Category: Smart Bloggers

A company blog is not like a "normal" corporate website. It is not a place for the standard collateral, links and information. It is not a repository for forms. It is a living, breathing method for capturing the ebb and flow of company-customer dialogue. It shows your company for the best (and worst) it can be …

And despite a pronounced and continuing growth in what is called the "blogosphere", the art of blogging is still a very inexact science. What makes a blog work? What creates more problems than it solves? And what is the difference between a personal and a professional blog?

Now, for all those corporate bloggers out there, there is help at hand. Mack Collier has announced that he is now available for blog consulting services. This is a great opportunity to get frank, insightful and practical information on how to improve your blog from one of the social marketing masters. Mack’s new services can be done remotely or in person. It is up to you.
Absolutely invaluable 😉

Marcus Brown is doing it again. The ongoing marketing/self/artistic experiment that is It Could Get Worse has taken yet another turn.

If you feel up to following the exploration of identity that Marcus is about to unleash, start here. But be warned … you may find the looking glass looking back at you.

One of my favourite things is finding a comment that is much more interesting than the original post. This great response from Charles Frith to my article on engagement even came with a video! Charles extends the idea of "engagement", suggesting lust, promiscuity, etc … I love the idea of brand lust, brand infidelity, brand obsession — or even brand stalking. And I particularly like the ad promoting the "slag of all snacks" (as Charles explains, "A slag is English vernacular for a woman of ill repute. Professional or not"). 

Oh, and now I think of it, I will have to return to that idea of "brand stalking". Could be something in it.

So it seems that Crayon are consolidating their stranglehold on the world’s best digital talent with yesterday’s announcement that Greg Verdino AND Scott Monty will be joining the Crayon team as Chief Strategy Officer and Relationship Director respectively.

I am looking forward to seeing whether this new marketing experiment transforms into a digital steamroller and how much alternative agency thinking become standard practice for the Crayonistas. Makes for compelling viewing.

Good luck Greg and Scott!

With all the storm related Internet problems hitting the east coast of Australia over the last week or two I have been feeling a little out of touch. So in a brief respite, I finally I got a chance to catch up with the provocative Marcus Brown and his blog. He points out a spirited conversation happening over at Rob Campbell’s blog on the need for agencies to reinvigorate their approach to ideas, ideation and briefing.

Rob’s initial post was about the importance of ideas and being committed to the ongoing nurturing of ideas over a long period of time — and how eventually that will lead to opportunity. The evidence for this is in Rob receiving an extraordinary brief — "From the ground up, create a motorbike [for country ‘X’] that will create mass consumer demand”. (Now that sounds like a GREAT project.)

But the commentary on this post took a dramatic turn, becoming a call for an Emergency Summit on actually putting new ideas into practice. As Marcus says:

It’s not about bravery, it’s about being able to do it. Literally being able to DO it and not hanging around in your six-sigma swim lane flow chart waiting for the “YES-NO” loop to finally get around to you.

The main theme that seems to be emerging is that there is too much talk, too much procrastination and not enough focus on using strategy as a driving force for change. So will there be a summit? Of course, I can’t wait to see this desire to manifest as an ACTUAL event … and will be checking Rob’s blog for news all this week.

When Drew and I first started thinking about bringing a few folks together to start talking about the Age of Conversation, we didn’t really know where it might take us. But in the spirit of conversation, we thought that there might just be a host of others out there willing to join in. Sure enough, as the collaborative energy started to build, Steve Woodruff took on the challenge and brought a dozen of us together to launch a new and ongoing collaboration — BrandingWire. The "dazzling dozen" will group together to bring our individual (and shared) perspectives to a range of branding challenges each and every month, with our first post next Monday.

So who is this dazzling dozen … and what do we look like? Our individual sites are listed below, and you can, of course, visit the BrandingWire.com site for more information about this exciting initiative. You will hear more next week, but in the meantime, take a look around some of these sites and stay tuned for what is bound to be an exciting addition to the global brand and marketing conversation.

Olivier Blanchard
Becky Carroll
Derrick Daye
Kevin Dugan
Lewis Green
Ann Handley
Gavin Heaton
Martin Jelsema
Valeria Maltoni
Drew McLellan
Patrick Schaber
Steve Woodruff

One of the things that I really do enjoy about social media is the chance to actually meet up with others. After the email, comment and blog post exchanges, you can find yourself becoming rather good friends with people who you have never met face-to-face … but this all pales into insignificance when the opportunity for a REAL meeting presents itself.

With this in mind, CK has asked the BIG question — when shall we all meet? She even has a survey. The initial thinking is around February in 2008 … but join the survey and let us know what you think.

Hmmmm … better start putting those Google Ads on the sidebar again (those 8c per month are going to help get me there!)

I love the idea of being interviewed, but I must admit that when Philippe’s questions arrived I was a little worried. Perhaps I would not come across as clever, witty or insightful as I would like. Maybe I would be seen for the fraud that I am!

Or worse, perhaps Philippe will get more than he bargained for and I will arrive at the interview dressed inappropriately.

Anyway, warts and all … the interview is now available on Philippe’s site. Enjoy.

I love a good discussion about marketers and agencies and the way they interact with the great mass of people who consume their work, and there have been a couple of really good posts recently. First up, there is this neat post from my buddy Cam Beck which looks at the concept of "targeted reach" as a form of deep engagement (see the visual and you will see what I mean).

Mark, on the other hand, has a great post about the way that ethics play out in the decision making process. He nicely shows how our personal ethics connect to an emotional brand linkage. So what does this mean for marketers, planners and agency types?

It means [we] will have to start being better at understanding human beings – not just communications.

It is one thing to have ethics and quite another thing to activate these. What I guess we are looking for is a form of ethicette … where there is a closer correlation between our brand/life ideas and the ways in which we put these into practice in our personal and professional lives. Now THAT sounds like a work-life balance with real challenges!