Creative Agency Secrets

A project I am involved in requires a website, shop and e-learning component building.

Anyone interested, email me for the full spec.

Bidding closes 18 August. 

I have used MyBlogLog for a while to enable some basic community features on this site so that you can see a list of recent readers, for example.  But apart from preening myself that Hugh McLeod, David Airey or Bert Cocu has viewed what I’m writing, it hasn’t really added any useful depth to my site to date.

But, having joined the Yahoo stable of services, I found that when I just logged in MyBlogLog asked me to merge my account into my Yahoo account.  Cunning.

So I did.

And here’s what I found. 

• They are trying to build some community features into a more detailed profile / home page for my account.
• The site stats link is FANTASTIC.  You can actually see the search terms used which led people to click on your site, plus what they read and which links they clicked out from your site on.
• There’s a long list of social media sites where you can add your profile / moniker all neatly aggregated into a single page.  So you can link to me in lots of other sites from Stumbleupon to Flikr
• Theres a neat "about me" widget that may come in handy if you don’t already have a profile page.
• A list of Family/Friends/Contacts and My Admirers is created. 
• And apparently 128 people have viewed my profile (believe if you will)
• And you can get messages too.  I got one.  From Azeliana whoever she is… her profile says her blog is 
  • "Here I’ll share my knowledge, discovery and experience related to my
    hobby. Most articles on this site are related to mesothelioma lung
    cancer,asbestos, short reviews, tips and making a healthy life."
• So I reckon I won’t be reading much of that!

Anyway, there it is.  I really see most opportunity from studying the stats and links information which is LOADS better in that one regard than the Typepad ones and even my WordPress blog stats.

[Afterthought: having read the stats in more detail, I was inspired to write the post on Skype for business prospecting. Because that was the exact search term someone entered that led to my site.  Gratifyingly, one other was "CRM Consultant".   Maybe my  SEO and prospective clients’ search terms are mis-aligned?]

These are things I enjoy and so do well.  I’ve done most of them many times and can give you references, if you need.

In no particular order….

1 - Mentoring and coaching anyone with business development responsibility or who has to collaborate with biz dev to do their job better and get results

2 - Moving the whole company to an Enterprise 2.0 operation.  This is a more open relationship with its customers and prospects though using web 2.0 techniques (for yourselves not clients) and creating the open culture internally that enables outsiders to recognise the ‘personality’ of the agency - bypassing traditional outbound communication methods

3 - Facilitating an away day for a client or your senior team

4 - Improving your new business methods and, particularly, pitching

5 - Running a training session on "New business for non-new biz people"

The ultimate scare story for a PR agency?  Corporate giant JNJ too irritated with mis-quotations by journalists who write without declaring their bias, revealing their sources or repeating what they’ve actually been told are in the process of launching their own online-press-office-blog-equivalent.

SITUATION
If a journalist brings down a corporation  his career is made.
The company provides context and content and the journalist writes skewed articles.
SOLUTION
Put the stuff online and publish the backstory so the reading public can make up their own mind about the journalist’s angle, attitude and orientation.

Working with the internal communications team "J&J By the Way" will be an online resource to migrate the press office online.  Turn the press release into a shell article which can be adapted / used and if (when) abused, can be linked to the blog which gives another viewpoint / detail of the briefing given to the journalist and explains the context.
Advangages? 

1. You can declare your bias online,
2. the bland public press relase can be backed up with proper detail for the public
3. the journalist and the blog has an audience wider than just the journalist writers.

Thanks for the story!

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Rachel is an old friend from London (rowing, Diageo, webby stuff)
And here she is popping up in Gaping Void

in a photo, no les!

Good to see you, Rach.

What ever happened to your flat in Chiswick?

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I cracked up reading this from the Economist’s "Management Reading" section this month.
this story ran in August 2005….. and it has made the management journals 20 months later.
Still, blogs are slowing going mainstream…. it’s just a question of how slow it needs to be before the intellectual business academics realise it’s out there under their noses.

Aside…. if this is happening to your company THINK before calling your lawyers!

Business Horizons (part of Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business)

Volume 50, Issue 1 (January/February 2007)

“When customers get clever: Managerial approaches to dealing with creative consumers”

By Pierre R. Berthon, Leyland F. Pitt, Ian McCarthy and Steven M. Kates

What should FedEx, an international delivery company, have done about the creative young man in Seattle who used hundreds of FedEx envelopes to make furniture for himself, and then told the world about it via his website? The company sent an ill-tempered cease-and-desist letter, which predictably turned the man into a cult hero in cyberspace. The authors of this paper, from Bentley College in Massachusetts and Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, argue that companies should think laterally—such “creative consumers”, who find alternative uses for products, can be valuable. Creatives may work with outdated products—witness those devoted to modifying Apple’s long-lost Newton personal organisers—out of simple curiosity, or to meet a specific need, or to look good among other hobbyists. Firms need to choose between encouraging creativity by letting enthusiasts fiddle with their products, in the hope of sharing in any innovation that emerges, or trying to protect their intellectual property in a traditional fashion.

hHere’s the link to FedEx Furniture Blog although rather historic.  But the Wikipedia entry is instructional.
This really reinforces the exclusion corporates are creating for their brand by avoiding collaboration with "difficult" customers. 

Did you read it? 

It quoted Adriana Lukas [note spelling] with her pretty normal message about how corporate organisations have to transform their attitude to external communications to allow transparency before social media will help them build brand profile.  She’s been speaking and writing on this subject for about three years…. so she knows the area.

BUT they got parts of it badly wrong…. read Jackie Danicki on the subject.  A classic work of fisking.

And I have previously posted on the potentially fatal combination of PR and social media so this will be a theme I anticipate growing over time. 
 

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This is the future….I love working with interesting people who challenge me and push new ideas out for testing to see if the idea will improve whatever we are working on.

This applies at work and in my leisure (rowing) life…. and at home too.

I have worked with great people who have helped me along the way Honor Chapman, Pip Errington, Mark Adams,  Richard Sheahan, Adriana Lukas,  Marianne Grand, Julian Wells [where are you now?], Vyla Rollins [ditto].   

I have also worked with great people who have NOT helped me along the way.  Sad but true.

Time for payback.  These people are GREAT.  They have skill, ability, strategic thoughts and they are very generous with their ideas.  And so here is my manifesto.

The Advice and Guidance Manifesto

Ever noticed how great, talented peoplet are free with advice and guidance?  Why do they do it?
1.  Because they aren’t threatened by sharing their ideas
2.  Because even if I could use every idea they tell me today there are dozens more they are formulating which will keep them ahead of me for a while yet
3.  Giving for free brings payback multiplied many times over (client referrals, new speaking opportunities, new ideas, building reputation….) 
4.  Because someone helped them when they were starting out and the responsibility cascades down the generations
5.  So start doing it yourself - TODAY!

I know this.  It happens here, on this blog.  As I write 9.72 unique visitors read this site daily.  Who are you?  Delighted you are visiting.  Presumably one or two are re-visiting - particular thanks to you, the faithful.  Wow.  Cheers.  Pass the message on. 

I had to laugh… it isn’t often you find a tekkie with the ability to write cod verse.
My mate’s Mum is a web designer

Cass Business School runs regular events for people in the Creative services industry.  The next one features a client of mine, Adriana Lukas of the Big Blog Company  and doyenne of the
British blogosphere and iconoclast of corporate communication…(google that!) is speaking on the panel.

Cass Creatives Event details on the event.

And some stuff Adriana wrote to prove that cynicsm is alive and well in SW3 How to Implement Social Media in your company

I love it!

But seriously, if you don’t know what Web 2.0 is or how the web can build and damage your corporate reputation - come along and listen.