Strategy, no matter how insightful and comprehensive, does not insure execution. Action plans, no matter how detailed or innovative, are no guarantee goals will be realized. And every leader that has managed through crisis knows benchmarks are not the be-all-end-all measure of resources. The market is shaped by teams that move boundaries and redefine arithmetic. [...]
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Marshall McLuhan — a godfather of 20th-century communication theory — characterized one of the challenges inherent in connecting when he coined the phrase “the medium is the message.”Seth Godin hit on it from a different angle in his timely post today, Get Over Yourself.Given the timing — the 1960’s, in North America — many interpreted McLuhan’s theorizing as particularly pertinent to [...]
Tags:branding·business development·communication·leadership·marketing·social media
Dialogue changes things. It connects people, seeds ideas, and is a critical thread in the fabric of relationship. This dynamic is at the heart of social media’s appeal — the opportunity for dialogue and community. And the prospect of change. Yet, some enterprises — from Main Street start-ups to global leaders — continue to wrestle [...]
I was 14 years old when I became infatuated with the idea of Announcing. I listened intently, and tried desperately to emulate the resonant stylings of the most popular disc jockeys on the air in Detroit, Michigan. For me they were almost as much the sound of Motown as was the music. If they said [...]
Tags:announce·context·intense·personal·preach·pronounce·resonance·shared·shared experiences
For anyone of a certain age (we won’t be any more specific) those words most likely prompt a mind’s earful of a catchy tune as recorded by the Fab Four. (If “Fab Four” is meaningless to you, skip to paragraph 2.) The lyrics of the song, simplistic as they might be, belie one of the [...]
Tags:collective·execution·feedback·listening.quality·marketing·messaging·opportunity
More than once in recent weeks I’ve participated in (or overheard out of the corner-of-an-ear) discussions on how time-consuming social media has become, what the payoff might be, and when it might be realized. And I would certainly be surprised if many of you haven’t asked some version of these same questions of yourself or [...]
Tags:building·connect·marketing·measure·personal·real·target·transparent·unconditional
This post is for anyone who has had to ask (or been on the receiving end of the query) where did our social media marketing strategy go wrong? The answer may be two-fold. It is possible that things began to go awry when the primary focus of social media marketing shifted to numbers; that is, [...]
Anecdotal evidence is dangerous. But current events (micro and macro level) beg the question: Just when we need it the most, where has real leadership gone? Significant global unrest appears perpetual. Economic crisis inhibits dialogue around everything from national initiatives to local education. Infrastructures that facilitate so much of what is deemed essential seem stretched beyond [...]
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If you interact with a significant other, a neighbor, team members or co-workers, no one needs to tell you that listening is critical to almost any relationship. Since social media marketing builds on relationship, there’s been plenty of talk about the nature and role of listening in SM. What we must not overlook is the [...]
Tags:community·discriminating·dynamism·intentional listening·listening·passive
There is one thing that makes social media special — not to mention social — and, from a business perspective at least, it’s the one reason SM is worth investing in. It comes in the form of the conversations that used to occur at the water-cooler or over the backyard fence, or in the good-old-fashioned [...]
