Servant of Chaos

The Fail First Strategy

There are many lessons that marketers can “borrow” from the IT industry. “Open source”, for example, has changed the way that many of us conceive of ideas – they are no longer considered the proprietary property of one company/business (or they aren’t in most cases) – after all, ideas are the easy part, execution where it gets difficult. (In fact, we can really wonder whether ideas EVER were owned or whether this was just a convenient illusion.)

Most recently, I have been pondering the concept of “failing fast” -  see the wikipedia entry here. It is a systemic approach to programming that aims to identify and report on failures – or events that are likely to cause failures. The focus of the programmer is on passing the message “FAIL” up to a system that is built to respond. There are two important aspects (that I can see):

1. The program escalates the issue or failure to another level of responsibility
2. The program also halts before the failure replicates, spreads or becomes embedded in other systems

From a marketing point of view, there is much to learn from this. And in light of the debacles around Motrim Moms and MyFutureBank more locally, the lessons could and should be absorbed by marketers very quickly:

1. Listen. As Amber Naslund points out, there are plenty of free tools that can be used to begin monitoring what is being said about your brand, products and services. Start with Google alerts. But please, start.
2. Step-in. If you are not listening to the online conversations, the echo chamber tends to get louder and louder. As this escalates and draws more voices into the conversation, the absence of an “official voice” means that there is no way to diffuse the conversation. This leads, as Alan Wolk suggests, to overreaction. Once you are at that point, there is no return.
3. Participate. When you start actually participating you will make mistakes – you may need to slay some sacred cows. But that’s ok … it’s the way we learn. By building relationships you are also creating a community/network. These are the folks who will let you know if someone else it talking about your brand.
4. Learn. There is much to learn by following the first three steps. Take this information and share it with your product development and customer service teams. Use this to transform what you deliver to your markets and how you treat your customers.

Despite the benefits of the fail-fast approach, however, the brave brand manager may want to take a more tangible, proactive and accelerated path – to FAIL FIRST.

Under a fail first strategy, you already accept that there will be mis-steps. You acknowledge that issues will arise that you won’t be able to control. In fact, the approach means taking a POSITION that people can buy into or work against. It is drawing a line in the sand.

Then, once the controversy starts or the conversation begins, you work them both equally using the same four steps above. Those who like what you are doing will converse. Those who don’t will cause chaos. Engage with both and use them to cross-pollinate ideas. Learn from the nay-sayers how and where you can improve your products. Activate and empower your evangelists to tell their stories.

Now, I don’t advocate such a strategy for all brands. But there are some who could do it. And for those who can stand the heat, there are great benefits to flow from failing first and learning. But remember, you need to PLAN a fail first strategy. You need the systems and fall-back strategies in place that can help you overcome the failure. You need the management support to hold course.

The Motrim debacle could have been turned around. Many similar “crises” could. What would you do differently? Would you dare to fail first? What do you think it takes to create the most successful failure in marketing history?

Vote for the Moggies

2008 has seen a significant amount of change in the Australian social media landscape. There has been a veritable explosion of new creative and critical thinking around the topics of advertising and marketing – not only have our coffee mornings received a fresh injection of energy courtesy of Julian Cole, Jye Smith and Scott Drummond, they also come armed with sharp thinking and blogs packed to the brim with social media goodness. Julian even took it upon himself to dream up a Top 50 list of marketing blogs.

But now, in celebration of this new found blogging enthusiasm, Craig Wilson is asking for nominations for post of the year. Christened “the moggies”, it will work out as follows:

Submit your nomination for the best Australian media and marketing blog posts of 2008. It can be one of yours, or it can be written by someone else. The only conditions are that the post must:

• Be Australian (Craig, does this mean “written by an Australian” or “written by someone living in Australia”?)
• Have a media and marketing focus
• Be originally posted in 2008
• Be original work.

Craig will take nominations until midnight Friday, December 12 (AEST) then shortlist the Top 10 posts before announcing the Gold Moggy at a Gala blog posting (Craig is going to stream himself eating pizza and drinking beer) on Monday, December 22. And the prize? Craig says it best:

In true web style the winner will receive….no compensation or prizes but lots of kudos, links and well-deserved praise.

Experienced journalists and new media analysts Mark Chenery and Mark Jones have agreed to help judge the Moggies. I guess that means Craig is sharing the pizza.

Get your nominations in to Craig by leaving a comment here.

Send a Different Kind of Water this Christmas

I was speaking with my friend, Tim Longhurst, today and he was telling me that paper is 80% water. Obviously, by the time it gets to us, the paper has evaporated, but clearly paper production requires access to vast water supplies – and given the scarcity of this precious resource, it makes sense to conserve it whenever possible.

And as we approach Christmas – a time of sharing and giving – take a moment to consider a DIFFERENT kind of gesture this year.

Each day 5,000 children die because they don’t have access to safe drinking water. That’s a lot of kids today, tomorrow and the next day … It’s a lot of kids who won’t see the end of 2008. And it’s a lot of kids who won’t see Christmas.

BUT you CAN make a difference. Rather than buying packs of cards that you write on and send, perhaps, instead, you could donate the water to people who need it.

WaterAid enables the world’s poorest people to gain access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene education. These basic human rights underpin health, education and livelihoods and form the first, essential step in overcoming poverty.

So this year, you have the opportunity to not just spread some Christmas cheer, you can change someone’s life.

There are TWO easy steps: 

1. Visit the WaterAid donation page. Take a fraction of the amount that you would normally spend on cards and send it to WaterAid to begin making a difference in the lives of children around the world. If you would spend $2 or $3 on a card, halve it and donate it here.   
2. Visit the WaterAid eCard page and send Christmas eCards to all your friends. That way they still get the message, but also have the opportunity to participate in a great Christmas cause.

Now, that’s what I call a Christmas gift!

FOR BLOGGERS: If you would like to support WaterAid this year, you can find more detail here. Or leave a comment and I will put you in contact with the team responsible.

 

Mainstreaming Social Media

While I normally don’t like using nouns as verbs (perhaps I am linguistically conservative?), I quite like the word “mainstreaming”. It implies that social media is in a state of transition where widespread acceptance and uptake is occurring with the general public. 

Paul Chaney suggests that the rising popularity of social media, while strong, will still take some time to become fully integrated into marketing practices. Interestingly, the social technographics profiling from Forrester shows that consumer adoption levels are high, especially in the “spectator” category – but this reinforces the sense that innovation is being driven not by business but by consumers in their quest for creative interactivity and engagement.

In Australia, Forrester’s Steven Noble’s recent analysis indicates that only 24% of Australians DON’T use social media in some way.

Peter Kim has a great post over at MarketingProfs providing some excellent insight into what these figures mean for bloggers and/or social media consultants:   

On the upside, it's more likely now than before that:

• You, your customers, your prospects, and your competitors are reading and writing blogs
• Better tools to interact with the medium exist for reading, filtering, authoring, and tracking
• You can say the word "blog" in conversation without feeling silly

On the downside, it's more likely now than before that:

• Spam related to your business interests lives in "splogs"      
• Traditional marketing approaches will find new ways to make consumers hate the medium
• Your "regular" friends know what you mean but still think blogging is for geeks

For marketers still finalising their budgets for 2009, I would recommend setting aside a small experimental budget for social media. Hive off 5% or 10% of your MEDIA budget and contact EXPERIENCED agencies and consultants (email me if you need recommendations).

With pressure to perform in tough economic times, it’s time all marketers stop ignoring the spaces in which consumers are ALREADY playing. In this Age of Conversation, it’s time for brands to stop shouting and start participating. Welcome to the mainstream.

Mapping Your Digital Influence

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) has recently released the Influencer Handbook (hat tip to Stein Communications). It has sections covering:   

• Definition of an influencer and influencer marketing
• Types of influencers
• Methods to engage and thank influencers
• Guidelines for influencer self-regulation
• Bibliography of influencer communication research and practice

The guide is well timed as it provides me with a framework for thinking about influence. Over the last week I have done quite a bit of reading around this topic, absorbing the smart thinking of Mike Arauz, Dina Mehta, Allan Young and Julian Cole and even revisiting my bookshelves.

Years ago, I read Bob Cialdini’s, The Psychology of Influence. I remember being impressed from the very first lines where he states “I can admit it freely now. All my life I’ve been a patsy”. Ever since that first reading, I have been interested in the way in which influence can be created, managed and employed. It might even be argued that marketing is all about using the “weapons of influence” to achieve business outcomes.

However, in the Age of Conversation, such naked techniques are easily spotted and counteracted. As consumers it is easy to research and receive unmediated commentary from a business’ other customers, suppliers and even employees. We can ask questions, find answers and make decisions independently of a brand’s best marketing efforts. Interestingly, it is Cialdini’s concept of “social proof” – a technique used so effectively AS a marketing tool that is the undoing of this “old style” influence.

Social proof is where an expected behaviour is prompted and reinforced in the moment in which we experience it. An example is “canned laughter” in a sitcom – we hear the pre-recorded laugh track, realise it is fake, but engage in laughing anyway (and research shows that we laugh longer and more often with canned laughter). But in a networked world, we are connected to, and in some instances by, mob behaviour. The difference is, that in a social network, we actually CHOOSE to participate – to use what Mark Earls and and Alex Bentley call “directed copying” – enacting social proof while simultaneously demonstrating another person’s influence:

If we view the influentials phenomenon as a special case of directed copying, then usually it is we who decide to copy an individual, creating their perceived influence in the process.

Mark and Alex suggest that rather than focusing on HOW ideas spread, we should look at WHY (check out their excellent paper entitled “Forget influentials, herd-like copying is how brands spread”). By understanding the two types of copying (directed and random) we can produce content and strategies that are designed to facilitate the type of behaviour we want to see.

Furthermore, by understanding the dynamics of various social networks, it is possible to not only map the behaviours that you want to establish, you can also shape and amplify them – which is where marketing really becomes interesting.

All this, of course, leads back to the need for good planning, for focused insight, and strategy that takes into account the nuances of digital and social behaviour. Perhaps all this talk of influence really is overrated – and we should look at what I called the Promiscuous Idea and leave the tribes to sort it out amongst themselves!

Friday Folly - November 14, 2008

It doesn't matter whether you work on the agency or client sides, you are bound to have heard the following -- "let's make a viral video". If you are nodding your head, this is for you. Enjoy.

YouTube Contest Challenges Users To Make A 'Good' Video

How Mo Can You Go?

This November, in support of the Movember campaign around men's health, I am growing a moustache. Yes, it is itchy. Yes, even a little scratchy. And maybe slightly embarrassing. The good thing is, that I am not alone. I am joined in this endeavour by a team of like-minded "mo bros" led ably by our furry captain, Jye Smith.

All donations go towards research into depression and prostate cancer -- and they are tax deductible.

How Mo Can You Go? on 12seconds.tv

Please remember, ONE in SIX men are affected by depression at some point in their lives, and over 2900 Australian men die of prostate cancer each year. These are men like your brother, father, uncle and best friends. Even a donation of $2 will help make a difference.

Life at the Edge of Your Brand

One of the most interesting aspects of social media is the way in which communities adopt technologies. For in the consumer space, which is different from the enterprise, an application is not determined by its functions, but by its use. This means that while social media technologies are designed for a certain type of use and/or function, this can often be discarded by those who begin to use it. Twitter is a great example.

When Twitter first appeared, it asked a simple question (“what are you doing?”) and encouraged us to share our current activities with our network of friends and followers. But shortly after launch, the communities using Twitter transformed it … they realised that Twitter was far more useful as a way of building conversations, maintaining relationships and sharing facts, links and data with their personal communities.

 

What Twitter was experiencing was “life at the edge of their brand”.

On the one hand there is the product of service that a business has spent time and effort creating. On the other is the population of consumers you are hoping will engage with your offering. And in the place where the two collide is the brand – but this is not your grandfather’s brand – it is the brand that is created in the flux and chaos of interaction between your offering and those who consume, use, engage, love or hate it.

Those consumers who commit to your product in a profound way, come close to the heart of your product. They know it intimately. They understand its features and its benefits. These people live close to the Arc of Satisfaction.

However, those people who take your product into THEIR hearts live on the Arc of Experience. For these people, your product/service and your brand is inextricably linked in the ways in which they live their lives. Think iPhone.

What is clear, and what is important for marketers to understand is this – both consumers and brands are behaving in transformative ways – facilitated by social media. As Dina Mehta says:  

The pace of change is really rapid, both in the behaviour of brands on the web and in terms of customer behaviour.

The challenge for marketers is to be able to deal with this changing landscape – to sense and respond. And in a difficult market (and let’s face it, when has it been an EASY market?), those who are able to sense and respond to such changes are likely to fare better. The question to ask yourself is “where are your consumers – and do they live at the edge of your brand or someone else’s?”.

Concert Time at The Factory - Article Thirty-Nine

Each day we get closer to the month of never-ending Christmas parties … but before we get too excited about the year end festivities, I would like to remind you to set aside the afternoon/evening of November 23 – especially if you live in Sydney. From 4pm, Sydney schoolgirl, Isadore Biffin, is hosting a concert at The Factory in Enmore, featuring some great bands and speakers – with the aim of raising money for the rehabilitation of former child soldiers in The Congo.

 

You may have seen the recent news reports on the situation in Africa. The problems seem massive – 250,000 refugees on the march, potential famine, war. But it is important to remember, there are real people behind these figures – little kids, mothers, families – all struggling to survive. But you CAN make a difference.

 

By attending the Article Thirty-Nine concert, you will be supporting a cause that will change the lives of kids in Africa. Not only will you have a great time, listen to some great music and be inspired by passionate speakers, you will be helping to make a difference. Tickets are only $20 … and absolutely all profits make their way to Africa. Hope to see you there!

 

Oh, and there is even a Facebook group. You can find it here!

Influence and Popularity in Social Media

When I started writing this blog I sought out the experts. I looked for various posts on how to write a blog, how to make my posts interesting to my readers (all three of them) and how to increase traffic. I searched Technorati for marketing related blogs and topics, wrote comments across the web and tweaked my blog design. At some point I happened across Mack Collier’s list of the Top 25 Marketing Blogs and my jaw dropped. I could not understand how someone could possibly build such high Technorati authority rankings – it seemed a world away from where I was in my thinking.

This list became my essential reading list. I used each of those blogs to learn, and their authors generously engaged me in their discussion of topics. But as the number of blogs within the marketing or social media category has exploded, these lists have begun to be used as an indicator of not just popularity but influence. But measuring influence is quite difficult … after all, not all of our interactions are online. How do we measure the off-web commentaries and discussions that occur in agencies around the world? Or worse, how do we determine how far and wide our thinking (words and images) reaches beyond the ever expanding edges of the web? (For example, I am sure I have seen David Armano’s influence ripples in presentations given by people who have never even visited a blog!)

There is a very real difference between blogs that I would consider popular and those that I would consider influential. As Shel Israel points out, there is a significant difference:

Suppose I were a political blogger and I had an audience of just three followers. Those followers were very engaged because they read everything I posted. They commented often. They took what I said and quoted me to other people in other conversations. But there were only three of them. Therefore I would be ranked lower than chopped liver in all the ranking systems. The catch is that those three readers were the President of the US, and the heads of China and Russia.

Influence, in this example, requires an intimate understanding of your readership – after all, we don’t know WHO reads unless they admit it by commenting or sending an email. In thinking through the concept of influence, and what I have been calling the Democracy of Action, it seems to me that influence is built on twin axes of popularity and reputation (I am borrowing from Gartner’s magic quadrants slightly here). Where your blog’s popularity and reputation are both high, you have “social influence” – and the capacity to create contagion and instigate action on a large scale. However, where you have a popular blog but lower levels of reputation, your blog is likely to fall into the “hype” category. 

Perhaps controversially, I am thinking that these distinctions refer directly to Granovetter’s “strength of weak ties”. Social influence and its impact on action is determined by a large number of “weak ties”. So those blogs which are built around an identity which is well-known to its audience (strong ties) is less likely to carry social influence. These quadrants would appear as shown below.

The “niche influence” and “awareness” categories I fairly self-explanatory. Lower levels of popularity but high levels of reputation indicate influence within niche audiences; while lower levels of both reputation and popularity indicate awareness is low and interaction is emergent. 

How does this thinking play with your own understanding? Am I missing something? Is this too simple? Would love to know your thoughts!

UPDATE: Mike Arauz expands on his comments with a whole post, adding a z-axis to the diagram. And Dina Mehta weighs in, transforming the discussion to encompass the changing behaviours of both consumers and brands.

Give Me a Microphone and an Audience ...

A couple of times a year I have the great opportunity to guest lecture at the Macquarie Graduate School of Management’s MBA program. Run by adjunct professor, Dennis Price (who I met through my blog), it is a fairly jam-packed hour to an hour and a half on the “Business of Web 2.0”. Each time I try to update the talk with relevant facts and figures … but the core remains fairly static, focusing on:

• An alternative view of marketing – the new B2C – brand to community
• Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 as a baseline
  
• The Age of Conversation 1+2 as a case study
• What to consider when measuring

Most recently, however, I realised that I had been starting the presentations with too much presumed knowledge. After all, some of those in lecture would have been teenagers when the Cluetrain Manifesto changed the way I looked at strategic marketing. So I added my three minute Interesting South presentation – Cluetrain Through the Eyes of Children to the beginning slides as a way of quickly establishing context. From my point of view, it worked a treat.   

      

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: media social)

   

Another change to the presentation was to allow work to speak for itself. Rather than showing captures and explaining the storyline, I brought up a couple of sites and YouTube clips and let them weave their magic. One of the most compelling examples, for me, is the story of Matt Harding and Stride Gum … and by showing this example it demonstrates the transformative emotional impact that digital stories can have.

Since the talk I have had a number of emails from people in the audience. Some have even registered for Twitter. And if this means one more business person starts to understand the impact and potential of social media, then it feels like that is a mission accomplished!

What Marketing Students Need To Know - in 140 Characters

One of the powerful aspects of Twitter is that, with the right connections, it creates a powerful, live, expert network. Within hours you can reach well outside the walls of your own business to tap into the experience and insight of others who may well have the knowledge you need to solve a current business problem.

Darryl Ohrt explains that a friend was preparing for a class on PR and decided to tap the collective wisdom of his Twitter network.Brad Ward went ahead and asked the question:

HEY!!!! If you had 133 characters to tell a class of PR college students something, what would it be? Tag it #jr342. Thanks!! And retweet.

The replies that came back apply not just to students of PR (let’s face it, that is all of us), but can be readily applied to any form of marketing.

I like Douglas Karr’s take on reputation and focus on outcomes.

  And I think Allie Osmar’s focus on continuous learning is also important. 

But perhaps the most insightful response was this from Jason Kintzler who acknowledged the changing focus and shape of our industry and the growing influence of non-traditional media. 

Take a look at the full range of responses here.

Institutions struggle

Understanding the aspirations and expectations of the emerging “millennial consumer” can no longer be considered a peripheral concern. The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States was accelerated by the tremendous energy and commitment of a new generation of voters. Exit polls indicate that Obama received 66% of the youth vote and 68% of the new voter vote.

And while the Obama campaign has successfully employed a wide range of communication devices and technologies, the political party machines are streets ahead of the majority of social institutions. Government departments across the world still largely struggle with technology and integration, businesses outlaw the use of social networks in the workplace and education institutions offer courses that are outdated by the knowledge and skills that students can obtain online.

This fascinating post by Alana Taylor, an NYU journalism student and blogger clearly demonstrates the gap and the sense of frustration:

What is so fascinating about the move from print to digital is the freedom to be your own publisher, editor, marketer, and brand. But, surprisingly, NYU does not offer the kinds of classes I want.

Where once innovation occurred mostly from within the walls of the enterprise, consumers are now iteratively experimenting with technologies and applying them to their real world problems. This means that businesses and brands are struggling to keep pace with the changes that are occurring within their marketplaces. It also means that there has been a role reversal in the dynamic in what marketers traditionally call “B2C”. The same applies to other “institutions” such as universities, colleges and government departments.

Despite the economic slowdown, it is clear that behavioural patterns have shifted. Institutions will continue to struggle in the face of this widespread change and the gaps will widen between brands, consumers and the “promise” that should bridge the two. There are very interesting times ahead of us all.