Scott Gulbransen.com

Proud Intuit "Gets" Importance of Listening via Social Media

2009-03-18T13:49:00-07:00

Working for America's Most Admired Software Company (that according to Forbes) obviously has its advantages.

But recently, one area (for obvious reasons!) I am extremely proud of is Intuit's willingness to embrace social media and really engage with our customers no matter where they are. There are haters out there; they don't like the "Goliath" entering the fray of social media but we're off to a really good start.

Since it's tax season, let's look at what we've been able to do in TurboTax. Last year, our TurboTax Inner Circle (created by www.twitter.com/ttaxchristine) won the Forrester Groundswell Award, showing the impact social media can have for both customers and the company. It helped us listen better to customers, cut expenses on the support side, and help us make better products via customer suggestions.

Also, our Small Business Division (QuickBooks, et al) is also doing an amazing job of connected small business owners in a way the world has never seen before.The Intuit Community enables the millions of small business owners around the US to connect with one another you couldn't have imagined a few years ago. This coming together of a small business community is extremely powerful anytime but certainly takes on more meaning at a time when everyone is worried about the economy.

In addition, our Small Biz folks are going one step further: they're helping small businesses grow even during challenging economic times. The Small Business United campaign aims to get business going, even offering free software to get started. Talk about building a community! At at time when people are losing jobs, they need help starting their own business and I am proud to say Intuit is there for them. Sometimes you just need a leg up, that's what we're doing to get them up and running.

Our personal finance product Quicken recently launch its very own customer community much like the TurboTax Inner Circle.

The Quicken Inner Circle hopes to do for personal finance what the TurboTax Inner Circle did for tax this season. It's been set up to help us drastically improve our customer communications and get direct customer feedback to make our products better. I invite any of you who use our products to go sign up. It's a really cool experience.

Although I am addicted to Twitter, Facebook, etc., these types of social communities are just as vital for big companies like Intuit to connect with customers and influencers. The power of social media is in the interactions and the relationships. These are fully transparent interactions with customers who want to know what we're about as company. The more we make ourselves open to them, and willing to have a discussion, the more apt we're going to make killer products that customers love.

I know this may seem very "company guy" oriented, but we have an amazing dedicated staff of folks here working to engage in more conversations so we build what you want us to build.

The most important fact to take away is this is all genuine. We are living, breathing and walking this new model of interacting with customers. The communities I highlighted above are just one snapshot of our total outreach. I'll share more another time.

The question is: what is your company doing to engage with customers online?

TCB-

Scott

Long time...no blog!

2009-03-08T15:22:07-07:00

I have to admit. I've broken all the rules when it comes to blogging.

1. I don't blog very much.

With the kind of exciting yet crazy year we've had at Intuit, things have just been to dang busy for me to get on here and write from a more personal perspective. And frankly, my daily activity on Twitter seems to satisfy my need to talk to the world in the best way I see fit.

Nonetheless, I miss the longer form and I am resolving today to pay more attention to my neglected space here.

There are a ton of things I'd love to write on in the world of politics, economics, religion, social media, et al, so little time.

Meanwhile, we continue to make amazing progress both with TurboTax and Quicken Online when it comes to the world of social media. I just concluded my latest project with MySpace Secret Shows which we dubbed the Freeloader Nation.

The Freeloader Nation consisted of six live MySpace Secret Shows with Fall Out Boy, City and Colour, Metro Station, Lily Allen, Deer Hunter, and Neko Case. We had amazing turnouts and it was an amazing way for our brand to interact in person with our customers.

Needless to say, the traveling and activity has taken its toll...I am tired but still goin'!

More to come soon. Thanks for stopping by.

In Down Economy, Americans Need to Buy Less and Buy Local

2008-11-19T08:43:26-08:00

It's hard to turn on the radio or television these days without the overwhelming doom and gloom associated with our floundering economy.

Whether it's the latest bailout fiasco or bad news about unemployment, Americans are in a pickle. Not only are our wallets feeling lighter these days, but our emotional and psychological state is fragile at best.

Part of why I believe we're in the position that we are today is our obscene obsession with consumption. Whether it's buying the latest and greatest gadget (I am guilty of that myself) or having to "keep up with Jonses," Americans have been fueling our "phony" economy for years based on high amounts of consumer spending and debt. All of this unneeded consumption and commercialism has led us straight into the abyss we currently call home.

At times like this, it's time to simplify and get back to the basics. It's time to put away the credit cards, live frugally and buy locally.

For years, my liberal "earthy" (or as we call them in California "granolas") friends have been preaching about organic foods and buying locally. They frequent farmer's markets on the weekends and shop at alternative grocery stores like Henry's Marketplace or Jimbo's, just to name a few. I politely smiled and thanked them for their recommendations and continued on to my chain grocery store.

But over time, I have come to understand their reasoning with why they shop the way they do. The foods you find at these markets are grown closer to home and help prop up our local - not global - economy.

As the father of three kids, the fact I would buy fruit from my local supermarket grown in Mexico or Chile bothered me. I had no idea what sort of pesticides or chemicals they used outside of U.S. inspection control. Did I really want to put foreign fruit and vegetables into my kids.

The answer for us was a resounding no.

The current economic malase may now be global, but I believe the only soluition to our problem is to take care of us here at home. Let's grow our own food; let's make our own toys; let's pay more for better quality instead of paying less for Chinese imports. It's time to do something truly patriotic: start insisting on buying American and buying goods and services from locally-owned businesses.

It's time to go backward for a change. Let's get back to our self-reliant roots so our kids have a better future here at home.

One final Note: Keep track of a cat named Gerald Celente from Trends Research. This guy nails it a year before any of this happened. The link to his website: www.trendsresearch.com

Public Relations Pros Are Learning and Engaging in Social Media Successfully

2008-08-09T21:00:21-07:00

As a 38-year-old public relations professional working for a dynamic and growing company for the last 8 years, I am not what you'd exactly call the "core demographic" for social media. In fact, in the past year I've spent a ton of time learning, listening and engaging to understand the power of this new world for me personally and for my profession.

Throughout my career in communications, I have always focused my skills and talent on developing relationships with journalists, bloggers and influencers. I have a great track record and more long-term relationships with journalists and bloggers than fleeting interactions for the sake of coverage. As a former print reporter, it didn't take me long to understand the role PR could have in helping and aiding journalists while helping your client/company also tell their story. I was never about the quick "hit" or about placing a story just for placement sake.

In my agency days, I had clients who pushed hard for coverage of sometimes less-than-stellar stories. I didn't sandbag those pitches but my delivery and discussions with those I was sharing it with were not all peppy. I was straight-up honest so the journalist wouldn't lose respect for me. It was just plain common sense for a good PR person.

For me it's always been about balance. Tell the story we want to tell but also be of value to the writer/influencer.

Lately I've been concerned with many of the blogs and interactions I've experienced from social media leaders discussing the role of PR and how we in the business do our job. While many of you are amazing folks who I learn from each and every day, I am somewhat dismayed by some of the attitude I see out there.

First of all, let's all admit that (conservatively) 50-percent of public relations "professionals" are not very professional. They call, they don't know what you cover and start pitching you a story that doesn't at all relate to what you do. I get that. They also don't get the dynamic involved with relationship building. Many of them are 20-something and fresh off a college campus. They're inexperienced and it shows.

A 30-year veteran journalist friend of mine sends me unbelievably bad pitches that he gets all the time. The stuff makes me laugh and also shake my head. It's not the minority of pitches he gets; it's the majority. In fact, we've discussed doing a book highlighting these with some practical information for PR pros that would help them avoid it.

With all that said, many of the social media elite today are griping about the type of interactions they're getting and then blaming it on the PR person's lack of experience in social media. I completely disagree with that assumption. It has nothing to do with "new media" or "social media". It comes across as a little preachy based on the assumption us old dogs don't learn new tricks.

In reality, great social media minds like Chris Brogan constantly hit the nail on the head when they talk about the importance of a personal and ongoing relationship with public relations people.

I am embracing social networks both personally and professionally. I just wish some out there would get over themselves and realize the rest of us are catching up.

The Dark Knight is As Good As Billed

2008-07-24T20:58:57-07:00

We just saw the Dark Knight...and let me say that it is amazing. Just a fantastic story, acting and action. Ledger was amazing and the entire cast was dead-on.

I know Christian Bale has signed on for a third film, but I can't imagine Christopher Nolan topping this film. It's that good. By far the best comic book-based film ever made.

Go see it ASAP...

Another Mortgage Bailout...Time to Bend Over

2008-07-24T20:53:26-07:00

With the X-Files movie coming out, I am reminded again about crack-pot conspiracy theories and how they sometimes gain steam.

But when I say this, don't think I am going all Fox Mulder on you.

This week's bailout of yet another mortgage industry meltdown is another move that is completely erasing democracy in this country. The House voted to approve a bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac thus saving more crooks from their high crimes of lending money to people who should never of had a loan.

Is anyone out there paying attention?

This government bailout of private industry is a disturbing trend that pisses me off to no end. Do you realize that hard working people like you and me - you know, the ones that pay their bills and don't take out bad loans - now have to pay for the mismanagement of these lenders. That's right. I have a family to support and now I have to pay for the idiots who made bad loans.

Congress, and our dolt of a president, are passing a law letting a bunch of financial idiots off the hook. It may be hard to hear but if you took out a loan on a home you couldn't really afford, I am all in favor of you losing your home. That's how the world works: you don't buy things you can't afford.

Yes, these lenders have a ton of responsibility. But, yet again, Americans refuse to take responsibility for their own actions.

I am tired of the crybabies and corrupt politicians making me pay for these nimrod's financial mismanagement.

It's mind-boggling.

Does anyone care? Are well just programmed robots sucking off the government tit?

- Scott

Mortgage Bailout Madness: Finally Someone Who Gets It

2008-04-23T11:33:57-07:00

For months I have been bemoaning the current discussion around the mortgage crisis and what it means for homeowners, renters and others in the United States.

A society that has set up its people to accept a hand-out whenever things get rough is at it again. Congress wants to bail out people who bet on the housing market and lost. That's right, those who decided to defy decades of historical data on the housing market now want taxpayers to bail them out of their crappy decision.

I, for one, say "over my dead body." Yet these Las Vegas-style housing gamblers push their agenda and attempt to make you and I the fallguy.

Finally, for those of us who have been prudent in saving for and purchasing a home we can afford, have a website to track the madness. Angryrenter.com is creating quite a buzz and is also collecting petition signatures to wake-up the nimrods in Congress.

To kick off the publicity of the website, Angryrenter.com but together a great web video that puts the whole discussion into very plain, easy-to-understand terms. It's powerful in its simplicity and will strike a chord with most of you:

When will this madness end? When will Americans take responsibility for their own stupidity?

I won't hold my breath...that's for sure.