Interviewed on ThriveAMERICA

David Cohen interviewed on ThriveAMERICA

I just wanted to give a shout out over to Brent Brooks at Blank Stage Productions and thank him for having me as a guest on their video blog: ThriveAMERICA.  As an interviewer Brent was great – friendly, prepared and he went out of his way to make me feel comfortable as a guest.  Thanks Brent!

The interview is about a half hour long, but is broken up into 10 minute sections.  I hope you’ll take the time to check it out as we discuss the three Rs of branding and the three Cs of communication.  Brent even got me talking about some business mistakes I’ve made and some ideas for the future.  I hope you enjoy it and if you do, please remember to click on the stars to rank the video.

Thanks!

David Cohen discusses branding on ThriveAMERICA

The Everest Question

There is a difference between getting great advice and getting the great advice that helps you get to where you want to go.  The key is to ask your Everest question.

So what’s the Everest question?  Let me explain.  I could walk up to you and say, “I’m 44 and I want to climb Mt. Everest, what should I focus on for the next couple of years?” and you’d probably be surprised, but after a pause you’d give me your best, well-reasoned, well-meant and practical advice. However, if instead I only asked, “I’m 44, what should I focus on for the next couple of years?” while I’m certain that I’d also get your best, well-reasoned, well-meant and practical advice – I’m equally certain that the subject of climbing Mt. Everest would simply never have come up.  Even hiking would have been a long shot.

It is important for any business leader to seek counsel, but do yourself and your advisers a favor: if you have a burning desire, a vision, a big audacious goal that you simply have to reach, then don’t forget to include it when your asking for input.  And even though you respect the people you have gathered to give you guidance, don’t be shy about challenging them if their great advice isn’t moving you closer to your vision. They can’t help you climb your mountain if you don’t make it clear that the goal is to get to the top.

What’s your Everest question?

New Workshop – Social Media Sales Impact

 

June 10th, Georgian Club

Well I’m excited to announce a new workshop – I’ve teamed up with Nadia Bilchik, Barb Giamanco and Troy Johnson to put together a special program.  We’re calling it Social Media Sales Impact.  The idea is to take the participants through a half  day process involving concepts for better content development, conversational impact, connection via social media tools, and most importantly converting that online activity into sales.  We’ll be at the Georgian Club on June 10th, for details and registration visit http://socialmediasalesimpact.eventbrite.com/

Hugs, Punches and Business Communications

What does a hug feel like? It is a simple thing to do – the instructions are short: Person A and Person B embrace and then separate – duration varies, sighs are optional. What could be simpler? But this action belies a richness of emotion. The complexity of expression a hug can convey is enormous, human and irreplaceable.

The hug is an extraordinarily efficient means of communication. We hug for lots of reasons: pride, affection, belonging, friendship, comfort and sympathy. We hug because we missed someone. We hug because we will miss someone. We hug because we love – and the amazing thing is that in every hug those intangibles are clearly communicated.

Businesses should communicate so well.

We aren’t wired to get emotional about sanitized communications, but business isn’t supposed to be mushy, right? We don’t hug spreadsheets…

So how do we reconcile this? How do we get some clarity and human contact without getting sappy or sentimental?

What about a punch?

Punches, like hugs, can clarify relationships. Think about it.

If someone punches you square in the face it will shake the ambivalence right out of you. You’ll be “in the moment”. It is, as they say, very centering.

Yes, we associate punches with anger and aggression, but a punch is not always evil. A punch in the arm is jovial, a fist-bump is hip and benign, even a little rough-housing amongst kids can be a bonding act. Have you ever seen a coming-of-age flick without a big, cathartic, punch-out scene? It is is a cliche of modern movies.

Even when a punch is meant to harm one could argue that it is a form of overloaded expression – more often the product of an emotional upwelling than malice of forethought. We punch when our system can’t process the information through any other route. We punch because we are imperfect communicators. We punch because we are human and we hate, and we love.

But businesses are supposed to be predictable and unemotional, right? Hmm.

But there are lessons:

Punches and hugs unambiguously communicate a lot in a very short amount of time.

So be clear and concise.

They are hard to fake: You can fake the aftermath, the reaction, but if you pull the punch or you don’t return the hug the person on the receiving end will know it instantly.

So be authentic.

Hugs and punches differ, however, in predictability: You can pull out your calendar and name a bunch of dates on which you can say, with great certainty, that you will be hugged. Thanksgiving, Christmas, your birthday, etc. – the hugs are coming! Yet that will not diminish by one iota the spontaneity, the genuine emotion of any single one of those future embraces. On the other hand, unless you are a boxer, any punches that you might receive this year are likely to be shockingly unexpected.

So put the positive messages on a regular schedule, keep the close, interactive communication on a high rotation. Make statements of care something your customers can expect.

But isn’t this a risky approach for a business?

To hug a friend is only risky if you don’t mean it. To hug a stranger is always risky (you might get punched) – it puts a lot on the line and demands a reaction that cannot be controlled – but if you can hug a stranger and mean it the outcome can be amazing.

Humanness, authenticity, spontaneity, risk, emotion, shock and love – business-think eschews these messy ideas, it is more business-like to scrub away the emotion, focus on the data, the specs, the ROI and the bottom line. But we’re human. We crave connection and reassurance, comfort and belonging, and the occasional jolt of clarity. What do businesses crave? They crave loyalty. Loyalty, after all, is good for the bottom line, but where does loyalty come from? Loyalty is emotional, by definition. It doesn’t come without trust, but there is no trust without an emotional connection.

Businesses often won’t risk what is necessary to make us feel that connection. Businesses need to risk some punches if they want to win some hugs. Communicate with authenticity, be genuine, be human, and take chances. Accept the idea that no communication connects for everyone – not everybody wants to hug you, but your time, your energy, your thoughts, and your words are better spent meeting, cultivating and embracing the ones that do.

Seeking relevance

A recent  post by my pal, Sherry Heyl, The Future of the Web (is not Twitter!), got me thinking once again about relevance. Sherry aptly pointed out that the tools of communication are always evolving, but the pace of evolution (and revolution) of those tools continues to increase.

The Internet isn’t a single form of communication, it is a breeding ground for millions of experiments in ways for people to reach each other, singly and en masse.  If a new tool is lucky and skillfully promoted it may gain attention and grow audience, but unfortunately relevance does not always scale with the numbers. Something that starts out relevant can lose focus or become dissipated by the noise of an ever-increasing user base.  Success seems to necessitate an aftermarket of filters and management tools for any social media experiment to retain relevance for its users. 

Part of the challenge is that relevance isn’t a one size fits all proposition.  I may find discussions of Drupal theming to be quite relevant to me, a Drupal user, but your mileage may vary. I’m also going to seek out information on cutting-edge marketing – left to external filters, the marketing and the Drupal are not likely to get lumped together, but for me the combination is highly relevant.  

Wikipedia seems to do a good job of maintaining relevance by embracing irrelevance, or rather by embracing the notion of asymmetric relevance.  Those that really care about a subject have an opportunity to get highly involved in the discourse, while others are free to get engaged in completely other topics. But don’t mix ‘em! If you try bringing something irrelevant or off-topic to any given Wikipedia article it will be made abundantly clear that only relevance is welcome here.  This is why you can find great articles on particle physics and equally great articles on B movies.  

Unfortunately Twitter doesn’t seem to be doing as good a job of cultivating relevance.  Today I received a follow from a Twitter user and did my usual investigation – I looked at the user’s profile and observed that this user had 1000 or so followers and about 1300 they were following. These weren’t unusual numbers by any means, but what I found odd was that the number of messages this Twitter user had actually produced to date was two.  That’s it, two messages: The first a mention that the user had just added a background to the profile, and the second being a link to the user’s website – an unveiled come-on promoting an ebook.  It seems highly unlikely to me that upwards of 1000 people, based on these two simple messages have really found the relevance emanating from this user to be sufficient to warrant subscribing to the Twitter account.  I suspect, however, that a 1000+ people have auto-following setup via a 3rd party tool and probably have no idea that they’ve volunteered to  receive the messages from this user, or many of the others that are now dissipating the relevance of their Twitter streams.  

Many are choosing to ignore relevance in the hopes of rapidly growing their audience, but an audience that is built on irrelevance isn’t an audience that’s listening. It is an audience that is ignoring, or at best, filtering.

How are you managing the balance of irrelevance and relevance in your use of social media?  How do you keep open to things that you don’t yet know will be relevant to you, when you’re trying to filter a sea of questionable information?

I got a little press :)

Pardon me while I toot my own horn for a second – I’m excited to say that I got interviewed for an article in this week’s Atlanta Business Chronicle. Urvaksh Karkaria wrote an article for the Technology in Motion section entitled “Execs using social media sites to brand themselves as well as their companies”. Besides yours truly, Urvaksh interviewed Atlanta-based social media consultant Toby Bloomberg and Boston area branding consultant Kirsten Dixson. Nice to be counted in amongst such talented individuals.

Look for my mug on page 7B.

Zigging over Zag

I just reread Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands, a terrific book for anyone who wants to know more about how to build a brand. The author, Marty Neumeier is absolutely brilliant at communicating the concepts that make for a successful brand.  He also provides some incredible, nuanced insights into the nature of customer loyalty – an understanding that customer loyalty begins by being loyal to your customers and is only truly acheived after the customers have gone through a process of their own. They begin with a mere acquaintance with your brand, become a customer, and eventually reach a state where they begin to feel they deserve the loyalty they are being consistently given by your company.  At that point the loyalty becomes a two-way street because a “belonging” mindset has been achieved.  However if loyalty is not what you are consistently giving your customers you will be teaching them other behaviors and a very different mindset toward your company.

What are you teaching your customers?

Great slide deck from Ben Grossman – How we became Elvis

I thought this was share-worthy – a great slide show from Ben Grossman: How We All Became Elvis: A Note On Online Personal Branding

How We All Became Elvis: A Note On Online Personal Branding

View more presentations from Ben Grossman. (tags: networking 2.0)

live blogging at Ga Technology Summit pt4 – John Imlay, Wayne Clough, Dan Heintzelman

What can you say about John Imlay?  He’s hilarious, a fabulous speaker,  and the granddaddy of tech in Atlanta.  He’s warming up the crowd right now before introducing G. Wayne Clough, this year’s Technology Hall of Fame Inductee.

Wayne Clough is a dynamic and visionary leader in the Atlanta technology community.  New job as Secretary for the Smithsonian Institution.

Video shown of interview with Wayne Clough.

Wayne Clough takes the podium – standing ovation.

WC – teases Imlay about football since Imlay did the same. Falcons vs. Ga Tech anybody?

WC- talking about coming back to his alma mater, Ga Tech, as president of the university. Expressing gratitude for opportunites and recognition.

2nd video saying thank you for the award.

Final speaker on deck is Dan Heintzelman (DH) from GE Energy

DH – business nightmare – lack of standards for 21st century energy marketplace.   What is GE doing to make energy technology a reality.  Will talk about driving innovation and the smart grid. It won’t be a single invention tat solves the energy and climate problems it will be  a multitude.  they will need to be well-funded and well-deployed.  Global focus – growth in energy consumption will come from China and India – new innovation needs to be brought where the growth will  be.  Companies need to be fully engaged at an international level for these regions.  Dehli and Shanghai, not NY or Washington.   GE has doubled the number of wind turbines shipped to these areas.  Need to build greater capacity for innovation.  US still leads the world in engineer and science grads, but China and India are catching up.

DH – Tax credits helped get the progress so far.  GE member of US Climate Action Partnership – 30 global companies  working to help set direction and  goals with government.  Pleased to see stimulus plan to help support research.

DH – installed base – carbon base systems – need to update – can reduce carbon emissions 5% in old coal plants

DH – automotive industry interested in plug-in hybrid technology from GE.

DH – oil field technology – drilling deeper in sub sea range – geo equipment and services – Russia and Norway

DH – need to accelerate innovation in renewable energy – renewables – Wind is competitive, solar is still expensive per kilowatt hour.   Existing technology  in coal and nuclear need to be revived.   Coal “gasification” has significant potential – break down coal into basic chemicals instead of burning directly.

DH – last point – the smart grid – not much change in the power grid since the days of Edison.  No intelligence in the grid.  Consumers not empowered to make granular consumption choices.   Smart Grid is marrying energy with IT – power management, smart homes, smart appliances, smart grid metering, smart charge interface for hybrid electric vehicles – balancing peak demand and using off-peak more efficiently.

DH – variable renewables – wind and solar, could be helped by smart grid – to better manage times of surplus or undersupply of variable renewable energy.  It is in the long term national interest to look at totality of smart grid solution – holistic , not just infrastructure.

That’s all folks, oh wait, closing remarks from Dan Darling from Turner Broadcasting Systems, Inc.   and Board of Directors for TAG.  Thanking TAG for supporting, thanking sponsors and the peeps.  Special thanks for Todd Bell for his leadership in pulling off TAG’s largest event to date.

That’s all folks, for real this time.

live blogging at Ga Technology Summit pt3 – Ron Clark

Still doing the live blog thing at the GTS.  Next up Ron Clark (RC) – if it is like the last time I saw him I might be laughing too much to blog well, so bear with me.

Showing a classroom video.  The energy is impressive.  The podium doesn’t look big enough for RC to stand on, I wonder if he’ll try?

RC – getting kids to love learning – Origin: from North Carolina, taught to use things that were different, was teacher of the year, saw a program on schools in Harlem, and picked up and moved there to find the schools from the TV show.  Telling story of meeting an upset 13 yr old kid, convinced him to try.  1999 got job at that school.  Had kids that were all below grade level – every one of those kids have now graduated high school and most are in college.   Got them technology .   They tested ahead of their class by the end of a year.   Caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey.   Feels that “No Child Left Behind” as turned our approach upside down, we’re teaching to the bottom, and pulling the brightest down, instead of teaching to the top and getting them to raise up the rest.  Doesn’t want to leave anybody behind, but wants to keep the bar high, and keep raising it.   Wrote a song to pop star Rheanna’s music to teach order of operations to his class to learn algebra.  All his students have Zunes with lesson loaded on them – they all have  laptops from Dell.   Got huge growth in testing scores.

RC – 55 rules for setting clear expectations from students – manners, respect, structure — blending respect structure and innovative approaches.  Oprah told him to write a book so he listened,  he wrote it – she made it a book pick – and it sold!  Went to number 2 in nation on that announcement went #1 around the world.  Used funding to start the school here in Atlanta.  Teaching kids here and teaching teachers his approach.   Found a warehouse in run-down part of town, surrounded by crack houses, and prostitution.  Fought for that building because he felt it in his heart.  19 break-ins during construction – lots of theft of copper pipe.  Need to get the community involved – went to every house over 4 months and told everyone what he was doing – he was often scared. Often asked if he was Mormon.   Told people he was building the most innovative school in the world – got the community behind him – no more break-ins.   Ran out of money – got sponsors from the community, Veizon, Delta, Intercontinental Hotels.  Students can text message him live during class for nstant feedback.  Using Active Expressions, Dell sponsors laptops, got Definition 6 helping them to figure out what to do with all that technology.

RC – building world leaders -school of tomorrow. 3000 superintendants, teachers, principals from around the country visiting to observe and learn tools and techniques.   Congressmen and world leaders visiting to learn too.  Students are webcasting with kids around the world – traveling with the kids to make in-person connections – Delta is sponsoring travel.  Going around the world on spring field trips. Live video conferencing – virtual reality version of school.

RC – students take a test by running a gauntlet.  Made an online gauntlet so other schools can use the concept .

RC – non-profit – need donations – offering tours and visits. Warning every visitor has to go down the 2-story slide in the middle of the school and get “Slide – certified” – the slide is a symbol for how innovative they want to be. The model for innovation in education.