- Leadership DNA -- Interesting Counselors Academy Teleseminar
- Social Media Surpasses Email?
- Lean Thinking..... A New Mantra for PR Firms?
- Sponsorship opportunity to reach BoDeans-loving demographic
- PRSA Counselors Academy Spring Conference -- Line-Up Looks Good
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The Lead
| March 2009
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« February 2009 | Main | April 2009 » Leadership DNA -- Interesting Counselors Academy TeleseminarPosted by Matt Kucharski on March 17, 2009 at 6:41 AMOne of our outside board members, Paul Annett, once asked his clients to provide him with "Leadership Lessons" that he combined into a single broadside and gave out as a Christmas gift one year. What struck me about that list was the diversity in approaches to effective leadership. Ken Jacobs has a teleseminar coming up through the PRSA Counselors Academy that seems to drive that point home. It's all about understanding your leadership DNA. Might be worth checking out. Social Media Surpasses Email?Posted by Matt Kucharski on March 12, 2009 at 10:45 AMThis forwarded from one of our Worldcom Group partners: Social networking has overtaken e-mail as the most popular Internet activity, according to a new study by Nielsen, and the gap is growing rapidly. According to the latest figures, one in every six minutes of the average web user's online time is spent at a social site, notably Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and the major blogging networks. Active reach in what Nielsen defines as "member communities" now exceeds e-mail participation by 67% to 65%. The reach of social networking and blogging venues is growing at twice the rate of other large drivers of Internet use such as portals, e-mail and search. For those marketers trying to advertise online, the shifting measurement of time spent, rather than pages viewed, will require a new model which joins the conversation instead of interrupting it. Lean Thinking..... A New Mantra for PR Firms?Posted by Matt Kucharski on March 12, 2009 at 9:13 AMMy friend and colleague Mike Greece, who heads Padilla's New York Office, has long been a proponent of applying "lean" principles to professional service organizations. Here's the abstract from a roundtable he's delivering to the PRSA Counselors Academy Spring Conference at the end of May. Might be an event worth considering if you're an agency leader. "Lean, the business philosophy that has driven Toyota's relentless rise to the top of the auto industry, is making significant inroads into banking and financial services. And the results are impressive. The gains through eliminating waste and improved customer service after adopting Lean are hard to ignore. Sponsorship opportunity to reach BoDeans-loving demographicPosted by Bob Brin on March 8, 2009 at 7:46 AM No, no, no, don't pass this over. If you like the BoDeans or need to reach the people who do, Best Buy is sponsoring a concert to benefit Project SUCCESS in sunny Minneapolis on April 7th. They're still looking for an organization to sponsor the VIP section ($5K) where the $100 ticket people sit. Modern folkie Ana Egge will open. Her Web site says "Egge throws back a shot of tequila with the same effortlessness she delivers her stunning melodies with her breathy, sultry voice." Makes me want to re-write my bio.
Visit the concert site for more on tickets or who to contact about the sponsorship. Project SUCCESS is a youth-development organization that works with students over a six-year period, from middle school through high school, to help them develop life skills and inspire them to act on their dreams. PRSA Counselors Academy Spring Conference -- Line-Up Looks GoodPosted by Matt Kucharski on March 5, 2009 at 12:11 PMIf you're an agency leader, you might want to take a look at the line-up for the PRSA Counselors Academy Spring Conference -- pretty much everything is geared toward managing the business in tougher economic times. Full disclosure -- I'm on the planning committee. In a time when conferences are certainly at risk, the pre-registered attendance for this one is pretty high so far. Personally I'm looking forward to hearing from Robert Stephens -- founder of Geek Squad. This is a guy who built a remarkable brand largely through very smart, strategic public relations. Not a bad excuse to spend a few days at La Quinta... Good discussion on measuring social mediaPosted by Bob Brin on March 4, 2009 at 7:47 AMThere's a good discussion underway on Chris Brogan's blog about moving the needle with social media. I chime in . . . I get challenged by Chris. We'll see where it goes. Lots of good thoughts. My thought ties back to my previous post on the approachable brand. The more voices engaged on your behalf, like our SMERFs, the more your organization is socially networked. Thus the more touches and relationships. We have 14% of our organization trained and actively engaged in social networking. A pretty good metric, me thinks. Though not the only one, certainly. So if you're trying to change the culture, expand the brand and get your organization out there in the new communications, train them in social media and get them in contact. You can count their voices, their posts, resulting inbound links and leads. You could also measure how fast the network is scaling (number of friends and followers). Like PR and advertising, it can positively influence your brand and your sales, donations, etc. Start small with your own social media elite. They're probably already out there. Skittles Tastes the Social Media Rainbow - We find it SkittlatingPosted by Jason Swartz on March 2, 2009 at 4:04 PMIn addition to their delicious candy shell, the social media experiment launched today by Skittles is sweet. The premise: Visit www.skittles.com and instead of arriving on their traditional Web site, you're taken to Twitter, which features all the conversations about Skittles happening in real-time. Even more interesting is the Skittles-branded widget, laid over the top of Twitter. This widget takes you to other Skittles-related social media sites. For example, if you want to get more info about one of their flavors, you're taken to Wikipedia. If you want to watch one of their videos, you're taken to their YouTube channel. Skittles has essentially created a new Web site for their brand, solely by comingling their social media sites into one application. Again, sweet.
To the haters I say, think outside the bag. Let's quit referring to people as "targets." We're not hunting. Social media is about letting people get to know your brand. That involves a real dialog and an appreciation for people's opinions. Skittles didn't launch this campaign with the expectation that you'll drop everything to go buy their product. They're throwing open the doors and saying come on in and let's socialize. Some consumers will express their skittlation. Others will be frustrated. We always say the conversation about you will go on with or without you. Inviting comment is better than dealing with it later in what we call "whack-a-mole public relations." Today, Skittles is tasting all flavors of the social media rainbow. Bravo. Following the Business of Sports With "Reckless Abandon"Posted by Matt Kucharski on March 1, 2009 at 6:45 PMJerome Harrison, an enterprising student taking my Case Studies class at the University of Minnesota, has started a blog on the business of sports. Pretty interesting stuff from both a sports and a marketing strategy perspective. Give it a look. p.s. -- how many of YOU would take on something like this in your spare time? Now's the time to invest in your people...Posted by Matt Kucharski on March 1, 2009 at 6:29 PMFor many, the layoffs have happened. Those that remain are likely your high-potential, high-performing employees. What are you doing to make sure they're staying engaged? Dumping more work on them? Letting them know that if things don't pick up they'll be next? Sure, with the economy the way it is, the chances of them walking out the door aren't very high, but as soon as the economy picks up (and yes, it will pick up), those employees will be the most in-demand. Mike Herman, CEO of Communications Sciences International, just finished a monograph for PRSA Counselors Academy called "Reaching Your Individual Potential in the Workplace." While it's geared at hiring and training in mid-sized public relations firms, much of the advice is valuable to any company that sees this as the perfect time to invest in high-potential employees. You can pick up a copy at the Counselors Academy Web site if you're interested. |
