eCommunications for global organisations

…still, it seems to be quite an organic growth with no pre-defined output…

A new discovery during the birthday celebrations of our colleague Nico:

I just picked up this recent post from Helen Dunnett (disclaimer: she is a client of ZN and we think she is great) on some feedback she received from various audiences in political communication when approaching the internet as a core communication tool.  Over the past year she has been sharing her experience and enthusiam about the web and it’s power to transform communication with her rapidly growing network. 

Her comments will be very useful for those trying to find the best way to explore the web as a core strategic tool in getting the right message out to the right audience.  We have, in the course of our many meetings with a number of players in the Brussels political scene been confronted by many similar questions so it is great to see them put from a client perspective, from someone who has been able to make the case for this and seen the benefits for her own organisation follow.

After reading the objections she has faced my suggestions to the bold communicators interested in taking this further are the following:

1) Everyone now accepts that the internet is an important and powerful tool in shaping perception on critical issues.  The key problem is they don’t know how to act on this knowledge.

2) A personal and direct exposures to the tools and the social networks that are driving this change is key to enable communicators to form the correct strategy.  So like or not, you need to sign up to a number of online networks (linkedin.com - which most people do passively, facebook.com, and others that you find interesting) and actively use the tools (by posting on forums in linkedin for instance). 

3) The right tools for you and your organisaton keep on evolving so it is best to do some background reading of ebooks and follow some blogs (Helen’s own called learning curve or the one written by my colleague Steffen could be a good starting point). 

4) Meet regularly with people (agencies, consultants, colleagues) so you can learn about what works and gain insights from other people who have faced similar situations than you.

5) Get started.  Take some small, below the radar, steps with some online initiatives to get comfortable with the territory.  Start a blog, take it personally and see for yourself how it can help to get your message accross.

6) Get help.  Once you have decided to move forward in this space, surround yourself with a strong team with the right advice and experience as well as technology, create a plan and sell this to your management.  Then go forward and start learning.

The McKinsey Quartely (a publication of the consulting firm) has just published a new report entitled Six ways to make Web 2.0‘.

They had previously written another article on the topic which we covered in this blog.  I always find these articles particularly useful, not because they uncover some hidden truth, but because they provide powerful arguments to convince senior management that ‘it is ok’ to go down a more adventurous route because McKinsey is saying so (and so are other big companies they are quoting).

The name of the article is a bit confusing as less and less people feel brave enough to use the word ‘Web 2.0′ as it has been so overused it has stopped meaning a great deal.  Social media seems to be the new term in vogue.  However it is better to say what it actually means, which is a collection of minor web tools such as blogs, wikis, rss feeds and numerous other ones that can be integrated into a campaign and are generally associated with online communities.

Other than that, the key learnings from the article (the so-called ‘Six ways’ to make Web 2.0 work) are the following:

1) Transformation to a bottom-up culture needs help from the top.  In a nutshell don’t count of these projects to happen exclusively through grassroot movements.  Agreed and reasonably obvious to anyone who has been involved in such projects.

2) The best uses come from users - but they require help to scale.  The idea of creating a communication or development approach that will evolve with user input is very correct and leads to the ‘permanent beta’ approach in which a project is never finished but is constantly evolving feeding on user input.

3) What’s in the workflow is what gets used. The point made here is that the tools need to fit ‘easily’ within the existing workflow of the users or add value to an existing one.  

4) Appeal to the participants’ egos and needs - not just their wallets.  I would stress needs and desires first, as it is often the simple desire to communicate and learn about each other that make these initiatives work and very rarely some sort of cash incentive (which can help with short term marketing campaigns but never achieves real community building).

5) The right solution comes from the right participants.  Again it links to the importance of ‘user adoption’ - people need to find a relevant use for the technology being introduced.  But then again, we hope that management or whoever introduced the technology, has put some thoughts into the purpose of the new technology before it started the roll-out and isn’t trying to find out what needs might be answered by the technology after the technology has been chosen.

6) Balance the top-down and self-management of risk.  In this point they raise the issue of legal and HR fears created in large companies by these initiatives.  It is a big obstacle but it is large a conceptual one as in practice very few companies find problems they cannot deal with using common sense (don’t post confidential stuff and don’t insult people).

So no great break-through insights but a useful summary of some critical thoughts that need to go into this kind of project.  I would however urge leaders to think about web 2.0 and web 1.0 as part of the same whole and not to think of them as distinct.  Web 2.0 is simply an evolution of web technology and shows how certain tools can be taking further and gain more ‘user engagement’ through innovative use of different channels and tools - but it is part of one strategy, and should be driven by a clear and integrated business strategy.

We have a ’strategic’ plan: It’s called doing things.

 ”Imagine if you will, begins the newscaster, sitting down to your morning coffee, turning on your home computer to read the morning’s newspaper. Well it is not as far fetched as it may seem”.  In this great clip from 1981 you are briefly transported back in time to see how the future of journalism was perceived.

Watching this clip, which I found on Conversationblog,  is a way to remind ourselves how far the ‘information revolution’ has changed our media consumption habits.  I was actually sitting at my computer with my morning coffee as I watched this, feeling that reality has taken us much further than the 1981 reporters had imagined.The end of the report makes the whole concept sound far too expensive and declared the future of printed papers safe.  Would they still feel this way now?

I picked up an interesting discussion on linkedin about free PR tools that could be used online.  I wanted to share them on this post so that you could use them or test them for your next campaign (I know I will).

Follow the link to this site (avangate) and you will find a list of 50 sites where you can submit your press release for free.  Someone also recommended three other sources on the forum:

http://www.article99.com/

http://www.1888articles.com/

http://www.free-press-release.com/

They also mentioned to be careful because submitted to some of these services could generate some spam emailing to your inbox, so perhaps it is worth doing an test with an alternative mailbox.

Keep me posted if you have any comments or insights on this - will report back when we have tried them out.

I am an avid student of internet communication and have a deep fascination for youtube and the way videos spread around the world at an incredible speed.  Marketers of all ages are trying to understand how to this phenomenon can be harnessed to connect with their customers.

But when you dive deep into youtube and start seeing some of the leading videos there you sometimes have to wonder…

In the pursuit of this study and with the support of my 9 year old son and 5 year old daughter I was looking at some videos of dancing animals, and I have to admit that I struggle to understand why the simple combination of fast paced music and a dancing animal seems to attract such fascination (and record breaking views) from youtubers.

But what really makes you wonder is the leading video of the dancing hamster, called ‘Hamster Dance’ and uploaded on youtube on the 4th of Feb 2007 by liverpool1243. 

This video has attraced 12 761 495 views.

I am both humbled and awed by this mysterious occurence.   And look at the content.  Surely this isn’t a work of art…  But somehow, over 12 million people thought it was worth spending one minute of their time on it.

The video has 13 000 ratings averaging ‘awesome’ as well as over 6000 comments.  Now search for the combination ‘dancing hamster’ and you will get over 8000 videos so our hamster is not alone.

This reminds us all that we are only at the beginning of a long  journey to understand what drives the interest of our the eyeballs in our internet age .  Clearly it cannot be explained by slick production, a strong storyboard and a compelling message.  But hey it also doesn’t include anything shocking or concerning sex.  Ok I admit that it’s funny… But not as funny (in my view) as the dancing hippo who I feel is more deserving of his almost 800 000 views.

So what is the secret behind the ’Hamster Dance’ ?

Next time you are discussing how to create a viral campaign with your client, think about the Hamster and stay humble.

I’ve heard of twitter for quite some time now, and towards the end of last year, twitter seemed to be in all the ‘big things for 2009′ predictions. Although I liked the idea of the ability to communicate instantly to a group of ‘followers’, it seemed to me no more than a status update similar to the one you could use (and that I enjoy a great deal) on facebook. So I couldn’t understand what the fuss was about.

Then I came across this blogpost in mashable.com on whether European companies should or actually do twitter. I thought the question was a good way to start exploring the subject. I then posted the question on a forum on linkedin.com (something I am finding increasingly interesting) and got a number of comments (I think you might need to be a group member to follow the discussion) on the subject, as well as very interesting information.

The long and short of it is that it is a subject of great interest, and an increasing number of individuals and companies are starting to use twitter. What makes it so interesting is, like most things that make it big online, that it is simple. In fact, to a certain degree, it is a simple form of blog, or sometimes called ‘microblog’, and it enables you to update people on your thoughts and movements in less than 140 caracters.  The FT.com wrote a story about it (registration needed) called “ Twitter uses 140 characters to change the world”, which gives you a good idea of where they are heading.

There is also an article in the BBC online entitled “Why celebrities love Twittering “ which is pointing to a new phenomenon. Stars and celebrities are starting to use twitter, it gives you a real feel of ‘intimacy’ as you can track there movements. Some of the ones mentioned in the article include Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross

Steffen (occasional contributor to this blog and team member of ZN) also wrote about this only few days ago discussing why he thought twitter was worthwhile. 

Clearly a topic worth following. In the meantime, you can check me out on twitter (http://twitter.com/pweiss) although I make no promise of being interesting or relevant (that will come later).