon, I would be stoked, too. In truth, whether we face a deadline, we're time starved or just rushing -- every single one of us, on Twitter, Facebook or other channels.... in a moment of haste, excitement or even momentary poor judgment, can inadvertently say or do the wrong things. We can't always delete tweets, posts, profiles and/or affiliations we've made - because it's probably been seen -- it's out there in some version, somewhere. You might get lucky and dodge a bullet or find that others are watching more closely than you thought. In any case, we deal with the consequences of our haste. We must ready ourselves for the scrutiny of the crowd, with the knowledge that people can often be unfair, overly personal in their critique.

Bottom line: Stop and think: It's not necessary to be paranoid. It is a good idea to take a breath and ask a couple questions BEFORE sending out any self promotional solicitation:

Is this the right thing to do?
How would I feel getting this message?
As the recipient, what would I do with this message?
Does this compromise another individual, violate trust or open doors for misunderstanding?

RESPONSE DRIVES RESOLUTION
If CMOJOE hadn't gotten back to me, and offered to call me personally and taken the time to follow up when he failed to reach me the first time, I'd simply have a lower opinion of him. Responding to constituent concerns in a reasonable time frame is key to managing delicate situations and diffusing any crisis.Whether we agree with the opinions or actions others take -- every detractor presents an opportunity to openly show ourselves to be gracious, open, thoughtful and responsive. Every response is an opportunity to further underscore -- and help people understand -- our position.

To some, CMOJOE may seem like an ego-centric self-involved promoter (I received some tweets that speak to that). Let's be fair, though: He is also a busy executive who was in the middle of a resignation, a press junket an an onslaught of messages (email, social and otherwise). To his credit, he took time to respond individually and subjected himself to open debate with a crowd that at times got personal (and his responses were sometimes brusque and equally direct). However, regardless of whether people agree or disagree with what he did or how he answered challenges -- or whether or not people think his choice of using a DM to promote his book makes him a hypocrite ---> CMOJOE did himself a great service by putting himself out there and responding proactively.

Bottom Line: Taking time to listen and respond proactively underscores your respect for people and relationship. Assuming this position helps diffuse conflict, breeds respect and provides a sense of resolution for detractors. Ultimately, people want to feel they've been "heard" - and once they do, they're more likely to listen.

MINIMIZE RISK WHILE YOU MAXIMIZE RESULTS
I've heard it argued that alienating people is wrong -- that it won't produce positive outcomes. Not only is this a gross generalization, the assertion flies in the face of the truth that there are many, highly offensive and tremendously successful people out there. Consider polar opposites Glenn Beck and Ariana Huffington. They have both offended their share of people. Consider Steve Jobs! CMOJOE isn't even a polar personality, by comparison. The truth is, when we engage with people in any medium, we run the risk of alienating people. Ultimately, we're all managing risk in that regard - and while we minimize that risk, we need to maximize the reward -- both for our followers and our "brands."

Looking at CMOJOE's case strategically, his direct goal was to drive people to buy his book. His related objectives may have included using Twitter to inform X people of the book's success, motiviate X followers to spread the message, and build X amount of buzz in the Twittersphere to support the pending announcement of departure from "Big company". Whether that's 100% accurate or not is not the point -- it's an illustrative example to show that, judging from his own calculations, CMOJOE had his eyes on the prize. This is something many of us in social channels are curiously shy about!

Bottom Line: We don't work this hard for nothing. Instead of being afraid of not alienating anyone, we should place our emphasis on fostering loyalty and response with the right people, and measuring our outcomes against established goals and objectives.

In summary, CMOJOE don't see everything the same way, but like him, I'm open to debate and try to be fair minded. Thank you for honoring me by reading this second part of the series. If you have a moment tell me: What do you think? What other lessons or insights can be extracted from this situation? Lemme have it!

(Note: Again, please use care in your comments. I try to treat others as I'd like to be treated and have decided not to name, or link to the "real" CMOJOE. If you know him, just call him Joe. Thanks!)