positive disruption by: Tom Martin

Why You Should Play Along With Thank a Blogger Thursday

Last Thursday I suggested that everyone should Thank a Blogger. That was a good idea. Unfortunately, I also gave it a hashtag for Twitter #TABT, which was a mistake. A mistake because more than a few friends didn't want to play along because they felt it was too much like #FollowFriday, which had grown old and had lost it's focus/appeal.

Fair enough but they missed the point. I wasn't wanting nor suggesting that folks should thank a blogger via Twitter... instead I was suggesting everyone should pick a favorite blogger and thank them on THE BLOGGER'S BLOG via a comment on a recent post.

So often readers of blogs are silent. They read and often discuss or praise a post, but because they don't do it on the blogger's blog, that blogger's world seems rather silent. A blogger can easily see a hundred or more page views and get no comments. After awhile, the blogger starts to wonder what's up. Do they suck? Does their work suck? Should they just toss in the towel?

I learn so much more from the comments my readers leave and it's those comments that make me want to stay up late or get up early and create truly useful content. And there are a million more folks just like me that are creating truly great content that no one ever bothers to comment on or thank them for.

So today, do me a favor. Forgive my error and go tell a blogger you love them. They'll appreciate it and you'll have done your part to ensure the world is always full of great content. And if you happen to be a Twitter user and Tweet this post or RT it to get the word out... well that's ok too. ;-)

by plumtexan

Being Interesting Doesn't Have To Be Hard

On Monday, I suggested that being interesting is a good growth strategy for any business. Today, I wanted to take a second to show you a couple of examples of interesting that aren't hard, expensive or time-consuming to accomplish both at a business level but also at the personal brand level too.

Have you ever been to a restaurant? The one thing that has always blown me away is that pretty much every restaurant in every city finishes the meal exactly the same way -- whether the restaurant is a white table clothe, casual dining or mom & pop. They bring you the check presenter. (photo by POSSupply)

Recently though, I was at the Fig, a restaurant in Charleston, and this is what they gave me after my meal.

Simple but different. And if a person remembers the first and last thing they experience, being different at the end of the meal is important wouldn't you agree? Here are a few examples I found on Flickr that show the ordinary check presenter treated as brand impression tool.

by Vis-a-vis Creative

by vvvanessa

Sticking with the restaurant theme for a minute, I recently had breakfast at the hotel restaurant in the Charleston Place Hotel. As I don't do anything in the morning without coffee I was quite pleased when the waitress brought this to my table instead of pouring me a single cup of coffee.

 

Now a french press isn't all that new but they're usually glass and don't keep the coffee hot while you're drinking. So this item is not only different and interesting but provides a real consumer benefit as well.

As my 20 month old just decided he needed to sit in my lap, let me finish with an example of being personally interesting. As a busy father of four, I usually eat lunch at my desk. This lets me squeeze another hour into my workday without having to work late. So I have a lunch box. I used to have the standard office worker issue lunch box that I had carried since my college days. Kind of like this one but mine was black.

Solid. Cheap. Convenient. BORING!!!!

Now I carry this Tiffin Box.

Thing is, if I lived in India, this Tiffin Box would be an igloo soft sided cooler. But here in the states, it's different, interesting and comes with a back story that total strangers truly enjoy hearing when they ask, "what is that" as I ride the elevator to or from my office.

And that is the power of interesting. That is why you want to be interesting or have interesting elements of your brand experience -- it creates conversation(s). Conversation that can be leveraged to grow your brand, power WOM efforts and extend your marcom efforts much farther than you yourself will ever do on your own.

What'cha think folks? Are you interesting? Have you seen companies or brands that are doing interesting things? Let me know. Share them here. I'm all ears.

Finding Your Way Out of the Abyss

In the movie Wall Street, there is a scene where Hal Holbrook's character tells Charlie Sheen’s character, “There comes a time in every man’s life when man looks in the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss.” I love that quote because I think it is so honest and true. There does come not just a time but often times in every persons or company’s life where there is nothing but abyss. You stare into it, looking harder and harder but you see no lighthouse, no north star… nothing to guide you. You are… lost. Based on conversations I’ve had with clients, friends and company owners of late, I think a lot of folks and companies are a little lost right now and hoping to find their character.

 

The interesting thing is that if you check out survival skill books, they tell you the first thing you should do when you're you’re lost is stop. Sit down. Find cover from the elements and wait to be found.

 

Only thing is, if you’re a person or a business that is lost, well that’s pretty much a recipe for disaster I think, because no one cares enough to find you. In fact, truth be told your competitors would just as well have you stay lost. Sure your loyal customers will miss you, yearn for you but that too shall pass. They’ll find new lovers… they always do.

 

So what’s a guy, gal or business that is lost to do? I don’t really have that answer but here are a few thoughts to get you thinking and maybe finding a solution or even better, getting unlost. I’m hoping that you readers out there will take a moment to toss in your 2 cents because I’m pretty sure we’ve all been lost once or twice. So with that, here goes:

 

1.     Stop feeling like you don’t have control of the situation. Sure there may be outside forces at work like bosses, competitors or the economy. Forces you may or may not be able to effect or control. But as the t-shirt said after Hurricane Katrina, “Put your big girl panties on and get over it.”

2.     Move. Have you ever watched the firefight scenes in a war movie? The commanders are always saying the same thing when the bullets start flying… MOVE! Motion is life. Motion is hope. Motion means you are affecting your future. You are changing a variable in the equation and that change might just save your life or at least your ass.

3.     Take stock in yourself or your company. Don’t get caught in analysis paralysis but do make note of the things you can build off of and what you can’t. Then focus on the stuff you can build on and start doing.

4.     Pick the thing that takes the least effort but will have the maximum effect. Notice I’m not saying the biggest effect I’m saying least effort yields biggest effect item – play the spread. Why? Because you aren’t trying to fix the whole situation you find yourself in, you’re just trying to fix one part of it. You’re trying to create a win. Human psyche needs wins to go on, to survive and to thrive. So give you and your company a little win today.

5.     Repeat steps 3 & 4 until you see light. Rinse, lather and repeat if you will.

When you start to see something there in the abyss, keep moving. While true the light you see may be a train coming right at you, at least you’ll see what’s going to kill you versus getting blindsided, which is what happens when you just sit still and stick your head in the sand. And I’m guessing most of you are agile enough to jump off the track in time. 

So there is my two cents. What do you do when you face the abyss? How do you overcome that feeling that you just don't have the answer? 

photo by Starfall

You can't nickle and dime your way to profits

I started my ad career working on an airline account – American. So like my first love, my first kiss and a host of other firsts in my life, American and the airline industry will always be special to me. Guess that is why it really irks me to watch them making such tragic mistakes.

You can’t nickel and dime your way to profits. Earlier this year I watched a story on the news about all the new charges, especially the baggage charges. I have to admit, I didn’t realize the charges quoted are ONE WAY. So that $15 first checked bag is really $30 per person. If you figure that the average short haul ticket is in the neighborhood of $125-$250, you’re talking about a 10-20% surcharge.

Recently, I came across another article that US Airways was charging an additional $5 on that checked back if you didn’t tell them ahead of time that you were checking it. A fee for a fee!

Fine print is one thing. The airlines have always been second only to banking in their use of fine print, but to move 10-25% of your fee structure to the fine print? That is a surefire way to tick the American traveling public off and ensure that the host of airlines following in your footsteps do no better.

Let’s face it. The average business traveler doesn’t check bags, they carry them on. So no added revenue there. The customer that will feel this pinch most severely is the one that can most afford to choose an alternative travel solution – the tourist.

Given the current economy and a target audience (tourist) that can afford to just drive or worse, cancel that vacation, the airlines are continuing on a path to certain destruction.

Instead, why not just offer a better product. The airlines will tell you they can’t do it, there is too much competition, too much price sensitivity. That’s old school thinking.

Look at Apple, whose products are all priced at a premium versus the competition and are harder to find – everyone carries PC’s, but only certain retailers can carry Apple laptops.

Well that’s fine for products that can be inventoried they will say… when an airline seat leaves empty that is lost revenue forever. True. But the same could be said for restaurants, professional service firms, car services and hotels. Yet, in each category there are examples of companies that simply deliver a better, customer focused product and because of that, they win.

Air travel today is a commodity because airlines make it so. They allow the airport experience to basically suck. They allow the TSA screening process to totally suck. And they are quickly making the in air experience suck by focusing on selling you blankets instead of making you comfortable.

Consumers have and will always pay for something special, both in the air and on the ground. So if you’re a company that sells a non-inventoriable product and you’re feeling like the only thing you can do is cut costs or charge for things you used to provide as a courtesy, here are five thoughts that you might consider.

1. Information is cheap so give it away. If you're a taxi company, text me when my driver is on the way, late or out front of my house at 5am ready to take me to the airport. And let consumers text you that they need a cab and where. If you're a restaurant, don't give me a blinking, vibrating thing to carry while I wait for my table -- send me a text instead. Alert me if tables aren't turning as fast as you thought they would - maybe even tell me to go get a drink on you by showing this text to the bartender. Are you a small local pizza joint with no place for customers to sit while waiting for a table, then let me text or tweet you my name and how much advanced notice I need. At the appointed moment, text/tweet me back and ask for confirmation I'm on my way. Your tables stay full and I am not stuck sitting against a wall with four unhappy kids.
2. Recognize the customer. Here in New Orleans it's very common for the owner of a restaurant to not only be on premise but to table hop, saying hello and thanking folks for coming. It makes the locals feel good, impresses the tourists and best of all creates an opportunity to make a lasting impression. For instance, Mr. Wayne, the owner of the Bon Ton on Magazine recently moved my entire party to a larger table when it came available because I mentioned part of the group were clients in from out of town. What did that cost him? What kind of impression did it make on me/my clients? Think I'm taking clients there again?
3. Be interesting. It's really not that hard to be interesting in a world of beige, which is what we live in. In fact, stay tuned, I've been collecting examples and later this week I'm going to show you just how easy it is. Interesting is more fun and worth a few extra bucks.
4. Be creative. There is a restaurant in Philadelphia that has "open mic night" for aspiring chefs. They let those folks come in and cook that evening - a Monday no less - and who do you think eats on that night??? 
5. Be nice. God how I wish the current state of good customer service would be challenged. It's really not that hard to be nice. To smile. To say thanks and be genuinely thankful. People do respond to genuine displays of kindness and gratitude. It doesn't cost you anything to deliver but will reap you many rewards. 

What about you? Got any brilliant ideas you care to share? Anything to add to help companies reading this survive and thrive without having to resort to charging silly fees?

Thank a Blogger Thursday #TABT

For whatever reason, over the last few weeks I've had a number of folks email me, tweet me or leave comments on posts all with the same theme.

I love your stuff and have been a fan for a long time. Only thing -- first time any of them ever raised their hand to say somehing. Which got me to thinking about this on the drive home the other day... give it a listen and then join in won't you?

  
Download now or listen on posterous

Memo.m4a (3292 KB)

From my mobile phone

Posted via email from tommartin's posterous

Are you open or closed?

I think there are two kinds of people in the world.

 

There are open people and closed people.  And I venture to say there are more closed than open.

 

Closed people live within themselves. They are inner focused and concerned with things like looking foolish, making mistakes or doing the wrong thing. They are the people who can spend two hours on an airplane and never say hello to their seatmate. They are the people that are tied to traditional thinking and the belief that they know what they are doing. They are satisfied.

 

Open people are just the opposite. They believe life is a contact sport. That you have to engage and learn at every opportunity. They’re convinced that there is a better way to do pretty much everything and are intent on finding it and then sharing it. For open people, new experiences and knowledge are as essential as air, water and food.

 

So they put themselves out there by creating content, saying hello to strangers and trying new things or approaches. They invite criticism understanding that even in the most idiotic critique, there is a nugget of knowledge. They’re ok with failure as long as it includes learning. Open people understand that change is inevitable and hope to simply stay ahead of it and maybe leverage it for new opportunity, fame or fortune. 

 

Open people create open companies. Closed people create closed ones.

 

And I’m guessing that in the not so far away future, we’re going to see a lot of those closed companies close and open companies well, stay open.

 

So what about you? Are you open or closed? What do you think I am – open or closed? Let me know… Please.

Cataloging Great Information

Note: I am not in any way affilicated with this product. This is just me pointing you to something I found and think is pretty cool.

If you're like me, you read a lot of stuff online. So often at the end of the day I have 20 tabs open on my Firefox browser, each with an article, site or blog post I meant to read that day. But then someone turned me on to Zotero.

Zotero is a super easy Firefox extension that adds some pretty incredible cataloging tools to your browser. I've been playing with it for a few weeks now and have to say, LOVE IT. It's so simple and easy and that is what makes it great.

After you add it to your browser, you just surf as usual. When you find something you want to save to reference later, you just click the Zotero link in the footer of your browser. It opens this:

and prepopulates much of the information for you. You can add custom notes, tags, and more. There is also the ability to load in bibliographic citation information in your preferred format and I think you can even save just sections of a page, but I havent' tried that yet.

Thus far, I have found this to be a great tool for saving and then finding (saved versions). Between the folder tree and the tags, you can pretty much find anything in a few seconds.

Check it out and let me know what you think. Are you using something else to catalog and organize the information you find on the net? If so, let me know what you think of it. I'm always looking for new tools.

Thanks.

What Advertising Agencies, Virgins & Hookers Have In Common

A few weeks ago, this tweet crossed my path:

agency advising on digital branding that isn't active in the digital space is like a virgin showing a hooker the ropes

Advertising has always been a tough business, but making it today takes true stamina.

What we have historically done for a living -- producing ads, logos and campaigns -- is quickly becoming a crowd-sourced commodity. So who can blame us for selling vaporware to clients? For telling them, "Sure we can do that" when asked if our firm does this or that. "This or that" often means lots of new fees for your firm and with far less price sensitivity than we see with more common outputs like collateral, TV spots, and media buys. "This and that" can be the difference between laying people off and having a pretty good year. So yes, lots of firms say they can do "this or that." Then they fake it or outsource it without ever telling the client the truth.

Read the rest at over at Ad Age's Small Agency Diary

photo credit: Elliott les yeux grand fermés

A New Search Tool For Finding Local Twitter Users

I love Twitter. Anyone who is around me for even a few minutes and brings up Twitter quickly gets the picture. But one of the things I've always wanted to know is "who else in New Orleans" is on Twitter? Seems a lot of folks also want to know who tweets in their town and a lot of companies would like to be able to see/find tweeters in whatever town the company has a rooftop.

Currently, probably the best method is Twellow. But the problem with Twellow and pretty much every other local twitter finder service is that you can only look up one city. So if I use Twellow to search for NOLA tweeters I can only see folks that claim New Orleans as their home city in their profile. If I want the whole DMA, I need to search for each suburb (Metairie, Kenner, etc.) and then manually compile a list.

Now this is fine for my hometown where I'm quite familiar with the geography, but what if I'm a brand manager with a product that has distribution in lots of cities around the USA? Maybe I'm a multi-market retailer or grocery chain, matters not, what matters is I'd want to be able to find and maybe talk to all the folks in a particular DMA who are on Twitter and who if I follow them, will follow me back. A tool to find all those folks in one easy search doesn't exist. Until today.

I gave this challenge to our interactive folks here at Zehnder Communications. They were able to create a pretty simple workaround using Google's search tool to build my local tweeter directory. The problem is, it still requires a person to manually create each DMA. Which is where you come in dear reader.

Go visit the Zehnder Local Twitter Users search tool and help us help you by building the search string for your town. When you get there we'll give you a few simple instructions, a few form fields and presto, you'll have created a DMA level twitter user search for your DMA. Best of all, if folks who come by after you don't want the entire DMA, they don't need to take it. They can turn off the suburb cities you assign to the master DMA and then just work with those results.

Best of all, the tool not only tells you how many tweeters there are, it also lists them so that you can go follow whichever ones seem to be the most interesting. Or all of them if you like. 

Our plan is to leave the page up forever and offer it free to anyone who wants to use it. Sort of our little contribution to the Twitter community if you will. NOTE: this isn't a perfect search tool. If a person uses N'awlins or their longitude/latitude as their "city" in their bio, they won't show up in this search. You'll only find folks that list a city that is in your search string in their bio.

So, do me a favor. Pop over, check out the tool and then leave me comments here as to what you think about it. If you think it has some value, be sure to tweet out a link back to this post so we can get a lot of people using the tool. The more folks that go in and build a DMA profile, the faster we'll have a really robust Twitter directory of local tweeters!

Prepare Your Fields For Rain

They say luck finds those that earn it. I think that's true. In fact the headline of this post is all about being ready for luck or maybe destiny. I do a bit of public speaking now and then. I'd like to do a lot more.

So I write decks, I give talks, I post them to Slideshare and when I can, I capture them on video and post that too. Why? Because it gets the word out and helps folks looking for speakers qualify me.

I also make myself available on a moments notice (if necessary) to pinch hit for groups who have had a speaker cancel on them. I spent five years doing programming for the NOLA AMA and I know what it is like to have  speaker cancel on short notice. I also know how thankful I was to the person who pinch hit for me when that happened. So I make myself available whenever I can.

Like last Thursday. The speaker that was scheduled to speak to the NOLA AMA got stuck in Houston. One of the board members rang me at 10:30a and asked if I could pop over to the Northshore for a noon luncheon (note: it's about a 30 min drive). She knew I had lots of decks and talks and didn't care what I gave, she just needed a favor. Luckily I had a light day and so I agreed.

I been working on a new talk, Using Twitter to Change Brand Perception. And while it was far from finished, it would work.

Using Twitter to Change Brand Perception

View more Microsoft Word documents from Tom Martin.

 

And it was great. I had a blast. The audience seemed to like it. And a number of folks came up after to let me know "they'd be in touch" to talk about opps to work together in the future. And best of all... I got to work out the kinks on that talk so that the next time I give it, it will be far stronger. Everyone wins. The AMA didn't have to cancel its lunch. The attendees learned something new. And I might even have picked up a bit of biz.

All because I prepared my fields for rain. Are you?

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