Itemized Economy

Good article in this month's Fast Company: The Urge to Unbundle.

Welcome to the Itemized Economy, where everything has its price. In more and more industries, customers are demanding (and getting) the opportunity to buy exactly what they want and nothing more. For this, thank the Internet, which has made us all better shoppers. And thank the Wal-Mart phenomenon: These days, we're all cheapskates in search of a spend-less strategy.

No suprise that I'm a big fan of this approach; I wrote a couple posts about it here and here back in October. But like everything else, the decision to unbundle depends on your audience. As the article points out,

Inexperienced customers may appreciate the convenience of a package, says University of Mississippi economics professor William Shughart. But knowledgeable purchasers, he says, "will reject bundles that are not the right mix from their point of view. And they will search for other sellers who allow them the option of picking and choosing."

It's likely that you've got a mix of experienced and inexperienced customers in your base. Unfortunately, most companies push bundles (for increased 'stickiness') for lower prices than their a la carte items. This approach can alienate your more knowledgeable customers who feel price-punished for wanting to get the right mix of services for their needs. If they can get the individual parts elsewhere for less, they will.

Blurring the lines

In a great example of blurring the lines between company and customer, Google just  launched a program that gives developers greater access to its search-based advertising system.

"There are a lot of things Google hasn't thought of that people could do with their ad campaigns," said Nelson Minar, a Google software engineer. "One of goals is to enable advertisers and third parties to create tools for their own purposes."

I also recently heard about The Lego Factory from Jake, where kids (and grown-ups) use a Digital Designer to make digital models and submit them to weekly competitions. This is where Lego gets a lot of its ideas for new models.

So instead of thinking they know best, or paying for customer research, these two companies are getting free product development by their customers. More connections, better conversations, stronger brands. Good stuff.

Are brands human?

Wendy had some smart things to say in her comment on my recent post, Brand Humanity.

...what we are both trying to accomplish is getting marketing to focus on identity statements and using the product to support her (the customer) in her various identities throughout the day. The consumer is human not the brand. The brand enhances her life. The brand fits her contextualized needs and neurally manages her life for her.

I agree with much of what she says... yet I believe that brands are, in fact, perceived as human. Or can be, anyway. The obvious examples are service firms, retailers, business-to-business... any business that has a human-to-human touchpoint. Customers project the traits of those employees onto the brand. Employees not only make up the company, each one IS the company. It's like a hologram where "the part is not only contained within the Whole; the Whole is contained in every part, only in lower resolution." (taken from this article)

So for example, my perception of the CompUSA brand was "incompetent and lacked initiative" based on my interactions with their computer repair department. I vowed to never shop there again. My perception was then salvaged (somewhat)  by interaction with an incredibly service-oriented woman who worked at the front counter, took initiative and resolved my issues. We all can tell stories about how a single individual not only represented a large corporation, but became that company in our minds. Bloggers like Robert Scoble are putting a likeable face on an often unlikeable brand. It's the associative power of our minds.   

But let's go beyond the obvious for a moment. In customer research, a common question is, "If this brand were a person, who would it be?" Customers are almost always able to personify the brand with such detail that you could clearly visualize him or her. All the way down to what car they'd drive, or how they'd interact with other brands at a party. And the interesting thing is, there's usually pretty good consensus in the group in personifying known brands.

So even for brands where there is no direct human interaction, we still tend to assign human qualities. Why? Because our choice of brands are a reflection of ourselves. If we like a brand it's because it has positive personality traits that we either have or want to have. Apple is cool. BMW is sophisticated and sporty. Unlikeable brands have unlikeable traits: Microsoft is bossy and arrogant, but we're stuck with them like a bad marriage. In a recent research study, Tivo customers were concerned about what their Tivo box thought of them based on their TV viewing habits, and would actively program "nice" shows that they didn't plan on watching  (if someone knows where I read that, please include a link in the comments!)

Companies need to think very carefully when outsourcing a human interaction, because it's the interactions that define the brand. And not just the obvious interaction like a call center; we interact with products as well. Be very careful in who is "speaking" to customers on your brand's behalf. As I mentioned in Brand Humanity: how do you want the brand to 'show up" to customers? Those values need to shine through in every customer touchpoint, in every product shipped.

Smart new blog

Thanks, Hugh, for the link to this smart, cool new blog. I'm a fan. Love this post on Teaching and Advertising.

Teachers need to get better at motivation.

Advertisers need to get better at...caring and honesty.

Go there to read the rest of the post and laugh at the cartoon. Really good stuff.

 

Business Blogging Awards

Wow, I didn't even know I was nominated for Best Marketing Blog in the BBA 05 until I saw it in my referrer stats. If you enjoy reading, I'd really appreciate a vote! There are a lot of terrific blogs out there and I'm enjoying surfing through the list.

UPDATE: They're having glitches in the voting program, so hang tight... they should have the site back up by tomorrow.

Brand Humanity

I was chatting the other day with someone who works for a multi-national company with a variety of products and target audiences. The challenge he’s been thinking about is, “What’s our one thing? Every good brand is all about one thing.” So we had an interesting discussion about whether it’s necessary, or even possible, for a large and multifaceted company to have a single point of focus for the brand.

 To solve this kind of problem, I’ve always relied on pattern recognition: delving into customer needs, company strengths, and the competitive landscape to find the common denominator. This works great for smaller companies with a handful of customer segments. But for large and diverse corporations, does this still hold true?

 My inclination during this conversation was to question this classic way of developing the brand strategy. What if, in this overly fragmented and customer-driven new world of ours, brands no longer must stand for one thing? In the Cluetrain society, brands must be able to adapt to their various constituencies and become fluent in the many conversations in which it must participate. Perhaps the classic Reis & Trout brand theory – owning one word in the customers’ minds -- is dying along with the command-and-control world in which it was born.

 But taken to an extreme, this could lead to brand schizophrenia. How can we maintain a semblance of undiluted brand identity while simultaneously staying relevant to the variety of groups with which the brand must interact? I believe it’s possible when we recognize that corporate brands are not all that different from individuals.

 Let’s look at a hypothetical Jane Doe; she’s not only a wife and mother, but also a VP for a large corporation, a board member for a local charity, a traveler and outdoors enthusiast. Jane is one individual who shows up differently depending on the situation and the “target audience” with which she’s interacting. She may be a conservative suit-wearer by day, a nurturing and attentive mom on weekends, and a tiger in the bedroom at night. She may have a lot of different interests and attributes, but at the end of the day she’s still Jane.

 The question is: what makes Jane, Jane? Daily she changes clothes, hairstyles and the way she talks to different people, but she’s still uniquely herself. It all comes down to beliefs and values. Being, not doing. How, not what. Perhaps in Jane’s case it’s about being honest to a fault, low-maintenance, a good conflict resolver, and curious about the world. People know when she’s acting “out of character.” 

 And that’s how we need to view brands. There’s something quite Stepford-Wife-y about an individual who wears the same style of clothes, uses the same style of speech, and tells the same stories over and over, day after day. We wouldn’t be friends with this person; why would we develop static brands and force them into sterile perfection in every situation? Brand owners must allow some flexibility – some humanness – into their brands, while simultaneously holding to core values that keep the brand from appearing too flaky.

 Many of the new social technologies are facilitating this brand humanity. Blogs, forums and other customer communities are enabling employees to fully connect with each other and the outside world… when the executives are brave enough to allow it. First comes the value definition: how we want the company to show up in its interactions with others? Then comes the cultural shift: loosening the reins and giving permission for genuine personality to shine through the cracks in the corporate wall. We reach a level of trust and maturity where value guidelines can take the place of rules and regulations. The company then can maintain a coherent identity while participating in varied – and often radically different – conversations.

 This is what I mean when I talk about the ecology of business: one ecosystem, many parts, all working together. Change and consistency. The one thing – and many things – simultaneously. Somewhat of a paradox, but it works.

Blog Defense Strategies

I accidentally lost my post on the great discussion between Robert, Buzz and Anil on how to interact with the blogosphere from a PR standpoint. Darren has a pretty good recap here.

Summit overview

This has been my first blog conference, and I must say that it was definitely worth my while to attend. Sessions have been great, but more importantly I met some terrific people. I think the best thing that's come out of this Summit is that it's reinvigorated me and stimulated a lot of new ideas.

This is the first of several Summits that will be held in various cities, so I encourage you to attend if you can. I've used my blog as a place to store notes from the sessions, and I plan to come back to some of these issues and address them in my own voice. But I wanted to give you a taste of what's been discussed over the past couple days.

Enhancing Internal Communications

Nick Finck with Digital Web and ZAAZ, Biz Stone at Google, and Mary Hodder are talking about how internal communications can be enhanced using blogs, wikis and more. (This time I'm going to copy my post as I work,  because I just lost my last post! Very frustrating.)

Biz talks about using blogs inside Google: There's a team blog for everyone who works on the Blogger team. Posts can range from happy birthday to info on competitors, and posts are emailed to the team. People also use individual blogs to establish an identity within the company. It's the same thing as in the blogosphere, but on a much smaller scale.

I can write a post that says, "wouldn't it be cool if someone built xyz product?" and I'll come back from lunch to find an email from an engineer who says, "Great idea; I just built it." This is powerful stuff. My blog is a great way to reel in engineers and share ideas. And with a blog you can make yourself heard and make a name for yourself internally."

Nick talks about the company-wide Intranet blog at ZAAZ. Certain people are authorized to post on the blog, and they stick to certain topics per day. So Mondays are projects, Tuesdays are sales (like new deals signed, etc.), Wednesdays are operations, etc.

Mary contributes on blogs for personal, professional, acaemic and conferences & events. These blogs showcase her knowledge and she gets new business from them.

Moving on to wikis... this was interesting to me because I've never used a wiki but really need to familiarize myself with this technology. It's a great way for companies to aggregate and manage departmental, project, and company-wide knowledge.

Biz uses wikis at Google for collaborating on projects and for proposed projects (ideas). They use Sparrow Web, which came out of Xerox Park. It's like a wiki but is more formatted; looks interesting, and you can get a free 90-day trial if you want to play with it.   

Nick uses wikis at ZAAZ for collaborative authoring and tribal knowledge (ie. best practices, resources, tools, FAQs, etc.) What happens when your expert engineer leaves the company? Wikis are a great way to maintain individual knowledge so that the entire company benefits. And it's infinitely more efficient than relying on emails floating around the company.

Project management tool

This is really cool... Jason Fried from Basecamp is demo-ing their software during the lunch break at the Blog Business Summit. Basecamp is a blog-based project management tool that's pretty amazing. It's billed as a client extranet tool, but it's also used by accounting firms, banks, public schools and wedding planners. "Project communication and schedules are centralized, automatically organized, archived by date and topic, and accessible from any computer." There's also an RSS feed so you can be notified if there's been any changes to the project. If you need a project management tool, check this out.

Measuring the Pulse of a Brand

Buzz Bruggeman and Pete Blackshaw are talking about marketing tactics in this session. Unfortunately I missed Buzz's presentation, but here's Pete:

Pete is the CMO for Intelliseek, which has an interesting product called BrandPulse. A brand is a promise, a set of values, an identity. BrandPulse is a temperature check, heart beat, an early radar system to monitor company reputation as measured by buzz on the Web. They track 5 million blogs, thousands of boards and forums, PlanetFeedback, and internal data (millions of untapped comments from customers in company databases) to listen in on the conversation about brands. This is a great combo of qualitative feedback in a quantitative scope.

Frameworks for measuring marketing:

• Financial: sales impact
• Clicking patterns
• Seeking: Did the brand event drive a response to ssek more info? how often?
• Speaking: Did the brand event/experience elicit a desire to tell others? How and why? What was the consequence?

When someone talks about a brand, it never happens in a vaccuum. They're expressing satisfaction, dissatisfaction, or responding to a stimulus like an ad. They may speak on a discussion board or forum, a blog, a rating site, or in a social network. Consumers and bloggers make a huge impact because their content is circulating throughout the net (forever). Consumer-created content is dominating the web, and it's perceived as a trusted source. Seekers of information (consumers, media, analysts, regulators, lawyers, and competitors) are going to the search engines to learn about brands. This is a new age of transparency, and information can no longer be censored by corporations. We can't control it, but we can manage it.

Ad agencies are focusing on click-throughs on banner ads or sponsored links. But the real "advertising" is the authentic, organic content developed by consumers themselves. Consumers are more likely to click on a consumer-generated content rather than company-sponsored content. Advertisers that screw up and betray the trust have to live with horrible search results filled with consumer-created negative content.

And we're running out of time; Pete just raced through some really great stuff and I couldn't type that fast. I'll write more on this subject later, as I'm pretty fascinated with how blogs and other new technologies are impacting brands.

Corporate blogging

Lenn Pryor at Microsoft and Matthew Oliphant from Business Logs are talking about Corporate Blogging: Strategy and Policy at the Blog Business Summit. The following are my notes from their presentation and the ensuing discussion:

Why should a company allow blogging?

• You can't afford not to have a dialogue with your customers
• ride the Cluetrain
  • markets are conversations
  • internet has sped up the pace of conversation
  • conversation is happening with or without you
• product  and customer service agility
• living feedback loop
• humanization of your company
• react to good news, react to bad news

A corporate blog is about change management and risk management. More openness and more interaction with your customers means change (to the corporate culture and the way you do things) and risk. The company has to be prepared to be an adult; to take criticism and feedback. You're going to take some lumps. But it's like AA, admitting that you're an addict. Corporate leadership needs to admit that the conversation needs to happen in order to grow and improve.

Corporate blogging is not about installing a platform and pressing Go. It takes a change in most aspects of the organization.

Lenn presents the basic guidelines for Microsoft bloggers:

• Be smart.
• Respect existing confidedntiality agreements
• Don't break news, don't disclose confidential info
• be cautious with 3rd party info
• Respect prior employers
• Identify yourself
• Be cautious in how you offer support and advice. If you're wrong, the company can be held legally liable for damages.
• Speak for yourself
• Think about reactions before you hit 'post.' Think about how the post would look on the front page of a national newspaper.

Don't make laundry lists of rules, because it gets too confusing. There's no official "policy" on blogging at Microsoft. Don't be overly prescriptive; let your employees be adults. There's a level of trust that must take place.

Internal Blogging:
Use blogging as a tool for project management. It's a good thing to start internally, because there's greater leeway in what you can do. Behind the firewall you've got greater acceptance for risk and failure.

External Blogging:

• Blogging supports Reputation, one of the three pillars of a company (the other two being Financial and Operational).
• Find a leader who can champion blogging and who reflects the values of the company.
• Passion sells, both internally and externally.
• The voice of your bloggers become part of your brand. Let them use their own voice for it will sound more real and honest.
• The goal is to build relationships and communicate the values of the company. Customers want to know the people behind the company. That's why you shouldn't outsource blogging.
  
  • However, it's quite valid to hire blog consultants to coach your team, write posts for a period of time and then transition out.
• Customers are supportive of companies that have a great deal of transparency, and opening up the inner workings of your company is a way to build trust, support and forgiveness.
• Good bloggers can come from the lowest rungs of the customer support team, all the way up to the executive level.
• Start an internal blog or wiki to preview topics and discuss why these topics should or should not be shared on the public blog.
• Reward good bloggers at paycheck time, if they're effective evangelists for your company.
• Everyone neeeds to know your company's guidelines for speaking about company topics in public. If an employee gets fired for blogging without consenting to the blogging policy, they have the right to sue for their salary.

Oooh, good last question from the audience: Since Scoble doesn't blog on company time, would it be ok for him to accept money from a "tip jar?" Lenn hesitates, and...  sorry, we're out of time. Really good issue that needs to be addressed, because it makes a lot of sense.

The art of good blog writing

A good question surfaced at the summit: can good blog writing be learned? Halley says yes, to an extent. If we want to learn how to paint, we study the masters. And then we start painting. A lot. At first it might not be great, but as we continue to paint, we get better. Same with blogging. The key is to read good blogs and see what they're doing. And then we blog. A lot.

Also, don't assume that classic "writers" within a corporation (ie corporate communication folks) are good candidates for writing the company blog. Better to find someone in the company who is passionate. Passion always gets people engaged, and they can learn the writing style.

Stowe Boyd, President of Corante, is talking about establishing your "true voice"... the most critical thing that someone must do to be a successful blog writer.  You must have a strong emotional commitment to the stance you've taken. Have a strong character. 

A few more points from Stowe:
It's important to nurture your circle of connections, your "inner circle." Blog writing is not just your writing, it also includes the complementary writing from your network (comments, posts, etc.) that stimulate your thinking. Your blog is your network.  Don't "write articles in blog clothing."

"Draw a line."  Whatever that line might be on a subject, choose a side and howl at the moon when someone disagrees with you.  Have an argument, get into a public debate, rant, draw out all sides of an issue. Be passionate. It's rewarding when you feel like you're fighting a battle for a cause.

At the summit

I'm here in Seattle at the Blog Business Summit and it's been a great day, although I arrived late and missed Scoble's opening keynote. I sat with blog buddies Evelyn Rodriguez and Todd Sattersten at lunch; email is great, but nothing beats a good face-to-face conversation. There are several others here who I know and need to meet in person; I'm looking forward to the reception tonight.

Subject matter today was focused primarily on tactical issues like blog software comparison and building traffic (comments, RSS, trackbacks, etc.). I would have blogged on these sessions but it took me all day to get connected to this wi-fi network. Halley's talking right now about writing style: "Be authentic, be passionate, be brief. Post frequently and keep it fresh. Have a voice; be yourself, be conversational. People want to hear a real person talking. It's ok to make mistakes; don't sound PR-ish, it's deadly!"

Tomorrow's sessions will get into more corporate blogging stuff like corporate strategy & policy, marketing strategies, PR issues and internal communication. Now that I'm connected, I'll get into more detail on these subjects...

Blogs & wikis: At the tipping point?

Hugh talks about whether blogs have reached the tipping point:

The blogosphere waits for the corporate-mainstream "Tipping Point" to arrive, the point where blogging stops being the supposed realm of freaks, weirdos, unemployed marketing consultants, unpublished novelists, political junkies and underworked cube dwellers, and starts being HUGE! An essential pillar of any corporate strategy and execution etc etc.

The GM blog sent a signal that we might, might, might have reached the corporate tipping point (we reached the individual tipping point a while ago, methinks).

Hugh also had a link to Jonathan Hardwick, a Microsoft blogger who writes about how wikis are becoming an indispensible tool for getting customer feedback:

The first big hit was the Internet Explorer feedback wiki, which rapidly grew to the point where helpful users began refactoring it into easily-digestible pieces. The IE team still hangs out there, although now of course they also have a much more Slashdottable blog.

Then in November the MSN Search team shipped the beta of their MSN Desktop Search tool. Pretty soon I was losing track of all the neat desktop search hacks that the blogosphere was finding, so an MSN Search wiki seemed like another good idea. The MSN Search team took the idea and ran with it, adding pages for the new MSN web search engine as well – you that know a team really “gets” wikis when the guy in charge of program management blogs about it!

Skeptics and laggards, it's time to board the bus.

Linux "switch" ad

Thanks to Good Morning Silicon Valley for this link to a groovy Linux ad: "Linux gives us the power we need to crush those who oppose us ...I'm Steve, and I'm a super-villain." Funny stuff.

 

Case study of an open business

Finally, a terrific execution to go with the theory of open business. I stumbled across the Bigha site from a link on Social Customer Manifesto.  Bigha is a small company in Oregon that makes recumbent bikes and lasers (ok, strange combo but it seems to work.) Check out their site when you get a chance.

First, the blog. They've had some negative press this month about their laser and have been completely transparent about it on the blog. This is a wonderful case study to demonstrate the power of blogging to address issues head-on and maintain relationships with customers. There isn't a permalink for this entry, so I'll repost it in full:

Bigha in the news, unfortunately

posted by Noah, at  4:56 PM

Well, it's been an interesting week, to say the least. Monday (our New Year's holiday, as it turns out) the New York Times published an article saying we sold the laser involved in the New Jersey incident. That's where it started. Since then, we've done dozens of newspaper and radio interivews, and we even appeared on Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto".

I'm really shocked about the magnitude of this story. Here we are one day, a small company in Corvallis, OR (on a holiday!) manufacturing and selling outdoor recreation equipment, then the next day we're asked to be experts on everything from terrorism to the Patriot Act.

Most reporters have been really nice, and some have not. All have probably hyped this story to be more than it's worth (to be fair, I guess that's their job).

Here's an example from an article in the New Jersey Record:

"The beam shoots from the pointer at 186,000 miles per second."

OK, that would be the speed of light. We say 186,000 miles per second on our website, as an attempt to provide an honest, intellectual discussion of how far the beam will travel. In the context of The Record's article, it is used to make the Jasper sound like a mighty death ray. But the truth is, even the light from a candle travels 186,000 miles per second!

More:

"The Jasper pointer... can be fitted with a tripod and a scope to aim at moving objects, according to Bigha's Web site..."

No, we do not say that anywhere on our site. The Jasper does not come ready-to-mount on a tripod or a scope. Nor does Bigha sell any accessories that allow you to track moving objects.

The point here isn't to complain about media coverage or to say we've been misquoted. I think the coverage has been quite fair, and, honestly, great for business. This weblog is intended to give our small corporation the opportunity to communicate with people on a more personal level. When we appear in the media, the words we use to express our position may be used to express positions we do not intend to.

If you find yourself confused by this situation, please contact us directly via email or phone. We'll do our best to clear things up.

Next I wanted to highlight Bigha's Meet Us page, which includes candid photos, introductions and email addresses for every employee. Here's the one for John, the president:

Hi, I'm John. I help define products and make sure what we produce offers quality, simplicity and fun.

But mostly I'm here to ensure your satisfaction.

The Internet makes it possible to offer specialty products directly to consumers with efficiencies not possible through a dealer network. Better yet, communication through the net is person to person rather than corporation to customer.

That's why we want you to think of us not as a company, but as a collection of people dedicated to building great products for you. We love to hear from you, whether question, complaint or compliment.

Feel free to ask me anything — but I'm best suited for questions about the concepts behind the bike and its intended benefits. I'm also the person to talk to if we've made you unhappy in any way. Your satisfaction is our success, so please let me know if we ever let you down.

Every single employee's introduction invites customers to contact them for a specific question. Even Lee in manufacturing: "I'm probably not the best person to contact with specific questions (except maybe something about assembly of the Bigha's fender), but if you email me I'll do my best to get you an answer."

The site also includes owner stories by people who own the Bigha bike and have written in to the company. Photos of the customers are included.

This is corporate transparency at its finest. People do business with people, not with companies... and after you visit the Bigha site, you feel like you know the entire Bigha community (employees and customers).

Blog Business Summit

OK, I just made my reservations to go to the Blog Business Summit... but too late to get the negotiated room discount at the Marriott. The hotel is almost full, so you better book now if you're thinking of going (and want to stay with everyone else).  I'm psyched to meet so many of my blog buddies in person!

Proud to be a blogging babe

I'm in really good company. I'm one of the first three "Top 10 Smartest Blogging Babes" along with Jackie Huba and Yvonne Divita, according to Michael at Small Business Branding. It took me a while to post this, honestly, because I can be a bit shy about taking a compliment (especially when it's this public!). I see that it's starting to draw some controversy, which certainly makes it all quite fun. Thanks, Michael!

Artificial distinctions

John Porcaro writes about employees blogging about their experiences within a company:

Funny that there's still this black and white distinction between the people who work for the company, and the company itself.  Among bloggers (or any who's caught a clue-train), we know that a company is made up of individuals--indeed, it's humans who made every single aspect of any successful (or unsuccessful) product or project.

Amen. In my last (very theoretical) post on connections, I mentioned artificial distinctions such as internal versus external branding, or employees versus customers. And as John points out, we even have a distinction between company and employees, as if that could even exist. It's all rather silly when you think about it.

The Physics of Social Capital

I've been thinking a lot lately about "brand as connection" and doing a bit of research on the subject. Most of us view the business world through a component lens (customers, technology, products, departments, etc.), but it's interesting to take a moment and look at the world through a connection lens: what are the connections between these components, and how can they be strengthened?

Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, focuses on a similar concept called social capital.  A few definitions:

Whereas physical capital refers to physical objects and human capital refers to the properties of individuals, social capital refers to connections among individuals – social networks and the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise from them. (Putnam 2000: 19)

Social capital refers to the institutions, relationships, and norms that shape the quality and quantity of a society's social interactions... Social capital is not just the sum of the institutions which underpin a society – it is the glue that holds them together. (The World Bank 1999)

Social capital consists of the stock of active connections among people: the trust, mutual understanding, and shared values and behaviors that bind the members of human networks and communities and make cooperative action possible. (Cohen and Prusak 2001: 4)

There is considerable evidence that communities with a good 'stock' of social capital are more likely to benefit from lower crime figures, better health, higher educational achievement, and better economic growth. (infed.org)

Too often, we view creation of social capital as the domain of non-profits and government. Corporations can wield significant influence in this arena, but physical and financial capital (ie components)  hold the attention of business leaders. Social capital (connections) can't be quantified and listed on financial statements, so it's usually not acknowledged or effectively managed.

This thought reminds me of another interest of mine, quantum physics. There's an interesting new theory called the zero point field... this might seem to be a random tangent on the subject of social capital, but bear with me. Here's an overview of the ZPF written by Bernhard Haisch, staff physicist at the Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory:

...electric and magnetic fields flowing through space oscillate like a pendulum. At every possible frequency there will always be a tiny bit of electromagnetic jiggling going on. And if you add up all these ceaseless fluctuations, what you get is a background sea of light whose total energy is enormous: the zero-point field. The "zero-point" refers to the fact that even though this energy is huge, it is the lowest possible energy state. All other energy is over and above the zero-point state. The fact that the zero-point field is the lowest energy state makes it unobservable... Since it is everywhere, inside and outside of us, permeating every atom in our bodies, we are effectively blind to it.

Matter resists acceleration not because it possesses some innate thing called mass, but because the zero-point field exerts a force whenever acceleration takes place. To put it in somewhat metaphysical terms, there exists a background sea of quantum light filling the universe, and that light generates a force that opposes acceleration when you push on any material object. That is why matter seems to be the solid, stable stuff that we and our world are made of.

So everything's not only interconnected but made of the same stuff. The visible is influenced by the invisible.  And no matter how hard we try to control each element of business, there's always  some "socio-magnetic" jiggling going on. One could view social capital as the ceaselessly fluctuating energy that either resists or facilitates the movement of physical and financial capital. Business is simply a vast network of human connections and transactions; everyone is exchanging energy (materialized as money, products, communication) to the benefit of all parties.   But since, like the ZPF, social capital is everywhere, it somehow becomes unobservable to us. We are blind to it, like fish unable to see the medium in which we are swimming.

Just as physicists are now starting to factor ZPF into their equations to arrive at a more accurate model of how the world works, so too can business leaders factor in social capital into how their business works. If we see the world not as isolated components but as a vast unified and interconnected system, we also see that the more pathways formed (ie. connections between departments, customers, partners, etc), then the more energy flows and the more the system is unified and strengthened.

The advent of new connection tools like blogs, wikis and podcasting is helping to facilitate the shift from component to connection view.  Artificial barriers are beginning to drop. For example, we can no longer treat internal and external branding as if they are different things... the brand is the entire system, of which employees and customers are a part. Brands are people and the connections between them. Even if we're talking about a product like an iPod, we're still talking about people having a sense of belonging to the iPod community, sharing playlists, evangelizing to non-participants, etc.  As Hugh says, "branding is a spiritual exercise, and the market for something to believe in is infinite." We want to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves.

Think about your business ecosystem, including all employees, departments, outsourced labor, partners, stockholders, etc. This is your social capital. This is the singular energy that powers your business. Is it strong or weak? How connected is everyone? Do they feel like they're part of a big community of shared interests? Or are they isolated in stagnant clusters of matter that experience friction and resistance? It's time to open up. Be transparent. Reach out. Drop the walls. Stop trying to control every conversation. Permit creative chaos. Allow customers to talk to anyone in the company, not just to the guy sitting in a call center on the other side of the world. Form more connections, stronger connections, between every element in the system. When we acknowledge and maximize the power of social capital, our world becomes a powerful place.

Lip-Sticking Interview

Yes, I've been a busy girl lately on the interview circuit! A big thanks to Yvonne Divita (and her alter-ego, Jane) for inviting me to chat with her about marketing and branding on her blog, Lip-Sticking. If your business markets to women online, Yvonne's blog is a must-read.

Podcast Interview

I'm a bit late posting this... I had terrible problems with my computer audio. But I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed in a marketing podcast called The Sound of Vision on The Vision Thing blog. It was great fun, and terrific to experience this new podcast technology in action. Other participants on the show include Yvonne Divita of Lip-Sticking and Jackie Huba of Church of the Customer.  If you haven't heard it yet, check it out!

business blog summit

I'm thinking about going to the Business Blog Summit in Seattle on Jan 24th and 25th... Anyone else going? I'd love to put faces with names...

Space for change

Thanks to John Moore at BrandAutopsy for the link to Bruce Mau's Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. Here are the top 25 items of a list of 43... My favorite is number 17. When I got there, it was like visually tripping into space. It's a great reminder to allow for some 'creative chaos' intead of planning everything to the last detail.

1. Allow events to change you. You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.

2. Forget about good. Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.

3. Process is more important than outcome. When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.

4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child). Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.

5. Go deep. The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.

6. Capture accidents. The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.

7. Study. A studio is a place of study. Use the necessity of production as an excuse to study. Everyone will benefit.

8. Drift. Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.

9. Begin anywhere. John Cage tells us that not knowing where to begin is a common form of paralysis. His advice: begin anywhere.

10. Everyone is a leader. Growth happens. Whenever it does, allow it to emerge. Learn to follow when it makes sense. Let anyone lead.

11. Harvest ideas. Edit applications. Ideas need a dynamic, fluid, generous environment to sustain life. Applications, on the other hand, benefit from critical rigor. Produce a high ratio of ideas to applications.

12. Keep moving. The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.

13. Slow down. Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.

14. Don’t be cool. Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.

15. Ask stupid questions. Growth is fueled by desire and innocence. Assess the answer, not the question. Imagine learning throughout your life at the rate of an infant.

16. Collaborate. The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.

17. ——————————. Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.

18. Stay up late. Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.

19. Work the metaphor. Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.

20. Be careful to take risks. Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.

21. Repeat yourself. If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.

22. Make your own tools. Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.

23. Stand on someone’s shoulders. You can travel farther carried on the accomplishments of those who came before you. And the view is so much better.

24. Avoid software. The problem with software is that everyone has it.

25. Don’t clean your desk. You might find something in the morning that you can’t see tonight.

Let's be the change we want to see

I was going through my old posts yesterday and came across this one from last New Year's day. I really liked this one, so I thought it was appropriate to repost for this New Year!
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New Years Day. Always a time of deep introspection, reflection and reiteration of what I want my life to be all about. I like to think about my life in relation to the whole; in other words, what do I want my relationships, family, business, etc. to be like, and what actions must I take to make that happen?

Along these lines, I couldn't help but think about some of the major trends in business today. There's been so much written about the failure of corporate America to satisfy the needs of customers, and in an attempt to fix the symptoms we've created new mantras (create customer evangelists!), new technologies (CRM), special programs (frequent flier miles), and the list goes on.

But who, exactly, is "corporate America"?
We are.

The corporate transformational change that we consumers have been crying for will happen when we -- the consumers, the customers, the employees -- begin living the changes we want to see. Instead of fixing the symptoms, let's address the root cause. Putting the blame on faceless corporations is the same error as putting the blame on our spouses, our co-workers, our families. Not only are we all connected, but we ourselves are individual components of multiple intersecting wholes.

We, the individuals who make up today's society, have created the world we see today. We've made -- and are continuing to make -- different choices than our parents and grandparents did at our age. These choices have created consequences that we often don't want to recognize or own, so we point outside ourselves and declare the culprits to be the big bad corporations (for whom we work) and government officials (whom we elect) and 'the system' (which we accept).

So what are these choices? Here are a few factoids from Bowling Alone that indicate that our social and family ties are loosening, and we're increasingly withdrawing into ourselves:
- In the past 3 decades, participation in government, local clubs and organizations dropped by up to 50%.
- Job instability, churn and the increasing numbers of independent contractors have resulted in a measurable decline of social connectedness in the workplace.
- Americans are entertaining friends at home 45% less frequently now than in the mid-70s; the number of picnics declined by 60% in the same time period.
- The fraction of married Americans who say that their family 'usually dines together' has dropped from 50% to 34%
- The number of families who vacation together dropped from 53% to 38%; watch TV together from 54% to 41%; sitting and talking, from 53% to 43%
- Reported charitable giving dropped by almost 20% from 1980 to 1995.
- The percentage of those who feel that "people in general today lead as good lives -- honest and moral -- as they used to" dropped from 50% in 1952 to 27% in 1998.

It's interesting to note that these percentages have remained more stable in small towns versus large cities. It's tough to be impersonal in a small town, but quite easy in a city. It's harder to be impersonal when you run a small business than when sheltered in the walls of a large corporation.

These statistics don't just show trends; they reveal our choices. We have chosen -- under the veil of 'too busy, not enough time, not enough money' -- to distance ourselves from our families, our co-workers and our communities. As isolated individuals, it's much easier to forget that we're part of a whole; that we're interconnected with everyone else and that our choices impact others as well as ourselves. We have made these choices individually but the combined effects are now reaching critical mass. How can we connect with a customer when we're not making meaningful connections with our own loved ones?

The lack of corporate/customer relationships is just the tip of the iceberg; it is symptomatic of a much more far-reaching issue. We've somehow adopted an us versus them mentality: not only between companies and customers, but between departments within the same company, between neighborhoods, races and religions. For real change to happen on the corporate and societal level, each one of us must first decide to build richer relationships within our own sphere of influence.... the forged bonds will move upward and outward, but we must start at the core, where we live. We must start by breaking down silos and walls within our own communities and companies and neighborhoods; by reaching out to others with compassion instead of holding back in distrust.

In a similar vein, we're calling on corporations to be more authentic, transparent and honest. Yet how will that happen if we're not transparent and honest ourselves? We so often are fearful of what others will think that we lose sight of our own authenticity. Political correctness has its limits. It's time for both individuals and businesses to stop trying to be all things to all people, and give ourselves permission to live honestly, and -- most importantly -- allow others to live their own truths without trying to change them. Each employee, each member of the whole, must be encouraged to live their own personal brand honestly and openly. When that happens, authentic and transparent corporate brands will naturally fall into place.

So perhaps our 2005 resolutions need not be so mundane. If each of us chooses to take ownership of our small section of the vast social fabric that ties us all together -- to tighten it up and halt the unravelling, not just with technology but with our own authentic goodness -- our society can be irrevocably changed for the better. Speaking for myself, I plan to seek out ways to be more authentic and transparent, more compassionate, and more willing to make time to deepen my connections with others. These are a few of my New Years resolutions; I hope you'll join me.