Jun 4, 2013 | Branding, Collaboration, Communication, Leadership, Social Media
Hugh MacLeod
There are many people I would like to meet, but a special group of them are the thinkers in the “new media” space.
Brian Solis is one of them, along with Clay Shirky, Hugh McLeod, Mitch Joel, and Seth Godin. These are all people who are shaping the manner in which we perceive the explosion of connectability that is driving our lives, enterprises, and the world we live in.
A current report of the Altimeter group of which Brian is a principal is called “The evolution of Social Business: Six stages of business transformation”. The report, and embedded slideshare presentation puts a framework around the bumbling most organisations are experiencing as they grapple with the opportunities, complications and costs of social, and socialised media.
Two last guests. First, someone who does a fantastic job of curating the content and thinking that is going on, is generous enough to share it all, and who knows all of the above blokes in person as a result of that generosity, Mike Stelzner. Second, an Aussie bird, for a bit of balance to the testosterone, and an alternative way of looking at things, Bernadette Jiwa.
What a truly great dinner group, the conversation would redefine “out of the box”, what pity I suck as a cook.
Jun 3, 2013 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Social Media
Amongst the most common questions I get is “how do we make it viral?”
In the minds of most, “Viral” amounts to “Free” and it may be, but it costs to get there, even if the costs are often less obvious than an invoice from an ad agency.
Word of Mouth has always been the most effective form of advertising, and it still is. An endorsement from a friend or known expert, is marketing Gold. However, in the “old days” of word of mouth, you never heard what Mrs Jones said to Mrs Brown over the back fence, you just hoped you had done enough that it would be an endorsement rather than a panning, but on an individual basis, it really did not matter, so long as the balance was right.
No longer.
Word of mouth has changed into word of mouse, and the while the upside is seductive, the downside is the loss of control, and the immediacy of the impact.
You simply cannot control what is said, or the outcome of the saying, all you can do is respond, and the quicker the better, and with a healthy dose of common sense, a rare commodity it often seems.
May 7, 2013 | Branding, Communication, Small business, Social Media
You choose
Lets talk about social media for a moment, it is on the mind of most running SME’s. and it is the object of lots of “hype” by snake-oil salesmen.
There is a huge amount of very useful verbiage, and mountains of plain crap out there, as well as the “idiots guide” type stuff, but it at its core is really simple.
Remember what it was like as a kid in a new playground, you didn’t know anybody, it was lonely amongst a horde of other kids.
Slowly, one short sentence at a time, you got to know some, some you liked, others you did not want to get to know better.
The “liking” evolves over a series of small, at first disconnected interactions, slowly, the interactions become connected, and slowly, the network widens, as you start the interactgion process with others.
At some point, you ask another kid to come home and play, great if he can, but sometimes they can’t, you ask again, if they cannot a second time, with no apparent reason, you probably will not ask again, This is the “law of reciprocracy” at work. Relationships of any type are reciprocal, otherwise they are not relationship.
Just the same in social media, you need to give something before yuy can expect anything back, but get something back, and you reciproicate again, and you have the beginning of something, maybe. It takes work. You need to spend time at the other persons house, want to spend more time with them, be comfortable with what they do, think, and say.
No different in social media. All are different, are able to deliver you an outcome that varies from each other, you just need to understand clearly what you want, otherwise you will spend your limited time poorly. None of nthem, despite the hype are all things to all people. You choose who you like.
May 1, 2013 | Communication, Innovation, Social Media
20 years ago yesterday, April 30 1993, CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear research, the developer of what has become the W.W.W. announced that they would open it up, making it free to all by posting the codes on what became the worlds first website.
A computer based communication system had existed since 1985, when the first “domain” name had been registered, but it was the private property of individual universities and research organisations.
To my mind, this single action by CERN management in 1993 was the catalyst for the revolution we have undergone in the last 20 years, and which is still continuing, and this revolution (I am looking for a stronger word than just “revolution”) is at least as significant as the realisation that steam could be used to drive machines, and you could set up a system to mass produce the printed word.
In a number of TED talks over the years, there has been some extraordinary contributions to our understanding of the impact this decision has had.
Clay Shirky has mused about the brainpower released, the cogitative surplus, by the web, Kevin Kelly makes observations and predictions about the development of the web, and Ray Kurzweil wonders at the continuously accelerating pace of innovation that is occurring. All have made the point that the world has changed.
Tim Berners-Lee, now Sir Tim, was the man. He wrote the protocols that underpin the web HTML, et al, while working as a software engineer at CERN. The project was a part time indulgence, a side project, but then it went public.
To my mind, this is almost equivalent to the Big Bang, the day the world started, anew.
Apr 30, 2013 | Branding, Communication, Social Media
You can no longer win by shouting, there is always someone who can should louder, longer, and more effectively.
You win today by being genuinely useful.
Those on the receiving end will tell others, who will tell others, and so it goes.
My kids call it social media marketing, I call it common sense marketing.
Apr 26, 2013 | Communication, Customers, Marketing, Sales, Small business
The most powerful way to get someone to agree with your idea is to ask them the leading question, and have them tell you.
Ronald Regan used this technique a lot. He did not tell the American people “your economic situation has deteriorated over the last 48 months”, instead he asked the famous question during his election campaign: “Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago?”. The answer was a resounding “NO” and he was elected.
Asking the right question can prompt a favourable, almost pre-deternmined response, but the formulation of the words to convey that response provokes a deeper, more intensive processing of the question. This leaves less room for ambiguity and uncertainty in the way the receiver responds to the question, and considerable committment to the answer.
I have also found it a great way to generate engagement at the opening of a presentation.
