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  • On combining online and offline: a story

    Posted on August 3rd, 2010 by Eric Dodds and currently 10 commenting.

    Megan Byrd, our ever-efficient Whip Cracker, heard a great story on NPR the other day and thought it would make a great blog post. (Check out the full article here.) It did, Megan. Boy do we love a good story about offline relationships.

    The story:

    A Web developer in Los Angeles found a 20-year-old Apple computer at a yard sale, but he couldn’t test it without an older Macintosh mouse. Not wanting to pay “weird computer collector prices” on eBay, he turned to a website called NeighborGoods. What is it?

    From their website:

    NeighborGoods is a safe community where you can save money and resources by sharing stuff with your friends. Need a ladder? Borrow it from your neighbor. Have a bike collecting dust in your closet? Rent it out for some extra cash!

    NeighborGoods

    Ok, posting things you’re not using online so that others can borrow them isn’t the craziest idea in the world. But Neighborgoods’s mission statement shows that they’re thinking deeper than just providing an efficient way for unused goods to be put to use:

    NeighborGoods helps members live less wasteful and more connected lives.

    Part of NeighborGoods’ vision is developing stronger communities through interaction. Offline. Their hope is to connect “neighbors in meaningful ways making for happier, healthier neighborhoods.”

    And it’s working.

    Let’s travel back to Los Angeles. When the developer searched NeighborGoods’ site for an ancient clicker, he actually found someone willing to lend a mouse to him to test the machine. And after using the site several more times, he realized that it’s helped to develop a sense of community among users, something the article says is “almost unheard of in the car culture of Los Angeles.”

    The mouse-hunter’s own words say it best:

    “We all have this notion that neighbors should be able to knock on your next-door neighbor’s door and ask for a cup of sugar, right? But I’ve never done that…” (from the article)

    For him, the most valuable part of the experience isn’t saving money or being able to help people save money, it’s the fact that he has a really neat way to meet and interact with the people in his community.

    I have a hunch that NeighborGoods has a bright future ahead. They have the opportunity to exist in users’ hearts in a deeper way simply because they’re facilitating meaningful, offline relationships. And since 90% of word of mouth happens offline, there’s a huge likelihood for word to spread about experiences people have through the service. And last, but not least, someone close by is lending out a margarita machine, and it’s hot today.

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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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  • Supergenius, influence and building wells

    Posted on July 12th, 2010 by Eric Dodds and currently 13 commenting.

    Well hello, readers, it’s been a while. You’re lookin’ good today.  I’ve been head-down, headphones-on, crankin-out-some-serious-work for a few weeks, but it’s great to be back on the mic for a minute.

    Thirsty

    Here at Brains on Fire we believe in the power of stories, and we got a phone call this week that’s giving us the chance to play a part in a story that means a lot to us.

    I’ll explain, but first you need the back-story.

    A while back Geno met a really neat chap named Paull Young (Twitter) who works for an organization called charity: water. As we dug deeper into the clean-water efforts he’s a part of, we discovered some pretty startling statistics about the clear liquid that we use everyday. Some numbers were enormous - like the nearly 1,000,000,000 (one billion) people who don’t have clean water (1), along with the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions (1). Other figures were shockingly small - like the $20/month (it’s just $20!) that it takes to give one person clean water for 20 years (1). That’s less than our bar tabs when we go out to celebrate a Brains on Fire job well done.

    (It reminds us of the feeling we got when our Kindred Spirits, Love146, first shared the shocking reality about sex slavery and how much we can do to help.)

    And now for the explanation.

    The phone call we picked up was from Andy Sernovitz about gaspedal’s Supergenius conference in New York next week. And it just so happens that charity: water is Supergenius’ featured charity. Andy’s goal is to raise $50,000 - that means up to 10 wells and clean water for 2500 people.

    Another thing Andy told us is that almost all of the speakers presenting at Supergenius buy in to what charity:water is doing. And the speakers are pretty amazing - Intuit, Dell and Ogilvy PR (along with some rockstar authors like Hugh McLeod and Josh Bernhoff). We’re not a big fan of the words ‘influence’ or ‘influencers’ - but these people have a lot of it going on.

    If there’s one thing that our Courageous President and her employees are passionate about, it’s encouraging people to use their time and talent to make a positive impact in the world - and this is an awesome opportunity to give people clean water.

    So Brains on Fire has linked to all of the Supergeniuses below and we’re going encourage them to join the fight, use their powers of storytelling, knowledge of word of mouth and involvement in social media to make a difference. If you feel compelled to spread the word on Twitter, please use the hashtag #womforwater.

    (Also, here’s the link to the Supergenius WOM for Water donation page. UPDATE: Any registration using a discount code can apply the markdown-amount to charity: water fundraising. Cool!)

    To kick it off, we’ll let Charity founder, Scott Harrison’s tell you his story.

    Let’s do this, people.


    The Supergenius-es:

    • Josh Bernoff (Twitter - personal) - author, Groudswell: Wining in a World Transformed by Social Technologies
    • Brian Solis (Twitter - personal) - author, Engage! The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web
    • Douglas Atkin (Twitter - personal) - author, The Culting of Brands: When Customers Become True Believers
    • Paul Gillin (Twitter - personal) - author, Secrets of Social Media Marketing: How Use Online Conversatinos and Customer Communities to Turbo-Charge Your Business!
    • Jeanne Bliss (Twitter - personal) - author, I Love You More Than My Dog
    • Martin Atkins (Twitter - personal) - author, Tour:Smart
    • Hugh MacLeod (Twitter - gapingvoid) - author, Ignore Everybody, and 39 Other Keys to Creativity
    (1) - These numbers come from information on charity: water’s website, but feel free to find corroborating figures from water.org, globalissues.org, and the World Health Organization.
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  • It’s Chat Pack Friday. Let’s go.

    Posted on June 4th, 2010 by Robbin and currently 0 commenting.


    Photo via Flickr via C.P.Storm’s stream.

    Okay. So it’s back. Chat Pack Friday. And today when I opened up the box I read this under the “Suggestions for Using Chat Pack” headline:

    Feel free at anytime to reword or alter the question provided.

    You know I always do feel free to do that sort of thing and break rules in general, but it’s really nice they gave me “permission”.

    Funny little side note here: I had a friend who always added the words “in bed” to the end of every fortune cookie he ever read. So now of course, I do that in my mind or out loud depending on whose company I’m in every single time. Puts a smile on my face. AND I bet you’ll pass that little trick along the next time you do Chinese Food. I randomly picked one off flickr so you can do it right now.

    Hmmm.

    Okay. Back to Chat Pack. Here’s the question. It’s a simple one:

    What is your biggest pet peeve?

    So why don’t we alter it to say:

    What is your biggest pet peeve when it comes to the work we are pushing forward and exploring in the world? Connecting people. Empowering advocates. Going social (smiling as I say that since that trendy set of words is a bit of peeve of mine). Or with the specific tactics and tools like Twittering. Facebooking. Foursquaring. Gozwalla-ing.(That’s a fun one to type.) Don’t over think it. We’re not getting into a heavy ethics discussion here — it’s Friday. What gets under your skin?

    So let’s go. Your turn.

    P.S. Or feel free to answer the original question in it’s original form. I give you my permission.

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  • It’s Friday. Let’s chat.

    Posted on May 21st, 2010 by Robbin and currently 12 commenting.


    Mama Byrd holding the deck of Chat Pack cards via doddsie.

    Okay. Let’s do it again. I have this box, its a game really — called the Chat Pack. Remember? Questions to Spark Conversation. And I love conversation.

    By the way it is Friday of a crazy, busy and seriously funny week. I had drinks with @aaronvonfrank and @bittyrant. Love them. And the most unexpectedly delightful lunch with a friend. My daughter tore her Mcl(not ACL) in her last ever High School Varsity game. Ouch. About half the office is out traveling and having some seriously life changing experiences. We are deep into the world of publishing and loving it. Every light bulb in my house went out in one night. (How does that happen?) Dodd’s got a new haircut. I have another cool human on the planet to call a friend: @fgossieaux. Seriously smart, cool guy. I finally got my knee high grass cut thanks to a gift from Cordell. I could go on and on. But I will spare you the sweet southern drama of it all.

    But this I will share — four of us are going to be out half of next week in Chicago at the National Restaurant Association and School of WOM. Fun times connecting with some clients and kindred spirits.

    In the area? Give us a shout. We’ll be around and making some noise ’til way past midnight.

    So — back to the game, here’s how we’re going to do it. I am not cheating. I am randomly pulling out a question every Friday.

    Today’s question:

    If you had to come up with one question for a national opinion poll, what question would you most want to pose to the American Public?

    And all you international readers, have at us! Come on now. Play. It’s Friday. And I really need to know you’re here.

    P.S. And I almost forgot to share this: I read this beautiful sentence in the first two chapters of a book I’m reading: He was a frail man, with the pale skin of one confined to unlit places. hmmmm. Don’t you love that?

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