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October 29, 2007
Dinner at the New York Stock Exchange
Last week I was honored to be part of the wf360 summit at the New York Stock Exchange. The event started with a reception on the NYSE trading floor followed by an award dinner with 200 or so public company executives. The "360 Leadership" award this year was given to Anne Lauvergeon, the CEO of Areva, who was also profiled on 60 minutes.
One of the interesting experiments for this year's summit, which I was happy to help facilitate for Susan Bird, the organizer of the event, was to invite well known business bloggers to attend and blog the event. You can see some pictures from the event taken by Howard Greenstein here, and also peruse posts about the rich conversations that took place by Don Dodge, Howard Greenstein, CK, Tom Steinthal (also here and here), Tom Guarriello (with video), Dorian Benkoil, Russ Nelson, and Rob Leavitt. There were additional bloggers at the dinner and I will update this post with links to their posts when they write about their experiences.
Besides meeting some great bloggers for the first time in person, I also met some fabulous people from various industries who were interested in talking about how to "operationalize" all this new social media stuff into their sales & marketing, their educational programs, and their human resources processes.
[Tags: wf360 summit wf360 nysecorante NYSE marketing 2.0]
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October 28, 2007
Hilarious ad...
This one is too funny :)
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October 23, 2007
It's not the individuals that evolve...it's the species
I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend BIF-3 a few weeks back. As usual, the conference was jam packed with amazing presenters and thought leaders.
One of them was Clayton Christensen, who was interviewed on-stage by Walt Mossberg. While he focused much of his interview on his two new passions - health care and education - he also reminded us that it is not the individuals who evolve, even in the face of being taken over by mutants, but it is the species that evolves. The same is true in business - it is not individual companies that evolve, but the industry as a whole that evolves.
And off course, disruptive innovations happen when there is a new technology enabler combined with a new business model that can take that easy technology to market profitably. According to Christensen, that is exactly what is happening in both health care and education - both areas in which he doing a lot of research.
It will be fascinating to see some of the findings coming out of that research.
[Tags: innovation bif-3 disruptive innovation Clay Christensen]
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October 15, 2007
links for 2007-10-15
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SEO stuff for Firefox
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October 10, 2007
Is the customer really in charge?
So in the past couple of years there has been a lot of talk about the democratization of media, citizen marketing, the amateur hour, and other themes & memes pointing to the fact that the customer is now in charge. He owns the message; she decides what happens to the brand, etc.
Fact is – the vendors are no longer is charge. Nobody would argue against that point anymore.
But does that automatically equate with saying that the customer is now in charge?
Academic research about democratic sites like DIGG shows that a majority of what makes it to the front page comes from a very small number of people – in fact, researchers talk about the “tyranny of the minority.” Other research, such as the one done by Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell and reported in their Citizen Marketers book, finds that the percentage of people who actually create and broadcast content is 1%.
So is the customer really in charge? Or is it a small group of non-democratically elected loudmouths who now controls the message?
This is just one of the topics that we will talk about this afternoon during the interview with Jackie Huba.
Posted by francois at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Bookmark This | Linking Posts
October 8, 2007
More Interviews on the Marketing 2.0 Group
The conversation that we had with Tom Asacker on September 28th is now online and also posted in the Marketing 2.0 Facebook group.
This week we are interviewing word-of-mouth expert and author Jackie Huba. The conference call will take place on 10/10 at 1pm ET. You can find more information and register for the event on that event's Facebook page.
The week after that we are interviewing social media expert and author Shel Israel. More information on that event can be found on Facebook as well.
If you have any questions - email me at francois [at] emergencemarketing [dot] com.
Posted by francois at 1:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Bookmark This | Linking Posts
October 5, 2007
Are the 4 P's still relevant in today's world?
As I was responding to some discussions in the Marketing 2.0 group on Facebook, I started talking about the relevance of the 4 P's in marketing, which of course is one of the cornerstones in marketing education worldwide.
But are they really relevant anymore?
Let's look at them one by one:
- Product - I guess this one stays :) - although are you sure that people are always buying your "product"? Or are they buying an experience associated with your product? Or perhaps a "personal identity" that comes with the use of your product?
- Place - is amazon.com a place? Is a search engine placement a place?
- Promotion - people are not taking your corporate BS anymore...And according to the Strategy and Business article I posted in the Facebook "posted items," 80% of all insurance policies will be bought based on information not provided by the insurance companies! So does promotion in the insurance industry still matter? Maybe - if you think that the company can participate in the creation of the user generated content that people will base their decisions on without hiring corporate "shills."
- Price - many new business models have funny pricing schemes - as in "free"
In the late 80's some academics (I cannot remember who they were) came up with a replacement for the 4P's - the 4C's. While not perfect, the 4 C's may sound a little more modern/appropriate for the times:
- Customer instead of product
- Communication instead of promotion
- Cost instead of price
- Convenience instead of place...
Using the 4P's as a roadmap for success for new products may not be the best roadmap to use anymore... It is a bit like using north, south, east and west as guides to find your way in deep space.
Thoughts?
[Tags: marketing 4 p's 4 c's marketing death valley marketing 2.0]
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October 4, 2007
links for 2007-10-04
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Facebook valuation site
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October 3, 2007
links for 2007-10-03
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A guide to social networking
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A car ballet - cool ad
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October 2, 2007
Another great Dove commercial
Here is another great Dove commercial. While I can see how the onslaught on women is greater, the onslaught on young boys should not be underestimated either.
(here is for RSS subscribers who may not be able to see the video)
(via Adfreak)
Posted by francois at 6:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Bookmark This | Linking Posts
October 1, 2007
Come to BIF-3 next week
Register today for the BIF-3 Collaborative Innovation Summit and join participants from across the country in a two-day conversation about innovation, driven by the personal stories of innovators from across industries and disciplines. Now in its third year, BIF-3 will be be held on October 10th and 11th in Providence, Rhode Island. If you register as a reader of this blog you will get in at the discounted rate of $800 instead of $1,000.
BIF -3 will be hosted by Wall Street Journal Columnist Walt Mossberg and Mavericks at Work author Bill Taylor. The duo will guide participants through a program that includes Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, UnderSecretary of Homeland Security Jay Cohen, Ghost Map author and co-creator of outside.in Steven Johnson, 37signals founder and CEO Jason Fried, Providence Police Chief Colonel Dean Esserman, architect Chris Benedict, Studiocom chief creative officer Juan Fernando Santos, information architect Richard Saul Wurman, BzzAgent founder and CEO Dave Balter, IBM VP of Innovation Irving Wladawsky-Berger, author and Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen, Made to Stick author Dan Heath, president of Stanley Bostitch Denise Nemchev, author and founder of The Hybrid Vigor Institute Denise Caruso, founder of the gethuman project Paul English, Linear Air president and CEO William Herp, author and associate professor UC-Davis Graduate School of Management Andrew Hargadon, Icosystem CEO and Chief Scientific Officer Eric Bonabeau, TopCoder founder and chairman Jack Hughes, founder of Zipcar and GoLoco Robin Chase, Director of the MIT Agelab Joe Coughlin, and former head of Knowledge Management for the BBC Euan Semple. (Full line-up is available on the BIF site)
The Summit format—more conversation than conference—is unique. Presenters have only fifteen minutes on stage to share personal reflections on how they created innovation or catalyzed change. Groups of storytellers are blocked around generous breaks that give participants and storytellers ample opportunity to interact. Most importantly, storytellers fully participate in the entire event as members of the audience.
Registration details can be found at www.businessinnovationfactory.com/bif-3.
Posted by francois at 9:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Bookmark This | Linking Posts
Comparing Wal-Mart and Target on Facebook
Both Target and Wal-Mart have sponsored groups on Facebook - both of which are targeted at college kids.
Target has over 7,000 members and mostly positive comments in a vibrant set of discussions. The Wal-Mart group on the other hand has a little over 1,200 members, no discussions are allowed, and the wall postings are mostly negative.
What is the difference do you think, except for the fact that a large portion of the population believes that one of the two companies is truly evil?
The Wal-Mart home page looks like another interactive ad.. The Target home page is more inviting and enlists the help of users to co-create the experience. Any other differences that you can think of that would result in such a difference in membership and tone of conversation?
We can take the discussion to Facebook - in fact I started a thread on the subject in the Marketing 2.0 group, where we now have more members than the Wal-Mart Facebook group.
[Tags: marketing social networking facebook wal-mart target]
Posted by francois at 6:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Bookmark This | Linking Posts
Talk at you marketing
While not new, this is a hilarious video from Microsoft if you have not seen it yet (via Lois Kelly in the Marketing 2.0 Facebook Group)
(RSS subscribers, if you cannot see the video, click here)
Posted by francois at 4:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Bookmark This | Linking Posts
