Greg Verdino

Get ready to geek out: Inbound Marketing Summit

I'm in Boston for the Inbound Marketing Summit.

The event is sold out, but you can still sign up for the free video stream.  I'm live at 10:30 Eastern and I'll be presenting "r u ready? Leveraging New Technologies to Propel Your Business" and here's the session description:

Social networks microblogging, mobile technologies, online video, cloud computing and virtual worlds -- you've heard the buzz but figure that they're just digital playgrounds for Millennials and geeks.  But what if you can tap into the power of these same trends to propel your business into the future?  To make every employee more productive, attract more customers and deliver stronger top- and bottom-line results?  You can -- but only if you're ready to move beyond the old ways you've always done things, ready to rethink the fundamentals of how business happens, ready to embrace change and ready to take action.  You will learn how the "connections economy" will change the way you establish and grow new business relationships, why tomorrow's most successful companies will seamlessly blend work and play, how you can turn "free" into your most powerful revenue generating tool, and how a host of emerging technologies can empower even the smallest of businesses to compete in a fast moving global economy.

If you can keep the stream live all day, you'll get to hear lots of great presentations from folks like David Meerman Scott, Chris Brogan and Chris Penn.

If you want to follow the action Geek 2.0 style through tweets, blog posts, photo and video uploads, you can keep an eye on the Inbound Marketing Livestream.  If you're at the event and would like to contribute to the livestream, just tag any content you create with the #IMS08 hashtag and the Inboundies will pull it in.

Finally, if you happen to catch this post on Sunday, and in town for the event and are looking to hang out, there is a social media gathering going down at Tommy Doyle's in Kendall Square (6-8pm.)  I'm thinking of going so maybe I'll see you there. You can get the deets on Facebook.

Social media: lipstick on a pig or total makeover?

It's probably a safe bet that many of you make your living (at least in part) by helping your clients -- or in the case of the client-side marketers among you, your companies -- engage consumers more effectively through social media channels.

Should your CEO blog?  What should your brand managers know about MySpace and Facebook?  Do you need feeds, widgets, a podcast or some kind of virtual world presence?  How about mobile social software or presence applications?  And then, of course, how do all of these things fit together and integrate properly with your mass media and traditional PR efforts to actually help you meet your business objectives -- because we all know that tactics without strategy won't get you to where you need to go. 

These questions -- and others like them -- seem to be on the minds of just about every marketer, PR practitioner and client-side social media evangelist.  And while these questions warrant answers, it strikes me that, if these are the first questions we're asking (even the strategy question), we are starting in the wrong place.

If you ask me, starting with social media marketing can often amount to nothing more than putting lipstick on the pig (and yep, the pig in this case is your old school "anti-social" company.)  I can't tell you how often marketers ask me for advice on how to use social media to reach new customers and sell more stuff, yet have never even considered how they can use the very same (or similar) tools to work better, smarter and cheaper themselves.  Worse still are those companies that seem hell-bent on marketing through social media yet can't even access social media sites from within their firewalls.

The most far-reaching impact of social computing is not that it changes the way we market; it is that it changes the way we can and should do business.  Marketing is just the external manifestation of this change, but the change needs to come from within the organization and must impact everything from how we attract talent to how we share information with our co-workers to how we define 'workplace.'

So rather than simply asking how your company (or clients) can market better (or at least different) through social media, why not get straight to the heart of the matter with questions like these instead:

1) How can we use social computing tools and platforms to allow the people who work at my company to share, collaborate, network and work more efficiently?

2) How can mobile social software and presence applications help my company's remote workers (from telecommuters to a widely distributed sales force) be productive no matter where they happen to be, stay connected with each other, and participate in a digitally-enabled corporate culture.

3) How might a private online community enable me to collaborate more seamlessly with my clients, investors and outside business partners?

4) How can I take advantage of social computing technologies to offer my existing customers more convenient, flexible ways to open a direct line of communications with a company representative (or with each other) when they are in need of help or support?

5) How can platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Second Life, pretty much any instant messenger, and even YouTube or Ustream be seen (and used) as corporate productivity tools, rather than as the time wasters many managers and IT professionals still perceive them to be?

6) How do I tap into social networks to find and attract the best new talent?  And how can I empower new workers with a set of tools that will allow them to be productive when, where and how they actually want to work today?

7) How can listening to online conversation about my company, brands, products and competitors provide not just an entry point for my marketing team to 'join the conversation,' but also valuable insights help me improve the way we operate, what we sell and how we produce it?

These are just the seven I thought of while writing this post.  No doubt, there are dozens of others.  What other questions would you add to the list?

New colors in the crayon box

I'm sure many of you read Jaffe Juice and crayon's 93 Colors blog, so you may have already heard the news about the latest additions to the crayon box.  Nonetheless, for those of you who haven't heard the news, I'd like to let you know about the four newest crayonistas to join our team.

Many of you know that our Consiglieri Scott Monty has moved on to lead the social media charge at Ford Motor Company.  I'm happy to say that Jane Quigley has come on board to fill Scott's shoes and co-lead our client services team, while also helping Joe and me with new business development.  Jane is a well known mover and shaker in the social media space, and an experienced marketer who joins us from Zeta Interactive.

But Jane is just the most recent addition. 

I'm also happy to welcome Gary Krivin -- co-founder of Dotglu and a former senior executive at Razorfish and AKQA -- as Chief Operating Officer, and Earl Adams -- from Moxie Interactive's Verizon Wireless client service team -- as Relationship Director.

Last but not least, I don't believe I've ever officially welcomed Deb Wiseman.  Deb joined crayon early this year as a Senior Strategist working on clients like ooVoo, Panasonic, Kraft and American.  She joined us from my alma mater, Digitas, although we never worked together there. 

So with that, I present to you the latest incarnation of crayon:

GV sighting: work styles in the virtual age

A lot of people ask me what it's like to work at crayon, keying in on the fact that we're a virtual company.  They're generally curious about how we keep in touch and the technologies we use to collaborate.  They want to know what it's like to operate out of Second Life (we don't, although we do use it as a meeting place) and if we really do use ooVoo as much as we say we do (yes, and we would even if they weren't a client.)

But curious or not, very few people actually fly halfway across the globe to get a peek under the covers.  Distance didn't stop the team at ECIFFO, a Japanese magazine that focuses specifically on the contemporary workplace and how business (and the spaces we use to conduct it) are changing, from sending a team of reporters from Tokyo to visit me on Long Island.  So they got a firsthand look at how we crayonistas roll.

The new Spring 2008 issue of ECIFFO explores the "next workscape," looking at some of the ways companies are embracing new technologies to change the way their employees get business done, and it features an interview with me. I talk to ECIFFO about crayon and how we use a variety of new technologies to operate as a virtual company.

Since you probably don't subscribe, you can download a copy of my interview here.

Download verdino_eciffo_work_styles_of_the_virtual_age.pdf

It is (roughly) translated into English, so you can read it even if you don't speak Japanese.  If you dig the interview, you can order the full issue or subscribe at the ECIFFO site.

If you're interested in checking out any of the technologies and sites I mention in the article (assuming you're not already using them), here's the list:

Second Life
ooVoo
Skype
Basecamp
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn

Who do you want to be today?

Ever have one of those days where slotting cleanly into your assigned role as an account coordinator, creative director or brand manager simply isn't going to cut it?  We all do -- and it's on those days that we're most likely to seek out new sources of inspiration.

Italian ad agency Admcom posits that every day can and should be one of those days.  They've rolled out a fun project called Year of Creativity (YOC for short) that let's people break out of their (often self-assigned) work roles and 'try on' new, interesting, entirely made-up and wholly surreal professions.  Maybe you don't want to be a teddy boy or a saint in artist's clothes (as Oingo Boingo suggested way back in the Eighties), but how about a Day Dreamer, a Carnivorous Plant Nutritionist, a Polar Bear Washer or the Jack of Spades?

OK - so maybe you don't want to be any of those either, but YOC serves up 362 others to choose from.  Their point is that all of us have (and should take) the opportunity to reinvent ourselves every day.  And that, in doing so, we will see things in a whole new way, be inspired by the things we previously found insipid and tap into a wellspring of creativity.

And what is YOC's mechanism for change?  If you didn't figure it out from the image above, it's the lowly business card, that dull cardboard rectangle that you hand to strangers when you meet them at conferences, social events and business meetings.

The YOC site lets visitors search or scroll through 366 different, creative business card designs -- each emblazoned with a different imaginary job title and representative image -- personalize any of them with a name and phone number, save and send, and even potentially print for free.  With 366 to choose from, you can literally be someone (or at least something) new every day for an entire year.

Some of the job titles suffer from Italian-to-English translation or read like they were spewed forth by a random phrase generator, but the premise behind the project (that even something as mundane as a business card can be transformed into a spark of inspiration) is a compelling one.

Besides, it's Friday (the 13th no less) -- give yourself permission to play a bit today.

Basking in the MarketingProfs afterglow

And so it began -- my Monday morning presentation at the MarketingProfs B2B Forum.  I love presenting to marketers (or business people in general) that don't spend their days obsessing about the latest social media blabbity-blah and lusting after today's brand new shiny thing.  These are the people who can learn the most and, as I said early on in my presentation (after I issued "the warning" but long before I took off my shirt), I only hoped that a few of them learned even just one thing that they could take back to their businesses and put into action.

The downside of presenting to a couple hundred 'normal people' is that you don't see much blog coverage of the event.  Fortunately, Direct Impact Marketing's David Robert Lesser and Social Media Today's Robin Fray Carey were in the room and kind enough to cover my presentation on their blogs.  You can flip through my slides right here, but if you weren't at the event you might want to see what David and Robin saw as the key takeaways.

David Robert, who is apparently also an amateur fashion critic, provides a fair and balanced review of my conference wardrobe and an overview of my presentation, in which he highlights a few key points and examples.  Read it.

Robin honed in on one of my key points, based on the "Beyond Knowledge" concept I introduced here a few months ago -- that as more and more thought leaders publish more and more free content on the web, knowledge is becoming a commodity and the action is moving toward "connections" (between people as in social media, and between seemingly disparate ideas that can be combined in unique and compelling ways.)  Read what she has to say.

Of course, at the end of the day, no matter how interesting the content might be, an event is really all about the people.  So, if you'll indulge me while I prostitute myself to the blogosphere link pimp, here's a shout out to all the social media playas who raised the roof by day:

Ann Handley, Scott Monty, Chris Brogan, Christopher S. Penn, Chel Pixie (or Michelle Wolverton - I can't tell them apart), Valeria Maltoni, Paul Dunay, Rich Krueger, Matthew Grant, David Meerman Scott, John Wall and Sir Lewis Green.

And of course to the good folks who attended my session (some of whom you can see in the picture below - taken while they were still smiling.)

And here's to the beautiful people who made love in the club at Monday night's MarketingProfs tweet-up:

Amanda Gravel, Brian Solis, Catherine Allen, Doug Haslam, Joe Cascio, John Johansen, Peter Kim and Steve Garfield.

(Photo: Chris Brogan)

Lots of the daytime people also partied at night, but one link per person or we'd be here all day.  I'm sure I missed some folks and there were plenty more that I never even got to meet -- so if you think you've been wrongly omitted, drop a line. 

Peace up, MProfs down.

r u ready for the MarketingProfs B2B Forum?

I'm in a faraway land called Boston for the sold-out MarketingProfs B2B Forum, where I hit the podium at 10:45 tomorrow morning (or this morning, depending on when you read this post - we're talking about Monday.)  I'll be delivering my new r u ready speech, talking about how a combination of new technologies and cultural shifts are rocking the very foundations of the workplace and creating competitive white space for companies that tap into these shifts to change not only the way their employees do business but the ways in which they connect with customers and business partners.

Sound intriguing?  If you're at the MProfs event this week, be sure to check out my session.  And whether you're here or not, here is a preview of my slideset.  Granted, without the voiceover it may not make much sense -- but imagine the hours of fun you'll have trying to figure out what I'm trying to say with that image of the woman giving the finger (slide 55)!  Check it out.

| View | Upload your own

[Seeing this post in a reader or email? Be sure to click through to the blog for the embedded slide set.]

I'm not sure if the MarketingProfs plan to capture any audio of video at the event.  If so, I'll be sure to share what I can, when I see it.  If not, I'll most likely get around to creating and publishing an annotated version of this presentation when my schedule slows down a bit.

Coworking: the movie

Some of you may recall that I moderated a session at PSFK Conference New York a couple of months ago.  The topic was Collaborative Coworking, and I was joined on stage by Rob Kalin of Etsy and Andrew Hoppin of NASA.  Piers and gang are slowly but surely posting videos of the conference sessions and, today, our video went live.

If you're interested in coworking and have half-an-hour to spare, the conversation holds lots of useful lessons.  Like any good moderator, I do very little talking beyond setting the agenda and asking the questions -- Rob and Andrew are the stars of the show, and just hearing how two organizations as different as web start-up Etsy and gimungous government agency NASA approach coworking and collaboration may help spark your own thoughts about how you (or your company) might tap into new work-styles for more innovation, better effectiveness and smarter business.

As an added bonus, you'll get to see lots of shots of the back of my head as I try to read the set-up slides and you'll hear me use the phrase "hairy chair" (as in, "I'd like to sit on the hairy chair" - a reference that will make no sense to you given that the chair in question doesn't actually appear in any of the shots, but noteworthy nonetheless.  I'm thinking of filing for a trademark.)

Enjoy (feed and email readers will need to click through to see the embedded video.)

If you're strapped for time and just want to see some highlights, PSFK has also posted an abbreviated text transcript that covers off on most of the key points.

GV, NASA, Etsy, PSFK, CNET, OK!

This morning, I had the pleasure of sharing the stage at the PSFK Conference New York with Andrew Hoppin of NASA and Rob Kalin of Etsy.com.  Our topic was "Collaborative Coworking" -- or how individuals and companies are using real, digital and virtual shared workspaces to engage their customers, partners, communities, and even just other individuals and companies of like mind.

I realize that probably made no sense whatsoever, so here's some CNET coverage of the panel, during which (on top of everything else) NASA and Etsy announced their intentions to launch a pretty cool collaboration project.

I know that PSFK intends to make video available soon.  In the meantime, you might get off on this picture that makes me look like a cross between a cheesy televangelist and the world's oldest, ugliest Backstreet Boy.

Photo: Guy Brighton