I’ll keep this post short because that’s about how long Blockbuster seems to want it.

Blockbuster just announced a new late fee policy.  If the video is not returned in 5 days, they will tack on 1 dollar per day.

Now here is why that’s really stupid:

In my family, Movie night is Friday or Saturday.  Friday is exactly 7 days away from the next Friday.  I think that it is fun and efficient to return the old videos at the same time that we rent a new video – that’s what keeps the game sticky.

Since 5 days is less than 7 days, someone needs to make an extra trip.  This extra trip costs 20 minutes of life, fuel, and car mileage.  Suppose my free time has a monetary value that exceeds the value of the product.  No, seriously, isn’t it a little arrogant to think you have the luxury to drive favorable customer behavior with a bummer?

So, what were once a family of loyal customers are now a band of free agents launched into a world of new alternatives and posting their experiences in Social Media.

I don’t know whether to say ‘thank you’ or good ridence, so I’ll say both.

The obsession with measuring all things social is indicative of thinking inside rather than out. Inside thinking focuses on justification of time, energy and efforts all aimed at creating results.

Outside thinking focuses on learning market needs and intents. Do you measure market needs and intents? The irony of measuring all things social is that the measures are put for the moment.

Given the dynamic nature of how people use social technology, how suppliers are advancing the technology and the subsequent dynamics everything is but for a moment.  If things are in a dynamic state then measuring a moment becomes irrelevant to what is happening the next moment.

Is Measuring Social Relevant?

Business mindsets believe that measurement of “things” is relevant to managing results. Production cycle times, process variation, employee productivity, sales, marketing etc. etc. are all “things” that most businesses believe they should measure. Most business managers don’t realize many important things, that must be managed, cannot be measured. You can’t measure everything of importance to management. You must still manage those important things.

W. Edwards Deming once said “Organizations are a means to improve the lives we live.” How would you measure whether your organization is improving people’s lives?

Brainwashed By Measuring Results

Measurement-based or fact-based management is not new.  A form of it was developed during and after World War II when so called “Whiz Kids” became powerful managers within the Fortune 500. This approach to management was oriented to an industrial age that is now in the past but the practices still exist. It strikes us as cold and impersonal, the mind-set of Dilbert’s boss.

Today we still see organizations holding on to part of the old mind-set, the measurement part. Measurement mentality continues on as a sacred mindset to justify actions against the holy grail of results. Meanwhile market have become more and more dynamic fueling constant changes largely because of the influence of technology and communications.

A Moment of Measure

The headlines tell us that things are changing rapidly. One day it is all about Google Buzz followed by a new move by Facebook. We chase these developments and look for ways to use these developments to produce results. However, by the time we get around to using something new something else replaces it.

The moment of measure, attention and the subsequent results become irrelevant because of the flood of new developments. Stepping away from measuring the moment can be helpful if not critical to seeing the real meaning in a space that is not stable. The only thing stable is that things will change. Changes in utility, reach and usability changes the measures of value. Obsessed with measures we jump around measuring the impact of changes only to realize new influences are changing the dynamics which changes the result.

The relevant moment of measure is in context to improvement. Without enabling improvement no measure can be relevant or in context with the intent of an organizations effort to improve results. However end results are influenced by actions way upstream. Marketing and advertising actions are downstream. Unless an organization understands and improves the attributes that influence all things downstream then efforts to measure and improve downstream actions become fruitless.

Upstream means you have to start at the beginning of any system. The usage and outcomes of social media are downstream. To fix or prevent a flood you have to go upstream to the source. Measuring how fast or slow the water is rising doesn’t address the influences that make the water rise or subside.

Results are but for the moment. Knowing what influences results is a never ending process of learning and improving forever.

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Yes, we know that social media is humongous. Yeah, we’ve all heard the 10 amazing ways to “fill-in-the-blank”. Nope, you are still not allowed to shove your products down the consumer’s throat until you have earned their trust.

Now, all of a sudden, a new idea is emerging…it’s barely an audible chirp, but it will become a tectonic rumble before long:

Social Media is beginning to take on the characteristics of a Financial Instrument.

This is a stunning development with vast implications. Allow me to interpret this excellent article by the respected visionary, Brian Solis, as a basis for my argument.

One thing that everyone can agree on is that “information”, “knowledge”, and “innovation” are related somehow. The problem is that nobody can agree about exactly how they are related. None of the definitions for these terms include the adjacent terms and no algorithm exists which performs the conversions, until now.

Now comes the interesting observation:

They say that Google ranking represents a proxy for knowledge in a knowledge economy. What they mean to say is that the rate of change of information with respect to time can be used as a proxy for real-time knowledge. This is a valid idea because Google organizes the World’s information based on time rates of change of the Information.

Yet “knowledge” can only exist between the ears of breathing, thinking, creating, and acting human beings – one important component for which Brian expands the term “Social Capital”. If we carry his observation one step upstream, we should be able to also say that the rate of change of Social Capital (a component of “knowledge”) with respect to time is a proxy for real-time innovation.

Now this idea should be pegging seismographs and flooding the Valley with the ensuing tidal wave of glee. The implication is that we can now identify and organize innovation by simply measuring the rate of change of knowledge with respect to time that an enterprise induces among social networks in a market. Alas, we can now see the direct Integration of Social Media into the business plan.

Calculus is the science of change.

Definitions are fluid, they must change. Brian Solis has, in fact, introduced the construction of what scientists call a “differential equation”. Much like “distance, velocity, and acceleration” are all defined as a rate change of their adjacent term, so too will “information, knowledge and innovation” become defined.

Economics is the science of incentives

It should not go unnoticed that Bankers are scientists too and “money, interest rate, and market capitalization” are also related by the same calculus. This makes possible the miracles of capitalization, securitization, insurance, diversification of risk, options, hedge funds, etc… For better or for worse, Wall Street lives and dies by this algorithm and so do we.

Let me repeat; social media is taking on the characteristics of financial instruments.

Please, I hope that I am not alone in celebrating this historic moment. Few people may recognize this now, but mankind has just experienced an evolutionary leap in it’s understanding of it’s own nature.  Bravo Brian, Bravo.

image credit

Jay Deragon posted a series of articles recently on his Relationship Economy blog which I found especially exciting.  As usual, Jay is bringing forward some very important ideas related to social media components and outcomes, but what really sets this new mindset apart is the fact that Jay is asking the same questions that have been plaguing scientists for 100 years.

In Jay’s posting “The Social Moment is Gone” He describes how organizational decisions are driven by metrics that no longer exist.

In another post: ”Measuring Social Moments”, Jay suggests that if things are in a dynamic state then measuring, a moment becomes irrelevant to what is happening the next moment.

In quantum mechanics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that certain pairs of physical properties, like position and momentum, cannot both be known to arbitrary precision. That is, the more precisely one property is known, the less precisely the other can be known.

Scientists figured out that in order to study a sub-atomic particle, they had to stop it from moving.  As soon as they did that, the nature of the particle changed.  Scientists could only study their interaction with the particle, not the particle itself.

Jay is saying something similar: “How can you measure social media if it is responding as a function of your interaction with it?  All you are doing is looking at yourself in a mirror – so stop it”. He’s right.

Status Quanta

Keep in mind that this comes in a time when the chorus of social media gurus are still trumpeting the C-Suite Concerto called “ROI or Die”.  Maybe someone should remind them that the value of the Corporation that they so fungibly defend is in fact an approximation based on things that cannot be measured.  Let me explain:

It is not surprising, therefore, that Wall Street hires Quantum physicists (affectionately known as Quants)  to manage money and investments in markets and to “Innovate” new financial instruments.

The Calculus of Social Media…on Wall Street?

Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle lead to the development of a new branch of probabilistic mathematics for approximating both the position and the momentum of subatomic particles.  In fact, the science of Quantum  physics is entirely contained in probabilities that events will or have occurred and not necessarily based on direct observation – and so are the Wall Street Valuations.

Wall Street uses the same calculus to estimate the probabilities that financial particles will have a specific location and momentum without having to actually witness them.  The result is a host of exotic financial instruments that make, bet, hedge, and securitize such approximations for the benefit of stockholders…..

Getting Back to Jay

Markets are conversations.  People  make products, invent things, design stuff, hold stock, buy, sell and trade  everything.  Those Quantum Physicists on Wall Street are estimating the position and momentum of people.

All Jay is saying is that now you can do it too.

Disney Celebrates Volunteers and Drives Disney Parks Traffic

Imagine rewarding volunteers in your community by offering them something free. In the case of Disney Parks, it’s free admission for one day. Intriguing, no?

Disney announced the program 0n 9/29/2009 in Disney offers free entry to 1 million volunteers.

If you follow the links, you will access Disney Parks. Then, Give a Day, Get a Disney Day.

From there, you can sign up and search for volunteer projects.

For some special fun, you can create your very own personalized Muppet volunteer experience as Becky Carroll did for me!

Here’s the video teaser I just created…

[You may notice some similarities to the buzz campaign that HEMA created.]

What I like about Disney’s concept is that they are linking to consumer and marketplace trends. More specifically, to our desire to be involved in our communities and improve them. Disney becomes both enabler and supporter of volunteerism…

How might you apply the concept of volunteering in your community to your retail experience?

While you’re thinking, go ahead and have a Disney Parks Volunteer Muppet Experience.

Numbers drive organizational decisions. Numbers are used to try and determine what and how one can improve a result.

In the world of social media everyone has become obsessed with the numbers. The irony of collecting and measuring social media data is that the moment of measure changes by the dynamic developments that happen every moment. Conversations are dynamic, numbers are static.

Knowledge is dynamic and contained within each person. Our experiences, our conversations and relevant relations changes our knowledge. That is if we approach people with a willingness to learn what they know or don’t know. Doing so requires listening which in itself is a knowledge funnel.

Listening to Moments?

In business things change moment by moment. Adjusting to these changes requires a agile thinking about the meaning of changes that ultimately drive the end result. The end result of a business is represented by value obtained from the value given. Value of products, services, relationships and processes are consumed by buyers. Buyers get value when their intents are fulfilled beyond their expectations.

Expectations of buyers change and when they do a business must change how they fulfill new expectations. Unless a business is listening to the marketplace, their employees and the end buyer they cannot hear the changing expectations. Not hearing means you are not likely able to meet the expectations satisfactorily.

Social media is nothing more than a channel of communications. Technological innovation has fueled communications and the subsequent “media” is no longer controlled by the few rather by the many. Conversations change and it is the rate of change that represents dynamic moments with meaning. Measuring a point in time may reflect that moment or past moments of dialog but not future moments. To change the future you have to understand the past. However, the future is not merely a reflection of the past especially when dealing with a dynamic system changing moment by moment.

Listening to the Future

Listening to the future is a predictive model of outcomes, actions and subsequent results of the moment.  If we measure moments to determine the effectiveness of past actions the results tell us little about the future. If, on the other hand, our measures are centric to probable future outcomes influenced by previous moments then we can use data to predict future moments. The problem with determining or influencing future social media moments is that the “system” is not stable rather dynamic and filled with special cause variation. Any good statistician will tell you that trying to measure an unstable system is only relevant if you understand and can measure root cuases.

So what are the root causes of social media moments? The answer is people’s intent. Understanding intents will lead you to measure the things that can fulfill or constrain intents. Said things have nothing to do with use of  social media by suppliers rather it has everything to do with a suppliers ability to fulfill the buyers intent. Which by the way changes moment by moment.

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There are two levels to the story of The Checklist Manifesto, a great new book by physician Atul Gawande.

The first level is about checklists: how to make them, how to use them and the extraordinary results that come from using them. The examples include hospitals that virtually eliminate hospital-acquired infections through the use of a simple checklist used in the operating room just prior to cutting the patient open.

Other great examples are provided from the field of aviation. He explains that airline pilots not only have pre-flight checklists, they also have notebooks with sets of check lists to guide them through different kinds of crises.

Construction provides another set of examples: how to assemble a complex skyscraper  by coordinating the work of dozens of subcontractors. There’s even an example about the rock bank Van Halen’s inclusion of a clause requiring a bowl of M&M’s with all the brown candies removed as a way of the band ensuring that the other requirements in their contracts related to the safety of the staging were also read and followed.

Checklists are a simple but powerful form of structural capital. Structural capital is one of the three basic categories of intangible capital along with human and relationship capital. It is the most powerful form of IC because it is essentially infinitely scalable. It is where the promise of the knowledge economy is most clear. But this is not that well understood. Structural capital is organizational knowledge that is captured and preserved for use by everyone in an organization.

That’s why the second level to this story is especially interesting. Because high-end knowledge workers do not necessarily see the need for checklists. They see themselves as experts and sometimes, artists, who shouldn’t be constrained by structure.

Gawande does a great job of explaining why checklists are helpful in complex situations even where there are experts at hand. Doctors and pilots are both highly trained and highly expert in their fields. Yet both benefit greatly from checklists. Why? Gawande explains:

They had made the reliable management of complexity a routine. That routine requires balancing a number of virtues: freedom and discipline, craft and protocol, specialized ability and group collaboration. And for a checklist to help achieve that balance, they have to take two almost opposing forms.  They supply a set of checks to ensure the stupid but critical stuff is not overlooked, and they supply another set of checks to ensure people talk and coordinate and accept responsibility while nonetheless being left the power to manage the nuances and unpredictabilities the best they know how. (page 79)

He also points out that checklists are especially applicable in learned occupations where there is an expectation of professionalism He asserts that most professions focus on ensuring selflessness, skill and trustworthiness. But those who use checklists add another dimension: discipline. He cites the strong checklist culture in aviation as an example of this. And he challenges all professionals to hold themselves to the standard of discipline as well:

We don’t study routine failures in teaching, in law, in government programs, in the financial industry, or elsewhere. We don’t look for the patterns of our recurrent mistakes or devise and refine potential solutions for them. But we could, and that is the ultimate point…When we look closely, we recognize the same balls being dropped over and over, even by those of great ability and determination. (pp 185-6)

So I recommend reading this book for both levels of lessons. First the reasons why even highly experienced professionals can benefit from checklists and second the lessons on how to build good checklists in your own organization.

If you’re blogging for business, rather than blogging about your cat, baby, fashion addiction, or crush on Taylor Swift, you need to set some success metrics.

Without a statistical measure of your blogging progress, adding content to your blog on a regular basis can be an incredibly lonely proposition. Is anyone out there? Does anyone care?

However, even within the business (non cat) blogging arena, there are a wide variety of potential measures to gauge your momentum. It’s imperative that you select the most relevant ones that match with your blog’s purpose and intent.

What’s the Point?

The first step in that process of course is knowing why it is that you’re blogging. This sounds simple, but it’s shocking how many bloggers aren’t clear on the core business rationale behind their blog initiative.

As I see it, there are 3 options here:

1. Blogging for Content
This is the scenario where you are writing a blog with considerable emphasis on search optimization, attempting to drive traffic to the blog via strategic content creation and keyword inclusion.

2. Blogging for Commerce
Related to the first, but commerce-oriented blogs are more interested in conversion events than in traffic generation. Funneling traffic from the blog to some other Web destination (typically a corporate site or lead form) is the prime objective.

3. Blogging for Community
These blogs seek to guild a consistent readership that interact with the blogger(s) and advocate on behalf of the content on other social outposts.

If you are blogging for content, I see these as your key metrics:

• Total visits
• Percentage of new visits (a recent study by my clients at Compendium Blogware to be released soon shows that among 86% of corporate blogs, first-time visitors comprise 60%+ of their total traffic
• Visits from search engines

If you are blogging for commerce, I’d opt for these success measures:

• Average length of stay
• Number of pages viewed per visit (both of these metrics measure depth of engagement, a key consideration when you’re trying to educate a potential customer and get them to take action)
• Referrers from other sites (if there are other sites that are driving significant traffic to your blog, you need to know what they are, to try to replicate that success with other sites of similar type)

If you are blogging for community, I’d pay closest attention to these statistics:

• Repeat visits
• RSS subscribers (repeat visits and subscribers both measure stickiness and consistency, blog elements that build community over time)
• Comments
• Referrers from social outposts like Twitter or Digg

Note that the recommended success metrics are entirely different for each type of blog. Yet, in much of my social media consulting work corporate blog owners are invariably most interested in total visits and RSS subscribers.

This is especially misplaced with group written blogs, where the broad content focus and inconsistent tonality makes RSS subscription less likely. Imagine subscribing to a magazine that was about tennis one month, and about cooking the next month. That’s what a lot of multi-author corporate blogs feel like, so is it any wonder that there aren’t many subscribers?

Blogging success is a slow march, not a mad dash. If you create consistently good content, and promote it vigorously, your blog should eventually succeed. But, to ensure you aren’t disheartened in the meantime, select success metrics that are appropriate for your goals.

For more on advanced blogging, please see my post and slide presentation: 11 Must-Dos for the Serious Blogger.

(photo by Teriyaki Tofu)

I want to roll the clock back a few weeks to the announcement of an initiative by Facebook called – Project Titan.

At the time that I saw it and tweeted about it (of course) it really hadn’t hit me just how important this could be to any business.  What seemed like a pretty basic message about an upgrade message of their current email system which is rather archaic (you know, the one that makes you delete messages one by one!) to a full POP/IMAP supported email account, which means users will be able to configure it with any e-mail client, including Microsoft Outlook, Entourage and Apple’s Mail applications.

But what does that really mean. Well first that means that Facebook will issue 400 Million email account – which is no small feat. Second those email accounts will be tied to your Facebook profile Vanity URL in my case PaulDunay@facebook.com. Third, Facebook says they will enable this feature for Pages (the business version of your Profile). And fourth those Page email addresses will be tied your you Page Vanity URL such as Avaya@Facebook.com (which by the way they significantly lowered the minimum number of the Fans you need to get a Vanity URL from 1000 down to just 25!)

Facebook made its initial announcement of Project Titan to the market on February 5th and was candidly thought to be a Google Gmail killer. So 3 days later on February 8th Google announced Google Buzz! This is clearly an all out war between Facebook and Google. Facebook quietly surpassed Yahoo last year to become the second largest website (according to Alexa.com) and is slowly closing the gap with Google which is now less than 10 million unique visitors per month!!

The point here for B2C and B2B Marketers is that as Facebook makes their platform rich in interaction and captures more users and hence more conversations about your brand – you will need to be there and engage with their user base. I still get questions from B2B firms asking if they should start a presence in Facebook and the answer is unequivocally YES.  Facebook should be your social media hub of everything you have from company news, announcing events, offer tutorials, highlight videos, conduct polls and create community around discussions. But now with this new email feature you can upload your email lists and invite them to truly engage with you on Facebook.

If Facebook can create this type of rich interaction with their Fan Pages and now their email systems – then why would you need an external email vendor? Did I forget to mention all of this is FREE!

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Whether you are an amateur blogger or a professional blogging for a company you need to clearly understand the FTC’s rules for bloggers or suffer the consequences.Like up to $11,000 in fines!

Scary? Well it’s supposed to be, but quite honestly if you abide by good old common sense and treat people honestly in the first place this probably won’t be that big of an issue.

That said I’m not a lawyer, so downloading the rules and reading them for yourself is a very good idea! Here’s a link to the code FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION 16 CFR part 255 (PDF)

Here’s a quick summary of the high points

• If you blog about a product that was given to you to review, you are an affiliate for or you are paid to review in any way you must disclose that information clearly. This includes but is not limited to: ad revenue, testimonials for individuals or products, banner ads for the product “conveniently near” the post you wrote.
• If your blog is sponsored by anyone you must divulge this clearly. No writing about laundry when your sponsor is, say… Clorox, without divulging that fact.
• If you are in any way compensated by the company or parent company of a product you write about. You must disclose it where the reader can clearly see it.

Really when you think about it this isn’t as big a deal as it sounds. It may mean the days of free swag are gone, but then again probably not. Magazines and newspapers have been dealing with this for years as have TV and radio. If we want blogging to be recognized as a professional industry we should be happy to be categorized with the rest of the publication industry.

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