Social Strategy & Design Integration @C2GPS: ...

On Friday June 18, I had the great pleasure of copresenting a workshop on the topic of social strategy and design integration with Cindi Thomas of Translator, aka @deziner, for @C2GPS. Pretty much any time you’re in a room with Cindi, you are guaranteed to a) laugh your a$$ off b) learn something c) realize you need to rethink something d) all of the above. (The correct answer is D.)

So I wanted to take this opportunity to recap what I learned.

Cindi spoke about how:

-Integration is not about creating the same thing in different media channels, just in a different flavor; instead, it is about understanding the unique roles and expectations of each channel.

-Integration is not about “bolting on” social to digital experience, marketing or PR. Instead, create a digital experience, marketing program or PR effort that is inherently social.

-Design for digital/social is more alchemy than science. There is no checklist or recipe for success. We can suggest ingredients but not exact amounts.

As for me, I talked about the Joy of Strategy and how:

-It has evolved past the two-dimensional thinking of features, functional benefits, and emotional benefits to the much more three-dimensional world of stories, utilities and people.

-It is more about creating caring, conversation and (media) coverage than it is about the mythical “one thing” about the brand of yore.

-Planning requires a much higher degree of openess and flexibility than it used to. No more annual planning – we are constantly planning and adapting strategy to the opportunities of the moment.

It was a great group, and a great time. Oddly, though, on a gorgeous Friday afternoon in June, no one wanted to stay and chat about the Joys of Social Media Measurement. Go figure. Maybe next time.

Thanks to the fantastic @ericaconway and the whole @C2GPS crew. If you aren’t familiar with them, check them out here. The GPS stands for Graphics and Productivity Solutions. These folks know how to find great people who can get ‘er done, and they know how to train. They make a mean jello shot too from what I hear.

Here are the slides. If you’re reading this on an Apple mobile device you can see them here on Slideshare mobile.

Please add your two cents in the comments or let Cindi and I know if we can be of help.

Dear Dad…...

The independence and security of which you speak?
Sure you gave us those in spades
You are the one who encouraged me
From L.A. to NYC and all points in between
Let’s set all that aside, for a moment, as it’s not what I will remember most.

Instead, your smile, your laugh
The mischievous glint in your blue eyes like a little boy
The joy you showed me how to feel with your childlike lust for life
Will never die
G will grow up knowing what joy looks like because of you.

I dread the day when you won’t be with us anymore
But when you go – hopefully years from now – please go knowing this one thing:
In my eyes, you will always be the perfect father.
Loving. Generous. Selfless. Joyful.
My hero.

I love you, Dad. -Susan

iPad App Review: DashFour Foursquare Client...

I came across the DashFour app (version 1.3) from Project Zebra while searching the app store for Foursquare for iPad, which unbeknownst to me at the time does not yet exist. I was immediately excited by the promise: “A map-based, bigscreen foursquare client. Get the most out of foursquare and see your friends in a whole new way. Easily view what’s around you, see your badges, your mayorships and your friends.” Being a highly visual person, and one that has become rather bored with Foursquare, I thought being able to visualize the goings-on might make it more interesting and fun. Unfortunately, the app just has too many bugs and missed opportunities for useful features to be something that I would recommend to you. The Project Zebra developers have said on Twitter that they are open to input, so I’m holding out hope that they might make it better.

Here’s what the basic mapping functionality looks like (you can also choose satellite maps or a hybrid.)

Overall I think GPS is very poorly integrated into the app. It automatically maps you to your last check in instead of your current iPad location, which is a drawback particularly for use while traveling. If you want to see what foursquare venues are around you, and select “show me my current iPad location”, nine times out of ten, it will be wrong in my experience. The above screen shot is actually my trying to map to my home, which is several miles from this location. Obviously, if the maps are inaccurate, the app is pretty much useless.

In addition, with so many venues around a given location, it’s often difficult to impossible to sort through all the little pins to get to what you are looking for. It would be great if instead of just pins they were the little icons that indicate what type of venue, and if there was a filter for what type of venue you are looking for. Say I am traveling, and looking for a “foursquare popular” restaurant; right now, I am not going to find it with this app, and that could be one of it’s biggest utilities IMHO.

DashFour does live up to its promise to easily view your badges, mayorships and friends. In fact, the “show me my friends checkins” feature is probably the best right now (you can zoom in and out to visualize where all of your friends are checked in):

I could see this being a useful feature for the Foursquare-active business owner. In fact, once they get the “consumer” UI/functionality fixed, another big opportunity would be to consider features from business owners’ point of view and integrate the type of business dashboard that is relatively new to Foursquare itself. More information on that here, from Mashable.

I really do think this app it built on a great concept, but the execution needs some serious help. Please add your two cents here – what features would you like to see in a product like this?

Last Day of School: Finding Grace Amidst Chaos....

My day started in a classically working-Mom kind of way: walking to the last day of school with a four year old in one hand, an 80-pound dog in the other, a cell phone, an epi-pen (G has severe allergies) my keys and some bags to pick up dog poop in my other two hands. Then G, on the playground, stuffed an entire rubber bracelet in his mouth and was running around chewing it like it was a wad of gum, while I was on the other side of the metal playground fence with the dog. (I can see him walk into school from outside the fence; I’m stupid, but not neglectful.) While I tried to get his attention to get the choking-accident-waiting-to-happen under control, Nimbus, the female Labrador our dog is hot for, walked by behind me and the dog tore my arm along said metal fence, resulting in this:

So I walked home, cleaned up some dog poop, washed off the blood, went for coffee, went to TranslatorXD lab hours, ate some bacon brownies, soaked up some creative inspiration, and went to pick G up at school. A mere two hours later, the bloody gash episode had turned to this:

Glowing-happy, popsicle-eating, summer-vacation-is-here gooey, loving little person. This is how quickly life as a parent changes.

I wrote down this quote from Bruce Springsteen, the all-knowing poet and philosopher (whose ass I have touched, in case you didn’t hear yet), and it really sums up so much, so well for me that I wanted to share it with you:

“We live in a tragic world. (Oil spill.) But there’s grace all around you, so try to attend to the grace. Grace is just the events of the day. The living breath of our lives. Woody Allen once said he found himself happiest when he was standing in the kitchen in the morning, buttering his toast. So you’re chauffeuring your kids somewhere and you think it’s a burden. And then something happens, and it (grace) is there.”

I really wanted to have a daughter named Grace. Very unlikely to happen at this point. So I I’ll try to show as much Grace to my Griffin as I can.

What are the simple graces that make you happy, bloody gashes and all?

Social Marketing Doesn’t Have to Be Complica...

How many businesses are still freaking out about social media because it’s so complex? Yes, there are a lot of moving pieces and parts, and a lot of shiny objects to sift through. Yes, some “advanced” social marketing efforts can be quite complex. But today I experienced a business that is jumping in to social marketing in a poetically simple way. This case in point: Coa restaurant in Milwaukee’s upscale Bayshore Town Center shopping mall.

I was a fan long before they “got into social media.” I tweeted about every experience there enthusiastically. For a while, it went more or less unanswered, which was OK, I said what I said because I meant it and expected nothing in return. Then I went to a Cinco de Mayo party there this year, and had the pleasure of meeting owner Marc Bianchini and new “social media guy” Sam Sova.

Sam and Marc know they have some loyal fans, and they also get something even more important than that: the best way to get people talking about you is to offer an extraordinary experience. So they invited 10 of us, plus guests, to come sample their brunch menu and give them our feedback. And of course, nearly everyone at the table was tweeting about their favorite dishes (and the ones they liked less). I recommend the Chilaquiles for some spicy Mexican comfort food, and the breakfast burrito if you’re into spicy chorizo.

I have set up social “ambassador” programs for clients before; I’ve never really been a brand ambassador myself. (I would have been for Specialized Bikes, had they not ignored my enthusiastic tweeting, but that’s a different story.) And Coa’s effort isn’t what I would classify as a “formal” ambassador program. But whether they intended to or not, today, they turned me from merely a fan into something of a self-appointed ambassador. The food is always great at Coa. That’s not what changed. The service is always solid. That’s not what changed. What changed? The incredibly simple act of making a customer feel truly appreciated and “special”.

What are you doing in your business to make your customers into fans and your fans into ambassadors? Or, what could you be doing? If you’re not sure also drop a note below and we’ll get you some ideas.