All Entries Tagged With: "boston"
7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers – Phil Johnson
To end the week in our “7 Habits Series” , let’s have a chat with Phil Johnson, one of the best creative minds out there. When he’s not jetting around the country with clients, friends and other marketing luminaries he’s at home in his Cambridge office, just steps away from Harvard Square. And if you have the time on a Thursday afternoon, take a moment to listen to his agency’s weekly radio show on Social Media with Mike O’Toole and Hugh Kennedy – There’s alway something interesting happening over there.
About Phil
I’m the CEO of PJA Advertising + Marketing. We call ourselves an ad agency, but we’re really interested in all the ways that people communicate with each other, and especially how new technologies are changing our experiences and behaviors.
1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I’m a talent groupie. Nothing gets me excited like meeting someone with a great mind, a wonderful imagination, and better ideas than me. Sometimes I can’t sleep until I recruit them.
2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do?
Well at PJA, we all punch a time clock. Just kidding. I don’t know exactly when the workday starts. After I drop my son at school, I start thinking about business. But once I get to the office, I’ve got to check to see if there are any donuts in the kitchen, then put on some music, and play around with Tweet Deck. Next thing I know I’m writing stuff, going to meetings, and talking on the phone. I think that’s work.
3. What makes you efficient with your day?
It’s sad, but I’m just not efficient, but I’ve learned a couple of tricks. Every day, I jot down three things I absolutely want to get done. I’m always happy if I do two of them.
4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
I’m not a huge fan of traditional business books, but here are three books that I really like, and they are kind of about business:
Fast Company, How Six Master Gamblers Defy the Odds – and Always Win, by Jon Bradshaw. These stories reveal tons about entrepreneurship and human nature.
Stumbling On Happiness, by Daniel Gilbert. Understanding how we pursue happiness is very helpful if you’re in the business of influencing people.
Here Comes Everybody, by Clay Shirky. This book helps explain how all these cool web 2.0 technologies that we love are redefining society.
5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
Diet Dr Pepper
PJA note pads
My tiny Bose speakers.
Those things, and my MacBook, are all I need.
6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
I think I’ll start with trans fats and then move on to butter, sugar, excessive amounts of empty carbohydrates, and alcohol.
7. Habit you’d like to form for 2010
I wish that all of us at PJA would connect to each other on a delicious network and get disciplined about tagging the content that fires up our imaginations. We’ve got a collection of really interesting people, and their collective knowledge is very powerful. I’d like to do a better job of harnessing it.
7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers- Mike Schneider
Many of you may not recognize this photo of Mike Schneider because he spent the better half of the fall growing a moustache for “Movember“. Now that he’s clean shaven, he is setting his sites on bigger aspirations, like being one of the Top 20 Karaoke singers at SXSW’s “Cog’aoke 2“. While he’s not mastering the art of social marketing and more, he’s QUITE the entertainer, and likes to “sing in the shower and in the car and on stage and at the mall and in meetings and on the phone”. If any of you are reading this and heading to SXSW, please vote for him.
On to interview # 17 of the “7 Habits Series“…
1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
Fearlessness. I am just not smart enough to understand that there are things that cannot be done and that I should not be able to do them. I rarely shy away from a challenge and do not accept “no” or “can’t”. I heard those a lot growing up in the Midwest. I wanted to learn Chinese as a kid and I remember people telling me “that’s impossible”. One day I just decided that that line of reasoning was something that I could not tolerate and that if I wanted something, it would be better to take a risk and make it happen.
2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do?
I think. I start in the shower. I also think in the car, preferably with some new modern rock blaring. I let my schedule whirl around in my head a little bit and usually a few good ideas fall out from between the dates and times.
3. What makes you efficient with your day?
Efficiency. The bar is set very high for me. My efficiency role model is my best friend, Gregory Ng I’ve never seen anyone ideate, create and deliver like that guy. Assuming I’m somewhat efficient: devices, gadgets and software help me attain efficiency. I love the shiny. Evernote, a tool that syncs thoughts, notes and audio clips between devices is one of my favorites. I am using it now because I suspect I won’t finish this task before I have to move on to the next. If I cannot, maybe I will bang out a few questions from my iPhone later. DropBox is brilliant for sharing. Heaven forbid I ever forget my machine at work (power cord is another story), but if I do, the most important files are accessible via DropBox from any machine. As a look-ahead guy, I am aching for a tablet. I can imagine a bunch of ways that will make me more productive, particularly in sharing concepts in groups and in content consumption.
4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
That’s like asking my favorite song of all time. I will not be able to answer with just one.
The Art of War.
Groundswell has a few good points.
Wisdom of Crowds and Black Swan are also highly worthwhile for any measurement / experiment junkie. Empirical thinking for the win!
And of course I enjoyed #Crushit by Gary VAY NER CHUK.
5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
Flip/Zi8
iPhone
moleskine
6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
If I can do something, one of my tendencies is to go ahead and assign the task to me. That’s not always good.
7. Habit you’d like to form for 2010
Balance. A little less work. A little more family, friends, beer and modern rock. Oh. Flossing. I need to floss regularly.
7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers- John Jantsch
If you are a small business on a shoe-string budget, look no further than Duct Tape Marketing. Today’s “7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers” continues with
the 7 Habits of John Jantsch.
About John
John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine
1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
Paying attention to what’s going on around me and writing about it daily
2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
Coffee – I have a routine of sites, email, engagement, Twitter, etc that I run through – I guess it’s part of my overall systems approach
3. What makes you efficient with your day?
GTD and Central Desktop – I’ve always been a list maker
4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
The Practice of Management – Peter Drucker – although it may not seem like it, it’s the best marketing book I’ve ever read
5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
24″ Monitor, Moleskin notebook, Jug of green tea
6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
Coffee
7. Habit you want to form for 2010
Increase Yoga and running practices
7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers – Colin Browning
Colin Browning- Photo Credit Jim Storer
He’s # 15 in your scorecards, and number one in your hearts, ladies and gentleman, THE Colin Browning…..
About Colin
Colin had recently left New Marketing Labs to join IDG. He now designs marketing programs for leading technology brands as a part of IDG’s Strategic Marketing Services team.
1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I started as a photographer. I learned from the beginning that to stand out, I needed to see things differently and to make others see things differently.
2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
My work day starts when my eyes first open in the morning. I do some of my best creative thinking as I make my cup of coffee and take those first sips as I am thinking about the day ahead. My morning coffee ritual and day mapping is a critical part of my successful days.
3. What makes you efficient with your day?
Getting a solid 8 hours of sleep the night before, followed by a morning workout – then no matter what the day throws at me – I am can take it head on!
4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
I have to say, I have been much more inspired by reading the bios of great artists lately like Arthur Danto’s bio of Robert Mapplethorpe or a biography of Andrew Wyeth (can’t recall the author). These have inspired me with their singularity of focus, dedication, and talent.
5. 3 things on your desk right now/3 things you can’t live without
I am going to cheat and write things in multiples (I hate rules):
Photos of my family & friends (iRoadtrip!)
iPhone
notepad & pen
6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
Evening TV – like many, I do tend to get sucked in.
7. Habit you want to form for 2010
Spending more of my evenings playing with the kids and then reading a wider range of material: fiction, non-fiction (not just the social media stuff) and biographies.
7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers – Paul Gillin
Ok, Interview #10 of the “7 Habits of Highly Effective Social Marketers” series. Today’s interview is with Paul Gillin, author of the
New Influencers and Social Media Speaker, Trainer, and Content Marketing Consultant. One of my favorite “products” that Paul Gillin produces is his website “Newspaper Death Watch“. As a journalist with 25+ years of experience, he is especially tuned in to the evolving space around journalism and publishing.
1. What one trait or habit got you to where you are today?
I suppose I have a knack for seeing where the puck is going, at least as far as media is concerned. I was trained as a journalist but quickly got out of general assignment work and into specialization in information technology, which was a pretty geeky field of the time. The timing turned out to be good, because in the early 1980s the technology went mainstream and I went along with it.
I got my first demonstration of the Internet in 1993, before there was even such a thing as a web browser. I knew immediately that this was the future of publishing and moved my interest and career in that direction years before that became fashionable. I also caught on to the idea that social media was going to revolutionize not just publishing but the way people communicate and was able to get a book into the market on that subject before the feeding frenzy began.
2. Your work day just started, what’s the FIRST thing you do and why?
I have a carefully tended list of RSS feeds from sources I respect on subjects relating to new media. I try to spend one or two hours at the beginning of each day browsing through new entries. I tweet a lot of those recommendations, which generates other conversations and awareness on Twitter. I also bookmark a great deal of stuff that may be useful to me later. It’s difficult for me to start a day without knowing what my most trusted sources are saying about my field.
3. What makes you efficient with your day?
I use the Google suite of applications for mail, calendaring and many of my documents. This means that nearly everything I write is searchable, which saves me from fumbling around for stuff. I also reuse a great deal of content so that letter writing is more a matter of assembling than creating new content.
My most productive tool, however, is Dragon NaturallySpeaking. It’s a voice recognition program that enables me to speak rather than type. I probably work two to three times faster and am able to write considerably more by speaking than I would if I had to type everything.
4. Your Favorite Business book of all time?
The Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen
5. 3 things on your desk right now/ 3 things you can’t live without
Two of them are computers. I flip back and forth between them so I am constantly working even while waiting for a website to load. The third most useful item is the microphone I use to dictate into Dragon.
6. Habit you want to kick in 2010
Well, I would sure like to make it through the year without a cigarette, but I’ve already blown that one. From a business perspective, it’s a tendency to take on more than I can handle and then having to work 16-hour days to meet my obligations.
7. Habit you want to form for 2010
Doing a better job of following up and staying in contact with people. I value relationships but I’m so busy that I tend to let them lie fallow until I have a reason to contact someone. I would also like to get back into playing the trombone regularly. I was an avid musician through high school and college but put the instrument aside many years ago. It beckons to me but my ability has deteriorated so badly that it’s frustrating even to try.
Dialogue in New York- a quick recap
Last week, I went to the city for several new business, client and partner meetings. Now, when I say the “city” I mean New York City. Growing up outside Manhattan for 14 years there really is only ONE city- and it’s New York. As a Bostonian and now suburbanite, when I head into Boston, I head into “town”, but I digress…
Some quick thoughts to share:
- Don’t bother bringing your iPhone. Seriously, it’s dead weight in your pocket, the AT&T network is simply too overloaded
- Be sure to visit the new “underground” Apple Store on Fifth Avenue- across from the old Plaza
- To save a few dollars, and to get some much needed exercise, I walked most of my way through Manhattan. Grand Central to 90th and 2nd. 90th and 2nd to 86 and Lex (through park), Wall Street to 16th and 6th. Best decision I made. You simply can’t spend time in taxicabs or the subway when you’re in the city, you “feel’ the city by walking through each neighborhood.
- The site of the Twin Towers is still very much an empty space. Hard to believe it happened 9 years ago.
- Can’t wait to bring the family there next week, next month, or very very soon!
- Interesting fact of the day: I traveled to NY from the Greenwich train station. More people go IN to Greenwich to work, then go OUT of Greenwich to head to the big Apple- who knew?
- If you are a small business owner or entrepreneur, seriously consider switching over to Apple. While your iPhone doesn’t work, you can still do lots at the Apple Store (there are five of them in Manhattan) While at one of their stores, I was able to get an hour of training on some new company software, recharge my latpop, warm up (it was 29 degrees out) and enjoy the company of some genuinely nice, friendly people. It’s practically like having a remote office in every city.
Can a TV Station be Social?
Here in Boston, a television station just went social- real social. They already had a good fan base on Facebook, some followers on Twitter and were actively promoting their “socialness” online. But where it really shines through is in their newly redesigned website.
WHDH, whether you like it or not, is going to make you understand social by simply visiting their website. Check out the quick (2 minute video) below.
What I really like is that the entire team has bought into the concept. Their weather team hops online and blogs on a regular basis and really brings their news to life. Weather can be boring- for them it’s not. WHDH brings a bit of personality and context to the news they deliver and share online, which in this day and age, is a good thing…
Making Social Media a Habit. Or Not.
One of the most challenging things about Social Media is that it’s a new way of doing business. Not something we necessarily planned for in our day, and something well, we’re not quite used to. We’re not in the habit of doing it every day, but we’re gettin’ there, right?
Now, as the successful social media practitioner or evangelist of your company, you are trying to make it your habit. You’ve got a handle on Facebook, you totally get Linkedin, and are slowly getting the hang of Twitter. You’re listening, building a community, engaging, learning, measuring, reporting back to whomever you need to report to.
You’re now in your social media habit. You’ve got your routine down. Facebook? Check. Twitter? Check. Google Reader for RSS Feeds? Check.
But not so fast.
Are you sure you want to get in the “habit” of doing the same thing every day? Some of you have probably been using Tweetdeck for the past year or so? Habit? Probably. Open your eyes and check out the world of Seesmic Desktop, or just head back to Twitter.com.
- Instead of heading directly to wordpress to blog every day, why not go to tumblr.com, posterous.com, or back to Friendfeed?
- Are you STILL using Snapfish or Kodak to share photos? Seriously? Why not try Flickr? or Picasa or SmugMug?
- Looking to get a Flip HD Camera for Christmas? Avoid the hype, the Kodak zi8 is much better…
Bottom Line. If you’re going to live and work in the social media world, I’d get used to mixing things up, because, well for now, things are still being mixed up. Change is good. Change makes you think with new perspective about the value and relevance of each social media application.
Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter are today’s sparkly social media platforms, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be just as relevant a year from now. Take some time to explore one new application or “thing” a week. You’ll think a bit differently about social media, and how you and your company use it.
It’s Not Your 2004 LinkedIn Anymore
We’ve all heard of LinkedIn. Chances are, you may have checked LinkedIn earlier this week, added a few contacts, then went back to work.
But, strap on your seatbelt and get ready for the ride. LinkedIn is going social, and I mean REALLY social. Over the past three weeks, they’ve made several important announcements that will change the way you think of LinkedIn six months from now.
First, it’s important to know that LinkedIn is probably one of the most powerful and influential social networking companies out there. Why? Well, on its network you have the most affluent, educated people online, period. 52% of LinkedIn’s 52 million members earn more than $100K a year. And, take a quick look at the graph below from Compete. People are spending more time on LinkedIn, than Forbes.com and WSJ.com.
What is LinkedIn doing?
They are opening up their API. This means that third-party developers do the following with Linkedin data:
1. Let users access their information, profiles, connection on sites other than Linkedin
2. Let users make actionable decisions (post updates, accept contacts) on other sites
3. Search. Developers can put a Linkedin search anywhere on any website.
What does this mean for my business?
Bigger companies with deeper pockets will quickly be able to recognize and capitalize on this new development. Simply put,this will extend Linkedin’s community to your website. Imagine if you could meet, interact, and connect with employees, users, business partners and friends on say Ford.com using Linkedin?
What does this mean for me?
The first thing you’ll notice is integration with consumer applications and software. In my opinion, the two most pervasive tools that will pick up on LinkedIn’s new open API will be Microsoft Outlook and Tweetdeck (a twitter application). When sending emails and managing contacts in Outlook, all of your contact information will be pre-populated with Linkedin data. So, when sending an email to a friend, you’ll most likely see his/her latest status update, and how he/she is connected to other contacts in your Outlook contacts file. With Tweetdeck, this means another column to update and view statuses. (Tweetdeck has already integrated with Facebook and Myspace.)
LinkedIn IS social…
For your boss/spouse/co-worker who is still a bit reticent about social media, these new development pus that conversation to rest. Companies will now use LinkedIn as an easier stepping-stone to “social” as they realize the value of integrated social systems that benefit themselves and their company. (And, we haven’t even talked about LinkedIn and “Augmented Reality” yet, that’s a conversation for another day…)
What do you think? Will this help you/your company make an easier transition into new media?
