NevOn

Imagine if Chevron had used a blog instead

Listening this morning to a BBC World Service radio interview with Peter Robertson, vice-chairman of the Chevron oil company, I was struck in particular by his commentary about a website where the public can join Chevron in an online discussion about the future of energy.

Overall, I found it a fascinating interview, with its discussion of wide-ranging topics including the future of energy, the evolving role of the energy industry (the oil companies) and corporate social responsibility. From a PR point of view, I think Robertson did a pretty good job for his company.

Concerning the online discussion, Robertson was talking about willyoujoinus.com, a website sponsored by Chevron, that's facilitating some discussion about the future of energy and what people think about it.

From a broad look around the site, and judging from the detailed information in Chevron's Community Guidelines page, this is actually a substantial undertaking (and clearly part of a broad public affairs effort):

The willyoujoinus.com discussion forum was created as a place for individuals and groups to exchange ideas on important energy issues. It is also a place for users to read, consider, respond, and perhaps be inspired to take individual or collective action in an environment of mutual respect.

To contribute your opinions, you have to register. And your comments are moderated:

Experienced outside moderators have been assigned to ensure that postings are relevant and appropriate, and otherwise meet the site’s community guidelines as described below.

All postings will be reviewed by moderators and published on the site within 24 hours if determined to be within these guidelines.

That's fine - comment moderation is hardly unheard of and, as long as the policy is clearly stated, unlikely to confuse participants nor set any wrong expectations.

The concept of this effort by Chevron - provide a place online where people can participate in broadly open discussion on a topical issue - is very good, precisely the kind of thing where a blog could work well as that place for open, even if moderated, discussion.

But willyoujoinus.com is not a blog. Instead it's a beautifully-designed and clearly well thought through corporate website with some blog-like naming (the words 'post' and 'comment' are used, for instance).

It's gatekeeper heaven, too, with its completely un-blog-like methodology of contributing your opinions via a web form that goes off to some unknown person or group of moderators  - what Chevron describes as "experienced outside moderators" (without giving a sense of who these people are: could be the PR agency for all I know) and, elsewhere in the site, as "contracted specialists in community moderation" (sounds scary!).

Imagine if Chevron had used a blog instead. With RSS feeds. With trackback capability. It could certainly still require registration and login in order for anyone to participate, and have comment moderation.

Most important, though, a blog could give this place personality and authenticity - two of the attributes which it currently and starkly lacks. And identify who the moderators are. Build some trust.

You're about 80 percent there with this, Chevron. Why not go the full 100? Put your pedal to the metal!

The richness of blogs

One of the best articles about the value of blogs that I've read in a long time was posted by Robin Good yesterday.

Information Overload: Blogs As Content Navigators, Information Filters, Trusted Niche Guides provides a good perspective on one of the curses of modern life, which isn't how to find information - it's how to find, interpret and trust the information that matters to you.

The bottom line:

[...] Blogs stand to benefit in the present media landscape for a number of reasons:

• Because of the overload of information it is impossible for people to keep up with all of it. Information needs to be sifted through and made sense of.
• Bloggers also add richness to the already established reach of mass media.
• Blogs can cater to niche audiences that mass media cannot because mass media must focus on the most important or biggest issues at hand.
• Because of the Internet a blogger can have a niche audience of 5,000 readers a day from around the world.
• A major factor is that blogs have little to no overhead to set up and run. All that is needed is a computer and an Internet connection and a blogger can be up and running, so the distribution costs are cheap.

[Technorati: blogs, information overload]

Factoring blogs into crisis communication planning

A feature on blogs in the current issue of The Economist hardly adds any value with a subject focus that's been flogged to death by some sections of the mainstream media, notably Forbes magazine last October.

Bloggers can be vicious but they can also help companies avert disaster, says the sub-title as The Economist devotes 10 paragraphs of its 14-paragraph article discussing the negative aspect of blogs and the potential reputation and other damage that a company can suffer at the hands of bloggers.

One reality point, I suppose, is that the article positions blogs among other long-standing social media like online discussion groups (aka forums or chat rooms) and email lists that have been around for years, so a reader of this article would hopefully not form an impression that blogs are just some form of unique evil manifestation of the worst in people.

And there's the rub for me. Yet another article in a mainstream medium where the overall feeling you have after reading it is that blogs and other online communication media are something mostly to be feared and concerned about, so you'd better get your crisis communication plan ready (as the article concludes) for a disaster.

Yes, get your crisis plan ready but not just because, suddenly, there seem to be blogs out there written by bloggers determined only to do you damage!

Let's say you have your crisis communication plan ready to roll so that you are prepared for any eventuality. And that eventuality doesn't necessarily mean a negative thing - the ability to respond quickly and decisively isn't always to do with the negative use of the word 'crisis.'

What's different today  - and this is the real point - is that blogs and other new social media (eg, podcasts) should also be factors you will consider and take into account in your crisis communication planning. Not only from the point of view of what such media are saying about your company, your brand, etc, but also how you can make use of such media.

If you want to see some really thoughtful commentary on how blogs fit into overall communication planning, crisis and otherwise, take a look at the posts in the Challenges of Corporate Blogging section in Global PR Blog Week 2.0.

Beta view of what start-ups look like

Click on the image to see the slightly larger (and better in-focus) original on Flickr. And take a look at the comments there to get a sense of who's missing from this visual list. I love the creator's response to some comments: "the logo map's a beta, too."

A number of these logos are of names that are already getting quite well known among a broader and more mainstream audience beyond the tech evangelist arena. Names like Blogger, FeedBurner, NewsGator and Delicious. Which of the others will become as familiar, I wonder, and how soon.

(Via CNET News.)

SAP enters SaaS market

Yesterday, the German enterprise software vendor SAP announced it is entering the hosted software-as-a-service (SaaS) market with the expansion of its mySAP CRM offering to include a hosted option.

The first service SAP will offer as a subscription is its sales-on-demand solution, with pricing from $75/user a month, and with hosting services from IBM.

In a Business Week article yesterday discussing SAP's move, market researcher IDC estimates that, while on-demand sales made up only about 6 percent of the roughly $9 billion CRM market last year, that percentage could rise to as much as 25 percent in five years. A commentary by Line56 also yesterday says SAP's announcement illustrates a convergence of interests and models as the 1990s best-of-breed concept fades further into the distance.

DestinationCRM.com's report on the CRM market leaders in 2005 says a recent AMR Research report indicated that 47 percent of large enterprises, or companies with more than $1 billion in revenue, were going to look at the hosted model as part of their "going forward CRM strategy." If there is a single one-to-watch on-demand provider, destinationCRM says, it's Salesforce.com.

One to watch right now clearly is SAP. The obvious new-customer target for SAP would be Saleforce.com (whose CRM SaaS pricing starts at $65/user a month). That's not quite how Business Week sees it, though:

[...] While SAP's battle with Salesforce.com is lively, its most ferocious competition is with Oracle, the No. 2 corporate applications company. With the completion of its $5.58 billion takeover of Siebel Systems on Feb. 1, Oracle overtook SAP to become the leading traditional CRM software supplier.

Oracle already has both traditional and on-demand CRM products, as does Siebel. Now, with the combination, it expects to make headway against SAP in both spheres. That's partly because the uncertainty about Siebel's future has been resolved and customers are feeling more comfortable about buying its software again. Juergen Rottler, executive vice-president of Oracle On Demand, says Oracle will be much more aggressive about pushing on-demand services than SAP. "We believe that on-demand is the future of our business," he says.

Ones to watch.

[Technorati: oracle, saas, sap]

Intelliseek acquired, forms part of new VNU-backed company as VNU looks to be acquired

Two of the leading companies in tracking and analysing what consumers are talking about online have joined forces to create, in the words of the formal press release, the new global standard for measuring and understanding word-of-mouth behavior and influence.

Market intelligence firm Intelliseek has been acquired by word-of-mouth research and planning company Buzzmetrics. The new combination will be known as Buzzmetrics Inc and operate under the Neilsen Buzzmetrics brand, backed by Dutch media group VNU who will own a majority stake in the new company.

Of additional interest to this deal is news today that VNU itself is in the final stages of being acquired by a consortium including some of the world's biggest private equity groups who made a non-binding offer for VNU yesterday, valuing the company at up to €7.3 billion ($8.8 billion).

The Financial Times reports that the bid comes from a group comprising Blackstone, Carlyle, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Permira, Hellman & Friedman, Alpinvest and Thomas H. Lee.

The FT said that a sale of VNU may prompt trade buyers to express interest in parts of the business. VNU comprises AC Nielsen, the market researcher, Nielsen Media Research, which monitors television ratings, and a smaller trade show and magazine division publishing titles including Hollywood Reporter and Billboard.

VNU said it expects to provide more information within three to four weeks, the FT reported.

Related NevOn post:

• FIR Interview - Pete Blackshaw, Intelliseek, August 16, 2005

[Update] Shel and I managed to grab an interview with Pete Blackshaw this evening (my time) to talk about today's announcement.

Book, blook and podcasts

Here's a neat idea - post the chapters of your book to your blog (sound familiar?) and record each chapter as a podcast.

The book in question is hackoff.com: An Historic Murder Mystery set in the Internet Bubble and Rubble, a novel by Tom Evslin, who started posting chapters last September under a Creative Commons license.

Evslin started the podcasts last week and I've listened to a couple of episodes so far, from the first chapter. The sound quality's not terrific (a bit echo-y) but they're a great listen. I listened on my PC although I think I'd get a better experience listening on my iPod.

Incidentally, Evslin's book blog is known as a blook which, according to the Wikipedia entry, was popularized by his very book, er, blook.

Some book publishers are embracing new media like podcasting. My current favourite - The Penguin Podcast, a podcast every couple of weeks with book extracts, author interviews and features from Penguin Books UK. Innovation in book marketing.

Clueless BrandWeek magazine

Are blogs a waste of your time and that of your business or clients? Indeed they are, according to BrandWeek magazine in the US:

Blogs provide almost no new information. They’re frequently inaccurate. They contribute to the hysterical polarization of our nation’s political discourse. And they’re often written by people who can’t, you know, write. So naturally marketers have flocked to associate their brands with them. Seriously, it’s not entirely clear why so many marketers have rushed to get themselves name-dropped in one of the most unreliable media environments yet invented.

What a credibility-sapping commentary in an otherwise entertaining and well-written special report on the "Best and Worst Marketing Ideas of 2005" (PDF; see #23 on page 5), published by BrandWeek last month.

Show this commentary to someone like Jonathan Schwartz of Sun Microsystems and ask him what he thinks. A waste of time? He says otherwise. Or just look through the blogs of any of the 100+ companies listed in The New PR Wiki corporate blogs list or any of those in the new Fortune 500 Business Blogging Wiki. Do they think it's all a waste of time? Hardly.

Looks like the BrandWeek author is more of a Forbes reader than a Business Week one. Glass half empty type of approach.

A clueless commentary.

(Via Blog Business Summit.)

GM videocasts new concept car

"What do you think of it?" asks General Motors vice chairman Bob Lutz in a post yesterday on the GM FastLane Blog.

At the last count, over 225 customers and car enthusiasts have told Lutz precisely what they think of the Chevrolet Camaro concept car, the vast majority of comments overwhelmingly positive. "Build this and I'll buy one!" would be a good summary of the informal feedback GM has received so far.

Yesterday's post was followed by a 10-minute videocast - a first from GM - with Lutz at the North American International Auto Show being interviewed by the Wall Street Journal. The video shows Lutz walking round the concept car with the interviewer, speaking enthusiastically (and with knowledge) about the car and its connectivity with models from previous years - important points for Camaro fans in particular.

With this videocast, the GM FastLane Blog clearly continues to play a significant role in GM's overall communication activities. As Lutz is on record as saying: "The blog has become an important unfiltered (emphasis on unfiltered) voice for the company, our customers and auto enthusiasts."

I like the videocast. Compared to the formal communication about the Camaro and the glitzy Flash-based website, the informality of Lutz' 'video tour' sets a terrific tone. An effective use of the medium, I'd say. A great balance to the staged webcast.

GM needs to do a great deal of effective communication right now. The word's biggest car maker posted a loss of nearly $5 billion in its North American automotive operations in the first nine months of 2005, according to the Wall Street Journal today in a story reporting that GM will slash prices across the board on most of its models.

Related NevOn posts:

• GM's Bob Lutz: The disruptive communicator
• GM: Poster child for the executive blog

Transforming corporate identities beyond the razzle dazzle

The Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas certainly was the place this week for many companies to announce a dazzling array of new tech products, alliances and ventures.

The best place I found to keep up with what was going on was the excellent Engadget CES blog which had a non-stop stream of posts. Another good resource - CES Blog 2006 from VNU. Certainly far better efforts than the CES' rather lame blog.

Amongst all the new products and cool things being talked about, I found two corporate announcements of particular interest, one from Eastman Kodak Company and the other from Intel Corporation.

A press release (reg required) on Thursday afternoon from Kodak has Antonio M. Perez, Chairman and CEO, talking about the future of digital imaging and a new alliance with Motorola. Buried down in the body text is this small paragraph:

[...] Perez also unveiled the latest evolution of Kodak’s brand logo. This new look moves the Kodak name out of the traditional yellow box; giving it a more contemporary design, a streamlined rounded look and distinctive letters. This introduction is the latest step in the company’s broad brand transformation effort, which reflects the multi-industry, digital imaging leader Kodak has become.

And here's that new logo alongside the one that's familiar worldwide.

For such a major transformation goal, I found it surprising that Kodak revealed their new brand image in such an understated way. Little specific information in their online press center to give you real insight into their strategic thinking and what this means for organizational change other than the corporate-speak in the press release (so you could think it's no more than a bit of razzle dazzle) and a page about the evolution of the logo over the years.

Perhaps this is indicative of Kodak's corporate style and the way they do things. I found much more information in a feature yesterday in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle (where the image above comes from) which gives you quite a bit more insight:

[...] The new mark, based on a customized typeface, is designed to give the company a contemporary look but be flexible enough to apply in new ways and new venues across Kodak's varied businesses - everything from tiny handheld digital cameras to computer software to the letters on Kodak buildings around the world.

The logo is one part of Kodak's larger effort to redefine its brand-name identity, through advertising, public relations, supplier and partner relationships and other in areas. "We want to break out of the box, in a lot of ways," says Betty Noonan, director of brand management and marketing services at Kodak.

While this gives you some more knowledge, it doesn't give you any sense of how Kodak plan to break out of the box or in what ways.

Contrast this approach with that of Intel, who pulled out all the communication stops to get their new message out to the world.

Window shopping

"Displax developed by Edigma combines rear projection holographic screens with finger tracking to bring interactive storefront displays to retailers and various commercial applications. Displax® - Interactive Window allows human interaction in a shop window, with multimedia applications, emission and record of sounds, detection of human presence in front of the display, etc."

Not exactly hot news as this product came to market in 2004 from the Portuguese company Edigma. But cool technology that you can just see soon making its way into the High Street.

The photo's hot, though.

(Via Marketingfacts.nl)

Life is not a box of chocolates

So you're a customer, you're seriously angry and you have a blog. No prizes for guessing what you do.

You blog it, as Guillaume has done today:

[...] I am furious to a point you can't possibly imagine, but thankfully I live in Paris, and I am going to go back to the shop, and let me tell you I am going to write here exactly the way they are going to react. Hope they know what customer service means. Hope also they heard about the blogosphere...

Following with interest, Guillaume.

Clearly you have The Social Customer Manifesto pinned on your notice board ;)

Yahoo! hammered by users over poor successor to Konfabulator

In my post on Monday about software hits and misses, I gave the new Yahoo! Widget Engine 3.0 a definite 'miss' verdict for the moment as this version for Windows really doesn't appear to be worthy of unleasing on an unsuspecting public as this growing comment thread in the support forum clearly indicates.

When I posted on Monday, that thread had two pages of comments. It's up to five pages now where users are bitterly complaining about so many issues with this successor app to the really great Konfabulator product.

What's interesting is how many of the comments include highly negative opinions about Yahoo! and the perceived damaging affect its purchase of Pixoria, the original developer of Konfabulator, is having on application development. Undoubtedly there are some trolls in there commenting but, nevertheless, here you have lots of Konfabulator users - many of them passionate about that product - who are connecting the problems with this new version with Yahoo's take-over of the original developer.

I doubt there's any connection at all. But it's perception we're talking about here. This perception/connection situation prompted an embattled Ed Voas, the member of the original Konfabulator team in charge of the Windows version, to make this exasperated comment in response to one poster -

Why is this all about Yahoo!? Yahoo's purchase of K is not what caused your upgrade issues. We have always moved older Widgets to an Older Widgets folder when we are moving in the newer ones. That said, it was NOT supposed to move ALL of your Widgets out. I definitely apologize that this is happening, because it's just plain wrong. I was told that Update was working properly. I guess it was not, and it's not something I'm happy about either.

It looks like there are some major disconnects somewhere within Yahoo! application development. It also looks as though they are finalizing a quick fix: from a reply by Ed to another poster -

[...] In any case, I believe I have this fixed now and the fix will be in 3.0.1.

I wonder how many people will treat even the fresh installer with some caution in light of what's happened this week. I for one will get it when it's available but, before installing it, I'll be seeing what's being said in the forum. Meanwhile, I'm comfortably staying with Konfabulator 2.1.1 which works just great.

If I were Yahoo!, I'd be getting that 3.0.1 fix out there asap. There doesn't appear to be any meaningful commentary about this in any blogs - it's all just within the support forum. I'd be surprised if that remains the case if the issues aren't resolved quickly. I'd also be posting some kind of explanation on the website of what happened, with an apology. I'd say the apology will go a very long way indeed in smoothing some very ruffled feathers, and helping keep the situation to no more than that: ruffled feathers but still broadly happy customers.

If I were Yahoo!, I'd be taking a look at the The Social Customer Manifesto if I hadn't already done that.

As I write this post, that fix version 3.0.1 is not yet available for download.

This podcasting dope is addictive

News of what two big companies in entirely different industries are doing with audio as part of their communication is a great example of imaginative ways to use this communication medium.

First up is health care products manufacturer Johnson & Johnson who is using podcasts as part of a campaign to promote its Acuvue contact lenses to the US youth market with the Download With Heather and Jonelle show.

If you're over the age of about 25, it's very unlikely you'll identify with this show, the presenters or the content. A mix of teen gossip, chat (with plenty of use of the word 'like') and music interspersed with some serious messaging.

From listening to the first episode, it seems to me that J&J are doing a good job in addressing an important social issue (eye care) in promoting their product in a way that's unlikely to attract criticism for its approach, and in a way that's likely to appeal to the audience it's aimed at. It's probably a great example of well-targeted communication.

(Thanks to Alex Bellinger for the news.)

Next, mutual fund company Fidelity Investments offers a one-hour programme with comprehensive advice on how to become a registered investment adviser in the US.

The audio programme complements written and other material available on the website. Not only that, it's also offered in broken-out segments of between nine and twenty minutes each so you can listen to just the parts that you're interested in, or listen to all the content in easily-manageable separate sections.

That, though, is where the similarity to a podcast ends. Fidelity's offering isn't a podcast at all - unlike the J&J one, there is no RSS feed to subscribe to, for instance. As you have to register first in order to access the audio pages, it's hard to tell how you listen. It looks like all you can do is listen to audio streams. Fidelity doesn't describe their audio offerings as podcasts - they call them an 'audio programme.'

Still, I've included the details here in a post that talks about business podcasting because whatever they're called - and if I were Fidelity, I'd call them 'podcasts' if they're available as files rather than just streaming audio - this is a good example from a company in a closely-regulated industry (financial services) who isn't letting fear of regulation stand in its way of using new media as part of effective communication.

(Hat tip: Steve Rubel.)

Finally, at the other end of the spectrum, we have two business journalists who are also now smoking that podcasting dope.

Financial journalist Dennis Howlett started his CitySlickrs podcast (how Flickr influences syntax!) at the beginning of December, and has a great 26-minute new episode with interviews with interesting people at Les Blogs 2.0 last week. And, no, I'm not mentioning this purely because I'm one of Dennis' interviewees ;)

Then, tech journalist David Tebbutt says he's now been persuaded of the error of his ways, here and here, and has changed his previous negative opinions on the value of podcasting:

[...] I accept that podcasting has the power to move people. Far more than words on pages or screens. And, before long, if you can stomach the bandwidth and storage requirements, videologging will be upon us.

Ah, the next steps! That will be most interesting...

NevOn joins Corante Network

I am delighted to report that NevOn - this blog - is a participant in the Corante Marketing Hub, part of the new Corante Network that launched today:

With the launch and development of the Corante Network, Corante has partnered with scores of the blogosphere's most respected thinkers and writers in specific categories to bring you cutting edge coverage and commentary that will help you stay ahead of the curve, gain valuable insights, and save time. In addition, you'll find various tools and features on the Hub designed to help you find related and relevant editorial.

At launch, the Corante Marketing Hub comprises 20 business bloggers who contribute to a rich offering:

[...] you'll find a mixture of human and machine-driven editorial offerings that aggregate, distill, synthesize, and remix the best writing and thinking from across the Corante Network and beyond. The goal of the hubs: to marry human intelligence and editorial voice with useful technologies to become a trusted and useful tool - one that helps you find and sift through what's worth reading, one that provides valuable context and perspective on the critical issues impacting your industry and interests, and one that engages in and extends the conversations that make social media such a rich and enlightening experience.

I'm very proud and honoured to be part of this group.

Founded in 2000, Corante is the world’s first blog media company, a leader in the emerging social media market, and is helping to pioneer the emergence of blogging as an important and influential form of reportage, analysis and commentary.

Corante’s contributors include many of the most respected and closely-read experts and thought leaders, and Corante's readers, who number more than 300,000, aren’t just casual observers - they're the entrepreneurs, executives, financiers, influencers and other individuals on the cutting edge.

Social Customer Manifesto wins CRM award

Congratulations to Christopher Carfi - his The Social Customer Manifesto blog has just been awarded the 'Best CRM Blog 2005' accolade by the readers of SearchCRM.com.

Well deserved, Chris!

If you haven't encountered Chris' blog before, now's a good time from the communicator's point of view - it's the place where you'll find the social customer manifesto.

'Blog Marketing' is out now

A big package arrived in the post today from McGraw-Hill - a copy of Blog Marketing by Jeremy Wright.

I've talked to Jeremy quite a bit about his book during his preparation of it, and we discussed the book during the For Immediate Release podcast interview I did with Jeremy in August. So I sort of knew what to expect.

But seeing the book in the flesh, so to speak, is a wholly different matter. Looks good, feels good and probably tastes good as well ;)

Nice solid hardback, 336 pages and out now.

I will be starting to read it in the next couple of days. Perfect reading material, in fact, for hotel nights during my road trips later this week and next week. And, an FIR podcast review to follow once I'm done reading.

Related : Shel and I will be reviewing Naked Conversations this week for FIR, so look out for that one.

New Feedster 500

Feedster has published an updated list of its Top 500, "a list of 500 of the most interesting and important blogs."

This is the first update since the list debuted in August. This blog was on that list, at number 221, but has disappeared way over the horizon from the new list and doesn't appear at all this time (so I've changed the link on the Top 500 logo at the top of the left sidebar here to point to the August list which is still online).

There are some great improvements to the presentation of the new list and some additional functionality - a tag cloud and a way to add tags to each listing. In fact, it looks like anyone can tag anyone's list - so expect to see some interesting tag associations emerging!

Hoodwinking the marketers

Thanks to executive blogs and internet video, the dark ages are back, according to an article in The Independent yesterday.

In a rant that displays an embarrassing lack of awareness and understanding of the changes in how relationships with customers and others are emerging, Stefano Hatfield uses GM vice chairman Bob Lutz and the GM FastLane Blog as one example of these so-called dark ages and how Lutz is "digging GM's own grave" with the blog, this "new-fangled phenomenon" as Hatfield calls it:

[...] They would never let him off the leash like this in an ad. Never mind the concerns of brand managers about citizen-bloggers and so on, the true real and present danger to marketers is from band-wagon-jumping executives.

I'd say the danger to marketers is being hoodwinked by this type of writing into thinking that it's still the mid 1990s and the command-and-control approach to marketing is what still works.

Hatfield promises "Much more on this subject soon."

Can't wait.

In any event, how can you take anyone seriously when he has an AOL email address?

(Hat tip: James Cherkoff.)

Email might still be king but RSS is the heir

BBC News: Tesco is bombarding UK consumers with a massive e-mail marketing campaign. Way ahead of its supermarket rivals, it issued 44 separate e-mail campaigns last month, more than Sainsbury, Asda, Waitrose and Somerfield put together. According to e-mail marketing firm Interactive Prospect Targeting Services, Tesco is blitzing the nation with 16-20 million e-mails per month.

Whatever the evangelists say about new communication channels like RSS, the reality today is that email as a direct marketing tool still reigns supreme among online media. As a push-tool used in the way Tesco illustrates, it can't be beaten for its ability to reach enormous numbers of people, and reach them quickly and interactively.

We're talking quantity here, though, not quality:

[...] "More people shop with us online than with anyone else and we do communicate with a lot of them by email," said a spokesperson for Tesco. "We know that customers hate junk mail so we try to target them as much as possible and make it easy for them to stop receiving emails if they don't want them."

Yet here's where it gets interesting - Tesco also offers an RSS feed of its Deal of the Day.

This is Tesco's toe in the water for RSS, I would imagine. Tesco is the only supermarket on whose website I could find an RSS feed - none of the others mentioned in the BBC story has a feed, not that I could discover. Yet I'd expect more supermarkets to embrace RSS. Still doing email, of course, but more RSS.

So my prediction is - more RSS feeds by consumer-focused businesses such as supermarkets. It's getting easier for people to use RSS (often without realizing it) and will get easier still as more businesses offer information via RSS, as simpler ways of describing it emerge (like 'live bookmarks,' for instance), and as it becomes ever more easier to get the information offered via RSS. (Related development: expect more advertising in RSS.)

It's the heir to the direct marketing throne.

The secret of Apple's success

Apple may be just a minor player in the computer and consumer electronics industries in terms of revenue ($14 billion in fiscal 2005) and market share (less than 5% worldwide) but, Fortune magazine says, it is now undeniably setting the pace for both of those industries in terms of hardware, software, and industrial design.

Fortune's short feature piece discusses Apple's product range after the launch of the video iPod, iTunes v6 and new iMac G5, commenting on the user-focused way in which Apple approaches its products, its markets and its customers.

Apple's secret? This quote from Apple CEO Steve Jobs says it very clearly:

[...] "Apple is a company that takes complex technology and makes it easier and simpler to use," he says, and seems satisfied with his answer. But moments later he smiles, and refines his definition: "Our goal is to stand at the intersection of technology and the humanities."

A couple of interesting stats in Fortune's article:

• The iPod now owns 75% of the mobile-music-player market
• The iTunes online music store now accounts for 84% of all legal sales of downloaded digital music

Fortune | Jobs Speaks: What’s Next for Apple

Open source film making

If you can post the content of a book to a blog as you develop the book, why not a film? That's precisely what Scottish film director David MacKenzie is doing with the script for Hallam Foe, a film based on the novel by Peter Jinks.

Hugh MacLeod writes:

[...] So here's what we decided. Like I said, filming begins in January. Between now and then David has to do one more major re-write. The script in its current form is on a Word Document here. Feel free to download it and tell us what you think. David doesn't have a blog himself, but he'll be happy to answer questions in the comments.

From my perspective, it's no-brainer. The idea is to get the script "out there" to the world at large as early on as possible, so if there's anything wrong with it, at least it can be fixed. The earlier you get your audience involved with the marketing process, the easier and cheaper it is. Most film marketing is, to quote David, "Too little, too late".

The interesting thing for me is we're not just trying to use blogs to pimp a movie. We're trying to use blogs to actually help the making of a movie. Not only that, this isn't a low-budget indie art-school project. This is a commercial, mainstream movie from an established director doing the Cluetrain thing.

One interesting additional possibility here is that the film could have multiple plots and/or endings. "Bloggers' Cut" as well as the director's cut, so to speak.

The film could even be released over the net as well as via the film studio's usual channels. No Hollywood studios involved - Film Four and Scottish Screen, according to IMBD. Nimble companies, should be easy to consider and decide.

Now that would be really Cluetrain.

Why Europe fails to leverage innovation

A guy has a great idea for a product or service that companies would very likely buy, certainly enough that the idea has money-making potential. He's trying to get some financial backers. So he's sitting in his local Starbucks on the wifi sending  some emails and his business plan. Someone asks if the next seat is free, to which our ideas man says yes. The two get chatting. Turns out the second guy has the money and the means to help the first guy. Next thing you know, the two are getting together and the ideas man is on the way to realizing his dream.

A view through rose-coloured specs or a reality? Well, an acquaintance of mine said something like this happened to him a year ago. He hasn't made his fortune yet but with the resources he's now got access to, he's refined his original idea and is getting closer to his tipping point.

Naturally, this happened not in Europe but in the United States.

Indeed, I couldn't imagine something like this happening anywhere in Europe. Not the UK (read Where are all the UK start-ups? by Tom Coates to see why not). Not in The Netherlands (heh! no Starbucks here!). Nowhere in this continent.

Not that there is any shortage of great ideas in Europe. There are plenty. What's lacking is a framework or environment in which to develop ideas into some kind of commercial or business reality. I'd add 'attitude' as well.

Which is why an excellent article in the European Business Forum caught my attention today.

In Is Europe losing its innovative edge? by David Tebbutt, this thought-provoking feature suggests that Europe hasn't lost the ability to innovate, but its edge is being threatened by other countries' greater skills at bridging the commercialization gap. David argues that, without commercialization, innovation is meaningless.

The article then includes the top ten issues that Europe needs to address if innovation is to stand a chance of flourishing here:

1. Fear of failure
2. Fear of success
3. Risk aversion
4. The mirage of the single market
5. The VCs’ lack of experience
6. Shortage of funds
7. Expertise is scattered
8. Lack of openness
9. Official ignorance
10. Out of touch

Read David's complete article for detailed commentary with each of these top ten issues and see if you agree or not. And note that the commentary and analysis of the European picture are the conclusions of venture capitalists, technology innovators, entrepreneurs, CEOs and early adopters who attended the Innovate!Europe conference in Zaragoza, Spain, in June.

If Europe is to keep up with the global Joneses, never mind actually excel, things have to change. How likely is that? Don't hold your breath.

USA, you've little to worry about from Europe in this regard. (Pay attention, though, to places like India.)

IBM's credible message: Blogging means business

Two senior IBM executives are featured in an informative and engaging series of audiovisual presentations that present the case for blogs as strategic business tools.

Presented by Harriet Pearson, IBM's Chief Privacy Officer and Vice President for Corporate Affairs, and Willy Chiu, Vice President of IBM's High Performance On Demand Solutions Group, some very interesting facts are included in this communication about IBM's own blogging initiatives:

• IBM now has between 12-14,000 active employee bloggers from 73 countries
• The company's internal Blog Central has over 12,000 users who post regularly
• Over the past year, the number of users and blog posts have quadrupled
• "Blogging is the glue that brings all the experts together within the company"

Neither Pearson nor Chiu are bloggers themselves, as BL Ochman points out: "The credibility issue with these executives discussing blogging: neither has a public blog. If they believe in the value of blogging, why aren't they doing it?"

I don't think credibility is an issue here at all. What I get from this communication is seeing and hearing two senior executives who talk about a topic in the broad context of building communities in the marketplace in a way that leads me to believe that they know what they're talking about. And it's not about blogging itself - it's about an enabling tool. Think of the primary audience this message is directed at (large enterprises) and then think about communicating with that audience about a topic in a way that is likely to appeal to them. Likely, too, is the fact that the majority in that audience won't be bloggers either.

Mind you, if both executives did have blogs, that might add to their credibility with some in the primary audience. It might also enable anyone to engage in dialogue directly with both executives as well as get a sense on a more personal level of who they are. (Actually, you can get one sense of that - one clue is to look at the 'about' information on each exec which includes a brief list of which blogs they read. My podcast co-presenter, Shel Holtz, would be pleased to note that among the blogs Harriet Pearson lists is Shel's.)

Nevertheless, this is powerful communication delivered by credible people on a topic that many in large companies don't see as a valuable business tool at all. I'd say the information IBM is presenting will help them see the light.

Nice work, IBM.

IBM | Blogging Means Business (Flash-based or static HTML pages)

Related NevOn posts:

• FIR Interview: Mike Wing, IBM - May 20, 2005
• IBM publishes guidelines for employee bloggers
• IBM creating an army of evangelists

The rise of individual credibility

A challenging assessment of the differences between executive blogging and business blogging and which are best blogs, by Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, writing in The Long Tail:

[...] It's a huge mistake to equate executive blogs with business blogging, just as it's a huge mistake to see the world only through the economic and culture lens of stars and hits (what I call "headism"). The best business blogs come from the employees, not the bosses. They have more time, and are less prone to marketing gobbledygook and gnomic platitudes. And those kind of blogs are on the rise, not the decline.

Chris' post is in response to one by Stephen Baker, who wrote in Business Week's Blogspotting last week that the business blog backlash is nigh.

Stephen's probably right where he says "it's the rare CEO who has the time and energy and openness to blog." Yet as with any blogger, lack of time, energy and openness are factors, yes, but I think more important are those related to actually having something worthwhile to say and the ability to be able to express yourself credibly, whether you're a CEO or anyone else, in a way that produces a positive reaction from those who read what you write (ie, talk, comment, link).

And that is at the heart of Chris Anderson's prime point:

[...] Simply put, we're starting to trust what executives say less and what employees say more. And if given a choice, as is the case with companies that let their employees blog, we'll take the word of an articulate engineer in the belly of the beast over the double-speak of a press release any day. As institutional credibility declines (from Enron to the White House), individual credibility is taking its place.

Read Chris' complete post and see what you think.

Also, see two good articles posted as part of Global PR Blog Week 2.0, which provide perspectives of both sides of the coin as far as CEO blogging is concerned - Why CEOs shouldn't blog by Dave Taylor, and Why CEOs should blog by Jeneane Sessum.

Big choices in the UK for internet phone services

If Skype paved the way for free and low-cost telephone calls via the internet for early adopters, enthusiasts and others who 'saw the light,' then Freetalk looks set to kick-start a mass market in the UK with the launch last week of a new internet phone service that lets you use the phones you already have to make internet calls, without turning on a PC.

On the face of it, Freetalk's deal looks very good - for an annual cost of ₤79.99 (about €117) you can make calls to any UK landline number for free. International calls and calls to mobile phones are charged at low rates, certainly much less than the rates charged by telcos like BT.

The full features list is here.

It's interesting to make a comparison with Skype from the cost point of view. Making calls to landlines in the UK via SkypeOut costs two eurocents a minute including VAT (roughly, just over a penny). And that's the same per-minute rate you'd pay to make calls to any landline number in a country in the SkypeOut Global Rate list - which is all of western Europe, North America, parts of South America and Australia. Plus there's no subscription fee to pay for making calls - just buy your SkypeOut credit on the go. So if you're in the UK and making lots of international calls, Skype may be a better bet. Or perhaps get both - Freetalk for UK calls, Skype for abroad and for things like text messaging.

There is some small print in Freetalk's deal. For instance, if you talk for more than 60 minutes in any one call to a UK landline number, you'll be charged two pence a minute (about three eurocents) for each minute beyond your 60.

Still, if what you want to do is just plug a box into your broadband internet connection, connect your normal phones to that box, activate your account online and start making calls, then Freetalk is especially appealing. No PC to turn on to make calls, no software to download and install, just use your phone as you did before.

It's about ease of use (and this is so easy, my mother would love it).

The Freetalk service is currently offered to individual consumers. But Freetalk have plans: "Coming soon, we will launch a range of telephony packages for small businesses."

More disruption!

And speaking of Skype, a new version 1.4 of their software for Windows was released last week. Some great new features including call forwarding.

Skype also has some interesting new services in development - Skype Toolbars Beta (new one for Internet Explorer), Skype Zones Beta ("You can now access Skype and make calls from more than 18,000 Skype-friendly internet hot spots round the world") and Skype Groups Beta (for groups or teams: "Now you don’t have to fiddle around with credit cards and payments; instead the group administrator can allocate Skype Credit, SkypeIn numbers and Skype Voicemail to all members of the group").

It's a great time to be a customer!

Keeping Apple coolness intact

The problems with scratches on the new iPod nano that hundreds of users reported during the past two weeks hasn't turned out to be the brand, reputation and PR crisis for Apple that it could have been.

Thanks largely to a public acknowledgement that a batch of nanos did suffer from a manufacturing defect regarding the screens and that Apple would replace affected nanos for free, the company has emerged unscathed with its coolness factor intact.

Obvious lesson - if your product does clearly have some kind of defect, and your customers are loudly complaining, admit to it quickly and say what you'll do to fix the problem. Apple did just that and defused the matter. Contrast this with the now famous Kryptonite bicycle lock case study (it is a case study now, I'm sure) from 2004. Or the Dell hell saga this year. Or the more recent "truth about the Land Rover Discovery 3" which is still developing.

One company got it right, three didn't. And it's nothing to do with blogs, no matter what anyone says - it's to do with being honest and listening to your customers wherever they speak: blogs, chat rooms, the daily paper, down at the pub, wherever. And responding to those collective conversations in a way that shows your customers that you do actually care.

Of the four companies I've mentioned, I'd guess that Apple at least has read the social customer manifesto.

At the Apple Expo in Paris the week before last, the iPod nano stole the show according to a BBC News report:

Of all its products, it is the iPod which has set alight Apple's brand the most in recent years. And among the other computer-related items on show at the Apple Expo in Paris during the week, the iPod Nano still stood out. The star of this year's Apple Expo was as slim and elegant as an after-dinner mint. Apple's latest candy-covered iPod, the Nano, comes in two or four gigabytes.

While it has suffered some teething problems - Apple has agreed to replace one batch prone to scratched or cracked screens - it still symbolises everything the company stands for, says Phil Schiller, Apple's head of worldwide product marketing. "Apple is a company that makes products that are very advanced technology and yet incredibly easy to use. And we have a tremendous number of engineering skills and talents to do this.

"And it's the magic of how that all comes together to make a product work just the way a customer would want, that's easy and that you love to have as a part of your life."

Blog a movie and influence the world

Spotted in a post by Hugh MacLeod - an innovative (and, today, hardly surprising) approach to building buzz about a movie by getting bloggers to talk about it. In return, they get free tickets to the US preview.

The details are in an Instapundit post:

[...] The PR folks for the forthcoming Joss Whedon (Buffy, Angel, etc.) science fiction movie Serenity are inviting bloggers to advance screenings. [...] It's free, and all they ask is that you blog something, good or bad, about it. [...] They're full now (Friday p.m.) so if you haven't emailed 'em you've missed your chance. Apparently the blog-response was phenomenal.

It's that last sentence that's the interesting bit. Already quite a bit of blog buzz on Technorati, some of which is as a result of the blogger promo (this one, for instance).

Stimulating blogs to build word-of-mouth spread of opinion about a movie really is a smart idea. Low cost but very high return potential. Some risks, of course - negative commentary could be what people will write. That's likely if the movie is crap, in which case better get that fact out there early!

But if the people who blog think it's a terrific movie, then that's what they will write about. Others will see those posts and write about it as well (just as I'm doing). Pretty big opinion-spread potential in return for some preview tickets.

It's also interesting to see this as a shift in "authority reporting". Take a look at a resource like the Internet Movie Database. Go to any movie listing - Serenity, for instance. In the left-column menu, Serenity like most movies has a link to external reviews - what movie reviewers say, usually in mainstream media.

Logical next development - external reviews that include what bloggers say (and think of the potential for spoken opinions in podcasts, too). This looks like it's already beginning to happen as the Serenity review list includes a blog - The Movie Blog. But I'd also like to see reviews by 'normal folk,' movie buffs who also happen to blog (or podcast).

I know which type of review I'd more likely read (and listen to) today and be influenced by.

BMW podcasts from Frankfurt Motor Show

On Wednesday, I wrote about BMW inviting some bloggers to the Frankfurt Motor Show.

Today news that BMW is podcasting from the show in English and German.

The introductory podcast says BMW will be presenting a series of podcasts during the show which runs until 25 September. So far, I've received nearly a dozen separate English-language podcasts in the RSS feed I subscribed to. Each one is between five and ten minutes in length, and include interviews with key executives and new car launches such as the BMW Z4 coupe.

BMW certainly have leaped into the podcasting arena in a big way with this podcast series. From listening to a couple of the podcasts it's clear that BMW have carefully thought through and planned their approach to communication with this medium. Professionally done but not slick - key to credibility. Plus the podcast pages on the website give clear explanations about podcasting with links to download various podcatchers.

Although I could find no announcement on any BMW website, BMW's use of podcasting must be complementary to their overall motor show marketing communication and PR, illustrating how perfectly the medium can fit into such traditional plans. I did notice links to the podcasts at various places in the BMW Germany site.

Also, the motor show blog I mentioned in my post on Wednesday (IAA Blog) has a small sidebar note saying that the IAA podcast will start in a few days.

Are there still any doubting Thomases out there who continue to say that business podcasting is just a fad and a passing one at that? Wakey wakey!

GM's Bob Lutz: The disruptive communicator

He was the first General Motors executive blogger when the GM Fastlane Blog launched last January. Now he's the first GM executive podcaster on FastLane Radio, GM's podcast series launched in February.

GM vice chairman Bob Lutz stars in a Q&A discussion with Bill O'Neill, GM's executive director of communications. During much of the 20-minute podcast released yesterday, Lutz and O'Neill talk about cars, the North American market, the competition, fuel economy and performance, and other car-related themes.

I found it especially interesting when, about 15 minutes in, Lutz starting talking (passionately) about why he got into blogging and commented at some length on how he sees the medium and its value both for GM and its audiences, contrasting blogs with traditional and formal corporate communication. He remains consistent with his advocacy that a blog gives the company direct and unfiltered feedback from customers and car enthusiasts.

Amongst others things, Lutz said one of his biggest frustrations has always been that "the media has the voice and you don't" unless you buy advertising. But such advertising, he said, is distrusted so a medium like a blog is extremely effective when you want to state your point of view or correct something. Plus it makes you feel a lot better when you're able to do that, Lutz said.

He also commented on who he believes are the key audiences for the GM FastLane Blog - fellow bloggers ("a large group of people listened to by friends who don't blog"), and the media who, he says, gain "therapeutic value" through seeing that GM reacts openly and honestly and which may cause those media to see that "this isn't a one-way street." He added that, as the company now has direct access to customers, in the long term that could pose a threat to conventional print media.

Such directness and disarming informality is a hallmark of Lutz as the GM new media champion, with a disruptive approach to traditional communication that I find exhilarating in a leader of one of the world's most traditional companies. Would there were more like Bob Lutz!

If I have any criticism of the podcast, it would be that O'Neill's questions seemed somewhat leading. A little too much of "I know that GM has..."  and "I know that you are..." etc has a bit of a rehearsed air about it. Maybe it's because I'm a communicator myself as I believe that the senior communicator conducting an executive interview like this for a podcast means it will likely appear to many as less than wholly credible when it sounds less than wholly natural and a bit too polished. I wonder what it would be like if Lutz were engaged in conversation with, say, a customer or a dealer.

Much might depend on the communication objectives of the podcast. Which leads me to another thought. Ostensibly, the podcast is aimed at the same people who use the blog which is about GM's cars and not GM's business. It's only available via the blog. Yet in listening to the conversation, I'd say it would be of interest to others like investors and the financial community as it would give those audiences another dimension in understanding GM's business and its leadership.

In any event, it's a great job and an interesting development in GM's evolutionary use of new media channels.

• Related - Bob Lutz interview for Naked Conversations, the new book on corporate blogging due out at year's end, in April 2005.

Celebrity self destruction

BBC News: Fashion store H&M has done a U-turn and says it will drop Kate Moss as the face of a campaign after drug allegations. Tabloid newspaper claims that Moss had snorted cocaine initially led H&M to condemn the British model but vow it would continue using her. Many of H&M's customers are teenage girls and the chain said in a statement that Moss was "inconsistent with H&M's clear dissociation of drugs".

A dilemma for any company with a high-profile A-list celebrity who makes the new headlines for all the wrong reasons, even more so for a publicly-listed company like H&M with a strong sense of corporate social responsibility.

It gets worse, though, as a BBC News report today says:

Supermodel Kate Moss is to be investigated over claims she has taken cocaine, Scotland Yard has said. Assistant Commissioner Tarique Ghaffur ordered an inquiry after newspapers alleged the model used illegal drugs. It has not been confirmed whether police will interview Moss, who has refused to comment on the claims.

Kate Moss also has contracts with Coty, Chanel, Burberry and Dior - companies with strong brands and market images.

If all these companies as well as Moss' publicists and the Storm model agency have crisis PR plans, now's the time to be ready.