Social Media - Perfect Bounce Board

Social Media bug has bitten our brand ( HiDoctor)as well. Finally we have got our act together on the social Media strategy. This has resulted in establishing our presence in:

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/HiDoctor4pharma
Facebook: Since we dont have a minimum of 25 fans yet, we don't have custom URL. But one can search for HiDoctor .We will get there in a few days.
Linkedin: Search for HiDoctor.

Perfect Bounce Board

Setting up these pages in the social networks and linking one with the other is the easiest part in the whole process. Now comes the real test for social media presence. What content to generate and how to engage the audience on a regular basis? While it is a known fact that getting into Social Media is a strategy and not a tactical initiative, reality strikes when you get into the nuts of bolts of implementing the strategy.

We set out to generate content for the social media. But to do so we had to establish a theme and a relationship for our presence and to do so we had to firm up our value proposition and our brand position. We had to do this exercise so that,as a brand, we are consistent and clear with what we intend to collaborate with our audience. Once this is done, getting content and ensuring content proliferation through social network is not an arduous Task.

Take a step back... To establish our social media presence, we have to re-visit our discussions on strategy, brand and value proposition.

To me, it is evident that Social Media presence will be a true bounce board for one's brand/company strategy. What's more, your audience will validate and provide feedback on your strategy.

Informal Learning is preferred - Intranet 2.0

This is in continuation to my previous blog on successful Intranet.One of the most important features of the intranet will be continuous learning module. This is aimed at addressing at the Knowledge deficit that exists within an organization.

Continuous learning can be provided to each associates through robust Course Management System ( CMS/LMS)integrated into their Intranet Personal page. The courses provided to the individual can be based on

• Individual performance & aspirations
• Soft skills
• Organization objectives/Business goals
• Project based information
• Technology up-gradation

to name a few. The individual's performance in the various courses can be integrated into their respective performance appraisal. But this blog is not intended to promote the role of Learning Management System in Intranet. It is more to address the need for a  comprehensive route to address Knowledge management in any organization.

The organization's initiative to training associates is a  formal route

Informal learning

Research states that only 20% of an individual's learning is through formal route. Remaining 80% is through informal routes. Informal routes can be through casual discussion,peer-peer discussion, interaction with experts, access to artifacts, blogs, wikis,forums etc. Better still, informal learning is mainly user initiated based on his/her needs and wants to excel at work.

With workforce of an organization spread in different geographies, it is imperative on the part of the organization to not just provide formal course structures for employee knowledge enhancement but create a platform within the organization which will encourage informal learning. Be it peer -peer discussion or sharing of best practices through audiocast, videocast or wikis/discussion forums. 

In essence, the  new age intranet within an organization should be the ideal platform for informal training for knowledge enhancement.

User Initiated informal learning through an organization wide platform - Learning 2.0 thru Intranet 2.0

3 Important features of Intranets

I believe Intranet is one of the most neglected amongst any of the corporate initiatives. Have attempted to explain the role of intranets and what is its current state in my previous blog. As much as there many stumbling blogs to build a usable intranet, there are even more steep challenges in getting the users to adopt it. Not that it is not possible...

New Age Intranets

All great challenges can be addressed with a simple perspective change. Typical intranet is top down and  focuses on processes, work flow, monitor & control while the new age work force is living in web 2.0 era in which monitor and control style of leadership are archaic and might not cut ice... what works is creating opportunities for the individual to co-exist, collaborate and achieve individual success which in-turn adds up to organization success.So, move away from monitor and control to a new new route called empowering individual employee. How can this be achieved?

3 Features to Empower employees:

• Personal workspace: New age work force are high on self expression thanks to the exponential growth of social networks. Each user would like to create a personal workspace in their intranets,. This includes sharing of photos, creating personal themes, discuss topics of interest both personal and professional.It is more an opportunity for personal branding. The conventional intranets are mundane and boring. The this feature for personalization brings in a new lease of life in intranets.
• Documents with voice and Context: If the new age user has to use the intranet, it has be beyond document storage  and knowledge management. Typically knowledge management approach have always been from an organizations perspective. But if an employee has to gain , he should be able to access documents created in the past for his gains,be it for specific activities or strategy. More important, get to understand the context and opinion of the creator of what went right and what didn't...This will then be useful to the user than going through a boring ppt or word doc without a voice and context
• What makes me successful?  Usual organization processes are laid down to monitor and control. But with generation Y employees if a manager is able to connect by empowering the employee there is a better chance for individual to succeed. Imagine on Day 1 of joining, your boss gave you a prescription of  5 things that you need to do  in your job that will make you successful and what if he gave you access to all theses resources in the intranet. Such a progressive work culture is sure to breed success in any organization

3 simple steps is all it takes to ensure regular adoption and in-turn get the best out of your employees. Change your paradigm towards intranets and let's harness the power that it can yield!!!

Corporate Intranets - Dilapidated State

Dilapidated walls of corporate Intranets

Its really fascinating and agonizing to listen to different definitions of Intranet. In many companies, corporate Intranet is one of the most neglected areas. At best it is related to some document storage and retrieval which will in turn be christened as "Knowledge Management portal". The biggest problem with this version of Knowledge Portals is that they act as Document Storage without a context and a voice i.e if one were to look at the document at certain point in time what they are sure to miss will be the context in which  the activity was performed and the human voice which covers the upsides and downsides of it.

In this dynamic world, typical top down marketing  will bound to be extinct as a concept sooner or later. The new world is pushing marketers to create a right ecosystem which involves customers, employees, vendors, partners and the company itself with a human voice. A place where people sing, dance, enjoy music , talk to each and do business. An ecosystem thus created will be the so called New Age Intranet. This intranet will help the members of the ecosystem to :

• Co-exist
• Communicate
• Collaborative
• Innovate

This is in essence is the basic purpose of the intranet.

Take for example, one member of the ecosystem- employees. Each employee has a Personal Voice . A Personal voice that has become more expressive,vociferous thanks to new age social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Yammer etc.. Each employee is looking for opportunities to communicate with the senior management of their company, collaborate cross functionally which inturn will improve agility, customer centricity  to name a few. If the organization is blind to this expectation of the new age force, then the employees are bound to get Intranets that will have document management, versioning capabilities, role based access and all other features to justify restricted access to information in a free world - Perfect Oxymoron. 

For sure, collaboration and innovation will just be buzz words in the power point presentations.

It is difficult to wake up a behemoth company to this radical change on new generation Intranets. The only thing that will make them realize the need for change will be shrinking top lines, brand value erosion. Nokia is an excellent example of a sleeping behemoth who is losing big time to competition.The latest email from the CEO suggest how the company has been blind to the changing trends in market and losing out to competition.

Build the ecosystem and collaborate,communicate enthusiastically. As the say" Success will follow you... Hands Down!!". 

Rights to Write - Personal Voice

Express your self

Have you heard of this term called as "professional voice"? I have experienced this 5 years back  and many of us still continue to... What it means is that you have a corporate dictate on who should speak, what to speak, how to speak, which font to use, what colors to be associated and list of so called rules to ensure consistency. Corporates take pride in being more consistent in communication than customer delight. Employees, though disgruntled, are forced to use there professional voice.

With the penetration of Internet and particularly social media these corporate dictates are getting broken. Think about what you are doing in the social networking sites like Facebook or Twitter. You are expressing yourself. There is no dictate,no pressure on consistency, content. Write what you want and write your heart out. This is called as "Personal Voice". You have the right to write your opinions about the products you use, the company you work for or about your co-workers either in your company sites ( if they are open to listening) or in any of your personal blog or social networks. As an individual, you are more empowered that before. Your customers are also looking for your personal opinions and not the lifeless voice of your corporate. There is no place for a ventriloquist act ( with you the mouthpiece for your corporate voice)

To corporates: Web is not a medium which will act as a corporate mouthpiece or brochure ware. Customers sing, dance, play, share opinions etc on the web. Either participate in this rendezvous with your personal voice or   hold on to your professional voice and perish.

Its your Right/Write!!!

Current Loyalty programs - Cul De Sac

My inspiration to this blog is a conversation which I had with my brother yesterday. He was making some profound statements about some fundamentals of marketing like:

• Who is a buyer?
• What is a market?
•  Role of conversations in building relationships
• How we have moved from a selling concept to an experience concept
• Customer Delight ( one of the most abused words in marketing)

The one word that caught my attention was " creating stories". So what about it?

Typically marketing organization focus on customer delight to retain customers and acquire more customers. The retention and loyalty marketing programs attempt to categorize a customer based on some criteria and offer some tangible or intangible benefits. Expectation : Quid Pro quo... Extended loyalty with the company. 

Why would a customer want to extend his loyalty when your competitor can offer something more special the very next day?  How can a company create customer delight? 

What is the hook? " Do the unconventional even in an ordinary interaction"

Imagine, you go to store to buy a gift for a special person for a special occasion. To your disappointment, the specific gift that you were looking for was not available. A typical store representative would be polite and give a warm response " Sorry sir, Gift is out of stock".

But companies which have unconventional belief systems about customer delight will go out of the way to do extraordinary things to delight a customer. In such a company the response might be that representative would check with all their stores and stockist for the product. In the event of negative response, the store salesman might buy it from a competitor store and deliver it to the client. In such companies, there 3 unsaid rules:

• Customer does not buy just a product but  the whole experience
• Customer Delight is not just marketing metric but doing the unconventional even in ordinary situations to delight a customer
• Even the store clerk is empowered to take spot decisions to delight a customer. It is never a regimented process with multiple approvals

With this kind of an experience , a customer is sure to carry positive story about the company. It is these stories when passed from one person to another generates brand pull than any amount of advertising.

Social media is a great platform to spread these unconventional stories. Organization, who intend to build respectable brand(s),should encourage its employees to do the unconventional and leave the pressure of correlating actions to results.  Thats the only way to provide uninhibited unconventional customer service.

The regular,monotonous loyalty programs are like Cul de Sac. Get back to basics and get unconventional

We like to hear as well as tell stories. Why do marketers fail to understand this simple thing?

If you have any such stories out your personal experience, please share it.

New Year resolution - Back to Basics

Back to Basics

With just a few days away from a year end, I set out thinking about what should be my new year resolution. Out in a flash came the phrase " Back to Basics". Then I started on a nostalgic sojourn of  blissful memories of my childhood. One of the things that I enjoyed th most was to go to the daily market with my dad to pick vegetables and fresh fruits. The experience was amazing as it involved a wonderful conversation between the buyer and the seller about the goods. The seller was proud of quality of goods that he had many stories to tell us... like stories about green vegetables from a particular village and how different was it from the ones that come from cities. This was followed by a healthy rate negotiations. At the end of the purchase both the buyer and seller stood to gain for the relationship was based on so much of trust and faith..

Absolutely no post purchase dissonance.

Now, think about our current daily experiences. Any purchase that we make on a daily basis is not without dissonance. Forget dissonance. Is there a conversation between buyer and seller? We behave like humanoids that walk-through the store picking up stuff that we need and walkout. Convenience is buzzword. Relationships exist only at a loyalty card level.Brands behave like inanimate objects. There is no talk/conversation between brands and buyers. Then where is the question of relationships.

Part of this problem can solved by Social Media. For a moment stop thinking of Internet and Social Media as an alternate platform for selling/brand building. In simple terms,Internet or Social Media are like the markets. These are meeting places out to humanize our day-day interactions. They are fast turning out to be the credible alternative to the real markets as customers are already talking on the web.

All that the brands have to do is to be

• Honest
• Sincere
• Responsive

This will help build conversations hence relationship. Don't worry about making mistakes. You will redeem yourselves through honest transactions with customers. But be paranoid about inaction.

Ain't these Basics!!!

Facebook User - Do you have a "Status Fatigue?"

Status Fatigue

After Google, its now Facebook's turn to become a verb. People are hooked on to Facebook with rapt attention and curosity. Updates happens every second about one's dress, movies, iPhone, friends and what not.

An average Facebook user may have atleast 250-300 friends in his/her list. Usually, it starts with school/ college friends and extends to people with common interests whom we may have never met. This friends list is now an eclectic mix with or without a common connection.

In a friends list with no common connection, there is a good chance a status update may appeal to a set of friends while it may be irrelavant to the others in the friends list. For example:old school reunion may be relevant to my school friends but not to my Digital Marketing friendsters. When the status  is irrelevnt  to a set of friends for a certain time period , it may cause something called as " Status Hyperopia" ( friendsters losing sightof my status updates) and will result in my friends/friensters hiding the status updates or changing privacy settings to block my status updates.

Solution: Right content to relevant people

The way to avoid this is to tag status updates to specific /relevent audiences. This can be done using @friends name in status box or using custom settings near the status update box.

The idea is ensure relevent updates goes to the right audiences to avoid "Status Fatigue".

So, what's your status? Customized

Limitations of typical Problem Solution approach

Social Media is the latest buzz in every company.  The Marketing team  is on the look out for experts to solve their problems.

Active Listening

The typical approach: expert approaches the client and asks for their problems and then comes up a solution strategy and execution..Remember advertising agency creative brief approach. The client gives the problem statement and the agency comes up with answers.This is where the Problem Solutions approach gets exposed especially if it is about solving customer problems.

The expert presupposes that the clients understand their customer problems. In reality, sitting inside the fort, the marketing team make inferences based on data or rely on market research inputs to identify problems or generate consumer insights and discuss with  the agency to solve these problems. The result of this brief will be a marketing campaign or service enhancement or changes to the product followed by new set of communications aimed at increasing top-line/better market share/improved customer satisfaction.

This is called as Primal Ignorance. In mathematics, while solving a problem, if the first step is wrong then you don't need to verify the answer.

What is the solution to this problem?

An expert in Social media, at the start of the engagement, will never come to the client asking for problems. On the other hand, he will listen to the client's customer conversations in the Social Media i.e through Facebook or Twitter etc. The expert will possibly use a variety of  both free and paid tools like, Google alerts, Google Reader, Radian 6 . This will help him get an independent view of the possible problems. In my experience, I have seen clients surprised at seeing the difference between their understanding of problems versus actual customer complaints.

This preparation will help both the client and the expert to narrow down on high priority items and focus on solution strategy.

Social Media is redefining the ways of problem identification and solution strategy formulation.Its not just about keeping the customer at the center and creating experiences but more so keeping ourselves closer to where the customers are present and start active listening.

Make the difference to your problem solution approach by getting the first step right through Social media.

What's your next Step!!!

Decide what to buy using Facebook

Broadcast Search

Festive season always means shopping indulgence as well. This time I decided to gift myself with a brand new mobile phone with all possible bells, whistles ( 3G, 5MP camera,OS,touchpad etc) and Jazzy interface.As soon as I went to the shop the only thing that I was able to do with ease was to eliminate the 100's of non option mobile models. Finally narrowed down to 3 handsets which includes Blackberry Torch, Sony Xperia X10 and Nokia N8. The sales representative at the shop was of no help to me as he had only good things to say about all the  3 handsets. Guess its part of his job to confuse the customer....

So I decided to look for reviews in the brand neutral website( if at all it exists!!!). Took Google's help to find  few sites and I made an assumption that top ranked sites on Google Page would be my best bet to get answers. To my dismay, most of these sites gave product comparison like a standard brochure..

What I was looking for was customer feedback based on their experience with the handset.. Even though some sites had customer feedback, I couldn't relate to a strangers experience.

Pause..... What was I looking for?

Not just customer reviews and feedback about the handset in a credible website but how many degree's of separation is the reviewer from me.

Which is when I realized, I am better of posting this question on handsets to my friends and friendsters on any social media netwoks like Facebook or Twitter than seek this information on another site.Effectively, I am broadcasting my search. This attempt serves two purposes:

• Will get genuine feedback about these handsets from my friends. Their opinions and feedback will possibly be closer to my opinions or thought process
• When one is uncertain about what to buy, vast majority of us possibly make choices that will make us acceptable in our social circles. You wouldn't wanted to be ridiculed by your friends for buying the wrong handset

After all this I may or may not have found the right handset for me but for sure will be more certain than before on what to buy.

So much for Social Search and Acceptance

Basics of Business - Markets, Consumers,Employees and now Social Media

Some rules,cultures, fashions, trends are atavistic in nature.. But basics of markets, consumers continue to remain the same for many years/decades. This thought got further strengthened while reading this all time classic book The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition.This is a must read book as it does not create any template or framework for success. On the other hand it just wakes the organization from its long hibernation and illusions about markets, marketing, employees, consumers. Any business  leader who wants to:

• Put an end to "Business as Usual" in the new economy 
• Focus on Markets and not just marketing

should grab a copy of this book. Some of the most important prophesies includes:

• Markets are conversations
• Markets consists of human beings and not demographic sectors
• In  both internetworked markets and intranetworked markets, people are speaking to each other in a powerful way
• Markets are getting smarter,more informed and more organized that companies.
• Companies need to realize that markets are laughing.At them!!
• Companies need to lighten up  and take them less seriously. Need to get their sense of humor.
• Companies must ask themselves, where their corporate culture ends. If it ends before the community begins then they will have no market
• Human communities are based on discourse- on human speech about human concerns
• Companies use intranets for  top down communications. Employees find ways to avoid it. Healthy intranet organizes workers in many meanings of the word
• Markets want companies to talk
• You want us to pay? We want you to pay attention - Consumers

The book has about 95 such prophesies.Companies can no longer afford " Fort Business" - creating a iron walls between consumers, companies and its employees. They have 2 choices.. Continue to lock themselves up in supposedly fortified towers or open up to the radical new world and join the conversations with consumers and employees.

The huge popularity and adoption of social media is making sure that organizations open up to both their consumers and employees.The social media platform lends itself for a paradigm shift in how companies approach consumers and employees: move from "attention seeking" to "understanding intent" and addressing them appropriately.

Internet and Social Media platforms are not just here to stay but will continue to force organizations to break away from the traditional top down "Business as Usual" approach to a much more fundamental approach which involves human conversations to address human concerns.After all human conversation is the true language of commerce..

Companies that Ignore Social Media - Read on!!!

Lets rewind our clocks by 5 years... Things that were .

Scenario: Strategy to execution

Companies that Ignore Social Media

• Marketing formulates the  strategy
• Communicates to all within the organization
• Sales takes it to market
• Performance is reviewed 
• Solicit feedback from customers
• Review strategy

Lets view this through a microscope. Lot of things are regimented and cast on iron  in the corporate world.

• Marketing
• Strategy was shouldered by a select few and usually done within 4 walls
• Consumer insights were often generated by Market research firms
• Out of scope: Often execution of project or program was considered less strategic
• Consumer insights were generated through Market research work on a need basis 
• People &Collaboration
• Much was spoken about bottom up communication and nothing more than that...Top down  dominated the scene
• Collaboration and knowledge management within organization would just be restricted to document sharing and top down information communication
• Inputs from Sales team or any other team within the organization were used to confirm thoughts or ideas and not to seek information
• Consumers
• Consumers were mere statistics on the monthly presentation screens
• Brands were never approachable for the consumer
• Consumer feedback were recorded and addressed only if the customers were irate.
• Surveys and focus groups were the only preferred ways of interacting with consumers

Consequences

• No intent/means to get  feedback on strategy at the time of execution
• Even a flawed strategy will be executed to make it a colossal mistake
• Customer feedback were best learnt from customer advocacy sites..More time spent on new acquisitions than retaining existing customer

Much has changed in the last 5 years especially due to the explosive penetration and usage of social media platforms like twitter, facebook and the likes of intra-organizational collaboration tools like Yammer... How have these social media platforms acted as a catalyst for change in the corporate world.?

All this starts with the customers!!!!

• Customers have these platforms for self expression and have started discussing product reviews/brand feedback as one such item in their endless lost of conversations
•  Either through friends list or fan page  or twitter connections, customers have powerful way of sharing feedback on a real-time basis
• Consumers, as trust agents, can create positive or negative influence about products/brands experience almost on a real-time basis with their peers or friends
• No desperate attempts to market the product will help against a strong consumer feedback

Make or break of brands/products happens based on customer perception & experience and the communication gets viral.

This has forced a lot of changes in organizations especially in the mindsets of the top brass.Result:

• Brands have become very accessible to consumers through the social media platforms.Opening up to listening to customer feedback and solving  issues creates a better perception.. Comcast and South west airlines are  known for their consumer connect using Facebook and twitter
• Consumer insights from various touch points. Strategy makers have opened up new ways to connect with employers at various touch points to get real-time feedback/opinions about programs/product rollout and consumer feedback... We use Yammer within our company ,www.swaas.net, to get feedack from Sales, implementation and support to get a feel of the market on a real time basis
• This bottom up approach has ensured that strategy is no longer a standalone exercise but strategy is more of co-creation

Change is imminent. The rules of the game have changed..

• Connect with the consumer on a regular basis
• Keep your ears close to the ground
• Strategy and execution are two sides of the coin. Dare not delegate it
• Connect with every touch point in the organization. Innovative ideas can come from any corner

If all this looks too good to believe, here is an interesting case study of Parle's Hippo Chips innovative way of tracking their product stocks at various outlets... Guess what, they used consumers to track it using Twitter....

" On March 17th 2010, the @HelloMeHippo twitter account sent out this message: “Hippo ask you tell to hippo when you not find Hippo in shop. Hippo come there at once and fight hunger.” That’s what they call ‘Hippo English,’ ostensibly straight from the mouth of the mascot itself. As people followed the Hippo’s call, Parle Agro became beneficiaries of the first Twitter-based real-time nationwide stock checker. Then they acted on it, sending word to local distribution partners to get snacks onto the newly empty shelves. Thanks to their popularity, Hippo crisps flew off the shelves; thanks to social media, they flew back on them.

In a country where 92% of the snack market is unorganised retail, any entrant into the $1.5bn industry faces a tough job in tracking their inventory. At zero cost Parle Agro have managed to leverage tweeters, ‘mostly… in cities where Hippo is present but maybe temporarily unavailable,’ as an essential part of their supply lines. Let’s review the raw numbers: the number of people tracking Hippo stock has eclipsed 400, which is around 50% of its paid sales and distribution network itself. Due to the constant stream of supply, they also managed to up their sales by 76%."

Consumer generated secondary sale... Awesome work at no cost....Social Media is all set to make all conventional ways/systems redundant. Dare not ignore it

4 Simple Steps to Enrich and Distribute your Blog Content

I have been encouraging  few people to start blogging in their chosen area of interest.While one can choose any of the free blogging tools like blogger, wordpress etc, what is important is to write blogs with a theme and a personality. Even more important is to create original content and establish a connect with readers.But most blog initiatives fail due to inertia. Here is how we can make it an interesting activity:

4 Simple things to do when starting to blog:

• Design
• Visual Appeal & Purpose:Use one of the simple design Layouts given as a part of the blog tool kit and provide a good write up about the purpose of the blog.
• While writing content you can enrich the blog by getting related content and  contextual images through a tool called Zemanta
• Track



Analytics Dashboard

• Ability to track your visitors and other related measurements are very important. Sign up for a Google analytics account and embed the tracking code into the blog template. Start measuring important metrics like visitor count, source of traffic. This will help identify content distribution points
• Set up Blog Distribution tools
• Include a Sharing Service button like Add This as a part of the blog template. This will help to distribute content through social media platforms like twitter,Facebook etc
• Email setup: Blogger has a widget for visitors to sign up for email alerts.Alternatively use any of the feed management tools
• Create an RSS feed option for your blogs using the widget "Subscribe To" offered by blogger.  Go to the Design Tab>> Page elements to add these and many more widgets.
• Distribute your blog: Using the above mentioned Distribution tools you can distribute & promote your blog content
• To Start with,send emails to your contacts using the email option in your blog.. Once you publish the blogpost an email icon will appear at the bottom of the post. Use this to distribute/promote the blog. This will work well to get first time visitors to the blog site. Subsequently,outbound services like emails are subject to laws of diminishing returns
• Use "Add this" and share the blogpost in Twitter,Facebook, Linkedin or any Social Media Platform that you and readers frequently visit. Facebook and Linkedin have worked wonders for my blogs
• Use Feed Management tools like Feeburner
• To help visitors to get RSS feeds of your blogpost onto their Readers like Google Reader or Klipfolio.
• To provide email subscription facility to the visitors to get your blog posts via email
• Feedburner like feed management tools also help to Analyze, Optimize,Publicize and Monetize your blog content
• For more elaborate ways on content distribution read Chris Brogan's Post

Guess this will be a good starting point to make blog writing an interesting activity. I am sure each one of us is curious to know about the visitors to the blog site and to understand what works and what doesn't.Once you see some visitors coming to your site and posting comments then there will be positive pressure to deliver  interesting blog content on a regular basis. Commitment leads to Consistency.

BTW, I am going to use all the above mentioned content distribution techniques to promote this blog post :-).

Want to be an Analyst? Use Social Media

While I was thinking on the topic to write, as flash, something on consulting popped up in my mind.. Not sure why it popped up but as I started thinking about it, started taking a different turn. In typical business consulting assignments some of the terms that we hear as a client from consultants/analysts are:

• Top 10 Technology trends as per Gartner or Forrester for 2011- 2016
• Best Practices given as Rx for success
• Some Frameworks or business models promising a glorious future keeping in mind the current day business risks

Record Events

I have no abject disregard for these predictions but when I think of the current economic recession or any major scam which hits the headlines, I am forced think as to what happened to those predictions or forecasting by analysts or top notch consultants.What we get to read is always the post facto analysis of  the event as though it was obvious and we as naive intellects neglected to see through or were ignorant of these early warning signs. 

Why is that we find it easy to find a reason for failure(s) and not way to predict such failures and help avoid it?

This trend really bothered me and I got some interesting insights from Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book The Black Swan..

We,humans, have this problem of retrospective determinism.Once we have an issue at hand, say economic recession, we are really good at looking at the chronicle of events,take a deep dive into it and come up with simplistic answers and the worst part is that the reason failure will usually point towards a single event or two.One more possible reasons,although not conclusive, that can be attributed for this kind of problem is our " Confirmation bias". When we have a set of events in hand, we would like to simplify it using our inferential systems and confirm our opinions than just look at events as is - empirical studies..

I am not going to proceed to try and solve this problem as I am also a victim of these biases. But the one piece that is interesting to me is " chronicle of events". In the chosen topic of interest start recording all the relevant events that you read or listen to. But how to record it? I use the social media platforms for doing it.The central point in this blog is about how one can record the chronicle of events in the chosen topic of interest using social media platform at no cost. Once could use:

• Twitter favorites
• Digg relevant articles
• Share events or articles on Facebook
• Audio/Video content on Youtube
• Google Reader 
• Any form of content syndication

pretty much the same platforms that you use on a daily basis. The only difference is that you will focus on recording events on the chosen topic of interest.Lets say the topic is "new technology in mobile phones". As you record these events and do an empirical study on a regular basis,your ability to predict future events can get  brighter..Imagine a set of predictions from side, if taken up by the right people, brings about stability /growth in that industry. I know that it sounds too ambitious and wishful thinking but what's wrong in dreaming such a scenario. When I think like an earthly mortal, these  events recorded in the social media platform can used to do a post facto analysis or retrospective determinism which anyways we are really good at. 

Let the analyst in you wake up!!!!

Build your personal brand through Resume 2.0

This blog post is inspired from the movie 3 Idiots.Great movie with an excellent message for the educational system in India. Watch this video clip especially the interview scene- from the time 4.43 till 6:50..


The key message from the interview is that ones' simple, honest and direct approach may or may not yield results ( in this interview it did yield result) but for sure will resonate well with ones belief systems. This self belief has certainly helped Raju Rastogi ( the student in this movie) to speak his heart out. What worked for him was not his resume,certainly not his grades or qualification but the direct connect that he was able to establish with the interviewer with utmost honesty. I like this statement " It took 2 broken legs to get me on my feet" -brand Raju Rastogi


Now imagine Us.The body of knowledge, interests,passion,hobbies all that we have accumulated painstakingly for so many years....how can we capture all that and represent ONESELF as a brand in a 3 page resume or within the 45 mins interview time.Tough isn't it 


The good news is that you don't have compress all that into a 3 page resume or a 45 min interview.We are living in interesting times.There has be a  tectonic shift in the way candidates are identified by organizations. For example Jason Zimdar, a graphic designer got his dream job @ 37  Signals without a resume. How is this possible? Its all about personal  branding. Much is written about the  need for personal branding and the ways to achieve it. Dan's Swabel Me 2.0 is an interesting book on personal branding.


 All it takes is 10 mins a day to just pen down your thoughts in some journal...even better if you can KEY down your thoughts in some kind of an online journal..


Although this blog post is not a prescription on how to build a Personal brand, here are some baby steps to get started:

• Read interesting blogs: Based on your chosen topic, identify interesting blogs using technorati or blogpulse and read these blogs regularly.. You get an RSS feed onto your desktop
• Start writing blogs: Use any of the free blogging tools like blogger,wordpress etc and get started with your online journal entries. I am sure there will be great inertia to start blogs as we are grappled with 2 questions: 
• What Do I write?
• How to ensure that am factually correct?

Don't worry about it. You are not writing a book for a world wide audience on day one. Let your blogs be based on your interests , areas in which you are  passionate about or on core subject matter. Content is more important than getting it grammatical correct( but don't ignore it)...The blog requires a theme and a personality and some mental disciple to put your thoughts on a regular basis.. Very simple isn't it

• Get your social Media foot print: Suggest you have an account with Facebook for personal and professional contacts and Linkedin for purely professional reasons.This will certainly help you to get new connections,exchange ideas, promote blogs as well as to answers some questions on Linkedin.This will certainly make you more visible
• Get Portable: Based on your interests, create portable video and audio files. Video files can be posted on Youtube and can be made viral through social media. Audio podcast is another interesting way to reach a large audience.You can push your podcast into Apple's iTunes or any podcast alley.
• Graduate to next level: Once you have gained confidence. start contributing to vertical specific  blogs or websites.Forex:www.boxesandarrows.com for Usability, www.junta42.com for marketing related content. This will help reach the right people within the industry

In all this there are 2 basic principles to be followed:

• The content should be original - true reflections of your thoughts and opinions
• Leave a trail - Make sure you leave your website or blog address or social media connect details

With better inbound links and social footprint your blogs/websites might get better ranking on Google.These initiatives will certainly make you easily searchable on the web.

New trend is that  organization wanting to recruit you will not longer be interested in the 3 page resume document. What will be more valuable and interesting is all the content that you have generated all along.The interviewer will potentially use all this information and form opinions. With the new age resume there is no need to compress information.  Get started and everything that you write gets automatically added to your new resume  - Resume 2.0

Make a journal entry and your valuation starts.....  

Reset your Value Systems thru Social Media

One of the books that has had profound impact on me is The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey.This book highlights  2 important philosophies

• that which is confines to deeper principles called as Character Ethic - integrity,honesty, sincerity etc
• that which is much more superficial called as Personality ethic- positive mental attitude,skills, techniques

Seth Godin in his book Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? makes a mention of how how tribal economies  were built around deeper principles such as mutual support and generosity.Communities believed that each one should support the other for the upliftment of the society as a whole. All this sans reciprocity.Giving was always a signal of surplus. The underlying message for the recipient of the gift is:

• Benefit from it
• Pass it on to others

The Bhagavad Gita states " Do your duty and do not expect the fruits of labor".

Simple take away " Stand up for your value systems....be generous and helpful and do not expect anything in return". Result: The tribes/communities grew with a lot more trust,honesty and openness which resulted in peace and happiness...

My guess is that in the last 200 hundred years, especially post Industrial revolution, a lot has changed in these tribes..

• Large tribes have disintegrated into smaller communities
• Receiving is more celebrated than giving
• Reciprocity has now become human nature- Quid pro quo is the motto
• We are nostalgic about the future -Expectation of results keeping past memories as reference

This is largely fueled by capitalism in which smaller tribes started focusing on  economic gains out of every transaction - " More for Less". While the world has benefited from many modern discoveries and inventions what is more damaging is that we have lost out on basic value systems like:

• Honesty
• Integrity
• Generosity sans Reciprocity

Lack of these character ethics creates fear and has resulted in mistrust, cheating,deceit and what not. There is unrest in the air and we all know it fully well. What is the way out?

How can we live in peace and happiness in this world?

Typically human behavior is that once pushed to a corner either the best or worst comes out. Recession, job lay offs, financial constraints and other external pressures have certainly ensured that we revisit our basics and reset our value systems.It appears today's individuals have realized what our ancestors have been practicing for centuries-Grow as a Community and not as individuals.

So people want to hold hands and move forward as communities and not just as individuals. The encouraging part is that this time around it includes people not just their families & friends but a new set of people called as friendsters- Virtual Social Communities(VSC). We are limping back to an era where any form of noble gesture for the community like philanthropy gives peace and happiness to the giver. Be it in the form of information, money, gift in kind or just an advice at the right moment.These newly formed Virtual Social Communities, not bound by geographical boundaries, need a platform to address their emotional and self expression needs.

Change Agent:  Social Media

Social Media pundits are calling this new platform as a change agent and possibly one of the best things that could have happened especially during recession. The Social Media has helped the Virtual Social Communities to

• Get Phenomenal Reach -Connects VSC members connect across geographies.This reach has reduced the marginal cost of generosity(Lovely statement by Seth Godin).A good example is sharing one's ideas on a blog to larger audience for no economic gain. Members of the tribe might gain from it.

• Social Footprint -By using this platform every member of the community would have established a social footprint which cannot be erased.Any contradiction will expose the member and might damage one's respectable character or Integrity. A good example - CEO of a company was trying to tarnish the image of the competitor through social media using an anonymous name. He had foot in his mouth when situation forced his company to acquire the competitor.

• Platform for expressing: Unlike the past, every member has an opportunity to express his/her views, opinions, write reviews, broadcast search. The community values honesty over abundant knowledge. Any member trying to promote a product or brand within his community for economic gains will be exposed

Similarly we can elaborate for each character ethic like fidelity, patience etc...

It is very natural that some of you may have disbelief /skepticism with this thought for what we hear is:

• People give to get.. Sharing is not without reciprocity
• Identity theft
• Confidentiality breach

and what not.. Yes I agree with you partially but it is also true that we have been indoctrinated to believe like this. Social Media is a new kid on the block. Approach,Use and embrace it for right reasons and am sure we will reset our basic value systems. As a community ( VSC) , we will be happier and more peaceful.

B2B business need a Social Media Marketing(SMM)

In continuation with the previous blogpost http://exchnageplacenj.blogspot.com/2010/06/business-on-web-mandate.html, will try and attempt to address the other  objections stated by SMB marketers

·                     My customers prefer offline marketing and sales

·                     B2B business need personal touch and online is not personal

What does this mean?

Customers, especially B2B, prefer to trust organizations who take efforts to

·        Build relationship and
·         Engage them on a continual basis and in turn derive customer lifetime value(CLV)

But I do not believe in the age old marketing tenet that building relationships and engaging customers can happen only in the offline (face-face) space. Enter Social Media 

Social Media has given voice to millions of ordinary citizens who now share and relate their experiences with anybody at little or no cost. This is not a fad as people do not abandon technologies that help them communicate better. More so because

·         Social Media will help marketers create trust with the customers as there is minimal scope to fake or falter on “Say – do “ratio. Customers are watching  hence organizations tend to be alert

·         Social Media Marketing (SMM) is non-interception based approach unlike traditional marketing. Companies give more relevant information to the customer and do not hard sell its products or services. This creates a better environment for dialog thus lends itself for continuous interaction/engagement. Many companies have seen success. Take the example of Indium Corp, makers of solder, solder paste. In an industry not known for aggressive marketing initiatives, Indium has managed to humanize its interaction with their customers through an effective SMM strategy.

The inertia from B2B marketers is mainly due to following  reasons:

•   If you interact with customers online, there will be negative feedback – So is it better to hide such feedback under the carpet or pull it out of the rug? Not knowing your customer perception is no good sign
•   RoI is not clear – I liked Paul Gillin’s response “ Would you trade off unclear RoI with Risk of Inaction”
•   Social Media is a Fad – I don't want to hit you with the stats.The fact that you are online and reading this post vindicates the need for strong online presence

Wait… don’t just jump into the social bandwagon. Here are some common mistakes why social media marketing(SMM) strategies fail in many companies:

•   Tool/platform is more important than the objective – Facebooks,Twitters of the world can wait. In order to succeed in the online world think like a publisher, crystallize your objectives and then decide the Medium
•   Its CEO’s pet project – If there are no takers at the implementation level, these initiatives will fail. Need  passionate resources
•  Social Media based interaction used for wrong business objectives- For example, Social Media is not a substitute for affiliate marketing based lead generation campaigns

What next?

•   Define your social media marketing objective in line with your business objective
•   Define Social Media Strategy
• Identify your Influencer
• Choose the social media platform
• Define the theme and relationship you want to build with the customer
• Define metrics/surrogate metrics
•  Execute your plan
• Listen to conversations
• Participate
• Influence your customers
• Act
•  Measure- Conversation Mining
•  Monitor Interaction/engagement index and optimize plans

I will take each of these points and explore in detail in the forthcoming blog posts. Till then read a few successful B2B social Media Marketing campaigns

• Dell's Ideastorm
• Indium Corp