8 Ways Social Media Benefits Events

Incorporating social media (via Twitter, blogging, video, community sites, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) is a growing phenomenon for live and virtual events. Last week included a swing through Chicago for strategy development on two conferences where I produced social media in 2009. I'll be heavily involved in growing the social media presence for both events (the national Business Marketing Association and the American Marketing Association Market Research Conferences) again in 2010.

According to attendees and event industry observers, we introduced more innovative social media experiences than even many tech-oriented events. This impact at the front end of producing event-based social media comes from the fact the activity merges several areas of expertise for Brainzooming, including:

• Strategy development
• Customer experience design
• Social media
• Event production

Based on first-hand experience, beyond creating a buzz or "newness" for an event, strategically incorporating event-based social media delivers a variety of real benefits:

• We created additional layers of content beyond capturing speaker talking points. We produced additional commentary, links to relevant information, and video interviews, among other educational assets.
• We extended the conference impact to audiences outside the event through conference websites and the liberal use of hashtags.
• It's possible to motivate favorable behaviors through incorporating promotional offers to drive trade show traffic.
• It provides another way for attendees to become actively engaged in an event.
• We gained an understanding of audience reactions to presenters on a real-time basis.
• It's a way to solicit and address on-site customer service issues.
• Our efforts provided additional educational value by introducing a large percentage of attendees to social media applications.
• The social media team's presence prompted new interaction opportunities among those engaged in tweeting at each event.

What experiences have you discovered with event-based social media? We've found that realizing the full range of benefits requires a well-planned strategy and "producing" an event's social media effort, not simply leaving it solely to organic development. (Check out the deck we put together for the AMA Marketing Research Conference to get a sense of the range of interactivity we built into the event.)

Through both producing major events and taking a lead on organic social media in a number of smaller events, we've developed many fundamental approaches and look forward to sharing the benefits of these learnings in events this year. And if you're doing event planning, let us know if you're interested in finding out more about how social media can deliver new value for your event. - Mike Brown

The Frost & Sullivan Marketing World Event - Innovation Roadblocks Roundtable

I "led" (and by "led," I mean "asked one question and got out of the way") a roundtable on innovation roadblocks at the Frost & Sullivan Marketing World 2009 event last week with a group of incredible marketers. The only challenge was taking notes fast enough!

The participants included Jeffrey Rohrs (ExactTarget), Andy Shafer (Elevance Renewable Sciences), Sean Cheyney (Accuquote), Steven Handmaker (Assurance), Kathy Zanzucchi (Microflex Corporation), Theresa Kwan-Zangara (Gallagher Benefit Services, Inc.), and Brian Krause (Molex). Here are innovation roadblocks the participants successfully addressed:

No Process for Channeling Customer Ideas

ExactTarget crowdsources product innovation ideas - 90% of enhancement ideas come from its user community. Additionally, an Idea Lab allows customers on the forefront of its product use to trial changes in a structured environment. (Jeff Rohrs)

Customer Perspectives Are Being Ignored

It's important for marketing to be involved with innovation and new product development efforts to help vet ideas. Without marketing introducing a customer perspective, there's an opportunity for gaps to develop. (Kathy Zanzucchi)

There's No Widespread Understanding of Innovation

Marketing can become more involved and help drive innovation by setting up company-wide training curriculum on innovation. (Sean Cheyney)

No Motivation to Share Ideas

One way to stimulate employee innovation ideas is making a full-fledged program of it, complete with a character (in the case of Assurance, it's "Ivan Idea"!), a convenient intranet-based way to submit ideas, and a $5 gift card for EVERY business process improvement idea submitted. Among 200 Assurance employees, 60% have submitted ideas! Every idea is reviewed, followed-up, and published through the work of a key middle management group. (Steven Handmaker)

The right kind of internal competition can be a stimulus for sharing proven ideas others haven't yet implemented. With a distributed marketing force, Gallagher Benefit Services uses national webcasts to prompt individual offices to share what's working for them to improve efficiency, revenue growth, and operations. Marketing plays a role in drawing out best practices from participants. (Theresa Kwan-Zangara)

Death by a Thousand Approvals

Sometimes innovation hinges on avoiding corporate inertia and simply starting before getting everything cleared. Social media implementation can be an example of this in more traditional companies. Get the kindred spirits in place, agree to the program goals and risks you're willing to take on, and begin. With social media especially, there may be a better opportunity to start and experiment within an agreed to framework that minimizes the potential for big gaffes. (Brian Krause)

Thanks to everybody for making it such a great information-packed session. For even more ideas, check out this previous Brainzooming post on dealing with ten common NOs in business inNOvation. - Mike Brown

More from Frost & Sullivan Marketing World Event

Today's recap from the Frost & Sullivan Marketing World 2009 event, highlights presentations from two CMOs - Eduardo Conrado at Motorola (Broadband Mobility Solutions) and Chris X. Moloney at Scottrade.

Eduardo spoke on "CEO Expectations: How Marketing Must Drive Growth in Today's Economy." Among his key points:

• One downside of seeing yourself as a tech company is you lead with technology, not customer benefits. Comment- Every company is susceptible to this. When you're strong at a core capability delivering important benefits, make sure you don't get caught up in the capability and lose sight of potential changes in benefits your customers are seeking.
  
• In positioning new products, Motorola attempts to start with the customer perspective, followed by the Motorola solution, and then adding the product detail. Comment - This isn't revolutionary, yet this solid formula should be kept top of mind when working through positioning, messaging, and customer communications.
  
• Motorola attempts to find communities that have developed offline and create a place to host them online. And to add value, Motorola seeks to aggregate relevant content from multiple sources, including material from outside the company. Comment - Great reminder that a company's social media effort can benefit from going to where people are already being social and adding value vs. trying to lure them to a completely new place with unproven benefit.

Chris Moloney covered "Major Growth and Marketing Opportunities in the New Reset Economy," with metrics and search as important themes:

• Chris challenged sellers to work from the buyer's metrics to be able to best serve them. Comment - Amid the challenges many marketers face in getting a handle on their own metrics, it can seem daunting to consider starting with consumer metrics. Yet this theme is right on target, and has been echoed by other CMOs I've seen in the past 18 months, most particularly Keith Pigues at PlyGem. You have to understand what success looks like from the customer's view, particularly in B2B markets, to deliver the best possible value.
  
• Every marketer needs to understand search in some form, and it's a good area to get good at for the efficiency benefits in can create within your marketing mix. Comment - Search was a big theme throughout the day. Patricia Hursh, President and Founder, SmartSearch Marketing, did an informative presentation on free tools to better understand search traffic on your website. It's an area I'll be exploring more deeply given the predictability of search as a marketing tool.

Tomorrow, we'll recap the innovation roundtable I facilitated at the conference, with some really cool ideas from the participants. - Mike Brown

The Frost & Sullivan Marketing World Event - Joe Batista

I participated in the Frost & Sullivan Marketing World 2009 event November 2 in Chicago, leading a round table on getting around innovation roadblocks. The next several days will highlight some of the many intriguing ideas shared during the day from great marketing practitioners.

Yesterday's Creative Quickie mentioned the title "Chief Creatologist" which belongs to Joe Batista at HP, who spoke on "Creating New Market Revenues in a Down Economy." I met Joe at a 2007 Frost & Sullivan event, and his case study-driven presentations at both events were tremendously thought provoking considering HP targets $3 billion in new growth quarterly from the approaches Joe shared.

He looks for business growth through discovering and exploring new areas to respond to clients' needs. His efforts center on going beyond a closed innovation model and exploring the company's research in new ways and looking beyond its boundaries for new opportunities:

• Joe highlighted techniques to help identify new growth sources, including thinking broadly about the available assets a company has, generalizing what the assets (especially technology) can do, and connecting organizationally-dispersed assets inside a company. Comment - These all tie to fundamental lateral thinking principles, stressing the real-life importance of being able to apply abstract thinking skills in identifying opportunities that would otherwise be missed.
  
• Look for pockets of knowledge and expertise inside your business and explore how they can be converted into new revenue streams. Comment - A great way to do this is to identify what BENEFITS your knowledge can provide and then think through what other parties are seeking these or related benefits.
  
• One more potential growth source? Growth arises from examining currencies you have available inside your company (i.e., what flows through your value system) and by making the boundaries of your company porous so ideas from outside can flow through it. Comment - Joe's remarks continually underscored the importance of being able to step away from detail and "get" the bigger, potentially underlying picture, whether it's inside or outside your company.

There's a lot behind these summarized comments. I look forward to trying to connect with Joe further and better understand the innovative approach he's bringing to business growth! - Mike Brown

BTW -This is the second anniversary of the blog's first post. No big deal in the posts this week, but it seemed like at least worth a mention. Look for the Brainzooming redesign and move to a Wordpress format in the very near future!

Creative Quickie - Take Some Time

Keith Prather and I attended the October 21, 2009 Central Exchange CEO Series luncheon featuring Beryl Raff, Chairman and CEO of Helzberg Diamonds.

It was an interesting talk, especially when she went off script, discussing challenges in her career, how she developed a specialty in turnarounds, and the first meeting with her new "boss," Warren Buffett.

The first audience question was about what type of atmosphere she feels fosters innovation. Her answer was one where the status quo is challenged all the time and people "talk about ideas."

There's your creative quickie: this week, see how often you're challenging the status quo (vs. settling for what's okay or routine) and notice amid the time pressures of business, if you're avoiding "talking" about ideas.

Don't rush to "just do something." Invest time to think and challenge your world as it exists today. - Mike Brown

A Whole Brain Network of Great People

I've extolled the benefits of surrounding yourself with both left brain and right brain people to complement what you lack in expertise and perspective. It's incredible to tap innovative people across the entire spectrum of points of view on strategic situations you're facing.

Last Friday at my going away party, another upside of a network of great diverse thinkers surfaced: it makes for a better party!

Shortly after the announced start time, someone remarked about the "surprising" number of attendees from finance and accounting backgrounds. Looking around, nearly the entire crowd would be considered naturally left brained thinkers (i.e., quantitative, precise, punctual).

A little while later, more of the right brain people (i.e., intuitive, holistic, random) began to arrive. By the time the event was well underway, it became a whole brain party, spawning interesting combinations of diverse people interacting with one another throughout the evening.

And since my creative instigation partner Jan Harness drove the party planning, there were 3 innovation exercises along with post-its and Sharpies for guests to ideate on what Brainzooming could become!

Because of the whole brain network of great people in attendance, we had a crowd early on, lively interactions and ideas throughout, enough people staying late to extend the party, and a final small group of both left and right brainers having a passionate (and by "passionate," I mean "interesting but slightly uncomfortable") conversation about my future prospects.

Truly, the type of whole brain night I love! - Mike Brown

Personal Branding When You're 25x 2.0

Thanks to a tweet from Richard Dedor, Chris Reaburn and I were last minute attendees at a Kansas City PRSA lunch session by Dan Schawbel based on his book Me 2.0 - Build a Personal Brand to Achieve Career Success.

The talk was part of a career day for students interested in PR, so the average audience age was 20. As a result, Dan's slant on personal branding was customized for the industry and audience life stage.

The concepts he covered were nonetheless applicable to anyone working on personal branding. From talking with many people in mid-career transitions, however, they tend to be woefully behind on how personal branding applies to their situations. So for the 25 times 2.0 crowd, here are three suggestions customized for you:

1. Volunteering for meaningful assignments with professional associations is a great mid-career internship.

Dan highlights the necessity of internships for college-age job seekers. Mid career job seekers have similar opportunities. I speak with many people whose current job is "looking for a job." There's no sizzle and not much built-in skill development there. Yet associations relevant to you are likely looking for knowledgeable professionals to take on assignments. One great thing about a smartly-chosen volunteer project is you typically have room to make it much cooler than anyone in the association ever expected. The result is you get to experiment, learn, and have something with sizzle to lead with when networking.

2. Mid-career, it's imperative to assess your personality and get on with changing what's not working.

My advice to people who leave for other companies is always to think about who they want to be in a new job, because it's the only opportunity to create a "new" you. Dan makes the point it's tremendously challenging to reinvent yourself in the age of (nearly) total visibility to your online presence. That's true, but if you continually trip yourself up through the same behaviors, do the self-help, career coaching, or counseling necessary to eliminate rough spots. Become if not a new, at least a "new formula" you.

3. Mid-career people need a solid offline and online network you're actively growing.

Dan's right when he says a larger network has the potential to work much harder for you. But with a number of years of experience, you should be good at determining the highest value people in your network. While you definitely want to serve and cultivate these relationships very actively, you should also be continually reaching out to expand your network offline and online. Focus on adding people you may be able to help while building the most vibrant, responsive network you can. That's a far better move than creating the largest network possible filled with people having few real ties to you.

This topic is of increasing interest, so look for more on it as we go forward. Let me know how we can deliver value to you as part of the Brainzooming family! - Mike Brown

Borrowing Brilliance - A Guest Post of Sorts

I attended the KC Small Business "Think Bigger" luncheon recently when guest speaker David Kord Murray discussed his new book, "Borrowing Brilliance." The tome covers 6 steps (defining, borrowing, combining, incubating, judging, and enhancing) to build from others' ideas.

While several people afterward expressed frustration with Murray's presentation and demeanor (some of the frustrations were very justified), he shared a number of valuable points. Here's my take on the highlights he covered (thus the designation of this piece as a guest post of sorts):

• To get to a core issue, Murray suggests asking, "What's the problem above the problem we're considering?" This is a different and helpful way of expressing the question, "What are we trying to achieve?" He cited an old, but relevant, example. In the 1920's, Ford defined the issue as building the cheapest car. GM identified a more fundamental issue: making cars affordable. Its problem definition led to auto financing's introduction.
  
• Murray expressed a clear disdain for unfettered brainstorming, claiming stronger ideas emerge when more judging is involved. He has a point, in that once you've moved from divergent to convergent thinking steps, solid evaluation approaches do push you closer to more readily implementable ideas.
  
• In using different perspectives to look for analogous ideas, Murray shared a borrowing continuum to look for ideas in Same, Similar, and then Distant domains (i.e., your industry, a related industry, a radically different industry). This concept has been discussed frequently in Brainzooming (and the "Taking the NO Out of InNOvation" ebook is structured similarly), yet this was a new, actionable way of expressing the approach.


• He talked about "aha moments" occurring in the shower so frequently because we've typically minimized conscious thought, allowing the sub-conscious to sift through raw materials it's been fed. I haven't tried scheduling a group creative team meeting in the shower yet, but it again emphasizes the value of changes of scenery and activity in ideation.


• Murray passed along an interesting factoid: Walt Disney conceived Disneyland not as an amusement park, but as a movie starring the park's guests. Instead of "rides," mini-movies were then developed in which guests star for a few minutes. I'd never really thought about it, but it makes perfect sense. It's also a great example of selecting a rich core concept and using it throughout the innovation process to create strategically consistent implementation.

All these are helpful insights. Now here's one for new authors (i.e., David Kord Murray): when a well-known local bookstore (i.e., Rainy Day Books) helps co-sponsor your appearance, maybe your closing book slide should feature its logo along with (or even instead of) the major online bookseller brands you chose to feature. Just saying. - Mike Brown

Creating Memorable Experiences

We wrapped up the AMA Marketing Research Conference last week to very kind words from a number of participants about the different nature of the conference experience.

The secret of great, meaningful brand events lies in a simple formula. Look for the strongest possible alignment on these 3 dimensions:

• Attendees' personal interests
• An event's emotional intensity
• A brand's visibility as the event's enabler

The formula works across many venues and event types. Recognize the enabling brand can be for business (i.e., an event sponsor), or it may be a personal brand (you and your spouse throwing a holiday party).

No matter what the event, consider and deliver on these three variables to see a difference in your audience's experience and reactions. - Mike Brown

Taking Note in a New Way

Want to meet cool new people? Next time you're at a public presentation, "live tweet" it. Live tweeting implies using Twitter to report:

• What the speaker is communicating
• Offering your own commentary
• Retweeting what others are tweeting about it

I live tweeted the Integrated Marketing Summit last week in Kansas City to further experiment with the process. Based on my tweets from a direct database marketing session, Doug Haslam switched breakouts and joined the session. This created the opportunity to chat, and after attending his session on PR and social media, later talk at the networking reception.

I wouldn't have necessarily gone up and talked with someone new (ah, the curse of an introvert), but live tweeting opened the door to connect and meet a new, really smart person at the forefront of social media.

Beyond the in-person opportunity, live tweeting often opens the opportunity to attract and follow new people in your Twitter network as well.

Live tweeting - a whole new way for introverts to become social animals. - Mike Brown

Getting Ready for This!

Today includes a lunch presentation at the Fort Hays State University Business and Leadership Symposium. The presentation title is "Getting Ready for This," and it focuses on six vital success competencies for graduates coming into the workplace amid a dramatically changing business world.

The premise is that it's fundamental for new graduates to own skills in co-creating, contorting, and abandoning ideas and strategies based on what's relevant at any time. It's not so much "what" they know, as "how" to continually deconstruct and reassemble their knowledge in dramatically new and relevant ways throughout their careers.

It starts with several amazing factoids from the video "Do You Know 3.0?" recounting dramatic demographic, technology, and information-based changes worldwide. It's been viewed millions of times, and in the event you haven't seen it, take a few minutes to watch it.

As a brief overview and reference for the presentation, here are the six areas for educators and students to more concertedly embrace:

1. Knowing Answers Is Good - Knowing How to Find Answers Is Vital

Since facts change and information deteriorates, it's vital to be able to know how to seek and vet potential answers since no one can be expected to have a full command of all available knowledge.

2. Balanced Thinking Allows You to Be More Strategic

USA Today featured an article in July on retraining a left brained orientation to a right brained one in order to cope with a changing job environment. We talk plenty about the importance of knowing your thinking orientation, surrounding yourself with a complementary team, and the strategic impact of being able to work with contradictory points of view.

3. Possibilities and Emotion are Important in Business

From someone whose more natural orientation centers on facts and logic, this has been the most challenging of the 6 areas to retrain my own view. The best place to go on this topic is Benjamin Zander, who has been mentioned frequently here. As a homework assignment for attendees at the FHSU presentation, I asked them to watch these two Zander videos and get a genuine sense of the importance of emotion and possibilities thinking:

• Benjamin Zander on the Art of Possibilities


• Benjamin Zander on Emotion and Possibilities

4. You Have to Be Able to Communicate in Multiple Ways

Communication is in the top 10 topics addressed on Brainzooming so far because it's so critical to successful creativity, innovation, and strategic thinking. Students need to be pushed to go beyond the typical team presentation that summarizes a semester-long project. They need to be adept at using formats of varying lengths (simple recommendations, elevator speeches, tweets, etc.) and mediums (songs, video, acting, etc.).

5. Leadership Starts Day One on the Job

Leadership is about service, not titles. That means day one is the time for new graduates to start leading on the job. Taking on a strategic leadership role can be simple. You just have to be willing to do something about it!

6. People All Around You Are Making Decisions Based on Personal Branding

Personal branding isn't a meaningless concept authors dreamed up to sell more books. It's truly the driver behind why anyone gets hired, advances, and has intriguing opportunities develop. Step one is understanding your talents and exploiting them. Here are two great books to read on how to further develop and sustain a personal brand:

• "Radical Careering" by Sally Hogshead


• "Orbiting the Giant Hairball" by Gordon MacKenzie

I look forward to comments from those in attendance (and non-attendees as well) with thoughts on the topic since it applies to all of us as dizzying changes occur around us. Stay close to the Brainzooming blog for more on change and dealing with it in the near future! - Mike Brown

Storytelling to Frame Research Reports - Guest Post by Sean Buvala

I'm chairing the American Marketing Association Marketing Research Conference October 4 - 7. It's going to be a great event, with three educational tracks all tied back to theme, "Making Business Sense of What's Next."

Our main programming objective for the conference is providing ideas, tools, and networking to help researchers approach business more broadly and with a clear means to help lead their companies successfully into the future. Through the conference social media effort, you'll be able to track the conference's progress using the hashtag #amamrc on Twitter and on the conference website, where I'll be blogging along with others next week.

To give you an early sense of the conference tone and content, today's guest Brainzooming columnist is presenting a workshop this Sunday at the conference's start. Sean Buvala is an award-winning trainer who teaches businesses and nonprofit organizations how to improve their business results through the power of storytelling. You learn more about his work at www.seantells.net.

In this piece, Sean challenges researchers (and really anyone communicating in business) to better incorporate framing to fully realize the impact of great storytelling.


The more esoteric your work, the more you need storytelling in your job. Those of you in research, I am talking to you.

Sometimes it is hard for others to understand the ins, outs, and mysteries of research. By using the power of storytelling in your communications, you can create "frames" to highlight, carry, and explain bigger concepts.

Every house I have ever been in has place filled with pictures of family and friends. Rather than just glue these pictures to the wall, the pictures are placed in frames that help draw the eye to the subjects within. In the most artistic homes, frames surrounding pictures have been carefully chosen to emphasize the content of the pictures. More important pictures (the "everybody in the family" type) have the most expensive and sturdy frames. Done well, frames are an extension of the pictures.

Just like picture frames in someone's home, framing complicated and important data in the context of a memorable story protects and carries your message to your listeners. Here's an example.

You could talk about the collection methods used to complete a survey and how that proves the validity of the data. However, folks want results first. So, instead of talking first about how the data means you must completely drop an ingrained and "sacred cow" program from your company, you could start with the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk," (JATBS) emphasizing how Jack's mother was furious with Jack for trading her sacred cow for a few magic beans. In the end, however, Jack ends up with a goose that lays golden eggs, giving Jack and his mother more than they ever dreamt.

You'll still present your data, but after you tell your version of JATBS, showing the data that correlates to your conclusion. Then, you might lead a discussion based on the data asking, "Just like the mother in JATBS, what do we fear in what the data tells us? In what ways is this data like magic beans for our company's future?" Finally, end your presentation with a recap of JATBS.

Now, you have framed your data (which is important and needed) in the center of a very familiar and comfortable story. I can assure you the first time you do this you will wade through some discomfort and come out with a presentation that will cement the conclusions into the minds of your listeners.

Here are three things you should know about story and narrative as framing tools:

1. People just want to know, "What's in it for me?"

Co-workers aren't as interested in you job's mechanics as you are. I know you have gone to school to learn how statistics work. However, the people you work with haven't. For most of them, how you collected the data is not nearly as important as what the data means for their work. Storytelling lets you talk about benefits of research, not just mechanics.

2. Stories remind you to speak in the language of the people: your fellow employees.

Although stereotypes of overly detailed researchers may seem unfair, there are those in your company still slightly afraid of you. When they know you will speak understandably, they are more open to hear what you have to say. When you share the story of how others have benefited by what you are proposing, they will feel better about providing tools and time to fulfill your projects. It's far better to talk to others about how Susan at the other office was twice as successful after incorporating research results you reported. In a sense, storytelling allows others to know you are "on their side."

3. Your CFO approves funds for results not information.

Most people hate the process of change. Results are better than promises. Stories are frames that carry results. You will get much more support for a project when folks know how others have benefited from your proposals. How the office across the city became so successful that they now have doubled sales is 100% more effective in getting results than any presentation mired in how the research was conducted.

Your work in research and statistics is vital. Even more vital is your ability to communicate the benefits of your work to the rest of your company. Information framed in the context of story, information carried by understandable narratives, will stick with your fellow staff members much longer than data alone. Take a chance and frame your next presentation in a story. - Sean Buvala

Radio, Radio - Brainzooming on Hot Talk 1510, Friday, August 21

I'm substitute hosting again for Kelly Scanlon on her Hot Talk 1510 AM "Eye on Small Business" radio show at 9 a.m. CDT Friday, August 21. The topic is "7 Ways to Better Understand Your Customers," and the guest is long-time friend and colleague Barb Murphy, President of Strategic Spark.

We'll discuss ways that small business owners can use both primary and secondary research to identify the changes taking place within their customer bases during these challenging economic times.

You can listen live on the internet, and if you want to tweet a question, use hashtag #kcsmallbiz. I'll try to monitor any questions and incorporate them into the program.

BTW - Barb will also be doing an opening day seminar at the American Marketing Association Market Research conference October 4 - 7, 2009. I'm chairing the conference, and it's a great opportunity for those involved in the research field to develop professionally, expand your knowledge of new research techniques, and get set for the future.

Register by September 4 to get the early bird rate. And follow the conference on http://twitter.com/amamrc for market research updates from across the web!

What Has Social Media Done for Me? Plenty

A January post highlighted the plan to broaden Brainzooming through social media. Specific tactics included Twitter, capturing story ideas with Flip video, and participating elsewhere online.

Since many readers have asked, here's a progress update: the opportunities, connections, and possibilities from implementing the plan have been beyond my expectations. For those considering using social media in your personal brand efforts, here are some highlights:

• Since grabbing the @Brainzooming Twitter name in January 2009, it's grown to a focused network of several thousand, including great thinkers globally on innovation, creativity, marketing, and branding.


• BrainzoomingTM blog activity is up 3 times for the biggest month in 2009 vs. 2008. It's increased through Twitter, answering questions and updating activities on LinkedIn, sharing links on Business Week Business Exchange, and commenting on other blogs.


• Twitter led to connecting with @sethsimonds, who's helping revamp Brainzooming, moving it to Wordpress (and Brainzooming.com). Note to mikebrownspeaks readers: when the change happens, we'll phase out active posting on mikebrownspeaks in favor of Brainzooming, so please consider moving your RSS feed, email subscription, or bookmark to the Brainzooming site!


• Posting "Taking the NO Out of InNOvation" on Slideshare, being selected as a feature ebook, and sharing the link broadly generated nearly 3700 views in six months to broaden the Brainzooming audience.


• I worked with a talented team to live tweet, blog, and video the Business Marketing Association conference in June 2009. We'll build on the experience for the October 2009 American Marketing Association Market Research Conference I'm chairing. We're building a Twitter presence with @amamrc, recording webcasts, bringing live tweeting into presentations via ParaTweet, and exploring unconference and Pecha Kucha presentations (which yes, I learned about through Twitter).


• A request came through Twitter to participate in a Sydney, Australia innovation event with two stories shot on the Flip and posted on YouTube. There have also been new speaking opportunities on social media and innovation (in person, on radio, and the internet) and writing connections with 24 Hours of Innovation, World Creativity and Innovation Week, and Braden Kelly's Blogging Innovation website.


• Brainzooming is listed among top innovation blogs on IdeaConnection. (If you have a minute, please go there and vote up Brainzooming!) Brainzooming has become more of a recognized outpost for innovation thinking, with a wonderful group of Twitter-based guest bloggers contributing and PR outreaches from people wanting to be featured on Brainzooming.


• Finally, Googling "Brainzooming" in December 2008 would have yielded about 40 hits. Doing it just now, "Brainzooming" returned thousands.

One learning has been that taking a strategic approach to social media for me means concentrating efforts on only a few sites. That's why there's little presence from me on Facebook or Plaxo. I will be trying though to make a concerted attempt to get back to some high impact sites and explore new ones. One is Bulbstorm.com - a crowdsourcing beta site allowing individuals and businesses to solicit input on ideas while still protecting fundamental, proprietary elements of the ideas through varying access levels.

What a partial year so far of learning, meeting new people, and discovering new opportunities! Email or DM me with questions on your social media effort or suggestions for mine. - Mike Brown

Pecha Kucha in Kansas City - Open Mic Night for PowerPoint Boys

Last Thursday, thanks to a heads up tweet from Todd Chandler, Cyndi and I attended our first Pecha Kucha night at Crosstown Station in downtown Kansas City. If you've not heard about it, Pecha Kucha is an innovative 20-slide PowerPoint presentation format with each slide on-screen for 20 seconds. Introduced in 2003, Pecha Kucha nights have been held in more than 200 cities globally.

Pecha Kucha emphasizes rapidly-paced, visually-oriented, creative slides. You'd think, by definition, it would be difficult to do a bad Pecha Kucha presentation since so many poor presentations emerge from slow pacing and too many words on a slide. While avoiding these downfalls helps improve presentations, it doesn't fix everything.

As a result, here are 6 presentation reminders from Pecha Kucha night that apply to other presentations too:

Reminder 1: Boring presentations aren't only caused by too much text on a slide. Despite agonizing about overly bullet pointed PowerPoint slides, an exclusively visual presentation can be deadly as well. One way to accomplish it? Read your presentation and don't make eye contact with the audience.

Reminder 2: You can lose the handle on a presentation in less than 6 minutes. Even if you're only presenting for a few moments, failing to have a solid presentation strategy and a well thought out flow will put you in the ditch quickly.

Reminder 3: Sometimes 20 seconds a slide is still too long. You wouldn't imagine it, but 20 seconds can push the limits of how long a slide should be on screen if there's no reason for it to be there or it's not information rich.

Reminder 4: It's a good thing corporate presentations don't usually include beer and poetry. No matter what they are, distractions change a presentation. The beer break in the middle of the evening introduced an attractive distraction. Subsequent presentations became funnier or less tolerable (i.e. the poetry reading) because of it.

Reminder 5: Doing a visually-oriented presentation doesn't mean you should treat it like a slide show. Really compelling pictures are worth a thousand words. Marginal images are worth about five. And if you're not prepared to fill in some of the other necessary words to make a point, you've got a problem.

Reminder 6: Humor nearly always helps a presentation. Even in a brief presentation, smartly using humor makes a presenter more intellectually & emotionally approachable, bringing the audience into the experience. One of the funniest lines of the night? "These mouse turds were hand rolled by me." How can you not be rooting for someone who's willing to honestly share that?

Go to Pecha Kucha if you get a chance (as a teaser, here's Todd's fun presentation). I'll be working on my 20 second presentation chops for evening #7 on October 22! - Mike Brown

Tune in Friday for Hot Talk with Brainzooming

If you have the opportunity to listen, I'm substitute hosting on the Hot Talk 1510 AM "Eye on Small Business" radio show at 9 a.m. CDT Friday, June 26. Regular host Kelly Scanlon, publisher of "KC Small Business" magazine is at the NAWBO national conference in Chicago, where she was selected as President-Elect of the national organization.

Guests for the show will be my Creative Instigation buddy Jan Harness and pr consultant and owner of Kat Clothing, Kate Rauber.

Our topic is "What Can You Do When You Can't Do What You've Done Before?" We'll discuss what small business owners can do to embrace and succeed with innovative business strategies they might dismiss as too risky or uncertain in less challenging economic times.

You can listen live on the internet, and if you want to tweet a question, use hashtag #kcsmallbiz. I'll try to monitor any questions and incorporate them into the program.

"Chicago, Chicago, That Bloggin' Town" - Guest Post from Amy Lillard

Producing social media content for the BMA conference in Chicago came together quickly and was an incredible learning experience. It was also incredibly rewarding to work with a diverse group of writers & video people to create content for the conference.

Amy Lillard was at my right, tweeting, blogging, and sometimes, being snarky, throughout the general sessions. In her own words, Amy "helps smart, talented people find the words to express their smarty-pants-ness. She specializes in marketing writing for agencies, social media campaigns, technical writing, and medical writing. Her new blog on 'Making It Better,' which highlights how a turn of phrase and well-chosen word can improve any marketing piece, is coming soon; in the meantime, visit Wayfarer Writing for updates, case studies and contact information."

I asked Amy to share her take on learnings from the social media experience at BMA09. She's done so, in addition to using one word that's never appeared in Brainzooming before....enjoy!

What will social media get you?

In my case, a response to a LinkedIn question and three days of blogging and tweeting got me a seat at the sold-out Business Marketing Association 09 conference, lots of cool leads, a chance to wear some new suits, a guest post on Brainzooming, new friends over margaritas, and free breakfast at the Drake Hotel. Not necessarily in that order.

When Gary Slack, Chair of the Business Marketing Association, posted a LinkedIn call for bloggers, tweeters and videographers to attend the Unlearn conference, I jumped at the chance. Through luck (and minimal stalking) I joined Mike Brown and eight other folks on the social media team at the jam-packed conference. After three days of non-stop blogging and tweeting, my brain hurt, my fingers ached, and I needed (several) drinks, but I was exhilarated and educated.

What exactly did I learn from the experience?

• Think you know how to multi-task? Yeah, I did too. I can listen and take notes with the best of them, and I pride myself as a writer at getting to the meat of what’s being said. But keeping it up over three days? Tweeting main points, responding to questions, retweeting, and taking notes for blog posts, all while paying attention to the nice gentleman/lady and their nifty slides on the podium? Good gravy, my head was mush. I’m lucky I didn’t resort to “Picture's r pretty, man has beard” as a tweet summation.
  
• When people know what you’re doing, you’re seen as an expert. We’re talking palm fronds and lots of bowing and scraping. (Wait – that may have been a dream.) Gary Slack was kind enough to call attention to our row of computer junkies at the beginning and in the midst of each day, and as a result attendees visited our section for social media questions and technology support. It led to some great discussions and tutorials.
  
• When people don’t know what you’re doing, dirty looks will abound. For most of the conference we were in the main room, and our team was seated in a fixed location. During breakout sessions, however, we weren’t as easily identifiable. As I typed away (on an older Dell that sounds like a typewriter or drum kit), I’d often get the pursed lips, the creased eyebrows, the stern librarian shush, and some eye daggers of death. Next time perhaps I’ll wear a tablet: “I’m not a rude prick. I’m part of the social media team.”
  
• DMs are like the new version of passing notes during class. Full disclosure - I stole this line from Mike. But my theft does not diminish the truth of the statement. During one egregiously bad presentation that had slides and examples from 1982 (all B2C, no less), direct messaging on Twitter] allowed some team members to vent and practice their comedy routines - without the chance of a teacher picking up the note mid transit and reading it to the class.
  
• Social media and conferences: a match made in geeky heaven. No matter the hard work (or because of it), my experience at the conference was deeply enriched. I was able to increase my understanding of presentations, meet fellow attendees and tweeters in instantly-bonding fashion, generate new leads for my writing business, and expand my social media skills. All good things.

It was a tremendous experience and rockin’ good time. And it was a clear demonstration of the conference theme – Unlearn. Rethink what you know about conference attendance. Reconsider what you think about presenting information and gleaning insight. Unlearn, and embrace social media to do it. - Amy Lillard

What Did You UNLearn at the Conference?

3 Days of UNLearning at the Business Marketing Association Conference
"UNLearn" was the theme for last week's national Business Marketing Association conference (quick disclosure, I'm a board member for BMA). The theme emphasized the importance in today's environment of challenging existing knowledge, assumptions, and beliefs to lead & grow businesses more successfully.

The conference delivered on the theme in multiple ways, and each day, I challenged myself to articulate what I had "unlearned." Here are the top unlearnings from each of the conference's three days:

• Day 1 - UNLearn Control: A major conference topic focused on how new communication channels have handed control to the audience for what have traditionally been company-driven messages. Operating successfully in this environment requires authenticity and openness to being part of the conversations taking place, irrespective of whether they are flattering or hurtful. For marketing & branding control freaks, it means learning new tools and means to engage in dialogue.
  
• Day2 - UNLearn “Resources Before Results” Thinking: Everybody has fewer resources. One marketing VP said his budget was 25% of what it was in 2008. If defining your ability to make a positive, business-growing impact is based solely on budget & people resources, you'll beat your head against a wall. The alternative is to realize key success factors for today's market dialogue aren't resource-driven. You can't buy authenticity, experience, or passion, yet they all correlate strongly to creating results.
  
• Day 3 - UNLearn "Piecemeal" Marketing: It was fascinating to hear other marketers wrestling with the expectation of delivering programs that are close - maybe 60-70% of what might traditionally be considered as ready for "prime time." The push now is to introduce them early to try to drive sales while additional learning and tweaking go on once in market. A balance to this approach is to make as sure as possible on the front end an effort integrates with other things being done across the business. At least then the 30-40% uncertainty can be partially mitigated through strategic ties to other efforts and investments already in place.

Easy? No. Comfortable? Absolutely not!

To me though, the big learning is nearly all business marketers are facing comparable issues, and finding dramatically new ways to deal with them is what success is all about today.

The Creative unConference - Guest Post from Stephanie Sharp

In early May, a TweetDeck search on "creative" tweets showed several referencing a Creative unConference in New York. I tweeted to attendees asking for a guest blogger to write about their experience presenting at an event where there's not really a pre-planned schedule.

Part of it was professional curiosity since I'm chairing the American Marketing Association Market Research Conference in October, and we've discussed how to incorporate more attendee-driven content. The other part was a sincere interest in all of us learning more about these types of emerging events.

Stephanie Sharp stepped forward to share her perspective on the event. Stephanie owns Sharp Designs, a graphic design and branding consultancy in New Jersey. She has extensive experience with identity work, marketing collateral, and internal communications. Here's Stephanie's view on what it's like when a social networking perspective intersects with a real life event:

I presented at the Creative unConference in New York City on May 7 - 9. This event was organized by The One Show as part of a week-long creative week. Since this was my first unConference, I wasn't sure what to expect, so here are three take-aways to help others prepare for attending an unConference:

Prepare for a Richer Experience

The registration process included two questions:

• What are you going to present?
• What subjects are you interested in hearing about?

My answer to the first question was : "I AM PRESENTING on the rebranding that has occurred in the last year or so. Some has been seen as a misfire among the design community. Is there a shift in identity work? Have we lost Paul Rand's way of working? Is it better or worse?"

The unConference guidelines warned speakers to not prepare too much. It's not like a typical conference with a presentation followed by Q&A with the audience. An unConference is very interactive with a session's attendees voicing their opinions. A comment from a speaker or a fellow attendee can start a longer discussion on one particular item. As such is a much richer experience.

Get Ready to Actively Shape the Agenda

An unConference's schedule is set each morning, so the exact agenda isn't known ahead of time. Every attendee is in a large room and allowed to introduce themselves. We grabbed paper and markers and wrote what we wanted to present on sheets and gathered in two lines to announce our session to the crowd.

Alternatively, we could write a subject heading in which we needed help, an issue we were working with, or a topic on which we wanted to hear others' views. We walked over to a large schedule board and taped our session into a slot for a room and time. As people were adding their sessions, you could also move yours to another time. For any sessions that were similar, presenters could discuss and combine them.

Anticipate but Be Flexible

For my session, I prepared ahead of time by gathering recent logo redesigns causing discussion and controversy within the online design community. These included major brands such as Pepsi, Tropicana, the 2012 Olympics, and Xerox among others. Only a few sessions had access to projectors, so I printed several copies of the logos anticipating I'd be in one of the smaller, intimate areas. Needing visuals for my presentation, this approach provided the most flexibility no matter what the space.

Most everyone in the session held similar ideas on the logos, but we shared some interesting insights with each other. It was more of a discussion than a traditional "presentation," giving attendees more time to interact and exchange opinions.

Summary

In all, I came away from the Creative unConference with some excellent ideas and knowledge I can implement in my own design and branding consultancy and will definitely keep an eye out for future unConferences. - Stephanie Sharp