Conversation Agent - Valeria Maltoni

Your Press Release has a Long Tail in New Media

Coined by Chris Anderson, the concept of the Long Tail works very well with the ways in which new media is used by your customers. This has become a common term in online or digital media because the large availability of choice and negligible distribution costs in the media allow for greater or distributed selection. This mechanism in turn can map to the buying and sharing patterns of a greater percentage of your customers. Some applications of Long Tail are social network mechanisms (like crowdsourcing, and peer-to-peer collaboration), user-driven innovation (Eric von Hippel), micro-finance (Grameen Bank) and economic models, and... Read more →

Help me Help you

I've always wanted to use that line, ever since I heard it in Jerry Maguire, a movie which had many a money quote. Remember "show me the money"? Well, this is not that kind of help. First of all, I am very thankful for your time and attention in reading and helping me think with you. I know that sometimes it feels as though the content pipeline has burst and posts just keep coming out of here. I would not ever want you to feel bad about skipping a post - or a whole week. I take great enjoyment from... Read more →

Execution is Key to Results

There's no amount of marketing budgets or number of social media networks you can throw at a product if what you're doing is executed poorly. Does the product need to be remarkable or at least needed in the first place? Tom Fishburne nails it in this post about urban spam - the definition of what is remarkable is a moving bar. What is a surprise and delight today, will be just another campaign tomorrow. The brain loves novelty, but it gets used to things quickly - and even faster when it is stimulated with increased frequency, intensity, and duration. Times... Read more →

3 Things You Should Know Before Starting a Blog

When you start something new, especially if it's something you've not done before, you really have no idea how you will organize around it. One of the most frequently asked questions - and objections raised - to the use of social media is that of time, or rather lack of. This is a point people raise about blogs in particular and one of the reasons why many blogs tend to languish unattended after 6-8 months. It is also why many have gravitated to micro blogging and discussions on Twitter and FriendFeed. Consider this -- those networks capture and own your... Read more →

MarketingProfs B2B Forum - Content Your Customers will Rave About

The MarketingProfs B2B Forum is one of the most well-run, hands-on, useful and practical conferences I have attended - and I'm not just saying that because I got to speak at one last year and will do so again this year. I know you will go home with dozens of ideas you can put to work for your business right away. Take a look at the program and see who's going to be there. Plus, the MarketingProfs team rocks. Period. They go above and beyond making everyone feel welcome - you will be part of the conversation. Many of us... Read more →

In Memory - ed e' Subito Sera

"In time every wrong is made right," said Leonardo da Vinci and quoted Salvatore Quasimodo during his Nobel Lecture on December 11, 1959. And so it is. He wrote Ed e' subito sera in 1942. This was the period after World War II, in which his poetry was concerned with the interpretation of contemporary history, social conditions, and the frustrations and aspirations of the common man. "The poet is the sum total of the diverse 'experiences' of the man of his times." He said in his acceptance speech where he talks about the poet and the politician, and the constant... Read more →

Your New Media Equity

The future of news may very well be like its past - you-centric. As people and businesses are able to publish their content directly on digital and mobile media, the third party filter is shifting from media organizations to people through social consumption. Links and comments contribute to spreading and enriching the information. Your sphere of influence over the creation of content that could become the topic of news stories goes up with your social capital. The better the content, the more useful to the community, the more socialized and in some cases viral the conversation becomes, the greater the... Read more →

The Biggest Opportunity of All

The biggest opportunity of all is not your next direct mail. It's not even the campaign you conduct by FedEx and same day follow up call - we see through that already. You won't find it by asking people to give you their email address to get last year's white paper. People have learned to use a disposable email address. The most you can hope is not that a few people tell you your newsletter is nice - or that they don't unsubscribe but just use the delete key. It's not that they wouldn't want to hurt your feelings. They... Read more →

Trusteership and Value

Umair Haque at BRITE '09 conference from BRITE Conference on Vimeo. If the current economic climate is not a call to panic, it's at least a reason to worry. The degree and intensity I leave up to you. It seems to me in talking with people all around different industries and jobs, that in the confusion over where the real value is we have lost sight of some of our most important principles. Umair Harque articulates them well in a recent talk at Brite: Stewardship Trusteership Guardianship Leadership Partnership I won't attempt to summarize his words, you can watch the... Read more →

Sound Design and Communication - Diego Stocco

Defined by his colleagues as a ridiculously talented sound designer, who also happens to be one of the funniest and most enjoyable people we’ve ever worked with, I met Diego Stocco when I wrote the post about a truck full of yogurt. We grew up not far from each other back in Italy (that's why that post resonated with him) and thanks to the world wide web we connected even though we now live on two opposite ends of the US. The other great thing about the Internet is that someone with content and talent like Diego can get his... Read more →