Forget farting cows, look out Tiger Woods!

You gotta love this one.

As the greenies and lefties work themselves into a lather with their latest dire warning about the future of the planet, a new culprit has emerged from an unlikely quarter – the misty highlands of bonny Scotland.

This time, the  finger  of  climate change warriors is not being pointed at householders who, God forbid, dare to turn on an electric light, or run a warm bath. And, carbon-laden farts by Highland cattle have also escaped the eco-wrath, as have Haggis factories and woollen mills.

Instead, the self-appointed saviours of the Earth have turned their sights on that most Scottish of sports, the ancient – and some would say sacred – game of golf.

Apparently, when scientists scoured the floor of Loch Ness in search of a prehistoric creature, they found golf balls – hundreds of thousands of them.

And, although that sounds fairly logical to me – who doesn’t like getting out the old two wood and whacking a ball Happy Gilmore-style over the nearest water hazard – it has a downside that is offending the fun police.

The story is that golf balls in the water – in fact, anywhere in the wild – are a green no no. And, in case golfers dare raise a question,  there is, of course, the usual alarming report.

It seems that the Danish Golf Union says golf balls  may take between 100 and 1,000 years to decompose. And, as the balls break down, they release toxins and heavy metals into the environment.

So, rather than questioning whether monster hunting was valid scientific research in the first place – especially in light of their own  …”so much carbon, so little time” mantra – the army of green saviours now has its knickers in a knot because it says golfers leave behind an estimated 300 million golf balls in the United States alone every year.

I sincerely wish them luck in finding all those cunning little suckers that are sliced or hooked off the fairways every time I’m on a golf course. Hang the  toxins … I just want the balls back, so I can hack them into the bush again the next time around.

Ian

Print designs face a ‘yawn’ factor

There is a depressing sameness about printed material.

Take a good look at advertisements, newsletters, flyers, and the thousands of official and promotional forms that are regularly thrust under your face. Increasingly, they look alike – the same designs, colours, styles (or lack of) etc etc.

I know it’s a long bow, but we could be forgiven for thinking that graphic design for print has run out of ideas.

It stands to reason that there are a finite number of ways that type, images and logos etc can be arranged on a page and a document.  That number is  high, but it’s still finite.

But, I think it also has a lot to do with the evolution of desktop publishing programs that ‘dumb down’  output to  a bland template style – somewhat like website content management systems.  Using these modern ‘out-of-the-box’ publising programs is not rocket science ….. and the finished product increasingly seems to be reflecting that fact.

Of course, technology and the social web in particular offers salvation for the print graphic designer.  The only problem is that this is a whole new ‘Gen Y’ world in which the ‘First, we need a logo’ thinking so central to Marketing 101 is redundant.

Inventing a new font every month and stretching the uses of Photoshop to its limits may keep the wolves at bay for a while, but like the tide, it will be hard to hold back the impact of a wave of mediocrity.

Traditional websites on a downward slide

For months, I’ve been commenting on the trend away from destination websites.

The figures have been there to prove it.  But, for many, the demise of the corporate website just seemed too hard to believe. 

Now, the issue has started to become a hot topic across the social web.  Check these latest statistics put forward by blogger Doug Brown

Again, I’d suggest a long hard think about the direction of your organisation’s digital communications, especially if you are considering spending money on a new or existing corporate website.

Ian

Old school marketing merely an illusion of control

I’m increasingly amazed at much of today’s marketing.

Many of the traditional marketers that I meet are quick to criticise PR people as snakeoil salesmen, yet a big question mark hangs over their own methods.

Traditional marketing often doesn’t bother listening to people or genuinely engaging with them.  For some reason, there is too often an assumption that marketers automatically know what people want to hear and see.

And, in reality, the ‘message’ mindset and methods or channels used by marketers are becoming totally inadequate in a changing media mix. Yet, in many areas, there seems to be a reluctance or inability to change and adapt – to understand that traditional advertising and newsletters may no longer be breaking through …. and to abandon the ‘my logo is bigger than yours’ thinking.

As someone put it very succinctly recently … “far better to be willing to engage people in actual conversations — which is what social media allows us to do. It humanizes communications — and gives us an outstanding opportunity to gather market intelligence as a value-add”.

As I’ve said before, social media is not simply another tool in the marketer’s bag, but a culture change.  And, of all people, it is particularly sad to see traditional marketers who either don’t get it, or refuse to move with the times.

Ian

Phone calling comes to Twitter: huge news

This is big:  From tomorrow, Twitter users will be able to make free phone calls to and from each other .

Daniel Terdiman, of CNET News, says a system developed by Internet systems provider, Jajah, “will allow Twitter users to have two-way voice chat with other users by typing “@call @username”–where “username” is someone’s Twitter ID–into any Twitter client. “

During a trial period,  the calls will be limited to two minutes, but the company will evaluate that length. However, it sees the two minute period–after which the call will end–as “the verbal equivalent of a tweet.”

Daniel says  the service will allow a user to place a call to any other user, so long as the second person follows the first on Twitter and both have Jajah accounts. The service is free to use and is expected to work on any Twitter-enabled device, from PCs to smart phones.

One important element of the service is that users can keep their phone numbers private, yet be able to have voice chats with just about anyone on Twitter. To be sure, since the calls are initiated by one person, the recipient may well not be online, or may choose to ignore the call if they don’t want to talk.”

News of the service has swept through Twitter users in the past 24 hours – and certainly seems to be a big development.

Ignore this at your peril

Want an example of how the speed and spread of social media is making traditional communications largely redundant?

After being refused  ‘drive through’ service at a fast food outlet because she was on a bicycle, US writer, Sarah Gilbert, immediately complained on Twitter.

A few minutes later, she was contacted by a local newspaper reporter who had seen the  Twitter post.  Two hours later, she was interviewed on local TV news.  And, all the while, Twitter users were spreading the issue far and wide in huge numbers – using the viral spread of the micro-blogger to ‘name and shame’ the outlet involved.

By the next morning, Sarah had received an apology from the food outlet’s manager.  Within hours, the company had gone on Twitter and other media to announce a new bike-friendly policy at all of its drive-through windows.

The national newspaper, USA Today had been watching the social media storm — and quickly arranged an interview with both Sarah and the food chain – followed by the LA Times newspaper; the local newpaper again; bloggers; and breakfast radio hosts.

In the past, the company would probably have taken out a newspaper advertisement to stem the tide of dissent and unveiled its new policy with brochures, flyers and newsletters:  well meaning but too slow for this new era.

Things have changed

Ian

Businesses set to use Twitter in massive numbers

A new chapter in the Twitter story is underway.

Businesses world-wide are starting to use the microblogger in huge numbers – far more than any other social media service.

Influential blogger, Robert Scoble, believes this unprecedented  business adoption will propel Twitter to new heights: adding brand promotion to the list of reasons why people are using the service: reasons such as real time searching and building and nurturing communities.

‘Twitter is winning, big time,” says Scoble.

See his full post.

Ian

Social media: the behavioural change of our lifetime?

Some interesting figures:

78% of US consumers trust peer recommendations 

But only 14% trust advertisements

And less than 20%  of traditional TV campaigns now generate a positive return on investment

24 of the 25 biggest newspapers in the US are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.

80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences? 

Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama.

In China, social media site  ‘Qzone’ now has more than 300 million users – and in RussiaVkontakte.ru is growing at an enormous rate.  

Would you believe that 80% of companies questioned in the US say they now use LinkedIn as a key tool to find employees

Generation Y and Z are said to consider email an irrelevant Generation X tool.  In 2009, Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to new students.

There are now more than  200,000,000 Blogs – 54% of which are updated daily.

34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands

If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour

In the near future we will no longer search for  products and services they will find us via social media

Successful users of social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertisers or promoters.

Ian

Good question: ‘Why are you still marketing like it is 1999?”

Why would anyone automatically turn to press, radio, publications and television for promotion – when the Internet is now Australia’s most used media?

With that question, influential blogger, Mediahunter, recently touched on one of my pet subjects – if marketing wants to be taken seriously, then why is it generally stuck in the past.

Mediahunter continued in part:

“According to the 2009 Nielsen Annual Internet and Technology Report the average Australian spends 16.1 hours per week online. This is compared to TV at 12.0 hours per week, Radio at 8.8 hours, Video at 5.4 hours, Online radio at 4.6 hours, PC video at 4.6 hours, mobile at 3.7 hours, newspaper at 2.8 hours and magazines at 2 hours.

Hold on….Australians spend more time online than consuming TV & Newspaper combined? More time online than Radio, Newspaper and Magazines combined?

So the big question is: are your  resources being allocated to the right media?

Why does the average business automatically resort to TV / Radio/ Press when devising a marketing campaign?

Of course there are issues of target markets, cost-effectiveness and clutter with all media decisions, but I am alarmed by the number of businesses still marketing like it was 1999.

 If your customers are now spending more time online than they are consuming other media, shouldn’t you be allocating more of your marketing resources to online?

Shouldn’t you be trying to give potential customers as much great information as possible online to assist them in doing business with you?

Online is now your customer’s number one media priority…is it yours?”

Okay ‘marketing’ people explain why you shouldn’t be dismissed as dinosaurs.

The buck now stops at everyone’s desk

I’ve often criticised government bureaucrats for hastening slowly with ’social media’.

But, to be fair, employers in both the public and private sectors are in unchartered waters, trying to adapt and apply traditional management methods to a change in general community behaviour.

There are no boundaries around what we are calling ’social media’: new connected communities are not  left behind when you enter the workplace. And nor should they be. This change in behaviour is a step forward with great benefits for  businesses and public bodies.

Admittedly, the questions for employers are many, as staff meld professional and personal lives as never before. And this is one issue that won’t go away.

Smart employers realise that such changing life practices will automatically affect work practices – and they must relinquish some of their traditional control. Employees equally must show utmost  professionalism and responsibility, worthy of the trust that underpins social media.

So called  ’charters of operation’ or ‘templates’ like those drawn up this week by the UK and US governments, in part, are rather painful attempts to impose  order (on the plus side, they do also contain some subtle and intelligent guides for clarifying responsibility)

But what is really needed is firstly an acceptance by both management and staff of the enormity of this behavioural change and the impact that it is having on life generally, including the workplace. If organisations tout their ‘values’,  then here is an opportunity to see them in action.

Then, with a recognition of what is actually happening, it should be easier to handle questions such as who is trusted with operating the workplace Twitter site;  who should nurture and liaise with the organisation’s connected community;  should there be a the line between professional and personal online life; and whether personal blogs and social media sites represent career development.

Crucially, these issues should not be decided and imposed in the traditional top-down management style, but should be the result of online collaboration in the spirit of social media.

After all, this type of change requires trust and acceptance of responsibility all round. Management is also feeling its way tentatively in this changed environment, so it shouldn’t carry all the weight.  In a social media world, it’s only fair that the buck stops at everyone’s desk.

Have a good weekend all.

Ian