Part Two of Three

In the book Engage!, I use music as a metaphor for the business approach necessary to execute socialized programs flawlessly. I suggest that today, many organizations approach new media with the style of jazz improvisationalists. They possess an incredible ability to jam independently and also together, but they often drift into wild, wonderful solos that may or may not lead the audience back to the heart and soul of the brand purpose and mission. Instead, I suggest that we assemble a team of virtuosos who can perform the dedicated requirements of their roles to contribute to an organized and powerful performance designed to engage and stimulate its audience.

A conductor who possess social prowess and business savvy is necessary to creating and managing a holistic social media program that extends from the top down, from the center outward, from the bottom up, and also from the outside in.The quest to find the conductor and the members of the orchestra rekindle the debate to who owns social media. But, I argue, that the only the person who masters the majesty of music theory, instrumentation, leadership, artistry, and stagemanship can effectively lead and inspire a band of leaders. Simply said, The person and team qualified to lead social are those qualified to do so.

Again, a hybrid approach is essential. In the very least however, they will possess the ability to understand customer touchpoints, channels of influence, market dynamics, challenges and opportunities that face consumers, and how engagement and the production of social objects trigger measurable reactions that impact the bottom line.

Advertising Must Look Beyond Madison Ave.

Advertising, along with every form of marketing, communications, and s/> [...]

Wed Jul 14, 2010 06:02 am

In September 2008 at Web 2.0 Expo in New York, I shared something that many, to this day, believe to the contrary, “There is no such thing as viral marketing.”

The declaration was empathetic in its direction to those marketers who have been on the receiving end of directives instructing them to create and unleash viral content. In parallel, the statement was aimed at those decision makers who assign such projects.

Content, no matter how brilliant, creative, abstract, or controversial, is not inherently viral. Yet, we’re asked repeatedly to create viral videos, posts, and other social objects that will trigger an endless array of retweets, pages and profiles that immediately attract fans and followers accompanied by a deafening wall of sound propelled by word of mouth.

Content doesn’t make something viral; people are the primary source of powering social objects across the attention nodes that connect the human network.

Despite what appears commonsensical, we’re surprised when our brainchild doesn’t attract the views, attention, and circulation we believe it deserves.

The reality of social media is this, in the attention economy, information isn’t randomly discovered and broadly disseminated. It is strategically positioned to either appear when someone searches for a related keyword or it’s presented to someone manually and deliberately.

As individuals, we no longer find information, it finds us.

The sam/> [...]

Mon Mar 29, 2010 06:15 am

Provided Courtesy Of:  

Is it the end of deflation? Consumer price inflation rose at its fastest annual pace in nine months in December as a cut in value added sales tax, heavy discounting and a sharp fall in oil prices at the end of 2008 were not repeated in 2009, official data showed today.

The Office for National Statistics said consumer prices rose 0.6 percent last month, taking the annual rate up to 2.9 percent from 1.9 percent in November. That was the biggest monthly rise in the annual index since records began and exceeded analysts' expectations for an increase to 2.6 percent.

The ONS reported inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) now above the Bank of England's 2% target.

There are different ways of measuring inflation. The government prefers the Consumer Price Index, which also includes services, housing, electricity, food, and transportation, but the Retail Price Index covers more items. We've include both here – just click on the links on the spreadsheet.

Our friends at Timetric produced the above chart and have a host of other ways of viewing the data too. What can you do?

Download the dataDATA: UK inflation since the 1940s – CPI and RPIINTERACTIVE: how we visualised the data

Can you do something with this data? Flickr Please post your visualisations and mash-ups on our Flickr group or mail us at datastore@guardian.co.uk

Get the A-Z of data More at the Datastore directory Follow us on Twitter

This is not a news report and may contain views expressed by the author which are not supported by GNM.

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Sat Jan 23, 2010 20:15 pm

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