Bet that got your attention………
Successful Innovation is almost always the end result of many experiments, resources expended that deliver no result, lots of huffing, puffing, moments of excitement, and from time to time great let-downs.
Just like sex.
And just like getting pregnant uses millions of sperm, with only one getting the prize, so does innovation require the expenditure of lots of resources to just get one “home”, and that one makes all the rest seem irrelevant.
Recently my local council took a decision under extremely dubious circumstances, and against the wishes of much of the local community, and their own guidelines.
In preparing for my 3 minute opportunity to voice my disgust at the decision, and its inevitable outcomes, I broke my objections down to three components that the council leadership should consider as they imposed a decision made in isolation of the wishes of the community, for reasons that had nothing to do with the good of the community.
Whilst my impassioned pleas did not change the decision, when I look back on it, the headings to which I spoke still resonate.
By the way, I am still angry, and with council elections now very close, at least some retribution is coming. Just a pity it is too late for to prevent the disaster emerging from the hubris, incompetence, and self interest of the those about to lose their sinecures at the developer honey pot.
A Verb, a word that is something that describes an action, like work, run, achieve, but often, unfortunately when marketing is the topic of conversation, words such as complicate, confuse, dodge, unmeasurable, and such can be added.
Seth Godin sees marketing as a series of concentric circles, the closer to the centre, the more objective and product benefit focused the language becomes, and it is a very simple, but insightful way of looking at it.
Successful businesses in the future will see the practice of marketing take on a few common characteristics that have the action aspects of the verb:
What have I missed?
Sales people are used to being measured by hard metrics, and management is very used to imposing and managing these metrics, and marketers are more inclined now than just a while ago, to have quantifiable measures.
Therein lies one of the challenges of social media.
To varying degrees, SM is not a great sales tool, but it is a great tool to build engagement, and engagement leads to sales, eventually, and amongst other outcomes. It can take the place of the face to face selling, and potentially much of the role of traditional advertising.
When on the web, searching for information, peoples bullshit meter is working, so their receptiveness to advertising may be no greater than in a normal mass media environment, the huge difference being the ability of web advertising to target information at those looking for it. However, on social media, I contend that the bullshit meter is at a lower level, perhaps turned off, as they are seeking to engage, not just seeking information, so information accepted takes on some of the characteristics of endorsement.
The “social” part of social media is a metaphor for a conversation you would have over the back fence, or in a shop, on the street, and so on, it is just electronic.
It makes sense therefore to treat the e-conversation the same way you would treat a personal one, listen, ask questions, be polite and attentive, engage.
From one of the gurus, here is a list of 19 ways, all of which are just the common sense rules of behavior we apply without a lot of thought when we engage in a conversation across the back fence, that should be applied to blogs, and all other forms of social media.
Many businesses appear to miss the point, seeming to think that they can control SM as they do their internal communications, and failing to recognise the totally voluntary nature of social media. It is this voluntary participation that gives SM its power to endorse and inform. Just like over the back fence, we recognise that there is little self interest in an endorsement, and it comes from somebody with whom we have engaged voluntarily, so it carries great power.