Since moving back to Toronto in late 2001 I’ve moved around quite a bit. Part of it was born of a desire to rediscover my hometown after being away for over a decade, and determine where I wanted to finally ’settle’. I’ve recently done so again and am out in a neighbourhood I’ve wanted to live in for way too long to remember.

As I’ve been out and about exploring the new ‘hood, I’ve been consciously aware that although we are all Torontonians, and Canadians, the folks out here roll differently. If I want to get the most out of this community, I have to find out what makes it tick and what the ‘when in Rome’ rules are. Reflecting back, I’ve only gotten enjoyment and fulfillment out of any new community (work, home, play, study) when I take the time to listen and explore vs. bulldoze my way through, oblivious.

The same principles apply online and with social networks. Each network, although they may look outwardly similar, or have the same type of backbone software, is unique based on the individuals who populate it, and, drilling down, those who are its "power users" are, in a fashion, the ‘community elders’ and have more say in what the norms are. Of course, as with everything in life, as new people move in (join), the standards can begin to shift, but this usually (unless it’s a revolt, but that’s a different tale altogether) happens organically from within the network vs. by external pressures.

It’s important to keep the thoughts of your ‘real life’ community in mind while exploring and engaging in the social space online. Just because something worked a certain way on MySpace, doesn’t mean it’ll be the same on Flickr or Twitter. Just because you’d say something a certain way in an opt-in email or on a brand forum, doesn’t mean it works in a Facebook group.

Each community, and each community subset, is just as unique as the folks who populate your neighbourhood, or mine.

[photo credit: gracias! via Flickr]

As we head boldly into this brand new year of possibilities and opportunities for growth and learning, I have eight things that I’m planning on doing this year that I felt worth sharing. A tad eclectic, but all related in a fashion:

1. Take a new course or learn a new skill outside of business and expand the horizons of communities online and off (I’m doing both - refreshing my seriously degraded abilities in French and learning how to knit by starting with the "Szechwan Scarf" kit I got this holiday… wish me luck, my uncoordinated fingers will need it… there’s the reason I quit piano way back when!)
2. Commit to becoming a fully active community member of at least one social network or tool (I’m still undecided but leaning towards FB and del.icio.us)
3. Clean up current RSS feeds and actively seek out and discover new blogs and fresh perspectives (I plan on starting this journey by clicking on blogs I haven’t read yet via my regular ‘must-read’ bloggers blogrolls)
4. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. — Think Green. (‘nough said, this one’s a no-brainer, but I could improve in my consumption and daily habits!)
5. Visit museums and art galleries in person and leave the camera at home (sometimes the memory of the piece takes on a whole new meaning without the archived visual cue)
6. Get involved with volunteering online via a site like - givemeaning.org (not only are you giving back, but you’re involved in a vibrant community of interest and intent)
7. Think about touchpoints while going about everyday life — how and why are they meaningful to the individual; what does it mean, and how can it be leveraged and added to in the transactional economy? (think integrated)
8. Unplug completely one evening a week (take time to reflect and recharge)

Wishing everyone a joyous and rewarding 2008!

Are any of these on your list this year? Anything you’re planning to do that trumps them all? :)

[photo credit: p.du.v via Flickr]

I was hesitant to weigh in on the latest kerfuffle raised by the recent TechCrunch post, frankly, because I knew all of these black hat tactics were being utilized by those less savory in our field, and the post just confirmed it, but felt I had to do so when I realized that too many people in our industry were surprised (vs. the ‘regular folks’ in the TC comments who were justifiably outraged, if not surprised).

Let’s apply some logic here - the Internet is a huge, unruly place, with millions of people and companies vying for attention. Dollars are shifting online in record fashion and LOTS of service companies want a piece. How do you break through the clutter, prove results and make a buck? By pushing the limits to the edge, as all firms: advertising, marketing, PR, Web 2.0, etc. do? Do we really suppose that we’ve always done things completely ethically? I’d like to say yes, but I’ve worked for too many firms with client expectations and million dollar budgets on the line to ever make that claim with a straight face. I know that I founded my own strategic marketing firm because I grew sick and tired of tactics employed, lack of true innovation, and egos, and I keep a firm grip on how myself and my team execute projects and develop strategies, but that’s just little old Wildfire in a sea of thousands. I also am (speaking of ego) able to better navigate the waters and develop innovative strategies precisely because of my track-record in the interactive space and the focus I’ve always placed on customer relationships vs. pure push advertising. It’s easier to determine how to balance a company’s need for bottom-line ROI while remaining authentic and transparent about the tactics employed: been there done that and seen a lot. For example, I’m particularly proud of the creative concept and integrated strategy I developed while working with TFC for Sharp Canada (Aquos 1080p D82 Challenge) precisely because it was pure branding, social responsibility, and community engagement. It worked on all levels and the bottom line result was good for Sharp and good for the environment.

That being said, why are we surprised? It takes work and a lot of money to be truly immersed in the Internet and social media space, and with profit margins at agencies and companies being pushed further down, is it realistic to expect that any firm can afford that much R&D and people-hours? Folks expect to get paid and brands expect a return on investment that is tangible. The bottom line for all brands is to sell product and satisfy their shareholders (which is why they are called “for profit”). That will not change, and it’s why 30-second spots still work, even if they’re being moved online in increasing numbers (hello, viral spots). And, as consumers get more sophisticated, more people will recognize not to necessarily trust what you read online unless you know the person, or unless it’s independently verified (ala Consumer Reports) like all of us old skool interactive geeks realized about 7 years ago. Everyone has an agenda, that’s just life. We don’t live in a utopia, we live in a capitalist society. Even the old standard, The Red Cross, was less than pure after 9/11. We can change things, for sure, but change takes time; people aren’t a piece of software that we can just upgrade when we discover a bug or want to add a new feature.

Why are we trying to figure out social media ROI at all if we believe it’s all about the long-term relationship? True relationships take years to develop, just because someone joins your community, for whatever internal and external reasons suit their needs at the moment, it’s just as easy to leave when it doesn’t. That’s what churn is. Consumers own their relationships with a brand and for that reason they also own the conversation - trying to satisfy everyone while continuing to make money is the rub of social media. You can’t have an agency built with everyone’s best friend. The participation economy is a reality, but it’s also a fallacy when you step outside of our bubble. Hip Hop artists don’t do product placement in videos and start their own clothing lines (multi-billion dollar industry) because someone wrote a positive review online or added them as a ‘friend’ in Facebook.

Let’s be realistic. How much time do you spend on YouTube scouring the new submissions, rating them up and sending them along? With over 10k submitted per day, my guess is not enough that you could spot “the next big thing” without having someone point you to it. The recent WOM conference in Toronto in April of this year recognized Chevrolet for their “Let’s Go Chevy” campaign as being a WOM success story when the company was blaring the URL in TV spots, banner ads, newspaper ads, etc. etc. Did we complain then (well, I did, but not too many others)? Why is that okay and not the tactics employed by The Commotion Group except for our own expectations of the purity of the space? It’s not. Neither of them is okay. We need to take off our rose-coloured glasses and think in the big picture. I don’t employ the tactics used in the article, but I get the feeling I’m in the minority (and no, I’m not going to share my secrets), and although a shame, we should look at this as a learning opportunity and be prepared to recognize that if we really want to succeed in this brave new world, we have to be honest with our clients about how much time and effort it will take to build lasting success… and what success truly means. We need to stop speaking to ourselves and start exploring the space.

We bloggers even do similar things - link-bait posts that exist solely to drive traffic/ reputation (Lists upon lists of “the top blogs”, posting on your own blog about a controversy instead of responding in the comments elsewhere: just like this post, etc), “calling outs” to stir controversy, speaking to our own echo chamber and measuring success against that, plagiarism, passing ourselves off as experts in the space when we aren’t, whatever. None of us are true angels. No one is completely pure in reality, and that includes the consumers we are trying to reach.

Perhaps this will be a wake-up call, but I think not. Too much money on the line and the easy way out is usually the one people take (especially for products such as movies that have a short shelf life to make a buzz on opening weekend - the majority of the clients The Commotion Group appears to work for). I know that I’ll continue doing what I do, and one of these days I’ll hang it all up and go be a yoga-instructor and run a golf course up north. Until then, I’m not jumping on any bandwagons and I’ll keep learning, experimenting, educating clients, and being a hurricane when appropriate.

But that’s just my opinion - there are a million of them (manufactured or not) out there to choose from.

Update: Tony Hung has a good post on this as well…. a choice bit:

Mike Arrington himself seems a bit taken aback by how honest the post is, but is anyone *really* shocked?

Are your (or anyone’s) sensibilities *really* that delicate?

….

Bottom line is that this post pulls the curtain back on a phenomenon that any rational thinking individual would already suspect.

That is, when there is financial incentive and opportunity to game a system — even when that system has the appearance of being “open”, “transparent”, and built upon the goodwill and trust of its users (how typically quaint!) — someone will do it.

And the best of them will do it in such a way that no one else will even *know*.

[photo credit: daryldarko via Flickr]

Recently on Chris Clarke’s blog he stirred up a bit of controversy by posting questions and thoughts on the recent shakeups at new marketing company crayon, led by Joe Jaffe. I’ve been catching up on my feeds from the last couple of months and am a bit late to the party, but I mentioned to Chris I had some thoughts on the brouhaha and subsequent public chastisements. This post may meander a bit as I have many tangential thoughts that relate to this latest situation… apologies in advance. I should also state up front that all those to be named I have deep respect for and in some cases consider close friends… nothing personal, it’s just blogging.

Full disclosure: I’ve worked with Chris in the past and respect his contributions and perspective on the social media space and tools. I’ve also posted a thought or two about Jaffe on this site in the past (I enjoy his work for the most part and respect his expertise and risk-taking). And both Chris and Joe are my FaceBook friends. ;)

From my vantage point Chris’ post, outside the headline (although the “Death Watch: Yahoo!” series on iMedia Connection comes close), was not outside the norms established so far (I could go on about what defines norms and in what narrow niche, but suffice it to say I am speaking of the norms in the PR social media space for these purposes). Some of the follow up posts chose to focus on Chris’ age and experience while Mitch focused on the longtail of your personal brand’s reputation online (which I agree with on the whole). But the main theme appears to be (and that was the take-away by some of Chris’ peers): Chris is young and inexperienced, his tone was out of bounds and he and should not have challenged Jaffe on crayon as he doesn’t have the business experience to do so. The additional question appears to be how young professionals should interact in the blogosphere - should they be able to challenge the more senior professionals in the industry?

While I was catching up on this subject, I happened to run across an interesting post entitled: Does Lack of Gen-Y in Upper-Management Positions Hurt Youth Oriented Brands? And a comment by Ryan Holiday contradicting the notion that being young and controversial is a bad thing for your career. For the most part I find the Gen-Y post above a tad naive in its details, but valuable in its perspective.

The discussion also reminds me of the cringing feeling us old hats in the interactive space get sometimes about the newbies to social media who seem to think that Google and WYSIWYG’s are the sum total of the web and attempt to establish ‘norms’ for communications in Web 2.0 without the understanding that Web 2.0 tools and apps (Web 2.0 is in essence layman terms an add-on layer vs. a rebuild of the structure of the Internet) fulfills the promise of the “Write” in the original premise of the web as a Read + Write medium.

It also brings up how the pr and marketing communities view social media - do we “own” it, or are we learning and using it along with the rest of the world? How can we expect to communicate with our client’s or brand’s customers via this new and shifting channel if we immediately shut down a learning opportunity from a key demographic (Chris ~ Gen-Y), and a part of the same demographic who is currently helping to shape, beta test and build Web 2.0 applications and tools en masse? The early adopters if you will. What they have to say, and how they say it, is, in my opinion, important. Does that mean they are above critism themselves? Of course not, they are as much fair game as the rest of us in the wide wooly web. Anyone who has spent time on political blogs, entertainment or tech discussion boards knows the territory is fraught with flame wars and unpleasant conversations. It’s part of the landscape and if we hope to advise our clients and senior managers of the power and need for participating in the space we should take every opportunity to probe deeper and expand our knowledge. One of my favourite aspects of the Internet is how everyone participating is on relatively equal footing when it comes to our identities. If I choose to be gender or race neutral I can be so. The same applies to age. We are defined by what we contribute and communities online take many shapes and sizes.

Which also leads into practicing what we preach and setting a good example for the juniors amongst us to follow if we decide there must be guidelines within this particular niche online. I find it difficult to fault Chris for his post when those directly in his circle have set the example for ‘calling outs’. I’ve done it. So has Joe (with follow ups and a Facebook group), David (including some echo chamber in the comments), Doug (another Jaffe sighting), and Michael (who lived to tell the tale) to name a few of the more recent ones. Do I think any of those posts were out of bounds? Perhaps and if I felt strongly one way or the other I may have participated in the ensuing lively discussions… the foundation for expressing and communicating online. Do I feel differently about any of the people because of what they wrote? No, because even if I didn’t know each of them in real life and judge them by the sum of their contributions both online and off, everyone is entitled to their own opinion and means of expressing it as long as it isn’t abusive. However, I do think that each of the above examples are in line (in different ways) with what Chris posted in his piece.

Chris asked some provocative and challenging questions based on his take on the original premise of crayon, which included the merging of marketing, advertising and pr. PR is where Chris makes his living and with the departure of that crew he felt the company as launched was finished. Agree or disagree it is a valid take-away based on what the founders said when they started the company. It would also make for some great discussions surrounding integrated communications if we got past the initial dustup. Joe Jaffe responded to Chris, as was his right, and some crayon employees did as well (which really does prove they are active participants in the space btw). They took offense and told Chris so and his follow up post was great and further elaborates and expands on his rationale for posting. All in all a lot of great depth and insight all around. I’m glad Chris is thinking. We can all learn and grow, but I don’t think the questions he asked were out of bounds, at least not because he’s only been in the pr world for 2 years.

And this finally leads to the blatant truth about the ‘Net since the days before portals: Controversy drives traffic and links and traffic and links are the currency of the web. Chris was rewarded quite handsomely for his risk in the end.

But that’s just my opinion of course - you can always find a different one in Google. :)

[photo credit: chaztoo via Flickr]

Driving around Windsor last weekend was pretty depressing. Empty new car plants; too many fast food and big box shops to fill in the employment gaps; basically it reminded me of Flint, MI in “Roger and Me” but on a less intense level.

The ‘Big 3′ of olden years are in a seemingly rapid, massive and unstoppable decline. GM, Ford and Chrysler continue to layoff and shut down production. Toyota is now the #2 automaker in the United States, with Honda close on the heels of #4 Chrysler. The original big 3 spent hundreds of millions of dollars building new plants that now sit empty in Windsor, ON. The city will not get back to the good old days of auto-town Canada unless the American auto-makers experience a renaissance, which is an uphill battle against Toyota, Nissan, and Honda.

What got me thinking were a few stories in the local paper as well as discussions with Kevin’s dad, who will be retiring after 38 years at Ford this winter, about the nature of the plants that dot the landscape and the skills of the workforce in Essex County. The front page of The Windsor Star on Sept 8th had two complimentary headlines: Windmill Energy projects and the new Dr. David Suzuki public school. Now, I’m not an urban planner, an environmental or industrial engineer, nor do I have any pull with anyone who is, but it seems to me that Windsor would be the perfect city to become the recycling capital of North America.

The city is ideally positioned at the centre of the North American transportation grid - the shipping & trucking lanes could carry recycling from NY, OH, MI, IL, Toronto, Ottawa, etc. to Windsor for processing. The currently empty auto plants could be converted to recycling plants; the land is unusable for anything but industry due to the contamination of the soil. The presses and foundry’s could remain in use with modifications for recycling steel, aluminum, etc. This type of project would dovetail well with the manufacturing that remains in Windsor, including the stamping and fabricating plants. The people of Essex County have spent their lives perfecting their trades and have immense pride in their work - it’s a shame the city is being hollowed out as industry changes when new technologies could flourish.

From a marketing perspective, being green is not a fleeting fad, it is becoming the norm. Why not take the changes in the sphere of public opinion and run with them; create a greener society and revive an economy at the same time?

[photo credit: Whatknot via Flickr]