Brains on Fire

• 

  Viva WOMMA (The Quick Hits)

  Posted on November 30th, 2010 by Geno and currently 4 commenting.

  If you missed this year’s WOMMA Summit in Las Vegas you missed a good one, in fact maybe the best WOMMA event so far.

  Kudos to the WOMMA staff and Board for putting on a solid and well organized event.

  So what was so special about the experience? I’ll hit the highlights for me, and I’ll share a wonderful visual from Paula Hansen of my presentation. Thanks Paula fro making me look good.

  

  Josh Bernoff – Forrester Research
  Empowered: Unleashing Employees and Energizing Customers to Transform your Business

  Social broadcasters are the most influential bloggers. However, these celebrity bloggers may not be the best way to reach consumers.  Josh cited an Interactive Online Study, U.S. adults were asked how much they trusted information sources such as social networking sites and blogs:

  • Social networking site profile from someone you don’t know (5%)
  • Blog writing by someone you don’t know (7%)
  • Social Networking site profile from someone you know (39%)
  • Blog written by someone you know (42%)

  There is a big difference in trust between mass and potential influencers. We need to focus on mass and potential influencers because customers trust their friends more than the famous blogger.

  500 billion impressions coming from social networking
  • 62% of the impressions are coming from Facebook
  18% from My Space
  10% from Twitter
  Influence posts: 32% coming from ratings/reviews, 29% discussion forums, 
24% blog comments, 16% blogs.

  More nuggets to think about
  • 2 million African-Americans account for 80% of the African-American online influence
  • African-American Mass Influencers are more male, younger, highly likely to use mobile Web
  • African-Americans share more in MySpace compared
 to the overall population (28%)

  The traditional way to capture consumers is no longer enough, awareness, consideration, preference, and purchase. We need to support and empower customers. Once we empower customers, they will become fans of our brands and potential influencers who will spread the word about our product.

  Brad Fay – Keller Fay
  Graene Hutton – Universal McCann
  Amplifying Travel-Related Word of Mouth

  • Americans are less likely to be travel influencers than Britians and Austrailians
  • 67% of travel word of mouth happens face to face
  • 2/3 of all comments are positive
  • Provide reminders and reasons for your customers to talk (strategic surprise, leverage media, foster engagement)
  • Memory triggers are effective. (example: foster sharing on channels such as facebook, and flickr)

  Paul Ollinger – Facebook
  Facebook Identity Driven Web

  • Louder is not always better
  • Facebook focuses on the WHO
  • Index your brand on the WHO Web
  • We now share our real identities online
  • The web is about people
  • Marketing is about people
  • Conversation at scale is possible
  • Build authentic networks (we care about or brand experiences)
  • Develop long-term relationships

  Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva – The Kitchen Sisters
  The art of Storytelling

  • The universe is made of stories not atoms
  • Give the story a face (widen your gaze around your company to look for the person who can fill the role)
  • Tell the backstory (have a great company history? share it)
  • Funny is good, but heart is better (show the passionate side of your story)
  • A recipe is a story with a meal at the end

  I would also recommend you check out Carin Galleta’s great post Ten Tips from the Kitchen Sisters.

  Tags: Brains on Fire, geno church, WOMMA, word of mouth marketing
• 

  Chief Love Officer.

  Posted on November 29th, 2010 by Robbin and currently 12 commenting.

  
  I am repeating a photo I’ve used before from my friend Libby Williams photo blog. It was taken in my sun room last year around Christmas time. Still makes me smile.

  I’m big believer in the power of love.

  I’ve often said that Brains on Fire is not a book, it’s a love story. What we’re preaching from the rooftops and to anyone who will listen is really quite simple:

  Love is a circular transaction. Love the people who love you and they will love you back.

  So last night, propped up in bed reading. I stumbled on an article by Chip and Dan Heath (do you know how much I love them and their shiny brilliant insights) on Fast Company’s website.
  
  Great article BTW. Read it.

  One set of words in this article caught my eye and got stuck in my head and my heart.

  Chief Love Officer.

  Hmmmm. Don’t you love that?.

  In the example that Chip and Dan sited, a Chief Love Officer was assigned to NetApp’s two biggest enterprise clients (Yahoo and Cisco) to study and customize a better product for each company, one that addressed these large enterprise client’s pain points. Then NetApp could standardize those customized products and sell the to other large enterprises. They were, in essence, side by side co-creating with their clients. And fueling a better product.

  Funny, how that seems to work every time.

  Long after I had moved on to other late night excitement, like finishing the laundry and changing the sheets, those simple three words “Chief Love Officer” kept rolling around in my head.

  And it got me thinking, what would be different in corporate America if most companies had a Chief Love Officer? What if a CLO was as common as a CFO.

  In my mind, a Chief Love Officer would be someone whose key role in the company is to love out loud. Listen with a helping heart. Celebrate when an act of love is observed, internally and externally. Someone whose entire job is centered around a desire to find and ease the customer’s pain, to make things really easier. Simpler. Someone to celebrate and cherish the love letters a company gets. (Do you know where your love letters are right now, who keeps them at most companies and do they get read out loud? )

  I basically see a Chief Love Officer as someone who wakes up thinking about how to inspire and reward their company’s biggest fans. And better yet, someone to send love where there is hate.

  Hmmmm.

  Maybe there should be less “social media” jobs and more “Love Department” jobs.

  Isn’t that all any of us need and want? More love. Isn’t that why we rant and rave and complain about airlines and restaurants and things that let us down. We just want to feel loved when we’re disappointed. I see that being the role of the CLO and his assistant love spreaders.
  
  What do you see as the job description for the CLO?
  
  Happy Monday.

  If you are reading this now, know. I love you.

  Because I do. I love you for taking time out of your busy day and getting all the way to end of this blog post. For commenting once and while. For the occasional thoughtful, private email with a suggestion to make our blogging better (I am seriously working on those typos). For encouraging us. For debating with us. And if you are client, for hiring us and believing in us.
  
  I really do.

  Stay close. This year is almost coming to an end. And I see 2011 shaping up to be a really amazing year for us all.

  Tags: Brains on Fire the book, Chief Love Officer, Chip Heath, Cicsco, Dan Heath, Fast Company, Love, NetApps, The Heathe Brothers, Yahoo
• 

  Lessons from a common cold.

  Posted on November 23rd, 2010 by Robbin and currently 5 commenting.

  
  I am in love with this photo from libby williams. She sees fall like “a cozy love affair”.

  Life tossed me a curve ball this last week, in the form of a cold. A really, REALLY, REALLY bad one. I’d go into the details with all of you, but I’m still trying to get rid of it and I hear it’s best not to give attention to things you want to go away. Let’s just say entire trees were sacrificed for my want of tissues.

  Trust me it was not pretty.

  But this sudden “knock you on your feet kind of infection” did help me in one cool and unexpectedly, delightful way.

  I remembered that what I have to DO can wait. Busy can wait.

  Mostly because I am just not that important. No one is.

  Years ago I got a phone call from a CEO of a fairly large corporation. He was an older guy, about to retire, and I knew in my heart of hearts his call was more social than work. We were unlikely “friends” since he was at least 30 years older than me. Anyway, it took me three whole days to get around to calling him back. Every night for three nights straight, I would climb in bed and remember {dang it} I forgot to call him back — again.

  I had just been too busy that day.

  When I finally called, he picked up the phone and I started apologizing immediately for my delay. Explaining of course, how busy I had been.

  The phone got silent. You could have heard a pin drop.

  Then said, “Are you done?”

  I said, “Yes.”

  He went on to say, “Robbin, I’m going to tell you something important. Everyone can be replaced. If you were to walk out your door this morning, just leave your office saying you weren’t coming back, someone would have your chair warm by nightfall.”

  “Don’t ever let yourself get too busy.”

  I remember trying to process what he’d just said. Sitting slowly down in my chair, smiling as I let what he’d said sink in, I made a promise to myself to always remember his words. To try and keep myself running at a pace that allows me to call back who I want, when I want. To never be too busy.

  Lately we’ve been lucky. We are busy. “Crazy Happy Busy” as I call it when people ask. Maybe I should say Crazy Happy Good. Business is good on 148 River Street and we are strong and learning more and more everyday.

  We have a lot to be grateful for this Thanksgiving.

  Social media has given us all a lot of new found treasures and toys. New opportunities. New ways to connect and engage with our customers. New things to study. And it’s also given us more to DO.
  
  And even more ways to elevate our self importance in the world.

  I think it helps to remember, that we can all be replaced. Someone can have your chair warm by nightfall. So don’t get caught up being too busy. Slow down. Really listen when someone asks you a question. Read a little slower. Send a hand written thank you. Be grateful for it all.

  Happy Early Thanksgiving. OXOXOX. I’ll see you next week.

  Tags: Busy, Libby Williams, Stupid colds
• 

  The Not So Obvious

  Posted on November 18th, 2010 by Eric Dodds and currently 4 commenting.

  I recently found an article with a great title:

  “Treating Customers as Online Equals Boosts Business, Research Finds” (1)

  Of course, I had to read it. And I chuckled a little bit when I read the concluding statements:

  “The team adds that one lesson company managers must learn if they are to improve customer relations and sales through social-media applications is that they must play by rules of social media and treat customers as equals.”

  I thought to myself, ‘Of course it does! Isn’t that obvious?”

  If you stop and think about it, though, the mindset isn’t obvious. It is actually very subtle, and it is extremely difficult to fight.

  And that’s probably why it needs to be studied and clearly stated. How is it not obvious, you ask?

  The research suggests that many companies are stuck in the mindset of marketing at their customers and that they are carrying that habit into new mediums and new technologies.

  Even businesses with the best intentions, who want to offer amazing products and services to people, can be blinded by revenue reports. There’s no question we have to make money and we want to be successful, but the subtle mindset shift comes when we allow that pursuit to shift our view of our customers, seeing them less and less as equal human beings on the other end of a relationship and more as a lifeless stepping stone to a bigger bottom line. Which is why we constantly remind our selves that it’s all about the people.

  The article reminded me of our company’s credo (which Robbin had everyone memorize last year):

  • Great organizations are driven by purpose, not just profit.
  • They grow relationships, not just transactions.
  • And they thrive through movements, not campaigns.

  (1) – You can read the original article, “Treating Customers as Online Equals Boosts Business, Research Finds,” here.

  Tags: Business, customers, online, profit, purpose, relationships, Social media
• 

  What is Realistic? (An Internal Brains on Fire Conversation)

  Posted on November 17th, 2010 by Eric Dodds and currently 9 commenting.

  Yesterday I keyed out an idea for a blog post that has been floating around in my head for a while. When I finished the piece it felt a little weird upon reading, so I sent it to the sharp-minded Alexis Bass for feedback. The conversation that ensued was really interesting, and garnered a few more members when it moved from email to several people gathered at Alexis’ desk. For today’s post, I thought it would be interesting to simply share the original post and the email exchange. The thoughts are unedited and there isn’t a synthesized conclusion, but hopefully it will serve to inspire thinking and conversation.

  

  The original post:

  I’ve been thinking lately about realistic expectations, primarily expectations that customers place on companies.

  I started formalizing my thoughts in an article in called, “A Salute to Companies Sticking to Their Guns, (1)” where I made a few points about customer complaints and the internet:

  • ” the knowledge that a company can hear your voice has also given people the ability to complain like they’ve never complained before,”
  • “customers have hijacked the idea that “the customer is always right” as an excuse to complain about or demand unreasonable things en masse, using the information swarm of the internet as the vehicle for their voices.”

  I’m starting to think, though, that those complaints are an expression, or symptom, of unrealistic expectations. (It’s a multi-faceted problem, I think, stemming not only from increased ability to communicate, but also from our culture’s quest for instant gratification and immediacy.) Justin Gammon and I laugh at the classic heavy-social-media-user example: someone has a bad experience on an airplane, sends a Tweet to the carrier’s account, and becomes outraged when they aren’t quickly tended to by a manager with a handful of freebies. It’s even more disappointing (and comical) when the detractor is a ‘marketing expert’ and claims that things would be completely different if they ran the show.

  Hyperbole (kind of) aside, have you seen these unrealistic expectations surface here and there? It’s almost as if some people think the communication capacity of the internet in itself is a mandate for companies to respond to every question and complaint this instant.

  I think some level of expectation happens naturally when a brand enters a venue – if you are going to be an absent participant, then it’s probably not a good idea to step into the medium.

  But some of our recent work has involved actually handling customer inquiries via social media, and I can tell you that it ain’t no walk in the park to navigate a huge organization of busy people with a customer request. I have developed a much, much higher appreciation for people whose job it is to field these types of customer issues. Especially since it’s not in the job description of many of the people who take on the responsibility.

  So, to those of you who put the time, effort, and hard work into answering customer demands via social media, our heart goes out to you. You deserve a huge high-five (and much more) for what you do.

  To those of you who need assistance right now via Twitter, please know that sometimes it takes a while (days, not hours) to find the right person to get information from, even in extremely efficient organizations. You should expect great customer service, but remember that it comes from very busy human beings who often don’t have the answer right in front of them. And their job probably doesn’t allow them to spend all day on social media. (And they probably want to go home at a decent hour tonight, just like you do).

  The emails:

  Alexis’ first response:

  • Devil’s advocate pov:
  • I think the reason companies exist is because of customers and companies are the worst offenders at forgetting who they really work for. To me, this is an issue in any service industry. Companies demand we pay our bills by a certain date they dictate and when we demand for service on a certain day and time…you are met with “our technicians don’t work then”, “they need a two hour window” or “that doesn’t work for us”. The demands of consumers on companies are driven by the demands they face in their everyday lives. A reality it seems companies have forgotten. I can’t be home from 10-12pm waiting on a technician to fix my HVAC because….I have a job too!
  • Sorry for the rant. Would love to talk more about it. Interesting topic.

  Eric’s reply:

  • Mmm, now that’s what I was looking for – I love me some devil’s advocate feedback! Very good food for thought that I definitely need to think through.

  Another response from Alexis:

  • Oh and about immediacy of response, I think that is driven by the way consumers use technology in their own lives. We have SMS and IM and email and Skype…our lives are about instant response. Again, reiterating that companies are forgetting that they deal with real people, not just “consumers”. Being a consumer is just a sliver of my life.

  Eric’s reply:

  • I agree – your point about our lives involving instant response is a good one. I’m not sure how healthy it is, but it is the place our society finds itself.
  • It is very true that companies forget that they deal with humans, not just consumers. And they generally are the worse offenders when it comes to that mindset. At the same time, though, (and this might be a better way to make my point), many customers forget that they are dealing with humans, not a giant machine, and I think the barrier of technology can influence that relationship. I.e., if you ask an employee in a store about a product in the department they work in, your perception / expectations might be different than if you blast a tweet to the company’s Twitter handle.
  • The idea for a post arose from a discussion I had with [Client] about doing [Project work things] and answering all of the customer questions that have come with them. We were talking about how much work goes into answering one stinking question – we’ve (and rightly so) set up an entire workflow for dealing with requests, so what seems like a small thing to someone on [token social network] is actually a huge process behind the scenes in the organization.
  • Great, great conversation and food for thought – I love talking with you about this stuff because your perspective is informed, human, and just smart.

  (1) – You can read the original article, “A Salute to Companies Sticking to Their Guns,” here.

  Tags: Alexis Bass, Conversation, customer service, customers, demands, email, Eric Dodds, Eric Whitlock, Expectations, realistic, reality, Service, Social media