CrowdVine - Meet Smarter

Earlier this year, I accepted an advisory and research position with CrowdVine.  CrowdVine is in the “white label” social networking business.  The company helps people in groups, associations, and attending events to meet smarter through their software solutions and associated services.  You can learn more about the current product features here:  http://www.crowdvine.com/home/features

I can’t believe my good fortune! It is an honor to work with and learn from CrowdVine’s visionary product team and their dedicated customers.  The company is viable and boot strapped.   My role is to help the CrowdVine community “cross the chasm” in pursuit of a sustainable social networking platform.

My thoughts on social networking, product management and community management will likely be organized on CrowdVine’s blog in the future and cross referenced here when appropriate.

Welcome to your Network!

The invention of Brand equity was loosely defined in the 90s as intangible value that companies and products held in the mind of a prototypical“consumer”.  Brand equity was driven by a comprehensive brand strategy or brand identity.   Brand marketing enthusiasts featured the difference between a company’s asset book value and its stock price as one representation of brand equity.  They also pointed to price premiums commanded by market leaders as another representation of brand equity.  The priority for brand development during this time was placed on developing a brand identity through differentiation messaging first, and form (billboards, magazines, sponsorships, etc.) second.

Brand equity proved as difficult to measure as it was to define.  The introduction of the internet and e-commerce within the consumer value change has further complicated the process of creating a “brand”identity and driving brand equity.

I believe the last 10 years has seen a priority shift in marketing efforts from“brand identity content” to “brand identity context”.   In today’s “branding” arms race, how a a company messages is perhaps more important than what a company messages.

Engaging customers through Twitter, blogs, forums, chat rooms, instant messaging, physical to virtual product promotions, Second Life, user affiliate communities, rating systems like yelp, mobile applications, Youtube, technology partners/vendor promotions,  etc. all inform the connected customer about your company, your products, and how you relate to your customer.

In the early days of internet marketing, the following maxim held true: If you can’t search for it, it doesn’t exist.   While this is still true in today’s marketing world, it is highly likely that if you maintain a top competitor position within a mass market niche, your name WILL come back in a search result.  It also highly likley that you name WILL come back via a communication context you have not leveraged, containing content you did not create!

Companies need to choose how they engage their customers and stakeholders through internet carefully.  A company’s messaging and listening capabilities informs the world about its brand just as much as its logos and other marketing materials.  Marketing leaders are recognizing this shift.  They recognize the internet IS NOT a “paved cow path” replacing magazine and billboard placements.  They recognize the need to proceed with caution when engaging customers on the internet because the internet is an interactive medium and captures a reference-able digital product history forever.   Building a marketing presence on the internet is no longer about placing an ad, but rather, building a relationship.

Leveraging partner ecosystems is not new.  Social Media has not reinvented the space.   Regardless of how you are experimenting with social media and partnering to drive customer value, I would recommend to not stray too far from basics.  Here are 3 rules I recommend:

1. Never embarrass your partners in front of their customers
2. Maintain a [highly] visible profile in your Partner’s income statement
3. My Golden Rule:  Whether selling directly or through the channel, never let others define the value of your product.  Define a market disruptive “promise”, and then continually exceed expectations.

Why is it that my social media platform smells like my old high school gym locker room?

Answer:  56% of US users aged between 13-21 have created “content” online.

Oh!  That explains it.  Funny Facebook video below:

Idiots of Ants Facebook Video

The last day of conference treated attendees to some really good KeyNote speakers.   Here are the big ideas I that made an impression on my notebook:

• Cool new concept:  “The Adopter Class”  These people live on the bleeding edge.  Pros:  They love the new and the next and will willingly sign up for any new web 2.0 service.   Cons:  They love the new and the next and will willingly sign up for any new web 2.0 service, but will be eternally disloyal!!!   “Tech Cool” changes faster than hem lines, but for these people, that okay, they weren’t actually relying on your service as a viable or valuable part of their lives (except to say they were on it before everyone else) in the first place.   New companies need to figure out ways to segregate this user base and deal with them for what they are.  You can’t plan a business around a user population that wasn’t intending to solve a technical problem, but rather takes joy in the “singing up” process itself!  

• The main highlight for me today was watching Marc Andresson speak.  Marc writes one of my favorite blogs and on this day shared many insights into the founding of Netscape and great prospective on the impending Web2.0  “nuclear winter”:  

1. When designing the original netscape communicator, the team is surprised at how many internet browsing “paradigms” have stuck and been adopted over 10 years later, including:  backward/forward buttons; Javascript; amongst other.
2. Convergence is a natural progression of the computing.  Its not a a conspiracy, but rather, meme competition.   Paradigms shift.  Ideas get present.  Something sticks and the industry moves on.
3. Marc had plenty of great things to say about Microsoft despite being baited to attach by the interviewer.  He challenged the interviewer and audience to Imagine what this world would be without the Bill Gates driven personal computing revolution?  He then answered by stating, “The industry was not going the direction it went after Bill got involved.  For better and for worse, Bill’s push toward standardization and uniformity in the PC space is what seeded the opportunity for a rich internet by delivering rich users. “

• I will not comment Jonathan Swartz’s speech but only to say that  its apparent that he needs to find his Ed Zander and find him fast, lest the sunset continue.  Sun should be doing better than continuing to be the punch-line dot in .bomb.  
• Data Portability continued to be a topic discussed frequently though out the keynotes.  It inspired the following question in my notebook:  What is the middle-ware of me?  I believe there will be a GRAND opportunity to invent in the “middleware of me” space.  A tool that organizes, combines, and re-articulates the many messages (data bits), mediums (contexts), and messengers (relationships)  I develop across social media platforms could be extremely valuable.  I am not talking about a simple life-stream aggregator, but application more rich than that.  Facebook is trying to do that, but that’s about as safe as having your entire computing experience be delivered by MIcrosoft.  I need a personal Brio or Microstrategy to combine and re-articulate my “social media” data.   Is it open social, android, or even Firefox itself?   

Quote from Business Week:

Personalization works, and several companies are working on ways to make it work better. Microsoft recently filed a patent application that would use offline data such as credit-card transactions, estimated physical location (from cell-phone towers), and TV viewing habits to serve you a customized ad the next time you go online. The fact that you bought cleats for your kids this morning, went to a high school football game in the afternoon, and turned on ESPN when you got home would conceivably trigger a personalized sports ad on your cell phone.

1. Is my cloud computing strategy full of hot air? Bubble talk abounded at the conference, but I was amazed when I walked the expo floor.  There were many “infrastructure” service providers offering computing scaling services, build in IT Ops services, On demand storage and CPUs, Ad networks for hire, etc  which got me to thinking:  Can this even be real?   “Computing as a service” isn’t easy.  For every “on demand” provider, there were probably .5 providers offering services to monitoring these venders’ service performance and uptime.   This is a space that definitely carries a “buyer beware” flag and may be the first to get impacted by any Web2.0 bubble pop.  These providers represent significant capital outlays in terms of infrastructure and people (or a least they should if they are any good).
2. Facebook vs. Wordpress – Like comparing a MTV teen show to a cellur network!  One the speakers mentioned that the difference between the recent Facebook valuation as compared to WordPress is argument in favor of social media platform consolidation! (It may have been Tim O’Riely).   What!   Bias disclosure:  this blog is written with wordpress. I completely disagree with this comment.   Wordpress is a true “social” platform that is open, easy to use, extend-able, and built to last in the future because of its commitment to supporting and integrating evolving technical standards for social media.  It has true ” hig personalization fidelity”, as in the user really has the flexibility to change anything and everything about their digital “broadcast.”   Facebook on the other hand is a VHI pop video channel version of classmates.com.  The company treats its plebes, I mean, members, as “ad units” and it shows.   Windows dominated the PC market because of the relative value contained within its application ecosystem, value add partner base, and extendability.   Apple only became SOMEWHAT relevant recently when they decided to borrow the opensource value ecosystem of Linux and OpenBSD. My money might not be on Wordpress to evolve into the only Social Media “operating system” of choice, but it is certainly against Facebook taking this title.  I am almost embarrassed to say I even started a facebook account last fall. As data portability and other “broadcast” technologies become more standardized, people will choose their social media platform based on personalization and overall extendability  motives as opposed to the “critical mass and lock in” reasons that dominate the market today.  Skeptical?  Want Proof?  Then go try Twitter (also integrated in my current wordpress set up).   While “Fascism” may be good for business, in a social context, its boring.  If Warren Buffet actually bet on technology, I think he would bet on Wordpress now and into the future.  This is not to suggest that Wordpress does not have strategic holes to fill, but systems that are open, standardized, and get out of the way from their community’s creativity tend to win over time (just look at the Internet, right?).
3. Ambient computing is the future!  Web 3.0 will not exist because a new term will be coined for describing the inclusion of our digital heartbeat (representing physical space, time, and social context) into our connected lives!!!!   Welcome to the Interweb!  – I didn’t really hear this at the conference, but it is an idea that I have captivated with for some time.   It was started by Time’s person of the year article.  When given a choice, people, or at least Americans, tend to be very lazy.   Social Media is now work to many of us and its tangible ROE (return of effort) is unclear to many participants.   A digital connected pulse view of the world combines both the passive (lazy) and voyeuristic instincts of man.  It would be a future that represents the most natural progression from our current state (Assuming a Malthusian conspiracy is not unleashed to keep the masses in check).

Yesterday I had the opportunity to have many great conversations about Web 2.0 tools, techniques, and business strategies. Here are a few points that stand out to me:

1. I need business cards! I need a reference flier that describes my services. Old media / traditional networking is still modus operandi for the business professionals I met with. They weren’t interested in my handout that had my social networking information on it AND they told me so!

2. Social Media is now synonymous with WORK! Social network fatigue was discussed often. People are really not interested in another service or rating system. In the evolving expectations of customers, people want their tools to bring more value to them than is required for them to maintain in their profile.

3. Most people I spoke with are more interested in building on existing social networks and adding to communities than inventing new communities. I believe this is short sighted. Facebook, MySpace, Orkut, and High 5 will not be the significant social platforms that stick over time! Remember when there were 15 search engines, and then 3 major ones, and people thought the space was dead? Then remember how Google made the space relevant through magic and marketing? My bet is the same thing is going to happen in the social networking space. Those companies that figure out how to “embed” social networking in background functions are ultimately going to win. Maybe its Tumblr, or better yet, why not Firefox / Flex / Flack and the like?   This horse race has just begun in this space. People want portable data.   If you are going to target a platform, I believe the smart money is figuring out a way to bolt on to the emerging social media middle utilities – Twitter or Flickr or Unnamed company X – or become that middle ware yourself. Customers will demand to eventually demand to “not enter data all”. They will just want it to be collected in the background, access as it suits them, and MOVE it anywhere they choose.

4. Monetization angles were very very very weak across the board. The motivation behind many of the services I spoke with (aside from the source technology suppliers) was crowd entertainment. The mantra was “build a crowd” and figure out ads later. Just because all boats rise with the rising tide (ad money shifting from old to new media) does not mean they are fit for an ocean voyage. A micro bubble is going to pop with these “pop-entertainment” companies. If you take a fashion designer prospective with the products you build, I guess you deserve to be cast aside in the following fashion season.

One of the best facilitation tools in my toolbox relates to the anti-brainstorming. Here’s how it works:

1. Get your group to focus on what your product / process / thing would look like if it were completely broken.
2. Do this exercise out loud and be stunned at the high energy of the participants.
3. Control the energy by time bounding the exercise. Real the group back in by translating the “broken statements” into their inverse statements.

I want to the thank the company Rockwell for allowing me and my future groups to skip this tool for all future sales, communication, training video brainstroms. From now on, I will just show the following video ! I can’t tell if this is a sales video or “dirty talk” for electricians!

Rockwell Retro Encabulator

While I am thinking “outside the box” on my current job search, I am also a closet compulsive when it comes to playing around with anything web 2.0. In as much as the web 2.0 things I check out also support my job searching activities, then I will highlight them in this blog. The following is a quick pro / con evaluation of a new job searching tool called Job Fox:

Overall Impression: Neutral. I will wait to see if this site actually facilitates meaningful employer/employee interaction or just the same spam threads of Yahoo Jobs, Monster, and Dice.

Pros

• This website has a seemingly sophisticated skills assessment mapped to your candidate profile. The process of filling out the skills assessment may seem daunting for someone who does not have 1/2 hour to devote to the activity, but it does build some confidence in the candidate that they are in for a more meaningful “job search”. The interactivity (skills suggestion) experience of their skills list was impressive and the overall performance of the website was acceptable.
• Interesting job ranking algorithm that describes how employer job posting match your skills profile. The fact that I saw / found job postings that were beyond my former professional job functions and industries was impressive. This “job fit” information has the potential to be presented in graphical way (maybe a heat map) for greater end user satisfaction.

Cons

• Could be my specific computer set up, but the website seems to be having some trouble rendering on my Firefox, Mac OS X combo.
• The resume upload and skill assessment section was a bit long. It got the point that I was rushing to fill out the questionnaire just to skip the activity.
• Seems like the service is again following a traditional model of gaining as many candidates for employers as possible based on their skills gimmick – - in place of building / facilitating deeper connections. [Side Note: This is one reason why I believe LinkedIn could be the killer application in the job/recruiting space. JobFox should be an affiliate / partner with LinkedIn if they are interested in competing in this space in a true Web 2.0 way. The next pinnacle for Online Job Search tools is to move beyond being simple "filters of people" and towards "connectors between people".]
• I like the idea of a “trackable resume”, but it isn’t clear how else I can integrate and promote my JobFox profile within their “system” or in the many other tools in my digital life (blogs, IM, Skype, Email, etc). They need to work on creating a job ecosystem that better maps to the API of my life and job searching needs .