Posted via web from studionumber9’s posterous

Posted via web from studionumber9’s posterous

Posted via web from studionumber9’s posterous

I think it’s partly human nature, for some of us at least, to want to be right all the time. Heck, that trait has almost cost me dearly on a few occasions. But knowing when to raise a hand and spout “mea culpa” is a vital part of building strong relationships in today’s “eyes-on-me” world of real-time communications.

Here’s an example:

This past week, a friend of mine brought me out to see a favorite artist of his, Andrew Bird (side note: is there a more entertaining musical individual out there right now? I’d put him up against almost anyone) and in the very first song that he performed, at probably THE musical climax, the most embarrassing thing that can happen to a singer in front of a packed house happened… he f**ked up the lyrics.

True to his professional reputation, he pushed through the verse and into the instrumental break. During that break, he took the opportunity address the crowd and admit his fault. Immediately thereafter he turned his back to the crowd and hung his head, seemingly in shame.

You know what happened next? The audience burst into applause so loud you couldn’t hear the music. Their musical hero was human and they loved it.

Now, this is an extreme example and obviously Mr. Bird was in a place filled with worshipers in the first place, but the effect of dealing with a mistake appropriately is something that can produce dramatic results and really that should be the objective.

It’s a simple thought really, a vital part of being successful in social media is being authentic. Whether you’re an individual or a large company being represented by individuals, people want to be able to relate to you. Nothing helps people relate like seeing that you make mistakes just like they do. The difficult part comes when you have to decide how to deal with those mistakes. These decisions are especially important when a member or your community has been the recipient of the short end of the stick because of something you said or did. When confronted, some people tend to react quickly in a knee-jerk style that will inevitably make the situation worse. To try and help with times like those, here are a few suggested steps that might be useful:

• Breathe: Take a step back. If you can, approach the situation as if you were a 3rd party. Re-read or re-live what happened to get you to the point you’re at currently at and allow all the information to sink in. If you have the means, maybe even ask a third party for their unbiased opinion.
• Listen first, talk second: Most likely, the person(s) you’re dealing with are passionate about what you’re discussing. Let them know you want to come to a resolution and allow them to state where they’re coming from without getting defensive.
• Common ground: Once you’ve heard what they have to say, proceed to try reach a solution to satisfy both of you. Or, if it’s clearly your fault, make amends.
• Keep it real. And keep it public.: Perhaps one of the most important things you can do is keep the issue public, if that’s the way it started. Like it or not, you’ve got an audience for the whole thing and going off-line for a resolution deprives them from seeing what kind of approach you take to getting there. This is a key chance for you to show people what you’re made of… use it wisely and use it to your advantage.

Having a mistake or fault brought to light in a public manner is never comfortable, but it is a significant chance for you or your brand to turn those involved (and those observing) in enthusiastic brand advocates and fans.

So don’t be afraid to be unperfect.

Agree? Disagree? Have other thoughts as to important things to keep in mind when dealing with this type of situation? I’d love to hear it all. Leave comments here or get @ me on twitter

Currently working with design legend and all around bad ass Austin Howe on getting the word out about his new book Designer’s Don’t Read, preaching and practicing some interactive and social media strategy with Matt @ Factory 25, helping out Pascal @ booquet, cranking out ridiculous iPhone apps with Kyle from Big Sprocket and just accepted a post as an associate editor (as well as photographer and writer) with melophobe.com ( @melophobe ). Honestly, I think I did that more to remind me what to do tomorrow than to tell you all whats going on.

OK, back to the point of this post. I was discussing a social media strategy with Matt from Factory 25 today and he asked if there was a good rule he should be following on twitter for the ratio of personal content to content relating information about his products. There are a ton of posts about twitter’s golden ratio being friends to followers, but isn’t the real golden ratio to be found in the ratio of the kind of content you’re putting out?

My first reaction to Matt’s question was to recoil in horror. OK not horror, but I’ll admit it hurt a little. I hated to think that something that I feel is so organic and based on relationships could have a “golden rule.” I mean it’s all about conversations and not campaigns right (thanks for that @mzkagan)? Be genuine and passionate about what you’re talking about and good things will happen. Surely this is more art than science right?

I’m sure there will be both scientific and go-on-your-gut approaches to this question, but before we go that far we really need to define the kinds of content a little further. Matt originally thought that there were two kinds of content, marketing his goods and relaying information. I know some reports have broken twitter content down into 20 or so themes, but really that would make for one messy ratio. To make it easier, lets say there are three kinds of tweets, ones that are:

1. marketing something (even if it’s yourself)
2. relaying relevant & interesting information
3. expressing personal feelings or things unrelated to what you’re marketing and having conversations

Even writing that I realize that if what you’re marketing is yourself then 1 & 3 are pretty much the same thing, but for the rest of this post, let’s assume that what’s being marketed is goods and not personal services or a personality.

While I haven’t done any solid research on the subject, my initial response was to try out a ratio of 1 (marketing someting) : 2 (relaying information) : 2 (personal & conversational). Going on the idea that even on a heavy day Matt would probably be posting 10 tweets, that would mean two of them were product related, four were industry/entertainment related and four were personal & conversational.

Would love to hear other kinds of crazy math pertaining to this subject…

Until this past week.

I was talking to my buddy Kyle, Head Geek @ BigSprocket and founder of LetsTalkiPhone.com, and mentioned that someone should make an iPhone app that lets you interrupt or talk trash your friends and coworkers in the *ahem* style of Kanye West on the VMAs. Well wouldn’t ya know it, Kyle thought it was a funny idea and we started tossing thoughts back and forth. 48 hours later, our first collaboration was submitted to the app store.

I’ve been lucky enough to work with very good creative developers in my time and Kyle definitely fits that description. Not only were we able to both concentrate on our own tasks and push stuff back and forth to each other at a fever pitch, but we could openly let the other know when something needed to be addressed and know that it would get done quickly and with quality. Gotta love it that feeling…

Kyle’s product page is here and once the (frustratingly slow) app approval process is complete you can find it over here.

Let’s face it, the answer is no. Great marketing move? Yes, but I want more.

I want an embedded cochlear audio player. Put that thing in my ear.

Make it 3G based (with easy firmware upgrades via the same network or via bluetooth from my laptop, so i can support the latest high speed networks). Let me stream my library or favorite service wherever I go. Make it respond to voice commands. No, better yet… thought command. Maybe have it automatically select songs depending on visual input or give it an accelerometer so it knows when I’m running and will play the theme from Rocky and not the John Denver & the Muppets Christmas album (I have a 2 year old ya know…).

I will sign up for this. I’ll even pay for the procedure out of pocket.

Does this exist? I can’t find it.

This series of sites, developed for Regence BCBS, was intended to show that the efforts of one individual can in fact have an effect on the cost of health care in today’s world. Through a series of movies and games, the user is asked to make decisions and unearth information to help them to become more informed patients and consumers.

The campaign also features a social media campaign, out of home, print and video.

roles: concept, producer, strategy, social media

A key ingredient in being truly happy and successful in your job:

Be you.

Being an unemployed advertising professional, I’ve been spending a lot of time looking around trying to find a company I’d like to work for rather than looking for a job description on a job board. I figure this is probably a good way to find a place that has an attitude that fits mine and that will allow me to be me. Sure this may be a “best-case” scenario and yes, I’ve been shot down or ignored by some of the companies I’ve approached, but I’m fairly sure at some point something will shake out and both myself and the company will be better off for it.

Let me back up… here’s a little background on me:
Work for me isn’t 9-5. I take it personally and being myself is paramount. I have ideas, lots of them, and they come at all times of the day and night. I also tend not to quit on something until I’m satisfied with the result, regardless of the hours it takes to complete. These traits can make it hard to maintain a personal life but generally make for something I can show people with pride. Ideally, in order for me to be firing on all cylinders, I’ve got to believe in what I’m doing and know that the people I’m working with have confidence in me to get it done. I’ve been lucky enough to work at places that fostered this kind of attitude and I’m determined to find a place like that again.

It’s amazing the impact it can have when someone believes in you.

Moving on…

It probably applies to every profession, but in advertising especially, it seems that feeling comfortable in your surroundings and being able to “think out side the box” without fear of feeling like someone is cocking an eyebrow in your direction and secretly calling HR when you leave the room is fairly important. If you don’t feel comfortable expressing yourself then you’ll never be able to blurt out that idea that doesn’t fall in line with the rest of the pitch. You know, the one that you’ll have to fight for in the client meetings, that’s also the one that will turn their company around and keep your agency afloat.

Now, let’s take this outside of advertising for a minute.

Imagine you’ve got a production line or a machine shop. You may not necessarily care if your employees feel comfortable being themselves or expressing ideas as long as they can man the position for 8 hours a day and your product is being shipped out.

What if you encouraged the employees on your production line to be creative and come up with ideas? Once a month you gathered them to get feedback on what you could do to improve things. Not a bitch session mind you, but a time when someone could state a problem providing they also proposed a solution. What if one of your workers thought of a way to streamline your production by 15% and the only reason they thought of it was because they were manning your production line and not supervising it? In a normal production scenario a line worker would probably dismiss the idea and go home to dinner, but if individualism and expressing himself is encouraged from the onset of his or her employment, the situation may change and SHAZAM your business becomes more profitable over night.

Makes sense doesn’t it? It certainly does to me.

I would want my employees to be individuals, to think differently than everyone else. It can only lead to good things.

So when I come across a page that suggests how I should look & act when meeting with a company, I tend to recoil like someone just gave me a purple nurple.

Certainly some of the suggestions make sense (look sharp, be on time, know your own resume, etc.) and to some, maybe even all of them make sense. After all you’re applying for a job at THEIR company right? You should fit into THEIR mold.

But what if I don’t have a strong, firm handshake? What if I talk too much? Or I don’t talk enough? Maybe I’m not a guy who sends thank you notes. That certainly doesn’t mean that I can’t turn your sales group around.

Doesn’t this also kind of defeat the interview process? If everyone does the same thing, hits the same marks, dresses the same, how can you determine who you really want to hire? Isn’t HR just making their own job harder?

I’m fully aware that not every position requires innovation (and certainly not everyone wants to be an innovator), but I don’t know of any company that wouldn’t benefit from people who think like innovators.

waking up 20 minutes or so from niagra falls was awesome.

walking out into a side-ways rainstorm was less awesome, so we decided to just hot-foot it towards massachusetts.

a few things learned crossing the country:

• i’d immediately go back to: omaha, deadwood and yellowstone.
• i wouldn’t go back to but am glad i saw: custer state park, the badlands, s.e. oregon
• i won’t go back unless paid to: idaho
• surprisingly enough, the best part of the drive was cruising through northern nebraska on route 20. no construction, no traffic, no speed traps.
• the worst part of the drive: highway 90 from NY to Mass. construction everywhere, costs a fortune (paid tolls twice in 3 miles) and the drivers are as you’d expect them to be in NY and Mass. keep your head on a swivel.
• neely loooooves livestock.
• cole is a bit of an exhibitionist
• gas is expensive everywhere
• candy can make the difference between misery and happiness
• cheap hotels are no longer cheap
• benoit is pronounced differently everywhere
• chicago has too many people in it (says larry the valet)
• sitting in the front of a cruiser is kinda fun, i can see why cops like it
• cops that laugh while giving you a ticket are worse than cops that are @holes while giving you a ticket
• music is my muse and broadcast radio (for the most part) sucks beyond all comprehension
• i’m completely dependent on my iphone, damn it.
• my iphone doesn’t work well as a phone
• i’ll most likely fly everywhere i go outside of new england from now on

soon to come OVER HERE (well relatively soon anyway) will be a whole buncha more pics from the trip. for now here’s a few i’ve gotten to:

*** a note on the playlists you’ve seen here: i’ll be putting them up for download as soon as i get a chance. stay tuned. ***

local(e) listenings:
Oliver James – fleet foxes
Moving, shaking – great lake swimmers
Kentucky gambler – tom leach
One day at a time – 2Pac
Islands on the coast – band of horses
Spinning plates – radiohead
Make you crazy – Brett dennan
Trust me – the fray

DOWNLOAD THE TUNES HERE