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Does your company have a Che Guevara?

Question of the Week:

Does your company have--somewhere in the ranks if not at the helm--an impassioned warrior who can ignite the troops and stoke fear in the competition? Do you have a firebrand leader-provocateur who can motivate your people to do the best work of their careers, make history and change the world?

If your answer is no, are you really dangerous enough to make a difference?

Neighbors Redux

Yesterday's riff on real-world community building sites was greeted with reminders from some readers that there are alternative forms of community out there.  And, I acknowledge that online community building increasingly refers to "communities of interest" built around themes and media--music, photos, videos.  The biggies we all know, like myspace, youtube, friendster, bebo, xanga and hi5. 

I, however, have a soft spot for real places where people live, work and play.  That's why I like another new site that deepens your community knowledge, called hotspottin.com.  Hotspottin let's you share with others your favorite hot spots in your or any town--restaurants, bars, romantic places to picnic.  As I travel a lot, I like the idea of advancing an insider's knowledge of a city before I arrive.  And, what could be better than putting community back in the hands of the people.

Keep Your Friends Close, Neighbors Closer

I like anything that helps us create a sense of community in this cold, impersonal world and I really like Backfence.com.

 

Backfence.com is a new way to find out what's going on in your own neighborhood. The information and insight comes from the people who know your neighborhood best--you and your fellow neighbors.  Whether it is a tip on a decent falafel joint, the name of a trustworthy handyman, photos from the block party, or the 411 on that new construction project down the street, Backfence.com is a source for news and conversations and shared wisdom of the local community.

Like i-neighbors.org, Backfence calls itself a leader in a new phenomenon called “citizens’ journalism”—the type of grassroots media where the audience itself decides what’s important and writes about it. Each Backfence.com site is focused on a specific town (and soon enough will probably further divide by self-identified neighborhood I would venture), and provides a repository of shared share information and a place for neighbors to comment on that information—bringing together the community's collective knowledge. From the site:

You can use Backfence to post and comment on news and information about your community, to list upcoming local events, to share photos of people, places and happenings around town, to put up a free classifieds ad or to review a local business.

In other words, the kinds of things that used to be talked about over the back fences before they were electrified.

Let's Take the Meetro and Meetup

Metcalfe's Law of the network continues to power new web enterprises aimed at bringing like-minded people together.  Two great examples are Meetup.com and Meetro.com.

Meetup.com helps people find others who share the same interests or passion for a cause, and allows them to form local community groups that regularly meet face-to-face. Organized by locality and by interest topic, you can for instance, find a group in Silicon Valley for people who have recently moved into the area (next scheduled meeting in eight days from now) .  Or a group for wine lovers or hiking enthusiasts or just about any interest--or you can form your own group and attract members.

Once you have a burgeoning network, Meetro helps you communicate with it in real time.  Meetro is a "location-aware social messenger," combining the human elements of social networks, with the real-time communications of instant messaging. Meetro allows you to see who among your network is logged in nearby, right now, and start chatting with them instantly using your AIM, MSN, or Yahoo accounts.

What is significant about both these relatively new services is that they are proving that the Internet need not be a socially-isolating and dividing technology, but rather can be a way for people to connect, communicate and create community together.  Okay you mouse potatoes, go forth and multiply! 

Emmy Boring You?

Let me be Nietzsche-like here: Television is dead.  Problem is, the corpus is still writhing and it doesn't know it's dead yet.  To wit: tonight is the "biggest night on television," with the broadcast of the self-congratulatory, log-rolling festivus known as The Emmys.  This is the multi-hour fannygrab where the stars of the small screen recognize standout work by themselves, people they like, or people they want jobs from, all in the name of entertainment.  It is all a little sad and nostalgic at the same time.  The medium--at least as we know it--must and will change.  For now, like the door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen, long-distance phone companies and the San Jose Mercury Snooze, I mean News, television is rotting out before our eyes, just another staggering minion in the Land of the Living Dead.  Sure, I still go for the talking heads on Sunday morning, but soon enough YouTube will offer full-fledged webcasting and I'll get my snooze, I mean news, elsewhere. 

Home of the Blog

In an age of diminishing personal rights, it is worth noting the continuing good work of the Electronic Freedom Foundation in the areas of free speech and safe blogging.  The group operates solely on membership donations, so it may be a good time to join.  From the website:

"You have the Right to Allow Readers' Comments Without Fear. In Barrett v. Rosenthal, EFF is working to establish that Section 230, a strong federal immunity for online publishers, applies to bloggers. With your support, EFF can continue to protect bloggers from liability for comments left by third parties."

When you can't stroll onto a flight from Kauai while sipping a Mai tai, you know the world is going to hell...time to stand up and be counted. Please feel free to comment on your freedom to comment. 

This Pill Makes You Smaller

In his new book, small is the new big, Seth Godin warns the reader not to tackle the tome in a single sitting.  The ideas contained, he cautions, are too disparate and mind-boggling to handle all at once.  They are, after all, a compendium of his thinking (and blogging) over the past eight years.  I, however, violated his wave-off and read it in a night.  Maybe it says a lot about my warped mind and despite my short attention span, I couldn't put the book down--and it all made sense to me (in a Lewis Carroll kinda way).  Nope, "small" is a perfect book for these times:

1. It offers a twisted view of the world, and that is just what we need today.

2. It takes on all the sacred cows--purple or not--and makes you realize how lazy marketers have become.

3. Seth Godin is the Larry David of marketing

4. I agree that "respect" is the next killer app.

5. Did I mention I have a short attention span?

A message to Silicon Valley: read this book tonight or you will wake up bigger tomorrow.

It's All Geek to Me

People of my mother's generation are gobbling up copies of Video Professor's DVDs on how to "download the Internet," and now it looks like New Nation has done it again.  This time we've totally bolloxed the mainstream media on the personal publishing imperative.  Ever eager to be down with it all, Business 2.0 breathlessly offers a new cover story on the blogging phenomenon with Fark.com publisher Drew Curtis as its posterboy.  Problem is Fark.com is a news and link recyclery, and not a blog at all.  We can now assume that "blog" is becoming shorthand for all web publishing.  I like the pimped out riff on the cover from the folks at Gawker Media.   

Bend it like Buddha

I recently took a few days off from the Software Wars to do something completely different: read about Buddha.  I figured it would clear my head for the busy fall season ahead.  Boy was I wrong.  Instead of ruminating on truth, meaning, human suffering and its cure, I found myself thinking about bad marketing and its cure.  Siddhartha Gautama, later re-branded as Buddha, was many things, but most of all he was a brilliant marketer.  He created a unique world view, made a great case for adopting his methodology, passionately evangelized his ideas, and spawned rabid disciples.  And he had skin in the game.  The once-rich royal gave up his wealth and privilege to work for a better world.  Through the centuries, the resulting philosophy of Buddhism has survived purges, modern materialism, been morphed in the West and recast to the East, and today grows as the world's fourth largest religion.

Two thousand years later, what can we learn about marketing technology from Buddha?

Like Buddha, marketers today need to re-frame reality.  Don't give customers just speeds and feeds, don't just give them benefits, give them a new belief system.  Lay out a way for them to see the world anew through your company or product vision.  Most of all, give customers a way to cope--with change, opportunities, danger.  Without a belief system, all our "value propositions" are just empty slogans.  Create a "religion" around your product and it will attract a loyal following.  High tech marketing sucks because it can't get over itself.  Silicon Valley is run amok in technology Narcissism.  It's not about neat new technology, it's about a new way of life. 

By the way, one of the more enjoyable books I poured through this week was the lighthearted Buddha or Bust by Perry Garfinkel.  Check it out at www.buddhaorbust.com

       

Mark Whitty

Mark Whitty founded Whitty Worldwide in 2006 following a successful 20-year career with international advertising agencies. His award-winning work has been recognized by numerous news outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Advertising Age and CNN.

A true Horatio Alger story, Mark began his career in 1985 in the mail room of a London-based advertising agency. Within 5 years he had worked his way up the ranks to become his firm's youngest ever Account Director, responsible for accounts which included Mars, Hoover and Virgin. It was while he worked on the promotion of U2's breakout album, The Joshua Tree, that he gained insight into youth market-building, and was a part of the Boots chain worldwide rollout.

Mark moved to the U.S. in 1995 to join one of the country’s hottest creative agencies, Goldberg Moser O'Neill, where he made a name for himself managing the national account for Boston Market.  Prior to founding Whitty Worldwide, Mark was President of a boutique San Francisco agency, and served as VP at McCann-Erickson in San Francisco and Tokyo, working with premier brands such as AT&T and Louis Vuitton Moet-Hennesey. His extensive pro-bono work includes campaigns for the National Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the Y-ME National Breast Cancer Organization.  He is an Arsenal fan and plays British football every weekend.