Quiver & Quill

Last year at SXSW there were Meebo online chat rooms in which people who attended panels discussed them in real time. Some panelist had their laptops open on stage and were following along with audience comments in the Meebo online chat rooms. It created an intriguing dynamic between the panelist, the audience questions and the dialogue happening within the Meebo online chat rooms.  Watching Current TV’s Hack the Debate III reminded me of this SXSW experience. If you didn’t catch Hack the Debate, it’s a mashup between Current TV live streaming the presidential debate and Twitter running comments at the same time the debate is being shown. Very good example of collaborative media.

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Clive Thompson, ­ NYTimes, suggests that Twitter is a return to the small town:

This is the ultimate effect of the new awareness: It brings back the dynamics of small-town life, where everybody knows your business.

I don’t agree.

Many of my friends who grew up in these gossipy small towns didn’t have a choice of where they could live. And as soon as they had an opportunity to, they moved away. Twitter is different in the sense that the “small town” in which you live is a small town you create.

In small towns the “juicy” information that tends to surface is usually one that their residents had no intention of sharing. There’s a choice in Twitter about what information is shared, and as a result, more control over how you shape people’s perceptions of you.

I recently met a few people who were hyper-vigilant about their personal brand, trying to control what people were tweeting about them and filtering pictures that showed them in social situations drinking, smoking, etc. Perhaps the small town analogy is a better fit here in the sense that you know your social activities always have the potential to be broadcast to people you would rather not know about them.

I prefer cities.

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Pecha-kucha is a movement that refers to a type of  presentation structure. At a Pecha-Kucha event a presenter gets 6:40 to share a total of 20 slides, each 20 seconds long. And some very cool things happen when a presentation is structured in this way. Presenters arrive at their point much faster. And audiences pay attention too. There’s a chance they will miss something interesting. 12 seconds, a new video website, will hopefully do for videoblog what Pecha-Kucha has done for presentations. The site asks members to express themselves in 12 seconds of video. Here’s an example of Julia Roy doing just that.

Me <3 Ben Folds (Encore) on 12seconds.tv

I asked Julie why she uses 12 seconds. She replied: “I use it because I think it has potential. The 12 second interactions are unique, and it is surely easy to use as a Twitter video extension.”

So, if you have 12 seconds, go check it out.

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I held Rubber Chicken IV at  Maggiano’s in Boston. 30 guests joined us for an evening of delicious Italian food and many fast yet intense conversations with colleagues and peers. We created an official Rubber Chicken IV soundtrack, as well as “beak breakers.” The beak breakers took some serious time to make; however, I think they helped to provide fuller networking experiences. Since we knew most everyone who joined us, and were aware of their likes and dislikes, we created cards design to help make sure that the right people met and quickly discovered why they were introduced.

For example, a beak breaker might say:

For Bob

• Ask Steve G. for a tip about video blogging
• Ask Jake for advice on time management
• Ask Zach B to share an embarrassing Facebook story
  

Essentially, we helped identify the people Bob should speak with and suggested a few questions to spark meaningful conversation.

The only disappoint for me was the event service Evite. Without my direct knowledge, they sent two reminders to more than 50 people about the event. They also sent a follow up email requesting that my friends and colleagues share their photos. They should know better than emailing my contacts without explicit permission, especially when they are representing that email comes from me. While there are many other services I could use, I think that people are more inclined to open an “evite,” rather than an invitation from a startup with which they are not familiar. If you have another service you like, I would appreciate the recommendation.

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I interviewed MsJen who shared her perspective on Dana Boyd’s theory of superpublics. I am especially interested in two comments in this interview:

1) people who do not have history on social networks may actually be at a significant disadvantage

2) we grow and change within our social networks. What we post on Myspace at 16 is much different from what we share at 24.

For more on Dana Boyd’s theory see:

• http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2006/03/21/friendster_lost.html
• http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2006/03/22/super_publics.html
• http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2007/03/18/tweet_tweet_som.html

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I had great time in Helsinki speaking with the impassioned geeks Nokia had flown in from around the world. Together we walked to Helsinki’s museum of modern art and spent a few hours in conversation. Everyone in our group was equipped with at least two cameras and two global phones. The mix of researchers, bloggers, and category experts made for lively discussions.

I asked a few people to share a website or two they recommend. Here are a few they shared:

* Tag Maps: “We crunched through 50 million photographs on Flickr to see what people deem important in the world.”  Rahul Nahir, Yahoo researcher.
* GeoSpot: What’s open right now (in San Fran and LA)
* Carsonified:  – a creative agency, “I love the way the site looks,” Ilicco Elia, head of mobile, Reuters Europe.   
* Mizpee – where to find a toilet fast, recommended by Steve Dembo, Discovery Channel.
* Get Satisfaction: consumers and corporations can meet and get satisfaction online, recommended by Mikko Eerola
* Karaokeparty: The Singstar killer, recommended by Janne Saarikko
* Zero Punctuation: Video game reviews by a brit with a sharp wit, sardonic tone and a dirty mouth. Just. Brilliant. Recommended by James Whatley
* Phreadz: still in closed Beta, it’s a threaded multimedia conversation platform that offers the whole area of threaded archivable, taggable conversations, including video, text, photography, slideshare, audio etc. It rules. Recommended by Steve Lawson
* Silobreaker:  helping with pattern recognition related to current events, recommended by Teemu Arina
* Christian Lindholm: how life blogging should be done, recommended by Rob Evans
* Mike Maddaloni – SitePoint @ sitepoint.com: a great tech, design and business resource for creative and like minded people from around the world, like what I hope we build for OpenLab!

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I recently ate breakfast at one of my favorite spots called “The Neighborhood.” They serve excellent Portuguese food widely adored by the 20-something crowd in Boston, and especially loved by Yelpers. As I was waiting in line, I noticed they had a white erase board with a special note to their Yelping customers. This was the first time I have seen a restaurant “talk back,” to their customers reviews in this way. It sparked a few ideas that I would like to share with you. If I owned a restaurant, here a 20 things I would consider doing to recognize and attract Yelpers.

1. Respond publicly to feedback on Yelp with a non-defensive and appreciative attitude.
2. Send a positive reviewer a private message thanking them.
3. Send a positive reviewer a coupon for a future dining occasion.
4. Invite a negative reviewer back to the restaurant for a VIP dinner on the house.
5. Invite a negative reviewer to tell you how you can improve the dining experience.
6. Respond to a review on your restaurant’s blog.
7. Make a big deal of a positive Yelp review. Frame it and take a picture with the Yelper and hang it in your restaurant.
8. Create special, “no-wait” tables in the restaurant for Yelp reviewers that have cool benefits.
9. Gather your Yelp reviewers to a private wine tasting or to sample new menu ideas.
10. Name dishes after Yelp reviewers.
11. Ask positive reviewers what they ate, post pictures of the dish on Yelp and reference the reviewer.
12. Make an offer to the friends of positive reviewers. If they print out their friend’s positive reviews and bring them to the restaurant, they receive a discount.
13. Have a Yelp-only happy hour for happy Yelp reviewers.
14. Create a menu item that you can only order if you have reviewed the restaurant on Yelp.
15. Conduct a focus group dinner for negative reviewers.
16. Indicate on your menu, “Yelp reviewed,” or  “Yelpers loved this.”
17. Post a blog entry that lists all the points in a negative review and how they were responded to.
18. Invite negative Yelpers to provide their feedback during a staff training session.
19. Offer free valet parking to positive Yelp reviewers (or unlimited drink refills).
20. Offer a discount when two Yelp reviewers come together.

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(image from Flickr, by Pear Biter)

I live in two worlds.

The first values transparency, collaboration and humanity. In this world, I bog, tweet, review, share pictures and videos and constantly update my Facebook and LinkedIn profiles.

The second worships results. An individual’s value is defined by his or her ability to make things happen.

Sometimes these worlds pull me in opposite directions.

During a recent interview I was conducting for one of my clients, the agency I was interviewing made a snide comment about my blog. The comment was awkward and inappropriate – I ignored it, but felt its sting. I thought of my options: Should I create separate blogs for business and personal reflections? Should I delete my Twitter account? Should I research the online profile of the person who made the comment?

I didn’t act for several weeks. During this time, I reflected on how social media brings my personal life into my business relationships. Clients may actually see the tweet I sent from South by Southwest at 3 a.m., my blog entry about adult communities online or photos of spring break from back when I was in college.

Does this mean we should sanitize our online footprints? Running a marketing agency focused on social media makes this question even more complicated. In some cases, my online footprint can enhance my credibility in one world while undermining it in another.

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What We Find Beautiful

Originally uploaded by QuiverandQuill

We take thousands of pictures, share hundreds of tweets and create many conferences to celebrate our every day lives. What has made the mundane something worthy of constant attention? Are we afraid to forget or just eager to be the first to document? Where once we filmed occasions, now we film moments.

Many of us write descriptions of our content when posting it online. We create tags and share the location where our media was conceived. We are aware that when our moments combine with the moments of others online we create a more significant story. Perhaps this awareness encourages us to share the ordinary, because we know its power and beauty when combined with the ordinary that others post online. Flickr tags are a perfect example of this.

Why we tag on Flickr?
1. Ego. We want our photos to be discoverable and attributed to us. We want to drive traffic to our blogs, promote the recognition of our talents and leave a fingerprint on the window of history.
2. Narrative / storytelling. We have a sense that our pictures help to tell a story greater than us, the pictures create a sense of meaning for a place and a time. When we overlay them on a map we see the richness they add to something much larger than us—it is our way of contributing to a group story.

I have heard much talk recently of ambient awareness through twitter, Flickr and other social networks. In fact, I have heard ambient awareness offered as a sort of ROI of social media.

We need to also consider the greater meaning we realize by contributing to the overall story—how our tweets, blogs, pictures, all the beautiful substance of the mundane, add to a larger much richer and much fuller whole than the single piece of content.

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Nokia is flying me, and 34 marketing and technology experts from around the globe, to join them in Helsinki over the next few days for the Nokia Open Lab.

They equipped us with their new e71 phone to review, encouraged us to share this experience on our blogs and social networks and have made every effort to ensure our comfort and spark our enthusiasm.

Here is our agenda over the next few days:

There are four workshop topics in total. Each will begin with an introduction by a facilitator who will talk a bit about the theme for that workshop and introduce the task. You will then be split into smaller groups to discuss the issues as set out below:

Workshop 1: Neighborhood
During this workshop you will be asked to outline your own online community involvement and social media history on a timeline. You will then get together to create a map/timeline of technologies and solutions for content creation in the future.

Workshop 2: Connected Life
During this workshop you will be asked to create future forecasts for geospatial solutions and technologies. The task will be to create such a forecast in three stages: very near futures, next 3-5 years and the more distant future.

Workshop 3: Entertainment
During this workshop you will try to identify which type of entertainment (e.g. music, gaming, movies etc) will have the most future potential. You will then be asked to create a business model focusing on how consumers will want to interact and pay for such an entertainment in the future.

Workshop 4: Work
During this workshop you will look at the communication technologies and solutions in use today and then try to come up with new uses and business models for one of those solutions.

I will share my notes and thoughts with you. Let me also say that I am extremely impressed with Nokia’s experiment for several reasons

1) When you invite experts who are deeply embedded into social communities, they are going to share their thoughts with those communities.
2) By inviting experts, paying for their travel and accommodations and making them feel like honored guests—they are circumventing any consulting fees these experts would otherwise charge their clients.
3) I can only imagine how much thinking and preparation was involved in bringing 35 people from all over the world together. It’s a very involved initiative, and I give them credit.
4) Nokia has made no effort to influence our opinion. In fact, quite the contrary, they have encouraged us to share our candid assessment.

Considering that on multiple occasions I was ready to toss my iPhone out of the window for dropping calls, not opening a browser properly or freezing, I am eager to find a replacement. And perhaps that will be the e71. Will keep you posted.

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(Image from Flickr, by Paul Keleher)

They lurk in malls, selling soap, oversized stuffed animals and mobile phone accessories. As you pass, they ask, “Can I ask you a question?” Those unlucky few who respond, “Yes,” seem as naïve as New York tourists staring up at skyscraper.

I’m sure “Can I ask you a question?” was a great sales technique at some point. But it becomes less useful with each additional vendor that adopts it.

Consider a new approach: Instead of, “Can I ask you a question?” ask, “May I tell you something useful?” “May I tell you something funny?” “Can I help you find a store?”

If each of these vendors were armed with helpful resources that would benefit the average mall-walker, I think it might boost their sales.

What do you think?

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I created a tag cloud from the text of Obama and McCain bios located on their website.
The larger the word, the more it is emphasized in the candidates bio.

Special thanks to http://tagcrowd.com for the tagcloud.

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I recently interviewed Beth Seabright, managing director of Tucker Arensberg, P.C., about her program to motivate young associates at her law firm to take business development initiatives. After you read this great article, check out how the program worked in a bit more depth by reading the below:

1.     Did you provide your team with additional resources to point them in the right direction. For example, did you create a list of possible speaking engagements for them to attend, or were they expected to research this on their own? 

I did provide additional resources for them.  I suggested publications for articles, speaking engagements, networking events and occasionally set up lunches with my contacts that I wanted my attorneys to get to know.   I coached them through phone calls when they were reaching out to contacts for the first time and walked them through various business development scenarios.  I helped the Associates to get to their goal in any way that I could.

2.    Did you post people’s point score continuously and publicly?

I sent out the results every two weeks to our Associates and occasionally included our Managing Shareholder.  

3. Did that create a competitive or a collaborative environment?

I would say more motivating than competitive.  A few Associates that were not making the time for the program initially saw that other Associates were making progress toward the goal and were inspired to meet with me to put together a plan to catch up with their colleagues.

4. What was the logic behind assigning which point values to which activities?

The more difficult the task, the higher the point value.  I made a list of all of the activities included in the program and ranked them from simple to challenging.  For instance, meetings with me: easy - Associates received 2 points/meeting.  New clients were worth 10 points.

5. And lastly, have you been able to correlate a dollar amount to the biz dev challenge–ROI?

To be honest, I did not go back and correlate dollar values to the challenge, simply because a lot of the value in the program was planting the business developing seeds with the Associates.  While our more senior associates brought in new matters and clients, which I could easily correlate with a dollar value, our younger associates were setting up meetings and writing articles for the first time, activities that were not going to create instant new business.

Quiver&Quill commentary: If I ran a business development program for a law firm, I would use a similar framework to motivate my young associates. Here’s how it would work:

The process starts by answering one of two questions:

• What, that our business prospects care about, could we help them better understand?
• What, that our business prospects are doing, could we help them do better?

The next step — turn the young associate into a resource.

Incent them to attend lectures, visit social networks, read niche publications and develop a personal interest in the areas that matter to prospects. Finally, place them into situations like conferences and events where they can help prospects and demonstrate their resourcefulness.

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 (Image courtesy of Krishna De, from Flickr)Children are less likely to lose touch with their friends because they’re connected by social networking sites from the moment they begin school. This was not the case with my parents’ generation. I recently reconnected on Facebook with a friend from middle school. Within two days, five of my other middle school classmates had reconnected with me. There was something exciting about looking at their profiles to see who they’ve become, how their faces have changed and how their personalities haven’t.When today’s kids grow up, their entire social network will age with them. They will decide who to remove from their networks and how much access to grant those who remain, rather than seeking out old friends. How will this affect their sense of who they are, who they were and whom they consider to be their people?

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I love this lil’ email from Daily Candy. It’s personal, engaging and perfectly sassy. The signature is brilliant: “We look forward to working with you.” It welcomes me as a member of a team and creates the expectation that they want to help.

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American Public Media’s Marketplace, a national radio show, has a great interview with E&J Gallo Winery CEO Joe Gallo called “Growing up in the wine industry.” A few highlights:

“There are two big decisions to make in life: What you do and who you marry. And a lot of people get one right and not the other.”

“I’ve been guided by my dad’s philosophy on what it takes to be successful in business:
-Stay independent
-Hire good people
-Strive for perfection
-Never be satisfied
-Don’t plan too far ahead
-Have a sense of urgency
-Work like hell
-Be lucky

Listen to the entire podcast here:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/11/16/growing_up_in_the_wine_industry/

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Do we want choice, or just the perception of choice?
I believe we are most persuaded by marketing that simplifies the act of choosing.

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Here’s why:

1. At a movie, baseball game or restaurant, she spontaneously sighs and says, “I seriously love my car.”
2. When another Mini driver stops to check out her car, she says, “That’s such a Mini-owner thing to do.” “What?” I ask. “You wouldn’t understand.”
3. She spent over an hour reviewing the care pack Mini sent her – and smiled as she lovingly turned every page.
4. Every time she makes a U-turn, I get to hear the speech about how superior her Mini is (to my car) and how my car could never do what her car can do so smoothly.
5. Ditto parking, turning, stopping or packing luggage.
6. She actually waves at other Mini owners. And they actually wave back. Even in New York. I am not making this up.
7. If she brakes hard and says, “Are you OK?” I know not to respond. She’s talking to her car.
8. She wants to attend Mini-related events and regularly Googles them.
9. Yesterday, after borrowing my car for the day, she said, “Your car is over-sized and clumsy. I feel at one with my car. I know how it moves, and how it responds to the rain.”
10. When asked what she likes about her car, she says – without rehearsal – “Its awesome design; it feels cool, trendy and compact; it has great handling; it makes super-safe turns; its width-to-height proportion, like a bulldog’s stance; the huge trunk space; it’s easy to drive; it has a vintage design, but I know it’s a BMW; I feel safe in it; if anything happens, Mini roadside assistance will come pick me up.

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I’m the best Tipper On Earth

Originally uploaded by Jason DeRusha

I pay at the counter at my favorite lunch place. Most people do not tip even when they sit and at this little dive. I’ve noticed that when people pay with a credit card, they always tip well. And when they pay in cash, they seldom tip.

When they pay with a credit card, the receipt is printed with a blank line for the tip. And when they pay in cash, there’s obviously no such line.

It’s the expectation of leaving a tip—or the fear of insult surrounding leave the tip line blank, which causes many people to tip when paying with a credit card but not when paying cash.

I would love to see how asking customers paying in cash, “do you want to leave a tip?” would affect how many of them do. So, do you want to leave a comment?

P.S. I am currently at blog group deciding whether to delete this post or explain it further. The point I want to emphasize is the “do you want fries like that phenomena” that when people are asked directly they tip. This restaurant is a little take out place, I appreciate their service and acknowledge it often with gratuity.

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work, buy, consume, die (boomerang card)

Originally uploaded by BdR76

I work with 40+ sales reps from both local and national media companies every month placing digital media buys for clients. Most sales reps fail to close a deal or earn a repeat order not because of their digital knowledge or skills, but rather shortcomings in their service.

Here are a few common mistakes:
1. Treating an agency’s smaller and larger clients differently. The size of the client does not always correlate to their budget on a particular campaign.
2. Renegotiating rates during a media buy rather than scheduling a time during the planning process to discuss.
3. Failing to provide added value—or offering no incentive to clients who continue to renew orders.
4. Failing to offer ideas and suggestions to enhance the campaign.
5. Selling out of inventory without informing the agency ahead of time.
6. Only talking or emailing the agency when they are placing a buy—this will guarantee a strictly transactional relationship.
7. Failing to inform the agency about changes to the media website and its essential stats (uniques, TOS, impressions, new content and sponsorable assets)
8. Failing to provide the agency with a wrap up report
9. Complaining…about the size of a buy; the fact that a competitor received the same buy; the urgency with which a buy needs to be executed
10. Forgetting reoccurring advertisers in favor of short-term profitable opportunities
11. Mistaking when the agency is looking for an idea versus when an agency has an idea and is searching the right digital venues to execute it.
12. Failing to hit deadlines. This is both when the campaign goes live and when the campaign has concluded.
13. Failing to deliver all the media that the agency booked—and informing the agency after the campaign has ended.

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Here are a few ideas from my reading that I found intriguing this week:”Forty percent of all mothers in the U.S., believe it or not, are on Myspace. Twelve percent of all internet minutes are spent on Myspace. Forty-five percent of all users on Myspace are over the age 35,” Chris Dewolfe, CEO of Myspace in Business Week, 6/2/08.

“Life conspires to beat the rebel out of you,” Bogusky says, dropping one of those lines that could be either authentic on-the-fly wisdom or something he once saw on a T-Shirt. “I was at a meeting at Nike recently with a bunch of senior people, and that’s just the thought that went through my head. For everyone at the table I could see how life was trying to beat it out of us.” Alex Bogusky quoted in Fast Company, June 2008.

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