I'm a web strategist and aspiring know-it-all with a passion for all things digital. I've worked in PR, advertising and not-for profit industries, and now I run a creative agency. These are the things I think about, and am sometimes compelled to write. More...

At ICE08 this week

Mar 25 2008

This Thursday and Friday, I’ll be in Toronto attending Interactive Ontario’s ICE08 conference, and will be participating in a panel called “Convergence: Interactive Marketing Channels” with Jon Lax of Teehan and Lax, and Todd Henwood of Publicis Modem, moderated by David Crow of Microsoft and DemoCamp fame.

From the site:

Interactive marketing has transformed over the last decade, as email, search and social media strategies become mainstays and ne capabilities are offered by emerging channels. What does the near future look like as they innovate and converge, and how do you measure their success?

Should be a fun discussion with some extremely smart people. If you’re going to be attending ICE, drop me a line so we can meet up. The panel is in the Sky Room at 1:15 on Friday – I hope you’ll check it out.

See you there!

Things you say that make you sound stupid

Mar 14 2008

I’m very lucky to work with very smart people, as you might be as well. But the thing about very smart people is that they often make you question your estimation of them by saying very dumb things. Here are some of those things that drive me crazy… I’d love to hear yours.

“Let’s flush out the idea.” It amazes me how many people say this. What you want is to flesh out an idea, as if the idea was a skeleton, and you needed to add flesh to it to make it complete. If you have no ideas and you want to flush them out, as you would a terrorist, I suppose that’s acceptable. Also, if your ideas are shit, you should probably flush them out anyway.
“We’ll need to action that.” Action is not a verb. The verb form of action is “do.” Your flagrant waste of syllables is causing global warming.
“Let’s ideate around that.” First rule of language – you can’t just make up whatever word you want and start using it, much less tenses of that word unless you are Shakespeare. You, my friend, are no Shakespeare.
“Jimmy and myself…” I don’t know when we started using the reflexive pronoun to refer to ourselves, but it’s wrong – and pointless. The correct version is “me” or “I” depending on the sentence. If you’re confused, take the other person out of the story, and you’ll see which pronoun you should use. “Jimmy and I went to the store,” but “Hernando came to the store with Jimmy and me.” (Disclosure: I didn’t understand this one until I was about 24 and my grammar nazi boss corrected me. My kindergarten teacher taught me that it was ALWAYS “the other person and I.” I hate her so much.)
“I literally wet myself,” or any other variant of creating emphasis by stating something you didn’t literally do. “Literally” is not intended as punctuation. When you use this word incorrectly, you actually say the opposite of what you mean. Unless your boss goose-steps around the office and wears a red arm band he is not, in fact, “literally a Nazi.”
“Let’s take a decision.” I’ve noticed that it’s usually bureaucrats and government types who use this, and I’m not sure why. I’m not sure it’s technically wrong, but it makes you sound like a government-bot, which is a good enough reason in my books.
“A whole nother story…” Really? Come on!

And, the bonus round…

“Media is…” The word media is plural – one medium, two media. Same rule applies to social media. Anal, but I’ve found this distinction actually helps me understand the concept of social media better. When you start thinking of it as a collection of individual media that are inherently social, it makes more sense than one amorphous idea.

By way of disclosure, I should point out that yes, I do correct people’s grammar on a constant basis, and am very unpleasant to be around.

My favourite Twitter hack

Mar 10 2008

I’ve made it no secret that I’m a big fan of Twitter. Being instantly connected to a large number of people I consider intelligent and interesting whether I’m at my computer or on my Blackberry is an incredible thing. I’ve asked and answered questions, looked for help and helped others and have connected people and arranged gatherings. It’s the one tool I didn’t know I needed until I had it.

One of the things that always bothered me, though, was the fact that I missed so much of the conversation because I was doing unimportant things like sleeping, working, or having (God forbid) analogue conversations in the real world. Not that I really need to know every time Jason Calacanis walks his dogs, but since so many of the people I follow use Twitter as a way to spread news and share links, it felt like I was missing some quality conversation.

So, I asked for help. How can I subscribe to an RSS feed of just those posts where my friends are sharing links? Within two minutes, @kaziel, a web developer from Mexico City, answered my question and sent me a link to a custom Yahoo! Pipes page that did just that. I was able to tweak it to work with my own feed, and now I can get those Twittered URLs directly into my RSS feed, and effectively outsource my blog reading to people much smarter and more diverse than I.

To me, this is a testament to the open philosophy of social media and those I follow, and As Mike Sansone of ConverStations points out, this is a great first step in getting more signal out of Twitter. It’s a pretty easy little trick, and you can clone the pipe right from mine, but if you need a little coaching, Mike’s got a pretty good explanation of how to make it work.

Why it pays to be a geek in PR

Mar 05 2008

I’ve got a lot of geeky friends. In fact, most of my friends are a geek in some way, shape or form. They’re programmers and designers, but they’re also music geeks, theatre geeks, language geeks, running geeks, media geeks and so on, and for the most part, it’s a big part of why I enjoy being around them. They go out of their way to make themselves into experts in something, whether it’s completely esoteric or utterly practical. It will come as no shock to anyone who has ever met me that I’m a geek too – and it makes me a much better PR guy.

Being good at PR or marketing requires a thirst for knowledge that I would consider above the average. It means more than just knowing how to do your job – it means knowing about technology, about history, about the media, about sociology and a million other tiny little pieces before you can really create anything that comes close to resembling a “strategy.”

Consider the game of chess. A very simple game, but one that requires an intimate knowledge of not only the rules, but the intricacies of the pieces. To be any good at chess means a lot more that just knowing that bishops move diagonally and pawns only move forward – it takes knowing how each of the pieces relates to one another, and how all of the individual pieces comes together to make something much stronger than they are individually.

It’s said quite often that public relations, marketing or advertising is “not about the tools.” That’s a fair statement, but at a much higher level, the profession requires such an intense mastery of the tools – especially when it comes to social media – that it’s not sufficient just to have a textbook understanding of the tools. In order to be a grandmaster, you have to experience them on a level that cannot be read or explained. That’s where being a geek comes in, and that thirst for knowledge and personal depth – no matter how obscure interacting on Twitter or maintaining a podcast may seem to friends outside the industry – becomes a point of differentiation between “practitioner” and “expert.”

For those who are new to the industry, or trying to break in – your best investment in yourself, and ultimately your future tax bracket, is to be a geek. Dedicate yourself to learning about the whole, but spend the extra time understanding each of those moving parts. Your friends might think you’re a bit odd, but the benefit you provide to a future employer will be well worth it.

The Social Startup

Mar 04 2008

Every now and again, I’m asked to give lectures on marketing and social media. I truly enjoy doing it, simply because I enjoy the feeling of actually educating a room full of people and helping them understand something new or to shed a new light on something they already knew. I don’t think I’d ever want to be a teacher full-time, but the occasional guest lecture is always fun.

I particularly enjoyed speaking to the group I talked to at the University of Ottawa last Wednesday. In the last few years, the business school started an entrepreneurship track that is led by a friend and former professor of mine – Bruce Firestone. I had a lot of business professors when I was in University, but I have to say that Bruce definitely had the biggest impact on my career and my life. Plus, it’s always easier to take business advice from someone who has done something as incredible as found an NHL team, rather than just another academic. It’s exceedingly rare to find both in one person.

My lecture was on, as you may have already read, The Social Startup – the notion that the group most perfectly aligned to make use of social media is entrepreneurs. The entrepreneurial culture of networking and creating opportunities has been largely overtaken by the corporate broadcast mentality – something that has sullied the name of the entrepreneur and created shills and laughable late-night commercials. In reality, the possibilities afforded by social media to the masses are much more in line with entrepreneurship in its purest form – being connected to your customers, understanding their needs and responding quickly.

In an hour, I gave them a brief overview of advertising history, the way media consumption habits are changing, an introduction to the ethos of social media and some examples of entrepreneurs and corporations alike who “get it.”

Overall, I was impressed by how many took what I said to heart and got thinking about how they can start getting more active with social media. I’ll go into more detail on what I said and the questions they asked in the next couple of weeks, but overall, speaking to a group of really smart young entrepreneurs underlined for me the importance for entrepreneurs (or intrapreneurs) to be active in their online communities. We may not be face-to-face with all of our customers anymore, but at the very least, we can understand and connect with them as individuals – and that’s a big part of what being an entrepreneur means.

Newspapers not dead, but on life support

Mar 03 2008

A new We Media / Zogby poll shows that two thirds of the US believes that traditional journalism is out of touch with what the public wants, and nearly the same amount is dissatisfied with the quality of journalism in their communities.

The survey also found that an overwhelming majority of respondents – nearly half of those surveyed – cite the web as their primary source for news and information. Runners up were television at 29%, radio at 11% and newspapers at10%. These numbers skewed even lower with younger groups, which make the prognosis even more dire, as that demographic will soon make up the majority of the United States.

The one saving grace that the survey indicated was that to a large majority, journalism is still regarded as important to the quality of life in communities, but it shows that there is a fundamental disconnect between journalism and readers. The same audience that once subscribed to a daily newspaper now relies on online media and blogs because they could consume it on their terms. Journalism is still important, but the traditional way it is delivered to us is not.

The death knell for traditional newspapers is sounding. It will be a slow transition, but I expect that we will see a number of major newspapers closing their doors or downsizing significantly over the next few years. The papers that innovate and transition their journalism skills to fit the consumption habits of their audience will thrive. Those that don’t will die a slow death. It’s that simple.
[via TechCrunch]

Live on the CBC

Mar 02 2008

If anyone happens to be listening to CBC Radio in Ottawa on Monday morning at 7:40, I’ll be talking about the Obay ads and viral marketing. I can’t promise I’ll be interesting at that time of day, but stranger things have happened. Either way, it should be fun.

I’ll be sure to post the results of the interview on Monday. Will I accidentally drop the F-bomb on live public radio? Only time will tell!

Stuart MacDonald on the Social Startup

Feb 29 2008

As I mentioned a few weeks back, I was asked to do a lecture on social media for startups to a class of entrepreneurship students at the U of O business school. Stuart MacDonald, founder of Expedia.ca and the soon-to-be-launched TripHarbor.com agreed to lend his considerable marketing expertise to my lecture notes on what social media means to entrepreneurs.

Here then, are his answers to the questions I asked.

First of all, tell me a little bit about TripHarbour.

Tripharbour Limited (www.Tripharbour.ca and www.Tripharbor.com) is my new venture, and my first since I founded Expedia.ca and was CMO of Expedia.com. We are helping people find and buy the perfect cruise vacation by integrating eComm and community elements under one roof.

How are you building social media into the strategy of launching the business?

There is a basic social media element all through the concept. We will enable cruise fans and Tripharbour team members to meet and share with each other, to ask and answer questions, to share photos, ratings, reviews etc. As well, we are using online tools such as blogs, Twitter and Facebook as elements to introduce the new service across North America.

As Tripharbour launches, what role do you see social media playing in its success?

I see the community component, with the participation of our members and our team, as being a critical point of difference and business accelerator. Nobody is doing what it is we are building in the cruise vacation category, and as people increasing look online, and to “people like me” for answers, we believe we can build a service that will make people’s lives better and grow our brand.

Do you think it’s important for startups to be active in social media like Twitter, Facebook and blogging?

I honestly can’t imagine anyone starting or running a business without having a social media component to their business plan. I am not a zealot who thinks that it is some kind of cure-all and that traditional means of promoting a business are suddenly out of date. They’re not. But this and other online tools need to be a part of every businesses tool kit.

Are there any types of businesses you think should steer clear of social media as a marketing tool?

No.

When you started Expedia.ca, social media was barely a thought. Do you think you could have launched that business as successfully without taking advantage of social media channels today?

Well, there were many things that didn’t exist then that are basics today. Paid search for instance. But, we did recognize social media and user generated content as meaningful pieces of the puzzle early on, as evidenced by the fact that TripAdvisor became part of the IAC Travel (Expedia’s owner at the time) world in around 2003.

How does a company become part of a community?

With honesty and integrity, and a personal commitment to engage. Although it may be seen by many people, social media is essentially a 1:1 thing that happens in a semi-public forum. You can’t leave it to others – you need to get in and participate.

If you had one piece of advice to a room full of young entrepreneurs, what would it be?

Remember that business is essentially about solving problems and making people’s live better – in fact, that’s what good marketing is. It’s not a logo or an ad. Don’t try to do something cool; try to do something that’s profitable, sustainable and matters to customers. And dream big – Canada is a great place, but it is a small market. There’s nobody in the US or Europe who is only ever thinking about their local market.

Shel Israel on The Social Startup

Feb 03 2008

Last week, I was asked to do a guest lecture for a class in entrepreneurship in the business school of the University of Ottawa by my friend and former professor, Bruce Firestone. The topic we agreed on was “The Social Startup.”

As I began to plan it, I realized that I could structure the talk, give some statistics on social media and give the class some quotes about why it’s important, but I quickly realized that the best way for me to show a room full of potential entrepreneurs the value of social media is to use my own network of people far more intelligent than me to share their expertise and experience as to the importance of using online networks and social media to succeed as entrepreneurs.

In the interest of sharing, I’ve decided to also post these interviews here for all to see. I’ve so far had some pretty interesting responses from people I consider extremely intelligent, not the least of which is Shel Israel – co-author of Naked Conversations and host of the yet-to-be-launched Global Neighbourhoods TV – a part of FastCompany.TV.

Here then, are Shel’s answers:

You see a lot of startups using social media to promote themselves. What would you say is the most common thing they do wrong?

Precisely that. Social Media is not to promote yourself. It is for having conversations with people relevant to your business. By being closer to them, by listen to their complaints and suggestions, a company builds better products and services. Customers feel they are being listened to and become company champions. A startup can dramatically reduce inefficiencies of marketing in initial phases.

If you were to launch or advise on a startup today, how much of your marketing strategy would involve social media?

All of it. Seriously.

Do you think it’s important for startups to be active in social media like Twitter, Facebook and blogging?

I think there is an ever-expanding warehouse of available social media tools. Companies need to choose which ones are right for their needs and then use them, not to just get the word out, but to get words and thought in, to see and understand market dynamics quickly and to adjust course accordingly. Of the three you mentioned, the mechanisms are very different. In a blog, one person does most of the talking and others listen and respond if they think the speaker is being either useful or interesting. In Twitter, you have a more egalitarian environment, where no one is in charge, but the number of zealous product champions is quite high. Facebook has gone through some rapid, and I think unfortunate changes, make it more of a tool for traditional marketers who have bady damaged the high level of credibility Facebook users had just a few months ago.

Are there any types of businesses you think should steer clear of social media as a marketing tool?

Sure companies who want to deceive themselves that they have command and control over message and markets. Companies who do not have particular loyalty to customers. Companies who make money by deceiving people.

My belief is that such companies will be replaced over time my smaller companies with superior products and services and more transparent and human attitudes toward customers.

What role has social media played in your success as an author and consultant?

We were among the first to collaborate with the blogosphere to write a book. We posted early chapter versions. people came and corrected our facts and our grammar. They suggested new people to go speak to. They told us what worked and what sucked. Robert and I adjusted course a great many times because of that collaboration.

But there’s much more that happened. Our blog followers became our book champions. They brought the book into the enterprise, the university, government, the military, libraries. They became our distribution. Their credibility became the book’s credibility. Their social networks became our book readers.

We should have given the blogosphere a co-byline with us. Without them, what happened before and after publication would have been a lot less.

In your opinion, how does a company become part of a community?

Nearly every company is part of a community, a community of buys and sellers, of investors, employees and recruits. This has been true for a very long time. What has changed is that technology now enable companies to talk with customers in a scalable, affordable and global fashion. That’s the remarkable part. It’s not the blog or the SocNet, it’s the conversation.

The trick is that to be influential in the new community a company need to understand the generosity is more valuable then ads or media campaigns. Giving people interesting and/or useful information is what helps a company. The commnity is what is now in control and companies who do not see it that way may be destined for a one-way trip to Jurassic Park to join other outmoded fossils.

If you could tell a room full of future entrepreneurs one thing, what would it be?

Listen to market conversations and find what people need. Then fill it.And there you have it – the first in a series of interviews with successful entrepreneurs and social media experts on the importance of social media for the entrepreneur. If you have any comments on the subject, or want to suggest someone that I should talk to, please feel free to contact me. I’d love to hear your suggestions.

[Photo by Flickr user WhiteAfrican]

Data Portability and the Future of Social Networks

Jan 14 2008

I have more beta invites and memberships to sites that I’ve used a handful of times than anyone should ever have. While I am admittedly in the geeky minority, the reason that many of these social networks and potentially useful (though not always) memberships end up abandoned, only to live out the rest of their days in my bacn folder is because social tools, by their very nature, require a social aspect to be truly useful. Facebook without your friends list is really nothing at all. Twitter without followers and people to follow would be a lonely exercise in yelling into the ether in 140 character chunks.

The answer up to now has been either to search and find your friends on every network you want to join, or to allow sites to search your email (eek!) for people who have already signed up. Of course, this doesn’t work if they used a different email to sign up than you use to email them, and we’ve already seen what can happen when unscrupulous bottom-feeders like Quetchup get involved with that.

Cue DataPortability.org, a working group comprised of some of the major thought leaders in the social networking space. Their vision is to create a framework where my contacts on Facebook can be the same as my contacts on Bebo, can be in my email address book, can be hooked into Twitter. This is part of a larger movement to create online web standards dictated by users, not by companies who want to lock down a file format or a proprietary codec.

What does it mean for the future of social networking? First, it means that users have a lot more choice, which means that the larger social networks will need to step up their game. Like any media, once consumers aren’t locked down by restrictions, they will consume media in the way that suits them best. Second, it means that niche social networks (like dopplr or Upcoming.org) can thrive. Without the massive barrier to transporting your social graph from one service to another, social micronetworks can form and, more importantly, monetize. With no more need to reproduce your friends list, social media can become more pervasive, both online and off, with the control held by the user and not a corporation.

The movement also has privacy implications for anyone involved. If I provide my contact info to someone via one social network, in theory it means that it can propagate to all of those social networks. It also means that the Chinese wall between your business life and your personal life (if you have one… I personally think they’re overrated) comes down, and all of a sudden Ernie “the Keg” Smith from university and your boss are connected by one degree. Also dangerous, but these are things that are in many cases already happening, and the discussions at this level will hopefully address these points.

So far, Facebook, Google, Plaxo and a host of other major players have joined the discussion, which is extremely positive for the group. The big players need to buy in, and the niche players need to have their concerns addresed as well for this to work. What will come of these discussions remains to be seen, but hopefully it will lead to the user having more control over their own data, rather than companies like Facebook simply monetizing that data and providing little to the playground other than a grassy field and an unblinking eye watching everything you do.

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