Trumblog

These two gorgeous bus shelters are in Boston’s Copley Square and they are really well done. Not only does the decoration makes you stop and take notice, but it seems really sturdy and will stand up to the New England hazards of wet freezing weather and prankster college kids.
However, there is one problem… enlarge the picture if you want…  can you name the sponsor? To start off the logo is not that prominent and then there is the name itself, Back To Nature. That’s more like a slogan than a brand name and I’m afraid that it is going to take more than a beautiful bus shelter to solve that.

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The majority of businesses in the United States have less than 100 employees and those same businesses deliver the greatest impact on our struggling economy. On the other hand big business is shedding jobs weekly, are leas nimble in our changing economy and work environment and have ceded innovation to the little guys. Small is the new big.

Throughout my career I have been lucky enough to work for small companies or offices of less than a hundred that were run like small companies and I’ve advised many friends to leave their big office cubicles for a smaller, tighter company that are more agile, have less office politics, and generally more exciting to work for.

And yet there is a temptation within small businesses to act like the big guys; managing by tired, old rules, over-hiring, spending time developing seldom used policies, speaking in jargon and worst of all not shipping. Big business strategies are easy habits and it’s a small step to forgetting the value of being a small company and all of the benefits that come with it. Luckily Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37signals are zealots when it comes to being small, making decisions rapidly, but only the decisions that need to be made, being honest, and most importantly always shipping. Their manifesto has 88 thesis and is called “Rework.”

Writing in brief, blog-like chapters their theses (my word, not theirs) cover the range of business management from getting started to productivity, competitors, hiring and damage control. They are ruthless about maintaining a small, agile company, that focuses on the essence of the product, which is clear from chapters like “Why Grow?” “Ignore the details early on,” “Throw Less At The Problem,” “Good Enough Is Fine,” “Let Your Customers Outgrow You,” and “Speed Changes Everything.” They are brutal when it comes to wasteful corporate practices “Meetings Are Toxic,” “Forget About Formal Education,” “Put Everyone On The Front Line,” see an honest corporate voice as absolutely necessary “How To Say You’re Sorry” and “Sound Like You,” but at the same time very employee focused “Send People Home At 5,” “They’re Not Thirteen.”

“Rework” is a gallop of a read. The ideas are thrilling and simple enough to feel easy to implement, but that’s an illusion. If they were as easy as they sound they would not be so revolutionary and more small businesses would maintain the agility that is their due. Instead too many companies try to grow too fast, act like bigger than they are and ultimately lose their edge in the race. While clearly 37signals lives by the full program. It’s not necessary that you do the same. If your business can implement and then maintain just a few you’ll be far ahead of the competition. I’ll certainly be reducing meetings to the bare minimum length, eliminating jargon and speaking honestly and in my own voice. Which ideas will you be adopting?

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An updated map of Online Communities from XKCD. Can’t wait for my poster to arrive.

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If you don’t know about HONK!, here’s the deal. Every October brass bands from around the world make their way to Somerville, MA for a day of musical luniness and a parade to Octoberfest in Harvard Square. Oh and it’s this weekend, October 9th and 10th, 2010.

I’m not talking ho-hum, oom-pa-pa, 76 Trombones kinds of brass bands. These are bands that unfurl their freak flags and wave them around from stilts or weave them into pom-poms. Bands that Tom Waits, Shane MacGowan and Frank Zappa would travel to see. We’re talking The Pink Puffers, personal fav Rude Mechanical Orchestra, The Seed and Feed Marching Abominable. Punk, cross-dressing, black and green, orange and red, loud, manic, street, brass bands.

Then there are the crowds. Mosh pits of band geeks, hipsters and folks that just want in on a good thing. Ecstatic crowds high on the scene and amazing music. Youngsters, oldsters, families, singles, confirmed bachelors and spinsters getting in on the excitement and showing these bands what playing for the best fans in the world can be like.

Did you miss yesterday’s concerts in Davis Square? No matter, the parade from Davis to Harvard Square is today and in addition to the bands you’ll get Bread and Puppet, Boston Hula Troop and plenty of community groups strolling along the parade route. Then more concerts in Harvard Square at Octoberfest.

It’s going to be another glorious October Sunday for HONK!, there’s something about a confluence of raucous brass bands that seems to clear the skies and raise the temperatures each year, so keep it coming.

Want to see more photos of past HONK!s? Check out my sets on Flickr:

HONK! 2008

HONK! 2009

UPDATE: here is my set on Flickr from HONK! 2010:

HONK! 2010

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The Digital Media Brain Summit: How to Survive and Thrive in the Evolving Digital Advertising Landscape was perhaps the most depressing panel that I’ve attended at FutureM so far. These were big brands and a big agency struggling over the impact of digitization of media and advertising on the role of agencies.  This has led to many marketing tasks being commoditized, analytics driving activity rather than strategy and speed of change in marketing channels and technology that has led to an unsettling level of distrust that runs both ways in the client: agency relationship.

Speaking in the panel were Mike Baker (President & CEO, DataXu) Bruce Journey (Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer, DataXu), Jeff Bussgang (General Partner, Flybridge Capital Partners), Adam Cahill (EVP Media Director, Hill Holliday) Bernhard Glock (Former Vice President Media, Procter & Gamble President and CEO of the Bernhard Glock Media Leadership Company) and  Pamela Landis (Director of Interactive Marketing, Liberty Mutual).  Their comments were illuminating and I only captured half of it because I was tweeting from my cell phone rather than iPad.

04:33:59 PM Want a million dollar buy from P&G? Step 1: pgsupplier.com

04:37:52 PM Tech is changing the client: agency relationship. Hard to defend display ads because the ROI is hard to define vs search.

04:39:38 PM Technology is moving faster than the economics of marketing and the agency: client relationship.

04:42:30 PM 80-90% of agency activities today will be automated or outsourced in the next 5 years, the answer, strategy – B. Glock, P&G

04:42:58 PM RT StevenDuque #FutureM‘s “Digital Media Brain Summit”: @hillholliday: it’s in the interest of the company to automate all that we can.

04:48:26 PM The dirty secret of digital campaigns are that detaining and A:B testing are labor intensive.

04:50:35 PM There is more art than science I’m the highest performing digital marketing channels – P. Landis, Liberty Mutual

04:54:20 PM Days of an integrated, cross channel campaign are waning because of focus on performing channels, but leanings are lost P. Landis, Liberty Mutual

04:58:32 PM Many cos still see digital in beta phase. People looking for “proof” to shift ad $s to the same ratio of consumer attention B. Glock, P&G

05:00:13 PM 67% of online conversion driven by offline marketing via @digitas

05:03:41 PM Are creatives delaying ad $ shift to digital becasue it’s more fun to go on a video shoot than produce a banner ad? – B. Journey, DataXu

05:05:29 PM “Nobody ever cried over a banner ad” B. Journey, DataXu

Correction: I originally listed panelist Bernhard Glock as working for P&G when he is no longer with them and as he writes in his comments “made all comments as President and CEO of the Bernhard Glock Media Leadership Company.” Additionally the original post listed Mike Baker of DataXu on the panel when he was not present and Bruce Journey of DataXu replaced him.

20:33:59

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Fortunately torrential downpours seemed to keep a lot of people away from Wednesday afternoon’s session on The Future of Digital Strategy session because only the few of us who braved the storm got some excellent insights into what decision makers on the client side are thinking about initiatives for the coming year, their attitudes about agencies, selecting them and working with them, and thoughts about regulatory.   I’m a nice guy and will share that all with you here and on Twitter.  Thank me in the comments.

Actually who you should thank are the panelists, David Bierut (Associate Director, Integrated Marketing Communications, Genzyme Biosurgery), Philip Crampe (eCommerce Manager, Savings Bank Life Insurance Company of MA), Perry Hewitt (Director, Digital Communications and Communications Services, Harvard University) and Dave Wieneke (Director of Digital Marketing at Sokolove Law) as well as the excellent moderator Jeff Cram (Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder, ISITE Design).

11:15:12 AM Only 47% have confidence in their web strategy. Most planning quarter to quarter. Tech issue, budget issue, measurement?

11:20:39 AM Shifts: Marketing dept to Boardroom, direct line from online strategy to biz strategy, websites to cont platforms. Big opportunities for digital.

11:26:12 AM At Genzyme: marketing owns the web, migration from IT dept. Faster turnaround.

11:28:08 AM Marketing “polices” the web, working with other departments like customer service to provide content supporting those needs – @Crampee

11:29:59 AM Spread the access to analytics to many, greater responsibility and initiative – @usefularts

11:31:37 AM Partnership between Marketing and IT is crucial to make good decisions, ease growth, etc.

11:33:40 AM Panel hired outside for digital capabilities, no retraining. Buff up your own skills, your employer won’t do it for you.

11:36:04 AM Digital strategy or communications with your digital channel as the hub?

11:38:05 AM The social web and content beside off brand ads drove Harvard to develop an integrated communications channel.

11:39:29 AM If an agency doesn’t have a blog with relevant content I won’t even look at their portfolio – @usefularts

11:44:09 AM Sokolov Law using analytics to determine website visitors then focus sales calls, must avoid the creepy bar though.

11:46:36 AM Genzyme “social media is out”, but working with med reg because they know SM is out there and won’t go away

11:47:42 AM Insurance regulations don’t allow SBLI to engage in social media, but they sponsor KOLs who do.

11:51:01 AM In 3-5 years everyone will be regulated online for privacy, tracking, etc. – @usefularts

11:54:22 AM Goal is to integrate online, offline and what reps are saying for consistent communications strategy – Genzyme’s D. Bierut

11:56:05 AM RT @hillholliday: Weineke: “The panel is in heavily regulated industries; I believe in 5 yrs all marketing will be highly regulated”

12:04:15 PM Content strategy: know your audience, write content based on interests, words they use, where they surf, etc.

12:05:44 PM There is a line in content strategy and SEO, are you writing for humans or spiders? – @usefularts

12:07:26 PM Harvard using search analytics to make the case to departments to develop content and central distribution

12:10:09 PM Scarcity of needed content is at a tipping point. Next step: deliver that content right when needed. Web 3.0 – @usefularts

12:22:58 PM Panelists look to agencies for a knowledge shot in the arm and build internal knowledge, but keep the data in house.

12:24:01 PM Agency gaps for panelists: analytics, local PPC, multimedia

12:27:17 PM Harvard used a mobile site to deliver content people “really” wanted because they were powerless to revise their homepage.

12:31:49 PM Tactics panelist are eying: mobile and augmented reality.

12:40:39 PM Inform page design with analytics, A/B test graphics, layout, etc to meet page goals.

12:50:30 PM Harvard focusing on video for 2011, Sokolove – streamlining data, Genzyme – engagement & segmentation, SBLI – IT integration

12:53:33 PM For success in future marketing, love tech, be open to change, be a generalist & provide clarity & desire in the audience,

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FutureM’s opening night event was a nice mix of fun and information.  I’ll leave the networking, reconnecting and drinks to your imagination and focus on the panel discussion with Josh Bernoff (Author and Senior VP, Idea Development, Forrester), Chris Brogan (President, New Marketing Labs),  Brett Keller (CMO, Priceline) and David Kenny (President, Akamai Technologies).  The opining ranged from delivering value through marketing, the future of television, a case study in effective sales through social media and why Priceline chose William Shatner as their spokesperson.  The ultimate take away for me though was not to let analytics get in the way of being human and delivering value.

05:58:00 PM RT @alaring: #FutureM opening night panel all men. Is that “what’s next in marketing”? Just sayin’ #wherearethewomen

06:03:56 PM I help big companies act like small companies and like real people rather than phoning it in. via @ChrisBrogan

06:06:15 PM Listen to people not data, GM had great product response surveys. @chrisbrogan

06:08:51 PM Don’t give me a white paper, give me something I want like liquor, porn or Website Grader. via @chrisbrogan

06:12:40 PM Remind me never to follow @chrisbrogan at a speaking opportunity.

06:15:21 PM RT @stevenduque: #FutureM Opening Night: @akamai‘s David Kenny: “Within five years television and the internet will be synonymous. ”

06:22:45 PM In 3 years the amount of media data consumed online will increase 540x. via @davidwkenny

06:28:56 PM Staying relevant & successful: tell a good story b/c people will vote w/ playlists, use time wisely w/ right tech via @davidwkenny

06:30:06 PM We are not digital marketers we are marketers for human beings who have moved to digital. via@davidwkenny

06:33:37 PM In the USA people make 500 billion impressions on each other via social media annually vs 2.1 trillion online ads via @joshberhoff

06:38:23 PM Josh Bernhoff walks out of Best Buy w/ $1100 in gear because @Twelpforce helped him find a $6 cable. Great example

06:41:35 PM Twitter support is not an after-hours job, must be a systematic thing. Change your mktg and cust support process via @joshbernhoff

06:44:07 PM Why Priceline chose William Shatner: he was cheap, had a great voice, everyone knew him, he represented the future

06:47:47 PM RT @SincerelyJane: In digital world all you need is personalized pkgs of your own content and really smart predictors

06:53:24 PM RT @SincerelyJane: Trgtd Ad Buy = TV Ad w/locl tag -> link 2 locl deal -> cookie drop -> Calc ROI – @brettkeller on upcmng ad trend

06:54:41 PM RT @stevenduque: #FutureM: @priceline‘s @brettkeller: “Facebook has not yet figured out a way for advertisers to pour $$ into their ads.”

06:57:12 PM The height of the creepy bar is being discussed at #FutureM opening night. How high is it for personalized ads on FB.

07:01:37 PM How is an airline app that alerts you to a flight delay less creepy than a personalized ad on Facebook? – @joshbernhoff

07:03:39 PM RT @SincerelyJane: As mrkters, once we have the chance we pounce instead of once we have the chance we provide value. -@chrisbrogan

07:05:24 PM If you don’t have something of value, that people want at a good price, no amount of marketing will help you. – @davidwkenny

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This morning I attended the FutureM event Getting Serious About Social Media with presentations by Mike Lewis (@BostonMike VP of Marketing, Awareness) and Corissa St. Laurent (@CorissaCTCT Regional Development Director, New England, Constant Contact).  The presentations were high level delivering the basics on social media to people just getting their feet wet.

The beauty of presentations such as this are new ways of discussing social media in client conversations.  Here are the new phrases that I’m taking away from todays event and will be using in meetings for the next few months:

• Social media is a revolution in marketing because it allows many-to-many communication, the digitization of content  incorporates all content types and the audience is the content producer.
• Why engage?In order to gain trust & credibility, create brand exposure, gain experts as fans and followers that boosts credibility and expand reach to new audiences
• Content shared via social networks should be S&S, short and sharable
• The issues that companies struggle with when implementing social media are the inability to scale, issues with security and control, the lack of resources to deliver & buy-in from executives, ad-hoc reporting, and a drive to centralization that kills personal and rapid engagement

Here is the live blog.

09:22:59 AM Fastest growing population on Foursquare: Indonesia Top Foursquare check-in location: SFO via @BostonMike

09:39:22 AM Response by @Delta to a positive tweet by @BostonMike was not due to CRM, but synchronicity of 1 SM director. Impact still enormous

09:40:56 AM Why is SM a revolution? Many-many communication, digitization of content, audience is content producer. Via @BostonMike

09:53:26 AM Corp challenges w/ SM: inability 2 scale, security & control, lack of resources & buy-in, ad-hoc reporting, centralization

09:57:32 AM Who produces content for companies? 33% anyone, 67% dedicated person Companies w/ out SM policies in place? 64% Yikes

10:04:13 AM Coke pushing the envelope with geo-targeting messages to consumers on Facebook and YouTube. Check them out.

10:16:18 AM 4 categories/ stages of corp engagement in SM: observer, explorer, influencer, luminary

10:57:12 AM 5 types of audience in SM marketing: fans, customers, prospects, suspects & disinterested. Focus on first 4 via @corissactct

11:00:21 AM Social media marketing: building network through relevant and interesting content to reach, engage and drive more business.

11:07:35 AM Why social media mktg works: 14% of people trust ads, 78% of people trust consumer recommendations via @corissactct

11:12:04 AM Benefits of sharing & engaging: gain trust & credibility, brand exposure, experts as fans and followers, expand reach

11:38:51 AM Q: How often should I post to my Co’s FB page? A: How often do you have something relevant to say? Need to be relevant more often?

11:40:51 AM Presenter @corissactct: “Now we’re going to get geeky for a moment” I immediately look up. Uh oh.

11:44:08 AM Fans not returning to your FB page OK as long you deliver relevant content status updates via the News Feed.

11:52:58 AM Long discussion of Twitter hashtags during @corissactct‘s presentation… that had no hashtag #irony

12:00:01 PM Think S&S for social media content: short and sharable. via @corissactct

12:06:40 PM Only 13% of reviews on Yelp are 1 & 2 stars vast majority are 4 & 5 stars. Why such a fear/ publicity of bad online reviews?

12:07:33 PM RT @holdentheworld: Small businesses should check out nutshellmail. Great service that updates you on your social media

Finally – I made the following notes that never made it into a tweet.

For social media success:

1. go where your customers are, not just the top social  networks
2. create starter content
3. make your social media presence a reflection of your business
4. be transparent
5. stick to what you know

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This is a live blog of the FutureM panel The Realities of Mobile Advertising which was held at MIT on Monday October 4, 2010.  The panelists were Stephen Bagdasarian (Hill Holliday), Brenna Hanly (Mobile Catalyst, Mullen), Brett Leary (VP/Dir of Mobile Marketing, DIGITAS), William Nann (Director, National Advertising Sales) and Jon Phenix (VP Sales, Nexage) and was moderated by Dan Olshwang (Jumptap).

There were a few interesting things said during the panel.  The first was actually something that went unsaid for the first 45 minutes of discussion, the use of geolocation for location based advertising.  From the discussion it seems that LBA is exciting in theory with lots of opportunity, but has yet to be really cracked in practice.  Another interesting topic were the devices themselves.  Stephen Bagdasarian from Hill Holiday talked about identifying devices and mobile activity in the target audience before digging into tactics and creative at all.  But later tablets and phones were lumped together as 1 mobile experience by Brenna Hanly.  While I’m sure that she would agree that they provide different experience it’s clear that with the range of devices under the “mobile” umbrella, talking about mobile as one medium is not tenable.  Finally mobile was described as being the hub of all marketing channels.  I used to have a boilerplate slide in my PPT deck that positioned online marketing that way so I’m a bit jaded on that, BUT at the same time it’s clear that mobile can fill that central spot with other channels as spokes off of it depending on the type of campaign and quality of mobile advertising.

07:38:32 PM Hey it’s not just agencies that have wall of icon slides in their PPTs, mobile companies do too showing off app developers.

07:46:10 PM Mullen sees mobile as the communication hub between all channels, print, online, live, etc.

07:51:08 PM Digital dollars are ramping up for mobile with some annual budgets reaching $1 million

07:51:42 PM RT @stevenduque: At #FutureM‘s #momobo: @digitas “The pain we feel as buyers is fragmentation in the [#mobile] space.”

07:53:05 PM Mobile is the medium to reach consumers at the point of purchase, but creative needs to match opportunity

07:56:16 PM The paradigm for mobile is the online advertising ecosystem, but changing so fast. How will it impact mobile?

07:58:47 PM In mobile advertising there is 100% share of voice per page. Big opportunity

08:01:47 PM Or part of overall digital ad $ pull from other channels? RT @jmoore700: where will mobile $ come from? Web $s most susceptible.

08:02:42 PM RT @stevenduque: From #FutureM‘s #momobo: 3 types of fragmentation in #mobile market: ecosystem, platform & buying side.

08:05:57 PM Type of phone and mobile activity for target demographic key driver for developing mobile campaign

08:07:11 PM Short term use, throw away apps are a valid opportunity for sponsorship and not used often enough

08:07:40 PM RT @stevenduque: At #FutureM‘s #momobo: @digitas: “Mobile search is a fast growing area where we know we can reach our target demo”

08:08:36 PM RT @earlthompson: Audience member claims to have made a purchase of +$5K on mobile device in past 30 days. WOW

08:09:58 PM Creatives never said anything about mobile advertising until iAd, it brought excitement to the platform

08:11:44 PM iAd is not a creative platform it is an ad network. Still room for creative agencies.

08:12:21 PM Test small, learn big before jumping into large mobile ad spends.

08:14:59 PM RT @stevenduque: At #FutureM‘s #momobo: “Is a WSJ reader just as valuable while they’re playing Angry Birds?” Context matters

08:17:30 PM Mobile ads may be hyper local targeted or cool experience, but ultimately it’s all about post-clickthrough engagement

08:19:32 PM Mobile is all about marketing to context (location, audience, device)

08:21:08 PM Browser history not available to mobile advertisers in a meaningful way the way that it is for online advertisers.

08:22:53 PM RT @stevenduque At #FutureM‘s #momobo: @hillholliday“In mobile, you don’t necessarily need to be everything to everybody. Market to context”

08:24:32 PM Not referring to it as mobile but “time & place” marketing. @Brennahanley

08:26:19 PM Geo-location companies going after agencies clients “wanna try this” Hmmmm.

08:28:53 PM Geo-location advertising leads to practice changes across company, advertising, delivery, etc. Big investment, big payoff?

08:31:01 PM Mobile video is in demand, but not much available. 4G will drive video adoption

08:33:07 PM HTML5 will be the tipping point for mobile video supporting both delivery and tracking

08:38:12 PM Context difference between tablet and phone. Tablet – lean forward engagement , phone – on location usage

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If you are a marketer in Boston next week and interested in the future of marketing, especially digital marketing you have a great opportunity available to you because all next week is FutureM.

FutureM is a series of events put on by agencies and marketers around Boston on everything from social networking to mobile marketing, ecommerce to geomarketing and more.  There are panels, virtual events, roundtables, summits, meetups and of course a few parties. Most of the events are free, but there are a few marque events like the Inbound Marketing Summit and Monitoring Social Media that you have to buy tickets to.  Check out the complete FutureM schedule for details on times and locations and to register.

I’ll be attending a lot of these events, check out my Plancast to see where I will be next week, as will a bunch of my colleagues from Jack Morton.  We’ll be tweeting the events at @JackMorton and you can review my Twitter feed at @TPapi for my personal take on things. Like I did st SXSW I’ll liveblog the events I attend using Twitter and you can read them all here at TTrumble.com.  Also follow my colleague Steven Duque on Twitter at @StevenDuque and StevenDuque.com. We’ll also be posting lots of updates on the Jack blog, our personal blogs and anywhere else that the conversation flows.  If you can’t attend, listen in and join the conversation.

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