Greg Verdino

Leap

What will you do with your extra day this year?  Chime in.

links for 2008-02-28

• Deliver Magazine | Start the Conversation
  A Q&A about conversational marketing with Jaffe.
  (tags: brands change marketing trends socialmedia web2.0 crayon)
• Bazaarblog | For Every $1 Spent Online, the Internet Influences $3.45 Offline
  The title says it all - from new eMarketer research.
  (tags: wordofmouth trends business marketing reference research)

I, for one, am shocked

As seen in Adweek:

Social Media: 'Agencies Don't Get It,' Survey Says

"TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony polled more than 60 marketers in North America, France and the U.K. to gauge how they are faring navigating the world of social media. It asked them for feedback on their agencies' abilities to help. TNS found, in its words, "Agencies don't get it."

Clients complained that their agencies -- creative, media, public relations, design and others -- typically treat social channels like blogs as traditional media. In other cases, their ideas are not backed up by practical skills in the area. What's more, one client pointed out that his agencies have little of their own experience using social networks or video-sharing sites for themselves...

"You get the sense that agencies talk a good game," said [Jim Nail, chief marketing and strategy officer at TNS.] "They put up a good presentation about what social media is, but when you get to implementing campaigns, the day-to-day management skills are not meeting the marketers' expectations." "

Read Brian Morrissey's complete article at Adweek.com.

If you're one of the 60 marketers polled by TNS, I know a few people you might want to meet. ;-)

Social networking world map

Just an interesting infographic that shows the top social networks across the world, courtesy of Le Monde.  You'll want to click and expand the graphic or click over to the source to see the details. 

A couple of interesting things for me: (1) Friendster, the social network first mover that is so widely considered a failure here in the US that its brand name is sometimes used as a verb meaning 'to be lose your lead and be trounced by a competitor who learns from your mistakes and does what you do smarter and better,' is still tops in Asia; (2) two of the top properties -- Gaia Online here in the states and Cyworld in Asia -- are not mere MySpace-style social networks; both incorporate virtual world elements, hinting that Second Life or no Second Life, consumers (especially youth and teens) are moving toward virtual worlds to interact with one another.

From 1 to 100 in three minutes

This video isn't as new as I thought it was when I first saw it this morning and doesn't have anything whatsoever to do with marketing.  Get over it.  You can do something other than write media plans and creative briefs for three minutes, can't you?

And so without further ado, I present 100 people, aged one to 100, presented in that order and (for reasons I don't quite understand) banging drums. Watch it...

[Click-on-thru feed demons.]

From Portable Film Festival via Very Short List.

Guy Kawasaki wants you to top-up your reading list

Like I'm sure many of the marketing bloggerati did, I received an email from Guy Kawasaki over the weekend letting me know that my feed has been picked up in his new blog aggregator AllTop.  I knew about AllTop due to some Twitter chatter about its pilot aggregation of the blogosphere's best known big-mouths - and aggregation called AllTop Egos.

But check out the site and you'll see that it is more about utility than ego.  In Guy's words, AllTop "is a collection of single-page aggregations organized by topics such as Fashion, Celebrities, Sports, Gaming, Macintosh, Science, Green and Autos... Here people can find news from dozens of sites, side-by-side, at a glance."

Its simple layout provides an easy way to see what everyone is writing about a given topic and just might turn you on to some new blogs or even whole categories of blogs that you might not have otherwise sought out.  Oddities anyone?  How about "Cute?"

Check it out.

links for 2008-02-22

• PSFK | The 50/50 Corporation
  Interesting theory from Piers Fawkes - that there is an emerging business model wherein companies are 50% business and 50% social - kinda makes sense as the work/life line blurs.
  (tags: business collaboration ideas trends change)
• BusinessWeek | Social Media Will Change Your Business
  Interesting BW article updates a 2005 story about business blogging, making it 2008 relevant.
  (tags: blogging business internet socialmedia socialnetworks web2.0 strategy change)
• Adweek | Walk the Talk
  What marketers are learning from WOM and group dynamics. One of my blog posts about Coke's Virtual Thirst is quoted re ways in which some brands are releasing control in new media.
  (tags: adweek marketing wordofmouth socialmedia web2.0 community viral change innovation trends secondlife)

Tweet or change the world. Pick one.

I've been pondering a couple of thoughts Jon Burg posted to Twitter yesterday.  Jon's tweets are protected so if you want to see them or just stay on top of his whereabouts, random thoughts, food cravings and toilet trips (or whatever it is we Twitterfolk ramble on about) you can follow him.  But for the purpose of this post, I'll paraphrase.  Jon asks:

If we literally turned off all this social media / Web 2.0 stuff for a day would business productivity soar?  And inversely, would innovation stumble?

Interesting questions.  What do you think?

While your kneejerk reaction might be "hell no" and "hell yes," (in that order) you might also wonder if maybe, just maybe, you've got it backwards.

I don't know how many of you worked for start-ups in the glory days of Web 1.0.  I once worked for a company that - in addition to all the free sugary snacks you could stomach -  boasted a game room, a bring-your-pets-to-work policy, a half pipe and (right where a normal company might have a giant conference room) a half basketball court.

The argument was that the environment fostered creativity, out-of-the-box thinking and a sense of community among the overworked employees (I was one of those.)  But in practice, we spent an inordinate amount of time skateboarding, shooting hoops and petting our co-workers' dogs (not a euphemism...)  And for those who really did try to keep their heads down and just get some work done, I'd say it was pretty hard to focus when a couple of your fellow cube dwellers were trading free throws just three feet away from your workspace.  We never did find our groove and despite successive seven-figure rounds of VC funding we never did come up with that truly innovative, game changing web service that we all thought we were working towards.

OK - so right Greg, thanks for yet another doomsday cautionary tale from the olden days.  Well, we've learned a lot since then, haven't we?  Maybe.  Probably. 

Or maybe blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Seesmic, Qik, Ustream, Justin, Utterz, Pownce, Second Life or whatever else you count among your poisons are little more than the candy drawer, half pipe, office hours pick-up game or dog park for the social media crowd.

And maybe that's OK - because maybe we really do get enough upside out of our participation in these things to offset the time we put in (just like three hours of basketball per day helped you keep your weight down even though your diet consisted of nothing but free chocolate.) 

But how many of us have calculated the cost of what we're giving up -- including productive work hours (says the guy who is blogging at 10:50 am on a Thursday) and quiet time to actually think about what you can do to make big things happen (says the guy who can't seem to function without a four-tabbed web browser, two instant messengers, email, Skype and ooVoo all running at the same time)?

I have no intention of "turning off" but you know I like to stir the pot. So let's hear your thoughts.

[Photo note: This is purported to be a picture of the first web server, showing the handwritten 'do not turn off' sign - no idea if it is or it isn't but I thought it was a fun image to pair with this post.]

links for 2008-02-20

• SFGate | Shared Work Spaces a Wave of the Future
  Good article about co-working - gathering a few of these for my PSFK panel on work collaboration.
  (tags: business coworking future change reference)
• NY Times | They’re Working on Their Own, Just Side by Side
  Another good co-working article.
  (tags: business coworking future change reference)
• Kluster.com
  A platform for online collaboration and crowdsourcing. Interested in checking this out.
  (tags: ideas collaboration crowdsourcing tools)
• Ideablob: Where Ideas Grow
  A crowdsourcing community for people looking to get reactions, advice etc on ideas they're working on. Not sure if there's more to it than that - but very interesting.
  (tags: business collaboration community creativity crowdsourcing ideas innovation web2.0 startups)

7 tips for real-world businesses in Second Life

(Photo credit: C.C. Chapman)

It has been a while since I've written a proper Second Life post but that doesn't mean it hasn't been on my mind.  After all, crayon still maintains a virtual headquarters there.  One of the recurring topics at recent coffee With crayon gatherings (every Thursday at 9am EST/6am SLT on crayonville Island) has been a discussion about whether are marketers even interested in virtual worlds anymore. 

Interestingly, despite last year's rampant over-hyping of SL and the recent negative downturn, at least a few of the avatars that visit us for coffee With crayon say that there are still lots of marketers who are first discovering Second Life and other virtual worlds, and thinking about what opportunities and challenges they present.  Of course, these marketers (and more importantly, the consultants and agencies that they are calling on for guidance) seem a bit more focused on getting it right this time around.  That's good news.

I feel like those of us who have been advising clients on virtual worlds in general and Second Life in particular for the past year or two have been prescribing a set of (if not best practices) rules of the road designed to help marketers entering the metaverse steer clear of danger.  Some brands (like crayon client Coke) listen up and reap the rewards in terms of learning, impact and most importantly resident acceptance.  But there are still plenty of other brands that persist in - and insist on - getting it wrong.

So when the folks at virtual worlds agency Elastic Collision reached out to let me know about their new Second Life marketing white paper, I figured now might be a good time to remind everyone who is still thinking about virtual worlds just what it takes to get it right.  Elastic Collision's "7 Tips for Real-World Businesses in Second Life" may tread familiar ground for those of us who are tuned into this kind of thing but their advice is sound and - here's the important part - backed up by some solid qualitative findings and avatar verbatims gleaned from a series of 800 or so interviews with active SL residents.  In short, "7 Tips" lays out the do's and don'ts of SL marketing, as recommended by the very people you are looking to reach and engage. 

You can grab the complete report at the Elastic Collision site, but here are the tips and a few choice quotes to tide you over...  (Incidentally, you can swap out the words "Second Life" and apply most of these principles to pretty much any form of social media.)

Get to know the cultural landscape

"Educate yourself about community norms and important milestones in Second Life history... Design content around the needs of residents rather than focusing solely on the aspirations of your marketing department."

Improve, don't invade

"Second Life is a collaborative experience, and leaving residents out of decision making is a serious error... Be prepared to engage with residents, instead of creating a build, walking away and working why no one visits."

Involve and engage

"People are more interesting than things and the social aspect of Second Life is more important in the long term stuff than 'the stuff'."

Prioritize usability

"Make your virtual spaces easy to maneuver and remember that fancy stuff is a waste of time if it causes bad lag."

Leave your parachute at home

"Abandoned building and poorly publicized events will not establish brand loyalty... Live representatives as a branded site are generally far more persuasive than any number of ads or freebies."

Understand technical limitations

"Newcomers should be prepared for a buggy environment.  Users will forgive organizations for technical problems byond their control, but they are less understanding if a technical mistake stems from a problem that has been well documented."

Work with in-world businesses

"As a way of demonstrating respect for Second Life's cultures, real-world businesses are encouraged to work with in-world businesses, be a good member of the community, and most importantly, makes sure not to eliminate the little guy."

And now it's your turn to weigh in.  What do you think?  Did Elastic Collision get them right?  What other tips and tricks would you add for any marketer interested in making their first foray into virtual worlds?