I made a Digital Strategy 'Hamburger' #strategy

I was recently challenged with organizing the results of some participatory design sessions. After a bunch of free-listing exercises it became clear that the problem was larger than just the website itself. Marketing was non-existent and the infrastructure and offline support had not been thought through.

So, I had to come up with a model that would address this. I put all of the website related questions into Forrester's Website Review Scorecard categories - Value, Navigation, Presentation and Trust.

Then, I added in 'Accessibility' - how easy is it for people to access the website? Amazing how many organizations still get stuck in the 'Field of Dreams' idea - that if you build it they will come. No SEO, SEM, offline marketing....no traffic.

Finally, I added in Cross-Channel Customer Experience (XCCX) to address offline support, user authentication via offline processes, mobile, etc.

It worked really well. Problem is that it looks like a hamburger.

Social Business Maturity Quiz | via @jowyang from #Altimeter |

A terrific checklist and report to gauge an organization's Social Business Maturity and how match business priorities (internal, external, technology) as well as how they are organized (centralized, decentralized, hub and spoke). Good Stuff.

Jeremiah's blog post.

Posted via email from John Hutchings

Finished #gamestorming. A must-have for RDL and idea-generation facilitators | http://www.gogamestorm.com/ | #in

I just finished reading Gamestorming by Dave Gray, Sunni Brown and James Macanufo.

An excellent refresher for those who facilitate brainstorming sessions and Rapid Design Labs.

I particularly liked the way that game theory is framed in a simple, easy to understand way and how it applies to idea generation for business. It turns out that I've been using a bunch of these techniques for years (card sorts, affinity mapping, dot voting, post ups), but I also found some of the tips and explanations very helpful - turns out I'd been doing some of them wrong, or at least not quite 'right'.

I also liked the thoughts on how to employ visual language to communicate ideas. The visual alphabet reminded me of Ed Emberly's work.

The catalogue of exercises is great. It would be super if they produced a set of flashcards similar to IDEO for quick reference.

I'll be keeping this book handy.

Posted via email from John Hutchings

Love it when a Stickie and a Strategy come together...I'll be in my room...

Posted via email from John Hutchings

What is Strategy?

http://whatconsumesme.com/2010/posts-ive-written/project-in-process-what-is-s...

Posted via web from John Hutchings

Social and Corporate Website Continuum. (via @jowyang). #in

A clear model to benchmark Socal Web integration into a website from Jeremiah Owyang. The axes are inferred, but the X-axis could be a combination of time and money.

The examples in the deck provide context.

Posted via web from John Hutchings

More predictions: Deloitte's take for 2010 in Canada

Deloitte's 2010 technology predictions were recently presented here in Calgary. I missed the live event, but here's a good analysis. You can also download the report here.

Worth a read?

Posted via email from John Hutchings

True North, Strong, and Social

When Canadians meet, we often talk about the weather. Apparently, we talk about other things as well - online - a lot.

Research published this week confirms how critical it is for Canadian marketers to pay attention and get busy with their Social Media strategy:



1. Nate Elliot, a Forrester researcher, wrote a summary based on their Technographic research data. One of his high-level conclusions: "Canadians are the most active social networkers in any market we survey"

2. A thought-provoking visualization of global Social Media usage by trendstream and lightspeedresearch. China, the US, India and Brazil lead the way in volume. But, if you look at the percentages, Canada is right up there, particularly for Social Networking. (China has the most bloggers - political and cultural reasons(?) that I would like to research further).

These numbers should make marketers take pause and get our collective act together. As Blast said a couple of years ago, whether you market in the True North or not, "It means customers are lIstenIng to each other rather than you."

Makes sense, eh?

Opium for the Masses

Can't talk. Busy reading Drucker and reviewing recent posts by Social Web experts. I'm exercising my cortex because it shall soon be called upon. I'd like to ensure that I don't need to be spotted.

My first day at Critical Mass was a bit pedantic, as expected.
But near the end of the day, with introductions made, credentials established, there were inklings of heady and productive things to come. I'm not certain what I'll be doing exactly, but there is one thing definite: This place is full of passionate, energetic, and intelligent folks.

Something wonderful. I'm in.

The Customer is Always Right

If you have parents of a certain age, or have ever worked retail, you've no doubt had this axiom drilled into you. Ever had such bad service that you stormed out of somewhere screaming at the top of your lungs, "I will never set foot in this f**king place again!"? Been there, done that. Difference - now I can tell many more about this, not just word of (foul) mouth.

Last week was World Usability Day and I've been keeping an eye on personal (cross-channel) user and customer experiences since then.





Lowlights (with grades):

• New Visa card with PIN arrives in mail. 45 min. on the phone to get the thing activated THEN I still have to go to the branch to change the PIN. (D).
• iPhone purchase (B+) at an actual retail store, activation [I had to make 3 calls on how to switch out my PIN card and activate with iTunes] (C-). Now that I have it working, customer delight (A).
• Mikael was trying to cook some pasta the other night and there was no cooking time on the package (F).

Brandon Schauer's recent post on the nexus of Brand and Customer Experience, paired with heady the stuff of The Brand Gap and the evidence from Razorfish's FEED report are all saying the same thing. Your customer is always right, whether you like it or not, and your Brand can be adversely affected, slandered, or outright abandoned for a competitor.

Of course, depending on switching costs, a customer may persist with your Brand, but that doesn't mean they're happy about it. The key difference now is that they have a voice to make their displeasure heard - and don't doubt that they'll use it.

Social Media ROI: Socialnomics

Some more timely, relevant and powerful statistics from Eric Qualman.

Again with the Teaching

I was fortunate enough last year to teach a course in Internet Marketing at the University of Calgary with Jeff Nelson from Anduro Marketing. I learned yesterday that we get to do it again.

It works out to about $10/hr, which is obviously not the reason I do it. I find it rewarding to take complex subjects and concepts and distill them down into digestible and actionable pieces. It's also a terrific way to keep current and to learn from others. I'm looking forward to it.

Details:

Internet Marketing - Course # BMC - 203 - 003
University of Calgary, Faculty of Continuing Education
2009/2010 Business and Professional Programs
Link

Anyone reading this likely doesn't need to take this course, but if you know someone who does, please pass this along.

A must FEED for Digital Marketing Professionals

I try to keep up with State of the Nation readings from the likes of hard-core research firms like Forrester as well as Digital agencies like CM, Blast and Razorfish.

I just finished digesting the new FEED Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Report for 2009. According to Guy Kawasaki it's a "... must-read if you’re interested in social media and marketing" and I would tend to agree.

Although the sample size is relatively small (n=1000), I like the way they've selected it - by talking only to what they call 'connected consumers'. They all have broadband, spend online, visit social websites, and are consumers and creators of User-Generated Content. This makes sense since these are the people we're trying to engage with. And, I buy how they extrapolate their results to the population at large by using relevant proxies.

Some highlights:

• 57% have actively customized their homepage
• 84% rely on the web to get their news
• 76% watch video, 73% use social networking, 62% listen to music online
• 56% have smartphones

More importantly:

• 26% have followed a brand on Twitter
• 40% have 'friended' a brand on Facebook
• 77% have watched a commercial online
• 73% have posted a product or brand review
• 52% have blogged about their brand experience

All of this sums to the fact that "those brand marketers still neglecting (or underestimating) digital, it's as if they've shown up to a cocktail party in sweatpants" - a staggering 97% of those surveyed report that a digital brand experience has influenced whether or not they actually hand over the cash.

In essence, 'connected consumers' are interacting with brands, just in a different way. And, those interactions actually create new customers. Finally, the digital experience can make or break a brand.

Worth the read.

MR. BUMPP

No, not Mr. Hargreaves.

Doug came up with an easy to remember model (slide 8) for Social Web adoption. To quote: "Thanks, made it up. Mnemonic helps me when presenting!"

This is my Interpretation of BUMPP, but I welcome comments from Doug and others:

1. Brand: Does your brand lend itself to the Social Web channel? On a practical level, have you secured your Social Web assets - Twitter, vanity Facebook name, etc.?
2. Understand: Do you have a strategy around what you would like to accomplish? In other words, have you done a POST analysis?
   
3. Monitor: Before jumping in head first, understand where you are in the Social Media continuum - have you 'listened' to your audience?
   
4. Policy: Does your organization have a plan and processes in place on how to employ this channel? Where I work, we have a number of people that can blog and Tweet on behalf of the company, but we have policies in place about what we can and cannot speak to.
   
5. Participate: Once you have 1 - 4 in place, it's time to get in the game. Jeremiah Owyang speaks of 5 types of models for how to engage employees within the organization. I'd say we're a blend of #4 and #5 - where everyone is encouraged to participate but only some are permitted to use 'official' channels.

On the subject of Branding

An interesting dialogue recently where I work about Branding. Our CCO and his team walked us through a client-tested framework that works elegantly. There are many thoughts and models on this subject, including one of my 'personal' favourites. What was interesting about the methodology presented was its simplicity and 'hook'. It breaks down like this:








Branding is important:

• It's difficult to control Brand image, particularly in the age of Social Web. As Blast Radius said last year: "...it means customers are listening to each other, not you."
• And, if you don't work to define your Brand, your competitors will do it for you

Branding is like a 'Fingerprint':

The analogy is that there are few types of Fingerprint variables, but when combined together give Fingerprints - like Brands - a unique identity. An identity, both as an enterprise and in the 'minds and hearts' of consumers.

Brand Fingerprint Analysis:

1. Logic: This speaks to the product's features, benefits and physicality. What does the product do, and how can we sell it? This is defined by the company itself.
   
2. Personality: This speaks to how those features and benefits are communicated to the consumer. How does the company (and their agency) tell a story?
3. Emotion: This is the kicker. How do your customers 'feel' about your Brand? Who are they? This you cannot control. They either trust you, or they don't. For online in particular, user interviews and Persona creation are critical.
   

All of this analysis comes from internal stakeholder interviews - from the Boardroom down - by asking a simple question: "What does 'Brand X' mean to you?". At the same time, market research is required with users/customers.

The Payoff: When complete, we arrive at both an internal and external 'MindMap' of the Brand as well as practical things like a messaging hierarchy (right message, right audience, right time), Branding guidelines, and finally, tactical execution. By tactics, we mean logo, tags, payoffs, etc.

The point of all of this is that the Brand starts from what the company does and what it projects itself to be. Ultimately however, the Brand is not 'you'. Your brand is your customers 'gut feel' and what they think about you.

'Internet and Strategy' for CMA Calgary

I was fortunate enough to guest lecture at Doug's course on E-marketing here in #yyc:

Thanks to Doug and the group for the discussion. Thanks as well to Greg for slide 17.

Social Media Revolution

Social Networking and the Enterprise - Part 4 : How?

In a recent Forrester article and blog post, Jeremiah Owyang talks about the 5 ways companies are participating in Social Web. Although he's mostly speaking to the inside-out communication aspect of this phenomenon, the model is still applicable.

1. No clue: It's a complete free for all, it puts the organization at tremendous risk of Intellectual Property leakage and regulatory non-compliance, often without the firm knowing until it's too late.

2. The Corporate Representative: This is analogous to the 'tower' model where a silo of representatives, often senior leadership, are responsible for all Social corporate communications. This is safe, but doesn't truly embrace true sharing or collaboration. The analogy here is the 'Message from the President' newsletter.

3. Common Employees Blessed for Social: This model lets a few more trained people within the organization behind the velvet rope to act as Social Media ambassadors. This, and 4 below, follow the 'hub and spoke' model. The challenge here is that you're creating two classes of workers and it is still more of a push model rather than true collaboration and sharing.

4. Everyone is Encouraged: Again the 'hub and spoke' model, with a cross-disciplinary team in the middle acting as a conduit between various business stakeholders. From a brand communication perspective: "This is ultimately going to be the future, but having a free for all isn't an excuse for having a strategy, guidelines and resources to support the brand and employees". For a regulated entity, it may take a long time to get this far, both externally and internally.

5. Shut it down: The pendulum swung to the other extreme of the free for all, this is analogous to organizations that block Internet access to Webmail and other 'non' work sites. This happens more often you might think, particularly in regulated verticals like Finance and big Pharma. (I once built a clinical trial portal for a large pharmaceutical manufacturer. It failed because the clinicians using the site couldn't use it to 'talk' with each other. Legal, Medical and Regulatory got a hold of it and were so concerned about Adverse Event reporting they shut down all community elements, including hard coding email addresses so they weren't clickable!). This doesn't work because employees will use their mobile devices or just surf from home.

So, which one makes the most sense? It depends. Maybe a checklist:

1. Involve your Regulatory, Legal and Privacy people early.
2. Do a POST analysis on your organization or team. It will vary from Marketing to Operations to Sales, so it's important to do more granular analysis.
3. Don't forget about your company's Intranet and email client. Your organization's Intranet can (and should) be the primary information sharing and collaboration space if it's easy to use and addresses the needs of workers.
4. Get Identity Management working - fast. My experience with regulated entities is that some employees have access to things that others don't. This is typically managed by multiple passwords or the user having to 'ask for permission' (via telephone or email) to gain access. With single sign-in and Role Based Access Control Lists, access to information is based on your role within the organisation. This leads to a better end user experience and improved information control. This can then be extended to the personalization and customization of the Intranet and in-house Social Networking applications.
5. Start small and practical. A blog or wiki? For one department? Yammer.com for your sales department? Perhaps start a 'Social Media Sandbox' with a pilot group or team?

I'm certain there are others. Any thoughts from the 'community' would be most welcome.

Social Networking and the Enterprise - Part 3 : If your organization should do it?

So, we've looked at definitions and have now answered the question about why Social Networking is important, both from an external marketing perspective and as an internal information sharing and collaboration tool.

Next is whether an organization should entertain it in the first place. In his 2007 bestseller Groundswell, Josh Berman proposes 'a systematic approach to social (media) strategy'. It's called the POST Method. It breaks down like this:


People: Assess your customers' Social activities. As mentioned earlier this has to do with your organization's demographics and culture. A company full of Gen Y workers is, in general, more likely to adopt than one full of Boomers.

Objectives: Decide what you want to accomplish as an organization. Better collaboration? Better information capture and sharing? Also decide on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) before you start. This drives the technology choice.

Strategy: Plan for how relationships with customers (in this case internal) will change. This is critical, particularly in a regulated environment. You have to plan for what could go wrong and mitigate it with safeguards.

Technology: Decide which Social applications to use. A common axiom here is 'don't let the technology tail wag the dog'. A good example is MOSS. It used to ship free with Windows. So, guess what? The IT guys played around with it, and to quote Greg: "spun it up and called it an ECM strategy". I recently completed an Enterprise Content Management engagement for a large Oil & Gas company. They literally had hundreds of SharePoint sites running. And the majority of business users had no idea where to look for information...

Let's look at a simple example. Where I work:

P: Mostly Gen Y with some Gen X. Open, collaborative culture. Everyone is on FaceBook, most are on Twitter. The leadership and senior client service and strategy folks can all Tweet on the company's behalf.

O: One objective was to improve internal communication in a secure environment. Another was to have a information repository that is editable and accessible to all - it was about knowledge capture, management and transfer.

S: The strategy was to get individual workers to keep their conversations internal and work-oriented and to have a one-stop shop for all information.

T: We implemented Pandion as our in-house IM application and it is heavily trafficked. Our internal wiki is in huge demand, particularly among our development team who use it as a code-base repository.

How do we know they are working? We measure.

This isn't rocket science, but it is a simple and elegant way to determine how Social Media fits into an organization's marketing mix as well as it's internal communication and collaboration strategy. After determining the 'if' it's now time to explore how we are going to go about it.

Social Networking and the Enterprise - Part 1: Definitions and Mapping

Strap in, this is going too be long and come in four parts.

Earlier, I mentioned that I'm scheduled to speak at the AIIM Western Canada conference.

My topic is, Social Web: Cutting through the clutter. How to use Social Networks and other tools to enable appropriate information sharing and collaboration within your organization.

So, I've got a little leeway, but was also struggling on how to approach it. I spent some time doing research and have come up with an outline for the talk.

1. Definitions: First, it was important for me to understand what all these terms mean.

Enterprise 2.0: According to AIIM, this can be defined as a system of web-based technologies that provide rapid and agile collaboration, information sharing, emergence and integration capabilities WITHIN the extended enterprise. In other words, Web 2.0 for the enterprise.

Enterprise Content Management: ECM can be referred to as the strategies, methods, and technologies (tools) used to Capture, Manage, Store, Preserve and Deliver content and documents related to organization processes - they permit the management of an organization's unstructured information, wherever it may exist. (emphasis is mine).

For the majority of users within the enterpise, it's the Manage component (which can be further broken down into DM, Collaboration, WCM, RM and Workflow) that they spend the most time with, so emphasis should be placed here.

Enterprise Social Software: A subset of E2.0, it comprises social software utilized in a business context. Applications such as internal blogs, wikis, feeds and internal social bookmarking - all often bolted onto an existing Intranet - live in this space.

Finally, you've got good old-fashioned Social Web (including Social Networking and User-Generated Content - Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, personal blogs, Youtube, Flickr, etc.).

So, the business question is how all of these fit together for enterprise context, particularly for heavily regulated verticals such as Oil & Gas, Big Pharma and Government.

2. Mind Map: A visual representation of the space.

To begin to answer how these fit together, I came up with the visual above. The X - axis represents the number of users - few vs. many. The Y - axis talks about the amount of control an organization can exert over information - the higher and to the up and right you go, the more difficult it is to 'control the collaboration'. As a reaction, some organizations just shut everything down. I'll get to this when we talk about Jeremiah Owyang's thoughts on "How to Organize Your Company For Social Computing".

What's also interesting is how a company's Intranet and email applications fit into the mix. Email is often overlooked as a 'social network' but that's exactly what it is and it's still the most popular platform.

With these definitions and framework in place, I'll next examine the emerging trends and key business drivers behind enterprise Social Network adoption (or lack thereof). Then, I'll look at a model that helps to determine in which direction an organization should move. Finally, I'll take a stab at some key conclusions and direction.

UPDATE: I asked my friend and colleague Greg Clark from C3 Associates, who is an ECM and E2.0 ninja, to vet this model for me. I got a passing grade, but he raised an interesting and valid point. To quote:

"One thing that jumped out at me is your comment about the importance/focus of the “Manage” portion of ECM. To me this is where a lot of implementations fall down; infrastructure geeks in black Nine Inch Nails t-shirts sitting in windowless server rooms spin up an ECM app and call it a strategy. Don’t need to tell you this is bad. The “Deliver” portion is where things get interesting from an E2.0 perspective. Marrying up these two (with a side benefit of some subversive records management to handle the end of the information lifecycle) is where it’s at."

So, I forgot the 'Deliver' aspect which is used to present information from the 'Manage', 'Store', and 'Preserve' components.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The 'Why, If, and, How questions are next.