Brian Solis's Blog, page 108

Live Your Brand the Way Your Customers Do

For the record, the image above attributes the quote, “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” I know these aren’t the words of Darwin as a result of research that went into my book, The End of Business as Usual in which I introduce the concept of Digital Darwinism (the evolution of society and technology vs. the ability to adapt). The earliest known appearance of this statement is a paraphrase of Darwin in the writings of Leon C. Megginson, a management sociologist at Louisiana State University.*

I recently spent some time with PRNews editor Steve Goldstein. As part of a fireside chat we’re doing at the upcoming 20/20 Summit in San Francisco, Steve asked a few questions that lead to a pretty deep conversation. I wanted to share it with you here.

Digital Darwinism is Real: Define the Future Now

PR News: In your book “What’s the Future of Business?” you suggest that while it’s a good thing that companies are investing more resources in managing their online reputations, the cost can be immense and the efforts are rarely aligned with customer expectations. What are many companies getting wrong in their engagement with customers and stakeholders?

Brian Solis: Companies are still bringing a dictator-like approach to engagement. They’re still broadcasting communications. It’s still “we speak, you listen.” Public relations, marketing and social media teams still try to own the conversation rather than invest in it, shape it or become part of it. It’s almost as if we put the “me” in social media and not the “we” in the social web. This is about relationships and people, not about marketing, sales or corporate communications. The more we remember that we are part of the networks as human beings, the more we can act as human beings and not as corporate functions.

PR News: If, as you have written, businesses should shift their engagement from being reactive online to creating positive experiences, what should PR and marketing professionals do to lead that shift internally, given that they don’t always have a seat at the table with senior management?

Solis: The element that’s missing the most is that of empathy and understanding. Most PR pros and marketers act without understanding or build without knowing what the complete experience is of their brand as it exists today. They just keep shoveling new and creative campaigns and material into this fire for fear that the fire would burn out otherwise. Without knowing what that experience is right now we can’t honestly know what needs to be fixed or have a vision of what that experience should be. And that’s what all of this change is about—it’s about becoming experience architects and using technology, creativity and empathy to build better experiences and relationships.

When PR and marketing pros have empathy with their audience they’ll have confidence, and when they have confidence they can create a sense of urgency and opportunity with senior leaders around the need to change. Executives have a hard time appreciating what needs to change because they don’t live their brand the way their customers do, and if they don’t live it they can’t understand why adapting to evolving audience expectations is so important.

PR News: You point out that the way people connect and communicate has changed, and only those organizations that can adapt to these changes will survive. Taking that to the personal level, what must professional communicators do to survive and thrive?

Solis: Digital Darwinism is very real. And it supposes that technology and society evolves with or without us. Unfortunately, I see many PR pros and marketers trying to take their prior experience and apply it to this digital world. The future of our careers and our role in both the revolution and evolution is to start with an open mind to see what’s different, to see how things have changed. And then develop strategies that move us in new directions. Much of what’s taking place today evokes common psychological responses such as denial, skepticism and derision. Unfortunately that gets in our way of seeing where we can learn and change in a world that is changing before us.

PR News: What is one takeaway you want Social Media 20/20 Summit attendees to bring back to their daily tasks?

Solis: I’m reminded of a Tolstoy quote: “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” What I want people to take back is to realize that they can’t sit and wait for someone to show them the path forward. This is a time where the people in that room in San Francisco and the people reading this now have to realize that change happens because of them—because of what they’re going to do to change the future right now.

The sooner people realize that they are the change agents, the faster change comes.

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*[Megginson, Leon C. (1963). “Lessons from Europe for American Business.

The Disconnect in Connecting the Workplace

There’s a lot of talk about the future of work…

Technology is indeed connecting us in ways that improve communication, discovery and connectivity. The world is becoming a much smaller place as a result. Chances are that you are connected in one network or another to people in at least 12 other countries. Although social networking and smartphones are relatively new as a staple in the everyday life of adults and kids, how we as consumers use these networks and devices is outpacing how we as employees use technology in the workplace. Over time, how we make decisions as consumers, what we come to expect from the companies that we do business with, and simply how we want to work with them is shifting the balance of power away from today’s business models to the connected masses.

Seems logical and almost commonsensical. The challenge however is that companies are anchored by decades or years of technology investments and the existing philosophies and processes that govern and support them today. But it doesn’t stop there. These connected customers though aren’t the only ones we need to understand, they also represent a growing percentage of our workforce.

Fighting Fire with Fire Will Only Burn Everything to the Ground

In my research, I’ve found that many executives are well aware of the onslaught of new technology. Many however, are unsure of how to solve the problem or even address what the problem really is for that matter. There are those in IT who are drafting new plans that alter long-established roadmaps to evaluate emergent social and mobile technologies. Some are bolting-on trendy technologies onto legacy systems to apply what will only prove to be a temporary fix. As my friend Stowe Boyd, a web anthropologist and futurist often says, “You can’t teach old tech new tricks.”

Either way, social and mobile threw a curveball. It wasn’t just because the technology overtook the world in a matter of a few short years, it’s that social media and mobile apps changed the behavior of people who use them. Suddenly businesses have to rethink…everything. Yet, how they’re structure today symbolizes an old guard of command and control approaches where employees use technology bestowed upon them because it was gospel. In today’s world though, all I can say is “good luck with that strategy.” More often than not, the technology we force onto people forces them to conform to a way of work dictated by technology and those who govern it within the organization rather than use technology as a seamless enabler to get work done, individually or collectively, the way that people organically use technology in their personal life.

Technology is most effective when it is invisible.

Throwing technology at the problem isn’t the answer. Technology is an enabler and we must see it for what it unlocks or facilitates. But that comes down to us not as information architects but as architects of collaboration and work to do something greater than what we accomplish today. With all of the hype, and fatigue, around new tech, it’s easy to get caught up in what’s hot and what’s next.

Technology is part of the solution but it’s also part of the problem.

In my research as a digital analyst and anthropologist, I explore the dynamics of human behavior from a bottom-up or escalation perspective. The conundrum facing IT and businesses overall, is that the philosophies and systems governing the way we work are traditionally designed from that of a top-down approach. Yet how we use technology in our real life is completely different than what we use or how we use it to get the job done.

Businesses can’t look at new tech as a solution until executives understand what it is they’re really trying to solve for or enable now and over time.

Intranets languish.

Knowledge sharing isn’t shared as much as businesses hoped.

Collaboration tools inhibit true collaboration.

Mobile access looks and feels nothing like the way our personal mobile apps feel and function.

So what’s the answer?

Social streams that allow people to feel like they’re tweeting inside their company?

Geo-location apps that allow them to check in to cafés or meeting rooms?

Facebook-like collaboration networks that allow employees to network and work with each other.

Shift to iOS and Android phones and tablets because you have to thanks to the momentum of employees + BYOD (bring your own device).

Cloud anything…because cloud!

Gamification rewards to incentivize people to use internal tech because they get points and there’s a leaderboard to show who’s winning?

It all sounds like it will work until of course, it doesn’t.

Why is that the case?

The answers are simple yet revealing…

When Technology Fails

When I study why technology fails to change behavior internally, the reasons always seem to surprise executives, but rarely do they shock employees.

1. Older managers disagree philosophically with how younger employees work in general.

2. Systems architects don’t get today’s employees.

3. Technology is too painful to use and there’s a lot of it.

4. Workflow is imposed rather than designed to emulate how people naturally use technology to communicate and connect.

5. Legacy processes and reporting systems actively discourage people to adopt something new.

6. Legacy philosophies protect those who work in dated paradigms rather than encourage aging workforces to gain new expertise through learning and collaboration.

7. Management doesn’t actually reward cross-team collaboration as part of the day-to-day work.

8. Incentives to change do not align with employee goals and aspirations.

9. Leadership does not lead by example.

10. A lack of vision as to why new technology will enable business goals and why employees should buy-in.

11. BONUS: The culture of the organization is more rigid than adaptive, which inadvertently undermines any hope for innovation

Depending on the culture of the organization, this list only grows…often unwieldy like a weed. Pulling the weed out buys time, but it grows back. You have to get to the root of the problem and solve for it as it lines up with the ultimate vision of the company. And sometimes, because things are so different now with market and employee behavior, that vision may need to be renewed or completely revised to mean something, to be relevant now and in the future.

Things must change, but change begins with seeing and approaching this challenge cum opportunity differently…

This is a time for leadership…not the conventional management systems as we know them. Change doesn’t have to come from today’s executives or managers however. What’s important to understand is that change can come from anywhere within the organization. Anyone can assume the role of leader as long as they have vision for what’s possible, courage to break what isn’t yet fully broken, and passion to mobilize people to unite in transformation. This sense of conviction is contagious and when approached with a human and business focus, even executives can’t help but listen…and learn. I guess that’s what this is about. We have to learn to learn again and that will only help us lead.

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Collaboration Image Credit: Shutterstock

The Top 25 Socially Engaged Companies on LinkedIn Invest in Employee and Customer Relationships

LinkedIn and Altimeter Group published a joint report on the value of corporate social media and its role in customer and employee engagement. To do, we formed a baseline of companies that were actively engaged on a platform we could effectively study.

After eight months of research, we assembled a list of the Top 25 Socially Engaged Companies based on how they use LinkedIn to engage employees and customers in the following areas:

1. Content marketing

2. Employee engagement

3. Talent and recruitment

4. Sales

LinkedIn and Altimeter Group then conducted targeted and controlled surveys to gather insights into how employees feel about their company’s use of social media.

The results of both studies were visualized in one infographic entitled, “Relationship Economics.” This infographic is the first in a series of research reports based on this massive initial study.

The Top 25 Socially Engaged Companies

In no specific order, the Top 25 Most Socially Engaged Companies are as follows:

Google

Adobe

Michael Page International

The Wall Street Journal

Salesforce.com

HAYS

vmware

Robert Walters

Facebook

Gartnerbrunel

redhat

Twitter

LinkedIn*

Teradata

MasterCard

Juniper

Bloomberg

VISA

NetApp

OpenTesxt

Akamai

YAHOO!

Cisco

WorkDay

What We Can Learn From the Top 25 Most Socially Engaged Companies on LinkedIn

Perhaps more important than a list of companies is what we can learn from them. See, in the 2013 “State of the Global Workplace Report” from Gallup, only 13% of employees are engaged at work. That for lack of a better word, sucks. There’s a reason why people aren’t engaged and why many employees eventually become detractors or leave altogether.

“Everyone talks about building a relationship with your customer. I think you build one with your employees first,” Angela Ahrendts, Senior Vice President of Retail at Apple

Getting work done and working together to get work done are separated in intention, mission, and vision. The state of employee morale is a reflection of the company culture. And the company culture is a manifestation of how managers or leaders work. Culture is either shaped and nurtured or its a byproduct of an everyday work ethic and all that’s associated with it.

The Top 25 Socially Engaged Companies on the other hand actively invest in employee and customer engagement. Doing so yields results that impact the bottom line and more so, improve relationships and opportunities for reciprocity and greater productivity and collaboration.

What do they do differently and what effect does social engagement offer?

1.  Top socially engaged companies empower their employees to be brand ambassadors.

2. Employees are more engaged and optimistic at top socially engaged companies.

3. Social media engagement contributes to competitive advantage.

When companies invest in relationships with customers, employees, prospects and partners, they reap benefits measured in competitiveness, profitability, loyalty, and advocacy.

More in the infographic below…

Top 25 Most Socially Engaged Companies from LinkedIn

 

Social Media is Lost Without a Social Compass

Marcia W. DiStaso and Denise Sevick Bortree recently published university-level textbook to address an important topic by the same name, The Ethical Practice of Social Media in Public Relations. As they were wrapping up the editing of the book, I was asked to contribute the foreword. Upon reading some of the manuscript, the answer was, YES! Of course, I asked if I could share it here with you and I’m happy to announce that it’s included below…

About The Ethical Practice of Social Media in Public Relations

Given the high rate of social media use by the public, organizations are compelled to engage with key audiences through these outlets. Social media engagement requires organizations to actively participate with public groups, and this highly-interactive exchange raises a new set of ethical concerns for communicators. In this rapidly changing communications environment, the long-term implications of social media are uncertain, and this book provides the much needed research to understand its impact on audiences and organizations.

Through an examination of a broad range of ethics concepts including transparency and online identities, policies, corporate responsibility, and measurement, this book explores a variety of topics important to public relations such as diversity, non-profit communication, health communication, financial communication, public affairs, entertainment communication, environmental communication, crisis communication, and non-profit communication. The chapter authors, expert scholars within their fields of public relations, offer insights drawn from original research and case study examples of ethical dilemmas raised by social media communication.

Foreword: Social Media is Lost without a Social Compass

Social media is not lawless. It is governed by the code of each network. At the same time however, each network is governed by the culture that develops in how people connect and communicate. The laws that we abide by in the real world influence what’s right and wrong. But more so, the laws of humanity govern what we say and do whereas judgment is passed according to the law of popular society and the unsaid ethics that serve its center.

Whether it’s right or wrong, what is right and wrong is open to interpretation. And, peers often pass judgment without the benefit of a fair trial.

Ethics therefore should not go unsaid or undefined.

Ethics symbolize the code that governs actions and unlocks relationships. The question is, what type of relationships do you want to build and have now and in the future?

Relationships?

Yes. They are the epicenter of social networks.

There’s a “social” in social media for a reason. There’s also a “me.”

At its very core, social media is not about technology, it’s about people. Connections, emotions, expression become the souls and personalities of online communities. The ties that bind them together are relationships. And it is in the value of relationships that people on either side will find value. Without value, mutual benefits, the quality of the relationship erodes.

Again I ask, what kind of relationship do you want to have with people?

Social media is a human and emotional egosystem (yes, that’s an intentional word). Networks are exchanges where conversations are currency. People connect because there’s value to do so.

So what is the value in a connection with you?

What do you get out of it?

What will I takeaway?

How do you want me to feel?

What do you want me to say and do?

So.Many.Questions.

It is in the answering of these questions that will govern all you do in social media.

Intentions + Actions = Perceptions

It’s a simple formula. What you aim to do combined with what you do shape the perceptions and resulting impressions and expressions of people directly and indirectly. Opinions and dialogue are commodities. In social media, expressions are not only shared, they are also sparks for greater discussions. With momentum, conversations can create communities and communities can inspire movements.

What you say and what people hear can in fact create two or more different outcomes.

The ethical practice of social media starts with an ethical foundation. Without it, you risk falling victim to social media’s relentless and unforgiving nature of real-time relevance or irrelevance. You are competing for the moment and for the future in all you do. Without a strong ethical foundation, you unintentionally make perilous decisions driven by what’s right…right now, rather than what’s truly right.

You Have Now Entered The Grey Zone

Martin Luther King Jr. did not say, “I have an ethical dream to share.” Walt Disney did not build a universe governed by morals. Instead, they challenged convention to change how we see the world. It was through their vision, words, architecture and leadership that visualized not only a new world, but they defined the roles we play in it and the advantages we’ll realize for doing so.

For better or for worse, ethics is not a black and white discussion. It’s often the grey-zone that sets the foundation for individual and organizational comfort zones. Much like in the legal world, what’s right and wrong is often open to interpretation. Laws represent a system of rules, which carry varying penalties if they’re broken. But it is in legal practice and the surrounding conversations within offices, conference rooms, and courtrooms that blur the line between meaning, understanding and outcomes. While precedence often dictates a center to explore opportunities and consequences, contending with legal matters after a rule or law is broken is not the premise of our work together.

We must address ethics now not in the face of challenges or troubles.

This is a time for leadership.

The Ethical Practice of Social Media is Where Actions and Words Speak Louder Than Silence

The promise of your work and how it will affect the work of others lies in an elixir of aspiration and ambition. Indeed, ethics are the moral principles that govern behavior. It’s in the intentions we have, the choices we make, the things we say, and the actions we carry out where we set the stage for reaction. But it’s the grey-zone where impressions and opinions are formed. And it is this judgment that becomes truth. As we all have learned, perception is reality. Ethics are therefore open to interpretation.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction…

Plan.

Your work must be guided by aspiration, grounded in virtues and packaged in respect. Everything begins upon a clear ethical foundation. This means that like a vision or mission statement, your work must be governed by a manifesto that articulates hope, value, purpose, and expectations. It is guide where you, and anyone who sees is, will realize the promise and meaning of “why”—why you feel what you feel, do what you do, say what you say, and why anyone whom you touch should listen and more importantly, align with you. It’s your compass, your center, and your foundation.

Be Transparent. Be Authentic.

You’ll hear it throughout your practice of social media. Be transparent. Be authentic. These words however, are not the only points on your compass. They are however, important pillars that stand upon your ethical foundation. Without definition though, they’re just words.

Define them.

Transparency requires clarity. Authenticity requires honesty. Both are enlivened by definition and articulation in your manifesto and it is this manifesto that creates your social compass.

Your compass is more important than you may think.

A compass provides direction. It’s the Google Maps for doing what’s right for the moment for the good of the relationships you seek to invest in. It’s the GPS for navigating what is right and what is wrong before, during, and after engagement. Your compass will define the nature of relationships and influence what people see, hear and ultimately do as a result.

Your Social Compass

A compass is a device for discovering orientation and serves as a true indicator of physical direction.

In 2009, I designed a social compass to help guide the ethical and aspirational practice of social media. It debuted in my book Engage and was inspired by a moral compass. The Social Compass was created to serve as our value system when defining strategies, initiatives and ultimately engagement. It points a brand in a physical and experiential direction to genuinely and effectively connect with customers, peers, and influencers, where they interact and seek guidance online.

It was designed to guide us from the center outward. However, it can also impact how a business learns and adapts by reversing the process and listening to customers and influencers through each channel from the outside in.

When we listen and hear what’s taking place in the conversational egosystem, the compass works from the outside in, moving from the edge to the center. When we engage, we move from the center to the outside edge.

Center: The Brand

At the center of the compass is the brand; essentially, everything you do will revolve around it.

Halo 1: The Players

Fundamental to any program, the players define how, when, why, and to what extent our activity is intermediated across the Social Web. They include:

Advocates/stakeholders: Those individuals who maintain a stake in the brand and the success of the company, through emotional, strategic, or financial investment—and are usually among the first line of external champions.

Traditional media: Reporters, journalists, analysts, and other forms of mainstream and vertical media who already reach our intended audiences.

New influencers/trust agents: Individuals who focus a noteworthy portion of their updates, content, and voice on particular topics, industries, or markets.

Champions: Whereas advocates and stakeholders have skin in the game to some extent, champions are merely inspired to share their experiences and views because they are passionate, compelled, or incentivized.

Bloggers/market makers: Bloggers and market makers represent what some refer to as the “A-list.” This elite group can steer, shape, and galvanize activity that moves markets based on their views.

Tastemakers/Magic Middle: Tastemakers and the magic middle are distinct from new influencers and trust agents, and, depending on the industry, serve as a subset of them. In their own way they make markets and spark trends based on their activity. Tastemakers are the trendsetters and, in the Social Web, they usually boast notable followers and connections who emulate their behavior, whether it’s explicit or implicit, on behalf of the tastemaker. The term Magic Middle was coined by David Sifry, who at the time was CEO of Technorati, the world’s largest blog network; he defined this group as bloggers who maintained an inbound link volume of between 20 to 1,000 links.

I refer to the Magic Middle as any group of content creators who remain focused on a topic and have earned a substantial audience because of their experiences, views, and perspective.

Halo 2: Platform

Every initiative, inclusive of those groups of individuals who define our markets and ensuing behavior, requires a platform upon which to connect, communicate, and congregate. These platforms represent existing and also emerging categories that are worthy of our attention today and tomorrow:

Mobile: Any network that unites groups of targeted individuals through interaction on mobile devices.

Social dashboard/microsites: As discussed previously, social dashboards and microsites aggregate distributed social presences into one experience for channeling activity, providing information, fostering community, and guiding perception and impressions.

Widgets and applications: Widgets and applications are portable services that spark interaction in a variety of networks, from mobile devices to Web-based social networks. They create an immersive experience designed to perform a dedicated function including tasks, games, interaction, learning, and other forms of entertainment and engagement within a dedicated, embeddable environment, while branding or conveying messages in the process.

Forums and groups: Web 1.0 still rules, and through research we learn that communication and influence is still widespread in forums and groups where people not only communicate with each other every day, they also organize events, manage projects, and teach and learn from one another on almost every topic imaginable and unimaginable.

Blogs: Blogs, in all of their shapes and sizes, deserve a tremendous amount of attention, as they are still among the most active and influential news sources, besides traditional media. Not only do they hit mainstream audiences, they also focus on dedicated, vertical communities and nicheworks that equally contribute to your total market.

Social networks: Of course social networks are a primary forum for today’s social media interactions and therefore require a dedicated focus. As we’ve repeated so often in these pages, our attention is necessitated in popular networks as well as the nicheworks dedicated to our areas of interest.

Content creation: The development and syndication of social objects carries the ability to reach people in almost every medium today, and will only continue to expand as technology advances. We are now in the content publishing and distribution business.

Events (offline and online): The cultivation of communities is important online and also in the physical locales where we meet our customers, advocates, peers and influencers. A fusion between online and offline communication is critical and therefore mandatory.

Microcommunities: While many refer to these services as microblogs, the truth is that they are not in any way, shape, or form reminiscent of blogs, nor is the behavior that they stimulate. We focus on them as dedicated platforms due to their unique interactions, communities, efficacy, and reach.

Halo 3: Channels

Aggregation: The feeds, platforms, and devices that take content from multiple outlets or memes and funnel them into one branded stream

Crowdsourced: Organizing the activity of consumers onto public stages to foster dialogue, collaboration and glean insights

Curation: Designing social objects to appeal to social curators extending reach and visibility

SEO: If everything begins with search, SEO represents the enhancement of content, pages and destinations through search engine optimization to ensure brands are readily clickable upon relevant searches.

Promotion: Even the best content requires marketing. As social objects, campaigns, and engagement strategies are introduced, they must be complemented with genuine front and backchannel support. There is no such thing as viral marketing, but information travels to the extent of our connections and investment in them.

Syndication: Whereas aggregation is about many-to-one, syndication is about one-to-many. Please note that this does not refer to the mass broadcast of information to general audiences, syndication refers to the intentional repackaging of content for different platforms and nicheworks.

SMO: Similar to SEO, Social Media Optimization (SMO) amplifies the visibility of objects within social networks by improving their “findability” through tags, descriptions, titles, conversations, and linkbacks.

Participation/Engagement: Connections are much more than the 3F’s of friends, followers, and fans; they are fortified by the mutual value that is exchanged in each interaction. Engagement is measured by actions and outcomes.

Portability: Transmedia represents the ability to have stories and objects travel across multiple platforms and devices to match the behavior of the people we’re trying to reach. Portability must be defined to suit their needs.

Content Streams: Streams are the windows to relevance. People discover information through attention. Appearing in streams is how we compete for attention.

UGC: Often referred to as earned media, UGC is impressionable and can be steered positively. In addition, through active engagement combined with a recipe of all things above, reach and effect are increased through the genuine voices of others.

Halo 4: Emotions/Sentiment

The socialization of the Web is powered by people, and it is a movement that is bound by the same natural laws that govern human behavior. Successful branding is made possible when individuals can establish a human and emotional connection. In social networks, the brand is represented by you and, for that reason, we must factor compassion, care, and feeling into our planning. Connect from the heart.

Reciprocation: The gesture of a response is far more powerful than we perceive. It is the act of paying it forward that actually contributes to the caliber, quality, and value of dialogue and interchanges. As influence is both democratized and equalized, giving back is a symbol of respect and gratitude.

Empathy: Understanding the sentiment of another related to material interaction and experiences humanizes the context of an experience and conversation. You must become the very people you’re trying to reach and in order to do so, our understanding must extend beyond training and embrace real-life exposure.

Recognition: Identifying the contributions of others and promoting or responding to worthy individuals and instances are parts of how we cultivate communities and build relationships. From “thank you” to “I’m sorry,” the symbolic deeds of acknowledgment, admittance, and identification serve as powerful forms of validation.

Core values: The attributes that define the principles and standards of a brand are reinforced or diminished by its conduct. If we wish to attract influential peers, we must stand for something with which people can identify and associate. We must represent purpose. Our brand and our actions either encourage affinity or they don’t.

Resolution: The practice of solving problems, disputes, and other correlated issues is a focus and a mission that contribute to those actions that indeed speak louder than words. And, if we’re to be measured by them, then let our commitment to resolve impediments speak for itself.

Empowerment: Providing the authority to achieve something not possible before the encounter instills confidence and advocacy and sets the foundation to scale community development. Empowerment alters the balance of engagement and transforms interactions into relationships.

Humanization: Convey and embody a human voice and character in all we do in interactive media. From the creation and distribution of social objects to engagement with individuals, engagement is most effective when we personalize our approach. The Social Web is alive and powered by our ability to identify with others through direct interaction or by coming into contact with their personae, as attached to the content they interact with, share, or produce.

Honesty: Be honest and virtuous in all interactions and not misleading whatsoever in any scenario in order to achieve your objective. Be truthful. If you don’t have an answer or information, say so. If what you represent doesn’t measure up in a particular setting, admit it. Focus on strengths and opportunities. Do not spin or market messages.

Reward: Sometimes recognition isn’t enough to satisfy someone for their contribution. The act of rewarding someone is a sign of appreciation. Rewards can span from monetary items to discounts to free products to access and special privileges. The consistent performance of rewarding community behavior fosters increased activity through positive conditioning.

Value proposition: When humanizing our stories and interactions, it is the value proposition that speaks directly to specific markets. Many times marketing either attempts to generalize features or capabilities for the masses or simply reiterates the value propositions as dictated by internal management.

Believable: Words such as transparency and authenticity are overused in any discussion related to socialized outreach and therefore lose a good deal of their essence and meaning. It is more convincing and consequential in any encounter if you are believable. This can be passionate, exuberant, and contagious, unlike transparency or authenticity. Give me something to believe in.

Sincerity: Your biggest objective moving forward is to earn and continue to gain trust. In order to do so, your actions must exclude pretense and instead enrich interactions through the exchange of genuine feelings and intentions.

Define Your Path – Lead People on a Meaningful Journey

Social media is an emotional landscape and to succeed day in and day out takes more than communication, it takes vision and purpose. Without it, what do you stand for and why would anyone wish to stand alongside you?

As you design your social media strategies and everyday content and engagement programs, let your social compass guide you. Consider in simulation, and definitely prior to their activation in networks, how your intentions will convert to desired impressions. Doing so helps you understand how your actions will elicit the reactions you want. Use your social compass to then lead you into each network with confidence and relevance to earn relationships and spark meaningful engagement.

Remember, relationships aren’t just an outcome, they’re a reward for thoughtful, significant, and inspirational work.

Be strategic and thoughtful.

Be considerate.

Be empathetic.

Be approachable.

Ethics and the ethical practice of social media bridge the gaps between intentions and desired impressions and also between actions and desired reactions. You can only spark and enhance relationships as a result.

This is a time for leadership and you play a pivotal role in changing how your organization communicates and connects.

The ethical practice of social media is governed by your grey-zone. Defining what you do and what you will not do in various situations, guided by your vision in purpose, will answer what’s right, right now, and what’s right…for the future.

Give people a reason to do more than just connect or engage with you. Inspire them because you’re inspired.

Connect with me…

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To order the social compass poster, please email my colleague Ehsan with a request. He will follow up with instructions on how to purchase a 22 x 28 full color version.

Broadcast Yourself(ie): If You Think Gen Y is Different, Wait Until You Meet Generation Z

How teens use social media and why it matters to you. Generation Z = (Today’s Teens, Preteens and Children)

If you want a glimpse of the future of technology and its impact on society, study how younger generations interact with one another today. While everyone is talking about Millennials these days, there’s another, potential more disruptive generation behind them…Generation Z.

With the sting of a face palm, you’ll experience a sheer rush of humility as you realize that everything you thought you knew about tech, behavior, and common sense is simply nascent compared to the native differences inherent to digital natives. No matter how connected you are or how many followers or friends you have online, there’s a sense of artistry mashed together with counter intuitive behavior that just works.

My advice to you is to study it. Study it right.now. Don’t try to make sense oft it. Don’t question it. Don’t try to make it fit into your world. Simply try to understand it. Doing so opens the door to alternative perspectives, which can lead to meaningful insights. And, this allows you to make decisions about the future without letting your predispositions or assumptions lead you in fallacious directions.

The point is this, for those that need a TL;DR version…perspective and empathy allow you to appreciate and lead not only for Gen Y and Gen Z but also everything that’s changing in between. It’s about leading through resilience.

To help Pew Research Center published an interesting study that examines teens’ social media privacy management and overall behavior. Why is it important? Well, for starters, social and mobile for teens (aka digital natives) is simply a way of life.

A Crazy Little Thing Called Privacy

If you think about it, Generation X and to some extent the older side of Generation Y, are the last to know privacy as it was.  Privacy for the most part is something that older generations guarded. For most, privacy was and is sacred, worthy of protecting. Publicity on the other hand was almost a luxury. To earn the attention of the masses required investment and strategy. It’s almost the opposite is true among digital natives. Privacy now is something that you have to teach or learn the hard way.

According to Pew, teens share more information about themselves on social media than ever before.

91% post a photo of themselves, up from 79% in 2006.

71% post their school name, up from 49%.

71% post the city or town where they live, up from 61%.

53% post their email address, up from 29%.

20% post their cell phone number, up from 2%.

While the top three aren’t necessarily jaw dropping, we start to see the erosion of privacy and the rise of publicness with the jump in sharing phone numbers publicly. And this is only the beginning.

Pew Data Visualized: Source: MarktingLand (Imagine what this will look like in 2014 and 2015!!!)

Once regulated to closed networks and dedicated communities for school, work, dating, etc. personal information is now finding its way into public spaces such as Facebook, Twitter, et al.

92% of teens post their real name to the profile they use most often.

84% post their interests, such as movies, music, or books they like.

82% post their birth date.

62% post their relationship status.

24% post videos of themselves.

Privacy takes on an entirely new meaning now. While much of social and mobile is often studied through the lens of what people say and share and what they don’t, it’s also tied to movement (GPS), transactional data, and specific locations. In fact, Pew learned that 16% of teens have set up their social profiles to automatically include their location in posts. Doing so sends a passport-like signal to their friends (and for themselves_ about where they’ve visited combined with a sense of serendipity to also see (and meet) who’s nearby.

A Private Facebook vs. A Public Twitter

94% of all teens who use social media have a profile on Facebook. Twitter’s rising fast. 26% of teens manage a profile on Twitter, which is up from 12% just one year earlier.

On Facebook, ironically enough, teens tend to choose a myriad of privacy settings. 60% keep their profiles private and most believe that they are in control of their privacy settings. They also go through hoops to support multiple accounts to engage on respective fronts accordingly. They also go to great lengths to delete older posts to prevent the risk of future drama.

With Twitter on the other hand, 64% of teens choose a public profile and 12%, believe it or not, are not sure whether or not their public tweets are private or public.

The Brand “You”

Teens, in their own way, manage their Facebook presence to portray their desired persona while masking information they don’t want others to know or learn.

On Facebook, teens host a network of 300 friends on average. On the more public Twitter front, average teen users have about 79 followers. This comes down to an important distinction about the value and focus of each network. Facebook is designed to help people connect and communicate to their social graph. With Twitter, it’s all about the interest graph. People tend to follow others who share interests or channels that are informative and entertaining, not unlike a traditional broadcast network.

The Age of the Selfie and The Rise of Accidental Narcissism

What’s not included in this study is how teens use Tumblr, Instagram and Snapchat. This is a critical element missing from the study. While an overwhelming majority of teens use or have Facebook accounts, teens, and millennials in general, are spending significant portions of time and attention in other networks such as Tumblr (a social network for micro content), Instagram (a social network for pictures) and Youtube (a social network for video), SnapChat ( a network for self-destructing pictures). See the pattern?

Why?

In an interview with AP, Jaime Esquivel, a 16-year-old junior at C.D. Hylton High School in Woodbridge, Va., shared a truism that I’ve heard repeatedly among teens over the years, “Facebook just really seems to have more drama.”

But it’s more than that. Other networks seem to focus on curated content and also self-expression.

Instagram is not just a camera app, although many younger kids fooled their parents by convincing them that it was a camera app. Instead, it’s a full blown social network where pictures of the catalysts for conversations and Likes and followers are the currency of shallow capitalism. Instagram is harboring curious behavior where teens strive for numbers, regardless of where and who they come from, as a delusional form of stature and importance.

In a study in Photo District News, author Kathleen Hay shared some sobering stats on the rise selfie-expression.

At 11 p.m. PST on December 28, 2012, the number of selfies numbered at a noteworthy 5.5 million. At the same time, photos tagged ‘me’ completely eclipsed “selfie” with a staggering 72.6 million self-portraits. Added together, you start to get the picture of just how prominent the egosystem is becoming.

Privacy as we once knew it is dead. It’s now a part of real and digital life that necessitates education and ongoing study. Parents, teachers, mentors, role models, take note. Pleading ignorance is not an excuse.

For adults, privacy’s meaning is also shifting. To evolve, a new school of philosophy and overall strategy is essential as we use the same apps, networks, and devices that younger generations use to broadcast their social life. The line that divides online and offline character and image is rapidly, and intentionally, eroding. And for some, it’s completely vanished.

In many ways, we are all exhibiting behaviors that aren’t unlike teens, regardless of age. The truth is that we live in an era of increasing connectedness and we are all becoming part of one larger generation, Generation-C (connected.)

Welcome to the new age.

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Photo of Teenagers, Shutterstock

Unicorns, Startups, and Giants: The New Billion Dollar Benchmark in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is more than a place, it’s a movement. While many debate where the “next” Silicon Valley will gain prominence, the point that many onlookers miss is that innovation is at the heart of the crusade. Whether it’s in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York, London, Paris, India, et al., innovation is global and its sole purpose is to disrupt our way of life…for the better of course.

Just because things have always been done a certain way, doesn’t mean we couldn’t improve it…

Why couldn’t we try it this way?

What if we developed something that finally allowed us to…

There’s no reason this couldn’t be done better to improve…

These are just a few of the scenarios that drive entrepreneurs and inspire investors to bring ideas to life. And some of those ideas generate enough momentum to change behavior, create new opportunities, solve problems and earn big payouts in the process.

I once proclaimed that I couldn’t imagine a day when SnapChat would see an acquisition offer of more than the $3b Facebook brought to the fledgling startup’s doorstep. Shortly thereafter, Facebook acquired WhatsApp, a mobile messaging network, for a mind-numbing $19b.

With 450 million regular users sending 20 billion messages per day, WhatsApp is demonstrating in real-time how disruption emerges out of nowhere. This phenomenon, as Orange Silicon Valley, the Bay Area division of the French telecommunications company, sees it as a new billion dollar hunt for digital “unicorns.”

This acquisition led Orange to study 60 companies that Orange calls according to The Wall Street Journal, “unicorns—a new type of legendary startup” with rapid growth and a rapidly growing valuation that doesn’t look like startups of the past.

The report is intended in part to explain what is happening in Silicon Valley so the rest of the world can learn from it.

Chris Arkenberg and Ken Yeung of Orange reached out to me as they were deep in the research process to discuss disruption and what lies ahead. More so, I wanted to offer guidance to big and small companies alike to better understand how innovation isn’t limited to startups or locales. What entrepreneurs are to startups, intrapreneurs are to the enterprise. They are leading a new genre digital transformation, a renaissance of sorts that allows bigger companies to compete in connected markets.

Whether you’re in a startup or leading digital transformation efforts, I wanted to share my conversation with the Orange team with you here.

Your work explores the impacts of what you call Digital Transformation. What does this mean for companies trying to keep up?

If you attempt to compete for the future, if you invest in new technologies to meet the needs of your market, then you will win. But there’s a more prominent part of Digital Transformation that comes from how you and I are changing as a result of technology’s impact on our lives. That’s where a lot of innovation can occur. Innovation has less to do with technology than it has to do with how you think about the opportunities to evolve or to create. I’ve found in most cases that change doesn’t start from the top down. You have to rely on the change agents to create a sense of urgency from the bottom-up and then win over executives in order to drive change from the top-down. That’s really how a culture of innovation starts.

How can older incumbents adapt to the change and disruption? Can they evolve and play on this field without getting run over?

A lot of organizations today are very stubborn. They have cultures that are more management-driven so they are optimized to scale and to grow based on the world that is and the roadmaps that exist today. It takes a culture of innovation and resilience to be able to even think you have something to learn in the first place. When you have a leadership infrastructure that’s really focused on today, they aren’t necessarily in touch with how things are changing. Until leadership leads, the culture is going to have to adapt slowly.

What’s your perspective on Unicorns and the new tier of billion-dollar-plus valuations?

When you talk about spotting a Unicorn, we tend to get caught up in trying to find the next thing based on historical performance, traction in the marketplace, investment dollars, investors, founder teams. But these factors aren’t enough to find a Unicorn. What’s going to help you find a Unicorn is digital anthropology, to recognize an opportunity based on behavior. It’s what I call the Dilemma’s Innovator. It’s solving problems and creating opportunities based on unmet needs.

$19 B is an exorbitant amount of money to pay for WhatsApp, for example. It’s going to create an unfair bar because people are going to look at the users, the potential revenue, and the valuation instead of the reasons why WhatsApp is what it is and why Facebook bought it. WhatsApp is special because it addresses a market need that was unaddressed. Text messaging and iMessage weren’t meeting the needs of the younger generation.

Facebook famously said that “we want to be the dial tone for the internet”. That’s a really big statement. That means that they want to change how people communicate. If you really extrapolate what $19B means, maybe at some point you’re not going to have a phone number. You’re going to have an IP address. You’re going to have something that’s unique to you regardless of the device or the platform. That’s a powerful future to consider. It’s a $19B bet on that.

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Yo. Srsly?

App: Yo.

User: Yo

App: Yo

User: Yo, sup?

App: Yo

User: Yo, you for real?

App: Yo

User: Yo, I’m out.

A new app that lets you send “yo” to friends is real and its initial $1 million investment is also real.

Merriam-Webster defines the word “yo” as an interjection used to grab someone’s attention.

Yo certainly has done just that by grabbing everyone’s attention.

Yo defines “yo” as “The simplest & most efficient communication tool in the world. Yo is a single-tap zero character communication tool.”

Founded by Arbel, who built the app three months ago in 8 hours, has moved from Israel to San Francisco. The app was launching on, no fooling here, April Fool’s Day and it seems to only be getting momentum. In fact

So far, it has attracted over 50,000 users who have sent about 4 million Yos.

Is this the sign of a new bubble?

Maybe.

But honestly, in its own strange but customary way, Yo is natural in its own digitally minimalistic way. The medium is the message and also the message is the medium. How may txts, DMs, or messages do you receive that simply say, “yo”? For me, it’s quite a bit. The difference though is that in each network, there’s a customary standard to follow up an exchange of “yo’s” with “what’s up?” Essentially the conversation continues or feels like it has to. To counter, you might reply “nothing, just sending a shout out.” So, in this case or others like it, you had to reply and force a reply to explain yourself just to close out the conversation. Sometimes, many time, you simple want to “yo….I’m just thinking about you” and leave it at that.

Here, as crazy as it sounds, I liken a “yo” to Facebook’s “Poke.” In some ways it’s not unlike a Facebook “Like” or “Favorite” on Twitter as well. According to the Arbel, Yo is opening up an API, which will allow integration into platforms where “Yo” can signify, “check this out” among other things.

Believe it or not, it’s a simple, natural way to let someone know that you’re thinking about them or that you want their attention. Now, do you need an app for this? Probably not. But, the buzz it’s generating symbolizes our digital addiction, we’re called “users” for a reason. If something like Yo appeals to us so that we can simply let people know we’re thinking about them, but need an app to do it, it says something about our so-called digital life, our dependence on technology and society overall. Perhaps there’s something to the rising trend of digital detox retreats after all.

Right or wrong, it is indeed interesting to observe and attempt to understand. At a minimum however, it is representative of a new wave of frictionless apps that focus on minimized, fast, and straightforward engagement. This is why many believe that apps that are native to the notification center are the next big thing.

In other news, Amazon launched Fire, its first smartphone…

#deuces

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Every Company is a Cloud Company: The Relationship Between Technology and the Future of Business

People first. That’s where this discussion begins.

My guest on this episode of Revolution is NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson. For running one of the leading companies in the cloud business software game, Nelson is among the more grounded and sincere technology executives I’ve sat down with in quite a while. We didn’t discuss innovation, speeds and feeds or key differentiators of NetSuite versus other companies, instead we looked at people, why and how they run businesses, and how technology enables them to chase their dreams and goals.

In our discussion, Nelson walked us through the migration of mainframe to PC to cloud computing and in the process, through technology, brought us closer to people (customers, partners, and employees) than ever before. His point is that the complexity of technology slowly vanished giving businesses the opportunity to focus on the “why” and “how” of business. More importantly, he also believes that every company is now becoming a cloud company. He’s not just referring to the Netsuite’s or Salesforce’s of the world. He’s talking about cattle companies, florists, you name it. Running a business should not happen because of technology. In his view, technology should just work so that you can prioritize attention on the things that matter to your business today and tomorrow.

If every company is a cloud company and the complexity of using technology is gone, Nelson believes that companies can act more holistically, not departmentally, to invest in strategy, products and services, and customer relationships.

“How can people be missing from the equation!?”

Nelson emphasizes that this is the time for leaders to listen and learn. Technology becomes an enabler to change how business is done.

“I’m about to give you money and you don’t know who I am,” Nelson shared in the voice of a customer. His answer is to consider the balance between “internal automation versus external learning and engagement.” Customers expect you to know who they are, where they are, and not to have to conform to your old models in place today. They’ll simply move on if they have to.

Please take a moment to watch this invigorating conversation.

His vision and observations are at the very least…refreshing and inspiring. As he notes, we stand at the “intersection of the technology and telephony revolutions, which has brought businesses closer than ever before to customers and employees.”

Said another way, people first.

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Disrupting the B-to-B-to-C Model

Guest post by Gib Bassett (@gibbassett), Global Program Director, Consumer Goods, Teradata

Business disruption sometimes happens very quickly, almost too fast to react. Consider what happened to Blockbuster as movie rentals shifted online. Other times it happens more slowly but is no less impactful. Case in point: how online, mobile and social channels are transforming the way we shop and make purchase decisions.

The industries most affected – retail and branded consumer products – possess entrenched business models that pre-date the video-rental industry by decades. With so much invested over so much time, changing direction is like a mile-long oil tanker making a 360 degree turn. It’s much more alluring to stay on course if at all possible. Waiting certainly seems possible with shelves clearing eventually in spite of changes to shopping behavior. It’s just not happening at a growing rate.

The Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) industry is especially conflicted. Makers of brands in all segments – food, beverage, health and beauty, and household products – rely on retailers as their primary customer and sales channel. It’s the very definition of the oft-cited CPG industry “b-to-b-to-c” (b2b2c) model, where the supplier sells its products to retailers, who in turn sell to consumers. How can a CPG maker approach emergent changes in shopping behavior when physically fenced off from the last mile of the shopping journey?

Many CPGs are today claiming a new focus on consumer centricity; that it’s their consumer who matters, who they care about, and who they serve. It’s less a response to changes in consumer behavior as it is many other factors and complexities affecting the CPG industry that make consumer focus essential. For example, digital channels allow CPGs to communicate directly with their consumers in ways not possible in the past so the marketing mix is shifting accordingly.

At the same time, CPG investment in trade (retail) relationships via promotion (price buy downs to drive volume) is at an all-time high and continues to grow. Layer in consumer price sensitivity, retail private label competition, emerging e-commerce channels, SKU proliferation and a dearth of new product innovation, and the challenges begging for a greater focus on the consumer are many.

Are CPGs putting their money where their mouth is with respect to consumer focus? I’d argue that many CPGs are making moves in the right direction, but any action is still subject to the inherent restrictions of a model that places the consumer at the end of the equation.

From B2B2C to C2B2B

I’d like to suggest CPGs adopt a different view of their business, one that places the consumer first, followed by the CPG itself, and lastly the channels by which products are sold – in other words, a c-to-b-to-b (c2b2b) model.

How would this differ from a b-to-b-to-c model?

- Start with your consumers not the products you produce — who are they, what are their unmet needs, and how do they wish to transact with your brands? The concept of “transaction” expands from a product purchase to any interaction that facilitates a closer bond between brands and consumers. It’s nearly inarguable that the lack of new product innovation and slow growth is due to a lack of consumer focus in this way. CPG makers are still consumed with squeezing efficiency from their manufacturing supply chains – important, but completely insufficient to succeed into the future.

- Next is you, the manufacturer, not your retailers — how do you build the product assortment desired by your consumers, and from where and how do you source your inputs most cost efficiently? This forces the CPG to think like a retailer, but in terms of product experience.

- Lastly, through which channels do your consumers wish to acquire your products? In some cases it will be retail partners. In others, it may be direct from you. It could also be from a pure play e-commerce retailer like Amazon. Or most likely, some blend.

This approach differs from the traditional view of CPG manufacturing that prioritizes the manufacturing process first. From a technology perspective, it explains why ERP investment continues to dominate, while more consumer focused investments remain mostly outsourced. In the past this made sense, but today it places CPG brands at a disadvantage. Industry trends and consumer behavior are evolving quickly, maybe affecting a percentage point of growth at a time – slow compared to a paradigm shift like what affected Blockbuster – but still a very big number for billion dollar brands.

From a technology point of view, the status quo won’t suffice either. Although consumer facing technology and data solutions have been available on an outsourced basis for many years, most lack integration in a meaningful way with the core CPG business. By “meaningful” I mean that the sum and specifics of consumer activity is beyond the grasp of decision makers in a timely and cost effective way.

Many CPGs are finding their old ways of outsourcing consumer facing technology and data solutions can’t keep up with demands for more timely access to insight and actions. No matter whether it’s email campaigns, sales information, product launches or trade promotion, the latency and lack of detail associated with outsourcing lacks the timeliness and efficiency that a more integrated approach yields.

It’s gotten to the point where it’s not necessarily more cost effective to outsource. Instead, progressive CPGs are adopting a self-service approach that takes advantage of the latest cloud technology and data solutions in a way that integrates with the core business – without necessarily requiring IT support, large capital expenditures or lengthy payback time horizons. When it’s possible to stitch together a cloud solution with internal systems to facilitate more timely access to insights and actions is where things get exciting.

A CPG that adopts a c-to-b-to-b model views consumers as the “customer” who’s needs must be understood and uniquely met throughout the path to purchase, bases product development and launch decisions on direct consumer interactions that are perpetual and closed loop, and views sales channels as a function of consumer preferences, as opposed to a tried and true group of high volume retailers supported with trade promotion. Done well and based on analytics means everyone wins — the consumer, the CPG maker and retail partners. Done poorly, the status quo persists and that won’t turn out well for anyone.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

10 Quotes on The Future of Business

10 quotes by Brian Solis on the Future of Business from Prezly

Every now and then, I receive a nice surprise that gives me pause. Today is one such moment. I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to share it with you.

The team over at Prezly put together a wonderful Slideshare that features some key quotes from my last three books Engage, The End of Business as Usual and What’s the Future of Business (WTF). I could only imagine how much time that took to collect. It really is quite a feat.

Without further ado, here are the quotes Prezly found most interesting…

The Top 10 Quotes on the Future of Business

2009: Engage, The complete guide for businesses to build, cultivate and measure success in the new web

Social media is less about technology and more about anthropology, sociology, and ethnography.

Social media sparked a revelation that we, the people, have a voice. Through the democratization of ideas, we can once again unite around common passions, inspire movements and ignite change…without the need for traditional intermediaries.

Social media is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. It is the shift from a broadcast mechanism, one-to-many, to a many-to-many model, rooted in conversations between authors, people and peers.

2011: The End of Business as Usual, Rewire the way you work to succeed in the consumer revolution

Each business is a victim of Digital Darwinism, the evolution of consumer behavior when society and technology evolve faster than the ability to exploit it. Digital Darwinism does not discriminate.

Businesses are no longer the sole creator of a brand; it is co-created by consumers through shared experiences and defined by the results of online searches and conversations.

Shared experiences are forms of social currency. People share things to show their friends that they’re investing in the conversation. Shared experiences can be shaped and steered.

2012: What’s the Future of Business, Changing the way businesses create experiences

Welcome to a new era of marketing and service in which your brand is defined by those who experience it.

To succeed in the business of the future, we have to become the very people we’re trying to reach.

The only way to understand new culture and behavior is to go native. Going native refers to the process of observing, learning, and deepening the involvement of an anthropologist with their hosts and their hosts’ cultures through long-term fieldwork and participation.

The bottom line is that people are seeking answers and direction, not messages or sales pitches.

—

Thanks to the Prezly team for taking the time to assemble some of my hard work over the years!

What is Prezly? Prezly is a PR toolkit that gives users everything they need to share important news with important media contacts.

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