Digital Influence Mapping Project

DNC Tweets

 

From the Twitter blog:

Huffington Post is covering their collective experience via a funny and often revealing Twitter feed. It is well worth subscribing to here. You get gems like:

"The Rolling Stone party sucked worse than a vacuum cleaner. I swear I'm not just saying that because police escorted me out of it! -AlGi "

and:

"according to kathy lash, clooney to make appearance at GQ party -alisavino"

Also be sure to follow the #dnc08 hashtag for everyone's tweets.....

A Unique Digital Event in DC: Interact 2008

Once in a while there is an interesting digital event in DC. We have more than our fair share of social media enthusiasts and experts, digital marketers and user experience affiicionados. But like a lot of us, I am burned out on blogging summits. My interests are about integration, creativity, crosspollination...

Welcome to Interact 2008. September 29th and 30th in DC.

While I will be speaking there, my main reason to attend is to meet some of the very cool eclectic players who will be on site. We have:

• Creatives like Jakob Trollback, Nick Law, David Carson, Hillman Curtis
• Social media thinkers like Kelly Goto, Brian Solis
• Marketers like Andrew Elliot Smith, Rohit Bhargava (okay, I know him)
• Business leaders like Ted Leonsis, Albert Wegner

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are a lot of other folks who bring interesting perspectives none of who you would find at a regular digital conference:

• Joanna Champagne from the National Gallery of Art
• Michael Chasen from Blackboard
• Hoofman Radfar from ClearSpring

So, if you are looking to meet some of the top digital thinkers and do-ers in the country, join us in DC. And want a different, thought-provoking event - Register for the event.

And check out the cool blog that Jess3 put together.

From Web 2.0 Olympics to Web 2.0 Democratic Convention

We're on a roll with these mega-events in terms of Web2.0 and social media integrating into the experiences to add unique value. And these aren't even geek conferences - they are mainstream. While we wind down our Olympics blogging  and vlogging activity, the Democratic Convention is in it's final build-and-prep stages in Denver (just came back from Denver last night - the corporate parties are heating up - we're helping out a couple of doozies).

Thanks to NewTeeVee - my favorite feed on Web video, I found Ustream's live feed from the conference floor. Right now you can watch the construction of the Big Tent. But once that tent is up here's what you can expect:

"The Big Tent will be a gathering place for new media journalists and bloggers, as well as home to the Digg stage, which will feature speakers such as T. Boone Pickens, John Conyers and DailyKos’ Markos Moulitsas."

Other coverage:

C-Span has a new video site  calleed the Convention Hub featuring cgm (check out this cool Qik video of them installing the "Hope" sculpture which I didn't even know existed)

ABC News (another sign things have changed is the focus on teh medium - check out how all the in-crowd waits for a text message of the VP selection) and MSNBC.com (check out their Decision Dashboard)  will have live coverage

The Huffington Post is going upsacle by hosting a panel at The Brown Palace featuring: Chad Hurley, Will.i.am; Arianna, George Stephanopoulos, Katharine Weymouth, Rep. Rahm Emanuel and  Saturday Night Live's Fred Arminsen

The DNCC blog site will have coverage and on top of that, they held a video contest - Why Are You  A Democrat in 2008. The winner - Rich Peters - is going to teh convention and his video will be shown on teh big screen!

Good Changes

The added dimension of bloggers, vloggers, side-events through multiple voices is doing a tremendous amount to make these events more intersting, personal and in an unexpected way, may be filling the hole left behind by the market consolidation of media. We can actually hear multiple POVs again.

Up Close and Personal at the Olympics

A lot has been written about this particular Olympics being the first "Web 2.0 Olympics." Considering that the Olympics happen every 4 years, it's not surprising that consumer generated media hasn't overtaken the games before now. On the other hand, it is surprising as the games are happening in China and most westerners see China as a restrictive state. Our own experiences in China reveal how much social media conversation and activity there really is. Pictures, videos, and blogs tell a different story than our media would suggest.   They also offer access to a world's worth of personalities.

I love an insider's view of the Olympics. Here are my favorite bits (many made possible by our work with Lenovo - aggregated at Voices of the Olympic Games):

Athletes' photo galleries: when they all marched into the stadium at the beginning of the month, they snapped lots of photos from the parade. Now we can all see them (see Carissa Gump - US Weightlifter left). Flickr: See some neat in-the-stands and on-the-floor shots from Lenovo's team here. 

Blogs: Heather Patri - US Women's Water Polo gives us the skinny on her experiences in the athlete's lounge. Read Josiah NG - track cyclist for Malyasia - his  frank assesment fo his own performance.

Rohit's Video Blog: A walk through of the Olympic Athletes Village - enjoy a behind the scenes stroll on a rainy day last week and visit the special athletes-only store (yum - merch!)

Revised: The 13 Skills of the Public Relations Pro of the Future

Marketing and public relations are coming together. PR is growing as an industry while "traditional" advertising - what ever that is - remains flat. Still, we have taken no new ground in 'measurement' and articulating the tremendous ROI of PR. (What happened to the tremendous affirmation and call to action from AG Lafley?) 

As I suit up to take on the graduate students of Johns Hopkins Communications program again this fall, I am mapping out the skills sets needed by the communications expert of tomorrow. I started this in another post and needed to add and consolidate some thinking.

Over the past few years at Ogilvy, we have unleashed one of the most intensive training regimens I know of for our staff. While our focus is on digital and "digital influence," there are a lot of other skills that will help the next generation of communications experts (do we need to retire the "public relations" term?).

The next generation will need to get strong in the following. I have begun the process of drilling down into each to offer some practical "how-to's" for each. Look for more in the future or even create your own and link back here:

13 Skills of the PR Pro of the Future

1. Create integrated marketing and communications strategy
2. Deploy live 'listening posts' online and offline
3. Design and deploy an advanced search engine optimization program
4. Plan and run a new media relations program inclusive of head-of-the-tail and long tail "media"
5. Identify & engage with influencers online and offline
6. Manage communities
7. Integrate new technologies into their own lives
8. Model measurement and performance metrics including new "engagement" metrics
9. Run quick pilot programs  and evaluate on-the-fly
10. Train staff and clients continuously
11. Participate in conversations, not just 'messaging'
12. Create and execute content strategy including video programming (hifi and lowfi)
13. Use digital crisis management 

Thanks to Nate Pagel, Rohit Bhargava, Virginia Miracle, Kaitlyn Wilkins, Brian Giesen, Chris Brogan,  Chi-chi Ekweozor, John D. , Phil M., Harro and Brendan Hodgson for ideas and insights on this list.

If you know #14 - please add it as the list will always be changing.

PRWeek Death Race 2008 Continues - Please Vote!

On Sunday (5pm) - Wednesday, August 17-20 help a fella out by voting up my blog in the PRWeek Death Race 2008 competition.  Click Here and Select John Bell Digital Influence Map(ping) Project to vote for this blog.  (or click here, as well) Also vote for: Influential Interactive Marketing. 

Future PR Skills 2008: Create a "New Media Relations" Program

Part of a series

A lot has been written about how media relations as a discipline has been changed due to:

• the social media and consumer generated media explosion
• decline in trust in traditional media sources
• technology innovations like RSS, broadband video, and simple publishing

The next PR pros have to go beyond the story-pitching process of traditional media relations where the journalist is the gatekeeper that must be convinced of the relevance of the story. Big media or "Head-of-the-tail" media isn't going away any time soon. Yet it's influence is compromised by the new-media powerhouses and the ever-growing long tail of proam (professional and amateur) voices online.

"New Media Relations" is far more than mastering the Social Media Press Release, Blogs or Blogger Outreach. Essentially it includes three broad skills with a never-ending list of tactical implementations that follow.

The Three Skills of New Media Relations

1. A more organic & automatic ability to provide relevant value to any "media"
2. An ability to identify and engage new influencers who may not fit the profile of traditional influencers
3. An understanding of how technology and psychology impact people sharing information

Organic & Automatic Ability to Earn Media
Theoretically media relations has always required PR pros to offer their journalist counterparts something of value customized to teh needs of that journalist. They must "earn" the media, right? In the most valuable media realtions experts that is still how its done. When I hear Jane Mazur, Ogilvy media expert on the consumer side, talk about the producers at the Today show, I know she is thinking long and hard about who they are, what they value and how she can make their jobs a little easier. But the first wave of technology - wire services - actually undermined these best practices by making it easy to broadcast a standard "pitch" to dozens or hundreds of journalists.

Now individual relevance is critical again. If you broadcast a press release - either by wire services or by more intrusive emailing - you run the risk of ending up on the Bad Pitch Blog.

We need to go back and recommit to the practice of knowing who we are pitching to (and maybe not "pitching" at all) and what they will find valuable. That discipline of what is noteworthy, shareable and newsworthy has to be championed by the PR pro back in the discussion of the client's business goals and strategy. Sometimes that has to change to become of genuine interest and value to new and old media.

I say "organic" to mean that it should be built into our process of earning media. "Automatic" means that is where we start - define the value to the indivividual media contact whether they are journalist at long-lead publication or an enthusiast blogger.

Engage New Influencers
It's one thing to pitch a story to Cheryl Kramer Kaye at Redbook, still another to reach out to The Budget Fashionista (part of the Glam Network) and still another to reach out to a less well known blogger like Mai at fashioni.st (still one of my favorite street fashion spotter)

The two big differences implicit in these three comparisons:

• Earning media from even the head of the tail bloggers like Kathryn Finney at Budget Fashionista requires slightly nuanced skills than traditional media outreach. Who is a trained journalist, who is not? I actually think that distinction has become more and more moot. How can you earn media from them? What will they value? (get our Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics here)
• To even find Mai (and other long tail creators) and determine that she might be influential and helpful for a client, you need to understand how to find and assess influence amidst social media - social networks, blogs, message boards, review sites, etc... We can no longer look at the scarcity implicit in the Barnes and Noble magazine rack (as many titles as there in that rack, it is nothing compared to the Internet), or the cable channel line-up to know who is infuential in a long tail world. Knowing what is important to Mai requires morre research and honest relationship-building than you may think worthwhile.

Technology and Psychology and Sharing
Earned media in 2009 is as much about activating word of mouth as it is about getting coverage in popular media brands - new and old. What is word of mouth but earned consumer generated media? How do bookmark services like del.icio.us and mixx.com work? Under what circumstances will a user "send this to a friend?" What type of incentive do people need to pass something along? Is social capital enough? (revisit the book, Influence: Science and Practice. I am using it in my graduate class at Johns Hopkins this September) In this day and age of Google search results, what is the best configuration of a corporate online media room to be of-servce to journalists?

We want to promote word of mouth sharing and making "news' as frictionless as possible for journalists to pass on. Knowing how social technologies like tagging, RSS, embedding and forwarding work are critical to getting the most out of shareability.

Every online "press" room must now be an online "media" room serving the needs of the traditional journalist, the new media creator and the general public. They must feature the facts, hold back on the unsubstantiated claims (aka the spin) and make it easy for visitors to share the story, the pictures and videos, and access third-party content on the subject. The Social Media Press Release was born from the same intent - how can we give media - new and old - valuable elements to help them tell a story that is important to them. They have been misunderstood, misused ever since their introduction. Still a version of a new media release that satisfies the original intent will become standard-operating-procedure.

Future PR Skills 2008: Creating Integrated Marketing and Communications Strategy

This is a part of a series.

When I say "Future PR Skills" I am really talking about the ones we need today to be successful going into the future.

Three words: Integrated, marketing and strategy
"Next  public relations" (where the discipline is going next) can not just be a focus on "communications." It most certainly cannot be that narrow practice of "media relations."

The walls between marketing and communications are dissolving. A new marcom organizational standard is already appearing where multiple disciplines, most notably public relations and advertising are rolling up to the same leader inside brands. This is happening because of the complex interdependence of all of the channels on each other. Even in the emerging world we work in everyday  - word of mouth marketing - WOM programs are greatly impacted by paid advertising "air cover" and media relations. Being the social media team, we see another interesting phenomena within some clients - a bit of a land grab for 'control" over social media initiatives within the organization. These efforts are doomed to failure - not the failure of the social media efforts necessarily, but the failure of establishing internal ownership of social media-based marketing.

Time would be better spent sharpening our skills on designing and running integrated marcom programs that include all disciplines. Is PR really ready for this leadership role?

Integration
True integration - where all efforts are compimentary - are not all that common yet. It takes a leadership role to say "here's why PR should take the lead on this campaign and here's how we can coordinate with advertising..." or "this is really all about generating word of mouth, let's start with a strong engagement (i.e. digital influence) program online and then layer in advertising, public relations and even CRM to drive WOM upwards...."  Someday in the future, leaderless collaboration may take hold as an effective way to build strong integrated programs but not yet.

Marketing
PR professionals of tomorrow (or later today) need to be "better than average" or even "great" at the fundamentals of advertising and marketing. How to sell, how to assess the ROI of marcom efforts, how paid advertising works - these are all skills the PR leader. The moment you say - "oh no, I am about earned media and advocacy..." you abdicate the inevitable - a world where these the performance of a traditional public relations effort is greatly impacted by paid advertisng and marketing strategies and tactics. The weakest part of the PR pros marketing utility belt is measurment discipline. But that's a whole other post. suffice it to say that the PR pro is much stronger if s/he can talk click throughs, open rates, GRPs, and sales data with the best of them.   

Strategy
To this day, I will request a strategic brief from not-so-junior PR pros and get a mish mash of tactics back. The framework for building and articulating strategy remains strong and uncomplicated. Here are the tried an true I-beams of this architecture:

Business objectives - this usually has something to do with sales or reputation - although the purpose of reputation is to allow you to reach a business objective; still, building reputation, good-will in the bank is a legitimate business objective. (One suggestion: understand the business model of your client/company and understand what business they are really in)

Communication goal - what is that measureable activity that will demonstrate progress towards your business objective. Sure there are engagements where you can measure impact on sales. Many times that is not possible due to the complexity of a program. "Raising awareness" is a communication goal. So is increasing the relevance of a product (deeper in the funnel) or activating more word of mouth (that is a proxy for advocates). All of these things can be measured.

Strategy - this is the overarching "how" you will move the needle on the communication goals. It can be a big strategy fueled by inspirational manifestos and such (we do that a lot) or it can be simpler, even dull. It really should be fueled by some type of insight.

These are the building blocks towards strategy that includes research and insight into the people you are trying to engage, knowledge of the business and more. I have attached a Strategic Brief that I often use and have found helpful. Researching and filling out one of these babies with the first week or two of an engagement has been time well-spent every time we have done it.

Download strategic_brief_v1_2noo.doc

Where social media purists often fall down
Many social media purists resist the discipline of strategy and marketing as if the fundmentals of strategy were the problem. They may resist or they may just not know how to create it. Tactics like blogger outreach, viral video online and the dreaded facebook application come tumbling out.  Strategy and how you get there is as fundamental and necessary as architectural plans to building. i would argue that this is one of the "The Many Challenges of the Social Media industry" that Jeremiah points out in his recent post.

Some additional resources:

• The Importance of Implementing an Integrated Marketing Plan for Your Small Business by Michael Britto
• Advertising vs. PR: Kotler on Kotler
• The 32 bloggers included in PRWeek's 10th Anniversary smackdown - each is exploring in his/her own way what PR will look like tomorrow: John Bell, Rohit Bhargava, Bite Communications, Renee Blodgett, Cone, Todd Defren, Kevin Dugan and Richard Laermer, Tim Dyson, Richard Edelman, Phil Gomes, Peter Himler, Neville Hobson, Shel Holtz , Kami Huyse, Insidedge, Rodger Johnson, Drew Kerr, Daniel Lally, Andy Lark, Livingston Communications, Lois Paul & Partners, Tom Murphy, My Creative Team, Katie Paine, Jeremy Pepper, Mark Rose, Steve Rubel, Sage Circle, Frank X. Shaw, Brian Solis, and Voce Communications.   

How Has Creative Direction Changed: David Fowler

I started with Steve Hayden and am continuing to talk with other Creative Directors about how they see the job changing. I started with a simple idea that the "digital-everything" of our lives was fundamentally changing how "creatives", well, get 'creative.'

As I talk to different CD's, I am getting a fuller picture of what has changed and what has not. David is one of the most senior CDs in Ogilvy and works on some great brands. He strikes me as one of the calmest, most rational creative directors,,,,

Cities That Influence Me: Los Angeles

I just spent 5 days in Los Angeles with my son (14). That was our summer vacation. We chose Los Angeles through a mutual process. He likes cities. We have friends there. I am going to tell you the most influential experiences that I had there during our trip. But the collective experience got me thinking about the influential cities in my life: New York, Barcelona, Singapore and, now, Los Angeles.

I don't know how to measure or fully explain this type of "influence."  I know that I will pay attention to trends and ideas that come out of Los Angeles because of the experiences that I have had there and certain amorphous connection that I feel. There is an energy and personality to Los Angeles that just makes sense to me. I asked my friend, Guy Zimmerman, who runs Padua Playwrights, and is an independent filmmaker (and transplanted New Yorker), to put his finger on what he liked so much about it. He said that LA favors the weirdos, the offbeat, the independents. The city doesn't just tolerate them, it actually helps them thrive.

Now, I am ignoring the whole Hollywood-entertainment-business-entrenched-yet-endangered-royalty. That is just a sideshow to what really interests me - people like Guy and the rollerskating, turbaned, electric guitar-playing guy on the Venice beachfront.

Here are my twelve experiences that lock LA as another city of influence. They are in no particular order.

1. Staying at the Roosevelt Hotel at Hollywood and Highland. Now a redesigned Thompson Hotel, this place is great. I like the Thompson "family" and highly recommend them. We had a great room which always helps but it's the scene in the hotel and the one right outside that makes it a great experience. The place has got history, some quite notorius. The Hockney-designed pool has a hint of 60's design in its beautiful rectangularness. Whenever i hung out, I felt that I had dropped into a scene of "Entourage" - wonderfully spoiled twenty-somethings with some unknown pedigree clustered poolside. The lobby was in constant party mode with a Jimmy Kimmel show party one night (the show is housed up the block) and some unknown rock and roll party another. Good french fries and a staff who digs it when you stay a bunch of nights. More on what happens outside later....

2. Splurging on the Universal Studios VIP Experience. While a bit pricey, it is totally worth it. Our guide, Mark was a study in great customer relations. He was upbeat the whole time, completely conversant (meaning he was not just "delivering" his part), and really, really nice. Jumping to the front of the line  felt naughty and nice. The backlot tour was wonderfully cheesy and filled with chestnut anecdotes. It didn't hurt that Don Cheadle popped out of a sound edit suite right in front of us.

3. Seeing the initial rough cut of Gary's Walk, an independent film. We stopped by the edit anti-suite in the arts district near Japan Town to see some scenes from Guy Zimmerman's work in progress film that stars John Diehl, Amy Madigan and others. Guy comes from an avante garde theater experience (he would cringe at that term but that's how most people would see his team's work). That means the film is thoughtful, provocative and ambiguous in its meaning. A breath of fresh air. Oh and did I mention that it's a wee bit dark which is right up my alley. Guy and his troupe are quietly working with some of the best talent in Hollywood completely disintermediating that giant Hollywood machine.

4. Hearing how Warner Brothers will adapt to the disintermediation. It's funny, but I haven't used the term "disintermediation" since the early 90's when I first worked with Justin who now works at Warner Brothers running one of their digital businesses. Not only did he give us a great tour of the studio and sweet lunch in the Commisary (aka executive dining room), but he shared some insights on how he and others were going beyond a title-driven business to establish a longer term relationship with people.

5. Sitting in traffic when an earthquake happens. HOW COOL IS THAT! I turned to Nick and asked him why the car was shaking. He just shrugged. When we pulled into the LaBrea Tar Pits a guy sitting in his truck with a laptop told us that we had just experienced a "5.4."

6. Riding Segways from Santa Monica to Malibu. I know that the blush is off the rose of the Segway as it tried to find it's true mass application beyond foot patrol cops in wealthy townships, but zooming up the beach was George Jetson-cool.

7. Walking through the Museum of Jurassic Technology. A non-descript building on Venice Boulevard leads into one of the most disturbing, head-scratcher experiences that leaves you with the willies and more questions than when you entered. I felt like I was in the movie Phantasm waiting for the Tall Man to pop out. I cannot begin to explain the purpose, focus or reason the museum exists. The exhibits are beautiful in a dark, turn of the century-science kind of way. We both got creeped out and slunk out past the woman at the front desk who was reading a vast tome on tarot card reading.

8. Staying at Hollywood and Highland. The stars in the sidewalk. The handprints in front of Grauman's Chinese Theater. Mariah Carey playing outside in the Kodak Theater mall. The Jimmy Kimmel show live outside next to our hotel - heard from loudspeakers in a yell that would wake up the most catatonic of revelers: "Ladies and gentleman, Bryan Adams. Did I mention that Bryan Adams was here tonight?...." The star tour hawkers. The short guy in the Iron Man costume. Seeing Wall-E at the trippy El Capitan theater. Standing behind Kai from Queer Eye at the Starbuck's for morning coffee. The vibe of high hopes and desperation.  I had visions of The Day of the Locusts.      

9. Buying T-shirts at Venice Beach. The first time I came to Venice Beach, I hitchhiked from someplace like Long Beach. A street sweeper gave me my last ride. This time, I felt like I was home. The freaks and the hustlers. A scene that just walks on by. And the best t-shirts at Anonymous.

10. Gazing at the Hollywood sign from the Mulholland Drive turnout. This was Nick's one big to-do while in town. It felt trivial at first but changed. Mulholland is legendary. Finding the hidden parking lot superb. Then we climbed a path and turned around....viola! The sign at sunset. How many stories started here, I wonder? How many people brought together by this view with its own stories.

11. Visiting the Ogilvy Public Relations offices on Wilshire. This was all about Monica and the earthquake. Monica is a soulful product of LA and is a big part of our office there. She loves rock and roll as much as I do.  She speaks in LA-ese which I don't even know how to describe but I love it. And she was so cool to give Nick, a died-in-the-wool gamer, a stack of PSP games from a client. Man, she knows, she just knows.

12. Riding the tram up to "The Getty." For one reason or another I had never been to the famed museum on the hill. To me "Getty" was a one-eared heir who appeared in a Wim Wenders movie. But Getty is part of the fabric of LA. The museum offers the public a storybook location and bigger-than-life campus of modernity. We can all visit and picnic on the grass by the snaking walkway. The tram is the key. It feels modern in that 1960's kind of way as if we are all being transported to another time. Then the grandiosity of the Meier buildings emerge on the hilltop like some movie-version futuristic city.

Some of these may feel like simple tourist highlights. For me they are so much more. LA is a city of artists, filmmakers, theater people, entrepeneurs, musicians, weirdos and eccentrics. I love it.