Deborah Schultz

Blogher: Where the smart gals are

Unfortunately, I will not be able to participate in Blogher Business 07 this week in NYC as I am still abroad but you can.  These are smart ladies putting together a fab event to educate and evangelize the brilliance that is social media.  Why a separate event for women is always the question -  wrong question.  This organization understands the nature of 'niche markets', community and authentic marketing these are ubiquitous.  The question is why NOT go?

Straight from the gals' site:

BlogHer Business '07 will strip away the hype and hyperbole and answer some questions that most businesses are still asking about social media:

    -Should my company blog? How do we decide and then identify the best people to do it?

    -OK…I get we're supposed to be “authentic”. What are the boundaries?

    -Do I have to allow people to say anything they want to about us on our business blog?

    -I hear a lot about blogger “outreach” and how it has to be done just right. Can I get some specifics please? How do I find the right bloggers? And how do I avoid offending them? Why can’t I just ask the Technorati Top 100 to blog about my product and be done with it?

    -Are blogs a religion or a tool? I just want to be able to measure results in some way…is that so wrong?

    Does the cost of social media ever outweigh the benefit?

Technorati Tags: blogging, community, communitymarketing, newmarketing, blogher, socialmedia

Live from Jerusalem - the "Open Source City"

Sitting in Jerusalem at the world renowned Mishkenot Shananim guest house and conference center.  I am attending the Jerusalem Open  Source City Digital Society, Policy & the Internet conference. The conference is  the last day in a week of fascinating meetings with interesting companies and  The project is being organized under the auspices of Pitango Venture Capital, the California Israel Chamber of Commerce and the Jerusalem Foundation.

On the stage at the moment kicking off the first session are:

Yossi Vardi, 'larger than a single title", Moderator
Nic Fulton, Reuters
Loic LeMeur, Six Apart
Dan Dubno, "blowing things up"
Yair Nitzani, Yair Nitzani Music
Izhar Ashdot, Ishar Ashdot Music & Studios
Ami Giniger, Taya Communications
Amnon Dekel, Hebrew University

The session will for sure delve in to some deep topics but first some humor:

Technorati Tags: digitalsociety, internetpolicy, israel, kinnernet, kinnernet2007, newnewmedia, randomthoughts, socialmedia

We are the web, the web is us

An engaging look at the impact of 'social media'. Straight and to the point. Posted by Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at KSU.  The video does a great job of showing  the difference and impact  of HTML vs XML to the uninitiated. Read more on Digital Ethnography.

Thanks to Kevin for the link.

The big guys join the party?

So while the blogosphere was speculating on the now confirmed Google/YouTube deal over the weekend, the annual ANA Masters of Marketing conference took place in Florida.  As reported in the NY Times today as well as on various marketing blogs, it seems that the big advertisers and marketers are waking up to the fact that the consumer is indeed in control. This probably has a lot to do with visions of dollar signs dancing in their heads.   

So, the big guys now know the buzzwords and are 'talking the talk'.  My fingers are crossed that they can indeed 'walk the walk'.

Page Views and Banner Ads alone will not cut it in the new marketing universe and there really are no shortcuts.  New metrics and a new cultural shift is needed. As per Pete Blackshaw's recent posts here, here and here (yes, I love Pete's stuff) and Steve Rubel's column in Adage discuss - engagement is more than 'asking your customer's to create content for you.

Until the INTENT of the customer is addressed (i.e. engaging with me when and how I want and need you to) I fear we will just be creating ever more Dove real beauty ads and derivative Mastercard Priceless commercials.  Hey, I am happy the big guys are taking note, but true change will only happen when CRM changes to VRM (I remain and am always a Doc protege).  As Kim Cameron eloquently put it:

The way I read Doc’s ideas, he’s talking about a real inversion of what advertising is and means.  Instead of suppliers advertising what they want us to buy (by spamming our attention), we’ll advertise what WE want to buy, and suppliers will make us offers.  Sounds a lot more efficient to me.  What am I missing?  Why doesn’t everyone want to do this?

Maybe because a lot of what advertising is about is getting us to want things we don’t know we want.  But even that can be done in other better ways too.  Like by producing cool things and having them explode into discussion.  Doc said this too, didn’t he:  Markets are conversations.

Let's see if the big guys have the patience required to 'get it'.  I remain hopeful yet skeptical. 

It sounds to me like the timing is right to get the geeks and the marketers together for an old fashioned "throwdown" on getting past jargon and discussing how to get this done to the benefit of BOTH sides..  Stay tuned!

Technorati Tags: advertising, marketing, usergeneratedcontent, intent, newmarketing, communitymarketing, engagement

Top 3 Posts - first in a new series

Like many of you, I bookmark and clip and save posts and articles I plan to revisit, comment on or link back to.  Although it is easier than ever to file and organize these items online, these links often get lost in a flurry of newer ideas.  More often than I would like to admit they wind up as draft posts that never get published. And then the moment is [sigh] gone.  I am always grateful to people who act as my "curators"  and provide me with shortcuts to good info in straightforward ways - aka links of the day, top 10 lists etc. 

So, here is my contribution to what I call the 'community of curators'. I pledge to work hard to maintain this discipline.  I hope you find it helpful.

1. Conversational Crossroads - Pete asks, "Is "engagement" code for the same-old-way but with a better face, or it truly a model grounded in listening, consumer respect, and co-creation?"  I too am worried that words like engagement, conversation and intention are being thrown around without any real understanding of what they mean.

 

2. Top Ten Ways Businesses, Associations & Organizations Can use Social Networking - Chris' great posts on practical, tactical benefits to social networking in the 'grown-up' world. (I am such a sucker for top 10 lists). For example using the network to create an entire ecosystem:  By creating a strong network of complementary providers with similar philosophies and business practices, a single service provider can provide a much greater proposition to a prospective customer than an individual working without the benefit of the network.

 

3. Toward a new relationship - "We need something that expresses the user's or the customer's intentions." Doc discusses the need for new tools and most importantly something I have been struggling with as well - now that the customer has more 'power in the relationship, isn't about time we get smarter about working within the new bounds of this relationship?

[Note: Why Top3Posts? I like things in threes and Top 10 seems like too many.  My intention is to have these Top3Posts be themes (or memes) that I am wrestling with and engage you to wrestle with me]