business

The Dilemma’s Innovator: Innovation and Change as the New Pillars of Business

If necessity is the mother of invention, then perhaps imagination is the source of innovation.

In December 2010, I was given the opportunity to write the cover story for Entrepreneur Magazine. The article, “Change: Lessons on What’s Next,” explored the innovation behind three (well four) companies — Foursquare, Square + Twitter, and Zappos. Throughout the years, I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with Dennis Crowley, Jack Dorsey and Tony Hsieh. And over that time, I’ve observed inherent traits that I believe represent the future of business and how companies engage with customers to create a more adaptive and connected infrastructure to compete for the future.

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Everything you Need to Know about Twitter

If only Mark W. Schaefer and his excellent book, The Tao of Twitter, had been around when I first took up with Twitter a year and a half ago! I’d have saved a whole lot of time, frustration and energy and done a far better job on Twitter right from the get go!

A short and sweet, handy-dandy, how-to guide that’s chock full of friendly, easy to understand tips and advice, The Tao of Twitter is an absolute MUST read for anyone and everyone getting ready to dive into the social network’s rapidly flowing stream of news, information and salutations.

An internationally respected marketer, university prof and behavioral scientist, Mark Schaefer’s book humbly and humorously recounts his deep dive into the Twitter fire hose and how he lived to thrive and tell his story.

The Tao of Twitter focuses on business benefits derived from providing the Twitterverse with three key elements — targeted connections, meaningful content and authentic helpfulness. The book carefully explains how to meet and befriend like-minded tweeps; build and maintain a Twitter community through providing useful, authentic, meaningful news and information based on P2P – person to person connections; and the importance of human interaction that leads to valuable relationships, awareness and spread.

A joy to read and loaded with simple, actionable lessons on how to start, build and maintain a Twitter community, The Tao of Twitter should be required reading for PR and Social Media college students as well as shared with every CMO and Marketing VP you know! HIGHLY recommended!

Deborah Weinstein

@DebWeinstein

President, Strategic Objectives

The future of work

Since the start of the year, I’ve been heading up our Social Business Consultancy here at 1000heads, and I’ve been spending a lot of my time this month listening rather than talking; seeking ideas from a huge range of people on what a ’social business’ of the future really should look like and the challenges in implementing some of those changes now.

Our social consultancy clients include Mars, Heineken, Nokia, Cancer Research UK, Veria and LocateTV, so we well know that being social can mean something very different depending on what sort of company you are – the approach has to be bespoke.

However, I’m also a believer in starting with what the ideal social business might be and being bold in challenging businesses to question and evolve themselves as radically as possible.

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The Social Compass is the GPS for the Adaptive Business

Over the years, I’ve written extensively about the need to extend opportunities in social media beyond marketing and customer service to set the stage for the social business. I believe that the impact lies beyond the socialization of business; it introduces us to a genre of an adaptive business, an entity that can earn relevance now and over time by listening, engaging, and learning.

In October 2009, I worked with JESS3 to visualize corporate transparency and authenticity for the release of Engage.  In the process, I realized that those two words, transparent and authentic, didn’t carry tangible business value to leaders and decision makers.

Please, before you think about engaging in social media, I need you to do two things…be transparent and authentic in all you do.

Got it? Good.

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Social Media and the Power of Business Etiquette

With billions of Facebook posts, tweets, and YouTube uploads, there’s never been a more appropriate time to evaluate our social graces—in real life and in social media. The relaxed communication style of emails, texting, and the public timeline can present an illusion of relationship. After one tweet, we find ourselves sharing personal information with total strangers and risking a breach of business decorum.

Inextricably woven into the art of doing business is etiquette: a combination of common courtesies, mutual respect, and common sense. Learning how to build appropriate relationships in business is crucial to business success. By focusing on three core areas—actions, appearance, and words—we can gain a clearer understanding of the messages we send to colleagues, managers, and customers.

Make it easy for people to do business with you. We all want to work with smart, perceptive, well-mannered people. If your actions and personality get in the way of your clients’ receiving what they need from you, change. Are you hard to please? Critical? Unappreciative of colleagues or vendors? You’ll lose clients and employees with a history of these behaviors.

To discover how to attract and keep clients, find the best leaders and emulate them. Notice how they lead, how they conduct business, and how they treat their team. Interestingly, people’s personalities aren’t disguised on social media channels, they’re actually magnified. When one executive showed me his 3-page resume, I smiled and said, “We might not need traditional resumes from job seekers now, we’ll just Google them. We can learn immediately who they keep company with, how disciplined they are, and if they show respect to others.”

Common courtesies in business begin with punctuality, a firm handshake, and attentive listening—online and in person. Linda Kaplan Thaler and Robin Koval have captured valuable business lessons in their book The Power of Nice, How to Conquer the Business World with Kindness. They explain that “Nice makes more money. Nice is healthier. Nice spends less time in court.”

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Engaging the Business Elite with Mobile

A week or so ago, I wrote an article for www.B2Bbloggers.com called ‘Want to Engage Senior Executives? Think Mobile“. Since this post, I have been speaking with some of my customers about advancing this notion.

Here is what we have come up with:

•The problem with direct engagement of Business Elite is that it is only possible once –
•You have successfully engaged gate keepers and influencers; or
•You already have existing relationships with them, i.e existing customers.
•It must be integrated with strategic sales and account executives, in fact, these folks are the best at leading the charge to engage senior execs
•It must be integrated with other marketing tactics such as executive events-seminars-round tables, blogs/newsletters, and sales material.
•All mobile content must be targeted at senior executives, which means really being brutal in terms of brevity, message and alignment to customer need.

The big thing we all agreed to was that it all had to be strategically planned and integrated into a long term demand generation program starting at first contact with potential influencers to working in support of sales.

The approaches and tactics we use to develop and maintain customer relationships are converging as quickly as technology is converging, but it doesn’t seem to be on the radar for most B2B marketing organizations.

The approach requires us to build programs that are horizontal in nature engaging mobile, experiential, social channels as well as seamlessly integrating sales teams and specialists; and ensuring that it meets the requirements of their busy lifestyle in and out of the office.

I’d be interested to understand what you think of this and how your organization is currently engaging senior executives.

Cheers and thanks!

Jeff – Sensei

5 Standouts for a Business-Read Mashup

In our rapid-fire, digital generation, content comes to us—faster and from more sources than ever before. Regardless of its origin—Twitter, Google Reader, The Wall Street Journal, or your favorite blog—information is still king and great books are still treasures. Whether you’re a Gen Y in your first job, an On-Ramper who’s re-entering the workforce after raising children, or an executive in high gear, these five literary and corporate standouts will challenge your thinking and drive your differentiation.

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Why Facebook Should Quickly Improve Business Pages

Social media is radically changing the way we relate with our environment, at large. People, brands, companies all want to communicate with their ecosystems. Amongst social media platforms, Facebook is the heavyweight, whether for individuals, brands and companies.

Facebook has been initially developed for individuals and business pages were first intoduced in 2008. Now that brands and companies are flocking onto the social network, they must adapt the platform to their business needs if they want to remain relevant.

A recent article from Jeffrey Cohen detailing why Facebook is doing it wrong for B2B businesses makes me want to extend the thought and say that they are doing it wrong for all businesses.

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