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Just finished the first session at the Innovation Marketing Conference, which was a presentation by Russ Klein, the CMO of Burger King. Short presentation, about 30 minutes or so, with a couple of key themes. The biggest “a-ha” that came out of the session was the idea of “social currency.” Rushkoff defines “social currency” thusly:

“Social currency is like a good joke. When a bunch of friends sit around and tell jokes, what are they really doing? Entertaining one another? Sure, for a start. But they are also using content — mostly unoriginal content that they’ve heard elsewhere — in order to lubricate a social occasion. And what are most of us doing when we listen to a joke? Trying to memorize it so that we can bring it somewhere else. The joke itself is social currency. “Invite Harry. He tells good jokes. He’s the life of the party.”

Think of this the next time you curse that onslaught of email jokes cluttering up your inbox. The senders think they’ve given you a gift, but all they really want is an excuse to interact with you. If the joke is good enough, this means the currency is valuable enough to earn them a response.

That’s why the most successful TV shows, web sites, and music recordings are generally the ones that offer the most valuable forms of social currency to their fans. Sometimes, like with mainstream media, the value is its universality. In the US right now, the quiz show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” is enjoying tremendous ratings because it gives its viewers something to talk about with one another the next day. It’s a form of mass spectacle. And, not coincidentally, what is the object of the game? To demonstrate one’s facility with a variety of forms of social currency! Contestants who can answer a long stream of questions about everything from sports and movies to science and history, are rewarded with a million dollars. They are social currency champions.”

It is currency, like the greenback, that we exchange with those around us as part of our everyday interactions. In other words, “social currency” is the stuff we talk about with our friends, and colleagues, and family.

Burger King’s Klein centered his presentation around this idea of social currency. (It was, in fact, a central them of BK’s investor road show as part of their IPO.) Is is the core of how they market. In his words, the reason BK markets is invoke the “Did you see that?!?!” factor around the water cooler. They see their marketing as a means to add BK memes to the “social currency” supply.

What other organizations do you think are very accomplished at adding “social currency” to the environment? Who gives us things to talk about?

Bonus question: In particular, do you agree with Klein’s assertion that Burger King is accomplishing its goal in this area?

Am at Columbia University at the Innovative Marketing Conference. Shaping up to be an interesting couple of days. More soon.

Hey Greg…you are now officially polluting the language. <grin> Wired says that “Going Bedouin” is part of the hot, trendy jargon to watch.

(click photo for larger image)

Next stop, the OED. Why not? “Podcast” made it…

The title of this post was cribbed from one by the same name by Chris Brogan. In it, Brogan ponders why he writes, why he creates, why he does things that oftentimes seem to have no direct monetary outcome. What did he realize?

“We go off all day to hunt the mammoths, but at the end of the day, we gather round the fire to tell stories.

One pays the bills (we eat the mammoth); the other feeds our hearts (storytelling). It’s a reasonable thought.

I was talking with my wife about this last night. I said, ‘I’m questioning why I’m throwing so much effort into my own website, the three others I’m providing content for, the podcasts, the video, and all the various projects I’m doing. It’s not like I’m being paid.’

But the truth is, I’m getting value. I get value in talking with you. I’ve met so many engaging people, and every time one of you risks delurking and sending me an email, I meet a new friend. I’ve met people who’ve helped me build websites, people who’ve joined with me on Advisory Board discussions about what we should do with our careers. I’ve met fascinating people with passions for their own projects, and whose sites I read religiously now.

I feel that every day I post something new is another micro resume. I’m telling people out there what I stand for, how I think, what matters most to me. Some days, that’s probably not going to land me a job. Other days, it’s something that people might relate to.”

The whole post is here.

On a related note, had a great lunch on Thursday with Heather Gold. One of the key points we agreed on:

In an increasing number of situations, the personal is the professional.

In other words, the person, the whole person, should be able to show up at the office. Not just the cookie cutter caricature that is playing the role, but the whole person and all of his or her skills and perspectives and even weaknesses. More thoughts on this from Heather here.

Paul McNamara has put together a set of incredibly well-researched and thought-provoking posts on how technology adoption occurs within businesses, and does a helluva persuasive job challenging some of the legends and lore that have built up over the past couple of decades (example: Why did the PC win the enterprise in the early 80’s? “The spreadsheet,” you say? Wrong.). Here are a few excerpts; I encourage you to check out the whole series. (n.b. If you got value out of Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm, you’ll likely learn a thing or two from Paul’s series as well.)

Part 1: What is a “p-wave?”

“Shifts in technology use in the business world often happen like earthquakes. At first, they are felt suddenly, like a p-wave. After the technology p-wave, things continue to shake in the industry — often for several years — like an s-wave. But it’s what happens during the p-wave that can determine winners and losers.”

Part 2: The PC Revolution and the Forgotten Killer App

“Conventional wisdom holds that the spreadsheet (Visicalc for Apple and Lotus 1-2-3 for the IBM PC) was the killer app that got PCs into big companies. It’s true that lots of PCs got sold into the Financial Services sector because of the spreadsheet. But this explanation is somewhat incomplete. Outside of the Financial Services sector, a less recognized force was also at work. A small spark had ignited big sales of PCs to Fortune 500 businesses: it was the introduction of the lowly 3270 emulator.”

Part 3: Linux Displaces Unix and the Myth of the Basement Hacker

“The Linux p-wave hit in 1998/1999. It wasn’t until halfway through the p-wave that we even realized what was going on. The way we found out was a story in itself. Our engineers had put a signature deep inside the OS that enabled a web-server to respond to a network query by saying “I’m an Apache web server that is running on Red Hat Linux”. Mike Prettejohn had formed a business called Netcraft which routinely pinged millions of web servers to gather statistics about the Internet and had figured out a way to read these signatures. Mike called me in late 1998 and said, ‘are you guys aware that Red Hat is about to overtake Microsoft in the number of web servers on the Internet?‘”

Part 4: Technology P-Waves — Jolts to the Market

“I’ve described how earthquakes happen in two phases — the p-wave (a short powerful impulse) and the s-wave (the sustained shaking). In reality, the p-wave and the s-wave emanate from the same spot. The reason we experience them as two different events is because they travel at different speeds. The p-wave travels much faster than the s-wave. How far you are from the epicenter will determine the time interval between when you experience the p-wave and when you experience the s-wave.

A technology shift happens the same way. The p-wave of a technology shift is characterized by large numbers of smaller-scale decision makers (individual contributors and first line managers) nearly simultaneously deciding to adopt a new approach. The technology p-wave travels fast because biz-sumers decide and act faster than larger-scale decision makers. They are closer to the problem and their decisions carry less risk.”

Part 5: Software Simplified — The Next Technology P-wave

“The truth is that if you talk to just about anyone on the front lines today, whether they are in sales, finance, manufacturing, marketing, or any other operating group, you find remarkable similarity in the stories they tell. They all feel like they’re not getting the applications they need to do their job well…If you talk to the IT guys, they are also frustrated. Deep down they understand the needs of their internal customers, but they simply don’t have the time or the budget to respond.

These are exactly the conditions that are ripe for a p-wave shift. And new generations of Web-Service approaches are exactly the right kind of solutions to start the cascade.”

I’m still wrapping my head around the whole thing, and I really like the metaphor of different types and speeds of adoption happening in parallel, via the p-wave and s-wave analogies. Good stuff, Paul.

(disclosure: coghead is a client)

I don’t understand why Seth didn’t link to the Lynx Transport website in his recent post, 478-PETE. It really is a great example of something that we’ve been talking about for a long time…everything commoditizes over time except for you.

Differentiating on your product speeds-and-feeds? Any viable competitor is “close enough” in capabilities, and can likely do the job well enough.

Differentiating on your processes? There are only so many ways to do things, and processes can be replicated. (They’re probably hardcoded into your ERP system, anyway.)

Differentitating on your infrastructure? Another competitor can get the same hardware and software from the same vendors that you did.

I’m not even going to talk about competing on price.

There really are two big long-term differentiators. One is execution, naturally.

The other is the people in the organization, the unique collection of personalities and personal reputations that are the soul of the business.

What Pete at Lynx Transport has done is bake his personality and his personal stake into the organization, and that commitment rings through, loudly and clearly. The company’s about page reads like a blog entry. It’s refreshingly basic and B.S.-free. First person writing. Firsthand accounts of what’s gone on in the company. It’s a glimpse into the “who” and the soul of the organization.

All business is personal.

UPDATE: Just found this in Pete’s FAQ list

Q: Pete, could you sum up your business philosophy?

A: I’m glad someone asked that question. We work hard to please our customers. We have experienced employees and purchase and maintain a fleet of late model trucks. We have all the boxes, packing supplies, moving pads, dollies, ramps, liftgates, etc. to do your job professionally.

I, as president of Lynx Transport Company, try to put myself in the customer’s shoes. I try to service their needs and address any problems as if I were the customer. This has proven successful since I started the business in 1981 – Good ideas don’t go out of vogue.

Go, Pete, go.

Neat collision of a bunch of things happening here. My friend Ron “Chai Guy*” Tetirick is walking the Pacific Crest Trail from end to end, a journey of about 2,650 miles. On foot. Solo.

Dave Gray, who regularly appears in this space, is all about the cult of paper. He even has a hipster PDA.

The neat collision: Ron can’t always post to his blog since he’s, you know, dodging rattlesnakes and bears and stuff. But he’s still keeping a journal. He’s sending the pages to his friend Blue, who is posting them for him on his blog.

(click pages to view Ron’s entry)


Great stuff. And, yes, sometimes paper is better.

* – if you’ve gone to that thing in the desert any time in the last couple of years, Chai is responsible for the “Free Chai Revolution” that takes place near Center Camp.

John T. Unger responded to the post on creativity in the comments. He’s so spot-on that his whole response is reproduced here. John writes:

“Inconceivable!

I think my take would be that there’s no point in even doing something if you don’t in some way improve on the existing concept or structure or practice… I mean, who wants a motorcycle that’s only as good as new or maybe not even quite that good? *I* want a motorcycle that does something the others don’t do, whether that’s flying, making espresso or shooting jets of flame from it’s headlight. My basic criteria for accepting a new design brief is that it should at least in part be “impossible” or inconceivable. Where’s the fun in doing something you know will work? The learning curve is all about doing something that should never work, and doing it in an elegant way.

Conservation of mass? Pshaw. I make something from nothing all the time… In fact, the world is so full of nothing, I find that using it as my primary source material gives me a constant supply. Not nothing in the sense of a lack of atoms, but nothing in the sense of matter undesired by the masses. There’s plenty of that stuff, and I can make it very desirable with a little application of creative reorganizing.

The first rule of creative living is that breaking the rules is the first step to fixing the problem. When you can break the higher order rules of physics, or at least bend them a bit or make them dance unexpectedly on pins, you’re almost certainly on to something.”

What does John create out of “nothing?” Things like the Great Bowl of Fire, and things like these.

Bonus question: What movie inspired the headline of this post, as well as the original one?

Scott Reynen:

“Education also involves getting people’s attention. But so does electroshock therapy. No one makes a living saying nonsense like ‘Marketing, at it’s core, is electroshock therapy.'”

(via doc)

Today I’m at the Business Marketing Association conference in San Jose, and just had the chance to hear a great presentation by Justin Crotty, who is the VP of Channel Marketing for Ingram Micro, a $28 billion technology distributor (#72 on the Fortune 500 last year, for what it’s worth). A few bits of Ingram’s strategy were communicated. Why does this matter? Because Ingram is in perhaps the most “commodity” business in the world. What do they do to differentiate?

They connect with their customers.

At first, Ingram was going to do an ad campaign around “partnering” with their customers. They pulled some prospective ads together.

The ads were abysmal. Stock shots of the attractive business people of all genders and races, smiling cheerfully at the camera. Ingram knew their customers would (rightfully) call B.S. on them. So, the drawing board was revisited. Here’s the result:

In other words, it’s not that the strategy is aimed at the customers…the customers ::are:: the strategy

Crotty brought up a number of very salient points. In particular, he shared another insight that was spot-on, especially in a commodity business. “If you can get customers to help you develop your go-to-market strategy, the you don’t need to sell to them anymore.” Think about that for a second.

Now, check this out. Last year, CRN (one of the go-to resources for Ingram’s industry) did their annual “Top 25” executives list. Number 19 on the list was Scott Goemmel, one of Ingram’s customers. They promote their customers, relentlessly, according to Crotty. (Apparently this ruffled at least one set of feathers…Ingram’s CEO was listed at #20, behind Goemmel on the list. Heh.)

A couple of other key quotes from the presentation:

• “Relationships create emotional barriers to exit.”
• “Supermarket card programs reward card ownership…they don’t reward loyalty.” (For example, how many times has the checker at the local supermarket swiped a “dummy” card for you?)
• “Every business is a small business…your word is everything.”

Good stuff. Whereas a number of the other presentations have been a little too close to “marketing business as usual” throughout the day, Crotty’s presentation was an unexpected oasis of clue.