My Twitter pal @Tarynp posted this photo on Friday.  It's a menu disclaimer at a restaurant called 'Noodle" on Peachtree Street in Atlanta, GA.   She almost left when she saw the middle section:


This reads (sorry - fixing quote issue in style sheet!):

"Noodle has a no return policy on our menu items. As we are confident you will enjoy all of our dishes in the way they are prepared and trying new foods an flavors is exciting, some of our food and drink may have unique flavors or be prepared in a manner that you may not be accustomed to. Please ask your server any questions you might have about our menu and ingredients before making your selection. Noodle is not responsible if you misordered or do not understand your selection. Simply put, if you order it, but just don't like it, you still have to pay for it."

Now, without question, the policy is rude and a bit audacious.  It would seem to be either an outcome of arrogance and confidence - or ignorance.... but perhaps it's both.   In any case, it's going to alienate some people -- but  maybe that's not a bad thing for a high-demand, busy restaurant.  Consider this (based on real life!) example:



Now, I'm not talking about the arrogance or abuse as a gimmick or a part of the 'schtick" of the business, which can be in some cases, mildly entertaining.  Many of us have been to restaurants that pride themselves in snark and customer "abuse" and even foul language.  Head over to Disney's Prime Time 50's cafe - and your server will employ old school discipline on you if you don't clean your plate.  
  
I'm talking about real indifference -- real arrogance at the expense of the customer.  Can companies really afford to handle customer experience this way? Possibly! Only the company itself can decide whether the trade off is worth it ... but I'm thinking care is in order!

The fact remains that when surveyed recently, 56% of customers say that they would "always or often" pay more for a good experience - even in a down economy.  Further we hear from Fred Reicheld that a 5% reduction in customer attrition can drive a 20% upside in profit.

If we take data like this seriously, we sure as heck OUGHT to be operating wisely with an eye toward the experiences we offer and facilitate.  So, starting really simply, here are five things we know about CX:
1.  It’s hard to beat a first impression - Get off on a bad foot and you may never recover. That's why in every channel, you must lower barriers to interaction and engagement, and clearly mark the path that leads customers to a desired end.  Demonstrating care and guiding people through the experience with care are important -- and timing and context are key!

Compare the impact, a new patron of  Noodle, of seeing that menu disclaimer immediately upon seating.  As a first-time visitor, like Taryn, you may be appalled -- you might walk out.  If this isn't your first experience with Noodle - but you are instead greeted by a warm hostess, a friendly, helpful server - the impact of that disclaimer may be slightly different. 



2. Negative experiences often carry more “weight”than positive ones - Screw up once, and people may be talking about what you did wrong instead of what you've done right in the past.  Turn someone off, even after a number of of good experiences, and they may not come back for more.  But if you meet detractors with a high sense of ownership and stewardship for the customer experience you can turn negatives into positives.

Noodle's policy provides no outlet for turning a negative experience into a positive one. There's also (seemingly) no exception for human error on the restaurant's part. If Noodle screws up, it seems the customer pays - and it's fair to say that this may result in the customer not returning to this restaurant.  The message is pretty clear -- and only Noodle can decide if this is an "acceptable loss."
3.  Customers usually remember “what you’ve done for me lately” - Sadly, for the most part, people are innately selfish.  They tend to remember best what you did recently to show you care.  People become brand evangelists, often for selfish reasons:  praising brands that make them feel better about themselves.  What have you done to make people feel valuable, wanted, needed, special or empowered lately?  If the answer is "not much" you may be off the radar.

Noodle's disclaimer seems to demonstrate a genuine lack of care for people. There's no offer to help people choose a menu option - the impetus is put on the customer to chose wisely and ask questions. Again, if people are left to rely on the menu for help, this creates a sad experience.



4.  Thresholds for negative experience vary.   If you have a monopoly on a product or service, people will tend have a higher threshold for poor customer experience. Further, if you have very vocal, active and loyal following, the thresholds and tolerances within the crowd can be higher for missteps.  (Try critiquing Apple in your spare time to catch my drift).  In contrast -- if you are in a competitive market, with products and services that are not particularly unique, with a quiet following - people's thresholds for negative experience will be lower.

In the case of the Soup Nazi - the soup was worth experiencing rudeness, acrobatics and rules.  In parallel, for some people, the iPhone was worth a six hour wait in line. In fact, many Apple fanatics considered waiting in line to buy the iPhone a badge of honor!  This turned into a positive story for Apple and AT&T.  We don't see people doing this for Motorola and Verizon. If there were six hour lines for a Droid,  it wouldn't be a positive thing.  Simply put -- if can buy your product anywhere else with a better experience, "Buh Bye!"

If Noodle has outstanding food, few competitors and a monopoly on location/real estate, they can afford to have this policy. Perhaps they even use it to "weed out" picky eaters and those who are not serious about this type of cuisine. After all, they can only serve so many - and their best customer knows this food, and loves it.  Only Noodle itself can determine whether the trade off is worth it.


5.  Positive experiences will generally drive positive outcomes.   We must take the ego offline and concentrate on the notion that our brand name is an outcome of the customer experience we deliver over time.  If we focus on being consistently positive, demonstrate care for people, manage our missteps carefully, assume a high level of ownership and a dedication to "doing the right thing" we don't need policies like the one above. Because people will come back -- at least the ones that matter.  Shoot for being "remarkably good" and use the word-of-mouth leverage to build a loyal and loving following. That means 4-5 stars out of 4 stars - not three.

In the end, Noodle's disclaimer is one tiny, printed piece of its overall customer experience.  Perhaps in all other areas - food, ambiance, service... etc. the experience is so positive it outweighs the disclaimer on the menu.  I'm not so certain.  I'm not in Atlanta, and I haven't been to Noodle. So, this isn't about my opinion.  Perhaps it's enough to refer to the opinions of the myriad of other people who have eaten there.  Based on the Yelp! reviews  -- which equate to 3.5 out of 5 stars... perhaps Noodle ought to be more careful.

In general, people's thresholds for bad customer experience are directly proportionate to the benefits and up-side they derive from that experience.  How should a company know whether they are driving the kind of experience that will win the hearts and minds of the people?   Listen.   As Taryn's tweet demonstrates -- the great thing about the social grid is that customers are already out there talking.  If we listen, we can use their  feedback to make things better and drive positively remarkable customer experience.

A while ago,  I wrote a well-received piece called "The Bucket List" - cataloging my efforts at reducing the myriad of social media sites, tools and applications into a set of slightly overlapping categories.

Since then, I have reviewed Brian Solis' Version 2 Conversation Prism, comparing it to my own categories, my own list of 3-4,000 social media sites and tools, and various other presentations out there.  All of this - including my own approach left me somewhat dissatisfied.  I feel like we're still mucking things up a bit... mixing a whole lot of stuff together to define this landscape in a manner that unfortunately, clouds the picture of what's really out there.  I'm not sure that's avoidable, either! 

So -- with great respect to my peers and readers, I have slightly shifted my approach and I hope that sharing it doesn't make people more confused. (Gulp)

In the past, our categorizations of emerging media, sites and tools were probably somewhat useful to people. However, proliferation, adoption and convergence have created so much overlap in the features, focus and content of these tools it is now hard to differentiate between them - or properly fit them into categories that really mean something.

To be honest, it's difficult to make this landscape seem more simple - because it's growing exponentially. However, it might be helpful to start a new dialog that helps people process and understand the tools a bit better and explain how I've shifted my thinking over time.

When I am introduced to a new tool, site or service, here's how I tend to process them.  First, I look at three key things:

1. Core Functions of the Tools -- If you really think about it, Web 2.0 and social media leverage core functionality in a maner that is similar to selecting from a "Chinese menu".  While in the past, unique combinations of this functionality helped us categorize various types of sites and tools ... the overlap today blurs the lines in those categories.  Sites that overlap many of teh categories below typically fall into what I I call "communities" (see more below).  Sites or tools that emphasize on a specific area of functionality fall into other categories.  For example, Delicious is narrowly focused on content sharing and organization.  Etsy is heavily focused on eCommerce.   At a high level, shared core functionality may look like this:


2.  Audience -- The demographic, ethnographic, technographic and psychographics of audiences can also help define the scope, focus and nature of new media.  This gets tricky, however, as people converge upon the tools.  Consider the changing "face" of the average Facebook user, moving from college student to female in the 40's in just under a year.  So, when looking at these tools in terms of audience, think of attributes that may remain relatively fixed.  For example:  Bloggers, Moms, Early Adopters, Christians, Music Lovers. At a base level, this will tell you whether a tool is targeted in a broad or niche market, which is useful for business and personal considerations.

3.  Content -- Most sites today accommodate a diverse array of content (news, blog posts, links, pictures, audio, video).  However, in some instances, the primary content the supported or featured by the site or tool can help categorize it.  For example You Tube is narrowly focused on rich media -- specifically video hosting.  Other tools, like Delicious help us organize links and content for retrieval and sharing, in a manner that frees us from desktop-driven bookmarking.  Posterous has dual focus:  It's a blogging/microblogging tool, and also as a content publishing tool to multiple channels.
Next, taking all three areas into consideration, and examining the primary focus of the tool, I then tend to align most sites and tools into one of the following categories. 


I have aligned definitions and subcategories to each category represented above. For example:

• General (e.g. Facebook)
• Niche (e.g. Linked In)
• Service Oriented (e.g. Get Satisfaction)
• Real-World Connections (e.g. Match.com)
• White Label (e.g.Ning)

I do this for each category - and some get quite granular. For example, in the Rich Media Category, we find audio, images, video, animation/AR and "mashups" (which do a little of all the above). If you were to drill down further -- into "Video" as a subcategory, you'll find several additional subcategories, including: live video, how-to's, editing tools, converters, sharing, hosting, organization & management, vidcasts and vlogging, mobile video, video search, downloading tools and online TV.

So you see, this tends to get highly specific. I will therefore spare you of further detail.

In summary, categorizing new media sites, tools and channels may not be the focus of your day -- and at best, it's a hobby for me related to my work with clients as well as speaking and teaching. However, I do think finding ways to better categorize and understand emerging media can be helpful as we attempt to make sense out of the landscape in front of us. This is helpful not just in terms of preserving mental sanity -- but as we attempt to evaluate the usefulness of these tools as applied to our lives, our businesses and/or our clients.

As a parting shot -- I'm still figuring this all out, too. If you have any thoughts on this approach, please weigh in. I considered taking this to Power Point/Slideshare - so if you think there's merit in this, let me know!

Quick Note:  You may notice things look a little different around here. The Experience Architect blog and associated pages are undergoing a migration from Blogger to Word Press. Moving everything over properly to the new platform will take a little longer than anticipated due to client demands and our need to set up redirects to five years worth of content.  However, we hope, in the short term, this small face lift improves ease-of-reading and results in a better reader experience in the short-term.  Stay tuned for more good things.


Do you have any thoughts about what you'd like to see on this site?   I'd love to hear them! Feel free to leave a comment or please drop us a line!

This month I've teamed up with Citrix and Marketingprofs to offer a FREE webinar this Wednesday at 2pm EST called "SMB Superpowers:  How to win in 2010."  I hope you'll join us as we talk about the shift from traditional to "tradigital" marketing and media.  We'll talk about the 10 key characteristics of a Superhero and how to focus in on your strengths, and harness super tools to win in 2010.  We'll also cover the one question every one of us should be asking about our customers... and offer a few easy "next steps" to kickoff your Super leaps for the New Year.


Moderator and an original Super Heroine in her own right, Ann Handley, hope to see you there!

As many of my readers know, I've been working on a super series on how marketers can do more with less in 2010, moving into a more proactive mode and embracing the changes that are occurring in today's marketplace.

Part 1 highlights the shifts that have happened in marketing and how to build your muscle for marketing in 2010 (click to read)


Part 2 addresses 10 Key Super Traits necessary to win in 2010 (click to read)

The third part of this series talks about Power and People.  It helps you explore your super capabilities and offers one key question we should ask ourselves to reorient for success in 2010.   I was happy to write this piece a guest post on Valeria Maltoni's Conversation Agent Blog.    Valeria and I have been blogging co-horts since 2005, and she is also a dear friend.  She is one of the sharpest, brightest women I know, with a keen mind for IT and a head for marketing.  She is an international speaker and also one of the most prolific bloggers I know -- producing great thought pieces each week, and featuring others, as well -- a great person to follow, so look for her RSS link!

Click here to read Part 3 at the Conversation Agent Blog!


Please do let me know what you think!

1. EMBRACE DUTY & CALLING: Super Heroes possess a sense of duty and calling - and at some point in their journeys, are forced to act upon their calling and/or to use their powers for good. They are called to an unusual life, marked by duty, sacrifice and hard work. In parallel, Super Marketers cannot sit on their laurels within a traditional comfort zone. They must choose to accept the higher calling, stepping out of the crowd to embrace non-traditional principles for success.
2. EXHIBIT SELFLESSNESS: Super Heroes always act in the service and best interest of others. In the same manner, Super Marketers demonstrate an "outside in" focus that stresses the experience of prospects and customers rather than the "inside realities" of the organization. Rather than being overly caught up in the corporate dogma, or the plight of the organization, Super Marketers demonstrate a passion and dedication to champion the needs of customers as the brand's best asset. They embrace the fact that consistently positive customer experience is a key element of positive brand recognition, as well as bottom line performance.  They also embrace a servant-leader role within the enterprise, helping facilitate collaboration and cooperation across the corporation.
3. BE BRAVE: Super Heroes do not bury their heads in the sand, but face their fears by assessing challenges head on. In parallel, Super Marketers cannot cringe in the light of a poor economy and the overwhelming onslaught of digital/social channel proliferation. Instead, they must weigh the realities and impacts of next-generation marketing and develop a clear action plan to meet new challenges head on. This includes the need for new interactive and technical skills and core competencies. Super Marketers always respond by taking action with boldness. They understand that failure is an option, doing their best to mitigate risk, learn quickly and improve over time.
4. DEVELOP YOUR SUPER SENSES: Super Heroes gain mastery over their powers through diligence and practice, and often in an "immersive" fashion. In exercising their powers, they often discover new abilities -- or ways to use their existing powers -- in surprisingly useful and advantageous ways. In the same manner, Super Marketers must embrace new skills -- and immerse themselves in new with active testing, use and measured experimentation. The learning cycle (about customers, markets, technologies and best practices) is critical to developing brawn and muscle. Failure is a critical element of success, and should be managed with grace and a determination to succeed the second time around.
5. GET A SIDEKICK (OR TWO): It's hard to go it alone, and that's where a supporting cast fits in. Batman had two sidekicks: Robin, who helped provide on-site supportt, and Alfred Pennyworth, Butler by day and inventor by night, he built the Bat Mobile, utility belts and other gadgets in addition to managing Bat Cave operations.  Both sidekicks had important roles to play -- and both saved Batman's bootie on multiple occasions. In the same fashion, Super Marketers need back up, education, information, training, insight, outside services and occasionally -- rescue! Finding ethical, trust worthy, reliable counsel and service from reliable consultants and agencies can be an important ingredient for success. Keep in mind, that Super Heroes are always on-call and assume full ownership of their duties -- they never outsource their responsibilities. In like manner, Super Marketers recognize that while outsourced support plays an important role, it is unwise to become overly reliant on such support.
6. HARNESS "SUPER TOOLS": Whether it's the super vehicle, a utility belt, a golden lasso, or protective cape Super Heroes call upon a host of tricky technologies to help them execute more efficiently and gain a competitive edge over the enemy. These tools help the Super Hero be proactive, and are developed in anticipation of "Super Needs". Super Marketers must carefully examine what's missing from the customer experience, take inventory of the tools at their disposal and use these tools to improve the brand experience for prospects and customers. This is especially true with regard to the many, lower cost, socially driven technologies that can improve response time, communication and dialog, whether it's Twitter for Customer Service, Facebook for lead generation and relationship-building, or YouTube and rich media to stimulate SEO, interaction and education or a tool like Foursquare or other mobile apps. Super Marketers find ways to harness these tools, incorporate them into the plan of attack and weave them into a cohesive experience that helps them drive desired outcomes.
7. DRESS TO IMPRESS: The Super Hero is always appropriately in character. There's always a mask, a costume, a concealed identity and a sense of professionalism. However, while Super Heroes are always personable, they are not always personal.  The costume or motif represent brand identity.  The entity -- and the actions of the entity -- wearing the costume represent the customer experience (products, services and customer interactions).  Super Marketers embrace the importance of brand identity, and the power of personable brand extension, they also understand the importance of developing a unique voice - especially in the era of Social Media. However, beyond "packaging" they understand the only true way to win the regard of the people is through consistently positive, and professional delivery.  The costume that oversells what's inside makes the hero seem ridiculous. In the same manner, corporate missteps and wrongdoing tear, soil and shred brand identity. Super Marketers work tirelessly to ensure the branded experience exceeds people's expectations, extending a personable voice and persona in the marketplace that is always professional.
8. RESPOND RAPIDLY & EFFICIENTLY: While answering the urgent call-to-action, Super Heroes rarely "trip over their tights." Demonstrating consistent preparation for the unexpected, they are nimble, agile, forward-thinking, proactive, well rehearsed, and have mastered their skills for maximum response. This is a dramatic contrast to the "reactive" positioning that afflicts many marketing divisions today. Super Marketers are always proactive, scanning the foreground for trends, topics, conversations and issues that either welcome or demand engagement. They act in a manner that elicits maximum response, in accordance with brand, voice and professional conduct standards and established policies. They move quickly to answer market opportunity and respond to challenging situations, turning negatives into positives.
9. BEWARE OF PITFALLS! Every Super Hero has a weakness, or has fallen for a beautiful decoy or deceivingly packaged bomb. For example, Superman knows the sparkle of and magnetic power of kryptonite, which feels like "home" but has a horribly debilitating power. In a similar manner, the rhythmic pattern of task-based focus, rather than strategic focus can be mesmerizing for the Marketer. There are a host of other of operational pitfalls that are easy to get caught in that are unique to each organization and culture. These traps have a neutralizing effect on Super Powers. Super Marketers must work ardently to avoid being trapped by the status quo and be aware of task-based thinking that forces them into a tactical, reactive mode. They must find creative ways to surmount obstacles, bypass pitfalls and deliver value to prospects and customers with steadfast grace.
10. NEUTRALIZE YOUR NEMESES: Super Heroes destroy the terrible, the troublesome and all things evil. Sometimes the enemy is external -- and sometimes Super Heroes battle a dark side, within.  Super Marketers are realistic about their own personal challenges as well as organizational issues that may thwart success. They work actively to grow beyond and rise above these problems by crushing ignorance, "inside-out" thinking, poor cross-organizational collaboration, poor integration and addressing leaders who encourage silo-based activities and "one-off" thinking. They work actively with executive leadership to neutralize the enemies of good customer experience, and insist on ownership, customer-focused thinking with an eye to the future and a vision for success.

As budgets shrink and headcounts freeze, there's greater pressure to do more with much less. In addition to managing traditional channels, marketers face the added challenge of learning to harness the power of new, low-cost social technologies - often with insufficient knowledge and resources.

It's not just the rapid pace of change and the evolution of new tools that impact the marketing cycle today that are daunting. There's a new language to learn and new communication dynamics exist. There's a need for more technical knowledge, channel expertise and core competencies not present in the current skill sets of the enterprise. There's not only a need for new talent, but a requirement that enables them to challenge the status quo, rock the boat, test and experiment that may threaten or intimidate co-workers. There's a need for increased cross-divisional and departmental collaboration -- juxtaposed with the reality that marketing is often either not empowered or respected enough to drive effective integrated, collaborative and coordinated delivery.

Today, it's more important than ever to work efficiently and effectively. Yet, for many, this seems to be an impossibility. This is not only because of increasing pressure and demand - but because in truth, marketing has fundamentally shifted. It demands new planning, skill sets and approaches to business that many people inside the enterprise do not yet understand. Breaking it down simply, it might look a little like this:

The unprecedented shifts of the last decade have left a host of traditional marketers and other executives very uncomfortable, and very afraid. Some companies are in denial. Other companies are stuck in a position of analysis paralysis -- unable to break out of the ice of inaction.

The truth is, denial, fear, and inaction are our worst enemies! They are dangerous to both individuals and the organizations they serve -- and they don't have to reign in your organization. There's a bright new future ahead - and while change is required - it's worth it. Breaking past the fear -- we find ourselves in a place of revitalization, with amazing new capabilities and stimulating new ways to learn, promote our products and services. We find ourselves closer to customers, and more able to understand their unique needs as well as market opportunities. To succeed, it's not necessary to become a new marketing guru overnight (P.S. overnight gurus are not gurus at all!). It's possible to take things one step at a time and retrench the organization in a way that creates some order in the chaos.  So let's get started.

Building Your Super Muscle:

• DISCOVER YOUR SUPER POWERS  - It's easy to get caught up in "Aspirational branding." That is, the promises, stories and campaigns marketing creates. However, this is focusing on the wrapper -- not the candy. The good stuff is what your company does better than anyone else - this may be delivering unique products or services, or your ability to reach a unique market. There must be something your brand delivers better than anyone else. Examine your competitors. Study the customer and develop a clearer understanding of the pros and pitfalls of the customer experience. Define how your product or service makes life better for the customer. Write down your strengths clearly and succinctly, and keep a separate list of issues that undermine the customer experience so that you can address problems as you move forward.
• EXPLORE SOME SUPER TOOLS -  Get on the learning track. Sign up for some courses, do some reading failures of others.  Get yourself and your team learning about the host of new technologies that are transforming businesses today. If you don't have the expertise in-house, hire a consultant with an established track record to help you. As you begin to experiment with new tools (not just Facebook, or Twitter) and channels, it's important not to think of the tools as "marketing tools." Think of them instead as valuable channels supporting the extension of sales, service, support on the web. Champion these ideas within executive ranks. Dispel myths about Social Media, and help executive leadership understand key shifts (see chart above) in marketing, and the opportunities present in the new economy. Use the more educated leadership to help garner internal support.
• ESTABLISH MISSION CONTROL - Create an environment for collaborative planning, research, analysis, testing and strategy. This may be a center of excellence or a cross-organizational task force focused on improving customer-focused delivery. Focus less on ownership and control and more on support and facilitation across the enterprise. It's okay to fail - but fail fast and recover. Showcase key learning and present opportunities. With the help of executive leadership, invite other divisions to participate in proactive planning, research, testing and execution. Establish credibility by keeping the ego in check.  Develop tutorials and communicate best practices in a manner that facilitates and encourages engagement. Share openly and provide value-added information (articles, information, etc.) that can benefit the entire organization within an accessible knowledge base. Publish knowledge and key learning in a proactive, timely manner (perhaps using a few Super Tools like Yammer or a password protected Wiki). Communicate upward, outward and downward, and celebrate success with hearty approbation.
• WIN (AND EARN) SUPPORTERS - Agencies and silos don't typically develop integrated customer experiences that drive long-term success. Long-term success requires winning the hearts and minds of divisions like Customer Service, Sales, Product Development, Operations, IT and other divisions to a new way of doing business. Hearts and minds are won best through servant leadership, consultative selling and listening - and Marketing can play a much more successful and influential role in rallying the organizations around the customer.  New marketing requires the breakdown of operational silos, which is threatening to many stakeholders. Start by engaging in open dialog. Listen first!  If they're already engaged in the use of new technologies, learn from what they are doing. If they're not already engaged, think of ways you can help, educate and facilitate. Discuss your learning, thoughts and plans in an open manner.  Demonstrate customer centric behavior.  Describe the potential and up-side of involvement in new, social channels.  Show and teach - rather than Stand and preach!  Repeat the call to "support and facilitate" and you will your organization through servant-leadership.
• NEUTRALIZE YOUR FOES - Getting past denial, fear and inaction - it's time to tackle the enemies of customer experience within your organization. Create a "wanted poster" of the biggest enemies to consistently positive customer experience within your organization. Work with the front-line, sales, IT, operations, product development and customer service to resolve these problems. While other teams resolve issues outside your marketing's purview -- create wins by extending service through new, cost-effective channels where it makes the most sense. Consider how you may user the Super Tools to create improvements in the experience that are remarkable.  Respond quickly and with grace, celebrate positive feedback from customers. Work cross-organizationally to create a more integrated, cohesive customer experience that creates wins across-the-board.

Marketers who follow these steps will develop powers they didn't know they could have. They will find new courage and strength and build greater influence within the organization. Most importantly, they will be properly focused:   working proactively to improve and champion the customer experience, which results in a more positive brand identity and stronger outcomes. They will also begin enter the new era of Marketing, which is less about marketing and more about relationships, starting within the organization and working toward the best interest of the customer and the business.

• The One Trick Wonder is all show and no substance, claiming broad expertise but proving to be narrow and limited
• The Outright Liar is crafty and deceptive. He lacks the practical experience and knowledge to teach you what you don't already know and will cost you plenty until you figure this out
• The Lifetime Consultant who has never owned or managed a business - yet claims to know yours and how to fix it
• The Schmooze Puppy is handsome, fascinating and fun - and will selll you tricky projects that are equally pretty -- but also costly, time consuming, expensive and which provide limited ROI
• The "Strategerist" cannot build or execute but knows how to create great looking power point documents with broad, sweeping goals. Typically attacks and retreats
• The Builder who likes to build stuff -- that may not work with other "stuff" or in concert with a strategy
• The Delegator can't build anything or deliver anything, but can talk a good game and "knows people"
• The Glossy Analyst makes way more money than you do -- by asking you questions and writing about your success
• The Mental Mentor is highly esteemed -- in his/her own mind. This hype driven expert creates other experts, through paid seminars, webinars, extended courses and certification in just "x" days for "x" dollars.
• The Career Acrobat has taken Mental Mentor's course and has shifted careers to focus on (pick a topic above) and is now an expert and authority in all things

Dear Sony,

I recently purchased my fourth Sony Vaio - a custom FW390. It cost over $2200.00 by the time I upgraded to 80 gigs of RAM, a high speed processor, advanced graphics card and other features.

I thought you were a smart move. We had already dated for five years - and you were my fourth Vaio. You were sleek, handsome and you had a battery that could last a lifetime. And sure, maybe we weren't the ideal fit -- but a Mac with similar configuration would have been about $4,000. You were slim but powerful, reliable and a great traveling companion.

But then, you betrayed me. You made yourself over into a dysfunctional mess. Your new design proving to be an inconvenient, non-ergonomic nightmare of cables and irritation.

• All USB and audio ports are located at the front right of the machine, interfering with the opening/closing of the Blu Ray disc in back, as well as my mouse..
• This thing is designed so there are cables shooting out of both sides of the computer - which also takes up valuable workspace (Video cable is in the front third left of the computer? Duh.)
• The control buttons on the screen are about 1/8 inch thick and wide - with counterintuitive labeling - they are hard to distinguish and impossible to read.
• My energy saving LED display already has an artifact in it - squiggly red line
• NO DOCKING STATION available - so I have to halfway shut my screen to use my 25 inch monitor.

When I got the computer I did call to express my disappointment. You told me "if you don't like it, call it quits and send it back".  My only option was to return it.  After a week of research and two weeks of extended business travel - I did have an extra week on the 30 day refund policy to return it and I didn't.  Shame on me.  Perhaps I just hoped I would get used to it.  Now, I'm left with regret, and the bill.

I did write Sony Style on Twitter to provide some helpful feedback -- and got no response. I put my feedback in a customer satisfaction survey also and heard nothing back. Perhaps an acknowledgement of the problem, a little sympathy, apology - proactive response would have kept me around for one more chance.

...but it occurs to me that your lack of response only underscores what I feared:  that you really don't care about me after all!

I feel a little silly, Sony. I mean, I write about brands and customer experience for a living. I wanted to love you -- I wanted to be your friend. But it dawns on me now that if you really cared, not only would you respond to my complaints -- you wouldn't have shown such disregard for the user when you designed this machine.

So, after more than a decade of being your friend, I am breaking up with you.

I've met someone new -- we dated several years ago -- and he knows how to deliver. His name is Mac and suspect we will be very happy together. I realize you're under warranty.

You might feel bad -- and you should.  It's not me -- it's about you! You shouldn't have taken me for granted -- especially in a down economy when every customer counts.  But cheer up.  Maybe you will find someone else, just as hopeful and clueless as I was. I hope she reads this letter.

Good luck,
Leigh

In the midst of client deadlines and work, a lot of us feel pressure to give more than we have --  provide more value than we might be currently capable of.  There's pressure to be everywhere at once,  friend everyone, attend every conference -- all while giving away lots of stuff for free. Because of my work schedule, and my family who needs me, I tend internalize a lot.  However, lately I've been walking away from meetings and interactions feeling a sense of unease. So, this is an attempt to process and purge some of those feelings and hopefully, to do something positive with them.

To put this in context, I started this blog in early 2005 to write down my thoughts on customer experience. My passion for CX stems from my love of people, combined with my roots in information architecture and design, as well as operations, CRM and business strategy.  This complements my natural interest in making make things better for people - inside and outside of the enterprise.

There's a lot of talk about customer experience today.  As I've said before, CX is an easy thing to become an evangelist for. However, delivering great experience isn't easy and the fact remains that very few companies do it well.  Even so, we continue to pile on more  -- do more...

This is relevant to the era of social media because the more channels and tools we use to communicate, the more difficult it is to create seamless, solid, positive customer experience.  Companies today become so enthralled with keeping up with the dizzying level of channel proliferation, they often lose sight of customer experience.  Facing a sort of "keeping up with the Joneses" pressure to engage actively on sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, crowdsourcing sites, wikis and more -- they often proceed without proper planning or resourcing in place.
But before we all rush ahead ... getting caught up in the frenzy, it's important to think pragmatically about what we're really trying to accomplish   To keep level heads, we should start by asking ourselves one simple question:


In my opinion, if we are not making things better for employees, customers or prospects we are only adding to the noise.  If we're not applying these tools to make our business better and drive qualitative results -- we are also doing our companies a disservice.  Too many "social media experts" are pushing tools and "strategery" at the expense of common sense and solid thinking, contributing to perceptions about social media -- and ignoring the many best practices that have been established.

I was shocked recently, to hear Andy Sernovitz tell a group of  over 350 marketers that if they wanted to get started easily in social media they should do this:  "Go out and find the lowest paid person in your company who can type and put them on Twitter."  He later contradicted himself on that point, but the damage was done.  In my opinion, as stewards of knowledge and experience -- we can't afford to be talking out of both sides of our mouths!

So, to clarify what I believe to be some misconceptions about social media, here are what I believe to be:

1. If your base-level customer experience stinks, using social media tools probably won't help much.
   
2. Social media isn't free. It is cost-efficient when planned for and managed appropriately, and like any investment that comes with a price, what you will yield is proportionate to what you invest.
3. Web 2.0 and social media tools are merely a means to an end - what you do with the tools, and how you integrate them to improve the base business are what matters.
4. If you are not using conversational media to drive some specific and measurable objectives you are probably wasting your time
5. "Transparency" is an illusion. While conversational media increases visibility into your operations, you can maintain enough opacity to protect your sensitive underbelly.
6. "Authenticity" is a terribly abused word. There are plenty of authentically bad companies and products out there. Strive to be authentically good and constantly improving and you'll win.
7. "Influence" is relative term.  However, it generally belongs to people that consistently deliver positive, remarkable experiences -- across channels and over time.
8. "Trust" is fluid and hard to measure. Deliver on every promise, exhibit high level of ownership / stewardship, be a mensch and gaining trust won't be an issue.
9. If your senior leadership wants to relegate social media to an intern or agency -- resisting the notion that these tools may transform the enterprise, consider changing jobs.
10. If you are looking for help, beware of snake oil. Strategists who can't execute are as dangerous as "one-trick ponies who only know how to use a single tool.  Find someone who can develop a solid strategic plan, execute, help your organization prepare, educate and stand by to help, if needed.
    

Going back to my roots, focusing on creating a better company, products, services and ultimately -- a better experience for prospects, customers and even employees is where we should focus.  Doing this well requires rolled up sleeves, attention to detail, a love for people and an understanding of best practices across an array of disciplines.  Pushing past the hype, and fixing our eyes on becoming better, wiser, faster, stronger, more responsive, authentically good  -- and using new technologies to accomplish quantifiable goals, we can drive success -- even in a rough economy.

I've got a follow up post in the hopper to my "Trust" piece - but have been waylaid with client work the last two weeks PLUS getting ready to migrate my site... so I haven't had a minute to write!  Here's a quick update.

Next week, I ship off to Madison, Wisconsin and then Chicago, IL where I'll be doing some one-on-one therapy and moderating a panel at the Marketing Profs Digital Mixer.  I'm excited to talk relationship building on Twitter with Ann Handley - one of my all around favorite people, author and Chief Content Officer of Marketing Profs. John Bernier, all around nice guy and head of Best Buy's Twelpforce will also be there - and I'm stoked to meet him in person...along with Monique Trulson, all around ebusiness whiz from Hello Direct who is now with Brady People ID.   There's a lot to look forward to, as Marketing Profs draws terrific speakers and creates a wonderful format for deep interaction -- and fun.  I'm also stoked to visit with other friends, including Beth Harte, Mack Collier, Jay Baer, Paul Chaney, Becky Carroll, Amber Naslund, the rest of Marketing Profs crew (especially Shelley Ryan) and others!  If you're near Chicago and it's convenient, check out the information about the Digital Mixer here.... and I hope to see you there, too!

This is true even when we deal with bad apples:  These are the copy cats and snake oil salesmen who skirt licensing and permissions and make unethical use of IP and content. We've all seen them at work and many of us have seen our work replicated and re-branded by others in a way that has been disconcerting - and even maddening.

In response to the snakes..n. I have always tried to maintain an optimistic perspective.  I generally believe what goes around, comes around... and that MOST people aren't jerks. I have held out hope that smart people will be able to recognize the copy cats and snake-oil salesmen.


In the not to distant past, I encountered a situation where one of my course attendees from a major university announced her intention to take my ideas and course materials and repackage them into a workshop, for which she was charging a premium.  Prior to taking my class, this individual couldn't recognize an ear from an elbow with regard to social media - yet the person's desire to reincarnate into a social media "guru"seemed focused and intentional.

I made the discovery two days before the class. While at first I was amused, I then considered the hefty, password protected companion website I'd created for the course.  It featured my own laboriously assembled class presentations as well as an array of fully accredited and referenced articles, how-to's, videos, research, case studies , etc. from a variety of sources (some of which I paid to license and others from respected sources and peers in the field).

Needless to say, the site took weeks to assemble - not including the months of collecting I'd done or the pre-course survey I did to make sure I had content tailored to specific types of business.  To be honest, if I'd counted those hours in my prep time, I didn't break even teaching that course.  However, in truth, I didn't put the site together for money.  I wanted to be open about sharing - promote the outstanding work of folks in my social media network -- and enable course participants (mostly SMB's) to help themselves succeed long after I was gone.  

What happened next is something people have called "Divine Intervention."  My "copy cat" was stricken by a "freak illness" the day before class and ended up hospitalized during the days of the course. As a no-show, the person never gained access to the course materials - and I was relieved.

Crisis averted...but BOY did it all make me think ...

• Has this made me more reticent to trust? Yes Peter!  Absolutely.
• Has it made me think more carefully about what and how I share? Yes - and I think I'm afraid I'm still too open for my own good ...
• Is Plagiarism changing how I will proceed with monitoring and Creative Commons attribution? Yes.
• Will the tools and monitoring and licensing be enough? No, Peter!  I don't think so - and here's why:

In my opinion -- beyond the lack of proper awareness and education in this area, I believe the plague of plagiarism is a reflection of a larger crisis of ethics.  

As we both know: You can't legislate morality.  

Consider the fact that most people do not think twice about ripping CDs and sharing music and images in a manner that is an active violation of Federal Law. The sad truth is that the illegal use of material and especially digital assets is pervasive in our cultures...often "accepted" and practiced -- in households, businesses and even churches across our nation and around globe. While there are some who won't do this because of their own moral convictions -- It is likely that a large number of our readers do this without thinking!

So, why should people view our digital content and IP any differently?

I submit that they do not.  We'll see the results outside of business service offerings, white papers and blog posts in the term papers of the future.  And with the proliferation of media, it may be more and more difficult to figure out where people are getting their material in the future.

Moving forward, what can we do?  Lots of good comments on Peter's post aboout this.  My thoughts:


1. Each one of us must take initiative to protect our investments with the resources and tools we have at our disposal.  My tool kit includes many of the ones Peter mentioned... Many of these will mature over time - and get better and helping us monitor the "snakeosphere."

2. We can leverage the law where it matters most.  Existing laws should help protect us, but I'll go out
on a limb to assert that the law may be most useful for those with a great deal of time and money to spare. For a large number of us, using the law and the courts to resolve issues is likely to be "resource prohibitive." 

3. We can find ways to empower the "Social Media Sphere" to police itself.   Community and peer pressure can often go far to change the behavior of the masses.  Many of us have asked questions about what we can do about plagiarism. The big question is how we can police ourselves without giving seedy people attention they may actually benefit from?  Stuff like mentions, site traffic, inbound links, etc.  Google doesn't penalize people for "negative" attention. ;-)

To his credit, Peter "ousted" a few offenders in the comments field of yesterday's post.  It needed to be done. However, this is slightly problematic from the standpoint that publicly ousting a snake oil salesman from a high profile, thought leader's blog immediately creates traffic and links in to the web properties of the offender that can boost things like the "T-rating" "G-rating" and site traffic and comments. On the up-side, a least we know who to look out for! The problem is, this can result in greater visibility that might work in the individual's favor...


Also to his credit, Armano didn't link to the guy who was ripping off his feed (at least I didn't see a link).  Incidentally, guy was ripping off feeds from other thought leaders, making up quotes and facts about himself,.  This guy even had the audacity to rip off his entire site design from Google, and swipe a commercial social media video created by Sprint, removing the brand name and inserting his own!   I'll admit that when I saw this guy at work, I wanted to "out" him to everyone I knew  -- "sicking the social media community" on his butt, so to speak... Perhaps we all did -- but we seemed to apply restraint so as not to give this guy any attention that might be used to his advantage. The problem with this is, we can't warn others about the snake oil peddlers this way.

Moving forward, perhaps using a hash tag on Twitter like #snakeoil  - just  as a way to index this discussion. I'n not sure that would be highly effective as a policing method, though. A few people have suggested creating a "Snake Oil Wiki"  - and I'd say it would have to require people to submit screen-grabs of an accused person's offenses AND (in the interest of fairness) offer a forum for accused individuals to defend themselves.  This way - it's fair and the evidence remains when sites are changed (as they often are post-discovery). Not sure who wants to take that on, from a legal perspective...but it'd certainly require counsel and legal backup!

In the mean time, I'll continue on...trying hard to provide value and trying to be an optimist.  I'll rely on the tools that are available -- in addition to applying prayer as needed when the jerks try to ruin my day. After all, as my story tells, it has proven to be my most effective tool, to date!   ;-)

As context, Li was talking how, beyond the contact lists, implicit data helps fill in gaps about the level of closeness or intimacy individuals have with each other. She went on to talk about how this will change in the future based on usage patterns detected by Google and other social networks... painting a picture of a future "social algorithm."

I don't disagree with Li's assertions at all - in fact I think she's spot on. It's the slide above that kept coming to mind. Taking that graphic at a literal level, I don't agree that the implicit data represented above really does help fill in gaps regarding people's relationships in any way other than a subjective one - nor do I think it reflects any kind of accurate indicator of an individual's level of "closeness" or "intimacy" with others (trust). Incidentally, I'm not sure Charlene actually asserted this... I believe the slide was used in a figurative manner.

But it still got me thinking about both sides of the trust equasion. How do individuals (specifically with regard to social media) think about trust with regard to other people?   How do marketers look at Trust in the networked economy?

For individuals, here's my take on what the trust spectrum might look like:



Playing off the concept of "circles of trust", we see an outward radiation of trust and intimacy.  At the "inner circle" there is high trust.  In the outer circle there is "no trust"  In further examining trust dynamics, it's fair to assert that people tend to transition back and forth between spheres, depending on events, mood, conversation, disposition and other factors.   

If you buy this concept, trust, or intimacy is therefore somewhat fluid. It's also device and technology independent (although the actions at the right of that diagram show how I might interact with individuals using social media terms).  We'll come back to this in at the end.


1. VOICE:  Understanding where an individual is trusted is an essential component of targeting. Voice examines an individual's level of engagement (posts, tweets, discussions, comments) across various topics (e.g. Frugal Living) and the overall sentiment of that engagement (positive, negative, neutral) over time.  In other words:  
For example, I might trust Beth Kanter as an authority on non-profits and social media.  However, I might not trust her as a good referral source on which flat screen TV I should buy.  As such, voice is a critical area of examination related to targeting high-trust individuals.


2. REACH: Examining the network of the individual is also an essential component of targeting. This includes an understanding of the person's online and offline influence, across traditional media channels (e.g. television, print, etc.).  In the online channels, reach examines the size and scope of the individual's active network within various sites and networks, as well as the frequency of communication that occurs. 


Furthermore, examining how the communication and dialog flows across online and offline channels may be germane to gauging the efficacy of an individual's reach. 

INFLUENCE:  There's been a lot of talk about influence today - and I don't want to rehash all that dialog. At a high level, and in simple terms, I see it as an outcome of a number of other considerations.  Primarily, I believe it is a measure of an individual's reach divided by the number of high trust relationships (see circle diagram above) times voice...something like this:


If influence directly impacted by the ebb and flow of trust within an individual's network, it it's important to note that influence is also somewhat fluid and relative. And all of this is already measured as a factor of time.

The sticky challenge is measuring the level of trust individuals have within their network. The truth is this: As outsiders, we can only gauge an individuals relationship on a trust spectrum based on a myriad of attributes, including length of relationship, messaging frequency, physical relationship, public/private discourse, "lists", discussion topic(s), sentiment, recent events, real-world connection and other complex and sometimes esoteric factors.  In the end, some of this data will be available and some will not.  As such, the outcome is somewhat likely to be somewhat subjective...depending on the time frame reviewed, quantity and amount of information analyzed (etc.).