Archive for category SocialMedia
Thanks to Orange Labs for a Great Mixr
Posted by cheuer in Personal, SocialMedia on November 30th, 2007
Pascale Diaine and Mark Plakias from Orange Labs put on a great conversation with traditional French flair about the end of email last week. I love those guys over at Orange – really cool and so darn smart. I really should do a better post on this event, but its 3am and time for bed… Thankfully Debi Jones wrote up an excellent post that summarizes the discussion nicely.
What a great, crazy world we live in out here where you head out to an event 1 block from your office after wrok and get to hang out with these 3 guys – Arrington, Scoble and Loic – during the early dotcom days I used to dream about how cool it must be in San Francisco, and now I get to live it for real – its not as glamorous as one might imagine, but it sure is cool to have the chance to bounce ideas off these smart folks and get to know them as real people.
Speaking of smart folks, Orange had a ton of them – chatted briefly with Bradley Horowitz, LA Lasek, Sanford Barr, Cathy Brooks, Mike Sigal, and a bunch of CEO’s from cool companies. I even talked to Jason from Twitter about why the ‘track’ functionality doesn’t work for me or several other folks I know…
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Help me help you. I need your input for my book.
Posted by cheuer in Social Media Club, SocialMedia, THe Social Media Playbook on November 19th, 2007
Please take this survey www.contentconnections.com/socialmedia2007 to help me with my book – keep reading to find out why…
There is a lot going on these days and a lot of different books being written about what’s happening, with an apparent emphasis on social media, communities and user generated content. As the founder of Social Media Club, it should be obvious that I am writing a book focused on the rise and importance of social media – to a large extent, I am writing that book, but as Doc Searls says, there is something of greater significance happening beneath the meme.
While I am still torn on the title of my book, it is now being envisioned as “The Social Media Playbook.” The goal for me is to help people understand the era we are now entering and enable professionals to maximize the effectiveness of their participation on behalf of the organizations they represent. For me, this is best seen through the framework of Look, Listen, Join, Lead. In that it is as much art as it is science though, the book will be peppered with PURPOSE – or rather, illustrating the answer to WHY through metaphor and real world stories. Ultimately, social media is the spark that has ignited the movement towards the HUMANIZATION OF THE ENTERPRISE, which I will illuminate better over the coming weeks.
There is quite a bit to get done in the next 3 months, which is not a lot of time for 60,000 words – especially considering the problems I have with Repetitive Stress Injury, but it will be done. I will be revealing more details of the book very soon (within the week) along with my plans for leveraging the best practices of “social publishing” I have been researching, but I am torn on a few decisions we need to make, so would love to hear what you think is the most effective way to leverage social media in creating the book here in the comments, or even call me 408.834.0884
More urgently though, I am participating in a survey put together by David Brake of Content Connection together with entrepreneur extraordinaire Lon Safko to determine what you really know about Social Media and what you would like to understand more deeply. Receiving the gift of your time to take the survey, and better still, to pass it forward to others, would be a huge help in getting the right information into the book. There are a few iPod nano’s being given away as prizes, your responses/personal information will be kept private and your participation will be recognized appropriately.
Please take the survey here www.contentconnections.com/socialmedia2007. Please note that Lon is a friend, but not a co-author of my book – he is writing his own book on the subject from a different angle. It is an interesting situation, to be collaborating in this way on market research, but to essentially be competing for attention in the market once the books are published – I think of it as an experiment in co-creation and co-opetition, which in and of itself makes for an interesting case study… Then again, this is just a more explicit expression of support similar to what I have been giving to others such as Paul Gillen, Geoff Livingston, David Meerman Scott, Shel Israel/Robert Scoble, David Weinbergber and Debie Weil. I expect I will be doing the same with Charlene Li and Tara Hunt’s upcoming books – each of whom has a valuable perspective to be considered that helps us all move along in the right direction, which is my ultimate goal – to help make the world a better place by sharing what we know.
More to come very soon…
Are you a “real marketer”?
Posted by cheuer in Future of Media, Leadership, SocialMedia, The Conversation Group on September 14th, 2007
Chris Brogan shines bright and demonstrates why I really wanted him on The Conversation Group advisory board as much as Doc Searls and David Weinberger in this post “I am a marketer“. I try to avoid the word marketing like the plague – because of bad marketers – or more accurately, I should say badly intentioned marketers, which is the key reason the profession has been besieged for the last several years in some parts of society.
It’s time to talk once again about what I still think of as “real marketing”. For me this means the process of matching a product/service with the people who will get the most benefit/satisfaction/enjoyment from it. This is about serving the market’s interest by being a matchmaker of value between people and companies – caring about both, but more importantly caring about your own integrity.
Unfortunately, marketing has become more closely linked to selling, where oftentimes the systems and expectations of management are about producing quarter over quarter increases in numbers, without concern for the state of the product, its usability or its appropriateness for a particular use. This is where integrity breaks down and an individual’s self-esteem becomes linked to ‘hitting the numbers’ regardless of whether or not that is the right thing for the company or the people buying the product. This can also result in companies selling their product to the wrong people, creating an unnecessary negative impression in the market among people who might otherwise find value in it.
The bottomline is some marketers create a bad name for the rest of us because they are selling without concern for the buyer. Of course, everyone has some self interest, which is not in and of itself bad – it is when the interest is more focused on money than integrity where things go bad.
Chris also brings up the often talked about issue of transparency, which is still overused and misunderstood, but is getting more directly at the root of the bad marketer problem. According to Merriam Webster, being transparent means “free from pretense or deceit” – in short, it means being honest. As I have been saying a lot lately, “say what you mean and do what you say” – this is what leads to trust – being honest and continuing to demonstrate that honesty through your actions. Too many people misunderstand transparency to mean a completely open kimono, a view on everything going on – which is not feasible or completely appropriate. What it really means is don’t lie and make clear your intentions.
From my perspective, the bottom line here is a matter of intentions and authenticity. What are you trying to do and are you being true to yourself?
Chris speaks very eloquently to these ideals in action and lays out a great path for all marketers, but it is your point of origin where it all starts.
Are you working for a company you believe in? Are you working in a market you care about? Are you able to be human or must you uphold a fake ideal?
If you can answer these questions truthfully and affirmatively, you are a real marketer. I can proudly say that I am a real marketer, don’t you want to be a real marketer too?
The Conversation Group, The Beginning of the Story
Posted by cheuer in Future of Media, SocialMedia, The Conversation Group on September 11th, 2007
The story of how and why we have come to form The Conversation Group is an epic – a story that is worthy of thousands of words, which I am going to share with you over the weeks ahead. There is the socioeconomic environment; the fertile cultural ground for our perspective; the advent of social media (aka participatory media, aka conversational media); the deep need for this sort of transformation in marketing communications; the disruptive technologies such as Tivo and RSS; and the changing nature of our relationships with each other as individuals, as colleagues and as community participants.
Then of course, there is the story that Ted Shelton, Giovanni Rodriguez, Stephanie Agresta and I need to tell regarding what brings us each here, at this moment in time, to work together towards this shared vision of our partnership. Of equal importance is the story our advisory board members, Chris Brogan, Deborah Schultz, Shel Holtz, Mitch Ratcliffe, David Thorpe, Doc Searls, and David Weinberger have to tell. Finally, there is the story of our kindred spirit and Board Member from the UK, Mark Adams, of Pembridge who previously co-founded Global Technology PR firm Text 100 and the genius of Peter Hirshberg, CMO and Chairman of the Executive Committee for Technorati.
Our story together as The Conversation Group, is the sum of all these parts and so much more. Everyone with their own important perspective on what is going on, everyone with a unique value to contribute to the conversation on conversations, and everyone describing a different aspect of the same proverbial elephant. For me personally, I feel it is the continuation of the Cluetrain Manifesto, those ideals being manifested, yet evolving in fascinating ways, inspired by the widespread use of enabling technologies and an open source ethos of sharing and collaboration.
Throughout each of these many facets of the story, it is very hard to define the underlying nature of the transformation that is underway now – the thing that Doc talks about regarding the ‘greater significance’ that I can talk about easily (not quickly), but struggle to articulate with written words. That which a single phrase can not describe – a story that doesn’t break down well into a 30 second clip, or tagline – a story that we (you and I) are writing together through our exploration of our social media and our connections with each other. It is a “conversation on conversations” and participatory media that is just now beginning in earnest with events like Federated Media’s Conversational Marketing Summit that is taking place today.
The Conversation Group is but one part of this bigger story – my partners and I are striving to work together to make it an important part, but we know we don’t have all the answers. Rather, we have the experience and perspective needed to ask the right questions, that lead to better answers, discovered together, through conversations.
—more to come—
the+conversation+group conversation conversational+media participatory+media social+media web+2.0 marketing integrated+communications
Mustard is Better Then Quechup
Posted by cheuer in Social Media Tools, SocialMedia on September 3rd, 2007
First my apologies to anyone who received an email from me inviting me in to join the new network from Quechup. (which is a decent use of Drupal as far as I can tell) It was not from me and I feel harmed that any service would do this sort of deceptive mass solicitation without permission, trading on my good name and damaging the trust I have with my friends and colleagues. It seems a lot of other people fell into this trap too, so I can get past my embarrassment, but not the betrayal I feel.
It seems that the people behind the site is IDateCorp.com, where Mark Finch is the CEO. If you received an email from them, or if you had many sent on your behalf, you may want to let Mark know how you feel about it by emailing him at [email protected]
There is a great discussion about this all going on over at Chris Hambly’s blog.
Furrier Steps Down as Podtech CEO
Posted by cheuer in Future of Media, SocialMedia, Web2.0 on August 16th, 2007
I have been hearing the rumor for a long time now, but I saw the status update on Facebook and then turned into John Furrier’s blog to read the news that he is stepping down as CEO of Podtech. I like John. I can hang out with John. He is a smart guy and built the beginnings of a success story while fueling the growth of social media adoption by big technology companies. I have a lot of friends at Podtech, and I hope this bodes well for their future potential (as well as John’s, because he has been working his ass off).
Many have speculated that this was a requirement for Podtech to get new funding (was that Valleywag?), but that is still unknown and probably never will be. Podtech has a tough transition ahead to reposition/re-energize the brand and find a business model that will work for them, their investors and their customers. There are many opportunities still in the technology side of the house, but I understand they largely have a content focused team so this is going to be a real challenge.
Bottomline, they are my friends, so I wish them well…
UPDATE: Chris Brogan has a nice story on this where I added a long comment I need to turn into a blog post…
Why USA Today is not a Social Networking Failure
Posted by cheuer in Future of Media, SocialMedia, Web2.0 on August 16th, 2007
I tried something new this morning and was reading TechMeme on my commute to work when I noticed this story about USA Today’s declining page views since reinventing itself and adding a social network function on TechCrunch.
Mike did a great job of supporting his claims by including metrics from both Compete.com and Comscore (both have their statistical ‘anomaly’ problems), which clearly points to a real decline. The reason why was left up to the commenters, and many pointed to
- bad redesign
- failure of social networking
- aggressive ad deals
- core audience not wanting to participate (failure to understand audience desire/needs)
- decreasing quality of content
- increased competition
- the change was too drastic
These all are valid concerns, but as I posted in my comment there, which I am reposting below with additional thoughts, I think they miss the bigger picture.
Content is important, but context is king. What is the context of USA Today‘s coverage, shallow dives across a broad spectrum of topics for the entire USA [wasn’t it supposed to be like the McDonald’s of news?]. Their brand has always been about this and people know it. Worse still, they are always trying to make everyone happy, which ultimately makes a lot of it (the content) very mediocre and less appealing – a downward spiral really. With the increasing “nicheification” made possible in digital media (and evidenced by the need for all the different Crunch brands), what is the context for passion, attention and interaction within a USA Today? [or rather, why would I want to join their community?]
The other major trend for context is the move to hyperlocal. Gannett is doing a great job with this in many markets (see the latest Wired article) and I expect that much of that will ultimately bubble up. In short, they should not let go of this experiment unless they want to hang on to the core brand value they established over the last several years.
This is not a failure of the Social Network + Traditional Media model, it is a failure of USA Today to be aggressive enough with rethinking their brand and innovating to serve the needs of their core audience and expand the definition of their audience.
Yes, they did not consider the impact of the radical redesign on their existing audience – Yes, their core audience is mostly part of the 90% from the 1/9/90 rule – Yes, they have alienated a portion of that audience and are losing SOA with them (Share of Attention) [need to go deeper into this idea in another blog post soon]
So what are they doing to encourage participation from those who are there? How are the identifying and supporting the contributors? How are they themselves joining the conversation?
As a final point, it is important to remember that the key facets of personalization for setting proper context have always been geographical and topical. Where someone lives and what they care about. The right mix of context setting is as much art as it is science. USA Today’s state by state news page and their local sports coverage was one of the first to teach me this important lesson over a decade ago. I still think the traditional newspapers have figured out a lot of things that can benefit our thinking 2.0, despite all of the other baggage and often slow pace that considered, researched thinking begets (and the many mistakes that it avoids).
Stop the Insanity! Don’t Call It “Conversational Marketing”
Posted by cheuer in Insytes, SocialMedia, Web2.0 on August 10th, 2007
My thinking here is very clear – despite a lot of people whom I respect using the phrase “Conversational Marketing” to describe the new way companies are relating to customers, it devalues the underlying shift which is, in Doc Searl’s words, of “greater significance”. While the word marketing is intended to get the attention of those corporate folks who are somewhat attached to their titles and have budget, the language devalues the importance and ends up missing the point.
In the world I inhabit, Marketing has become a four letter word. It has come to mean interruption, manipulation and pushing messages into people’s heads. As David Weinberger says, “somewhere along the way, markets, what we do together, became marketing, what we do to other people.” It seems to me that Conversational Marketing is in danger of ending up becoming something that traditional marketing people use to do TO other people rather than understanding it is something that we do WITH other people.
This was one of the chief concerns that Stowe Boyd rightly brought up in our little ‘kerfuffle’ earlier this year about the Social Media Press Release. That marketers would use the tools without understanding the underlying shift in strategy, intention, process and purpose that is at the heart of human to human communications (H2H) that is the hallmark of our new world.
As an abstract management term, it is seemingly technically accurate, but the spirit is missing from the language. In this case, I think it is the spirit behind the ‘meme’ that makes it powerful and will accelerate the greater transformation it represents. Of course, as someone who has been active in defending the often debated phrase of “social media”, I am a bit sensitive to the challenge we face in the conversation about this new business practice. In fact, I have been reluctant to bring this issue up – especially with the upcoming Conversational Marketing Summit being put on by the folks at Federated Media, who I respect very much. (especially after some of great conversations I had with Chas back in June)
Everyone I know who cares about this emerging practice has clearly been influenced by the Cluetrain, so I don’t know why we would want to move away from their description and intention. For me, it is not Conversational Marketing, it is Market Conversations. I realize I am splitting hairs here somewhat, and that no one can really win a semantic argument such as this, but I think that the intention we bring to this new era is evidenced strongly in our language. For me, conversational marketing makes it seem like more of the same old same old, rather than a real transformation in the very nature of how businesses operate. Our intention should be reflected in our language.
More broadly, I think what is happening is really about Market Engagement – how companies interact with the market’s they serve – how companies relate to the people within those markets through product experience, conversations and media. This can simply be thought of as first person, second person and third person. A conversation is not an advertisement, not an email newsletter, not a podcast, not a press release, not a ‘contrived’ focus group where management watches real people from behind the glass – these are all pieces of communication. A conversation is a human interaction between two or more people, which involves listening, speaking and responding.
So on Sunday, here at Gnomedex’s Unconfernce, UnGnomeCamp, I will be leading a session to delve into this topic more fully. I hope you can join us and let me know what you think. Am I hitting the nail on the head here or am I out of touch?
My Top 5 Social Media Tools
Posted by cheuer in dScribes, Social Media Tools, SocialMedia on June 7th, 2007
Ok, Todd Defren, I’ll bite and spread the meme, and answer the important question, what are my top 5 social media tools.
- Firefox – Most people forget the browser is still the core of the read/write web – I
Mozilla for all my posting, tagging, editing and more – the latest crop of plugins and extensions make it invaluable – like being able to twitter from inside my URL bar! This is tied with WordPress for me. - Twitter – though it is often clogged up with personal messages between friends to which I can’t see the other side of the conversation, it is great for promoting blog posts, asking questions, getting support and quickly sharing insytes that come to me while walking around the real world – like last night when talking with Eric Doyle about measuring social media success – would have forgotten Engagement, Tonality and Actions if I did not capture it somewhere…
- Google Alerts – so I don’t have to keep doing vanity searches all the time, it does it for me and lets me (or rather lets Kristie) know when someone has given me some link love
- Delicious – God, how I want to quit you! With no real improvements in a very long time (that I know of), I have tried to quit it several times – even imported everything into Magnolia at one point – but the fact is that it is integrated perfectly into Firefox and easy to use. I just wish it had more auto-publishing controls as I mentioned to Joshua a couple times – make my link blogging look prettier – please?
- Podcast Rig/Recorder & Digital Camera – I hate to call it out by name since I have had so many troubles with it, but being able to record interviews, conversations, meetings and more, to later share it with the world is still awesome. Of course, same goes for being able to have a little creativity and artistry in each day with my Canon XL – even with my problems with the autofocus, I just love it. More about being a real digital scribe I think, but these are my favorite social media tools…
Since we need to pay it forward, I will need to tag Dave Coustan, Will Pate, Greg Narain, Grace Davis and Sally Falkow.
Community does not equal Free
Posted by cheuer in Personal, SocialMedia on May 28th, 2007
Why is it that everyone expects me to advise them on how to improve their business and their Web sites for free? I don’t understand why so many companies, engaged in commercial activities, come to me with requests for support and advice, but balk at the mere mention of paying for my expertise, time and ideas. I backed off of BrainJams because so many people thought not-for-profit meant not-for-income, but even now, as a social media consultant and web strategist, I still get people expecting me to be excited about improving their product or service, to help them make more money from it.
Maybe it is in my pheronomes or something…
Are you facing the same problem I am? Would love to hear your thoughts on this dilemma.
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Chris Heuer is the founder of Mentor Bureau, a global collaborative of Startup Mentors focused on #SmoothScaling over #Hypergrowth. He has invested his life in working to create a better society through personal and community efforts that brings people together such as Rysing Tyde and Social Media Club. To learn more about Chris, visit his profile on LinkedIn.