The Empathy Economy

I am reading The Thank You Economy by Gary Vaynerchuk and it is really hitting home. How we treat customers is how we will be treated as a company in many cases. In an age where everyone needs content to post AND has an opinion, acting in a callous manner can have a significant impact. 

This morning, Seth Godin had a great post on his blog about empathy. In his summary he noted that you don't have to wear pantyhose to be a brand manager for a pantyhose company and that's important to note. What we do have to do is understand our customers and understand their journey - the process they go through from educating themselves to engaging with your brand to ordering and finally becoming an advocate.

In the past, we used to say that if no satisfy your customer, they will love you for life and maybe tell a few people. But do something bad, and they will complain to 13 people. We know today, that people are most influenced not by tv ads, direct mail pieces or web banners, but by their friends, those they trust. And now, their ability to tell those friends has become exponential through social media.

Understanding your customer, walking in their shoes, and guiding them through their conversion paths is the differentiate yourself in this new Empathy Economy.

Summit all up

These last two weeks have seen me participating in two "Summit" conferences. One for TE and our distributors and one with Adobe and their partners. In the first, I was a presenter and host and in the other, I was a customer and participant. I'll try to sum it all up (sorry).

The differences and similarities between the two were interesting. The biggest difference was in size. Adobe had over 4,000 people in attendance and it felt like that many in support roles. At the TE event, there were less than a few hundred with only a small crew of support staff. Both conferences had breakout sessions with product reviews and announcements. But the general sessions were different - TE had TE presenters while Adobe effectively used internal and external thought leaders including Arianna Huffington and Biz Stone.

The biggest difference was the role I played. While I did host my team for dinners and events, I also had the honor of sitting on a customer panel and taped a customer testimonial video. I also had a quote in a press release. There was a lot of buzz from the show on social media networks and in the news but I could not find much on TE that week. We are missing an opportunity. While the retun on investment should be a focus, we need to leverage the assets and resources we have to extend our reach and message better outside the summit.

Social is Taking Over

Social Media has been THE hot topic for me for two years. I find myself spending more time in those networks then in anywhere else online. It is a shame though as I am trying to capture my thoughts in as little as 140 characters. I recently heard a piece on a podcast about Agatha Christie and the onset of alhezmeirs. Seemed they could tell it was coming because her vocabulary volume decreased over time until her last books had a smaller and smaller % of words compared to earlier works. Being past 40, I have noticed how my brain does not seem to be keeping up with my desires and itnents so I am going to bring this blog up to speed more and more, hopefully, stay tuned and lests see :)

Another iPad

This past week, I learned a I won another iPad. I got my first from Virtusa, in a business card raffle at the Gartner Content Management conference. This one is from Bridgeline from the Marketing Profs B2B Forum 2010 last week in Boston. I wasn't even going to enter , but Paul Bearne, our social media specialist kept insisting I win him won. Sorry Paul, but I am keeping this one.

Jakob Nielsen has conducted some usability tests on the iPad and while preliminary, I would tend to agree with most of his findings from my own personal experience. The big issue, as I see it, is the need to create some standards for design for the device. It isn't a laptop with a mouse and it isn't an iPhone with the small real estate. So there is some opportunity there.

I fear there will be a number of designers, like those with USA Today, who design apps instead of web interfaces , that hide navigation elements in the design. I predict it will take 18-36 months for this standards to start to be locked in.

Hoots & Hellmouth

So my lovely wife and I have an ongoing new year's resolution to see live music at least monthly. With January coming to a close and a birthday to celebrate we had to find just the right act and venue. We stumbled upon something in our own backyard at the Chester County Historical Society.

The Pennsylvania Buy Fresh Buy Local® program celebrates regional foods - heirloom tomatoes, farmstead cheeses, varietal wines, pasture-raised lamb, crisp apples - the abundance and diversity of foods available locally. They had an all day event that was capped with celebration at the CCHS with food from local farmers, beer from Victory and two bands, Missing Palmer and Hoots & Hellmouth. We checked out the musicians' MySpace sites for a taste and decided to give it a try.

We highly recommend doing this if you have not. MySpace is home to so many bands and they put their music for streaming right on the site.

Missing Palmer, eh, 'nuff said.

But Hoots - hoohaa! Just what the good doctor ordered (if the good doctor ordered a prescription of some roots music with blues, bluegrass, rock, gospel and a hootanany throw down). These guys blew us all away in a crowd of maybe 50. Part of Mad Dragon Records from my alma mater of Drexel University, these guys are sure to go far. PLaying heart felt music in various tempos with two guitars, mandolin and upright bass. And best of all, stomping on plywood with tamborines strapped on. See them soon. or right now......

Dad is 70

Who would have thought. A few heart attacks and a quadruple bypass and the dude keeps on ticking. May we only have another 70.

Oh Joy

The winter of our discontent will soon be over and a new age will be dawning soon.

A lot to be thankful for this year.

How to manage a to do list

Do something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn't, do something else.-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Because someday....

How far you go in your life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.-- George Washington Carver

Just try not to hook it left

It is your attitude, not your aptitude, that determines your altitude.-- Zig Ziglar