The Seven Sacred Pools in Hawaii! A Story Lives in your Heart Forever!
I was just in Hawaii and will feature a series on the relationship of those sidetrips to Social Media! Too much vacation? Tell me what you think!
While in Paradise, I went to visit the 7 Sacred Pools in Hawaii's Maui Island! These "7" pools are beautiful -- and there are more than 7 for sure! They are freshwater but touch the sea! The Seven Sacred Pools are near the burial site of Charles Lindbergh, as well as over Jim Nabors's macadamia nut farm!!
The assorted pools vary in elevation and size and are most pronounced when rainfalls are heavy. In 1967, He Chas agreed to donate a 58-acre tract to the Valley of the Seven Sacred Pools 'Park. Then in 1987, in a bid to attract tourists, a few local businessmen apparently concocted a "legend' that there were seven pools leading to the ocean, and that they were considered sacred. While there are debates, my tour guide said that there is no evidence of any religious affiliation. To get to the end of the road and the hotel the business men built, you have to go through 617 twists and turns on the 53-mile road to the village!
While I am not going to debate whether these pools are sacred or not, the 7 Sacred Pool story is an interesting one. And yes I did go!!!!
A story can make a huge difference. My favorite quote is
"Tell me the facts and I'll learn. Tell me the truth and I'll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever." It changed a little town that was too hard to get to, into a major Maui tourist attraction.
In Social media marketing, we tend to think it is the tool -- Twitter, Blogs, Facebook -- is the key. Not the story when in reality it is the story you are telling, that will make all the difference in the world. Is it compelling? It is relevant and enduring? Those are questions all need to ask before they JUST jump into the tool!
What do you think?
Costa Rica President!
I was just in Costa Rica - a beautiful country - to meet with GBM -- our key partner there and several customers. Also I attended the OMG meeting.
While there Richard Soley had a guest speaker at the event -- the President of Costa Rica. He is an amazing man with a Nobel Prize and vision for his country around skills and technology.
I was amazed at several companies -- including Credomatic -- who are lplanning to be the leaders in Social Media for the region. Watch this space for more energy around Social Media!
Difference between If and When ...Business 2.0
When you decide to add social media to your company's strategy, here are some things to think through!
1. Don't say If we will do social media, but When we do Social Media. "If" implies that you are thinking, "when" empowers people to do something!
2. State your intention. This is why Technology companies announce ahead of time of delivery of the product a roadmap. Be vocal about your Social Vision -- perhaps to your team or a cross brand team.
3. Understand your goal. If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there! Is your goal new customers? Better support? New product requirements? Make sure you know your goals before you kick off a social media planning!
4. Collaborative Social Media Plan. Step 1 for me is to set up a Social Media Council. I did this at with my IBM SOA team. We had a cross functional team that brought forward case studies, ideas, and passion. This council for me was a virtual group. The council can assist in setting the roadmap!
5. Be students of the game. Learn daily. Post best practices of social media in a WIKI or an internal blog. Mistakes should be expected! Experimentation in Social Media is easy and a way to learn! Experimentation is good (and necessary) but remember that it’s a scientific process - you should have an expected outcome/framework!
6. Listen! You need to be listening to conversations! I just did a presentation with Maggie Fox. I loved her quote of "DON’T ignore negative chatter - it matters, and things move quickly". If you don't listen, you will miss 50% of the value of social media!
7. Approach End to End! Approach things from a holistic perspective .. you want to make sure your brand is viewed end to end. That it constantly supports your vision and your goals. For example, a message on LinkedIn and Twitter needs to be the consistent .. perhaps even in your taglines, and naming of your group.
8. Solicit your customers to be your “brand army” of enthusiasts that make your success their cause. We had customers post videos to YouTube on why they loved our products. They became our advocates. RackSpace does an amazing job of this as well! Acknowledge and harness their goodwill to generate insight and return on your investment. For example, we took those videos that our clients did and learned how they discussed our products and used those words to talk to other potential clients.
9. Hybrid Rocks. Don't forget this is about leveraging social media to supplement your real-world events and experiences. Face to face is still the most meaningful interaction!
10. Digital crisis plan. Have a digital crisis communications plan - being caught flat-footed can do lasting damage. You need to move super fast in this new world be ready. Example of Domino's Pizza who had employees post pictures of employees sticking cheese in their nose before they put it on a sandwich. Domino needed to move fast!
Dance Different Dance Steps - Your Social Media Strategy
For your social media strategy, have you set your goals? Explored how to reach them?
And then tried to change ?
Capture the results.
More later!
What is Dialogue?
I'd propose this defnition of a dialogue.
Voicing -- explaining, sharing, your thoughts.
Listening -- hearing what others have to say on the topic.
Reflecting -- thinking through others point of view
Challenging -- Discussion the ideas and pros and cons
What do you think of as a dialogue? What did I miss?
Weaving a Social Cloth
Listening is a lost art. Today we are hungry to be heard. We like to talk, tweet, blog a lot. But listening and exploring questions that matter makes a difference.
Think about it. We had 4 women at a table. They each talked on what energized them.. Wendy, the hippie chick, Ann where boundaries are gone, Sandy, empowering others and creating something new, and Trudie working from a challenge into energy. The conversation was great. It was like weaving a new cloth.. each conversation being one thread .. a cloth that will never be woven again.
Interesting how listening does that. Do you do that with your family, with your team, with those in your friend group, or your connections.
When was the last time you listened and reflected? What cloth did you weave?
Did you know? Featured in WITI Keynote Tomorrow -- Social Media Statistics!
In preparing for this week's WITI keynote, I found some great factoids!
First, over 1/5th of the world’s population are online - that's over 1.2B people. The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the total population of the planet! WOW!
If MySpace were a country, it would be the 11th largest population.
45% of Facebook’s audience is now 26 or older, with women over 55 the fastest growing group!
Between February 2008 and May 2009, the Twitter community grew by over 4,000% to an estimated 20 million+ users. In December 2008, over 14 billion web videos were viewed by 150 million online Americans, an increase of 13% over November ‘08!
People with more than twenty connections on LinkedIn are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five.
All 500 of the Fortune 500 are represented in LinkedIn. In fact, 499 of them are represented by director-level and above employees!
Send me your factoids!!!
Interesting - Practice of Flourishing Families
I am at my Harvard Business School Reunion. It is so great to see all my friends again and catch up!
But we also get to attend great classes by Harvard Professors. One that I find intriguing today was by Charlie Collier on the Practices of Flourishing Families.
The highlights included:
-- A discussion on what it takes to be a member of your family (do you have a set of family values, and a mission?)
-- How do you encourage your children to lead their own lives yet stay connected to the family (tough one that we debated for a while!0
-- How do you influence your child to be the best they can be (The discussion was around leading by example)
-- We also discussed how you discuss money and prepare your kids to manage money (his theory was that we do not spend enough time educating our kids on how to manage their money)
-- And we discussed how to raise a child to give back!
We discussed at length these questions and he ended with 6 questions that you should ask your parents and video tape to show your kids.
The 6 questions were:
1) What was the turning point in your life?
2) What was a high point in your life?
3) What was a low point in your life?
4) Who were the most influential people in your life and why?
5) What is your biggest regret?
6) What is the unifying theme of your life? Your legacy?
I think I am going to do this exercise -- for my in laws, my parents, and me!
What do you think?
Top 10 things Women want! Social Media
I was just reading a blog on a survey done for
women by Mary Kay. Very interesting that
Social media made the Top 10 list of what
women want now! It was a global survey!
Take a read!
Ten Things Women Want Now
1. Completeness
2. Strength & Independence
3. Family + Choice
4. Fulfilling Career
5. Connection/Sisterhood
6. Personal Income
7. Men, sometimes
8. Pampering
9. Social Media
10. Trust
We just won 5 Hermes Awards for Social Media!
Great news!
My SOA marketing organization has received 5 Hermes Awards, as follows:
Platinum Awards:
Impact 2008 (Event Marketing category)
Smart SOA Widget (Electronic Media/Other category)
IBM Smart SOA Newsletter (E-Newsletter category)
Gold Awards:
Smart SOA World Tour (Integrated Marketing/Other)
World Tour "Get Smart" Videos (Viral Marketing category)
Hermes Creative Awards is administered and judged by the Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals. The international organization consists of several thousand marketing, communication, advertising, public relations, media production, web and free-lance professionals. The Association oversees awards and recognition programs, provides judges and sets standards for excellence.
The home page for Hermes Creative Awards links to the winners' list.
http://www.hermesawards.com/