Archives for March 2011

The Fallacy of Verticals

March 28, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

One of the biggest concepts in entrepreneurial business I keep coming across lately is the idea of the Vertical.

The idea is that you, and your competitors who are by and large the same as you are – occupy a virtual ladder. Your placement is decided by a number of factors, such as clientelle, pricing, staff, and so on. The idea of a vertical is used very commonly when creating idyllic strategies; in essence, people plan to move up the vertical, and make sure they’re not giving oxygen to those below them.

The trouble is that verticals are almost entirely useless.

Hold on now, hear me out.

Let’s say you’re responding to an RFP (request for proposal) – and you figure you know the competition. There’s your firm, three others providing exactly the same services, and a handful of associated industries. Let’s be specific and say you’re a contractor – you build things – and that’s what the RFP is for. Someone wants something built. It’s right inside your wheelhouse. You know the materials, you know the needs of the occupants – you understand everything about this project.

You lose the RFP. To an architect. What?

An architect, you say? Someone who designs things. Not in your vertical. You thought you had this thing nailed down – and failed to realize the fatal problem of business proposals.

Verticals deny differentiation, and encourage scale over all else.

Take this differently. Imagine you’re in a store. You’re looking at buying a television, and you’ve got a few choices; a 32′ Sony, a 42′ Sony, a 56′ Sony and a 42′ LG. What do you pick? Where do you see the outlier? Comparing the three Sony units is like looking at verticals – the 32′ may just be too small, the 56 too big. Matching the 42″ Sony (your contracting firm) against the 42″ LG (the architect) allows for a direct comparison of features, appearance, and a vision of what’s actually needed.

It’s all well and good if you’re better than the other things in your vertical – but what if your prospects are sold something else entirely? A different vision to address their needs?

In our example, there’s nothing wrong with bringing in an architect – they’ll build the plan, create the vision, and find contractors to serve the need. You, as a contractor, were perhaps too utilitarian. Perhaps your understanding was not communicated. Who knows?

Either way – it’s easier to choose to buy something entirely different, than it is to choose between two identical items competing on price or volume alone.

Differentiate. Verticals are ladders, and ladders fall over some times.

Notes From #tweetdiner – Social Media Fatigue

March 26, 2011 by Ian 4 Comments

Tonight, Nic Wirtz and I cohosted #tweetdiner (it was my second run at this – last time, @MyAgenda and I took the reins) – thanks to Earth Hour crossing the continent just as we began, it was a small, tightly-knit crowd in the chat. Made for a lot of depth which, ironically, was a bonus to the subject.

As with any twitter chat, I’ve missed things – that’s what the transcript is for (read it all, no tl;dr allowed)

The questions were fairly simple;

What are the signs that you’re suffering from social media fatigue?

Some diversity in answers here; I mentioned an increase in effort, Nic feels he gets crabby when he’s fatigued with something.

Also, finding that the time it takes to realize that arguments you’re making are pointless, or finding that more often what you say is not advancing the conversation can be a clear sign of fatigue. When we have high energy, natural optimism often helps us continue to persevere in difficult discussions.

@MyAgenda – “For me is knowing that I’m spreading myself thin and not being productive up to my standards (is a sign of fatigue)”

What steps can we take to overcome or avoid social media fatigue?

Some suggestions include;

Take regular breaks, and schedule time for yourself.
Set goals – have a purpose behind your work.
Vary your activities. Spending all your time on one platform is tiring.
Set expectations, and let people know when you’re not available.

From a comment by Daniel Hewitt came: Taking a break can work in the short-term but what if that is not enough?

Daniel mentioned he goes into “Airplane Mode” – a reference to turning off his connections. Occasionally this does mean missing some things – big events, scheduled things. However, the corollary for this is that perceived consistency (in broadcast) is often just as good as real consistency.

For example; one could schedule a number of blog posts, tweets, and other push messages for the sake of taking a few hours – or even a few days – away from the keyboard.

Do you have a long-term plan for your social media usage?

SMSJoe – What’s long term in socmed, 6 months?

Joe’s point is that so many goals set in social media are blinds. They appear to be long-term, but can’t be sustained; they’re “build a house” tasks, not “run a household” jobs. So how do we set goals? Joe mentioned that some metrics-based goals are useful for building upon, but relying exclusively on statistical goals is weakening.

Personal note; having been working with online communities for twelve years, this is the first year I set myself any goals as far as actual involvement and activities go. Oddly, having the goals (even if some of them have already proved wrong) has led to less struggling and grasping for ideas.

final note; watching the numbers is a zombifying experience, and an incredibly easy trap to fall into regarding goal setting.

What one thing would improve your social media experience?

This one got crickets. I think it’s hard for people to nail down “that one thing” with social media. which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Quick-fire round!

We ran out of time, so I tossed these out at the end – if you have any comments about the last two questions, please leave them here.

Do you find it’s difficult to promote yourself consistently, rather than just puttering?

(and)

Which app do you find you spend the most time on? Is it a web version of a platform, or a mgmt app?

Blog-only Bonus Round!

For those reading here: How often do you take what you’ve learned in chats and create an action plan because of them?

Co-Hosting #tweetdiner – Social Media Fatigue

March 26, 2011 by Ian 1 Comment

Tonight on #tweetdiner, Nic Wirtz and I will be helping the crew tackle the idea of social media fatigue.

This is at once an old topic (Liz Strauss talked about social media fatigue in 2009) and a renewing concern (the tipping point I saw recently was Amber Naslund writing about social media fatigue here).

It’s hard not to feel exhaustion sometimes – always being on stage, always working the crowd. Always facing concern and disregard from the people who need your help most (if you’re a consultant or marketer as I am)… It’s stressing.

Or, for those not acclimated to the social media sphere, facing their own fatigue in the face of the unknown. Building habits that aren’t taxing, working the social muscles until they build memory and the effort needed drops – it’s a lot of work, and needs a lot of input! So how do we avoid it?

Better yet, should we avoid it?

Fatigue is a sign that growth is happening in some cases. Should we put it off, it’s like dropping from run to walk just as the hurt starts – the hurt is a sign of growth.

So, join Nic and I – along with (of course) Margie Clayman, Stanford Smith and the rest of the crew, at 8pm central time tonight – let’s talk it through.

UPDATE: The chat’s gone down, Notes From #tweetdiner – Social Media Fatigue are live!

Image by o5com.

What Kind of Fame Are You After?

March 24, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

You live in public. You want to grow your business. You want to grow your audience. You want to be famous.

You want to be famous? Are you sure? Fame’s a delicate ideal these days – from the calm celebrity of the British Royals to the tiger-blood winning madness of Charlie Sheen, there’s controversy peaking around every corner. Steve Jobs can’t have a cough without reporters diving on him. Politicians are perceived as untrustworthy at an alarming ratio.

This is even true for knowledge workers and those of us who work with communities and audiences.

The trick of it is, that most people don’t discriminate in their speech, or their thought, between the different reasons they may have accrued some intrinsic recognition of a person or a product. Some examples? How about the differences between notoriety, acclaim, and renown to start with?

Notoriety – “the state of being known for some unfavorable act or quality”

Usually reserved for celebrities, and usually for bad behavior, notoriety is what people are often actually thinking about when they conceive of fame. In the case of notoriety, your recognition in a crowd may not come from achievement but rather from a public misstep or explosive failure. Notoriety is the hardest kind of fame to get rid of, once acquired, because controversy is very sticky for most people. the crowd, as a whole, remembers public failures very well.

Acclaim – “enthusiastic approval”

People who promote themselves, or are promoted, often benefit from this kind of fame. Don’t dis promotion – even coverage of a lowly Olympic athlete is a kind of promotion.

Something they’ve done, whether it’s a work of artistry, a product they’ve created, or a statement they’ve made, gives some people as much recognition on a short-term basis as the public failings of the notorious. The trick with acclaim is that it needs to be stoked over and over, like a hot burning fire. And with the right fuel; tossing the lighter fluid that the wrong statement can be onto a nicely burning fire of recognition can cause acclaim to transmute almost instantly into notoriety – and no one wants that.

Renown – “the state or quality of being widely honored and acclaimed”

The real secret – CEOs and published niche authors have this, but you probably don’t know who they are. Renown isn’t quite the same as acclaim or notoriety; a renowned person has a quality of recognition attributed to them that, perhaps, other kinds of celebrity don’t allow for in an inherent way.

Renown is the most difficult kind of recognition to acquire, because it’s an incredibly long game. People like Bill Gates are fantastic at this; by cultivating a low burn of recognition over a long period of time, Bill was able to fend off many attempts to make him notorious (though, of course, not all – he’s still human, folks), and holds a place of honor, if not respect, in many places. Much as his achievements can be decried for various reasons – Bill himself has a lot of respect from a lot of different communities.

Renown is almost always synonymous with respect – so much so, that renown can in some cases be considered the proper noun of respect.

Be sure which kind of recognition you’re looking for – before the wrong kind finds you instead.

Image by Christian Haugen.

Top 6 Best Ways How To Write Awful Headlines

March 22, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

Writing great headlines is one of the key elements of good blogging practices – everyone says so, right?

There are dozens of tutorials out there explaining what makes a good headline; numbered lists, using the words How to in the title, addressing a key fear a large group of people have…

That’s fine, but what happens when you write what you think is a great headline and it doesn’t seem to be doing it’s job? Feels like a complex problem. Feeling like you need to do some analysis, get some feedback?

This is one of those things where I know – I know – you’ll be mad at me for how simple this is.

It turns out there are some really simple ways to tell if you’ve written a bad headline, no matter how good you think it is.

If you;

make a joke your post doesn’t follow-up on
make it the wrong length (too long or too short)
don’t check the title to see if it fits once the post is written
include an inaccuracy in the headline as relates to the post, but not on purpose
imply something is new/old when it’s not (Even if it may be so for your intended audience)
give away the entire post in the headline

… You might have written an awful headline. And when you have a bad headline, it doesn’t matter how good the post is. No one will read it.

Just like when you have a great headline, if the post sucks, you’ve jumped the shark. No one cares about the great headline, unless it’s tweetbait, in which case if they have share remorse, they’ll be even more ticked.

Law Seven – There is no more obvious way to kill your blog than inconsistency of form.

It could be consistency of message, consistency of schedule, or any number of other things, but when you break consistency, you’re making people think for the wrong reasons and making a withdrawal from the bank of social capital.

Unless you’re writing research papers or case studies, you want people to expend their energy considering that you publish, not examining it for lumpy bits like titles that don’t fit, or bad grammar.

Reducing the emotional overhead on your work helps keep the investment people make in your work valid.

Writing better headlines – as relate to the writing they represent – is a good start.