Posts from: February 28, 2010

Published on February 28, 2010 by Scott Gould

Are you build Community or Connections?

So I’m sat here at the Like Minds Summit reflecting over the last few days at Like Minds where we’ve played host to over 300 people, and I don’t know where to start.

First off, I’m not one to chest beat and bang my own drum (as much as Chris was telling me I should), so I’d rather you watched this incredible video put together by the always excellent Documentally.

I guess that main thing I want to say to everyone is what I’ve been saying for a little while now about Connections Over Community. Community support is great – but it only gets you so far. If you really want to do something, and achieve something, then you need to begin building connections out of that community,

The takeaway from Like Minds, then, is to go and pick up the phone, or send an email or a tweet, and get some face-to-face time with the connections you’ve made. There’s too much much talk and not enough action these days – so often because we’re so busy building our own communities rather than developing connections that enable to us to really be helpful.

Surely all the talk of ‘social’ needs to come around into this?

Published on February 25, 2010 by Scott Gould

“Our Specials” to “You’re Special”

If you’re in a Catch 22 situation, and thinking of doing the hard sell, don’t.

Selling has been replaced by serving.

If you can give the best service, then you’ll get the best sales.

Rather than talking about “Our Specials”, start talking about “You’re Special”.

Does this mean I’m saying you should soft sell? No – it means I’m saying we should serve hard.

Serve each other rather than sell yourself.

(P.S. Don’t mean to be so Seth Godin-esque, but sometimes, you can’t help it :-)

Published on February 24, 2010 by Scott Gould

Solving the Social Media Catch 22

IMG_3959I have an idea. Here’s the problem it solves:

You know you can help organisations with Social Media – more so than the people they put in charge of their Twitter accounts. You know how to develop strategy, integrate and operationalise it. You can manage it, and you can measure it. You can show ROI. You see how it fits into the organisation as a whole.

Trouble is, the organisation won’t hire you. The company won’t take your agency on to fulfil their Social Media needs, and the agencies don’t bring you in as a consultant.

Why? Because you have no big names on the CV. Effectively, you can’t get work because you don’t have work.

There has previously been one solution to this problem: Lie.

Published on February 23, 2010 by Scott Gould

Tower Block Of Uncommons

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0WQEKHp0yM

If you can’t see the video above, click here.

This incredible series, Tower Block of Commons, gave me great insight again into perception. It doesn’t matter what the reality is. If the everyday person has a perception that our government spend all day arguing in a room and having two homes, then it doesn’t matter what really goes on.

Because the perception is broken, The House of Commons and the common man have nothing in common.

You want to know why it doesn’t matter? Because people don’t care about your reasons. Unless you care about theirs.

When I watch that video above (and the many other instances over the series), I’m looking at a members of parliament who are making the following fundamental flaw: They are seeking to be understood, rather than seeking to understand.

Could the woman in the video above see the MPs point of view? Sure they could, if the MP would give a little and understand their situation first. Because that’s all the woman wanted: to be understood.

Seek commonality. Put people first. Be impressed, not impressive. Understand, rather than trying to be understood. Help rather than trying to be helped.

Your Leading Thoughts Please

  • In 3 steps, how can we find commonality?
Published on February 22, 2010 by Scott Gould

People Don’t Care

John Cass was asking some great questions recently about Transparency in Social Media. Rich Baker was asking similar ones too with regards to Film Four and Vodafone. My response to both was what I say when consulting on Social Media integration for my clients:

People don’t care.

No pretty picture today. No flowery language. Just let the reality hit you: people don’t care.

Remember Eurostar?

When everyone was angry, they went to the Twitter account for answers. The Twitter bio said “Official Eurostar Twitter feed. Not Eurostar customer service but trying to help get information out to our customers as received. Thanks for understanding.” But the truth is, people did’t care. I labour the point here.

If you represent the brand, you are the brand.

If people need anything from the brand, you better be ready to give anything they need -whether it’s your department or not.

The idea of customer care is so your customers don’t have to.

And that calls for some integration. With all the talk of strategy, engagement, conversation and the rest, too many people now vastly exaggerate what they can offer, and unfortunately don’t offer the basics of having something that works.

I learnt that lesson for myself again this week. We are taking registrations for Like Minds Lunch Time Talks and someone complains that the process isn’t easy. It doesn’t matter that it’s because they have to pre-order their food, and is part of us measuring how we are raising £100k for the city. They don’t care. And the truth is, they shouldn’t. They just want it to work.

Question

  • If you had to offer 3 pillars for integration – and no more than 3 – what would they be?
Published on February 19, 2010 by Scott Gould

Times are Changing, Teams are Changing

The Mighty KiwisI was at Exeter University on Wednesday listening to Professor John Bessant describe the difference between how innovation used to be, and how it is now. In the TV-industrial complex days, teams worked behind closed doors in order to hide their innovations. The rule was that a company had to have the smartest people working for it.

Today, it’s the other around. We have what I discovered is called open innovation. It means that a company no longer thinks they have the smartest people working for them. It means that today, a team comprises of the people who can make the project happen, no matter where they are or who they do or don’t work for.

This is how teams work in People-to-People. Finally we’ve realised that sometimes the best person to have in your team works for a competitor – but that’s ok. Sometimes, the smartest person is the customer. Other times, the smartest person to get onboard is across the world and you talk digitally.

B2B, B2C, buyer, supplier, consumer, boss, employee, competitor – all these phrases begin to fade in a People-to-People environment.

Why? Because those terms are tied into the old model that values processes over people. They are about process and paper work, not about people. But today we’re free from what I call factory thinking. Today we recognise that processes are commoditised, knowledge is cheap – but talented people who fit into a team and make things happen are a rare find.

Here’s the rub, though: to have a team that makes things happen, you need to motivate with more non-financial influence that you do financial impact. Because making ideas happen (and not letting those ideas just become unrealised ideals) requires the kind of blood, sweat and tears that wages don’t buy.

Influence is what gets customers to join your team. Influence is what gets people to work, not for money, but for self-actualisation. Influence is what builds a team out of vision.

My Question For You

  • How are you using influence to build teams?

Photo with thanks to claytonjayscott.com

Published on February 18, 2010 by Scott Gould

No More Big Events?

Election night crowd, Wellington, 1931

Yesterday Seth Godin rocked the boat with another post that many people disagree with: No More Big Events.

This short post said that big events don’t work because they aren’t as good as “frequent cheap communication”. Scott McKain wrote a long response on why he disagreed which is worth a read.

I don’t disagree with Seth. Why, in an age of such connectedness, do we still try to fill rooms?

Published on February 17, 2010 by Scott Gould

What The World Needs Now

who tha´ man?This on the BBC is interesting. It’s a short clip of delegates at TED saying what they think ‘what the world needs now’ in 18 seconds. They all hinge on action. But my favourite is from Arianna Hugginton who said beautifully that ‘we need greater simplicity.’

I’m trying really hard to get a mission statement together for Like Minds. I’ve tried ‘challenging thinking to change our actions’ which is too long – and ‘challenging thinking’ which is too vague. I tried ‘open source thinking’ which means we should be free (which we aren’t), and I’m tried ‘making ideas accessible’ which hinges too much on the ideas and not the delivery of those ideas.

Like I say, an idea that goes nowhere is just an ideal, and Arianna as well as others in that video echoed that we need less people complaining and bulldozing, and more people collaborating and building. That’s also the theme of this incredible talk by Jamie Olivier, who won this year’s TED Prize for his campaign to teach every child about food.

Published on February 16, 2010 by Scott Gould

Creating A People-To-People Conference

One of the greatest challenges that we face is to deliver on our ideas. On Saturday I asked the question on Twitter, “When it comes to ideas, what’s important? Making them accessible? Uniting people to ideas? Making ideas happen? Having lots, or a few?” The resounding response was “making ideas happens”.

The challenge that the Like Minds team faced this year was to make the idea of ‘people-to-people‘ happen, rather than letting those ideas become ideals that are never actualised.

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