My friend Yael Rozencwajg (Yopps) and I created this infographic to explain what is and wherein lies the value of a Facebook fan. The short story is that there is no way to place a single value on a fan. The answer is that “it depends.” Not only are some fans worth more than others, but the way you build up engagement on your page makes the value of a fan more or less potent. While this infographic is directed toward Facebook, the concept is equally valid for any social media strategy and other social media platforms (Twitter, Google+…). In any event, ultimately, the value of your fanbase depends on how much you truly care about your customers.

Please let us know your comments!

UPDATED: for those who would like the PDF, I’ve put it up on slideshare here.

The ball and chain of short-term results

The problem with marketing in general, and even more so in digital marketing, is that customer loyalty is far from ingrained in the executive’s mindset.

Finding the right leg!

Marketing needs to focus on organic growth

As Peter Drucker said way back, the purpose of a business is to create (and keep) a customer. In times of difficulty, there is a natural need to “attract” new customers to make up for the diminishing revenues. The first problem with this orientation of “chasing new customers” is that businesses tend to take their eye off the ball of keeping them. There is little net benefit for a business to go out and recruit new customers if the proposition of the company is not equipped to keep them. Acquisition without fidelity — also known as true organic growth — is not a winning model, unless you are, perhaps, in the funeral services business. It is not without coincidence that, with customers being so distrustful of marketing messages, moving from a recruitment mentality to a fidelity mindset is one of the critical myndset shifts needed in digital and social media marketing.

The "easy" handout

Aligning company systems with long-term loyalty building

So, what’s the big problem with focusing on long-term fidelity? Outside of it being substantially and substantively more difficult than recruiting a client with a big red “NEW” sign and throwing money into Google ad words, achieving customer loyalty is synonymous with thinking long-term. And, therein lies the BIG problem. A CEO’s first port of call is, for all publicly traded companies, the quarterly earnings report. The country manager’s stint in his/her position is designed as a rotation, typically 3-5 years. A young marketing manager will start having itchy feet after two years. In each case, the person is programmed to create a strategy whose results are immediately visible; they are not held accountable for the strategy’s long-term sustainability.

The customer’s real relationships in the field

The problem is no better on the field, where salespeople — who are in daily contact with the nuts and bolts customer — create the real relationships. A salesperson who is migrated, restructured or even promoted to another position takes with her/him the built up credit (I also like the word equity). And, in a flash, the loyalty of the customer can evaporate.

Thinking beyond the product

Corporations need to rethink the paradox between sustaining employee motivation (career pathing, diversity of work, etc.) and building the customer loyalty. Having consistently great (and new) products is one part of the key, no doubt. But, creating a culture entirely centered on the client is another, more durable strategy. Giving sense and purpose to the employee base around a higher, more noble mission, supported by constant learning and an autonomy for the workforce are ways to keep your staff on board. This just needs to be organized around the client.

Social CRM needs to be conceived as a long-term strategy

In digital marketing — and more emphatically in social media marketing — since this is a relatively new space, the concept of loyalty and long-term are somewhat immature. One of the unchartered areas where I see a real need for a wake-up call is the “hand over” of a social media account (Facebook fan page, Twitter account, Google+ page, etc.). The tone, the regularity of posts, and the immediacy in responsiveness are key parts of the success of a social media presence. When the new marketing body is moved to the next position, how fluidly is the page’s administration being “handed over?” CRM, much less Social CRM, is a terribly difficult beast to manage with rotating staff. It is already difficult enough for brands to manage in the most stable of organizations.

Again, if organizations thought more about the client experience, this problem would surface a good deal more.

Your thoughts?

Best practice is all about the experience

Is best practice sharing actually possible? Certainly, by the number of times you hear the term bandied about in business conferences, you would expect the concept to be well rehearsed and successful. However, it is just not possible to reproduce the singular Apple success story, any more than it is to copy the ever evolving Amazon model nor the extraordinary IBM turnaround.

Let me have some!

Sharing of best practices more often than not is an exercice that rarely bears any measurable fruit. At one level, this is because it would be rare to find business leaders who would be happy to proclaim that they are great copycats. Of course, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. And there are plenty of lateral reflections that are of great worth. Nonetheless, when passing idea into execution, the best practice is likely to fall flat. Like the child that needs to put its finger in the fire, the experience underpinning the operational activity is the real learning. And such is very hard to pass along effectively.

Digital best practices

The sharing of best practices in digital marketing is a whole other kettle of fish. When hearing about “the way I built a million fans on Facebook,” the underlying fabric of success is incredibly difficult to articulate, much less reproduce; unless that is, you spent $x million on television ads or Google adwords. Aside from anything, the real trick is getting engaged fans. Digital marketing is a fast moving feast. No sooner have you realized you are a success, the very factors that contributed to that success may have moved on, or even disappeared. Success in creating a highly engaged Facebook community, high conversion rates in eCommerce or powerful influence on Twitter rely on a dynamic cocktail of ingredients.

The sharing mindset

The reason why best practice sharing — especially in digital marketing — is stymied? Because the the results depend on the objectives, context (history, industry, economic environment…) and people. Even if objectives can be squarely copied, the remainder is unique. The key to best practice sharing is less about the content of the best practice itself, and more about the mindset of sharing. Within a company, when a proud subsidiary shares a best practice at the national meeting, the benefit to the attendees will depend heavily on the underlying organizational culture. What is the overall disposition of parties to want to share and to listen? That mindset is probably a much better predictor of success and the best practice itself.

The humility to accept your weakness

The necessary ingredient all too often missing is humility. The humility to say that I can learn from my peers, my “collaborators” (as they are referred to in French), my clients or even my team (who report into me) is a fundament to effective best practice sharing. In an era when paradigms are being undermined and what we learned at school — much less in the last 30 years of business — needs to be re-evaluated, organizations need to be in constant learning mode. To what extent does your organization exhibit and promote humility? Do the organization-wide goals & objectives reflect a generosity to give without expecting in return? Do the top executives listen demonstrate active listening skills?

Your thoughts are, as always, welcome.

Tablet Reading: Making Digital Media A Beautiful Experience

Sometimes the aha moment comes in mysterious ways.  But this weekend, it dawned on me: I actually prefer to read on my iPad than on my computer, and probably more than a  regular book if you take my pulse count.  The reason: well curated content via a wonderfully sexy digital platform.  In fact, I use a combination of 2 platforms, which cover the range of content that I need: Flipboard & Zite.  Call it the 1-2 punch.  Each is effectively a socially curated online magazine, that allows for a seamless navigation beween previously selected topics, with sources coming from the internet and the social web.  Flipboard is more of a social magazine, while Zite labels itself an intelligent magazine.  Zite and Flipboard give a new and very real meaning to social learning.

eLearning – put the emotion into the E of eLearning

I have long been a proponent of the power of well-constructed distance learning programs, hopefully seamlessly blended into our everyday learning environments.  However, for the most part, there is a dearth in eLearning engineering expertise and there are not enough allocated resources in universities and corporations.  It remains a “luxury” in the eyes of most executives and managers to make a platform-suitable, learner-focused environment.  Too often, when eLearning is put into place, the content may be rich, but the experience is often bereft of sentiment and pleasure (i.e. text heavy) and the interaction is minimalist.  But, what if text books could be converted to be read with same intelligence, pleasure of discovery, ease of use & sharing, and rapidity of loading as you will find on Zite and Flipboard…?  And, I might add, there are others that are worth the visit too: Feedly, Pulse.  What if…  we tailored the learning on platforms similar to Zite and Flipboard?  Of course, we might also need to justify the investment in tablets for everyone, too…  But, prices will come down dizzily, I’m sure.

The “teacher” learns from you

What I particularly like about Zite (which just released version 1.3.2 on Jan 27th) is that it gets smarter as you use it.  It also has wickedly easy social sharing functionality.  Zite alone made me realize that I prefered reading and sharing via my iPad than on my computer, by a wide margin.  It is mobile and the enjoyment is multiple, since the discovery is unending.  I absolutely revere the moments when I can dig into my Zitegeist!

Here is a schema provided on Zite’s site about how it works.

If there is one cloud on the horizon, it is that Zite is owned by CNN (Zite was purchased in August 2011).  Flipboard is as yet an independent entity (though I’m sure that Apple has a beady eye on them: Flipboard was voted best app of 2010 by Apple).

Feedback please

I’d love to hear of any similarly fashioned learning platforms that are live or in the works!

A healthy social media regime via Curation

It seems certain that Social Curation is one of next big waves of the social web.  As the title of Clay Johnson’s 2011 book “Information Diet” suggests, we need to get on the information fitness program and social curation is a very apt solution.  So, what exactly is social curation?

Social Curation: a definition

Here is my definition.  Social Curation is the filtering of information and links in a socially enhanced way around a specific theme.  For the most part, we are talking about online curation and social media; however, I think we could paraphrase social curation in a broader sense to be: smart word of mouth.

The keys to social curation

There are three important keys to successful social curation.

Putting the why into social curation

This Myndset post would not be doing justice to its readers if I didn’t add one last point.  Why is social curation something you should get into?  Two killers reasons:

• Search is becoming increasingly social.  Whether it is the Search Plus Your World (from Google) or Facebook’s Don’t Be Evil bookmarklet (now available as a Google Chrome extension), the results of online search will be ever more defined by your social network.  Social curation will be part of that eco-system.
• You are who you know.  Signing up for curation services — in a vetted manner — is a great way to stay up on key topics of interest.  Creating your own curation newsletter is a great way — still today — to demarcate yourself from the pack, providing, of course, your curated content is value added.  Your network will be vital in keeping you up with the latest.  Having your own curation service helps to build your eReputation and establish you as a reference on any given topic, providing you work at it.

What is your opinion of social curation?  Do you have any favorite platforms?

Brand Marketing: To be or not 2B Emotional or Rational

This might very well seem like a somewhat existential question: should a brand be fun or functional?  Should the product message be emotional or rational?  It is very much like the question, should a leader be right brain or left brain?

For those of you who are largely rational, the boolean proposition presumably is natural.  For the left brainers, there is going to be a tendency to reply that the product performance is king, with an underlying a belief in scientific proof.  For the creatively oriented individual, the emotional and fun side of the brand or product is probably what counts.

Of course, there is no truth in this.  It depends.  But, on balance, in today’s world, I firmly believe it is a question of having BOTH.

Someone call me?

I would argue that any brand that does not explore the fun, emotional side of the equation will likely lose out in intensity and passion among its employees, which will have an inevitable knock-on effect on the clients.  A contrario, any brand whose product is not functional (ie. no good), you had better go back to the starting block.  More often than not, great brand marketing needs a good dose of both fun and functionality, form and content, and emotion and rationale.

Digital Marketing needs both fun and functionality

In order to be successful, in particular, in the digital marketing space, I believe that fun and functionality are pre-requisites.  Yes, sweat the details (where the devil is) and loosen up to allow for some creative juice and levity.  Interpreted in a business world, this means being precise when it matters (forecasts, quality control, logistics…), but not a control freak when it comes to management style, customer interaction and online conversation.  Business leaders — and brand marketers — who know how to number crunch with the best and, yet, reach into the child within, may well have the clue to keeping their brand fun and performing, at the same time.

Which side of the border do you stand?  Is both possible?  Please do drop in your thoughts!

In search of the CEO Myndset

In a world of economic crises, burgeoning competition, regulatory oversight and the revolution that is the Internet, I think it would be fair to say that the role of the CEO is under siege.   The “strategic” allocation [read = reduction] of  resources in search of that extra margin — against a backdrop of a dour economic forecast — is top of mind for pretty much every CEO of a publicly traded company.  With drained confidence, many CEO’s are obliged to pay heightened attention to shareholders and the Board of Directors in order just to hold down their position.

Mind the client

Keeping an eye on you

Just as a principle of survival in a volatile and largely negative environment, the typical CEO is programmed to develop a highly rational plan — thoroughly thought through, rational and rationalized.   The paradox, for most CEOs, is that such a process is generally not congruent with being client centric, nor with helping to motivate staff, much less attract talent.  Rather than merely focusing on where to cut costs and comparing one’s performance to a [stale] budget or last year’s comparisons, I argue that companies are in need of a new CEO myndset, trained more explicitly on the most important stakeholders: employees and clients.  Naturally, depending on the size of the company, the mindset must be able to permeate all levels of management, throughout the subsidiaries.

This new CEO myndset means reconfiguring the organization to be more focused de facto on the client — the person who fundamentally pays the bills.  Just as Peter Drucker said, so presciently, the purpose of a business is to create a customer.  This mindset involves being more agile in communication, decision making and process, in general.  The ability to create and open channels for direct feedback from staff and clients alike is vital.   At its core, the new CEO myndset means adopting an entrepreneurial spirit and the acceptance of error. It means opening up more to the outside.  Inevitably, because of the speed, its distributed nature and potentially cheaper options, the internet becomes a central part of the story, if not the solution.

She/he who tends to the client: the employee

Taking care of business: the service attitude

Using the new tools of communication at our disposal and taking into account the often tenuous, if not fragile, loyalty of employees — distrust with management, concerns about layoffs —  the new CEO myndset must take pains to create a service culture, regardless of the product being sold, within the company.  This would suggest thinking of servicing your employees … in the way that you would have them service your clients.  It is an eco-system and I am convinced that the winners will be those who can with great congruency, transparency and consistency, create an internal organization and culture that reflects the commercial relationship desired with its clients.  [I have written before about the need to align the employer brand with the corporate message with the commercial message.] Obviously, this needs to be adapted according to the industry.  And, for some sectors, this subject is as yet off the radar (for example, banking, security, government…).   The new CEO myndset means taking care of your employees, leading by example and orienting both behavior and systems around the client.    This new environment must foster constant learning, and encourage sharing and frequent multi-channel communications.  In this new world, distance learning (aka e-learning) rhymes with distance working, supported by the confidence of knowing that employees want to learn (something new every day) and want to achieve their objectives.

When investment is considered a cost

The deeper investments will count

The wranglings that define the budget writing process are typically tortuous and, depressingly, become obsolete within just a few months, as soon it becomes evident that the economic forecasts are inaccurate (and that the client hasn’t bought as many as you had expected).  The chances are that this year will be an even more tempestuous year than 2011, with the threat of double dip recession, compounded by nearly 60 Presidential elections around the world (including the RIC of BRIC, USA, France, South Korea and Turkey) and the burgeoning euro crisis.  In this context, cutting costs as a security measure is the systematic refrain or mot d’ordre. However, CEO’s that have scrapped the budget for the “funny money” pegged for systems infrastructure (equipment/bandwidth) and digital education will pay the price sooner or later.

One of the keys (and it’s “so simple” to say) is to stop re-doing what has always been done in the past to make way for the new activities.  A great question to pose:  What value is each investment bringing to the customer?  One of the areas in which I have seen little by way of innovation is the way the P&L is constituted, to reflect this new style of management and accommodate the new investment needs.  I think it’s time that CFO’s got the new myndset as well!

I’d be curious to hear of any best in class examples!

Podcasts: thumbs up or thumbs down?

If you have come to this blog, is it because you know and already like podcasts?  Or are you curious about them?  Or did you land here by mistake?  Do please give me a thumbs up or down on podcasts in the comments below!

The state of the podcast

From my perspective, the podcast* is a great “new” medium that is still wildly underexploited despite the proliferation of smart phones and iPods. While there are many podcasts available in the English language — most easily downloadable on iTunes** — it seems that in other languages, the selection is rather limited, and even less if you are looking for good quality and/or an alternative to mass media diffusions (for example, broadcast new or hertzian radio shows reconfigured in a podcast format).  Many podcasts quickly fizzle out.  Some have just one single recording — worse, others are entirely empty.  It is thus in French and Spanish, two languages I can verify.  The state of the podcast would seem to be in abeyance.

How many podcasts are there today?

Chronicling of podcasting is quite hazy and intermittent, certainly if compared to other media.  If you refer to Wikipedia, there are some 150,000 podcasts (no source given) now available in total (all languages).  PEW Research calculated that there were 90,000 in 2010 (up 30% from 2009); I will make the assumption that PEW calculated only English language podcasts.  If we project that the growth in English podcasts continued, there would be over 115,000 English language podcasts today.  In terms of categories, the vast majority are listed as general or unknown, a sure sign that the podcast market is not mature (see the PEW Research ranking below).

Another weakness in the way podcasts are catalogued is that they are all kept on the iTunes shelf, no matter how old they are and whether or not the podcast show continues to be aired.

Low awareness, much lower usage

As per the latest research I could find, in 2010, there were just 23% of Americans listening to podcasts, up from 22% the year before.  Awareness in USA reached 45% (up from 43%), or approximately 70 million 12+ Americans.  I have not found data for other countries, but I am going to wager that for countries as ‘developed’ as France on the internet, the number of active listeners is under 5%.

Poor penetration outside of North America

Podcasts are available in iTunes in 90 different countries; but, judging by the numbers, most prefer to borrow from the English repertoire.  Per iTunes instructions in the FAQ, the easiest way to find foreign language podcasts is simply to search using words in the desired language.  Otherwise, for sure, it takes a bit of a work around to figure out the alternative way.  You need to find the Power Search feature.  The easiest way to find Power Search is to use the spotlight search and type in “podcast” (as below).

The Power Search feature includes a language pull-down filter with the most popular languages in iTunes.  The most popular list cites 34 languages, including Icelandic, Estonian, Croatian and Ukrainian.  Hum!

Popular podcasts in other countries

To see podcasts that are popular in other countries, click on the Home icon in iTunes to go to the main page of the Store. At the bottom of the page is an option to “change country.”  That allows you to switch to different stores. Once in the desired store, navigate to the Podcasts page. In the Top Podcasts list, for example, you will find podcasts ranked according to popularity in that country.  I checked and the ranking is different according to the country.

How many podcasts per language in iTunes?

For the pleasure and because there is little information out there, I decided to count the number of podcasts available in iTunes in a select list of languages.  Rather remarkably, the other languages are all written in English in the iTunes dropdown menu.  The numbers below are as January 14, 2012:

• Arabic 1,085
• Chinese 2,154
• French 7,952 (my French podcast Minter Dialogue weighs at the 2,883rd ranking, ugh)
• Hebrew 202
• Japanese 7,769
• Norwegian 482
• Russian 1,332
• Spanish 7,856
• Ukrainian 23

The above is by not a definitive list, and there are, of course, many podcasts not published on iTunes.  I am going to suspect that there are a lot more Chinese podcasts available via a Chinese distribution system.  All the same, compared to 115,000, the list goes a long way in showing that the vast majority of available podcasts on iTunes are in English!

What does the future hold for podcasts?

As with blogging and other new forms of digital media consumption, the US remains several years ahead of the rest of the world.  For podcasting, the pace of uptake of podcasting has clearly slowed in the States.  In Europe and elsewhere, the tipping point seems to be quite far away and, potentially, will never get out of the starting tracks.  And yet, the opportunity for podcast consumption for daily commuters — whether in public transportation or in the car — remains as big as ever.

Competing with an ever growing list of alternative media, the audio and video podcast risks being relegated to just an alternative distribution channel for mass media.  For independent and free downloadable radio shows (aka podcasts) — such as my own “Minter Dialogue Radio Show ” — considering the difficulty to pierce through to gain larger audiences, the chances are that there will be a large winnowing out process.  Quality shows will presumably rise to the surface, but endurance will be vital.  Hopefully, the methods of cataloguing and accessing podcasts will improve with technology.

What are your thoughts about podcasts and the future of podcasting?  What’s your favorite podcast?

————————

*Podcast is a rather ungainly word.  It comes from mixing the terms ”broadcast” and “pod”, the latter coming from the success of the iConic iPod, the most well known portable media player though which to listen/view.  I tend to use the term “downloadable radio show” (thanks to my friend, Alan Stevens in the UK).  In this article, I have not made any distinction between an audio and video podcast, but clearly there are differences in the way that audio/videocasts are produced and consumed.

** Note that podcasts are still the 6th tab on the top menu of iTunes.  You can find other podcasts on one of 173 podcast directories currently listed on Podcast411, such as Podcast Alley.  This list of podcast directories in Podcasting News includes (an incomplete) list of international podcast directories.

Learning Organizations: New ways of managing

Learn to learn... every day

As companies grapple with the effects and opportunities of the Internet, social media and the smartphone, internal organizations are having to adapt and transform to accommodate new ways of communicating, new marketing methods and metrics and, in sum, new ways of managing.

An organization’s ability to learn and to adapt to the changing environment is fundamental for long-term sustainable success.  Constant learning means recognizing one’s errors, learning from one’s mistakes.  It also means be willing and agile enough to shift courses; all part of an optimized Learning Organization.

Creating a successful Learning for Development program

A founding piece of this learning and change can – and should — take place through the internal university or Learning for Development (LFD) programs. [I have written extensively about the notion of a Brand University.]  There are three principles that must underpin successful change through these internal universities :

1. management must not only actively support, but positively identify – even remunerate — contributing staff;
2. learning must be ongoing, with a before – during – after, whereby management’s message and style is consistent and coherent with the LFD content;
3. the style of teaching, as well as the tools and content, must model the behavior that the organization wishes to adopt.

Future of Learning

Learner focused

Today, education is about educating you. In the jargon, we call this being learner focused. Teaching cannot be about just passing along MY messages. Pedagogy and learning are in mutation, pushed by a new understanding of learning, a new generation of tools, and a new crop of students, familiar with collaborative tools and the “web 2.0” spirit.

Distance learning

Whereas teaching was once the singular domain of classrooms – as is mostly the case in offsite seminars – there is now the opportunity for accessible and effective distance learning. Learning on the job can and is happening on the road, thanks to the portability of the computer, access to the internet and the mobile phone or even the ipod. The options and formats for distance learning are multiple.

Interactivity is the lifeblood of learning

Nonetheless, distance learning is not the complete panacea. It takes time, money and a real expertise to develop – without which one is often left wondering about the applicability and effectiveness. Too often, the eLearning is rich in content because of the obsession with transmission of information, but it is bereft of interactivity, the lifeblood of learning.

Moreover, learning is not just happening in classrooms or on the desktop terminal. It is happening elsewhere, all around us. There are new tools, sources and locations. Learning is and has always been happening informally, via the conversation in the corridor, at the cafeteria or at the famed water cooler.

Moving outside the classroom

It is said that 70% to 90% of all learning happens socially and informally. The tragedy is that LFD departments continue to focus on the remaining 10% to 30%. Moreover, too often, that training remains one-way, professorial and uninviting in style.

New tools exist today that can facilitate more widestream learning without exaggerated costs or massive changes in workflow – an essential ingredient to make informal and distance learning succeed in the workplace.

Four types of learning

There are four types of learning :

• classroom
• distance learning (or eLearning)
• blended learning (a combination of classroom and distance)
• and, the last but not least, social learning. Certainly, social media can be a part of this mix, but there is of course much more to social learning.

Companies need to choose and enable the right tools – infrastructure is a strategic consideration, a veritable investment with a viable return, not just a cost. Organizations need to invest in distance learning platforms — such as Cross Knowledge or Omega TV — but also allow for webinars, podcasting, teleconferences, group work, etc. Moreover, the attractiveness of an organization, from a new employees perspective, is heightened when learning is an integral de facto experience. Critically, managers must learn to be coaches.

Constant learning

I finish with a quote from Jay Cross: “Working smarter is the key to sustainability and continuous improvement. The accelerating rate of change forces everyone in every organization to make a choice: learn while you work or become obsolete.”

Powerful words. Learning For Development should be a corporate-wide endeavor; it must reinvent itself and gain the full thrust of upper management’s support to help the organization transform, to be ready for tomorrow’s fast changing environment.

Telling stories

There are stories (lies) and there are stories (that move).  Great storytelling is about communicating the story in a way that draws you in, makes an emotional connection.  A telling story is one where the audience leaves itching to do something, to be someone different.

Content and context

In storytelling, there are two inalienable parts: the content and the context (the form).   As much as certain sophisticated brands — often touted as “schools of marketing” — look to draw the top students from school, it is possible that the best talent, in the area of storytelling, is going to be found elsewhere.  Creativity, imagination, and even curiosity, are not necessarily the top qualities of the honor roll students.  Human Resource teams and senior executives need to allow the scope to widen, to encourage the truly liberal arts background to flourish. People who enjoy writing, are passionate about photography, painting and/or have studied film are more likely to create the strong narrative for your brand.

The rich choice in format

Storytelling has long been left to Hollywood and the celluloid film.  Brands, however, have every right to become storytellers, whether it is with the written pen (e.g. blogs), the perfect picture (e.g. flickr) or with a moving philm (e.g. YouTube).  And, for the more evolved, it’s about combining all three talents.  Writing (the script) is the foundation of a good film.  The proper word tags on a picture allow Google to find it.

mStories: The Mobile frontier

Going mobile

With the burgeoning mobile platform, the question more and more will be the ability to allow customers to consume that story on their mobile.  That means incorporating not just technical aspects (size, streaming), but to integrate the way and the context in which that story is being viewed, read or listened to.  To tell their story, innovative brand marketers could also be creating audio podcasts as well as entertaining mobile games.

The Talented Mr. Wrigley

Brands — and the human resources teams that support them — need to be taking a radical new eye on creative talent.  The best probably don’t look the part or tow the party line, nor will they be found in the traditional manner.  The new best in class storytellers have talents that are generally not put high on a corporate list.  Can she or he hold the attention of a classroom full of children?  Does she/he like to use garage band or iMovie?  Can she/he chew gum and walk at the same time (multi-task)?  And, not to forget, how personally comfortable are they with participating in social media platforms?

Your thoughts, as always, are welcome!