lead/marke | ralf schwartz

[L/M NET] Drew Neisser > How to Double Sales By Really Trying

ralf says: Sound like a piece of cake, the below 7 steps towards success, or? You bet. I like them, because they make my Golden Rule 'Inspiration - Aspiration - Transpiration' more tangible. ... Enjoy!
(L/M NET features Drew's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

 

To me, genius is the ability to make the difficult look easy, like the prima ballerina who floats with seemingly effortless grace across the stage.  Such was the nature of my conversation with Loic Moisand, the co-founder of Synthesio, who explained how his social media monitoring company has managed to double sales three years running and expected to do the same in 2011.  It was all so matter of fact, it was as if any one could have done it, anyone that is, who followed these 7 oh so easy steps.

1. Have two heads
Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped. Elbert Hubbard
Since few of us are actually born with two heads, physically or metaphorically, Moisand was lucky enough to found Synthesio back in 2006 with Thibault Hanin (CTO).  Explained Moisand, “we are two founders with two totally different profiles, he’s in charge of product development while I’m in charge of sales and consulting.”  Together they became the yin and yang of social media monitoring, ensuring that their products and services are an equal balance of hi-tech and hi-touch.

2. Be the early worm
To see things in the seed, that is genius. Lao Tzu
In 2006, a handful of people were thinking about the importance of monitoring social media for big brands as if their reputations depended on it.  Among these were the French duo, Moisand and Harin, who spent two years on product development.  “We really worked slowly,” explained Moisand who personally conducted research among 400 professionals in order “to really understand how social media could help them on a daily basis.” When they finally launched their monitoring tool in 2008, the market was just about ready for it.

3. Act global
Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Born in Europe, Synthesio’s product offering was informed by its locale. “From the very beginning, our goals was to work in several languages, so we started with five,” noted Moisand.  Now covering 30 languages, it is the only truly global offering in its category.  Not surprisingly, among Synthesio’s 50 or so clients are many of the world’s top global brands, brands that rely on Synthesio’s platform to help with reputation management, customer service, product research and increasingly, in crisis situations.

4. Think local
Genius ain’t anything more than elegant common sense. Josh Billings
Few companies practice what they preach as well as Synthesio.  Wanting to help their clients connect on a global basis, they added offices in New York and London to round out their Paris headquarters.  More importantly, Synthesio is fast becoming one of its own best case histories, using their own social media management tools to drive leads.  “We currently have three to five incoming leads every day coming from many places in the world thanks to [our] community management,” explained a gleeful Moisand.

5. Just say no to self-service
The essence of genius is to know what to overlook. William James
In the world of software as a service, service is generally an afterthought and rarely a profit center.  Synthesio, on the other hand, added consulting services on top of its initial monitoring platform after about a year, a decision that has further differentiated the brand from competitors like Radian 6.  Explained Moisand, “we really want to nurture our clients and help them understand what they can do with their online reputation.” Now armed with a team of analysts and consultants, Synthesio had the wherewithal to truly help their clients navigate through the ever-changing social landscape.

6. Never lose a customer
Genius is talent set on fire by courage. Henry Van Dyke
This start-up thing is getting easier and easier, right?  Just go get the customers and then hold onto them like a famished ferret.  Exclaimed Moisand, “you spend so much time finding a client when you lose it, it’s really a nightmare.”  “That’s why we have a team of experts, to make sure [clients] have someone to talk to and just keep working with us all the time,” he added.  With this kind of attention to retention, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Synthesio keeps over 90% of its clients from year to year and Forrester awarded it a Groundswell award for best B2B Listening.

7. Don’t sleep
There is no off position on the genius switch. David Letterman
Okay maybe this entrepreneurial thing isn’t all that easy and takes significant stamina along with brains and sales skills.  Noted Moisand, “last year, I think every week there was a new tool coming to market and a new tool was dying.”  In the face of this relentless competition, Synthesio has not sought outside capital, instead guided by its motto, “money doesn’t make you smart,” they continue to find new ways to innovate with client and internal input. Acknowledging the true nature of his challenge, Moisand confessed, “we don’t sleep at night.”

Final note:
While Synthesio is hardly a household word in the US, don’t be surprised if you start to hear their name in the halls of globally ambitious American companies. And should you doubt me, just remember Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s words, “people of humor are always in some degree people of genius.” (This article first appeared on FastCompany.com ).

Drew is the CEO of Renegade, the digital & guerrilla marketing agency from New York City that helps clients make more out of less by transforming communications into "Marketing as Service." Twitter: @DrewNeisser

Design: LeMans 1967. Ford GT40 MKIIB.

Via tokyo-bleep.

Brand Engagement: 7 Myths of Hyper-Social Organizations and Why Human 1.0 is Key

“With the rise of social media, which provides a massive platform of participation and a social infrastructure that is finally catching up with the conference infrastructure, the social element is reentering commerce and business with a vengeance.

People can now claim a share of voices that is equal or larger than that of companies, employees can now develop support networks that cross the traditional hierarchical organization charts, and people can once again behave the way they were hardwired to behave in business and commerce–tribally, humanly, and socially.

To understand the changes that are afoot in the world of business you are better off understanding Human 1.0, which took tens of thousands of years to develop, rather than Web 2.0, which took merely a decade.”

- Francois Gossieaux, via changethis

A click downloads the full presentation, a pdf, by Francois.

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > “Create the Niche You Will Occupy” (Charlie Stross)

ralf: And it will be easier than ever before. Niches will be countless. Markets will be infinite. Because they are not defined by research institutes any longer, on a theoretical level.

They are 'made' by consumers, invented through their new individuality, independence, and impatience.
Informal Markets! Infinite possibilities! ... Enjoy!

(L/M NET features Tim's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

In a nice post inspired from the classic TED talk from Malcolm Gladwell, Charlie Stross talks about the importance of experimenting:

Another important point from the video is that consumers do not always know what they want. This isn’t exactly a revelation to readers, who are always discovering unexpected pleasures inside book jackets: Did I know I wanted to read a mash up of James Bond, Office Space, and HP Lovecraft? Hell no. But I did, very much so. I mention it because it’s something that should be said often. Readers don’t always know what they want. We should be trying new things constantly, just in case we come across our new favorite flavor, and good writers create the niche they will occupy.

Think about that for a second - he is saying that novelists, who invest a year or so into each book, should be trying new things constantly, just in case they work.

He’s right.

And if novelists can afford to experiment with something into which they invest so much time, effort and thought, surely you can afford to test out one small new idea that you think will make things better. Start small, and get the hang of experimenting.

Once you’re good at it, you can start thinking big: What space do you want to occupy? It can be a space in the market, a space in your job, a space in your life. Stross is right – we can create our own niche in any of these places.

So what will it be?

(and in case you’ve somehow missed it, the Gladwell talk is well worth watching)

Tim is a lecturer at The University of Queensland Business School. He researches, writes, teaches and consults on topics relating to effective innovation management, with an emphasis on studying innovation networks. He blogs at The Innovation Leadership Network. Twitter: @timkastelle

TEDTalk: The future of business is the "mesh" - by Lisa Gansky

Addendum

Feb, 25th, 13:17hrs > Please read also: Six Reasons Why the Sharing Society (aka the Mesh) Will Trump the Ownership Society, by Lisa - and a great comment why it won't (right under the post, by Mike van Horn).

Tom Fishburne > "Return on Indecision"

Note: I get this a lot inside global corporations delegating decisions to the higher paid opinion or center. And at agencies - when they tell me they have to think a little bit longer if they are ready to change their business model already.
Sometimes real pain helps to get decisions faster, but they are not better - made in agony and a rush. ... Enjoy, ralf!
(L/M NET features Tom's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

I spent a few days in Vermont last week with Eureka Ranch founder, Doug Hall. At one point, Doug said, “if you’re not meaningfully unique, you better be cheap”.

Any idea that is “meaningfully unique” is inherently risky because by definition you can’t point to a precedent in the market. You have to step into the unknown, which is uncomfortable.

When many companies are faced with the unknown, they freeze. They spend hours debating potential scenarios and are incapable of making the go/no go decision. Sometimes this indecisive period lasts months or longer.

One of my previous managers was king of the debate club method of decision-making. His whole team would war-game scenarios for hours until our craniums hurt and still get no closer to launching our idea. Debate club would reconvene again and again, all while the clock ticked.

Instead of arguing from a conference room table, agree to the biggest areas of risk and frame a few experiments to learn about that risk. Get your idea or a form of your idea into the market as quickly as possible. As WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg said, “usage is like oxygen for ideas”. Once you’ve tested what you can test, bite the bullet and make the decision. There’s only so much you can learn by debating.

Companies measure project return by many dimensions: return on investment, return on capital, return on equity, etc. Return is not just a factor of what projects you invest in, but how you execute them.

There is also a cost to being indecisive.

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. @tomfishburne

Celebrities in Advertising? > "Today's consumer is a totally different animal"

"Today's consumer is a totally different animal than the consumer of even five years ago, meaning that what was effective and influential five years ago is not necessarily so today, as today's consumer is more likely to be influenced by someone in their social network than a weak celebrity connection.

Today's consumer is informed, time-compressed, and difficult to impress, and they are only influenced by ads that are relevant and provide information.

They don't want to have products pushed at them, even from a celebrity.

In fact, the data show that relevance and information attributes were key missing ingredients from most celebrity ads."

Read more at BrandingStrategyInsider.

"Why Ballmer wasn’t at the Obama tech dinner" [Comic]

Via thenextweb.

[L/M NET] Tim Kastelle > "Tools Don’t Solve Problems, People Do"

Note:  Please welcome Tim Kastelle at lead/marke NET. He is a lecturer in Innovation Management at the University of Queensland Business School. He researches, writes, teaches and consults on topics relating to effective innovation management, with an emphasis on studying innovation networks. He blogs at The Innovation Leadership Network. Twitter: @timkastelle.
Please enjoy Tim's thoughtful contributions!
(L/M NET features Tim's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

 

What do you do if the tools you use to improve your innovation process actually make it worse?

I had a meeting yesterday with one of our research partners to go over some of the results of our recent survey. The research has two parts – we are mapping the innovation and knowledge-sharing networks within the organisation, and we are also looking at how effective they are at managing the innovation process. Finally, we’re trying to figure out how these two things interact. Yesterday we were talking about their innovation process.

We surveyed about 100 people about the organisation’s effectiveness in managing the innovation value chain. The innovation value chain looks at how effective you are at generating ideas, selecting and testing ideas, and getting ideas to spread. I’ve pictured it previously like this:

In order to innovate effectively, you need to be good at all three parts of the process. Firms rarely suffer from a lack of ideas, and our partner is the same. The part of the process that they are the worst at is selecting and testing ideas. These are some of the questions on which they scored particularly poorly:

• It takes too long to develop novel project solutions to the point where they can be used.
• We do not have the time to develop innovative ideas for potential reuse outside of the project they were invented on.
• We have a risk-averse attitude towards trying novel project solutions.

The irony of this situation is that they have invested a fair bit of money into a software package which has the primary purpose of helping them with exactly this step in the process.

As I discussed this with our contact, she looked at the survey results, then she said “You know, none of those things are problems that can be solved with technology.”

I thought that this was a fantastic piece of insight.

A big part of the problem here is that they invested in a tool, and the expected the tool to solve their problem. Unfortunately, the tool doesn’t create more time for people, and it doesn’t increase their innovation skills. Their tool has moved them to the right on the Innovation Matrix, but it hasn’t moved them up it:

This is why the Innovation Matrix is useful – because tools and skills are two separate things. You can increase one without affecting the other. As Jeffrey Phillips wrote in a perceptive post today, innovation is the last people-centric process:

The fact is that people play a disproportionate role in innovation when compared to any other important function. That’s because, unlike many other processes, the work can’t be divided into simple tasks that can be automated by a computer or accelerated by inanimate processes. So here’s the important question: if people play such a vital role in innovation, why do we starve innovation of the best people in the organization? If people are so vital to innovation, why do we intentionally limit the amount of time we allow for innovators to work?

There are a few key lessons in this:

• Innovation tools and innovation skills are two separate things: people often think that they can solve their innovation problems simply by finding the right tool. This is rarely true. In general, to improve innovation you have to improve skills and capabilities. Tools can be used to facilitate this process, but they can’t do it on their own.
• One of the biggest obstacles to innovation is lack of time: if innovation is important, people need the time and space to work on developing, testing, and spreading new ideas. If you are a manager and you want your people to be more innovative, you have to give them the time needed to do this.
• Tools don’t solve problems, people do: this is why innovation is still people-centric. It’s more important to remove obstacles to innovation than it is to give people tools.

There’s no magic bullet here, no perfect tool. So stop looking for one. Instead, start experimenting. Find the things that work, and scale these up.

Tim is a lecturer at The University of Queensland. He researches, writes, teaches and consults on topics relating to effective innovation management, with an emphasis on studying innovation networks. He blogs at The Innovation Leadership Network. @timkastelle.

[L/M NET] Helge Tenno > "How Do We Move on from Appiness?"

Note: That's an important dimension of what I call PLAY and WIN-WIN! ... Enjoy! ralf
(L/M NET features Helge's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

 

In the mobile world Appiness is a term used both by Apple and app-producers. The term has had a great ring to it in 2010. But everybody knows that in order for mobile to move on; from being a novelty to finding a seat in every organizations marketing communications and business strategy, something will have to happen. But what?

I was lucky enough to be interviewed by Tiziano Luccarelli and The iMagazine on my thoughts on diverse subjects. I thought I’d share the highlights from some of this interview here.

The solution is simple, the Internet used to be about communicating information. Marketing was the distribution of content. But now, with mobile spearheading the initiative. The services revolution is coming. Companies are seeing that including a services package around the product far outweighs the benefits and incentives for brand loyalty compared to the traditional banner advertisement or brochures / direct mail.
…
Where I would argue Appiness is all about the novelty and “the million downloads”, the services revolution will be about integrating your mobile services into your customer relationship. Measuring downloads as a success metrics will be a thing of the past, one would rather measure the percentage of total customers taking advantage of the program. And the services won’t be games or freebies. It will be perfectly integrated smartness into the context that you are already in, extending the value already offered by your product.

Read the whole interview on The-iMagazine.com.

Helge works as a Planner for SDG, helping brands and organizations discover WHY they are valuable in consumers lives, and HOW they can create deliberate value on the arenas and inside the interfaces where they connect with them. Twitter: @congbo

Couldn't AUDI do more than build those just incrementally better looking cars!?

You bet they can! Why don't they dare to? Because they think it is sufficient to be incrementally better in an average environment!? Famous last words.

You think so, too?

Via hotvvheels.

Via amunt.

 

Helge Tenno > Something completely new

Note:  Looking forward to Microsoft and Nokia fulfilling that. ... Enjoy!
(L/M NET features Helge's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

 

We tend to forget that technology in itself is unusable, it is only when it is shaped into things people want that it has an effect on people and business.

“Technology creates needs, not the other way around”
- Donald Norman

The role of the designer in this is to turn technology into something people can use, something that awakens people’s interest, motivates them to learn, creates a passion and eventually ends up changing their habits.

If you look around you, most or all of the things you own or use every day is designed technology. Shaped into products that didn’t exist two, ten or a hundred years ago – stuff you can’t live without today.

The mobile future is not about the global success stories from the Cokes, Nikes and Apples of the world. The mobile future is about the every day SMALL things that make what WE do, simpler, smaller or smarter. Which means what businesses do in order to create new customers, build stronger brands or even explore and develop new business models.

The mobile future is simply about two things: Capitalizing on relationships and redefining business.

So when you think of mobile, it is most likely not a solution to a need that is already voiced, it is not a smaller version of something you are already selling. Mobile is you offering your customers something completely new.

That is mobile – something completely new.

Helge works as a Planner for SDG, helping brands and organizations discover WHY they are valuable in consumers lives, and HOW they can create deliberate value on the arenas and inside the interfaces where they connect with them. @congbo

Tom Fishburne > "For Immediate Release"

Note: I remember all those long discussions with all those PR guys ... Enjoy!
(L/M NET features Tom's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

PR is called earned media for a reason. You have to earn it. If you earn it, PR can be far more valuable than paid media. But earned media follows different rules than paid media, and certainly different rules than spam.

Some PR agencies forget that the “R” in PR stands for relations. They instead follow the antiquated “For Immediate Release” model (still stamped on old-school press releases). “For Immediate Release” is one-sided mass communication. It’s in the same family as spam.

I cracked up at Wired Editor Mat Honan’s commentary: “Yours is a Very Bad Press Release“.  In the essay, he skewers a particularly bad press release line-by-line and offers this advice:

“We’re the media. We get a lot of press releases. Press releases are almost always bad. Especially those that come to our personal email inboxes. Here’s a better idea: write an email to someone you know will care.”

I talked to a friend recently who shared how much PR has changed in her career. She remembers sending the same generic press kit to a mass list with physical photo slides. That approach used to get big results for news-hungry papers and magazines, many of which would run the quotes and pictures as is. Now the content stakes are raised. The carpet bombing press release tactic no longer works.

There’s never been a better time for great PR agencies. They can create real relationships with those who create the most valuable content to the most relevant audience. They can craft material worth sharing.

But they have to earn it.

PR agencies can learn from Sasha Dichter, one man with no agency but a great idea he wanted to spread. A philanthropist at the Acumen Fund, Sasha hatched an experiment to reboot Valentine’s Day as Generosity Day: “saying yes to everything that’s asked of you, all day long”. Compare how he framed his appeal with the last generic press release you received.

Sasha only came up with the Generosity Day idea a couple days ago. It’s already spread to Fast Company, Huffington Post, and has racked up more than 500 retweets and scores of blog posts, and it’s only Sunday night. Sasha combined a great idea with relationships he’s cultivated. It’s media he’s earned.

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. @tomfishburne

#Egypt Engagement: Does this look like a Revolution? - You better believe it!

The most impressive demonstration of individual's and people's new independence, individuality, and impatience we just saw in Egypt - and will see in many more countries now!

Here you find the respective Twitter graph:

Via dataviz. - Click for larger picture.

Strategy w/o a Vision: The End of Nokia

This is it. Goodbye Nokia! It was a wonderful time - when you were young and wanted to change the telecommunications world with your hardware.

Now you are old! Very old. That old that you hired someone from Microsoft to make you jump from a burning platform into the Microsoft hell. Microsoft - the only company in the world being older than you!

You jumped from the burning platform, you are in transition, freeze-frame, your life before your inner eye, Inception - the movie, WAKE UP, Nokia!

Didn't you understand that Microsoft wanted you to safe themselves - not the other way round? Don't you understand that your new CEO is a Trojan Microsoft Horse?
Don't you understand that Microsoft succeeded with an unfriendly takeover and you did not wake up till now.

Google's, Apple's, everybody's laughter should be your wake-up call? They won!

That's it. You are done! Why?

01 - You don't have a vision - just a strategy (press release)!
A strategy without a vision has no meaning, neither to employees, nor to consumers, nor to contractors and partners. A strategy without a vision has no target, no goal.

02 - Change for change's sake?
“Nokia is at a critical juncture, where significant change is necessary and inevitable in our journey forward,” said Stephen Elop, Nokia President and CEO.
Hm.

03 - "Smart Devices and Mobile Phones"?
You call them 'distinct business units'. What is the distinctive part of it? Or distinctive from each other? What is new, innovative, disrupting, breaking the rules of the market about those business units?

04 - "A winning Windows Phone portfolio"?
You must be kidding! You could not build a winning phone, and Microsoft couldn't. Why should the two of you now suddenly be able to build one? What changed?
You both did not understand the market, the consumer, Apple, Google, the new individuality, independence, and impatience of consumers. What changed? Nothing.

05 - Informal Markets are your future!
But Informal Markets need transcendend structures, no silo mentalities, no ivory towers.
There will be no 'Smart Devices' OR 'Mobile Phones', there will only be Smart Phones - and don't let yourself be blinded by the old meaning of the word smart phone!

In the future everything will have to be smart, and everything will have the capability to connect, phone, communicate.

Bye-bye Micronokia! See you in corporate heaven.

Addendum

12:20hrs > Nokia Shares Are Getting CRUSHED After Big Microsoft Announcement, businessinsider.
13:07hrs > Nokia: Ignoring People, nebelhorn (German).
16:27hrs > “More than a thousand employees” walk out of Nokia offices, tnw.

Feb, 14th > 10:39hrs > Nokia's 15-year tango to avoid Microsoft, theregister.
Feb, 15th > 09:36hrs > Forget Products - Think Ecosystems, timkastelle.

Dear Multinationals, we proudly present your next Challenge [Chart]

Via thisisnthappiness.

Drew Neisser > "We're Not in the Like Business"

Note:  I like ;): "I don’t think Net Promoter is about like, its about love" in the following interview. ... Enjoy!
(L/M NET features Drew's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

The following are highlights of my interview with Deborah Eastman, the former CMO and current GM of Global Consulting at Satmetrix, shortly after her presentation on Social Media at the Satmetrix Net Promoter® Conference. By the way, there were over 500 people at this conference with a sizable representation from a number of really big companies like Verizon Wireless, Symantec, AAA, American Express, Dell, Fidelity Investments, Merck, and Intuit.  (You will find the article inspired by this conference on MediaPost.com.)

In the off chance that Net Promoter is a new concept to you, click here. The rest of you are probably well aware of the idea that was first popularized in Fred Reicheld’s book, “the Ultimate Question,” and have seen my references to it in several past posts.

What are the challenges of integrating social media and Net Promoter?
The challenge is that if you do [integrate social and NPS®] you also need to integrate it with your CRM system so you can do NPS by segment. You need to know if they are customers or not. You need to know if they are high value customers or not. And we would advocate this is not about collecting a score, this is about improving the experience in a closed-loop process is a critical part of that.

Would it make sense to put your Net Promoter Score right up on website?
I’m not a big fan of publishing your NPS especially to your customers because, who cares! I mean, do your customers really care what your NPS is? What customers care about is what experience they get. And our personal philosophy is that Net Promoter is about building a customer-centric culture, which you deliver a positive customer experience. The result of that is a high Net Promoter Score. Focusing on the score is having the wrong conversation.

Should we anticipate Net Promoter being asked on a Facebook fan page?
We’d like to see a better integration of Net Promoter and social media. In face, we’d love to see that. The challenge, I see today is that its all about social media marketing. We [marketers] haven’t connected the dots between Net Promoter and social media in a way that allows us to really take advantage of those visitors.

In the egalitarian world of social media, even a small voice can have a big impact. Is there a risk in treating some customers better via social channels?
We have what we call “the voice according to value,” so when you think about Net Promoter as a customer feedback process, [not all customers are equal.] If I call American Airlines as an Executive Platinum member, I should get a differentiated experience from the guy that flies once a year to go visit grandma. The example I gave with Stephen Fry, is the potential brand impact that [his tweets] had differentiated him [because of] his influence not necessarily his value as an [individual] customer. That influence translates to value.

Does this same notion apply to B2B customers?
I think you should always be looking at segmentation of your customers in order to treat your customers differently. In a B2B environment you should be treating – understanding the needs of a decision maker differently than an end user. So I absolutely believe in that.

Is there any kind of equivalency between a Like on Facebook and a Net Promoter?
Like to me is opting in. I don’t think it identifies you as a Promoter or a Passive or a Detractor. You could be liking a particular thread, you could be liking the brand, [there are] all kinds of ways to like. And quite honestly, I don’t think Net Promoter is about like, its about love. When you really create a Promoter, you create an emotional connection that is closer to love than like.

Should we expect a Satmetrix plug-in that will work right on Facebook?
Not on our immediate road map. I am much more interested in integrating the voice of the customer into the closed-loop process, which is the most important part of a Net Promoter program. Having fragmented listening channels without a closed-loop process is a disadvantage for our customers. Whether or not we collect scores through Facebook or those types of things, we’ll let our customers drive us there.

A lot of people here have the title “customer experience executive,” and a lot of companies have social media people, is there a world where these folks are in all in the same department?
In my perfect world, yes! What Symantec has done is interesting–they’ve established a Social Media Council and I actually think that’s where we’ll see this go. This [type of council] brings together all of the key stakeholders which would include marketing, customers experience execs, probably include the support organization and the product org for idea generation. This would bring together multi-functional representation to be looking at social media from an enterprise perspective.

Whats happens if these departments aren’t working together?
Social media is another channel for customer experience but its fragmented [right now]. Marketing is doing their thing; service is doing their thing. To me, Starbucks would be a great example. You go to the Starbuck Facebook page — you can actually top off your Starbucks card (clearly owned by marketing) and then there’s Starbucks Ideas which is this community that consumers can provide ideas for what they want from Starbucks. But you can’t access Starbucks Ideas from their Facebook page. [That]just illustrates a siloed mentality.

A year from now, do you expect the folks here will come back with their social media stories?
I don’t know if it will move that fast. We’ll want to watch their progression with NPS. Companies like Symantec are very advanced on their Net Promoter communities so they are integrating NPS in social media channels but many of the attendees here are still early on their journey. They are still trying to figure out how to build a closed-loop process, never mind integrating it with social media.

Any final words of wisdom bringing these two worlds together?
I don’t think it is about [getting the Net Promoter] score, I think it is about creating a social experience that creates promoters. Right now we just want to get the Net Promoter guys at the table because [social media] is typically owned by marketing and treated in a very fragmented fashion and we would advocate that you want to make sure that at least that’s connected with your Net Promoter program.

FYI: Net Promoter, NPS, and Net Promoter Score are trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., Bain & Company, Inc., and Fred Reichheld.

Drew is the CEO of Renegade, the digital & guerrilla marketing agency from New York City that helps clients make more out of less by transforming communications into "Marketing as Service." @DrewNeisser

Rachel Botsman on How Collaborative Consumerism Will Change Our World

Another 'threat' - (next to Dear Industries, Tough Times Ahead: The Self-Repair Manifesto) will shared consumption become.

It will offer whole new business models for the agile mind, for those with peripheral view and pattern recognition capabilities.
Informal Markets, built via human's new individuality, independence, and impatience might become a clever business innovation model:

Via lead/marke.

Rachel is the co-author of What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption. "She studies how we're switching to a culture of sharing, and how that will transform business, consumerism, and the meaning and impact of social networking in our lives":

"We are just in the nascent stages of Collaborative Consumption. We have already seen examples like Netflix, eBay and Zipcar become household names but that has taken a decade - technology and consumer values were playing catch-up.

But I think the current massive cultural and technological shift is accelerating the next wave of Collaborative Consumption at an astonishing rate. I think it's critical for more big brands to enter the space. BMW, Daimler and Peugeot have all recently launched car sharing models. Amazon just announced its 'Buy Back' scheme of second-hand unwanted books.

I would love to see a big bank enter the social lending space; for a retail giant like Target to launch an innovative rental model; for a brand like Zappos to create a shoe swapping and repair platform....

Big brands can reach scale faster, they prove there are real business models behind Collaborative Consumption (and there are), but they also create the social proof, the cultural cache for this new cultural and economy to become mainstream."

Get more details at treehugger, where Rachel Botsman Explains How Collaborative Consumerism Will Change Our World (Interview).

Tom Fishburne > Your Call is Very Important

Note: Another one of those 'Pentalobular Screws'. ... Enjoy!
(L/M NET features Tom's inspiring posts on a regular basis.)

I sketched this cartoon while on hold with United Airlines last week. I spent a total of two hours and 12 minutes with United over four separate phone calls trying to get home from New York after the storm, so I had a lot of time to think about service.

Many brands fall down on service. They view it as a cost center. Yet, all the marketing dollars invested in animated TV ads and direct mail mail pieces can be evaporated by a couple bad service experiences.

Marketers dream of having a captive consumer audience. Most brands struggle for attention. United had two hours and 12 minutes of my time. I was captive all right. But as I listened to the George Gershwin United theme song over and over again, I had time to think about all of my frustrations with United (and question just how much that Premier Executive frequent flyer status was worth it).

Of course, bad weather isn’t United’s fault. But, dealing with the aftermath of bad weather is simply part of being an airline. Excelling at resolving situations when things go wrong is part of how any brand is judged.

A few years ago, I interviewed with Apple for a marketing role with AppleCare, their service and support plan. At first, I didn’t see how a service plan was even marketing. But then I realized that the moment Apple products break is exactly the moment that Apple proves itself as a brand. The genius at the Genius Bar or the AppleCare phone operator are front-line brand managers. Those experiences directly drive how a consumer feels about a brand, and what stories they share with others.

If you haven’t seen it already, take a look at Dave Carroll’s music video that captures his rough service experience with United. His experience obviously touched a nerve. The video has been seen 9.9 million times and Time Magazine named it the seventh most viral video in 2009. The Times even speculated that the video and bad PR fallout prompted a 10% stock price drop for United. Service is as much a part of marketing as the four Ps.

 

Tom, when not cartooning (eg. for Marketing Week), is method's international managing director. Based in London, he frequently speaks at campuses, companies, and conferences about marketing, cartooning, and how to spread business ideas. @tomfishburne

Note: lead/marke Newsletter Delivery

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Hope you like that.

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