Here’s a beautiful, if entirely random piece of software art for those of us who treasure the words we use.
It’s called Wordle and it makes a buzz-cloud image of the most common words on a particular URL, or piece of text.
Here’s what my blog looks like today. What does yours look like?
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The word of the week in my neck of the woods is coherence:
Dictionary.com gives the definition as:
Coherence (co·her·ence)
Pronunciation [koh-heer-uhns]
noun
1. the act or state of cohering; cohesion.
2. logical interconnection; overall sense or understandability.
3. congruity; consistency.
4. Physics, Optics. (of waves) the state of being coherent.
5. Linguistics. the property of unity in a written text or a segment of spoken discourse that stems from the links among its underlying ideas and from the logical organization and development of its thematic content.
It’s the second and third definitions I’m interested in.
This week - in reality it happens every week - I stumbled across a number of incidences within my jurisdiction where people in positions that count (I’m talking VP marcoms worldwide, Head of Digital Marketing and the list goes on) have proved that while they are ultimately responsible for the web strategies and social initiatives of their respective companies, the day-to-day complexities and overwhelming commitments they have are asked to deal with means that their hands are tied.
In one case in particular, one of them wrote a lengthy blog article about the latest social technologies and then responded to a comment asking when his company - the world’s #1 pasta company - was to adopt social media with a friendly, “let it go”.
My question is why wouldn’t a company like that want to start using social media?
On the other side of the coin, my own little one-way run-in with Publicis just goes to show that many professionals and companies who market themselves as conversation catalysts (oxymoron intended) are simply not firing on all cylinders.
So why is this?
How is it possible that the message isn’t flowing through the corridors of power 1.0?
The answer I believe lies in coherency. If your company adopts an eco-friendly approach, you can’t do it with just the packaging and expect people to buy into it. Likewise that “please do not print this” message at the bottom of emails convinces no-one that you’re on a mission to save the planet.
Coherency means adopting it throughout the business, so that the company wholly adopts the attitude and its customers can feel it.
And with social media, it gets worse because whereas we instinctively know when we’re harming/saving the planet, it’s a damned site harder to know when we’re being truly social (meant as an effective approach to social media that brings ROI to the company and benefits to the customers), which makes it a lot easier to sell as for many (buyers and sellers), it’s snake oil.
I guess now that SM has started to go mainstream, it’ll be slowly diluted down and squeezed of every ounce of credibility. But just like HannanCustoms takes the common bicycle and does something incredible, there will always be a place in social media for true coherence.
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It’s not every day I choose to rat on a colleague. Nor is it a practice I’m particularly comfortable with, yet there’s something about the way this episode demonstrates how some agencies boast unrealistic claims of starting (or igniting) conversation with all its connotations of immediacy, transparency and honesty that just pisses me off.
Two days ago, I received a Google alert for the keywords “Acer Gemstone Blue”. There have been so many of these of late I’ll admit to no longer giving them more than a quick glance but this time rather than seeing a re-hash of my own writing, I saw the title “Ugly Aspirations“.
Click.
The site I’m now on is part of Publicis, a London-based agency which, by its own claims, is “Part of the 4th largest communication network, spanning 104 countries and all 5 continents” and whose mission is to …”Ignite Conversations with ideas so infectious that consumers adopt them as their own and pass them on“.
Even better, is this:
“Our Values: Lionhearted
We are fearless, proud and honest: we always do the right thing, for the greater good of our clients, brands and colleagues
We work with total openness and co-operation: we are all on the same side; we behave like friends.”
Wow! An agency I’d be proud to work with.
But back to the article.
Not a long one, but written to dismantle everything my colleagues and I put into the Acer Gemstone Blue launch campaign. That in itself is not a bad thing, I love constructive criticism and am always ready to learn.
But alas there’s nothing constructive about it. It’s just a low-handed attack on the work of a competitor (note their client list includes HP and their case study post proudly shows off their efforts.
OK. While I’m the first to welcome advice, I’m also not afraid of defending my work, which is what I did.
After two whole days, my comment is still “awaiting moderation”. So much for the immediacy and transparency of conversation.
You want to ignite a conversation? Then you’re starting a debate and you’d better invite the accused along or at least be prepared to hear him out.
You want to prove you know what Messrs. Chris Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger were getting at in their original masterpiece? Then you’d better be ready to stand by what you publish (which brings into question the very 1.0, command-and-control practice of moderation).
You want to sell your clients on Web 2.0 (conversations)? Then you’d better look it up before you attempt to score a few cheap points at someone else’s expense.
It’s not my business to police the web and name and shame those who breach my own self-appointed laws and standards but this is a blatant example of an agency that either a) doesn’t get it, or b) thinks it’s clever enough to get away with not honouring its own mission and values.
Either way that damages both their and my reputation.
Maybe I don’t want to work with them after all.
UPDATE: It’s now the end of July 2008 and my comment has yet to be approved. I think rather Ignite Conversations, Publicis does a pretty good job of dowsing them.
UPDATE 2: Two months have gone by and the comment is still unapproved. I wonder if Publicis has the balls to give a critique of the Aspire One…
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Don’t always take this route to express what’s going on my end but this is exception to the rule is truly worth it.
I can’t resist a song plug and this morning the very first thing I read on Twitter was a mention for “A Beautiful World” by Tim Myers from Meg Fowler.
What a beautiful song! The melody, the lyrics and most of all the vibes. They all align just right and make this my own personal candidate for the song that best represents what social media should be about.
Maybe it’s me going all soppy. Maybe I’m tired of fighting corporate resistance to the changes social media will inevitably force on them. Maybe if we could get 100 CEOs to listen, the transition would be just a little smoother…
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Yesterday I had proof that more is better.
That promoting yourself horizontally is more effective than doing it vertically.
And that the thicker you spread yourself, the wider your reach.
We all have our Facebook accounts, Twitter accounts, Flickr accounts, we have Squidoo lenses StumbleUpon pages, we share our del.icio.us pages and the younger amongst you might even have MySpace pages (mine’s neglected). This week I finally got myself on Friendfeed although I’m a little lost on that one.
The one I had left for dead was LinkedIn. It seemed a little too staid for my tastes. Almost 1.0 in its formality.
With LinkedIn, you link with people you actually have a working relationship with, so the big players in “real life” have a natural advantage as they simply have more clout here.
Because of this, and because I was focused on other areas of connectivity, I had been ignoring LinkedIn for long enough for my Pro account to expire.
Then two days ago, I updated it and within 24 hours, I was contacted by none other than the offices of Leo Burnett in Turin.
Just goes to prove that the thicker you spread yourself, the tastier you are.
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photo by monkeyc.net
I live in a world that thinks everything can be bought. No effort required, just an abundance of cash and a good agency.
I live in a world that sees advertising agencies as a bridge to customers. No creative energy is required on a company’s part, budget and brand guidelines are all that’s needed.
I live in a world that thinks marketing is a foreign language. Advertising agencies are somehow both copywriters and interpreters.
Why have we done this to ourselves?
Whatever happened to our own personality? Is it that hard to promote or are we hoping something gets lost between the real us and the perceived us like in a game of Chinese whispers?
Why do we insist on pursuing tactics and deploy strategies that annoy the very people we aim to impress?
And perhaps more important, what is it going to take to reverse this?
You listening?
If you haven’t already felt the wind of change, where the hell have you been? Still wasting time and energy playing with the laws of diminishing returns by investing more and more of your 1.0 marketing budget in people like him, or him, or him?
Doubt it.
For a start if you had, he would have told you that 1.0 communication isn’t what he “does” anymore, as it’s like private English lessons in a foreign country. The teachers talk for 60 minutes about the rant of the day in English while the student is duped into thinking he or she is actually getting something out of it.
Sound like hard work? Of course it doesn’t because the teachers do absolutely nothing to add value for their customers.
Easy money for the teacher. Crap service for the student. Sound familiar?
Get it?
I’m not saying all English teachers are lazy. What I am saying is that their market is so huge, they don’t have to try. But what if the people the English students had to talk to couldn’t understand a word they were saying and took issue with the students?
I wonder how fast word of mouth would backfire if the onus for their students’ success rested firmly on the teachers’ shoulders?
I wonder how quickly they would re-map they way they service their customers by rooting out the real strengths and weaknesses of their students and working out a language plan based on those.
Isn’t the role of an advertising/marketing agency similar? Aren’t they supposed to point their clients in the right direction? Then why is it that so few have made the jump from diffusion to dissemination?
As Roger Anderson put it, in his piece in The Age of Conversation:
“Dissemination is an active form of distribution; diffusion is passive. Dissemination means to sow seeds. In nature, all things tend to randomness and diffusion is a perfect example. The spread of ideas or concepts among disinterested people is a passive process that also tends towards randomness. A better way to retain message consistency throughout your company, group, or organization, is to disseminate the message by creating message owners at every level.”
Why aren’t agencies able to tell their clients to be themselves, not represent themselves?
Over on the Advertising For Peanuts blog, T. Willerer has started a new language of marketing and I couldn’t agree more.
consumers → people
campaign → conversation
30 second spot → 30 second interaction
direct response → direct conversation
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) → Vendor Relationship Management (VRM)
purchase funnel → instant research & purchase
reach → attention
consumer insight → human truth
marketing mix modelling → predictably irrational
brand loyalty → loyal brands
advertising agency → business partner
Look again and all it is is a transformation from an analytical language to an emotional one. Is it that hard to get across?
Fortunately for me, it seems that it is. Not everyone wants to try another form of communication. Most are still happy to spend weeks coming up with a cunning message and then (hundreds of) thousands of dollars trying to push it down your throat. I say they can keep it.
Yet some companies out there have a real passion for what they do. You can almost spot them a mile away.
They believe in engaging their customers, and see that as part of their long-term growth strategy.
Those are the companies I’m seeking out.
The others can go their own way.
Still not getting it?
Then you need to read this:
7 Principles to fully engage your customers: written by Bryan K. Williams
Once you’re done with that, have a look at these:
7 Principles to Fully Engage Your Customers - Part 2 - There I was…excited to dine in a popular steakhouse with my wife. After all, this night was to celebrate her final day of coursework in her professional degree program. Although we eat out regularly, we especially were looking forward …
Seth Godin - Hershey, American Airlines and SchoolClick.com - I tell them I love your country – but I’m doing business in the US please transfer me back to my country where they speak my language and where there is not a ten second delay each time he or I say a word - making the conversation…
Redefining reach; the new marketing equation - While I was at StartupCamp this past Sunday here in San Francisco a few of the future founders came up to me asking my advice on how they should approach PR/advertising. Many of their questions (as small pre-startups) echo the same…
Why Fall in Love with a Company? - They were green way before their time, way way before anyone else was, another layer to it’s 50 plus year history and integrity - both of which - speak loudly to where I want to spend my dollars. I guess you could say we’ve been married…
The Sales pitch is dead. Time to re-invent selling - Do you remember a decade or so ago when focus switched from ‘getting’ customers (selling) to keeping them? Sales-led organizations the world over were struck in particular by Fred Reichheld’s book The Loyalty Effect (1996) with his bath…
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