The difference between a gadget and a product

A few weeks ago, social media “personalities” and tech gurus were so busy trying to out-swoon each other over Google Glass that no one seemed to want to ask the most obvious question everyone should have been asking about Google Glass: Why should I care?

No, I mean seriously. Why should I or anyone care about Google Glass?

1. The Emperor’s New Clothes: Tech Edition

In order to understand the problem, you have to go back to its source. Let’s do that.

The review that earned Google Glass the most attention was one put forth by “tech guru” Robert Scoble, even though it basically boiled down to paragraph after paragraph of mostly vacuous and at times incoherent babble. You can go read the entire thing here. I hope you won’t mind that I cut and pasted it here as well (to save you the trouble):

Here’s my review after having Google Glass for two weeks:

1. I will never live a day of my life from now on without it (or a competitor). It’s that significant. 
2. The success of this totally depends on price. Each audience I asked at the end of my presentations “who would buy this?” As the price got down to $200 literally every hand went up. At $500 a few hands went up. This was consistent, whether talking with students, or more mainstream, older audiences.
3. Nearly everyone had an emotional outburst of “wow” or “amazing” or “that’s crazy” or “stunning.” 
4. At NextWeb 50 people surrounded me and wouldn’t let me leave until they had a chance at trying them. I haven’t seen that kind of product angst at a conference for a while. This happened to me all week long, it is just crazy.
5. Most of the privacy concerns I had before coming to Germany just didn’t show up. I was shocked by how few negative reactions I got (only one, where an audience member said he wouldn’t talk to me with them on). Funny, someone asked me to try them in a bathroom (I had them aimed up at that time and refused).
6. There is a total generational gap that I found. The older people said they would use them, probably, but were far more skeptical, or, at minimum, less passionate about the fact that these are the future, than the 13-21-year-olds I met.

So, let’s cover the price, first of all. I bet that +Larry Page is considering two price points: something around $500, which would be very profitable. Or $200, which is about what the bill of materials costs. When you tear apart the glasses, like someone else did (I posted that to my Flipboard “Glasshole” magazine) you see a bunch of parts that aren’t expensive. This has been designed for mass production. In other words, millions of units. The only way Google will get there is to price them under $300.

I wouldn’t be shocked if Larry went very aggressive and priced them at $200. Why would Google do this? 

Easy: I’m now extremely addicted to Google services. My photos and videos automatically upload to Google+. Adding other services will soon be possible (I just got a Twitter photo app that is being developed by a third party) but turning on automatic uploads to other services will kill my batteries on both my phone and my glasses (which doesn’t have much battery life anyway). So, I’m going to be resistant to adding Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Evernote, and Tumblr to my glasses. Especially when Google+ works darn well and is the default. 

Also, Google is forbidding advertising in apps. This is a HUGE shift for Google’s business model. I believe Larry Page is moving Google from an advertising-based company to a commerce based company.

The first thing I tried that it failed on was “find me a Sushi restaurant.” I’m sure that will get fixed soon and, Google could collect a micropayment anytime I complete a transaction like reserving a seat at a restaurant, or getting a book delivered to my house, or, telling something like Bloomingdales “get me these jeans.” 

There is literally billions of dollars to be made with this new commerce-based system, rather than force us to sit and look at ads, the way Facebook and tons of other services do.

When you wear these glasses for two weeks you get the affordance is totally different and that having these on opens you up to a new commerce world. Why?

1. They are much more social than looking at a cell phone. Why? I don’t need to look away from you to use Google, or get directions, or do other things. 
2. The voice works and works with nearly every one and in every situation. It’s the first product that literally everyone could use it with voice. It’s actually quite amazing, even though I know that the magic is that it expects to hear only a small number of things. “OK Glass, Take a Picture” works. “OK Glass, Take a Photo” doesn’t. The Glass is forcing your voice commands to be a certain set of commands and no others will be considered. This makes accuracy crazy high, even if you have an accent.

I continue to be amazed with the camera. It totally changes photography and video. Why? I can capture moments. I counted how many seconds it takes to get my smartphone out of my pocket, open it up, find the camera app, wait for it to load, and then take a photo. Six to 12 seconds. With Google Glass? Less than one second. Every time. And I can use it without having hands free, like if I’m carrying groceries in from the car and my kids are doing something cute. 

I’ve been telling people that this reminds me of the Apple II, which I unboxed with my dad back in 1977. It was expensive. It didn’t do much. But I knew my life had changed in a big way and would just get better and better. Already this week I’ve gotten a new RSS app, the New York Times App, and a Twitter app. With many more on the way.

This is the most interesting new product since the iPhone and I don’t say that lightly.

Yeah, we could say the camera isn’t good in low light. We could say it doesn’t have enough utility. It looks dorky. It freaks some people out (it’s new, that will go away once they are in the market). 

But I don’t care. This has changed my life. I will never live a day without it on. 

It is that significant. 

Before I go on with the actual point of this post, let me share a few observations:

Scoble opens his review with: I will never live a day of my life from now on without it (or a competitor). It’s that significant. 

What’s bizarre though is that Robert Scoble never actually explains why the product is so significant or why he will never live a day of his life from now on without it. I looked for a reason. Any reason. All I could find was this:

There is literally billions of dollars to be made with this new commerce-based system, rather than force us to sit and look at ads, the way Facebook and tons of other services do.

When you wear these glasses for two weeks you get the affordance is totally different and that having these on opens you up to a new commerce world. Why?

1. They are much more social than looking at a cell phone. Why? I don’t need to look away from you to use Google, or get directions, or do other things. 
2. The voice works and works with nearly every one and in every situation. It’s the first product that literally everyone could use it with voice. It’s actually quite amazing, even though I know that the magic is that it expects to hear only a small number of things. “OK Glass, Take a Picture” works. “OK Glass, Take a Photo” doesn’t. The Glass is forcing your voice commands to be a certain set of commands and no others will be considered. This makes accuracy crazy high, even if you have an accent.

Once you get past the 5th grade sentence structure and grammar (or lack thereof), what Scoble tells us is basically that this amaaaazing product he will never live a day of his life without ever again is awesome because…

a) Billions of dollars can be made from its mobile commerce system. Okay… Except this is identical to mobile commerce on smart phones. The goggles don’t actually offer a new model of e-commerce or m-commerce. It’s the same exact shit, only with an interface that you wear on your face instead of one you hold in your hand. Also, as a user, why should I care about the billions of dollars retailers and tech companies will make from mobile commerce? It isn’t a benefit to me as a consumer. So… we haven’t been presented with any concrete consumer value for Google Glass yet.

b) It can’t find sushi restaurants for you, but it will someday. Yes. Amazing. Siri can do that now. So can pretty much any car equipped with a GPS system, any smart phone with a browser, and every tablet connected to the interwebs. Moving on…

c) They are much more social than looking at a cell phone? Um… no. Browsing the web and reading emails while you pretend to pay attention to someone while they talk to you isn’t “more social”. It’s the epitome of tech douchebaggery, actually. It’s both rude and antisocial, which is the exact opposite of social. Turn the goggles off and actually participate in the conversation. Make eye contact. Give a shit about someone other than yourself for just five minutes. That’s what “social” actually means in the real world. So… no. Again, zero concrete reason to not go a day without Google Glass has been presented as of yet.

d) I want you to consider the following passage for a minute. Are you ready? Here we go:

The voice works and works with nearly every one and in every situation. It’s the first product that literally everyone could use it with voice. It’s actually quite amazing, even though I know that the magic is that it expects to hear only a small number of things. “OK Glass, Take a Picture” works. “OK Glass, Take a Photo” doesn’t. The Glass is forcing your voice commands to be a certain set of commands and no others will be considered. This makes accuracy crazy high, even if you have an accent.

Once you have gotten over the suspicion that this entire review was either written by a non-English speaking intern or generated by the same Chinese algorithm that sends SPAM directly into your inbox 139 times per day, what you garner from that paragraph is this: Google glass is voice activated but it isn’t super intuitive. If you don’t know the right commands, you’re kind of screwed.

Well, hot damn! Why didn’t you say so? You can sort of talk to it, and sometimes, it does what you tell it to? Sign me up! Unfortunately, just as we were starting to get somewhere, Scoble adds a little more magic to his sales pitch:

Yeah, we could say the camera isn’t good in low light. We could say it doesn’t have enough utility. It looks dorky. It freaks some people out (it’s new, that will go away once they are in the market). 

Oh. Shit. Just when I was getting excited about yelling into a pair of goggles with a comprehension problem. So… the camera kind of sucks, it doesn’t really do anything yet, it looks dorky and people who aren’t trying to be quoted by Wired or Mashable or score a pair to review on their blog are suspicious of it to the point that they will run away if you even start walking in their general direction (especially when you happen to be trolling public bathrooms in search of cool photos to post to your Google Plus stream). Awesome.

So now I have even less reasons to go out and buy Google Glass than when I had zero reasons to go out and buy Google Glass. Fortunately, our favorite Tech Guru du jour attempts to redeem himself in the end with this eloquent and deeply thought out breakdown of why Google Glass is the best thing since the invention of fire:

But I don’t care. This has changed my life. I will never live a day without it on. 

It is that significant. 

Ah. Well, okay then. I can see why so many people swooned over this thing as soon as Robert Scoble professed his undying love for a product he couldn’t quite manage to talk about coherently.

Excuse me but what a massive crock of shit. Tech guru my ass. How about we start over, starting with this:

1. Before you can really be any kind of guru, learn how to string two coherent thoughts together in a cohesive sentence. Or don’t. Whatever. Evidently, nobody bothers to read any of this shit before sharing it and retweeting it anyway.

2. Stop blowing smoke up our asses for just ten minutes and look at tech products objectively, starting with Glass. If they’re great, explain why. If they aren’t, explain why. Is that really so hard? This whole social media/guru/pseudo-futurist-douchebags-spewing-bullshit-all-day-long culture of manufactured “influence” needs to come to an abrupt end. It isn’t healthy. It isn’t healthy for companies like Google, for VCs, for startups, for product managers, for marketing, for journalism, and it sure as shit isn’t healthy for innovation either. We are so busy trying to find ways to reward well-funded mediocrity that we completely overlook real successes in innovation. We are celebrating all the wrong things.

2. Product Management is about more than buzz and “influencer” marketing. It’s about 360 degree execution

Don’t get me wrong. Google Glass might be a great product someday (and I hope it is) but right now, it isn’t much of anything. It’s barely a prototype. It’s a first stage proof of concept. It is not a product. Not yet. The worst thing Google can do is believe its own PR. This product isn’t ready. Period.

Incidentally, if I hear one more tech writer or guru compare Google Glass to the iPhone launch, I am going to start getting angry. Here is a little dose of reality: when Apple released the iPhone, it wasn’t a barely functional prototype. It was a working product. It did things. People understood what it was. Its value was crystal clear. Google Glass as it exists today isn’t even remotely comparable to the state of the iPhone when it launched.

If you want to pinpoint the moment that Google Glass will truly become a product, look towards the day when Google finally figures out what Google Glass is. (If Google’s “let’s build something and figure out what it is later” pattern of behavior feels like a recurring theme, you aren’t wrong. Google+ is still trying to figure out if it’s a social network, a collaboration ecosystem, or a dozen other things. Google Wave was… oh, never mind.)

Even Robert Scoble wasn’t able to figure out exactly what Glass is or why he liked it so much, and Google certainly isn’t helping consumers figure it out yet either. Okay, sure, it’s a wearable computer. Awesome. IBM introduced the idea back in 1997, then again a decade ago in this commercial;  and I am pretty sure I have seen versions of this in a dozen sci-fi movies. So this isn’t exactly earth-shattering innovation yet. Right now, it’s more of a voice-activated camera glued to cheap eyeglass frames with limited computer-like interface capabilities. In other words, it basically takes some of the basic things your smart phone can do and repackages them into a shitty looking eyeglass gadget that doesn’t really do anything novel but costs twice as much.  Not exactly the game changer we keep hearing about from the tech gurus.

Let’s recap. Right now, Google Glass does this:

And this:

And this:

And as far as messaging goes, this is the most significant review of the product so far:

“It’s the first product that literally everyone could use it with voice. It’s actually quite amazing, even though I know that the magic is that it expects to hear only a small number of things.”

Awesome. I raise my glass to that, sir. Mark Twain would be proud. Maybe Google might want to look into hiring product development and product management folks from companies like Nike, Oakley, Sony, LG and Rudy Project at this point, because this smells like amateur hour. Sorry. Glass deserves better than this.

3. First to market is not the same thing as first to scale: how Google could lose its grip on the wearable computer market

I really hope that Google’s product management team figures out what they want to do soon, because right now, outside of the tech hype bubble, no one is super impressed. The Glass team needs to find its legs fast, and here is why: other companies are already taking the wearable computer concept and actually moving forward with the development of real products. Cool products. Products with utility and a point.

Here are two of them that you guys should pay attention to:

1. Oakley Airwave GPS-enabled goggles: If you’re a skier, snowboarder or a downhill mountain biker, the Airwave’s heads-up display already allows you to track speed (GPS integration can accurately measure how fast you are moving down a slope), jump analytics (measures and tracks distance, height and airtime of your jumps), vertical travel (measures your vertical feet by run, by day and over the course of the season), and navigation (pinpoints your location on a map and finds the run or points of interest you’re looking for).

It is also equipped with trip viewer capability (it lets you review your performance stats like max speed, total vert and max air, in detail, run by run or for the whole day), and has a buddy tracking system (helps you locate and track friends that have the Oakley Airwave goggle or App on their smartphone). Last but not least, the interface lets you control your music, monitor incoming phone calls and text messages while you’re on the slopes.

Here’s a quick video of what it can already do:

For more info, check out Oakley.com/airwave.

2. Recon Jet: a heads-up display for cyclists, triathletes, runners, and so on. As a triathlete myself, I immediately see value in this technology for me. The idea that I might as some point be able to move my bike computer’s data to a heads-up display is genius. One aspect of this is safety: I like the idea of being able to keep my eyes on the road at all times. Every time I have to look down at my bike computer, I run the risk of touching someone’s wheel or hitting a pothole. Also, if an aerodynamic tuck, not having to look down to see how fast I am going or what my wattage is can save me precious seconds over the course of a race. Add to that the possibility of adding biofeedback (like heart rate) to the display and even GPS features (like course maps and elevation), and you really have a product that most competitive cyclists will gladly spend upwards of $300 on. There is real functionality there. Ergo: real purpose and value.

Bonus: We still aren’t looking at the style and elegance of Oakley or Rudy Project competition eyewear, but the frames don’t look like something out of a skymall catalog from 2003 either. They’re actually wearable.

For more info, check out jet.reconinstruments.com.

Do you see the difference between Google Glass and these two products? While Glass still struggles to figure out what it wants to be and relies on “tech gurus” to help them find their way (sorry but recording the moments of your life isn’t enough unless you’re Canon or Nikon), Oakley and Recon Instruments have already identified markets, purpose, and specific features and functionality to answer the needs of those markets. It won’t be long now before you start seeing other applications pop up specifically for law enforcement, military personnel, hospital workers, retail sales clerks, hotel and restaurant staff, automobile drivers, customer service reps, educators, students, tourists, and so on.

Do you know what the difference is between a gadget and a product? It isn’t features or branding. It’s purpose. Purpose matters. It strikes to the very identity of a product. “What is this?” is as important a question as “what is it for?” and “what does it do?” These three questions form the basis for “what will this do for me?” If you can answer neither, you don’t have a product. You still only have an idea, and at best, a prototype. If you can sort of answer it but not completely, what you have is a gadget. You’re in infomercial territory. That’s where Google Glass is right now. (“I can wear Twitter on my face? Awesome!!! Here’s my money!” Good luck with that.)

Unfortunately for Google, if you really want to see where this technology is headed, you may have to start looking outside of Google for the next year or two. If Oakley and Recon Instruments are already developing cool heads-up display products with a point, it’s probably a safe bet to look to companies like Bolle, Smith Optics, Nike, Rudy Project, Garmin, Polar and Specialized to follow suit. Basically any company that makes pro-quality athletic eyewear, GPS devices, heart rate monitors and head protection will find a reason to get into this tech. They will be the first to put these types of products on the shelves and see commercial success.

The second wave will come from startups and communications/data companies that plug into government and service industries, especially those that rely heavily on CRM technologies. The big question mark will be whether tech companies like Apple, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, LG and even the Nokias of the world will get into the wearable computer game as well. If they do, assuming they care to invest in what is currently at best a niche product category, what will be Google’s answer to their slick design, smooth interfaces, purpose, image, utility, device functionality overlap and cross-compatibility? It’s a real question.

Google may be one of the players in this emerging market, but it certainly won’t be the leader if it doesn’t quickly start focusing on a) creating interfaces for specific verticals to create clear value props, scale and renewable revenues and b) developing designs that don’t look like something out of a K-mart version of a Star Trek prop that only a middle-aged tech geek would be caught wearing in public.

There is a market development model for this type of tech that, while complex, isn’t rocket science to figure out and put into play, but… well… right now, let’s just say that Google doesn’t really seem to be moving in that direction. It’s a shame too, because with the right team leading the charge, Google really could do something amazing with this. It’s kind of sad that it might all slip away for no other reason than a lack of direction, or an absence of product marketing leadership, or both.

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Olivier Blanchard is the author of Social Media R.O.I.: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. (You can sample a free chapter at smroi.net.) If English isn’t your first language, #smROI is also available in Spanish, Japanese, German, Korean and Italian now, with more international editions on the way.

CEO-Read  –  Amazon.com  –  www.smroi.net  –  Barnes & Noble  –  Que

Have a great memorial day.

A previous career – circa 1993.

From Wikipedia:

Memorial Day is a United States Federal holiday observed on the last Monday of May. Formerly known as Decoration Day, it commemorates U.S. men and women who perished while in military service to their country. First enacted to honor Union soldiers of the American Civil War, it was expanded after World War I to include casualties of any war or military action.

For me at least, Memorial Day is about much more than just cookouts: Without the courage of young American men who came to Europe to fight the Nazis, I would have been born in a German-speaking France. Or perhaps not at all.

Though I was born in 1971, I grew up in the shadow of WWII: My grandfather was a Cavalry Officer in both WWI and WWII. A hefty chunk of my family on my Mother’s side was killed by the Nazis. I grew up in France, surrounded by memorials, military cemeteries and the pockmarked landscapes of Normandie, Ypres and the Ardennes. Think old bunkers, craters and fields of white crosses like the photo below. My mother, who was 11 when Allied troops finally landed and remembers the war all too well, still – to this day – keeps an emergency supply of sugar and butter… just in case the Germans decide to give it another go, I suppose.

I grew up with the paratroopers’ prayer framed over my bed, and the annual ritual of having my father let me hold my grandfather’s medals (above). I grew up with countless stories of sacrifice and courage and bravery, and about a year ago, I discovered a stack of perfectly preserved family letters from 1917 and 1918 that gave me even more insight into what it was like to live in the midst of a world war, from both the side of the soldier and the side of the family who waited for him. I understand both the pride that comes from your family having a military tradition and the scars that such a tradition can leave behind. There are no heroes without sacrifice and no sacrifice without pain, and more often than not, the balance between those two things is just not that simple to manage.

If I grew up with a profound love for all things American, it must have begun with this: long ago, decades before I was born, thousands of American soldiers crossed the Atlantic to come save us. Between 1917 and 1918, and again in 1944, they came, and thousands died in our fields and on our beaches. Their graves are still there. I used to go visit them when I was little. Fields of white gravestones. It’s no accident that I ended up moving to the US. The seeds of that move were planted decades before I was born. How could I not want to live in a country of heroes? How could I not raise my children here?

What does this have to do with brand management, marketing or social business? Not one thing… but it’s Memorial Day and I never let it go by without thinking about the daily sacrifices made by men and women in uniform. To those who can’t be with their loved ones today, and to the families of the fallen, I say thank you.

And Thank You to all who serve and have served in the United States Armed Forces – not just on this day, but every day.

Je me souviens.

Cheers,

Olivier

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Olivier Blanchard is the author of Social Media R.O.I.: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. (You can sample a free chapter at smroi.net.) If English isn’t your first language, #smROI is also available in Spanish, Japanese, German, Korean and Italian now, with more international editions on the way.

CEO-Read  –  Amazon.com  –  www.smroi.net  –  Barnes & Noble  –  Que

Back by popular demand: less filler, more meat.

Why I stopped blogging:

My last post here is dated February 25th. I wish I could say that was the last time I was genuinely interested enough to write and share something pertinent with you guys about brand management or marketing strategy or social business, but that isn’t true. If you scroll back through my posts for 2013 and the second half of 2012, you will probably notice that I was already kind of losing interest in blogging for the sake of blogging. Truth is, sometimes, even someone as outspoken as me just doesn’t have anything really all that pertinent to write about on a blog like this one, and though the discipline to carry on writing “content” day after day anyway is admirable in many ways, I found the exercise pretty much mired in futility.

A friend of mine in the industry told me about a year ago that I needed to publish something on this blog at least 3-5 times per week. He was pretty adamant about it, and I suppose he should know. He has 10x the readership and the twitter followers. He has published 10x more books than I have (I only have the one), he gets paid a shit-ton more than I do to spend half as much time on stage. He’s big time. Career-wise, he is in every way my better. I should listen to him. The thing is, I don’t think that post quantity or post frequency or even an editorial calendar’s consistency really matters. Traffic to this blog remains strong even if I don’t post a single thing for months. I have so many posts here that I could probably never publish anything again and my traffic would stay consistent for the next 3+ years. More importantly, I don’t really care about pulling traffic to my blog anymore. I used to. For ego, mostly. A 12,000 visitor day was like Christmas morning to me once. I felt important and validated. I look back on that now and ask myself what the fuck I was thinking.

Oh yeah… that’s another thing. I probably shouldn’t curse here. This is a business blog. Well, so much for that rule too. I live in the real world, and in that world, people say fuck. In fact, they get pretty creative about it. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but at least it’s honest, and there’s a lot to be said for people who aren’t afraid to speak their minds.

I have always prided myself on publishing quality content. As much as I hate the term “content,” I will use it here to describe what you are reading right now, if only to make a point: I stopped doing that months ago. I did. I was just going through the motions. Writing a blog post just because I am supposed to fill space robs a blog like this one of its value. Even though I never intended to shift from publishing quality blog posts to publishing “content,” it’s where I was headed. I woke up one morning and sat at my desk and realized that I was turning into just another social media asshole who publishes shit just to have something to publish. Just to get traffic to a stupid website. Just to see his name mentioned a couple hundred times in a Twitter stream and feel important and validated. That’s not who I want to be and it sure as shit isn’t why I got into blogging. I didn’t like where things were going, and since I didn’t know what else to do, I backed off and worked on other things.

Why some of my “peers” might want to back off for a few months as well:

Top 10 Ways to Create Successful Content

Why Net Promoter Score Is The New ROI

5 Strategies to Better Engage With A social Media Audience

8 Ways Klout Is Revolutionizing Business

11 Reasons Why Google Glass is the Most Important Technology in Human History

Stop. Just stop. Shut the fuck up. Really.

You want to feel important, go do something important, something that actually matters:

Help a company solve a real problem. (Selling them a product doesn’t exactly qualify.)

Help curb domestic violence in your state by even 1/10 of a percent.

Help create a digital bipartisan policy innovation exchange. (Holy shit! Using social media to depolarize discussions about real issues and even crowdsource real solutions to real problems? Shut. Up!)

Develop social business systems and protocols aimed at boosting customer retention (loyalty is a process, not just a marketing buzzword).

Do something. But for fuck’s sake, stop filling empty space with “content.”  It’s gotten so bad, even I was getting sucked into it just to keep up with this shit:

The CMO is dead. 

Digital is Dead. 

Marketing is Dead.

Advertising is Dead.

Print is Dead.

Stop. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re all just writing the same shit over and over again, and most of it is utter nonsense. There’s no value to it. Most of it isn’t even accurate, let alone helpful to anyone. Hell, it isn’t even entertaining. If any of you wrote even one of those blog posts as an email and sent it to your boss, you would probably be fired shortly thereafter for being an incompetent dumbass. So what makes a digital editor or a social media “expert” think it belongs on a blog (or worse, on major pubs’ blogs like Forbes.com or HBR.com or Money.com)?

Please, if you’re that kind of blogger/writer, back away from your computer and give some thought to what you’re about to write. Better yet, go find something relevant to write about. You’re making my brain hurt with this shit. Why are you even here? What are you doing? What value are you bringing to your industry? Stop. Go for a walk or a run or whatever, and think about what you should really be doing instead of throwing your very own personal turds at the same giant pile of turds everyone is already busy throwing their turds at. It’s big enough as it is. It’ll do just fine without your latest “contribution.”

An apology:

Even if my blog posts aren’t quite as awful as some, truth is that it’s been a while since I have contributed anything particularly intelligent or new or even special to our overall conversation. I woke up one morning and I realized I was just creating content, and it really turned me off from the whole thing. That break I just suggested, I took one. I’m not sure I’m really back yet, but I’m back today anyway, and I suppose that’s a start.

I don’t think I need to apologize for my physical absence since my last post on February 25. That was actually a good thing. What I do need to apologize for though, is my substantive absence since whenever the hell it was that I started posting “content” on this blog just to keep the wheels spinning. I let you guys down and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to happen. I’m still trying to figure out exactly how I got sidetracked. Burnout maybe? Caught in the momentum of a flawed trajectory… Maybe it was a bunch of little things. I’ll give it some thought and let you know if I ever figure it out.

What comes next for this blog:

Moving forward, The BrandBuilder Blog will have no set editorial calendar. Maybe I publish something every day for a week, and maybe I don’t publish anything at all for a month. It will all depend on whether I have something relevant to share or even the time to share it. If I have nothing intelligent or pertinent to say, I won’t waste your time pretending that I do. Believe it or not, I don’t have awesome advice to give every damn day of the week. Most days, I’m just like everyone else: busy, confused, and filled with far more questions than answers. I don’t need to pretend that I am an expert or a guru… and though I hope to become an expert at something someday, I sure as shit don’t ever want to be a guru. Robes aren’t a good look for me.

So anyway, stay tuned. I’ll be back with more. Thanks for your patience.

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If you haven’t yet, pick up a copy of Social Media R.O.I.: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. The book is 300 pages of facts and proven best practices to help you build, manage and properly measure your social media efforts against business objectives. (You can go to smroi.net and sample a free chapter.)

If English isn’t your first language, you can smROI is also available in Spanish, Japanese, German, Korean and Italian now, with more international editions on the way.

CEO-Read  –  Amazon.com  –  www.smroi.net  –  Barnes & Noble  –  Que

7 social business lessons from the fashion industry

My post today is over on the Tickr blog and quickly explains how fashion labels are using social media to earn attention, create relevance and drive sales. Or you can just look at the above infographic sans-commentary, but you’ll certainly be missing out.

Bonus: the piece briefly mentions the Democratic Republic of Catistan, but you’ll never know why unless you go read it.

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Don’t forget to pick up your copy of Social Media R.O.I.: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. The book is 300 pages of facts and proven best practices that cover many of the points I will be talking about in Austin. (Don’t take my word for it though: go to smroi.net to sample a free chapter first, just to make sure it’s worth the money.)

And if English isn’t your first language, you can even get it in Spanish, Japanese, German, Korean and Italian now, with more international editions on the way.

CEO-Read  –  Amazon.com  –  www.smroi.net  –  Barnes & Noble  –  Que

Save the date: March 7 – Social Business Summit – Austin, TX

I probably won’t be able to stay for the rest of SxSW, but if you plan on getting to Austin early, I’ll be there on March 7th to speak at the Social Business Summit (#SBS2013) being put on by Dachis Group and Oracle. For more info, click here.

Some of the speakers announced already:

Doug Ulman - President and Chief Executive Officer of LIVESTRONG Foundation. Oversees the strategic vision and direction of the company.  Doug has earned a reputation as the “Most Savvy Health Care Leader in Social Media” for his innovative use of social media to create awareness and knowledge about cancer. His online community includes a Twitter following of more than one million.

Tony Hsieh – CEO of Zappos. Author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller,Delivering Happiness.  Tony has helped Zappos grow from almost no sales to over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually, while simultaneously making Fortune Magazine’s annual “Best Companies to Work For” list.

Marisa Thalberg - Vice President of Corporate Digital Marketing Worldwide for The Estée Lauder Companies, Inc. Charged with supporting the development of world-class digital and social marketing across the company’s collection of over 25 prestige beauty brands.  Her efforts have helped propel the company to be ranked as having the highest “Digital IQ” of any global beauty company.

John Hagel - Deloitte. Nearly 30 years’ experience as a management consultant, author, speaker and entrepreneur. He has helped companies around the world improve their performance by crafting creative business strategies that more effectively harness new generations of information technology and shape broader markets and industries.

Erika Jolly Brookes - Vice President of Product Strategy for Oracle. Works on the Oracle Cloud-Social business to help guide product strategy and development.

Michael Brito - Senior Vice President of Social Business Planning for Edelman Digital. Provides strategic counsel, guidance, and best practices to several of Edelman’s top global tech accounts and is responsible for helping transform their organizations to be more open, collaborative and socially proficient.

Jeff Dachis – Founder and CEO of Dachis Group. Helped establish the digital services industry more than a decade ago when he co-founded Razorfish, Inc. out of a one-bedroom New York City apartment.  Now as CEO of Dachis Group, the world’s leading social software and solutions firm.

Brian Solis – Principal at Altimeter Group. Globally recognized thought leader and published author in new media. His book, The End Of Business As Usual, looks at the changing consumer landscape, it’s impact on business and what companies can do to adapt and lead.

Dion Hinchcliffe - Chief Strategy Officer at Dachis Group. Business strategist, enterprise architect, author, analyst, and blogger. He currently works with the leadership teams of Fortune 500 and Global 2000 firms to devise strategies to help them adapt their organizations to the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.

Peter Kim - Chief Solutions Architect at Dachis Group. Responsible for the definition, development, and delivery of data-driven social marketing solutions for the company’s current and future clients.  Peter is also the co-author of the popular management book Social Business by Design.

… and me.

 

So if you can, come say hello.

Between now and then, you might also want to check out the contest that Tickr (client) is running. The quick version: You sign up, Tickr hooks you up with a Command Center account, and you submit a small case study or summary of how you used their monitoring tool. You can make it as simple or as intricate as you want, but originality and creativity will probably be the biggest factors in determining who wins. Find out more here.

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If you can’t make it but wish you could, pick up your copy of Social Media R.O.I.: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. The book is 300 pages of facts and proven best practices that cover many of the points I will be talking about in Austin. (Don’t take my word for it though: go to smroi.net to sample a free chapter first, just to make sure it’s worth the money.)

And if English isn’t your first language, you can even get it in Spanish, Japanese, German, Korean and Italian now, with more international editions on the way.

CEO-Read  –  Amazon.com  –  www.smroi.net  –  Barnes & Noble  –  Que

Why it worked.

During the Superbowl on Sunday, there was a little glitch with the lights. They went out. We’re talking blackout. Within minutes, Oreo released the above image across several key social media channels. Not Duracell, not Energizer, not G.E…. Oreo.

Clever. And it paid off for the brand.

Why was this a win? Four interwoven reasons: Velocity, relevance, wit and execution.

Wit, relevance and execution, most ad agencies can handle. Velocity, on the the other hand (generating ad-quality content and publishing it as meme-like social content), not so much. That’s still rare.

I want you to think about obstacles vs. enablement.

I want you to think about culture and operational agility.

Something like this doesn’t happen by accident. You have to have the right people in place, the right presence on key channels, the right support from management, the right kind of relationship with your community, and an eye towards real-time community management and content creation.

How many levels of approvals and sign-off do you think that image had to go through before getting the okay? Judging by the speed with which it appeared on the interwebs when the lights at the Superdome went out, not many. How did Oreo pull that off?

1. At some point, Oreo decided it needed a nimble, agile, self-sufficient social media team.

2. At some point, Oreo decided to trust that team to do its job without having to micromanage it.

Easier said than done? Sure. But only by fine margins. Want to guess what separates Oreo from other companies that haven’t been able to do this yet? They hired the right people.

Instead of assigning social media duties to some intern or the cheapest content creation team they could find, they made sure that the people running that piece of their digital business were witty, capable, professional people who understand brand voice, who understand their fans, and who understand how memes and social marketing work.

This happened because the right people were hired and then allowed to do their job.

We can talk about tools, we can talk about processes, we can talk about platforms, but Oreo’s real genius can be traced straight back to having the right people in place.

If you want to celebrate brand management and superbowl advertising secret sauce today, the two words you should keep in mind are velocity and competence.

 Here’s how they did it. (via Buzzfeed)

Whether or not this ultimately translates to business growth, well played, Oreo. Well played.

Let’s close with two simple graphs:

1. Immediate impact on Twitter:

(Feel free to compare this graph with those of every Super Bowl advertiser.)

2. Impact of Twitter on conversations about the Super Bowl:

See that enormous horizontal blue line up there? That’s the volume of Twitter mentions against Facebook, Instagram, blogs and news for the same time frame. [source]

Long term, platforms like Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram are probably stronger bets for stickiness and reach, but in terms of real-time impact (especially during events), Twitter matters. It matters a lot.

PS: You’ll want to read this too. (Real-time marketing) by David Armano.

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If you’re interested in how to make something like that happen, then convert that attention into real sales, pick up a copy of Social Media R.O.I.: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. The book is 300 pages of facts and proven best practices that explain how to do what Oreo just did – and then some. (Go to smroi.net to sample a free chapter first, just to make sure it’s worth the money.)

And if English isn’t your first language, you can even get it in Spanish, Japanese, German, Korean and Italian now, with more international editions on the way.

CEO-Read  –  Amazon.com  –  www.smroi.net  –  Barnes & Noble  –  Que

Social Business case studies: the proof is in the pudding.

You know how legitimate social business case studies are sometimes hard to come by? Well, Tickr (client) is looking to remedy that with a little contest for the next two months. And the deal only gets sweeter from here. In their own words:

The rules are simple: You sign up, we grant you access to Command Center for a little while, and you submit a cool little case study by March 15, 2013. Whoever comes up with the best case study in each of three categories listed below will win a year’s free access to Command Center, bragging rights, and maybe even a little extra swag. 

The three categories of entries are:

• For-profit
• Non-profit
• Journalism

The case study doesn’t have to be centered on Command Center, but it has to show how you used Command Center to do something. (Read more about that here.)

What’s in it for you?

1. Free Beta: You get to beta-test the pro version of Command Center for free. (Usually, the free trial version is a throttled-down version. Not this time. You get to use the real thing.)
2. Case Study Support: Tickr will help you build your case study. I’ve agreed to help out as much as possible, so if you need help with formatting, measurement, process, strategy, etc., it’s likely that I will be assisting you in some way. If you’ve ever wanted to work with me on something, it won’t be exactly like that, but it’ll be close. I only have so many available hours in my day, but I’ll do what I can to help.
3. Eyeballs, Eyeballs, Eyeballs: If you want to draw a lot of attention to a project, cause or campaign that you’re working on, this contest will be a good way to do that. Solid case studies collected as a result of this contest (whether they win anything or not) will get a lot of mileage out of this.
4. Street Cred: Impress the world with your social business savvy. Whether you are looking to impress your boss, your peers, your rivals or recruiters is up to you. Just give us your best, show us something real and valuable and clever, and you will be amazed how much you and your project will get out of the process.

Agencies, brands, small organization, big organization, journalism students, consultants, newbies, veterans: all are welcome. The more varied the contestants the better. You can create a completely new project/case study specifically for this contest or you can incorporate the contest into something you are already working on. It’s 100% up to you.

To read a little more about the contest, click here.

To register for the contest, click here.

Note: Once you register, Tickr will send you all the info you need to get started. No strings attached and no obligations. If half-way through the process, you decide you don’t want to submit a case study, no one will hold that against you. The folks at Tickr will do whatever they can to make sure you get all the support you need though, so I hope everyone will complete the process.

My advice: Simple is good. Simple is easy. Simple often wins. This doesn’t have to be a huge time-suck unless you want it to be. It is something you can easily incorporate into your daily routine. The case study submission process amounts to filling out a submission form at the end of the contest. You can do more if you want (videos, presentations, white-papers, etc.), but you don’t have to. The contest is supposed to be really easy. The idea is to make your job easier, not harder. Keep that in mind.

Okay, that’s it. Pass it on, have fun, and let me know what you think of the new Command Center. (Here’s a 1-minute tour, by the way.)

This is going to be pretty cool. I can’t wait to see what you all come up with.

Cheers,

Olivier

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Looking for straight answers to real questions about value, process, planning, measurement, management and reporting in the social business space? pick up a copy of Social Media R.O.I.: Managing and Measuring Social Media Efforts in Your Organization. The book is 300 pages of facts and proven best practices. (Go to smroi.net to sample a free chapter first, just to make sure it’s worth the money.)

And if English isn’t your first language, you can even get it in Spanish, Japanese, German, Korean and Italian now, with more international editions on the way.

CEO-Read  –  Amazon.com  –  www.smroi.net  –  Barnes & Noble  –  Que