A few days ago it was reported by numerous news outlets that a NJ based PetsMart location had fired an employee for “bringing his dog to work.” The story is a bit convoluted, but it goes something like this. The employee normally worked the day shift and as a favor to a manager, agreed to take on a night shift due to a staffing issue at that specific locale. In doing so, he on his own accord decided that he would bring his dog into PetsMart and leave it in the “Doggie Daycare facility for the evening checking in on it every so often.” A relatively non issue in that it is PetSmart and PetSmart has an open door policy to pets. Plus, remember the store was closed and no customers and very few employees were even there. The night shift seemingly went off with out a hitch, yet a few days later, the employee was called into management’s office and officially terminated under the guise of “theft of services.”

Now the first question that comes to mind is how does “bringing your dog to work” amount to a “theft of services.” That question was immediately posed by the terminated employee. And of course the corporate conglomerate not wanting to cow tow to pressure from a terminated employee’s questioning of their ridiculous actions justified the decision by stating:

“the doggie daycare service is a huge part of PetSmart’s business. Access to the store’s doggie daycare facility is ‘viewed as sale items the same way items on the shelf are. To use the facilities and not pay for it — it falls under the same lines,’” said PetSmart spokeswoman Jessica White.

Now this is where brands need to understand how the social space works. The social world does not stop and continue to go about one’s day just because a corporate “edict” goes out from the C-Suite. No one really cares if this was said by the CEO and treated as the 11th commandment within the confines of the company compound or even only happened in an isolated store in the bowels of NJ. The point is that consumer expectations around the brand have been breached and people have the power and means to voice their displeasure via social technologies like no tomorrow. And this is exactly what happened in this case.

On PetSmart Official Face book page over the course of the last 24 hours, their core fan base of 15,000+ have really stepped up and made their feelings heard. Sentiments of disappointment to outright treason are running rampant across the social sphere, so much so that it has forced PetSmart to issue an official statement and apologize for their lack of judgment. Too little too late IMO, but to date this is the only saving grace in this entire situation:

“We feel badly this happened and has upset so many people. We simply messed up. We didn’t handle it the way we should have, and we’re very sorry about it. Unfortunately, before we made things right with this associate, the damage was done. We’ve certainly learned from it. We still think PetSmart’s a great place to work …and we’re using this experience to make us better. We hope you’ll understand. -Jessica”

What this means is that brands need to rapidly understand that the experience they share with the consumer does not stop at 5pm; people could care less about who or what level made a specific decision and only care that it was a “Branded Decision” and see it accordingly.

And lastly, if people are only thinking that us social media freaks aren’t seeing this as what it is - business - period - think again! While I don’t subscribe to that type of business thinking I do honor it, and I’ll bring up one last business point. If I were a competitor working in their marketing department and saw what was happening, I’d be seeing dollar signs. I’d be all over the competitor’s FaceBook wall speaking directly to all the PetSmart fans who were let down by this lapse in judgment. i’d be literally taking market share from them one by one. In fact, I noticed that a few people were already saying how much better their company’s dog policies are compared to PetSmart. So this isn’t just about social media do’s and dont’s, it’s about business in the 21st Century!

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….

Nostrum loves the videos that Socialnomics are putting out.

These short bursts of facts and social stats are great for users to understand the potential of the social web. However, everyone must know - as socialnomics points out in each video they showcase - that with all of these success stories there is a substantial amount of TIME put forth by each brand’s marketing team. None of these cases were done on the “build it and they will come manifesto” that for some reason the C-Suite always seem to think will happen when starting a new social initiative. Most, if not all cases are of one key employee rolling up his or her sleeves and burning the midnite oil for the betterment of their brand for little to no compensation other than his/her pure passion for the product of service ( i.e. Gary Vaynerchuk, Scott Monty, The BlendTec Dude).

While we love this video, please remember social media may not require a lot of dollars to start - it still requires alot of capital - TIME!

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…

People may or may not know that we here at nostrum are extremely big fans of Gary Vaynerchuk and all the people over at VaynerMedia. Gary leads an amazingly eclectic conglomerate of social branding campaigns outside his core business of Wine Library TV.  From the launch of Corkd (@Ronga) to the NFL’s NY Jets’ Social Initiatives to a few packaged goods brands to the flipping NHL, Gary is leading the behind the scenes charge on so many levels, it astonishes me.

I recently attended his Pasadena book signing for his new book Crush It. At the event, an animated and intensely passionate Gary reared his dominate, yet endearing head telling all the Vayner-aics how toil, sweat and hustling got him where he is today. He had over 200 people salivating on his every word and trust me Vromans’ made some bank that night on Gary’s back. In fact, I overheard the manger say how floored he was at how many people showed up and continued to say that to his recollection only Bill Clinton and Howard Stern had more people for a signing than Gary.

Throughout the entire 2 hour session, Gary ranted and raved about the book, but what struck me as so amazing was that when it was time to sign books, he spent on average 3+ minutes with every single person autographing books, posing for pictures or just advising them based on a question or 2 they had prepared for him. He took the time and the energy to do it all with a straight face and a smile.

Post signing, I was lucky enough to spend an un-interrupted half hour with the man, the myth, and the legend. During our conversation his passion and charisma bubbled to the top (which I expected), but it was his listening skills that impressed me the most. As we chatted while driving the 110, I thought he would lead the conversation with overt references to his insights and lifestyle but that was not the case at all. He focused on what my concerns were (in relation to my business dilemmas) and addressed each individually based on how he felt he could assist. We talked business, ideation and passion and to each aspect he had his own take, yet never did I feel like I was being preached at; it was more like hanging out with a friend discussing the day over a beer (or sorry a glass a wine).

One response that rings ever so true is what he said when I asked if it is ever hard to continue to be “nice” for an event, even when you’re not mentally there. He responded with a wink and smile saying something to the effect that “these people came out to say hello to me and to purchase my book, the least i can do is honor them with a few words and/or an autograph.” He went on to say it all goes back to the early days of adding his personal posts to every single wine article he came across in order to obtain greater influence within the wine community. Trust me he still does this; if you don’t believe me check out how he wins over a negative reviewer of Crush it.

Few people have that ability to connect on so many levels with so many different types of people and still stay true to everything that they believe in: Gary is one of the chosen few.

Thanks for the ride Gary and see you on the other coast…robert

Great slide share presentation from Oliver Blanchard of the Brand Building blog.
His slides tell it like it is and show some nice and easy steps to developing the right metrics to help the C-suite understand what we are all building.

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

Great insights into social media from the NYU professor who speaks to the digital divide, Gov 2.0 and scaling social media…

If you’re a skeptical business owner or a corporate executive just interested in social media, this clip is a must see. And after viewing this clip, you still think social media is nothing more than a bunch of ramblings by high school and college kids, you better start looking for a new job relatively soon.

As I have said (and countless other people), there is a fundamental change occurring in the way business will be done in the next few years. Social Technologies are drastically altering the business landscapes and how brands communicate in them. And if companies, brands and people don’t get on board they’re lively hood may be irrelevant come 2015.

Now I’m not saying that this is the end all be all and brands should drop everything they are doing and dive in head first. These social channels are another tool to add to the marcom arsenal. By understanding and integrating social tools into your current marketing mix, brands can begin to open new and untapped customer segments that they probably never dreamed they could have reach 2 years ago.

Let us help us help you understand and strategize your business options: nostruminc.com

Thanks Socialnomics for making these insights available and we here at nostrum will continue to help educate the masses as well!

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, discusses the business pros/cons around Google’s innovative (lack of) corporate structure and the challenges that he himself faced coming from a traditional business hierarchical system into one where employees feel “their managers work for them.”

Eric Schmidt defines the term and speaks to Google’s early years and how it has evolved from a company of fun to a company where business matters. Yet, the core of value of “Don’t Be Evil” is and has always been paramount in every single business decision made.

Evan Wittenberg, Director of Google Leadership Development speaks about how Google leads by example at each and every single level. At its core, it all comes back to sharing, teamwork and trust.

Jolie O’Dell has an entertaining macro conversation with Bob Nanna of threadless.com discussing how they use social media to spread t-shirt love.

Check out what “5″ Gum is doing on the technology front.

Who would of thought gum, AR, and electronic music would all meet in the middle.  So many options for this type of technology IF you have the right audience to serve your message to.

Thoughts?

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.

The article titled Digital Darwinism is something I saw that really made me think about the state of the digital media space.  IMO a must read for all digital marketing heads.  I’ll be doing a post in a few days to address.  Hope you all enjoy….

Today it was announced the Amazon.com acquired Zappos for 10Million shares in AMZN Stock and an immediate $40Million cash injection in AMZN stock and cash to Zappos employees. The approximate cost to AMZN is $900Million+.

Guess the big question is why? Makes sense to us - its the customer stupid!

How many times have you placed a call to a customer service line and an automated system picks up; or received a branded email message saying Buy This but do NOT reply; or wished that the company had a twitter account so that you could tweet your positive emotions about their brand and come to find they don’t have one?  We have and it has irritated us to no end.

Zappos (as we all know) is all about customer service and that is what (seemingly) Amazon is buying.  Amazon may have felt a little competitive threat from Zappos, but I think it was more about tapping into the “Zappos Culture” more than anything. Amazon identified this as a key to thrive in this new business economy.  Why not then purchase the company that understands it best.   By servicing the customer on every conceivable level Zappos has built extreme customer loyalty through facilitating a superior user experience and Amazon wants to be the premiere e-tailer in the world - a symbiotic relationship in cyberspace.

The key to this relationship is how Amazon takes over the reigns and what is done from a top down approach.  At this time, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is saying nothing is going to change and the relationship should be said like the jingle “Zappos and Amazon sitting in a tree…”

Time will only tell - but here are a few thoughts from Jeff Bezos on his take of his purchase.
What do you guys think?

The SekaiCamera app is all about function and bringing the user experience to life in both the real and virtual worlds.

This was prototyped at TechCrunch’s Top 50 Conference a few months back and from what was written, it was the talk of the conference. You can see the actual presentation that was done here.

Anyway, we came across this execution in our research and just thought it was so amazing.  Plus, the team here just started rattling off potential uses and ideas around this app.  Honestly the possibilities are endless!

But we see one major obstacle to overcome: Tagging.

As noted across countless blogs and by industry insiders, this will be crucial in facilitating mass adoption of these types of technologies.  If we don’t have a “Dewey Decimal” system of sorts for tagging we all will get lost in the virtual shuffle.