Keeping It Real.

Speaking of the logo that artists designed for his new album, Nick Cave makes an interesting observation.

“The wires are telling you: somebody built this thing. It's the same reason we tend to use the first or second take of a song rather than the third or fourth. They may not be perfect, but they capture some sort of essence.”

Would your customers recognise your product/service as being made by someone, but not "perfected" to the point of sanitisation?

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Twitter Spam.

In my usual early acquirer fashion, I started using Twitter a long time and have delighted in receiving classic tweets such as "Pardon me boy is this the Heathrow Express?", "Gazing at the ocean. Looking for a kettle", and the classic "Riding the Tube like a mofo."

The stress was very much on the ambient intimacy that Lisa Reichelt identified. The reaction was one of delight, wry amusement or an excuse to grab a coffee/beer. But now, hot on the heels of the rise of the verbose super users, we're inevitably getting the guides to corporate tweeting.

Tara produced a comprehensive one yesterday, but I fear that a lack of restraint on the part of companies who read her words will ruin the delight of Twitter and backfire on them. The technology is only the medium and any company using it cannot afford to forget that Twitter is something more than that to its users and no doubt a different thing to each of them.

The strength of Twitter is its "one to many" messaging ability, but from a marketing perspective the "many" have to want the message and even if thye agree to follow (i.e receive messages from) a company, there is an implicit level of incoming traffic that they will not tolerate. The marketing danger here is that the combination of the ease of sending the short message form and the flow/stream aesthetic of Twitter will lead to abuse of that permission. Because of the limited size of the Twitter page, such behaviours will quickly become spam of the worst kind.

The smart strategy is far less complex. I want companies to have a Twitter account where I can reach them and, to their credit, some companies are already doing that. If I have an issue with a company, I want to be able to pull a very quick reaction from them. In an age of web 2.0 information overload, I don't want to be bombarded by them with unrequested offers and items they think might amuse me.

When we market our company's products/services, we have to remember that part of the job is to to be the individual's advocate. It's all too easy to serve the company's needs and forget about the customer. By way of example, I hope that Tara forgives me for pointing out the unfortunate coincidence of events that occurred today.

No sooner had I read something in her guide that worried me

Rickrolls or other fun internet games - this shows you are a bunch of fun and has people trying to do the same for you. Spreading as many internet memes as possible is good.

than I checked my Twitter and read her tweet with which I was in total agreement.


We've all done it. The customer is not different to you and me. They are you and me.

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Intangible Social Objects.

Continuing my recent thought that a social object used to faciliatate interest in one's product/service doesn't actually have to be an object, I even wonder if it has to be something with which the customer directly engages at all. Maybe it could be something that happens to the customer. The advantage with this type of social object is that the business can exercise significant influence on it. Some thinking aloud follows.

Behaviour as social object - people talk about the fact that your business walks the walk and that you consitently do what you claim you do.

Etiquette as social object - people like to belong and will talk about a place, be it real or virtual, be it club, society or user group, where everyone implicitly acknowledges a certain way of doing things.

Interaction as social object - people notice when you make it easy for them to do what they want to do. They talk about it and usage spreads.

Service as social object - people talk about little else. Get it wrong or get it right, you know that people will talk about this.

In a web 2.0 world, they could otherwise be known as authenticity, community, usability and customer-centricity. The commonality here? Good old differentiation. Not the faux differentiation of much advertising, but a real distance of difference separating you from the all too often mediocre norm. There's nothing like that to get people talking.

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Strangers On A Train 4.

Four advertising folk discussing their just completed pitch meeting with an insurance client. Since you weren't there, I was obliged to take notes on your behalf. Key takeaways include

"It's all guff on charts until you put it in an ad."

"Forget the offer that gets you in the door, it's all about moving the brand."

"I'm not sure why I needed to be there."

"Me too, but I guess it gives the impression of commitment."

No, they never mentioned customers. Not once.

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Welcome To The Involvement Economy.

Today, in respect of my recent post, I was told that the original concept behind the Nokia stores had been to create a "retail cathedral". While that is ironic both because of what Eric Raymond wrote and because I'd question the desirability of customer worship alone, it is undeniable that they have succeeded. They have a cathedral while the Apple store is a bazaar filled with people doing things.

The question, of course, is how could Nokia get people doing something (other than perfunctorily fiddling with inert handsets) and thereby staying longer and becoming more engaged. There are many possibilities. Perhaps customers could be helped and encouraged to customise their phones in some way. Or there could be other free services, either directly related to the phones (in the form of game or ringtone downloads) or something along the branded utility lines of perhaps a free fast recharging service or something much more left-field as with the Diesel Playhouse that Faris highlighted the other day.

I'm sure readers smarter than I could come up with many more ideas for Nokia, but, in fact, they did already try to do that. The photo above was taken on the top floor and reminded me of the fabulous Nokia-sponsoredRegent Street Christmas lights which display passer-bys were meant to be able to adjust. I deliberately say "meant to" because, even though I knew about the idea (and most foot traffic didn't have that advantage), I couldn't work out how to do it in December when I passed the site of what was to become the store. Maybe it was just my stupidity, but I couldn't become involved and I never saw anybody else do so.

And it is customer involvement that should be the aim. It's not enough to aim for experiential because that can all too easily be a passive interaction. It's arguably not even enough to aim for engagement because that has implications about on whose terms the engagement is occurring. No, what you should be aiming for are situations in which you facilitate the active involvement of your users (and potential users) in something they wish to do and through which facilitation you can enhance their opinion of you and, in an ideal world, their opinion of your product/service too.

As Peak Attention approaches, I think it's time to start thinking about the Involvement Economy.

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The Top 5 Made-Up Words Of Web 2.0.

David Armano has been gaining a lot of traction with his tongue in cheek guide to the invented words of Web 3.0 but, in similar vein, let's not forget the invented words of Web 2.0.

Conversation

It's a metaphor folks. It doesn't mean that your customers want a conversation with you. They generally want a quiet life without unwanted noise from you. They want the ability to interact with you on their terms, they want you to listen and, most crucially, they now have the ability to have a conversation about you when you screw up. Your focus should be on listening and not screwing up rather than having a conversation.

Community

It's a bunch of people folks. As Clay Shirky has indicated, Web 2.0 means they can come together very quickly to form a group that might oppose something, but they're yet to come together to pursue a positive. Crucially, they can quickly disperse and, as Bob Putnam points out, there's not much community feeling out there. Your focus should be on serving individual customers rather than trying to create a false and inevitably fragile group.

Relationship

It's a one night stand folks. People want interaction on their terms. They don't want them foisted on them via your latest CRM initiative. They want a harem - a group of individuals that are happy to meet their specific needs whenever they call on them while turning a blind eye to their promiscuity. Your focus should be on ensuring that every time they encounter you, it's a wholly positive, time-efficient and memorable experience. If it is, they may want to repeat the liaison.

Content

It's attention-seeking behaviour folks. Ease of expression and creativity is great but it runs up against everyone's scarcity of attention. Fail fast, fail early is a fine philosophy, but only if you learn from the failures and do so increasingly early. Your focus should be on giving people content they want, when they want it and realise that as soon as you don't, they'll move on and remember your content as being irritating multi-media spam in their noise-filled lives.

Authenticity

It's totally subjective folks. But, if you can fake it, you've got it made. Trouble is, you'll get caught out if you try to do that. People don't like lies and pretension in their life, they're attuned to detecting it and will certainly not tolerate it if it's connected to relieving them of their money. Your focus should be on standing for something, behaving consistently in relation to that stand and trusting people's ability to spot that you're doing that.


The point of course is not that Web 2.0 is bogus but that these words are wrongly defined in alleged received wisdom. What Web 2.0 allows and indeed demands of businesses is a return to genuine old-fashioned customer centricity and greatly increased agility of response and attitude. The underlying world hasn't changed and the meaning of these words similarly hasn't changed. Nonsense flows from businesses seeking to monetise them. Profit will flow from really understanding them.

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There's Only One Job Title.

Talking about craiglist's founder Craig Newmark, Robert Scoble gets it very wrong. He's not being self-deprecating, he's acknowledging that everybody is a "customer service rep". It's those people who don't realise this simple reality that cause all the problems.

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