One of the questions I asked at the recent Never Stop Marketing Field Seminar was:

What recent innovation have you seen that has gotten you very excited?

Well, as luck would have it, I had a chance to experience a new innovation DURING the event.

One of the attendees hadn’t paid for the event ticket, so I told her…just bring your credit card and we’ll test out Square which allows ANYONE to turn their smartphones or iPad, etc. into a mobile credit card machine.

And that’s exactly what we did.

I attached the reader to my phone, swiped her card (it took a few tries), entered in the data (she had to provide her billing zip code and then sign it!) and in an under a minute, we both had email confirmations. She had a receipt and it even included a map of where the charge had taken place.

Very, very cool.

From a marketing perspective, this is HUGE.

If a customer wants to buy, you can take their money anywhere at any time…reduce the friction between intent and conversion.

(and the money, after everything clears, is automatically deposited in your bank account)

When the history of the social marketing revolution is written, I bet that this week will be viewed as the watershed moment.

There are two massive vectors which have intersected each other, symbolizing the fall of one paradigm and the rise of another.

On the fall side, you have the announcement by P&G that it is laying off 1600 marketers because it realizes that its model of “spend more on advertising to generate more sales” no longer works.

And on the rise side, of course, you have the filing of Facebook S-1 announcing its IPO.

There is probably NO company in America (maybe even the world) that rode the wave of mass, traditional advertising to behemoth status more than P&G. It’s as iconic a marketing org as there is and this week will be recognized as the one where the balance of power finally-and forever-shifted.

Want to be an innovator? If the answer is no, go ahead and read a different blog.

If yes, here’s the recipe

1. Deliberately put yourself in a position to hear about ideas that are outside of your realm of expertise
2. Discuss and meet with others who share a commitment to innovation and community
3. Repeat

That’s the model for the Never Stop Marketing Field seminars, the most recent of which was January 10th at the National Museum of American History. (see list of previous ones below)

Not everyone has the guts to show up at 10am on a Tuesday morning to walk through exhibits about the history of the American automobile (the electric car was actually very popular in 1904!) and the evolution of the electrical industry.

But, those who do are the kind of people you want to meet.

After our curators led us through the 2 exhibits for an hour, giving us insights into the minds of the great innovators of the age, 30 people sat down to share their perspectives on innovation.

The questions were simple:

1. what innovation that you’ve seen most recently excites you?
2. what book are you currently reading?

The answers were as varied as the people…and that’s the point.

The model of the seminar has its basis in a lot of research.

• In The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment's Notice, Todd Henry tells us that the key to being a great innovator is: You need to build the practices in your life…that allow you the space and the freedom when you have to have them at a moment’s notice.
• Steven Johnson, author of Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation, explains how we are pre-occupied with the notion of the “A-ha” moment, but the reality of innovation is that it’s more often the result of exposure to many different ideas from many different sources, over time, that lead to one’s ability to see a “knowledge arbitrage” situation (as Gary Hamel would call it).
• And, lastly, I’ll cite Bruce Mau’s Incomplete Manifesto for Growth. See #33: Take Field Trips

I’ve asked those who attended to add their comments below and to the post on the NSM FB page., so don’t take it from me. Take it from them on the value of the experience.

I’d encourage you to make it a habit/practice to take time out of your schedule (we’re talking 2-3 hours per quarter here, folks!) to drive your innovation brain forward.

Previous NSM Field Seminars

1. National Gallery of Art
2. Torpedo Factory
3. Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum

Photo credit: Tom Cooper

In Deep Survival (you should read it), Laurence Gonzales tells us that those who are best suited for adaptation are those who pick up the small, subtle changes in their environment and make an adjustment before it’s necessary.

In the Asian Tsunami, for example, the people who noticed that the ocean receded (as if taking a breath) and recognized it as unusual (the vacuum created by the earthquake) went to higher ground and survived.

Others, unfortunately, saw it as an opportunity to gather more shells.

In marketing today, the same changes are happening.

Yesterday, I shared how I think we’re past the tipping point on Community Marketing. It’s inevitable.

I think “storytelling” (really, really good storytelling though) is also one of those things that are now “inevitable.”

How do I know?

Well, I was watching Bloomberg: The Mentor about Kaenon sunglasses and their guest mentor was the past President of the Limited Brands.

In the 20 minutes of actual viewing time (thank God for DVR), I heard the phrase “tell our story” about 100 times.

Ok, maybe not that much, but you get the gist.

Bottom line…EVERYONE knows it’s about storytelling that connects.

Now, it’s time to actually do it.

Go read Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die .

I’m reading a fascinating book now by one of the leading minds in technology, Kevin Kelly, called What Technology Wants. It’s ridiculously deep and broad at the same time. This guy thinks on a level that I can’t even comprehend.

One of the more surprising elements is his argument that innovations are inevitable. Yep, they don’t just “happen,” they are a result of a cascading series of events.

I think that the migration of marketing from outbound/broadcast to inbound/community-centric is one of those inevitabilities that is pretty much here.

Now, it’s just a question of focus, drive, and commitment.

Game on.

One of the key elements in building a community of passionate fans is understanding what makes them tick…what REALLY makes them tick.

It’s not money.

It’s usually something else.

But, we don’t want to assume we know (I assume you know why ).

We need to ask.

There are types of people (generalizations work because they are generally accurate) who are/want to be connected to you.

It’s your job to understand-in large, but not rigid groupings, what the characteristics of those people are.

One way to do this is through Personas. For a great primer on this, listen to Josh Duncan’s podcast on the topic.

This came to mind the other day as I was driving carpool and saw this car in front of me.

My question was: what would motivate someone to spend $100 on a vanity plate telling you they have an Audi when the car they are driving is an Audi?

Identifying that can help you tell a better story and inspire people to talk about you.

 

The other day I saw a 30 minute feature on Bowlmor, the bowling alley company, on Bloomberg Enterprise.

The CEO (a native of DC area, so you know he must be good ), said “hey, we’re not in the bowling business, we’re in the cost-effective creation of customers as evangelists business.”

In other words, “create Raving Fans.”

Then, it dawned on me…

if the CEO of a bowling alley (not to be disrespectful, of course, because the guy clearly knows what he’s doing) is saying “it’s all about Raving Fans,” then it’s pretty clear to me that the mindset has shifted sufficiently to the point where this is now conventional wisdom.

Five years ago when I was thinking about marketing and centered on the role of Raving Fans as the only/best future of marketing, that wasn’t the case.

Now, our behaviors in many respects, haven’t caught up with this reality (as evidenced by the cold call I got the other day to attend a webinar) because inertia is a powerful force.

Still, I think we’ve arrived at a point that the competitive advantage as it relates to Community Driven Marketing isn’t in the fact that you are doing it and someone else isn’t because pretty soon, everyone is going to be doing it.

The advantage will be in how well you execute it. How well you grow the fans.

One of the concepts that is absolutely critical grasp if you want to be an effective marketer is that you need to understand how much value the customer places on a transaction.

It’s not about your cost or your time.

Your hours. Your profit…I don’t care.

Value…I care.

Now, if my kids (8, 6, and 3) can get it…well, anyone can…

The other night, they were telling me about the “show” they were putting on, they said, “tickets costs 30 cents.”

So, I asked them, “how do I know it’s worth 30 cents? I’ve never seen the show. None of my friends have either.”

Being the children of Never Stop Marketing, they agreed to put some “skin in the game” and we arranged a  two-tier pricing model.

I would buy a ticket for 15 cents. Then, after the show, I could pay as much as I wanted…up to 45 cents.

Which they earned

Too often, the conversation is “this is how much we charge per hour.”

“This is the cost.”

How about instead going through the (hard) work of trying to say, “ok, let’s figure out how valuable this is for you and we start from there?”

As promised, I want to give loyal blog readers a chance to have a front-row seat on the evolution of the Sprinklr marketing efforts. Actually, more than that…I fee like Annie Lenox here. I want to USE you as my own mini- R&D facility.

Part of my ramp as VP/Mktg is to refine the positioning and story of the product. It’s a live-fire moment of everything we’ve been discussing on the blog for the past 4 years.

Here’s the Offer
What I’d like to do is offer you a chance to be part of a limited webcast audience as I seek to iterate these two components.

My goal is to limit it to 30-40 minutes.

• I’ll try to tell an effective “Made to Stick” Sprinklr story, carve out a position in your minds, and demo the platform in a way that reinforces the two of them.
• Then, we’ll have a group discussion on how I did and what needs to be tweaked.

The only payment that is required from you is your attention and your candid feedback. If you’re not prepared to do that, don’t sign up.

If you are interested..
Go ahead and fill out the form below (or here), if you are interested.

I’ll probably do 3-4 revs of it with 7-9 ppl in attendance for each, so no guarantees, but I’ll do my best. Meeting request will be forthcoming.

Remember, these will be my first demos of the platform, so expect it to be raw and unpolished.

(Note: Readers of Little Bets will recognize this strategy.)

Thanks for your support.

I am in the middle of a FANTASTIC book about the human spirit and psychology. It’s called Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why and the title doesn’t even do it justice.

It is one of those books that, as my brother Asher says, “makes you think about how you think” and it will really push you.

What I love about it is that the examples it gives (while focused on man vs. nature) apply very much to how we deal with extreme challenges in any part of our lives…job change, marriage, globalization, and more.

If you can become more aware of the way you think, you might be able to help adapt and thrive to new situations as they arise and avoid being blind to them because of previous paradigms.

Certainly the US Congress and American taxpayer could use this.

I highly recommend it.

(Note: it is NOT a light read and will require some effort…but, like survival, it’s worth it.)