gavin baker

The tension of creating vs maximizing

Posted on | January 30, 2010 | Comments

I’m about half-way through “The Design of Business” by Roger Martin which explores how knowledge advances from one stage to another-from mystery (something we can’t explain) to heuristic (a rule of thumb that guides us toward solution) to algorithm (a predictable formula for producing an answer) to code (when the formula becomes so predictable it can be fully automated). As knowledge advances across the stages, productivity grows and costs drop-creating massive value for companies. p18-19

He talks about two of the models companies operate under, exploitation and exploration.  To paraphrase companies that operate under the exploitation philosophy will analyze a set of resources and their strategy will be to squeeze every drop of revenue and subsequent profit out of those resources, think of these companies as super efficient.   Companies that adhere to the strategy of exploration will purposefully step of the path of their current success to analyze the market, the customer and seek to discover new products.  Exploitation is a strategy that reaps tremendous benefit – and then seemingly overnight the cash cow runs dry.   Exploration bears almost no fruit in the short-term and can command equal resources without benefit – then seemingly overnight it turns into a rock star.

(Needless to say, because of the fiduciary responsibility most public companies adhere to exploitation vs exploration.)
While reading that, I came across this article on Slate.com profiling Jeff Bezos, Founder/CEO of Amazon and the Kindle.  Below is what he had to say about Amazon (and the creation of the Kindle).

“There are two ways that companies can extend what they’re doing. One is they can take an inventory of their skills and competencies, and then they can say, “OK, with this set of skills and competencies, what else can we do?” And that’s a very useful technique that all companies should use. But there’s a second method, which takes a longer-term orientation. It is to say, rather than ask what are we good at and what else can we do with that skill, you ask, who are our customers? What do they need? And then you say we’re going to give that to them regardless of whether we currently have the skills to do so, and we will learn those skills no matter how long it takes. Kindle is a great example of that. It’s been on the market for two years, but we worked on it for three years in earnest before that. We talked about it for a year before that. We had to go hire people to build a hardware- engineering team to build the device. We had to acquire new skills. There’s a tendency, I think, for executives to think that the right course of action is to stick to the knitting—stick with what you’re good at. That may be a generally good rule, but the problem is the world changes out from under you if you’re not constantly adding to your skill set.”

I love the convergence of learning, and here is Jeff Bezos talking about their strategy “rather than ask what are we good at and what else can we do with that skill, you ask, who are our customers? What do they need?” which is a near perfect example of an exploratory strategy.
I love it.
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Category: innovation
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What Google’s Nexus One means to your organization

Posted on | January 6, 2010 | Comments

January 5, 2010 is the day Google launched its first consumer physical device, the Nexus One – a phone.  In geekdom it is quite the popular topic, trending on twitter as well as the chiming of every major tech site to post review.  Here are some of the posts.  TechCrunch, GigaOM, Mashable, Engadget, Gizmodo, gdgt and BGR thoughts which review the physical phone itself, the software (Android 2.1), how it compares with the iPhone and how the launch of the Nexus One wasn’t the paradigm shifting event for mobile phone salvation we expected. I promise you they all cover each of those matter far better then I can, especially since I haven’t had a loaner phone for weeks preceding the launch – nor do I have one now. Instead let’s talk about how this will affect your organization. If you’re thinking, “my organization isn’t techie at all,” then this is for you.

Increased Validity of Android - for all intents and purposes Google’s launch of the Nexus One with T-Mobile (and upcoming Verizon) will place its open source operating system Android in the hands of non-Geeks.  This is a big deal as there are far more people that will like Android because they can get free turn by turn directions on the Maps then the people who will like the Nexus One because it runs the 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor that facilitates maps happening in glorious bliss behind the scenes.  This will also spearhead the wave of Android phones that are coming from Motorola, HTC, LG and others in 2020.

Spread of Smartphones - because there will be more of these bad boys in the hands of non-early adopters as they upgrade with their current carriers which will spark a couple key things.  First, your website will need to become mobile friendly pronto – it will no longer be seen as an option to have a mobile optimized site.   Second, the Android app market will see a signifiant increase from the 10,000 it has today as consumer programs will come out of the woodwork like they did for iPhone and organizations like yours will begin to build and launch apps for your consumers.

Rise of the Engaged consumer – we will continue to see the rise of the always on customer.  What this means for you is that their questions, comments and concerns will come to you faster and from new locations then you’ve seen before.  Perhaps more importantly their expectation of your prescese and response will reward those who are ready with open arms to customers who want to talk.  This will also open up new channels of communication and opportunity to connect with your customers, which will be scary but will make you a better organization.

For many, a phone with Android will be the very first time they’ve used open source software as part of their daily life and with Google’s support I think we’ll see it continue to grow in market share on new devices which will drive app invovation.  By far the biggest effect you’ll see is that your customers will have smartphones and while they all won’t know how to use them, they’ll do a few things well and that will disrupt your current business practices.

A few concrete examples, if you’re a

  • national retailer – make it easy to order online via mobile
  • brand with lots of locations – make it easy to find and contact them
  • local church – show sermon notes or bible passages during services
  • non-profit – use your mobile site to showcase your work and align volunteers with places to serve near them

These are just a few ideas.  You’re bound to have a few that are key for your organization, find one or two and get the strategy mapped out.

The launch of Nexus One is the ushering of mobile data into the hands of the masses and that will rock your world in 2010.  Launch with it.

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Category: mobile
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How should brands engage online?

Posted on | December 31, 2009 | Comments

I caught a piece on eMarketer by Clark Fredricksen today about the dilemma of customer engagement companies face when moving into social media. The basis of the post is found in the video embedded below.  Tension ramps up between the desire to have a presence and the need to participate.  To quote the post:
Most businesses have realized that when it comes to social networks like Twitter or Facebook, simply broadcasting content isn’t quite enough. Consumers want companies to engage with them on social networks — not because they want to have a relationship, per say, with a brand of soap or shampoo, but because they appreciate the opportunity to give feedback on products, receive meaningful information from brands, and catch the occasional bargain, among other things.

What he says is entirely true, launching a presence on a social channel (i.e.. facebook, twitter, yelp, flickr, blogging) is a great thing for many companies and their customers, allowing them to mutually share and receive information.  The dilemma comes when a brand has to decide how, when, and who should engage.  In my opinion, if a brand is opening an account they are already in the game so there is not the option to not participate so the question becomes how and who.  This should adhere to some basic rules of responding to most mentions, answering questions, etc. and every company will have secondary rules they will need to explore that will work best for them.  Two great examples of this choice on engagement are Best Buy’s @twelpforce or Comcast’s @ComcastCares –  where they are defining their intent because while the CEO of Best Buy is on twitter – having the expectation that he’ll respond personally to every question/whim isn’t only crazy its incredibly of base.  Along that path, deciding to do customer service is a common tactic for those companies who use twitter.  This brings up the great point that Jeremiah Owyang of the Altimeter Group makes “As companies accelerate their social support efforts, responding to customers in public reinforces the behavior of complaining to everyone they know.”  I’m certainly not saying that responding to customers on twitter is a bad idea, but it’s an interesting idea to consider.
Something else to consider is that with the growth of web technology the last few years, the barriers to entry have dropped to a level for where for all intents and purposes it’s 0.  It requires very little technical skill to open an account on any of the pieces named above which presents the dichotomy that marketers face – the ease of use can quickly translate to accounts that amount to “hello world” but often get forgotten in the hustle and bustle of day to day work.  Without a focus on any account, those customers  (guests in Ruby Tuesday’s world) who were very excited at the entry of a company they cared about in a digital space – will quickly move from excitement to vocal anger as their tweets and comments go unanswered and seemingly uncared for.
Which means that brands must ask, and then quickly answer the question, “what type of social media engagement is right for our brand?”

The Social Media Bubble Part 2 of 3 from Hive Awards on Vimeo.

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Category: social media
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Come to Nashvegas with me

Posted on | December 29, 2009 | Comments

Social Fresh Nashville

In a two weeks I’m going to be joining a few friends on the stage at Social Fresh Nashville.  It will be great to see @jasonfalls @djwaldow @genochurch @katadhin @waynesutton @GregCangialosi and meet some new friends from Home Depot, Radian6, Newell Rubbermaid and Southwest Airlines at Social Fresh aka @sofresh conference in Nashville, TN on January 11, 2010.

After being an attendee at the original Social Fresh in Charlotte, I’m excited to be able to speak at round two.  I found the first conference an action packed few days – while the conference is actually one day, the pre-party and post-party are things I wouldn’t miss – and when you show up, come find me and say hello.

Here’s a bit on what’ s being presented:

  • The ROI Of Community
  • Social Media In The Music Industry
  • Corporate Blogging Is Your Social Media Home Base
  • B2B Innovation In Social Media
  • Real Twitter Results
  • Word of Mouth Marketing form the Bottom Up
  • Moving The Needle: Social Media For Your Bottom Line

That’s all I’ll say as Jason Falls has already written up a great post about the conference on his site.  If you’re an organization that is looking to learn more, this is a great opportunity to dip your feet into the social media and at $315 a ticket, it’s quite reasonable.  There will be great minds covering almost all the bases you’ll need from start to finish.  You can register for the event using this link to the Social Fresh registration site. (Disclosure: As a speaker, I am an affiliate of the conference and get a commission on any sales made from the link. Non-affiliate link register here.)

PS if you can’t make Nashville and you’re in the Tampa, FL area then you’ll want to be on board for the next Social Fresh on Feb. 8.

So register, show up in Nashville and I’ll see you there.

Category: social media
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Breaking down social media policy

Posted on | December 2, 2009 | Comments

Last night I attended the Winter Panel put on by Social Media Club – Knoxville which was focused on social media liability, ethics and policy.  The featured panelists were Erin Donovan of WBIR, legal and marketing consultant Jeremy Floyd and Chad Parizman of Scripps Networks who did a great job representing a few perspectives on social media, and entertaining the crowd with funny quips. The evening covered a broad range of topics from the local liability story of The Pizza Kitchen (link to News Sent) to understanding the line where policy ends and ethics begin. If you missed the event checkout the tweets about the evening #smcknox.

One thing that wasn’t covered in depth that I wanted to shed some light on is the difference between policy and guidelines. Often the term “social media policy” is used to cover a document that is both policy and guidelines but they are very different documents and serve very different roles.  Moving forward in this post I’ll use the terms policy and guidelines to represent different pieces of that social media policy document.

When we talk about policy, we’re really talking about a document that is going to largely drafted by legal and HR professionals. It’s essentially about what employee’s SHOULDN’T do.While a very important piece of the puzzle if you’re a in marketing role this part of the document will seem very dry.  This document will detail who can can be a spokesperson for the brand utilizing these channels, what other policies they must adhere to in this sphere and the repercussions for not following the policy.  This document will read like a legal contract because, well it is.  Ultimately the role of part of the document is to protect the company, also known as CYA.

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Category: social media
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Armano’s predictions, plus one

Posted on | November 17, 2009 | Comments

Image by doug88888

Image by doug88888

David Armano makes a three predictions for 2010 on social media and business.

1. Scale

2. Integration

3. Policy

I think he’s right on for 2 and 3.  I’d add an additional prediction – that social networking sites and tools will begin to add offerings that appeal to business.  I’m not talking about CoTweet ramping up it’s twitter tool, while it’s a good product.  I’m talking about product design BY the sites themselves.  Sites building out tools and frameworks that not only support businesses but invite them.  Let me be clear, I’m not sharing insider information, I just know what I think would help us and other companies like us.

Most social sites are designed for the individual and rightfully so as relationships are what create and grow these sites.  But now that organizations are starting to join the fray – their needs, our need are different.  Take for example any national retail company in any vertical.  Walmart, Best Buy, Ruby Tuesday, P.F. Chang’s, Moe’s, etc. the list goes on and on.  The commonality with all these organizations is that they are national, if not international companies, but ultimately serve customers locally.

Each of those customers cared for locally visits a store, where there may be 10-10,000 locations and those local stores together create the global brand.  The tension is that social sites know how to serve the local – they are even set up for that in most cases (i.e. requiring a geographic area) but they haven’t quite figured out the global range yet. Global brands need the ability to set parameters to maintain control while allowing for local flexibility.

I’d also add that this need “could” be filled by third party developers if the platform API’s allow deep enough access.

Exciting to see how this plays out.

Category: social media
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Event: Social Media 101 Presentation, Knoxville, TN

Posted on | October 28, 2009 | Comments

UPDATED: With slides below

We all know that the world has been quickly transformed (you might also say overloaded) by social media.  News anchors are on twitter and ESPN has a social media policy, and you’ve only just signed up for facebook!  No worries, if you’re in Knoxville – you may be interested to join me (and a few friends, see Katie’s post on the topic) tomorrow as we explain our views and answer your questions at “Social Media 101: For Grownups” a panel put on by Leadership Knoxville.

The topics and presenters:

Social media is the new “civic” club. Learn how to make it useful personally and professionally. Presented by Katie Allison Granju Director of Digital & Social Media at Ackermann PR.
Nuts & Bolts of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. How to get started and what you need to know now. Presented by Bob Wilson Director of New Media at Moxley Carmichael.

Social Media Business Success! Hear how the use of social media and personal branding has produced measurable ROI in this challenging economy. Presented by Suzy Trotta Realtor at Coldwell Banker Business Benefits of Social Media

Social Media in the Enterprise. Hear how Ruby Tuesday, Inc. uses social media to build awareness and traffic to build its business and strengthen its brand. Presented by me.

Business and Social Media Presentation to Leadership Knoxville

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The details:

Reserve your seat today!

Wednesday, Oct. 28th
4:00 – 6:00 p.m.

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Category: Event
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How to get a job in social media

Posted on | October 27, 2009 | Comments

madmen_widescreen

After I presented at the SMC- Greenville meeting I was approached by a college student and asked an interesting question, “what’s the best background to get into a social media job?”  at the time, I mentioned that my background was business and marketing, so I could speak to that but not social media in general.  I decided to tweet the question since I knew I’d get quite the mixture of answers. Here are a few responses, each with a different viewpoint – technology entrepreneur, marketing consultant and in house technologist.  (All who are worth a follow by the way).

from @jpatrickhunt trial by fire. on the job training. offer your services for nothing and dive in. learn and adapt. you will be assimilated.

from @jfloyd journalism, photography, video production, advertising, english, web design…what does Seth call it…a multipationalist? :)

from @BJ_Emerson Great question, may depend on the needs of the org. My opinion: Don’t skimp on the tech skills, be good at relationships.

I expected the answers to be all over and I wasn’t disappointed.  So where does this leave us?  Ultimately while a background in in PR or marketing has an upside, I’m going to go out on a limb and say I don’t think it really matters for hiring.  To be clear, one should have some manner of understanding of the basics of communication and if the job has a strategy component you’ll need to understand the social landscape.  But what matters the most is that you be customer focused. Which may seem to be a no brainer to some of you, however it’s not to everyone.  Customer focused means thinking of yourself as the advocate of the people your organization exists to serve.  So you are approaching problems with the mindset of it you were the end user.

This is important because at the end of the day, social media is about people.  It’s a set of tools that are allowing customers the ability to connect with and give feedback to their friends and the public – and we as organizations have the ability to be part of that exchange.  To learn and respond and share. If you want to work in social media, you’ll be well on your way if you can be that voice of the customer.

Category: social media
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Sharing about Social Media in the Enterprise – Greenville, SC – 10/12

Posted on | October 10, 2009 | Comments

Updated: Slides embedded below and on SlideShare

I’m heading out to Greenville, SC to this weekend at the invitation of Trey Pennington to speak to the great members of  Social Media Club – Greenville on Monday morning (Facbook Event link) about Social Media in the Enterprise.  I’m going to cover the why, the how and the what about social media at Ruby Tuesday, Inc.  If you’ve wondered about how large companies think about and use social media – this will be a great chance to hear more about it.

Social Media In The Enterprise – SMC Greenville

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I’ve got the honor of following the great panel from last month – (watch the video captured by Bobby Rettew).

Spike Jones of Brains on Fire
Olivier Blanchard of The Brand Builder
Jeff Elder from the Charlotte Observer
Top Chef’s Celebrity Chef Michael Parise

The deets – Monday, October 12, 2009

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Category: social media
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Ning vs Facebook – a comparison of social networks at odds.

Posted on | October 10, 2009 | Comments

Ning-FB-Analysis

UPDATED: 10/14/09 with new information about groups.

I developed this comparison (download) of Ning and Facebook for an internal discussion, but figured I’d share it since there didn’t seem to be much on the Internet in terms of a direct breakdown.

As an overview, Ning is a site that easily allows the creation of free private social networks.

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