Marketing is as much an art as a science. It is as much about subjectivity as about quantitative excellence. As much about strategic business objectives as it is about tactical short term advantage.

This is true for customer intelligence gathering, for demand generation, for brand building and for most other aspects of marketing.

Decipherance of intent and customer needs is probably the single most important factor in today’s businesses.

I will put this in context of small businesses – especially the services sector- where it is easier to explain due to non complex/matrix organizations.

(Quirky photo – Attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/joeshlabotnik/2227650138/sizes/m/in/photostream/ )

Thinking Diagnostic marketing not deadend sales

Scenario 1:
Couple to property agent: We saw your listing on a website, can you give more details?
Prop agent: Yes- It is 1290 sq ft @1100 psf negotiable. We have an open house Saturday 1 PM
Couple: Great- any more details, any facilities, area details…
Prop agent: Yes it is high floor, 20 mins to Train station, one tennis court, pool…

..and the conversation goes on.

Pretty normal conversation.

The problem is this- this is an interrogation session, a Q& A session. You ask me- I tell you. The solution seeker is asking all the questions- the seller responds to the literal questions- not understanding the intent behind the questions. The irony is that the solution seeker does not even know what are the right questions to ask.

The reality is – the couple is looking for a solution- a good home that suits their needs and budget. And Oh! by the way- their kids go to a school near to exactly another house that this agent is selling. The psf selling price is higher- but so much more convenient for the family! Agent has a far better chance of selling that unit- and even getting more commission.

They just need to decipher the real need- and 60% of the job is done.

This agent might strike a deal with just showing around some houses- but this makes it a hit and trial project. And the sales is just Dumb, Deadend sales.

In today’s world of social/word of mouth driven businesses, attracting someone’s attention is less than half the deal done. Even making one sale is not 100% of the job done. Especially in the services sector- where repeat business is the cornerstone and word of mouth is the number 1 vehicle leading to sales.

The property agent needs to provide a solution for the seeker to enable them to buy the house- NOT just sell a house.

Yes- it does look like it is not scalable/not worth is in a retail services scenario (I can speak to 5 prospects in the time I consult with one)- in actuality- this is “Dumb, Deadend sales”- hitting out to many-hoping that some will convert. Widening the mouth of the funnel hoping more will filter out. Digging a well every time you need water.

With this approach, there is more resource leakage, less than optimum efficiency- and deadend sales- even if the sale does occur.

Scenario 2:

Customer to hairdresser: I want a neat, smart cut- maybe a little short- official looking too

Hairdresser:Huh?

Customer: Erm..do you think short will look good? Not too short

Hairdresser: How short you mean?

Customer: I’m asking you.

Hairdresser: I can cut short from sides and leave the front.

Customer: Huh? Okay never mind- just trim it for now- medium length..

Indecisive? Yes- the customer is undecided.

Economies of scale for the hairdresser? The hairdresser makes money by dealing with customers in multiples.Retail servicing @40 bucks each. Rent is to be paid. “Tell me what you want and get out of here”

Dumb, deadend sale. The customer has no reason to come back, no respect for your solutions, and is likely to look for another solutions. Where will they stop ultimately? They will stop where they are get good recommendations and stay where they feel their wants are deciphered better.

And no- this is not about providing a “Good Service”- this is about deciphering the real need- diagnosing what the problem could be- by asking questions- spending those first few moments understanding what is (really) wanted by the customer?

Here is someone who is clearly seeking for a solution- they want a neat, smart haircut. can you share examples from photos that you have? Don’t have? take the extra step- go to Google search- Type “Short, smart hairstyles +women (or men)”

Diagnose- Ask where does the person work (sales- give a more professional look, advertising creatives- will probably be open to new things…) observe their dress sense- are they a little adventurous (show some funky styles), do they use haircare products (opportunity to cross sell other items)… Spend that little time to decipher what they actually need. I can bet on it- even if the end product is not exceptional, they are still going to come back . And they are still going to refer. You got someone (and their friends)- just because you spent that 20 minutes the first time.

In Deadend sales, you use your expertise for your tactical gains.In diagnostic marketing, you need to put your expertise to best use for the solution seeker.

Can you make further sales out of one sale? Can you convert one deal into many deals? Yes- develop “Diagnostic marketing” skills.

There are more scenarios- and the more ironical ones being the ones where marketing/advertising folks need to demonstrate their excellence in this. Ironically they are the ones who do not. Agencies seek literal briefs- some even needing Step 1, 2 and 3. Dumb Sales. Many clients are probably dumb too- but it is your business on the line first. Then theirs. You are impacted first.

The impact might not be on the bottomline though. Bottomlines can be taken care of by Dumb. Deadend Sales. To go any further in today’s world, you need diagnostic marketing.

Follow these steps- Decipher->Validate->Act->Close

Makes sense? Dumb , Deadend sales or Diagnostic marketing?

PS: I had termed this phenomenon as Decipherance marketing earlier. But recently, while explaining this to a friend- he mentioned that it sounds like a doctor- family doctor- who would know your medical history. While  that analogy does not exactly fit this phenomenon- that did allow me to come up with a term that best described this approach- and Diagnostic it is.

Internet was always about faster access- access to content and access to people.

And just about lately- the powerhouses of the web are moving towards real time internet- in an unprecedented manner.

Just when we thought real time location based chek-ins and personalized content dissemination were becoming mainstream and conversation monitoring systems were coming of age- the biggies of the web almost surreptitiously inserted more social, more ‘instant’ features on their interfaces- taking things a step further.

The phenomenon is noteworthy because the net product is more than the sum of its parts.

Shalabh Thinks: Innovation on the web proliferates faster than Moore’s law on processing power of chipsets. Sometimes little steps for the internet can be one giant leap for mankind.

Two examples that caught my attention recently - are Google and Bing- both riding the social wave. And in an unconventional manner (they have been trying their hands at it since some time)- direct integration of Social in search results.

Full on!

I am already impressed by what Google can do with social features integrated with results on search.

Dig the Realtime function on Google- If you haven’t tried yet- go to Google click on the left hand sidebar- Realtime link- and there you go.

It gives you neat little LIVE updates (mostly twitter)-against pre-defined keywords- and a nice little buzz chart at top right. Right sidebar also mentions key/most shared/important social feeds.

What’s more- they just rolled out their Social Search globally. It leverages publicly available data from sites like Flickr, Twitter (something’s brewing with Twitter and Google it seems?) and other Google sites like blogger, gmail contacts etc- and present it you mapping with your social graph.

Neat. More here in this video:

Along similar lines, Bing from Microsoft – leveraged its alignment with Facebook- and did some stupendous work. And they seem to moving in the right direction in nibbling away some of Google’s search share.

So if you haven’t recently- go to Bing. If you are logged in to Facebook- Bing reads it via cookie identification- and you will see your Facebook pic on top right. This means you can now see your friends recommendations (likes etc) on search results- and they can see yours. If you want to. If not- you could disable the function too.

More from this recent video from Bing:

If you are interested- check out the Twitter maps integration with Bing- real time visualization of tweets on a keyword layered on top of a map. Yoiu could grab a code and embed on your website. All good- except it is a bit buggy.

I had suggested earlier that 2010 would be the year of Systematic Web

I sense that 2011 is the year of the Instant Web

And I predict that 2012 will be the year of the Intent web

By God’s grace, in this field, I haven’t trumpeted empty predictions-give or take a year.

So the next most powerful thing after this wave of instant is easy to guess-It is already happening in many ways- and with unification of data across channels – will become a reality soon- is “The Intent Web”. Services guess your intent based on your past behavior and meta data- coupled with those like you. And serve you content and ads based on guessing what will you do or want next.

The Intent Web.

Or call it what you want- but think about it

Shalabh

@shalabhpandey
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rizzato/3488201179/sizes/s/in/photostream

I can’t stand status quo. Somehow. I want it sometimes- even long for it. But I can’t seem to stop challenging it.

In my many years of working life, I have always found myself at the center of change. From the time I managed marketing for network center solutions (enterprise level networking solutions- mostly to dotcommers of the early millenium years)- to consulting on developing web apps/sites to the time of starting Digital Media departments in a few agencies- introducing search engine marketing and developing digital marketing frameworks for my agencies- to starting a completely new agency in a completely new country- to dabbling with starting-up and independent consulting.

It was not easy. It has never been. But many of these have been successful stints. Satisfying and I have brought value to the table.

The only common thing with these challenges has been the fact that I was brought in to be- or expected to be- or turned out to be- The Change Agent.

Digital Marketing field is a field where you can either be like a monkey- sitting on a tree and making some noise- or you get into the jungle and ride the tiger.

• There were (and still are) few systems in place- which implies you could establish a new paradigm- or wait till someone else does it.I did it myself.
• You had to learn the ropes yourself. Self learn -take time away from family. Be “always on’. Learn to swim or drink the water on your way down. And let me tell you- I drink a lot of water- but somehow always surface
• New storms are always on the horizon – but you have to keep on chasing the storm- riding the tiger. (Oh yes!- and if you survive- you need to train everyone else how to do it- over a weekend)

As a change agent, I have always been commanding positions yet without directions. Performing various tasks, yet resource deprived. A digital specialist but also a planner, suit, salesperson, project manager, ad trafficker, et al. Always in start-up mode- always on.

But too much change never worried me. What always scared me though was too little change.Perhaps it is the Indian roots- there is a naturally high tolerance for ambiguity. Mix it with the attitude- “I can do this and I can do this better- because I am passionate about this and willing to go the extra mile”- and the concoction would define a change agent.

But I have been a change agent not just for the sake of change- I have been in situations that demanded change. And someone had to bring it. A start-up, a new set up, an innovation- whatever it was.

Many a times, the challenge was to define change itself.

The times demanded change- and it had ‘something to do with digital’. This was the untold directive. What it actually was, how to leverage and how to solve whatever it was, had to be defined, managed and executed.

Thankfully, leading that change and translating it into something meaningful and demonstrating success was something I have been able to achieve. More in some places, lesser in others. Notwithstanding the degree, it did make some difference. And not without the help of friends and colleagues.

In the initial years- the challenge of making everyone understand the logic of failing fast and failing quick- was immense. As a ‘digital’ specialist- you are expected to know what is going on!

Most of the times, the complexity of the change came not from market forces or even defining the change- it came from internalizing/fitting that solution within the existing dynamics of the organization. That is the biggest challenge.

Life continues throwing new challenges- and with them come some wonderful opportunities.

I am finding myself at the center of another big change agent role- and a wonderful opportunity. I have joined Nokia in Singapore- as the Head of Earned media for South-East Asia and Pacific.

I am getting to define, manage and execute change – all over again- and I do hope to get your support, encouragement and tips.

Chasing the Storm continues to be independent of my professional assignments- and will continue to carry personal thoughts (though a little intermittently) on Ideas, innovations and inspirations.

Happy New Year and god bless.

Shalabh

National sales and marketing congress, an annual event organized by Marketing Institute of Singapore invited me over for taking a one hour session with the audience. The topic? I evangelize (what I refer to as) Engagement led marketing and this seemed to be a good gathering to tackle the subject.

Engagement led marketing, by the way- is exactly that- marketing that is engagement driven. And engagement (to me) is glue that has the potential to tie together different digital (and other) disciplines.

A lot of effort went into this- specially designing and visualization (and I hope it is apparent). I am a bit of a sucker for visually appealing presentations with substance- and I hope I was able to deliver on both.

The presentation was quite well-received and thank God- all that effort was appreciated.

It is said that a one hour presentation requires 30 hours of effort- and I could not agree more. Apart from clearly presenting your own thinking, you need to provide context through research- latest wherever possible, and retain audience interest by making it visually relevant (thank God for photo sharing and creative commons, but finding the right images that tell the story you want to tell is a task- I tell you). Those things take time. (“A whole lot of precious time” as Paul McCartney would say)

On that topic, there are some guidelines I have started following regarding presenting to an audience- and time willing, I’d love to share the key points of delivering a presentation in a conference.

But that later.

I am approached by quite a few people complaining about the pace of technology, fragmentation of media and silo-ised disciplines. This presentation is an attempt to make people appreciate that all marketing disciplines need to work together; engagement led marketing thinking is the common ground/glue- and the key steps in drafting an engagement led integrated marketing strategy.

Think About it

Shalabh

Twitter: @shalabhpandey

Privileged to be chairing a day at Social Media World Forum for 23rd September in Singapore.

Will write more about it- though for starters- here is my Introduction note for the day:

===========================

Welcome to the second day of immersing within the Social Media environment.

The Media and Marketing industry is undergoing a paradigm shift, and a quick and clear understanding of the opportunities available today and those shaping tomorrow is extremely important and challenging at the same time. In the course of this two day immersion schedule, you will surely get a flavor of what are some of these opportunities and how to make maximum use of them.

I am excited at chairing the second day of this conference. Social Media has moved beyond the initial introductory stage and has fast climbed the ladder of new media adoption hierarchy. The wide scale interest is converting into adoption and business impacting processes are being developed and deployed regularly.

This discipline has fast become a part of mainstream marketing and the ‘social’ thinking within marketing now spans beyond customer service and ‘buzz’ to more marketing functions like CRM and even demand generation. The social media discipline is also disrupting business models- especially on the agency side. It is redefining the traditional agency outlook and is forcing everyone to ‘think digital’.  Or rather ‘think social’.

The Media industry is obviously feeling a ‘shake-up’ at this point of time, and many media companies are transforming themselves to better incorporate the social element. The ‘social media’ aspect has had impact on technologies too and newer ‘social’ led technologies are to be seen in the near future with integration with television, mobile and across multimedia content platforms.

Asian markets are at a forefront of this revolution. Asian users are creating content and participating in group and personal communication in their own unique ways and across mediums. This landscape is unique – and some models are now shaping global adoption and business models.

From my perspective, the interplay of various elements within the marketing mix is what excites me and understanding the impact of each new medium on overall marketing objectives is my pet topic.

We will discuss all of this in today’s conference. I look forward to hearing thoughts and opinions from industry thought leaders and young executives. Their opinions and understanding shapes the future of this medium and so do your opinions and understanding.

Wish you all the best in sharing and indulging in meaningful conversations throughout the day.

Shalabh Pandey

@shalabhpandey

I just read news on the removal of all Hitler related parodies from YouTube.

There have been tonnes of those Hitler parodies online, especially those built on a scene of “Downfall”- the movie.

One of the initial Hitler parodies that caught my eyes was around Social Media (removed from YouTube it seems- though am sure someone can still find it if they look hard)

But the key is not Hitler, or the movie. The key is that that video/parody was produced by a Digital Marketing person/team- just like yourself. And that tells a lot about the way people are expressing themselves- even busy individuals are spending time to create content- and something with a limited appeal to their industry only.

Lately I have seen quite a few of these.

Though only those from industry would find them funny.

One of them is here- scene from “A Few Good Men”- only in this case, the characters take a different stance on the proceedings. The “You can’t handle the truth” dialogue/speech is probably one the most remembered and known dialogues of its time.

And this parody does a good job- production wise.

Tom Cruise plays the (Premium) Publisher; Jack Nicholson- the DSP (Demand Side Platform). Randall Rothenberg – the IAB President & CEO is playing…well..himself.

To put some ‘context’ to it- those who know me- know that I love to use that word while explaining something- here is the original scene:

That also makes me think- what are the DSPs doing in Asia? Are there any worth their salt?

And the second thing that I want to highlight is- when will my Asian friends start doing this stuff? In their own languages? There’s just so much that could be leveraged- Chinese? Malay? Tagalog? There are innumerable classic scenes and power packed performances from every country.

We need to use Video. Use it in a way that opens eyes wide.

Maybe I’ll do it now- sometime soon- whenever I get a spark.

Since I understand Hindi, I’ll use some examples here. Share some scene stealers from movies/episodes from your language.

One of the hot contenders would be- this scene from a bollywood movie- Shakti:

Or this epic one from Deevar:

Not just parodies. Meaningful, humorous and topical sizzles.

Think About It.

At the risk of reinforcing my (somewhat fallacious) positioning as a  ‘Social media’ guy (I am a digital marketing person- and a proponent of engagement led marketing), here is an interesting and relatively new (end June 2010) content on digital (mainly social media, I would say) strategy from a leading brand.

A session by Alexandra Wheeler- Digital Director at Starbucks.

Listing the video along with the presentation here- as noticed on the Digital Buzz blog

Some key points from the presentation (you’ve heard a lot of this before- and the reason might be that it is becoming standard practice now across many firms)

• Social media is about relationships and engagement- so be authentic and don’t outsource your voice (Hmm…not outsourcing your voice could be debatable- and I would argue it does not play with all brands across all situations)
• Digital within Starbucks fits within a larger integrated marketing strategy ( I like this statement. As someone exposed to all marketing disciplines- especially within the digital domain- no one can vouch for this more than me)
• Revisiting Starbucks digital (social actually) strategy- some key success areas were- building a coalition (finding a common cause with the community); making a commitment and acknowledging mistakes when they were made. Crowdsourcing ideas worked for them -the “Free WiFi”  idea came up from the “My Starbucks Idea” platform and an organic community build-up led to ‘real’ fans coming in contact with the brand
• I love the importance they laid to curating content. Content became an engagement vehicle (something I’ve been reinforcing the whole of last year- and continue to do so) Creating great content and seeding it meaningfully scored high points (what I have called GermFeeding and GermSeeding)
• We need to put resources behind digital/social- Completely agree. To make it a committed effort- this needs investment in right people, tools and processes.

Enjoy the talk and the presentation below:

Shah Wadjija, a colleague and expert in User Experience and Interfaces spotted this while surfing on his iPad:

O’Reilly authors Christian Crumlish (curator of the Yahoo! Design Pattern Library and director of the Information Architecture Institute) AND Erin Malone (Principal with Tangible UX) in their book
“Designing Social Interfaces” take examples from my Social Networking profiles to explain a few concepts.

Quite serendipitous.

I remember a few years back, Google used one of my article headlines “The keyboard is mightier than the sword” to explain a concept (It was about 6 years back so no reference where I could point).

Good to understand what prompted them to take a small snippet- maybe the clean caricature, or did they really use a software to check some profiles more relevant for their examples.

Interesting find- thanks Shah.

Update (27th Nov 2010):
I sat down again watching this video. Want to showcase some of the points made in an upcoming conference I am speaking at. But soon as I finished revisiting the earlier presentation, I chanced upon another clip- from the same company and with the same set of people, albeit seeking communication planners’ opinions on a different perspective- While the previous video talks about in General- the skills of planners- this video talks about the ‘human touch’ (understanding the human condition) that communication planners (to me a communications planner need not only be in an ‘agency’ rather could/should be within the brand company itself. At least the marketing people within the company should have a comms planning outlook.

The video below also, in many ways highlights that marketing planning/comms planning need not be discipline specific. A lot of what is being said here is what the ‘social media proponents’ emphasize too. That mainstream planning is now talking about ‘listening’, ‘feedback’ , filtering the right information, putting in emotions (understand your audience like a comedian does!) and other such dictats- which were probably there a few years ago- but either the scale was too small or the focus was on other issues. This one is more enjoyable and universally applicable.

Especially to someone like me who lays the utmost importance to the seamless ‘inter-marketing-disciplinary’ interaction, this is fun.

Time flies.

Its been about 8 months since I last participated in Social Networking World forum Asia, the Asian chapter of the popular forum from the UK.

A voice over from my last year’s talk on “Video Social Networking” here and a post on it about a year back here

The Social Media World Forum (SMWF) Asia this year is scheduled for the 22/23rd September at Suntec, Singapore (before the F1 Singapore night race). The event will showcase the leading social media trends taking place in Asia through a combined conference and exhibition.

The good folks organizing this conference (Six Degrees events- thanks Ian, Richard and Dee) asked me to chair the second day of the conference – and of course it should be fun doing it.

The agenda of the conference could be found here

I am also on the panel of advisers for the forum and hope to contribute.

This time around, apart from the ‘big’ speakers and participants, we also have on-the-ground managers- people who are in the thick of the things. Expect a little more action.

A promo video to get a ‘feel’ of the event:

Enjoy, participate and contribute. Hope to see you there

Think about it

Shalabh

Governments are largely reactive in nature. Things move with a heavy foot, there are processes to be followed, and ‘corporatization’ is frowned upon. By ‘corporatization’, I largely mean ‘marketing’.

The fundamentals governing this thought process have ground in the fact that governments need to be largely ‘welfare’ units, ‘not-for-profit’ organizations. Which they should be- but with a broader perspective.

Marketing is so synonymous with greedy profit churning and pushy sales calls, that it is almost a bad word- and because of lack of hard data supporting usefulness of each marketing initiative, governmental organizations find it easy to leave it alone. Not to be touched. From a useful discipline that allows one to make their ideas reach relevant people, it becomes a cryptic, pseudo-relevant science.

There is little specialist talent, therefore, within governmental organizations to proactively take marketing initiatives.

Things, however, are changing. Not only do we see political parties and political candidates using the power of new age marketing techniques and tools, we also see some governments taking a pro active approach towards connecting with their stakeholders.

And from what I have seen in the recent few years, fewer government organizations have used new marketing  opportunities than those within Singapore.

Specifically from the ‘Social Media’/engagement standpoint, there have been some recent successes that I noticed- I will list some of them here- mostly from top of mind recall, but I am sure there are more cases out there.

Like most new things, these initiatives have not been without their share of criticisms (ample to find that in Singapore) and execution hiccups.

But the highlight is not about how great the campaigns were, how flawless the execution was or how measurable were these campaigns.

Many of these campaigns were none of these, and many probably failed miserably at achieving the desired results.

But what is worth highlighting is that they tried. It is BIG DEAL in governments. These are government or quasi government (aided or assisted with government control/stake) organizations. These are not nimble enterprises. The fact that they take this ‘risk’ of venturing into hitherto unknown territory and risk mockery or failure, is HUGE. To me, it is important enough that these campaigns saw the light of the day.

Time does not permit to dissect these campaigns, but I hope to, sometime in future. And also, my point of view on how they could have been better or what could be the next steps following up from where they left it.  As of now, just listing some details on these campaigns.

• Singapore Tourism Board (STB):
  • Aided by their agency partners, STB seems to have undertaken a few non-mainstream initiatives
  • STB Crowdsourcing Ideas from public: Following up on their roadmap to year 2020, STB launched a website asking the common person on their vision of how to improve this sector in 2020.
  • STB blogger connections: STB now has a section on their website featuring Blogger perspectives on Singapore.  Bloggers talk about new stuff, their experiences, and bring in a slightly different side of the life in Singapore- which could be of immense interest to the visitors who want to get the story from individuals not corporations.
• Reach Singapore: The organization entrusted with community development in Singapore, had launched early some basic steps in connecting and reaching out to the community, specially the youth. Setting up the ubiquitous Facebook and Twitter communities were basic attempts, but the fact that some initiatives were as early as 2008, is interesting to note.
• Senior ministers in the government now actively engage digitally- and participate in forums. This is seen even ‘offline’. Last year, at the omy.sg (a bilingual site in mandarin and english) Blogger award night, the Chief Guest was Mr George Yeo- Minister of foreign affairs in the Singapore government. Attending a congregation of largely teens or tweens!
• NTUC Fairprice : Less known as a “trade union corporation”, more as a supermarket chain, their facebook page now boasts more than 26k members. Frankly, it is quite basic, slightly unkempt (“What’s up” section has nothing inside (!)) and seems a lot more could have been done than promoting a contest and their TVCs. But still worth a mention.
• SingPost: This is what happens when an old school service tries to appeal to the new age consumers. Singapore Post or SingPost is essentially a postal service (actually they have a lot more to their repertoire) and here is what they tried:
  • In the wake of Youth Olympics in Singapore, they decided to undertake a stealth marketing campaign.
  • Some graffiti artists were hired and in full public view, were made to paint graffiti on Singpost postboxes. In Singapore, that is BIG DEAL. Any graffiti on public properties is treated as serious vandalization and is punishable by law.
  • The morning after effect assumed was that people would talk about it, it would spread- followed by Singpost admitting it was a publicity stunt -and all will be hunky dory. Only it went the other way- complaints and social media buzz derided the act as distasteful and counter to the values we should impart to the youth.
  • To me, it was Classic germFeed- created an opportunity to talk- bystanders created content- took videos/took snaps, shared it and commented on it.
  • Good or Bad- to get a postal service get talked about by the youth is a huge deal. I am not sure if kids nowadays would think of Post Boxes as something to be like a fire safety poles. If kids were all about sharing and compassion and love and the spirit of games- gaming and cinema would have died long back.
  • Could it have done in a better way? Sure it could have been. Was graffiti necessary? Sure it wasn’t. But the idea of doing a radical exercise- something out of the ordinary- by itself is worth a mention.

What would I have done? Here is what I would have done- stick color codes or Augmented Reality code stickers on all Post boxes- promote it across media channels- encourage people to snap it with their camera phones- wherever they saw the boxes and create engaging content to engage with it. Maybe show the journey of a parcel,maybe show profile of Youth Olympic atheletes- tonnes of things to surprise people with.

Actually, as I said, none of these are examples of ‘great’ initiatives. But if they evolve from hereon- it is what will make the difference. If they continue trying it is then they will make that difference.

They have had their share of criticisms, let us allow them to entertain and engage us.

Think About It

Shalabh

“Think About It”- Ideas shaping digital media and marketing in the new decade

The new book will be launched by mid February in both Kindle format and paperback format.

We had seeked your inputs and opinions on which cover design layout did you like the best.

Thanks everyone for not only helping us choose the right cover but also with your critique and suggestions for improvements.

We went through all the suggestions in detail and tried to achieve a balance. And that brought us to the final choice.

And the Winner is- Cover design no. 8

Of course this design will not be used as it is here- but with further changes and more cleaning up. Will keep you posted.

A whole lot of friends commented and decided us to choose the right cover- across platforms- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and emails.

Truely, a cover design chosen by you. Some of the responses here:

Excerpt from Twitter:

Excerpt from Facebook:

Some, like Maria, CEO and co-founder of Linqia from Barcelona- had some gems for all the designs

(We loved it!)- her comment:

=============================================

Dear Shalabh,

Hope my comments help in some way:

• Cover 8: Very clean, illustration offers insight into the theme of the book, great font
• Cover 7: Icons are effective showing humans however overused throughout the industry. Also the font doesn’t work at all.
• Cover 6: Warm design which weakens the overall affect you’re trying to achieve by making the statement ‘Think about it’. It’s also quite busy.
• Cover 5: The lines at the top make the cover too busy and conflict with the colorful people icons. Again – these icons are used heavily throughout the industry which could connote ‘another web 2.0 book’
• Cover 4: Very beautiful design however on first impression the book looks to be about financial matters
• Cover 3: Extremely busy! Too many design elements.
• Cover 2: The wireframe of the man is effective and would work well with typography from cover 8 with no additional graphics.
• Cover 1: Great colours. Strong typography. Lines are also strong in ‘thought’ and ‘landscape’

The 2 that really stand out and project a positive first impression are covers 1 and 8.

Maria

===============================

I can’t put all the comments here- but some friends went to the extent of finding the right font and asking us to use those in the text instead.

It was great. We tried to follow as much as we could (and as much as our Art Director would allow us to)

Now just if the economics could allow us to collectively arrive at the cost of the book too.

Think about it

Shalabh

Twitter- @shalabhpandey

Keep in touch for further updates.

“Think About It”- Ideas shaping digital media and marketing in the new decade

Its love’s labour. Really.

After more than a year of running ChasingTheStorm – with loads of loving time spent- and acquiring loads of loving friend circle, this is it. I put together a book.

“Think About It” is a book inspired by Ideas from this website. With more meat, more thoughts and well, in a different format. The title of the book is actually the signature I use in most articles.

The book covers Digital Media and Marketing trends in the new decade, Mobile Media, new marketing paradigms and Marketing Case studies.

It is written not as a tutorial to digital media platforms or Digital marketing 101. Rather- it attempts to raise a storm on specific Digital media issues. Offering an easy read for the evolved, thinking marketer, it is a book to raise debate- and expects a degree of interest in Digital Media.

I’ll talk more about it later- but since I am quite excited about it, I decided to put up the news anyways.

It’ll go in print soon (and available online and on the Kindle)- but as usual, not without your support in its making. I need you to help pick up the right cover design.

My good friend Ankur Khurana volunteered to get the cover design done- and boy- he did get them designed in two days flat. Many thanks buddy. And many thanks to MG Harti- the Art Director who helped the idea come into reality by doing many iterations.

So here are the designs- (the copy/text and some elements are dummy).

Just from a design layout perspective- let me know which ones do you like the best?

You could comment here, or

Email me: shalabhpandey at gmail dotcom

DM or @ at Twitter : @shalabhpandey

The cover Designs for “Think About It”

GROUP 1:

Cover One

Cover 2

Cover 3

Cover 4

GROUP 2:

Cover 5

Cover 6

Cover 7

Cover 8

Comment here, or

Email me: shalabhpandey at gmail dotcom

DM or @ at Twitter : @shalabhpandey

Think About It

Shalabh

Welcome to 2010. The year when Social Networks get into early adulthood- and get married. To whom? The real world. FTW for sure. And sure enough- the best man will be the mobile device.

I don’t say this to promote Augmented reality. That I’ve already discounted. No- not given up (I think it is pretty cool) just time shifted- not for the next 6 months in 2010.

Why do I say so? Listen up:

• Facebook has more than 65 million members accessing it using mobile.
• 20 percent of Twitter streams originate from mobile devices
• In 2009, YouTube video watching through mobiles was up 52 percent-  according to a study published in May by Nielsen.

These three social networks- pretty much rule the web world- and they are slowly but surely being mobility driven. Mobile is the BFF of Social Networking. But there’s one marriage that is long being awaited. That between the real and the virtual world. Tying the knot between real life interaction and virtual (mobile +web) presence.

In late 2007, while being on a panel at GSMA in Macau, one of the things I had felt and brought up was that location awareness could give a great boost to mobile marketing. Though many marketers did not have a great degree of success at the time (with limited bluetooth and SMS campaigns), I always had this hunch that the one obvious advantage of mobile over others is – ahem-mobility. And we finally see it happening now- with the convergence of Social and real life (location) and Mobile.

While Twitter plans to incorporate location based features soon; applications like Google Latitude and Loopt are already in this direction. The ability to connect with ‘friends’ based on location hyper targeting coupled with other triggers is a ‘no- brainer’ path that will be taken soon by many others.

Marketing dollars will aid the growth of such services- we the marketers are hungry for these things. Forever. Ah! The pain of dealing with yet another technology and yet another platform.

See again- I said ‘marketing’ and not just ‘advertising’. Though advertising is the obvious beneficiary as well.

Ad Networks like AdMob are already cashing in to the opportunity (and I don’t mean the Google way) by offering location based ads.

But speaking of marketing, services like Foursquare have been making waves (and I promise you the buzz around this service will almost be as much as Twitter had from 2007-2009 the next year onwards).

Of course you know Foursquare- don’t you? a location-aware app that lets users “check in” at venues in a number of cities. The opportunities for footfalls are immense. You could do coupons (opt-ins of course) to subscribers within a certain radius of a location (say restaurant or boutique); or you could run loyalty rewards for frequent patrons (called Mayors for some funny reason)

Foursquare is not alone. I struggle to find Asian examples (trust me they will pop up within a month or two of this post) but there are other popular ones like Rummble (an interesting story of already brewing competition here) and Gowalla.

Rummble

Gowalla

Update on 7th feb 2010:

Just received a mail from Placepop about their offering too. In case you want to take them for a spin- you could try them free at the iTunes store

This is of course, not all. And there are at least a few solid Asian examples after all.

We saw Friendster acquisition by MoL, a company that will probably use the social network’s remaining audience base to promote m-commerce, micropayment led social gaming and what not.

Alongside, in October 2009, mobile manufacturer Ericsson tied up with Kaixin001. The deal was to incorporate more social activities to the handset and ease of access.

All said and done- Mr Real World- it is time to say “I do” to Lady Social Network. The best man “Mr Mobile” will keep a close watch.

Happy New Year 2010.

The MicroInfluencer (TM) as a concept in pop culture has caught on. When I had first thought about the concept of the MicroInfluencer and published it, I wanted to highlight real life people who had actually achieved some success by exercising their influence over the digital medium. The thought of individuals and everyday people having influence on the internet was not new- but the phrase itself brought clarity to the meaning.

Anyhow, I intend to start a process I’d been thinking of since long now- highlighting MicroInfluencers from time to time – as and when I discover a few- and as and when you lead me to some of them.

Here is one- and quite with times too.

MicroInfluencer(TM): Danny MacAskill a.k.a the urban cycllist

Danny MacAskill- a bicycle mechanic. From Edinburg. Pretty obscure- maybe known in the local circuits. And then one fine day, he and his roommate decide to shoot a video of his ‘stunts’ en route to work.

Dave Sowerby- his roommate picks up a cam and shoots some excellent videos over the next few months. The founder of Inspired Bicycles- Dave Cleavers- (who has a razor sharp marketing brain it seems- following the success of the video- he has come up with new cycles similar to those of MacAskill’s and his bike brand has got some cool buzz going on the net. For his brand, he has started what I call the BuzzLifeCycle and is riding a meme at the right time) then had it put in YouTube. What results thereafter is this:

• More than 13 million views
• Highest viewed sports video on YouTube
• Spread all across the net via blogs and other social networking sites

Danny had made it- and like this article says- his life could now be phased as “Before youTube” and “After YouTube”. The video became a Germfeed Item that spread really quickly and constructively impacted Danny’s life.

This is the video that started it all – in case you don’t happen to have contributed to the 13 million views:

The video caught on like wildfire and soon enough not only Danny gets interview requests but even gigs- like this professionally produced ad for  recruitment company/website.  The story from the sponsors here.

What followed the epic first video was a flurry of interviews/articles and presentations from mainstream media. Worldwide recognition.

This excerpt from the NYT article sums it all:

One day, he was asked to appear in 10 countries. Filmmakers wanted to make documentaries about his life. Advertisers pounced. Big companies, like Red Bull in Britain, lined up to sponsor him. People wanted his autograph. Ellen DeGeneres, who bears a faint resemblance, wanted him to dress up as her and ride around Los Angeles. The Doves, a British rock band, wanted him for a video. Lance Armstrong called MacAskill’s video “a must watch.” A circus in South Korea wanted to hire him to perform stunts.

Danny is from Dunvegan on the Isle of Skye. Go figure where that is (clue in the beginning of the MicroInfluencer intro topic). From an unheard-of town to worldwide acclaim, being invited across the world for adverts and paid gigs. It’s a long way baby- in a pretty short time. You will soon be a MegaInfluencer.

Think about it

Shalabh