Guns don’t kill people, people do. Computers don’t throw out crap, people do. Spreadsheets don’t truly measure success, people do. Bill posters don’t grab peoples attention, people do. Marketing doesn’t sell more, people do. Products don’t sell themselves, people do. Systems don’t get more out of people, people do. Connections don’t happen on their own, people initiate and develop them. Relationships don’t happen all by their self, people make them happen!

People make bad decisions, they make great decisions. People miff and they motivate. It’s all about people, its all about being social, its all about respect, its all about true connections. Always has been, always will be. Blaming the system is a naive, unintelligent way to go. The way we do things now in business and the communities we live in was created by people, is endorsed through behaviour by people and continues because of people.

We know the system is broken, we know it needs replacing, we know it needs to change but we just can’t bring ourselves to do it, not the masses anyway. We are so conditioned and scared. Well the more scared you are of something, the more you should embrace it. Otherwise, you are perhaps just leading an existence!

Brian Solis wrote an exceptional article last November on social media and traditional influencers, catch it here;

http://www.briansolis.com/2009/11/social-media-influencers-are-not-traditional-influencers/

Its interesting as it distinguishs the potential differences. However, if you’re moving that passive database to a proactive community, its more sophisticated than that. Any business community around your business will depend on differing levels of intimacy, different roles and distinctive connections.

We’ve already identified that it will have groups of people with different needs in the last post. To get to grips with this you start with the people who can have the most significant impact, not action, impact. Your ‘pillar’ influencers or as Marco Iansiti and Roy Levien call them “keystone influencers.” They are the same thing.

Brian Solis is right, these critical players in your marketing strategy, will be either offline, online or both. You’re ahead of the game if they are both. The first stage is to identify clearly who they are and segment them based on that premise,: online or offline. Then you can decide what you’re going to do with them that encourages dynamic interaction. Look at it in two ways:

1. Start with the offline people. They’ll be offline for a reason. What are you going to do with them that will encourage, collaboration, co-creation, innovation, product development, new referrals and a guiding hand on how your business grows? What are you going to give them? These are great team brainstorming events, believe me. In addition, you have an obligation to encourage these influencers to ‘dip their toe’ in the water of social media. It’s your responsibility to be honest.

2. Secondly, go and identify the online influencers and do the same.

Build an approach that is going to solidify the relationship and drive your business forward. However, the way in which you use technology and platforms will be different here. I know its obvious, but I have to say it. Build into the plan, physical meetings with these people too. I recently, met up with my top 29 Twitter influencers in my local region and its worked. I still have one to do.

All of the ‘pillar’ influencers will, strangely enough, have significant influence in their respective fields. They may be customers, suppliers, friends, businesses linked to your sector and even competitors.

Once you’ve created your plan, then start to connect with this small (not hundreds) number of people. It’s no different than creating a marketing communications plan. Just a point, understand why you are doing this. It’s not broadcast, it means using some shoe leather up and meeting, visiting and ‘eyeballing’ people whether online or offline.

This first step in the development of an engaging, alive business community is about enhancing and enriching existing relationships that are natural, energetic, appropriate and individual. And, perhaps by doing this well, it will lead to new relationships.

Now thats interesting and if the questions are changing perhaps the answers must too! Last evening I attended the www.media140.com event in Bristol, hosted in the salubrious setting of Goldbrick House. A superb, fascinating venue that upstairs resembled a gentleman’s club, only it allowed women in too!

As my fellow countyman (thats Yorkshire Trey) Alan Bennett once said “”Life is rather like a tin of sardines – we’re all of us looking for the key.” Well we felt a little like sardines but there were some moments of inspiration that may just provide the key! The line up was exceptional to say the least Gemma Went, Trey Pennington, Paul Squires and Gabrielle Laine Peters. All providing insights and foresights. The key moments of conversation;

1. “Conversation created the brand.” Ande Gregson on how Media140 has been successful.
2. “Something that engages you, is engrossing.” Gabrielle Laine Peters.
3. “This is a time of opportunity for small business.” Trey Pennington.
4. “Think about what you can’t achieve with social media.” Gemma Went.

There was lots more. I’ve been to many events like this and, indeed I’ve also spoken at them and I feel the Q & A sessions are shifting. They are getting down to grass roots. Simple questions are sometimes difficult to answer. But there is a drilling down to ROI and rewards. I think we are being too fluffy with the answers. Sorry to be so bold!

Rob Glover chaperoned me for the road trip up to Bristol, accompanied by the album Sunday 8pm by Faithless (for those of you who kept asking.) We talked a lot all day about the detail and the movement towards what I have called social business. Rob’s analogy of farming just summed it up in terms of the present. Nice one Rob! My take on his discussion point is set out below.

Social media is like agriculture. Its preparing the land for an abundant crop. That magnificant harvest does not happen overnight. It means tilling the land, creating a fertile soil. Cultivating it, caring for it, timing it and doing the right things at the right time. So that when you start to plan, promote, engage, participate and co-create you will reap what you sow. People are expecting immediate results from social media, a typical business desire for insatiable vast return now. It just doesn’t happen like that.

Chris Anderson in his book “The Long Tail” hits this right on the nose with a big thump. We see the big hits in the media like Jon Morter and his Rage Against The Machine project and expect the same followers and fans like that. In real life, the hits are rare and most of us succeed, like good farmers, by putting the hours in, caring for our product, preparing, being determined and being patient. We expect so much so quickly from social media, yet we don’t expect the quick results from traditional marketing. Where is the rationality in that?

We need to stop panicking, understand social media is not the only solution but part of it and start using it to cultivate our eventual results that will produce that exceptional harvest next year. Oh and don’t forget crop rotation in this scenario too!

At the end of this thought provoking evening, Trey said “platforms will come and go but the conversations will carry on.” I was going to ask a question but time ran out. Here it is; “How does genuine conversation flourish?” Answers on a postcard…oops sorry….in the comment box below!!!

All right we’ve talked about the amoeba like qualities of a business community and why we have to evolve from having a static, transactional based database to a space where people who love what you do interact with each other. Sometimes you’ll organise this, occasionally the community will organise themselves. BMW doesn’t organised the Mini Club rally’s that take place on sunny Summer afternoons!

What’s critical in this process and what binds your business community is its connections. The connections between your employees, their customers, suppliers, their customers customers, competitors and you! You’ll map this connection visually once a year (we’re working on a model at the moment.) This will show connection lines, participation lines, influencing lines, prospecting lines and information channels.

Once you’ve mapped it, you can start to influence it yourself. This is where the new marketing tactics have replaced direct mail, telesales and advertising. This is not about stakeholders, like an overladen plane, that really never took off. This is about the regular convening of groups of people, facilitated by you across cross-sections of your business community with common interests. We’ll call them hot groups an evolvement of Jean Lipman- Bluemen and Harold J Leavitt’s idea! Where WOM and viral really can take hold.

It will eventually develop into an eco-system that thrives on information and knowledge flow. It will mean your organisation unlearning and letting go of lots of stuff:

Control to facilitation
Marketing to business communities
Closed to open
Broadcast to social
Restriction to freedom
Management to leadership

I’ve seen this working with a few clients and organisations and its fascinating, powerful, enlightening and inspiring watching companies engage with their ‘database’ sorry ‘business community’ in a very, very different and dynamic way!

Okay I’m going to be writing a lot about business community over the next few months. After what seems like tons of research and development, I’ve developed a framework that takes us beyond marketing that centres on building a community through strong robust relationships with customers and employees. Its nothing new, lots of people are talking about it. My company is just one of the first to create a practical way of applying it that is just so very exciting.

It starts with the end in mind, a business having a productive, collaborative, engaging, inspiring community of people co-creating, innovating and participating in the growth of the company. This is two, multi way stuff at its most dynamic. Its truly powerful and generates principally three results; true customers, true employees and true profits.

What do I mean? Well a business community is what you define it as, what’s specific to your business. Its the hub that’s at the centre of your brand! And, okay, its a space where people who have a common interest meet, share ideas, connect with each other, build great relationships, find mutual benefit and create things that have greater value. The people involved in your business community will take your business places you never imagined.

It’s not your database, although thats where you begin. A database is too static and inert for today’s business environment. A database doesn’t allow you to connect customers to each other. It only shares information one way and, in fact, its just a list. Not terribly engaging is it? Life has changed, customers have changed and so have employees. Social media has overturned how we do business. Meeting peoples expectations is pivotal in thriving and moving from a passive relationship to a fully engaged, demanding yet valuable organic place where great business is done.

Our businesses now need to start the process of growing, facilitating, encouraging and taking part in a business community that flocks to our brands. Its different from a database, it will grow, it will subtract, it will change dimensions, it will have different kinds of influencers, different connectors. It will have power struggles, it will innovate, it will co-create. It will shape your business and you will shape it. It will change everyday. You’ll measure it, you’ll monitor it but you will never rule it.

Gone are the days of sending newsletters out each month, some direct mail, tweeting and blogging. Building a business community goes much further than that. Its got lots of activity, heavy weight influencers, strong connectors, play, interaction and a hell a lot of conversation.

I’ll talk more over the coming weeks about how this will develop, some practical examples and, if you’re interested in your company taking part, get in touch. We’ve been testing for a while but we’re interested in developing this further with local company’s.

The trouble with online stuff is we forget how powerful offline influencers still are. You can plot this on a continuum. At one end of the scale are the people who aren’t even online yet save email. At the other end are those people who spend most of their lives online. For those of us immersed in online activity, its easy to be consumed by it. Focusing all our efforts around online influencers. And, for us personally to be drawn into influencing online too. Online influencers with significant followers are rarely offline influencers too.

This will of course change. Our offline customers will increasingly participate in online activity and its our job to help them get there. We will all, in the next few years, gain equal status both in the physical and digital worlds. In the meantime we need to take some time out to consider how we help our offline influencers. Some questions to ponder:

1. Who are our offline and online influencers? Name them!

2. What is the real value, not perceived value, of our offline and online influencers?

3. How do we engage on a regular basis with our offline influencers and how do we make it work better?

4. How do we as a business, encourage and practically help offline influencers to start online stuff? This is not an option but an obligation. Its our responsibility.

5. How do we physically meet up with our top 25% of influencers online to cement the relationship?

Its important now to look at converging interactions between the offline and online worlds that are authentic, organic and synergised. Bringing the two sets of influencers together and connecting them could make a whole heap of difference to our businesses.

Word supplied by Andrew Farmer – www.myoxygen.co.uk

Thankfully and not before time we have new networks, they’re the vibrant ones, they’re the life changing ones. Lets be honest if we are going to spend our precious time in one, they had better be full of intellectual, artistic, radical, maverick, engaging people! Encouraging debates around “what’s new?” not “What I have to sell?”

Open minded, open sourced minds that upturn the conventional, unlock what seems difficult and create a level playing field. The ‘grey suit’ networks, if they aren’t dead yet, soon will be. These myopic, ego driven, inert, mundane environments of the past can no longer survive. A huge disappointment to those professional service firms that used them as a reason to not go home.

Most networks are average. Survival will require a great shift to raising the game. And we wonder why social networking has taken off? It’s led to the abandonment of those traditional congregations, simply because the culture, the atmosphere was as stifling as being in a lift with your worst nightmare for 24 hours.

The new networks, and they do meet face to face are the ones to join. The ones that use imagination, let us connect, enable us to influence its evolvement, allow collaboration, shares new ideas and help us work across disciplines. They even expand our minds and, of course, they do lead to real business too. Before anyone says it, most of the physical ones do not!

Next time anyone walks into a room full of people speed networking (what the hell is that about?) and it’s not full of buzz and you can’t feel the excitement in the room, turn around and get out of there. Join me at the bar, that’s where I’ll be sitting! I just got there before you!

I’m bemused. Read most of the literature on managing reputation and they talk about defending and protecting. A rather negative stance, dressed in traditional PR and pessimism.

Managing reputation is surely just as much about celebrating as well as protecting. Reputation, after all, is about your integrity and credibility. As we move from a position of reach to reputation, trust, transparency and success are as important as protecting our ass. Lets just get over ourselves for a moment.

There is a simple three step model: (I will be talking more about this here: http://www.eventbrite.com/event/509178968 )

1. Monitor – your brand, products, company and key people. Make connections in the right places. Follow the appropriate people.
2. Optimise – I mean more than SEO. Optimise the relationships and connections you have made. Connect people to other people who may be interested and where is synergy with their products.
3. Engage – contribute in the spaces and places your brand and products are being talked about. Participate in the conversation. This is where prevention is better than cure. Here you have opportunities to push reputation to new levels.

Managing your reputation offline and online is about building trust to encourage a value exchange. Future measurement of influence will be based on your popularity, engagement and value to a network of people who you have a relationship with.

That’s where your reputation strategy should start, not on protecting your back. That just says a lot about your culture and attitude to business.

There is an abundance of information on the web about social media that could take a lifetime to read and be all consuming. For some of us it is! However, there is a scarcity at the moment to how to weave this into an integrated marketing campaign.

Some would have us believe that its the only way forward and its the only thing you need to reach new and existing customers. Thats far too one dimensional and we’ll all fall into the trap of traditional marketing if we take that road.

As Olivier Blanchard said at www.wearelikeminds.com in February “Your business doesn’t plug into social media, social media plugs into your business.” He is right. It’s not an attachment, neither is it the only solution. We must not miss the opportunity to really get to the route cause of why we embark on social media campaigns. We can’t also ignore that its just as important to be gregarious offline as well as online.

Before embarking on any social media activity, we all need to go back to the beginning and think about how it is going to fundamentally change, for the better, the relationships we have with customers and employees. The fact is that social media is creating new vulnerabilities and opportunities for business. That can’t be ignored. There are some big questions to ask before setting a blog up such as; how will social media define what is being delivered to the customer.

We have to remember that, even now, most of our customers and users of social media read content but don’t necessarily post it. What that means, for now, is that social media is in a state of mass consumption, not mass creation. We have a long way to go to create meaningful experiences and that, in essence, is our first task!

With the advent of digitalisation we are faced with unparalleled shifts in how we work when it comes to research, development and the production of new products/services. We will increasingly need to develop ways of joint working where the boundaries move and change like an amoeba. Bringing new and remarkable things to market now means working with a diverse and flexible group of partners with complementary skills and capabilities.

Collaborative research and development is nothing new, academia have been doing it for years. Neither is product development, car manufacturers like BMW are accomplished after years of experience. However, as the playing field flattens so too other companies have to make the significant jump. Traditional thinking argues that the knowledge, information and ideas a company has must be kept in house. When people start sharing that knowledge or remixing it, companies get nervous and, in the worst cases, call in the lawyers.

That’s just not going to work in today’s networked economy. Technology has collapsed the cost of innovation in almost all sectors, even pharmaceuticals. Its simple to become self organised and easy to connect across the world with people who can fill the gaps in your skills matrix. Technology has acted as a catalyst for widening the distribution of knowledge and information and as a result business is been done via a set of very different principles.

We can’t afford all of the talent and the talent doesn’t necessarily want to work for us, on a permanent basis anyway. Research and development is an imperative part of a companies arsenal of competitiveness. As I’ve said before, those that innovate regularly will find themselves shaping the future. Collaborative working will be at the heart of that and that will demand a whole different set of leadership behaviours and attitude. Another reason command and control is dead!