A High Country News Case Study

Friends at High Country News (HCN) in Paonia, CO. have just released this very funny clip illustrating both how it feels and how it's done when you find yourself unprepared for demands rising from emergent technologies. The video entertains as this HCN blog informs by example. 

Takeaway: Now, more than ever, it's really important to design content for mobile access.

A Better Way to an Propose Ordinances

You've probably heard of NYC's recent ban on super-sized soft drinks and much of the "nanny state" backlash whipped up in it wake. Yet, there was enough support for the idea to get it passed. How did that happen?

One possible explanation is this creative use of YouTube to explain the "does" and "does not" terms of the ordinance directly to the audience most impacted by the ordinance by one its own.

A major brand takes an important stand.

A major brand takes an important stand.

Reinforcing its earlier commitment to suicide prevention in December, Facebook affirmed its connection to the National Suicide Prevention Hotline (NSPH) and the ongoing development of social networking tools for use by subscribers during crisis intervention, according to Marne Levine, Facebook's global V.P. of public policy.

“Sometimes people turn to social networks in their most vulnerable moments, and sometimes social networks are a place where people express their deepest insecurities, disappointments, feelings of loneliness or despair, or even worse,” Levine said.

Among the tools developed so far, a confidential suicidal content report developed with the NSPH and available to every Facebook user that immediately triggers a message from a Lifeline crisis worker.

“Although the Lifeline on average handles 70,000 calls per month, we have heard from our Facebook fans and others that there are many people in crisis who don’t feel comfortable picking up the phone,” Lifeline project director John Draper said. “This new service provides a way for them to get the help they need in the way they want it.”

Levine, who formerly worked as a White House economic adviser, shared the company's ongoing support of suicide awareness and prevention on Monday and stressed the importance of connecting people in crisis to those with the tools to intervene in a timely way.

“Every suicide is a tragedy,” she said. “In collaboration with others, we can ensure that when people visit Facebook, they have access to the resources that will help them feel more connected.”

We're entering an exciting age in which major brands increasingly have the social capacity to position themselves as problem solvers beyond healthy balance sheets.

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(source: Venture Beat, 09/10/12)

GM's Media Wall

I keep running into business and agency people who should know better but remain skeptical of social media's prowess. Perceptions of the tenuousness of new media won't likely change until there's widespread adaptive use of social media by the world's leading brands. But wait! Hasn't that already happened.

GM Corporate Headquarters, Renaissance Center, Detroit, MI.

In this provocative conversation during the Influencer Dinner of SF's Pivot Conference in between Wired co-founder, John Batelle, and host/Altimeter Group principal, Brian Solis, Batelle relates a recent visit to GM World Headquarters in Detroit, MI.

When you visit Joel Ewanick, CMO of GM, in his offices in Detroit, the first thing you notice is that unlike most C-suite executives, he’s not on the 39th floor of GM’s Renaissance Centerheadquarters (the highest floor). Instead, you exit the elevators on the 24th floor, less than two thirds up the building.

The second thing that strikes you is the floor itself – it’s bright with natural light, sports an open plan bustling with energy, and features a central video wall sporting constantly updated feeds reflecting consumer sentiment about GM and its brands – Facebook wall postings, Tweets, news stories, and the like.

He goes on to describe how GM uses its video wall to quickly engage its customers where they stand in the media space, often addressing customer service messaging at the local level within an hour of detection. While Mr. Ewanick no longer occupies the CMO office, this kind of acknowledgment of social media clout represents a seismic shift in the thinking of even the most conservative of global brands and ought to be enough to win over even the most recalcitrant of skeptics, wouldn't you think?

After all, what's good for GM is good for the country.

You'd give up sex or coffee for your smartphone?

This latest infograph from Mashable explores how deep the passion runs by smartphone users for their devices. Hint: 64% of those surveyed declared that they'd give up coffee before turning in their in their iPhone or Android. Fewer would give up sex but even that number will surprise you.

Labor Day in the time of Linkedin

For a moment, in consideration of Labor Day, put yourself in the position of an employer needing to fill a job vacancy. The U.S. unemployment rate, as of this writing, is still high (with some geographic variability) so the labor market is soft. You've probably got unsolicited resumes filling a folder over in your filing cabinet with more trickling in on a regular basis and fresh e-mails streaming through your inbox each morning of referrals from friends of friends. You may have job service agencies, headhunters, trade journals, and classified ad sales agents tickling you each month , under pressure to meet quota, just to see if you anticipate any vacancies within the next 30 days. They'll offer a range of services to help you find the right fit. Of course, there'll be forms to complete, job descriptions to post, surveys to answer, ads to buy, closing dates to monitor, interviews to convene, and commissions to pay.

Fat City, right? Well, maybe. The hiring cycle, particularly in the public sector can be especially tedious. At the end of the cycle, provided you find a qualified applicant, there's still potential relocation, orientation and training, a possible probation period, and the unknowns that can derail the entire process and force a dreaded "do over".

In the age of social media, much of the risk associated with employee searches and the hiring process has been mitigated with services like Linkedin.com With over 100 million user profiles, employers and job seekers alike have recognized the value of a more direct, comprehensive, and lower-risk job search. The irony of all this is that, even in a sluggish economy, the balance of power during the job search can shift from employer to job prospect, yielding the unsettling outcome of the job finding the prospect before the prospect finds the job. This is due primarily to the odds of finding a better fit with the rise of available information, including associated contacts, to both parties through user and company profiles.

Moreover, there is demonstrated close linkage between the rate of unemployment and the growth in the number of Linkedin profiles:

 Image source: WebConnoisseur.com

Unique visitor growth to Linkedin tells an important part of the story. Another chapter, though, must include the impact of this migration to social media on those more and less conventional job search tools. There may always be a place for top-flight executive search firms but commission or fee-based Web models like Monster, CareerBuilder, and HotJobs as well as newspaper classifieds are quickly being shown the door. 

The advent of Web analytics feeds critical, current, and precise information to job prospects that has never been available before, except in the pipe dreams of the most forward-thinking labor economists. Rather than rifling through the U.S. Dept. of Labor's Occupational Outlook companion volumes to prognosticate where the jobs of tomorrow are today, we can now capture infographs clearly illustrating the growth and contraction of industries and occupations in real-time:

Source: Linkedin Analytics

In a global economy, it's just as valuable to put your finger on where those rising and falling jobs and industries are located:

There are likely a few more iterations left in the tools used for labor market discovery and it's not difficult to imagine that social media will be dancing somewhere in the middle of that soup. Ultimately, maybe all of us, employers and employees alike, will recognize that the most useful frame of reference is not jobs at all but simply the work that needs to be done.  

Show, don't tell.

Videography, Video-sharing, and Live Streaming

It probably still comes as a surprise to many that if YouTube were a search engine rather than a video sharing tool it would rank #2 among search engines. It's true. Yet, if you were to strap on a set of headphones and search your favorite video sharing site for clips produced by or featuring your favorite local business, non-profit, government agency, or news source you'd very likely hear...crickets. 

And if we've just described your organization, let's fix that.

Part of good conversation is engaging the senses of your listener so that your story comes alive in vivid detail. One of the best ways to get that done is through video but it's better to show than tell so have a look...

A case in point...

Which is more likely to inspire you to book a flight tour of the Golden Gate, a narrative explaining where you'll go and what you'll see or this?

Of course, we're also living at a time when video can affordably be recorded for posterity, delivered in real time, or both. Got an event that you want to broadcast across the Web? Get in touch with us during the early stages of your event planning. We'll walk you through your Webcast from concept through execution to event analysis. 

Case Study: Nothing Runs Like a Deere (on Social Media)

John Deere (Deere & Co.), the world's leading manufacturer of farm equipment painted in that trademark bright green, has been inspiring unshakable brand loyalty since it was founded in 1837. Wherever two or more John Deere fans meet you can safely figure that an instant bond will be formed and a conversation will ensue, often at length and with great passion. Naturally, with the rapid rise of Web 2.0 technologies, John Deere found itself a little unprepared for the impacts of the social media revolution upon its brand. Like many organizations, it didn't take conversations in the Twitterspace or on Facebook especially seriously.

By mid-2008, however, there were already 500 Facebook groups dedicated to John Deere. All of them were created by fans and others within the enthusiast community. None of them were created with the oversight or permission of corporate headquarters. The top 10 John Deere Facebook groups contained over 10,000 members. One of those groups was named, "John Deere Sucks!!". To make matters even more uncomfortable for Deere & Co., it's primary competitor for industrial machinery sales, Caterpillar, was an early adopter of social networking and ranked among the top 10 corporations with an established Facebook community.

The potential for both hazard and opportunity for John Deere was high and could quickly be summed up like this:

• In the vacuum created by the absence of Deere & Co. from the social media conversation, others had taken control of the John Deere brand and would continue to do so - for better or for worse.
• The speed and scale at which John Deere fans mobilized within the social network was solid confirmation of the brand's relevance and strength.
• That kind of mobilization provides powerful leverage to both users and competitors to shape or reshape the identity and brand of the company within the community.
• Negative publicity driven from the "John Deere Sucks!!" group would necessarily rank high among search engines if not engaged or countered by the company.

Fortunately, Deere & Co. recognized both the opportunities and threats contained within its already powerful and mobilized community and joined the conversation, first - by listening to what the community was saying and, then, by engaging its fans within their own groups and with its own official Facebook pages and groups.

To its credit, the fast recovery by Deere & Co. earned its Facebook page over 1,000,000 fans by February, 2012.

Why we should have a conversation about your conversation.

The Story of Conversation

Stories are everywhere, told and untold. They're told in personal conversation or through the media, one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many. Often, stories are just waiting to be told. Are you listening to the conversation about your brand? Is your story being heard? Is it still waiting to be told? Have you found your audience? Is your audience ready to listen to what you have to say?

Traditional media was designed to tell stories in one direction with enough force, frequency, and uniformity that few could escape the penetration of its messaging from above. But that approach belongs to another era. Interests, attitudes, lifestyles, demands, and tools for storytelling have evolved irrevocably and now demand responsive people and organizations that listen often, 

connect deeply,

learn quickly, and adapt creatively. 

Where you'll find it now.

Get in on your conversation.

The Most Elegant Business Opportunity

“The most elegant business opportunity is one in which there is no competition.”
- Paul Shipman, founder, Red Hook Brewery

Red Hook ESB Print Ad, Red Hook Brewery

While living in San Francisco’s Mission District, I found no shortage of neighborhood pubs serving up a broad range of the best craft beers on the market. Each pub and each brew had their niche at a time when the term “niche” was as fresh as the beer drawn from any number of taps fastened into the walls behind the bar.

It was at Zeitgeist at Valencia/Duboce St., one of these pubs that catered, especially, to the bike messenger crowd where I discovered Red Hook ESB, a buttery-flavored ale that ruined me for every other beer against the wall on any late Sunday afternoon following a full day of high-speed motorcycling along Hwy. 1, north or south. Even my beloved Guinness took a backseat to this northwest upstart. Red Hook was one of the first craft beers to develop a following large and fast enough to give Budweiser, Coors, and Miller a legitimate scare and, ultimately, force them into giving way to a new market for a 9,000 year old commodity.

Zeitgeist Bar, Valencia/Duboce St., San Francisco, CA.

Yet, while reading a profile of one of the founders of the Red Hook Brewery, Paul Shipman, in a popular business magazine three years later, I was both tickled and relieved to read the quote above by a man who had reinvented beer for so many hooligans like myself and turned a complacent industry on its ear. Not only was Shipman’s statement an endorsement of the enduring value of Pirsig’s Quality in wherever it may be found, but perhaps, and most importantly, it unlocked with just a few words an important secret of the successful marketing of Quality. You need to believe and know

The confidence of knowing that you’re so distinctly excellent in every way when you take yourself to market is at the essence of every great brand.

Use SMART objectives to give your goals traction.

Goal-setting ought to be pretty clear and straightforward but, without discipline, those earnest brainstorms can meander and drift. Emergency planners don't have the luxury of chasing down poorly-defined daydreams prone to floating away. Instead, they employ a couple of strategies to give important ideas some necessary traction.

"If you have more than three objectives, you have no objectives."  

This makes sense, doesn't it? Naturally, there may be an exception here or there but all too often projects get lost in a sea of conflicting or confused goal-setting that quickly dispatch the best of intentions to the dust heap. Don't let that happen to your project! We don't. Layering goals in the service of one clearly-worded purpose statement keeps everyone in focus.

What is a SMART objective?

A SMART objective regulates activity to reality so that the odds of success of project completion on time and within budget are improved. The 5 elements of SMART objectives work together to keep things real and in synch. 

• Specific - Is the objective precise and well-defined? Is it clear? Does everyone understand it?
• Measurable - How will we know when the task is completed? What evidence is needed to confirm completion? Have you stated how you'll judge whether the task is completed or not?
• Achievable - Are sufficient resources available? Is there enough capacity to make use of available resources? Can the project be completed at all?
• Realistic - How sensible is the objective within the current business environment? Is it possible for staff to perform identified tasks? Do tasks fit within the overall pattern of work developed by staff?
• Timely - Is there a hard deadline? Is the deadline feasible? Is it appropriate to meet the objective now? Have review dates been established from start to completion?

Cloud Computing with Google Apps

Productivity applications and social media are a natural fit through cloud computing.