CK's Blog

Left, right or center: Can we all agree how REMARKABLE this election truly is?

As we analyze the marketing merits of the candidates' speeches, strategies and platforms...and we tirelessly debate our left vs. right political views with friends, family and colleagues...I hope we all take a moment (or two) and reflect on how truly remarkable this election is.

Because it truly is a historic campaign season of firsts.

(And I fear we'd otherwise miss out on the BIGGEST marketing lesson of all)

Folks, no matter which way you're voting, and how much you may dislike "the other guy," it's remarkable to see what all is being forged on so very many fronts:

• A woman got closer to landing the presidential nomination than ever before.
• A past two-term president was campaigning for his wife to be president--and could have been back in the White House...as first "gentleman."
• A biracial man landed the Democratic presidential nomination (everyone refers to Obama as African-American but that's not correct since he is as white as he is black).
• What's more, the Democratic nominee--that no one had really heard of before the '04 DNC--just filled-up a stadium of 80,000 people for his acceptance speech. And had to turn people away.
• An American presidential candidate "went global" in presenting to and engaging a crowd that can't even vote for him, being they're not American (in having Obama go overseas to Berlin).
• Even on the floor of the DNC, delegates were still splitting their votes between two Democratic candidates.
• The oldest man to ever run for Commander-In-Chief is the GOP's nominee.
• What's more, the GOP has appointed its first female VP nominee (the Dems already had a female VP candidate in Ferraro but the GOP never has).
• On the day of the Democratic acceptance speech, the GOP candidate ran a broadcast TV ad congratulating his opponent on his accomplishments; whether you find this gracious or shrewd it was a first.
• The Democratic nominee text-messaged his VP pick to his supporters before broadcasting it at large to mass media.
• A talk-show host--and arguably the most powerful woman on TV--actively campaigned for a presidential candidate (Oprah didn't just show up at rallies, or wear a t-shirt supporting the cause, she gave speeches during the primaries).
• CNN held YouTube debates where nominees answered videotaped questions uploaded by everyday citizens.
• People whom have never met have been twittering with one another the whole way through.
• And I portend that the ratings for the upcoming VP debates (not just the presidential debates) will be the highest EVER of any VP debate.

Please let me know other firsts that I've missed. I'm sure there's more history being made than I'm recollecting...because there are so many firsts this go 'round. Speaking of remarkable, this 3-minute piece on Hillary's speech is truly apt (email and RSS subscribers, please click through to the blog to view).

Conventions '08: Come chat it up, marketers...

Today we're talking politics. Well, sorta. We're actually talking brands. After all, Brand Obama and Brand McCain are doing what we marketers do every day: battling it out to win your hearts, minds and votes.

To commemorate the occasion, I wrangled five of my colleagues—a balanced panel of liberals, moderates and conservatives—to join me in getting this much-needed marketing conversation started...and we're chattin' it up over at The Daily Fix.

Especially interesting is just how differently each of us experienced the speech and its efficacy. Brand Obama is up at bat NOW and Brand McCain is up next week.  Go here for the discussion!

A different kind of conference...come join us!

I'm so very much looking forward to participating in the SBMU Conference (Small Business Marketing Unleashed) this September 22nd - 23rd in Columbus, Ohio.

SBMU is a conference that's BIG on teaching actionable strategies and tactics but intentionally keeping the format to no more than 100 attendees. The size ensures that everyone gets a lot of attention, as well as attendees and speakers getting to know one another.

And I'll be getting to learn a lot while I'm there, too.

What will we be covering? A ton. Search Engine Guide's Editor-in-Chief Jennifer Laycock and crew have developed a two-day event brimming with sessions, workshops and clinics covering everything small businesses want to know about online marketing--and needn't be afraid to ask.

From site architecture to search advertising, building communities to blogging for business, site analytics to social media conversations, podcasting, videocasting, usability, creative networking events and more.

I'll be giving a presentation on "Big-Impact Branding" featuring strategies that will get the audience to look at the world through the lens of branding and running a "Connecting the Dots" workshop on online reputation management that teaches businesses what to monitor for and how to leverage feedback in this 2.0 world where everyone's talking...and many times, talking about your brand.

I'll close with a few links to more information here--and if you register before 8/29 (this Friday) they're featuring an early sign-up rate that's $225 less. We'd love to have you join us...

• To learn more: go here
• To see the agenda of sessions: go here
• To register: go here
• To see a video with many shots from last Spring's SBMU: please go here!

The story is not that social media enables us to connect to the world. The story is that, given access to one another, the world is now actively connecting (and swapping stories).

I say this because I'm not altogether confident that the real story is getting out there (and I'm a "message first, marketer second" kind of gal). So let's assess, ok?

I'm a BIG marketing book reader. And yet the book I've most raved about all year is not about "The rise in new marketing!" Nope. It's about the rise of new markets.

If given the choice, I'd be the geek over the cool kid any day. Because the geek is tackling global problems.

We no longer give a second thought to where the person we're having a conversation with is located. North Carolina, Nova Scotia, New Zealand, Buffalo, Belgium, Omaha or Oman, no matter. What matters is the value of the varied viewpoints that we're now able to access.

Blogger Social was special because so many of us--from so many different states and countries--went to the time, trouble, expense and travel to come together...after all, we come together through the tools of social media every darn day.

The Beijing Olympics will bring the Chinese much national pride (and well-deserved at that). But the true story is that of China working to win hearts and minds outside of China.

This morning I was asked my recommendation on speakers at an event that takes place halfway 'round the world from me in Dubai. My answer? While the event may be focused on the same subject matter...the speakers need to be from different continents.

In speaking with a prospect last week I explained that, ironically, it's an odd quarter when my clients are all NYC-based (they're usually scattered all over the U.S.). He asked why. I explained that NYC is my home, but far from my only market of interest, and that my real hope is for more projects outside of the country.

In seeking the mp3 for the beautiful Olympics theme song, it was a new pal from Singapore that helped me, because he too loved the song and its spirit--and because he was up when I posted at 2am my time (2pm his time). As a night owl, I'm so glad that timezones no longer confine my conversations.

Speaking of timezones--since the Olympics debuted, the biggest gripe I'm hearing is due to the Americans (NBC) limiting real-time viewing of the Olympics. Apparently they don't yet know the story either.

We often say that social media is about people, not technology. I echo the same sentiment. But the real story is different people from different places with different viewpoints and different experiences all craving the SAME thing: to be able to share their viewpoints so that they can learn new ways, understand new markets, meet new colleagues and have new experiences.

Because same old is just the same (and way old).

Sure, globalization has been going on for decades--but it's only in the last handful of years that the average person could access so many global viewpoints. And that's giving way to many new stories.

I feel lucky to be marketing through these groovy new media technologies. But I feel far more blessed to be living in a time where I have access to so much more of the world. Because this marketer has A LOT of learning ahead of her...and I'm not going to learn through more of the same.

Social media ain't the story. Smaller world is.

I find it funny that many think "BIG!" when they speak of global things. Because now, given access to more people from more places, it's actually that this big world is becoming smaller. At least it sure feels that way to me.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

PS: The "smaller world" story of the pic above of Arun (Oman) and me (NYC) is located here.

Yo, Beijing: please make it easier for us to love you, and easier for us to share the love.

Finally, I found the video of the tremendous Beijing '08 Olympics theme song "You and Me," sung in Chinese and English by Liu Huan and Sarah Brightman...'twas the song they sang atop that beautiful globe at the opening ceremonies.

Even more wonderful, Brightman and Huan sing in each others' languages at the song's end so it's truly worth watching the entire piece that features terrific people and images as well. (video below)

First, KUDOS on a great theme song. And now a few action points for our glorious Olympic Host...

Yo, Beijing: if you're going to spend $40 billion, you need to spend a few more. Give the song away as a free download. (remember, you're a marketer now). Thus, "share" and "free" are both key (this applies to all marketers in all lands these days, btw).

Especially during this mission-critical 14 days. And especially when you're promoting a moving song that speaks of the world being a family. We all need to live (and market) by our words be they spoken, sung or written.

I'm giving you a lotta love on this little blog, but I'm about over how tough you and NBC are making it for me to access and share content (I can't even find a way to buy this song). Here's how to remedy such things:

1. First, make the mp3 available at your official site--and make it much easier to find once there.
2. Concurrently, make it available at iTunes.
3. And make it a "free download" no matter where users grab it from.
4. Voila!
5. Oh, and for the remaining 90% of the U.S., make it available at WalMart (it would be a great, free bag-stuffer actually)

Net net: Let us love you by giving the world more reasons to love you (enter the games)--and then make it very, very easy for us to share and spread that love for you (enter technology).

Technology is friend, not foe...I know this is a tough one, but the Fortune 500 is grappling with it, too, and they're coming to the same conclusion. Folks, if anyone else found the mp3 available, please let me know as I searched in several places to no avail and just gave up.

Update: Thanks galore (!) to Ed Rowan Lee--who turned the video into a very clear audio file for me, you can now download the mp3 version right here (just "right click" and "save as"). I hope it's not asked to be removed, as that would not be in the Olympic Spirit. Again, just go here.

And here is the 4-minute video; email and RSS readers, just click through to view the beauty. This song and, basically, all things "world coming together" make me tear-up. Alas, in a wonderfully changing world, some things will never change ;-).

My other Olympics-inspired posts are here and here.

Oh China, you marketer you, keep stepping.

Friday night found me multi-tasking between media. I was transfixed to the television cooing and oohing at the Beijing Opening Ceremonies while live-blogging my commentary on Twitter.

Yes, in full disclosure, the "live" opening ceremonies were taped twelve hours prior so "live-blogging" is a a misnomer. But such is life in a free nation that is controlled only by the people...and billion-dollar broadcast advertisers who deem that primetime trumps real-time.

As for the event? BIG as in China-sized BIG props be going out to Beijing for their groundbreaking, tour-de-force, magnificent, majestic, whimsical-yet-precise, pull-out-all-the-stops-and-then-some opening ceremonies.

Overwhelmed am I.

I confess to having watched them twice at the time of publishing--and that may increase to three times by the time you, dear reader, read this.

It was a delight--and honestly a relief--to witness something so positive and so human after the months of seemingly endless negative news. My personal fave? The "firework footprints" that opened the ceremonies. Face it, anyone can think of fireworks at the stadium. But setting off 29 massive firework footprints every second? And having them start at the south part of the city and, literally, "walk" their way to the north so as to mark China's many steps from old city to new?

That's beyond genius. That's the master that mentored the genius (worry not if you missed them, a clip of the footage is below).

Indeed, 08.08.08 was historic. Not because it was the biggest, baddest display of an opening ceremony ever--and now the standard by which all future will be compared. But because it was the first time that so much of the world (4 billion tuned-in) had access to China.

Or maybe I should say it was the first time China was accessible to so much of the world.

Yes, folks, to the average earthling--and definitely the average American--this is the first time that China is really on our radar.

Sure, China was always on the map.

It was a BIG. Red. Dot. Oddly, the country felt static even though it was most associated with the dynamic color red. And ironically lifeless being it holds so much life, history and culture.

And obviously China has been in our homes.

How many "Made In China" labels are affixed to the goods in your home right now?

Of course it always influenced our diets.

Fact: there are more Chinese food restaurants in America then there are ALL branded US fast-food  restaurants combined.

And it's always in the news.

When China makes news, it sure makes headlines. Marching soldiers, tanks against defenseless students and peaceful monks (what kind of bully beats up on college kids and monks?), Internet surveillance teams, lots of recalls and lots more smog.

But now China is part of the world, because it feels more a part of the modern world (what we experience as "our world").

This is the first time that it's pulled at our hearts because Friday night it showed so much heart. Far better than sharing a great wall...it has shared its feelings. It's a good step; a smart, intentional step that has placed China in the role of marketer.

So keep stepping, China.

Size surely matters.

But the best marketer wins.

You already had the consumer base, the bucks, the business efficiency. And Friday you delivered the pageantry. Now that you have our attention and awe, diplomacy will be your best marketing strategy.

And your biggest challenge.

But oh the dividends it will pay, and the hearts and minds you'll hang onto. Plus, being you paid $40 billion to make us cheer, it makes a lot of sense to keep us rooting for you, no?

(If it's any consolation, we've had our share of messy revolutions and even a thousand year-old, way stuffy monarchy had to learn to modernize, too.)

The video below features the firework footprints. Due to filters in China as well as those in America (NBC), I continue to have to find new videos to post because they keep taking them down. This is a German broadcast and the fireworks begin approximately at the 2:07 mark of the 8-minute piece.  I hope it won't be removed--please click through to my blog to view.

Also, all photos featured here and many more extraordinary shots are from right here.

It's hard to love a machine

Seems I have the Olympic Blues.

Since as far back as I can remember, the Olympics were a magical event...and they were really the only "world event" I knew growing up in America (when you grow up in America, you're basically focused on America).

But the Olympics were different.

As my momma would tell me "The Olympics are so very special because once every four years the whole world comes together--in a different place in the world each time--and even though all those countries, cultures and people may be different, and may believe in different things, for a few weeks they are united by the same dream."

Yup, magical.

And my family and I would watch the newscasts of each host city fervently preparing their Olympic Plazas and grand plans. That torch always amazed me as I would incessantly ask, "Are you sure, I mean are you totally-100%-absolutely-positively sure that flame does NOT go out between games? Does someone sit and watch that flame all day and night? How are we sure that flame has never, ever gone out?"

(Bless my parents for putting up with me)

Then on opening night we would gasp and cry watching all those countries, all those flags and all those athletes walking into the games together. Because just as momma said, humanity was united, if even for a few weeks every few years.

But the Beijing Olympics aren't a dream. Read any of the reports and it's just a nightmare.

When we talk these Olympics, we don't talk the world coming together. We talk China. And the talks naturally give way to the cruelty in Tibet, the videos of pollution that, if anything, should make L.A. feel great about it's "light fog", the shutting down of factories so that the smog can clear (which just makes me wonder how many people will be losing wages) and the deep censorship imposed on journalists.

It doesn't feel like the games. Because the build-up doesn't reflect any of the humanity that make the games so moving.

It sure doesn't feel magical. It feels like a machine.

And it's hard to love a machine.

Seems there have been many wasted opportunities on the road to the Beijing Olympics--which is too bad since China has invested greatly for those opportunities. A terrific assessment of this from a PR perspective is right here (I highly encourage the read).

Alas I will hopefully be very happy once the games begin. But I sure miss that feeling of anticipation--and that feeling of humanity. No doubt I'll be watching. And yes, a little part of me will still be that kid wondering if that flame has ever gone out.

The one thing that has gotten it right are these terrific Visa commercials. Listen to the words, they're what the Olympics are really about. (RSS and email subscribers please click through to view)

I'd be Bill Gates over Steve Jobs any day

While I'm just amazed at what Apple has done--from a technology and a marketing standpoint--I think what amazes me more is how many people rave endlessly about how Steve Jobs has "changed the world!"

And yet they never reference what Bill Gates is doing to change many of the world's problems. It confounds me. (To be sure, they always reference how Bono is changing it.)

Indeed, indeed, Apple has produced marvels that push the limits of innovation and defined what is hip. And it has certainly changed many markets. Or I guess I should say that Apple has opened new markets. Respect galore and then some.

But when I think "change the world" I do not think of cool gadgets.

Sure, I think of how cool gadgets change the business landscape and how they change the way we communicate. But in changing the world--a term that is so abused these days we should just charge tax on it to raise the required funds--I think of making a difference to the world's core problems. You know, the problems that are so big and have been around so long that they just feel too big and too entrenched to do anything about.

Like hunger and diseases (many of which, like malaria, can be prevented with a couple bucks per person while a vaccine for measles costs fifteen cents). Things like giving kids an education.

Things like giving families clean drinking water.

Oddly, the biggest problems are the most basic. But even though they are basic, they need to be solved using some BIG bucks--and some new incentives. Yes, incentives. You know, the basis of that evil capitalism concept? Yep, that one. And that's going to take some creative problem-solving, and asking the right questions. The ones that Gates is asking in his current essay in Time Magazine:

"Creative capitalism isn't some big new economic theory. And it isn't a knock on capitalism itself. It is a way to answer a vital question: How can we most effectively spread the benefits of capitalism and the huge improvements in quality of life it can provide to people who have been left out?"

Naturally, if companies are going to get more involved, they need to earn some kind of return. This is the heart of creative capitalism. It's not just about doing more corporate philanthropy or asking companies to be more virtuous. It's about giving them a real incentive to apply their expertise in new ways, making it possible to earn a return while serving the people who have been left out. This can happen in two ways: companies can find these opportunities on their own, or governments and nonprofits can help create such opportunities where they presently don't exist."

To be sure, Gates is neither cool nor hip. But cool and hip won't change the world. Just ask Einstein, Galileo or Gandhi.

Yeah, I'd be Gates over Jobs any day (though I'd try and dress better ;-).

I've just begun reading the book that Gates cites in his essay for Time. It's titled "The Fortune At The Bottom Of The Pyramid" by C.K. Prahalad and it speaks to creative capitalism and how to eradicate poverty through profits. If you've read it, I'd love your take on it.

And I cannot urge you enough to read this book, too (though it's not about changing the world but about how the world around us has changed).

PS: Yes, that is Gates's famed mugshot from decades ago (I believe he was caught speeding). Hey, it was the hippest shot I could find of him.

No. For real. Why blog?

It's a question with much merit. And one I get asked a lot.

The thing is, blogging isn't for everybody. Yes, I just said that blogging isn't for everybody; just as I've said (and still say) that not every company must blog. What I believe is that every company should be listening. Because every company should have always been listening to their audiences (this is not 2.0, it's marketing 101).

And now they have a new-and-improved way of doing so. (Yippie)

Now, for some, writing and maintaining a blog is great for their business. For many others it's a terrific creative outlet or way to express themselves. And for others, it's a perfect way to analyze a particular subject or profession. Oh, and for others it's a way to do all of these things.

And then some.

So, "Why blog?" is a case-by-case, company-by-company and person-by-person answer if ever there was one. And there are no wrong answers.

Since I run a "business blog", in that I focus on marketing topics, I get asked this question by clients and prospects. While Web 2.0 may be old news to us, it's not to the majority...and it won't be for a long, long time. And while I'm pushing more companies to listen--and some to blog--I always want to be cognizant that there's a learning curve. Plus I do so cherish curiosity (psst: it many times leads to innovation).

Thus, one way that I can assist in the learning curve is to periodically re-run the collage I created in Fall 2006 where I asked the core question of: What is the single greatest point of value that you receive from blogging? (I asked it at this post). Because while many have seen it, many still have not.

It's a piece I share with my colleagues and clients a good deal, be it in presentations or through one-on-one conversations. And as I point out, there are two key things to understand about the piece. First, it was created from opinions across the marketing community--not just mine. And, second, the answers are very diverse. We may all be receiving value from this exchange, but the core value that we receive--spanning knowledge, connection, community, self-improvement and many, many more--differs for each person.

If you've not yet read it, take ten minutes and review the many answers; the first page of the collage gives short answers all on one page, and pages 2-5 give you the full comments. Perhaps it will help you, too, in explaining the myriad points of value from blogging to your curious clients and colleagues. And you might even find some new blogs in the process, as all answers are hyperlinked.

The piece is in PDF format here. And if you don't prefer downloading a PDF, a rich media version of the collage is right here. Enjoy ;-)