Making information work

A lot of people have spoken lately about their media consumption. While this type of list is of key importance to many, I would like to speak more about the other direction – my media production. More specifically, what I have created so far, and the goals I am setting for 2007.

Email
I write approximately 50 emails each day. Some of these contain great content – answers to SEO questions, thoughts regarding different specific communication challenges, etc. They should clearly be saved, but aren’t. I have a habit of walking around the office and speaking to people rather than sending emails, so I hope to spend this year lowering the email numbers, and at the same time documenting everything worthwhile that I create.

Blogging
I write here and on our internal company blog on average 10 times per week. I try to keep my entries somewhat short, but they usually end up being in the 400-word range. I also try to actively comment on 10 or so blogs, either automatically via tracebacks, or manually by actually visiting them and adding my comment. I hope to increase my blogging activities this year – probably to the point of consistently posting more than one time each day on this blog. That would equal in excess of 700 posts this year.

eBooks
I have started and failed here several times. I have three eBooks that are basically finished – a beginning SEO book, a weight loss book, and a life lessons book – but I somehow am unable to finish the off. I expect to finish and publish all three eBooks this year.

Research articles / reports
I have done nothing of importance outside my company yet, but expect that 2007 will bring resources and allocated time for a highly interesting social media / online conversation study of large listed European companies.

Images
I always take crazy amounts of pictures when I have the chance. Or, at least I used to. When Kristina and I were in Thailand, I probably took in excess of 500 images in 2 weeks. Impulsively, the image creation is absurd. I have only started uploading my images to my Flickr-account. I expect to shoot and upload 500 images this year.

Video
My excellent camera creates descent video. As I will be a father in about two months, I expect that I will be permitted to purchase a true DV-camera, but considering the outcome of my first attempt at editing, I am pretty happy with where I am. I expect to create and upload 20 5 minute videos this year.

Audio
I have created exactly nothing here. With my MacBook Pro it should not be an issue – there are tools that would make podcasting a breeze, but I have not yet felt the need. I also expect that this will start happening this year – probably as a result of my family in the US wanting to hear my upcoming daughter make her noises. I therefore have set a goal of 10 quality podcasts during 2007.

I probably missed a lot of media here – but I will update this as I think of it.

David

I was out shopping today, and started focusing on the interior design of the different stores I visited. I was struck by the major differences in layout, colors, focus etc., and started pondering if the increased cost of exclusive and dynamic store interior design paid off.

Clearly, it must. If not directly by increasing sales, perhaps then by motivating sales at a higher price. I came to the conclusion that if I was to open a store I would spend a lot of time designing its interior to be attractive and interesting.

All of this must be true online as well, right? Probably – a nice storefront online very likely has the same effect a nice one does offline – it increases the premium feeling of the store, and in extension of the brand. This is a store in which I have a stake:

It sells Latin American goods to the world via eBay, and it does fairly well. One of the tools we use to manage eBay listings comes with an alternative storefront, which doesn’t look particularly attractive, if you ask me. And, as one might expect, this storefront does not generate sales.

How would the sales look if we had a storefront that looked like the one below, which is a screenshot from Template Monster.

My guess is that sales would improve. The cost? Around $150. The time? A couple of hours. Worth it? Of course.

Simply put – never ever forget the importance of intelligent design online. No matter if you are trying to sell a product or convey a message, the look and feel needs to be solid.

David

In a op-ed piece in this mornings Dagens Nyheter (one of the large daily papers) was titled “The foreign minister talks to much on his blog“. The piece was created by a old editor-in-chief of many newspapers here in Sweden, and is clearly old fashioned in its views. He, Bertil Torekull, argues that Carl Bildt speaks too freely, and that he as an elected official is too “powerful” to be allowed to speak privately.

A vast majority of Mr. Torekull’s arguments are hopelessly off target. He claims that by allowing an elected official to answer direct attacks by media in his blog we are nearing a “Hugo Chávez Culture”. He argues this by comparing Mr. Bildt’s defense speaches on his blog to Mr. Chávez hour long TV speeches. What he misses, of course, is that the blog format allows conversation while a TV-broadcast is a one way communication.

I also reacted strongly to another statement by Mr. Torekull - he critizised Mr. Bildt for publishing his response to tabloid attacks on a “platform controlled by himself”, saying that it was not credible. Between the lines Mr. Torekull clearly is arguing for journalists, saying that the traditional media is the place to be, and that they are more neutral than Mr. Bildt in their handling of situations like this. Which of course is false. This is classic death spasms from a media decreasing in importance. I believe that editor controlled news will be pushed aside by citizen journalism, used controlled relevance, and private blogs.

It should be noted, however, that Mr. Torekull is on to something, without perhaps knowing it. I believe that he highlights the reason why so many Swedish CEO’s are scared of blogging: disclosure. An American CEO who blogs likely lets ten lawyers read their posts before they are made public, simply because they are speaking as an official spokesperson for the company.

I would recommend that Carl Bildt therefore either makes the blog more official by allowing foreign ministry department deal with each and every post, or make the blog more private by adding a disclamer statement where he separates his blog posts from his official capacity.

Update: The critique that Carl Bildt uses his blog to respond to critique has been answered. By Bildt. On his blog. This is a classic.

Update #2: Below you will find an image of the location of the people who arrived here, to my blog, via the link placed on Carl Bild’s blog via trackback from the link in the first update. My conclusion? There are lots of Swedes around the world who follow him. Must feel good. By looking at his source code, I can tell that he as I have Google Analytics installed. Hey, Mr. Bildt! Share your true stats!

David

A horrible bus accident occurred today outside of Uppsala, Sweden’s fourth largest city. Two buses were involved, and lives were lost. A true tragedy - apparently security measures (metal wire lane separators), which had been called for for years, could have had a significant effect on the outcome of this accident.

The two buses that collided were operated for a company by another company, and both companies are therefore highly involved in the crisis communication. I first checked their websites a couple of hours after the incident, and both had updated information. Here are screen shots of the two websites, first the company which the buses are operated for and secondly the operator of the buses.

On the first screenshot, the crisis information consumes the entire main content section. There is clear time stamping of the updates, and there is clear information about who to contact when and where and how.

On the second screenshot, the crisis information is a small section bottom right. There are still images talking about “comfort” and “safety” on the right hand side. If one selects the “Read More” link from “Latest News”, one is greeted with this page:

Clearly, this would have been much better. There is more information, and in my opinion this would show in a clearer way that they understand the significance of the situation.

Overall, my opinion is that the entire first page of a crisis web should be covered with the constantly updated news flow about the situation. The menus should disappear etc., and you should be able to access the “regular” site easily from this news flow. One might image that many want to cancel their tickets, so access to the regular functions should not be removed, but I see several clear advantages of letting the first page only deal with the crisis. I also think that the information should link to other news sources.

I understand that when dealing with a crisis, a website has next to no significance in comparison with the human tragedies that began this morning. Because of this fact I expect that many companies will now and in the future to a larger extent implement a well thought out plan for dealing with online crisis communication to make it as easy as possible to ensure that time and energy can be spent on other things.

David

Estonia is taking a huge step towards both the future and towards crushing all my illusions that the Baltic states are far behind by allowing voting via the Internet. I wonder if they will have all the problems other electronic systems have had.

Why have these problems not been solved already? I can file my Swedish tax-return via the web, via a text message from my phone etc. etc., but I still have to form a line and cast a paper vote every four years. I believe that the attendance would rize significantly with e-voting - Sweden should definetly allow it next time.

David

I have for some time been aware of the fact that new ways of communicating often begin in the B2C environment, then move to the B2B, and then to corporate communications. So when I speak about how to use social media to deal with brand awareness and reputation management type of challenges, I often speak to deaf ears.

Or maybe not deaf, but at least ears which are rarely have even heard of the channels I speak of. Sometimes this is difficult to accept, but more often than not it is an excellent challenge.

I have found that one of the biggest challenges is to re-form the view on press releases and press release channels. It is often difficult to accept that press releases no longer solely target journalists, and that they do no absolutely need to contain traditional corporate information.

My boss and I preach the “content release”; basically the telling of a story, embedded with links and rich media. It could be about a new cool product, or simply something intended to drive traffic to a website. New types of information targeted towards a new target group using traditional channels. Simple, effective, and absolutely great.

Today is Friday - a colleague called it “the end of another week in the service of free speech”. Apparently it was originally said by a journalist with more than a little bit of sarcasm. Sarcastic or not, it is a great line.

David

When I speak of the CEO, CSR & HR blogs, I am often confronted with the questions regarding why a company should blog, what is in it for them etc.

One of the arguments I use is that when the right person (not everyone is a blogger; not everyone should become that transparent) blogs, that person conveys their values, their way of being. They convey themselves, and by doing that they create creadibility.

Carl Bildt is a blogger. And he is up front and personal in his blog. He is blunt, and he is straight forward. In this post he talks about the left wing political youth organization wanting him to step down, but he makes a funny by saying “but this demand was not delivered by their chairman, because … she has stepped down”. (It should be noted that she stepped down after being involved in a drunken violent brawl where she allegedly used racist profanity.)

For me, personally, this is wonderful comedy. A riot. Professionally, I consider it a good move as it shows clearly where he stands, and that he is open for discussion. This two way dialog is rare.
His and his blog’s credibility are aided by the fact that comments are turned on (and that he allows the comments to often be full of negative critique) and that the blog is hosted away from the official government domains, as well as official political party domains.

More people with influential positions (after all, he is the foreign minister of our country) should be this open in their communications.

David

OK, so Carl Bildt was involved in some companies and organizations during his time out of politics, and a major Swedish newspaper is accusing him of engaging in a long list of unethical behavior. Nothing new here, this is common practice when it comes to accusing politicians of naughtiness.

The new behavior, however, comes from Mr. Bildt himself. He responded on his blog. So basically, he is handling the crisis by communicating towards the same audience that the original newspaper article communicated towards: your average Swede. He could have, and 10 years ago probably would have, written the newspaper directly, but now he is aiming right at us.

This is pretty forward of him, and it is working: in their counter retort, the newspaper refers to the blog. And in TV news spots, they show video of his blog post.

I have no idea about who is right in this case, and I really dont care: however, it should be said that by controlling the conversation in this manner, he is making the paper look a little bit silly. He simply dissects almost all arguments they put forward, and answers in a matter of fact way. Highly impressive. Also nice that he allows comments on his post.

David

David

I am not the first who has noted this, but I have only recently been painfully aware of it: Overture and Google have effectively killed any thoughts of long tail PPC campaigns. Overture does it right in your face (which I like) by simply stating: “you can not bid for a keyword not used in the system the past 30 days”. Adwords does it behind your back, in the shadows (which I don’t like) by somehow using usage frequency as a factor in calculating some obscure “quality score”, which in turn means that long tail terms cost (for me in Sweden) around €3.5, which of course is totally unacceptable.

Is this all by itself horrible? Absolutely. I can not imagine that they (Google) believe that anyone will pay this amount of money, so why are the doing it? My guess is that it is done to get rid of the Adwords spammers, like eBay. (Remember this?) All things considered, in a huge amount of their long tail marketing, eBay is legitimate. Because of their huge inventory of auctions, they can sell something that matches almost all searches ever done. But when it goes sour, it goes big time.

The campaign that opened my eyes to this problem contained around 1.5m words, but each and every word went to a unique URL with high quality data (which in every single case included the keyword), and the traffic still cost €3.5.

I just had a thought: considering that eBay and their Swedish daughter firm Tradera still engage in these ultra long tail campaigns, do you think that Google has a special type of account, or a special amount of love for huge advertisers that allow them to go ahead with the campaign? Let me tell you, they are absolutely not paying €3.5 per visitor…

David

A movie that made a huge impression on me as I grew up was Millennium (nice new look from IMDB, btw) from ‘89 with Kris Kristoffersson. The quote begun in the title is from this movie, and continues “…this is not the beginning of the end, this is the end of the beginning.”

I thought of this quote rather often today as I was considering the economic boom we are in today, and the resulting IT-companies and their fortunes. I have previously stated that the main difference between this IT-boom and the one that crashed around 2000 is that today the companies are making money. This is of course still true (some are making mad amounts) but I have seen the beginning of the end of this bubble, and it happened today.

I found a company with an extremely cyclical business model, based solely on well thought out domain names and high powered sales, with a market cap of around €50 million. That is entirely too much, and as soon as the economy turns down, this company might die. Abruptly. And I see people and institutions go after this company like it turns water into wine. Clearly, large investment houses need more education when it comes to dealing with modern internet businesses. They simply have no clue.

I wonder if there is any highly successful IT-entrepreneur who switched sides and started advising investors?

David

When enjoying my referral logs (I use Google Analytics) I noted that many searched for ”Boeing” when entering my site today and yesterday. This is not particularly odd, considering that I yesterday talked about what I think the wonderful people in Chicago could do to improve the Boeing brand.

I did however note something highly interesting when looking at the network locations – have a look:

Yeah, that is right: an IP owned by The Boeing Company has visited my blog. Several times.

What does this mean? Well, first of all it means that the reason I preach about the value and importance of an internal corporate blog policy is again highlighted. The visit to my blog could potentially (although unlikely) be privately motivated, but because it was done from the Boeing network, it was done in Boeings name.

Secondly, and perhaps more obviously, it means that Boeing is a part of the blogosphere. Am I going to far here? Possibly – clearly, there is a large difference between monitoring the blogosphere and acting towards the blogosphere. And as I said, the visit might not even be sanctioned by Boeing.

But, for arguments sake, lets assume that Boeing has gone as far as starting to monitor the buzz. It could potentially be a rather daunting task – Technorati shows on average 300 daily blog posts with where the word Boeing was mentioned. A quick scan shows that much is not interesting out of a corporate communications perspective, but this sorting would  kill hours each day.

The next step – gathering, analyzing, spreading info – could be even more time consuming. But vital. Without it, you wouldn’t be able to pick up and act on comments such as this one:

If you look at Randy’s Journal, the copyright protection at the bottom states “1995 – 2006”. Update that, please.

For anyone who has as his or her job is charged with digging through this post to get to the Boeing-“value”, I can only say sorry. I will try to put the value up top next time.

When you as a corporation have a smooth process for handling blogosphere buzz, my suggestion to large corporations has always been to approach a select group of bloggers. Ask them what you can do for them, what type of data they would want, if you can help them with a WordPress-plugin or something of the sorts. I doubt that I would be on the shortlist for the Boeing press department (where I suggest all blog relations should be owned) to develop a relationship with, so I would have no idea if they already are doing anything. My guess is not.

David

Before I start, I want to make one thing perfectly clear: I am heavily biased in Boeings favor in the Boeing/Airbus battle. I truly love all Boeing does and stands for, and could easily say the opposite about Airbus.

That being said, I am not happy with the image/brand that Boeing is putting out there. I feel that they are portraying themselves as an old dark-blue-suit, white-shirt, strict and boring old fashioned company, and that needs to change. We need to liven up the Boeing image, and make them more approachable, likable & loveable. Noone would lose with such a change.

Easily said - not easily implemented, right? Not so. Here are some things that Boeing could do without much effort to improve their brand “smell”:

• Start creating and publishing more rich media. I know there are films from certain first flights, but not enough. Create a YouTube account, film each and every roll-out, and publish the movies. Every single aircraft will get attention, and they will mean something special to someone.
• Let powerful bloggers into the loop. Let a couple of Airliners.net photographers fly along on a test flight or delivery flight. Find aviation bloggers, invite them along. Give them special sneak previews of unveilings. Give them exclusive tours. Get the buzz going in the blogosphere!
• Create a better website. Seriously, comparing the first impressions from Airbus.com and Boeing.com is painful for a Boeing lover. I am certain that thousands of hours of user testing decided that this was the best layout - but come on - Boeing needs an update. I am not saying that lots of flash etc. is the recipe, but make it slightly more lively.
• Adapt newer technology on the corporate web. Why can I not subscribe to the press releases via RSS? Where are all the podcasts? Video bios of executives?

What else can a large company do with social media? Lots, naturally - and at a really low cost relatively speaking. I hope Boeing doesn’t drop the ball here - the old boring image simply doesnt rhyme with the 787 product they are close to flying.

David

There is absolutely no possibility that Ms. Spears’ advisors exist. The celebrity crisis management team supporting her, if it exists, is doing an absolutely horrible job. Is there one? Do celebrities of her status have PR-support constantly? If not, why not?

Celebrities with so much public interest are basically companies - they have a brand to protect and grow. The protection enjoyed by Britney Spears right now is under all critique.

David

Finally, the great Richard Branson will become a bit more visible to the American public. When he and his team get through this whole licencing thing to get the American branch of his airline business off the ground, many will understand why he has done so well.

Engadget has been given a tour of the planes - read all here.

(Update: By inviting Engadget to tour the planes, clearly Virgin America has taken some massive steps towards embracing the discussion, and towards the social media community as a whole that are highly impressive.) 

Those of you who know me know that I have a hard time supporting any company/person who is a fan of Airbus products, but in this case I am making an exception.

I think that even in America, the land of dreams and opportunity, a fresh blast of Branson will increase entrepreneurship and general willingness to take chances and be agressive.

I wish Virgin America all the luck in the world - they will without any doubt be my choice in air travel when in the States.

David

I will be using this space to give away great new product or service ideas which I will never be able to fulfill. Why dont you?

Idea #1: Cat food testing kit. Obviously, you want your cat to have the food she or he likes, right? And when you make a choice, your cat needs to live with the choice a long time, right? (How fast does a regular sized bag get consumed?) Here is the idea: provide small samples of five or so different tastes, all in a roll-up type container that I can put on the floor, open the holes, and give my cat samples of five different tastes. She (in my case) choses her fav, and that is what I buy. I will need to do the sample test every time I buy a bag, of course - tastes change!

Idea #2: The Skype of snail-mail. I never want any mail in my mailbox. I am talking about my physical mailbox here – and this is what I want instead: the ability to purchase a service where I receive a physical address to which I direct all my regular mail. The mail is then opened, scanned, and emailed to me. For an extra service charge, I can select to have certain letters forwarded, such as letters with checks included or perhaps a perfumed love letter. This way, I will always get my mail wherever I move, and I can for an extra sum purchase local addresses around the world, and receive the mail in email form as quickly as if I lived there.

The operation would be quite simple – you set up shop with a couple of intelligent scanners, get a fireproof and secure storage location for the real copies of all mail, create the legal document I as a customer need to sign to ensure that you legally can open my mail, and get going. I would easily pay $9 bucks per month plus say 10 cents per page scanned. Imagine 10k customers. Or 5 million.

David

Corporate blogs have been relatively common in the US for a while - CEO, CSR and HR blogs are the most common in my experience - but Sweden, and basically all of Europe, has been far behind. The reason? I see two main explanations: firstly, a fear of accepting the conversation, and secondly, no clear benifits.

As I have traveled around visiting large listed companies and giving my speech about social media and corporate communications I have been greeted with awe almost every time. The corporate communicators in press, IR, and communications departmenets are just barely getting ready to face the new trends. Some companies have really interesting CSR challenges (I think that CSR and HR blogs will be easier to get going in Sweden than CEO blogs) and I suggest that a blog could be a great way to interact with stakeholders on all levels.

But almost every time, they are scared. So what do I do? I tell them to integrate the technology on their intranets first. Get the company ready for blogging, get usage up, learn the way to deal. Same with wikis, make them internal first! Of course, usage is the key - critical mass is vital - so you need to make it obvious to all users how to use the tools.

This has been accepted widely, and implemented. I think an internal blog or wiki is a great first stepping stone towards making your company social-media ready, and on course towards taking charge of the conversation.

David

An excellent example of social media gone nuts is the current affair of Britney Spears shaving her head, and generally doing lots of crazy things. Now, apart from doing the crazy things, she is doing something much more destructive - she is ignoring/not seeing/shunning the discussion online. There are videos of her shaving, of her tattoo, and of her flipping off the photographer - and the discussion is reaching far and wide.

This is an excellent scenario for testing corporate crisis communication using online social media.

First, Britney needs to take charge of the conversation. Gather the conversation where you can get an overview. How? Either by initiating a conversation on any of your already existing channels, like your official webpage, a social networking profile, or perhaps even a new blog. Time is of the essence, however, so I wouldn’t get a new domain going for just this purpose. In addition, creadibility is vital, so the official website is probably the best channel.

Remove all that is there, and start a blog. (Remember to let people get past the blog to the “regular” site via a clear link (although of course, your site is “under construction” now…)). The post should be clear, professional, and explanatory. Tell us why you did what you did, and open the post for questions. Put up a policy for the format of the comments (no swearing, abusive language etc.) and let people respond. After a couple of hours, gather all the questions, and answer them one by one in a new post. Repeat over and over.

Now, we need to use rich media to calm the crisis. Create video of yourself looking crazy hot without hair. Make it funny, positive. Smile. Tell us how much you will save on shampoo. How much more sleep you will get by not having to clean your hair for hours a week, etc. etc. Post videos to YouTube, embed from blog. Take new headshots, post to Flickr, embed on blog. Let a friend interview you, post a downloadable Podcast on your blog.

Now you need to ensure that I can feel calm in knowing that your point of contact is the best place to go for updates. Create a “in the press” section of this new blog. Link to all articles you find, and let visitors to your site grade/comment the links. Also, ensure that I can subscribe to the new blog to get daily updates on how the situation is unfolding.

I think this would be a superb plan. It wouldnt hurt, that is for sure. And as I said - this is an excellent example of a crisis, and it will be terribly interesting to see the results, and how Britney’s PR-team will handle this.

David

Another couple of hours, another couple of reflections:

Clearly, the main focus as an exibitor is to do business. This is only possible if you have a ton of face to face contact, and a ton of business card exchanges. Simply put, it is a numbers game where the one with the most quality contacts is most likely to enjoy long lasting success.

Therefore, it is highly interesting to see the different methods used by companies (such as mine and our competitors) to initiate these conversations. The business of selling products to conference exibitors is huge, but I do not think that today the main difference in success rates was easily correlated to the main expo material. The different tactics I saw today were, among others:

• Pinball machine
• Lots and lots of candy
• A helium balloon of immense size
• Four 42″ plasma screens
• Lots of pretty ladies

I am not certain which was the most effective, but it was interesting to see that some did not capitalize on the result of their “hook”. People were pulled in by it, only to be let go. Swedes need to be less fearful of approaching people. Be more American!

I am tired beyond belief now, and will probably move on home. It has been a great day, particularly considering that my presentation was well recieved. I can not wait until sleeping time.

David

Two cool things happened today: firstly, I again overcame painful nervousness to deliver a pretty nice presentation on search and social media with a focus on corporate communications. Secondly, I saw (but didn’t dare to approach) a somewhat famous person within the Swedish online communications field, namely Fredrik WackÃ¥.

He is actually speaking as I write - which means that I am actually blogging from the conference. Wireless in the audience. How freaking cool is that?

All things considered, I have been thinking a lot about presentation technique during this day. My primary conclusions are that firstly, we need to ensure that there is at least an ounce of charisma in the presenters. I have seen some complete disasters today. Secondly, we know who you are dude, don’t spend the first 10 of 25 minutes presenting yourself and your company. Thirdly, give some advice which the audience can use to improve their business today. And finally, enough with the bullet point filled PowerPoint-presentations! In my humble opinion you need only one single picture per slide, and that is your support as you speak. Bullet points are for you, not for the audience to read.

David