Fluent Simplicity

Twitter, blogs or other social apps will not help a business with poor leaders hip. Like my high school photography teach told me: you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.

It’s critical to remember that these approaches offer new avenues for communication and service. The notion of twitter providing a “revolution” in community or customer service is ridiculous; as with any other strategy, its dependent on planning and research.

Why am I bucking the trend of industry experts? Because of history, in particular, leaders in professional service industries. Take Joe Flom of Skadden, Arps (a firm I am very fond of for certain reasons): returning client calls and providing excellent service is one of the factors that has made Skadden #1 of the AmLaw list. It’s not the latest technology or marketing-catch phrases: it’s hard work and a belief that service and excellence drives businesses. Read up on Marshall Field, a pioneer of service within the retail space for another great example.

The Web has shortened the distance between the customer and a business. The rise of mass production and large scale economies perhaps is to blame. With technology comes mass customization and immediate feedback on product quality, complaints and praises. When thinking of any technology, look past the technology itself. What we do with those tools to drive business is the most important concept to focus on.

I just wrapped up the prereq seminar for my MBA program. Talk about intense… volume of reading, countless whitepapers and articles, statistics coursework and ~40 written assignments. I can now tell the difference between a 10K and MRP II and am ready for the start of my first seminar. In looking at my Web experience, I was wondering why I chose the MBA over a technology management degree. Why? A desire to bring about change! Now if only life would calm down a little.

On to the Index! The Twitter Brand Index has received a number of updates over the past week. I’ve started to recieve help from fellow twitter users, in particular Moksh Juneja (@mokshjuneja) and Andy Murdoch (@andymurd) for their international contributions. India has a number of brands online as is the Office of UK Prime Minister. Perhaps we’ll see @whiteHouse in 2009?

 I’ve seen comments that are skeptical of corporate twitter accounts. In particular: do they hold value beyond promotional channels. One commenter, Twitter me UP, offered a reasonable amount of skepticism:

I don’t know if I buy into how twitter works well with customer service. It sounds like a cheap marketing tool to me.

I believe that a squeaky wheel holds value; apparently, so does Comcast. As evidence of Twitter as a customer service tool, I present the following blog post by @warhawke: Comcast Really Does Care.

 After yesterday’s post Comcast did follow up with me and wanted to try and help and resolve the situation. Up front I have to say the attention & customer service I received was exceptional. This is the way customer service should be, but you shouldn’t have to talk to supervisors or people high up just to get good customer service.

It would have been ideal if the situation could have been resolved without a negative post. Perhaps this has been a valuable lesson for Comcast.

I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered Jennifer Granholm, the Governor of Michigan, had a twitter presence. Today she was joined by John Cherry, the Lt. Governor. What’s going on in Lansing? I decided to poke around… there are a slew of media operations with a twitter presence, plus several universities. The organic growth of both twitter accounts and tweets is exciting, particularly for government agencies.  The ability to connect to people, especially those that we serve, is extremely powerful.

So Michigan, what’s next? Heads of state agencies? Could there be a opening for a Web strategist?

I found the following thread on linkedin earlier… How many share my skepticism of Web 2.0? It starts off strong:

I’m afraid I’m more than just skeptical of “Web 2.0″… I’m actively derisive of the concept. It just oozes “marketecture” nonsense. What problem does it solve? Whenever someone attempts to describe it succinctly, it evaporates into vagueness.

and ends with:

Fight The Stupid!

I can’t help but think this person is way off base. While “2.0″ is an ill defined and over-used term, the trend it makes an attempt to describe is far from “Stupid.” I’ve written extensively on twitter and blogging as powerful tools to connect with customers. Dell, Best Buy, Zappo are just a few companies that have leveraged “groundswell” to benefit operations and shareholders.

Of the many responses, the following from a CTO summarized the question quite well.

I read this same question, just a bit reworded, in the following cases:

I’m skeptical with client-server architecture, we already have a mainframe.
I’m skeptical about web-services, we already have client-server architecture.
I’m skeptical about distribute processing, we already have a Cray.
I’m skeptical about PCs, we already have pocket calculators.

Corporate execs will see this as an opportunity to establish policies limiting “participation” on “bulletin boards and chat rooms.” I see it as an opportunity to help create an environment for debate and learning. So “2.0″ sucks as a label. Get over it and read “Groundswell.” Savvy executives will use this example to help to have a useful discussion about the future of the Web and business. If business managers simply circle the wagons and say “Nope, 2.0 doesn’t mean anything to our customers” (which I actually hear recently), the game is over. The only question is when.

The twitter brand index grows on a daily basis. One category that holds some personal importance for me are government officials that tweet. Long before I was involved in the Web, public policy and political science garnered my attention. While a bit idealistic, I believe that government officials and administrators hold a special duty: protecting the welfare of its citizens. This simple statement provides for a number of policy decisions: job creation, public safety, education, transportation and more. Continue reading ‘Social Applications and Government Offices’

I made some updates earlier this morning on the brand index. There are a number of new accounts listed, mostly media companies. I was pleasently surprised to see Governors’ Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and Granholm (D-MI) actively tweeting. Note to corporate America: if elected officials understand Twitter, you can too.

Check out the index (look for the tab at the top of my blog) and send me new entries!

I raised the concept of blogging to a marketing manager a few months ago.  The response took me back a bit — “No, we’re not into guerilla marketing.” I forgot about this exchange until tonight: I had “Carrier” (PBS) on in the background while I did some work (school related). In this particular segment, various crew members were describing the role of the carrier group in fighting terrorism. The term “asymmetric warfare” was used frequently. In the midst of hacking out a paper on deprecition and cash flow (yes, it was rough), I remembered my conversation and had to blog on it.

The guerilla comment rubbed me the wrong way, so in this post I want to examine blogging in context of marketing as well as warfare. Continue reading ‘Blogging as Asymmetric Marketing’

I’ve seen some chatter in one particular legal-oriented listserv lately concerning content removal. Google does such an extremely efficient job of indexing information that it causes headaches when that information won’t go away.

Fortunately, the good folks at everyone’s favorite search engine provide a tool to deal with these sticky situations. Here’s what you have to do — please note this is the abridged version. If you need extra handholding, you might have to pay your overpriced vendor

1. You need to have a Google account.
2. Go into your account and add Webmaster tools.
3. Add your site and verify it with the necessary files. Verifying you own the site is necessary to access several of the tools. Update: @Bibble has a great blog post addressing the verification process. I suggest checking it out.
4. In my experience, verification happens quickly. You will now be able to access the Webmaster functions. Go to Tools > Remove URLS.
5. Check that the file has been deleted from your site
6. Enter the URL and any other requested information in the tool. Click Submit Removal Request
7. Wait. If all goes well, the content will be down in a few days.

Removal of URLs should be your last line of defense. Other policy driven approachs include blocking content from indexing or caching. I would suggest asking your Web vendor on how to implement each of these approaches.

I’ve been updating the Twitter Brand Index regularly — I’m excited to see new companies, particularly those in the legal industry, establish a presence. In an effort to establish best practices within this new space, the following elements were created after an examiniation of companies in the index. (Note: This is a work in progress; I’ve love to collaborate with others on this initiative.)

The list after the break… Continue reading ‘Twitter: Thoughts on Use and Branding’