Conversation Agent

You know you're addicted to FriendFeed when...

1. you wish email had a “hide” function
2. you know there are only three absolutes in life: death, taxes, and Robert Scoble
3. you keep answering conversations that have already passed by
4. you look for the like button on Twitter
5. you don't understand why everywhere you turn people are explaining “reasons why”
6. you start to worry whether your FriendFeed stream outranks your blog on Google
7. you haven't called your mom in a week, but you've commented on 200 posts by perfect strangers
8. you secretly suspect Facebook users just "don't get it."
9. you make list posts everywhere
10. you just invited someone to your room, and you're not flirting

Your turn!
________

Related posts:

FriendFeed: the Friends of Friends

[is it time for FriendFeed to get its mascot? I think it is!]

Trust, Listening, and Doing Something with it are all Connected

[from Davos @Scobleizer interviews Richard Edelman - 3:43"]

Trust is at an all time low. The conversation that started with loss of trust in financial institutions and the Forrester finding that people don't trust corporate blogs, continues in the 2009 Trust Barometer by Edelman. The survey gains even more significance in light of the fact that we have had many of those data points for a while now.

Trust, listening, and doing something with it are all connected.

There are now plenty of listening tools out there - many of them either cost effective, or free. If you'd like to try a new one, BuzzGain just launched in beta [hat tip to Louis Gray]. Yet companies still spend most of their time talking. My hunch is that is one of the reasons why corporate blogs have lower credibility - there is little evidence that anyone is listening or contributing to the community.

New marketing is not marketing done the same old way in new channels - it's taking the business to a whole new level via interaction, engagement, and taking action on the feedback. AdWeek reports on a new CMO Council study that finds there is a major disconnect between how most organizations collect customer feedback and then utilize it.

only 16 percent regularly monitor online message boards for complaints and feedback. This despite the fact that 58 percent of them believe the Internet and social media have changed the level of influence and expectations of their customers.

I agree with Neale-May, the CMO Council's executive director - not doing something at the business level is asking for trouble. Your company's products and services will not look better than they are if you just message them righter, or work harder to create more demand. Marketing needs to tie in directly to business. In fact, the whole business is marketing.

Public relations is also changing in this new environment low on trust and high on contribution. Edelman cites [via FT] four pillars of "public engagement" that are necessary to regain trust. I add my commentary:

• Private sector diplomacy - this is quite interesting, as it turns the tables on government stake ownership in companies via bail out. If you take this point to your small business, you have involvement in local community activities.

• Mutual Social Responsibility -internal and external are not the only two kinds of alignment that need to happen. There is also a larger conversation around the connection of being good socially with doing good financially. You don't need to be a non profit to find ways to contribute.

• Shared sacrifice - I've seen evidence of people at every level inside organizations putting in long hours and making personal sacrifices for the good of the company. In my experience with mergers and acquisitions, where stress is at an all time high and layoffs are imminent, sharing more information about what people can do to help the business is vital to sustaining a high level of energy and engagement.

• Repeated, swift, and accountable communications - at all levels. Communications to me also means active participation in the common understanding, the making sense of events. Collaboration, team work, and openness all fall under the accountability part.

Reputation that takes years to build can be marred in mere minutes without transparency and honesty. This is a critical part of public engagement.

Marketing and public relations are both about building relationships of trust. Listening is just the beginning, the doing something with it part is crucial for the health of your business. How do you capture the information? Here are a few ideas from Chris Brogan. How do you parse it inside the organization?

This is where having connected outposts throughout your company's functions will pay off big dividends. I'm giving you this advice for free, your repayment to me is in actually taking the advice and implementing it. Here's how you do it:

1. have people on staff who know what to listen for. Enroll them from customer service, operations, engineering, product development, marketing, technical support, you get the idea.
2. make it easy for them to communicate with each other. This is where a nice common platform with a robust content management system will be invaluable.
3. agree to and use social tags to break down the issues in what you hear. Linking and search are valuable online functions for a reason - they build on behavioral patterns. We teach each other what is important.
4. streamline the process from early detection to intervention. This is crucial. In working on crisis management and communications, we see it over and over again. Many crisis could have been averted with early intervention. Think of it as a prevention program for the health of your business.
5. build accountability into the system. To keep things simple, how about everyone is accountable to the customer? Think of it as an org chart where each employee reports to the customer [hat tip to John Moore]
6. do something with what you learn. That is the third part of my favorite quote "expect nothing. blame no one. do something." The more you listen actively, the more you will realize that it's not as complicated as the strategists will have you believe. Often, the information is there for the reading and hearing. Capturing it and slicing and dicing it is not as sexy as making a change because of it.

Pen and paper in hand, do a delta - what you're already doing in one column and what you wish you could be implementing in the other. Do you need to do more listening or do you need to do more with the listening you're already doing? Who needs to be convinced in your organization and who needs to do the convincing? Did you try with a pilot program? What did you learn from it?

_______________

Related posts:

Trust
Are You Monitoring Online Conversations?

Don't Script, Improvise

"In periods of upheaval, imagination triumphs over the status quo, and innovators and visionaries find opportunities that do not exist in balmier times." [Mike Bonifer]

Your success depends on your ability to solve problems. This is a truth I learned from experience. The skeptics will probably take issue with the word "improvise". Mike Bonifer's manifesto makes a well-reasoned case for why it's a good idea to start thinking differently. Life doesn't stick to a script, so why would business?

The best sales people I worked with had the knowledge and experience behind them to know that listening and being in the conversation with customers and prospects is the winning way.

In fact, I'd say that experience shows when you have accumulated enough mileage to let go of the rules long enough to respond to the problem or situation at hand. Often, you create new opportunity just by responding in a new way - in negotiations, partnerships, even personal relationships, that injects a sense of possibility into the equation (done in the positive).

How many conversations are exactly the same as others you've had in the past? Do you enjoy when you receive a call from someone who's reading a script? "This is the way we do things around here," is often the least conducive way to innovation.

We've also been talking about building context with marketing. As well, it's important to understand how the context plays on your decision and ability to solve problems in new ways. I many B2B marketing situations and budgets all you have is the one chance to make a good impression. Will that chance be spent on being exactly wrong, or will it be invested in being interesting and different? 

Some pointers from Bonifer (in bold):

• You're already and improviser - sometimes the best meetings and brainstorms are not even planned. How many times in a day do you have unscripted moments? You bring to bear your knowledge and experience to solve problems as they present themselves. That is improvisation.

• It begins with communication - listening is all about improvising. When you listen aggressively or actively, you are asking questions and are getting involved in the conversation. Communication is the R&D of thinking and processing information. That to me is what "how talk can change our lives" means.

• Improvisation puts a human face on business - this is the main reason why Twitter and FriendFeed are so interesting. In both social spaces, information is built upon as it's passed on from person to person. The network activates thousands of human channels and allows lots of micro interactions.

• It is first, about you - no question, even in this networked world where everyone shares, each of us needs to take responsibility for our own actions. I really like what Bonifer teaches here - stand from something, be that action.

• It builds relationships - business is very much about what people can do together. If you think about the purpose-idea that is at the foundation of your company, then it's how that purpose is expressed and how it comes to life as the ideas get done through interactions.

• It makes you a player in a changing game - this is a big lesson for companies with big egos because it is by far more productive to participate in something that is happening than to try to control how it should happen. Many thoughts here about community building and facilitation as well.

"Improvisation invites participation, liberates good ideas, and challenges players to work at the height of their intelligence." Start thinking about improvisation in the context of open content and mobile and you will be able to partake of a bigger slice than just script or no-script. You will, in fact, learn to make the pie bigger.

I've taken a brief course on improvisation. Back in the old world, I also took a liking to the stage, both as a choreographer and an actor. We could all say we're actors on the stage that is life. Are you interested in improv? Have you used its principles? What did you like about it? What didn't you like about it? Why?

[bonus link to On Your Feet and Robert Poynto's book Everything's an Offer illustrated by Gary Hirsh]

How do You Know?

[Failure: the Secret to success, 8:19"]

I'd like to try something different today, maybe it's because I've been spending more time on FriendFeed and Twitter. I'd love it if you did most of the talking here - I know we will all get ideas for follow up projects that way.

Many of you reading have been involved with social media at least a little - enough to want to learn more, experiment with your own formats, enjoy the connections. I've done my fair share of interviews on both sides - asking questions, and answering questions, depending on how the conversation started. One of the most frequently asked questions is:

What makes Conversation Agent (or you overall) successful?

For me, it's a combination of things:

1. Reading and learning by doing constantly, and thinking about what others share
2. Observing relationships, connections, time, and attention patterns
3. Listening actively in the comments and conversations wherever they may be, and listening in the measurements (that is feedback, too)
4. Being willing to go where the conversation is
5. Collaborating with the community of readers and professionals
6. Being absolutely in love with everything about thinking together (writing and talking)
7. Experimenting with new formats often (not always, that would get you dizzy) and failing frequently - the more and faster I fail, the more I learn
8. Providing a cohesive body of work for those who wish a deeper dive
9. Working hard on content so that (hopefully) it's helpful to you
10. Researching but also creating and building context

My question back to you:

How do you know what makes you successful? When was the first time you felt you were onto something? Was there such a time? Are you carving a path for yourself to build on that success?

Hint: the more I get to know you, the more helpful I can be in my content and in helping you make connections.

[bonus link, my interview with the talented Patsi Krakoff, co-founder of The Blog Squad on content marketing insights]

Amazon's Secret to Online Dominance

There are actually many that work in concert, but two stand out.

According to Matt Pace at Compete.com, they are the company's dedication to customer service and its masterful use of consumers’ browsing and purchase data to tailor the site for each visitor. [hat tip to Jeffrey Eisenberg] In fact, I think their site has single-handedly redefined how we'd like to have an online purchasing experience - fast, interesting, and personal.

It's in the many micro-interactions that we have throughout the site that we end up spending time and eventually money. You go onto the page listing a book, find the description, dig into the reviews, and now you can even read the comments to the reviews. Most of the times, you may just stop at the cross references from customers who bought what you are looking for, but it's nice to have the option to keep reading and discovering new material.

Your level of vested interest increases when you become a member of anything - gym, professional association, buying club. At Compete.com, Pace analyzes how the Amazon Prime membership drove  higher traffic and buying patterns during the recent holiday season. He draws a direct correlation between the program and the company's better online performance as compared to other retailers.

The data speaks in support of both. There is correlation between site performance (execution) as tied to customer preference, and repeated purchases as tied to customer experience. In thinking about that, there are three practical ideas you could test in your online environment:

1. Present information on the basis of visitors' navigation pattens - how can you upgrade from looking at the traffic behind the scenes to allowing visitors to see what others have looked at?
2. Provide some form of interaction - how can you upgrade from chatting with you to allowing your customers to talk with each other?
3. Promote the benefits of frequent visits - how can you upgrade from occasional visits to vested interest in becoming a site's 'member'?

You can test these ideas even if you don't have a retail site. Adjust, and repeat for increasingly better results.

I remember reading an article about Jeff Bezos on Fast Company a couple of years back and being impressed by what it said about Amazon.com's founder.

Yes, he is described as the ultimate analytical guy, who will hone in the small improvements that will drive efficiencies and profit. Yet, he is also someone who's always driven by the belief that what's good for the customer will ultimately turn out to be in the company's enlightened self-interest. For this reason Bezos is constantly testing new ideas.

In other words, the company never takes its figurative eye off the ball. Today at Fast Company expert blog we talk about what to do when your company takes its eye off the ball.

Publishing as Life Hack

 

[image of life hacks by Phil Gyford]

***

Last Sunday, as I was hitting publish on my post about collaborative journalism, Gina Trapani was talking to Lifehacker's audience about her decision to step away from the site's editor job to go back to "making things, noodling with software, and writing about it." I've read her open letter a couple of times because it says so much about how publishing has evolved into a conversation among content creators - readers and writers mixed in different doses.

We discussed the combination in a conversation published here. "My definition of success is handing a reader a useful tidbit that saves time or makes life easier in a small way," said Trapani. The other insight I had from the post - which, as she wrote, broke the two "keep it short and sweet" and "it's not about you" rules - was that publishing itself is a life hack. Her post generated 378 comments.

This to me seems to be the biggest difference between sites born as new media and those who have migrated online from print - that of educating and inspiring comments, building rapport through conversation. Contrast this with the tone of the exchanges that take place at Wired.com, for example, and you may see what I'm talking about.

The new in media seems to take publishing much more personally than the mainstream. Not just a job, a reason and a way to improve one's knowledge and life. Do you think that's because some of the native publishers in the new format were not born as journalists? In some discussions over this very point, I heard things like - journalists are authorities who publish, therefore they don't get involved in conversation.

Many in the comments to Trapani's post expressed appreciation, but also awe at what is possible to achieve. That is probably one of the best examples of crowd evaluation I have seen. After reading the post, I thought about some questions to ask media companies that have an online property. They are the same questions bloggers have been asking themselves and others for at least as long as I have been active.

1. Do you provide the best return on time invested on the Net? Is your site a must read? As Randy Smith puts so well in a comment - if it isn't original content, then what about high quality leads?

2. Do you create a community at your site? The answer to the question is in spirit more than literally. Many print publications succeeded in doing that, in becoming quite different and thus unique in their readers' minds. 

3. Are you an original or a copy? Online, it's more tempting to copy, isn't it? Copy the URL, or buy something very similar - are among the forms of misdirected cleverness. Why? Can't you be yourself? Can't you develop your own personality? The worst thing you can do is be too clever for your own good, actually - you know who you are. If so much could be done from code (zeros and ones), imagine the life hacks you could put together if you were just more willing.

4. Do you show tireless devotion to your readers? Great journalists have that drive and belief. It comes across clearly from professionals like Christiane Amanpour - not just when you have the opportunity to be in the same room with her, but in her robust body of work.

5. Do you know when it's time to refocus your priorities? I know how easy it is to continually optimize one model, instead of seeking to break new ground in the evolution of a business.

6. Can you say that you've inspired someone to become a journalist? Educating and making it exciting is part of it. Being part of defining moments is a good way to know that you're on the right track. With so many more voices, there is still plenty of opportunity for signal.

7. Would your readers and customers give you an award? That is what matters. Prizes like the Pulitzer should be a nice outcome, and not a goal in and of itself. It's the same conversation we have in business, and even in the blogosphere.

The essence of life hacking, as Trapani writes in her post, is this - "for someone who loves making things on the web, spending 100% of the time blogging about what other people are making is simply untenable." Are you publishing as life hack, or is it time to consider what you'd rather make?

Heaven Looks (a lot) Like YouTube

Paul Bennett is my new business hero. I discovered his post on creativity and the rise of optimism via Diego Rodriguez [metacool] and I'm already a fan.

The title is an expression he used in the post. Paul says something very simple, and  very very hard for businesses to understand - people want to contribute. In the command and control world we still live in, people have designated lines to color within.

What can I do? Is probably the most frequently asked question in many situations - career changes, economic woes, but also new jobs, new relationships, a move to another city.

You start the job, for example, or the relationship, filled with desire to make a contribution. Alas "how can we make the pie bigger?" is seldom the most frequent way forward. Look at point #3 in this post - great minds...

Yes, heavens does look a lot like YouTube. Now playing because they make the pie bigger for customers and the community:

1. Zappos.com becoming a customer's best fan by being transparent and fun. In the interview with AdWeek, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh said: Our belief is a company's culture and brand are two sides of the same coin. The brand may lack the culture but eventually it will catch up. Cultural fit matters tremendously to inspire positive thinking and keep the creative juices flowing towards participation in the customer experience.

2. Trader Joe's offering freshness, delight, and a few surprises every single week - they can introduce up to 15 new products/week. There are rumors that this is the only grocery store I will go to. Their floral displays are as yummy as the cheese counter. It's just so friendly and nice in the store that it almost feels like an adventure - and one that will not break your bank.

3. I wrote about The Ministry of Food (another connection with Paul) a couple of months ago. Jamie Oliver is the ultimate example of making the pie bigger. He uses his talent and creativity to help the community. The causes he has backed are many improving the quality of school lunches, reducing childhood obesity, advancing the cooking skills of the general population, educating the public about factory farming, and offering delinquent kids a second chance through cooking.

Food and clothing. Maybe there are also examples of housing that does right by the community. As Paul said, heavens looks (a lot) like YouTube. What can we do to help each other get the dreams and hopes, and memories seen - and played out? It's amazing what you discover about yourself by broadening your horizons and looking upwards!

[Forget the company brochure. What would your business magazine cover look like?]

Words That Don't Work

We're all still digesting the new President's inauguration speech - both Bert Decker and Ian Griffin did a fine job analyzing it. If you're a writer and a speaker or either one of them, you should subscribe to both blogs. I borrowed the title to this post from another writer. One who makes his home in the political arena - Frank Luntz. As he espouses in his post at the Huffington Post:

Democracy is at its best when its practioners use language to unite and explain rather than divide and attack.

He wrote that post two full years ago - if you scroll down to the end of the post, you will see he had also written how Obama was doing well because he was offering a hopeful vision. You have to admit, he was paying attention.

This post is not about Obama's speech, nor it is about the use of questionable language, which is what Luntz got in the comments and to which he responded:

for those of you who criticize my use of words -- which are all of you -- consider the words you yourself use.

Consider yourself the words you use is excellent advice. As marketers and communicators, we should be on top of articulating our advice to other business colleagues. Yet, we come up short. Why?

Because we have developed out own lingo and do not use language in the most powerful ways - to move the business into execution mode, aligned behind serving customers' needs and attracting prospects. All because of those few words.

When we say... we mean... they hear

Let's run a couple of tests. Talk about marketing with a business strategist and they will roll their eyes and tell you that it's all fluff. Well, admittedly a lot of marketing is fluff. There is no anchor to a solid business benefit, or value to the customer, or point of differentiation... let me translate that for non marketers - it means I do see how it's relevant to me and why I should pick this one, instead of that one.

That wasn't so hard, was it? The point is that we're so used to talking with each other - or at worst in our own heads - that we forget to translate what we mean for our colleagues. So our stock is devalued right off the bat. I caught myself a couple of days ago talking about telling the story. What I meant really was communicate why this is relevant to my customer. See the problem?

Now take that into the social media lingo and you're in trouble. The purpose of the Obama campaign was not to use cool social media tools, it was to reach people where they were - at home in front of the TV or in the office in front of what is becoming our first screen - the computer.

The intent was to help connect people with the candidate and his team and especially with each other. Remember the Tupperware parties and the Avon ladies? Same principle at work to help spread the word. We talk to more people when we share in the creation of what we're saying and we hang out in the same space.

When we say social media, the business hears new channel to push messages, we mean helping make connections and develop relationships with customers and prospects by being present and remarkable. Big disconnect. The message does not carry across. 

Whose line is it anyway?

It's our turn to learn how to communicate in the language of business. So that we can carry across the learnings about (1) what's happening in the marketplace, (2) how are our current customers' needs changing and (3) what is causing those changes - and also (4) where our opportunities are and (5) how the business can satisfy those opportunities.

Do we make an attempt at truly understanding how our colleagues see the business and how they talk about it? Can we say "we" more often than "I"? Can we balance "you" with "they"? Obama's speech did that. Check out the word tree of the inauguration speech [hat tip to Ian Griffin].

Less 'positioning', more building expectations and delivering on them with experience. Less 'brand' and 'message' talk, more purpose-idea and being worth talking about.

Let's use more words that work. Words matter. It's not about passing an exam or looking smart, it's about moving people to execution in the most connective and productive ways. Sometimes we just play a war of words.

What words in your lingo are you going to change in order to carry more meaning across in conversations with your business partners? How about talking with your family about all the time you spend on FriendFeed and Twitter? Any words that work there?

[for the story behind the image, go here. Yes, I wrote "story". We're among colleagues here.]

Top 25 Ways to Stop Wigging Out (cross posted at Livingston Buzz)

by Geoff Livingston (cross posted at Livingston Buzz) and Valeria Maltoni

Yup. Times are tough! Whether it's yourself, a friend or family member, everyone knows someone who has been affected by the economic situation. Jobs are less secure and hard to find, every sector has been hit, the news is bloody awful from week to week, and the Wall Street – Capitol Hill mud fight is just downright painful. But that doesn't mean your attitude has to go down with current events. 

In reality, successfully handling events like these often depends on your own inner solace. That's not to belittle serious situations, and the somewhat contagious nature of down spirits and news. But as Abraham Lincoln said, "People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." 

We thought it would be really useful to provide 25 tips on ways to break out of "stinking thinking" and get your day back on the right track.  Here are some of our preferred methods:

1) Go to the gym and exercise: it cleans your head out!

2) Step away from the big picture and ask yourself, what's the next right thing I can do now? Go do it. Repeat this process until good spirits return.

3) Do some charitable service work, and help someone else out. Sometimes this reminds us others have it worse and we have a lot to be grateful for.

4) Write out a list of 10 things that you are grateful for…

5) Go for a walk and notice everything as if it were the first time you saw it.

6) Get out of the city/town/office/your house and spend sometime outdoors.

7) Have coffee with a friend who you haven't seen in a while.

8) Spend some quality time with your loved ones and family members.

9) Plan a vacation!

10) Watch the sun rise or set. It's hard not to see the beauty there!

11) Watch a movie. That's an instant two hour form of captivated attention that will take your mind off things.

12) Eat a good meal deliberately. Take in the whole experience - appearance, taste, company.

13) If you are spiritually or religiously inclined, meditation and/or prayer can calm the mind.

14)  Meet new friends. One of the best ways to renew how we think about ourselves is to have a brand new chance to make a different first impression.

15) Read more, especially good fiction. There is nothing better than a well-written story to get your creative juices going.

16) Be more available for last minute meet ups with colleagues, friends, and peers. Sometimes the best events are unplanned.

17) Write down your ideas. Put pen and paper in easy-to-reach places. You might be pleasantly surprised at the number that has potential.

18) Think positive! Use this as your new mantra: "Blame no one. Expect nothing. Do something."

19) Ask for help. You'll be amazed at how a collaborative effort energizes you.

20) Slow down. Sometimes we miss all the good stuff that happens in between point A and point B.

21) Discover classical music. Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Vivaldi, Albinoni, Chopin tell amazing stories with their body of work.

22) Take an improv class. Learning a new skill that can help you in presentations and public speaking will increase your confidence.

23) Listen more, speak less. It will help you learn to appreciate others in whole new ways.

24) Teach a class at the local community college/school/library. Sharing knowledge is very satisfying.

25) Sing along while you drive.

Happiness is a state of mind and a choice. When you step into the field of possibility, you can do anything you put your mind to. What are some of the ways you use to break out of "stinking thinking"?

[Bugs Bunny from the Looney Tunes Spot]

Obama's Social Media Campaign

Yes We Did: Strategic Insights from the campaign that redefined modern politics

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: media politics)

“Barack Obama is three things you want in a brand. He is new, different, and attractive. That's as good as it gets.”[Keith Reinhard chairman DDB Worldwide]

I like that quote because too many businesses still spend time and effort ending up in a "me too" position, when they could really decide to become themselves instead of a copy of something else.

Today marks the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States. If you'd like to follow the events, they will be chronicled here, a move that meets the type of expectation the brand called Obama created with experience. Politics is not a spectator sport, and now people have more and easier ways to get involved.

Citizens have the opportunity to participate and potentially help design a new conversation at the political level, something that has not been possible for years. Social media has allowed people to go back to building communities on a much larger scale, making the world smaller in the process for many. Not all, however. Programs like teaching children how to read in analog mode and one laptop per child in digital mode can change that. Our analog lives meet digital solutions more often these days.

Much has been already written about how Obama crushed the social media and texting worlds during his campaign. Steve Rubel summarized the points made in a recent book about business lessons from the Obama campaign. Read these points several times, especially if your team may be affected by multiple message syndrome, lack of focus, and lack of leadership:

Be Cool means zeroing in problems, developing practical solutions, all while remaining unflappable and undistracted. It explains how the Obama team always focused on its core goal.

Be Social is the part that will interest many of you. It covers how Team Obama cultivated a grassroots following, built MyBarackObama.com into a powerhouse, created outposts in every major social network, leveraged mobile marketing and turned CRM into what they call CMR (customer managed relationships).

Be the Change was easy for Obama. That was his entire platform. But the book explains what this means for businesses - creating a vision and taking on tough issues, both your own challenges and the globe's, in a forthright, authentic way. It also means creating an internal environment that supports multiple points of view, which Obama does well.

The slide deck above is by the talented Rahaf Harfoush - I share her passion for learning, developing, testing, and executing ideas, thinking in terms of possibility, and surrounding myself with interested people. Are these some of the essential qualities of a marketer 2.0?

By the Numbers

[from Edelman Report]

Marketing is the management process responsible for matching resources with opportunities, at a profit - by identifying, influencing and satisfying customer demand. Relevance is the success metric. The one increasingly vital part of such discipline is the ability to connect the dots between data points captured from various sources.

Jeremiah Owyang published a breakdown the day before the election and noted that Obama had by far more supporters, subscribers, followers and viewers than McCain. Olivier Blanchard took a look at the numbers as well and asked: has social media started to change the game?

There is in fact a correlation between online activity and final results. We know that Obama won. This data has potential implications for businesses. Consider that there were direct and indirect influence factors at play here. A citizen who has a way to become more involved with the process, will more likely spread the word.

Josh Bernoff took a look at the social profile of political candidates and analyzes the results. I see one of the comments to that post highlights the age divide.

Tom Peters said it recently, geezers (his term) are online, too. In terms of conversions, which is a very valid question, I think it still depends on the product or service you offer. Obama presented a consistent message coming from a candidate that was everything but "me too" in his behavior.

Blue State Digital (BSD) wrote a case study to document its success for Obama's fund raising activities. To date, the campaign has used the BSD Online Tools to mobilize well over a million donors to contribute over $500 million online, to motivate over 2 million social networking participants, and to create and promote more than 200,000 events across the country.

See also SEO and social media scorecard by Pete Quily and voter segmentation by Windchimes.

In brief: the lead was becoming clear in the numbers because there was opportunity to measure many different things - page views, followers, number of active supporters, fund raising activities, etc. 

Lesson: in order to tie the numbers to results, you need to set a clear strategy of what you want people to do (not unlike any other form of marketing) and employ many different metrics to analyze.

By Design

Your business may be stuck in a rut while you follow old formulas and play to the committee. If you can do politics by design, what prevents you from doing business, or career by design?

Aaron Perry-Zucker and Adam Myer created the fantastic site where you can see the aggregated results of the work that supporters in the design community have offered to the campaign. A note to those of you who are in the market for a new career opportunity - this is resume building stuff, folks. The site was inspired and is supported by Design Observer.

Shepard Farley designed the now iconic poster. Steven Heller at the New York Times campaign stops blog explained why the poster had such a wide appeal: since these artists’ designs have not gone through the routine vetting process, the image is unfettered by a canon and commands attention because of its freshness.

In brief: as many note in the comments, this denotes connection and a belief that there will be change on the horizon.

Lesson: it's not about the medium, it's about the product - in this case the message was part of the product. What can you do to signal it's not business as usual?

By Story

[image of personal annual report by Dopplr]

This is where it gets very interesting. All of the online activities generated many stories, regardless of where you were or chose to be during the campaign, you had a voice. Social media was orchestrated to integrate with traditional media and campaign activities. Many media - one story. Yet it adapted to the medium so that everyone felt they were invited to the conversation.

Some tactics even included games. According to AdAge “an Xbox Live gamer, Dragunov765, posted screenshots while playing EA's race game "Burnout Paradise." The screenshots feature a Barack Obama billboard that says early voting has begun and references voteforchange.com, a site paid for by Obama for America, which points voters to early voting locations in states where the practice is permitted.”

Everything was choreographed to provide one narrative. The most important part was the content, the story itself. It was constantly refreshed. Obama had a story to tell and allowed his supporters to contribute to it.

In brief: consider different social networks and use of mobile to be where your audience is and engage. 

Lesson: keeping people engaged means recognizing their enthusiasm and support. This should be an ongoing effort, however, and not just a one time thing. Once you open the door to your house, in this case the White House, there is no going back.

Funded Execution Matters

I'm with David Bullock as he writes on the site he co-created with Brent Leary - Personally, I have learned more about marketing within the last 18 months than I have in the last 10 years. Experiencing the power of a well executed multi-channel campaign can change the way that you approach the promotion of your business.

Execution matters, but in order to create a multi-channel campaign like the one we have skimmed the surface on here today, you need to have appropriate funding. There are way too many CMO's who think we can do more with less. That ends up being less of more without the appropriate funding.

People also matter. Whether they be on the resource side or the conversation side, you have people - employees, customers, partners, and their friends and families. 

I'm just skimming the surface here and there are probably more resources and analysis out there. If you add it in the comments, I will add it to the post.

This is what I (mainly) learned from Obama's social media campaign. What lessons have you taken back to your business? 

Also see the white paper authored by Edelman's Digital Public Affairs team here [hat tip Steve Rubel].