I saw this video on Jeremiah’s Owyang blog (click to see his post and the comments). I’ve seen this type of message many times, but it’s always good to see new ways of present it. At this point if you are in marketing or related field and you don’t get that advertising to people doesn’t work, you’ve been living under a rock!
But the real question that we need to tackle are: What does this mean for the way I conduct my operations? (note I didn’t t say just how we advertise) Do we need to stop advertising? And if we do so, how do we get our brand out there? How will people find me?
Honestly, if I had my own empire I would completely consider not advertising. I would spend all my money:
1. Actively advocating for a larger movement, belief system or view of the world that is the backbone and reason of my product(s)/service
2. Developing a great product/service that people need
3. Co-creating it with my public
4. Striving for servicing my public where ever they are whenever they want it
Now that I am back to having a full time job and making the transition to PR from interactive marketing, I’m faced with the imminent reality that my professional and personal life (at least the digital one) have blended. I am wondering how to best way to navigate this delicate balance. It used to be pretty easy to keep your life separate from work, but as our daily life becomes more visible there are instances where it’s natural to pause and think, “is this TMI?” I’ve certainly taken some risks in making a video for school about a miscarriage I had, but that was while I was in school. Yet that video was the one that taught me the most (technical- and content-wise), and thanks to that experience I changed my ‘professional’ perspective.
Jeremiah Owyang blogged about how some companies react badly to their employees developing their personal brands. Fortunately, Weber Shandwick has no problem with people having their own blogs, Twitter, etc.; this was reinforced by a pretty clear and simple blogging policy. Still, I was curious to see how people handle their personal and work digital activity, after all, a PR firm represents clients, not just ourselves. So here are my first impressions:
I’m a big fan of Twitter and as such, I’m keen to see my clients leverage it’s power and include it in their communication strategy. Below is a presentation from 360 that outlines the common business uses for Twitter. I particularly think that the best use for Twitter in business is customer service because it’s the most authentic and rewarding for people, and the easiest for a company to maintain regardless of whether it’s just one person or multiple — the delivery can be kept pretty consistent. I’ve had the best customer service experience on Twitter with Companies like Comcast, Zappos and Vimeo. The rest of the uses present some challenges, one of them is allocation of time, and whether you associate a person’s name or the company’s brand, or do you have your PR/marketing consulting firm do it for you or does the company start it by themselves.
Ok, so I didn’t try ALL the top Semantic web applications from Read Write Web as I promised (still making my way through). But here’s what I got so far:
It works! It actually helps you blog. I installed it in my WP blog and I like how it detects words I type and suggest not only links, but also articles and pictures to add to my post. For example, as I type this it detected I wrote Zemanta (duh) and it suggested I add this nice little image from Tech Crunch. To complete the experience it would be good if it suggested videos and Slideshares.
One thing I definitely did not like is when I tried to import my Facebook contact Zemanta asked me for permission to gather information from all my friends. That gave me the creeps, so I didn’t do it. I didn’t want to be the one giving permission to a third party to pick up my network data, one thing is giving up my info, another one is other people’s info.
The other issue I could not figure out is the unavailable bar sign. Not sure what that is about, and I frankly don’t want to take the time to find out.
Charlene Lisparked a bit of controversy by crowdsourcing her Logo using CrowdSPRING. Designers protested that services like CrowdSpring and 99Designs take work away from them and that you can’t get the same level of quality. Charlene’s colleague, Jeremiah Owyang, commented on the controversy on his blog and defended Charlene’s action pointing out that this is phenomenon is here to stay and that it makes complete sense for Charlene to tap into this type of service.
Why is this controversial? Well, crowdsourcing is disruptive in a similar way that outsourcing was. Just like outsourcing, crowdsourcing is an organizational change that impacts production models and revenue structures. Here’s Jeff Howe’s definition of crowdsourcing:
“the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call.”
excellent start of the week in spite of no sleep. Congrats to Laura Gonia, David Cuddy and Jacklyn Ruckle for their promos! #wsseattle
12:19:16 PM September 07, 2010 from web
