Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on May 12th, 2008
Tagged as: Social Media
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.
STOP!
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…
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on April 21st, 2008
Tagged as: Social Media, Uncategorized
So here we are at last.
Just a few more miles and this leg of the journey will be over. A few more twists and turns and the road will open up. A slight reprieve before it closes in on the biggest junction of my life.
There are only two choices: left or right. Both will take me on a journey of discovery. I’ll see the world no matter which way I turn, but I’ll see it from different points of view.
One then, excludes the other.
Turn left, and join the ranks. Promotion awaits with all the rewards and satisfaction that working for a big brand can bring. Daddy brings home the trophy of success, and the family celebrates this newfound stability with a sumptuous meal and smiles all round.
Turn right and I’m on my own. A lone voice with no safety net, no support and certainly no guarantees. My family depends solely on me so the risks and consequences of failure are unthinkable.
Left is the obvious choice. I have put in ten years of sheer hard work to get to where I am today. I have a voice that counts in my corner of the world and my craft is appreciated and promoted by the corridors of power.
So why am I even considering right?
I have the Cluetrain Manifesto to thank for that.
One year ago, there was no right. There was no left either, as there was no choice.
One career, one strategy, one result.
Then the Cluetrain arrived and opened my eyes like a new religion.
I had felt the tremors of change underfoot, I had read about it while trying to deepen the consciousness of my profession, and I had even sampled its power on two occasions and in quick succession. But before Cluetrain, I had never really understood it.
As the saying goes, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.
The Cluetrain hit me head on. I was ready for it before I even knew what it was about and once on board, everything about me changed.
And now my dear friend Richard has dragged me into this new meme, and I have to explain what the Cluetrain is and whether it’s had an impact on my professional outlook. Me?
Let’s start with question 1.
1) What does the Cluetrain manifesto mean to you? How has the book and theses influenced or not influenced you?
My answer to this question is not difficult to surmise, given the way I started this post. For me, the Cluetrain was the precursor to the events that are beginning to engulf me. But whereas before they were impossible to comprehend, now they are impossible to ignore.
It is, of course, about connections, dialogue and transparency.
It’s as much about getting inside the hearts and minds of customers as it is getting inside the hearts of businesses. It’s about breaking down corporate walls that serve no other purpose than to protect the status quo. It’s about a change in attitude that affects us in equal measure whether we are marketers or customers.
The Cluetrain Manifesto starts off with a statement that more or less sums up the entire philosophy, a phrase that succinctly pinpoints which side of the fence you’re on with the precision and real time accuracy of military grade GPS positioning systems:
“A powerful global conversation has begun.”
You’re either participating or you’re not.
Every single word of this phrase is key to understanding the true meaning of the Manifesto.
“Powerful”
Thanks to the time-honoured practice of command and control, companies have stopped listening to customers and in doing so have chosen to ignore the force, wisdom and power of the many.
Now that customers have the technology they need to interact with each other, their numbers, opinions and voices have suddenly started to count.
Even the Buddhist concept of Itai Doshin (many in body, one in mind) is built on this principle and was used to great effect by Nicherin Daishonin in the 13th Century.
“If itai doshin prevails among the people, they will achieve all their goals”
Translation: Ignore your customers at your own peril.
“Global”
It’s bigger than you think. Everywhere people rediscover the value of their own voices, conversations will emerge. “Everywhere” on the web is not geographical, nor is it temporal. Everywhere on the web is technological so the more ways people discover to communicate their opinions, the faster their message will spread and louder their voices will resonate.
Translation: You haven’t got it covered anymore. It’s out of your control.
“Conversation”
This is the biggest word in the opening sentence and not just by size. It gives cause for existence for the first two.
As the Cluetrain makes painfully clear, marketing departments were introduced to bridge the gap between mass products and mass markets and in doing so, wiped out conversations between producers and their customers and replaced them with alienation and mystery.
Now customers have a voice, the official version of business as usual can finally be debunked in full view of everybody.
Translation: The true you is out in the open. Are you ashamed of it?
“has begun”
This is in the present perfect. i.e. it started at some point in the past and is still continuing in the present.
Translation: There’s nothing you can do about it, except join in. You can’t ignore it forever no matter how much fear you have of engaging your customers in real dialogue. The longer you wait, the bigger the gap between you and your company’s chances of survival.
In short, and in answer to question 1:
- It’s a measure of how afraid companies are of change.
- It’s an indication of how far they still have to go.
- It’s the reason companies “get it”, or not.
- It’s the reason I’m turning right.
2) Which companies have best implemented the Cluetrain Manifesto in your opinion and how were they effective?
Like Richard I am not in a position to give any real answer to this. Yet the one thing I do know, which won’t surprise any of you, is that the number of those that haven’t implemented it far outweigh those that have.
Having said that, I also don’t think that the Cluetrain Manifesto is something you simply slot in to a business model. Each company has it’s own take on how much they are prepared to let go and my feeling here is the bigger their exposure to risk, the shorter the leash on transparency.
Many of the companies in my own area act as if it’s in the interests of everyone to keep things as they are. After all, millions of dollars worth of marketing processes have been painstakingly put in place and the system can’t justify a reversal in policy just because Joe Public wants a say in things.
I know it’s unfair and I know it’s not correct but until Joe Public makes a large enough fuss so that the company panics into a response, the shift is’t going to happen.
Dell backed its way out of a very ugly situation thanks to a change in mindset and was advised extremely well by those behind its digital media arm. Yet I can’t help feeling that others are waiting for a similar catastrophic reason to get involved, as if it were Plan B or even C on their crisis management policy rather than an opportunity to rekindle all the trust and loyalty squandered over the years through command and control policies.
The other hole in the system comes from the companies who should be advising big corporations to give it a go. Again, in my experience, there are often more important and more lucrative things on the table. Balancing a shift in approach, commitment and transparency with the laws of diminishing returns on the significant investments needed to keep a social media presence afloat isn’t something they have the balls to push through right now.
Perhaps the market isn’t ready for it just yet. Perhaps Joe Public isn’t ready to take on the liberties offered to him by the Cluetrain Manifesto, no matter how ideologically sound it may be. I don’t think this is it.
In my experience, the few of us who get it don’t have the necessary influence to bring its principles to the discussion table, no matter how hard we try and for how long.
As it turns out, fear runs at very high levels.
In the unofficial blog I created to test the conversational water for Acer, TheAcerGuy, I have tried to apply the Cluetrain principles from the start, only publishing reviews of Acer products written by genuine customers, who are given full control over their message and a semi-official platform upon which their voices can be published, whether they are helping, complaining, gloating or venting.
Once over the initial and understandable fear of losing objectivity, this approach has turned out to be the single most intelligent thing I have so far done with the site.
Yet no matter how good the reviews, I cannot convince any of my superiors to see the immense value in this approach.
Again, another reason I’m turning right.
3) In thesis 57, the Cluetrain manifesto states, “smart companies will get out of the way and help the inevitable to happen sooner.” In light of that thesis, is encouraging employees to use social media and blogging a good idea? Is it really effective, when an employee is encouraged but not directed?
Again, my response to this question is based entirely on what my limited experience has taught me.
In the IT world, there are two approaches to corporate blogging: indirect and full on.
HP has, at last count, 66 blogs (http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/blogs/bloggers.html) and all of them without exception have this footer:
“Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of HP and may not have been reviewed in advance by HP.”
Over at Dell, there is just one blog, and no footer.
On the contrary there is a single page dedicated to underlining the commitment to standing behind the conversations http://direct2dell.com/one2one/about.aspx
Both companies’ blogs contain articles by people trained to stick by the corporate message, but one of them puts the interests of the company first, so that you read the blog through a sort of legal filter that at a moment’s notice would distance itself from a perilous comment to save the integrity of the company.
Meanwhile the other stands by what it says. Everything there is on the record and policy.
I know which approach I trust more.
4) How can a company encourage employees to use social media, and empower them to answer customer questions and learn from customers?
By understanding that respect, trust and loyalty are the greatest assets a company possesses, and that through these core values, a company builds a reputation for excellence and permission to engage its customers.
By building an environment that promotes these values among its employees before anything else.
By carefully explaining the opportunities and implications of social media to its employees with regular updates and raining sessions.
By showing trust in its employees by allowing them to engage freely in answering customer questions.
By standing by its employees if the conversation becomes negative.
From a concierge of a downtown hotel to the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, if there’s love, then that will come through in the conversation.
5) Do all employees want to talk with customers? If not what percentage want to internetwork and converse?
Again, I am not the right person to answer this question but I have an observation. From my own conversations, I have found people willing to talk from the most unlikely situations and reluctance from the most obvious.
Current thinking says that people in command should do the talking but that’s not the case.
I have college students willing to answer on behalf of a client, support staff from a repair center in the middle of nowhere desperate to change the way they talk to customers and managers who like the idea but don’t have the clout (or the balls) to start.
Not everyone can hold a conversation. Not everyone should. It would be nice if all CEOs had mega-personalities but as so often happens this is hardly ever the case.
I believe that companies should listen to themselves before launching an online presence and allow anyone on the payroll to have a say if they want to. If they’re honest, they only have to gain from the experience.
Now that I’ve answered all five questions it was supposed to be my turn to nominate another five people to do the same. Cluetrain doesn’t follow rules and besides, there is only one person I want to hear from regarding Cluetrain, and she needs no introduction from me. So over to you Valeria Maltoni.
I am going to be keeping my eye on this meme, especially as Groundswell seems to be gaining momentum. In the meantime, if you’re interested in reading more on this subject and how it’s affected people like me and businesses like your clients’, you couldn’t go far wrong with these:
I have just done something I thought I would never have the opportunity to do again.
I took a week off.
Yes I checked my mails, yes I did drive 250 miles back to Milan for a meeting that didn’t need me there. But even though I was still ‘on’, I actually took a week ‘off’.
It’s amazing how a few days can clear your mind, or in my case, make it up.
Now I’m back, I feel refreshed, revitalized and, more importantly, re-focused.
More than thinking outside the box, it’s as if I see the world above the clouds. Possibilities, opportunities, potential, all within my grasp, yet seemingly so far from my clients’…
Shame the real world is fast approaching beneath my feet.
I still have time left. Time to solicit a website I’ve been waiting 9 months to be delivered, time to start the biggest project of my life, time to look my kids straight in the eye, and giggle with them for hours on end.
Soon, routine will settle in with all the unpleasantness of a small dog whose cocky bark repeats incessantly with bone grating persistence. Soon can wait, right now, I’m a star.
Best not to think about tomorrow when today is so sunny, so sweet.
Taking a week off from Twitter, RSS feeds and even newspapers is a very, very pleasant experience for no other reason than you are suddenly presented with an inordinately large dollop of time on your hands. Time to decide… Time to kill… Time to think… Time to breathe…
Remember what that felt like? Didn’t think so.
In the fast connected world, time isn’t actually used by us, we do not hold the keys to our time. More often than not it is used (badly) by our clients to get things done (badly). It’s taken from us, and we readily give it up in return for feeling part of the moment, part of the big equation. How sad is that?
One of my random thoughts concerned a very big client of a client who’s taking too long to get what I can help them embrace. Not just social networks, the whole online caboodle. The web, its codes, conduct and - now - transparency are all beyond what they’re prepared to welcome on board in one fell swoop. They need more time to absorb the message, assess the potential damage and prepare their excuses.
And in my current position of outsourced copywriter, I’m not exactly in a position to help.
Which brings me back to time. When you have enough time on your hands to realize that you don’t have the time your clients need to decide, what do you do?
You start your own project, that’s what you do.
Thanks to the one person I’m always happy to hear from and who has inspired me without knowing it, I am expanding my product portfolio to include conversation marketing. I think I’ll be the only one selling (or buying) it for a while in Italy but at least I’ll be in excellent company 
A new service will allow me to concentrate on using my time well for the benefit of my clients, or in other words: the better I use my time, the better the quality of service I offer my clients.
And the project? Well I’ve just got off the phone with a web design agency in Toronto and am happy to say I’m going to give them the green light. I can’t believe that after twelve years, my little idea will finally get the chance to prove its worth. I hope I don’t make a hash of it as without wishing to sound too full of myself, the world really does need something like this.
Thought that would make you jump.
If any of you know any English language teachers or bloggers/writers looking to participate in something really radical (and get paid for it), please give them my mail. Trust me, they will thank you.
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on February 24th, 2008
Tagged as: Me
Damn.
I knew this was coming. Only I’d hoped it would happen later rather than sooner.
My best friend online and possibly the only one who really understands what I’m going through tagged me.
That’s right. I think the best way to start this post is by stating right here that there is no-one out there who has dedicated more time, more energy and more honest-to-God goodwill to my online persona than Richard. He’s the reason I got online in the first place (secret #1) and is without question one of the best reasons to stay here.
Right now isn’t exactly one of my most productive moments. While I refuse to become what Hugh MacLeod eloquently calls an “echoblogger“, I’ll openly admit that I’m following a LOT more than producing.
And as you can see from the photo, my evenings are spent absorbing just about everything on the recommended 2.0 reading list. You’ve probably all been where I am. There’s an awful lot to take in and if you’re anything like me, you need to hear the same message over and over again from different people before you can safely say “I get it” and can recommend it to your clients.
Oh, and if Jeremiah should stop by, Cluetrain and the other usual suspects are in my office…
Speaking of Cluetrain, remember how much of a shock to the system the changes the book describes were? Remember the vehement way Chris and the other authors made their point. I read it last summer but “got it” only recently - that’s also one of the reasons I’m keeping a low profile (see secret #2 an #3).
Change is one of the words I can’t get out of my head. It’s on my mind, in my work and driving almost everything in my life right now. Obama’s keeping it fresh too.
So here comes secret #2. I’m up for change and if anyone is interested in hiring a strategic writer (does that even exist?) I’m up for grabs.
I am The Acer Guy but might not be for much longer. That blog this week will see its 200,00th visitor which is something I never even imagined remotely possible when I started it (again, thanks Richard) and is a milestone I am extremely proud to pass.
In these two years, the blog has allowed me to get over the mono-directional relationship I previously had with my “audience” and put into practice what Doc Searls eloquently described as “there is no market for messages” more of which in Geoff Livingstone’s great new book
(not in the photo).
It doesn’t take a genius to see how opening up to this degree has screwed with my brain.
And here’s secret #3. I’m having trouble taking the conversation back indoors. Sure there are a few believers who really want to see the blog work, but the truth is, and it really hurts to admit this, the powers that be don’t get it. They are, to use an insalubrious metaphor from Seth Godin, meatball makers who just don’t see the point of sundae toppings… Is it just me or is does this reek of wasted opportunity?
Secret #4: I love cycling. Up until my first son was born, I was clocking up over 15,000 km a year. A couple of years ago I spent €6,000 on the bike you can see gathering dust in the background of the Seesmic video. If only I had more time I could worry Lance Armstrong. Right now, I feel like Homer Simpson could run rings around me. Check out this photo of me in somewhere in France aged 14.
Secret #5: My home town. I am from Portsmouth (UK) which up until recently was the kind of place you hoped anyone you met had never been to. Now it’s pretty cool (in places). I went to Portsmouth Grammar School and wore the same dinky uniform for 11 years. I don’t get back nearly as often as I’d like and whenever I do, I always consider staying.
Secret #6: I came to Italy aged 18 looking for fame and fortune and found love and the inevitable debt that comes with it instead. Never went back
Secret #7: I have an older sister, Caroline, and our relationship has always been, em, edgy. I love her dearly and miss her like crazy but never get around to actually telling her. This is her and me on Holiday in Ibiza waaay before the Ministry of Sound arrived.
Secret #8: is a lot more entertaining as it concerns my wife. She is going to be my next business partner. In the next 12 months we’re going to open no fewer than three web projects together that I have mentioned a couple of times on this blog in recent months. Still trying to get Dell interested in sponsoring the big one, failing miserably of course…
Secret #9: I write almost all Acer’s marketing material on a Dell.
Secret #10: I recorded the video to RichardatDELL on a Mac.
Secret #11: I desperately want to meet everyone I’ve connected with online in the real world. Sounds like a pipe dream at the moment but you never know how things are going to turn out.
I think I’ve overdone my secrets a bit. But I’m really glad I did.
Now comes the hard part. Who do I tag? Two people come to mind instantly. Adding anyone else would be pushing this interruption meme too far.
The first is Alex Badalic, a fascinating copywriter I met online and who I had the pleasure of speaking with through Skype only recently. There’s obviously a lot more to Alex than what he’s allowed to tell through his blog and I can’t wait to find out more.
The second is Marco Camisani Calzolari who I met when I screwed up his first attempt at setting up a wiki. Marco must be one of the most forward-thinking, proactive Italian bloggers out there. Journalist, loving father and entrepreneur, he not only started Italy’s YouTube alternative, but writes for the tech-pages of one of Italy’s most respected and influential newspapers. Make no mistake, he gets it.
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on January 22nd, 2008
Tagged as: Asides
Anyone following my transformation will know that I work for what Scott Karp describes as a linear company, with linear communication processes and linear results. The scope for change if we/they are to effectively embrace “the dynamic nature of online content” is truly biblical and the urgency to do so is, at best, frightening.
Is change possible? My largest client recently engaged McKinsey to carry out an in-depth analysis on the brand’s core and perceived values. The results, which I’m afraid I cannot publish here, were hardly surprising and oh-so-very predictable. At a consumer level, the company (and its product range) lacks character and personality. It doesn’t “own” any particular value proposition except for cheap and reliable which in my book is hardly a plus.
The most bizarre result of this analysis was that, according to McKinsey, no two IT vendors actually occupy the same value space in the minds of the public. Therefore none of us are actually competing… WTF?? Remind me of that each time someone buys from HP.
There is of course a positive side to this. It forces management to face reality and take action. In my client’s case they have decided to turn up the heat a little and move a little deeper into the premium brand segment but rather than approaching this shift with a differentiated and highly-tailored media mix with on- and off-line initiatives, the powers that be are afraid of challenging the status quo of their time-honoured processes and opinions and hence my ideological loss the other day.
When human resources puts pen to paper you get bureaucracy, no matter how you look at it. So why should HR be allowed to churn out brand values? It’s like legal department writing marketing material or product managers given free reign over trade unions. They can guide the thought processes, but surely it’s unwise to permit them to dictate terms.
If anyone trying to make a difference in marketing has seen the Layer Cake, I’m sure the final scene where Eddie Temple (Michael Gambon) explains to XXXX (Daniel Craig) the ways of the world is all too familiar. If anyone’s sat through a 10-hour analysis session and at the end asked themselves what the hell the point was, that cake seems to have no end.
Posted by Michael Walsh (Check me out!) on January 6th, 2008
Tagged as: Asides
“Change. It’s just a word.
Wait. No it’s not.”
Brilliant.
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