Category: Musings

CMO Insights: Social Media Innovation

Posted on by admin

As CMO of the Grammys (officially titled National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences),  it would seem that Evan Greene doesn’t have to go out on a limb to create engaging content. Most fans are already engaged, eagerly awaiting the next photo or tweet about their favorite music artist. But he and his team maintain that the biggest contributor to their success is their dedication to listening to those fans and joining them in dialogue, which is not quite as easy as it sounds.

To dig into this more, I had the pleasure of moderating a breakout discussion with Evan at The CMO Club Inspiration &  Innovation Summit in New York City last month.  It was a lively conversation with about 40 other CMOs covering a wide range of social media challenges, many of which Evan and I addressed on the spot (and rather pithily I might add!).  Since I am not a great notetaker, I recorded Evan’s responses, which are transcribed below for your reading pleasure. Given the GRAMMYs extraordinary success overall (ratings were 2nd highest in 21 years) and on social (13.8 million tweets during the show generated 862 million impressions), you’ll want to read on…

Could you talk a little bit about your planning process?
Our campaigns need to engage people and if they don’t, then social media is not going to help and we usually abandon it. It’s really for us about having a very respectful, two-way dialog that we think is engaging on a daily basis. We don’t come from the standpoint that we’re the authority, that we’re the expert, that you should listen to what we say, that we want to tell you what to listen to, who to follow, how to dress, what to do. We simply want to be where music is happening. We want to be a credible voice in music.

And the thing that we’ve discovered, the sort of the universal truth that we’ve hit upon over the last couple of years, is that people generally are looking for two things. They’re looking for discovery and they’re looking for community. And if we can enable the idea of discovery and empower the concept of sharability, then we are, by default, going to be leading to a greater, more robust community.

Can you share some of the innovative things that you’ve done in the last couple of years?
Innovation really is simply how do you add more to the conversation to make it more interesting on a daily basis? So some of the things that we did this year were simple, but engaging. For example, we’ve now live gif-ed our nominations show and the Grammy awards telecast. So we’re now creating gifs in real-time.

We also expanded the size, the scale, and the scope of what we call our social media command center onsite at the Staples Center during the show where we have more bloggers from more diverse areas from more diverse music genres and we try to get more people to tell our story for us. Because it’s one thing if the GRAMMYs talk to you about it and tell you about it. It’s another thing if people that you know and like and respect and trust are telling you about it.

How does content marketing fit into this discussion?
For The GRAMMYs, it’s all about content. Granted, we’re a non-for-profit trade organization, so we don’t have the budgets that you probably think we do. But we’ve made a pretty sizable investment in our content infrastructure because we want and need to be creating a lot of content. For example, we want to be creating engaging, short, episodic video pieces that are easily digestible and easily shareable.

In a lot of ways we’re fortunate because music overlaps and enhances so many different areas. A good example is the intersection between music and sports. So six years ago, at the Beijing Olympics, the biggest story was what’s on Michael Phelps’ iPod as he’s going in to compete for 8 Gold medals.

So we thought, since there’s always been that overlap between music and sports, we created a content program called Champion’s Playlist where we talk to professional athletes and say, “What’s on your iPod? What do you listen to to train, to get motivated before the big game, before the championship?” And this starts to become a shareable experience where you can now overlay what your playlist is with your friends’, you can see how some of these famous athletes, how their playlists overlap with your own. This gives us the opportunity to create a leaderboard, et cetera.

So you’ve done all this stuff. How do you measure it and do you try to differentiate social metrics from your broader metrics?
The easy answer is what are your ratings and how much money are you generating. Well, I look at it another way.  I see all of that as a consequence of everything else that we’re doing right on the front end. If we spend a whole lot of time on the front end, being really true to and respectful of our brand, and really making sure that we do the work to fill the pipeline, and if we create that conversation, if we create that relationship with music fans everywhere, then we’re going to be rewarded by people watching the show, we’re going to be rewarded by 99 percent positive sentiment. We’re going to be rewarded by the fact that our marketing partners are more engaged and happier than they’ve ever been before. Our revenue is going to increase. I think if we focus on the revenue and we focus on the ratings as the objective, it skews the narrative and it skews the story.

It used to be how many Facebook friends you had, right? And then it was, what’s the sentiment? But now the questions are getting a lot more detailed and a lot more sophisticated. And so that’s why listening is changing all the time. That’s why you need people who have access to the full Twitter fire hose. You need people who are doing more than just sort of skimming the surface with Google analytics.

We spent a lot of time talking about listening as a customer service channel and I think everybody recognizes that as a doable thing in social. I’m curious if any of you are listening for customer acquisition opportunities and if you’ve been able to systematize that and talk about that.
It is about credibility, and gaining the trust of your customers. You need to be where your customers are, and not necessarily only your own Web-site, and seek to create evangelists. So if your business is photography sales, you go to a photography forum where people are talking about a new camera. So, from a social media standpoint, don’t try to sell people with a link to your website and a price. Rather than talk about this new camera, utilize the buzz that is already happening organically, and re-tweet or re-post other credible voices in your community. Trust and credibility are powerful tools toward acquisition.

Well, you also brought up an interesting point which is sort of empowering employees to be social voices for the company as opposed to trying to control the conversation centrally.  Can you explain the advantages of this decentralized approach?
The key is, I think there’s so many divergent conversations happening all the time about all our respective businesses and the key is how do you channel those conversations. How do you channel all those disparate conversations into a cohesive dialogue? And I don’t know that there’s one answer to do that but one of the things that we did is we created what we call our Social Media Bible which has all of our correct URLs. It has all of our proper hashtags, all of our handles.

We distribute that to all media, and all of our friends, fans, and followers. We distribute it to artists and managers, labels, anybody that can possibly be having a music conversation. Now whether or not they’ll follow it is another story. But when everybody’s got the same consistent inputs and the same data, the results are usually stronger than they would have been otherwise.

Do you have any ideas as to how one can track word-of-mouth marketing and be able to then put some type of ROI to it?
I think one of the biggest fallacies and one of the biggest misnomers about social media is that it’s free and easy. And I think right now, the next big step is figuring out how you can track word-of-mouth marketing and be able to put an ROI on it.

How do you measure measurement analytics? What’s the value of having a bunch of Facebook friends? Is it the aggregation of tonnage? Is it who’s passing it along? All of that is being parsed right now and I don’t think anybody’s got the answer but there are some companies that are getting a lot smarter about it.

How do you approach social media innovation?
We try a lot of different things and the down side of trying a lot of things is that you fail sometimes. But every once in a while, you get it really right. And if nothing else, we’re always learning. Sometimes we make the right move, sometimes we don’t but we’re always in there. And frankly, the deeper you are into social media, the more you hear about trends first. So you can sort of pivot down the river and play around over here and see if it works and if it does, great! If it doesn’t, you just come back to where you were.

The Non-Linear ROI of Social

Posted on by Drew Neisser

I’ve spent a lot of time recently obsessing about the ROI of Social Media.  Not just because current and prospective clients want to see some kind of a return on the services Renegade provides (although that’s a damn good reason in and of itself) but also because it’s a fabulously complex Kobayashi Maru-like challenge.

Consider for a moment all the roles that social media can perform for a company including customer service, recruitment, research, product development, awareness building, crowd sourcing content, referral/lead generation, and yes, even direct sales in a few cases.  Now try to unbundle those roles and show straight line ROI for any of them with the exception of the last one.  Good luck to you.  (By the way, smarter minds that mine like Lux Narayan of Unmetric have concluded http://onforb.es/14mn0NX  it’s just not possible.)

Thinking that social media could be my route to the answer, I sent out this tweet:

Screen Shot 2013-07-19 at 9.23.13 AM

 

 

Rob Moore, CEO of Internet Media Labs and a fellow IBM #SmarterCommerce VIP Influencer (which has become an invaluable micro-social network!) was kind enough to respond leading to the conversation below. Rob offered a terrific example of “Non-Linear ROI” which brought us both some comfort that all the social networking stuff we do actually does pay out!  If you have similar tales to share, let me know.

Drew Neisser: First, can you provide a short description of Internet Media Lab?
Rob Moore: Internet Media Labs is a NYC based new media & technology company.  We build technology to help businesses and brands build and manage social relationships more effectively.  We also run a cool co-working space and produce a web show, #InTheLab.

Drew Neisser: Talk to me about how you measure social ROI in terms of your own business?
Rob Moore: Social ROI for us takes many forms, and it is important for businesses to recognize that there are many forms of Social ROI that can be quantified and measured.  Of course, there is the obvious – we make a social connection that becomes a buyer of one of our products or services.  But there is also tangible ROI that comes in different forms: from connectors – people that introduce you to others that ultimately buy – and amplifiers, people that share our message about our products.

It has to be noted, however, that none of this happens without a significant investment in relationship building.  We have amazing social relationships and networks that will have significant impact on our bottom line for years to come.

Drew Neisser: ROI in your case seems like a very non-linear non-direct marketing process. Is that a fair assessment?
Rob Moore: Absolutely.  Up to this point, I would say that most of our ROI would qualify as originating from non-linear connections, i.e. someone that introduced you to someone else, that invited you to speak at a conference, that resulted in a business opportunity.  That is pretty non-linear!

One important thing to recognize as well is that many of those originating relationships happen as the result of seemingly “random” intersections – the serendipity of social.

Drew Neisser: So you met Linda Bernstein (@wordwhacker), who is clearly an influencer and she has been evangelizing on your behalf which lead to various leads which you will close at some point. That sounds like ROI to me. Do you think it’s possible to actually create a model that puts a value on your nurturing of people like Linda?
Rob Moore: First of all, I need to state for the record that it would be impossible for me to put a “value” on my relationship with Linda, she falls into the PRICELESS category!  But that said, you can absolutely model and attribute value to your social relationships, especially when you apply what I call “social forensics” to the analysis: mapping and identifying the true origin of that revenue you just booked.

When you are able to do that, every social relationship can be assigned a potential future value.

I want to be clear that I don’t look every person I meet on Twitter with dollar signs in my eyes.  Rather, I look every new social relationship as an opportunity for mutual discovery, networking and advocacy.  By being authentic and agenda free, trust is formed and friendships are created, the by-product of which is magic!!!

This works both ways for IML, by the way.  We have sponsored many an event, used services, or paid commissions to people and businesses that we have met through social media.  As a matter of fact, our social media ROI balance sheet is a little in the red right now – we need to do something about that!

Drew Neisser: Is this kind of networking / relationship building with influencers scalable?  If so, any thoughts on how?
Rob Moore: It is scalable, but it doesn’t happen without a plan and significant commitment. My friend Angela Maiers (@AngleaMaiers) coined the phrase “Tactical Serendipity”, which I love.  Tactical Serendipity means putting your self in position to take advantage of the random intersections that happen every second in social.  If you can identify where you best social relationships have come from, put yourself in a position to attract more of them – you can scale great relationships if you know where to find them.

Drew Neisser: Also, you’re a seasoned vet with a proven track record which makes it a lot easier for you to network with other influencers like Linda.  Could a junior person at your company have done this? Is this sort of networking something you can teach people?
Rob Moore: Yes I believe this type of networking can be taught to and mastered by almost anyone.  Surely my depth of business experience has been an advantage to me as I have engaged in social, but there was a massive learning curve for me as well.  I think that learning curve can be compressed, though, to accelerate success and positive outcomes.  For junior people, this can be achieved through coaching and mentoring, for senior people new to social it is often just a matter applying existing skills sets and knowledge to well defined social relationship building strategy.

FINAL NOTE: This is just my opening salvo on Social ROI.  Expect a lot more on this subject in the near future.  There are folks out there (like Syncapse) working of formulas to calculate Social ROI and I can’t wait to dig into those…

Going Viral

Posted on by Drew Neisser

paul_greenberg_largePaul Greenberg is CEO of CollegeHumor, a division of IAC that is growing faster than you can say Rodney Dangerfield. At this point, it is easy to believe that Greenberg’s mission for his organization, “To be the best and largest multimedia multi-platform comedy studio,” will be realized soon enough.  In the meantime, I thought you would appreciate more insights from Paul on making viral videos, budgeting, how marketers can work with CollegeHumor and lastly, how to lead a creative organization.

Drew: Is one type of video more likely to viral than another?
Often the ones that go really viral are new sketches. Because it is a new idea, it gets introduced, people latch onto it, they love it and they send it around.  And so for example, we did one that was called, Gay Men Will Marry Your Girlfriends. The thrust is, let gay men marry each other because if not, they’re going to marry your girlfriends and they are going to be much better husbands than you would ever be!

Another one that went really viral was called Look At This Instagram (see below).  And it wasn’t again in the Zeitgeist per se but it was a great take on how people use Instagram and it really kind of turned it on its head and parodied it beautifully and people just kind of I know I’ve seen those pictures a million times, I know what they are talking about, and so we really hit those.

Drew: Are series any different from a virality standpoint?
With series you are less apt to get into the Zeitgeist really quickly and so you build an audience over time.  So we’ll often see in a series episodes further down the chain do better than the original ones or we’ll see them catch up. People will discover Very Mary Kate on its 10th episode and go ‘oh wow, I didn’t know about this, and I am going to go back and re-watch all of them. We see binge-watching all the time, people just come in and they watch fifteen videos at a time, and a lot of times it is going back to start series when they’ve come in the middle.  Not that everything is serialized in terms of its plot, but it is just obviously thematically serialized and so we want to make sure that people love to go back and check it out.

Drew:  So how do you budget for production?
We work a monthly basis. So, I say to the team, ‘here is your pot for the month, some you are going to spend more on some and less on some and you know do what you got to do.’  And we work very closely as a team to make sure that if, for example, we are going to go for broke on a Batman video, we are going to do a couple of more Hardly Workings or batch-shoot those and try to do things cheaply. Overall, we’re very efficient in terms of costs.  We have figured out lots of ways to cut corners: we shoot in the office so we don’t have to pay location and we batch-shoot sometimes. It’s very efficient.

Drew:  Are your videos the primary driver of traffic and new users? 
To an extent, although sometimes the non-video content gets shared just as much as the video stuff.  For example, the article Eight New Punctuation Marks That You Need got over a million views because it just got shared everywhere. And now there is interest in a series of it. So it really depends, [non-video] content can really drive a lot of view as well.

Drew:  Do the video creative team also create the other stuff? 
No. We have a separate production team including separate writers who have to be very topically driven.

Drew; Okay, do we get to the point where there is a cable station called CollegeHumor?
No, I don’t think so.  I mean I feel like being the multiplatform studio that we are, we are as close to a new age cable channel as you can get.

Drew:  So tell me about Coffee Town, your upcoming movie—did you write this in-house?
We actually did finance it but we didn’t write the script. Our agent UTA found Brad Copeland who was the writer for Arrested Development.  Brad wrote his own movie script and was looking for somebody to help to allow him to produce it and direct it.  So we were the studio. Brad wrote it, directed it and we produced it.  We went out to LA and hired a film crew, a real legitimate movie crew, etc.  (see trailer here)

Drew: I would suspect you are hoping to rally your army of CollegeHumor fans to see the movie, right? 
Yeah, oh yeah.  We’ll definitely use the army without question. A big part of this is the fact that we can mobilize 20 million people immediately to say or to at least raise awareness if not to get them off their butts into the theatres. And if we put it on iTunes, we can say, hey click here and you’ll be able to watch CollegeHumor’s movie.

Drew:  What exactly is native advertising and what are you doing in this area?
Native advertising is when the advertising blends more with existing content and it becomes less distinguishable as an ad.  We’ve been doing that for five years whether we called it branded entertainment or branded content or branded advertising or native advertising, About a year ago, we reorganized an entire group around native advertising.  We hired two comedy writers just to write branded content and native advertising pieces and we also reorganized a production team so now we have a native advertising production team that just creates videos for advertisers. Out of those 50 videos we create in a month, maybe less than half are advertising video.  But it still feels like CollegeHumor content and people — advertisers [like KFC, AXE & Listerine] come to us because they are interested in our sensibility.

Drew Neisser:  What’s the best way for marketers to work with CollegeHumor? 
Great question. We need to understand what you are trying to do.  Are you trying to increase sales?  Are you trying to just increase your brand perception?  Are you trying to increase relevancy?  Are you trying to activate an audience to go do something? Is about getting more Facebook likes? What do you want as a brand?  And then we can help you come up with content that fits that goal.

Drew: How involved are you in the content decision making process?
Not that involved, at this point, certainly not day to day. We have a phenomenal team of very creative people who are very good at what they do.  I get involved at a high level making sure that we have a strategy and we are trying to follow it and everybody knows what that strategy.  I’ll get very involved if something is questionable from a legal perspective or a taste perspective. But on balance, and that’s how I try to manage my team – hire the best people you can, hopefully people who are smarter than you, and who are experts at what they do and you get obstacles out of their way and you let them do what they do.  And so I don’t see any need to micromanage the content team. Besides, I’m not that funny.

Drew: Have you gotten funnier since you joined?
Much. Much funnier–I’m hilarious.  Actually it is intimidating in a way because these guys are really funny. And they are so quick. We have our weekly staff meetings and even a lot of the executives are standups [comics], and they are just hilarious. I mean it is like somebody took all of the best class clowns and put them all together in one room, it’s hysterical.  It is a really fun place to work.

Drew Neisser:  Do you ever say to yourself, ‘I can believe I have this job?’
Yeah.  Yeah, it’s awesome. I love creating content and creating products that affect people’s lives in a positive way.  That’s one of the things that’s always driven me from a business perspective.

Drew: How about a few secrets to your success?
One is, never stop working ever; just be as aggressive as possible and want to win and do your work your absolute hardest because there is always somebody who is going to work harder than you are and ideas are wonderful but they are a dime-a-dozen.  Everything comes down to execution and doing it right and doing it well.

Drew: Do you have any advice for new or aspiring CEOs?
The advice somebody once gave me for managing is, only do what only you can do and spend your time doing that.  To that end, I wrote an article on this recently that identified five things that CEOs should spend their time doing:

    1. Set the strategy for what the company needs to be and what we are trying to accomplish and what’s our mission and where are we going.  And that’s not done in a vacuum per se, that’s done with the team but ultimately the leader has to be the one who puts his or her stamp on it and say this is the direction we are going to go.
    2. Then it’s making sure that the strategy is communicated very well and that everybody knows what’s going on and that there’s absolutely no misunderstanding. And making sure that everybody is coordinated so that ad sales and editorial and marketing and PR all know what each of the other ones is doing, to help support that overall strategy.
    3. Then its hiring and firing.  Personnel.  Putting the right people in place, and making sure that they are — smarter than you, they’re experts in their field and they are great.
    4. Then it is getting obstacles out of their way and letting them do their jobs and not micromanaging them but making sure that if there is something wrong, that you are there to help them.
    5. The fifth thing is making sure there’s enough capital to run the business and making sure there is a business plan that can be executed.

Drew: You’ve been on both sides of the creative development process including being a voice over talent and a radio announcer. Do you think that has helped you as a leader of a creative-driven company?
Yes. If there is somebody who is never been a creative before and never been on the talent side, you’re going to make decisions purely based on the bottom-line and probably potentially the wrong ones.

Note: this is the 2nd part of my interview with Paul. Click here to see the first part. 

Engaging with a Device-Connected Audience

Posted on by Drew Neisser

John C. Havens is EVP, Strategy and Engagement at Yoxi.tv , an organization that discovers and elevates social entrepreneurs by leveraging their expertise for global business opportunities.  I had the pleasure of seeing John speak at the recent BDI All Stars conference and caught up with him afterwards. Speaking 30-40 times a year, John is a real pro and has lots of great advice for those of you trying to connect with device-connected audiences.

DN: Is it harder to engage an audience than it was 5 years ago before WiFI connectivity was a conference mandatory?
Yes, because we’re all trained like Pavlov’s pups to check our devices every 14 seconds.  In that regard, there are less people standing up and walking out of presentations because they have to take a call versus email or text. But it’s critical not to let that digital zeitgeist not get in the way of my cardinal rule of presenting – make every talk a gift to your audience.  Meaning, prepare the snot out of your deck and rehearse like crazy and do your best to know the audience you’ll be speaking to.  If you do all that and imbue your talk with passion and try to connect to your audience (by looking them in the eyes, etc) you should earn the right for them to put their devices down.  Point – you’re the storyteller, so make it enchanting enough that you distract them from distraction.

DN: At BDI, at least 3/4 of the audience seemed to have a laptop or iPad open while you were speaking.  Do you find yourself wanting to say, hey turn those devices off and pay attention?
No way. Odds are, at least half of them are tweeting about my presentation and they’re helping market me in real-time! Besides, akin to my earlier answer, it’s not up to me to dictate how someone pays attention.  Before digital devices, a lot of people would take notes on a pad.  That’s how they learn.  If people retain more about a talk because they tweet, who am I to judge?

DN: Would it be worth trying to get the audience to shut down their devices momentarily while you speak?  You’d have their undivided attention but not the extended reach of their social networks.  Which should be more important to a speaker today?
If I tried to get people to shut down their devices, I might get their undivided attention, but it would be mixed with their ire at being told how they should watch my presentation.  I was an actor for years, and it’s essential to know when working with an audience who and when to try to get people to participate.  For instance, when I played a scary character in children’s theatre, I’d always direct my lines to the oldest boys in the audience – they loved the attention but I wouldn’t actually frighten them.

In terms of which is more important, an audience shutting down or getting the reach of their networks, the hope is people actually register what you’re talking about besides waiting for the pithy phrase that will make a good tweet.  But for me when I speak, the most important thing is blow them away with my presentation – that’s the only thing I have control over. The rest is up to the audience.

DN: Knowing that your audience is on Twitter while you speak, are you thinking while you write your speech—gee that line will make a great tweet?
Sure.  Or at least, “this is a good sound bite.”  Puns, sound bites, short and pithy phrases are all ways to aid in retention. Humor is also great – I’ve read cognitive studies saying that if people laugh at something you’ve really connected with them and there’s a 50% higher probability they’ll remember what you said than without humor.

Another cardinal rule of mine – never make it difficult for people to remember or share what you say.  My old acting agent used to tell me when I came back from auditions they’d call the casting directors to get feedback on how I did.  If they said, “John came in here and blew me away” or “John’s choice was way over the top but he was really passionate,” may agent was happy.  If my agent called and said, “how did John do?” and the answer came back, “John who?” that’s when I was in trouble.

DN: Are social media conferences harder to engage than say a group of accountants who aren’t necessarily trying to be the first to share what they just heard?
Every audience is different.  A hard core Social Media audience like SXSW where I spoke last year is definitely device and dialogue (to their social graphs) focused.  But a lot of times they’re the most responsive because they’re already drinking the digital kool-aid. Accountants or folks not as versed in Social Media oftentimes have a vibe/energy of, “prove to me Social Media has an ROI” before you even start talking. So my focus there is usually to not focus on the tools of the trade but the overall value proposition of connecting with relevant to your audience, wherever they get their content.

DN: You mentioned you were an actor in a former life.  This sort of gives you a competitive advantage on stage, don’t you think?
Sure.  I studied the craft of acting which includes working on your voice, dancing/movement, and projection.  But mostly good acting is about connecting with truth to the person you’re on stage with in the moment.  Meaning, you can’t be thinking, “this line will make the audience laugh” when you’re on stage or you’re dead.  You can try to make a joke, but every audience is different.  Your job onstage is to deliver your message or story in a way that best connects to the people sitting in front of you RIGHT NOW.  If they don’t seem to be getting your message, use techniques like saying, “Does that make sense?” after you make a point.  Or say things like, “anyone else heard of SIRI?” and raise your hand, indicating for them to raise their hand.  People don’t mind audience participation if you genuinely seek their response and aren’t a tool.  What you should NEVER do is single someone out and alienate them, ala standup comedian mode.  Or, if you’re going to try and do that, prove that you’re making them part of the act versus the butt of a joke – say something like, “Hi, what’s your name?

DN: Do you get any feedback from these events and if so, why kind of adjustments have you made based on this feedback?
I don’t get as much specific, actionable critique as I’d like.  My old acting teacher was great at this stuff and I recommend this practice technique for any speaker – record yourself rehearsing your presentation.  Odds are you’ll see that you flap your hand with nervous tension, or scratch your head every 30 seconds.  You have to identify these nervous tics so you can get rid of them and focus all of your energy on speaking in the moment.

I have gotten some good advice on talking about technology.  Years ago, someone told me they liked what I said but didn’t get the context of my presentation.  I delved right into talking about specific social media tools without providing a backdrop for what an audience learned.

So in that sense I try to always do the following:

  • Research who I’m speaking to (marketers, digital savvy or no, what level of the organization, where are they geographically based).
  • Make sure I review the expectations of my talk (what’s been advertised) before I being working on my presentation.
  • Find a bookend for the STORY of my talk. Don’t just list facts – what is the POINT you’re trying to make?
  • Remind people throughout my talk what I’m talking about.  I’m a big believer in the old adage about what makes a good presentation: Here’s what I’m going to talk about, here’s what I’m talking about, here’s what I just talked about.  Less points made well makes for a more memorable presentation than a zillion factoids.

My last bit of advice – change the world with your talk.  Why get up and talk in front of a group if you’re not wildly passionate about your subject matter?  Pretend you’re at a bar talking to friends, or with your family telling stories around the campfire.  This is not about being hokey – it’s an acting technique you need to hone or don’t get up on stage.  If you aren’t completely excited to tell everyone your message, why should your audience be excited to listen?

Empty Nest; Full To-Do List

Posted on by Drew Neisser

As my wife and I brace for empty nesthood, we’ve been discussing to do’s that we’ve put off to-date.  Before that list gets too long, I decided to add a campaign for Charity Water.  As you may recall from some of my posts last year, Charity Water is a remarkable organization that helps bring fresh water to those who don’t have it. My last campaign raised $2500 for the Bayaka people of central Africa.  Now the mission is to raise money for drilling equipment, equipment that is expensive but will help speed up the process.  Always up for a good challenge, I doubled the goal, hoping to raise $5000, which in the end will fund fresh water for 250 people for a year!

The only thing I ask of you, dear reader, is that you watch the video below.  It’s amazing, inspiring and moving. Go ahead. I dare you to watch this and not get involved…

The 2011 September Campaign. Our 5-year-anniversary video from charity: water on Vimeo.

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So that’s the pitch.  Ready to join me?  Just click here.  Or here.  Or here.  It’s a truly impressive organization. After I set up my new campaign, Scott Harrison the founder of Charity Water sent me this personal note:

  • Drew: Just wanted to drop you a personal thank you for starting a september campaign this year. I‘ve been to Ethiopia 16 times in the last couple years, and can personally vouch for our incredible partners there.  So excited to work together to bring them a new drilling rig to help more people–Scott

Not too many CEO’s send out personal thank you notes these days but then again, not too many CEO’s take their business as personally as Scott.  Thanks for the inspiration Scott and good luck!

More tasty morsels from #140conf

Posted on by Drew Neisser

Since I had to leave the 140 Conference early on Thursday and get back to work, Renegade intern Niko DeMordaunt filled in for me and prepared these wonderful notes.  For my take on the conference and an explanation of what it is, see my savory post on FastCompany.com: I’m Not Done With My Potatoes.

The big screen
Marci Liroff, a casting director who worked on movies such as E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark, explained emphatically how she turned from a Twitter rookie into a Twitter pundit. Noting that Twitter is about “giving, not selling,” Liroff spoke of the film industry’s slow but steady integration with websites such as Twitter and Skype.

Speaking of Skype, famed author Deepak Chopra couldn’t make it to the #140conf but was video-projected in via Skype. Chopra held a captive audience as he spoke grandly of the “human potential” and social media’s ability to achieve peace and harmony through broad networks.

Let’s get physical
The self-proclaimed Lupus Ladies of Twitter, led by Amanda Greene, turned this digital conference into veritable love fest with their emotional testimony. The four women all suffer from Lupus and have used social media to create support networks. Christine Miserandino went so far as to strip from a dress into pajamas to illustrate the point that she is a regular person in pajamas who employed social media to create a support system.

Jack Hidary, an entrepreneur extraordinaire, followed the Lupus Ladies with his own memorable performance. A former neuroscientist, Hidary told the audience to “Go Limbic,” meaning they should target their audience’s whole brain, not just a small part of it. To further his point, Hidary passed out small wooden discs and had the crowd team up into groups of four to create a flying contraption. The “airplane” that flew the furthest won iPod Shuffles for all the team members.

Crowd pleasers
On a panel with other television executives, Steve Krakauer brought social media back into reality. Krakauer, a digital producer from Piers Morgan Tonight (CNN), reminded the social media consumers that Twitter and Facebook need to translate into more income / ratings / viewers, or the social media efforts develop into nothing.

According to Krakauer, social media needs to turn into ROI. Well, according to Ted Rubin, social media needs to turn into ROR, or Return on Relationship. Rubin roused cheers by reminding the audience to “look into eyes, not iPads” in social interactions. Rubin believes people should use the platform (i.e. Twitter) to build personal relationships, not avoid them.