Logic+Emotion

The Unofficial SXSW Survival Guide

 
Having passed on my slot to the folks at Dachis Group, I will not be speaking this year at SXSW (interactive) but I will be attending. It will be my second time, and I'm happy to share that there will indeed be a sequel to the sleeper hit event last year known as "Allhat". This year we are going with "Allhat II: Return of the Cattle", and it's sure to be even better complete with local live music thanks to the support from Edelman Digital. That said, there were several things I learned from surviving SXSW, and you might want to take some of them into consideration.

Go With The Flow
SXSW can be chaotic at times and with so much going on, you will be tempted to think you can schedule everything and cram it all in. You won't. There's simply too much going on so the best thing you can do is commit to a few "must attend" and be flexible for the rest. It's the serendipity of who you meet and how you spend your time that makes the event special. Also, scanning Twitter will tell you what's hot and what's not in real time.

Extend Your Battery Life
Last year the deluge of iPhone users nearly rendered the network unusable—still there is wifi and certain hours where you can get a strong signal, IF you have battery juice. If you have not invested in an extra battery or iPhone battery life extender, buy one before you go.

Drink Plenty of Water and Pack Some Tylenol
I shouldn't have to explain this one to you. If I do, then you're going to the wrong conference.

Don't Be "That Person"
There is serious internet star power of all levels at SXSW in addition to it presenting all kinds of networking opportunities. This can cause the temptation for people to exhibit what I call "wandering eye syndrome" where you are constantly scanning the crowds for better networking candidates than the one you may currently be engaged it. It's not easy to avoid the temptation to do this, but try to if you can.

Pack A First Aid Kit
This one's kind of random, but I fell into an unmarked hole in a sidewalk and it put a nice gash in my knee. I wish I had one. You can never be too prepared. :-)

Find Small Groups
Packs of people will often gather to get away from some of the crowds and larger gatherings. If you get invited to go along with a smaller group—go for it. Quality is always better than quantity and this applies to SXSW as well.

Mix It Up
SXSW is sort of like Highschool 2.0. People will flock to their own cliques, from the social media crew to the user experience crew, to developers, marketers etc. But they'll all be there. Try to mix it up a bit and spend some time with some folks outside of your immediate comfort zone. It's all about meeting new people and cross pollinating.

Stay Awake and Drink Coffee
Plan for several days and nights of activity with moderate to small amounts of sleep (you can catch up when you get home). It's the best way to make the most of your time and it's only once a year. Plus it's a great excuse to meet people for coffee in smaller settings.

These are a few informal tips—hope they help. See you at SXSW and don't forget to register for Allhat II.

Why I'm Not Writing a Book (Right Now)

There's really nothing like a book—they are portable, intimate, useful, influential and the good ones tend to go "viral" in the sense that you share them with people you know. And of course today we have new ways to digest them: from audio to Kindles to iPads etc. A question I've been getting a lot lately is:

"When are you writing a book"?

I've had some interest—from publishers you've heard of. But the answer is:

"Not right now".

My logic is simple. One cannot serve two masters—and serve them well. Either my full time job or the book would suffer. So the time is not now. I've got things to accomplish before considering writing a book on any topic even though there's the temptation to ride the social media wave. At Edelman, there's a lot to be done both with clients and with our own manifestation of being part of the community (more to come on that later). There's still much for me to learn. There's still much knowledge to put into practice. And fortunately, being a very active participant in this medium has afforded me some of the benefits that published authors enjoy. A platform, influence, and the privilege of being sought after to speak on topics I am passionate about. I'm lucky to have this and to have you along for the ride (it's no fun driving this bus alone).

There's not shortage of excellent authors out there to choose from (Godin, Kawasaki, Anderson, Gladwell  etc.)—and if you are interested in some aggregated forms of content I've produced, you can visit my visual thinking set on Flickr, view my presentations on slideshare  , read articles I've written on Harvard Business or just browse the archive of this blog which I've curated since 2006.

There may be a time for a book—hopefully on a topic even broader than what we currently label "social media". I'd probably want it to be visual, succinct, memorable, and something that stuck to your brain like peanut butter. But for now, there's too much to do. Until then, I look forward to accomplishing other goals with your help. See you on the bus—next stop, make things happen.

Six Ways to Find Social Media Talent

More articles on Harvard Business

As organizations move their social media strategies from theory to practice, they discover a difficult truth they must confront: Finding the "perfect" social media talent is practically impossible.

To start, the field is flooded with thousands of self proclaimed "experts" who have reinvented themselves to take advantage what looks like a growing business opportunity. Maybe they do know social media, but many don't. They need to be vetted.

More broadly, most candidates for social media positions fall at the ends of a spectrum. On one end is the person who really gets it and has deep expertise in social media, but lacks the potential to plug into your business culture. On the other end, there is the candidate with plenty of practical professional experience who will fit in easily with your culture, but who maybe doesn't have deep social media experience.

Ideally you'd find the candidate in the middle of that spectrum, but that's proving to be a remarkably rare individual. Trust me, I'm in the middle of a job search for this person and it's a time-consuming, intensive effort.

But in the process of hiring, I've learned some ways to help move the hiring process forward to attract some of the best and brightest emerging talent at all levels. Here are six emerging practices for hiring social media talent.

Empower anyone to recruit. Candidates deeply immersed in social media usually participate across multiple networks--likely the same ones that your employees use both professionally and personally. Empower employees to use their networks to uncover people who may be looking for an opportunity.

Leverage your beacons. Professional activities tied to social media are still relatively new and everyone is learning. That said, if your organization has individuals who are well known in the space, be sure to leverage their social and professional equity in the recruiting process. For example, if one of your employees earns a following in the social space, reward them by supporting their initiatives. Harness their passion for the benefit of your business. A shining light will attract others to it.

Go where they go. The professional world has been slow to embrace social media events such as "tweetups" (meetings organized by participants on Twitter) or conferences like South By Southwest, a kind of spring break for technophiles. But the reality is that these events attract social media enthusiasts--many of whom may become tomorrows corporate superstars.

Show off your case studies. Candidates in this field are typically familiar with the more publicized social media case studies (Ford, Zappos, Comcast, to name a few) and are hungry for more. If your organization has had success on either an internal or external initiative, don't be shy about touting it. But be sure it's something worth talking about. Also, be honest and forthcoming--share failures as well. If you aren't failing, you aren't doing.

Upgrade recruitment tactics and technology. Contract with recruiters who are extremely proficient in engaging with prospects across multiple networks. They must also be conversant with typical social media job descriptions. Make sure your technology infrastructure is upgraded to help recruit socially. For example, simply tracking the links to your job descriptions with a service called bit.ly will show you not only how many times your ad was clicked on, but how the link was socialized and shared across a variety of networks. This data can provide valuable insights into the recruiting process.

Groom internal candidates. Don't forget you probably already employ good candidates for a social media job. They likely already have the cultural qualifications but perhaps lack knowledge or skills in social media such as being comfortable engaging with individuals in public. It's the responsibility of management to ensure that internal prospects can be trained and groomed for opportunities. This means potentially setting time aside for those who have the knowledge internally or bringing in expertise externally for assistance.

These are a few recommendations to consider as you look for quality people to make a social media strategy a reality at your company. If you have had success in recruiting and or training in this space, I'd love to hear what worked for you.

The 5 Reasons You're Failing In Social Media

1. You really don't want to engage directly with customers, employees, etc.—you just want them to hear what you have to say.

2. You're not ready to create new roles, update process, re-distribute resources and budgets, re-train people, and revise old policies.

3. Social media actually threatens how you make money—but you pay lip service out of fear.

4. Politics.

5. You see it as a career advancing opportunity as opposed to a significant business transformation.

Reverse any of these, and you've likely improved your chances of succeeding in a business environment that's becoming increasingly powered by people. 

10 Ideas For The New Decade

10 Ideas For The New Decade

View more documents from David Armano.

So as you can tell, I've been pretty heads down at the new job with Edelman. It's been very exciting working with a host of companies who are looking to move the needle through leveraging social technologies both outside of their organization and within. I did get to contribute some thoughts along some of the great minds here which you can find in this document. Download, print, share and read. It's worth your time.  

Do You Live Social?

From my latest contribution to Harvard Business

Some have asked, Where does social media live? Is it marketing? Is it public relations? Is it IT or corporate? Is it a combination of multiple business units and functions, and if so, who leads the efforts and how does an organization choose partners? These are valid and complex questions, currently with no simple answers. Social media is still emerging and being defined in real time.

There's a question missing from that litany, one that organizations or individuals rarely ask themselves: Do you live social? Many organizations simply skip this question because they assume that they themselves don't have to be social (open and collaborative) to reap the rewards (cost savings, marketing ROI, effective reputation management, and search engine juice) they think they might get from social media.

But social media's not a product you foist on others, or some rigid business process that, if implemented, yields results. You shouldn't treat social media like a temporary advertising campaign. Social media is more organic than that. It's a way of thinking and approaching business that requires passion and commitment and, above all, willingness to participate in social spaces honestly and freely and by the rules of the social network itself. When someone ridicules your organization in the social space, unfiltered in real time, how do you react? If you are trying to control rather than participate in the discussion, then you're not living social. When your own employees talk about your organization on a social network what do you do?

An organization which bans the use of social networks of its employees may have perfectly good reason to do so, but then turning around and hiring an ad agency, PR firm or business consultancy to go out and "be social" for them will limit potential success. One of the beautiful (or perhaps frustrating, if you're in marketing) aspects of social media is its ability to detect and look askance at posers. If you're not genuinely, honestly engaged in the social network, you're not going to get far with those who are.

It's not easy for organizations to adopt a social mindset, after decades of command-and-control marketing and PR. I believe that starting small is the way to go. Pilot initiatives that demonstrate success by being more open, collaborative and participatory pave they way for changes that can slowly influence the direction of an organization. Executive sponsorship will also help give social media efforts teeth. I've always been pleasantly surprised to see initiatives such as My Starbucks Idea result in new ideas getting implemented, like splash sticks. (Full disclosure: Starbucks is a client of Edelman, the firm I now work for).

Training can help get you started, too — some individuals naturally lean toward working/living in a social way while others need a bit of assistance.

So while managers debate who will control social media inside their organizations — marketing, PR, corporate, IT — I say stop and ask the bigger question: Do any of the people who make up your company, agencies, partners and so on actually live social? Do they demonstrate that they work and play in a connected fashion? Once we begin to resolve that (and don't underestimate the power of baby steps), then we can worry about which discipline, department or agency/consultancy is best equipped to help lead the way.

2009 in a Word

Support

That's how I'd describe 2009 if it came down to a word—at least from my perspective. We started the year in a bit of a crisis mode, deciding to help a family in need and were utterly taken back by the support that was shown by the online community. People I've come to know and regard as friends in many ways. We decided to do something and were simply amazed at the outpouring of support that came in. When we realized that we weren't in this alone, that became a life defining moment for me personally.

Several months later, I took a chance and shook up my career to try something less defined, less familiar. When that realization fully hit me, I again felt support from my social system. They were there for me when I needed it.

And through the months which composed much of the past year, that feeling was always there. We were building something new and I sensed a sort of patience (a form of support) from you. A willingness to see where things would go.

And as the year wrapped up with even more change—I experienced yet even more support. The year it seemed had come full circle and I sit here and feel a sense of awe even as I write this. Simply put, I feel extremely fortunate, undeservedly so.

Support

I've never felt that the passing of time neatly fits into "good" or "bad" categories. It's tempting to think we either had a good or bad year. But for many of us, the reality looks more like a rugged landscape with peaks, hills, plains and valleys. That's why I like to think about the passage of time as a vocabulary. Often times, there is a particular word which rises to the surface of that vocabulary. So for 2009, I chose support to be that meaningful single word. At least for me and perhaps for those of you who provided it.

Thank you for being such a significant part of my 2009. Here's to 2010, to a fresh new year with new hopes and realized dreams. 

I'm Joining Edelman

Last April I informed you that I would be making a move to join what is now known as The Dachis Group and re-locating to Austin. It was an opportunity that I felt like I could not pass up and being hand picked to join a team of this caliber was enticing to say the least. Since then, not everything has gone according to plan. Our house never sold which has resulted in a steady stream of frequent trips to Austin in addition to other locations necessary to develop the business. The startup life which, I became intimately familiar with has been a mix of incredible experiences, challenges and rewards.

But despite the unique experience, I've decided to take an opportunity which I feel is both a better fit for myself and my family with a privately held, global leader experiencing explosive growth.  As of this Monday I will be starting my first day as an SVP with Edelman Digital, the digital arm of Edelman worldwide, a global communications firm with local roots in Chicago and a small army of smart and talented people distributed globally. 

I've always talked about the intersection of planning and improvisation and when things don't go according to plan, you often have to re-calibrate and sometimes modify direction. I've known Rick Murray who runs the digital group at Edelman for some time now, and after some considerable deliberation it seemed to make perfect sense to go in this direction. I'll be able to apply what I've learned in both the digital agency and start-up environments and apply this experience to work across every time zone, language, culture, industry and every conceivable audience.

I'm also sad that in the process I'll be saying goodbye to the incredible brain trust at Dachis Group. Jeff, Kate, Pete, Jevon, Ellen, and Bryan have all been amazing to work with as well as our esteemed colleagues in London and Sydney. I've stretched myself as we forged new ground putting the company on the map, communicating the vision and establishing a foundation as we began to engage clients dealing with new challenges and opportunities in a hands on fashion. The vision of Dachis Group is dead on—businesses who want to adapt and thrive in today's networked economy WILL become more social (open, collaborative, efficient). I still believe this and my colleagues are well positioned to help lead the way.

But as for me, joining Edelman is something I look forward  to as it offers both scale, flexibility combined with a wealth of great minds working with great companies. You can expect to see me collaborating with new clients, moving the Edelman digital presence forward, and I'll still be speaking, blogging, tweeting, and writing at Harvard Business.

Jeff and team, thank you for the valuable experience. Rick and team, see you on Monday.

Gaming The Social System

From my latest contribution to Harvard Business

Contrary to popular belief, social media is not naturally more resistant to marketing tricks. It can be gamed. On Twitter, services exist to boost your follower count and give the impression that you've got a vast high-quality network. Bloggers can write articles rich with links that draw the attention of others who would hopefully link back the the article. You can run behind-the-scenes campaigns to get people to provide positive reviews for your products or services as if they were just some happy customer rather than a hired hand. Or you can hire a small army of part time college students to Digg your content. Social media is just another social system and any such system, real world or online, can be gamed.

But I wonder why anyone would want to do this? Word of mouth marketing works in both directions on social media. For example, a few years ago clever marketers created a viral campaign for the movie Snakes on a Plane in which you could have the voice of Samuel L. Jackson call your friends and play a recorded message. The gimmick worked and Snakes became a highly anticipated movie.

But then the movie was released, and it was bad. Negative word of mouth spread just as quickly as the marketing campaign had. The movie never delivered on the buzz generated by the campaign. The same social system that was gamed via clever marketing was used to quickly turn the movie into a flop.

The litmus test that I often use when coming into contact with people, products or companies that display some kind of impressive stat or endorsement is to ask myself if anyone I trust has ever talked about this person, this product, this company or whatever it is being hyped. And if so, was what I heard favorable? Sometimes it comes down to the question: "If you're so great, why haven't I heard of you before?" Everyone and everything deserves a chance but it's only if you've heard of the person, the product, or the company from someone you know that you'll believe they have credibility.

Online in some ways is more game-able than offline because you don't pay to play as much as you do via traditional media. You have to earn attention within social spheres, and there's a cost associated with that. That cost is trust. No one online has any reason to trust what anyone else says. Marketers may find the shortcuts of gaming the system appealing, but in the end they will backfire. Why not devote those resources to making something outstanding in the first place rather than trying to cheaply trick people into thinking it's outstanding? You'll be better off than playing the game.

Users Will Show Us The Way

I liked this comment from Heather on the "Life After Social Media Post" so much, I decided it should be its own post:

Hi David,

I, like you, have been at the crossroads of this evolving media for many years. And I think we can see that there is a pattern here.

In 1995 I worked at Time Inc helping to launch people.com, and I was still there when they sold themselves to AOL. That might have been the biggest "snake oil salesman" deal of all time.

I then went to work with..you guessed it.. Razorfish. (Jeff D used to come into the office regularly as I worked in the Soho branch.) Evey company from Ford to Revlon to Martha Stewart wanted a website then, but they didn't know why or how; they just knew they had to have one.

Then 2000 happened, and it looked very dark for a while.

But those of us who stayed in interactive knew that the web would thrive and every company would still need a website and the ROI would materialize..because users/customers would show the way.

I think the same is happening with social media..whether you define it as buzz or measured response. The initial ignorance and avoidance by almost everyone just a few years ago, and now the mass migration to any form of it ...Facebook/Twitter/YouTube. Clients are throwing money at it.

No doubt snake oil salesmen appear because they see an opportunity, but the good news is that their job is to drive the inevitable disillusionment and shake out -- which is probably not that far off. And the boom will lead to a bust in the natural cycle of life.

And then what will remain is the valuable part of social media, the conversation, the transparency, and hopefully the entertainment. We've seen that audience participation can create some wildly effective campaigns and wouldn't it be great if some of that wonderful energy remains a part of what's left once the bubble bursts. And it would be great if companies continue this dialogue with the consumers in order to create better products.

Isn't that what everyone wants in the end?

Via @howlvenice

Life After Social Media Snake Oil

A while back I wrote a post titled "How to Spot Social Media Snake Oil". Not long after, BusinessWeek's Stephen Baker ended up writing a sort of mainstream media version of it citing lots of sources and examples. I knew that this article would be written because Stephen contacted me about it and in fact I used Twitter to point him to some additional sources which I believe he sourced in the story. (This will probably become more commonplace by the way.)

Now I want to tell you a story as I feel a responsibility to write this post. Bear with me, it may take a bit to get to the point—but I will get there. My first job in what used to be called "interactive" back in 1997 was as a Web designer for the Chicago Tribune. I left New York because I wanted to experience a different city and more importantly, I was smitten by the potential of the Internet. The Tribune, like many companies had started a  "Web department" that occupied some open space away from the newsroom. We were considered freaks by the traditional employees and had to learn a myriad of tools. I worked in a combination of HTML, did my own information architecture, Photoshop, Flash, and Illustrator work to name a few tools. I even had a boss who was a couple of years younger than I was. And this was in 1997.

Fast forward to 2001. The Internet had reached a fever pitch. I was going into my second year at interactive shop agency.com and was fortunate enough to help secure a local long term client. Right after that, the internet bubble burst and in less than two years the company went from soaring numbers of around 1700 to under 500 employees before things began to level off (think about those numbers). But here's the thing that I'll always remember. I can recall working with some very talented people who truly believed in the power of the Web and would not want to work in any other industry, alongside with some who heard the internet was "hot" and perhaps took a class or got a certification or knew someone and was able to get a job. In the Internet heyday, it wasn't difficult to find work in the field. There were consultancies galore with hundreds of consultants under funny sounding names that eventually were bought, sold, merged or flat went out of business after the bubble popped like balloon in mid flight. And the first to go, were often times the band wagon jumpers who heard the field was hot. Though in fairness, lots of talented folks lost their jobs.

So what does this have to do with social media snake oil?

Certainly the internet boom was different—companies spent millions of dollars having custom built, large scale sites designed, built and integrated. Today there are millions of solutions that make things like development much easier (wordpress etc.), but there are also some similarities. Not unlike my experience at the Tribune, companies are forming social media groups, departments, and task forces. Perhaps you work for one. And also like the former dot com boom, there is a ton of hype and fuzzy metrics. Back then we had click-throughs, and now we have influence ratings, followers and buzz. Back then we had e-commerce and what's likely coming next is social commerce (a button at the end of a purchase path that shares what you buy with friends). Back then we had usability gurus like Jakob Nielsen—and now we have social media rock stars such as Chris Brogan or Gary Veynerchuck. It's worth noting that Jakob still has considerable influence and is active in the space. So for those pouncing on the current visible figures complaining about their visibility—that's something to consider.

So what will life look like after social media snake oil?

It's possible we need only look to the past. The first Web revolution convinced us that we all needed Websites (we did), the second convinced us that people wanted to do transactions online (they did) and the infrastructure had to be built to support this. The third revolution is demonstrating that people now want these interactions to be social, connected and mobile (both outside the organization and within). And I believe the second half of that revolution will change how business gets done, much like how businesses needed to become digital—they will now need to become more efficient in a digital age that's become increasingly real time and human powered.

And in the end, this will all need to be integrated—It all becomes business.

So, not unlike what we've seen in the past, there is bound to be a shakeout, a quest for better metrics and ROI models (digital still deals with this today) but there is one thing I am certain of. The true believers who stuck with the Web even when the bubble burst became the people you wanted to work with. If there is a shakeout in the social space, the same will happen. The true believers will remain, while others flock to the next hot field.

And that's what I think life might look like after social media snake oil.

The Vision Led Org

I quickly put this together on a flight from Austin to Chicago. Sure I could write a short post about it, but I'm curious—what's your intepretation? Use the comment sections below to write the post for me.

Stop Looking for the Next Twitter

 
From my latest contribution to Harvard Business

If you are a pundit, or get paid to watch trends, then this message doesn't apply to you. It's your job to go out and find the next shiny object that could influence how we live and do business.

But if you're in the trenches of an organization, my advice is to stop acting like or listening to pundits. Stop looking for the next Twitter. Why? It's simple—because the odds are you already have plenty of projects and ideas with proven potential that you need to improve on without worrying about the next thing you'll start. Here are a few thought-starters based on observations I've made about all of "yesterday's Twitters" that need some care and feeding before you start looking for the next Twitter. Perhaps some may hit close to home for you.

Your Website(s): Websites haven't been bright and shiny for years now; they're more de rigeur. But is yours really as good as it could be? Do search engines find it effortlessly? Is it usable? Does it even serve a purpose (is it useful)? Can you rapidly re-design it without it causing major upheaval within the departments of your organization? After reading how American Airlines struggles with the all too common problem of "design by committee" (which exists within many large organizations), I have to conclude that getting your website to completely satisfy business, brand and user goals is still elusive for many companies.

Your Blog(s): Your company is blogging. Congratulations. Is anyone listening? Blogging was the bright and shiny object of 2006-2008 and many companies found out just how hard it is to do well. Good blogging provides value. It is interesting and generates a healthy amount of comments and conversation which in turn generates a good dose of Google juice. It's also terribly difficult to sustain. It requires cultural shifts within an organization, and has to be prioritized (read: made part of someone's job). Frankly, I rarely see outstanding examples of a good company blog. That doesn't mean it's not worth doing (if it makes sense strategically), but doing it well is another story.

Your Intranet(s): Wow. Where do I begin? Intranets were bright and shiny several years ago, now they're more often the butt of water cooler jokes. How old is your intranet? When was the last time it was updated? Do your employees use it or have they, like many, engaged in IT mutiny, instead, basically sidestepping your internal system for Web 2.0 cloud based systems that allow them to work and collaborate the way they want to? If employees don't use the systems you've put in place, why? Fixing this system will do a lot more good than expending energy on finding the next Twitter. After all, if your company isn't functioning well internally, it's probably exhibiting problems externally, too.

Your Facebook, Twitter, Community Initiatives etc.: I'm lumping these ecosystems together because what's really important about them is that they all require high levels of engagement and participation from company representatives (unless the company is fortunate enough to be a "badge brand"). But the reality for many organizations is that they just aren't ready to directly engage with customers on the customers' turf. Tweeting requires a certain confidence that it's okay for your conversations to be public and companies who are customer centric such as Jet Blue tend to do well here. There's a good deal of interaction that happens on the Whole Foods Facebook page in addition to the expected promotions. Communities are delicate ecosystems and companies that want to be relevant there have to have representatives who are comfortable, at ease, who can deftly work these ecosystems. This has proven to be easier said than done for many.

By no means is this a complete list. But in whatever previously shiny object you own, the common thread is that a lack of vision, strategy, and ability to execute well limits the potential of an organization to be truly valuable to all of their constituents (customers, employees and business partners). So my advice for the non trend-watcher? Forget finding the next Twitter and start buffing up those previously shiny objects, the ones where your constituents need you today.

It's Time to Clobber Social Media

Originally posted on the Collaboratory

Jeff Dachis and I recently returned from the Web 2.0 Expo in New York—a near week long flurry of activity that brings together technology, business and design amongst other things. We co-presented a somewhat uniquely titled session called “Social Business Design: It’s Clobberin’ Time”. So what does this mean? Simply put, it means that we are fast approaching a time where there will be a de-emphasis on the “media” portion of “social” and an emphasis on a business being socially calibrated. By this, we mean a business being more real time, adaptive, and in tune with all of its constituents (not just consumers/customers). If you want to make this really simple, you can use the word better. We believe that a socially calibrated business will be better.

Our presentation provided the rationale for why we feel this (we think many business functions have the potential be socialized, not just marketing). We explained our position on why we think the intentional act of design (or business re-design) is needed to achieve the end result of “moving the needle’ or realizing significant cost reduction or profit. We cited several early examples of success while noting the challenges they also pose. Providing customer service on Twitter is great, but how do you scale and integrate it? What’s the right metric to measure? Do your “social initiatives” live in a silo or are they integrated into multiple facets of the organization? These are not media questions—they are business questions. We injected a bit of personality by starting the presentation by saying “we didn’t come to save social media, we came to demolish it”.  An exaggeration to be sure, but we think there is something deeper and we’re just seeing the tip of the Iceberg.

We broke down what we think will be the building blocks of a more social business. Adaptations in people, process and technology. We talked about the benefits and value of “open cultures” (think Zappos) and the potential of connecting the ecosystem of an organization so that a new way of collaborating could co-exist with traditional hierarchy.  The audience seemed receptive. More importantly, they seemed hungry. Does social media really need “clobbering”? Not really—many businesses are reaping the benefits of communicating and engaging with their customers in new ways enabled via social technologies. We applaud this. And we think it’s only the beginning. Have a look at our presentation and let us know what you think. More importantly—ask yourself this: How ready for social business are you?

Social Business Design: Web 2.0 NYC

View more documents from Dachis Group.

Why Serendipity Is Underrated

A nice reminder from Chris Brogan. I recommend watching the entire talk—it's only 10 minutes. Here's what you need to know: as an observer and active participant of the social web for several years, I've seen the power of serendipity influence how business gets done. Business leads coming in through Twitter because the person inquiring somehow stumbled upon you via the web and after following you for a while, they decided it was time to talk business.

It's like life. Some of you reading this right now have done business because you sat next to a person on a plane and struck up a conversation or was receptive to the being a part of a conversation after someone initiated it.

We want to separate business from real life—but the reality of life (and business) is that it's messier than we like to admit. As Chris says, we need to figure out how we develop relationships that yield (I've experienced this in so many ways).

Serendipity is underrated because it's fuzzy, intangible, and difficult to source our even put our finger on. It takes time. But we want results NOW. Faster. Cheaper. Better. Of course, there's nothing wrong with this—if you're in business, you're in it to profit. But profit can be obtained in a number of ways:

 

Some businesses do understand the power of serendipity. When a Zappos employee sent my wife a hand written card elaborating on their discussion about family and her aunt—that employee understood that one micro-interaction has the potential to trigger vast ripple effects. Amazon obviously saw the value of doing business this way. Serendipity as Chris suggests is a tough sell to anyone who toils in the trenches of corporate cultures across the globe. That doesn't mean it's not a increasingly important business tactic. In reality, as my airplane reference suggests (based on a true story), it probably always has been.

Tweeting at the Speed of Scale

Originally posted on the Collaboratory
From a holistic perspective, we talk about the need for organizations to become more socially calibrated—able to adapt and respond to changes both externally and internally. The three areas where emergent outcomes can manifest are, participation with your customers, collaboration between your employees and optimization in the interactions/transactions between your business and its partners. Digging into customer participation, it’s clear that in a networked economy customers demand engagement, information, support and ultimately, value and ecosystems such as Twitter are beginning to deliver here.

In true agile fashion, we’ve been working on our service offerings simultaneously as we service clients. One of our offerings is built upon the belief that a socially calibrated organization will desire to engage in ecosystems such as Twitter with both efficiency and scale without sacrificing quality. It’s a tall order but one that we see as a natural evolution of organizations looking to engage customers effectively and perhaps generate a bit of positive word of mouth in the process.

To date, we’ve seen several companies find success using Twitter ranging from the spokesperson model (Ford’s Scott Monty) to the nimble customer service team (Comcast) to literally hundreds of employees engaging within the ecosystem (Best Buy’s Twelpforce). While there is no one size fits all solution, it’s clear that the Twitter ecosystem is ripe for interactions between constituents and as Best Buy shows, it is indeed possible to scale. But currently they are one of the few organizations doing this. For organizations looking to engage large numbers of their employees within Twitter, they will also need to factor in speed as this particular medium is as real-time as it gets (see dynamic signals). There can be many complexities that exist as a barrier between moving from a current ad hoc model to a more systematic scalable solution. When exploring this opportunity (if it makes sense for your organization), there are several key factors to consider (and I’m only scratching the surface for the sake of the blog format).

People
One of the most significant obstacles to overcome is to determine if your organizational culture can grow into something which supports large numbers of your employees effectively engaging on Twitter. People fuel the ecosystem, not automated technologies. Issues such as competency, incentives, scheduling, job descriptions, policies and guidelines all need to be addressed. This is likely to be different for every organization and as distinct as your culture.

Process
If an organization finds that their people are ready, able and willing to participate in an appropriate fashion—there is still the issue of process. Having a handful of employees providing support, help or engaging your customers may be one thing, but when you’ve got a small army of them it’s another. A process needs to be designed which allows for employees to engage without stepping on each others toes. Tasks may need to be allocated. An organization may need to architect a series of flows which can handle a multitude of scenarios. With scale comes the need for a flexible structure.

Technology
Tweetdeck and your personal account may be enough to sustain the “spokesperson” model of engagement via Twitter, but moving into having a legion of employees actively participating in an orchestrated fashion can require the use of a TAM (Twitter Account Management) system such as Hootsuite or CoTweet (disclosure, CoTweet is one of our partners). A “TAM” with robust features would likely be needed to manage workflow and integrate data. It’s worth noting that for a fee, CoTweet will support storing data of the interactions you have with your customers on Twitter (in addition to other services). But regardless of what you choose, in order to scale by design it’s likely that you’ll need more than what the native platform offers.

At the end of the day, business will have to move at the speed of real time and to do that at scale, you’ll need to plan, design and cultivate the right people, process and technology—all which ideally function under a business framework that is social by design. If you are looking for guidance in this area, we’d be happy to work with you.

Overcoming The Obstacles To Social Business

Originally published on Harvard Business

While social media often commands favorable media attention, the less often told story is that successful initiatives are rare to come by and that there are still a number of organizational roadblocks that managers need to overcome in order to make progress.

Still, we are seeing signs of progress in the form of new efficiencies, more direct ways to connect with customers, and ways to make products and services better. From my experience working and talking with people in large, complex organizations, here are a small sample of obstacles to look for with suggestions on how you might overcome them:

1. Culture shock

Externally, social media is a vastly significant iteration of the Web which has empowered the public in ways we never imagined. It's also highly disruptive. The same potential for disruption exists internally for organizations. Instead of everyday consumers becoming empowered, everyday employees now have this potential as well. And this could cause a culture shock to the system of an organization structured upon decades of tradition, hierarchy, middle management and incentives. An inconvenient truth remains that change is often perceived as a threat.

How to overcome it

Find the change agents within your organization who are passionate about making your company better and harness their passion for the benefit of your business. Comcast's Frank Eliason was a customer service manager who began engaging (and, more importantly, helping) customers via his personal Twitter account. When the rest of the company was made aware of the initiative (and the ensuing positive attention), they decided to reward the effort as opposed to doing a u-turn. A great way to overcome culture shock within a large organization is for leadership to recognize and embrace the mavericks driven to change things for the better. The next challenge then becomes scale.

2. The legal treadmill

The changes sparked by technology are giving the lawyers a headache. Legal teams must be on full alert to changes in the social media landscape, such as the FTC's recent decision to force bloggers to disclose when they've been given payment or products. The legal department of any organization exists to protect it. But sometimes doing business at the speed of real time makes it feel like you are on a treadmill when you need to be sprinting to the finish line.

How to overcome it

Legal needs to be engaged early on and by the right people. There also needs to be support from the top if it means doing something that pushes the boundaries. Michael Dell fully supported Dell's pioneering social media efforts from the top down which no doubt influenced decisions made in the legal department. That said, not everything has to involve the CEO. When I recently approached The Art of Shaving (a P&G brand) to sponsor our Movember team, I advised them that the first thing they should do is talk to their legal department. The brand manager did just that and legal produced clear guidelines about how the social sponsorship would work. In order to get off the legal treadmill, you need a combination of leadership and collaboration.

3. Riskphobia

Making strides toward thriving as a more socially calibrated business means taking a risk or three. And in this economy, no one wants to do that. Unless your organization has a serious entrepreneurial streak running through it, it's likely that the people who work in it are generally risk averse and rewarded for playing by the rules. However, riskphobia is a serious problem for large companies who are finding their businesses disrupted by smaller, more nimble players. Tower Records probably wishes they took some more calculated risks before the industry came crashing down around them.

How to overcome it

Risk can often be managed by piloting small initiatives to see what happens — while learning, gathering data, and iterating on them while they inform bigger and better initiatives. When our company launched our website, we included a real-time stream of our activities and content on our homepage. The stream even includes information about who we email (you don't see names, but you do see the domains). Some view this as risky business, but we felt that the gesture would help us help others manage the risks of transparency and we can manage what gets shared. It's a small gesture, but meaningful as we hope to help others manages their own risks.

These are just three of many obstacles. So, I'm curious — what obstacles have you encountered? How have you dealt with them?

How Google Helped Save A Life

When my eight-year-old (Max) complained that he wasn't feeling well, we kept him home. On the next afternoon, when he complained about stomach pains, I told him to lie down. Later that day, when the stomach pains persisted and I had left the house—Belinda turned to Google for help. Mother's intuition told her to search for information—specifically where the appendix is located. And after doing so she went up to Max's room and pressed down on the right side of his abdomen. When he winced in pain, she decided to call the doctor. The doctor said go to the emergency room. The ER said, get a cat scan and the cat scan said it was irritated. Then the surgeon said it was early, but in a day or two it was likely to burst.

So the surgeon gave Max an appendectomy and I gave him a Popsicle.

Thank you to the Internet, Google, Mother's Intuition and all of the doctors, nurses, co-workers, friends and family (including you) for all the kind words. He's doing well. So is the penguin.

A Conversation Worth Sponsoring (Thank You To The Art of Shaving)

When Aaron Strout approached me about participating in Movember (through the Movember foundation which facilitates donations for Mens health issues such as testicular cancer), I was a bit apprehensive. I mean, I do a lot of talks/work with clients and it's hard to be taken seriously with a 'stash that came out of nowhere. I also thought about how much work it would take to hit up my network and raise funds for a great cause. It's never easy to ask people for money.

Then the "marketer" in me started thinking. Wouldn't there be a brand out there who would want to get involved with this? What does a traditional sponsorship get you? A few banner ads? Those don't work—everyone in the industry wants to figure out how to get in the social streams in a meaningful way.

I typically don't do what's known as "sponsored conversations"—but this is a conversation worth sponsoring. So I dialed up my friends at P&G. And they dialed up their friends at relevant brands. And The Art of Shaving, stepped up and said:

Yeah, we will donate $5000.00 to Team Austin (who by the way is going to decimate team Boston). Well, in the spirit of full disclosure—they said this exactly:

1) The Art of Shaving will donate $5,000 to Team SocMed Austin’s fundraising efforts for the Prostate Cancer Foundation, Livestrong, & Movember Foundations. 

2)  The Art of Shaving will provide you and 9 of your teammates a gift pack of our products for you to use as you shave throughout the month.  The pack will also include a DVD & a brochure with information on our brand and products. 

3)  In any subsequent communications, you & Team SocMed Austin will be sure to acknowledge the Art of Shaving donation of money & products transparently to your readers & followers.

And just like that—the folks at The Art of Shaving are now part of this conversation as they should be. I mean, it's all about growing and trimming facial hair for a good cause. So thank you to the folks at The Art of Shaving for your support of Team Austin. Will I reference the products they send me? Of course I will. They helped me and I want to help them back. It's a "sponsored conversation" but I'll also be honest about the products, though at first glance they do look fairly high quality. And instead of a few dollars going toward a media purchase, it goes somewhere better. If you feel moved to help as well, you can donate to Team Austin here. Thanks for even considering.

-David

How To Create Advocates For Your Business

So what is customer advocacy anyway? Well for starters, they don't have to be your customers—they can be any part of your entire constituency. Employees, business partners, friends—you name it. But here's the point. You need them more than ever. Right now, if you are planning social initiatives, your biggest challenge is going to be manpower. Someone has to do the listening, the outreach, the customer service, the participation, the engagement with others in the ecosystem. Some parts can be automated (such as an algorithm in a listening tool technology), but many other parts require actual people. So at some point you'll have to scale, and you're going to need a passionate, engaged group of people to advocate on your behalf. So how do you do it? Here are a few high level pointers.

1. Improve your product, service or offering
Start there. You have to have something of value to offer. If your product, service or offering needs improvement, actively get out into your ecosystem and engage them in the process. Part of this is crowdsourcing, part of it is co-creation but the end result is that your constituents will become active participants in the process. You don't have to do everything they say, but you might be surprised at the insights and data you'll get in return. 

2. Serve
Acts of service are a great way to create advocates. It takes time, but over time the people you are serving will talk about your acts to others, get their attention and they will benefit from this. Over more time loyalty will develop and over more time they will eventually become your advocate acting as your eyes and ears and providing value back. Think of ways your organization can provide a service.

3. Make it about the catagory
One of the biggest mistakes that companies make when trying to convert consumers to advocates is to make it about their products or marketing to them in some way. Advocacy often times happens around a topic that people care about. Aligning yourself with the appropriate topic is a great way to tap into that momentum. But it has to be relevant and real—so be picky about what catagory you choose to align with and participate around.

4. Make it really easy
Your employees will dread using a collaboration system that's unusable, and out of frustration they will not become advocates of that system (and less likely to advocate for your company). Likewise a customer is less likely to advocate on your behalf if you make customer support, registration, or interacting with your organization difficult. Make all your touchpoints as simple as possible. And this is probably one of the most difficult things you'll ever have to do.

I'm doing a good deal of thinking about what it takes to make a customer, an employee, or anyone within a relevant ecosystem an advocate. And we are incorporating these principles into our client deliverables. I'm convinced this will be a necessary step in scaling and taking advantage of the foundation social technologies is laying out for us. Having advocates which help us listen, aid in customer support and make our products and services better can have huge benefits in business, because the simple fact is you're just not going to be able to do it alone. 

Six Social Media Trends For 2010

Originally posted on The Harvard Business Review blog

In 2009 we saw exponential growth of social media. According to Nielson Online, Twitter alone grew 1,382% year-over-year in February, registering a total of just more than 7 million unique visitors in the US for the month. Meanwhile, Facebook continued to outpace MySpace. So what could social media look like in 2010? In 2010, social media will get even more popular, more mobile, and more exclusive — at least, that's my guess. What are the near-term trends we could see as soon as next year? In no particular order:

1. Social media begins to look less social
With groups, lists and niche networks becoming more popular, networks could begin to feel more "exclusive." Not everyone can fit on someone's newly created Twitter list and as networks begin to fill with noise, it's likely that user behavior such as "hiding" the hyperactive updaters that appear in your Facebook news feed may become more common. Perhaps it's not actually less social, but it might seem that way as we all come to terms with getting value out of our networks — while filtering out the clutter.

2. Corporations look to scale
There are relatively few big companies that have scaled social initiatives beyond one-off marketing or communications initiatives. Best Buy's Twelpforce leverages hundreds of employees who provide customer support on Twitter. The employees are managed through a custom built system that keeps track of who participates. This is a sign of things to come over the next year as more companies look to uncover cost savings or serve customers more effectively through leveraging social technology.

3. Social business becomes serious play
Relatively new networks such as Foursquare are touted for the focus on making networked activity local and mobile. However, it also has a game-like quality to it which brings out the competitor in the user. Participants are incentivized and rewarded through higher participation levels. And push technology is there to remind you that your friends are one step away from stealing your coveted "mayorship." As businesses look to incentivize activity within their internal or external networks, they may include carrots that encourage a bit of friendly competition.

4. Your company will have a social media policy (and it might actually be enforced)
If the company you work for doesn't already have a social media policy in place with specific rules of engagement across multiple networks, it just might in the next year. From how to conduct yourself as an employee to what's considered competition, it's likely that you'll see something formalized about how the company views social media and your participation in it.

5. Mobile becomes a social media lifeline
With approximately 70 percent of organizations banning social networks and, simultaneously, sales of smartphones on the rise, it's likely that employees will seek to feed their social media addictions on their mobile devices. What used to be cigarette breaks could turn into "social media breaks" as long as there is a clear signal and IT isn't looking. As a result, we may see more and/or better mobile versions of our favorite social drug of choice.

6. Sharing no longer means e-mail
The New York Times iPhone application recently added sharing functionality which allows a user to easily broadcast an article across networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Many websites already support this functionality, but it's likely that we will see an increase in user behavior as it becomes more mainstream for people to share with networks what they used to do with e-mail lists. And content providers will be all too happy to help them distribute any way they choose.

These are a few emerging trends that come to my mind — I'm interested to hear what you think as well, so please weigh in with your own thoughts. Where do you see social media going next?

Social Business Design in 5 Minutes

There's been a bit of discussion not so recently about the meaning of Social Business Design. As I thought about this, and the language we use—I recalled the 1/2 day talk I gave in Melbourne recently. The audience seemed to fully grasp the concept and Simon was kind enough to record a few portions of it. In this clip, I discuss the 4 key archetypes that we believe a social business will embody. What do you think?

Give Before You Get

After recently updating some visuals to my Flickr collection, it occurred to me how much of my precious time has gone into producing these artifacts only to "give" them away (specifically for use of blogging and presentations—I ask for attribution, a link is always appreciated). I've had hundreds of people come up to me and tell me they've used my content to further their business more or less. People have benefited off me. But I've benefited off them as well, as I've enjoyed stimulating career opportunities and even received some help when we needed it.

This is a value exchange—a sort of currency that fuels an ever increasing networked economy.

It's not a perfect system by any means. I often wonder if I did the right thing by sharing so much or if I "monitized" my efforts properly. I don't know the answer to this (yet). But here's something I do know. The concept of providing value to your customers or any constituent is a tough pill to swallow. It takes a lot of effort and there's no short cut. So for a company that wants to convert consumers to customer advocates, you have to give. For the Fortune 500 corporation that wants their employees to collaborate more effectively, or perhaps retain their best talent—you have to give. For the brand that wants to leverage a social system to better market their products and services—you have to give.

And giving is hard. But you have to be prepared to do it if you want to thrive in the network economy. Think about it.

When The Ending Isn't Happy

The picture above is of the Loveless family—Jamie, Chris, and their son Gavin. Ken Burbary alerted me through a private message on Twitter that he was going to try to help the family when Jamie became admitted to the hospital for H1N1 flu. Ken wanted to help the family who found themselves stranded in Florida away form their home in Tennessee in a crisis. In two days, Ken and his network raised over 6 thousand dollars through the social web. In two days, Jamie's situation went from bad to worse and she passed away after developing severe pneumonia (most likely caused by the virus).

I guess I feel compelled to write this for a number of reasons. First, as a human being and parent I'm saddened by the story. Secondly, it hits even closer to home as Ken leveraged similar tactics to the the ones we used when helping another family in crisis. Lots of people said that event could not be duplicated and they were partially correct (I could not duplicate it). But others like Ken who have built networks (and trust) over time can choose to tap them if and how they see fit.

Unfortunately, despite the amazing effort and funds that were raised, this did not end as well as the situation I was involved with. I'm not really sure what else to say except that those who helped get the word out and raised funds did a good thing despite the outcome. And to Ken, thank you for leading the charge. My thoughts (and prayers) go out to Chris, Gavin and their family and friends despite the fact that I don't know them personally. I'm sorry for your incredible loss.

The Rise, Fall and Resurrection of the Rock Star

Here's the thing about rock stars. We make them. Somewhere along the line, someone captures our attention with their combination of talent, ambition, personality and we reward them by becoming a fan. Their music taps our imagination, our dreams and inspires us. We grow up wanting to be like them. We choose to accept them despite their numerous personal flaws which often manifest in public. They represent the best and worst of us—a caricature of the human race that's larger than life. We need them and in some ways are them.

BUT

Rock stars don't represent the reality of everyday life. The unglamorous daily churn of making it through the day does. We all get up, do the best we can, go to sleep and start all over again, all the while hoping that we are doing something worthwhile that will make some kind of difference. Most of us relate to this. We also relate to the idea that much of the time it often goes unnoticed.

So we turn our attention to the rock stars that do get noticed.

And that's that's where we need to keep a bit of perspective. Rock stars fill stadiums, draw crowds, entertain and influence pop culture. Everyday people make the world go round. But might I make a suggestion for the rock stars, the aspiring ones and the every day Joes and Janes who make the world go round?

Do your best to make a contribution.

That's all. It doesn't really matter what camp your fall into. There will always be people who put others on stages and yet others who tear those pedestals down. That won't change. Neither will the fact that we all get up, give life a shot and go to sleep hoping we did something worthwhile. And I'll keep this post short because I have a lot of work to get to. So good luck with your efforts—hopefully you can make a difference.