Just in time to add it to your summer reading list, the third installment of the AOC collaborative project has hit store shelves!

For those not familiar with the series, it first started as an experimental writing project, which brought together over 100 bloggers from 9 different countries to produce the aptly titled book, The Age of Conversation.

The Age of Conversation legacy continues as 171 authors from 15 different countries came together to write The Age of Conversation 3: Itís Time to Get Busy. The book discusses the distinct shift from social media as a hypothetical consumer loyalty tool, as it was considered only a little more than a year ago, to its current state as a staple in the modern marketing toolbox. The book covers more than just social media, but the topic is woven throughout the books 10 sections:

• At the coalface
• Conversational branding
• Influence
• Getting to work
• Corporate conversations
• Measurement
• In the boardroom
• Pitching social media
• Innovation and execution
• Identities, friends and trusted strangers

My contribution to the book takes a look at the idea of making the branding process more organic, growing a brand, in contrast to the traditionally rigid structure of building a brand.

As it has become customary with past editions, all of the proceeds from this yearís book, will be donated to an international charity of the authorís choosing.

- Get your copy of The Age of Conversation 3 -

A big thanks to my fellow authors this year!

The Post2Post bus has just pulled in!

The Fresh Peel is pleased to welcome Marty Neumeier, brand consultant author of a number of the popular whiteboard overview business books, The Brand Gap, Zag, and now The Designful Company, which is the featured book for April’s stop on the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour.

It’s been very exciting for me to interview Marty because his work has done a lot to shape my own thoughts and methods when working with clients. Not only that, one quick search for on this blog for “Marty Neumeier” will show you how often ideas from his books and from content produced by his company, Neutron, inspires and shapes my thoughts here.

In this interview with Marty, we touch on a few of concepts from The Designful Company.

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Q: You open up The Designful Company with the idea that, “We’ve been getting better and better at a management model that’s getting wronger and wronger.” What’s wrong with the way companies are managed?

Marty: The management model we’ve been using is based on the cold mechanics of the assembly line. The assembly line was successful partly because it turned a blind eye to morality, emotions, and human aspiration—all the better to make your competitors and customers lose, so you can win. We’ve spent the last century making minor tweaks to this same narrow idea of success.

But now we’re finding that innovation without emotion is uninteresting, products without aesthetics are uncompelling, brands without meaning are undesirable, and companies without ethics are unsustainable. We need a new management model that replaces the win-lose nature of the assembly line with the win-win nature of the network. I call the new model “the designful company.” It harnesses broad-based creativity to build a culture of nonstop innovation.

Q: How must the traditional views of design and designer be redefined in order for a company to build a culture of nonstop innovation?

Marty: We need to get past our view of the designer as a shaper of objects. The dictionary defines a designer as someone who plans an artifact or system of artifacts—in other words, the “posters and toasters” of the 20th century. This is too narrow. I prefer Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon’s definition: “Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.” In this definition, design is a way of thinking, and anyone in the company can be a designer, including the CEO.

Design thinking is about refusing to accept the easy answer. It’s about imagining new possibilities that weren’t on the table before, and prototyping those possibilities so they can be tested. It’s the difference between “deciding” the way forward and “designing” the way forward. Deciding only works in a stable market where innovation is a low priority.

Q:  In what areas of business can design thinking be leveraged?

Marty: Well, of course, communications and products—the aforementioned posters and toasters—are still important, and can be designed a lot better. But we can move design thinking up the ladder to more important levels, such as brand strategy, end-to-end customer experience, organizational design, decision-making, business models, and corporate vision. When we apply design thinking to these questions, we get even more bang for the buck.

 Q: How does design thinking lead to a culture of innovation?

Marty: Design thinking creates the process and vocabulary for a designful company. It runs on human qualities such as empathy, intuition, imagination, and idealism, which in turn lead to customer focus, holistic problem solving, innovative ideas, and extraordinary quality. The overall advantage that a culture of innovation gives you is enterprise agility. It allows the company to maneuver as a single entity.

Q: Looking at Interbrand’s Best Global Brands list, are there any that standout as designful, innovative companies?

Marty: Not as many as there should be. I would say IBM, Disney, Google, BMW, Apple, Nike, and IKEA are designful companies. But Coca-Cola, Microsoft, GE, and Cisco are not so designful.

Interbrand’s formula seems to be a rear-view assessment of brand value. I’d like to see a formula that gives more weight to the momentum of a brand, which would offer a better predictor for a brand’s future value. Y&R, for example, has a formula called the Brand Asset Valuator, which takes into consideration a brand’s “energy.” Designful companies are full of energy.

Q: What will the fate be for brands that fail to fully embrace design thinking?

Marty: Generally speaking, they’ll find their products and services will become increasingly commoditized and even obsolete as their competitors race ahead.

Q: You discuss the importance of collaboration within companies, but what opportunities do you see for companies to collaborate with groups (i.e., consumers) outside the company walls? What about online collaboration?

Marty: The web is actually the technology that unleashed collaboration. I’ve always said that we don’t live in the Information Age—we live in the Collaboration Age. The web has allowed people to work together across distances in real time for almost no money.

This new connectedness has also made it necessary to work together, because there’s no place to hide in a network. Customers now know things about brands and companies that even their employees don’t know. Customers are literally running the show. So it makes sense to enlist them as a functioning part of the brand machinery. I love how Skittles has turned their website into a forum for customer opinion. What they get in return for their transparency is a direct view into their customers’ brains, plus extra credit for having confidence in their brand.

Q: In a designful company what is the attitude towards failure?

Marty: Designful companies embrace failure as a learning step. Companies with a traditional “deciding” mindset are uncomfortable with failure, since they expect to be successful immediately. The only way be successful immediately, however, is to make small, safe moves.

Q: Please explain the stage-gate innovation model and its purpose.

Marty: Stage-gate innovation allows you to make big, bold moves by turning innovation into a journey. It was pioneered years ago by oil-drilling companies to minimize investment risk. Later it was adopted by venture capitalists for the same reason. The concept is that you start with a large crop of bold ideas, then invest increasing amounts at each stage for the ones that pass muster. Only one or two ideas make it through the funnel, but they’ve been de-risked without having to compromise their boldness.

(Click to view a larger version)

Q: When it comes to measuring a potentially innovative project as it moves through the stage-gate process, what metrics should we use to determine if it should move to the next stage?

Marty: It depends on whether it’s a product, a business model, a strategy, and whatever. For the sake of argument, let’s say it’s a product. In the first stage, you might create a prototype and measure customer excitement. At the next stage you could measure usability. At the next stage you could test various price points. And so on, until you’re satisfied that you have a winner.

The beauty of the design process is that you can test assumptions quickly and cheaply, so that you never have to play it safe. Playing it safe is the most dangerous thing you can do in a time of fast-moving markets and leap-frogging innovation.

Going forward, the bottom line is this: If you want to innovate, you’ve got to design.

Thanks Marty!

Hajj Flemings is the author of The Brand YU Life, which I previously reviewed in further detail. He specializes in personal and corporate brand management consulting, training and seminars.

As promised, I quized Hajj’s a bit more on the subject of personal branding. Enjoy!

 —  

There has been a recent surge of interest in personal branding, especially in online communities. Why do think personal branding has become such a hot topic?

One of the reasons is the balance of power of has changed. With the success of web 2.0 icon Gary Vaynerchuk and others we are seeing in real-time that anyone with an idea, passion, and time can live their dreams. That idea is extremely appealing to people.

The second reason is personal branding is threaded into the fabric of social media (SM) and as SM continues to explode I believe you will see personal branding continue to grow in popularity. The majority of the Rockstars of personal branding have integrated a solid social media strategy.

In The Brand YU Life you make a lot of comparisons between personal brands and business brands. Do you see more similarities or differences between the two?

I used a lot of business brands as comparison because people conceptualize and understand business brands without a lot explanation. This is due to the fact that people use and interact with business brands all day as consumers. I focused on shifting their paradigm of being a consumer to one of a producer.

Tom Peters the father of the personal brand movement stated in Fast Company magazine, August 1997, “We are CEOs of our own companies: Me, Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You. Personal branding was birth from a comparison between a business and a person. I personally see more similarities than differences.

Are there any concerns for individuals in replicating business brands?

Business brands are typically much more established and there is a defined culture that guides every business decision. Personal brands on the other hand are typically more nimble and can make decisions without an act of congress being passed. Business brands should be used as a model to understand the functions and elements of a brand if this thought process is used it shouldn’t present a problem.

How important is the act of listening in developing your personal brand, both online and offline?

Listening is very important, very simply you don’t what you don’t know but being open to other voices and minds who don’t think like you or live where you live can assist you in increasing your influence. Information is changing at such a fast past if you don’t have a listening strategy you will be operating with old data that could cost you missed opportunity or destroy the reputation of your brand.

Thanks Hajj!

Many of you know Tom from his book A Clear Eye for Branding, but now he’s back for round two and demanding a little less talk and a lot more action. With his newest release, “A Little Less Conversation,” Tom Asacker skips the typical branding jargon, formulas and hyped-spin and instead cuts to the heart of creating a brand that “attracts customers, engages, and delights them.”

I had a chance to pick Tom’s brain a bit on the new book. Enjoy!

—-

Q: Why the title, “A Little Less Conversation?” I thought the age of web 2.0 is all about conversation.

Tom: Web 2.0 may be about conversation, but this age is about what every age has always been about: people, and their hopes, dreams, and desires.

The title is a play on the Elvis Presley song of the same name.  Remember the lyrics?

“A little less conversation, a little more action please.  All this aggravation ain’t satisfactioning me.  

A little more bite and a little less bark.  A little less fight and a little more spark.  Close your mouth and open up your heart and baby satisfy me.  Satisfy me baby.”

Again, Web 2.0 may be primarily about conversations, connections, and participation.  But succeeding in business is about opening up your heart and helping to improve people’s lives by providing relevant and meaningful products, services, and experiences.

Q: What’s different about today’s brands, and how is their role changing?

Tom: For people living in a post-modern industrialized world, brands are more than mere functional “solutions to problems.”  The rational man, utilitarian view of marketplace offerings is defunct.  Today, the brands people choose are also reflections of their sense of self and self worth.  Yes, people want the brands they choose to be reliable and fair.  And yes, they want to save time and save money.  But they also want the brands they choose to look good, be good, and do good.  They’re constantly reexamining and remixing their brand choices to find the very best “value” in the marketplace; value which causes them to feel the way they want to feel about themselves and their decisions.  Those organizations that viscerally understand this will succeed and thrive.  Those that don’t will die a slow death; or perhaps a quick one given the new macroeconomic realities of the foreseeable future.

Q: You challenge the traditional AIDA (awareness, information, desire and action) model of decision making. How does the decision making process really work?

Tom: Think about the upcoming elections.  In the AIDA model, voters would become aware of a candidate; seek out as much information as possible; consider the positives and negatives, which would then make one candidate more desirable than the other; and then vote for that particular candidate.   Instead, what do people really do?  They become aware of the candidates; learn the candidates’ stands on the issues that matter most to them (and/or listen to their rhetoric and watch their mannerisms); seek out information to reinforce their desire for the candidate that best reflects their personality and views; and rationalize their selections.  It works the very same way with other decisions.  We use information to reinforce our instinctual desires; especially in a marketplace where we have come to expect a certain level of features, quality, pricing, and delivery.

Q: In the book you described five trends that have changed the playing field for brands. What are they?

Tom: Too many brands to deal with; too much information for people to process, most of which is conflicting; customers are no longer passive consumers of marketing, they’re savvy and skeptical discerners; the Internet has enabled radical transparency and message amplification; and, people simply don’t trust businesses or the people who run them.

Q: Of those five trends, which would you say is the least understood by marketers?

Tom: It’s not any particular trend that trips up most marketers.  It’s the effect that the combination of trends has on customers’ mindsets and decision-making processes.  I don’t think marketers understand how customers are truly feeling today, nor how they rapidly intuit marketplace value.  In fact, I’m sure that most don’t.

Q: As the branding landscape continues to change, many brands are struggling to grow globally but still be able to connect with customers locally. How can brands be both global and local?

Tom: If they’re struggling to grow globally, then they’re not doing a good job locally.  Growth is an outcome of how well brands do connecting to meaningful cultural insights.  Connect locally and you will grow globally.

Q: What does a consumer’s view of self have to do with the brands they choose?

Tom: Everything.  Every decision we make is a reflection of how smart we think we are; or how cool, special, caring, funny, “in the know,” etc.  Show me a brand choice that doesn’t consciously, or subconsciously, reflect on people’s sense of belonging or sense of self and I’ll show you a slow growth, low profit offering.  Think about it: the people that chose to read this particular post, rather than one of the other, say, 990 on the Alltop marketing aggregation, did so for a reason.  And that reason is what matters to them, and should matter to you.

Q: What part do social connections play in view of self and in the decision making process?

Tom: We’re social beings.  Our constantly morphing definition of who we are and what we believe⎯and the decisions we make to reinforce those evolving definitions⎯are influenced by our many cultural experiences; what we watch, what we read, where we work, where we worship, who we associate with, what people in our various subcultures wear, say, go and do. It’s the material we use to guide our decision-making, and to shape our sense of self.

Q: You write that, “marketers are obsessed with words” and that they, “believe that they are in the communication and persuasion business.” Are you saying that brands shouldn’t worry about what they say?

Tom: To the contrary.  I’m saying that marketers need to understand what value they’re trying to deliver through their use of words.  It should be strategic and other-focused.  Instead of trying to influence and persuade, marketers should be trying to connect.  Do you see the difference?  Here’s a telling example.  Framingham State College in Massachusetts recently sent alumni a letter asking for “your support,” and gave the following rationale: “Blah, blah, blah, blah. . . .”  Nearly 40 engaged alumni responded with a donation.

Q: What should marketers be focused on?

Tom: The one thing that truly matters: people’s feelings.  The goal of any organization, of any brand, is to create customers (or clients, users, members, donors, fans, subscribers, etc.), and you accomplish that goal by continually innovating to add value to their lives. To make them feel happy, about themselves, their lives, their associations, and their decisions.  Everything the organization invests in, and works on, should be laser focused to that end.

Thanks Tom!

The Age of Conversation 2 officially hits the shelves today!

This year the book was written by 237 authors from 15 countries, all answering the question, “Why don’t they get it?” All the proceeds from the project will go to Variety the Children’s Charity. Purchase your copy here.

Join the party, contribute to the conversation:

Here’s a list of everyone participating:

Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G. Kofi Annan, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw and James G. Lindberg, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem

This interest in personal branding has given rise to many opinion leaders like Dan Schawbel and Rob Cuesta. Even Chris Brogan, with his eBook on Personal Branding, and David Armano with Brand U.0, have jumped in to take a swing at the importance of personal branding.

Of all the voices advocating personal branding, I’ve found the most relevance with Hajj E. Flemings. Hajj is a dynamic speaker, and author of The Brand YU Life: Re-thinking Who You Are. After reading his book I would say that he presents a complete view of personal branding that focuses on building your personal brand online and off.

Hajj understands that there are a lot of tools out there to power your personal brand, but they are just that….tools. Here is a slide from his presentation at Brand Camp University, which he hosted last month in Detroit. It illustrates how the touchpoints of your personal brand exist online and offline, and for those of you with little presence online, how increasingly important your digital footprint is becoming for your personal brand.

In his book, Hajj presents 6 steps to personal brand management:

1. Identify your passion
2. Define your mission
3. Count the cost
4. Create your voice
5. Develop your core
6. Be authentic
7. Shift to now

These steps accompanied with enticing visuals and engaging stories of brand successes and failures makes The Brand YU Life a worthwhile read that I recommend to anyone wanting to create, define, and manage their personal brand.

(Stay tuned the next few days for an interview with Hajj to hear more of his thoughts on personal branding.)

I’ve been a fan of Friedman’s work ever since 2006 I when decided to picked up The World is Flat to see what all the fuss was about. It only took reading a couple of pages before I was driven into a full blow Friedman cram session, devouring every bit of the Lexus and the Olive Tree (to catch up) and then picking up where I had left off in the World is Flat.

Friedman’s presentation touched on the highlights of his newest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, which addresses the energy crisis facing the world and the revolution it will take to overcome it.

Friedman took the audience back in time to remember the IT revolution that he spoke of in The World is Flat, but then went on to tell how a new revolution is going to have to happen in order to solve the approaching crisis. He calls this new revolution the ET revolution, which stands for Energy Technology.

He went on to say that, in the same way that companies had to “change or die” in the IT revolution, companies again are going to have to “change or die” in the ET revolution. These changes will take dedicated commitments, inside and out. Friedman explained it this way,

Change or Die. Don’t just add green racing stripes. 

This reminded me of how branding is so often misunderstood as being simply the creative and visuals on the outside of a brand. When in reality, it’s the less than glamorous internal focus and strategies that make up strong authentic brands.

Greenwashing is in full swing right now. Everyone’s jumping in the pot to get their cut from green, but before the ET revolution can happen, brands must go beyond plastering their images with green coatings and internalize true commitments to strategizing and executing these changes.

The business world needs to get branding now more than ever.

Change or die.

The Post2Post bus has just pulled in!

The Fresh Peel is pleased to welcome Tom Fishburne, author and cartoonist of This One Time at Brand Camp, which is the featured book for August’s stop on the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour.

I’ve hosted some excellent authors in past Post2Post series, but interviewing Tom adds a whole new level of excitement for me. I’ve been a fan of his cartoons for a number of years and I’m routinely amazed at how with a simple cartoon, he can take issues that baffle brand managers and marketers and portray them with such clarity.

Tom brings a wide range of brand experience to the table. Not only is he the genius behind the popular Brand Camp cartoon series, but currently mans the helm at method as Senior Marketing Director of Europe and he previously managed marketing and new product development for Haagen-Dazs, Green Giant, Yoplait, and Cheerios while at Nestle and General Mills.

In this interview with Tom, we touch on everything from his time back in Harvard Business School, when he would draw cartoons during class, to exploring complex brand issues such as niche markets, social media and the fight between global and local pulls. And to mix things up, I welcomed him to toss in any cartoons from over the years that he thought related to the topics at hand. Enjoy!

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Q: What got you into cartooning and specifically cartoons targeting brand managers?

Tom: I first started drawing cartoons at Harvard Business School (not the typical career path for a cartoonist, I know). I was struck that all 800 students in my class shared the same inside jokes, so I started a weekly cartoon called Sky Deck in the school paper. Sky Deck was our nickname for the back row in the class, where all of the pranksters and goofballs sat.

When I graduated, I found myself in another environment where everyone shared the same inside jokes – this time, the big American food company, General Mills. I knew that Scott Adams started Dilbert by posting his cartoons to his cubicle at PacBell, so I created Brand Camp, emailed them to my friends there, and tacked them up to the outside of my cubicle. They started to get forwarded around to other companies and now reach about 10,000 people a week, not just brand managers, but anyone who likes to make fun of brand managers (agencies, financial managers, operations guys – wow, just about everyone in the company).

Q: Why the title This One Time at Brand Camp?

Tom: Well, the Brand Camp name came from the movie, American Pie, where the geeky band student Michelle starts off every story with “This One Time, at Band Camp…” I wanted my cartoon to poke fun at a day in the life of working with brands. It feels sometimes like we all go to camp together. People who work with brands share inside jokes and stories that others often don’t really get (I know my wife rolls her eyes on occasion when I get going on a branding-related story).

A reader told me they always forward my cartoons to friends with the subject line, “This One Time, at Brand Camp”, and it made me think it would be a good name for my second book. I published my first collection, “Brand Camp”, in 2004.

Q: In your intro you say, “everything I need to know about marketing, I learned by drawing cartoons.” How true is this statement?

Tom: I always liked that classic list from Robert Fulghum: “all I really need to know I learned in kindergarten”. Things like “share everything” and “play fair” and “take a nap every afternoon”. He writes that “wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school.”

It made me think about some of the marketing lessons I picked up along the way of drawing a cartoon. Obviously, I learned quite a lot about marketing at places like General Mills and Nestle, but I wanted to share some of the simple extra-curricular lessons I picked up at the drafting table, not from traditional brand management.

Q: What are some things that drawing cartoons has taught you?

Tom: One of the biggest lessons is to not be afraid of niche markets. Most traditional marketing is focused on the mainstream consumer. At one brand I worked on, we used to joke that our target was a “woman, age 25 to 39, with a pulse.”

But, by trying to appeal to everyone, many mainstream brands aren’t that appealing to anyone in particular. Mainstream brands are losing relevance and there’s increasing opportunity to reach very vocal niche audiences.

I think this is why a cartoon targeted to the improbable audience of brand managers kind of works. Chris Anderson writes all about this effect in a book called “The Long Tail”. The Internet allows my very niche sense of humor to reach pockets of niche readers all over the world.

Another big lesson is to always keep a sketchpad handy. My cartoon ideas come at unpredictable times (on a run, in the shower, in the middle of meeting when I’m supposed to be paying attention to something else). I’ve given up trying to contain them and instead doodle when the inspiration strikes (although usually after the shower).

I think business ideas work the same way. Yet, in a business, we typically try to shoehorn idea generation into a tidy box (like scheduling a half-hour ideation before a forecasting meeting or cramming new product brainstorming into a few weeks a year). The result is that the best ideas get lost in the ether in big companies.

In our office, we installed a floor-to-ceiling magnetic whiteboard we call the “wiki wall”, where everyone in the company can jot down ideas, at all times. Ideas continually build on each other and it becomes the foundation of our new product development.

Q: You have experience working with brands in companies structurally small, large and behemoth sized. When it comes to managing a brand, is a company’s size an asset, liability or both?

Tom: I’ve come to feel that it’s more about the mindset than the size.  Working in a small company forces you to be David against Goliath. You have to be innovative at every opportunity. You have to turn every consumer touch point into a potential marketing opportunity. And you are forced to continually challenge the prevailing rules of the category. It’s a great discipline to learn, and I think that small companies inherently teach you how to do that.

But I think you can apply that challenger brand mentality to big companies too. There’s just as much opportunity to become David within Goliath as there is to be David against Goliath. Large companies have staggering resources, but can often feel complacent, bureaucratic and slow. But, there is always room for rule breakers within big companies. I love the fact that an irreverent, cheeky brand like Axe/Lynx came out of a company as massive as Unilever.

Adam Morgan wrote a great book on this challenger brand mindset called “The Pirate Inside”. He starts with the classic Steve Jobs’ quote, “it’s more fun to be a pirate than to join the navy,” and then gives advice how to create a Pirate culture inside companies, large and small.

Q: With the rise of social media and the age of conversation, what new opportunities do you see for brands? What are some potential pitfalls?

Tom: The rise of social media means that good ideas are being shared and that people who really dig your brand can do a whole lot of telling on your behalf. It levels the playing field, because it’s no longer just the brands with budgets for 30-second TV spots that get their message out there. In fact, the traditional 30-second spots are rapidly losing relevance, so it’s a major opportunity for brands.

But the risk is what Seth Godin writes about in “Meatball Sundae” on the “new marketing” bandwagon. There’s a rush of companies leaping into myspace, youtube, and blogging in exactly the same self-serving way they approach TV advertising or an FSI insertion – by trying to “interrupt” consumers from what they were doing. This obviously misses the point. Consumers are gravitating to “new marketing” channels exactly because they are in control, not the brands.

Q: As the branding landscape continues to change, many brands are struggling to grow globally but still be able to connect with consumers locally. How can brands be both global and local?

Tom: Great question (note to self: this would make a good cartoon).

I’ve actually learned a lot on this topic in the last two years in my day job, where I’ve helped launch an American brand called method in the UK. We’re not there yet, but we’ve learned the goal is to have a core brand identity that is truly global, but local flexibility to not only “translate”, but “transcreate” (a funny expression I heard along the way).

Part of this is making sure that your core identity is truly global. We found that ours mostly was, but there were some bits that were very US-centric. Some were OK (we weren’t trying to hide that we were from California just as Ben & Jerry’s wouldn’t hide they were from Vermont). But some were not (more specific than general points on our sustainability communication). So, it meant evolving our core identity (which actually put us in a stronger position in the US too).

The other part was figuring out the right amount of local flexibility. We created an international marketing toolkit so that product and creative communication is largely global. But, then we’re really creative on the ground with how to do it.

In the US, we had started to do pop-up shops in different cities (a month-long store rental where we could tell the whole brand story in a 3-D space). We didn’t have the budget in the UK and retail space is even more of a premium in London, so we found a large consumer show called the Ideal Home Show where we built a method home that let us do much the same thing on a small scale. Everyone on the stand spoke with a British accent of course, but it was essentially the same story told in the American pop-up shops.

Q: Your cartoons in many ways tend to reflect the most current issues, thoughts and concerns of brand managers around the world. What are some of the most popular topics you see on the horizon? Might we see these topics in future cartoons?

Tom: I’ve certainly started giving a lot of attention to the economy and the impact that will have on consumers, particularly with ethical brands that cost a premium. I think that shift is fascinating to watch. For so long, consumers have been “trading up”, and it will be interesting to see how the economy affects that over time.

I will certainly continue covering sustainability, particularly as companies struggle to find their voice. There has been so much greenwashing and I think consumers are starting to feel a serious green fatigue.

But, perhaps most of all, I sense a major shift in marketing from the snake oil salesmen of our past to an optimistic future where marketers are simply nice people who make good products in a transparent way. I see a lot of cartoon fodder on that journey.

My cartoons are kind of like a diary, so they typically reflect exactly the issues I see. Any topics are fair game (particularly if they make me chuckle), and I’ll continue to stumble along just like the characters in my cartoons (and laugh at all of our mistakes along the way).

Thanks Tom!

Fresh off the last tour with Gregg Fraley and the bus is back in town! And this round of the Post2Post Tour has me ultra stoked!

On August 25th, The Fresh Peel will be the first stop for Tom Fishburne, author of This One Time at Brand Camp. I just received an advance copy of the book and I’m already in love with it for 3 reasons.

1. The book is a series cartoons. Tom provides a fresh breath of air and breaks down the often unnecessarily complex world of branding down into a simple cartoon.
2. Tom isn’t afraid to challenge the status quo. Many of his comics unashamedly, point out the reoccurring ludicrous behaviors witnessed in the brand world.
   

I’ll be kicking things off for some stellar names on this tour, so be sure not to miss it!

Below is the full Post2Post schedule:

—-

As a bonus, here is a recent favorite from Tom’s collection:

In his book BrandSimple, Allen Adamson wrote of how the Segway is an innovative product with clear differentiation. There was only one problem. No relevance. Consumers didn’t see a need for it. Allen describes Segway’s demise like this,

Investors expected hundreds of thousands of these two-wheeled power scooters for adults to be sold, generating billions of dollars in sales in the first year. In reality, Segway sold only ten thousand units in its first years and is still trying to overcome an identity crisis. High price, not enough power, bans in urban centers, and problems with being able to balance the vehicle properly made it the revolution that wasn’t….Coming up with a brand difference and determining if the audience will find it relevant means looking beyond your own delight.

It’s been reported that only about 30,000 Segways were sold in 6 years, from it’s launch in 2001 through 2007. But could rising gas prices help Segway do a 180?

Just today I saw two Segways in action, and both replaced a previous gas powered vehicles. The first Segway was a policeman patrolling downtown Oklahoma City for parking violations. The second was at Penn Square mall. The mall has replaced the parking lot security vehicle with a security guard patrolling on a Segway. I think this is a great idea. The view from the Segway will close up a lot of the blind spots faced by a guard patrolling in a security car.

Could it be that rising gas prices are just the boost the Segway brand needs to reach the zen of consumer relevance? Maybe it was a product before it’s time.

—

 What do you think?

Photo via: Sacbee

The bus has just pulled in!

The Fresh Peel is pleased to welcome Gregg Fraley, author of Jack’s Notebook, which is the featured book for July’s stop on the Post2Post Virtual Book Tour.

Gregg works as an innovation consultant to Fortune 500 companies and does keynote speeches and workshops on creative thinking, innovation, problem solving, and new product development. You can catch his podcast with Doug Stevenson where they team up as The Innovise Guys where they blend creativity and improvisation to create innovation.

Fraley is a board member of the Creative Foundation (CEF), and he teaches creative problem solving at CEF’s annual Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI). He is also a professional member of the National Speakers Association (NSA).

Jack’s Notebook is a a business novel that explores the process of CPS through the fictional tale of Jack Huber. As you will read later, Gregg defines CPS as, “a problem solving methodology and it can be used to help develop solutions for any complex challenge, problem, situation, or opportunity.”

This Post2Post stop features two sections. Enjoy!

1. Creative Problem Solving (CPS)
2. CPS in Marketing & Branding

——

Be sure to check out the February Fresh Peel Post2Post stop with Ramon Vullings of Creativity Today.

Gregg Fraley is the author of Jack’s Notebook.

Greg works an an innovation consultant to Fortune 500 companies and does keynote speeches and workshops on creative thinking, innovation, problem solving, and new product development 

I couldn’t pass up the opportunity pick Greg’s brain and squeeze out some of his juicy thoughts on marketing, branding and how he thinks creative problem solving applies to the mix.

Q: When it comes to building brands, what mistakes do you commonly see?

Gregg: With regard to new brands, I’d say a lack of differentiation, a lack of consistency, and a lack of authenticity. I mean the best brands are truly unique and they stay true to themselves. Examples that come to mind are Apple, but also brands like Quaker Oats, or Budweiser. They do what they do well and they stay within the confines of what is believable and real to consumers. With big established brands the dangerous tendency is to water down the brand by extending it into areas where it really doesn’t belong. Line extensions are easy, and so they extend and extend until the brand caves in on itself.

Q: What is your view of the state of organizational marketing and branding? Where should CPS fit into these structures?

Gregg: There’s a $64,000 question! Let me give it a go.

Organizational marketing is going through a profound shift right now, a shift towards more formal process. The state of Marketing, while highly sophisticated in many ways, is still managed by informal systems within most organizations. Typically, they have no overall model for how to answer the needs of the consumer and fulfill the companies mission across the breadth of the enterprise. Each product, each brand, tends to be handled separately from the others. What this screams for is a formal marketing process that is flexible enough to adapt to the needs of various brands but tight enough to bind them to the organizational mission. CPS, being a generic problem-solving model, has the scope and flexibility to manage this.

Q: Why is understanding your motivation so important?

Gregg: It’s human nature to work harder, smarter, and more creatively on challenges that we care about. If we understand why something is important to us it’s more likely we’ll be creative about it. You can’t fool that thing some people call the soul, it knows what you really want even if you pretend otherwise.

Q: How does this concept fit into marketing? Social Media?

Gregg: Well, motivation is a two way street. As marketers we need to understand why we’re putting out something we need to understand our mission and our message. As consumers we need to feel that the mission and message of the companies we buy from is authentic and not simply a cynical way to extract money from our pockets. Marketers need to understand consumer motivations at a very basic, very fundamental, level. Knowing the consumer in that way enables a marketer to create products, services, and messages that speak to their listening.

Social media tends to magnify who we are.  If we’re authentic, that comes across, and it can be quite powerful. If we’re not, that comes across as well, and probably worse than it should. So, keeping the fact in mind that social media adds or subtracts 10 pounds to our authenticity factor, we should make double sure we know what we want to say, and why we want to say it. As marketers using social media we have to be very careful we’re providing value to the community and not simply selling products. After all, social media isn’t about we and them, it’s about us.

Q: With the introduction of social media and crowdsourcing, do you think there is an opportunity for a company to lead and monitor a CPS session with customers online?

Gregg: Yes, there is such an opportunity.  Actually, it’s already happened in a slightly different format than you suggest. Cisco just sponsored an online contest, using Brightidea.com’s system, to find a new business venture to fund. It wasn’t exactly CPS but it most certainly was high level ideation, which is a part of CPS.

Many companies are already using CPS internally via their intranets, and some are using it to reach out to partners. I’ve facilitated online CPS sessions that have involved a mix of a companies internal branding/marketing people and an international network of trained brains. They tend to be pretty successful these sessions because they allow people to work when they can, it allows for adequate incubation, and there’s lot of thinking diversity. It’s certainly a lot less expensive than flying a lot of people into some central site.

It doesn’t have to be complex. Starbucks has an online idea box if you will, which isn’t full cycle CPS, it’s a subset, the ideation step. It’s called MyStarbucksIdea.com and I think it’s a good idea for them. Subsets of the CPS process can be totally appropriate, I mean, how many consumers would even want to be involved with the detailed planning that goes into a product launch?

Virtual CPS sessions, with consumer involvement for the appropriate steps, makes total sense. It’s inexpensive, easy to implement, and potentially very high value.

Q: What would you say to an organization that is clearly stuck in the old model of marketing, which is rapidly losing its effectiveness? Is CPS the answer to overcoming their apparent risk aversion?

Gregg: What would I say? Wake up!

It’s hard to understand sometimes why organizations can’t see the handwriting on the wall. Maybe the answer is tough love. Like in the Dickens story, we have to put the ghost of Christmas future in front of them. It can be grim, or, it can be rosy. But for Tiny Tim to live, they have to wake up and change now!

CPS could be a big part of the answer. CPS is a great process for facing a fear, or a complex situation, and making some sense out of what you might do. If an organization is motivated to change than CPS can be a tremendous tool for helping them do it. Risk aversion build up in organizations as they get bigger. The bureaucracy is built to manage things as they are, and so, change threatens the well-oiled system. It puts people in fear mode. Fear has people thinking like lizards when faced with a threat lizards run, eat, (or mate!) with what’s in front of them. You can’t think like a lizard and change how your organization goes to market; you need imaginative solutions. Organizations should strive for deliberate, continuous, and holistic innovation, and CPS is a good process to enable that. And of course, Jack’s Notebook is a great way to learn CPS!

Thanks Gregg!

Have any questions about CPS in Social Media, Branding and Marketing?

Gregg has agreed to take questions in the comments section, so fire away!

More with Gregg Fraley:

Creative Problem Solving (CPS)

Gregg Fraley is the author of Jack’s Notebook.

Greg works as an innovation consultant to Fortune 500 companies and does keynote speeches and workshops on creative thinking, innovation, problem solving, and new product development.

Q: What is CPS and where can we use it?

Gregg: CPS is a problem solving methodology and it can be used to help develop solutions for any complex challenge, problem, situation, or opportunity. If you’re hunting for your car keys you probably don’t want CPS, it’s too much! If you’re trying to sort out how your brand fits in the marketplace and what do next year, CPS is an appropriate system.

Q: You shared with me a story about the origins of CPS. Would you mind sharing that story with my readers?

Gregg: Sure, it’s an interesting story. CPS has been around for over 50 years. CPS was originally conceived by ad maven Alex Osborn, a founder of BBDO. Alex was confronted with the daunting challenge of transforming BBDO. BBDO’s initial stage of growth was all print media. The dominant media of the day was newspapers. But as we know, things changed, and print was being eclipsed by the new media juggernaut, radio. BBDO almost imploded when the key sales person at the agency left and took half the customers with him. Faced with this crisis, Alex needed to give his account executives tools to help their customers adapt to the new media. They needed to think up ideas for their customers and with their customers, but they lacked the confidence to do so. Alex had developed thinking tools for his own use over the years. So, he put down his own methods for ideation on paper. He then trained his team in these thinking tools — what he called brainstorming. Yes, he actually coined that term! Well, it worked, his people brought in new customers by helping them with ideas. BBDO became known as a great ideas agency and prospered with the new media. Alex then took his thoughts about creative thinking and put them into the seminal book Applied Imagination and the basics of CPS was born

Q: What is the most common mistake you see by those engaged in the creative problem solving process?

Gregg: Well, the most common mistake is not using a process at all.  When faced with complexity the brain tends to spin or churn from one thought to another related to the problem. We tend not to write things down and so we muddle about in confusion. The value of a structured process like CPS is it helps us sort it out. Sort out what we want, what the facts and feelings are, what the challenge really is, and what are our options for moving forward. It helps us push beyond the obvious and find breakthrough solutions.

If you are already using the CPS process the answer would be not allowing enough time. A common mistake in problem solving is rushing to a solution. Taking time allows the mind time to incubate the question at hand. Time tends to lend insight and insight leads to more creative solutions.

Q: What’s the significance of lists?

Gregg: List making, particularly when it is done without judgment, is the easiest way to get into imaginative mode. The mind seems to like the incremental aspect of list making, and, it tends to give us what we want, which is more options. List making is divergence and in general we need more divergence in our thinking. Critique and analysis are overemphasized in our education and training, and divergence is left behind. List making is a great way to re-balance things.

Q: Could you give us some tips on making great lists?

Gregg: First of all, write them down (it’s not called Jack’s Notebook for nothing!). Mental lists tend to get lost in the shuffle of the 65,000 thoughts we have a day. Next, know what the questions is, what you are seeking options for, be clear about that. Most of all, defer judgment and let any option that pops into your head get onto the list, don’t edit. Sometimes silly, impractical, or wild ideas are the steps the mind needs to take in order to get to a Perfect idea. Finally, when blocked put your list aside and take a short vacation from the challenge, give it some time, then come back to it. New options will emerge.

Q: I noticed that the characters in your story seemed to always engage in CPS when they were in small groups of no more than 4 people. Was this just a happenstance, or is there a maximum number for people working together through CPS?

Gregg: Happenstance! There is no minimum or maximum, CPS can be done alone, or, with large groups. I did a session a few months ago for a cosmetics company that included over 70 people and three languages. The groups in Jack’s Notebook just happened to be about that size of four or less because it’s what the story called for. I’ve found that groups of 15 or less are optimal for corporate ideation. Larger than that it becomes a logistics challenge, smaller, and you don’t have a lot of thinking diversity. It can still be done you work with what you have.

Q: You seemed to put a lot of emphasis on the correct phrasing of questions. Why?

Gregg: Well, that’s part of the structure behind creative problem solving. Words are what we have to work with in problem solving. Words point the brain in different directions depending on how a question is phrased. For instance when you have a challenge you could say, How did this project become so expensive? That kind of question leads one to think about the past, and it invites critique. Saying it as a solvable problem takes us down a different path, so In what ways might I reduce the costs of the project? has us thinking about ideas, about options, that bring the cost down. Phrases like In what ways might I, or How might I are empowering and provide a subtle bit of hope. They challenge the brain to come up with answers that are useful, and, the brain tends to respond well to that.

Q: Many companies are quick to start planning, but are very slow to act. Often times plans never make it any farther than the board room or company retreat. Why?

Gregg: There are a lot of reasons, but that most basic one is the person or team empowered to execute the plan isn’t motivated to change. In my opinion, and it’s unfortunate, many organizations aren’t motivated to make a change unless there is an emergency that demands it. Board rooms and retreat situations often get people thinking, and that’s good, but they tend to use the critical/analytical side of the brain too much and so the plans they generate are often all head and no heart. If you don’t have the heart to do something it simply won’t happen.

Q: What should they do instead?

Gregg: It should be less of a one meeting thing and more of an all the time way of being. Innovation is holistic it’s not doing an activity, it’s being, living, breathing, eating, and waking-up-in-the morning in innovative mode. An organization needs a deliberate and formal holistic system, like CPS, to enable consistent innovation. Adopting a particular tool, technique, or hiring a dynamic and charismatic leader isn’t going to get it for you. What will get it for you is a holistic approach that blends many complex elements into a gestalt that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Q: Your bio states that you, work as an innovation consultant to Fortune 500 companies. What types of situations and problems do you typically help these companies solve?

Gregg: All kinds! Most typically it’s around new product development. My bread and butter work is facilitating intensive new product ideation sessions. I’ve also worked on and facilitated projects for internal process improvement. More recently I’m getting involved in assessing an organizations innovation culture and making recommendations on how they might improve.

Thanks Gregg!

Have any questions about Creative Problem Solving? Want to know how CPS can help you find the perfect mate?

Gregg has agreed to take questions in the comments section, so fire away!

More with Gregg Fraley:

CPS in Marketing & Branding

After a successful Post2Post round back in February, with Creativity Today, the Tour is heading this way again!

Continuing with the subject of creative problem solving, The Fresh Peel will be hosting Gregg Fraley, author of Jack’s Notebook.

Something that I’ve found very interesting with Jack’s Notebook, is that wasn’t written in the typical business book format. The principles are laid out and applied in the style of an entertaining novel, which is probably why the subtitle reads, “a business novel about creative problem solving.” This makes the concepts enjoyable, easy to digest and remember.

Gregg writes in the introduction,

“If you are struggling to move ahead in your career, if you’re an executive with a thorny corporate challenge, someone trying to solve a messy community issue, a family trying to sort through an emotional conflict, or an entrepreneur looking for ways to make the most of limited resources-this book is for you. If you have a ‘mess’ on your hands, you have found a useful tool.”

Below is the full Post2Post schedule:
 

For more information on the Post2Post Tour, visit Idea Sandbox.

What a rush! I think I’m still detoxing a bit, as Joseph Jaffe described it yesterday during our brief ooVoo chat. (You can check out the conversation either at the Jaffe Juice Facebook Group or the Fresh Peel Facebook Fan Page.)

In case you missed it, The Age of Conversation Social Media Bum Rush was a huge success. At our highest point the book reached #36 in Business Bestsellers and #262 on Amazon’s overall list. You can follow my live chronicling of the action from Saturday here, as well as find a lot of other great blogs that took part, down in the comments.

 If you would still like to purchase a copy click here.

Again, thanks to everyone who took part.

I can’t wait to see what The Age of Conversation 2 has in store!

It’s time to execute the plan that’s been in the works for weeks.

We are launching The Age of Conversation up the Amazon charts. The book “brings together over 100 of the world’s leading marketers, writers, thinkers and creative innovators in a ground-breaking and unusual publication.” All of the proceeds generated from book sales and referrals will be donated to Variety, The Children’s Charity.

Buy, Starting Saturday March 29th

Click Here to buy your copy!

Please purchase 1 copy at a time, using the link above, for maximum impact, and because all referral fees will be donated to charity as well.

—–

Don’t go too far because starting Saturday I will making continual updates to this post, reporting the books movement up the Amazon charts. This will be your go to post to find out how the plan is being carried out.

You can also follow the conversation on Twitter. Gavin (@servantofchaos), Drew (@DrewMcLellan) and I (@freshpeel) will be giving a play-by-play throughout the day. Join in the fun!

—–

Since this is a global effort, I thought I would post the ranking as of 2pm CST on March 28th as a beginning marker. The ranking has already gone up in the last couple of hours because of sales from the other side of the world.

March 28th @ 2pm -  #102,282

I will start a regular stream of reporting when March 29th gets to this part of the world!

March 29th @ 1:30am – #16,879

March 29th @ 8:00am – #3,559

Nice surprise to wake up to. We made a huge leap while I was sleeping! Things should start to pick up even more in the next few hours.

March 29th @ 9:15am – #1,562



We’ve overtaken almost 2000 more spots! I’ve gotten a lot of verbal confirmations of people buying the book.

March 29th @ 10:15am – #1,562



We are still sitting at #1,562. Join the rush and buy your copy if you haven’t already!

March 29th @ 11:30am – #1,161



I guess updates don’t happen right on the hour afterall. Ranking jumps up 401 spots!

March 29th @ 12:00pm – #917



We’ve broken the top 1,000! Lets send this baby to the top!

March 29th @ 1:15pm – #368



Wow! We’re at #368 in books and I guess Amazon finally added the book to the Business category, which we are sitting at #53. I’m seeing #1 in Business! Lets go!

March 29th @ 3:15pm – #368



It’s been 2 solid hours suspended at #368. There’s still a lot of conversation around swimming around Twitter and the blogosphere, so I have my doubts that we’re finished here. Let’s break the top 100!

March 29th @ 5:00pm – #368



Still no change since 1:15pm. I’d still like to see the book make it into the top 50 Business books.

March 29th @ 5:15pm – #293



I spoke too soon. We just busted into the top 50 business books at #39 and ranked overall at #293! Join the rush!

March 29th @ 6:45pm – #293



We’re still holding on to the 39th spot in business bestsellers and ranked #293 on Amazon overall. Gather up any and everyone you know. We need one last push! Let’s break top 100!

March 29th @ 9:00pm – #293



It looks like things are slowing down a bit. Lets give it one more hour to see if we can give it one last jolt! If you haven’t gotten a copy yet, better do it fast.

March 29th @ 10:00pm – #262



We made one last push up the charts that came in just under the wire!

What an amazing day! I along with the 103 authors of The Age of Conversation thank everyone that bought a copy (or more) of the book and helped generate buzz. Our combined efforts created a wave of conversation, blowing up on blogs, Twitter and other social media outlets, ultimately propelling the book from being ranked at 102,282 all the way to #36 on the Business Bestsellers list and #262 overall. Thanks for joining the rush!

I can’t wait to see what The Age of Conversation 2 has up it’s sleeve.

From the beginning, I’ve called this The Age of Conversation Social Media Bum Rush. I specifically inserted the words “social media” because I knew that success of the movement would hinge upon the ability of the existing community surrounding The Age of Conversation, to come together and push beyond our immediate circle of influence, and that social media outlets would play a huge part in breaking through.

The time is almost here, for us to break through. We have the chance to ban together as one community with one common goal, a movement, if you will.

We are coming down to the wire, so now I will give you 3 things you can do to ensure that this movement is a success:

Digg and Stumble on Friday Starting at 12 Noon

We need everyone to Digg and Stumble the post launching the bum rush, starting at 12 Noon CST. This is a little bit of a change of plans, because I wasn’t going put up a post launching the event until Saturday at midnight. I have since learned some enlightening facts about the hierarchy of social sharing sites that will hopefully help us gain some mass exposure before Saturday. (Thanks to Jon Phillips of Freelance Folder.)

Buy 1 Book at a Time on Saturday

Starting on Saturday, the fun begins. Buy many copies of the book (1 at a time for maximum impact) and tell your friends to do the same. Please use this link so that we can pick up the referral fee as well. (Remember that all the proceeds and referral fees earned will be donated to Variety, The Children’s Charity.)  

Spread the Rush Starting Now

No matter who you are or what your specialty is, this is something that you can do. Do all you can to spread the word about the rush. Post to your blog, Twitter, ooVoo. Talk where ever and using whatever you want to communicate. Talk about the event, the book, your favorite author, or anything about The Age of Conversation.

You will be surprised how quickly the chatter will spread. Just this week I’ve been talking up the bum rush on Twitter (more than normal at least), and the traffic flowing to the post about the event, and clicks outgoing to the books’ listing on Amazon have jumped a good margin.

—-

And now I will leave you with a very fitting quote from author Ryunosuke Satoro, which I have carried throughout the bum rush campaign.

Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.

 

New to The Fresh Peel? You can find out what all this bum rush hype is all about, and how you can join the rush here. I hope you will join us.

It’s crunch time. Saturday the 29th is the big day. That means we have less than a week to generate as much buzz about the rush as we can leading into the main event on Saturday.

Here are three ways that you can help the most immediately:

1. Stumbe the rush.

2. Give the rush a Digg.

3. Get on Twitter, IM, ooVoo, email, or some random forum, and start talking.

—–

Stay tuned! I’ll be posting in the coming days with some specific instructions for Saturday.

And you thought it was never going to happen!

It’s what we’ve all been preparing for and waiting on….and preparing for…. and waiting on and then the announcement of AOC2 was made. But as I promised, the Bum Rush must go on!

The book has finally made it into Amazon’s system and everything is in order for today’s announcement of the Age of Conversation Social Media Bum Rush, which will happen on March 29th.

So what exactly am I proposing?

I’m calling for a bum rush of all the social media you can get your hands on, ultimately directing people to Amazon to buy the book. Despite all of the past delays, I think now is the perfect time to launch this endeavor.  With the buzz about Age of Conversation 1 slowly dying down, and plans for Age of Conversation 2 in the works, this is the perfect opportunity to breathe new life into the old Age of Conversation project. If we do it right we might even be able to transfer some of the momentum of the AOC 1 into AOC2.

Plan of Action (for March 29th)

With the infinite amount of social sites and connections on the web, this is a huge undertaking. That is why I came up with this plan of action list with the highest priority items at the top. The idea is to generate as many touch points around the web as possible so that it will be hard not to spot the Age of Conversation activity.

1. Buy the Book & send others to buy the book. This is the number 1 call to action, because this is where we want to see the most impact. NOTE: Please buy 1 copy at a time because Amazon counts bulk orders once, and please use this affiliate link, which will help us in tracking sales. Remember, all the proceeds from the book sales and referrals will go to charity.  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1847992994?ie=UTF8&tag= drewmclellan-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325& creativeASIN=1847992994
2. Blog About It - Make sure you have a prominent link to the Amazon listing so that readers can easily purchase the book. (Remember to use the affiliate link above. All of these earnings will go to charity as well.)
   
3. Twitter Commentary - Join Drew and I as we give a Bum Rush play-by-play on Twitter. (Follow us: @Freshpeel, @DrewMcLellan, @Servantofchaos) We also ask that everyone saying anything about the Bum Rush to use the code #AOC so that it can be picked up by Twemes.com
   
4. Trackback or Comment on the post that I will leave here on March 29th at 12am CST, so that everyone can follow the conversation and help promote exposure on social sites (Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.icio.us, etc.) 
   
5. Digg the posts listed here & send emails and shouts to friends requesting Diggs.
   
6. Stumble the posts listed & tell friends to do the same. 
   
7. Bookmark your posts on Del.icio.us
   
8. Add your post to other social media outlets ( Technorati, Ma.gnolia, Furl, BlinkList, Newsvine, Facebook, etc.)
   
9. Send an Old Fashioned email to your friends about the Bum Rush for AoC.
10. Keep talking – Get on ooVoo, iChat, Aim, or where ever you like to talk, and start talking.
    

We need all hands on deck for this one. I’ve used this quote before but I think it fits nicely. Ryunosuke Satoro once said,

“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.

The same is true with all of the actions on this list. By ourselves they will do very little, but together we can make waves.

Age of Conversation Bum Rush Badge

For anyone who wants to add some Bum Rush flair to their blog or website, have I got something for you. I’ve designed a badge and provided the HTML code that can be easily copied and pasted. Right now the badge links to this post, but feel free to change it to a post that you’ve written about the Bum Rush event.

If you need any help with the code or have any problems just let me know and I will do my help you get the Bum Rush “bling bling” added to your site.

Just copy and paste the code below:

What You Can Do Right Now

1. Spread the word - Surely you are connected to people outside of your marketing cronies. Start talking hence the word  conversation in the title of the book.
2. Add the Join the Rush Badge to your Blog or Web page. (Just copy and paste the HTML code above.)
   
3. Blog about It - Make sure everyone gets the word that the Bum Rush will be rescheduled.
4. Create a podcast or video and upload to Youtube or other streaming video site (Maybe David Brazeal or Anna Farmery can do a special edition?).
   
5. Add your Reviews and tags on Amazon – Right now the Amazon page looks a little naked. Help fill it up!
   
6. Join the Facebook Group - This is a great way to connect with all of the AOC writers and fans. You can join the group here.
   
7. Become an AOC Fan on Facebook – Show your love for AOC. Yet another awesome way to connect with AOC writers and fans. Join AOC fan page here.
8. Add AOC to Wikipedia - Any experts on Wikipedia guidlines? Made to Stick is a good example of what can be included.

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Got anything to add? Let us know in the comments.

The Fresh Peel is pleased to welcome Ramon Vullings and Godelieve Spaas, co-authors of Creativity Today, which is the featured book for the February 2008 edition of Post2Post Virtual Book Tour.

Ramon is a skilled facilitator of innovation, creativity expert, consultant at New Shoes Today.

Godelieve is an expert on developing a conscious mind in change, and is also a consultant at New Shoes Today.

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This Post2Post stop features three sections. Enjoy!

1. Creativity & Innovation
2. Marketing & Branding
3. Creativity Contest Winners!