Mitch Joel's Blog: Six Pixels of Separation, page 340

Social Media And How We're Botching The Best Part

You can measure everything online, so why aren't we?

eMarketer published a news item today titled, 2012 Trends: Social Media Metrics Take Center Stage. The beauty and promise of the digital channels is that Marketers can measure, track and play with analytics unlike any other advertising or marketing channel that we have ever seen before. And yet, with all of this potential and opportunity, we're trapped with a "me too" mentality that finds more and more brands doings things in Social Media with the sole purpose of making sure that they're just keeping up with The Joneses (the competition), instead of carving a unique path and making sure (on the upfront) that they're establishing both relevant and money-thinking return on investment programs.

Here's the truth...

This is what the eMarketer news item says: "The Econsultancy report 'The State of Social Media 2011' noted that 41% of marketers surveyed had no return on investment figure for any of the money they had spent on social channels as of October 2011. Further, only 8% could attribute ROI for all their investments in social media. The survey sample was primarily UK companies, with some representation from other territories. A 2011 MarketingSherpa study noted that only 20% of US agencies and consultancies surveyed said their clients thought social media marketing was producing measurable ROI. However, 64% said clients were confident that this form of marketing would eventually deliver a return and were willing to conservatively invest in it."

We're doing it all wrong.

For Marketing to elevate itself within the c-suite, we can't be recklessly playing with Marketing tactics (especially newer ones that don't have the established credibility) to be pushing programs out there with the hope that there may... eventually... be some kind of ROI. This is the business equivalent of running around like chickens with their heads cut off (which was never a pleasant or appetizing visual). There are probably countless reasons why this is happening, but gazing at that quote from the eMarketer news item above, it seems clear that most brands jump in because their competitors are doing it. It also seems like they're trying a lot of different things in the hopes that something will hit, click or get talked about.

Start with the strategy.

While it may sound redundant (if you've ever read this Blog before), when you start with a strategy, you're defining your goals, key performance indicators and the desired outcomes prior to publishing anything. As a core component to the strategy, you should also define the metrics and how they will be measured (the analytics). It's fine if there are certain components that you can't measure (i.e. some of the more semantic dialog that may take place on a channel like Facebook because brands don't get access to all of the data), but beyond that: don't do anything that doesn't add economic value to the company (as my friend and distinguished marketing professor, Ken Wong, likes to say).

If you can't measure it, benchmark it and iterate on it it... don't do it... please.

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Innovations In The Idea Economy

The Idea Economy is all about education.

Personal digital learning is a reality. How we adapt, nurture, embrace and create this reality will be one of our biggest challenges. This is the message of Tom Vander Ark. Today, Tom was called "an edu-futurist par excellence" by Fast Company in the article, Why Google Is The Most Important Learning Tool Ever Invented.

This is fascinating... and this is a fascinating TED Talk.

Please take eleven minutes out of your very busy schedule and watch Tom Vander Ark's TEDx talk for a glimpse of how we can prepare our kids for the idea economy...

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The Line

What happens when great Marketing creative goes bad?

It's the oldest story in the advertising book: the agency will blame the client for getting too involved in everything from the creative brief down to the casting, and the client will blame the agency for pushing the brand too far - well beyond their comfort zone. It's not uncommon to hear war stories that involve everyone else in the organization (and beyond) getting their opinions in on the decision making process - from the corporate affairs department to the CEO's wife. "Too many cooks in the kitchen"? It's the oldest line in the book, but it's hardly the reason.

There's a lot of bad advertising out there.

TV, radio, print, out of home, online, mobile and beyond. You name it. Lots of sucky advertising polluting our senses. This is where things get confusing. You'll often hear consumers say that they hate advertising. They don't. Consumers (and I'm one of them) hate bad advertising. The problem/challenge/opportunity is that there's a lot of very bad advertising floating around out there. From bad creative to a lack of targeting to the simple fact that a lot of advertising is not executed well... at all.

It's good to analyze the bad.

It's pretty easy to get excited about great advertising. It moves us. It inspires us. It makes us cry. It makes us think. It gives us moment to pause...  and more. Don't get me wrong, I admire great advertising just like the next Marketing professional, but I'm much more interested in bad advertising (I'm not joking). When I see a terribly executed creative, I don't shut off the TV, skip the commercial or flip the page in a magazine or newspaper. I look at it. I wonder which agency produced it? I wonder about how much the budget was? What the creative brief might have first looked like? What got it to the point where I'm seeing it and shaking my head in disbelief? It's like a strange, sick game in which I hope that - by deconstructing everything from the first client/agency meeting to the media company's placement - I'll be able to figure out how things went so terribly wrong. I know what you're thinking... and you're right: it's a hopeless and depressing game that will only make me question why so many smart and creative people work together in an industry where our advertising can turn out so bland.

Draw a line in the sand.

Ultimately, it's a a fool's game and the only constant realization that comes to me - as I stare blankly at a major brand who is working with one of the leading creative shops and developed a steaming pile of messaging - is: "someone should have drawn a line." Things can always go too far: from ideation to budget and overall campaign management. The challenge is in identifying up front (and mark it in bold at the top of the creative brief) where the line is. It has to be a line that no one is willing to cross or drop below (it's simply not allowed). This way, even if things go awry, you have the lighthouse to navigate you back to why everyone (and all of this money) is sitting in these different offices trying to make this brand successful. When you look at bad advertising, it becomes abundantly clear that the lines either did not exist or (and this one is more likely) that the lines moved. If someone moves the line, the bar gets dropped and this is how we wind up in a scenario where the last line uttered before stamping it final sounds like, "screw it, this was the best that we could do."

I wish more brands and their agencies would draw more lines... don't you?

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The Best Piece Of Business Travel Advice

I use one particular technique/tactic that makes business travel all that much more palpable.

It's also a technique I rarely see mentioned anywhere. It has nothing to do with the type of luggage to use (but, for the record, you should use either the Eagle Creek Tarmac 22 or the Eagle Creek Traverse Pro 22), how to pack (use the Eagle Creek Pack-It System, how to accumulate air mile points or how to get entry into the lounge. It also has nothing to do with getting through security faster (hint: get a Nexus Card!) or how to best make use of down time, flight delays or cancellations.

It's all about getting home. 

The most frequent question I get asked is how I cope with travelling so much. The truth is that I don't feel like I'm away from home or the Twist Image offices all that much because my frequency of travel is mostly due to my desire to race back home as quickly as possible. There are many instances where I'm gone (back and forth) on the same day and I make a rule to only sleep outside of my own bed for one night (two nights - at the maximum). But, that's not the best piece of business travel advice I can offer you. Those are all both business and personal choices that you have to make. The impetus for my best piece of business travel advice comes from the notion that I want to be home (as much as possible) for my family. So, how does this all come together?...

Check the flights first.

Most people get a request to meet and they immediately accept. Prior to accepting the meeting, I check the airlines to see what my options are first. More often than not, it's possible to get in and out on the same day (without too much rushing). If I have to sleep over in a hotel, I can also organize my meeting time, so that it best suits my family needs first. By checking the airlines, I can then reach back out to the client and ask for a specific meeting time (it's usually a large enough window in the day that it's both possible and acceptable to the client). Yes, I realize that this is sometimes difficult to do (especially if they only have one, specific, time slot available), but it's worth the shot. If you don't ask, you don't get. More often than not, the clients are also understanding (both of the time request and the extra effort that comes from the uncertainty of air travel).

This does not work all of the time.

There are many people who do not like the stress of air travel and would rather be on site a day earlier or have the evening to relax after the meeting. I recognize that this technique may not be optimal for all. On top of that, this advice works best if you do have a higher level of airline status and the ability to brisk through security. Along with having Super Elite status (and trust me, I'm not bragging here... ), both my American Express credit card and Nexus Card allow me to move through security and customs at a very quick pace, and this also makes this technique that much more valuable.

What if it fails?

Flights do get cancelled for many reasons. They are delayed often too. There's no doubt that this technique can pose a problem (so don't do it if it's a life-changing meeting!), but so long as everyone is clear on the up-front about this, people seem to understand if it's a circumstance beyond your control. The only additional caveat to this technique (and the possible downside for others) is that I book the flight out as early as possible in the morning. This way, there is a window and/or options should there be a delay or cancellation. I, obviously, don't use this technique one hundred percent of the time. It is situational. That being said, I find that checking flights first - before confirming the meeting time - has changed my life. It has made my schedule that much more flexible and finds me in a position where - at the very least - I'm either dropping the kids off at school if I can't see them at night or reading stories and putting them to bed in the evening if I'm out in the early morning.

What's the best piece of business travel advice that you have?

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Breaking All Of Twitter's Rules

Is there a sure-fire way to be successful using Twitter ?

Business books, Blog posts, magazine articles, tumblr feeds, newspaper articles, TV news segments and yes, even tweets, have been written about what it takes for both individuals and brands to be successful on Twitter. Allow me to sum up some of the more commonly-held recommendations for Twitter success:

Get in early. Evan Williams (co-founder of Twitter) joined in March of 2006. Chris Brogan (Human Business Works and co-author with Julien Smith of the best-selling business book, Trust Agents) joined in October of 2006. Personally, I was a little late to the game (joining in February of 2007). I can't imagine what it would be like to join Twitter today in an attempt to grow an audience. With so many people using the service (and yes, this includes those who are simply stalking celebrities), it is hard to gain traction and maintain it.

Follow a lot of people. It makes sense. The more people that you follow, the more likelihood there will be for people to not only follow you back, but to acknowledge you and connect. While it's not about "how many" people you connect with (I'd argue that it's about "who" you connect with), it's obvious that this tactic should be applied.

Follow-back those who follow you. This is a contentious point that depends on who you ask. For many people, this is both a common courtesy and the smart move to make. If you follow back everyone that follows you, you wind up meeting lots of new and interesting people. The major debate around this point is based on the quantity versus quality argument: if you follow back everyone, it makes your Twitter stream somewhat noisy. If you only follow back those who are truly interesting to you, it's a better way to curate content and dive deeper into some of the meatier conversations. Both sides to this argument have valid stances.

Tweet frequently and consistently. Twitter (like much of the new Internet) is a live, real-time environment. If you don't tweet often, there is a likelihood that you (and your content) will get lost in the river of tweets. If you tweet only once a day, and the majority of people who follow you are not online then, your tweet is rarely seen or acted on. Adding on to the complexity of this is our globally connected world where both timezones and work lifestyles also factor into the equation. Think about this way: if you tweet from New York City, odds are your European audience interaction will be less than if you were based in Paris and tweeting when everyone else was equally active. Remember, real-time Web makes the amount of followers not as important as when individuals are actually online, connected, following and reading you.

Tweet very original things (not just links). If all that's being tweeted is links and your not spending the time to think of anything original to say, you won't find much traction either. The brands and individuals who are the most successful on Twitter are those who create content in a very original way.

Make it personal and respond back to as many people as possible. If you don't respond, acknowledge and discuss things with people following you on Twitter, it will be a useless and terrible experience. Those who truly have massive audiences and attention are the ones who respond back to anyone and everyone. The people that you respond back to will then feel special and this make them more likely to retweet your content and ask their followers to follow you too. This is online social networking... not a broadcasting channel.

Become a celebrity. Scott Stratten (@unmarketing) often tells the story of the hours, weeks and months he spent head down in Twitter as his platform of choice (and to build an audience). He has been wildly successful at it! (along with a best-selling book, speaking gigs and nearly 110,000 Twitter followers). As Scott likes to say, he's kind of a big deal on Twitter. If you play your cards right, focus and follow the steps above, you too can make a name for yourself. For some (and this includes many brands), having the attention of hundreds of thousand of followers is not only a big deal, but it does make them celebrities.

You can also do the exact opposite.

Avinash Kaushik is not only a personal friend, he's the Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google and author of two-best selling business books (Web Analytics - An Hour A Day and Web Analytics 2.0). When you compare what Avinash does on Twitter to the commonly-held beliefs above, you may be surprised to learn:

He started tweeting on July 30th, 2008.

He only follows 88 people. He also jokes that if he finds someone else he would like to follow, someone on his list of 88 has to get booted off. 88 is his maximum amount of followers and he says he's sticking to it.

With close to 65,000 followers, it's also obvious that he refuses to follow back everyone just because they're following him.

He only tweets a couple of times a day. That's it.

He prefers to tweet out things that have caught his attention. This makes the majority of his content link to other places and not his original thinking (you can get that on his Blog, Occam's Razor).

While he does respond to people using the @ sign, it seems to be secondary to his sharing of what's interesting to him.

He is a celebrity and there's no doubt that Twitter has propelled his status within the Digital Marketing and Web analytics world.

This is not about Avinash Kaushik.

The point is that everyone has an opinion about why something is successful and why other things fail. Brands (and individuals) are constantly looking for both best practices and ROI in Social Media (and Twitter is no exception). What we learn by looking at the commonly-held beliefs and then comparing them to people like Avinash Kaushik (and he's not the only one), is that Twitter is simply an open publishing platform. It's a place for people to put content (short, 140 characters worth of text-based content) and that success can often come from not following the rules, but by breaking them. Why? Twitter (like Blogs, Podcasts and YouTube) is simply a publishing platform. Twitter (and many of the other Social Media channels) allow individuals and brands to highlight, share and connect on the things that can't be explained in a traditional advertising campaign or through press releases. As with everything in life, people like real interactions between real human beings, and these channels are most effective when brands and individuals start doing the things that they think are interesting in the hopes that other's feel that way too.

Often, breaking all of the rules is what it takes to develop your own best case studies, ROI and metrics. 

The above posting is my twice-monthly column for The Huffington Post called, Media Hacker . I cross-post it here with all the links and tags for your reading pleasure, but you can check out the original version online here:

The Huffington Post - Breaking All of Twitter's Rules .

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Media Hacks #40 Is Now Live

Episode #281 of Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast is now live and ready for you to listen to. This is also episode #40 of Media Hacks!

Joining me for this Media Hacks chat is C.C. Chapman, Hugh McGuire and Julien Smith. In a world of unconferences, crowdsourcing and Social Media, it's surprising how many people struggle with the messages coming out of the Occupy Wall Street movement. If anything, it is a testament to everything that has been built in these online channels for the past decade. In this episode, we look at the media, the messages and how - in a world of media fragmentation - we can't be freaked out when people's messages become fragmented as well. This is not so much about politics as it is about the media, messages and the social implications of power and publishing. As with all episodes of Media Hacks, some of the language is not safe for work (blame Julien). Enjoy the conversation...

You can grab the latest episode of Six Pixels of Separation here (or feel free to subscribe via iTunes): Six Pixels of Separation - The Twist Image Podcast #281.

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Six Links Worthy Of Your Attention #75

Is there one link, story, picture or thought that you saw online this week that you think somebody you know must see?

My friends: Alistair Croll (BitCurrent, Year One Labs, GigaOM, Human 2.0, the author of Complete Web Monitoring and Managing Bandwidth: Deploying QOS in Enterprise Networks), Hugh McGuire (The Book Oven, LibriVox, iambik, PressBooks, Media Hacks) and I decided that every week or so the three of us are going to share one link for one another (for a total of six links) that each individual feels the other person "must see".

Check out these six links that we're recommending to one another:

How the War on Terror Has Militarized the Police - The Atlantic . "We're seeing a lot of police activity in the US these days, and much of it is violent. US Marines are required to adhere to the Geneva Conventions , which means that (among other things) they treat wounded enemies and don't attack medical workers. But police forces seem to have just as much force as armies, with none of the constraints. This Atlantic piece looks at the militarization of domestic law enforcement. Yikes." (Alistair for Hugh).

Mary Meeker's 2011 Presentation On Internet Trends - TechCrunch . "Roughly a year ago, I listed Mary Meeker 's presentation on the state of the Web as one of my weekly links. She updated it, and it should be required reading for any geek or entrepreneur. I particularly like her reconsidered hierarchy of needs: Food and water; shelter; and the Internet." (Alistair for Mitch).

UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car - YouTube . "On November 18, University of California Davis police - at the request of the university chancellor - moved in on some of the Occupy protesters on the university campus. You can find the YouTube video of one of the cops pepper spraying a group of seated, peaceful student protesters. It's jarring stuff. There was an uproar - demands for Chancellor Katehi 's resignation from students and faculty. Katehi held a press conference, to which students were barred. This is what happened when when she left the building. An incredible piece of video, the kind of stuff we never would have seen before the Web." (Hugh for Alistair).

Ignorance is bliss when it comes to challenging social issues - SciGuru . "Will education about the huge issues facing humanity save us from all the stupid decisions humans make? Maybe not: 'The less people know about important complex issues such as the economy, energy consumption and the environment, the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed.'" (Hugh for Mitch).

Anatomy of Facebook - Facebook Blog . "You can imagine how many Tweets, Facebook messages and Blog posts I got this week when Facebook announced that there are no longer six degrees of separation between us all, but rather 4.74 degrees of separation. I keep trying to explain to people that it's no longer about degrees... it's pixels... we are all intrinsically connected. That notwithstanding, this Blog post digs into the data and analytics of how Facebook compiled this very interesting dataset. Think about it this way: the original "six degrees of separation" study (done in the late sixties) used 296 volunteers. Facebook's research is culled from over 700 million Facebook users - which is more than one tenth of the world's population. Big data FTW!" (Mitch for Alistair).

Russian billionaires battle for Fisher Island - Miami New Times . "This is the kind of story you could see Ben Mezrich writing about and turning into a Hollywood blockbuster. It's almost too surreal to believe that this is not a work of fiction. As the Occupy Wall Street movement continues to capture the interest of the world, this story will give you pause. If we're talking about the 99% versus the 1%, I wonder who these people are? The 0.0001%? This is a crazy story... only made crazier by the fact that it's true. Ahh, the wonders of business and real estate and sharks." (Mitch for Hugh).

Now it's your turn: in the comment section below pick one thing that you saw this week that inspired you and share it.

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The Bright Side Of Black Friday

Everybody loves a deal.

This is the primary reason that some people are willing to endure riots, tramplings and even pepper-spray to save some money on a flat screen. It's the same mentality when it comes to giving out some of our most personal and private information, if in return we can get some coupons. While some of our population shakes their collective heads in disbelief, this is a very true reality of modern day marketing. Black Friday is one of those days when we wind up seeing the worst in people. Those who get the deals camp out for hours on end on unforgiving cement, and those who don't get the deals wind up trying to pick the retail shelves dry while muttering their disdain for the retailer under their breathe.

Black Friday doesn't have to be so black.

Smiles are free. I'm sure you've heard that saying (or others like it). Simple things like, "please, thank you, you're welcome, is there anything else I can do for you?, etc..." are free as well. We often forget that it's the little things that create the best experiences. When I visit the Toronto office of Twist Image (which happens multiple times every month), I stay at a boutique hotel called, Le Germaine. While the hotel is very high-end and fancy, it's should not come as a surprise that they do tons of little things too (like chocolates at night, a personalized note from the hotel manager, green apples at the front desk and on every floor). They also go a little bit further: they also remember that I like using my iPhone as my alarm clock at night, so they plug an extension chord for me from the wall to the bed. Technically, this isn't a big hurdle for them (someone must have put it in my file and once they're prepping my room, it's not a complex task), but it makes me feel like I'm at home, like they care and that they care about my business (enough to mention it here, there and everywhere). How much did that little thing cost them? Not much.

Black Friday can be like that too.

If there are people lining up from three o'clock in the morning in front of your store to score a special price on a panini grill, why not make that experience as pleasant as possible? Think about what you can do:

Hand out some blankets.

Give out some coffee and little treats (what about a bake sale with the proceeds going to charity?).

Invite a local musician to entertain the audience (or let them busk for money!).

Simply walk the line and shake the hands of the people waiting for the store to open and thank them for their patronage.

Encourage people to connect to one another.

Play a fun game.

Give some stuff away (or create more rebates).

You get the idea.

If the sole purpose of Black Friday is for the retailers to clean their shelves or to get a whole whack of people into their stores, they can ignore the past five hundred words that I've written. If the real purpose of Black Friday is to get consumers to sample your retail brand by getting a special saving and then having them develop a sense of loyalty to the brand (which will lead them to positively answer Fred Reichheld's ultimate question), then few brands are even close to getting it right. Think about it this way: the sales and specials are going to happen anyways, why not leverage this great moment in time to actually create a great and loyalty-engendering moment?

Seems like the right (and smart) thing to do.

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Marketing Is About Extensions Not Adaptations

When does Digital Marketing get interesting?

There are two worlds when it comes to Digital Marketing:

World #1 = Adaptation. This is when the client already has a brand campaign that is headed to market and is looking for a digital component that falls in with every other piece of media. They are, in essence, looking for their brand campaign to be adapted to the digital channels.

World #2 = Extension. Some will call this "transmedia" but I tend to think of this as how the online channels can help extend and tell the brand story in a way that fits the media, instead of trying to make the media bend to the will of an existing advertising campaign. This is an original execution that, ultimately, fits in to a more cohesive brand narrative.

The true challenge? 

Unfortunately, too many people in our industry confuse the words "advertising" with "marketing". It's (somewhat) tragic when a great brand gets trapped in an advertising campaign and feels that the only way to make it work in the digital channels is to simply adapt it for the Web. Extensions are just so much more interesting. Think about it this way: you can adapt your 30-second spot for a banner ad or you can re-imagine your 30-second spot by taking the essence and thinking about what you can do with online video (don't you find it tragic when a brand's only online video content is their 30-second spots randomly posted to YouTube?).

It's Thanksgiving. Let's be thankful.

Instead of trying to cram an advertising campaign into something digital (or worse, something "social"), let's be thankful. Don't think of the Internet (or mobile or touch) as a media channel. Think of it as a publishing platform. You can put whatever you want into it (text, images, audio, video) and you can tell stories (short-form or long-form). You can connect, collaborate, share and deep dive. Marketing is challenged by Digital Marketing. For the most part, Marketers are (still) being dragged into it, kicking and screaming. It is (still) very foreign to them - especially those who have been running at the campaign level.

If it's just a place to put a message...

We're not only missing the point, but we're not thinking about the future (the short-term future). We're not only missing the point, but we're not thinking about how we move marketing away from a (mostly) broadcasting mindset. We're not only missing the point, but we're not thinking about our consumers (how they're connected, what they're looking for and how to be a part of it). We're not only missing the point, but we're missing a huge, new and exciting opportunity.

Think extensions. Ask for permission to kill the adaptations... and just be thankful that we have the choices and options.

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Good To Great To Different

Is Apple a truly great company?

The answer seems obvious. Now reframe that thought and think about what truly makes Apple - as a company - great. Is it their revenue? Product innovation? How they changed our lives across a handful of media channels? Was it all Steve Jobs? In the past few weeks, there have been several instances where I've found myself taking a step back and asking myself, "what does it take to become a great company?" In fact, as I write that question out, I realize it is flawed. I think the company I own (along with business partners), Twist Image, is a great company (from the work we do to the people who make it happen), so maybe the real question I've been thinking about is, "what does it take to become one of the greatest companies in the world?" (dream big, right?). After reading the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson, I quickly realized that any attempts to model Twist Image after Apple would fail because Jobs is a unique leader (and, when I say "unique," I mean someone I am not willing to model myself after). It could well be that the success of Apple is something that no other company could ever replicate. It was an anomaly. In fact, let's see how Apple, itself, performs in a post-Steve Jobs environment (only time will tell).

Or was it an anomaly?

Two pieces of content caught my attention in the past little while: The first was an article in the November 2011 issue of Harvard Business Review titled, What Great Companies Do Differently (subscription required). The second, showed up today via Marketing Magazine titled, How Agencies Can Blow Off Commoditization. Think about this (via the Marketing Magazine article): "Being smart, creative people with cool solutions to complex client business problems does not mean they are different or immune from the disease of creeping commoditization. Being better isn't good enough... It is not a better experience, it is a different experience. Doing great work, getting great business results and all the analytics that go with it are not enough to sustain the growth (quantitative and qualitative) of a marketing communications company. People who keep repeating 'it's all about the work' are naive. It's all about the gestalt. It's all about everything, never about one thing or one idea."

Think different.

"It's about the work. It's about the money. It's about the growth." How many businesses do you know that run on those fumes? Let's face it, Wall Street is based on those metrics. When was the last time a business was awarded a bigger market share simply because they think differently? It's amazing to read through the Harvard Business Review, Marketing Magazine and the Steve Jobs biography only to uncover that "different" seems to trump the notion of greatness... considerably. The next era of business is clearly about those who can create and build "digital-age economies" (as Isaacson calls them) with a combination of creativity, technology and the right people. Great companies are companies that, clearly, think differently. That Harvard Business Review article defines specific core values that make a different company a great company like:

A common purpose.

A long-term focus.

Emotional engagement.

Partnering with the public.

Innovation

Self-Organization.

Care and care alike.

If the Occupy Wall Street movement is the beginning of a new world order/change, we could well see a world that looks at winning businesses not based on how big they are based on revenues, but on which companies are truly doing something different. Imagine that. A world where business does indeed become personal and the job matters less than the combined work we're all doing to make our own little dents in the world. Personally, the greatest companies are the ones who are doing something different. Personally, the greatest companies are the ones who are not just pumping out record sales and volume growth. Imagine a world where the top-line dollars are truly not the mitigating factor of a company's greatness.

What do you think it takes for a company to be great?

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walter isaacson