Brains on Fire

• 

  Lesson Eleven: The First Post - It’s About People, Stupid

  Posted on August 31st, 2010 by Eric Dodds and currently 6 commenting.

  It’s good to be back on the blog. You know, I really miss being here when things get busy - but you’re looking good, as always, and we’ve got some exciting stuff happening around here. And with that, we’re off:

  If you’ve been following the Firephere over the last few months you might have heard that Brains on Fire has been furiously thinking, typing, editing, sketching and publishing a love story. And that story happens to be inked on the pages of a book we’ve named after the state of mind we seek for ourselves, our clients and our kindred spirits: Brains on Fire.

  You can learn plenty about the read (and where to get your hands on one) over at the Brains on Fire book website (1), but today I want to talk about how the love story is going to live beyond words and letters on a page.

  When Robbin talks about writing the book, she is adamant about saying that ‘we’ wrote it - not her and the other people with last names printed on the binding - but all of us:

  When I say “we,” I don’t just mean the four authors you see listed on the cover. “We” represents an army of believers. It’s the people who comment on our blog. It’s the courageous clients we serve. It’s their customers. It’s everyone who sends us a resume or a love note. It’s our employees and extended tribe. It’s people who catch a vision and inquire about our services. It is all of us who are learning and changing the way we think about the work we do in the world. (Phillips, Cordell, Church, Jones ix)

  - Robbin Phillips, Courageous President

  And because so many people inspired the book, we want to continue to re-write the way we do marketing, together. From page 169:

  Igniting movements is hard work. It’s building with people, not tools. Our belief is simple…we’re all in marketing grad school. We’re not experts. Frankly, there are no experts yet. And that’s why we’re all in this together. There are more lessons to learn, more stories to share and more movements to ignite…So join the Brains on Fire movement at www.brainsonfire.com/lessoneleven. Let’s write the next chapters together. This is the beginning, not the end. (Phillips, Cordell, Church, Jones 169)

  So what is Lesson Eleven? It is a collection of real life stories - a movement-maker’s journal. Real stories from you, real stories from other marketing do-ers, real stories that we discover, share and hope will change the way we think about marketing.

  

  So here it is - the first story of Lesson Eleven. And it is based on the opening line of our love story:

  It’s about people, stupid.

  ——————–

  While the medical issues that define our age are many, leading physicians say that childhood obesity poses a gigantic threat. (2) This isn’t the place to discuss the many causes or many proposed solutions, but I ran across a story the other day that serves as a wonderful example of why people are so important. (3)

  Dr. Maureen Black and her associates at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have studied childhood obesity and the ways that people are targeting the problem. They discovered that group health education for inner city Baltimore kids is easily found in school and church settings, but noticed that learning in the place where a majority of health knowledge should come from, the home, is rare.

  Their solution? Pretty simple. Build one-on-one relationships between healthy college students and overweight children, facilitating life learning and mentorship that takes place in the child’s own home. Says Dr. Black,

  These were very active sessions. The mentors were not just talking to them. In every session they had food, and they often made the food together in the child’s home. The mentors took the children to the corner store or to a nearby fast-food restaurant to learn about healthy choices. They visited the skating rink or went hiking in a state park to learn the importance of being physically active. (3)

  The results are pretty remarkable. After only 12 mentorship sessions, the children in the study who were paired with a mentor (there was a control group) experienced a 5% decline in rate of obesity, while those who weren’t experienced an 11% increase. After two years. That’s right - the lessons that the children learned in a personal relationship of only 12 meetings produced changes that lasted two years.

  People are so important, so central, because they are the main ingredient of what makes a movement long-lasting. How?

  It comes down to trust. And people don’t trust your company; people trust people. People they know. People who’s recommendations they seek out and have faith in. People don’t buy your company, product, or service first, they buy people first. (Phillips, Cordell, Church, Jones xiv)

  The childhood obesity example shows that while lots of factors can help (group education, removing soft-drinks from schools, etc.), the hard work of actually getting involved in someone’s life can produce extremely compelling results. Relationships are the lifeblood of any marketing effort that is going to last. And they make the work you do in the world truly meaningful.

  ——————–

  Stay tuned - we’ll have another edition of Lesson Eleven next Tuesday and some great stuff coming up on the blog.

  • (1) You can learn more about the Brains on Fire book and where to get your hands on one at www.brainsonfirebook.com.
  • Phillips, Robbin, Greg Cordell, Geno Church and Spike Jones. Brains on Fire: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2010. Print.
  • (2) You can read CDC coverage of stats and consequences of childhood obesity here.
  • (3) You can read about Dr. Black and the mentorship study here.
  Tags: book, Brains on Fire, Brains on Fire Book, childhood obesity, Clients, firesphere, Kindred Spirits, Lesson Eleven, long lasting, Marketing, Movements, people, relationships, sustainable
• 

  The book is here! The book is here!

  Posted on August 30th, 2010 by Robbin and currently 5 commenting.

  
  For the last year in addition our wonderful day jobs, we have been working overtime @brainsonfire —I mean triple time — to craft a book of lessons learned in igniting powerful, sustainable, word of mouth movements. And geez, we hope you like us enough to want to read it.

  So guess what? TODAY August 30, 2010 is the official release date of Brains on Fire; Igniting Powerful Sustainable Word of Mouth Movements.
  
  We’re so excited and I am frankly a little bit nervous for some reason. It reminds me of my college days in art school. When we’d put our finished art work up for critic.

  Makes me feel like I’m standing naked in room of fully dressed people.

  Anyway, it’s Sunday, and I am at a book store right this minute. Sitting and writing this blog post at one of the Barnes and Nobles in Greenvegas. The one on Haywood Road to be exact. It’s a relatively cool, sunshiny day in our neck of the woods. I walked in — got some chips, one of those IZZE sparkling grapefruit drinks and I am forcing myself to hold off going back to the business section to see the book on it’s shelf until later. Some of us from Brains Fire are meeting here at 4pm to do it together. Along with some of our friends who live close by.
  
  So here’s a couple of things I want to share with you:

  Lots of you have been talking and tweeting about the book and sharing photos. We LOVE that. We are going to aggregate and capture them all on brainsonfirebook.com. So keep going. We REALLY do want to hear from you.

  Connect with us anytime.

  On email. On Facebook @ facebook.com/BrainsOnFireBook and on twitter @brainsonfire. With questions and comments. Good and bad. We want to hear it all.

  We’re big believers in practicing what we preach. When we wrote this book we made a solid commitment to share everything we’ve learned in an open, honest and meaningful way. (Lesson #5: Movements Empower People with Knowledge). We hope in doing so that you will find a desire to join our cause in finding meaningful ways to connect organizations and their advocates through shared passions.

  Let’s do this together.

  I saw one recent comment that made my heart sing — I think it was you @hughweber that said, “I am taking notes while I read this one.” We seriously hope you will SHARE your takeaways and ideas with all of us, Hugh. And that brings me to…

  Lesson Eleven Tuesdays.

  One way we want to make sharing easier is every Tuesday we will post a blog that will in a way, continue the book.

  We would like Tuesday’s posts to come from you – our courageous clients, readers and friends and advocates. Maybe you can share other examples of movements you’ve seen in action. Or just your key takeaways. (I shared the Bare Escentuals story with John Moore from Brand Autopsy. He asks good questions. We’d love to see other examples beyond the work we have done from you guys.)

  Send a relevant post and photos if you like to me and we’ll start collecting and sharing them on Tuesdays.

  Do you like that idea? I hope so.

  Okay. Here we go.

  Stay close.

  This should be fun. And remember, if you are reading this blog. If you get that “same tribe feeling” with Brains on Fire…remember…this is OUR book.

  Be proud.

  It took an army of true believers. Please know it is hard for me to write that line without tearing up. It’s been quite a year.

  Okay. Sappy as it sounds. I hope you know. I love you all very, very much.

  OX,
  Robbin

  Tags: Advocates, Brains on Fire; Igniting Powerful Sustainable Word of Mouth Movements, brand ambassadors, fans, Hugh Weber, Lesson Eleven, Movements
• 

  Lifting others up. Part two or three. Or four. Who knows.

  Posted on August 17th, 2010 by Robbin and currently 12 commenting.

  
  This photo is from my friend Libby Williams. She took it in my sunroom. WE love her. Check out her blog.

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

  Steve Knox made a huge, beautiful impact on me at the FIRE session. And set this thought rolling around in my heart and my head.

  He said that the goal of a company should be to create Trusted Advocacy. And while he spent a lot of time talking about disrupting schemas (which was awesome cool), he said something else that got my wheels spinning and really validated a lesson we have learned.

  Lesson number 9 in the Brains on Fire book to be exact.
  
  “Movements make advocates feel like rock stars.” (Okay, I have said it before. Maybe rock star is not the best term, but you get the gist.)

  Steve said one of the ways to create trust is to give without expecting anything in return. (Side note: what makes a remarkable company also seems to make a great person, have you noticed that?)
  
  We call it lifting others up. So many companies these days want to start a community of fans. But think about it. Do we really admire those among us who are looking for fans to be their advocates or are we drawn to people who genuinely lift us up…without expecting anything in return.

  I’ll be honest, I know who I’d rather have dinner with.

  It’s a fine line.

  Don’t go searching for people (fans) to lift your business up, lift them up first. Be famous for the people who love you, for the way you love them.

  Love and recognition form a circular transaction. If you give it out, it’ll always come back to you. Trust it.

  We all on some gut level know that first hand. It flat out works in relationships and it works in business. And finally, finally we as marketers and leaders are starting to embrace the fact that creating a remarkable business is all about relationships.

  We are so very jazzed that those of your reading the Brains on Fire book are reaching out to us by email and such. It’s really a dream come true for me personally. Another dream of mine is to return the concept of love back to the corporate world. Because love is a good thing. Here’s a comment to us by email from DeRay McKesson. Who by the way gave us a ton of constructive feedback we will address soon. But here is a comment from him I cherish:

  + Love. It’s an easy topic/word to avoid and difficult to engage meaningfully. I appreciate that you did not hide behind “passion” but instead let passion co-mingle with its partner “love” throughout the text. At each point, you acknowledged the feeling part of the work of spreading messages in a way that came across as authentic. Solid.

  I woke up one morning recently to this email and it changed my life. It started like this: Dear Brains on Fire, This love is real. So yeah. Not naming names DOUGLAS, but you think we all work harder when you share that sort of thing? Well, guess what? WE all do. Whether we are abolishing sex slavery in the world, reforming high school education or selling diapers. Or scissors.

  You toss bits of love out into the universe and they come back to you. Every. Single. Time. Stay close. WE are crazy mad in love with all of you who are taking your precious time to to read this blog today. Pass it on. Will ya?

  Love and much, much gratitude,
  Robbin

  Tags: Brains on Fire Book, FIRE Sessions, Fiskars, Green Dot Public Schools, Love, love146, P&G, Steve Knox
• 

  Live (the day after) from NY and SuperGenius

  Posted on July 21st, 2010 by Robbin and currently 5 commenting.

  Okay. So even though it is Wednesday. I’m writing this from the SuperGenius conference in New York on Tuesday. Good stuff so far. There’s a large crowd and a sweet guitar guy to serenade us in between workshops. Music at a conference is calming, don’t you think? Meet Brian:
  
  Andy, the fearless leader of gaspedal, kicked off the day with a great talk on love or marketing. I prefer to think Brains on Fire is in the love business. Because we all need more love. We all want to be loved. Andy made the point that everyone is lovable. B2B, products, causes. Agreed. We preach: Love the people who love you and they will flat out love you back. This is also something Gaspedal preaches that hit home“Companies that can make people happy are more successful.” Amen, Brother Andy.

  Here’s a photo @genochurch hanging with some of the folks from gaspedal and @paullyoung from @charitywater.

  

  I also got a chance to hear @saulcolt speak and meet him in person. Cool pants. And we both love @jonwye. My favorite quote from him: Live the life of your customers. You are singing our song and I am drinking your Kool-aid, Saul.
  

  Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos is brilliant. “Take most of the money you’d spend on marketing and spend it on customer service, so your customers can tell your story. Zappos is customer service company that happens to sell shoes”. Two books Tony recommends to all his associates; Good to Great and Tribal Leadership. Two of Zappos core family values: Create fun and little weirdness. And Be humble. WOW. The other thing I love is this. He said they are always looking for smart people that are not egotistical. Amen to that. No room for large egos in a remarkable organization. I have learned that lesson on occasion.

  I love this guy. I would shine his shoes for free.

  I’m “iphoto happy” today. Some are bit fuzzier than others. But still I thought you might like to see them. Here’s Heather with Tony.
  

  BTW, We also met last night with Dan Ambrosia and Peter Knox of Wiley and Sons, our book publisher. I love them and got so caught in the excitement of the moment, I forgot to take a photo. But we did get to met @heathercondon at the conference, our publicist. Love her.

  Here’s a photo of me, Heather and Geno.
  

  And @thebrandbuilder himself was there all the way from our very own Greenvegas. He gave a nice talk on ROI worth a watch. I think they were all recorded.
  

  One of my favorite take-aways was from a talk I didn’t get to attend.
  From Todd Spencer @doeanderson: It’s human nature to want things that seem hard to get. We agree. There should be a barrier of entry to a community. It’s hard for me to get excited when anyone talks about having millions of facebook fans, what percentage of those folks stay truly engaged. Hmmmm.

  So there are my highlights. If you were there and want to add yours, please do.

  It was a great event and I really have to say, credit goes to groups like gaspedal and WOMMA who are bringing the thought leaders of Word of Mouth marketing together to share and connect offline. I’m humbled and excited to be a part of the Word of Mouth movement.

  Now. let’s go spread some WOM love today.

  Tags: @thebrandbuilder, Andy Sernovitz, charity: water, GasPedal, Jon Wye, Paull Young, saul colt, WOM, WOMMA, word of mouth marketing
• 

  Movements and ownership - people need experiences they can call their own

  Posted on July 19th, 2010 by Eric Dodds and currently 15 commenting.

  

  (photo via Lauren Holmes)

  

  (photo via Lauren Holmes)

  

  (photo via yours truly)

  Doing things for yourself makes all the difference.

  Ever followed someone’s lead, then taken on the same experience for yourself later and it was completely different? This past weekend I had the chance to do something for myself, and it was a great reminder of why we harp on that word “ownership” so much in the Brains on Firesphere.

  It all started with amazing weather - when the climate’s good around here, we try to take advantage of the great outdoors that happen to be our back-yard. I decided that I’d take my lovely girlfriend on a grand adventure to find one of South Carolina’s least-frequented waterfalls.

  But our escapade wasn’t without it’s share of trials in order to get to the prize.

  The journey began with navigational challenges due to changed road names, then heated up with an out-of-the-blue summer downpour as we trudged through thick hardwood forest trying to find the trail-head. After re-grouping and drying off a bit in the car, we finally found our way down the right dirt road and up the trail. The almost-rock-climb to the cascading water drew a little blood, and if you’ve never been stung by wonderful plant called a nettle, you’re quite lucky. They were everywhere.

  Ok… what the heck does that story have to do with ownership?

  Well, a group of us have been to the woods several times in the past few weeks, but for most of the treks I’ve been following someone else’s lead to a spot they had been to before. But not this time. This trip required my planning to get to a destination I’d never been to before, my leading, my navigation upon being lost. In other words, I had to go through the work of pushing through every aspect of the trip, good and bad.

  After we emerged from the woods victorious and started the drive home, I realized that on previous hikes I had great experiences, but didn’t possess them like I did when I had to read maps, travel down the wrong roads and trudge through forest looking for trail.

  This time, after taking hold of the trip myself, I reached the end with an experience I could truly call my own. And I could take you to the trail head and up to the waterfall right now with complete confidence.

  Before I had been a passenger; this time I was behind the wheel.

  I couldn’t help but think about all of the companies today trying to ‘build community’ in some form or another. So many well-meaning businesses initiate use of social media tools and conversation with their employees and customers, but never let them out of the passenger seat. If you want to build real community, though, you can’t just invite your advocates along for the ride, you have to let them get behind the wheel at some point.

  Without letting them drive, you’ll never see your employees or customers let out their full potential - which also happens to be the full potential of your brand.

  What does it look like to put employees and customers behind the wheel? We’ll take a look at some really practical examples later this week.

  (PS - I’ll update this post with pictures from the hike tomorrow.) UPDATED!

  Tags: adventure, Brands, customers, Employees, hike, ownership, Social media