Last week I briefly traveled to California for work. Although this winter in Chicago hasn’t been that bad, seeing what California’s winter was like (sunny, 70 degrees) made me realize something.

I’m ready for summer.

For some reason – probably the warmth – my trip reminded me of this photo set I’ve never shared with you guys. I took these when I was in Atlanta on business a few years ago. As I usually do when I’m in a new city, I took my camera on a mini walking tour.

Centennial Olympic Park is in the heart of downtown, and I stopped by there after visiting the CNN building. I got a burger in the park (which was quite good), stopped to eat it, and started nonchalantly watching these kids play in the Fountain of Rings.

Then I started to wish I could play with them. So much fun.

I also started getting kind of obsessed with the water itself. Someone put a lot of thought into the timing of the fountain; how each spout would create something beautiful and unexpected that park goers would enjoy.

There’s a moment where the water has reached the highest point it will go, right before it’s about to come back down. The climax. The apex. I must have spent 20 minutes trying to capture it.

The results look like little ice sculptures, as if they had frozen on the spot and would never make their way back down. Their summer never had to be over.

And then eventually I figured I looked like a creep taking photos of other people’s kids in the middle of the park. So I walked back to my hotel, desperately missing both my own childhood and my son.

Looking forward to this summer so he can have more of these moments.

Being human is never easy. But that’s the point. Perhaps as an unintended consequence of our relentless quest for more, bigger, faster, cheaper, now, we’ve comfortably acceded to something akin to a minor-league contempt for the richness and grandeur of life unquenchably meaningfully well lived. Hence, call this post my tiny statement of rebellion. Hex me with all the bland management jargon in the world, zap me with all the perfect theories and models you like, but I’ll never, ever accept the idea that triviality, mediocrity, and futility are appropriate goals for any human being, much less our grand, splintering systems of human organization.

I’m developing a serious man-crush on Umair Haque, author of the above book and internationally renowned thinker on management and economics. This quote is from a recent article he wrote for Harvard Business Review, called “Create a Meaningful Life Through Meaningful Work.”

Oh, and then he tweets stuff like this:

I’m at the mall. Tebowing.

— umair haque (@umairh) February 4, 2012

 

The stories behind this week’s photos:

• 1 & 4  - This Chicago winter remains unpredictable. Last Friday it was snowing so heavily they let us out early to head home. Then this week it’s been nice enough for me to take some unscheduled walks outside in Millennium Park. Not complaining though. I really value the time to get some fresh air and clear my head.
• 2 & 5 - Remember when I said I was going to start getting up at ridiculously early hours in order to get stuff done? And then I told you about my strategic planning? Yeah. My productivity has been on fire lately. It’s amazing how much more confident and in control you feel when you take control of your time.
• 3 & 6 - At home, I’m making slow but steady strides toward learning how to cook, gradually gaining confidence in the kitchen. It’s slow going, given my limited time during the week. I’m also, as you can see, playing a serious amount of cars lately.

As always, you can follow me on Instagram (@calebgardner) for stories in real-time.

How was your week?

Guys, I get it. I really do.

You’ve been taught all your life to avoid “girly” things. People have told you to be “be a man,” and possibly made fun of you for doing something that appears feminine. You’ve been given an innate fear of weakness, beauty, and other qualities that have somehow become only associated with the fairer sex.

Maybe this led you to play a sport you didn’t really care about. Or pretend to like an action movie you thought was actually poorly produced. Or hide your love of things like poetry, or the “Real Housewives of Orange County.”

You’ve gravitated towards things like man aisles in grocery stores, or sites like The Art of Manliness, because they’ve supposedly made it easy to tell what a real man does – to differentiate yourself from feminine things. New shows like Man Up and Last Man Standing appeal to you for the same reasons.

Enter the new site Gentlemint, which does the same thing online. You’ve heard about Pinterest, the wildly popular online pinboard where people can “pin” images and videos to curated boards for everyone to see your interests. But you’ve also heard that Pinterest is dominated by women, so you’ve hesitated. And now Gentlemint has given you an option that will clearly say, “I’m a man!” Everyone wins, right?

Wrong.

Here’s why I’m going to advocate that you avoid things like Gentlemint. The first reason – the most important reason – is that those assholes in high school (who, let’s face it, may have included your own father) who advocated for you to “be a man” were telling you that because of their own insecurities. The anti-femininity (and thinly-veiled homophobia) that is rampant in locker rooms and around dinner tables in America is a moral failing that not enough parents – not enough fathers – have the courage to address.

We need to be better than this. Because right now, we’re intentionally creating intellectual and cultural ghettos from which men are incapable of escaping. We’re ceding the marketplace of ideas and innovation to women out of a fear of becoming like them – no, out of a fear that other men will perceive that we’ve become like them. And in the process, we’re making the very idea of men a caricature that no one can take seriously.

This is a small window into why some are declaring the end of men. The ghettos we’re creating extend beyond television and websites – they include professional tracks and education. (“You want to be a nurse? That’s a girls job!”) Fear is leading men to a permanent place of second-class citizenship. Sure, we’re not there yet. But I for one don’t want to see my son growing up in a world of shrinking opportunities for men created by our imaginations.

This is one of the reasons why I created FWD – I want to get the marketplace of ideas back. I want to make it OK for men to think big again. And I hope you’ll join me.

On an average day, the busyness is palpable. Hours are filled with obligations, to one party or another or your offspring. The sun rises and sets, and you try to get through it – from one point to another – while trying to find little moments of respite.

You count the little victories, and if it’s a special day, you have to use two hands. Usually one will do.

“The last year in the mountains new people came deep into our lives and nothing was ever the same again. The winter of the avalanches was like a happy and innocent winter in childhood compared to that winter and the murderous summer that was to follow…”

If you’re lucky, if you have the presence of mind enough for that day, you might remember to notice things. Like the taste of your food when you make yourself breakfast. Or the woman who’s afraid to ask you for your seat on the train. Like how the peaking sun mixes with the chill January air to create a sensation of brisk warmth.

Numbers occupy most of the space of the day. The number of tasks accomplished. (The greater number unaccomplished.) The balance of your checking account. Budgets. Train numbers. How many emails. How many meeting minutes. How much productivity.

“In the mechanics of how this was penetrated I have never tried to apportion the blame, except my own part, and that was clearer all my life. The bulldozing of three people’s hearts to destroy one happiness and build another…”

At the end, the meetings accomplished, the children put to bed, the time for the two of you. The twilight hours for rest, or romance. But usually rest. The day has stolen your energy, your will to make an effort. Decision fatigue has left you incapable of doing the right thing. Or of doing anything.

“Any blame in that was mine to take and possess and understand.”

In A Moveable Feast, this is what Hemingway knew all too late. How happiness is penetrated one day at a time.

Or.

You don’t let it be. You put up a fortress, brick by brick, around each other. You look into each other’s eyes. You fight, tooth and nail, bloody, injured, for the other person. You see each other, daily. You count the little victories together.

“The only one, Hadley, who had no possible blame, ever, came well out of it finally and married a much finer man than I ever was or could hope to be and is happy and deserves it and that was one good and lasting thing that came out of that year.”

The story behind this week’s photos:

• 1 & 4  - Winter has officially arrived in Chicago, but I’m not complaining since it was so mild up until now. Give me a few weeks…
• 2 & 5 - I picked up guitar last weekend again for the first time in a while. It felt good – although my fingertips were not happy with me. When Miles saw me doing it, he wanted to get out his little guitar that his grandparents gave him and play along with me. His imitating of me is always fun, but also kind of scary, since it’s only going to grow.
• 3 - Our new floor at Edelman continues to get finalized, including our new Food Room. Kind of crazy how well stocked it is.
• 6 – Love this shot. Took this when we stopped by Gene’s Sausage Shop, a sweet little grocery and delicatessen in Lincoln Square. They also have a rooftop beer garden with amazing bratwursts.

As always, follow me on Instagram for more photo goodness.

How was your week?

If you don’t have yourself a barber, get one. I’m pretty loyal to mine. That’s one reason I love this video.

The other is that it reminds me of people I grew up with. Plus it got nominated for an Emmy. Score.

[via Devour]

One of the benefits of escaping big city life to visit my parents in Oklahoma is the wildlife. Adjacent to my hometown is a big refuge and mountain range, filled with buffalo, longhorns, and other endangered species. We also have a few friends with farms, so the last two holiday seasons we’ve taken Miles to see some horses.

He’s going through a big animals phase right now. All of his favorite books to read are animal-related, and his favorite toys are little animal figurines. We try to satisfy his cravings for all-things wildlife here in Chicago to the best of our abilities, like taking him to Lincoln Park Zoo (even in the dead of winter). But there is obviously only so much we can do.

I really want nature to be something he looks forward to when he visits Oklahoma. It’s definitely something I took for granted growing up there, and it’s one of the things that will contrast the greatest with growing up in a big city. The prairies offer up such unique experiences (including Rattlesnake Festivals – it’s a thing).

I want Miles to own his heritage, just as I’m learning to own it myself. My wife makes fun of me because one of my dreams is to one day own a working ranch (proof). I think that may be part of me trying to recapture my heritage just a bit. Maybe Miles and I can do it together.

We’ve carried on the horse tradition for the past two winters, and it’s amazing to see the contrast between the Miles of 2010 and the Miles of 2011. The contrast is made even more stark considering that this year we went to see a group of miniature horses that my sister keeps. They make Miles look even more like the little boy he’s quickly becoming.

Here’s hoping me and that little boy have many more wildlife adventures to come.

The story behind this week’s photos:

• Photos 1 & 2 – Edelman Digital Chicago packed up and moved floors – from 63 to 66 in the AON Center. Our new floor is pretty slick – a modern, open floor plan, new kitchen with a ton of food, and cool meeting spaces. I’ll probably have more photos of it coming soon.
• Photos 4 & 5 – Miles got pretty sick this week, with his fever at one point going up to 103. A few restless nights for him (which meant a few sleepless nights for us). I stayed home with him a couple of days until he got better. It was a rough couple of days, but he was in good spirits for most of it.
• Photos 3 & 6 – Only in Chicago can it go from 50 degrees one day to a blizzard the next.

For more photos on-the-go, you can always follow me on Instagram.

How was your week?

Nice little reminder of some ways to stay creative. Any you would add?

[via Co.Design]

This post was originally published on Edelman’s Data Security & Privacy blog.

The average person doesn’t give a second thought to privacy. They just want their technology to be accessible, simple to use and convenient, paying little attention to what they are giving away in the process. However, this sentiment is starting to shift with highly publicized privacy issues swirling around the likes of Facebook and Google, causing the “average person” to stand up and take notice. It’s with this in mind that the National Cyber Security Alliance – along with companies like Intel, eBay, Microsoft, Facebook and Google – recently celebrated Data Privacy Day, which culminated on January 28.

Fourth Annual Data Privacy Day

By definition, Data Privacy Day is “an annual international celebration designed to promote awareness about privacy and education about best privacy practices.” Since its inception in 2009, the day has steadily been gaining momentum, demonstrating the increased importance of companies engaging consumers on privacy issues as a way to create trusted online experiences and trust in their brand. It’s currently observed by the United States, Canada and 27 European countries. Across the globe, privacy is quickly becoming a way for companies to differentiate themselves from competitors. It’s no longer something to be ignored.

With that said, let’s take a look at some of the activities from this week:

Microsoft* put its muscle behind helping people manage their online reputations, finding 56 percent of adults don’t actively think about the consequences of their online activities. In some cases, this has led to losing employment and health insurance, as well as being denied a mortgage. Microsoft has a variety of resources regarding privacy available here. You can also check out the below infographic, detailing survey results for Data Privacy Day.

Intel sponsored and participated in several events across the world from Washington, D.C. to Brussels, encouraging industry dialogue on leading privacy issues. The company also made privacy educational material available to a network of 15,000 teachers through Intel Engage. For a full recap of Intel’s involvement in Data Privacy Day, visit their blog here. You can also view a message from Intel CEO Paul Otellini below.

 

Events are also taking place across Europe in Belgium, Denmark, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hungary, Germany and Spain. There is a European Privacy Day booklet with a forward by international human rights expert, Paul De Hert, which you can browse online ordownload. For a full overview of European Privacy Day, visit their website here.

As parting words of wisdom, privacy is one of the hottest issues facing the online world. The momentum around Data Privacy Day reinforces the importance of engaging consumers, policymakers and regulators in a way that encourages trust and transparency. It’s essential for doing business today and maintaining brand integrity. So don’t be left behind; “Stop. Think. Connect.”

*Microsoft is an Edelman client.

Originally published on Michael Brito’s blog Britopian.

A few weeks ago, Peter Kim wrote a post about his trip to Ford. He mentioned a few different times that Ford’s initiative of inviting external influencers – several different bloggers from countries including Canada, Germany and China was a bold move and that it was a great example of how Ford delivers on being a social business. I agree.

Opening the doors behind the firewall to external people and being open to feedback is certainly one attribute of a social business along with operational elements like communication, connections and culture as Peter mentions.

External Engagement Initiatives within the Auto Industry

I have always had this philosophy that a social business enables a brand to communicate more effectively with customers, partners, employees etc. and as Peter says “scale” programs such as Ford’s initiative earlier this month. That being said, a natural conclusion of Ford being a social business is that their external engagement initiatives are second to none.

However, a recent report by Visibli, a real-time analytics platform shows otherwise. Visibli analyzed  the top 5 auto brands to see which one of them is most engaging on Twitter, and how they do it. Some of the findings include:

• Honda is more engaging on Twitter than Ford and rest of ‘big auto.’
• Honda does it by targeting the right followers — 45% of their followers are interested in auto-related content, higher than any of the other brands
• Contrary to popular ‘best practice,’ almost 100% of Honda’s tweets are auto-related. Zero variety … but it works!

Further Social Business Considerations

Other than owning a Honda Civic many, many years ago, I have zero visibility into Honda as a company. Are there social business initiatives happening behind the firewall? Are teams collaborating and engaging internally? I really don’t know and I don’t know anyone who works there. But here are a few considerations:

• This is one study from one vendor; and one could argue that a retweet is not an accurate measure of engagement OR at least the the only measure of engagement
• Perhaps Ford is still early on in their journey of social business transformation per Chris Carfi from Ants Eye View.
• It could very well be that Honda just has a stellar marketing team (or agency) and utilizes real-time analytics to provide extremely relevant content to the community – the right content, at the right time, in the right channel to the right customer.
• Increased customer engagement is only one output of a social business – other outputs include an increase in employee engagement, increase in employee productivity, efficiency and sales; innovation, collaboration, etc.

Image credit: planeta

In today’s post, Emma Gannon analyzes the impact of paywalls on the online media from a perspective of SEO and Social Sharing. Part Two will study Monetizing Content and Content Curation. Look for the second part next week.

As the media world continues to evolve with new communication platforms, traditional outlets are increasingly making the transition to digital resulting in a shift in user consumption behavior. While the significance of print media is diminishing, the robust environment of digital content creation and sharing has driven search to become a major player in terms of media power.

Social media now plays a huge role in how we search for content, with the unveiling of Google’s Search Plus Your World proving that web search engine is not just serving index search results but increasingly based on personal preference and social history. Content that sits behind a paywall and thus cannot be shared out is missing a chance to strength SEO as it is lowering the opportunity for discovery as it inhibits the ease of social sharing.

But You Didn’t Charge Me Before?!

As consumers, for years we grown accustomed to the fact that many online information points do not normally charge us for their service. Instead of buying a magazine for a product review many consumers will turn to trusted blog source for advice or opinion pieces. This said, there is still a line between ‘freebie’ content and the value of something you should pay for. In recent Forbes article: ‘No you can’t pick my brain, it costs too much’, a blogger spells out why it is not fair that “people automatically assume that you have to provide information for free”.

This raises the question, should we be paying for information we once paid for when offline? And if so, what must these companies do to convince us that the content is worth paying for? We have seen an increasing amount of content move online: novels going straight to e-books, national newspapers increasing their digital presence, most magazine articles ending with an obligatory ‘read more online’ and other media channels such as TV and radio moving continuously towards onto online streaming and downloading.

We cannot deny that the digital world is currently our oyster in terms of internet browsing, but if so much content is moving online, how long can we expect it to be given away for free? If more sites do start charging for their content, what does this mean in terms of user engagement and consumption?

Thoughts from the Crowd

To get a sense of what people thought about the implications of paywalls I asked the people of Twitter what they thought and the response was a rather mixed one: Edelman colleague @LukeMackay said “paywalls aren’t the problem. Users need to be convinced of the value of the content then the experience has to be easy (e.g. iTunes).” Another example of a successful pay-for-content method is Spotify, whereby users are offered content tiers and can pick which specifically suits them.

Fellow digital friend @marcelloalessi said he’d “happily pay but not, say, for a whole issue when I’m interested in one particular article. Micro-payments would help.” It appears that many don’t mind paying for content if it is exclusive, easy to access and they are given a level of choice to how much or little content they sign up for.

On the other hand, social media marketer @ChelseyJo made the point that “If people have to pay, they will look elsewhere to get it for free. Might as well keep them on your page.” This raises the point that user engagement should be valued as much as the hard cash.

Exclusive Content

The only way in which paying for content makes sense is if the content is exclusive or you are paying for something that you can’t easily get anyway else. For example, a customer would not buy a book and if they had already read parts of it elsewhere for free. Paywalls work for people who have a particular individual they follow (such as Caitlin Moran’s articles for The Times) which asks the question whether users are following sites based on the overall content, or individual contributors. Due to individuals really making their mark online by freely publishing their content in other places as well as the traditional media houses, the ‘value’ or exclusivity of content on a specific websites may be down to the byline of the author, not the website itself.

Edelman colleague Marshall Manson made a similar point on the Edelman podcast ‘SOPA & content rights’ that discusses how the information marketplace is changing. He gave the example that if business editor Robert Peston was to move elsewhere from the BBC, he would probably continue following his posts, as it is Peston’s own POV that brings the value. This suggests that individuals can now publish their own content and amass their own followings independent of the organization that used to pull in the audiences.

We Create Content Too!

An issue that comes hand in hand with paywalling content is the fact that as individuals we co-create, share and are often the inspiration behind content. Take Huffington Post bloggers for example; these bloggers go unpaid, however are a main source of content providers. Clay Shirky’s TED Talk on ‘why SOPA is a bad idea’ brings up the issue that comes with bills such as PIPA: ‘we don’t like only to consume…. We like to produce and we like to share’. Paywalls inhibit the consumers’ right to share and produce. This puts a barrier up between ‘site’ and ‘user’ and does not allow for any sort of collaboration or sharing. These media sites are therefore missing out of opportunities for users to be carriers of the content and to share with their wider networks.

It’s All About Engagement

The key issue with paywalls is that it inhibits the natural instinct for users to share what they have read. Reading something and then wanting to pass it on is a key part of how people behave online, not to mention increasing engagement levels via organic user activity. Clicking on links on social networks that have paywalls may end up deterring users from clicking on that particular site again. ‘Sharing’ is a metric that is being monitored with greater frequency, the ‘share’ button on Facebook has just as much, if not more kudos on Facebook as the ‘like’ button on wall posts. ‘Sharing’ means getting further into the users newsfeeds. In terms of Twitter, millions of links are shared daily and studies show that links are shortlived showing that links in fact have a “half life of 2.8 hours.”

The social media editors of paywalled sites are also changing their online engagement strategy. Instead of being able to share best content with all readers, Chris Snider makes the point that they have to start acting ‘more like marketers than journalists’ as they try to convince the community to pay for the content instead of just sharing engaging tweets.

Image credit: Allanran 917

Originally published on Michael Brito’s blog Britopian.

Recently, the good folks over at Lithium hosted a dinner to honor Dr. Michael Wu and the release of his book, The Science of Social: Beyond Hype, Likes & Followers. I was like the ugly guy in high school that went to the prom without a date — I was just happy to be there.

I was surrounded by some super smart industry influencers — Paul Greenberg, Sameer Patel, Mark Fidelman, Brian Vellmure, Chris Carfi, Sean O’Driscoll, Sean McDonald, Todd Shimizu, Susan Etlinger, Esteban Kolsky,Kare Christine Anderson, Becky Carroll, Steve Farnsworth, Charlie Isaacs, Brian Blau, Christine Crandell and of course the wonderful team at Lithium – Lyle Fong, Katy Keim, Dan Ziman and Erin Korogodsky.

Here is my attempt at reviewing Dr. Wu’s book, The Science of Social.

Chapter 1: The Science of Social

The first chapter is really about a brand needing a deep commitment to community building. Dr. Wu starts of the chapter highlighting 7 myths:

• Myth 1 – Being there is enough: a brand needs to do more than just “be there” for the sake of “being there”. Community building is a commitment to listen, to engage, to act – just like a marriage.
• Myth 2 – Social channels are an opportunity to broadcast direct, outbound marketing campaigns to a massive audience: most brands start off with this mindset but learn really fast that broadcasting marketing messages is grounds for community abandonment, lack of trust, and complete failure in social media.
• Myth 3 – OMG, going social means I have to make every customer my BFF: finding a small set of “superfans” or advocates is the key to driving community growth and meaningful conversations.
• Myth 4 – I am the authority on my company, products and services: the recent issues with Netflix, Bank of America and Verizon Wireless prove this time and time again to be false.
• Myth 5 – If we go social, we must be on every channel: brands need to be smart and prepared to scale before they create a multitude of social channels. Listening to the online conversation will help determine which networks a brand should spend time in.
• Myth 6 – Influencer campaigns don’t work: they do work if they are a part of a meaningful community
• Myth 7 – Social media are all the same: social media encompasses more than just Twitter and Facebook; and Dr. Wu breaks down the difference between communities and social networks.

Chapter 2: Warning to toe-dippers: Being online ≠ going social

This chapter is about cultivating superfans and influence. Much of this chapter explores what makes superfans tick; and the underlying nature of influence, trust and relationships. According to Wu, superfans account for 1 – 2% of the community and can create real business value:

• Lower support costs by answering questions from the community
• Helps a brand scale and manage a multitude of fans
• Helps with marketing because superfans will serve as evangelists and tell others
• Contribute to ideation, co-creation and constructive feedback
• Spend time with the brand, in the community (essentially becoming the brand)
• Generate content on the site (articles, tutorials, Q&As)
• Quantify ROI

Dr. Wu continues to analyze the 1% (or superfans) and examines their behaviors, the way they interact, act and influence others to act. He then goes into detail about the six factors of influence:

• Domain Credibility
• High Bandwidth
• Content Relevance
• Timing Relevance
• Channel Alignment
• Target Confidence

And, he points out that it’s not enough for someone just to be popular. It’s not even enough to have a big, influential, talkative following. Someone who is truly influential for the brand needs to have all six factors listed above.

The chapter concludes on the basis of trust and Dr. Wu even cites Richard Edelman, “Trust is no longer a commodity that is acquired but rather a benefit that is bestowed.”

Chapter 3: Cultivating Superfans & Influence

Chapter three is about gamification and motivation. The biggest takeaway for me was that people buy products and services.  But they crave experiences and that’s what gets them to come back time, and time and time again. Throughout this chapter and the entire book, Dr. Wu gives quick nuggets and case studies that validate his thinking.

What also stood out for me was the concept of motivation; and Dr. Wu’s explanation that the goal of dynamic gamification is to create lasting engagement. And, that the job of game mechanics is to reliably, predictably and repeatedly drive customer behavior.

Chapter 4: Gamification and Motivation

Chapter number four is about a deeply engaged community. This is where Dr. Wu starts to bring all the points from the previous chapters together in one cohesive thought process – the power of the 1%, what motivates them and the altruism principle.

Dr. Wu also illustrates the characteristics of a well designed community:

• prioritizes and ranks good feedback
• acknowledges the most useful contributions
• allows anyone to earn a good reputation
• awards privileges to community members who have provided value to others within the community (i.e. writing blog content, early visibility into new products, co-creation of products, processes, etc.)

On the contrary, Dr. Wu also illustrates the problems with siloed communities:

• offers little incentive for members to engage with others
• decreases overall participation levels
• prevents the influx of superfans

This book was very enjoyable to read. It’s full of insights, wisdom and key learnings that will help marketers, support professionals, executives or anyone else wanting to learn how to create meaningful communities on the social web. Dr. Wu is the ONE social media scientist and yet too humble of a man to even admit it, much less put it in his Twitter bio.

I highly recommend reading this book.

Perhaps the most under-utilized Web resources in the communications world are the Web sites offered by international governing bodies. Therein lies a wealth of information that often goes overlooked.

For a project in my MBA program, I recently did a very quick review of ten such sites against the following criteria:

• Accessibility/Navigation: The degree to which a visitor can get around the site and find important information easily.
• Depth: Does the user get a sense that the site offers rich historical and current data?
• Contact Direction: Does the site make it clear how to get answers beyond what the site provides?
• Language Support: How many languages does the site support? Is the number of languages supported equal to its mandate? I paid particular attention to the top 10 languages used on the Internet—English, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Arabic, French, Russian, and Korean—inasmuch as appropriate to the mission of the site.
• Clarity of Mission: Put simply, is the “About” page meaningful? Arguably, this page is the most important one of nearly any site.
• Search: Does the search function allow users to go “an inch wide and a mile deep,” allowing visitors to retrieve exactly the information desired?
• Social Integration: This criterion examines whether the organization has a presence on the social Web and whether it appears to be part of their outreach and mission.

Here’s my view of five of these sites after the jump. The area graph plots the sites’ scores for the above criteria on a 1-10 scale (10 is maximum) against the average for all ten sites studied.

Note that I’m not making a judgment about the respective missions of these organizations or their effectiveness, just the usefulness of their Web sites to communicators and in general.

---

1. World Trade Organization (WTO)

Average Score: 7.57

The WTO’s site has a lot to offer for international businesspeople, though it takes some level of commitment to master the site’s navigation. The most useful items, I felt, were under “Documents and Resources” and, particularly, the information on international trade statistics. Taking the 2011 report as an example, the site offers much of the data in Excel so that you can do your own analysis. For instance, here’s six years of merchandise and services trade data by region and economy (XLS).

Do you want to contact a WTO representative through the site? The contact page is comprehensive, sure, but a tacit “don’t bug us” (however politely delivered in red text) is never the best way to be seen as a useful international body. (Yes, I know they’re busy, but there are ways to communicate this kind of thing and still be seen as useful and cooperative.) That said, the “WTO-and-you” area tells various stakeholders (from politicians to journalists) how to at least get the conversation started.

2. World Bank

Average Score: 8.14

Do yourself a favor: bookmark data.worldbank.org immediately. An empty Web page on this subdomain is more useful than 90% of the sites you probably visit on a given day. Here, you can get an incredible amount of summary information by country, topic, and indicator.

Also, many international organizations would want you to reference their data, but how many international organizations offer an API? The World Bank could not possibly state it more clearly than on the “Use Our Data” page. Head over to the Developer section to learn more about how the World Bank data could be put to work for your next mashup or Web tool.

As for the rest? Well, any time the description of your organization relies on defining five other organizations with acronyms that aren’t immediately familiar, it’s probably time to rethink your messaging.

We are not a bank in the common sense; we are made up of two unique development institutions owned by 187 member countries: the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) and the International Development Association (IDA).

[SNIP]

Their work is complemented by that of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA) and the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).

Did you get that? Good. Now on to #3.

3. International Monetary Fund

Average Score: 8.43

The IMF site does a good job of looking almost like a journalistic enterprise, which makes it more engaging to navigate. The site gets its depth of information primarily by the third party sources and sub-brands on the Web that it makes accessible through its own pages. Under the “Data and Statistics” tab, you can access PrincipalGlobalIndicator.org (e.g., GDP, gov’t expenditures, short- and long-term interest rates), Financial Soundness Indicators (a kind of SWOT analysis for financial systems), or the Financial Access Survey (e.g., global access to basic financial services).

As of this writing, the most-accessed materials are the 2011 Global Financial Outlook and the Global Financial Stability Report, both of which offer generous amounts of source data in Excel-friendly CSV format.

4. European Union

Average Score: 9.57

The Eurostat database is another must-bookmark resource. The “nested tree” format of the database is also very intuitive, allowing me to get the documents I was looking for.

As someone who counsels companies with regard to online engagement, it’s interesting to see how the EU has so pervasively embraced social media in order to spread its message and, presumably, preserve its reputation online. In fact, the site makes it pretty easy to find the social destinations for not only the various EU bodies (e.g., Facebook pages for the European parliament and the Economic & Social Committee) but certain delegates as well. The blogs by the EU officials are also surprisingly up-to-date for an organization like this.

5. North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)

Average Score: 4.57

NAFTA’s Web site scored among the lowest of the ten sites I analyzed. It’s either a strategy or a status that this Web site has little to offer visitors who seek more information on this controversial agreement.

Search was a comedy of errors. I submitted queries for “commodities,” “corn,” “wheat,” and “soybeans.” For the most part, the search engine would give me any answer I wanted… so long as it was the full text of NAFTA.

The site gets some grade-curving points on language support given that it need only support English, Spanish, and French to service all signatories.

I also looked at the U.S. Trade Representative, the Export-Import Bank of the United States, ASEAN, and others. The Friday5, of course, is an exercise in the art of compression. I invite you to comment about these sites in this post and to visit the others.

Image credit: Mariano Real Pérez

The following post is an excerpt from Edelman Consumer Marketing’s 12on12, a compilation of essays from some of our consumer marketing leaders around the globe. This is the third in a series of essays from the compilation. To read more essays from the 12on12 series, visit the Edelman Scribd Channel.

Now, more than ever before, there are opportunities for brands and organizations to create meaningful relationships directly with their target audience through compelling content. However, there are historical lessons to consider in determining what comprises compelling content.

Creating branded content is not a new concept. For a long time, brands and organizations have developed content, but it has been firmly in the province of marketing. The content that brands have traditionally created is short form; be that a television commercial (TVC), a print ad, or radio commercial. In order to engage audiences today, and to create the type of content that will be shared by consumers, simply extending the traditional marketing style content into a longer form will not work.

Today we are seeing brands like Red Bull through their creation of sports properties, KFC restaurants in Indonesia that host live music performances, and McDonald’s in the U.S. and Quiksilver France launching their own TV networks, creating the kind of quality content that, traditionally, we have associated with traditional media players. They have done this by focusing on what the audience wants first, and how they can benefit as a brand second.

To understand the opportunity for brands and organizations with regard to content, it is worth spending some time looking at what content consumers have traditionally engaged with, and looks at the evolution of content up to today.

Where We’ve Been

Traditionally, content was created by a few people. The delivery systems and the means of production were expensive. Only a few very wealthy individuals had access to the type of investment required to run huge print machines, or to buy the licenses and the studios required to deliver content via broadcast. This scenario meant that those who did create content had enormous power. The scarcity of content producers meant the content that was produced was highly valuable to the audience. There wasn’t much of it, so what was created was seen by many. This was the era of mass audiences, grouped together due to the scarcity of quality content.

What Changed in the Late ‘90s

Like the arrival of the printing press in the 1400s that dramatically changed access to printed content, the self-publishing phenomenon that arrived in the late ‘90s revolutionized content once more. No longer was content creation limited to the few with great means or great connections; now anyone could publish materials and gain an audience very cheaply and simply. The outcome of this was a mass fragmentation of the audience. No longer were audiences forced to watch a small amount of mass content, but could indulge in their favorite niches that were no longer controlled by geographical borders or high barriers to entry. There was, however, a yawning gap between the quality of content that was made for niche audiences, and those created for the masses. The mass audience content was still superior in quality and still attracted larger audiences.

Fast Forward to Today

Most of the formerly niche platforms have gone mainstream, and there are now very few discernible differences between the likes of the new-media Huffington Post and traditional media outlets in the U.S.; political opinion blogs like Crikey in Australia and traditional political publications and Rue89 in France share readers and media space. Further, the arrival of Facebook pages, branded YouTube channels, Google+ pages, and Twitter has meant that brands are doing more than merely creating content directly for their audience – they are talking with their audience like peers.

Traditionally brand content (or ads) was seen jammed between the bits of content we are really interested in. We watched them only through sufferance. They were a nuisance that paid for the stuff we were really interested in.

However, in order to gain traction in a world with more content and a fragmented audience, brands need to evolve their content. The content needs to be less about marketing messages and be truly entertaining, informative, or educational. In short, it needs to resemble much more the content that brands used to buy ad space around, and a lot less like the ads they have traditionally created.

Tips for Brands Wanting to Make Content Today:

At Edelman, we believe there are five simple tips that brands should keep in mind when planning and creating content. We call these the “Five Cs of Content.”

The 5Cs of Content

Creativity: Compelling storytelling is still the core component of all successful content. If we don’t care about the characters, aren’t interested in the story being told, or aren’t compelled to watch until the end, then it is unlikely the content will be successful.

Context: To create great content, you need to understand what your audience wants, needs, and desires. But you also need to take into account the platforms you audience uses to consume the content, be it print, video or audio; also, when they want it, and how often they are prepared to engage.

Connectivity: There is great value in creating content that connects members of your target audience together. By doing this, you create a mutually beneficial scenario that creates a virtuous circle of connectivity around your brand.

Continuity: There is a reason that soap operas like Neighbors, Derrick, Columbo, and The Bold and The Beautiful are successful. They have long-established audiences who know there will be a new episode on a regular basis. The same goes for content that brands create. There is great value provided by sustaining efforts over time, ensuring that an audience built around your content. Though remember, no audience will be built overnight.

Collaboration: Gone are the days of one-way communication with an audience. Today your audience is unlikely to want to sit idly by and consume the content you have created for them. They will want to be involved, have an impact on the direction of content, and be recognized for their contributions. What’s more, if they are involved, they are more likely to share their efforts – we all have egos, after all.

This post was originally published on Trevor Young’s blog PR Warrior.

For companies and organisations already reeling from a year in which Australian consumers embraced the social web in massive numbers and with greater levels of intensity, 2012 promises more of the same but with some potential break-out trends.

So how should marketers approach 2012?

What should the leadership teams of large organisations be looking for in terms of building and protecting their corporate reputation in a hyper-connected world?

Below is a snapshot from a detailed paper I’ve written about how I think 2012 will roll out in terms of PR, communications and the social web.

• BETTER USE (AND INTEGRATION) OF SOCIAL MEDIA – Brands that have experimented with the social web will go back to basics and start thinking more strategically how to leverage new media technologies for their business, including better integrating with other marketing and corporate communications.

• ADOPTION OF QUICKER RESPONSE TIMES – As more and more Australians become heavier and more frequent users of social media, so too their expectation brands will respond in a timely manner will grow. Thus companies will need to factor in quicker response times in line with today’s ‘real-time’ marketplace.

• LEADERS WILL ADOPT PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL BUSINESS – Forward-thinking organisations that put ‘social’ at the heart of their enterprise will become the new leaders in an era where everyone is connected and two-way collaborative communication trumps ‘top down’ broadcast of polished messages.

• INCREASED EMPHASIS ON CONTENT MARKETING – The notion of brands becoming media companies in their own right will hit home locally; expect more use of the term ‘content marketing’ not to mention a growing trend for companies tapping journalists, PR people and bloggers to create content on their behalf.

• THE RISE AND RISE OF THE POWER BLOGGER – Blogging in Australia will continue its impressive growth but the big shift will be in the rise of the power blogger – the ‘multi-dimensional storytellers’ who will continue to increase their sphere of influence on and offline as the popularity of their ‘personal brand’ grows.

• CONTINUED DEBATE AROUND ROI – The debate over social media ROI will continue to be a hot topic but more reasoned voices will come to the fore as decision-makers better understand and appreciate what can and cannot be achieved in today’s new media world.

• GROWTH IN CONTENT CURATION – Not everyone is a content creator; with so much information flying around the web, the public will increasingly rely on filters (people, tools or apps) to edit and package information for their consumption e.g. Flipboard, Zite, Storify etc. Expect to also see a rise in influence of people who develop a reputation for content curation.

• THE RISE IN STATUS OF THE COMMUNITY MANAGER – Once the domain of a digitally savvy but inexperienced ‘junior burger’, organisations will start paying more respect to social media by appointing more knowledgeable and senior people in the public-facing role of community manager; expect this person to take on increased importance as their connection with the community deepens.

• COMBATING FACEBOOK’S CLUTTER – Facebook will continue its dominance;brands will need to become more creative and look to provide unique user experiences if they are to stand out from the crowd.

• TWITTER’S GROWING INFLUENCE – Twitter will continue to break into the mainstream consciousness as even the laggards start to wonder what all the fuss is about and join up.

• TRACKING THE RISING STARS – Keep an eye out for Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, Flipboard, Tout. How could your brand leverage these platforms?

• WHERE TO FOR SOCIAL INFLUENCE MEASUREMENT & SCORING SYSTEMS? – One of the more controversial talking points among marketing and PR folk this year has been the use (and validity) of online reputation and social influence measurement systems e.g. Klout, Kred, PeerIndex et al. Expect more of the same in 2012!

 

What do you think 2012 holds in store for Australian PR professionals and the brands they represent?

Image credit: gerlos

I’ve mentioned previously in a Friday Five article that I’m a wannabe photographer. Thanks to mobile photo apps, like Instagram, I am able to shoot, edit and share images like never before. I’m able to take photos and within seconds, apply a fun filter and share with my social network. With a few clicks and taps on my smartphone, that photo of what I ate for dinner or the outfit I wore to work is sent to my Facebook friends and Twitter followers. The best part of all? Everyday moments look a whole lot more exciting with those impressive filters!

While Instagram is a fun and new way to document my day-to-day life, the possibilities and opportunities for brands are endless. Below find Edelman Digital tips, considerations and recommendations for brands looking to take their photos – and their followers social experience – to the next level.

How does Instagram work?

After downloading and opening the Instagram app, users will be prompted to create an Instagram profile, including a username and profile picture. Users can include a bio and website URL as well. There are five consistent buttons within the app – Feed, Popular, Share, News and Profile.

The Instagram Feed is where images are populated based on who you are following. Think of this as the Facebook Timeline or Twitter stream. Anytime someone you follow on Instagram uploads a new public photo, it will show up in your Feed. There’s an option to “like” the photo (a small heart icon), comment or tweet the photo. You can also directly click back to the user’s profile from the Feed stream.

By clicking Popular, images will generate that have a high number of likes, comments or shares.

The Share button is front and center of the Instagram app. Users have two options when sharing an image; they can either upload a photo already saved on their mobile device or shoot an image directly from the Instagram app. Once the photo is selected, users can select from sixteen different filter options in order to transform the colors, border, mood and tonality of the image. A few examples of Instagram filters include the “Nashville” filter which creates a vintage-looking image with a photo strip border, the “Earlybird” filter which creates a faded color cast image with a white border, and the “Lomo-fi” filter which creates a high contrast image with vignettes and a soft focus. All of the filters can be viewed with the respective edited image below.

Think of the News button similar to Facebook notifications or Twitter interactions. This is where users can see when other Instagram users start following their account or like and comment on their photo when they are under the “You” tab within the News section. Users also are able to see news from the users they are following under the “Following” tab. The “Following” tab is very similar to the Twitter activity function; users can see when a user they follow likes a photo or begins following another Instagram user.

The last button on the lower right hand side of the application is the Profile. This where users can view or edit their own profile.  The Profile button is also the place to view all of the photos you’ve uploaded to Instagram to date and all other Instagram user photos you’ve liked.

The Profile section is also where users can find other Instagram users from the app by clicking “Search Instagram” and typing in a name, username or tag (similar to Twitter’s hashtag). Another way to find Instagram users is by clicking “Find friends” under the same section and importing users from your device’s contact list, Facebook friend list or Twitter following list. Instagram also populated suggested users that are similar to you or close to your location. Below are two examples of brand Instagram profiles; both Starbucks* and Kate Spade New York are active brands on the mobile photo app.

What is the future of Instagram?

In an interview with TechCrunch, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom said,

By no means do we think of Instagram as just a photo-sharing service. It’s something that a lot of people lump us into, but we’d like to think of ourselves as a storytelling service. It’s the way you go out in the world and tell a story about your life, and it’s a new entertainment platform. You can open it up and see a story about what your friends are doing, but also [that] ABC World News is posting photos of someone in Japan reporting on the nuclear crisis. It’s really moving to see those things coming together through images.

A story-telling service, says Systrom. What exactly does this mean? The purpose of Instagram is to do more than just upload photos, but for each account to tell a story. Rather just spread a message through text, Instagram users have the opportunity to document life and connect with others on a deeper and more emotional level.

What are the implications and best practices for brands?

Brands have an opportunity to connect with their audience in a new way in real time.  Amy Cole, a member of Instagram’s business operations team, explains in an Ad Age interview that there are roughly 200 brands and organizations using the app to date. A few examples include Starbucks, with over 202,000 followers and Burberry with 151,000 followers. News organizations including The Today Show and NPR have also jumped on Instagram utilizing mobile photography as an additional way of telling the news.

Commonly, brands use Instagram to capture things their audience might not typically see. Giving your followers “backstage access” allows them to feel more connected to specific individuals within a company and the brand overall. Another way brands are using Instagram is to host contests and events. Levi’s* is hosting an open casting call on Instagram where prospective models can send their photo using the #IamLevis hashtag. Starbucks also hosted the #5More campaign asking followers to submit images sharing what they would do if they had five more minutes in the day. All images were generated to the Starbucks website. This is a key way to show appreciation for your fans and followers and in turn, obtain submissions for a larger project.

While many lifestyle and fashion brands are popular on Instagram, other types of brands can still be strategic and successful when tapping into their target Instagram audience. Take note from General Electric*, with over 34,000 Instagram followers. The company using Instagram to show their commitment to energy and transportation; they often post photos of engines and turbines. While this might not be interesting to the everyday consumer, enthusiasts are given the chance to see the inner workings of the giant global brand.

With every Instagram upload, users have the option to share the image on several different social media platforms. Previously, if you shared your Instagram image to Facebook, a thumbnail and link would show up on your profile. Instagram’s latest update allows you to seamlessly share images to your Facebook timeline in full size (example below). This provides a huge opportunity for brands given that Facebook has over 800 million users. Facebook users can re-share an Instagram photo that they see on a brand Facebook page which in turn, increases Instagram’s visibility and reach outside of the actual application.

Instagram is an easy and effective way to tell a brand’s story so honing in on what the brand’s point-of-view and perspective is key. The mobile app allows brands to “bring themselves to life” in a way that might not be possible on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube. The brand’s that are most successful on Instagram are the ones who don’t underestimate the power of a photograph.

Edelman Digital’s Take

Instagram is free, so if you have a smartphone device, download the app and start playing. You’ll find that Instagram is very user-friendly and a fun way to peak into what’s going on in your favorite friends, brands and influencers lives. The Instagram team has a helpful resource showing you “notable users” for you to get an idea of who to follow. Start following other Instagram users and posting your own images to get a feel for what capabilities the app has. Share your images on social channels – Facebook, Twitter, Flickr – and take a peek at how people engage with your photos.

While Instagram is a very consumer-focused platform, there are several opportunities for B2B, tech, health and other industries. GE’s Instagram account is a perfect example; the company uses Instagram to give themselves “a consumer face” and offer their followers behind-the-scenes photos from their factories. For those who might not fully understand what General Electric does, the Instagram acts as bridge connecting the company with their target audience.

One popular tactic for brands to do on Instagram is to host a photo contest. The Instagram team shares a blog post highlighting the best practices for hosting photo contests on the app. It’s pretty basic – select a hashtag, call for content from your followers and begin tracking the users who submit photos with the specified hashtag. It’s a great way to kick-off a brand’s presence on Instagram.

The most important thing to remember is to not just use Instagram within the app, but to share all of your content across other social channels. You’ll be able to tap into your personal or brand’s larger community and instantly tie all social media efforts together.

Recommended Reading:

• Examples of How Brands are Using Instagram
• Instagram Hits 10 Million Users in 355 Days: A Brief Retrospective
• Instagram Shifting Focus to an Open Platform with API

Image credit: Potzuyoko

*Levi’s, General Electric and Starbucks are clients of Edelman.

Among the key insights that came out of Edelman’s 2012 Trust Barometer was a plan for how businesses can earn the license to lead, not just operate. In today’s environment, a focus on operative factors alone is not enough to win over a skeptical public. Companies have to broaden their vision and their language, taking on societal issues and practicing radical transparency. Shareholders are only part of the puzzle – engagement with all stakeholders is needed, and an effective social business plan is needed to get there.

Engaging Beyond the Customer

The results of the study reminded me of Charlene Li’s excellent predictions for social business in 2012. Li made some great points about what businesses should focus on in order to make tangible steps toward becoming more social and more open in the next year. Her third point is especially valid: that a culture of sharing that empowers and connects employees with consumers will create a sustained competitive advantage for businesses willing to implement it. I would take it one step further and assert that social businesses will be more effective at engagement with all stakeholders.

Most companies are making headway in consumer engagement via social on some level, but they aren’t considering other stakeholder groups as part of the social business puzzle. The Trust Barometer emphasizes more than ever an engagement approach inclusive of employees, partners, and others as well as current and potential customers.

Engaging with all of these stakeholder communities at scale is a challenge. However, I believe that an influencer approach can help provide some focus, and will allow for the most effective communications with all audiences.

The Bigger Picture of Influence

The idea of influence amongst consumers is nothing new, and brands and their agencies have long targeted the most influential consumers in order to gain third-party credibility, spread awareness, and ultimately drive sales. Some have argued that a “cult of influence” will even emerge in 2012 that will see businesses obsess over turning influence into business value. Services like Klout are built around helping brands do this at scale. But there are influencers in every stakeholder group that are driving the culture and perception of businesses. These deserve attention and engagement just as much as customers do.

Through a comprehensive influencer mapping process, businesses can identify and engage with the most influential voices in each group – whether that be the blogger who drives online conversation around a brand, the employee who sparks water-cooler conversations, or the journalist who covers the industry. The reality is that these groups have already been engaging with each other, but businesses have never before had the tools to bring all stakeholders together under an umbrella engagement strategy. But the new reality illustrated by the Trust Barometer demands it.

Social Business Planning Leads the Way

What that engagement looks like will depend on the unique position of each company, but a smart social business plan will be the roadmap to engaging at all levels of influence. Most likely it will involve:

• Some combination of internal and external community management. Have you implemented an effective employee collaboration hub – one that is about culture sharing as much as information sharing?
• Social media training – for all departments, not just marketing – and policy development.
• Collaboration between departments – especially HR, which has an increasingly important role to play.
• Buy-in from C-Suite executives, who are the biggest influencers for most stakeholders. This will prove to all parties how important a culture of sharing and open communication is to your business.

If trust is indeed shifting from institutions to individuals, then businesses need to understand which individuals are responsible for driving their company perception, and put in place an engagement strategy. How are you positioned to engage with your stakeholders in 2012?

Image credit: Jean-François Chénier