Cautionary Tale

I enjoy the professional advantages of social media sites and tactics such as FaceBook, LinkedIn, and, of course, Twitter as much as the next person, but I also enjoy playing devil’s advocate.

Hilarious example of the pitfalls and dangers of combining personal and professional uses of social media:

New Tools

I know many people hate blogs - how can you possibly keep up with them all?   Well, I regularly read a selection from the top marketing and PR blogs (according to Advertising Age and Evan Carmichael) and very often come across some great information and tips.

This week, Duct Tape Marketing has a posting called “The New Marketer’s Toolbox“.  In it, the many new, often free, tools that exist to helpus marketers (any anyone in business, for that matter) are discussed. Some of the ones mentioned are:

• Google Alerts - like a free clipping service, with the information sent to your e -mail inbox
• Central Desktop - manage projects, teams, and schedules, and take advantage of the built-in wiki editor
• Google Reader - a great tool to manage all those blogs you’re reading
• Jott - great tool for when you’re driving and don’t have a pen handy. Simply use your phone to ’say’ a message that is then transcribed and e-mailed to you

We’re all looking for tools that will make our life easier, and these sound like they can help!

Leadership

I’ve been thinking of reading Seth Godin’s latest book, Tribes. In it, he addresses the concept of leadership. His blog has an excerpt from the book, which alone has prompted me to put it on my “rent from the library” list of books to read next. Here’s the excerpt:

Leadership is scarce because few people are willing to go through the discomfort required to lead.

The scarcity makes leadership valuable. If everyone tries to lead all the time, not much happens. It’s discomfort that creates the leverage that makes leadership worthwhile.

In other words, if everyone could do it, they would, and it wouldn’t be worth much.

I’ve always pondered the concept of what makes a successful leader. Granted, one of my MBA courses discussed this in great detail, putting forth a list of characteristics like a boilerplate of personality traits we had to possess to be successful. However, I have always disagreed with this standard list. After all, when you think of all the leaders, good leaders, that you have come across, they are all different, aren’t they?

Food for thought. I’ll pick up this book with my next library stash.

Clif Bar Ads - Hilarious!

I am a triathlete. I love triathlons, and am fascinated by the sport. In fact, I write regularly on the subject of triathlons as the Baltimore Triathlon Examiner (please don’t mind the truly awful picture of me; honestly, I really don’t look like that).

As such, I’ve come across an ad by Clif Bar that I’m still snickering over. It is truly hilarious, the funniest I’ve seen in a while. Granted, I’m not sure how much it does to promote the brand other than via the Clif Bar tagline, but the ad is certainly memorable.

Take a gander:

The Importance of Customer Service

Do you and your family have a black list of stores you will no longer shop at? My husband and I certainly do. Do you want to know why these stores have make “our list”? Customer service, or lack thereof.

I’m sure you have your own personal customer service nightmare story. I have a few.

Translate that, if you will, to your company. Do you think your customers/clients (or past customers and clients) have nightmare customer service stories about you and your company? It’s worth thinking about.

There’s no reason to be rude or insulting, obviously. To build on that, there’s no reason to not return a call or e-mail. How about being proactive? Do those ‘nice things’ that, by themself, may not mean that much, but that, in fact, have an exponential effect due to the good will they generate. Connect people, send a thank you note, send a birthday card, call for a quick non-business-related chat.

Personal connections rule the world. We may forget that while we’re Blackberrying, twittering, and e-mailing, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

The Need for Technology Etiquette Guidelines

Following a colleague on Twitter for professional reasons and yet keep reading their Tweets that they’re “at the soccer game!” or “so hungover!”? Still getting e-mails from people in all caps? How about that coworker who, in the middle of an informal business meeting, but a meeting nonetheless, is blatantly texting or checking voicemails?

With the rash of technology we follow and technological devices we use, we should develop some technology etiquette guidelines.

I read somewhere (sorry, can’t remember where) that we should employ the crossword puzzle test. If you’re somewhere where you wouldn’t pull out a crossword puzzle and start filling in the boxes, you shouldn’t be texting or answering e-mails. Some of my other personal etiquette guidelines are to remember that a real person should be put first before technology, and that we should only send relevant e-mails (especially considering that the average person receives thousands of e-mails a day).

Purchasing Decisions

Per Public Relations Tactics’ August 2009 issue, a poll by Harris Interactive shows that 55% of consumers use marketing communications as a source of information to make their purchasing decisions.

To break it down, 36% use company Web sites and 19% use print media advertising. Face-to-face meetings with company rep accounts for 22%, while 21% is input from family, friends, and peers, and 19% are consumer reviews.

Once again, the importance of marketing communications is revealed - make sure yours are top notch!

Survivor Syndrome

I’ve been reading more and more lately about survivor syndrome. Per dictionary.com, survivor syndrome is “a characteristic group of symptoms, including recurrent images of death, depression, persistent anxiety, and emotional numbness, occurring in survivors of disaster.” However, rather than a syndrome occuring in survivors of disaster, layoff survivor syndrome is occuring in those ‘left behind’ in companies after they have downsized or had layoffs.

Characterized by such symptoms as a lack of loyalty, mistrust of management, low self esteem, fear of the unknown, and high stress levels, survivor syndrome can manifest as low productivity, increased absenteeism, lack of motivation, low morale, and even acts of sabotage.

Commen sense, right?

Yet many companies, even global ones, continue on as if nothing has happened, ignoring the effects of layoffs, or even the threat of layoffs, on current, or ’saved’, employees. Employee communications, human resources, and, perhaps most importantly, upper management should focus on open, honest communication to foster transparency and rebuilt trust with employees. Develop a survivor communication plan, one that is heartfelt, and you just may reap the benefits.