Posts from: October 30, 2009

Published on October 30, 2009 by Scott Gould

Becoming P2P

p2p

“I want things to change, but I don’t have the money and time to pay for it. What do I do?”

Recently I’ve been hearing this over and over. So today, without a buzz-worthy title, and without any chatty meandering, I’m going to get down to some straight talk on firstly what is wrong with this question, then what the right question to ask is, and finally, what the answers are to that right question.

Before anything else, spoiler alert: the answer is People2People (P2P) thinking, what proceeds is just how to get there. So best go and read Olivier Blanchard’s manifesto here, and then come back.

Ok, done? Let’s get to work.

Published on October 29, 2009 by Scott Gould

The Reason Why Companies Don’t ‘Get It’

hydro2.jpgI was talking to Benjamin Ellis at #SMiB last Friday about the change in culture that is being accentuated by Social Media. Notice I say accentuated by Social Media – the change is not Social Media itself. Talking to Benjamin was a meeting of like minds and confirmed what I’ve been thinking for sometime:

100 years ago, most businesses had a factory-mindset and a production process that was managed. Money was made by fine tuning the production process to either reduce cost, or increase productivity. The production process was a series of mechanics – variables that were minimised to increase predicability and consistency – with human quality control.

Published on October 28, 2009 by Scott Gould

The Fantastic Four Returns On Social Media

I know I’ve written a lot about Social Media recently, but I find sticking on a subject and forming it (like I did with PR last month) is useful for all of us, as we move past concept and get into framework. Sure, it doesn’t make for ‘high traffic’ articles, but this is about enabling us to do better, not raising my own profile.

Now I don’t call ROI anything else other than Return On Investment, because it’s not. But non-financial impact must not be neglected – whilst not being mixed up with ROI. Advocacy, for example, is not measured by ROI, but ask any real brand manager if they can do without it and the answer is no.

Published on October 26, 2009 by Scott Gould

PRE – Your Social Media Stance

After identifying 6 Social Media presences you’ll meet in heaven (and there are probably more), today I’m providing a really easy way of managing them through a little idea I’ve had for some time that I call ‘PRE‘. PRE is being Personal, being Relationship, and displaying Expertise – and I have observed (feel free to disagree in the comments) that these three, in different proportions, are the bedrock for effective Social Media. Each of these adds value in it’s own right, and as a compliment, provide effective focus for your efforts:

Personal means you are a person, and therefore talk like a human. This means your tweets are not all auto-generated or business related, but you provide personal insight. Without being personal, you are seen as a bot or a spammer, unless your presence is for Passive Publishing or Monitoring, where you function on a service-related push model.

Published on October 22, 2009 by Scott Gould

The 6 Types Of Social Media Presences You’ll Meet In Heaven

For all the skepticism of ‘love’ and other such metaphysical language in the marketplace, it’s interesting to watch the TED Talks. In fact, it’s interesting to watch this TED Talk in particular by Rory Sutherland. Listen to the language – it’s about value, perception, resources, persuasion, emotion, compulsion, desire – all from the mouth of a highly respected advertising genius. In other words – the guy who gets paid millions to bring home the bacon for the brands, talks about emotion.

In actual fact, as you listen to these wonderful people appearing at TED, they continually reduce incredible things down to things of the heart. Emotion.

As I first stated yesterday, and refined with help from @Claire_Sloane , the successful social media practioner is a master of relationship before they are a master of ROI. Everyone who successfully uses social media is doing something different from the businesses that don’t get social media – they are aiming to add value, not aiming to sell stuff. We all recognise that business is about relationship – especially with small businesses – and social media is simply an enabler that magnifies and intensifies this. You can check out and use my framework that looks closer at this on the concept of lifting restrictions here.

Published on October 21, 2009 by Scott Gould

You Proved Social Media ROI. Yes, You.

Like Minds turned over £5,800. The marketing budget was £0. On Tuesday 8th September, the site was created. On Wednesday 9th, it was marketing purely through social media. The Google Analytics snapshot below shows the traffic:

#LikeMinds traffic

Who attended the event? I personally knew not even a quarter of the attendees. Through our social media marketing on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and both the official blog and this blog, we had 188 registered attendees, and 561 online viewers.

Published on October 20, 2009 by Scott Gould

I’m Nobody.

It’s true. It’s not just another mantra. It’s not just a controversial, attention grabbing line.

The idea for Like Minds wasn’t really mine, it was Trey’s. The business model for Like Minds wasn’t really mine, it was Drew’s. The contacts, colleagues and friends that came – the majority of those 200 weren’t mine, they were yours. All the ideas, inspiration and information, certainly wasn’t mine – they came from Trey, Daren, Olivier and Maz.

Published on October 16, 2009 by Scott Gould

Do Disturb.

New Business Card

Today I will mostly be hosting Like Minds. If you are there, come and say hi – disturb me – because to be honest, I don’t know a third of the people who are coming, and I’d like to meet you!

If you can’t come, then watch. 2:30pm GMT til 6:30pm GMT.

Also, if you want more than just Friday, then I highly, highly recommend you attend the exclusive consultation session on Saturday with Trey and Olivier.

Published on October 15, 2009 by Scott Gould

Confessions, Part 1

I'm listening

Last night Ruairi Fullam linked me to this post from ProBlogger, from May. As I read down the page, I got convicted by the following words from Chris Guillebeau:

The time to start presenting your big ideas is when you can no longer keep them to yourself in good conscience.

When you reach that same point, and when you’re willing to sacrifice for it, nothing can stop you. Some of the best advice I heard came from John Wesley at PicktheBrain.com. John told me that the turning point for his site was when it went from being about what he wanted to what the readers wanted.

I’ll be honest and open – I think I’m doing the first part – presenting big ideas. Perhaps the ideas are a little too conceptual… But anyway… What I am sure of, is that I’m not doing the second.

I love getting comments from you all – and as I’ve said, your comments and feedback have helped me find my voice. But I’m pretty conscious that I’m still very much writing for me, not for you. Now for some bloggers that’s fine, but I don’t want to sit down with the rest of the crowd. The whole idea of Like Minds is collaboration over innovation, and that’s the same thing people should find here.

So, I guess what I’m saying is, I’m all ears and eyes: tell me what I’m saying that helps you, what’s just plain nonsense, and what you’d like to have more of.

To help you, let me give the general areas of discussion here: innovation, experience, social media, marketing, branding, leadership, tribes, GTD, character, change.

Now, the floor is yours.

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