So, if you believe 2010 is the year of the return, forget the “u” shaped recovery, etc. We are talking the “V” shaped RETURN.” The tsunami of pent of demand, the rise of social marketing as a recognized marketing channel, and the competitive pressures to outperform the market to validate your company’s supreme dominance will be firece. No problem, finding budget for marketing will be the least of your problems. Having to justify social marketing doesn’t seem as daunting when you have budget and sales are coming in… “Cool, where do I sign-up?” If not sure about 2010 being the roaring recovery, read further….

We know that social marketing is becoming mainstream. I think in 2o1o it will become table stakes. If you don’t have a facebook page, twitter account, and linkedin profiles; you are so 2009…. In reality, we are seeing major brands begin to increase their budgets for social marketing by a factor of 20% – 30% of budgets. One major CPC brand is dictating that a percentage of product innovation come from ideas from their community. Increasingly, we are not having conversations about “Why should I do it?”, but “How do I use it for competitive advantage?”

We know that most companies have stabilized the bleeding even though they had a mediocre year. Sales are off from their height, profitability is down, budgets are constrained, probably a layoffs/backfill hires not made/new positions not budgeted. Entering into another year of a multi-year recession means most organizations now expect that you will figure out how to do more with less and will not accept “the economy” as justification for underperforming results. The expectation is that you will figure out how to outperform the market.

However,  the real question is not whether the economy will recover with pent up demand in 2010, but what if it doesn’t? What if the recovery is a real dud?  Will the corporate boards be simpathetic to another year of mediocre performance? Will CEOs be calm with back-to-back mediocre years? The average tenure of CEOs. CMOs, and other senior executives is what? Will anyone accept the excuse that it “the economy”? Will the pressure ratchet up even more?

What if the market fundamentally is shifting towards social media and away from advertising and even search engine marketing?,What if I don’t shift our sales, markmarketing and customer management to reflect the market? What if the market slightly improves but we don’t improve with it? What if our competitors find a way to add a lot of new customers and revenue and we don’t?

 The best estimate is that it takes 3 to 6 months to establish a baseline measurement program for social marketing. That means that I need to build a program and execute within the first half of  2010 to give me time to see if it will work. That means 2010 is ALREADY HALF OVER in terms of impact.

We are not talking about setting up a twitter account and adding followers. I am talking about getting legitimate lead generation, customer retention, brand reputation, product development feedback, and team productivity using these tools. Someone tells you that you need a branded twitter account, ask “Why?” If you don’t hear a crisp answer related to a strategic initiative, then you should realize your return is probably equated to the time and cost you invested to set it up… Free Twitter Account Does Not Equal  to a Gazillian Free Leads…

Here are the Major Questions that you need to ask to determine if you need to invest in a social Marketing Strategy…

We can’t hit the marketing performance numbers? Not Necessarily. Your competitors may be slower to adopt than you.

 Can we get predictable and measurable results out of just doing tactical social media participation like having a twitter account and a facebook page? I don’t know, can you? How is it working for you now? Getting the results that you want? Seeing the strategic impact on revenues or customers?

 Can we build a social marketing strategy on our own? Sure, always a factor of core competencies, time, resources, and money. Give anyone enough time and money and resources and they usually build a plan.

Can my team execute a social marketing program effectively? Are they doing it now? We find with a little coaching, a clear plan, and training that organizations are able to drive execution to meet their business objectives.

 Can you tell me if you can tell me the 2010 social media forecast for my market? No, we would have to do a Social Market Audit to get a better idea. We can tell you …

• If the market is adopting social media
• How big your company’s footprint
• How effective is your marketing messaging
• How well are you doing against your competitors
• How you can compete over social marketing better
• Provide you with strategic marketing plan for executing and integrating social marketing

We find that our best partners in this are the folks who are already toe-dipping into social media. They have seen what works and what doesn’t. They recognize a sophisticated program will lead to better, more predictable results.

Self-serving? You betcha…. but also true.

Google demonstrated Google Chrome OS for the first time on Thursday in Mountain View:

Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve.

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

Read the full post at Google’s blog. You can also download Chrome OS in VMWare, VirtualBox or USB-installable at gdgt.

iPhone has  less than 3% of the market share of the total mobile phone market but is the reason for the higher churn among mobile subscribers. None really lived up to their title. Verizon Wireless saw its new subscribers additions shrink past quarter compared to past year numbers. Customers either chose AT&T for its iPhone 3GS or T-Mobile for it low prices. Verizon is fighting back with two marketing campaigns:

1. There is a Map for that! – This is in the same class as their “Can you hear me now?” campaign, highlighting their network coverage, except it also shows the lack of national 3G coverage in AT&T. The veracity of the claims are under debate and is beyond the scope of this article. The core message is – our competitors may have cool phone with thousands of App but it is all useless if the network is bad. Verizon had always claimed it had the best in class network, and yet it was not enough to stop the churn. Will the new message succeed?
2. Everything iCan’t Droid Does: This campaign is for the new Droid smart phone positioned against iPhone. Verizon Ad highlights what iPhone cannot do – like taking pictures in the dark of 5 Mega pixel camera. Since Apple introduced iPhone there has been several iPhone killers. Will Droid be able to take on iPhone?

Take the case of Blu-ray players. Sony won the hard fought format battle against HD and yet the winner has not found firm foothold in the market. With the Beta Max memories still fresh in their minds, Sony did everything right this time – building a coalition, marketing, and most significantly lining up content. According to Nielsen, Blu-ray sales remain a small fraction of the market.

Why did Verizon lose subscribers despite their best coverage?

Why did iPhone succeed?

Why do the Blu-Ray makers cur prices drastically or include capability for on-demand video in order to sell the players despite the promise of high quality video playback?

Why some innovations catch on while others fail?

Does the failure or success of a product in the market depend singularly with the firm’s ability to innovate,  build and dominate the ecosystem, its quality of products and its marketing prowess?

In the book Trade-Off: Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don’t,  Kevin Maney offers an explanation based on fidelity vs. convenience offered by the products. In their model, there is a Fidelity-convenience frontier (Maney  calls it the Fidelity Belly) and customers make trade offs between the two.  Fidelity refers to richness of features and quality and convenience is how easy it s to get what you want.

I agree with the trade off argument but I hypothesize this choice is not static. Market preference switches back and forth between the need for fidelity and the need for convenience. Over time, as the customer needs evolve and usage scenarios change their preference for fidelity vs convenience changes as well. The reasons for these shifts are exogenous to the product – disruptions and lifestyle changes introduced by other products even from those unrelated to the product in question. Take the case of Blu-Ray, despite the high fidelity, it has not gained firm foothold because of the market’s shift towards on-demand video.

This means whether a product will succeed in the market place or not is determined not by the trade off made by the customer but by the congruence between the market needs and the product purpose (fidelity vs. convenience) at the time of product introduction.

Take a look at the 2X2 matrix. Products that fall into the lower left and upper right quadrants are in congruence with market needs and most probably will catch-on. However, on the top left and bottom right are the traps. Fidelity trap is when the firm’s innovation, product strategy and marketing are all aligned with delivering high fidelity products but the market needs convenience. Convenience trap is the opposite.

Products do not stay in Congruence or Traps over their entire life cycle. A firm that found success with  a convenience (or fidelity) product may not continue to succeed with its next version if the market shifts. A prime example is Motorola’s RAZR. On the same note, a firm stuck in the traps has the opportunity to achieve congruence in the next cycle.

This is not to say marketing strategy, innovation and product quality are not important but to highlight the need for congruence between the product and the market needs. A failure will lead to unsuccessful products that are are stuck in one of the two traps.

Disclaimer: This is a work in progress. I need to provide you more theoretical framework and data for the Fidelity trap hypothesis. This inspiration for this concept came from Modularity trap theory put forth by  Henry Chesbrough, author of Open Innovation. If you peel the layers, the core concept is segmentation and targeting – ultimately there is nothing new under the sun.

Recently, our VP of Marketing, Jim Lester, participated in a product innovation panel hosted by the Technology Association of Georgia (TAG).  Here’s the link for those interested in the panel’s perspective on innovating during an economic downturn:  http://tagtvonline.com/index.php?option=com_seyret&Itemid=29&catid=38

We have all tried to walk on black roads during the summer. It’s not quite… comfortable. – it burns! Black roofs are absorbing much heat during the summer. This will overheat the house which again will lead to the need of air condition. During the winter it will be efficient having a heat-absorbing roof. What if it was possible to have a white roof (heat-reflecting) during the summer and a black roof (heat-absorbing) during the winter? This way we would save energy on air condition during the summer and on heating during the winter.

This is what a team of MIT-students have made. They have developed roof tiles that changes color according to the weather; it’s Thermeleon. The quick reader thinks Chameleon and yes, it changes color like a Chameleon.  When it gets hot the Thermeleon turns white and when it gets cold it’ll turn black. It’s not yet very efficient but the idea and vision is clear and could lead to much energy saved from heating/air conditioning. There’s an opportunity cost of a likely decline in the air conditioning/heating industry  but no matter what this is an excellent and easy way of saving energy. Check out the projects web page here.

This link presents a new application for heat sensitive materials, baby clothes.

The idea is to help new parents identify if the baby has a fever. It follows the trend of using heat or chemical sensitive materials to help customers identify product qualities. Other examples include Coors beer “cold mountain” and a fruit sticker that changes color when fruits are ripe

Would you attend a talk titled How and Why I Failed?

Many of us are programmed to shirk that one off without a thought.

We want to learn how to succeed.

What about a panel on failure?

A person on a panel I attended at the Global Creative Economy Convergence Summit 2009 suggested the event should sponsor a panel on failure.

He noted there is as much, if not more, to be learned in knowing why a project didn’t work out as there is in hearing why one succeeded.

It’s a great point — especially if your aim is to innovate.

Most attempts at innovation fail. If it were easy everyone could do it.

Experimentation is essential to innovation

Experimentation is fundamental to innovation. Testing to see what does or does not work is an ongoing part of the research and development process. There’s an implicit hope that an experiment may uncover heretofore-unknown knowledge that may lead to a new discovery. If not then testing continues.

We should all thank scientists for having this attitude; otherwise we’d suffer from a multitude of ailments that have been eradicated due to dogged trial and error research.

No one bats 1000

In business the fear of failure leads to paralysis and a play it safe mentality, where no one wants to stick his/her neck out and propose something new. You don’t want to be the one who came up with a faulty idea.

Unless your goal is innovate. Then you’re not afraid of failure because you know that’s part of the deal.

No person, or enterprise, bats 1000.

Failure can lead to smashing success

In the late ‘80s early ’90s Apple introduced its infamous Newton.  The device was a PDA (personal digital assistant) before anyone knew what these were or what to do with them. A product ahead of its time, it was also buggy and the Newton failed in the market; big-time.

Two developers of the Newton went on to create the operating system for the first iPods.

The iPhone includes certain elements of the Newton and the rumored Apple tablet, if it is indeed coming to market, will (reputedly) incorporate concepts first introduced via the Newton.

Famous people’s thoughts on failure

Woody Allen, a man whose broken cinematic conventions (and social ones too, but we won’t get into that) said:

“If you’re not failing every now and again, it’s a sign you’re not doing anything very innovative.”

If Allen isn’t lofty enough for you, then how’s about this one from the great inventor Thomas Edison, who was awarded in excess of 1000 patents:

“I have not failed, not once. I’ve discovered 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

And for good measure I’ll include a quote by Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. It’s from a commencement address Jobs gave at Stanford University where he spoke about his ability to learn and move on from failure:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”

The secret to success is to learn from failure

I soaked up a lot of information at the Creative Economy Summit, from people who talked about how to succeed through business strategies, social media and new technologies.

But I think that comment about needing to acknowledge and learn from failure may be the most useful insight of all.

– Deni Kasrel

Do YOU think failure is a critical factor to achieve innovation? Is it a secret to success? Comments welcome.

Related posts

Who And What Drives Innovation and Creativity

Creative Economy Summit Converges In Philadelphia

VI.       Two Examples of  Entrepreneurial Product Innovation

 A.        Woolen Underwear”[i]:                                          

 An example that illuminates the concept of entrepreneurial marketing action is provided by Joseph B. Lassiter, III, in the following striking but true case involving the sale of “woolen underwear”:

“A young entrepreneur in New Zealand named Jeremy Moon created a company called Icebreaker. Everybody knows that wool underwear is terrible: it’s itchy, it smells bad, it gets oily—just a whole bunch of problems. So Jeremy Moon runs across a pair of wool underwear made not out of everyday sheep’s wool, but from the merino sheep, whose long, fine wool is used for suits and ties at the high end of the market. He sees that a product can be created that’s light, not itchy, and captures no odor. Of his first $200,000 in seed financing, he spends a $100,000 creating a “brand blueprint,” an architecture for what the brand needs to look like some day to exploit this advantage in natural fiber. He then thinks “backward” to identify what he can do to get started building a global brand. Again, he sees the technology, what’s available from the wool. He understands what outdoor athletic people or design-conscious people might want. He makes assumptions about how these are going to fit together over time, and in the end, he turns that strand of wool into the tapestry of a brand. You see that way of realizing the core product-customer link, and then going out and building an alliance with merino suppliers, so that he’s got a steady supply of a rare product, and with machine providers so that the product can be spun and worked into outdoor gear. He builds up a worldwide supply chain by recruiting people who want to gamble that there is a customer need not being met by polyester.”[ii]

 SpinBrush 

A profile of John Osher observed that his SpinBrush toothbrush solved the problem created by his SpinPop lollipop. SpinBrush was the first low-cost, mass-marketed mechanical toothbrush.[iii] Though electric toothbrushes had been around for many years, the price was about $80. Osher’s team decided to focus on “trying to design up from 80 cents, while everybody else was trying to design down from $79.[iv]”[v].  Here is the story in a nutshell:

 “Tom Coleman and Bill Schlotter, two postal delivery men, were inspired on Halloween night 1987. They saw a kid carrying one of those bright, green=glowing cyalume light sticks. What else could these light sticks be used for? Have you considered glowing candy? If you mount a lollipop on top of one of those sticks, the light would sine through the candy, creating a weird and fun effect. Coleman and Schlotter sold their Glow Pop to Cap Candy. Their next innovation was an even bigger hit. Licking a lollipop is so much work. To make that job easier, they developed the Spin Pop, a motorized lollipop holder that spins the candy around to make it ever so much easier to lick. Spin Pop was a wild success, the first hit candy holder since the Pez dispenser Yet, John Osher, who headed Cap Candy, felt that the Spin Pop had not even hit its full potential. After Hasbro acquired Cap Candy, Osher left to look for new problems that the simple spinner motor might lick…..Why not create a $5 electric brush using the Spin Pop. The result was the Spinbrush…In a little under four years, Osher and his team turned a $1.5 million investment into a $475 million payout when Proctor & Gamble bought them out.”[vi]

[ii]           Harvard Business School, Working Knowledge, “Turning High Potential into Real Reward”, interview with Joseph B. Lassiter, III.

[iii]          Toys and Spinning Brushes: How John Osher Found His Way To Profits”, November 19, 2003, Knowledge@Wharton

[v]           Id.

[vi]          “Einstein You’re Not—and don’t Have to Be”, Harvard Business School, Working Knowledge, November 3, 2003. ttp://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/3763.html.

This picture is taken in the center of Copenhagen in Denmark.

Along with many others I’m starting to feel careless towards traditional advertising. It does not grab attention the way it’s intended to. Never before has creativity been more important for advertisers wanting to grab peoples attention. How many people feels stimulated when watching a regular tv-ad ? Not many.

What do you think happened as the ice block started to melt? There was most likely people waiting to be able to take the bottles. Along with the possibility of getting a free bottle of Jaegermeister it also gives the person a good story to share with his friends. This project is likely to have been cheap and the percentage of people feeling stimulated by this ad is probably much higher than for mainstream ads.

I wish more ads would be like this. It inspires!

There is widespread recognition amongst tv producers that income from tv programme sales is seldom sufficient to cover production costs. So brand licensing is rightly centre stage as a means to increase revenue and extend intellectual properties beyond the tv screen. But to truly extend and set your offer apart, new consumer driven and brand tools are needed.

The Current Model is Flawed

The process is typically an auction. A producer makes a show. It’s then sold to broadcasters and aired. A ‘style guide’ is produced containing a synopsis of the show, the key characters and design elements. It’s usually an impressive tome, a wonderful work of art, and often produced at massive expense. This is sent to potential licensees with a brief asking them to come up with new product ideas. The product rights are then effectively sold to the highest bidder.

Label Slapping Risks Undermining Value

But the current model often leads to little more putting a new tv series label on a product. While there are a few bucks to be made by slapping tv series logos onto a pair of pyjamas, pencil case or rucksack rarely will this add much in terms of value and support for the tv series. Sure the tv series linkage will contribute some recognition and interest but rarely will it truly differentiate. More often it will limit competitiveness to the commodities that can be found in cheap and cheerful stores. Further, it can undermine the tv proposition if the product or place is inappropriate.

Out-Smart Your Competitors

Thinking from a supply push point of view alone isn’t enough. It’s akin to throwing mud at a wall – an uncertain way to make it stick.

Everyone is a potential competitor for your consumer’s time and money so be vigilant to the world around you. Competitive media and retailers, and particularly consumer goods companies are amongst the most sophisticated product development organisations in the world. By learning from and out-thinking your competitors will improve the chances that what you offer will truly resonate.

Invest in Getting Genuine and Timely Insights

So don’t just run internal creative workshops, invest in obtaining genuine consumer understanding on which to base decisions.

Consumers make choices based on their individual needs, whether an offer meets their needs, and by weighing up the benefits of competing offers. They buy if their needs become wants.  The trade makes stocking decisions on a similar basis – what sets them apart, drives store traffic and meets their customer’s needs.

Invest in audience research to understand what it is that engages and sets your tv series apart.  What engages and enthrals is rarely what it appears from the outside looking in. Often unusual character quirks are uncovered which can highlight previously unconsidered differentiators and drivers. For example, the lead characters could be different to what had previously been assumed. All can have a profound bearing on your licensing programme.

Invest in obtaining meaningful insights on consumers’ needs, wants and behaviours. Think about this at the same time as programme production rather than afterwards to maximise both programme development and brand extension opportunities. And as insights can come from anywhere it is important to look in many places and use a variety of techniques to uncover them.

Reuters notices the introduction of Perky Jerky, the world’s first caffeinated jerky product.

Insights:

1. It seems the energy category keeps expanding.
2. Perky Jerky uses Guarana instead of Coffee – how will US consumers respond?
3. The company is trying to create online marketing buzz through several features in its website.

CBIG asks – will this be a hit with Chicago Booth MBA students?

Vince Lombardi

This week’s blog entry is a pep talk to all those business owners who are hesitant to invest in growing their businesses.

Flat sales are considered the new up.   You’ve made many cuts and are hesitant to make any more.  You may have experienced layoffs.  You wonder what else is next.

Guess what?  You are not alone.  Your competitors are facing the same uncertainties.

The reality is if you have survived this long, you’ve run a good business.

You probably think your conservative nature has helped you make it to this point. That may be true, but it’s time to make a change.

People are spending money.  They still need products and services, and they are going to buy from companies in which they are aware.

This requires spending money on marketing, product innovation, introducing new services.  As I have mentioned in the past – give people a reason to do business with you instead of your competitor.

By doing this, you are letting people know you are open for business.

-   Email current customers with a loyalty discount offer. (If you sell a product, a subject line of “Free Shipping” increased click-thrus 60.7% versus other subject lines, according to an Internet Retailer study.)

-   Call customers to reconnect with them.

-   If your staff needs work, offer discounted audits or analyses.  Chances are you’ll find something your customers need help with.

Here are 15 companies that started and succeeded during a recession:

• GE
• HP
• Microsoft
• Federal Express
• Clif Bar
• Method
• Hyatt
• Burger King
• iHop
• Jim Henson
• Lexis/Nexis
• CNN
• MTV
• Trader Joes
• Sports Illustrated

Enough with the pep talk.

Stop saving your business and start building it again.

Putting the talk in Twitter

Yet another service that is not from Twitter. This beta application will allow calls for a maximum of 2 minutes, and its only available in the US!

JAJAH gives short messages a voice. With the new JAJAH application, Twitter users can make free phone calls on their favorite microblogging service. Now in Beta, JAJAH@Call allows you to make a free two minute call (the verbal equivalent of a tweet) to other JAJAH@Call users. It’s free, it’s easy and works no matter how you use Twitter, whether it’s on your cellphone, via Seesmic, TweetDeck, or any other way.

To make a call, simply send a tweet with “@call @twittername” where “twittername” is the username of the person you wish to call. Your phone will then ring and the call will be connected. All contact details will be kept private, so you can use JAJAH@call without giving your phone number away. For the call to be successful, both you and the person you wish to call must be JAJAH members.

Let other people know they can @call you: send a tweet “call me free – reply with @call”. Or add “JAJAH@Call” to your account info so people will know you are part of the beta. To protect privacy, calls can only be made to people who follow you.

No headset, no download, no software, no hidden costs. Use the phone you already have.

Now its time for you to ask for a beta account – send an email to twitter@jajah.com.

In my experience if you ask sales people what they need to increase their sales they answer with one (or more) of these three items:

1. Lower prices

2. More leads (or floor traffic or its equivalent)

3. New products or services

When companies introduce new products they are often surprised at the resistance they get from sales people at selling these new products, especially if they are truly new. Herman Miller is finding that out. As I mentioned in a prior post, their CEO, Brian Walker, believes in innovation … even in a downturn. We commend him for this thinking. However, one of their key innovations involves a high tech wiring system call Convia which “…allows owners of office buildings, restaurants, and stores to radically save on their electric bills.” The product is apparently very cool and it really works … as it was designed to work.

Despite this the Herman Miller sales force “… accustomed to pitching Space Age desks and Japanese-inspired stools, is struggling to further penetrate the construction market.  Buyers see the company as a furniture maker, not an electrical supplier.” This conundrum comes from two fundamental issues:

First, as stated, Herman Miller is not positioned as an electrical supplier. They do not have the credibility in this market and, they positioning as a furniture company might well be a negative. Second, most sales people are not comfortable selling new to the market products. Why this is true will be the topic of another post or a white paper (depends how long it turns out to be).

How is Herman Miller working to solve these problems? The partnered with French electrical distributor Legrand which is going to put the Convia “brains” inside their wiring systems. Great first step.

Mitch

I have been working alongside Initials on a really exciting campaign to support the launch of Doritos iD3: a limited edition mystery flavour. The alphanumeric name and mysterious black packaging invites consumers to guess the mystery flavour at www.doritos.co.uk/iD3 for the chance to win a chuffing £20K reward.

But guessing the flavour is just the beginning…

iD3 is not only an original product launch. It is also a three-part episodic online adventure for Doritos fans which uniquely blends film and gaming (starring Layer Cake’s Tamer Hassan). The iD3 adventure allows fans to become the hero in their very own ‘choose your own adventure’. Set in London’s shady underworld, the player goes undercover to help unlock the truth behind a mysterious case of mistaken identity, with huge prizes to be won along the way. Check out our thrilling trailer…

Doritos is no stranger to inviting consumers to play with the brand, and the iD3 advergame delivers just this by putting consumers in the driving seat of their very own personalised adventure. And the mystery flavour is a unique product innovation which will no doubt get consumers talking and engaging with the brand on a deeper level.

The adventure itself pushes the boundaries of technology. Each adrenalin-filled episode blends slick live action footage with 3D interaction, giving the whole experience a distinct high-production cinematic feel. The advergame is uniquely integrated with Facebook Connect, which enables a more personalised experience for Doritos fans by dynamically inserting content from your Facebook profile into the film. It also pushes c0ntent out to Facebook, as a result making the game more social.

We’ve created a number of secret levels and experiences (including the Konami Code) for experienced gamers (not me then…).

Even the support for the campaign is shrouded in mystery – with grassroots seeding and an exclusive blogger outreach programme. A live Twitter feed and Facebook fan page will keep Doritos fans up-to-date with the adventure.

The campaign has only recently launched, and yet Doritos iD3 is already gaining attention on blogs, forums, reviews, and of course Twitter. What’s more, there is high engagement on our Facebook fan page, with hundreds of fans guessing the mystery flavour. It just goes to show that the best ideas are the simple ones, and like Walkers ‘Do us a Flavour‘, they come across as somewhat obvious. Although in reality finding and creating them takes great understanding and insights.  And the activation of the idea has to be engaging and involving.

To guess the mystery flavour and play the game, you’ll need to pick up a special pack of Doritos iD3 – each pack code gives you 6 lives. Seeing as I’m a part of this little project, I do have a few free player codes I’m willing to give away to my readers  (though you can’t win prizes with my dummy codes).

Comments and feedback encouraged as always…

During the past four weeks, I have visited five Asian countries. When I travel from the Philippines, my home country, to a less-developed country, one of the striking cultural differences I notice is less ability or willingness of sales people to listen to customers. The opposite is true; when I travel to a more developed country, I am always pleasantly surprised at how much better waiters, stewardesses and sales people try to sense what I, the customer, want and serve me better.

Two weeks ago, I asked a university professor from an Asian country his evaluation of a consultant sent to their campus from another Asian country. His answer was one terse word: “useless”. The online evaluation submitted by the counterpart faculty member was a more shocking negative description of the quality of the service they received. Later, I found out that there were several gaps in the process of matching what the client needs and what technical services will be provided.

Last Friday, I was in Singapore having afternoon tea with a management consultant on business excellence. He told me how unclear was his terms of reference in a consultancy service engagement he was entering with an SME (small/medium enterprise) in another Asian country last year. What did he do? Before starting the project, he called up the owner-manager of the SME and clarified precisely what the SME needs and what services he can provide.

There is no doubt that the ability to listen to customers leads to the ability to create more value, both for the customers or buyers (consumer’s surplus = the positive difference between the consumer’s satisfaction, measured as the price she is willing to pay, and the price she actually paid for a good or service) and for the producers or sellers (producer’s surplus = the positive difference between the price of a good or service and its unit production and distribution costs). There is a direct causal link between enterprises’ ability and willingness to listen to customers and the GNP of the national economy. See a previous blog post: “Q3- The Customer is King; But the King is Blind!?”

At the enterprise level, companies stay competitive by listening better to their customers, and by using the knowledge they gain as inputs to their process or product improvement, redesign or innovation. Customer knowledge is the most valuable input to internal organizational learning processes such as business process improvement, R&D or organizational streamlining.

At the lower level of teams and groups, a similar cause-and-effect link operates. Listening is an ingredient in productive group communication. In a previous blog post, “L12- Listening”, I listed several actions that block 100% listening. Let me reproduce them here:

• Mentally prepare what he will say next while the other person is still talking
• Mentally comment or judge what a person is saying
• Recall past experiences, good or bad, about the person talking
• Automatically defend himself when criticized instead of trying to better understand the reasons and background behind the criticism
• Retrieve his past emotions, good or bad, he had on the person talking now
• Fail to listen completely because of an expectation about what the speaker will say
• Lecture on what he knows about a topic even if the other person is not interested or is not asking about it
• Notice or get irritated at the bad grammar, bad logic or bad attitude of the person talking
• Interrupt by saying something when the other person is not yet finished talking
• Enter a conversation with the belief that there is little he can learn from the other person
• Talk very long or give long lectures or monopolize the conversation and as a result the other person has less time to talk
• Think about something else related, or unrelated, to what the person is saying now
• Mentally dismiss whatever the person is saying because of his belief about the low credibility or trustworthiness of the person talking
• Focus more on the emotion of the person talking than on what he is saying
• Answer a question but say so many other extra things unrelated to the question
• Do something else such as read something while the person is still talking
• Get distracted by noise or any other external stimulus
• Etc. etc.

What do you notice? 99% of blocks to listening are internal to the listener!

To fully listen, we must pay 100% attention to the speaker, but at the same time, we must also pay 100% attention to any internal blocks within us. In other words, we must practice simultaneous external attention and internal attention. You may review two bog posts on indigo skill of internal attention: “The Reflective Knowledge Worker” and “L13- Learning How to Learn”.

“200% listening” is the skill of paying full attention to the person speaking while AT THE SAME TIME paying full attention to — and managing — any internal block to listening that may present itself while the speaker is talking. Like the two-faced Roman god, Janus, 200% listening is the practice of simultaneously looking at two worlds, which in this case, are the external world and the internal world.

The second part requires constant practice and constant self-improvement. The second part is parallel to the internal organizational learning processes that a truly customer-oriented company brings itself to do in response to what it senses externally from its customers. There are technologies and tools in customer relationship management, customer surveys, quality management, etc. at the organizational level, but unfortunately there are far fewer parallel tools at the individual and group level.

200% listening is one such tool.

We will touch on a few others in the L Series. In the next blog post, I will describe how internal attention can be used in anger management.

Cheers!

—

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Great article from Brian Solis:

“Twitter continues to amaze us. Its constantly evolving examples of change and connectivity persevere and reinforce how the “little microblog that could” is transforming media and communications while also silencing the most dubious of critics.”

Read all

Mos Def’s new album, The Ecstatic, is released in the US today but it’s taking a refreshing approach to distribution. Rather than offering up a CD (who buys them apart from me) people buy a T- Shirt with the album artwork on it, along with a code embedded into its tag so you can download it.

I love this kind of blurry stuff that is digital, traditional, social and a product innovation all rapped up in one (excuse the gag). It’s such a simple idea I can’t believe it has been used more often. Imagine how much The Ramones could have made with all those millions of walking adverts – it might also have ensured the cool kids actually listened to the music as well.

Not only that, it has raised the price to $39, probably reduced the production costs and generated cheap, peer 2 peer advertising. Genius.

@carlmoggy

Mos Def’s new album, The Ecstatic, is released in the US today but it’s taking a refreshing approach to distribution. Rather than offering up a CD (who buys them apart from me) people buy a T- Shirt with the album artwork on it, along with a code embedded into its tag so you can download it.

I love this kind of blurry stuff that is digital, traditional, social and a product innovation all rapped up in one (excuse the gag). It’s such a simple idea I can’t believe it has been used more often. Imagine how much The Ramones could have made with all those millions of walking adverts – it might also have ensured the cool kids actually listened to the music as well.

Not only that, it has raised the price to $39, probably reduced the production costs and generated cheap, peer 2 peer advertising. Genius.

Well its been a couple of weeks since the 140 | The Twitter Conference ended. The Twitter Conference (#twrcon) has come and gone. A NYC Twitter conference – 140 Character Conference – is now on (#140conf).  And I completed my 8-part round-up of my learnings from my experience at #140tc.

1. The Power of Presence. Insights from Alex Payne, Twitter API Lead.
2. I am a Twitter God(ess) and So Can You! The View From Twitter Stardom with @ijustine, @missrogue and @davepeck.
3. Don’t Take the Drive to Manic Feature Explosion. What Makes a Good Twitter App.
4. Twitter business start-ups are combination socialist and radical markets.   Twitter Strategies:  Real-World Success Stories.
5. WTF, No Twitter TV!? Direction from Anamitra Banerji, Twitter Product Management.
6. Even with a simple hash tag, there is a learning curve.   Soren MacBeth, Co-Founder / CEO of StockTwits.
7. You can’t own social media. You can only interact with it. Corporate Use of Twitter by @JetBlue.
8. Twitter will transform conferences & events. Surprising takeaways from an in-person Twitter conference experience.

“Even with a simple hash tag, there is a learning curve.”
Soren Macbeth
Co-Founder / CEO
Stocktwits

Soren (@sorenmacbeth) joined a panel with Brian Solis (@briansolis) of PR 2.0 fame.  Brian unveiled a new tool, Twitterverse, that attempts to map the Twitter Universe.  (Interesting when searching for Brian’s Twitterverse image, I found 17 Ways to Visualize Twitter.)  Unfortunately I missed most of Brian’s talk – he has written a good recap of The Twitter Conference and TWTRCON, complete with his broader perspective on Twitter on his blog post:  Is Twitter Evolving from the Facebook to the Myspace of Microblogs? Analyzing Twitter trends and demographics.

Soren shared his experience in founding and building StockTwits.  His original idea was to develop detailed and complex algorithms, reputation indicators and stock pricing information.  That idea evolved into something dramatically simpler with the use of the “$” tag.  I missed whether this was something Soren pushed on Twitter or

merely observed and utilized.  In any event, as those interested in stocks utilize $ preceding a stock symbol, it gets pick up by StockTwits for all others to see.  StockTwits is positioned as a real-time Bloomberg for the small investor.

Soren’s experience contains some potentially valuable lessons about Twitter and sites based on Twitter.  My quick takeaways:

• Real time data.  By engaging twitter users interested in stocks and the market, StockTwits provides immediate insight into how people are viewing, reacting, thinking about companies.
• Simplicity is key. Soren is clearly a bright and thoughtful individual.  His business got traction once he let go of the more complicated casting of his original idea and latched onto something mere mortals could utilize.  One of the cool things about StockTwits is many users don’t know (or care) that they are actually using Twitter!
• Power in structured data. This panel seemed to understand something that could be Twitter’s biggest contribution to technology (and dare I say to humanity?) – the mass amount of real-time data that Twitter is generating (or users of Twitter are generating to be more precise).  Products that can utilize this data and present it in a compelling manner are likely to be winners.  The categories that this basic concept could be applied are plentiful – travel, gossip, wine, etc.
• Interface matters. Although this point wasn’t discussed directly, as I looked at StockTwits as well as the many tools and utilities that are being built around Twitter, the sites that capture and hold my attention focus on design and usability.  It’s not that I can’t use crude or “techie” interfaces, it’s just that I’m impatient.  Soren did note that he is loathe to add complexity – a philosophy that is perhaps inspired by Twitter itself and I believe is one that will continue to serve him.

I’m satiated . . . more later.