Marketing /Sales / Social Media Archives - Page 113 of 174

Social Networking: Are You Adaptable or Have You Joined a Clan?

July 7, 2008 by Liz

Externally Facing or Internally Facing? Flexible or Stable?

It’s not unusual to speak of corporate or organizational culture. I’ve been thinking how that idea applies to the living web, to social networking in particular. We are building the web and the web cultures each day as we build our relationships.

Culture is made up of the values, beliefs, underlying assumptions, attitudes, and behaviors shared by a group of people. Culture is the behavior that results when a group arrives at a set of – generally unspoken and unwritten – rules for working together. Susan Heathfield

The chart below shows the cultures that result from the environmental needs and strategic focus of the people who form them. The four cultures described form around internal or external focus and the need for flexibility or stability.

Based on Toward a Theory of Organizational Culture and Effectiveness by Denison and Mishra

Where would you put social networking on this chart?

Are You Adaptable or Have You Joined a Clan?

Though stability might be a goal of the web culture, few would argue that we’ve reached it. Flexibility seems a given in order to survive as we build out this dynamic environment. That puts us firmly in the two cultures on the left of the chart above — the adaptability culture and the clan culture.

The Adaptability Culture is outward facing. The focus in this group is on serving all of their stakeholders, especially customers and people who offer new ideas. This culture welcomes risk that leads to growth. People of an adaptive care deeply about people create value and processes that lead to positive change. This culture can move quickly, innovate, and rewards creativity.

Could Twitter be an adaptability culture?

The Clan Culture is inward facing. The focus is on serving those who are a part of the clan. The purpose of participation and involvement are to meet changing needs from the environment. This culture places high value on cooperation and consideration for all stakeholders. Status differences are minimized. Treating others well is rewarded. This culture moves to support the group’s needs.

Will Plurk’s Karma destine it to grow into a clan?

All four cultures have validity and success stories behind them. The object is to match the values, the people, and the environment. Personally, I want to stay fimly footed in the blue square, visiting the others as I might have the need.

Consider the social networks you know. Are they adaptability cultures or are they clans?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
[Chart based on Toward a Theory of Organizational Culture and Effectiveness by Denison and Mishra via Understanding Management by Daft and Marcic]

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When Kings Get Stuck in Their Own Kingly Story . . . MSM, Blogging, and Social Media

July 4, 2008 by Liz

Step Away from Your Thinking

In a conversation yesterday about the decline of print newspapers, my husband asked a simple question . . .

My Husband: They report the news. It’s their business. Why didn’t they see it?

ME: Some did. But mainstream media kings believed in the power of the monarchy.

When kings reign over a silent audience, they might believe they have the only voice. The sound of other voices could become unconceivable. It’s easy to see how they might get stuck in their own story.

Another Kingdom that Wasn’t Listening

Two hundred years ago, a king thought he had the only voice that mattered . . .

In 1775 relations were souring between England and the American colonies. Colonists felt overtaxed and treated unfairly. Still looking to save the union, the colonists extended an Olive Branch Petition to King George III.

We your Majesty’s faithful subjects of the colonies of New-hampshire, Massachusetts-bay, . . . in behalf of ourselves and the inhabitants of these colonies, who have deputed us to represent them in general Congress, entreat your MajestyÃ¢â¬â¢s gracious attention to this our humble petition.

The union between our Mother Country and these colonies, and the energy of mild and just government, produced benefits so remarkably important, and afforded such an assurance of their permanency and increase, that the wonder and envy of other Nations were excited, while they beheld Great Britain riseing to a power the most extraordinary the world had ever known.

George III refused it. He issued a Proclamation of Rebellion. He called them traitors

Whereas many of our subjects in divers parts of our Colonies and Plantations in North America, misled by dangerous and ill designing men, and forgetting the allegiance which they owe to the power that has protected and supported them; after various disorderly acts committed in disturbance of the publick peace, to the obstruction of lawful commerce, and to the oppression of our loyal subjects carrying on the same; have at length proceeded to open and avowed rebellion, by arraying themselves in a hostile manner, to withstand the execution of the law, and traitorously preparing, ordering and levying war against us: . . .

A year later the colonies signed, The Declaration of Independence.

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Each year on July 4, the United States of America celebrates the independence won in the war this document declared. Suppose George III had listened?

When Kings Get Stuck in Their Own Kingly Story

Kings, contrarians, politicians . . . celebrities, bloggers, CEOs . . . preachers, teachers, all of us . . . when we start believing our own kingly stories, we stop listening to the people around us.

We start sorting their voices as we would have them. We stop thinking. We stop remembering that we don’t get to pick how other folks will be.

When the MSM media might have listened, they were selling their own story. Citizen journalist became less than a compliment — it was term to spin their story. What if they’d put down their kingly story?

Now the MSM castle is undergoing expensive renovation.
No kingly group is immune from narrow vision.
Even the most wonderful story can’t control the conversation.

What sort of listening strategy will keep us from getting stuck in our own story?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

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Confession: My Big Brother Used Permission Marketing to Get Me to Do His Chores

July 1, 2008 by Liz

I Was a Little Kid

I used to say that my big brother — he’s 8.5 years older — should have been an entertainer. He was particularly adept at entertaining me. Before I could walk, he had me trained to look (and then answer) to his whistle. Yeah, he had my attention from the second he saw me.

Now I realize he was a natural-born permission marketer. He got buy in like this. Notice the upsell at the end.

My big brother: [He’d whistle. I come running from another room. He’d make me laugh with something he’d say. Then he’d give the call to action — it might be an errand or one of his chores.] I’d sure like a glass of milk but I don’t want to miss this movie on TV. Tell you what. I’ll trade you a toy in my junk drawer, if you’ll get it for me. Are you up for that? . . . unless you’re too busy.

I was a kid. How busy could I be? [My brother’s infamous junk drawer had every trinket, dead pen, and carnival toy that he’d ever collected.]

Me: Do I get to look go look first?

My big brother: You’re a smart dealer. Sure kid, have at it. Let me know, if you see something you want.

Something?!! From his broken chop sticks to his scratched-up, plastic magnifying glass, that drawer was a treasure chest of the unforeseen and unexpressed needs of the small child I was. Inevitably, I’d choose something I couldn’t live without.

My big brother: Whoa, kid! Where’d you find that?!! That doesn’t belong in my junk drawer . . . Oh well, fair is fair. Get me a glass of milk, and I’ll part with that valuable object. Still, I’d hurry if I were you, because I’ll change my mind if I think about parting with what you’ve got there.

He’d have his milk in seconds. Then, I’d disappear to my room with my prize.

Minutes later, my brother would whistle again.

My big brother: How’s my favorite thing?

Me: [glowing, grinning with achievement] It’s my favorite thing now.

My big brother: This milk sure would taste good with some of mom’s cookies. . . .

By the time I was 10, I had an outstanding junk drawer of my own.

My big brother had my opt-in with the whistle and got my permission at every step. The chores and prizes got larger as I grew up, but he never asked for too much. I didn’t opt-out until I was nearly 12.

That whistle still makes me look.

Have you ever known a natural-born permission marketer?

Disclaimer: As in all stories about my brothers, every word of this story is true except for the ones I made up.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Listening to Crowds — Gathering Wisdom One at a Time

June 30, 2008 by Liz

The Wisdom of Crowds

Itâ€™s only human nature to want to name things. Names are the first step to a definition. A definition is the first step to knowledge. Knowledge leads to understanding.

Yet the names we choose can limit our thinking as much as they shape it.

Writers, Readers, Teachers, Sales Reps, Users, Customers, Marketer, Bloggers, Vendors, Workers, Managers, Employees . . .

All of those words refer to people. Individuals grouped together as a crowd.

The wisdom crowds is the aggregate of independent decisions by the individuals who form the crowds. To get the whole story when we listen, we need to the group, but we also need to listen one at a time.

Gathering Wisdom One at a Time

To get the rich context and detail, we have to listen to individuals talking â€” not a whole group shouting. Every person has a different story. In those stories are the reasons people care; why tell their friends about us or move on by. Individual views and experiences put the heart in the data.

People share wisdom one at time.

To listen actively, picture the person and the experience, and consider questions like these . . .

What’s the message of this person’s story?
What’s surprising about what this person is saying?
In what ways, is this person like me? In what ways, is this person unique?
What might this person want or need that I never expected?
What might this person want or need that everyone wants?
What can I learn from this person’s story that I didn’t know or always knew but forgot?

You get the idea. If we hear — really hear — individual stories, we can sort to find the universal truths we share.

Would you tell me a listening story that you’re thinking of right now?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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