ABOUT THE TOPIC:
We are all know by now that "Markets are conversations." But Lois Kelly, author of Beyond Buzz, says it's not enough anymore to spread "Word of Mouth." To succeed in the marketplace today, you have to have a meaningful dialog -- and really listen to your market.

Stay tuned for more details. And be sure to join IAOCblog.com November  5-9, 2007 when guest host Lois Kelly takes over the conversation with:
Conversational Marketing: Mood over Matter?

ABOUT THE DISCUSSION LEADER:


Lois Kelly writes, consults and speaks about how to use conversational marketing and social media to more quickly connect with customers, employees and marketplace influencers.

Reviewing her new book, Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word of Mouth Marketing, Northeastern University professor Walter Carl said “The Cluetrain Manifesto was a call for corporations to wake up to the global conversations about them, and potentially with them. In Beyond Buzz, Lois Kelly gives corporations the practical tools to answer that call.”

Lois' articles have appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Brandweek, Advertising Age. Clients have included Sapient, SAP, Sun Microsystems, FedEx, The Business Innovation Factory, Dunkin’ Donuts, and Communispace. 

In support of this week's blog show, guest Peter Gloor has made available to us a scholarly article containing the summary findings of the research project we have been discussing. The article is officially entitled, "The Virtual Mirror: Reflecting on Your Social and Psychological Self to Increase Organizational Creativity."

Authors of this work are Peter Gloor, Daniel Oster, Alexander ("Sandy") Petland, and Ornit Raz. Maybe Peter could tell us a little about these other contributors. The article does not contain the authors'  biographies or credentials, though it does contain an extensive bibliography of references.

While the paper is academic in tone, it makes use of intriguing mapping software that renders social interactions into colorful grids. The graphics come through nicely in the PDF version we are offering in the IAOC Library. Here is the link to download the report:

The Virtual Mirror, (PDF, 17 pages, 577K)

The report is dated September 19, 2007. Peter, thank you for making it available to our community.

STEVE O'KEEFE

Using social badges that measure face to face interaction on the microscopic level allow us to predict patterns of collaboration and gain insights into how we work together on levels not possible before. At the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence we have recently experimented with what we call microscopic dynamic social network analysis.

GPS satellite based navigation systems tell us where we are and how to get where we want to go. In our research we used a similar people-based social navigation system develop at the MIT Medial Lab by Sandy Pentland’s team to better understand our position in social networks. Using social badges - body-worn sensors - we measured physical interaction of co-located people to better understand who they are, and therefore allow them  to better navigate in their own social network.

In a research project with 22 study subjects, who wore the badges during work for one month, we were able to predict social characteristics such as extroversion, neuroticism, openness, and agreeability based on microscopic social network analysis. We obtained control measures of these values with a standard psychological test NEO-FFI). High contribution index was positively correlated with extroversion, and negatively correlated with neuroticism. This means that the more people looked their communication partners into the face, the more of an extrovert they were. The less they looked them into the eyes, the higher was their score on the neuroticism test.   Fluctuation in betweenness centrality was positively correlated with openness, and negatively correlated with agreeability. In less scientific language: the more they changed between being in the center of the conversation, and by withdrawing into their offices, the more open to new things they were. The steadier their communication pattern, either as a socialite or a recluse, the higher their agreability score.  We were also able to obtain correlation between social network position and job satisfaction, and extroversion.

Of course this technology has to be used very carefully, to avoid the risk of intruding into the privacy of the individual. In our project we have alleviated this risk by only sharing individual results with each affected individual, and giving a condensed view without individual identification to management. So far study participants have reacted very positively to the insights they gained about their own communication behavior.

Microscopic social network analysis can be used to complement proven psychological tests such as the FFI. It could be used, e.g. as a further input to identify people suitable for certain professions, for example identifying the most agreeable candidates among potential recruits as police officers.  By simply wearing social badges, a user will finally be able to answer question like “Do I have more of an introvert or an extrovert communication style? What personality types do I have to bring into a meeting to make it more productive? How can I change my personal communication behavior to be more efficient? What leadership styles are most effective for a certain situation?” We hope that future research will help organizations become more innovative and productive by exploring their hidden social structures in a virtual mirror – helping members of an organization to better understand their hidden social characteristics to improve the overall organization.

"You've got to find some way of saying it without saying it." -- Duke Ellington

PR, buzz, hype , spin (doctors), etc, etc, are all words that are definitely out right now.  They've all become associated with the negative side of "milking" media to further one's selfish goals; whether a government, a corporation or an individual.  It is perceived as the masking of reality, especially by the technology-enabled teens and young-adults of today.  PR as it was/is taught in b-schools and we know it today is part of outdated model of communications.  This model is centralized, with a hub from which a single, tightly-controlled message is projected.  Anybody remember 1984, by George Orwell?

What has made the old model old, is precisely technology.  Today, anyone can see right through the spin and the buzz.  Technology today is as widely available and easy to use/enjoy as a Pepsi.  This has levelled the playing field and is starting to make the world a more transparent and honest place.   It makes anyone with £1 in their pocket a potential communicator, editor, investigator and potential endorser on the internet.

In a world of personal disbelief, nothing goes further than the endorsement of others.  However, given the dispbelief you will need a huge number of endorsers to your cause, your brand or yourself...

The question is, taking into account Duke's quote at the beginning, how can I get others to talk for me?  It's about open-sourcing yourself.  Let others define what you (your cause) are and what you could be.  After all, the creativity of millions on-line is probably just a bit greater than your own.

Please join us July 17-21, 2006 for a blog program: PR is Getting Personal, with discussion leaders Joost van de Loo, Clo Willaerts and Dana Gornitzki

ABOUT THE TOPIC:
In today's networked world it is no longer a winning strategy to have a safe job and to trust in the authority of your company. Positions change quickly; your manager can become a freelancer, your supplier can be your client the next month.  Commercial communication is more and more becoming the ongoing dialogue between individuals that the Cluetrain Manifesto predicted. Direct-to-consumer PR is only a small element of this pattern.

As a result, personal reputation is now one of our most precious assets. Successful professionals do everything to be seen as trusted networking hubs. How will this change PR? Will our press releases become more 'fair and balanced'? How do we need to adapt our thinking?

ABOUT THE DISCUSSION LEADERS:
Joost van de Loo is a Marketing Strategist, who joined communication consultancy ZN following a career in journalism and marketing. He has a Master of Arts degree in International Journalism from the City University of London, and a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from the Delft University of Technology. In addition to work at ZN he currently sets up Distinct News International, a company that produces multi-media packaged television news features from India and China. He also consults for ETV and writes for UK-based Diplo magazine. Joost has worked for BBC Four television, the Amsterdam Weekly, Dynamic Zone, and KPN Mobile.

Clo Willaerts is marketing manager of Belgacom Skynet and an avid blogger.

Dana Gornitzki is a Canadian transplant currently living in London, England. A journalist and media expert, Dana's experience has covered the world of print, online and broadcast. From working with film festivals and inside a major public broadcaster to working with emerging brands, Dana's work has a focus of social interactions and its impact on the here and now. Currently, she is exploring the mobile space and is interested in that medium's far-reaching effects from social communities to advertising and consumption habits.

All the copywriting experts warn: Don't use humor in advertising! "People don't buy products from clowns," thundered the grandfather of modern advertising...   more »

The battle goes on.... At the end of my last entry, I wrote, "Perhaps the best model for this type of flawed thinking is a military one....   more »

Are you "creative"?... Too much of what passes for marketing is based on creative whim. General advertisers often shoot blind, trying to make "impressions" instead of targeting sales.   more »

Please join us June 12-16, 2006 for a blog program: Direct-to-Consumer News Releases, with discussion leader David Meerman Scott.

ABOUT THE TOPIC:
The Web has changed the rules for press releases. Press releases are now read by millions of consumers on Google News, Yahoo News, newspaper and magazine sites and thousands of vertical market sites, But many PR professionals resist direct-to-consumer PR. Is it time to step it up and consider the promise Web 2.0 public relations holds? Do we need to alter the way you think about press releases? Or, as Steve Rubel has said, do "direct-to-consumer press releases suck"?

ABOUT THE DISCUSSION LEADER:
David Meerman Scott is a writer, consultant, conference speaker and seminar leader. David’s latest book Cashing In With Content: How Innovative Marketers Use Digital Information to Turn Browsers Into Buyers is a riff on using Web content to drive revenue and other action from Web site visitors. He is the author of the e-book phenomenon "The New Rules of PR" downloaded to date by 75,000 people. David is a contributing editor at EContent Magazine, a contributing writer at Product Marketing Magazine and his writing has appeared in diverse publications including CMOMagazine.com, MarketingProfs.com, BusinessWeek, Competitive Intelligence Magazine, North American Review and many others. In his consulting work, David specializes in using online content to market and sell products and services to demanding customers worldwide. He has lived and worked in New York, Tokyo, Boston, and Hong Kong and has presented at industry conferences and events in over twenty countries on four continents.
Contact him at www.DavidMeermanScott.com and read his blog at www.WebInkNow.com.

Too much has already been written about blogs. And many of you know far more about blogs than I ever ...   more »

How do you think people will communicate most comfortably or most often five years from now? Ten years? Twenty years? This is not just a theoretical question, but one with incredible financial repercussions, as communications facilitators such as telephone companies, cable television companies, motion picture producers, and publishers place their bets.   more »

As the AuthorViews Summer Tour continues in Austin, Texas, IAOC vice president Steve O'Keefe interviews Electronic Frontier Foundation pioneer, iconoclast, and author Jon Lebowsky about his new book, Extreme Democracy. The book is a fascinating collection of essays on how technology is changing politics.   more »

In his contribution to the IAOC blog last week (March 15, 16 and 17), Todd Van Hoosear discussed a model of "lean communication" based on the same kind of network that engineers talk about when delivering wireless signal.    more »

I think the discussion of communications models is an important one and I would like to build on Todd's posts. There has been a lot of discussion about blogging following the communications model laid out in Malcolm Gladwell�s book The Tipping Point...   more »

What Robin was advocating is a paradigm shift in communication models. This happened once before with the shift from mass media to interpersonal and "micro" media, and is nicely illustrated by Robin. Now we're on the verge of a new paradigm--we see the limitations of the "micro marketing" approach as she describes it (one of the biggest limitations in my mind is scalability), and are ready to adopt a new model, one that embraces the "core values" that she outlines on her slide. In some aspects, the new model is a hybrid of the past two approaches, in others, significantly different.

   more »

But what does all my talk about networked communication models  have to do with PR? From a practitioner's standpoint, it's all about efficiency--think "lean communication" instead of "lean manufacturing." The more effectively I can reach my clients key audiences with the message they need (and hopefully want) to hear, the more successful I will be. If I understand the flow of a particular meme across a network, the more effectively I can target my audiences. If I know, for example, that one node has a particularly effective one-to-many relationship with my key audience, I will attempt to communicate with that mode, in hopes that my message--my meme--is passed on (expressed?).

   more »

Continuing my thoughts from yesterday...

I'd like to introduce another couple concepts: memes and social networks.    more »