To go on the record: I hate messages that aren’t email (I don’t really love email, but at least it’s standardized). Facebook messages, twitter DM’s, Linkedin messages and a host of other isolated systemic proprietary messages are perpetual pricks in my side as I attempt to stay connected and informed.  Why you ask?  Because each of those sites (except twitter) makes me use their interface to reply.  Which I understand drives their page views and impressions and helps drive their revenues and/or valuations, but leaves me in a lurch when I read the message you send me on facebook in my email and then I neglect to jump over to facebook.com and write you back, thus killing the exchange.

Not to mention, like most of you I’ve got a lot of these accounts hiding out, and I’d like them all to be connected.  You know, so that when someone sends me a facebook message I can find that in my giant file called “Archive” in Gmail as well as the reply I sent them back when I search for communications from them.  So like Michael Arrington called for an imap for our facebook inbox I’d appreciate that type of interconnectivity between my email and my facebook.

But recently I had an epiphany. (Well at least call it a moment of enlightenment) – Facebook is that giant folder, at least for my address book.  Let’s take the following scenario.  I want to email connect with a friend from college.

Pre-my enlightenment I’d look him up in my address book and see what the address I had for him was.  Maybe if I was lucky he’d be on Plaxo and would be updated.  If not, I’d then resort to polling friends and trying to see who had his info.

Post-my enlightenment I just hop onto facebook and shoot him a message.  I don’t need his email (though facebook would have that too) because we’re both on facebook.

Truthfully, I’d still like to have his updated email in my address book and not stuck in facebook – but for now, I’ll take access to him over no access.

What about you?

I have this quote (picture above) by Bruce Nussbaum on my wall. I put it up about a year and a half ago and I still believe it’s true. This isn’t a post on a radical new idea, but rather recalling it as a reminder. Here’s the quote:

Social media is upending relationships between customers and corporations, brand owners and brand creators, consumers and producers, centralized authority and anarchistic periphery and-pay attention here-designers and their audiences. People want to design their own experiences, or at least have a big voice in it. With Web 2.0 technology and blogs, they get that voice. People are increasingly designing their own shoes and clothes, their own screen pages, their own interfaces, their own homes. And when they’re not, they want designers and managers to really understand what they have to say. Nike is changing the way it designs and manufactures because of social networking. So are dozens of other companies. Yes, we will always have our brilliant geniuses who intuit their audiences and create wonderful experiences for them. Ive and Jobs at Apple. Bang & Olufsen and its incredible designers and designs. But even Apple is getting hit very hard on the sustainability issue because it isn’t listening to its social networks. Brands have ideologies. They stand for things. People believe in those things. When the culture of Apples’ customers changes, as it is happening today, it has to move with it. You, as designers, can’t just do ethnology anymore. You have to join with those you’re observing to be in their culture and create with them.

The sections I’ve highlighted above and will discuss below are:

People are increasingly designing their own shoes and clothes, their own screen pages, their own interfaces, their own homes. And when they’re not, they want designers and managers to really understand what they have to say.

You have to join with those you’re observing to be in their culture and create with them

What’s great is that a lot, A LOT of companies have embraced the ethos of the quote and they are realizing that times have changed and HOW they relate to customers and HOW customers relate to them has changed. People now have the voice and aren’t afraid to communicate. I’m not talking exclusively about twitter or blogs, because those are amplifiers of communication. Culture has changed and people expect to be able to choose their own experience.

So how do we listen? First, I think we have to care. Secondly, we need to ask questions and make listening a priority. Which isn’t just a media awareness strategy, it’s not responding to those people though those are both good things. It’s making a priority to connect with your customers, and your future customers.

Then, we can bridge to the question “How do we let people choose their own experience?” I believe we should ask, and not that their answers are the 100% answer, but they’ll lead to them. Which will equal better customer engagement and support and ultimately brand loyalty.

What stops us? I think it’s fear, fear of loss of control. Fear that they might change the brand. Or on a more personal level, it’s fear that their ideas might be better then ours. Fear that we’re not the best.

But the great thing is, if their idea is better then yours, that’s ok. Because you made it happen. And if your brand changes, that’s ok too because it’s growth. Growth from real customers.

Wouldn’t you rather have growth from customers vs company stagnation?

I would.

Do not seek praise.  Seek criticism.

- Paul Arden

Fueled by that quote, I want to strengthen some areas in my life that I’m not a 10/10.  My goal isn’t to become well-rounded, I just want to make improvements in this area. I’d rather be freaking awesome at a couple things, then just ok at 48. I firmly believe that leaders do not do everything well, and the ones that try, end up burnt out and worse, but that’s a topic for a later post.

I want to be a better public speaker.

The why is a bit more complicated – but I know I’m not currently good at speaking in front of people and I want to get better at communicating and this is one part of me improving. But I know I don’t want to be a motivational speaker.

Sometimes saying it is half the battle, but I’m sure it will take a bit more in this case.  So I need help to know what the best plan is.  My natural inclination would be to read a bunch of books and equip myself with knowledge however I think there are some things I just need to do and I’m wondering if this is one of those.

So what did you do? What’s the best plan?

Is it to just start speaking places? Or start reading about speaking?

I look forward to hearing from you and  your thoughts in the comments.

Google’s just brought in a new technology for their book search called “Scratch and Sniff” – check it out on the book below.

The Cheese Companion

Happy April Fools Day!
Gotta love companies with a sense of humor. What are some other companies that have played jokes today?

I was sitting at our local Panera last week at a booth right next to the soft drinks. It’s not really a clutch spot for an uninterrupted lunch, but if I hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have noticed a very interesting trend. There is a floor mat right under the drinks, and the corners kept getting kicked up by the customers. Every couple minutes an employee that walked by would reach down and flip the corner back down. This probably happened three times while we sat there.

The next time it was kicked up, a manager was the next employee to walk by, he reached down and pulled the mat back towards him to flatten it out, and the rest of the time we were there, it didn’t get kicked up again.

After I saw the manager react differently to the situation, it brought to my mind a post on Brains on Fire blog, “How well do you do not my job“.  In their excellent post, it brings up the question, how well do you do the things that aren’t explicitly “your” job, i.e. out of your job description.  At Panera it was the manager who did “not my job” well.  I’d venture to say that in todays world, companies that are full of people who act, even when it is not within their official job to act will come out ahead of those who don’t.  People who work with this mindset will in most cases care for the customer better.

Who is it at your company?  Is it you?

Check out their post, have it rock your world.

Have a great day.