Pardon me folks, but my little blog has been having BIG problems with its feed. There was no warning, something just broke a few months ago. And then it kept breaking.
Sometimes it would work and then, many times it wouldn't. Lots of times it would repeat a post and I can imagine that was very annoying for those who subscribe to my blog's feed (it was certainly annoying me).
I've tried many fixes, talked a lot of tech talk, met many customer service people and, hopefully, the problem is now long gone.
But in order to make sure my blog's problems are behind me I need to publish this post and monitor that it makes it to the feed readers... but doesn't duplicate itself several times over... and that it actually stays on the readers.
Thanks for taking part in this test, and for sticking with me. Regular marketing posts will resume again soon. (hopefully!)
P.S.: For those who subscribe to my blog via email, I thank you. But I also had to temporarily shut-off that feature weeks ago. Because something was so screwy that it would email subscribers the same post three days in a row--which, in turn, meant that I was SPAMming you. Yikes! Email service will resume again one day, too. Ain't technology grand?
I'm so pleased to share this collaboration with you, and I'm truly honored to have played a small part within it. While it's an eBook in format, I find it to be more of a roadmap in its purpose.
Valeria Maltoni--the mastermind behind this effort--approached a group of marketers at the close of 2008 with a concept. Or, perhaps I should say she came to us with an intent.
Valeria was centered on creating a piece that focuses on "execution imperatives" since the Internets are already packed with marketing predictions.
She wanted direction, not prediction. After all, that's what marketers need... especially given these challenging times and new technologies.
According to Valeria, "I have long believed that dialogue is the art of thinking together
- talk changes our lives, it allows us to learn by listening. Customers
and communities are changing the nature of marketing and communications
through talk, but also through actions. If you're like me, you think
that social media = tools and marketing =
business.
Since we are in our own right working on changing
not just the tactics for the channels but the nature itself of
marketing (as currently done), I asked twelve great marketers from my
network to share their thoughts on what we'll be working on in 2009."
While I contributed an article, I am but one voice of thirteen. And while we're all expressing our takes on marketing with new media in the new here and now, what I'm finding as I'm reading through the piece is how practical it is. It's not a set of pontifications from on high but rather a slew of actionable issues and items to address right now, and going forward.
I now want to take a few lines and extend my gratitude to Valeria; because she deserves mighty praise. It's obvious that she burned some serious midnight oil in placing so much care into not only a thoughtful product, but a beautifully packaged one. Which is only fitting since Valeria has such equal attributes of substance and style. Thank you, Valeria.
All that said, I hope you receive value from the ideas and opinions expressed in the book. And I hope your colleagues, clients and companies can also benefit from the knowledge. But my biggest hope is that it helps you to focus. Because while it's a tough economic climate with chaos in spades, disruption and change is our game, folks. So let's get to work as there's much to be done.
The greatest thinkers throughout history didn't offer the same ideas. Nope. They offered different viewpoints.
Just ask Columbus or Galileo.
Well, you can't ask them; they've long passed on. But one thought "round world" when others were 110% certain that it was square. And the other concluded that the earth revolves around the sun instead of vice/versa.
We earthlings didn't like being told that we weren't the center of the universe, so instead of being sent on a voyage to fall off the edge of the earth... Galileo was sent to his room (for a very long time).
And the voices that have started movements, led scientific breakthroughs and developed technological advancements were small at first. But they sure had big ideas that gathered momentum.
Gandhi fought for freedom not through mass weaponry, but through non-violence. Rosa Parks didn't follow unjust seating charts and inspired the civil rights movement. And JFK, with no assurance whatsoever, proclaimed we'd land on the moon within the decade--and we made it in the nick of time.
Instead of improving the "processing power" of individual PCs, Tim Berners-Lee thought of the "knowledge power" that could be generated from connecting all computers and gave us the language (code) to do so. Entire industries and professions have been produced as a result while old barriers and boundaries no longer apply.
Look at conventional wisdom, and how much has been rendered wholly unwise. Take the doctor who posited the unthinkable: that germs could be spread between patients by doctors who did not properly wash their hands. The other doctors? They laughed and mocked him. (Btw, he was right and, to this very day, millions of hospital infections still occur each year due to the very basic problem of poor hand hygiene.)
And how much innovation has been originated not from billion-dollar boardrooms but from garages (Apple, Microsoft, HP) and dorm rooms (Google)? Lots.
How about what Obama just did? Instead of concluding that the electoral map was unchangeable--he built an entire campaign around "change" and leveraged new technologies in his campaign, not just the same tactics as politicians before him. Whether you voted for him or not, the thinking and the strategy succeeded as in about 10 days he'll be our nation's 44th president.
Take brands. There's far more success to be had in divining new brand categories that companies can lead than competing in established ones where they're relegated to follower (yet still more follow than lead).
So why, when history proves us wrong--time and time and time yet again!--do we place more value (and more of our time) on BIG voices rather than small? Moreover, why, when people question popular opinion do we label them contrarian or cynical... instead of opening our minds to different views?
Here's one way that really helps me and I strongly recommend it to my fellow marketers: with the wealth of knowledge that is now shared through these tools and technologies, please don't just read the high-traffic blogs. Balance your time with voices at low-traffic blogs. Because they, too, have BIG ideas that will have you thinking in different ways.
And if history proves, it's more likely that the voices that may seem small or "fringe" will change the world, start new trends and better the profession.
In my blog's mantra, published back in '06, I advocated for listening to smaller voices, even to those who don't hold the title of marketer (my mantra is here, see point #2). And in the 3-minute video below--at about the 2:20 mark--I push for marketers to read and listen to blogs with smaller followings. If you cannot view the video, please click through to the blog--and there's an entire series of these videos, segmented by different discussion points, right here.
There are many blogs that have smaller followings on my blogroll on the left (at the bottom of the side bar) but I'd really appreciate it if you could point me to more in the comments. Because my strategy is to learn a lot of BIG thinking by reading a lot more small and listening to different viewpoints.
(I just hope, like Galileo, I don't get sent to my room for it.)
