A blog by Marc Danziger about people, their conversation-centric organizations, and social media tools and technology.

Graffiti Bridge

By Marc Danziger on March 1, 2010 3:57 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

(With apologies to the used-to-be and now-is-again artist Prince)

I was talking to a potential client last week, and was getting pushed back because their current social media efforts aren't doing much for them. In fact, they are pretty negative. They have added comments to articles and whitepapers on their website, and to be generous the comments are horrible.

Not just horrible as in mean to the brand, but a snakepit of trolldom, angry ad hominem and content-free commentary.

"See!" they tell me. "We put the comment system up, and look what happened!"

Here is where I mentally bang my head against the conference table.

"Look," I explain. "What's the difference between an alley in Beverly Hills and an alley in Compton?"

Blank look.

"No tagging on the buildings in BH. Why? because it's obvious that the people in change care. When graffiti goes up, it's gone the next day. The homeowners actually use the alleys and the police actually patrol them.

In Compton? Not so much. Which is why taggers are free to do their worst.

When you put up a comments system and walk away, you're creating Compton."

"So how do I create Beverly Hills?"

"Participate!" Participate in your own discussion forums. Make every author who writes something agree to go to the forums and engage at least twice a day. Make it part of their job."

Because if you're setting up forums and walking away, you're just creating unmonitored back alleys where people are going to feel free to express their worst attributes.

Don't do that.

For some tips on how, see this post.
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A Five-Minute Social Media Strategy Exercise

By Marc Danziger on February 17, 2010 1:34 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

I'm one of those people who believe that things are almost always simpler than we think. Too often we make things less clear as we try and describe things - we make them hard to understand with a fog of language that hides a lack of conceptual rigor and clarity. We - all - get caught in this as we try and engage the language rather than the underlying concepts.

I had lunch with a prospective client last week; she has a company that offers a SaaS component that integrates two components in enterprise HR systems.

So we sit down and I ask her to explain what she wants to do; she gives me an explanation.

She has been - abstractly - interested in 'socializing' her apps, and recently she's been hearing from customers that she needs to "make them social."

"What does that mean?" I ask.

She's not 100% sure.

Sadly, we're not at a restaurant with a paper tablecloth, so I grab some paper from my briefcase and with her input, sketch out a fast process map of her software. A 35,000-foot map, to be sure. Then I create clouds of the people who are using it.

"Now," I ask, "who talks to who today?"

And we map out connectors for existing conversations.

"And who do you think should talk to who but doesn't?"

More connectors.

"And how do people talk to you with complaints or suggestions?"

Another connector.

Suddenly we've mapped out a high-level conversation-flow and defined three or four areas where implementing conversation would add value to her product.

We haven't nearly delivered a solution, or even a solution map - but we've defined the solution space.

I ask her one more question..."How would we know if we were right?"

And we agree to think about a plan to quickly survey users and participants and validate what we've discussed here - the first step in my engagement if it goes that far.

So just for fun - take a problem that you've got and map the overall 'connectors' of conversation that you have (often not through official channels), and that you'd like. Do they line up? Does the idea of a conversational 'connector' even begin to make sense?

I have two contradictory frustrations here: We don't yet have a common language for mapping and conceptualizing conversations in the ways that we map and conceptualize dataflow (yes I know about network maps). And second, in our efforts to map and 'guide' conversations in ways that offer business value, we risk losing the emergent structures that are at the heart of the value of conversation.

I need to think more on both of those...
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Doing It Really Wrong And Making It Right

By Marc Danziger on February 16, 2010 3:17 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

We've all got TSA horror stories (my favorite is the time at MCO that I was threatened with arrest for moving some of the plastic tubs from one line - where there were lots - to our line - where there were none).

Here's a horror story with a small social media angle...some screeners in Philadelphia forced a disabled 4 year old's parents to remove his leg braces - then had him hobble through the metal detector. His parents were (understandably and justifiably) infuriated, and after a local newspaper columnist covered the story...
On Friday, TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis said the boy never should have been told to remove his braces.

TSA policy should have allowed the parents to help the boy to a private screening area where he could have been swabbed for traces of explosive materials.

She said she wished Thomas had reported the matter to TSA immediately. "If screening is not properly done, we need to go back to that officer and offer retraining so it's corrected."

Davis also said TSA's security director at the airport, Bob Ellis, called Thomas last week to apologize. He gave Thomas the name of the agency's customer service representative, in case he has a problem at the airport in the future.
So here's my social media hook. Why do we need the intervention of a newspaper before someone gets - privately - the name and contact info for a customer service representative?

Why isn't that name on a sign over the metal detectors?

And - for your customers - when something goes really, really wrong who can your customers find on your website to talk to?

Who should they be talking to?

Because remember, customer service is the new sales.
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Doing It Right

By Marc Danziger on February 1, 2010 4:42 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

So I have a bunch of hobbies, and - shockingly - am on email lists or discussion boards for many of them.

That's the core power of social media - the ability to find and join highly specialized conversations that are specifically relevant to you.

On one of my email lists today, one of the members - not a frequent contributor, but a participant - jumped into a conversation about a $2,000 product another of the listers was thinking about buying.

He is subscribed under his corporate email - he works for Leupold, a competing manufacturer in the space - and he gave a precise and thoughtful critique of the product that was being considered, informed by his professional expertise.

He wrapped up by hinting at some products that were currently under wraps, and promised to let us know about them as soon as he could.

That's pretty darn good; it raises my trust in his company, piques my interest in his future products, and leaves me with a contact in a vendor whose products I already own.
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On Newspapers And Monetization

By Marc Danziger on January 28, 2010 9:21 AM | No Comments | 1 TrackBack

Here's a document I did for a friend who's a newspaper editor.

I left out a huge monetization stream from lead gen and affiliate sales, but otherwise it seems pretty on point:

A Modest Proposal For The [Xxxxxx] Newspaper
View more documents from Marc Danziger.

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The Three-Axis Problem - Conversations ABOUT, WITH, and AMONG

By Marc Danziger on January 20, 2010 10:33 AM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Like most people I'm often kind of amazed when my mouth does my thinking for me - both good amazed and bad amazed. yesterday, meeting with a prospective client, and trying to explain the way I think through the problem of implementing social media I improvisationally explained something well enough that I want to get it down in text before I forget it.

What I explained is that "social media in the enterprise is a three-axis problem."

The three axes are:

ABOUT
WITH
AMONG

...as in conversations ABOUT you, conversations WITH you, and conversations AMONG you.

And that you need to solve the problem in all three, but prioritize the axes based on the specifics of the organization and its situation.


Continue reading The Three-Axis Problem - Conversations ABOUT, WITH, and AMONG.
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Kudzu Content

By Marc Danziger on December 14, 2009 4:29 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

Over the weekend, I was reading ReadWrite Web and TechCrunch about 'content farms' like Demand Media and the new Aol.

MacManus and Arrington are deeply worried about what they see (MacManus):
So is the Web becoming awash with low-quality content produced by content farms like Demand Media, Answers.com and now AOL? Yes it is.

From my analysis of Demand Media and similar sites, such content is very generic and lacks depth. While I wouldn't go as far as wikiHow founder Jack Herrick and say that it "lacks soul," it certainly lacks passion and often also lacks knowledge of the topic at hand. Arrington's analogy with fast food is apt - it is content produced quickly and made to order.


Continue reading Kudzu Content.
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Danziger's (Hierarchy of Survival) Law

By Marc Danziger on December 11, 2009 7:02 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

It's more of a 'hierarchy' than a law, but I always wanted a law...here's something I just put together for a presentation I'm doing tomorrow that's so right, Jack Black should have done it.

Danziger's Law

It's a hierarchy for small business survival in the marketing sphere. Maybe even for big business. I'll explain tomorrow afternoon...

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The Future of Media is (Shockingly!) Conversational

By Marc Danziger on November 16, 2009 2:02 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

The kind folks at eMediaVitals.com - an online site dedicated to the profession of journalism - were kind enough to invite me to put up an article building on my remarks to the LA Press Club a few weeks ago.

Here's the opening:
Every media brand in existence is working to build a community.

Most of them won't succeed.

Many won't succeed because the business organizations that are trying to implement the communities are themselves crumbling, caught in a downdraft of declining revenues, causing cuts resulting in declining quality which leads to declining audiences who pay less and are less valuable to advertisers - and so on.

And some won't succeed because they are doing community wrong - treating it as an adjunct, a bolt-on feature, or a simple expansion of "letters to the editor."

That's not community, it's not going to drive audience 'engagement,' and it's not going to lead to sustainable new business models.
Go read the whole thing, as they say...
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Is Small Business Happy With Its Social Media Results?

By Armed Liberal on November 4, 2009 12:28 PM | No Comments | No TrackBacks

So as I've been trying to do a "Big Business Social Media" deck, the news is full of a study that seems to show that small business doesn't use social media very much and doesn't much like what it uses.

I'm shocked, just shocked (not really). Actually, it kind of confirms what I've been seeing in talking to small business owners out in the wild.

Here's the lede (sorry, the study doesn't seem to be available; I'm just piecing together clips about it from press releases and blog posts):
Sites like Facebook and Twitter have taken off among individuals for personal use. But what about the use of social networking at small businesses?

A survey commissioned by Citibank and conducted by GfK Roper found that some small businesses see little reason to hop onto the social-network bandwagon.

Based on interviews in late August with 500 executives running businesses with fewer than 100 employees, the survey said that 76 percent of them found sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to be of little help in finding new business leads. Further, 86 percent of those questioned have not used social-networking sites to look for business advice or information.

(from cNET)
Here are the numbers:

Citi_helpful.JPG


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About Me

I'm Marc Danziger, a social-media and technology strategist for hire (and you should hire me). I've been thinking up, designing, and managing the development of technology projects for over 15 years with major projects in healthcare, media, automotive, retail, and politics.

Recently, I've done work for Inc. and Fast Company magazines, Warner Music, Manpower, Central DuPage Hospital, and Florida Hospitals, among others.

I focus on two areas: developing technology strategies - typically strategies for customer and stakeholder engagement; and organization to improve technology delivery. I've also done quite a bit of troubled project recovery, as well as straightforward project delivery management. I'm a strong advocate of agile methodologies, and am a certified ScrumMaster.

Charmed Particles, Inc. is my company (the name comes from my early fascination with physics), and it has been in operation for almost 20 years.

Download a pdf of my CV here, my LinkedIn profile can be found here, and you can reach me on IM at:

AIM: MarcDnzgr

Y!: marcdanziger

G!: marc.danziger

You can also email me at marcd @ charmedparticles.com (remove the spaces)

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