Archive for July, 2008
July 29, 2008
Speaking at the American Chamber of Commerce Executives Convention This Friday
I am presenting two sessions at ACCE’s Convention in Pittsburgh, PA, this week. My first session explores how to formulate and implement web strategies that create value for the organization while the second looks specifically at doing so with social media. Both sessions are on Friday morning, back to back, while the Convention itself kicks off tomorrow.
Be sure to stop by one of my sessions and say hello if you are at the conference.
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July 25, 2008
Trading Value for Money Leads to Profits. Amazing!
Poking fun at the airlines is too easy these days but I think Southwest shows how you can actually make profits by giving value to your customers in exchange for money (crazy concept, I know!) in an otherwise troubled market.
According to the New York Times today, Southwest just posted a profit for their 69th straight quarter. A very big part of this has been do to their savvy fuel hedges limiting their exposure to the run up in oil. However, they have also revamped their pricing structure by not only raising fares, but offering a new class that gives advanced boarding, a free drink and an extra frequent flyer credit. The new class, Business Select, could generated about $100 million in new revenue.
Compare this to the other airlines who have not protected their fuel prices and are charging for previously ‘free’ services, such as baggage, without adding any additional value, terminally angering their customers.
Southwest, meanwhile, is advertising that ‘bags fly for free’ on their home page. I imagine that their executives must have to suppress giggles quite often as they dance around the rest of this sclerotic industry.
Are you offering value to your customers, visitors, clients or members? Taking captive markets for granted is risky in the long run: they have a habit of breaking out eventually.
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July 24, 2008
Twitter Misplaces Their Network
Twitter gets a well deserved rap for downtime and other hiccups related to their exponential growth. However, their most recent tribulation is really bad for a social networking service.
Yesterday they lost a bunch of the data in their system about who follows whom on the site. These connections are the core conduits for the value of the system. It’s as if your address book erased half your entries and your phone no longer accepts their calls to boot.
They are still trying to reclaim the lost data but it appears to be slow going. My connections are not back to what they were just yesterday.
And, yes, I’ve gone active on Twitter after a long hiatus and now with a new account. You can follow me @davidgammel.
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July 21, 2008
Three Reasons Branded Online Communities Fail
A Deloitte consultant just released result of a study of 100 businesses with online communities. From the WSJ:
One of the hot investments for businesses these days is online communities that help customers feel connected to a brand. But most of these efforts produce fancy Web sites that few people ever visit. The problem: Businesses are focusing on the value an online community can provide to themselves, not the community.
The three main reasons for failure were not surprising:
- Focusing on the technology over the value of the community to its members;
- Failure to assign experienced staff to develop the community;
- Poor or no metrics for measuring success.
Let’s tackle those one at a time:
Bells & Whistles
It is so very tempting to focus on the gee whiz things you can do with technology, especially with the very hot social media arena. However, you have to center all of these efforts on the value you will provide to your anticipated community members, making sure that is aligned to deliver some value for your company or organization when it takes off. Constantly ask yourself “So what?” as you develop your plans. Once you have the value identified you can make rational choices about the technology you choose to deploy.
Leadership and Management
Would you launch a new product or service line without an experienced person to develop and manage it? Not usually, no. The same goes for online communities. They require care and feeding and interaction to do successfully. This requires dedicated staff who can interact with others online effectively and keep your online space focused on the value it should provide to participants and the company. It boggles the mind to read the story linked above and realize many of these companies spent over a $1 million on their site and then put half a staff person in place to run it.
Measuring Success
This goes back to value: your measures for success must tell you if you are creating the value you planned to achieve. Are your community members getting value? Is this participation generating value for the sponsoring company? Simply pages views and site registration won’t do. If you goal is to convert community members into customers, be sure you have processes and tools in place to measure that conversion rather than simply hope for the best.
(Story spotted via the most excellent CMSWatch.)
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July 15, 2008
S.F. officials locked out of computer network
I think a couple William Gibson novels start out this way: S.F. officials locked out of computer network
A disgruntled city computer engineer has virtually commandeered San Francisco’s new multimillion-dollar computer network, altering it to deny access to top administrators even as he sits in jail on $5 million bail, authorities said Monday.
This is likely the result of a failed management process rather than a technical vulnerability. In fact, the system must be pretty secure if they are still trying to get in!
With systems this large, you have to have audits and monitoring of everyone with significant access, including those doing the monitoring. Otherwise, stuff like this becomes possible.
Plus, this guy was a known problem for quite some time, apparently. Always make sure you’ve secured the network before trying to terminate the top system administrator.
(Via Deane at Gadgetopia.)
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July 14, 2008
Tweeting vs. Blogging: Attention and Time
Compare following a person’s blog and their tweets.
Which helps you to get to know them faster?
Which helps you to get to know them better?
My feeling is that both are effective at helping you to become acquainted with a person’s public persona, opinions and attitudes. However, Twitter can do it faster if you dedicate more attention to it while blogging takes longer but requires less daily effort.
What do you think?
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July 14, 2008
Example of Cultural Localization in Print Media
An article in today’s NYT’s business section provides a great example of culturally localizing and delivering products with an existing global brand: Western Magazines Find a Receptive Audience in India.
Most of the new Western magazines being published in India are not really Western at all — they are written, photographed, edited and designed almost completely in India. Many are published under licensing agreements with the media company that owns the name. Even though they are all published in English, their content may be completely different from their American or British counterparts.
While the name may be familiar to an American reader, the flavor is distinctly Indian. Instead of Heloise’s syndicated household hints column, for example, Good Housekeeping runs “Ask Mrs. Singh.” This month, Mrs. Singh tackles how to keep your home fresh during the monsoons that sweep through India during the summer (rubber mats and fresh flowers help).
This very same approach should be considered with your online media as well. Are your existing products, services, marketing, content and design applicable to your desired international audiences? Are you offering articles about desert living to people currently being soaked by a monsoon? It is often tempting to just build a one-size fits all approach online but that rarely maximizes your results.
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