Interesting video/interview with the Threadless founders. Tara (blogger at HorsePigCow) put the video together and has written a book recently called the Whuffie Factor about businesses that are succeeding by leveraging web2.0/social media and of course the community. Threadless is probably one of the best examples of a community driven company.
The book that will catch the crest of Web 2.0 and show how any business can harness its power by increasing their Whuffie, the store of social capital that is the currency of the digital world.
I think the real key word here is Social Capital (I’ve talked about Social Equity here before but I think Social Capital works better even) and the more I think about it the more I think it is the secret sauce, or at least a way to think about secret sauce.
I just got a very worrying phone call from my Dad today about his Gmail account which he’s had for several years. Essentially he tried to log into the account and it said his password was incorrect, so he went through the various processes to try and get it reset, unfortunately he didn’t have a secondary email account, but he went through the process of answering security questions etc. At some point one of the security questions came up with Chinese charicters in it, which of course prompted him to think that this was a phishing attack. Anyway, he emailed google to say that someone might have got access to his account and he gave them a new yahoo email they could reset and send the password, and the email he got back from google was chilling (for anyone who has thousands of emails and contacts)
Thank you for your report. We’ve completed our investigation. Because our
investigation was inconclusive, we’ve disabled this account for your
security. If you used orkut with this account, we’ve deleted the orkut
profile. At Google we take the privacy and security of our users very
seriously. For this reason, we’re unable to reveal any further information
about this account.
To continue using Google Accounts, please visit
https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount and create a new account.
We apologize for any inconvenience and appreciate your cooperation and
understanding.
Regards,
The Google Team
Note: if you use AdWords, AdSense, or Google Checkout with your
account, please contact AdWords, AdSense or Checkout support directly
at these URLs:
Please don’t reply to this email, as we won’t be able to review your
response. If your question wasn’t answered, please search or browse the
Google Accounts Help Center at http://www.google.com/support/accounts/
Is this a legitimate email from google? are they really going to delete years of email and contacts? Anyone know anything?
I’m going to be part of a panel discussion hosted by Softech on April 23rd on how B2B and Business professionals can tap into and leverage social media. Should be a great discussion and for my part here’s what I hope to be able to elaborate on:
Social Media provides a multitude of ways to build your personal brand and taking control of what employers find when they “google you”
Career blogs/Business Blogs are a powerful tool for networking and connecting with like minded people in similar/complimentary industries or disciplines
The resume is becoming increasingly irrelevant for knowledge workers
Discussion Topics:
Join us for an exciting night with a panel of social media experts who are helping leading companies (Sling Media, Nokia, Wells Fargo, Sutter Home,Plantronics<), organizations and individuals capitalize on social media. Most of the panelists have popular blogs (e.g. experiencecurve.com, emergence-media.com , livedigitally.com, /metzmash.typepad.com) with a strong following and use social media tactics and strategies on a daily basis.
You will learn:
What is social media, the tools, the people, the stats
Why has social media exploded
How is social media changing the conversations companies have with prospects, customers and partners
How professionals can use social media for personal branding, and career development
How B2B companies can capitalize on social media
How social media is changing market research, PR, marketing, sales, product development, and customer support
How social media is changing search engine optimization (SEO)
Moderator:
William Gaultier – CEO of e-Storm International www.e-storm.com
Here’s a bit about SofTECH
SofTECH is a non-profit trade organization committed to fostering communication and cooperation for business and technology professionals in Northern California’s Marin and Sonoma counties. Its goal is to identify and showcase technology leaders and support the technology user community.
Rohit Bhargava, blogger at the Influential Marketing Blog and leader of the interactive marketing team at Ogilvy Public Relations has written a new book called “Personality Not Incuded -Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back“. I think the topic of the book is a very interesting one that relates to companies challenges with branding, customer experience, marketing and PR in this emerging age of radical transparency. The point being that a company’s image and brand is not longer built through the tight management of structured communication, but is now forged and co-created through the conversations in the marketplace, the artifacts that are created by customers, and the experiences customers have with the company through formal and informal channels. I think Rohit is correct that companies some how lost their personality in through the monolithic command and control brand management theory that came along with mass production, and are now struggling to get it back.
Faceless companies don’t work anymore. PNI is a guide to finding the real voice of your organization and using your personality to become a brand that people love rather than one they just buy from. The book features more than 100 case studies, a forward by Guy Kawasaki and lots of SF based brands including Personality Hotels, Timbuk2, Virgin America, and SF based non-profit Kiva.org.
Rohit is organizing a book release party in San Francisco on April 18th, which i am planning on going to and i’m sure it will be an interesting evening for anyone interested in social media.
Sure it’s an old advertisement from the era that had Doctors endorsing cigarettes, but this kind of misleading information is still rife all kinds of outbound communication from ads to packaging. From telling me that a packet of chips (crisps) has two serving sizes, to saying 0% fat and then loading up with sugar or HFCS, to saying a chicken is “all natural”, to describing a petrol company as an “energy” company, it all serves to erode the “benefit of the doubt” that I will give companies and drive me toward companies that I trust. One thing is for sure my trust in companies is mostly built, slowly over time, through many interactions, across many different facets of their business. This is why the web and social media are so powerful and disruptive to business as usual, I have so many ways to interact with, companies, to experience every facet of their company in different ways, and learn through other customers experiences, companies are really laid bare.
After thinking about this a bit I searched around for “missleading advertising” stuff and came across this study from the Journal of Consumer Affairs from 1981 titled Consumer Perceptions of Advertising as Misleading
A mail survey was conducted of 314 residents of two California cities to measure consumer perception of the prevalence of misleading advertising. Information was obtained concerning the extent of misleading advertising in the various media, for 30 products and services and for three age groups. The findings indicate that over half of the sample viewed “most” or “all” mail and telephone advertising as misleading, and that 38 percent of the respondents regarded “most” or “all” television advertising as misleading.
Wow, if that was 1981 I hate to think how many people think “most” or “all” advertising is misleading. Anyone know of more recent studies?
Hyperbole? I don’t think so. I believe that social media is reshaping the business landscape and is changing, or requiring change from every aspect of the business, from business strategy, to product development, to marketing, to human resources (hey, even Microsoft is taking notice see this FT article “A revolution is taking shape”).
I really like the way they seperated between “wait and see” folks who are just dipping their toe in with social media and and “revolutionaries” who have embraced the change.
The survey reveals that the early adopters (“Revolutionaries”) are more advanced in their understanding and execution of social media marketing initiatives than more cautious marketers (“Wait-and-Sees”). First, nearly five times as many Revolutionaries are already implementing social media in their organizations and three times as many Wait-and-See companies are only at the learning stage. In addition, Revolutionaries are far more optimistic about the future of social media with 81% saying it will grow in significance over the next five years. Only 33% of the Wait-and-Sees agreed with this outlook.
and even more fascinating and how do they approach marketing differently?
When asked about how they would use social media to influence their marketing initiatives, Wait-and-See companies put more emphasis on using social media for new types of marketing campaigns such as viral marketing and videos, while Revolutionaries focus more on listening to consumer and bloggers’ points-of-view. One area where they were in accordance was that both Revolutionaries (95%) and Wait-and-Sees (60%) are eager to connect with other colleagues to study consumer feedback and learn from
In other words the wait and see folks are still hooked into the “campaign” big bang fire and forget model, and the revolutionaries are “participating in the conversation” and building deeper relationships with their customers. Hmm, I wonder what has a better ROI.
So which one are you? Wait and see? or a revolutionary?
This video presentation by Jake McKee is a fantastic case study for anyone interested in trying to empower a company to participate in social media/web2.0. Jake lived and breathed it there, and now has his own social media consultancy called the Ants Eye View. Thanks for sharing this Jake. I’ve pulled out a couple of quotes that I think are key, but i also recommend watching the whole thing.
“Inside Fort Business”
A great picture and an important point to take on board, the concept of “fort business” is the antithesis of the Cluetrain and is going to really get in the way of any serious attempt to “participate” in social media. You have to trust and empower “everyone” in your company to participate in social media, and I mean everyone, not everyone is going to do it, but unless you allow self selection you will stifle the people who are already helping change your company.
“Lego had different level of customer, and in most cases customer meant big box store, wall-mart, toys R us K-Mart etc. and the end user was called the consumer. Lego would often ask the big box stores what they new about the consumer, and the big box stores would say they didn’t know anything about the consumer and why didn’t Lego know.”
Very interesting point, often big companies that use rely on distribution channels sometimes miss that direct connection to the consumer. In todays landscape companies can’t afford not to have this connection, and the good news is that social media allows these direct connections to the most passionate customer base.
“we effected change on a very large, very old, very conservative company, that was also Danish. If you know anything about the Danes they are a socialist country that have tall poppy syndrome that’s everybody’s the same, we’re just as good as everybody else etc.”
Another interesting point, it is very apparent if you have ever worked in European companies that national culture has an enormous effect on company culture. I find it really interesting that Jake would call the Danes socialist but certainly closer to socialist than America where there is certainly no “tall poppy syndrome”
These roles will work in the product management group and will work as a team helping design concepts, visual, and interactive prototypes prior to them going into the product management process. These are really fun roles because you will be working on concepts very early on in the process, essentially helping create artifacts so the hard core development can create these features to roll out globally with a high degree of fidelity to the original vision you will help create. You can read more about our games at N-Gage here and on our blog. These jobs are based in San Francisco and we have a great location in SOMA, feel free to ping me if you do apply and I’ll keep an eye out for your resume.
Just launched yesterday Vcwear.com is a site that not only sells very funny t-shirts targeted to VC’s for $100 you can also buy the company while your at it for $100,000, just add it to your shopping cart. I can’t think of a more perfect targeting strategy for selling a company than creating a line of goods specifically targeted to VC’s, genius.
but certainly closer to socialist than America where there is certainly no “tall poppy syndrome”
