Joseph Rueter

It’s a simple question easily answered by brands in the past. Be Us. Be true to our brand everywhere. It’s comforting. It’s what we do. It’s what we’ve done. It’s even better (nearly necessary) if we can find great (measurable and effective) ROI. Be us in every place we can control (everyplace we care about) and trumpet (force) our message. In fact, there really was no provocation to the question of who to be. Be Us! Be stable, confident, tastefully arrogant. Hail to the brand.

The question is real now. The unsolicited opinion and desires of the customer for what they think and what they think a brand should be is manifold in most cases, public and easy to access. Should brands be “true” to who they think they are OR should they be who the people they want the kind favor of think they should be?

It’s a current struggle for many as the assumptions of what is possible and best practice for a brand are changing all around. The messaging and communication landscapes have proliferated, time-shifted, gone geographically agnostic and become ubiquitous effectively to the degree of infinity. Tons of stuff that once worked either doesn’t or works quite differently. So now what? Does this change how a brand behaves and therefore influence it’s identity like moving to a new culture would?

I think on one hand, yes. On the other hand, no. Where do you see the lines?

First off, it’s early. Second, there is:

-Lots of opportunity to be solved for.
-Lots of implications to be embraced.
-Lots of “best practices” to discover.
-Lots of behaviors to change.
-Lots of culture to shift.

image via Wallie-The-Frog

Let’s assume we know HOW to engage the crowd. Then what? To my mind the question is then, WHEN to engage them.

Give it to the crowd when:
-You don’t care about some aspect and want the crowd to decide.
-You have an idea but need it vetted.
-You perceive you don’t have enough time or money.
-You’re curious.
-You’re one of the best brief writers on the planet.

Do you see or know of additional conditions for WHEN to engage the crowd? Please, toss them in the comments. Or maybe it’s the case that we should always engage the crowd. In that case, we better all be amazing brief writers!?

image via //solidether

I know it might seem obvious. I know. However, “social media” is just media that happens to be social. Right?

Media is text, still images, moving images, and audio. It’s just media. We’ve had media in these forms for generations now.

In the past, few made media. Few distributed it. Many experienced it. Now we all can create it in all it’s forms. It’s easy. The barrier to entry is remarkably low. We’re all publishers now. Or rather, we all have the potential to be. Many of us are.

So what makes media social? To my mind the subject and the mechanisms for distribution are on the top of the list.

When the subject of media is a person’s life or relates to it or that of those they know it’s quite understandable that we’d want to share it. We’re social beings. But it’s still just media.

When the sharing apparatus — the distribution channel — is structured to make promotion easy it’s reasonable to expect the media to seem to amplify itself. But, remember, it’s just media.

So when media about people is easy to create and distribute in a way that makes it easy to share you get an explosion of media that happens to be social.

Maybe what is more important than the tool or the object of sharing is that we have an explosion of the inclination for social activity. That seems more core than the tools themselves.

Now the question is, how good are we at it?

Media is segmented. Habits are not what they were. Culture is changing. Business is undergoing massive shifts. Technology is enabling communication, new habits and behaviors faster than culture is changing or embracing them. Agencies are in turmoil. It’s a crazy time. Some feel like they’ve been hit by a train.

Users are being considered in the design of products. We’re all our own publishers. Transparency is a new currency. The crowd is on the rise. Industrial design firms are doing marketing. Heads up, there is another train coming.

image via bridgepix

John Winsor and Alex Bogusky have written a book titled Baked In that posits a way forward for products and marketing working together. I enjoyed the doodles throughout and fully agree with the principles of learning by doing and prototyping often. Check out the book’s blog at http://www.bakedin.com for an example of the principles of the book embodied. It’s interesting for many reasons not least of which is that they drank their own Kool-Aid.

The thesis goes something like, creativity is an ultimate business weapon and marketing should be part of the definition of products in such a way that they market themselves. The book and blog are baked together. They each market each other and themselves due to their connection to Twitter and their invitation for people to interact and participate.

I received an early version of the book. I was eager to read and happy to do so. I’ve wondered out loud with others and ruminated about it’s contents as well as the state of industry/culture.

To my mind… current convention holds that quick profit is a premium and primary goal. Therefore convention nearly always chooses the path of least resistance for design and manufacturing. As a result, the machines that make things have become nearly, if not the only, primary audience for the design of many products. Design in this system is focused on what the machines can make. Users are after thoughts. In the common case then, marketing enters the picture as something that happens ABOUT a product or ON BEHALF of it after it’s made and most often in order to get people to buy up stock of it.

Baked In provides a conceptual framework for flipping convention on it’s head. It’s about marketing being something that happens TO products and BY products on their own behalf. As an example, what if the designers played a significant role in deciding what gets made? What if marketing was a first thing considered in product development? Baked In argues that creativity and marketing should be intimately in the mix. Marketing then would become an essential characteristic of a product. Without marketing the product would cease to be the product by definition. In fact, products not designed with marketing in mind might in the future be doomed to a warehouse stock existence.

The middle chunk of the book gets practical and offers a series of “recipes” for baking marketing in. Clever. They’re insightful and articulate. Taken together they seem like firm ground to stand on when designing/marketing products. My favorite at the moment is “Get Out Of Whatever Business You Think You’re In.”

To my mind each of the recipes can fit in to one of three categories. Inside Culture includes recipes for teams and organizations to think and work together by. Outside Culture focuses on the macro culture for a time and product and how to make the most of it all. And finally recipes for Disposition which focus on thoughts/values/approaches to be considered when baking marketing into products.

The last section of the book argues that systems are a major way forward. I agree for a couple reasons. First, I am reminded here of the work of Daniel Pink and Roger Martin. Daniel argues in A Whole New Mind that where the left brain has dominated business the right brain’s ability to consider empathy and inventiveness as it relates to value creation is becoming and will become increasingly sought after. Roger, Dean at the Rotman School of Management and author of The Opposable Mind, argues that an integrative approach that includes both business (left brain) and design (right brain) are where value will come from going forward. I see both arguments lending well to systems thinking for designing/marketing products. Let’s integrate thinking and doing and sharing (marketing).

Second, systems seem to be a logical conclusion to the argument the book is making. By that I mean that if marketing and product design are to be integrated, which would its self be a sort of system, then it stands to reason that systematic approaches to the contexts in which those products exist are also in order. Moreover, systems seem appropriate ways to build for expanding and sustaining value.

So… Baked In. It claims creativity is an ultimate business weapon. To my mind it’s not a stretch to suggest that systems are it’s ammunition. It’s time to make them.

Maybe, a next step is to bake marketing into our thoughts. Maybe we’re all idea merchants. Maybe that’s the goal of this all. How do we think things should be? The question then is how good are we at that thinking and doing. Maybe it’s about spreading ideas. Maybe it’s about prototyping and building things. After all, everything that exists is an argument in a way about how things should be. Are we happy with how things will be on our current trajectory? Wither your answer is yes or no both suggest that we get to work and make things.

Problems are obvious. Most of them are anyway. They exist.

Most problems exist because some system is broken. They stare us in the face. They plague thoughts. We might think, “If I could just get X solved, or maybe I could just get it to go away.”

Most of the services and help we seek are to solve or fix problems. At home we get the plumbers, mechanics and the like to fix problems. At work it’s managers, outside providers and so on.

When working to create value from a problem first stand point we nearly always assume the premises of the problem, the system it was created by or that it lives in. We accept the system cart blanch. In doing so we nearly always accept the boundaries of the system and all it’s rules.

Solving problems that way can work. Sure, people do it. Sure, it can be somewhat successful. However, success is a relative term. What if we were far more interested in solving for opportunity?

Opportunities are widely available but they’re not often obvious. They need to be solved for. They tend to come from disparate ideas being combined. Most opportunities don’t yet exist. They can be tricky to “see.” They’re not yet actualized.

Solving for Opportunity… It might seem like a subtle shift from solving for problems. Sure. A problem might be why you direct your attention to finding a solution or finding an opportunity. However, a problem and it’s system need not command the boundaries, the playing field, for finding a solution. It need not be the only reason to look for a solution either.

Solving for opportunity is exciting. It offers an approach that first finds the opportunities available. Then, it crafts solutions for not yet existing value.

One approach protects value. One creates value.

image via jup3nep

I’ve been apart of a number of conversations recently regarding web startups in Minneapolis/Saint Paul. It’s curious.

I think we’re bound by the culture. Yet, I wonder if we can leverage that culture in someway and push the current community. Towards what? Towards an increase in delivered solutions. We live here but we don’t necessarily have to think here.

The Scandinavians and farms in our linage have influenced us to be stable, to take little risk, to fit-in and thereby stick to our jobs. Not terrible traits. We also have a tendency toward equity and an interest in making things work. After all that’s what you do on the farm.

I think there’s significant enough potential for our Midwestern-ness to be modified for increased yield in the startup space to be having discussions and asking questions. Foremost on my mind… where is there a climate where we can hybrid our tendencies with that of start-up activity? Does such a thing exist? We have hybrid crops. Why not have a hybrid climate of our culture traits and startup community traits?
So, why this post? Because I wanted to say “I am excited by the prospect. I am thinking about this.” You?

Down on the farm when you need a windmill you’d piece one together. You make it with what you have. We’ve have the Midwest. We have the internet. Do we want to a startup farm?

image via eye4it

Toyota is electrifying and connecting your wifi machine in public places via “Solar Flowers.”

Marketing is experiencing changes. Not only that but ads find themselves in dramatically different environments than ever before. The previous dominate mediums of words and images — read print and TV — changed in minor ways every couple years. When they changed assumptions were rarely challenged. The web is providing communication new dimensions, it’s democratizing information, and driving social realities toward new behaviors. It’s forcing change and change more rapidly.

The innovators are developing and including new mediums in marketing ecosystems. Marketing as operations, marketing as manufacturing, marketing as fulfillment and here with the solar flowers, marketing as service comes to mind. Who knew marketing could do stuff for people? Who knew it could help people accomplish what it is they are already doing? Who knew it could go beyond impressions that raise “awareness”? Marketing as service can drive past “consideration” and possibly strait to “preference” if it’s done in a way that helps. I mean, why not have a preference for someone or some brand that’s provided for a need of yours with out you having to ask or even realize you needed it?

Here I am reminded of the Ritz Carlton Service model. How can marketing anticipate needs, provide for them without being asked and respond with “our pleasure.”

image via Toyota USA

Many assume each page of their website needs be treated equally. What can Baseball teach us?

I watched the Bluejays host Boston last Wednesday streaming live on my iPhone while on the treadmill. While I could talk at length about behaviors changing because of diversified media channels I find the stats on Toronto pitcher Roy Halladay more intriguing at the moment. The Bluejays are paying attention. Close attention.

When Halladay pitches the Toronto infield seems to huddle together on the right side between first and second like it’s cold outside and that’s where the bonfire is blazing. The second basemen stands dramatically to the first base side of the bag and the shortstop covers second from about 10 feet to the third base side of second. To bad for third. He stands alone in this lopsided arrangement. You can almost see him shivering. Metaphorically of course.

Moreover, the infield ought to pay extra special attention to the first pitch each batter gets. Why? 34% of all batters facing Halladay hit the first pitch. The highest in the league at the time. The graph of at bat connections off Halladay shows a highway of hits to the right side of the field. Thus the unusual arrangement of men with mits is because they know the stats, they want to win, and they believe they can give themselves the best chance by acting accordingly.

Now baseball is fanatical about it’s stats. That’s the first and obvious take away. How many of us are paying the kind of attention to our website stats like a coach does for his baseball players? The data is easy to get. I suggest we all take a page from baseball and get above, way above, 500 on our websites!

Figure out what your visitors are doing and help them do more of it.

I was recently asked to guest post on Andy Santamaria’s http://connectingmetoyou.com/. I thought why not post it here too. Thanks Andy for giving me a reason to focus my thoughts.

After reflecting on the BlogWell event held last Thursday at General Mills HQ I looped back on my notes, noticed some key points and thought I’d share. The four (of eight) presentations I saw were General Mills (eats), Walmart (retail), Progressive (insurance) and Ford (stuff that moves). Over all I am impressed with the state of the social space being so young, even in big companies. People are out experimenting and learning. It’s an exciting time. I came away thinking that it’s not all figured out.

While at the time of the event the speaker from General mills, CMO Mark Addicks, did not have a Twitter account he did have a couple key insights to share. Goes to show that being on Twitter does not necessarily equal competence in all that is marketing. Just saying. Not that it would or would not hurt to have one necessarily.

Mark noted that scale is useful when it’s used to leverage opportunity. With respect to the social side of the internet they are finding ways to leverage their scale. I’ve thought for some time that one of the most social things we have as humans is our food and therefore it was interesting to hear that Betty Crocker, arguably the first social brand, has nearly no TV in their media plan and an almost entirely digital solution.

Walmart has some 200 Million customers per week. That, like the other numbers they shared are staggering. I mean, I know they are big, I just don’t think about it much.

The stats about their associates website were enough to perk the room up. The site is not available on corporate computers which means the associates need to access the content from non-work computers! Even so, 90% of their associates login to the site at least once every 10 days. Powerful. It seems reasonable to conclude that there are huge opportunities for most any company to grasp when it comes to connecting with staff! The staff wants it. Will companies provide it?

There was a brief ethics presentation in the middle of afternoon. The key take away is that it’s illegal to pay people for reviews. So, don’t do it. Now that it’s a new space it’s still illegal. This includes being vague about where a review is coming from. Be clear if you’re paid in anyway to say what you’re saying in the social space.

Progressive Insurance will insure most anything that moves. Apparently they are innovators, first to market with a number of “products” recently. I had not herd of them. Maybe I am not the demographic. Regardless the one feature I do remember is their insuring a family pet along with the family while in the car. Interesting.

The key point, to my mind, from this presentation was that with social media you have to find your door in. For Progressive it was/is catastrophe. They reach out to people and help them with information when they need it. They listen and respond as they can. They have all kinds of info on their site and they point people to it and other sources. I find it curious that here Twitter’s mobile characteristics are being leveraged. Seems like a very nice fit for Progressive and a strategy that has offered them a number of critical early wins.

Lastly, the vehicle maker, Ford. They have a number of active campaigns in the wild now. It’s exciting to see the experimentation and learning in social media’s relative infancy. Examples of what they are doing include giving cars to people under different circumstances and asking them to document their experiences and share them publicly. They’re listening, from what I can tell, quite actively from within the social space.

Yet, with all those perceivably “best practices” and campaigns generated by their agencies up, running and producing results I found it interesting that Scott Monty addressed leadership to the extent he did in his presentation. It’s not surprising to find leadership as a dynamic, even a critical one, whenever and endeavor includes people. What is surprising is that this presentation is the first of social media presentations I’ve seen where leadership quality was the key point. Curious.

Social media has been and usually is a bottom up kind of reality. I wonder now as the top of corporations start to notice the opportunities available in the social space if it will become like all the other parts of organizations, namely top down. Or if maybe the social realities exemplified online will play a role in influencing change in the corners of all organizations.

It’s still early. Rise and shine. Let’s be better. Let’s be social.

image via tommy_is