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In my previous post I touched upon conceptual differences between treating Enterprise 2.0 as a set of Web 2.0 tools, and looking at it from perspective of building participatory communities (some can be powered by our IR Web 3.0 technology) of various types of stakeholders, as well as fans whose primary goal is not monetary – they rather look at your community as one more outlet for self expression.
One of the challenged lays just in this – “one more outlet”.
How do you make your user spend a day or at least a few hours a week on your community portal versus any other? How do you engage the crowd and enable the power of crowdsourcing? How do you develop relationships with developers from whom you expect open source participation or apps development? How do you make your social game or online dating site sticky?
Technology won’t give you the answers, understanding of socio dynamics and internet consumer psychology will.
Here are some reflections that I have found relevant in the context of our conversation.
by By Matthew Hutson in Psychology Today.
Open source projects are like high-tech barn-raising. There’s been some recent and salacious speculation on the motivations of Wikipedia’s founder, Jimmy Wales, but what motivates us mortals to contribute to open source enterprises? And do people who write code for software projects like Firefox have different drives than people who contribute content to projects like Wikipedia?
A paper that was published in Computers and Human Behavior (and covered in the March/April issue of Psychology Today) explores what moves the open source movement.
The paper describes three types of incentives for contributions.
- First, there’s street cred: People want to garner approval from their peers and build their reputation.
- Second, there’s self-actualization: Working on these projects is enjoyable in and of itself, and it also provides the opportunities to practice your skills, collect feedback, and grow as a geek.
- Third, there’s pure altruism: Let’s save the world, one squashed bug at a time.
The researchers collected questionnaires from 185 code monkeys found on SourceForge.net (unsurprisingly 97.8% male) and 110 wikiwonks found on Wikipedia. The sourcerers rated personal development as a stronger motive than the Wikipedians did, possibly because they receive more direct feedback on their work from their peers. They also rated reputation more highly, perhaps because open source software is more closely aligned with their professional lives (it’s lots of IT guys) than writing content is for the Wikipedia contributors. The content developers, on the other hand, are more driven by altruism than the software developers. For the most part, they’re sharing things they already know, and they have little to gain personally by performing a brain dump onto the wiki page for theatrical jousting.
In both groups, reputation was reported as the weakest motivator, but the researchers suggest it’s possible that people didn’t want to admit its true value.
Motivations for lending a hand lined up predictably with personal values. People who highly value achievement are more motivated by reputation-building, those who value benevolence (concern for the welfare of those close to them) and universalism (concern for the welfare of everyone) are more strongly driven to contribute by altruism, and those who highly value self-direction (independence and creativity) consider self-development a big incentive for chipping in.
The researchers argue that understanding the carrots people seek in collective projects can help managers figure out how best to recruit and retain contributors. Project coordinators should also note that the appropriate rewards for an actual barn raising are, well, actual carrots.
by Dave Rosenberg on The psychology behind open source and gaming.
One of the things that drive success in online games such as World of Warcraft is the community and ecosystem that surround the game itself. This is much akin to open source where projects grow and become successful as individuals become part of the whole.
How we define our individual identities and the forms of social participation that we pursue to shape these identities drive our engagement. Whether it’s software or gaming, we shape the world around us.
This existential viewpoint also explains a bit why Spore is such an interesting game (despite its archaic DRM)–we get to define our universe and then engage with it.
The Game Anthropologist gets to the root of the issue:
“The long and short of it? The game makes the player. When we play games, we are at the outset making an agreement that we are going to do whatever the game tells us to. We can change our minds. We can find out beforehand what is in the game.”
This is nearly the exact same sentiment as we see with open source. Users make the software and while we may initially agree with what the software tells us to do, we can change our minds and modify it accordingly.
Contrast that approach with packaged applications that force you into their way of doing things, or SaaS applications that require you to change business processes to meet their model.
Back in 2005, I wrote about the open source angle for a Release 1.0 report (PDF available for free download).
“Within the open-source space there is an underlying thread of reciprocity and support of the group as a whole over individual concerns. Certainly, not everything done in the open-source realm is noble or even beneficial, but by and large the community does support a greater good–the furthering of open source and open standards across all technology platforms and devices.”
Not much has changed in the last three years, though the trend of benefit for the greater has been manipulated beyond selflessness and into other means that help users. While a completely for-profit company, Dell’s Ideastorm is one example where the community helps to define how Dell should modify its products. Most participants seem to accept that they will use Dell products and as such want them to be better.
Despite the guiding hand of writers and game engines, it’s the players that shape the game. Just like open-source projects, without a relationship (and obsession) between developers and users most games will flounder.
… and more to come. Please share your own thoughts on the industry dynamics as well as personal observation of psycho background of it.
It’s a movie night for me. Cheers!
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by Olga Kostrova, CEO of IdeaMama Group:
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Participatory business models become the focal point of strategic modeling for 2010 and probably a decade to come. Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and Government 2.0 are still just buzzwords for many, but quite a few organization start successfully implement new digital programs to connect various members with their ecosystems, engage them in the conversation, collaboration and real-time dynamic research.
Web 2.0 is mostly understood as user interaction hubs such as Facebook, Twitter you name it, out of wide adoption of which, created around specific business needs & workflows Enterprise 2.0 Solutions emerged. I find it interesting that many companies that want to integrate social media environment in their businesses, focus on Enterprise 2.0 Architecture as a set of tools and features that social networks use, instead of understanding the culture and psychodynamics of “the crowd” and built their internal portals around it. Look for example how IBM defines it. “What is Enterprise 2.0?
Enterprise 2.0 is the concept of using tools and services that employ Web 2.0 techniques such as tagging, ratings, networking, RSS, and sharing in the context of the enterprise…” – fresh from their web site. Well, that’s exactly what Enterprise 2.0 is not. Or here is what NewsGator suggests “Rather than build a social networking application from scratch, simply layer social computing features like networking, communities, discussions, tagging, social bookmarking and blogging on an existing portal or intranet. NewsGator Social Sites software, for example, transforms any Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) implementation into a full-featured enterprise social network without altering user habits.”
I don’t think I fully agree at this point with this approach. First and foremost it’s about the purpose and the process that govern the ideal future operation. If it can be done with existing tools, great. But most of the features mashups that I’ve seen just remind of a collage of widely available web 2.0 tools. And now what? Yes, users will use it by habit of hanging out on Twitter and Facebook, but will it improve the productivity of the enterprise? Your business sis unique, and often requires starting fresh. “What do we want to accomplish?’ vs “What can be done with all those available tools and features?”
Our IR Web 3.0 is just one of the examples of Enterprise 2.0 solutions that has a particular purpose of engaging company stakeholders in products innovation, new strategy design, expansion by engagement and business development by units diversification.
Here are couple of article excerpts that I think can be useful for those marketing and operational leaders who are just learning their ways into participatory media.
On Design Thinking by Dan Hudson.
Design thinking is a process for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for an improved future result. It is the essential ability to combine empathy, creativity and rationality to meet user needs and drive business success. Unlike analytical thinking, design thinking is a creative process based around the “building up” of ideas. There are no judgments early on in design thinking. This eliminates the fear of failure and encourages maximum input and participation in the ideation and prototype phases. Outside the box thinking is encouraged in these earlier processes since this can often lead to creative solutions.
In organization and management theory, design thinking forms part of the Architecture/Design/Anthropology (A/D/A) paradigm, which characterizes innovative, human-centered enterprises. This paradigm also focuses on a collaborative and iterative style of work and an abductive mode of thinking, compared to practices associated with the more traditional Mathematics/Economics/Psychology (M/E/P) management paradigm. [Wikipedia]
5 Quick Dev/Design Tips from Twitter & Facebook
How we interact with technology is evolving. Our expectations are higher and our patience is lower. The World Wide Web is a very competitive place, but twitter & facebook are seeing unbelievable growth. Solutions inside the Enterprise have less competition and should experience rapid adoption. Adoption rates may vary, so here are some areas to review, if adoption rates are not meeting expectations.
- Adoption by Design is superior to any well written manual with petty pictures.
- User Experience using Web 2.0/3.0 technologies to improve speed & behavior.
- Use of standard Design Patterns for intuitive interfaces.
- Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) supporting sharing information across multiple devices in multiple formats & views.
- Experimenting with Features along with collecting feedback, helps to keep users interested and shows you care.
On Adoption Strategies for Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 by Dion Hinchcliffe.
12 Adoption Strategies for Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0:
- Learn: Educate – Brown bags, internal Webcasts, strategy white papers, innovation unconferences. Digital business models are evolving so quickly that keeping up can be a real challenge. Hot new topics such as Social CRM and online customer communities have become major new subject areas in the last 18 months, but most traditional businesses don’t know about them yet. There are many other emerging topics now and getting a steady flow of information into your organization about what’s happening will greatly assist your efforts. Lunch presentations, Webinars (great for large and/or distributed organizations), reports, social media, and internal events to share ideas about the possibilities are all good ways to break ground and get fresh ideas into heads. Use the attendees of these to identify like-minded change champions for some of the strategies below.
- Learn: Find out what leaders in your industry or related industries are doing. While the adoption of Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 is often very industry specific (either a big player gets way ahead or consensus is reached and adoption suddenly happens broadly within an industry), you can often find great examples of approaches in industries that are different yet closely related. Find case studies that have good measurements and data and use this to extrapolate to others.
- Learn: Discover and coordinate with what other internal Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 change champions are doing already. Use the people you met in the first strategy to find other pilot projects and resources that can be pooled. Internal success stories are always the most convincing, even if turf concerns and not-invented-here continues to be problematic. Often you can join in or combine efforts, particularly since Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 are so driven by participation that it’s virtually required by definition to get any sort of success, internally or externally.
- Prepare: Identify the likely areas where Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 can grow and/or improve your business. I covered this topic late last year as the recession began to hit. There are major areas where growth, cost reduction, innovation, and business transformation can be achieved. Understand clearly how these approaches work and provide value, what growth/cost factors they consist of, and get specific with likely approaches in your organization matched to hard data to support the strategy in the next bullet. If you’re still not sure then explore these ways to use Web 2.0 to reinvent your business for the economic downturn.
- Prepare: Build a compelling business case. If you can’t explain the benefits clearly to the business, you don’t get to do it. But this can sometimes be hard with Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 because there are on occasion long cause-and-effect chains. But more likely there is just what I like to call the “digital DNA” problem. Most businesses are far enough away from the technology itself that they have a hard time grasping exactly how these ideas actually work and can be made successful in their organization. It’s the ultimate not-invented-here problem. So don’t make decision makers figure it out themselves, provide step-by-step explanation of the specific whys and hows of your social computing strategy, open API division, or whatever it is that you’ve decided that presents the best opportunity.
- Prepare: Solicit senior sponsors for advocacy, budget, and pilots. This one is fairly obvious except that a sponsor in this case must be personally involved both in the up-front support as well as actual participation. One of the single most important adoption factors is executive involvement through personal interaction. This works best if it’s a social computing approach, but can affect most Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 efforts positively and significantly. Here are some specific tips for CIOs and CTOs.
- Prepare: Broadly socialize the potential benefits in clear, lingo-free business terms. Transmit the message loudly and clearly. Don’t become overly zealous. The bigger the organization, the longer it will take to change. Often, by the time you’re just about ready to give up, things will begin to happen. Use social tools to spread this message by example. You can try using one of the freely available enterprise microblogging tools to do this..
- Act: Initiate social media internally to drive forward internal change, under the radar if necessary. Walk the walk and start a blog or internal community that discusses innovation or otherwise drives change. Use this to support the previous strategy but if it’s done right it will broaden and can easily become viral. Worst case the change champions have a place to work together, best case it forms an early basis for an enterprise social computing strategy. It can also provide an initial demonstration of results and adoption statistics. Only do this under the radar if necessary and even so be ready to accept the consequences if this is the first of these strategies you start with (the ground not yet being fully prepared.)
- Act: Create a targeted customer community. Engagement with real customers is the only way to trigger some of the larger benefits of Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0. This can be tricky since it frequently requires much more support and approval to go outside the company. So start targeted and highly focused. Trusted customers and pre-identified loyalty groups or even trading partners are good places to begin and usually offer friendly audiences to try many of these techniques with until you learn the ropes and gain deeper understanding of the issues.
- Act: Launch a pilot that is likely to produce noticeable returns in the medium-term. Use all the strategies above to get started with a pilot that proves the ideas out. Critical mass is a frequent issue with the pilot approach however and many recommend going as big as possible (but no bigger) to ensure there is enough participation. Document everything and don’t set expectations too high or too low. I say medium term since social systems in particular are generally less deterministic and are not as predictable (though far more rewarding) than traditional mandatory engagement models.
- Act: Measure the results of any local Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0 effort, even if it’s not yours. Get the numbers and try to make sure they are accurate, they are ultimately hard to ignore. I’ve seen a number of otherwise terrific efforts derailed by not backing up what was done with good measurement.
- Act: Proactively manage and promulgate upsides as well as having a ready-to-present mitigation plan for any perceived risks. In the end, business leaders want something that will move the business forward but they don’t want the risk. Have answers ready for them, though you don’t necessarily need to broadcast this unless asked. There are often unstated risk, control, and trust issues with Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 and you must proactively defuse them.
While some of these may seem obvious and will be true of almost any business initiative heading into the unknown wilds of something new, there are important nuances for the Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 arena for each one of these. I’ve left out a few good strategies including acquiring your way to Web 2.0 competency, it’s just not going to work for most organizations at the moment, until there are richer targets.
Ok, it’s Saturday and time to go hiking in mountains. To be continued… Stay tuned.
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by Olga Kostrova, CEO of IdeaMama Group:
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My new friend Bert Koehler (whose work I briefly covered in the post “Learning from AI developers – designing the framework for creation of funny ads for TV, radio, web and print. What will go viral and why?”) have just send me a link to this video-presentataion by game expert Jesse Schell in the context of our games marketing service via our network partners. Jesse runs a game development studio that designs games for Disney and other large entertainment brands. I think the ideas that Jesse explores are quite fascinating. Take a look.
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by Olga Kostrova, CEO of IdeaMama Group:
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Researchers and AI enthusiasts from all over the world try to crack the code and improve the technologies to make digital avatars “smarter” and make them improve our own knowledge. Developers use artificial intelligence and natural language processing software to enable us to interact with avatars, and make it possible to interact with these virtual representations as if they were the actual person, complete with the ability to understand and intelligently answer questions. When the technology is ready we will see avatar experts in many professional fields, reducing overhead and making the need in some human-provided services absolute.
While the researches are still in its infant state, there are many new projects in the entertainment, gaming and even professional services that explore the trends of working with avatar in many different ways.
One of the offers that are launched via IdeaMama Ad Network this month is Intunment Project – an avatar counseling. Instead of spending $300 on a visit to psychologist, you instead can intune with your avatar on a regular basis for fraction of the price. While there are still alive human behind the scene, not AI, the game-line packaged service becomes a hit.
Whether you are new to affiliate marketing, or a super-affiliate, this affiliate program is available.
PROGRAM DETAILS:
OFFER TYPE: CPS (sale)
PRODUCT: Avatar Coaching. All counseling is done by digital “avatars” – certified professionals behind 3D character
PRODUCT DELIVERY: digital (phone calls & program subscriptions)
INDUSTRY: Offer is on intersection of very “hot” industries: gaming and wellness.
TARGET MARKET: B2C, worldwide.
PRICE per unit: $79.99
AFFILIATE PAYOUT: $30 per sale
If you are interetsed in marketing this offer please contact IdeaMama Ad Network staff at: affiliates @ IdeaMamaAdNetwork.com.
Avatars-service providers and affiliates promoting them might expect quite significant profits in the next couple of years, as the concept can ride on a trend that became especially magnified with the release of film “Avatar” that has already bit worldwide box office and became #1 film in the history of filmmaking, crossed 2 billion dollars in box office this week, leaving “Titanic” behind. By placing both of his movies as #1 and #2 in worldwide sales, James Cameron seems to have a great lesson to be taught to other producers-veterans as well as young filmmakers. But the real question is, will you as a marketer learn anything from this lesson?
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by Olga Kostrova, CEO of IdeaMama Group:
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I have just came back from a meeting of Silicon Valley scientists and developers who work on design of various artificial intelligence systems. While no ultimate solution has been found yet, nevertheless every discussion is interesting and thought provoking.
Today’s speaker, Bert Koehler, presented results of his research and share some insights on building AI systems that not only understand humor, but that actually create jokes.
The is a reason why I decided to cover today’s event in the blog . The main focus of every marketer in the current economy, where advertising budgets are shrinking, should be ability to generate advertising echo, produce advertising campaigns and ad inventory that is viral. If we analyze carefully the most viral marketing campaigns we will notice that vast majority of them has ad units that are funny enough to be shared – humorous, sarcastic or simply absurd.
It’s only natural for people to share a joke that made them laugh. Or some it’s due to the desire to share joy or other strong emotion; for others it’s out of their need to be a center of attention; for some it’s to be known for the content discovery. While motivation for sharing content is irrelevant for our conversation, the actual content is not.
Unfortunately many marketers fail in their attempt to make their ads viral. Some spend dozens of thousands of dollar on videos that are never shared on social networks and through personal social cycles. All it means, you are just not funny enough. Sorry dude.
Coming back to today’s talk, it presented an approach to understanding how to analyze and model cognitive processing of humor. We discussed ways of implementing this processing that requires a new platform, as well as AI interoperability with the humanities.
There was a lot of interesting ideas around what makes a person to perceive a statement or event funny.
Bert Koehler has been an engineering contractor and consultant in Silicon Valley for two decades. In parallel with his work with semiconductor firms in complex VLSI he has been doing AI research for decades with goal of merging AI and the humanities. Results have included progress in understanding humor, emotion, and fiction. He is writing several books on these subjects as well as a series of books on bases for engineering synthetic intelligences.
There is no way I will be able to recreate Bert’s presentation, but in a nutshell…Here are a few important components for something to be perceived as “haha” funny – if one or more present in the statement of the event, there is a high probability that for a group of people it appears humorous:
- Wit – making connections between things in a novel or empowering way. Example: puns or wordplay.
- Triumph – attempts to change power relationships in your favor. Example: overcoming bureaucrat in funny way; sarcasm, funny insults.
- Dissonance – things that are absurd relative to what the audience believes is true. Example: silly gags.
Unfortunately in order to put more meat on those points I would need to rewrite one of the books that Bert is working on. And I probably will not do it this time. :-)
There are also various theories that allow us to relate theory to hypotheses.
For example,
- Piaget’s theory can be used to make predictions about developmental differences in humor.
- The cognitive response theory of persuasion can be used to predict that humor will increase the persuasiveness of a message if the humor distracts the audience from thinking about the holes in the message’s argument.
- Schachter’s cognitive labeling theory might explain why students are often likely to laugh loudly at a remark made a few minutes before an exam is to be handed out.
- Opponent process theory might predict that people’s moods would not be improved by exposure to humor.
- Social comparison theory can explain why people might look to others to find out whether something is funny.
- Freud’s relief theory says that laughter involves a released of accumulated psychic energy.
Theories help us understand why people find certain things humorous–and help us to categorize humor. Some are in line with points that we discussed today. For example,
> Superiority theory suggests that we laugh because we feel superior to others.
> Incongruity theory suggests that we laugh when we see events as incongruous.
For those who want to learn more about psychology of humor and types of humor I will quote excerpts of a few articles that I just found on the net.
On types/styles of humor …
by By Louise Dobson in Psychology Today:
Put-Down Humor
This aggressive type of humor is used to criticize and manipulate others through teasing, sarcasm and ridicule. When it’s aimed against politicians by the likes of Ann Coulter, it’s hilarious and mostly harmless. But in the real world, it has a sharper impact. Put-down humor, such as telling friends an embarrassing story about another friend, is a socially acceptable way to deploy aggression and make others look bad so you look good.
When challenged on their teasing, the put-down joker often turns to the “just kidding” defense, allowing the aggressor to avoid responsibility even as the barb bites. Martin has found no evidence that those who rely on this type of humor are any less well-adjusted. But it does take a toll on personal relationships.
Bonding Humor
People who use bonding humor are fun to have around; they say amusing things, tell jokes, engage in witty banter and generally lighten the mood. These are the people who give humor a good name. They’re perceived as warm, down-to-earth and kind, good at reducing the tension in uncomfortable situations and able to laugh at their own faults.
Talk show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres embraces her audience by sharing good-natured, relatable humor. Her basic message: We’re alike, we find the same things funny and we’re all in this together.
Nonetheless, bonding humor can have a dark side. After all, a feeling of inclusion can be made sweeter by knowing that someone else is on the outs. J.F.K. and his brothers would often invite a hated acquaintance to vacation with them; they’d be polite to his face, but behind his back, the brothers would unite in deriding the hapless guest.
Hate-Me Humor
In this style of humor, you are the butt of the joke for the amusement of others. Often deployed by people eager to ingratiate themselves, it’s the familiar clown or “fat guy” playfulness that we loved in John Belushi and Chris Farley—both of whom suffered for their success. A small dose of it is charming, but a little goes a long way: Routinely offering yourself up to be humiliated erodes your self-respect, fostering depression and anxiety. It also can backfire by making other people feel uncomfortable, finds Nicholas Kuiper of the University of Western Ontario. He proposes that it may remind others of their own tendency toward self-criticism.
Farley, who died at age 33 from an overdose, had a streak of self-loathing. “Chris chose the immediate pleasure he got in pleasing others over the long-term cost to himself,” his brother wrote after his death. The bottom line: Excelling at this style of humor may lead to party invitations but can ultimately exact a high price.
Laughing At Life
When we admire someone who “doesn’t take himself too seriously,” this is the temperament we’re talking about. More than just a way of relating to other people, it’s a prism that colors the world in rosier shades. Someone with this outlook deploys humor to cope with challenges, taking a step back and laughing at the absurdities of everyday life. The Onion is a repository of this benign good humor. The columnist Dave Barry has perfected it with quips like this: “Fishing is boring, unless you catch an actual fish, and then it is disgusting.”
Studies that link a sense of humor to good health are probably measuring this phenomenon; when you have a wry perspective, it’s hard to remain anxious or hostile for long. It was called “self-enhancing humor,” because you don’t need other people to entertain you—if something peculiar or annoying happens, you’re perfectly capable of laughing at it on your own.
Ok, I am running out of time, but Google “psychology of humor” and I am sure, if you have more time for this research that I do now, you will find plenty of interesting materials. Please be generous and share some of ideas as responses to these articles.
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by Olga Kostrova, CEO of IdeaMama Group:
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15 quotes to improve your sales rep’s hearing abilities – for customer satisfaction and your bottom line.
19 Jan2010
When a customer decides to speak, he invests in your business. When you ignore calls of unsatisfied customers, forum posts, blogs references, social media updates with negative notes about your service, it’s as unwise as rejecting voluntary donations with no strings attached.
If a deaf musical can play music, and your sales rep can’t hear out what customer really wants, maybe you should hire a rep with no tongue so he stops shaking the air as he speaks, since it’s not even converting?
1. “I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” – Robert McCloskey
2. “A wise old owl sat on an oak. The more he saw the less he spoke; The less he spoke the more he heard; Why aren’t we like that wise old bird?” – unknown
3. “So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti (one of my favorite man’s)
4. “Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.” – unknown
5. “Everything has been said before, but since nobody listens we have to keep going back and beginning all over again.” – Andre Gide
6. “A good listener tries to understand what the other person is saying. In the end he may disagree sharply, but because he disagrees, he wants to know exactly what it is he is disagreeing with.” – Kenneth A. Wells
7. “Deep listening is miraculous for both listener and speaker. When someone receives us with open-hearted, non-judging, intensely interested listening, our spirits expand.” – Sue Patton Thoele
8. “It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.” -Oliver Wendell Holmes
9. “If you spend more time asking appropriate questions rather than giving answers or opinions, your listening skills will increase.” – Brian Koslow
10. “You seldom listen to me, and when you do you don’t hear, and when you do hear you hear wrong, and even when you hear right you change it so fast that it’s never the same.” – Marjorie Kellogg quotes
11. “Listen or thy tongue will keep thee deaf.” – Indian Proverb
12. “To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.” – Igor Stravinsky
13. “A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he gets to know something.” – Wilson Mizner
14. “No man would listen to you talk if he didn’t know it was his turn next.” – Edgar Watson
15. “Listen and be led.” – L. M. Heroux
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by Olga Kostrova, CEO of IdeaMama Group | IdeaMama Ad Network | IdeaMamaClub.com |
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So, you think you are great at branding and your marcom skills could get you a Nobel Prize.
Wonderful! Can we look at your ads now?
Majority of us have been living large portion of our lives, effected by conditioning that comes from media and social environment and swallowing messages that appeal to our ego, greed, desire for pleasure, and other cravings and additions – get more, get bigger, get richer, have fun, win at all costs.
Yeah, look at this little guy….
At some point of our lives it comes the time that this nonsense stops making sense – our brains feel stuffed; we finally start searching for the real meaning, real values, things and ideas that ARE real. And then comes realization that consumerism is a funny phenomena, which really is nothing more than avoidance of what is real. Then money, fame, gadgets, girls (or guys) – it all becomes part of the dream outside of what’s real.
And then we freeze… the world turns upside down… and it takes time to reconstruct it in our heads…
If you are in your 30+, you probably went through this process already. What is even more exciting is that younger generations of 21st century is even more conscious than their parents; appealing to their lower motives will bring marketers nowhere, really.
One morning we all wake up, and all that matters is not our faces on the cover of Vanity Fair or Fortune magazine, but to lose ourselves in the service of others. No, not to die literally; but figuratively, yes. To transcend the rigid sense of “me” and just give, spread love, share a cookie with a stranger, give hope… and contribute to a sense of peace of others.
So, marcom genius, stop showing me ads that tell how my life can be better with your product; give me the real message instead – show me how you can help me to utilize my talents to make lives of other better, easier, joyous.
If you can have this level of conversation with your customers for the next 10 years straight, then go, claim your Nobel Prize… and shove it up … you know what.
…
by Olga Kostrova, CEO of IdeaMama Group | IdeaMama Ad Network | IdeaMamaClub.com |
Connect with me on LinkedIn & Facebook | Follow me: twitter.com/IdeaMama | Skype me: IdeaMama |
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First I will give a brief overview of major ad models for those who are emerging marketing stars. If you are a marketing veteran you might want to skip the intro and jump right to ROI calculation.
Until now there have been four primary on-line advertising models widely used by online marketers:
- Pay Per Impression. CPM model.
- Pay Per Click. CPC model.
- Pay Per Lead. CPL model.
- Pay Per Action. CPA model.
In April of 2009 we introduced more lucrative for advertisers model – Pay Per Deal.
Let’s compare…
The Pay Per Impression model:
Cost per impression, often abbreviated to CPI, is a phrase often used in online advertising and marketing. It is used for measuring the value and the cost of a specific e-marketing campaign. This technique is applied with web banners, text links, and e-mail advertising. CPM (cost per thousand) is frequently used by advertisers; it relates to the cost for a thousand page impressions. For publishers the related abbreviation RPM (revenue per thousand impressions) is usually used.
The Pay Per Click model:
For online advertising, the numbers of views can be a lot more precise. When a user requests a Web page, the originating server creates a log entry. Also, a third-party tracker can be placed in the Web page to verify how many accesses that page receives. CPC is an Internet advertising model used on search engines, advertising networks, and content sites, such as blogs, in which advertisers pay their host only when their ad is clicked. Websites that use CPC ads will display an advertisement when a keyword query matches an advertiser’s keyword list, or when a content site displays relevant content.
The CPC advertising model is open to abuse through click fraud, even though some search engines try to implement various automated systems to guard against abusive clicks by competitors or corrupt Web developers.
The Pay Per Deal model:
CPM/CPC/CPL models rely on budgeted advertising dollars. CPA is the only model that reduces the risk of low conversion because it is based on performance only (sales). While this opportunity is available for consumer products, and a limited number of business products and services that are sold on-line, it is absolutely not suitable for companies that close business off-line, or those that don’t rely on Web-based shopping carts for accepting payment. These companies usually have a long sales cycle or they market highly priced products and services. An average order can vary from $10,000 up to as high as $100,000,000. If you run an IT service company, real estate development company, or a luxury yacht manufacturer, there is no way you can use currently available technologies to run on-line Pay Per Action campaigns without creating a significant infrastructure. There has been no affiliate networks that serve this market segment. Well, till we launched our solution.
In contrast to others, our PPD (pay per deal) model is supported by powerful tracking technology. It is extremely beneficial for both advertisers and publishers. For advertisers it’s a new performance marketing opportunity. For publishers it’s a new avenue of traffic monetization. The PPD model minimizes the efforts of your marketing and sales staff. CPM is a hard sell, while CPD is a dream comes true — who doesn’t prefer to pay a finder’s fee for booked business, instead of paying for advertising that may or may not be effective?
Affiliate marketing derives its influence from the ease with which user activity may be observed and tracked across multiple websites and other media by leveraging the co-operation of a merchant and a network of affiliates who advertise or promote the merchant’s offers.
While books, airline tickets, and other commodities may be sold this way, many products and services require a more consultative approach. Here the majority (or totality) of the sales process may occur offline. Unfortunately for the referral partners who initiate sales, there’s no easy way to gain visibility into this process once it is in the hands of the merchant.
We address this problem by integrating the traditional tracking methods used by affiliate marketing with a system of tracking sales information as a customer moves through the sales pipeline. All information about the sale, such as the probability of closing, what part of the sales pipeline the customer is in, and other information is now available for reporting to affiliates.
Affiliates may now see a report from the merchant or ad/referral network that shows how many customers are at each stage of the sales process, how many customers (and their deal value) are at what probability of closing, the estimated time frame to close, and other detailed reports, in addition to the common reports about what campaigns are producing the best results. Without such visibility, affiliates lack the motivation to promote offers that have a longer sales cycle or those that are not easily tracked and verified.
The visibility into the sales pipeline is delivered to affiliates, allowing them to understand the potency of their promotion efforts and the likely gains they will experience. Naturally, they may view this information either online or through offline reports. In addition, the commissions that affiliates receive are clearly documented.
By applying the PPD (pay per deal) model, now publishers and affiliates can tap into a portion of the advertiser’s profits. It can become a lucrative opportunity for any potential affiliate who has a website – from a blogger to a publishing powerhouse or even traditional off-line media.
Calculating marketing ROI:
So, how do we determine which model guarantees us higher MROI?
Return on investment (ROI) is a measure of the profit earned from the investment:
(Profit – Investment)
_________________
Investment
CPM model now became an archaic marketing method, a slowly dying advertising dinosaur.
CPC is still widely used, as some marketers just don’t know better.
Well, let’s educate ourselves a bit and learn about advantages of Pay Per Deal ad model….
Let’s compare your marketing ROI for PPC and PPD campaigns.
Example.
Scenario 1. Pay Per Click marketing.
Let’s assume that
- your monthly marketing budget for PPC ads is only $5,000/month; which means your annual budget is $60,000.
- your average order per client is $50,000
- your average CPC is $5
- your click-to lead conversion is 0.05% (common number for many B2B companies)
- your lead to sale conversion is 10%.
>> Your ROI for your Pay Per Click campaigns in this case = 3 and
>> Your annual revenue from CPC is only $300,000.
Does it make you and your CEO overexcited? Doesn’t make me hot either…
Scenario 2. Pay Per Deal marketing.
Now let’s assume you hire IdeaMama Ad Network (because we are the only provider of Pay Per Deal affiliate campaigns). You pay us $1995 setup fee, so we provide you with a lead management software and a proprietary lead and affiliate tracking system; we attract an army of affiliates to your campaign and build much larger lead pipeline than one you could otherwise afford with your budget. Our network and affiliates will be paid commission from each sale your sales reps will make with leads we generated for you.
Now our stats for Pay Per Deal ad campaign can look like this:
- your annual marketing budget for PPD ads is only $1,995 plus 10% on each deal closed
- your average order per client is $50,000
- your lead to sale conversion is 10%.
- Instead of only 60 leads per year that you can afford with CPC, we have generated for you at least 600 leads (let’s be extremely conservative here), and all at our own cost.
>> Your ROI for your Pay Per Deal campaigns in this case = 7.9 and
>> Your annual revenue from PPD is $3,000,000.
See the difference?
How do we generate leads for you?
We employ optimized combination of various marketing methods:
- Online marketing PPS, PPL (banner ads, text links, contextual links, off-page SEO, articles, blogs, forums)
- Email marketing
- PR
- Trade show and other event marketing
- Radio and TV ads
- Social media marketing
- And other methods suitable for each particular business.
If we promote your campaign even more aggressively than in the scenario described above (will design more landing pages, do more campaigns optimization, introduce more affiliate incentives, offer higher payout, then amount of leads will grow significantly.
If we generate 500 sales leads a month for you (6000 leads/year), then
>> Your ROI for your Pay Per Deal campaigns in this case = 8 and
>> Your annual revenue from PPD is $30,000,000.
Do you see the difference yet?
Now do yourself a favor, give your CEO, CMO or the Board at least one good reason why you should not be fired if you are still not using Pay Per Deal affiliate marketing model with PPD affiliate networks, and instead waste marketing dollars on CPM and CPC models that return unimpressive sales results with low MROI?
It’s time to revise your marketing plan, marketing stars!
We are coming into 2010 and old thinking has to be upgraded to marketing vision 3.0.
It’s about time for a New Year corporate resolution. We will help.
…
by Olga Kostrova, CEO of IdeaMama Group | IdeaMama Ad Network | IdeaMamaClub.com |
Connect with me on LinkedIn & Facebook | Follow me: twitter.com/IdeaMama | Skype me: IdeaMama |
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So, as years go by you feel that your salary is not growing that much any longer, but amount of responsibilities and stress grows exponentially. Inspirations and passions are gone, same old job brings stable 150-250K a year ,and all you see in your future is many more years like that, slaving for other people, underappreciated, saving $50-100K a year for retirement.
Yes, it will take you 10-20 more years of uninspired, passion deprived life to save $1Mln. If you retire at 50 and live till 80, you will have to live of $33K/year – that’s all you $1Mln is good for, well, unless you wil 401K was taken cared of.
The picture sucks, doesn’t it?
Well, now as you tried the taste of shit, why don’t you get out of it?
We all know that the only way for wealth is building a company and selling it (or IPO it, which these days not as sexy option). If you have tried it and failed, or if no brilliant ideas come to your mind to start up anything, or you just don’t feel like born leader, the obvious choice is to find a company to join as a cofounder, help to grow it and take a piece of action when it’s acquired.
To play right, you have to do your math before making such move.
If a startup you are joining already raised VC funds, your piece of pie will be pretty small. If a company is self funded, have some assets and generated demand, your position in such company will be much better.
So, if you have always worked for salaries and few shares here and there in stock options as employee number one hundred something, and salary is all you know here is your alternative action plan.
- Go to a founder or CEO, sell them on your vision on how you can grow their company,
- join this company in sales or marketing executive role, negotiate $100K-$200K salary plus 1-5% and
- build it up to sell for $100,000,000+.
Let’s look at a specific scenarios…
Let’s say, you have found a cool company and negotiated 5% of equity (that’s probably what we would offer to a VP of Business development that we are currently looking to join us as a co-founder. If you know any superstar that fits the bill, please let him/her reach me at olga @ IdeaMamaAdNetwork.com).
Don’t be greedy on cash. Take $100K and make sure that the company has enough working capital. If a company doesn’t have cash available for salaries, structure your compensation for first year or so as a loan to the company, and have it paid to you when the profitability and cash flow situation improves.
Let’s assume, the company is self-funded.
Using your genius, you take to the level when it has some decent tractions and now needs expansion capital to avoid slow organic growth or slow organic death.
If the company goes for external funding and raised capital form VCs, your stock will be diluted. You now might own 0.5%, but don’t turn your face to mashed potato just yet.
If the company gets sold in 3 years here are few financial outcomes that can appear in your bank account.
Scenario 1. Company A never needed to attract external financing, grew slowly but surely into a good looking small business while remaining self-funded and carrying some debt financing if needed. You own 5% in it. The company was sold with acquisition price:
a) only $10 million (depending on the company’s assets and industry’s multiples, you most probably only need to generate $1-3 MLN in revenue to sell at this price. If you can’t do that much, why don’t you consider a janitor career?)
b) $30 million
c) $50 million
Scenario 2. Company A raised venture funding and scaled fast. You own 0.5% of equity in a midsize company. The company was sold with acquisition price:
a) $100 million
b) $300 million
c) $500 million
d) $800 million
Now imagine you do the same 3 time during next 10 years (instead of slaving for a daddy) picking the companies that had the same growth and exit strategy (just to keep the calculation simple).
Taking into consideration your salary and exercised stock over 5 years in each company, you have accumulated wealth (not considering taxes) as following.
YOUR INCOME OVER 10 YEARS:
- Scenario 1a/2a: $100,000*10 [salary] + $500,000*3 [your stock price] = $4 MLN
- Scenario 1b/2b: $100,000*10 [salary] + $1,500,000*3 [your stock price] = $5,5 MLN
- Scenario 1c/2c: $100,000*10 [salary] + $2,500,000*3 [your stock price] = $8,5 MLN
- Scenario 2d: $100,000*10 [salary] + $4,000,000*3 [your stock price] = $13 MLN
Now if you are in your 30th you have 20+ years to play startup game. In this case double all numbers ands retire with $20+ million cash in your pocket and you better have a very big pocket). 
So, that’s your roadmap for riches.
The recipe is simple - just find a cool innovative company with great assets and a visionary founder, and help to take it to the next level. If you can’t make it, then what you current employer pays you anyways? In the current economy your CEO just might decide to save a company from paying you a salary that you might not justify. Then what will you do?
Think now, and think big!
And as you get filthy wealthy, don’t forget to buy me a cup of vodka (yeah, those Russians!)
Good luck!
…
by Olga Kostrova, CEO of IdeaMama Group | IdeaMama Ad Network | IdeaMamaClub.com |
Connect with me on LinkedIn & Facebook | Follow me: twitter.com/IdeaMama | Skype me: IdeaMama |
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Film industry these days doesn’t spoil talents with opportunities, does it? Therefore the best everyone can do is to create opportunities utilizing your existing resources, knowledge and creativity.
Among resources there might be your equipment (hey, even IPhone could do), connections or earlier produced unused footage.
The challenges for many filmmakers who see viral marketing as a great avenue to express their creativity and do what they love and what they are good at, are following:
- It takes sales skills to find advertisers that are willing to spend money on viral videos
- It takes even more skills and time to convince that you are their best choice as there are thousands of other filmmakers in your city know at advertisers doors.
Much easier solution is to engage in affiliate marketing and work with a network that provides you with advertisers and campaigns to market. The only challenge is, they will never “show you the money”. You will not be able to estimate your return on investment if there will be any.
The only way to go about affiliate marketing is to forget any CPM (cost per impression), CPC (cost per click) or any other models that might bring you few bucks here and there. Your efforts might be never justified. Instead go where the big fish is. The only place for it as a Pay Per Deal advertising network with extremely high payout to its affiliates, since the product that they sell have very high price and therefore high commissions.
So here is your action plan.
- You signup as an affiliate with Pay Per Deal advertising model that provides you with advertisers that are looking to market their highly priced business-to-business or business to consumers offers. It’s obviously free to signup.
- The network will run by you campaigns that pay from $1,000 to $10,000 (some time higher) in affiliate commissions. You are paid per each deal closed by advertisers.
- Our network will provide you with login information to your Predictive Reporting System™, so you always know what happens with sales leads that your ads will generate.
- You put on your creative hat and start working on ideas for fun videos to be distributed on Youtube and other social networking sites, as well as via email.
- Advertisers’ sales teams will contact newly generated sales leads to close deals.
- You collect your commission and live happily ever after.
Here is some math for you.
Let’s assume:
- You produce 5 viral videos a month – 30-180sec ads. Total videos: 60.
- 5 of your videos in total generate 100,000 views per month (20,000 impressions each), and the other videos will fail. Hey, maybe each of your videos will generate millions views, but let’s average our expectations. You definitely should push your videos through all channels you can – friends of friends and beyond.
- Advertisers, as a result of video marketing, will receive 100 leads (0.1% conversion from view to lead) per month. A lead is generated from a link embedded in a video description that leads to advertisers’ web site, where a sales lead is captured via contact form.
- Advertisers close 40% of their sales leads which results in 120 deals a year.
- Your compensation is 120 deals * $10,000 commission = $1,200,000 a year.
If you partner with other filmmakers you can produce higher volume by leveraging rexsources, as well as better quality ads.
The key is in tracking all leads that clients receive as a result of your creative efforts, and we have taken care of this. Check out how it’s done.
So, what can you produce quickly and at no cost that can go viral?
You can find plenty of hilarious viral ads that you can’t help but will share with your friends. I wanted to post some of the best ones, but due to time restrains I have to settle for making a quick selection on Youtube and sharing a few of those that you can produce with a very little or almost no budget, by engaging friends and their resources of any kind.
You will say, I need to invest money in making my video viral. Well, it will all depend on the video.
Look at this one. It’s not an ad, but nobody expected it to become a hit either. 35 mln views – insane!
And here are some ads. Nothing complicated, just a great idea that makes one smile.
I am not known for being politically correct, so if my selection burns your eyes, go wash them and never come back. Otherwise keep watching and dream of better future then sitting in front of your computer, looking for a job.
… and this one doesn’t even have an original script – it’s based on a very old anecdote, which gives you another idea if a sense of humor is not one of your gifts.
And of course this one…
So, as you see there is always the way. Just stop doing the “same old” expecting different results. Find ways to express yourself, share your talents with those who can appreciate it, millions of people… Don’t wait things to come to you, go get’em, tiger!
If this article was useful, you might also be interested in these articles:
Voice-over artists call. Work for yourself marketing CPD affiliate campaigns on Youtube. Alternative ways to monetize your talent without relying on voice agents and inconsistent work flow. Free yourself from a need to search for voice over jobs ever again
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by Olga Kostrova, CEO of IdeaMama Group:
Connect with me on LinkedIn & Facebook
Follow me: twitter.com/IdeaMama
Skype me: IdeaMama
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