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  • From Shannon: Technological enlightenment (and a side of fries)

    Posted on August 16th, 2010 by Kindling Spirits and currently 1 commenting.

    This post is from our very own Fiskateer-community-heroine, Shannon Kohn. Not only does she have a great singing voice (she performed David Bowie at the FIRE Sessions), killer sense of humor (how many times have we started the day off by searching YouTube for Joe Dirt and Tommy Boy clips?), but she can write too! Enjoy her great thoughts on technology over time.

    I had a girls-only lunch with my daughter yesterday.  As we sat there, dipping our fast food fries into the little paper cups of ketchup and talking about how I can’t believe she’ll be a 5th grader next week, I noticed an older gentleman alone at a table.  On his laptop.  Using the restaurant’s free wi-fi to connect with the world.  Not unusual, you say?  How about if I told you he was wearing dirty overalls, a grungy hat, and dirt-caked boots—a fashionable ensemble that made it look like he had just come in off the tractor (not such a unique outfit, though, in my neck of the suburbs)?  The sight got me thinking about how some people embrace technology and why some people step aside and let it roll right past them.  Up until a few months ago, I’m pretty sure I was the latter.

    I might get called out on this, but I’ve only recently become the proud owner of my very first smart phone.   To be perfectly honest, as “jump-in-without-checking-to-see-how-deep-the-water-is” as I am in other areas of my life, new technology scares me a bit.  I like to watch how others engage with any new “gadget” first, make some assumptions based on my observations, then ease in after the tidal wave rush to purchase with a little dip of my big toe.  That’s probably why I held on to my old phone for all those years.  It did what I needed it to do, after all—make phone calls and take the occasional picture—but really nothing more.  It was simply comfortable for me to use.  When I finally handed it over to the sales clerk in exchange for my new (cough, cough) non-Apple smart phone, it truly was like I was saying goodbye to a friend.  Since I turned on my shiny new phone for the first time, though, I think I’ve rekindled an affair with technology.

    I graduated from a small liberal arts college in ’94 (see, I’m not THAT old).  Back in those days, everyone wasn’t whipping out their iPads at a second’s notice or editing and producing high-def short films on their iPhones (http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/mobile/08/10/iphone.imovie.indie/index.html?hpt=T2).   I was one of those lucky graphic design majors who actually had to learn the “old ways” of design and advertising, like cutting amberlith (look it up, kids) and developing photo prints with real chemicals in a real darkroom.  I also got schooled in the “new way” of doing things—computerized graphic design.  Our college computer lab consisted of two Mac SEs with monochromatic screens, but the competition to outdo each other with Illustrator and QuarkXpress (again, look it up, kids) was still fierce.  I was some hot shit back then.  I was fearlessly grasping new technology by the balls and running really freaking fast with it.

    So what happened to me and my wonder for the “new ways?”  Why was I comfortable with a basic cell phone for all those years and afraid to take a plunge into any new technology that came along?  Can’t really say for sure.  I think somewhere over the past 15+ years, it just got hard for me to keep up.  There was too much happening too fast.  I’m ashamed to say I decided to step aside instead of jumping in.

    You’ll be happy to know, though, that I’m giving it another go.  I’ve decided to let my smart phone purchase serve as a springboard to connectivity, engagement, and enlightenment.  Heck, if Older Fast Food Farmer Guy can embrace technology without fear, why shouldn’t I?

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  • FIRE Sessions Recap Part 3 - Max Lenderman and the Power of Experiential Marketing

    Posted on August 2nd, 2010 by Kindling Spirits and currently 5 commenting.

    The third and final re-cap post from @mackcollier. But first, a look at what our kick-off looked like. Long live David Bowie.

    If you’re a mobile provider in the United States, you have a plethora of traditional marketing channels available to you to reach new customers. But what if you are a mobile provider in India trying to reach potential customers in rural areas? Your problem is two-fold; First, simply getting your message to these remote towns and villages is a struggle. Second, many of the people in these areas don’t own a mobile phone, and have no idea why they SHOULD own one. So you have to educate Indian villagers first on why they should want a cellphone, then you have to convince them to buy from you.

    So how are mobile providers in India accomplishing this? As Max explained, they are sending trucks into remote and sometimes even forgotten villages, to connect directly with the people. Providers such as Nokia send trucks full of brand evangelists into these areas where they set up shop in the middle of town, then let residents try out the phones, as they explain how owning one could benefit them. The trucks don’t even take orders for phones, they are there simply to educate residents about what a cellphone is, and to build awareness for Nokia’s handsets.

    But here’s the thing; Before any of this happens, the trucks arrive playing popular Bollywood songs, and then the evangelists performs skits for residents. The plots of these skits are always similar to ones the residents have likely seen in popular Bollywood movies, and the characters work in the usage of a Nokia handset into the production (which goes back to the educational element). The arrival of the trucks and their performances can create a carnival-like atmosphere for these remote villages, and gives them a very-appreciated source of entertainment. Then, if they want to stick around and learn more about Nokia handsets, they can.

    This approach works because mobile providers first create something of value for the customers. Again, these trucks are going to very isolated areas, in some cases, they aren’t even sure if the village they are headed to is still there or not. So an impromptu source of entertainment is very appreciated by most of these townsfolk. By first giving these villages some free entertainment, that makes these villagers more likely to stick around and learn more about the cellphones.

    According to Max, event marketing such as this example is the 2nd fastest-growing area of marketing. But it isn’t working just in rural areas of India. Max also told about how the Army slashed recruiting costs via event marketing. In years past, recruitment costs was a staggering expense for the Army, with the average recruitment cost of each new solider being $18,000! So in an effort to lower that cost, the Army created The Virtual Army Experience, which gives potential recruits a taste of what life in the Army could be like. This virtual experience includes putting recruits in a jeep and simulating a live battle. The results have been remarkable, with the Army noting that recruitment costs have fallen from $18,000 per solider, to just $800 with the Virtual Army Experience.

    Other examples: In the past, Charmin has created branded public restrooms in the middle of NYC that are not only extremely clean (and available!), but individually staffed by employees that are there to keep it clean and take care of the patrons. Tide sent trucks into areas affected by Katrina to clean clothes for hurricane victims. As Max explained, the service Tide provided wasn’t giving these people clean clothes, Tide gave these people back their dignity.

    “The way to think big in this world is to create experiences without expecting anything in return, and customers will follow” - Max Lenderman

    This is an important lesson for brand managers everywhere. Create an experience, something of value for the people you are trying to reach, and they’ll not only be more likely to buy from you, but to evangelize you to others. Max closed with a great point about knockoffs. Think of how popular brands such as Nike and even BMW are falling prey to copycat and knockoff products. As Max asked “What’s the point of branding, if your brand can be knocked off completely?” The difference lies in the experiences we have and associate with that brand. That cannot be copied or knocked off.

    I have to say, as I was listening to Max, and having absorbed a simply overwhelming day at the FIREsessions, I thought to myself ‘This must be what being at TED is like’. For the first time in years, I attended an event where I felt like I was experiencing what TOMORROW would be like. I wasn’t hearing about what was hot NOW, but what is going to be talked about and discussed in 2011, 2012 and beyond.

    I feel like I saw the future. And that was inspiring.

    I want to end this by again thanking Robbin, Greg, Geno and everyone else at Brains on Fire for inviting me to the FIREsessions, and for being extremely gracious hosts to all of us. Those of you that read this blog regularly already know this, but the BOF gang is amazing. These people just ooze passion and enthusiasm for their clients and the good work they do for them. Thanks again to them for hosting us, and thanks to Robbin for letting me recap this amazing event, and thanks to ALL of you for reading!

    Thank you, Mack, for being our guest and providing wonderful coverage.

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  • F.I.R.E Sessions Recap Part 2 - Steve Knox on Trusted Advocacy and How It Will Change Marketing

    Posted on July 30th, 2010 by Kindling Spirits and currently 10 commenting.

    Thanks again to @mackcollier for capturing the day. Enjoy.

    Photo via flickr via hyku

    Steve Knox, CEO of Proctor and Gamble’s WOM Unit Tremor, was the second presenter of the day, and I thought he made an incredibly profound business point early on in his talk:

    “Victory in marketing doesn’t happen when you sell something, but when you cultivate advocates for your brand” -

    Think about that for a minute, because that statement really ties into the themes of the FIRE Sessions.

    Change.  Reframing the conversation.

    What if we stopped talking about selling more stuff, and started focusing on delighting customers to the point that they became passionate advocates for our brand?  As Steve clarified in his talk, “Advocates Begets Advocates”.  And won’t more advocates for your brand mean more sales?  Logic dictates yes, so by shifting from focusing on sales as a barometer for marketing success, to instead trying to cultivate/embrace/empower your brand’s advocates, you’ll not only get more advocates for your brand, but you’ll also get those sales you wanted to begin with.

    Oh wait…since those advocates are reaching other customers and also converting them into advocates, that ALSO means your marketing costs are falling, right?

    But as Steve explained, we need to focus not just on advocacy, but on TRUSTED advocates.  That’s the brass ring that we should be shooting for.

    Think about impressions.  That classic marketing metric that advertisers want.  They want more people exposed to their message.  Maybe it’s a commercial, maybe it’s a radio ad, maybe it’s a website.

    Those impressions can sometimes lead to conversations about the brand.  Ok that’s a bit better, but what’s the context of the conversations?

    Sometimes, those conversations can lead to brand advocacy.  That’s even better.  But it’s still not perfect.  Sure, if I see that a particular restaurant got favorable reviews, but those reviews are from people that I don’t know.

    But what if we had trusted advocacy.     Let’s say I am an extremely picky eater (cause I am).  Let’s also say I am going to Nashville next week and want to find a good restaurant that I can actually eat at.  If I find a restaurant that’s reviewed on Yelp! as having a wide selection of items and they cater to special requests, then that MIGHT be a good choice for me.  But even better would be if I called up my friend Jake, who lives in Nashville, and knows what type of food I like.  Since I know and trust Jake, I’ll always go with his choice over anyone else’s recommendation.

    So how do we create trusted advocates? One way, according to Steve, is to create disruptive experiences.  This is where Steve got into a fascinating discussion about schemas, and how the brain uses them to avoid thinking.  Think of schemas as shortcuts that we (often unwittingly) use to help us quickly analyze and assess our environment.  Steve offered that when you create a disruptive experience that doesn’t fit into our preconceived schemas, it does two things:

    1 - It makes us stop and think

    2 - It makes us talk

    The example Steve offered was the ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ last year, where a US Airways flight crashed into the Hudson River.  Steve showed us a picture of the front page of a Seattle paper that had a picture of the US Airways flight in the Hudson, with passengers walking on the wings into rafts that would take them to safety.

    Think of all the schemas that were shattered in that one photo:

    When planes crash, they are destroyed (The US Airways plane landed on water, and really wasn’t damaged)

    When planes crash, people die (No one died from the Hudson crash)

    People don’t walk on water (Yet the photo shows them walking on the plane, it appears as if they are walking on water)

    We talked about the Hudson crash because the outcome was unexpected.  It challenged the above schemas, and forced us to think about what was happening, and talk about it.

    Now this doesn’t ALWAYS work, and the disruption still has to appeal to ideals about the brand/person/idea that we believe to be true, or that could be true.  For example, Las Vegas a few years ago tried to rebrand itself as being family-friendly.  That’s disruptive, but since the message wasn’t consistent with what people believe to be true about Las Vegas, it didn’t register.  Another example was Diet Coke offering a version with vitamins.  This was also disruptive, but didn’t work because people don’t consider Diet Coke to be a healthy drink, and don’t buy it for health reasons.

    As Steve explained, the disruption has to be “faithful to the foundational truths” of the brand in order to be effective.

    So how can your business create something disruptive?  Steve gives us the blueprint:

    1 - Figure out what the foundational truth of your business/brand is.     Don’t know?  Ask your customers.

    2 - Ask yourself what schemas are already at play? What do customers already think about you and your brand?  What are their preconceived notions about you?

    3 - What would disrupt those schemas? What would make people stop, think, and talk about you?

    4 - Are their ‘blends’ that would make sense? Can you play existing schemas about your brand off each other?

    So how do you get started?     Steve says you listen to your customers, be open to schemas other than your own, and test and verify your results.

    At this point Steve took some questions, and one point he made that I wanted to highlight was this:  Companies have to learn to let negative comments happen.  This is one of the biggest worry points that companies have about social media.  It’s a completely pointless worry for a couple of reasons:

    1 - Negative comments are going to happen and you can’t stop them.  In fact, if you TRY to stop them, that’s usually the quickest way to get MORE of them.  Steve gave the example of Greenpeace making a clever video that parodied a Kit Kat ad by trying to make the point that Nestle is killing orangutans by clearing out forests to make the palm oil that goes into their candy bars.  The video didn’t go viral until Nestle stepped in and threatened to sue Greenpeace for violating their trademark.  THAT got everyone’s attention.

    2 - Negative comments can often be a GOOD thing. One of the most passionate advocates for your brand can be a detractor that you’ve converted into an evangelist.  If your customers go to a blog or your Facebook page to complain about you, it’s normally because they want you to pay attention to them.  They’ve likely got a problem that they need solved, and they’ve also likely tried calling you, emailing you, and there problem is still there.  They just want you to pay attention to them and HELP them.  If you’ll do this, respect them, LISTEN, and help them solve their problem, then MOST times you’ll flip that negative comment into a positive endorsement.  Food for thought.

    And speaking of food, by now we were heading to lunch, and after an incredible morning of learning from Steve and Geno, we still had a great session from Max Lenderman on tap.  Let’s meet back here next time and talk about it then.  Deal?”

    Thanks again to Mack for recapping Steve’s amazing talk. IF you get a chance to see Steve in person. DO it. Here are a few more pictures from the day and the opening which I thought you might enjoy. Stay tuned for even more as Mack finishes up on Monday with the last post from the event. Happy Friday! Do something remarkable with this day.

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  • “We aren’t in Kansas anymore, we’re in Greenville. (Part 1)

    Posted on July 29th, 2010 by Kindling Spirits and currently 11 commenting.

    Today’s post is from @mackcollier. We were so lucky to have him attend and agree to blog from the 2010 4th Annual Brains on Fire FIRE Sesssions. What a treat to finally meet him in person. Photos from this post are via Flickr via hyku’s photostream (our super cool and very talented friend Josh Hallett). More photos to come from our very own Justin Gammon. So enjoy:

    And being in Greenville on this glorious day means being at Brains on Fire’s FIRE sessions.  This is an event, actually I think it would be more appropriate to call it an experience.  I was beyond thrilled to be invited by Robbin to attend and blog the event, and to say it didn’t disappoint would be an understatement.

    The day started out with the Brains on Fire serenading us to David Bowie’s Changes.  I’m not sure what surprised me more, that Robbin was air-playing a saxophone, or that we were a couple of hours into the day before I first heard the term ’social media’.  Both were very pleasant surprises!

    The schedule got started with BOF’s own Geno Church telling us a bit about some of the work BOF has done.  One thread that seemed to run through each case study (and this is a big reason why I love BOF) is finding the people that are passionate about the message you want to spread, empower them to spread that message then get out of their way.

    Geno told the story of the Rage Against the Haze movement that was created to help combat teen smoking in South Carolina.  Teens that were passionate about their community and stopping teen smoking were empowered to lead the charge for this movement.  Geno admitted that giving control away to teens was a bit scary, but when the teens realized they were being empowered, they took ownership of the movement.

    The results?  The state of South Carolina saw a drop in teenage smoking from 36% to 19% within 3 years of launching Rage Against the Haze.

    Next up was the always-inspiring Fiskateers story.  Geno talked about how BOF worked with Fiskars to do initial research to figure out who the company’s market was.  These findings led them to realize that Fiskars market was younger than Fiskars thought, and they were more active online.  BOF found that many of Fiskars’ existing customers were active online, and they weren’t talking about the tool (Fiskars scissors) but rather what the tool allowed them to do (scrapbooking).

    But what Fiskars and BOF also discovered was that there wasn’t really a positive place online that ‘regular’ scrapbookers could come together and support each other.  In fact, there were some scrapbookers that were abusive to others and identified themselves as ‘Scrap Bitches’.

    So first, they worked to reframe the conversation from being about Fiskars products, to the experience that customers have by using the products. Then, they looked to create that supportive and nurturing place where scrapbookers could form a community.  Enter a blog and before you know it, we have a Fiskateers movement on our hands.

    You’ve likely heard of the Fiskateers movement so I won’t spend a lot of time rehashing what Geno shared about it.  But I did note two key takeaways about the success of the movement.  First, Geno shared that Fiskars saw a 600% increase in brand mentions of ‘Fiskars’.  Still, I thought this stat was more interesting: Stores that have hosted at least one Fiskateer have enjoyed THREE FOLD increase in sales.  That tells me that Fiskars has people in place that are passionate about the products and more importantly, what the products allow them to do.  I believe Geno also made the point that when looking for lead Fiskateers for their blog, they weren’t interested in good writers as much as they were looking for customers that were passionate.  Love that.

    Key takeaway from Geno’s session?  Find messages about your brand that resonate with the people you are trying to reach, then empower those people to not only help shape that message, but to spread it.  Doing so gives them ownership, which only intensifies their natural passion and enthusiasm for the message and idea that you want to spread.  Yeah, it’s kinda scary to give up control, but putting an idea in the hands of the people that want to see it succeed beats having an idea that no one cares about, right?

    My head is already hurting from all this smartitude, and we are barely 90 mins into the day.  I’ll share more wholesome goodness from the #firesessions in the next post!

    Another big thanks to @mackcollier and Josh Hallet (@hyku) for pushing out some awesome content from the FIRE Sessions! More fiery goodness to come soon!

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  • Guest post: Tracy and Gentle Honesty

    Posted on June 16th, 2010 by Kindling Spirits and currently 5 commenting.

    Recently Robbin gave me the gift of opportunity. She offered me a chance to write a guest blog post. Wow. Wow. I was – and continue to be – humbled by her generosity.

    So, away I went and thought about all the things that I could write about. I thought about work, and challenges and family and friends and the value of showing up. All those ideas met up in my heart and I wrote a post about my 94 year old Uncle Lorne. I wrote the post with care and passion and love and fired it off to Robbin.

    Then Robbin gave me another gift. She told me the truth. She told me that the post that I’d sent her didn’t quite hit the mark. That it was a little too personal and not related to business. She was absolutely right.

    Robbin seems to me to be a woman of great class and integrity. I don’t know her. I’ve never met her. It’s just the sense I have of her from the business she has built, from the quality of her team and from the amazing work they do. So, she didn’t do the easy thing – she didn’t ignore me or waffle about or natter on about something else.

    She chose to be gently honest.

    I’m not a big fan of being brutally honest. I find that when people are being brutally honest, they are wielding honesty like a weapon. It’s a chance for them to cut someone or something down. Be it someone’s work or idea or action. It doesn’t take any skill at all to be brutally honest.

    Yet, on the continuum of conversations about work and projects and ideas, it seems to me that many conversations land at one extreme or the other. One extreme being brutal honesty. The other being total avoidance. I’ve been guilty of this and I know that some of my clients have been guilty of this in working with me.

    I’m wondering about experiences with gentle honesty. Or with brutal honesty. I’m wondering about missing the mark and the feelings that surface and the opportunities that reveal themselves when honest feedback is embraced.

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