Rick Clancy Seemed Worried. An excerpt from “Groundswell”

An excerpt from Chapter 1 of Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff We were meeting him for breakfast before an all-day meeting. He was grappling with a force he didn’t understand, one that was growing all the time. Bloggers. Discussion groups. YouTube. Consumers whom he’d never met were rating his company’s products in public [...]

What kind of listener are you? Four types explained.

The Fortune 500 companies executing best practices on Twitter all started with one basic premise: Listen. Ambient listening (a phrase taught to me by Aneta Hall) is harder than it sounds, especially when conversations move from online to offline. Keith Ferrazzi is fond of describing a conversation with his colleague Dr. Mark Goulston. According to [...]

Dear Chief Marketing Officer, It’s time for your January Gut Check.

Today is the last business day of the first month of the year. Sometime in the next week, Chief Marketing Officers throughout the Fortune 500 will be called to the CEO carpet to report on your marketing effectiveness for January. Are you ready for these four questions? 1. “Last year you told me you needed [...]

“It’s Hard To Believe People Lived This Way”

Forward this to your Twitter and Facebook skeptic, but you might want to do so on a floppy disk. Innovation and introspection. Here’s why this matters: Today’s best leaders realize that they must prepare for today,  but with an eye on tomorrow.

Email is the Lava Lamp. Google Wave is the Flying Delorean.

Email was invented over 40 years ago. What would email be like if it was invented today? When you think about it, really think about it, it doesn’t look a day over 50 or 60. Think about how flat email is in comparison to other tools: 1) “Reply All” purgatory. A mass email goes out [...]

Q: What is Google Wave? A: Next big thing. Here’s Why This Matters for Business

100,000 invitations are being sent today for the launch of Google Wave, but what is it? Google wave combines the best features of the most popular Web 2.0 tools including wikis, social networking, photo sharing, video sharing, chat and email. Imagine Wikipedia, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, instant messenger and email all rolled up into one. Business [...]

I Stole Your Bike and Your Company Profit

Step 1: Engineer the perfect bike lock. Step 2: Build a Website and Optimize Search in Google so it is the top hit. Step 3: Realize that someone posted a YouTube Video showing how to open the perfect bike lock with a bic pen and it regularly hits Google just under you. Step 4: Go [...]

Here’s Why This Matters: Less Bars In More Places, United Breaks Guitars

Here’s why Video Matters: It appeals to the senses and of course, it captivates and is contagious. This can be good. (see previous post about the “Original Social Networking Site”) Or bad….. (warning: AT &T Video contains “provocative adult language”…) For the same reasons that telephones usurped telegraphs and TV usurped radio…..video posts are simple, [...]

Roasting Marshmallows By The Social Media Campfire

I love this. The message is loud and clear. Go Camping with your Twitter Followers. Seriously, true social media leaders are connecting online and carrying relationships over to the “Original Social Media Sites”.  Meet up with your Twitter, FaceBook and LinkedIn contacts face to face. Life is too short to trade tweets. Pick up the [...]

iPhone Vs. The Blender: Forward This to Your CMO

Probably late to this party, but this is marketing genius. Melissa Goodis of Crispin Porter + Bogusky described the BlendTec campaign at yesterday’s SFIMA Social Media Workshop. “It’s funny. It’s visually arresting. It’s short. It’s original. It’s authentic. It’s on strategy.” Forward this one to your CMO: