Perceptint Musings

I’ve written previously about how my current work with a client has grown and I was looking to diversify my interests to spread my risk out. Having those feelers to the ground, sniffing for moments of opportunity, is a great feeling. I would highly recommend it to anyone feeling caught up or lost in their current job.

And because I was out looking around, an opportunity has come along that’s really set my antenna twitching. I’ve been asked to run the domestic operations for an undisclosed startup that is in the early planning stages. This company would reunite me with some former colleagues I enjoy working with, as well as expose me to a whole new group of challenges and potetial rewards.

I wanted to let those of you who do stop by to read the blog know why you’ve seen even less of me. One post in a month was never my intention. As time progresses I’ll be able to share more details about the new company and what we’re doing. In the meantime I’m going to do my best to post something at least once a week, more frequently if I can.

But I’d like to know from any of you, do you find there were times where you had an opportunity that you knew you needed to take on? Or not take on? What came of it and did it pay off? I’d love to know if my experiences are similar to others. Thanks again for your patronage and I’ll see you soon.

So lately, I’ve fallen completely off the blog wagon. Partly due to being busy with other things and partly due to needing a little bit of a jump start.

I’m also trying to make sure that when I publish something to the blog I believe in it 100% and I think it has value to anyone who might read it. Like I said early on, I don’t just want it to be a “commenting on the daily news” type of blog so it’s been a few weeks since I’ve had anything I thought was valuable to write about.

Until today, when I have to express my sheer frustration with blog spam. In the past two and a half weeks off, I have received over 60 comments on several of my posts. These aren’t comments that have anything to do with the topic, they don’t contribute anything to the conversation, and they are really starting to annoy me to no end.

So far, I’ve gotten comments from people pushing porn, gambling and ringtones. I had no idea that ringtones ran with such nefarious partners. Especially free ringtones. And I didn’t know that free ringtones needed so much help in advertising themselves. If your product is free, you’re halfway to producing a good transaction for someone looking for something free.

The comments that confuse me the most are the ones that appear to be full of gibberish and gibberish domains. Like a monkey sat down at a domain registrar and just registered every combination of keystrokes it could come up with.

If the best way to market yourself is to pretend to contribute to blogs or other sites you have nothing to do with, you really need to get outside more often. The Internet might be the wrong avenue for you. It’s like selling tickets to a street race and then showing people a documentary on butterflies.

So to all of you out there trying to monkey market your business, I say step away from the keyboard. I’m just a little old blog on the fringe of the web read by a few hundred people at best right now. If I’m a target, I can’t imagine what some of the blogs with larger audiences are sifting through.

Who’s with me on this? Is anyone else suffering from the burden of spam like I am? Let me know what you think and if you’ve had any horrible spam experiences to share with others.

With the continuing growth of digital marketing technologies, many companies are faced with the challenge of dipping their toes into new channels they may not be fully prepared for. Given the complexities of new channels like mobile advertising and social media, to move from a pilot marketing program into an official marketing protocol is a tall order.

That’s why I firmly believe that most companies need a digital risk center. This would be a marketing group that’s sole charter is to experiment with new channels and help guide the company through the potentially rocky roads without exposing the entire corporation to a greater risk. They are like the digital Sherpa’s, setting the ropes and ladders for the greater hordes following behind.

Here’s a quick list for how it could work:

1. Digital Risk Center is formed. Their charter is to identify new channels that might satisfy current marketing goals.
2. The group would have a separate budget from overall marketing. They would be responsible for vendor management.
3. From the first pilot of a new campaign, the group would be responsible for documentation and case studies of each new channel.
4. From the case studies, best practices for the organization should be developed. Once best practices are in place, the group would be responsible for partnering with the appropriate internal sponsors to turn the best practices into official marketing protocol.
5. As channels are approved and move through this process, the group would be responsible for assisting in the hand off of the channel to the larger marketing organization.
6. Repeat and rinse.

In this model, experimentation and learning are actively encouraged. One of the goals is to ensure that someone’s job isn’t hanging in the balance due to a lapse in judgment by their use of a new channel and subsequent failure. This model accepts that failure will occur, but understands that failure with learning’s can help the overall organizational health. It is also an acknowledgement by the company that they need to mitigate risk and create a method for keeping up with the ever-changing digital marketing picture.

What are your thoughts on this digital risk center concept? Does your company actively take chances or does your corporate culture wince from the thought? As always, your thoughts and opinions are welcome.

Until next time, may risk and the proper handling of it bring you and your organization the rewards they deserve.

This past year, it seems everything around me is going green. From the rise in organic foods at grocery stores to the explosion of green cleaning products and more energy efficient lighting, it seems consumer preference has shifted completely into the green camp. And marketers are certainly capitalizing on the idea like never before.

But what is harder to tell is if the dollars are chasing the hype? I know in my household, we are trying more and more to buy “green” products if they are available. We’re not exactly sure they’re going to help, but it makes us feel better trying to make a difference.

A recent episode of Oprah featured “freegans” - people who get all of their food and household goods from discarded items in dumpsters. It was amazing to see the sheer amount of waste of perfectly good products and food. Even though it produces an emotional first reaction of “that’s gross”, to see the people in action was actually quite inspiring.

What’s your experience or feedback on the movement to go green? Are you making a conscious decision to buy green products or are you sticking to your 20th century ways?

When you’re dealing with an organization with more than a hundred thousand employees, it’s very likely you could end up bumping into a negative zone version of yourself or your team on any given day. Discovering others within your organization with a similar charter, goal, time-line, project or scope can throttle into a Monday morning like hot soup in your lap.

My team has had several instances lately of running into new internal people trying to solve similar problems to the ones we face. They have their own budgets, their own clients, their own agenda and our sudden discovery of each other usually leaves both groups puzzled. Did I just run into my shadow? Do we own this part of the business now or do they?

We’ve recently been in process of looking at vendors for a certain need.  We’ve had preliminary interviews with all of the companies we wanted to speak with. The next step for us was to find additional internal sponsors and then begin the RFP process. Right after we crossed the threshold of speaking to the first round of vendors, we discovered another group that has a similar goal related to the need we are trying to fix.

This group is already in the dog and pony part of the show with vendors. So now we’re quickly tagging along with them to see where they’re at, what they know, how far along they are in their process etc. We’re also hoping they don’t jump the gun and start down a path that we aren’t able to influence.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. I realized I need to start documenting our strategy for dealing with these types of issues. This is my first draft for handling these types of situations.  I’m very open to feedback and any thoughts you might have about this list.

Code of Conduct for Internal Comet-Like Collisions

1. Stay calm, you didn’t worry about this team or their projects before today
2. It is highly likely that the discovery of the other team(s) will be of benefit to your projects if you handle it properly
3. Begin an ambassador outreach program to this team at once
4. Get any and all background that you can and provide them with the same
5. Document their team structure, reporting structure, etc.
6. Make it official - do your two teams overlap and where? If they do, put it out there in the organizational mind-share.
7. It could benefit both teams and help management better plan future resource development
8. Look for opportunities to spread your buying power into theirs or vice versa
9. Keep in touch - don’t let your projects and day to day worries keep the other team out of your mental picture, you may need them and their expertise sooner than later
10. Share knowledge and learning’s often - you both stand to benefit from the others experience
11. Do you now have a bigger story to sell within the organization? It may be that the combined efforts of two teams produces better results than one team alone. If it does, tell people and sell the cross-over success. If it doesn’t and your tripping over each other, let people know that too
12. If a mirror image team within the organization existed for this project, there is a greater probability that there are more mirror teams for other projects as well

Keeping your cool is what it’s all about when things get wacky like this. Discovery and knowledge are a faster path to enlightenment than denial and worry.

Just because another project or team overlaps in your area of expertise doesn’t make you any less of an expert. If anything, it keeps the kettle warm underneath you and pushes that competitive corporate button that can help you excel.

So never fear the negative zone, its just part of some bizarre corporate duplication theory that physicists are just beginning to document. Until these scientists know more, you can operate in peace knowing that the collision of corporate anti-matter does not have to end with a big-bang.