PAN Blog

If you are in the New England area this weekend, head up to the annual Seafood Festival at Hampton Beach, NH. Year after year, the festival showcases the best New England has to offer in seafood and coastal entertainment. Personal favorite by far is the lobster roll from Brown's. It's the best value and the best lobster! There is a small donation, but it's worth it to spend the day at the beach with the best food around. Happy weekend!

Does anyone buy compact discs anymore, anyone under 26?

I do, but I'm 30 and still wish Guns & Roses had made one more incredible album before the band went nuclear. Anyway, I continue to buy CDs because I enjoy the album art and inside cover notes from the artist. I bought a Sasha disc from Amazon.com yesterday, and found the inside booklet to be a treasure of artist insight with edgy photos and a ton of perspective into why he writes/mixes the songs that he does... can you get that online?

Of course, all music is bits & bytes these days with digital radio (love Pandora.com), the two satellites providers and Apple's minor contribution, something Pod; all making the marketplace a delight for music fans. However, when I spend money on music I like to have a tangible thing to reference when looking at my bank account, that’s also why I like CDs.

So, I was in a Strawberry's music store the other day perusing the new music section when a clerk tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Hey, don't buy anything from there, it's all in the 'used' music section for half price." So I took a short walk with my new helpful friend, and there it was - all the new music, wrappers removed, security stickers gone, but in perfect scratch-less condition for half price! So I said to the guy, this must be the “Burn and Return” section, half expecting him to laugh. Expressionless he says, “Strawberry’s has a very strict policy on burning music and returning it.” I ask him what this aisle is all about then, and he said a lot of people get duplicate CDs as a gift and return the duplicate for a trade-in CD. I look at him closely to see if he's passing a “joke” here; sadly he’s as serious as a heart attack. Go figure.

Over the past few weeks a colleague and I have been diligently researching the New York Times Small Business section. Our task is to unlock the mysteries behind the prose of the NYT small business columnists. It has been a great journey, reading a great variety of articles from various columnists chronicling the science of the small business.

I have always loved learning about how one builds a business. I admit to checking out countless books from the library on how to start a business, gain investors, and of course marketing a brand.

Both my parents were entrepreneurs, my mother a hairdresser and consignment store owner, and my was father a baker and dog breeder. Let’s say it’s in my blood. I am especially impressed by those who can create an empire from scratch. Those who rank in my personal favorites include, Martha Stewart, Anita Roddick, Madam C.J. Walker, Coco Chanel, Mary Kay Ash, and of course Gun Denhart.

Gun Denhart is the woman behind Hanna Andersson, a clothing brand that specializes Scandinavian style all-cotton children's clothing. The clothes are soft, extremely durable and are well made compared to most of the clothing brands today.

After Gun had her second child in 1980 she searched for resilient children’s clothing that could hold up to all the washings associated with children and reflected her Swedish heritage in style and color. Finding none, she returned to Sweden and bought a few hundred dollars worth of clothing and distributed amongst her friends. Thus, Hanna Anderssen (named after Gun’s grandmother) was born. Gun and her husband Tom began to build their brand operating as a catalog only business. Their first catalog was designed and sent out to America. It featured functional, durable clothing for kids and a small section of adult wear.

The company was also noted for their ‘Hanna way’ employee polices. The company provided workers with generous stipends for child care, extended parental leave, and various wellness programs. In addition to taking care of their employees Hanna Anderssen also developed the ‘Hanna downs’ program which accepted clothing purchased in exchange for a 20% discount on clothing.

I mention Gun Denhart because she was a woman who saw a void in the market and she strived to fill it. It sounds very simple. Gun saw the need for corporate social responsibility and a deep accountability to her employees while building her brand’s name. She also worked to ensure her products stability in everything from the quality design of the garments to strong emphasis on customer service.

A new Hanna Anderssen store opened today in the Natick Collection.

You really need to eat sushi the day you buy it and don’t try to "save it" in the refrigerator whether it's takeout from that smart Japanese restaurant or pre-boxed at the corporate A&P – it needs to be eaten that day. And that’s not because of raw fish getting “fishy,” a common assumption, but according to the University of Florida's Keith Schneider: "That’s because foods can interact when they’re placed together. Inside a sushi roll, bacteria sometimes find ideal conditions in the spaces where moist ingredients come in contact with dry ones, or where foods with different pH meet. The result: faster spoilage." He also cites white rice not treated with vinegar as a culprit to your California Roll’s rapid deterioration.

Schneider, an associate professor of food science at UF, goes on to caution consumers who buy ready-to-eat sushi; do not let it warm up. Take it from the cooler just before purchase, bring it home quickly and refrigerate it immediately unless you plan to eat it right away.

If it does get warm, you really can’t re-refrigerate it – you’ve got to eat it then and there, or toss it in the trash.

In Tom Nordlie's campus-based article, where I found this infinitely useful information, he quotes Sasha Issenberg, a journalist who authored “The Sushi Economy: Globalization and the Making of a Modern Delicacy,” to add a bit of color to this research-based story by dispelling the myth that sushi is exclusively a fine dining experience.

“In Japan, (sushi’s) origins are far closer to the experience of going to a supermarket and getting takeout and bringing it home, than actually sitting down in a sushi bar and spending $100 on your dinner and eating it there,” said Issenberg.

Just once I thought about buying sushi at the supermarket, but then I remembered a passage from Eric Schlosser’s alarmist horror novel “Fast Food Nation,” in which he reports that supermarkets color the beef red to make it look more appealing to consumers. Following this thinking it seems that grocery stores would color the fish too if need be, or use leftovers or something else awful. So in the end I’ll stick to my fancy Japanese joint, if for nothing else the waitresses are fun.

Second Chances: I’m sure everyone has seen the video of Miss South Carolina’s answer to “Why many American’s cannot locate the United States on a map” but if you haven’t, you’ve probably at least heard about it. Many people are terrified of public speaking so I give her a lot of credit for trying. However, she was given the opportunity to redeem herself on The Today Show but her answer still wasn’t great! I can’t really feel bad for her on second try but I do feel bad that mock videos are everywhere!

Celebrity Train Wrecks: What can I say about Britney Spears? Whether you’re 10 or 100, male or female, it’s impossible to avoid hearing about her performance the other night. The lack of enthusiasm and energy, the horrible lip syncing, her outfit…. let’s just call it a day and use two words: train wreck. In case you missed it, CNN and the BBC covered the story. I used to feel guilty about reading the celebrity tabloids but between the internet and major media outlets, how can you avoid it?

Mixed signals: Let me preface this by saying I like football but I don’t know all the rules and regulations. When I heard the Patriots are in trouble for videotaping an opponent’s hand signals, I thought “I always thought they could videotape.” Maybe I’ve just seen too many movies where they are reviewing the tapes of the games? I still don’t fully understand the issue but the team is apparently paying for the mistake. I wonder though… couldn’t anyone just use their camera phone to tape these signals and then post it on the internet?

So what do all three have in common? Technology! Video cameras are everywhere and thanks to the internet it only takes a second for someone’s life to change. Creepy!

I would have liked to have live-blogged this "radio talk show-style" interview with David Weinberger our good friend Francois Gossieaux, president of Corante and founder of new marketing agency MarketHum held for a bunch of Facebook Marketing 2.0 groupies yesterday at 1:00, but I dialed into the call with just time enough to open Word for note-taking.

Those who attended got a treat--David Weinberger, of the Cluetrain crowd, and Berkman Center and Everything Is Miscellaneous fame, fielded questions about marketing, new and social media, pr and even politics (with his "typical, New England Jewish" slant--Democrat) He likes Obama and Edwards but thinks Hillary will take the nomination. More on that below.

I'm not the best transcriber, meaning I'm sure I didn't catch all the questions and answers word for word. I was also interrupted during the Q&A by some work stuff (imagine!) So if you notice anything wildly out of place please note it in the comments section and I'll do what I can to correct.

Francois: What about blogging in heavily-regulated industries (i.e., Pharma)?

David W: Customers are smart about metadata—we can tell the difference between marketing fluff on a site and real data; we’re pretty good at figuring out what to trust absolutely and what’s marketing.

It’s important for companies to be explicit about the info they’re giving out; for instance, "this stuff 'here' you can count on, its facts, ingredients, etc.—sue us if we get it wrong." Compared against that the marketing content is apparent. Now go back and look at marketing in general and ask yourself if customers trust the word of other customers rather than what you say about your own business.

Customers have learned not to trust companies the way they trust other customers. Marketing needs to adjust to this reality by taking on an authentic tone (the marketing stuff is starting to really sound phony because people are increasingly listening to other—authentic—people. So, the marketing stuff is now starting to sound PHONY because it’s not authentic, even if it happens to be right.

Francois: Are there other lessons Everything is Miscelaneous can teach us?

David W: two things change for marketers: 1) the customer is in control. The control goes beyond exchange of ideas and reviews; customers are starting to take control of organizational issues. Customers can now “organize their own stores with metadata”

2) Finding the complexity in what looks simple. Marketing has always been about simplifying the message. You’re engaged in a process of simplification. BUT, blogging and being transparent is about tackling the complex. Marketers have to get more "stomach" for being complex, meaning interesting. Simple is becoming the new ‘insulting' to customers.

Francois, taking questions from audience: – How do we make things more simple with so many angles attached to each subject, especially in B-2-B environments? AND, marketers have always been on the side of being in control of the message; how do we as marketers give up control?

David W: Simplicity vs. Complexity – there’s always a dialectic. If you teach, you know sometimes you want to make things simple because people get confused. Other times you have to show the complexity. At certain times in business you want to be very simple—find the statement that sums up what is your product (especially in tech). It has to be simple. Once you do that you can organize the complexity to some degree. There’s hypnotizing simplicity—which is bad because that’s saying the same thing over and over again. And then there's clarifying simplicity—which makes understanding easier so you can then layer levels of complexity on top of that simplicity.

David W: On control: marketing takes as a measure of success the level to which it controls the message, which is the wrong way to go about it.

Francois G: On Simplicty: Simple messages - “what’s it going to do for me?” is where we need to focus.

Francois G: What would happen if marketing did not exist? Should marketing go away, or become a part of every company function to some degree or another?

David W: it’s healthy and worth enabling the exchange of ideas an information. Marketers cannot control the message…there are still elements of communications that marketers can control and need to run with, but messaging and product messaging isn’t going to be it anymore.

Audience Question: (GalxoSmithKline) – Converting people who don’t know they want something is called "the intent economy," which consists of people who want something but have to find you first. What does tagging have to do with the intent economy? – we haven’t figured out how to use tagging yet; should crossing the intention economy include tagging? How does tagging tie into this economy?

David W: The intention economy, and why tags matter, is marketing. The conversations that are happening with or without you and the reasons why people find you are because of these conversations. More often than not people don’t know you exist, so they can’t find you. So, if I want to find you, I need to stumble across you. The framework that enables you to find me is not on your site. Tagging certainly helps by finding people’s recommendations and what they think of your products and that makes it easier for others to find you.

For example: if you're a car company and you changed your messaging to “we’re the safe car.” But a lot of people might not care about that so much—they’re looking for other attributes. You need to make your site accessible to people with multiple interests. You can’t anticipate what the people want, so you architect your site to help the intention economy along.

This is something that's happening to brands – branders used to try and control the brand; now its all about reputation—your users bestow this 'reputation' upon you and it’s become more important to protect reputation, vs. your brand.

Audience Question: What advice do you have for those of us “stuck in the middle,” where the company says it wants to get involved in conversations, but still can’t let go of control. So they get into these conversations while trying to retain control and really make a mess. How do you convince the company to stop this?

DW: A company would be foolish not to listen and take advantage of the information the web FIRST—in many respects the customers are the market research. But be careful, as soon as you convince a company to listen, they will want to jump in because they’ll want to respond to stupid posts and message boards. It’s the marketers JOB to HOLD THEM BACK at first. knee jerk responses will be bad.

Francois: "The Shut Up Revolution."

Audience Question: Can you give us your view on the Democratic primary. Who is going to win and why is their message working?

David W: From my point of view, the three majors: I like Obama and Edwards..and I'm doing volunteer work for Edwards. But I think that Hillary is going to win, but I don't like her communication style; it’s old-world, alienating, foreign and annoying. It’s a space alien from the planet broadcast – her communications style is a serious negative for her, although she’s probably going to win.

Francois G: A lot of companies are looking for help, and there are a lot of pr agencies that don’t get it. For people who are looking for help, where do they turn?

David W: I wish there was a list to point to. You want to find people who have something good to say. I don’t have a magic way of predicting this; if they don’t know how to use email, there’s a problem.

For those of you who want a more complete account, Francois will have (I believe) a recording of the event up soon!

Ever notice how Fridays bring out the fun side of your co-workers? Maybe it’s the excited anticipation that spreads through the office just knowing that in several hours you’re off to your weekend adventures. Or perhaps it is the punch-drunk hilarity caused by a long and exhausting work week. Either way, I always have some rather… entertaining discussions on Friday with co-workers. Some great topics include:

Should I skateboard around the office next Monday?

Would anyone notice if I built a nice little bed under my desk?

I’d like to start a doggy-daycare in my free time. Where do I start?

You woke up where this morning?

Maybe the Friday mentality is why I found Google’s Scooter Rules so interesting. Courtesy of the ClickZ blog, Tim Armstrong of Google outlined some of the scooter etiquette in their NYC office that opened their doors to media recently. I don’t care what age you are, that is awesome! It probably wouldn’t work at my office though, since I have enough trouble navigating the corners on foot, but I love that Google is promoting scooter use at the office.

I am pretty sure, but the African American side is a bit hazy. The Johnson’s hail from Owensboro, Kentucky and were slaves. It has been difficult to trace the ‘Johnson’ name because many slaves were given the name or they simply chose it as an ambiguous surname. The Winchester’s are a great big mix of Irish and Italian.

I spend a fair amount of time researching my heritage because people are constantly asking me what I am. At least once a day I get asked, 'Tu hables espanol?' Some ask if I am Puertorican, Brazilian, Cape Verdean, Haitian, African American, it’s kind of fun that no one can pin it down- great party trick.

During the habitual vehicle chaos on 495 this morning I was listening to 94.5 because NPR is fund raising from 7-9AM this week… I digress…

The morning show team directed me to a fascinating article Boston Globe article on a human heredity study. The Genographic Project collected DNA swabs from 20 local celebs to use their genetic mutations combined with hundreds of other individuals to learn more about human migratory patterns and life originations across the globe.

The results have exposed the massive migrations of humans due to climate change dating back 30,000 years and more. Genographic kits are available thru National Geographic for a mere $99.95. The proceeds will support the collection of samples of indigenous populations.

What a fabulously educational holiday gift!

We’ve all been in the awkward situation when you’re dining with a group of people, the bill comes and the drama begins. Do we separate? Equally divide? Factor out the alcohol? What about the tip? What did you order again? What was a beautiful meal and friendly discussion gets heated with people throwing accusations of being cheap, or overcharging each other. Suddenly your social occasion becomes “the moment we stopped being friends with so-and-so”.

You’re probably shaking your head in agreement after reading the above situation, because it really does happen to everyone if not repeatedly, than at least once. So why the huge drama? Because the rules of etiquette around this issue are a bit cloudy. The New York Times Diner’s Journal explored this issue and opened up a discussion between peers in an article yesterday in order to establish some basic guidelines of etiquette around bill time when dining in groups. Having been a waitress in fine dining restaurants, I think this is a CRITICAL issue to address before you even sit down together, but here are some other suggestions:

- Always assume that if you’re dining in a group of more than 6 people (3 couples), that the check is going to be divided evenly among everyone.
- Take into account any significant ($20 or more) price differences in orders. If someone only orders soup and everyone else orders 2-3 courses, it’s not fair to make them pay the same.
- If there were a couple of people not drinking alcohol while the rest of the group was, separate the beverage total to take this into account and don’t overcharge the non-drinkers (you might need them to be your DD later)
- If it’s family style (many dishes ordered and shared among everyone) know that you’re splitting it evenly and don’t make the argument that you only ate a little. That’s tacky and you’ll never be invited out again.
- If you know you’re going to ask for a separate check, tell the server before you order so that the process is simplified later and the rest of your party knows your plan.
- Finally, do not, I repeat, DO NOT, wait until the end of your meal to say that you want separate checks for everyone at the table. This is a HUGE inconvenience for your serving staff, and traditionally parties over six are grouped together on one bill and a service charge of 18% is applied AUTOMATICALLY. Don’t be that group that takes up an inordinate amount of time and is so rude as to assume this is okay. It’s not.

I dialed into a WebEx (I still hate WebEx--how they've been around this long and still not figured out how to make logging into one of their presentations dead simple is just....*tisk*) on Tuesday to hear John Battelle talk about "Conversational Marketing." Mr. Battelle's a guy I respect and have been following for a number of years; first for my job, but now because he makes sense in a space filled with a lot who dont.

The moderated Q&A-type session covered a lot of ground and I wish I had the ability to take really detailed notes, but I didn't. It was in the middle of the day--what can you do? I was struck at one point in the discussion by a seemingly obvious point John made which I'm sure many of us miss: if the now famous "markets are conversations" mantra is true, then companies participating in those marketplaces need to have good conversationalists (not a direct quote, but close enough). Makes sense, right?

The most obvious examples of this include (and were cited by John) Robert Scoble, when he was still with Microsoft and Jeremy Zawodny, of Yahoo! Both of these guys became their respective company's conversationalist with the public. And both of them took this responsibility very seriously. They gained the market's 'trust' by being fair and transparent. If (and frequently when) someone commented about MSFT doing something particularly odious, Scoble would either agree or not, depending on how he saw it, rather than defending MSFT out of hand without researching whether or not the commentor had a point. And if Scoble didn't know the answer, he'd go find out and report back.

So good conversationalists have good listening skills, too. It's fair to say if a company is going to be a healthy participant in a marketplace, it needs skilled conversationalists who are equally skilled at listening, as well as commenting.

Some other good points which came up during the WebEx:

Conversational Marketing should embrace PR, but PR has to get used to the fact that once in a while it has to step out of the way once the conversation starts. I liked this--PR folks should be facilitators, not hurdles to good conversations. Be more proactive, not reactive. If there's a crisis (and the term crisis can mean anything negative) then embrace that situation as an opportunity to engage and rectify. John had a good anecdote at the ready to explain: he was giving this presentation from a hotel room in NY. He didn't mention the name of the hotel but he said he'd had a bad experience when he first checked in. He called down to the front desk to get it resolved and the hotel did very little to help. His point of contact was also rude.

John said he'd now give the hotel a D grade. But, if the hotel had done something proactive to help John's situation, then comped him a night *or* sent up something to say they were sorry for the inconvenience, that would have changed John's perception of the hotel's brand. Handled proactively, John would have divorced the experience from the brand itself and still left with a positive brand perception.

PR should look for people who are out there being vocal about their brand experiences. If negative, look for the opportunities to make them right. If positive, do what's necessary to keep those positive vibes flowing. These market conversations are happening all around and positive engagements will create many more brand embassadores than any amount of advertising could ever buy. That last part's my add, by the way. John didn't go down the advertising road.

Measurement - This is still a gray area. The positive thing about online marketing is that it's easy to tell when traffic spikes to a site created specifically for a particular initiative, or counting the number of inbound links ("gestures," or indications of people's attention online), but a universal standard of conversational marketing measurement is still needed. The old models of "reach" and "frequency" are still relevant, but they're being rationalized and scrutinized harder than before. This is particularly true in the search advertising space, where advertisers are starting to demand more transparency from ad networks.

On sites like Myspace and Facebook - they're tremendous potential vehicles for marketers, but still "a mess." But a good mess; marketers have opportunities here but finding them is an ongoing puzzle.

Those are the salient points. None of the above are direct quotes unless I stuck "" around them. John, if you read this and I've missed something or gone off course stick in a comment and I'll get it changed asap.

Next one of these John does is worth an hour of your time.