MarCom

Giovanni and whurley have a new site, called MarCom, a place to aggregate news and information about the marketing world. Good writeup in TechCrunch (with a few comments complaining about the site, which appears to be built on Drupal). Since I like Drupal, I think the site itself is fine, and it’s a pretty rich resource for people who want to think and talk about contemporary marketing, which is very broken and changing fast.

Twitter hashtags

What’s a hashtag? On Twitter, it’s a tag preceded by a hash sign (#), and it’s a way to tag “tweets” (posts to Twitter) for aggregation. Amy Gahran has a useful post that explains “How to start a Twitter hashtag.” When you’re social tagging – i.e. trying to create a tag that others will use – it’ll be most useful if you get buyin. Says Amy, “Once you find a good, short, intuitive hashtag, start promoting it right away — to your Twitter followers, on your blog, in your media-sharing accounts (like Delicious, Flickr, and YouTube). Also, if you’re running the event, make sure you promote the event hashtag on the Web site, in e-mailed materials to attendees and media, and everywhere.”

Social media, identity, and civility

In today’s Austin American-Statesman, Michael Barnes says “second generation social media” - referring to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. - “encourage civility, congeniality and respect.”

Increasingly, I’m encountering just that sort of social chemistry at openings, parties and clubs. And this brand of socialilzing often begins with announcements such as “Hey, I follow your tweets!” or “Oh yeah, I know you from Facebook! How did that heart surgery go.”

Yes, indeed - the line between social media and socializing face-to-face seems blurred - because it doesn’t really have to exist. Increasingly people are building positive and productive networks of relationship online that reflect and enhance their offline social networks, and that’s really not new, but it’s new for many people, and we’re getting away from some issues that Barnes addresses, with some inaccuracy, in today’s column:

First-generation social media - e-mail, discussion boards, chat rooms - often spread social poison. The main reasons are obvious: anonymity and pseudonymity. One could “flame” with impunity as long as nobody knew who you really were. Combine that with an inability to ascertain precise emotional tones in digital exchanges, and one could be forgiven for avoiding all chat rooms and keeping e-mail conversations short and to the point.

I say this is inaccurate for a couple of reasons. First of all, the online anonymity/pseudonymity Barnes refers to here was not necessarily the rule. For example, the WELL, a seminal online community that has existed since 1985, has always verified the identity of community members and insisted that they make their real names available (though they also have pseudonyms by which they’re commonly known within the community).

Second, pseudonymous presences can establish clear and persistent identities even where identity isn’t published, and completely civil communities can exist where “real identities” are masked. It is better to require some kind of identity verification, if only clear association with a verifiable email address, to establish at least the possibility of accountability and reference, but you don’t necessarily have to share that with other users. Some have found the ability to create and play with alternative identities in online social spaces very powerful and helpful.

In systems like the WELL, where identity is verified and shared, you still see massive flame wars, just as you see, in physical networks and communities, minor and major arguments and wars. And while I acknowledge that it’s easier to “‘flame’ with impunity” in a context where no one connects your online identity with the identity you and most people think is real - the one you use “in real life” - anonymous flames have little weight. They’re no big deal. Those of us who’ve been online for years have learned to ignore them, just as we ignore traffic noise, smog, billboards (an early version of spam) and other forms of pollution.

All that said, it is interesting to see the effect of mainstreaming on social media, and the concurrent commitment to work out best social practices so that online experiences are most fruitful and productive, and minimally stressful and bothersome. We all have an interest in promoting civility and sane communication. It’s insightful for Barnes to note that this is being reflected in all of our communications and gatherings, online and off. Maybe this Internet thing will lead to a better world, after all?

Protesting too much

Subtle social media gaffe: Matt Yglesias says Third Way’s “domestic policy agenda is hyper-timid incrementalist bullshit.” Jennifer Palmieri, acting CEO for American Progress Action Fund (the organization behind Yglesias’ blog), posts an apology. Julian Sanchez calls this a “spectacular act of institutional tone deafness.” On Twitter, Jay Rosen advises social media consultants: “study this Yglesias thing. A cautionary tale for clients.”

Viral ain’t necessarily marketing

Seth Godin defines viral marketing… not everything viral is marketing. Common sense? Many folks don’t get it.

Something being viral is not, in an of itself, viral marketing. Who cares that 32,000,000 people saw your stupid video? It didn’t market you or your business in a tangible, useful way.

Marketers are obsessed with free media, and, as is often the case, we blow it in our rush to get our share. We create content that is hampered or selfish or boring. Or we create something completely viral that doesn’t do any marketing at all.

To be successful at marketing online, you have to lose all your traditional marketing baggage, that’s one thing. Then you have to make sure you didn’t also lose the mission. I just looked it up, Webster’s has a succinct definition of marketing: to expose for sale in a market.

Viral marketing, Godin says, “is getting a bad name, largely from clueless marketing agencies and clueless marketers.”

Here’s what they do: they get a lame product, or a semi-lame product, and they don’t have enough time or money to run a nationwide ad campaign. So, instead, they slap some goofy viral thing on top of it and wait for it to spread. And if it doesn’t spread, they create a faux controversy or engage a PR firm or some bloggers and then it still doesn’t work.

(Thanks to the Person who tweeted the Godin piece.)

The Evolution of the Web

My latest post at Worldchanging is about the future of the web.

All business is moving to the web - not just sales and marketing, but all business processes. Many businesses will drop expensive internal IT in favor of cloud solutions, and they’ll focus more on cultivating internal value networks or knowledge networks. They’ll start thinking more about how to assess the value of intangibles - knowledge transactions - and how to leverage and demonstrate that value. They’ll use social technologies to find efficiencies and control costs, not just for sales. Those of us who do web consulting will be challenged to produce strategy and results for the whole business, not just sales and marketing.

Eco-economics in Texas

In addition to our web strategy, social media, and web development work, David Armistead and I are instigating an “eco-economic” development initiative for Central Texas. Texas Business Review of IC² Institute has just published a foundational paper we co-authored with John Motloch, called “Eco-economics in Texas: Competitive Adaptation for the Next Industry Revolution.” Link to pdf

Social networks and SocialText

Good overview of practical social network theory in Aliza Sherman’s post about a conversation with my friend Ross Mayfield of SocialText. I was a first beta (actually alpha) tester for SocialText, and Ross and I did some theory-swapping in the early 2000s. He talks here about “how our networks have dense cores (strong ties) surrounded by dynamic peripheries (looser ties).”

The core of an organization - such as the leadership team - tends to work closely together. They process information well and can usually make decisions quickly and effectively. The rest of the team, however, is the dynamic periphery and there is strength in these weak ties.

Ross talks about how communication within the enterprise is often disorganized - email and attached files. The SocialText “wikiblog” is a platform for organizing communication and information more effectively.

Instead of focusing on files as the crux of collaboration, Socialtext focuses on the people who are creating the documents and sending the messages. You can follow who you want, connect with who you choose, and build your own organizational directory based on your needs and goals so you can tap into the right people to help you get the job done. Socialtext makes the dynamic periphery visible and helps everyone tap into the critical talent, knowledge and skill that may not be situated in the dense core.

Communication, management, and the new world of business on the web

We had an interesting client meeting yesterday where we talked about the evolution of communication and, especially, the impact of social media on organizational structures and leadership. David said that authoritarian structures exist where the communication flow is not good, and our colleague Steve was talking about the military concept of commander’s intent and I mentioned power to the edges and the concept of emergent leadership that Joi Ito and I (et al) had discussed quite a bit when we were working on “Emergent Democracy.”

David noted that, when communications technology enables transparency as it has within the organization, you can’t have an authoritarian structure. David mentioned the Virgin Atlantic Facebook fiasco, about which Oliver Marks at ZDNet says

The public firing of staff around this brought a lot of negative publicity. It’s a great example of the power vacuum that happens in companies that don’t have coherent internal networks. There is a yinyang relationship between a well organized internal network (where the fired flight attendants should have been allowed to whine and grumble, and also been given guidance) and the outward facing social network, where Virgin’s high standards of customer service should apply to promptly commune with customer questions and concerns as well as enjoy the ‘fan’ status conferred on them by members of their group.

What David and I were discussing yesterday is that the communications environment we have today makes a different style of management, not just optional, but necessary. Ignore this at your peril. We believe that all business is moving onto the web, and helping businesses facilitate that change is our mission.

This morning David sent me a Buzzstream post by Paul May, “More Proof of the Small Business Social Media Advantage.” He talks about a guy who “tried to engage with his customers and was cut off at his knees by management,” referring to posts here and here on the subject by Chris Brogan. May says, and we agree, that “we’re in the middle of the single biggest shift in marketing since the advent of television,” but we would point out that it’s way beyond marketing – everything about the way we do business is changing. He also says that “few big companies are going to really embrace this in the near term.” Again, we agree, and that’s why we work with small to medium companies and nonprofits. Not only will “The Enterprise” be slow to adopt, it may very well fail to thrive in this new world.

Bootstrap Your Online Community

Bijoy Goswami and I have an ongoing conversation about the kind of community development that has worked so well for Bootstrap Austin. Our visions are well aligned, and we’ve evolved a presentation that explains our thinking. Here’s a current set of slides, our first cut at the presentation, which we delivered at a Bootstrap Web Subgroup meeting. We’ll present again soon (wathc this space.)

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