CK's Blog

Access to Supply Powers Demand--and First Sci-Fi Podcast Novel. (Q&A with Scott Sigler)

In this segment I'm speaking with Scott Sigler, the Sci-Fi writer behind the first ever "podcast novel", a Sci-Fi adventure titled EarthCore (the cover, featuring a bloody dagger, is down there on the right). Writing monster stories since the third grade, Sigler has created many novels, short stories and screenplays. But the real story happened when Scott's passion intersected with podcasting.

Sigler had a print deal with Time Warner in 2001, in which EarthCore, his first of three Sci-Fi books, was supposed to be in every bookstore in the country by 2002. But after 9/11 and an unrelenting recession, Time Warner scrapped everything that wasn't profitable--including the imprint that was going to publish EarthCore.

"We couldn't get another deal for the book", explains Sigler, "so it was sitting there when I discovered podcasting in March 2005." Releasing the book via 20 podcasts from March through September--and always leaving audiences on a cliffhanger--EarthCore claimed 25,000 downloads. With proof of demand in hand, Dragon Moon Press printed EarthCore in November 2005. (2,000 copies have sold thus far.)

Listen up marketers, this is the stuff revolutions are made of: because Scott had access to supply--once only afforded to large publishing houses--he was able to amass an audience and create an entirely new category spanning fiction, publishing, entertainment and yes, podcasting.

Scott advises, "The name of the game is exposure. You get your content out there and let the marketplace decide if it's good or not." Whether you market monster stories, manufactured goods, Sci-Fi or Wi-Fi, letting the market be your judge is mighty good advice. More great advice in the Q&A:

Pushing More Standards, Fewer Regrets (Q&A with Regret The Error)

This segment brings me to Craig Silverman of Regret The Error, a blog monitoring media corrections, retractions and clarifications. Primarily monitoring newspapers and magazines, Silverman reviews up to 125 media outlets for errors, posting between three to fifteen items--er, uh,"regrets"--daily.

Be it Reuters recalling beef panties (instead of beef patties), a local newspaper mislabeling two men as mobsters (two days in a row, no less) or a Fox News pundit identifying a home belonging to terrorists (the terrorists live there three years ago, now the current owners are being terrorized), Regret the Error sees no error as too small.

More change agent than media watchdog, Silverman explains his blog's inspiration, "I felt there needed to be someone raising this issue. It's not about shaming or punishing the press; it's about cataloging and quantifying the problems and having the discussion about how things can get better. My interest is in making the press better, not tearing it down."

Minding the media proves popular: the site clocks 1,500 daily readers and 50,000 monthly page views from media, communications and marketing professionals as well as general consumers.

As marketers a great deal of our daily routines involve clear, correct communications, but our greatest role is facilitating trust among our constituencies. This blogger teaches us how getting our facts straight--and upholding high standards--not only applies to the media, but our own missions. Here's the Q&A:

Greater 'Share' Empowers C2C Markets--and possibly, The New Capitalism. (Q&A with GoodStorm)

In this segment I'm speaking with Andrew Hoppin, director of business development for GoodStorm, a progressive e-commerce company launched in January to dramatically increase profit margins...for the little guy. Listen up marketers: a lot of little guys are making for one BIG market.

Since the dot-bust a raft of regulations have been pushing transparency, accountability and social responsibility. But what hasn't been addressed is the core issue with the economic model itself (read: too many people on the low-end of the profit scale).

Enter GoodStorm's fair-economics model, coined "Capitalism Done Right", emphasizing more share in profit-sharing programs. According to Hoppin, "We've explicitly built our business model such that we only do well when we're also doing a lot of good for other people. That's what we call 'Capitalism Done Right'."

So what does more sharing really equate to? A lot. Take MarketSpace, the company's service for setting up online stores. It's much like Cafe Press except sellers receive much more profit--up to 70% of profit on every sale, instead of only 20% to 30%. Or MeCommerce, the company's innovative product-serving technology for selling items like CDs and DVDs; it's akin to other affiliate programs except sellers receive 50% of profits from each purchase instead of just 4% - 8.5%.

A veteran to both the blogging and political communities, Hoppin managed the "Clark for President" campaign's voter data and open-source software volunteer program and directed business strategy for CivicSpace, the online advocacy software platform borne out of Howard Dean's Presidential campaign. Remarking on the intersection of politics and business, Andrew explains, "The foundation of authentic caring and hubris to believe we can change things for the better maps extremely well to a C2C business world."

Andrew illuminates how fair-economic models empower C2C markets--and how sharing the wealth makes for mighty good marketing practices. Here's the Q&A (and a link to a special podcast):

No Wizard Needed: These tin men's blog is all heart. (Q&A with Tinbashers)

In this segment we're going across the pond to East Lancashire England--about forty minutes from Manchester--and speaking with Paul Woodhouse, the blogger behind Tinbasher. Launched in May 2004, the tinbasher blog supports Butler Sheetmetal Ltd, a family-run sheet metal shop and its sister company, Tinpot Alley, which specializes in steel planters and other custom metal work.

Tinbasher covers sheet metal, stainless steel and manufacturing, pretty much what one would expect from the site's name. But thoroughly unexpected is the way it delivers information. Through a balanced dose of pictures, humor, current events and employee tales, the blog oozes personality and pride.

And the pride is paying off--2005 revenues were up 60%, business is set to more than double in 2006, with the company attributing nearly 90% of new business to the company's blog and websites. What's more, Tinbasher claimed the 2005 "Inside Blogging" Award and clocked 158,000 page views in June.

What's the secret? What shrewd strategy are these tin men exacting that we MBAs can't plot on charts or uncover through a battery of focus groups? The answer is so simple it will surprise you; according to Woodhouse, "I try to convey what we'd be like if you actually came 'round to the workshop for a brew. It's informal and colloquial." At first blush, Paul admits employees were suspect (they called it a "blob"), but now embrace it as part of the Butler family. In fact, they are all too happy to spew tales of what happened during any given week...with the proviso that it would make for good blog material.

Referring to himself as "some average Joe Soap with a computer," more marketers would do well to take a page from Paul's book and focus less on sales, more on sincerity--perhaps the blogosphere's true killer app. Here's the Q&A:

Blogging from Baghdad (Q&A with Sergeant Joshua Salmons)

This week I'm veering from my marketing beat. I'll get back on track next week but, being that it's July, the month we celebrate democracy's birthday, I started thinking about where we go--and where we don't--for information on the war. Military bloggers give us first-hand, first-person accounts, yet most of us look only to CNN, Fox and MSNBC. Perhaps it's because we're concerned the government is censoring military blogs. Or perhaps we assume citizen media only pertains to "civilian" media. But in this direct line that is the blogosphere, why aren't more of us going straight to the source?

So going straight to the source is what we're doing in this segment, thanks to Sergeant Joshua Salmons, the military blogger behind Talking Salmons, stationed at Camp Taji, Iraq, a few miles north of Baghdad. Josh launched his blog last year, shortly before leaving to serve his first tour of duty in Iraq. Due to time zones and the war we needed to hold the entire interview via e-mail, but we started our discussion on July 4th. I hope it made him feel closer to home that day, it was certainly the highlight of my Independence Day.

Joshua's job as Public Affairs Non-Commissioned Officer (military speak for "journalist") is to cover the soldiers of the logistical unit to which he's assigned, mainly through writing stories and taking pictures of tasks that include: providing supplies, unloading cargo and delivering food, water, ammunition and repair parts. The Sergeant explains, "While it may not seem so much on the front lines as, say, someone storming the beaches in 'Saving Private Ryan', in this conflict there are no set front lines. Convoys are hit, patrols are hit, everything is hit as the bad guys get opportunity. We all have to be on guard."

His job entails "telling the Army's story", but the views he expresses on his blog belong only to him. Here's the Q&A: (and yes, this interview was approved by the military.)

Strategy, markets and mushy middles (Q&A with Al and Laura Ries)

In this segment I'm speaking with Al and Laura Ries, the father-daughter marketing team whose thought leadership has counseled--or perhaps the apt word is "focused"--many companies in the Fortune 500. After scores of bestsellers (Al has written or co-authored eleven books, Laura has co-authored four), one could assume their best material is behind them. Not a chance. Tireless in their pursuit to make us all better marketers, there's fresh thinking below (a special takeaway, too). Here's the Q&A:

In your latest book, The Origin of Brands, you advocate the more proactive method of creating markets vs. the traditional practice of serving them. Why is this a crucial change in mindset for today's marketers? It's the difference between being a follower and a leader. When you serve a market that already exists, you are automatically a follower because some other company created that market. When you create a new market, you are automatically the leader. (Intel in microprocessors. Red Bull in energy drinks. Starbucks in high-end coffee shops.) It's an enormous advantage to start off as the leader because it is very difficult for someone else to take your leadership away from you. When you start off as a follower, it is extremely difficult to ever become the leader.

Video as Quality Play, not Popularity Contest (Q&A with VideoSift)

In this segment I'm speaking with James Roe of VideoSift, a new video-sharing site that provides a democratic new take on the space. Positioned as a "community-driven video clearinghouse", VideoSift users submit and rate videos from sites like YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo! and iFilm, with the top-rated videos "sifted" to the site's front page. So "best in show" is driven by opinions (quality) not page views (quantity).

According to Roe, "The number of views a video receives is not a strong indicator of quality, although it is a relatively decent indicator of popularity. Lots of the most popular videos on all of the video-hosting sites derive their popularity from factors that are not necessarily quality, such as scantily clad people, hate in the form of racism or general intolerance, or just plain frivolity...lip-synching videos come to mind in particular here."

It makes sense when you compare it to video across other media platforms--take American Idol: while the zaniest, least-gifted singers (William Hung, anyone?) may raise a lot of chatter and spawn countless parodies, they've never been voted Idol.

Just launched in February, the site is already ranked 591 out of 46.1 million sites tracked by Technorati and has clocked 4.3 million page views. But what drew me to VideoSift was not their ranking methodology so much as their rules: with the exception of special monthly promotions, all videos are submitted by third-party viewers, not the authors.

Why do they only allow third-party submissions? "Because we think that anyone promoting their own video is less likely to see it objectively and it helps to limit the abuse of our site by advertising agencies and self promoters". So by providing an agenda-free safe haven, VideoSift's value proposition becomes stronger as marketing abuses exacerbate. There's a BIG lesson there folks, many more in the following Q&A:

Listen up B2B Marketers: lessons on talking, listening, letting go. (Marketer Q&A with Paul Gillin)

In this segment I'm interviewing veteran tech journalist Paul Gillin. While Paul has been a journalist for more than 20 years, serving as founding editor of Tech Target and editor-in-chief of Computerworld, his columns in BtoB magazine are what hooked me since he covers a range of social media topics specifically targeted to BtoB marketers.

Paul's particular interest is in conversation-based marketing and how businesses, customers and prospects tap social media to engage in an open and constructive dialog as a way to build lasting relationships (so we should be listening to him). Through many great examples, he explains how social-media tools reap new rewards--but require new techniques from marketers. Here's the Q&A:

Yo Marketers: Hack This! (Blogger Q&A with HackingNetflix.com)

In the debut segment of my new interview series I'm hacking marketing practices from HackingNetflix.com, a blog covering Netflix and the DVD-by-mail industry. The site, run by Mike Kaltschnee, examines competition, tech, law, marketing, operations and customer support. It's bolstered by an active community--traffic reaches up to 300,000 page views monthly, with a daily readership of 3,000-7,000 readers.

A self-proclaimed movie fanatic, Mike found the operational aspects of Netflix to be more interesting than the movies they sent him each month. While the name can sound like a sting operation, HackingNetflix will not teach you how to lie, cheat or steal from Netflix. "Cracking is breaking into computers and hacking has gotten a bad rap", notes the blogger who is devoted to learning as much about the company and sharing it with others.

This hacker teaches marketers how to treat bloggers so they champion our message, how blogging lends companies a "human" voice and what corporate America is missing out on by not participating in the blogosphere. Here's the Q&A: