Sheep Guarding Llama

It’s been a long week.  I am very thankful that this is considered a holiday weekend coming up.  I do not have the energy to deal with this week and a break will be quite wonderful.

I ended up working from home for a little while this morning.  Just too much to do and I slept in rather late today.  I’ve been losing sleep for the last several days and today turned out to be my day to make it up.  I had gone to bed at a good time last night too!  I guess that I really needed it.  I certainly felt better when I got up this morning.

Busy but uneventful day.  Late this afternoon a friend of mine from Austin stopped by the office and after work we stopped by Rockfish for some drinks and to grab dinner.  He is in town until Friday morning.  We had appetizers while waiting for our dinners to be prepared and then went over to the Chaat Cafe to pick up some fresh naan for Dominica.  Then I got dropped off at home and he headed over to his hotel.

At Rockfish this evening our bartender had a sample of New Amsterdam Gin that he let us try.  He had been saving it for some serious gin drinkers, and we more than qualified!  Gin is my most common drink.  All three of us thought that it was the best gin we had ever tried. Far superior to anything that I have had before.  We told the guy who handled the liquor orders for Rockfish to get some for us as we would definitely be ordering it in the future.

Spent the evening with Dominica and Liesl watching 30 Rock.

As predicted, I got pretty much no sleep last night.  I got to sleep somewhere between twelve thirty and one and I was awake after three thirty.  I checked email, sent some messages and snuggled Oreo for a while but by around four thirty I was sick of my laying in bed waiting for morning to come.  To I got up and worked at the computer for a little bit before jumping in the shower and heading into the office.  I got in, again, between six thirty and seven in the morning.  A nice, dark, brisk walk from home to office.

I went down to the cafeteria and got a breakfast taco and coffee to get me through the morning.  I was pretty hungry today for some reason.  Jeff brought in donuts too from Story Donuts so I made out really well today.

For lunch today I went home at one to get the family ready to drive over to Dominica’s one thirty ultrasound appointment (hint, hint).  We got over there just in time, always a challenge with me working and having a toddler and an old Boston Terrier.  The ultrasound went really well.  We are ten and a half weeks pregnant!  The little one is doing well.  Heart rate was 150 and we could clearly see him or her on the ultrasound being able to make out the head and body without any issue.  Due date is at the end of April.  Hence the desire to find a house sooner than later.

After the ultrasound I got dropped off at work without having had a chance to get lunch.  Good thing that I got breakfast and that there were donuts today.  I had more donuts to make up for missing lunch.

Watson and I had a rough day dealing with the same issues that I mentioned from last night.  So we went over to Chaat Cafe for dinner and drinks before heading home for the evening.  That gave us a chance to actually talk about what was going on – and to have a few drinks which we needed after today.  I ended up running into several guys from the office at the Chaat Cafe.  People who worked for other divisions but it is hard to hide when you are from my office – the lingo gives you away.

After Chaat Cafe Brian dropped me off at the apartment and I delivered Dominica her dinner, took care of Liesl, walked Oreo, etc.  Dominica ate dinner and we watched some of 30 Rock.  Since I have never really watched the show except for a few episodes here and there and since Dominica has not seen it in a long time we decided to go to the beginning and start watching it from there.  So I got to see the first few episodes tonight.

Tried to just relax tonight as much as there was time to do.  Liesl went to bed fairly early and we were not very far behind her.  I’m a bit tired from losing sleep the last several nights.

Online communities represent a significant challenge for traditional marketing departments to tackle.  Online communities are active conversations – the kind that Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger talked about.

Traditional marketing happens in a broadcast mode, whether television, billboard or conference.  Think of the traditional community as a park full of individuals strolling about each doing their own thing.  Then someone with a megaphone shows up and announces a new lemonade stand has opened.  Simple.  Lots of individuals have now been informed that there is lemonade.  Some will check it out, some will ignore it.

This is how marketing worked when there was no conversation.  It was one voice directed at many individuals.  Communities are not individuals, however.  But most marketers still love the megaphone.  It is a metaphor that they understand.

Imagine now the park is not full of individuals but groups of friends who have gathered together.  One group, six friends having a picnic, discussing work and home life and enjoying themselves sits at a picnic table.  The marketer approaches, megaphone in hand, and announces, in the midst of hearty conversation, that the lemonade stand has opened.  Do people get up and get lemonade?  No, they cover their ears, throw half eaten hot dogs at the marketer and after the marketer has departed discuss amongst themselves how rude the lemonade people are and how they should avoid buying their products.  The opposite of the desired effect has occurred, but should not come as a surprise to anyone.

The problem here is that the marketer is still attempting to speak at the conversation, not to join it.  That’s not how to win friends and influence people.

Instead, the marketer needs to put down the megaphone, saunter on over, make a casual introduction, join in the conversation, earn trust and respect.  Eventually many people will be more than willing to discuss the lemonade stand, in a friendly, non-aggressive manner.  They might have questions too.  Is the lemonade organic?  Is the water filtered?  How much does it cost?  Is there a volume discount?  When does the stand open and close?

Not only does joining the conversation give the marketer a chance to inform in a generally non-aggressive way; it also provides opportunity for customer engagement where a bidirectional exchange can provide feedback to marketing and information to customers.  Everyone wins.

A common mistake that companies make is sending out a marketer prepared only for the broadcast mode and throwing them into a conversation with non-peers without proper support.  In technical circles especially, people involved in the conversation are likely to have questions for the marketer attempting to promote their product.  In broadcast mode marketing it is relatively trivial to hide or gloss over product defects – such as ignoring the fact that the lemonade doesn’t come with a straw for easy sipping.  But in a conversation mode, people may ask what type of straw is included with their purchase.  If the marketer avoids the topic, people will begin to discuss reasons why there is no “straw disclosure.”  Perhaps the straws are defective, cost extra or do not exist.  Maybe there is so much pulp that a straw wouldn’t work or maybe the lemonade stand has never actually sold lemonade before and isn’t ready to open yet even though they have started marketing.

Silence in the conversation leads to speculation.  Speculation is nearly always very bad in a conversation mode.  People will assume that the worst case scenario is true.  Open communications is absolutely critical to healthy marketing in the conversation.

I have seen this first hand.  A marketer gains access to an online community, posts some at marketing and generates enough interest to get the community talking.  But almost instantly the community has questions, and tough ones, for the vendor.  The vendor goes silent.  In the days it takes for the vendor to arrange a spokesperson to be assigned to the community the vendor’s reputation is destroyed within the community through speculation and independent research done without the vendor present to counter claims, provide additional details or just be a part of the conversation.  The results were public relations disaster for a product that might actually have been quite good.  It destroyed the product’s position in the community and heavily tarnished the vendor – prompting them to abandon that channel entirely.  All because they were not prepared to participate and thought that broadcasting at the conversation would be sufficient.

The same effect will happen in real-life communication groups as happens in online communities.  User groups, for example, can be real world analogues to online communities – general familiarity between members, common topical uniting factor.  Marketers attempting to utilize the user group as a platform must consider the group to behave just like the online community – but perhaps a little more real time and slightly more polite, but the basic mechanics will remain the same.

Attempts to market at a user group will generally result in the marketer being excluded from the conversation with the conversation being focused heavily upon criticisms of the marketer or product.  Without participating in the conversation, the marketer’s position is weakened as there is no ability for defense or explanation.  This is best case –  assuming that the marketer was invited and welcomed to the group but fails to participate.  If the marketer is not present via invitation the results can be actually hostile as the marketer can be considered an invader violating the group’s identity.

Effective participation in the group dynamic is important for a marketer to gain access to the community or group.  Only after joining the conversation can a message be effectively presented, discussed and supported through healthy group interaction.

Dominica and I have been married for seven years today!

I woke up at four thirty this morning.  I tried getting back to sleep for a while but had little success so I just got up and headed into the office.  I took my time but still arrived around six forty five.  Pretty early.  I walked in in complete darkness and it was rather chilly on the walk.  It was probably not chilly by traditional standards but having been in Texas for nearly a year now I guess that I am adapting to some degree.

Pretty busy morning.  The weather stayed nice and cool which was great.  Texas in the autumn is really nice.  Although nothing compares to New York with the leaves changing.  We are missing that already and this is our first year away.

Busy day but not insane like it has been.  I didn’t get to go home for lunch until one thirty, though.  That was very late.  I went home and Dominica made vegetarian sloppy joes and we watched a little of the fourth season of 30 Rock. Liesl was awake the whole time I was home so we got to hang out.

I left work a little “early”, although I was there for ten hours so early is a relative term, and went home at four thirty to spend time with Dominica for our anniversary.

We got some Jamba Juice shortly after I got home as a treat.   I made it during “happy hour” when the large drinks are the price of a medium!  Good to know.  I am learning all of the happy hour tricks locally this week.

For our anniversary dinner we got Thai from Blu Ginger.  I got pad Thai and Liesl ate quite a bit of it.  She really liked it.

Amazon had delivered A Good Man in Africa this afternoon and I have not seen it in almost a decade.  A Good Man in Africa was one of my great finds on laserdisc way back during my early movie collecting days but as my laserdisc player died very shortly after Dominica and I met she has never seen this movie even though it was one of the most watched and well known of my early collection.  So we watched this while we had dinner.  I feel like the DVD didn’t look as good as the LD did but that is probably my imagination.  I didn’t have a 1080p LCD to show off the flaws in the LD.  The movie is a classic and I had forgotten just how many great people were in it.  Dominica thought that it was okay.

After the movie we watched quite a bit of 30 Rock. That is a really great show that I have seen very little of.  Dominica watches it and I catch it from time to time when she has been watching it but that is about all.  I really should sit down and watch it from the beginning.  Very good show.

Liesl was in a great mood this evening and we just played and played.  Aligning my work schedule to her waking hours is working out great.  Today we got almost nine hours together!  Very few working dads managed to get that kind of time on a working day with their toddlers.  I only missed a few morning hours with her.  It is hardly like I was away at work at all today.

Liesl was up until after midnight tonight.  Pretty late, even by her standards.

Just before going to bed I received an email that made me rather upset.  I’ve lost a lot of sleep over the past week because of an issue that I am not yet at liberty to discuss publicly but I can say that it is a professional issue but not one at work, just in case anyone reading thought that it might be them 😉  But I am very saddened by a turn that events have taken and I have a lot of contemplating to do before tomorrow.  Likely I will not get very good sleep tonight either.  I thought that I had mostly resolved this particular issue early this morning by distancing myself from the situation and extracting my involvement from the community in question but that appears to have done little so I am drawn back in for the moment.