Crowdsourcing: Proof that Ayn Rand Got (at least some of) It Wrong?

January 5, 2013January 5, 2017Leave a comment

When Paul Ryan appeared on the Republican ticket last fall, two familiar words burst onto the scene like popcorn: Ayn Rand.

Like for many others, Ayn Rand burst into my life at 19, and I lapped up her entire cannon like a plate of cream. Twice. But the world has changed a lot since I fell for the ideal of hyper-individualism.

It’s not that the Internet Age proves she got it wrong. In fact, it shows that Ayn Rand got a whole lot right. She said the human will is amazing and that freedom and opportunity make it flourish.

Working in social technology, I see how right she was. There’s a deep passion for human ingenuity in this business. Where the stakes are high, the talent is top notch and the work product is fantastic.

Yet there’s another group that plays just as important a role in the Information Age: The crowd.

I can’t help but wonder what Ayn Rand would have to say about the phenomenon of crowdsourcing where the work product comes from an undefined group of mostly (pardon my language, Ayn) volunteers?

Crowdsourcing is the process of tapping the collective for ideas. Turns out, the collective gives them up like gumballs, asks little or nothing in return, and before you know it we have wonderful things like Apache Software and Wikipedia.

The Internet Age shows us what Ayn Rand would call an irrational force—the desire to serve—rocks! I can get Wikipedia on my iPhone instantly for free. The Encyclopedia Britannica, before it went out of print, was cumbersome, expensive, and made the book shelves sag.

When Ayn Rand asks who should benefit from our output, she offers two choices: You or me. Today’s answer is both. The power of the crowd is proof. Sometimes providing value for others is personal gain.

I’d like to think a John Galt of this century would have been among the first to spot the power of the crowd. He dedicated his life, after all, to the pursuit of an inexhaustible supply of cheap energy.

This article was originally aired as a KQED listener perspective.

Delivering Great Social Customer Experiences—You Gotta Be Loved!

December 9, 2011January 5, 2017Leave a comment

Just wrapped an intense but very exciting project with Lithium—the release of a new survey in partnership with the CMO Council of both consumers and marketers on their use of social media. Findings analysis, a full white paper, an infograph and a webcast—whew! It was a full sprint all the way, but I admit that’s what I love about social media marketing. It’s a fast moving train.

The survey findings underscored what we at Lithium have always known—that consumers are social, that they want and like to interact with brands through social media and that they respond to compelling social customer experiences.

But we learned a great deal as well—for instance, that all the claims that social media marketing is good for word of mouth marketing have whopping figures behind them. A full 80% of consumers say that because of social media, they are willing to try new things based on a friend’s advice. For me, this was pretty pivotal.

It’s one thing when marketers claim they are getting word of mouth advantages from social media. It’s another thing entirely when an overwhelming majority of consumers state outright that social media influences their purchase behavior. That’s some powerful data.

CMO Katy Keim was featured on the webcast and it was the perfect finale for me as I believe she has what I call the 3 As: Authenticity, Authority, and Acumen. She really puts her finger on it. And she’s thinking several years ahead. (Have a look at her deck on Slideshare—How to Get Social Business Advantage in 2012).

Yep, social works, says Katy. Maybe not all brands know that yet, but they sure will soon. And if you’re going to be competitive in the social media marketplace, you’d better make sure you’re not just connecting with your social customers, you’d better make sure you’re connecting with them in the right way.

At this year’s Lithium customer conference, LiNC, Katy introduced the concept that marketers can’t just run around collecting likes from their social customers. They have to think about building brand nations—vibrant online communities of passionate social customers. Because, after all, says Katy, “Who wants to be liked when we can be loved!”

I ran across the above clip recently from an Elia Kazan film that was way ahead of its time—A Face in the Crowd. Certainly puts to mind what our recent survey revealed and perfectly distills Lithium’s position on what marketers should do about it.

Maxims from Social Media West

October 21, 2011January 5, 2017Leave a comment

Just wrapped up my attendance of Socialize West, a nice little 2-day conference put together by mediabistro.com The focus was Monetizing Social Media which is slightly out of my domain in my demand gen role with Lithium, but the subtitle Gamify, Mobilize, Optimize, Monetize captured my eye and I registered.

Two minutes in the door I felt right at home when I immediately met two Lithium customers, Firebelly who uses LSMM, and Vindicia who has a Lithium community. I thank the new ritual that’s propagating throughout social marketing conference culture to begin the show by being asked to “stand and shake the hands of your neighbors.” Just like church. It’s a great thing to do at a gathering.

“Now with the other hand, slap your neighbor across the face.”

Huh?

“Yep. That’s the way most digital marketers greet their social customers—by saying hello and then slapping them with a virtual communications fire hose. We’ll be here for the next two days talking about how not to do that.“

Nice opener. Certainly got our attention. That was from conference MC Todd Tweed (@audiencemachine), our hugely energetic and thought provoking host. The keynotes were terrific. Michael Bassik, Managing Director and Chair of Burson-Marsteller, gave a great presentation on crisis management and dropped these memorable lines: “The only antidote to a crisis is to address it in a very public way.” “The worst thing you can do with social in a crisis is nothing”. Certainly made me think about the financial services crisis and how banks need to listen to and reach out to their advocates now more than ever. Or, institutions like PG&E who seems endlessly to struggle with the San Bruno disaster.

Day two of course all everyone could talk about was the fact that the first place we all went after our 2 (yes, count ‘em-2!) earthquakes the day before was Twitter. We got a wonderful presentation from Brains on Fire author Geno Church (@genochurch), who in his evangelism of “marketing movements vs. marketing campaigns” gave us these sound bites: “Campaigns employ a ‘bake it and they will come’ mentality; movements are an evolution of the spirit.” “Campaigns are all about us, us, us, listen to us (we marketers); movements are about the others that are talking about us.” “Be the fans of your fans, not the other way around.”

And I promise you Mr. Church was not in Lithium’s employ when he said, “movements happen when people share their passions” and “amazing things happen when you give up ownership”. That’s exactly what we tell our customers. Let your customers drive the conversation, share their passions and start a movement. Pretty soon you’ll have a brand nation—a vibrantly community full of passionate social customers.

Later in the day I ran into my old boss Matt Roche (@matthewroche) from Offermatica (now part of Adobe/Omiture) who’s reincarnated himself as the CEO of bo.lt, an interesting new way to share web pages in personalized, permanent collections. In his optimization session, Matt reminded us that “consumption itself is a social act.”

I thought it an excellent proof point for the advice we social software providers and strategists often tell brands: “Don’t add social to your business; organize your business around social”. Consumption is a highly social thing. Geno reported earlier in the morning that 93% of us talk about brands face to face, in direct conversations with our friends, family, neighbors, teachers, co-workers … we are very social about our consumption habits already. All brands need to do is get in on the conversations that are already happening.

Lastly, I think I liked best this, again from Geno: “The future of your business should not be about technology. It should be about us—people.”

Thanks for a nice collection of marketing maxims from Socialize West and the folks at mediabistro.com.