It’s Friday and everybody is grumbling about work–how much of it they have to do, how much they hate doing it, or how much they really need some so they can pay the bills. Even if you love the gig you’ve got now, chances are you’ve had one (or five) that have sucked. Hard.

Naturally, if you’ve had a job like that, you have also fantasized about quitting that job in some kind of fantastic way. No wonder the story about Steven Slater, the put-upon JetBlue employee who quit by calling a passenger a naughty name, grabbing a beer, and escaping down the emergency slide, became such a working-class hero tale. And of course, when one meme goes viral, dozens of copycats are bound to follow, which led to this heartwarming story: a pretty young girl, after being harassed by her evil boss, quits by writing snarky comments on a dry erase board, photographing them, and emailing them to the entire company.

The interwebs FLOCKED to this unknown Jenny’s banner. She was a hero. Until we realized that the story was FAKE. A hoax, put together by the same comedy website that did that story about Donald Trump and the $10,000 tip. Her name isn’t even Jenny! It’s Elyse!

Rats. No cute girls quitting spectacularly. No stickin’ it to The Man. Just a meme. Disappointing, but no big deal, right? Right.

Unless you’re in social media marketing. In which case, you are now going to have to try to convince the suits above you that there is no formula for a viral video. At least with the Old Spice commercials, they probably noticed that the people responsible put a LOT of work into it. But with “Jenny,” all they had was a whiteboard and a pretty girl! That’s gotta be cheap and easy, right? So go make us a viral video! Community manager Evan Hamilton explains why this is going to be a major pain in the ass for social media workers everywhere: it’s going to re-convince executives that there is a viral “button.”

Good luck proving to your clients and executives that the only way to get real buzz about your brand is to put in the real effort.

I was going to write a snarky post about this Onion article and how I’m totally sick of the tired old copy about how “it’s a new way to connect in meaningful ways! Content! Connect! Blah blah blah!” and how I would like one of these new social network upstarts that claim to be revolutionary and provide real-world results to do something that actually translates to the real world…

But then I saw this HILARIOUS book trailer for Meg Cabot’s new novel, Insatiable, and my snarky mood vanished! The trailer manages to describe the plot of the novel while making fun of itself and the genre of teen-hormone-fueled vampire fiction spawned by Stephenie Meyer and her (bloodcurdlingly awful) Twilight Saga. This trailer does two HUGELY AWESOME things for me:

1. It makes me want to read the book. And I haven’t read a Meg Cabot book in 10 years (sorry Meg, I burned out on Princess Diaries).

2. It makes me believe that publishing is not dead. People will want to read this book. They will buy it. Hardcover, paperback, Kindle, iPhone, iPad, Nook, and every other format you can think of. They will buy it. They will read it. And they will want sequels.

So what’s the problem? Why are you worried?

Because so few people are seeing them and even fewer books are using them. If publishers spent more time and energy creating deliciously exciting, funny, enticing things like this, and empowering their authors to do projects like Cabot’s crowd-sourced zombie-couture Fashionably Undead audiobook (co-written by the author and 50 of her Twitter followers, for BBC Audio), instead of having conference after conference bewailing the end of the industry as we know it, they’d be doing just fine. Readers would be excited and engaged, and above all, they’d KNOW about the fabulous books being written ALL THE TIME instead of drooling endlessly over Robert Pattinson fansites.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, some FANTASTIC transmedia projects, book trailers, and crowd-sourced book clubs:

It’s a Book! Trailer, explaining the difference between books in dead-tree vs. ebook form.

Neil Gaiman’s Instructions trailer, narrated by the author.

Meg Cabot’s magnificently insightful blog entry about her Insatiable trailer.

Meg Cabot’s celebratory online Dracula reading group, working up excitement for the new book, complete with prizes!

My personal favorite, the #1b1t discussion group, the first Twitter-wide book club, currently reading Neil Gaiman’s American Gods, started by Jeff Howe, the inventer of the term “crowdsourcing.”

Hear that, publishers? Quit sending your people to nonsense conferences and quit writing articles about how the industry is dying and DO SOMETHING TO SAVE IT.

Or get Zach Galifinakis to be in your book trailer.

Following up on Mike’s previous post about Google Buzz, I totally get the furor about it. The service definitely needs work, and Google has definitely made a whole lot of big mistakes.

But hey, it’s new. That’s the downside of a service being released by such a huge, publicly visible company. Twitter and Facebook were NOT famous when they were released. They weren’t globally famous for years after they were founded. They had plenty of time to make changes, fixes, and tweaks based on quiet user feedback. Google Buzz had the disadvantage of going very public, very quickly. It wasn’t finished. And it got slammed. Now I wonder whether Google will have enough time to fix it and realize its potential before it gets laughed out of existence.

I think it would be nice if Buzz went back to beta. Google definitely needs more time to tweak it, and they need a setting to get real constructive criticism instead of media snarking. I still think the service has a lot of potential. I like Pete Cashmore’s take on it. If you insist on using an analogy to define Buzz, try this one. Think of Facebook as the local bar, where you go to hang out with your friends, play some games, and just shoot the breeze. Think of Twitter as the village square where you get all the news and have public conversations. It’s a public forum. Then you have Buzz, which SHOULD eventually become a place to focus detailed conversations on IDEAS. Not news, not people, not “what are you doing” or those awesome photos you took on your trip to Cabo this spring, man. It’s a platform to talk about content and have major brainstorming sessions about concepts and projects.

If Facebook is the local bar and Twitter is the town square, Google Buzz (I hope) will be the local college campus.

I’ve said before that I like Google Wave as a productivity tool–an easy way to keep work projects neat, tidy, and collaborative at the office. I don’t find much utility for connecting with friends about random things. It’s a business thing, and I like it that way. I think Buzz will end up being sort of similar in market, although I hope more concept-oriented and less business-y.

If it lasts that long.

This presentation was given as the Keynote at the Digital Book World Conference by Shiv Singh - VP & Global Social Media Lead with Razorfish.

Definitely something publishing and newspaper industry-heads should look at.
Let us know what you think….

To be completely honest, this should probably be Part 1.5. This isn’t actually a blog (it’s a shopping site, I think) and I don’t actually know what they’re saying because it’s all in Dutch. I don’t speak Dutch. However, I think the animation on this site is absolutely gorgeous. Click on the site and just wait and watch. The animation will start in a second. Really fantastic, I promise. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

http://producten.hema.nl/

Oh my God, did you click? Did you watch? It’s amazing, RIGHT? I have no idea exactly what the little pop-up at the end is advertising, but I just LOVE this concept. It’s like an online Rube Goldberg project. It’s fun, engaging, and visually beautiful. It doesn’t hurt that it shows off the technical expertise of the site builders, as well as the fun aesthetic of the people who own it. I think business would be a LOT more fun if everybody incorporated this kind of sense of humor and attention to detail.

On an only-vaguely-related note, anybody who speaks Dutch want to tell me what the site is ABOUT?

I don’t go gaga over websites too often, but this one just made my jaw drop. From the cutting edge design, to the complete integration from every digital touch point, to the overall inspiration based concept - this digital creation - hands down - wins in my book.

Lego Click: According to adverblog, LegoClick “is a a virtual canvas of ideas, inspired moments, quirky stories, solutions and tips, working as a collaborative plateform to inspire people.” In my opinion it could quite possibly be the best designed site, I’ve ever seen. In addition, the collaboration and brand integrated ethos behind the execution is what is truly genius. A must see for any designer and/or marketer!

Below is the short film that Lego did to unveil their brilliance. Go forth and explore Click! more….

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT want to get involved in a political debate and I am making NO statement about any of these candidates. I just want to know what people think of this ad by Carly Fiorina for Senate. Is this the most bizarre campaign ad you’ve ever seen or did I eat some bad shellfish?

Zombie Wolf in Sheep\’s Clothing

CBS is beginning to head down an interesting path in its ad placement for the SuperBowl. They have turned down two “gay-themed” ads so far: one is from male-male oriented dating site ManCrunch.com and the other is from web-hosting service GoDaddy.com. The ManCrunch ad shows two men watching a football game (presumably the SuperBowl) and munching chips. Their hands touch as they both reach for a crisp, and suddenly they can’t hold back any longer–they smooch! The GoDaddy ad is more surprising…it does feature a flamboyant ex-football star, but it also features women in lingerie. Doesn’t that usually get any and all content a free pass? (It does for American Apparel)

In any case, both ads were rejected on the grounds that they don’t meet CBS’s content standards for the SuperBowl and they might offend people. For ManCrunch, the broadcasting company went one further and claimed that they couldn’t verify the firm’s credit (the rejection letter is up on Scribd as well as being reproduced on the Mashable article). However, it DOES look like they’re going to air the Tim Tebow pro-life ad, which is guaranteed to offend at least some people…which people is it okay to offend, and which have to be kept happy? CBS is sending a pretty clear message about what audience bracket they value, which is fine–First Amendment and all that. But still, what about all the gay-friendly sports fans? Seems like a bit of a business mistake to alienate such a vocal consumer group…

Thoughts?

Alright, I’ve had my winter vacation, I’ve seen the movie, and I’ve finished the game. I liked the movie a whole bunch. A WHOLE BUNCH. Lots of fun, witty banter, and all the things one would hope for in a collaboration between Robert Downey Jr. and, well, anybody. Mark Strong was also enjoyably lugubrious and Rachel McAdams was cute.

The ending of the game? Not so much. The answer to the last code was guessable from the trailers and the reward was a video response from Inspector Lestrade hinting that Scotland Yard would be calling on Holmes and Watson in the future for help with the mysterious Prof. Moriarty. Rumor has it that Brad Pitt might be taking on the chalk-dusted jacket, but I would rather see Colin Farrell.

So, to sum up: fun game, great movie, slightly lame ending. All with impeccable production values.

And not one deerstalker in sight (thankfully).

***DISCLAIMER: Let me just say, before I get into the actual post, that I love Sherlock Holmes. And mysteries requiring deductive reasoning. And witty banter. And steampunk. But most of all, I LUURRRVE Robert Downey Jr. So beware of fangirlishness popping up in this post.***

We at Nostrum have been fiddling around with augmented reality stuff for a while now, and as part of that, I’ve been researching film promotions. Now, as I warned above, I was already excited for Guy Ritchie’s upcoming reboot of Sherlock Holmes, starring Robert Downey Jr., Jude Law, and the delightfully lugubrious Mark Strong. So when Robert (Nostrum’s Robert, not Iron Man Robert) asked me to check out a promotional game for the film, I was happy to oblige and immediately hopped over to 221b.sh. I landed on a nicely designed page depicting a nice darkly luminous Dickensian-looking London…and a ridiculously long load time. The long load time, combined with the huge “Facebook Connect” button, led me to believe that the game was going to be some lame Facebook game where you get two choices: 1. run away or 2. “fight.” And by fight, they mean hit a button and get a message that says “you just fought and won 20 gold coins!”

I was therefore quite pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be a real, participatory game. It’s kind of like the scavenger hunt games that were set up leading up to The Dark Knight, and apparently, for Iron Man 2 (why didn’t I hear about that one??), except the evidence is all in one place. You get assigned a case by Scotland Yard and then put together the evidence to solve it. And here’s the kicker–you need two people to play (ideally). One plays as Holmes and the other plays as Watson, and they each get different evidence and have to consult in order to solve the mystery. Of course, you can play both ends yourself if you’re like me and don’t feel like waiting for somebody else to figure it out. It has all the usual stuff, like automatic status updates and so forth to spread the word, but it’s not a Facebook game.

The mechanics of the game itself are well-done, except that they load too slowly. You watch a video from Scotland Yard or a victim setting up the mystery, and then you read police reports, newspaper clippings, mysterious letters, and so forth, to piece together what’s going on. Then you do some more creative things like chasing down burglars, breaking into buildings, exploring hideouts, and interrogating witnesses. It incorporates strategy games, timed games, hidden object games, and logic games all in one, which is what makes it more fun (and way more participatory) than your average Facebook game. Plus it hints at the premise underlying the plot of the film without giving anything away or relying on teasers like Sherlock Holmes wallpaper or AIM icons (which nobody cares about). In short, it’s fun, it’s intriguing, and it’s well-done.

And it’s ongoing until the film comes out on Christmas Day. There’s a new chapter every Monday. Ok, Holmes, now go find your Watson and get sleuthing.

Alright, I think I managed to avoid too much fangirl blather. What do you say?

I just ran across this video and it made me very excited and not in a typical advertising manner.  I didn’t think about potential donation capabilities that could rain in from a viral hit or massive success attributed to the marketing team because they nailed the strategic objectives of the campaign; I  got happy because someone on their Executive Team had the forethought to know that this was a positive move for their company and had enough trust in the staff  to believe that this could work and went with it. I could only imagine the back and forth that went on between legal and each department around what they couldn’t do because of X,Y and Z.  But kudos to the Executive and his/her team who green lit this for it truly shows how when passion and company’s culture are on the same page good things can emerge.  And only when every level of a company is engaged and participates in a manner that they are comfortable with does something like this take off.  From the Facilities Department to the Rehabilitation Team to the Executive Suite at Providence Health Services in Oregon, nostrum salutes you and your 2Million viewed (and counting) viral smash….

For all you corporate denizens who have “issues” with social media and all of it’s iterations here is something from one of the biggest corporate behemoths in the world: McDonald’s.

Below is a presentation from Heather Olandi, the Director of PR for McDonald’s regarding how the brand utilizes social media and community building to leverage their message. There are some very interesting ideas and strategic insights included. Love to hear what you think…

The next film in the Twilight series came out at midnight. And it’s already grossing off the charts.
The thing that eludes me is that there’s been little to no branding for the film (that I’ve seen) and it’s still the most popular thing EVARRRRR (according to my 16-year-old sister). At this point I can only chalk it up to the unholy power of teenage girls. Someone please enlighten me.

All I know is that I will be avoiding the movie theater like The Plague, and hiding under my bed, with a stake in one hand and a big plate of garlic bread in the other.

Nostrum has been using Radian6 for awhile now and honestly we rave about it all the time.  The real time analytics and the granular nature of tracking in the social space is spectacular for our client base and second to none.

We were extremely proud and excited to see last month how R6 integrated seamlessly with Twitter and MTV to showcase the VMA’s online attributes.  If this doesn’t show the masses (hint hint CMO’s looking for ROI) at the value in data, we have no idea what will.

Kudos R6 and continued success. Shout out to Chaffic and Tina: Two great R6 employees and wonderful people….thanks for all the help thus far….

Great slide share by author, blogger and social media educator Tara Hunt.
Check out her presentation (below) and next time you’re at a bookstore (yes the world still has those) buy her book The Whuffie Factor.

Finished it about a month ago…Good Read and nice understanding of social mindsets as opposed to social strategies.

Check out the clip from XPLANE - The Visual Thinking Company out of Portland. Kudos

Hello Kitty and I have been friends since I was in the 1^st grade.  I met her on a pencil set that was gifted to me and since that moment, we became best of friends.

Whatever she had, it always matched, was insanely cute and I coveted it all.  If the pencil was pink, so was the sharpener, the case and the eraser.  Same logo and color palette throughout and thoughtfully packaged.  Hello Kitty taught me about Branding.

Then she introduced me to her friends, Little Twin Stars, Tuxedo Sam, and My Melody.  Hello Kitty taught me about Product Extension.

When I needed appliances and interior decor, she had her with her own toaster, TV, bedding and more.  Hello Kitty taught me about Brand Extension.

When I went through a “Goth” phase, she started to don more black.  Consequently, she got a slew of new friends and a lot more popular.  Hello Kitty taught me about Brand Revolution.

You would think that Hello Kitty and I would drift apart over the years, but we didn’t.  Maybe because we were born the same year we seemed to grow up together. When I got my first Nirve beach cruiser, so did she.  When I started wearing MAC makeup, so did she.  When I entered into my career and needed a Mimobot USB flash drive, so did she.  Hello Kitty taught me about Brand Partnership and Brand Evolution.

HK is one wise little kitty.

I came across this post on Slashdot and it just really pissed me off. Reverb Communications’ idea of good social media practice is to hire a team of interns to spam the iTunes store with fake positive reviews of its clients’ apps. Be prepared, because I’m going to rant a little…

THIS is EXACTLY why people get suspicious of marketers using social media! Consumers are afraid of companies co-opting what was meant to be an authentic, altruistic community for mercenary ends. By contrast, they don’t mind if companies (like Threadless and Zappos) use social space to have real conversations and provide real, useful content…so why is it so hard for companies to understand that, to make the best of the social space, you need to participate in good faith?

/rant.

Seriously, when you (the reader) find out a company employs tactics like that, does it make you reluctant to purchase from them, or is it just me?

Mommy bloggers are becoming a force to be reckoned with and in Chicago at this year’s BlogHer conference, they were treated with shopping sprees, lavish meals and the much coveted swag from brands like Tide, Bounce, Kodak, Pepsi and more. I suppose for this particular segment, it’s akin to hitting the motherload.
Read the rest of this entry »

While everyone continues to tout that Social/Digital/Interactive Media are the next greatest things, then why do businesses fall into the same rut as they did back in 20th Century.
Businesses continue to assume that they must produce things within an industrial age construct where production on a mass scale is revered to almost a god like state. By scaling on a mass level, price and efficiencies are surely gained, but at the expense of what: the expense of the original product AND servicing the people who are directly engaging with those products .

“In the 21st Century the challenges of building great businesses differed than those in the 20th century, and at the core of success is responding to the consumer.” John Gerzema expands to his thoughts in his post in regards to re-thinking how businesses need to be built in today’s economy. “Scaling (businesses) becomes an operation unto itself, with entire businesses built up around the idea of scaling as a goal. Scaling is not the goal, the goal is providing the customer with the product they need at the time they need it.”

Why then do businesses continue to operate within this robber baron mindset? Fear, Memories of the Dot-com Bubble, Lack of Historical Data, Uneasiness with the Concept of Change - Probably a bit of them all, but it is high time that business understand that mulling things over for the next big scaled objective is going to be the demise of their Executive Positions. Web 2.0 and furthermore 3.0 have already seeped into corporate cultures across the globe, and if a business hasn’t acted on this, their competition has - Digital Darwinism at it’s finest.

That’s why businesses need to adopt and understand these 5 essential pillars in today’s Enterprise 2.0 Economy (all of which are expanded upon in detail in Christopher Vollmer’s paper Digital Darwinism):

1. Turn Consumers into “Prosumers”
2. Build Bi Lateral Brand Experiences
3. Place Context on Par with Content
4. Master the New Calculus of Communications
5. Collaboration is King

So going forward, instead of worrying about what we had and trying to protect it, lets look what we are doing on the innovation and collaboration front and make sure we stick to the goals (people)  that got us here in the first place.