Articles, plans and musings

Here I sit and it's already almost February and my "I'll blog more frequently" resolution is blown. Ah well, such is the challenges of squeezing in thoughtful commentary in the middle of the beginnings of a new semester!

Some interesting recent thoughts that have floated in my brain and floated out include...

1. I wrote an article for Business People Vermont on Blogging and Micro-Blogging. You can read it here: http://www.vermontguides.com/2009/01-jan/cc_blog.html
2. The White House has a new Website which you can see at http://www.whitehouse.gov. (make sure you put that .gov on the end...) BUT they do NOT have an official twitter account...yet. For that article check out: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9126660&intsrc=news_ts_head (Thanks to local Vermonter Morgan Brown for the heads up on this one!) Oh...and their blog...still sucks. No great changes there!
3. I'm working on a thoughtful blog piece for Danny Brown over at Social Media PR. We twittered about it around Christmas and now it's time for me to deliver. What's the topic? Small business and social media acceptance/use of course!
4. David Gibson over at Propeller Media Works has asked me to participate in a social media workshop sometime in February. I told him I would be there. It should be fun.
5. Finally, what the heck is happening to our MEDIA? (Note, this is a foreshadowing of a blog post that is formulating in my head.) There's so much chatter going on in the social media circles I follow about news media (especially journalists and print) and how they need to make a shift and then there's the changes at local presses all over the country. When the news is even more important than ever it is interesting to see it collapsing. I have some thoughts on this from a different perspective. But that folks...is another post entirely.

Well, it's off to the trenches -- getting students ready to lead the marketing decisions of the future!

What I read on my Winter Break

Being a college professor has some perks. One of which is the break between the Fall and the Spring Semesters. It's an Oasis. Really.

I've taken this wonderful break from all things social media related, work related and news releated. I can't really say I went "off-grid" since I did play Warcraft quite a bit and monitored my personal email....but work-related stuff went "poof" for a few weeks.

You should try it.

It is AMAZING.

Anyway, during this time I also read some books. One of which has NOTHING at all do to professionally, so I won't talk about that (smile). However I did read a new book (thanks to a friend's Amazon Vine) prior to "publication date".

Let me start by stating clearly that I highly recommend this book. I will be figuring out how to incorporate it into my classes -- most probably the Marketing Management class. The book: It's "The Designful Company: How to Build a Culture of Nonstop Innovation" by Marty Neumeier. It comes out on January 15th. Here's the Amazon Link (unfortunately I was unable to find the book site -- there is one for ZAG: http://www.zagbook.com/, but not for this one...yet).


Let's get to it...Why do I like this book? Because it addresses creating a culture of innovation and how to do it, points out the shift in business from linear/production line thinking to more design-oriented thinking, and it links successful "nuggets" to how designful practices have helped companies to innovate and foster creativity across all programs and departments and disciplines.

I liked the presentation of the book overall -- the "Whiteboard" concept that all three in the series from Neumeier (Brand Gap and Zag) have. Quick, to the point, and easy to take away information. As a marketing prof, it provides some interesting food for thought around the concept of wicked problems, the aesthetics of management, deep design, the use of metateams, the application of stage-gate investing, the "Thinking Hat" process for meeting management, brand training and the design learning loop (this one I REALLY like).

At the end of the book there are the "powerpoint bullets" of the book, how to use designful thinking to address wicked problems and a list of recommended other reads. Nice stuff.

Some important take aways for me included:

Design is rapidly spreading from "posters and toasters" to processes, systems, and organizations.

Agility is an emergent property that appears when an organization has the right mindset, the right skills and the ability to multiply those skills through collaboration.

A designer is anyone who tries to change an existing situation to an improved one.

The traditional management model is a veritable thrift store of hand-me-down concepts, all designed for a previous need and a previous era.

Companies don't fail because they choose the wrong course -- they fail because they can't imagine a better one.

While revolution must be led from the top, it rarely starts at the top.

In an age of accelerating change, how you learn is vastly more important than what you learn.

The ability to acquire new knowledge quickly is the fundamental skill that underpins a culture of innovation.

How do you measure talent? How do you increase inspiration? How do you crank up creative joy? The answer to all of these is the same: recognition.

Sweet book.

You have the power

I was interviewed last week by Ken Picard from Seven Days for an article he was doing about the Burton snowboard controversy. It was an interesting interview because Ken wanted to look at the issue from a different perspective. His goal was to look at more of the marketing and imagery trends within the industry as opposed to the "controversy itself".

His piece, entitled: "Antiviolence Advocates Ponder Next Move in Burton Protest" highlighted the marketing side and the imagery impact of messages that "promote" gender inequity or violence of any type.

Ken, myself and Sharon Lamb (who was also quoted in the piece) all serve on the media representation sub-committee of the Vermont Approach to End Violence Against Women.

The important messages from the article (to see the full piece go to: http://www.7dvt.com/2008antiviolence-advocates-ponder-next-move-burton-protest):

• Controversy sells. "Burton may, in fact, have the last laugh — all the way to the bank. As Jake Burton Carpenter admitted, the recent media attention on the controversial boards has only fueled the public’s interest in them; sales of both boards have “well exceeded expectations,” as he put it. "
  
• Burton needs to convey an "edgy" image for the snowboard culture. "Another Burlington resident who works in the industry, and asked not to be identified, suggested that was Burton’s goal with its controversial designs. “In this industry, you need to keep an edge and a core demographic,” he said. “And, if you don’t have the absolute core guys backing your brand, you start to lose a little bit of credibility.” "
  
• Until WOMEN and MEN in the target market step up by NOT BUYING, these things will continue to happen. "Young said the only way companies such as Burton will eschew products and ads that objectify women and sensationalize violence is if their best customers tell them to stop. (that's a quote from me, BTW)"
  
• Bottom line, images of violence and objectification of women CAUSE more violence and gender discrimination. "...research from several different studies revealed that people who regularly consume sexually objectifying images are more likely to see sexual relationships as adversarial and to accept “rape myths” — that is, the notion that women invite rape by their own behavior. ( a quote from Sharon Lamb)"

My personal thought is you can be edgy as all get out and project an image that is youthful, rebellious and anti-authority WITHOUT promoting gender inequity and/or violence. Burton, in my opinion, like many companies has taken the easy road. Let's throw up some naked chicks, call it "tasteful art" and then let's throw up some more violent images and call it "toilet humor". Yeah. That's the trick. It's a cop out is what it is. Where is the creativity that an edgy brand is supposed to have?

Creatives and marketers everywhere -- I challenge you. Be edgy. Create conversation. Move your brand forward. Just don't do it on the backs of women and don't promote violence for violence sake. Rise above it and really show your edge. If you don't, you aren't edgy ... you are just the same as everyone else in a sea of tasteless mediocrity.

A stew of possibilities

Here it is. Finally. That promised blog post.

The pressure to write this has been overwhelming and yet, I seem to keep finding other things to do like grade and prep classes and sleep and play WoW and ... well you get the picture I think.

I've had a bunch of social media swirling around me lately. The discovery of Ping.FM, having multiple classes create blogs for different purposes, Twittering and realizing that there is a way to save your Tweets (I'll get to that in a few), and having people send me requests to "social media" pass their info on...and then there's that internal clearspace thing...and the new Champlain Portal workforce group...

It makes me think about all the possibilities that social media is bringing. Things that I couldn't do a few short years ago, I can do now. So let's get to it shall we?

Social Media for GOOD
It's the giving season and it would seem that some people don't get that. For whatever reason a local Non-Profit dedicated to collecting toys for children was vandalized a little while ago. Someone or someones got their jollies by bust'n up toys. Great. Makes you wonder what the heck is going on in the world today for real. Enter NEW BREED MARKETING. Devin and the gang over there clearly felt that it wasn't good enough to talk about this one, they have taken action. They've created a donation widget that you can use to give money to the cause. You can also share this widget on Facebook and with tons of others...in my case I'm putting it right HERE:



Now that is the way to use Social Media. By the way, you can follow Devin on Twitter by going here: http://twitter.com/devin1682. They've raised over $3,000 so far to help out our local Vermont children. Spread the word, will ya?

Why I need more time to read Twitter
So here are the things I've learned recently because of the people I follow at Twitter:

1. Twitter Grader: A site that helps track your "popularity" on Twitter. Note that you can also grade your website and your press release -- it's from HubSpot. Why is this important? Because this is a business that is trying to get your business so they've created a way to drive traffic and get more people talking about them. If they can do this for themselves...what could they do for your business? Great marketing!
2. Chris Brogan: @Lizschlegel Tweeted about this guy and a recent blog post he had about how to get started in Social Media -- his scenario approach is readable and interesting. I'll be saving this one for my class next semester!
3. FTW: Learned from @agahran with a link to the urban dictionary that FTW means "For the Win" which is often snarky and ends a post.
4. Gender Inequity in Africa: @DaveTaylor linked to a news article from the UN News Centre. This is getting forwarded to my students who are working on the UNFPA Project for sure!
5. Help a Reporter: I've known about this one...but it was because of Twitter. So PR People, you should be following @skydiver on Twitter and you should register at the HARO website for sure.
6. TwitterTake: Another from @agahran. A website that will back up your twitters and export them to an excel file. Why would I want this? Well so I can keep all of this great info of course!
7. OneTeam: I learned that folks from @OneTeam have ordered my recommended books! (Ok, I know, personal gratification listing!)
8. How Businesses can get Started with Twitter: This one is an ongoing gem from @gahlord at Union Street Media.
9. Branding of College Students: This article came to my attention from former student @gracekboyle. Not only is the article cool, but I'm watching a former student ROCK the social media.

This is but a sample. Yes, it's in between the personal stories of people that I may or may not know, but look at all the things I have learned because I've been on Twitter?

Another Cause...and How Students are Learning the Social Media
There's a prof on campus (not me, believe it or not) who is asking their students to get the most "views" of some cause-related vidoes over at YouTube. One entrepreneurial student has reached out and asked me to post her "Vid" so she can get "peeps". So...here it is! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfnGOiFJUoo. The cause is 1% for the Planet.

This bring me to the point that will be another post that is swirling around in my brain -- that students aren't coming to college with the knowledge of how to connect beyond their friends with social media -- and that our job at the college level is becoming even more complex so that we can help them sort out the best practices on a moving target that doesn't have clear best practices yet.

Thanks @davidwolfe for PING.FM. You enabler you!

Social Media and the Presidency: Has social media changed our voting engagement?

As our country celebrates it's democracy today -- where we can vote without fear of taking our lives into our hands -- I thought it would be appropriate to consider how social media may be changing our voting engagement.

Not only have the politicians jumped on the social media bandwagon with social networking and twitters and blogs and community sites, but we've seen the conventions and the candidate debates turn into social media events through sites like Twitter and the mash-up of Twitter and CurrentTV.

Today, I Twittered while waiting in line to vote. I included #vtelxn so that my tweets would go into a "local" twitter meme for all Vermont voters.

Today, I'm seeing my Facebook friends "donate their status" to remind people to vote.

Throughout the day I'll probably watch http://election.twitter.com/ to get a flavor of what is happening around the country through people's tweets.

I'll check in at #votereport to see information about polling places -- is anyone having issues? What are the lines like?

Tonight, will I watch TV? Maybe. More likely I'll be online checking the different sites and streaming live commentary from various places.

There are a growing number of ways in which I can feel more plugged in to the election process. It's not about being fed information from the candidates, but rather seeing what others in my social media sphere are doing and thinking has allowed me to feel even more connected.

So as the media talks about unprecedented voter turnout. As we all get engaged this year because of so many issues, I'm left wondering if the social media so many are using is having an impact on the voter turnout. As you see your friends writing about voting and you follow others who write about the lines and what they are doing as they wait to vote, does that pressure you into going to vote? Does it make you feel like part of a bigger movement knowing that you also voted and you can actually see others engaged the way you are? Others all over the country?

It's a known fact in marketing that word of mouth and viral marketing has more power then direct messages from a brand. Social media is the biggest WoM out there right now and part of the voter turnout may, indeed, be because of this phenomenon.

So, get engaged and plug in. Be in the know. And above all exercise your right to Vote.

Recommended Books (From the Vermont 3.0 Tech Career Jam)

I was on a panel discussion today at the Vermont 3.0 Tech Career Jam about "So you wanna be an Internet Marketer".

I had the pleasure of presenting along with Greg Brand of Bluehouse Group (a former employer of mine from the late 90's) and Paul Skarvinko of Epik (Paul is a former Champlain Graduate!).

In true professorial fashion I brought with me a stack of books. Real books. Tangible, touchable, readable books. (I have a rep to uphold you know). I was asked at the end of the panel if I had a listing of the books for people and I of course said, "Well, I'll put them on my blog"....so here they are:

1. Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
2. Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide by Amy Shuen
3. PR 2.0: New Media, New Tools, New Audiences by Deirdre Breakenridge
4. Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions by Tim Ash
5. The Art of Digital Branding by Ian Cocoran
6. Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Charlene Li

I recommend these books to my students and actually in my Internet Marketing class the students are to select one from numbers 2-6 to read as supplemental -- based on their major area of study.

So there you have it folks! Enjoy.

Can one advise and blog at the same time?

The obvious answer to that question is No. This is clearly evident. I've not blogged since the great Twitter Debate experiment on the 2nd of October.

Advising began the week after that and over the past three weeks my days have gone something like this:

Get to work at 8:00 a.m., student, student, class, class, student, student, student, student, student, student, get my daughter from school, student, student, student, get home, eat dinner, grade, passout. Or like this past Sunday, it was church, bagel cafe, grade, IM interruption from student in Italy, from students working on midterm paper, from student needing advising help, grade, grade, um...

No wonder I'm tired (grin).

But it is my favorite time of the year. Great time to connect with students, hear about their successes and talk about how to overcome failures. Think about internships and study abroad and graduation and jobs and...well...it's a good part of my job. A really good part of my job.

The best things are the most exhausting I think.

You can lead a student to Twitter...but can you make them Tweet?

Tonight is the Vice Presidential Debate.

Last week was the first Presidential Debate.

I "hacked the debate" last week using CurrentTV and Twitter and posted my thoughts to #current. It was both really cool and absolutely overwhelming at the same time.

I talked to my students about it and they thought I was nuts. I could tell. If they were twittering during class they would have tweeted: "She's nuts"

But none of them seemed moved to take action to better understand the implications of mashing together TV and Social Media.

So this week, I have done what only a college professor can. I am DRAGGING my students to Twitter through an assignment. I have asked two of my classes to watch the VP Debate tonight and sign up for Twitter and tweet several times during the debate using #current or making sure they use one of the key terms (palin, biden) in their tweet so it gets captured by election.twitter.com.

Then, they have to write about their experiences in a discussion forum I've set up.

The classes are Internet-based Marketing and Technology: A Disruptive Force.

For the marketing students this is about learning how to play with new technologies, putting them in context and being able to assess how they work and if they are applicable to other marketing situations. As I told my students, if you don't play, you won't ever know if something like this could be useful elsewhere.

For the Tech as a D-Force class this is about disruptive technologies and exploring how technology has influenced discourse -- and is influencing how we can engage with the debates...sort of.

Most of my students have been resistant to Twitter. They "don't get it" and don't want to get it.

Tonight I'm making them try it.

We will see what happens.

Vermont 3.0 Blog: Keeping Company with some really cool local bloggers

I've been asked to become a contributor to a new local Vermont blog about Vermont 3.0 Tech Careers. It's a website devoted to a Career Jam (one of the sponsors is Champlain) event that began last year and will be held again this year on October 25th, and to the use of "3.0" technology here in Vermont. All of it pulled together by SevenDays. (By the way, I'll be on an Internet Marketing panel at the Career Jam this year which will also feature colleagues, Amanda Crispel on gaming and Frank Canovatchel on web development).

Yes...Vermont.

Land of Cows and crazy politics.

We got tech. Oh yeah baby, we got real tech.

So I'll be blogging periodically over there, and over here I'll blog about what I blogged about over there...and so on. Should be grand fun.

My first post went up last night and is about MicroBlogging using Twitter and Plurk.

I'm thrilled to be part of the 3.0 Blog team which includes:

• Lee Bouyea of FreshTracks Capital
• Cathy Resmer of Seven Days
• Bill Simmon, local writer and filmmaker

Check it out!