I Said, OK

A few months ago I upgraded my 2-year-old Verizon Wireless Broadband USB modem to the Verizon MiFi 2200 and I love it! I had read the usual product reviews and watched David Pogue’s video about it and decided to take the leap. My impression having put the MiFi through the paces for a couple of months of travel is that it’s very convenient to have wireless broadband access on multiple devices and Verizon’s network is good. However, it wasn’t all smooth sailing to get it up and running, so take note in the beginning.

TechCrunch’s Mobile Crunch blog reported yesterday that Verizon Wireless is now accepting user reviews and ratings of products in their catalog. The author of the post and many of the readers that left comments seem to think this is a bad move on Verizon’s part.

I concede that it may seem strange for Verizon to be opening themselves up for potential abuse, but I see this as not just a brave move but more importantly, an extremely smart one. By doing this, Verizon goes from being just a transactional vendor to providing something that’s potentially really valuable to customers during the buying process. This translates to trust.

My most recent job has me thinking about marketing agencies and the shift in marketing that has even the CMO of Unilever (not exactly the brand I think of when one talks about the internet or social media) ranting and raving about the impact of social media on marketing.

As I said in an earlier post, I find that depending on who you ask and what type of marketing they do, they’ll tell you that their discipline is the best suited to be the social media answer to all the modern marketer’s woes. To me that’s not even the point. I think that if you’re having a discussion along the lines of social media you’re having the wrong the discussion–I’ll address this point later, but first a rant on agencies.

I’ve been scratching my head for a while about the question of where social media should sit in an organization. I’ve learned that the way a person typically answers that depending on his or her background and point of view. A PR person will typically say, PR! (Especially if that person works at an agency.) An advertising person will usually say, ADVERTISING! You get where I’m going with this.

My auto-response answer is: marketing. As I give it more thought though, I don’t think it’s that straight forward. These days I’m thinking that it should live wherever business strategy lives and in the channels where a company delivers tactically against those strategies. Does that mean it lives everywhere? Maybe.

About a month ago, I had a conversation with a friend who doesn’t work in the same industry as I do about a phrase that she noticed is quite pervasive amongst the social media set.

“They don’t get it.”

This is used to explain the ineptitude and shortcomings of my brethren in marketing who work at brands, enterprises and agencies or all shapes and sizes, and pertains to their lack of understanding about social media and engagement marketing.

Over the last 13 years, I’ve had the good fortune to visit and see many different parts of this country. One of my favorite things to do is to try to experience the America away from the tourist trinkets and franchised neon lights. Some recent examples of this includes, spending 20 minutes on the phone with room service in Milwaukee because we were fascinated by each others accents or holding court with the Atheist Club of Austin.

I added to my American experience last weekend while I was in Austin for SXSW and I have to admit, it was pretty fucking classic.

I just found the article that NMK interviewed me back in October, 2008.
“Politicians have a unique opportunity to engage with people directly through a highly interactive and cost effective channel. No longer are you bound by expensive ad buys or are you beholden to editors or news programmers, you can talk to your electorate 1:1 [...]

KickApps Getting Real Social With VC Funds
KickApps, a New York-based provider of software for building social networks, has raised $14 million in venture-capital funding, the latest sign that VCs believe that its business model can keep kicking and ultimately, see a tidy profit, despite the current recession.
November 30, 2008

I was on NPR’s Digital Spin, hosted by Mario Armstrong, tonight to talk about social media. Also on the show was Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester. The 30 minutes conversation went really well. Mario did a great job asking Jeremiah and I some very good questions, and kept the dialogue moving. I only wish we had [...]

Carolyn Braff of the Sports Video Group interviewed KickApps’ CEO, Alex, and I yesterday about the work we’re doing with pro-sports teams. Here’s the story she wrote.
The idea is to extend that experience from a game within the stadium or in front of the TV set, just as you would in a real live setting [...]