Speaking of New Comm Forum & WOMMA-U
April 14th, 2008
Who’s up for some traveling? How does Sonoma, CA April 22-25 and Miami, FL May 8-9 sound? I’ve got some pretty challenging speaking and facilitating sessions at these two upcoming events.
At the New Comm Forum 2008 I’m speaking in the second track: New Communications Strategies for Marketing & Advertising. My track title is “Digging in and Building Sustainable Word of Mouth Movements: Tools and Techniques.”
I’ll be talking about sustainability, creating a movement instead of a campaign. The Do’s and don’ts of engaging customers, co-creating communities, giving up control… all within one hour. Sounds scary but, I would really like to hear from some of you that plan to attend. Is there anything else about my speaking subject you would like to dig deeper into? Let me have it.
Next up, WOMMA-U it should be educational, fun and who doesn’t like to take a stroll down South Beach. I don’t know what it is about track two but that’s where you will find me at WOMMA-U. I’m excited and very lucky to have been chosen as part of the first ever WOMMA-U faculty. I will be facilitating “Building a Sustained Word of Mouth Program.”
My role will be different at WOMMA-U, I’m not presenting I’m there to facilitate a dialogue and to get my attendees to exchange and bounce ideas off the wall. If you plan on coming “bring it.” Bring your thoughts, your stories, your successes, your failures. I’ll bring mine. Again please feel free to share how I can make these two events a valuable experience for you. Post suggestions or send me an email.
Cheers.
Other posts by Geno.
They call me the Seeker says:
Geno, I can’t attend, but here’s what’s been on my mind since the FIRE sessions: You know we have to give up control. Some of “us” know we have to give up control. Is there a way “we” can “practice” giving up control, to illustrate that it works. In other words, is there a way to dip a toe in?
How do we illustrate to hold-outs that, yes, we can trust the customer to choose us? Does it boil down to a corporate-self-esteem issue, if that’s all that’s holding a company back?
Why does it feel like such a big chasm to cross, giving up control?
April 15th, 2008 at 6:13 amGeno says:
They call me the Seeker (I love that song),
I’ve been getting that question alot lately. Dipping a toe in the water. That question is usually tied to cost and proving to someone usually up the chain that “see this WOM thing can work and not hurt.”
My first thought is that toe dipping is dangerous, but it needs a deeper response. So I’ll try to give a simple example.
Take brand X, we find with a little web research that they have 3000 plus photos tagged by contributors on flickr, their mentioned in 657 blog posts, and there’s blogging influencers in their category.
What can brand X learn from this? Especially by authentically asking for a conversation with some or all of these visual and verbal conversations contributors. My point is I think it is worthless to dip your toe by doing a WOM tactic here. Here we are listen to us could result in “toe stub.”
If your a WOM kindred spirit for brand X, you need to dip your toe to learn something from your customers. Listen and play it back.
Anyways, I’ll think more about this, great question.
April 15th, 2008 at 6:51 amThey call me the Seeker says:
Suppose a company was ready to listen… they do the research, find out what’s being said, multiply it by 92%, and find out it’s not all that bad…
What you’re saying is that, just like active listening, we need to repeat those messages back to those doing the talking. Is that right?
Spend some time talking about what’s being said, before jumping right on to the solution? Heck, I can see where just listening might produce better solutions than a bunch of people sitting in a conference room!
Geno, you’re truly a master. And I mean that in the most humble sense. You’ve gone out there enough times and brought your humility with you, laid it out there, and shown us all that it *does* work.
What’s holding all of “us” back??
April 15th, 2008 at 7:27 amGeno says:
Well, thanks for the kind words. I cut my teeth out of college working for real craftsmen of advertising. It’s funny we’ve gone from agonizing over letter spacing to open letters (blogs).
Breaking with traditions and comfort is very hard. Brand X is divided up by many departments each with a budget and a good dose of “CYA.” As practicing WOMMers we have to do a better job of changing the metrics to show what is really going on here.
Every brand has it’s own fear set. Because of our flat world we do business in, we cannot ignore the voices, or the music that our customers are making. So why not listen, let them know your listening. And enjoy it for a while before we bring the china shop with the bull.
April 15th, 2008 at 8:08 am