Brains on Fire

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  Unplugging is the New Black.

  Posted on January 9th, 2012 by Robbin and currently 4 commenting.

  
  Photo via Libby Williams. Grab a cup of coffee this is a long one.

  A friend passed this article on to me.

  The Joy of Quiet.

  Oh. My. Goodness. Take a few quiet minutes sometime today and read it to the end.

  I have. Twice.
  
  I have always loved this quote from Thoreau (keep in mind he was born in the early 1800s):

  We have more and more ways to communicate and less and less to say.

  About a week ago, the very same friend who sent me this article casually announced over dinner,

  “I deleted my Facebook account today”.

  “Really?”, I said in disbelief.

  “Yup.”

  Seems the new Facebook timeline made him painfully aware that he’s been saying the same thing over and over for the last three to four years. And it made him feel foolish.

  “It’s just a time sucker and I don’t have time to waste.”, he said.

  I saw a stat recently that said the average Facebook user spends over five hours a month on the site. Wow. That’s a lot of time, in my humble opinion. And that’s just the average.

  Here’s another thing. I have often said that Facebook and social media make me lonely. Because the truth of the matter is most people jump on Facebook (or any social online tool) when they are alone (physically or emotionally).

  I feel that in my heart.

  Yeah, yeah. There are those of you so happy you have to share. I get it. And I do it too. Happy is good and worth spreading.

  But I love this line and think it is worth repeating from the Joy of Quiet.
  
  Joy is the kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on what happens.

  Some things are meant to be shared and personally I do think of my Facebook account as an online scrapbook. It makes me happy to glance at photos of my friends and my kids from time to time. BUT it can’t replace the real thing.

  It can’t replace real connections.

  As the article said, the information revolution came without an instruction manual. As people and especially as marketers a manual might have been nice in hindsight. I have always believed marketers got a little too overzealous about social media and the significance it held for their brands and organizations.

  Yeah, Yeah. I know those of us at Brains on Fire sound like a broken record about this notion.

  But what is exciting me lately about this latest discussion, is I do believe the world of marketing will see all this “unplugging” as a wake up call. And perhaps marketers will finally realize that social media tools have a wonderful place in connecting employees and customers, but they alone are not the total solution. And surely we are coming to realize these “essential” truths:

  It’s quality of relationships over quantity.

  The real beauty of creating online relationships with your customers is the ability it gives you to connect offline.
  And even though offline takes work, it’s SO worth it.

  One of my favorite lines from our book is from an interview with the VP of Brand Marketing of Fiskars talking about the value of the Fiskateers:

  “For me, it’s not about the numbers. It’s about growing even deeper relationships. Today we are constantly engaging the actual people that use our products. They are absolutely fueling better products.”

  And trust me. Fiskars gets the value of offline engagement. It’s part of their brilliant and courageous success.

  Nowadays we really DO have more and more ways to connect and that’s a good thing.

  But as Thoreau suggested many years ago, let’s live our REAL lives in a way that creates meaningful stories and relationships. Let’s create content and experiences and share knowledge as brands that is truly relevant to our customer’s lives. Let’s add value that is beyond simple distraction. Let’s connect and surprise and delight and inspire.

  Then we will have something meaningful and truly worth talking about.

  And we will ignite that wonderful, magical, powerful marketing tool called Word of Mouth.
  
  Okay, your turn. Let me know what you think about The Joy of Quiet and how the new trend in unplugging is relevant to marketing?

  Tags: Facebook, Fiskars, Fiskateers, henry david thoreau, Libby Williams, The Joy of Quiet, unplugging
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  Where are you going?

  Posted on July 19th, 2011 by Robbin and currently 2 commenting.

  
  Got up this morning to go in the attic and find the post card I am referencing. Of course, I must have put it “somewhere safe”. And now it’s no where to be found. Don’t you hate that? So this photo is from Flickr viaSLDigital. If I run across the real thing, I’ll replace it and let you know.

  About a month ago I moved to a new house. In the process of moving as I was sorting out what to keep and what to toss, I stumbled on an old post card. I have no idea where I got it, but I know it found it’s way to me when I was about thirteen. On the front of the card was a picture taken on the shores of Carmel, CA.

  At thirteen, I carefully wrote the words you see above.

  Going there one day…
  
  As I held the rediscovered post card in my hands I could remember the feeling and the reason I wrote those four little words. Living in a small town in South Carolina, going to Carmel by the Sea sounded as far fetched as going to the moon. At that point, I had most likely never traveled more than 30 miles from my home. I knew then in my heart what I know to be true now:

  If you don’t set your heart and mind on a destination you will never get there.

  I also knew my life would be richer and better and more exciting if I could experience new things and see the world.

  As marketers in this brave new world, the destination question and purpose behind it is a question we should ask over and over and over. Where are we going? What are we really trying to do? And why? What are we trying to change or make better in our world?

  There is so much talk about ROI of social media and word of mouth marketing. I know some of you will roll your eyes and say “Of course. Set goals and measure them. We know that.” But don’t you think the shiny new objects in the room have us all turned a bit upside down and some of us on occasion are guilty of forgetting the very basics?

  One of my favorite stories to tell is the Fiskateers. (Yes, still.) I remember and love one of the key drivers behind creating the Fiskateers. Fiskars simply wanted to create an emotional connection to their customers. And I can honestly say they got that! And in the process changed the way they do business. As Jay Gillespie says in our book; “Today we are constantly engaging the actual people that use our products. They are are absolutely fueling better products.”

  And isn’t that the ultimate ROI?

  I also have never, ever forgotten Scott Monty’s simple proclamation of Ford’s goals: To humanize the brand. Don’t you love that as a destination? Personally, I think they’ve done it. Over and over and over.

  So where are you going?

  Personally, professionally and as an organization? Put a stake in the ground and ask yourself at the end of every single day:

  Did the things we worked on today, take us closer to where we want to be? The businesses that make their goals personal get it right in my humble opinion.

  I’m lucky in life.
  I have traveled far and wide. For me it was heartfelt goal that had to be met. Haven’t made it to Carmel. But I will.

  How to do you make your business goals personal? How to you get them stuck in your heart?

  Tags: CA, Carmel, Carmel by the Sea, Fiskars, Fiskateers, FORD, Jay Gillepsie, Scott Monty
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  Lifting others up. Part two or three. Or four. Who knows.

  Posted on August 17th, 2010 by Robbin and currently 13 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
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  Movements and ownership – employees and customers behind the wheel

  Posted on July 22nd, 2010 by Eric Dodds and currently 2 commenting.

  On Monday we talked about why movements require ownership – putting employees and customers behind the wheel. Today we’re gonna look at a few really practical examples.

  First, if you missed the last episode, here are a few highlights:

  • 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.
  Ok, on to a few practical examples. There are lots of them out there, but I picked a few different ones that look at ownership from different angles. We’d love to hear about some more examples from you.

  

  Example 1: Engineering and letting the people who use your products help design them.

  Fiskars is an amazing client of ours. Their willingness to let the people who love them most play an active role in the brand continually amazes us. One of the coolest examples, though, is the magic that happened when the brand let some of their biggest fans meet the product engineers – and tell them what they liked and disliked about old products and what they’d like to see in new products.

  That’s right – Fiskars let the people who use their products on a daily basis get together with the engineers to help them brainstorm on how the products could be better. And the engineers loved it – end users giving them practical and useful product improvement ideas. What’s more, one of their meetings even resulted in a new product.

  

  Example 2: Using customer artwork in company marketing.

  Pabst Blue Ribbon has held an annual art contest for the past 4 years. The rules are pretty simple: any art created had to have the Pabst Blue Ribbon can or logo and any sculptures created had to be constructed solely of empty PBR cans. How’s that putting customers behind the wheel?

  Pabst uses a selection of the artwork to display on billboards (giving the original artist full credit). Lots of companies solicit user-generated-content from customers, and many of them display the work online. Pabst (and other companies with similar efforts) takes it a step further and actually involves artists’ work in the companies marketing and let’s the world know it.

  

  Example 3: Asking employees to be the brand of good customer service and putting your money where your mouth is.

  The Ritz Carlton has an incredibly strong commitment to the quality of their customer experience. That customer experience is delivered by their employees, so they obviously have very high standards for their workers. (Sidenote, their employee motto is really cool: “We are Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and Gentlemen”.)

  But The Ritz doesn’t just ask make customer service a job requirement or simply ask their employees to provide an optimal stay for guests. They give them the power live the brand of customer service. With cash.

  …they’re empowered to deliver the level of service Ritz mandates… Sixty-seven percent of customers leave you because of indifference with how they’re treated. Customers judge the quality of the institution, he said, by the responsiveness of the first person they come in contact with to discuss their problem. Given that, the Ritz empowers and trains the front-line service to resolve conflicts. Part of this entails allowing employees to spend up to $2,000 per guest per day to “fix” any problems, as well as giving employees ongoing problem-resolution training.

  –Milla D’Antonio

  Tags: art, beer, Brains on Fire, Brand, Brands, customer service, customers, Employees, engineering, fiskaneers, Fiskars, Fiskateers, Marketing, ownership, pabst blue ribbon, PBR, Ritz Carlton, user generated content
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  8.19.10 – PRSA Webinar – Geno talks about How to Grow Word-of-Mouth Movements

  Posted on June 23rd, 2010 by Geno and currently 1 commenting.

  What does it take to build a movement of loud and proud brand ambassadors? More social media applications? Faster technology? Geno Church teaches you the seven lessons on how your brand can build and grow a movement, starting with how to treat people like fans, not customers, and how to allow your fans to share brand ownership. Learn the difference between a movement and a campaign, as well as how to measure ROI. Hear about word-of-mouth case studies, including the Fiskars Brands “Fiskateers” movement, which now has more than 5,000 members worldwide, and the Effie award-winning Rage Against the Haze youth anti-smoking initiative, which has more than 7,000 active teenagers involved despite a complete state program budget elimination.

  PRSA Webinar

  Thursday, August 19th

  3:00pm, EST

  Members $150 / Non-Members $250

  Register: http://www.prsa.org/Learning/Seminars/view/663/How_to_Grow_Word-of-Mouth_Movements

  Tags: ambassadors, Brains on Fire, Brand, EFFIE, Fiskars, Fiskateers, Geno, geno church, gold, Movement, people are the killer app, PRSA, Rage Against the Haze, Speaking, webinar, WOM, Word of Mouth