Category#collaboration

Guest lecture for the Rocky Mountain Direct Marketing Association

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Tonight I had the privilege of speaking at an RMDMA event and had an excellent time. We had business stakeholders from a variety of business models and we walked through a simple conceptual model for social media that I developed around five years ago. The model describes four distinct levels of an online relationship that you can have with your customers/potential customers. Findable...

Social Media vs. Social Business

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I recently saw this excellent “article” on Fast Company by @DrewNeisser and in it he makes the important distinction between social media and social business. Two of the my favorite points that he makes are: People do business with people, not businesses (You think you’re B2B but a business is made up of people. They just have bigger wallets at work.) Your employees need to be...

Information Technology Strategy: Class 3 – Social Media

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Monday night we began covering social media and how to develop deep relationships online. We walked through the conceptual model of Findable, Recommendable, Transparent and Collaborative.  From there we moved on to the benefits of social media. Habitual vs. Loyal – Buying from Amazon is a habit of mine. I would just as likely to to Overstock.com to buy my books. Craftsman Mentality –...

Web 2.0 for the CIO (part 1)

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I was recently invited to guest lecture by Professor McCubbrey of the Daniels Information Technology and eCommerce department about the implications Web 2.0 has for CIOs. I put together a list of topics that I feel most CIOs (B2B vs. B2C/ product vs. service) need to consider when developing technology/business strategies. The outline for the lecture was as follows: Deep Relationships Twitter...

Social media for the entrepreneur

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This is a ENORMOUS post. If I weren’t summarizing a presentation I gave last night, I would have broken it into a small miniseries with many guest stars including Betty White. So make sure you go to the bathroom before you start. Last night I got the chance to speak to a class at DU that focuses on creating business plans. Social media is perfect for the startup due to the low barriers of...

The Cultural Needs of the Niche

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This past weekend I was in Aspen for the 41st annual Ruggerfest. I’ve been attending this rugby tournament for the past 24 years and recommend it to anyone who has even the smallest interest in Rugby. Rugby is one of the most aggressive niche sports in the world and as with any niche, it has a strong culture. Over the last 24 years I have come to recognize the culture that shapes the game...

Business and Artful Ways

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I purchased a Trek Madone this past weekend and now, on some level, understand how an iPhone or Prius user feels. It’s like owning a piece of artwork. To put It simply; it feels different. The only difference is that something can be done with this piece of art other than hanging on the wall or sitting on the pedestal. Art, by definition has absolutely no function, although if done well, it...

Your Advertising Partner

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I read yet another article in the Wall Street Journal this past week about cable customers up in arms about their online behavior being tracked even though they would remain technically anonymous. Not sure what the big deal is if they can remain truly anonymous. They would essentially see your online shadow, would allow you to turn it on or off and would enable on-demand personalized marketing. I...

We Are the Engine & the Architect

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I was forwarded the video at the bottom of this post this past week. Some of you may have already seen it and I was impressed at how it illuminated the fact that we are building and refining the online world. Some examples of sites/functionality that embody this are: Sites like Digg or Reddit with its user generated content/voting enables a democratic way of highlighting articles that users...

Truth in Marketing

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I went to see Wall•E with my three year old (almost 4) on opening day. When we bought our tickets the girl handed us the commemorative piece of schwag you see just the the left. It is a piece of rigid board with a small watch made of inexpensive rubber attached. When she handed this I thought to myself that it was a cool little thing to give to a child and that someday it could be worth a lot...