RonAmok!

This past Friday, my friend Mike asked if I wanted to burn off some Thanksgiving calories on the basketball court. I jumped at the opportunity.

In between our games of one-on-one (Mike beat me two out of three games, BTW) we discussed my recent decision to expand the focus of RonAmok! beyond “social media for marketing and PR” to include new advances in hardware, software, and networking technologies that allow individuals, businesses, nonprofits, and governments to accomplish things that couldn’t have been conceived of just few short years ago. In between dribbles, we discussed the ramifications of crowd-sourcing, machine-to-machine communication, and the Internet of Things.

That’s when Mike, stopped, held the ball for a moment and asked, “But, what’s the link between social media and your new direction?”

“They are one in the same,” I answered, realizing that at first blush, the statement sounded crazy.

All communications require three things: a message, a recipient, and a method to connect the two. A medium carries messages to intended recipients. It doesn’t matter if that medium comes in the form of a traditional broadcast, the press, the Internet, a social networking site, drums or even smoke signals. The ramifications of easily digitized content delivered through cheap distribution networks has blurred the media lines. Therefore, rather than caring about how the message is delivered (the medium), communicators should care more about accomplishing a specific goal by matching medium with message.

The economies of scale resulting from our ability to cheaply digitize, distribute and present messages to the right audiences have opened exciting new possibilities. However, in order to take advantage of this scale, we must determine the optimum connection between medium, message, and purpose.

Communications decisions must be driven by purpose first, followed by message and medium. Ask not what Facebook, Twitter, or crowd-sourcing can do for you. Ask how they can help fulfill your company’s purpose.

We are in the middle of a technological revolution that is changing business as we know it. Yet, as participants of this revolution, it’s difficult to grasp the magnitude of that change. So, let’s take a look at the technological advances that have occurred since this blog was launched back in July of 2007:

• Facebook had ~30 million users; today it has over 800 million
• Twitter had ~340 thousand users; today it has over 200 million
• Linkedin had ~12 million users, today it has over 100 million
• The iPhone was just 22 days old
• Tweetdeck and Foursquare didn’t even exist yet.
• There was no Amazon Kindle, iPad, or Android operating system
• And although Google hit a homerun with their YouTube acquisition, Google Wave came and went, Google Buzz is on its way out, and Google Plus is putting up a spunky fight.

Yet, although these technological advances have forever altered the playing field of business, why have only a few companies accepted them wholeheartedly into their business plans? I mean, it’s not for a shortage of opinions. The great game of social media has enjoyed an influx of new players over the past 50 months. They’ve blogged, tweeted, LinkedIn, checked-in, liked, commented, shared, and written books on every conceivable angle of the subject. Or have they?

The answer is no. The “social media for business” conversation has been co-opted by the communications-centric. If businesses are to enjoy the optimum benefits of these new technologies, executives must extend their social media gaze beyond public relations, marketing, and customer support to consider how significant advances in the digitization, distribution, and presentation of content also impacts the rest of their businesses.

It’s time to pry these new technologies from the stranglehold of professional communicators and free them to run amok within the organization. It’s time to introduce the concept of crowd-sourcing to research and development as demonstrated through services like as Innocentive. It’s time to determine how social media can impact finance through studying businesses such as Kickstarter. It’s time to consider the competitive advantages that companies may enjoy by joining the open source movement, from the well-known open source software, to the lesser-known open source hardware movement that brought us platforms such as Arduino. It’s time for companies to evaluate the Internet of Things, considering the business advantages offered through real-time data gathering services such as Pachube. And yes, let’s not forget communications. It’s time to shake them up a little by redistributing their budgets from boilerplate outbound activities to other innovative concepts, such as philanthrotizing, as demonstrated by programs such as Pepsi’s Refresh Everything and Kohl’s Cares.

The technologies are just waiting to be used. Advances in the digitization, distribution, and presentation of content offer benefits for all branches of the corporation. But in order to see them, we must break ourselves out of the zombie-like state of that we’ve fallen into. Social media isn’t just for professional communicators.

To be fair, I too have contributed to this communications-centric funk. A quick re-read of my very first RonAmok! post, New Media Hyperventilation, illustrates just how far my vision has become communications myopic.

“…everyone is working so hard to scoop the next person in finding the next big thing, that we aren’t taking time to master the last great thing.”

It’s important “…to not lose site of the goal of these new tools — for people to actually use ‘em.”

So, it’s time to get back to my roots. It’s time to change the prescription on my business glasses. It’s time to start applying these technologies to tackle the really big problems faced by businesses, nonprofits, and society.

Are you with me?

Photo credit: Haglundc

Only two Major League Baseball teams won 103 regular-season games in 2002. Each couldn’t have been more different. The New York Yankees built their team the way that it had been done for over a century, by combining individual player statistics (batting averages, stolen bases, RBIs, etc.) with the instincts of talent scouts. Since the rest of the league used the same evaluation system, the resulting player-economy favored large-market teams who could afford to fill their rosters with the highest rated ballplayers.

As General Manager of the smaller-market Oakland Athletics, Billy Beane didn’t have the financial resources to pick from the top of that list. So, rather than following the herd, he created his own. Rather than agonizing over RBIs and batting averages, he looked at a player’s ability to get on base. He theorized that a team stacked with such players would statistically score more runs and as a result, they’d likely win more games than their competition. And the best part of Beane’s ranking system? Since the players that he desired were ranked so low by the herd, he could sign them at bargain basement prices.

When Beane fielded his team of “misfits” for $40 million, the herd laughed at him. But at the end of the regular season, he had the last laugh. You see, the New York Yankees had spent $125 million to win their 103 games. The Oakland Athletics spent less than one-third as much to do the very same thing.

While watching the movie, Moneyball, this past weekend, I was struck by the similarities between the baseball herd and the social media herd. When it comes to evaluating the value of social media investments, companies rely on the same herd-like tendencies.

• Those from the advertising side of the herd see the value of social media as measured in impressions and click-through rates.
• Those from the marketing side of the herd see the value in terms of “brand messaging/awareness.”
• Those from the public relations side of the herd see the value in terms of influence.

A slew of analytics companies have stepped up to feed the herd. Their pretty little dashboards serve tasty, herd-favorite morsels such as impressions, click-through rates, fans, and page views. They’ve even invented new measurements such as “klout” and “engagement.”

But here’s the problem. Generic measurements mean nothing without considering the reason for them in the first place. The goal of a MLB General Manager is to field a team that wins more games than the competition. The role of corporate communications is to support a customer’s entire journey to, through, and beyond their purchasing decisions. If the metrics that your company measures don’t support that goal, then why measure them at all?

It’s time to bust away from the social media herd. If your company has been investing in social media this past year, you have a responsibility to analyze it. All of it! Look underneath the pretty dashboard data. Start at January 1st and look at every tweet, every Facebook update, and every blog post. Study every retweet, comment, and “like” that a specific piece of digital content sparked. Look for patterns. What content resonated most with customers? What content did they ignore? What was the single most valuable piece of content that helped the most customers in their moment of truth? The answers to such questions will reveal two things: the value of your efforts and a digital program road map for next year.

But let’s face it. Most companies won’t do this. Analysis is hard work, which is why so few do it. Add the fact that running with the herd is less risky, and most communicators will continue throwing more money at meaningless things.

Billy Beane could have accepted his fate as a small market GM. Instead, he changed the rules. Are you willing to change the rules? Are you willing to dig deep into YOUR data and find out what YOUR CUSTOMERS need to support their journeys to, through, and beyond their purchasing decisions? Or will you acquiesce and continue to run with the herd?

The MLB herd scoffed at Billy Beane…well…that’s right up until he won all those games.

Photo Credit: freefotouk