Creating Movements and Tribes....that Matter too

A couple months ago, I blogged some thoughts about the value of connecting...company and customers, customers and customers and purpose ideas of Mark Earls. That post was about several books and thoughts and related to Seth Godin's Tribes. He has talked before about how tribes sort of change the world, marketing perspectives, and a whole lot more. He relates it to changes as we flip advertising and marketing upside down and think about "the privilege of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want to get them....adding up to the fact that what people really want is the ability to connect to each other, not to companies....or perhaps connection to humans who are part of companies?

You can check out the latest from Godin on Tribes over at TED site where he argues that at the same time as the Web changes mass communications, every day people like you and me go off to work to change things and have an impact....and today, we can have that impact.

His argument about living at a time of significant change certainly holds. No doubts about the Web changing how we connect, live and work; mobil devices change how we stay in touch...in fact it is not just about mobility, it is increasingly about technology's ubiquity; when and how we work is no longer governed by place and time, necessarily; and, geography knows few boundaries.

Information is so readily available, who knows what theory will explode tomorrow and if we were somehow organized enough we could probably earn our own advanced degrees, maybe without professors. As the media fragments and, in some cases, struggles to adopt, what are we to do with more information than we can digest, or ever work through or consider?

Of course, we are to rely more and more on friends and those we respect or trust.

Sure we have moved from factory to television (mass media) to the current situation of today...a period when Godin argues we demand leadership, ideas that challenge the status quo, connections with others and are ready to make commitments.

But in that pursuit of demanding leadership and all that information...and our reliance on a Tribe or others we trust, lets also not fall into the trap of sleep walking through it all. Seems we shouldn't forget to be demanding of ourselves -- not just for the right connections and exciting ideas so that we can jump into tribes. But also to require of ourselves and the Tribes we join the kind of critical thinking and thoughtfulness that keeps us progressing, challenging and thinking. In that respect, rather than just following Tribe leaders or the Tribe, we need to make and find the time to reflect and digest, coming to our own conclusions too about why, what, and wherefore. Godin talks about TV messages hypmotizing. The Web might yet prove to be very capable of that too...

At the end of the TED video Seth Godin issues a challenge: in the next 24 hours create a movement that matters. Its not just the movement part, in these chaging times. I think equally important is the "that matters" aspect of that challenge. Two thoughts worth thinking about

Cluetrain, Hughtrain, Bluetrain

Call it what you want....I love it and it is so true (to me anyway).  I had to have it.  And, I got it before the limited edition ran out.  Thank you, Hugh!!! It arrived and is awesome.

PS:  In my excitement and haste to publish, I forgot.  Check out more at GapingVoid Gallery

How And Why To Build A Corporate Blog from LionelatDell

Wanted to share a presentation from my good friend, colleague...and arguably one of the best corporate evangelists I know. Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

How And Why To Build A Corporate Blog

View more presentations from Dell Inc.

Executive Social Marketing Bootcamp, David Alston of Radian6 Nails Some Issues

In social media generally, as well as my experience around the web for Dell, one of the great benefits/values of the conversations across the web is simply in "listening"....learning from that and the engagement arising from those conversations.

Check out this SlideShare Presentation by Radian6's David Alston. Its a great list of the kinds of conversations that are important to business and allow you opportunities to learn and get even better at what you do. Those top 10 are:

1. The complaint
2. The compliment...people love to be heard on both one and two
3. The problem or glitch or issue
4. A question about you, your products, services or company
5. Looking at how a "campaign" is being received by your customers or others
6. The Crisis...or maybe the early warning system to a crisis
7. Your competitors
8. What the crowd or 9. influencers think of you? Essentially, "YOUR" reputation...because ultimately people give you a reputation, its not really "yours."
10. Identify points of need in what your customers are saying and experiencing so you can be even better

Hope you enjoy it

Executive Social Marketing Bootcamp

View more presentations from David Alston.

The Future of Reputations

Changing Everything?  Was catching up on some reading and ran across this gem of a publication called Edge where earlier this year they had published a series of answers to the question "What will change everything?" What bridges will be crossing that fundamentally really change everything about and around us.  There were articles about social networks, how text will give way to video everywhere, education, computer processing, planetary matters and what we know today or will tomorrow about the brain.  There is a lot there.

The Age of Reputation: The one I got thinking about was was "reputation" by Gloria Origgi, a philosopher and a researcher at the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris. Her areas of research are philosophy of mind, epistemology, and cognitive sciences applied to new technologies.

She begins by pointing out that the Internet is really what will change our future most but then raises the question of how it changes things the most. Rather than paraphrase, let me quote the premise:

"The Internet is a complex geography of information technology, networking, multimedia content and telecommunication. This powerful alliance of different technologies has provided not only a brand new way of producing, storing and retrieving information, but a giant network of ranking and rating systems in which information is valued as long as it has been already filtered by other people.

My prediction for the Big Change is that the Information Age is being replaced by a Reputation Age in which the reputation of an item — that is how others value and rate the item — will be the only way we have to extract information about it...The age of reputation will be a new age of knowledge gathering guided by new rules and principles. This is possible now thanks to the tremendous potential of the social web in aggregating individual preferences and choices to produce intelligent outcomes."

Anonymous Powerful Algorithms Give Way:  She notes that the anonymous mathematical algorithm for cataloguing and retrieving information will/is giving way to rankings by people...and in some respects "information" becomes irrelevant, or at least subservient, to rankings by people and then the aggregation of those rankings.  The "new generation of search engines whose ranking procedures are simply generated by the aggregation of individual preferences expressed on these pages: no big calculations, no secret weights...results of a query are organized just according to the « grades » each of these pages has received by the users "

The Human Web:  And so the human web really takes hold in what we often think about as a data driven world.  To quote Gloria Origgi again, "this softer Web, more controlled by human experiences than complex formulas, will change our interaction with the net, as well as our fears and hopes about it. The potential of social filtering of information is that of a new way of extracting information by relying on the previous judgments of others."

For many who have been working in, or thinking about, social media, the premise she raises are familiar.  The social web enables people to connect with other people and share perspectives in whole new and powerful ways. Her conclusions, taken beyond web pages to a reputation based and ranked world are most interesting, I thought.

For another good read, be sure to check out the New York Times article about Web Comments/commenters.....some interesting observations there. ...

And, if you think about the two articles together and put comments in the context of these  "reputation rankings".....well, I am not sure what to think :-) .

SXSW, Time to Learn, Hear about Experiments, New Things and Connect

SXSW is a great opportunity to learn and connect, engage in some great conversations, and as I often like to say “make online real offline too.” As a person who moved here just a few years ago, I can testify to Austin's live-ability. It has become home to this former Canadian. And to the guests from far and wide, I say welcome, come and enjoy.

There are so many great things to do, I’m not even going to try and start. However, check out Steph Agresta’s Techset Blogger Lounge and her blog listing with a great set of events. Update: My colleague and friend Lionel also has a post over at Direct2Dell with our info. It includes some info about the Dell team members at SXSW and other nifty things

The “Fashionable” AllHat…No Cattle Event: The "AllHat….No Cattle" Shopping and Socializing excusion (#allhat) is on Sunday from noon to 2pm . It includes shopping for hats, boots, buckles and a light lunch/refreshments (cash bar/food donation $ if you choose). More Details below.

Hat Tip from the AllHat team: Imagine, a few individuals came together with a different idea…"lets get together and have some fun shopping for a cowboy hat on Sunday at lunch.”

WOW…..Twitter and away we go. YOU, our many online friends, networks and individuals, have come together in a big way to join in (See Twtvite tab on who is attending, or the tweets, #allhat and more). Looks like we have a great crowd, but most importantly an event where we can share some fun, food and chance to talk to each other in person….many of us I suppose get to meet in person for the first time and exchange more than a 140 characters at a time. The results testify to the power of connecting, I think….so please be sure to not hesitate to introduce yourselves and we can all put faces to avatars.

So, HatTip from AllHat to ya'all, for the opportunity to meet, for joining us.

Team AllHat says thanks…to each of you.

Who is AllHat...and WHY?

Your Co-hosts: @Richardatdell and David Armano. Why? Because we had cowboy hats already and even shopped at Allen’s on another occasion

Special Guest: Mack Collier… Why is he a special guest? You will learn that at the event (hints have been in twitter and below).

Fashion Advisor/Crowdsource opinion leader: We “roped in” Steph Agresta following concerns that the two cohosts and special guest did not bode well for success in terms of fashion sense. Steph is a regular at Allen’s boots when she visits Austin. She has a red pair….hope she wears them :-)

Your Photographer: Brian Solis (I let you pick the link from google) and that search just goes to prove Brian is everywhere – on the the ranch, off the ranch, twitter, flickr, life streams, books, blogs – he’s like the Paparazziso, everywhere. But, we “roped him in.” Why a photographer? BECAUSE if ya’all make a scene at the AllHat event/brunch,(etiquette tips in some pics) modeling your newest hats boots and buckles, that’s like the red carpet at the Academy awards. Best that be captured and shared (and besides, Mack may need a new twitter avatar, so that we can start a trend of cowboy hats for twitter avatars)

The Roadie: Mark Drosos (with the band, again you choose the link) comes from the entertainment business…and this event is “entertainment,” – by, for and with you – pure and simple. He just volunteered….no, actually he just “stepped into it.” He’s the best roadie with the band we can have….and he is social too. Mark Chose the theme song and it captures the spirit we hope you feel, that Big warm Texas grin.

PreParty Prep, Etiquette Tips, Church of Customer Counsel : Window Shop if you want to get a little head start on decisions. You can start by window shopping over at Flicker. There are some different collectibles page 2, as well as a special treat: Church of the Customer Blog, Jackie Huba provides some perspective on one of the most highly viewed items, in the pre shopping warm up collection.
However, Jackie showed no patience (a virtue I am told) and decided to get her shopping done ahead of time in order to deliver a warm Texas welcome. Watch for her new purchase she already tweeted about using new hashtag #allhat.

Unboxings : When you get home (or back to your hotel room) with your hats, boots and buckles, just a reminder, like new computers, you can do an unboxing (sample here toward bottom of page and on the next one).

Prep Done? Ready for shopping now? .....Come have fun

Wharton Study on Word of Mouth Marketing

Given the ongoing debate around the blogs and social networking communities about measurement and results, thought Wharton's recently released story "The BuzzStarts Here: Finding the First Mouth for word-of-mouth marketing". 

They find that social networks (not necessarily the online kind...but social networks in general) impact contagion and spread of word of mouth.  

The other interesting take away is the "who" underpinning successful word of mouth is crucial for success and not always who we think it is, or should be.  The person contributing to success is not always the self proclaimed or even traditionally thought of "leader" in a particular field.  In this particular case study Wharton professors found the "leader" underpinning real uptake for market success was actually an individual who connected across the various communities and was known amongst his peers for doing really solid work. ....a sociometric leader is what they call it

In fact, he was not considered by the industry or himself as an opinion leader.....But that is what he was doing, very effectively.  And therein lies the rub, right?