Effort-Less says Lizard Brain

Excuses by Lizard Brain

Do you know the power of Lizard brain? Or better way to start is to know what a lizard brain is? Lizard Brain (Seth Godin's definition) is the resistance  in the back of our head telling us to back off, be careful, go slow, compromise.. Most of often we do not realize the effects of this resistance.


Lets take some live examples:


Imagine you are going through crash diet regimen.. Barely living on vegetables and fruits with a determination to lose 20 pounds in 20 days.. With great difficulty you manage to cross 5 days and manage to lose 5 pounds. When the going is good,lizard brain nags you to compromise and convinces you to eat a super heavy meal.You succumb to it. This indulgence will not show immediate results ( weight gain) so the lizard brain further encourages you to indulge in a couple of more heavy meal. But all of a sudden, you end up in a guilt trip and start your crash diet again. Much to your disappointment you will notice a weight gain. To make matters worse,the lizard brain will convince you that the heavy meal did not lead to weight gain. On the other hand you might end up thinking that crash diet did not work. 


What the mind fails to realize is that there is a phase lag between efforts and results. You do some work today you will see results tomorrow. It is important for you to realize that you have to do the same effort tomorrow to get results the day after and not to relax...


I am sure you can relate this to your daily work as well. You might be doing some great work. You see results after a phase lag. The lizard brain says " Take it easy". Work less to get the same results.. When you listen to it and do so you might not see the effects of the reduced efforts immediately. The mind thinks all is well. But there will be a point when you will realize that disastrous effects of your lackadaisical attitude.


There is a phase lag between efforts and results. The best way to stay ahead is continue to do good work and reap the benefits.To do so, pay heed to this simple advice. Ask you lizard brain to " Shut up!!".

Management theories by Gandhi

Walk the Talk - Management Theory by Gandhi

On the eve of the 64th Independence Day of India, my heart couldn't resist but think about one of the greatest architects for India's freedom, Mahatma Gandhi. In his book " My experiments with Truth" Gandhi highlighted many of his experiments and struggles. 


Just wanted to take 2 such instances and explain how Gandhi, greatest embodiment of truth and Ahmisa, truly practiced many of today's management theories


Instance 1:  Gandhi realized that people at the bottom of the pyramid were in need of freedom more than anybody. In order to understand  that, Third class travel was the mirror to the plight of Indians. Gandhi's train travel was only in III class..
Managment Theory:Jack Trout & Al Ries in their book Bottom Up Marketing highlight " Your desk is the most dangerous place to watch the world". To know your consumers,go to field and understand their real needs & wants.


Instance 2:Gandhi's first major struggle in the country was stagged on the soil of Champaran district in Bihar in 1917 in connection with indigo plantation.The planters resorted to inhuman and illegal methods in order to get indigo cultivated at the lowest cost. Rajkumar Shuka approached Gandhi to resolve this issue. Gandhi's reaction " I can give no opinion unless I see it myself".  Gandhi described his presence as a genuine searcher of the down-to-earth facts. He along with his friends went to the place of action to collect objective information before they came to a conclusion
Management Theory: Go to the market to seek information and not to seek confirmation of your thoughts. Any preconceived notions could color your thoughts which could adversely affect the inferences you can draw from the market.


 Gandhi lived in strict accordance with Satya and Ahmisa no matter what the situation was.... It is worthwhile  to look at Gandhi's actions at different compelling situations. Am sure we  infer many such management theories that are in vogue..


As management experts say "Walk the Talk"..

Want to buy an innovative gift? Start walking

Life is moving at really fast pace. High powered cars help us travel between places at a much lesser time than before. Access to information is just a click away. Facebook, twitter, gmail, google etc have mad(e) sure that information is no longer scare. One cannot take pride for long about being fast at something.. Someday, somebody,for sure, will catch up. But this blog is not about how to be faster than somebody or something.. On the contrary it is about something that all of us are longing for in this fast paced world.

Walk with joy

Peace.. Rather Inner peace

Think about what happens when a few old friends meet up... After all the fun and laugh, the conversation gets a little philosophical. One of them group is bound to say "we were much more happy when we had less luxury during our childhood days". The talk gets everybody nostalgic. The theme of the conversation would be  focused on peaceful life and the route for that would be " Back to Basics".

One such " Back to Basics" item is our daily walk. A walk down the memory lane, one can recollect that all the daily errands were achieved with no transport...On the contrary , today,even the smallest of errands demands us taking our cars or any form of vehicle. Our kids get picked up right outside our house and dropped just outside school. Call it luxury or laziness..Walk is becoming a thing of the past.

I decided to break this routine and started walking for all my regular errands. It is during these walks that I realized how much I have missed in this busy life. As I started walking, I realized that there are many interesting people,shops and activities in and around my neighborhood. All these years I missed seeing an interesting art gallery,couple of restaurants, gift shops, hardware store, car mechanic to name a  few.Till this realization happened, I have spent many hours travelling for each of these items.. This break from routine in the form of a walk  will give you fresh breath which inturn will give your Inner Peace.

Next time you want to buy an innovative gift for you spouse or friend, starting walking.A word of caution: do not be wired in any form ( mobile, iPods)..

Happy walking.....

Brand positioning - " Be what your are"

We come across many a brands in our day-day life... Each brand attempts to position itself in the mind of the consumer. Jack Trout coined this term positioning...

Brand Positioning - Be what you are...

 But what does it mean to a common man?

When marketers try to position their products they are actually  trying to create an image or personality about the brand.The purpose of positioning is differentiate the brand from competition. Volvo stands for safe cars, Walmart for lowest prices...While the definition is simple, it is certainly an arduous task for the marketers given the fact that the human mind is very complex to decipher their opinions,interests, needs, prejudices.

The intent of this blog is not to detail out the process or the steps taken by the marketers to position their products.. On the other hand, I have a different take on Positioning based on some of the assumptions made by marketers. To explain that , lets go back to the definition... Positioning is the process of creating an image in the mind of the consumer.. It is important to own a position in the mind of consumers that provides differentiation for the brand.

It is at this stage marketers make a big mistake. Marketers tend to look only at the consumers side to come up with their positioning statement so as to appeal to them. But the primal mistake is to  not realize the company's fabric.What is the company all about? Its values systems, employee opinions etc. Why is this important? Marketer cannot afford to create an image about the company in certain direction and have values,  employees opinions in the opposite direction. This mismatch will eventually show up in day-day interaction for the consumers and will eventually lead to dissonance between the image created and the service delivered. For ex: Lets say the marketers have positioned its product as a sophisticated brand keeping in mind the target audience's opinions and needs. On the other hand the employees who act as touch points with consumers are conservative middle class people. Their opinions based on their background will dominate and will show during customer interactions. To avoid this embarrassing situation, its important to take it in account not just the consumers side by the company's basic fabric before finalizing the positioning.

Be what you are in front of a customer is far more easier that the desire to be somebody which you are actually not...

Keep it simple..

What books do you read? Connect the dots

Right from my childhood I considered reading a book and completing it as one of the most difficult tasks in the world. Call it destiny, I was surrounded by avid readers. Somehow I never had the urge to pick up a book and read. Some of my cheap tricks to impress the outside included things like filling my shelf with books, sitting with a new book every day... Cheap tricks failed and I finally came to a conclusion that reading books is not my cup of tea...

But to my surprise, in the last 3 years I have read over 40 books.Little bit of introspection lead me to a good insight about my behavior. The habit of book reading was eluding me because I  couldn't find "My calling" in other words "my interests".

The big turnaround happened through a normal matter of fact incident. I was listening to podcast in which was a specific mention about a book on Marketing through Internet. Am passionate about using Internet for Marketing. This passion led me to buy this book. To my surprise I managed to finish this book in less than 2 weeks. Suddenly I realized my reading list increased to 5 books because I started to note down the references made by author. It is then that I realized that I was embarking on a wonderful journey with no idea of the road ahead....

5 books became 15 books and i started using the amazon application in Linkedin to update my book list.. I got a few people watching my list and started following a few lists. This lead to adding a few more books. I was of the opinion that the books that i buy were random/ eclectic mix.When I sit back and connect the dots, I am able to see a mysterious connection in the kind of books that I have been reading. What started out with Marketing through Internet moved on to Consumer Psychology( Influence). This in turn moved on to macro socio economic ( Economics Epistemics) items which lead to character ethics. When I read about great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi who have great character ethics the underlying message in all their teachings had spiritual inheritance.

Like how all rivers lead to ocean, my book list has eventually lead to spirituality. With great conviction I can now state that most of modern strategies and tactics can trace back their origin to religion or better still to spirituality. Modern marketing guru's like Seth Godin are talking about the importance of honest in business. 

As Swami Vivekannda says " Give me few men and women who are pure and selfless and I shall shake the world. Arise, Awake and Stop not till the Goal is Reached"

Be truthful even in Business

example of an honest restaurant

My inspiration for this blog is a quote by Mahatma Gandhi. His advice to the Indian community in South Africa:  " Be truthful even in Business". Such an apt quote for today's businesses as well given the fact that Truth, trust and honesty are very scarce commodities in this modern civilization.

Lets examine as to why consumers have turned to peer reviews or other customers feedback. In the era of TV industrial complex, it was a fascination for brands to glorify about their products or services with less or no substance through a interruption medium called TV. Advertising and businesses were symbiotic relationships.This explosive mass media approach kind of suspended the disbelief in us which resulted in large scale impulse purchase. With many brands taking the same approach and with huge chasm between product promise to delivery the disbelief was inevitable. Consumers were looking to get actual feedback while businesses were looking to camouflage substandard product capabilities through innovative advertising.

Businesses were convinced that mediocre products,tall promises and great advertising would deliver the goods. All these plans have just began to become obsolete thanks to a disruptive medium called internet. Internet especially social media has done the impossible. Consumers connecting with consumers to seek real opinions than being mislead by the usual sugar quoted brand promises. What does this mean to brands? Is it end of story? Not really.

Its simple. Create remarkable products, provide unique positive experiences for the customer and do business in a truthful manner. Consumers will carry your stories to many consumers which is more powerful than any amount of advertising.If that is a tall ask, even  if you have mediocre products be honest to your customers. New age customers are willing to trade off quality for honesty albeit for a brief time period.

Keep it simple, honest. The revolution starts here...

Culture eats Strategy for Breakfast,Lunch and Dinner

Culture eats Strategy

Last week I happened to read a quote of Peter Drucker - " Culture eats Strategy". I didn't realize full value of this statement till I did some research and encountered a few situations at work.

Strategy is defined as coherent marketing direction. Much of leadership's team time in many company is spent on defining the strategy and the execution plan. One of  the critical components in strategy is competition differentiation. All these concepts were perfectly right in a demand and supply game. When the demand was greater than the supply, we had the manufacturing concepts and when the supply is greater than demand, we have the sales & marketing concepts in vogue. As a consumer, you are surrounded by great marketers who have the skill to convince you  about their products and services.Adding to this is the media power which is related the money power of the company. Worse, in the Internet era, to find an alternate product or services provider is just no big deal. With so much of competition and growing buyer demands, competition wars gets murkier by the day. What do you do as a company to grab the share of consumers wallet?

But what is the consumer looking for?  A scarce Community in today's world - Trust

I am now beginning to understand and believe that business is not just about making great products with distinct competitive advantage. These competitive advantages are like mirage, seemingly real but truly unreal. But the consumer is looking for is great deal of trust. Why is this become so important? In this cut throat world, self centered value systems have peculated deep inside many companies. " I win and not worried about where you stand" is the underlying attitude.Which is why consumers look to negotiate, so that some of the post purchase dissonance can reduce.

On the other hand, if brands were to  build a strong relationship with consumers. Easier said than done. Relationships are built through every interaction with the consumers. every employee should imbibe the value systems of the company and translate it as positive experiences for the consumers. Mind it, this is not strategy. This is nothing but  culture that needs to set in and peculate to all levels in an organization. Trust thus built through these interactions turn out to be positive stories about transformational customers experiences. Positive stories do find a way to reach other customers either through WoM or Social Media.

But where is competition in all this? Its tempting to fortify territories through strategic initiatives but time spending on building a culture within the organization far outweighs it.

Countless stories that we hear about Zappos, South west airlines are not just born out of strategy. The culture within the organization is the pivotal point.

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 :-).