The Social Customer Manifesto

The Social Customer Manifesto Podcast 27JAN2006

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Summary: Leif Chastaine and Christopher Carfi discuss the American Marketing Association's "Ahead of the Curve" session in Chicago, the marketing challenge for RSS, Salesforce.com taunts and tempts Siebel employees, launch of the "Healing Space" health and environment blog, and this week's RIM/BlackBerry Supreme Court decision. (33:32)

Show notes for January 27, 2006

The audio file is available here (MP3, 32MB), or subscribe to our RSS feed to automatically have future shows downloaded to your MP3 player.

00:00 : Intro

01:10 : Recap of the AMA's Ahead of the Curve session: High Tech Trends in Marketing

02:40 : What is RSS?

Metaphors:
Google search for RSS metaphors (n.b. and yes, actually these are "similes" and not "metaphors," we know, we know...)

"RSS is like an API for content"
"RSS is like selling dogfood over the internet"
"RSS is like Tivo for the web"
"Explaining RSS is like explaining sex. You just don't get it until you do it." (also here)
Dave Winer

11:45 : Salesforce.com to Siebel employees: "No Future"

19:30 : Healing Space health, wellness and environment blog launched

25:15 : Supremes won't intervene in RIM BlackBerry / NTP dispute

33:50 : Wrapup

Links:

Bill Flitter, Stowe Boyd, Randy Moss, Michael Sevilla, TheCradle, Salesforce.com, Siebel, Paul Greenberg, Todd Pesek, EarthHealers, Naturaleza Foundation, eco-tourism, Craig Williams, Howard Bashman, Research in Motion, BlackBerry, Ross Mayfield, Davos, BlackBerries a matter of national security

Live From The Gleacher Center

In the session at Ahead of the Curve.

Stowe just finished up a great overview on blogs, blogging and podcasting, and now Bill Flitter is just finishing his presentation. The big take-away for me ... RSS is still too complex. It's too complex to explain ... too complex to subscribe ... too complex to "show" what an RSS feed is ... too complex to communicate how and why it matters.

Once we get beyond the early-adopter crowd, what are the capabilities and metaphors that are needed to enable RSS to become so ubiquitous that we don't need to go through the nitty-gritty details? (In other words...I don't want to know how the internal combustion engine operates, I just want to reliably get to my destination.) Back in August, 2005, Chris Selland wrote:

"RSS is still very much the realm of early adopters (which is why only early-adopter-focused companies like Audible, Woot and HDNet are using it). But as RSS readers become more powerful and more ubiquitous - and particularly as they become more closely entwined with e-mail applications - expect the use of RSS to dramatically accelerate - much of it at the expense of e-mail."

This is still on-target.

Randy Moss is now up presenting the first part of the social networking discussion, and talking about directed apophenia, and leading into a group exercise. Everyone in the room is up at the front of the room, showing their connections to the others in the room, via past experiences, hobbies, hometowns, schools, products/brands they are passionate about, and the like. (By the way, Randy's book recommendation of the day: The Hidden Power of Social Networks by Rob Cross.)

Randy: "It's critical for organizations to host communities. If a company does this, they're the good guy, they are the one who is providing the network for individuals to connect." (bravo!)

Michael Sevilla from Umbria is now presenting a state of the blogosphere preso. Now moving into a discussion of promoters and detractors, and is highlighting the Qwest's Terms of Service flap. (Michael was affected by it.)

VERY interesting. Now going through things that one can do with OpinMind. For example, blog sentiment of Microsoft and Apple. (N.B. Kind of a neat tool, but it does not seem to have a deep listing of sources. Hopefully it'll grow more over time.)

fin

(top photo: UChicago)

The Social Customer Manifesto Podcast 13JAN2006

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Summary: Leif Chastaine and Christopher Carfi discuss customer challenges in switching mobile phone plans, a blogging "contest" that may be backfiring on its sponsors, Sony's rootkit fiasco, how Thomas Hawk dealt with an unscrupulous e-commerce vendor, and a recap of the current legal challenges facing Research in Motion (RIM), maker of the ubiquitous BlackBerry device. (37:45)

Show notes for January 13, 2006

The audio file is available here (MP3, 34MB), or subscribe to our RSS feed to automatically have future shows downloaded to your MP3 player.

00:00 : Intro
01:30 : Cell phone follies
05:45 : Everyday Hogwash
11:45 : "I just want to listen to this CD!" ... Real-world experiences with Sony's rootkit
19:40 : Thomas Hawk's PriceRitePhoto vindication
28:45 : Troubled waters for Research in Motion and their BlackBerry device
36:30 : Wrapup

Links:
Cingular and AT&T Wireless, Everyday Hogwash, Steve Rubel, Andy Beal, Sony rootkit, Thomas Hawk, NYTimes, BlackBerry troubles

Business Podcasting Article In The Baltimore Sun

The key line: "In what amounts to a nationwide social experiment, corporate America is testing whether this cheap and quirky medium proves useful in the battle to reach the public, communicate meaningfully with employees and keep costs down."

link: Corporations go off a-podcasting

(Disclosure: I'm quoted in the article. Also, a huge guffaw out to Social Customer reader Dave Ritter who has the best line in the article, which was pulled from the comments here.)

Marketing, From The Customer's Point Of View

Want to come out and connect with others who are thinking about how social media are changing marketing and customer relationships? You may be interested in attending one of the upcoming sessions of How Consumer Controlled Media Is Re-Shaping Your Online Go-To-Market Strategy.

The program is being hosted by the American Marketing Association, and we'll start out our 3 city tour in Chicago, IL on October 28th.

Who else will be speaking? Check it out...

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Podcasting/Video Blogs
Stowe Boyd, President, Corante, Get Real

RSS
Bill Flitter, Chief Marketing Officer, Pheedo, Pheedo Blog

Word of Mouth Marketing
Pete Blackshaw, Chief Marketing and Customer Satisfaction Officer, Intelliseek (New York session)
Andy Sernovitz, CEO, Word of Mouth Marketing Association, WOMMA (Chicago session)

Interactive Social Networking
Randal Moss, Project Specialist, American Cancer Society's Futuring and Innovation Center

Social Networking
Christopher Carfi, Principal, Cerado, and author of The Social Customer Manifesto. (Chicago and Scottsdale sessions)
David Teten, CEO of Nitron Advisors (New York session)

Power Law Structure
Judith T. Meskill, Principal, Meskill.net, Judith Meskill's Knowledge Notes

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Session dates:

• October 28 - Chicago
  
• November 11 - Scottsdale
  
• December 2 - New York

More info here, including how to register.

Hope to see you in Chicago, Scottsdale, or New York!

Information Is Social

Outsell has just published their 2006 Information Industry Outlook report (free reg. req'd), which is chock-full of great findings on how individuals and enterprises are using information their day-to-day and business lives. One of the headlines that jumped out of the report: Information is Social and Peer-to-Peer. Outsell:

"Now, instead of looking 'up' to oracles, users are looking sideways - to peers and to social contexts on the Internet, where published information is instantly unveiled, vetted, praised, condemned, corrected, and altered through the 'wisdom of the masses.'"

This subsection of the report goes on to note the following items as evidence:

• The increasing reliance on colleagues and peers as a source of information
  
• Blogs and other social publishing media are becoming a key resource for knowledge workers
  
• The emergence of open models in scientific publishing
  
• Instant verification (or refutation) of news and peer reaction to events
  
• Credibility derives from scrutiny of peers
  
• Youth are sharing and remixing information and will continue to do so (and adults do, too)
  
• Information intermediaries are still relevant in order to relieve users from the information glut

The points above are from pp. 10-11 of the report, which runs about 30 pages.

Speaking at OutSell Today

Just got into Leesburg, VA for OutSell's GO!. Will be a part of Marc Strohlein's panel on "Blogs, Wikis, RSS, Podcasting, and Web Services Kick It Up a Notch" this afternoon. More soon.

SDForum Launches Search SIG With Podcast Search

SDForum, the venerable Silicon Valley technology and networking locus, has launched a special interest group focused exclusively on search. The first get-together will be 14Sept2005 at Yahoo's (Yahoo!'s?...where's the style guide for that one?) headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA, and will feature:

• Doug Kaye, ITConversations
• Ev Williams, Founder/CEO, Odeo.com
• Eric Rice, Founder, Audioblog.com
• David Marks, Founder/CEO, Loomia.com

(Yahoo! will presumably talk about their audio search capabilities as well.)

According to Jeff Clavier, who will be co-chairing the SIG...

"The purpose of the Search SIG is to offer a communication and collaboration platform to the Search ecosystem: search engines, marketers/advertisers, users and developers. Through a series of monthly events, the SIG will cover a large diversity of topics: from the latest developments in search to the needs of brands and advertisers, through the issues and key learnings of starting, funding, building, and exiting a search company."

Kudos to SDForum, Jeff, and co-chair Dave McClure for getting this going!

Corporate Blogging, Wikis, RSS All On The Fast Track, Says Gartner

Gartner has published their most recent "Hype Cycle" report, this one covering emerging technologies. The report covers 44 technologies, and prognosticates when they will reach the "plateau of productivity"...that is, mainstream business use and acceptance. Corporate blogging and RSS are flagged as technologies that will take "less than two years" to reach the plateau, with wikis on their tail in the 2-5 year window.

The interesting thing about Gartner's analysis of all three of these technologies is that all are still positioned as being before the "trough of disillusionment" -- that is, the inevitable backlash to their initial hype is yet to come. (n.b. Podcasting's hype is still on the upswing, according to this, if you can believe it...)

Opinion (mine, not Gartner's): Of these technologies, RSS is going to be the one that is going to have the greatest challenge slogging through the trough to true mass-market (i.e. not early-adopter) usage. Until there is a truly "zero-training" method of publishing, finding, and subscribing to RSS feeds (which might not even be called RSS feeds in a couple of years), RSS will have a challenge crossing the chasm, to use Geoffrey Moore's terminology.

(hat tip: Steve Rubel for the initial link. Of course we went out, did some research, and dug a bit deeper to find the details ::poke:: But that's what we do.)

"Podcast" Added To The OED: Is This A Record?

28Sept2004: The term "podcasts" returns 24 pages on Google

10Aug2005: "Podcast" is added to the Oxford English Dictionary

(hat tip: Steve Rubel)

wheeeeeeeee!

Offtopic shiny thing: Crayola rockets (cool!)