Buzz Canuck

Word of Mouth Glossary - Gemeinschaft and Geshellschaft

Occasionally, I peruse through a number of egg-headed theses and research papers on various word of mouth subjects.  In doing so, I find it interesting straddling the role of strategist/researcher and planner/practitioner that sometimes feels like being an imposter to both parties.

Street-wise business people may think I have my head in the clouds and academics snub their noses at having to get dirty and actually practicing the stuff they write about.

In researching an upcoming white paper on "It Takes a Community to Build a Brand", I've come across the German terms  "Gemeinschaft" and its corollary "Geschellshaft".  Perhaps its our inability to spell these words in our anglo-centric world, but Ferdinand Tonnies theories don't get a lot of airplay past the academic world.

Gemeinschaft  is an association in which individuals are oriented to the large association as much if not more than to their own self interest. many in the Web 2.0 world call this term "community". It's characteristics are:   

• individuals oriented to their group interests more than their self interests
• collective sense of loyalty and common mores of accepted behaviour among the group
• a unity of will, based on shared beliefs and values
• strength of the group derived from the strength of agreement of beliefs and values
• controlled mostly by internal agreement with minimal enforcement

Gesellschaft is an association in which, for the individual, the larger association never takes on more importance than individual self interest, and lack the same level of shared mores. Many would use this term to describe corporations and business:

• individual self interest trumps shared interest
• no common mores of accepted behaviour
• groups that serve individual self interest thrive
• groups can be fragmented and aligned against each other
• controlled mostly by external pressures and necessary enforcement

When you think about it, this continuuum defines a lot of the tension felt between many ends of life's current polarization. In politics, right wing, self-interest and free market  vs. left wing, communal agenda. In religion, an ardent set of dogmatic beliefs vs. secular pluralism. In business, competitive, Friedman -esque business practices vs.  a more inclusionary practice of Galbraith economics.

The challenge I run up against with both polarities within business is being able to happily build gemeinschaft in geshellschaft (now in English, "can communities exist inside companies?). I say they can, many think they can't.

If I look at businesses such as Harley Davidson, Mozilla, Google, Apple, Patagonia, Starbucks and Quiksilver, they give me hope that clusters of well-bonded individuals can exist inside a corporate entity.
Their ability to succeed and thrive is usually dependent on:
- a declared and practiced set of beliefs and principles
- a culture-driven recruitment policy
- an understanding at all levels of the company on what "the right thing" is
- bottom line success - it would appear winners allow different setups to exist much more easily than stressed organizations
- principles lived out by the CEO and senior executive
- online and offline platforms and practices that reinforce this kinship
- a fluid, less hierarchical structure that encourages involvement and collaboration at every level
- a shared set of rituals not practiced broadly in the industry they participate in

I'd be curious to know of any other companies that have incubated Gemeinschaft within their 4 walls, or is their  preferred approach to look outside their companies where these groups might exist more naturally?

Brand & Customer Experience Gold - 36 Blogs That Make Customers Sing

In today's customer world, marketing is considerably more about "what you do" vs. "what you say you do".  Whereas, the majority of ads get missed and 70% of the population would like to skip them completely,  beyond-the-expected, customer service and branded customer experience has a profound effect on purchase decision-making and customer advocacy.

CEO's are not ignorant to this reality - their # 2 and #3 stated priorities are viewed as customer service and customer experience (Microsoft Exec. Roundtable). Winning brands like Apple, American Girl,  Starbucks,Nordstrom and SouthWest Airlines are maniacal in getting this component of their marketing formula right. Unfortunately, in many organizations, the marketing departments have become quite detached and aloof from the customer.

With that in mind, attached are the 36 blogs  we've run across that cover the arena of brand and customer experiences. Read one a day for June and heck we even threw in 4 more for the July long weekend:

June

1 -  Experience Curve (Karl Long)
http://blog.experiencecurve.com/

2 - The Perfect Customer Experience (Dale Wolf) 
http://contextrules.typepad.com/transformer/

3 - Customer Experience Crossroads (Susan Abbott)
http://arc.typepad.com/customercrossroads/

4 Customer World (Sivaraman Swaminathan) http://customerworld.typepad.com/swami_weblog/

5 - Experience Solutions (Ali Carmichael/Damian Rees) http://www.experiencesolutions.co.uk/about.html

6 - How To Create Powerful Customer Experience (Kim Proctor)
http://customerevangelism.blogspot.com/

7 - Experience the Message (Max Lenderman)
http://experiencethemessage.typepad.com/

8 - Get Elastic (Jason Billingsley/Linda Bustos)
http://www.getelastic.com/

9 - Creating Passionate Users (Kathy Sierra)
http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/

10 - Customer Experience Leaders (Brian Lunde)
http://customerexperienceleaders.typepad.com/

11- Customers Rock! (Becky Carroll)
http://customersrock.wordpress.com/

12 - Customers Are Always (Maria Palma)
http://www.customersarealways.com/

13 - Seth Godin (Seth Godin)
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/

14 - ConverStations (Mike Sansone)
http://www.converstations.com/

15 - Experience Matters (Bruce Temkin)
http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/

16 - Get Satisfaction (Thor Muller and team)
http://blog.getsatisfaction.com/

17 - Logic + Emotion (David Armano)
http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/

18 - The Brand Builder Blog (Oliver Blanchard)
http://thebrandbuilder.blogspot.com/

19 - IdeasonIdeas (Eric Karjaluoto)
http://www.ideasonideas.com/

20 - Social Customer Manifesto (Christopher Carfi)
http://www.socialcustomer.com/

21 - Web Strategy by Jeremiah (Jeremiah Owyang)
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/

22 - Brand Autopsy (John Moore)
http://brandautopsy.typepad.com/

23 - Service Untitled
http://www.serviceuntitled.com/

24 - Customer Service Experience (Glenn Ross)
http://www.allbusiness.com/sales/customer-service/10783-1.html

25 - Flooring the Customer (C.B. Whittamore)
http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com/

26 - Your Customers Matter…Don’t They (Lori Adrianse)
http://www.yourcustomersmatter.com/

27 - The Experience Economist (David Polinchock) http://blog.brandexperiencelab.org/experience_manifesto/

28 - Experienceology (Stephanie Weaver)
http://experienceology.blogspot.com/

29 - Six Pixels of Separation (Mitch Joel)
http://www.twistimage.com/blog/ 

30 - EMF Blog (Neil Burns/Erik Hauser)
http://www.experientialforum.com/content/blogsection/2/49/

July

1 - Jack 360 Degrees (Jack Morton’s team)
http://360.jackmorton.com/index.html

2 - Advent Marketing Blog (John Roberson & Company)
http://www.adventresults.com/blog 

3 - Alternative Marketing 101 (Kristopher Saim)
http://www.alternativemarketing101blog.com/alternative_marketing_101/

4 – Buzz Canuck (Sean Moffitt)
http://buzzcanuck.typepad.com/agentwildfire/

   

Which Wheel Would You Rather Be? A Study in Weak Ties.

It may come as no surprise to you that given my current wall of 4,983 Facebook friends, I've made my bed in a forest of some close intimate friends, but a whackload of interesting colleagues and a plethora of loosely-knit acquaintances. 

My Facebook (and in fact life) friend cluster wheel is quite scattered, far flung and looks decidedly like the  visual on the right. Actresses, mechanics, creative directors, lawyers, admin. assistants, students and authors all inhabit my Facebook wall...and I'm thankful for the breadth.

Many people see my gaggle of friends, enquire, sometimes praise and sometimes question my friendship rules as appropriate social internet strategy for a "personal brand"?  To each their own, a lot of it depends on personality. I'm naturally trusting, social and drawn to new people leading interesting lives or championing interesting ideas - thus, I have well above the average on what people might consider "weak ties" in my friend pool. Other people like Shel Israel have a much tighter friend wheel with a smaller aperture for weak ties. 

So what are weak ties? Essentially, it's people that you have semi-periodic contact with and don't feel the same closeness, intimacy or proximity that you might feel with a strong tie (i.e. your closest 4 friends).  If you use the Internet as you proxy, the average person has about 160 Facebook weak ties but in life, the number is more likely 500 to 1,500 depending on education, age, profession and personality.

The internet and more specifically social networks, have allowed us to stay in close touch with these weak ties to the point where some of these weak ties graduate into our strong tie circle based on frequency of online contact, even though we've never physically met.

If you read the research, it's to my future economic, employment, innovation and social benefit to maintain a large and strong network of weak ties. Referring to a recent post by Naumi Haque at Wiknomics entitled "Rich People have Fewer Friends", the absence of weak ties at the highest levels of organizations is prevalent and  potentially a career limiter. It's the reason why we say "it's lonely at the top" or talk about the "corner office" with some level of silo-ness.

For those higher social strata people that want to stay connected, innovative, young and fresh, it's the reason they invest in clubs, social registers and some pricey "who's who" conferences. The ones that truly want to mine and connect with their weak ties join Linked In or Facebook and volunteer for community groups, charity organizations or causes. In my world, they are much more likely to be Influencers.

The landmark Granovetter study "The Strength of Weak Ties" referenced by Naumi,  offers powerful statistical support for the importance of weak ties, particularly at the higher levels or economic, professional, social and community groups. 

Although the study is little cobwebbed by 27 years of social progress (or regress pending your perspective), the study's conclusions are almost more prescient and valuable based on the social web of today. Simply, the average web citizen is more powerful by the number of weak tie connections they have - in this society, marketplace and economy, it's less about what you know than who you know.

So why so much importance placed on loosely linked friends? Isn't it rather the case that when you're in crisis you turn to your closest friends? Haven't we preached in churches, schools and in romantic Hollywood for time eternal that  close friends are treasured and should be guarded against distraction?

While the importance of close friends, particularly in times of stress or crises can't be underestimated (in fact, the presence of weak ties at the lowest levels of economically stressed, social strata has minimal personal impact according to the Granovetter study), the relative greater importance of weak ties can be attributed to three benefits - time, ideas and access.

Time - stronger ties take much longer to form, they take more time to nurture and ironically, despite the time investment are much more likely to change over time. As a purely rational thinker, strong ties can be a time suck and inefficient use of the 118 hours of waking time you have each week. Whereas now, with RSS feeds, social media groups, apps and functionality, microblogging and friend feeds, weak ties are managed with considerable ease and tend to maintain themselves in position over time.

Ideas - since strong ties are all generally similar to each other and know one another's friends, they function as an "echo chamber" of ideas. Since you like somebody and get more familiar with somebody, you're more apt to accept their views initially or grow to accept them over time. Regrettably, when impacts or changes happen outside your strong tie group,  you're less likely to be able to respond and change based on an acquired set of established ideas. The music industry, church groups and corporate head offices have all suffered from strong tie syndrome in a swift moving world.

Access - what's the number #1 way to find a new job when unemployed? Family? No. Close Friends? No. Mentors? No. Ironically, it's your weak tie network that time after time produces the results. Reasons -
a) there are more of them and so they can provide more avenues of opportunity and connection,
b) weak ties don't know each other as well and therefore will serve up a wider array of opportunities and
c) they have different perspectives and may see your talents and potential in a different way.

So if you want to hang out with Joey, Chandler, Ross, Phoebe, Monica and Rachel at the Central Perk, have a great time and adopt the wheel on the left.

But if you want to stay engaged, open to new ideas, fresh with new experiences, open up your social window, invite a few Fun Bobbies into your world and adopt some weak ties into your rolodex or Friend Wall.

Addendum - if you're a senior level business person, consultant, marketer, digiterati, entrepreneur, not-for-profit, media or communications person; work, live or happen to stroll by Toronto; have something interesting to say or contribute; and want to invest in some online and offline weak ties, drop me a line and we'll get you into our loose, but secret collective of idea starters, rainmakers and headline stealers -  The League of Kickass Business Folk - Event #5 in July.

The Wikinomics/nGenera Blogging Panel

Looking forward to participating on a blogging panel on Thursday hosted by Mike Dover of nGenera Research (formerly New Paradigm Research and the minds and legs behind Wikinomics).

Leigh Himel, Anastasia Goodstein, Mathew Ingram and Denis Hancock are my co-panelists and we'll be debating such questions as:

      - What are the keys to writing a compelling blog?

      - Describe the keys to leveraging the blogosphere as an ecosystem?

      - How should a corporation manage a corporate blog?

      - What policies should it have regarding the blogging activity of its employees?

      - How can a blog be used as vital part of word of mouth marketing campaign?

      - Within the social media space, most blogs tend to be humorous and light-hearted. What are the implications for posting about serious issues?

      - Are personal life blogs going by the wayside? Do people want to hear what's going on in someone's life or not?

      - Should our company hire someone to blog? (Or sponsor an established blogger who writes about our industry?)

      - What are the key performance metrics that you monitor with respect to your blog?

      - What are the worst mistakes companies have made with blogs?

      - If you died tomorrow, what would you want to happen to your blog?

Have a read at the Wikinomics blog where you can usually get some great and frequently updated content and a sampling of my illustrious panelists'  postings.

Let me know your own thoughts on what we should discuss as well (or better yet, how to answer the above).

Couchsurfing - Crowdsourcing the Bohemians...

Oh, to be 23 and free of any societal shackles. How I would love Couchsurfing? Actually, given an average age of what looks to be late 20s/early 30s, it's probably a poor crutch.

Couchsurfing is an amazing website with the simple mission of helping people stay for cheap in other foreign cities by pairing bohemina travellers with available spaces in the potential hope that the community reciprocates. As I was peering through their back-story, I recognized quite a bit of canadian-based leadership in helping build and manage this world.

After a website crash of their site in 2006 nearly wiped them off the map after 7 years of existence, their community rallied even stronger and crafted their revised mission statement "Participating in a Better World, One Couch at a Time." Cool.

With 887 new couches being furnished every hour and a community of 530,000 couchsurfing members, there are very few places in the world that you can't travel via a magic sofa ride (227 countries are represented).

It's a compelling insight as even for business travellers, the quality and breadth of hotel amenities nearly always ranks as a rather costly, secondary item in contributing to the overall satisfaction of the trip. Essentially, couchsurfing takes away that nuisance cost.

Not only is there the primary benefit of matching people with couches, but from a word of mouth standpoint - they also are doing things right with online 2.0 tools - a wiki, groups, chat service, member profile, developer collectives, a vouching system for security purposes and offline meetups.

So when you're travelling to Prague and you:

- have three dollars in your pocket

- want to make local friends fast

- find the intimacy of a couch so much friendlier than a hostel or hotel

- make new international friends for life and pay back the favour down the road

Give Couchsurfing a try!

Experiential Marketing - Clients You're Missing the Point

Unfairly,  I'll critique marketers here even though they've answered a close ended question posed to them in a poll (taken off of Max Lenderman's Experience the Message blog - couldn't find source)

The two biggest fears holding marketers back on "experiential marketing" are the same fears that plague them as a whole in the new marketing arena - lack of control and limited exposure.

The causes - some of it is ego, some of it is pride, some of it is fear of the unknown,  some of it is stubbornness in the face of sea changes to their audience and some of it is over-thinking.

Let's deal with both:

Lack of control - the very point of modern marketing is to make your marketing out of control, isn't it?  If the main reason why other people buy your product is because people tell them or broadcast it to them  - don't you want as many conversations about as many features in as many neighbourhoods as possible about your  brand. 

Fears of citizen-controlled branding are frequently overblown - there are ways to mitigate the risks to be sure (turn off blog comments, make the experience invitation only) - the question for most brands - do you want to when the payoff is so potentially large?

Lack of exposure/impact - taken strictly on a participant-to-cost ratio, the critics of brand experience marketing have a point. The initial CPM numbers make accountant's forehead's wrinkle up.

Frequently in my past client gigs, I have looked at corporately executed events as nothing but a trade , agency or VIP boondoggle. When executed poorly, that's exactly what they are.

However, three returns on experience frequently not measured are: 1) the long term, lifetime value impact of each attendee (test drives) , 2) the word of mouth and perception impact on a broader circle of friends when its executed right with appropriate follow up and relationship building (Camp Jeep)and 3) the press and airplay received when people/media influencers realize how interesting/astounding the  experience that was crafter (Red Bull).

I put a lot more credence in some of the poll answers further down the list of fears of experiential marketing (message getting  lost, experience being executed poorly, cost) than I ever would in exposure and control. Unfortunately, for a lot marketers and their bosses, they fear the shadow of a runaway success.

WOM - More Evidence

  Some outtakes from Forrester and from the new book by Charlene Li - Groudswell.

- Known trumps unknown

- Conversation trumps broadcast

- User trumps expert

- Owned site trumps content site

The Social Networking Traffic Poll - Top 11 A-Has

The most interesting results:

1) My Space traffic down year over year - yes down - Rupert Murdoch worries about web strategy somewhere (remember Friendster's law of social networking - traffic rolling downhill tends to accelerate)

2) My Yearbook.com takes off where a less friendly Facebook and less inviting MySpace leaves a vacuum

3) bebo unsuccessfully tries to unseat the  dominant two in North America

4) The mainstream professional world starts waking up to LinkedIn and LinkedIn starts waking up to social networking tools and tactics

5) Fubar - like the movie, apparently you'll love the online happy hour bar - this one was a surprise to me

6) Ning - is growing but needs some help getting return visitors to its microcommunity network - seems like a smart company will just offer white label services of what Ning already does. Yuku getting in on this game too.

7) Classmates.com - yawn, when is this thing going to be replaced by something else - 755 members from my high school, 27 from my graduating year - mostly useless info (you're a fool if you pay for this) ...have a feeling this site is built on the stilts of prom night and how everybody will stay in touch with each other and never do

8) Twitter nation is a small but high frequency horde, breaks into the charts this year but will it ever go mainstream - I have my doubts unless it can explaining its value better

9) Cafe Mom - watch out for this one - the key to the world's most important conversations and the door to 80% of our household's purchases...

10) Black Planet - torn on this one - great so many African Americans can find their home here within social networks, bad that it might not be so popular if the racial divide playing out on the 2008 election stage wasn't so wide. Is this playing out in Asian online neighbourhoods too?

11) Orkut - at over 15 visits a month and growing at 70% - a high frequency hardcore still remains on Google's social networking answer - don't have a clue why - people with South American friends?

Change Everything vs. Facebook - Vote for the Webby Underdog

Last chance today to vote one of our homegrown Change Everything into the winner's circle for a Webby award.

Heh, why should Facebook get all your love (and I know Cahnge everything haven't temporaily banned my membership for a couple of days...at least not yet).

Seriously, get your mouse over to Webbys and support the underdog - a creation from VanCity and Social Signal with a  noble cause. Voting closes today. Congrats regardless of outcome William, Kate, Alaexandra, Rob and the full gang!

The Dichotomy of What We Want as Consumers/Citizens and What Media Covers as News

Word of mouth cries out for a vacuum. Our own research suggests people only talk about things that are so relevant, so innovative, so new or plain eye-popping to notice.

Here is the list of attributes our Influencers suggest in terms of why they buzz:

Something with which you personally associate              25.7%

Innovative             22.5% 

Exciting                13.1% 

Solves problems   11.0% 

Easy to talk  about 9.9%

New                   8.0% 

Newsworthy        2.9% 

Exclusive              2.7% 

Other                    2.7% 

Fashionable           1.3%

So why is it so little of what comes out of the marketing/media sausage grinder provides this type of fodder?

As much as the publishing and broadcast media that cover these worlds bemoans the poor and dry state of politics, commerce and culture, they are as much at fault as any party.

Example: Obama says something that most likely believe (people in Pennsylvania turn to crime and religion when times go south), it's viewed as a momentum-crushing blow.

Example: Starbucks launches something that atcaully opens themself up to their customers (MyStarbucksIdea) and the bloggerati cry foul about how they are late to the game or executing it poorly.

Example: Widespread press cry out why America suffers such cultural paucity yet Larry King serves up regular doses of Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Dr. Phil.

Example: Ontario government's most talked about camapign in the last 3 years FLICK OFF gets pilloried for its double entendre and its Environment Minister chided for her support.

Shame on you media! What person in their right mind would engage so willinngly with the fifth estate when the inevitable outcome is character assasination and being on the end of some type of ____---Gate (insert label of choice).

One can make a pretty good argument that buzzworthy stuff suffers not in spite of media who may say they want it, but because they attack it when it happens.

The world of 24-7 media and classless pundits are the #1 reason why companies, organizations, governments and cultural groups don't step out and take risks. There simply isn't a well-balanced risk-reward for being eye-catching, provocative or attention-getting. In the media world, the nail thats brave enough to stand up gets hammered down.

One of my favourite hobbies- sports is a cauldron for traditional-minded people doing the same thing over and over and not surprisingly getting the same results. How many aged, stubborn-minded taskmaster coaches does it take to realize that maybe a different way is plausible and effective?

Unfortunately sports media fuels this adle-minded operation. In these parts, hockey is a passion covered 'round the clock with television and radio riddled with old athletes and warhorses who defend the status quo and who will quickly jump in unison to keep executives and players on the straight and narrow.

A recent example that played out was Sean Avery using some innovative tactics in being a pest in front of all-star goalie Martin Brodeur. He was stripped bare by even the most ardent of tough guy supporters. If you've ever listened to the unfortunately popular Toronto-based show Bob McCown's PrimeTime Sports, it is the worst jury of hypocrites - whine because there are not enough characters in sports and tear a strip off those that do exist.

Refreshingly, today's Cool News of the Day post entitled "Creative Baseball" shows examples of managers and executives willing to step out of the box (or diamond in this case) and try stuff that has never been tried before in a spirited attempt to gain an advantage:

Bobby Cox - doing a clever releief pitcher swap

Joe Girardi - starting relief pitchers on a rain plagued day

Milwaukee GM Doug Melvin's - innovative thinking

Oakland GM's Billy Beane's Moneyball

and the reknown baseball showman Bill Veeck 

Sports, business and society needs more of these big thnkers in a world plagued with staleness.  Please help save us from our media.

Nike - Yes, I Can Take It To Another Level...

If a brand could get me into a sport through a viral ad, Nike would be it. Their latest footie ad (by way of David Feldt)

Word of Mouth That Grows on You...

Perhaps it's a male thing but why is it that we fall in love  and are attracted to, like mosquitoes to the light, for campaigns that involve growing things.

Two very successful ones in particular - Movember and Gilette Beard-O-Matic.

The first is a charity started up in Australia 4 years ago that has grown six-fold each and every year of its existence and encourages men to grow moustaches in support of Prostate Cancer for the month of November. I was a pitiful participant in last year's challenge.

Now, Gillette has also jumped into the hair game just launched a site where you can superimpose your picture on a template and build your own virtual playoff beard for your favourite team called Beard-o-matic. Love it. It would appear Montreal, Toronto and Pittsburgh have taken to the follicle challenge (I can't imagine Sidney Crosby wearing a beard, can you?).

Which makes me think of other brands that could support body growth challenges:
- Zest and not showering ( that would be a big Zestfully clean litmus test)
- Crest and not brushing teeth
- Pantene and not cutting hair (and avoiding split ends)
- Clearasil and do I really have to paint this picture

Pick 20 - Backbone Magazine Awards

In collaboration with Backbone Magazine and KPMG, I was happy to be tapped to judge a competition of the most successful, progressive and new websites in Canada.

Even though a couple of my fave sites didn't make the cut, I was still struck by the gold mine of online talent and product we have coming out of the North (some of them I refreshingly had not stumbled across yet) and  oftentimes not located in our major cities either.

In speaking to the Sault Ste Marie Innovation Centre last month, there was a palpable sense of hope amongst an online savvy hardcore that even though you might grow up in a smaller city centre, there is opportunity to build stuff that gets noticed, talked about and used on a global scale and not have to move to the "big show".

Although I would love to talk about my individual faves for these "Pick 20 - Web 2.0 Awards", I have been sworn to secrecy until the winners are announced in the July issue of Backbone.

My general observations however:

- design trumps substance - the best sites were easy on the eyes and not jammed with clutter and features

- half the sites had some community building element and a compelling level of transparency

- some of the sites were visual stunners, innovatively programmed - the only problem was they didn't have much of a concept of business revenue model that companies or people would pay for

- with the exception of one site, the most commerically successful sites had a clear and niche understanding of what they did well and how they could create value for their stakeholders

- many new sites have made the mistake of going fully public wihout first seeding enough interest to generate the content and activity that will make other future visitors perk up

- although the temptation exists to name your site something distinctive, the best and most recognized really did capture the "positioning/benefit delivery" in the name of their site

- perhaps an anomaly, but some of the sites were just as successful in expanding to Asia and Europe as they were in generating success stateside, in the web 2.0 world, the world is truly flat

The best PICK20 sites will be based on the judge's review of each firm's ROI potential, Ongoing long term value, competiive advanatge, execllence of execution and innovation quotient. The sites were categorized in the following classes:

1. Problem solving: customer response, idea generation, solution brainstorming
2. Innovation: crowdsourcing, market prediction, participatory feedback
3. Collaboration: jams, customer input, user rankings
4. Knowledge sharing and management: teamware, wikis, blogs and collaborative content creation

So definitely get yourself a future issue of Backbone and discover the eGold that's being built in Canada.

"From Mass to Grass" Marketing Conference Launches ... and an Early Bird Discount

Canada's must-see conference for the conversation marketplace, participation media, user generated content and new research worlds launches!

Check this out - The Canadian Marketing Association's "From Mass to Grass" returns again this year on June 12 in Toronto at a very cool summer-friendly venue (Pavilion at Ontario Place).

Nowhere in Canada will you find a more entertaining and remarkable set of speakers dedicated to getting their companies noticed and talked about. Sure, there are other great conferences in Canada - mesh and ICE have their devoted followings, and for good reason.

Whereas they deal with various facets of the new online and media environments in great depth, "From Mass to Grass" is designed to tie together these disciplines and shape insights and fully integrated strategies for progressive business people, marketers, entrepreneurs, agency people and media folk alike.   

If we don't all know it yet, you will after this conference - there is no more potent force to shaping consumer attitudes and changing customer behavior than word of mouth. It has its own orientation, its own tactics, style of communication, media, targeting, emphasis, measurement and success principles and deserves its place alongside the more traditional practices of advertising, promotion, PR, online and innovation.

My personal mission is to ensure future rainmakers, firestarters, headline stealers and start uppers have an understanding of what's out there, why it works so well, the nitty-gritty of how to make it work for you and some of the watchouts. I promise you, you will drink from the "fire hose" of buzz-driven insight...at "From Mass to Grass".

So as conference founder, I'm exceptionally happy to be chairing Canada's mecca for word of mouth for a second year with a star-studded roster of over 30 speakers and topics you have asked for in the past, check out this lineup:

- Richard Bartrem, Westjet's VP  Culture & Communications - our morning keynpote talking about "Caring Owners - Driving Word of Mouth Through Employee Empowerment and Enagagement"

- David Usher, award-winning musician and entertainment social media participant and resident expert in a segment called "Behind the Music"

- Douglas Rushkoff - Narrative Lab Founder, award-winning docuumentarian ("Merchants of Cool" and "The Persuaders"), author (Media Virus and Get Back in the Box) and new media expert

- Julie Cole & Tricia Mumby, Founders- Mabel's Labels "Word of Mouth Works in the Mama Market" - and their amazing Canadian grassroots success changing the way we think about  and market to mommies

- Chris Matthews, Specialized Bikes - Vigilante Organization - Global Efforts in Building brand Awesomeness and a Sense of Brand Community - a guide for large companies on how to evoke the passion of your customer base regardless of your size

- Jim Button, VP Marketing, Big Rock Brewery - tales of great craft beer community tapping word of mouth building from its grassroots headquarters in Calgary

- Su McVey, VP, Marketing Planning, TD Bank Financial Group- changing the face on how banks market to their audiences

- Scott Brooks, Chief Evangelist and Co-Founder, ConceptShare - kickass BtB success and the power of testimonials built from of all places, Sudbury, the new hotbed for collaborative creative building

- Mike McDerment, Co-Founder and CEO, Freshbooks  - an extraordinary story of a bootstrapping Canadian company turned global success that has taken the pain out of accounting and invoicing clients

- William Azaroff, VanCity - a not-for-profit example of what you can do when you say "yes we can", the triple bottom line success of VanCity credit union and a webby award nominee sponsored social network "Change Everything" 

- Deborah Kaplan, Executive Director, Zerofootprint - for those that have been sleeping, "Green is in" - learn how Zerofootprint is enabling companies to change and buzz about their green credentials

- Malcolm Roberts, President, Smith Roberts Creative Communications - the mastermind behind the United Chruch of Canada's "Wonder Cafe" and Ontario Colleges "Obay" teaser campaign

- Ross Buchanan, Director, Molson Coors Relationship Marketing - how Canada's iconic beer company makes successful forays into word of mouth worlds and watchouts for those who tread there too

- Dan Hunter, Partner, IMI International - yes, you can measure word of mouth and what a bounce you can get vs. the traditional stuff, Dan shows you how

- Dave Balter, President, BzzAgent - one of WOM's pioneers demonstrates the ironclad argument for the ROI on word of mouth 

- I'll also be conducting a rapidfire session "In the Rainmaker's Studio" with 5 consummate WOM Canadian pros - asking them the important questions and getting their unique indivudal perspectives

Janice Diner - General Manager/Creative Director - Ripple Social Influence (part of Sharpe Blackmore Euro RSCG (social networks)

David Dougherty - VP, Strategy, Trapeze (viral, online WOM)

Claire Lamont - Partner & Creative Director, Smak (guerrilla, experiential, offline WOM)

Keith McArthur - Senior Director, Media Innovation, Veritas (social media)

Patrick Thorburn - Co-Founder, Matchstick  (influencer WOM, product seeding)

Nothing is more aggravating than having a hotbed of talent and not asking the right questions (file under Sarah Lacy).  We have the best group of moderators you'll ever find at any conference in Canada teeing it up for "From Mass to Grass":

Mitch Joel, President, Twist Image and ringleader behind blog and podcast Six Pixels of Separation - what can you say about Mitch that hasn't been covered, he's Seth Godin North (kind of looks like him too) 

Joseph Thornley, CEO, Thornley Fallis  - champion of PR's ride into social media, omnipresent and omniscient social networker, author of ProPR, the Gepetto of Third Tuesday's revival in Canada and change agent

Kate Trgovac, President & Chief Evangelist, LintBucket Media - social media goddess, Duchess of One Degree - Canada's hitching post for online stuff, author of one of my fave blogs My Name is Kate  and uber laptop bag maven 

David Jones, VP, Digital Communications, Hill & Knowlton - as he's better known "The Professor"(for his altruistic efforts to thought lead the Canadian media world into the new digital age), the intelligent voice behind the Inside PR podcast, PR Works blog and H&K's master online flack

Amber McArthur - Co Founder, MGI Media - new media journalist and web strategist, face behind award-winning podcast commandN, former Webnation host and PEI's charming gift to the online nation

Andrea Wojnicki, Professor, Rotman School of Business (U of T) - WOMMA Advisory Board member and Harvard published author on "Social Hubs"

I would be remiss if I didn't once again mention the "brains"and "energy" behind this conference...

Mirabel Palmer-Elliott -Group Director, Audience Development, Rogers Media - AIMs board member and fellow League of Kickass founder

Baron Mannett - Senior VP -Strategy and Client Development , Ariad Communciations - high WOM IQ and master of new media, custom content and experiential worlds

Michael Seaton - VP Marketing, Thornley Fallis - architect behind Scotiabank's Money Clip podcast and author of the always insightful The Client Side blog    

Allison Daisley - PR, Cake Beauty - otherwise know as the idea and enthusiasm spark and also purveyor of fine funky beauty products to boot   

Minnow Hamilton - Co-Founder, Savvy Mom - if a Mom should know about it, Minnow probably already knows

Steve Osgoode, Director, Online and New Media, Harper Collins - as mentiuoned to Steve many times, if i was in jail and I had one call to get me out, I likely would phone Steve - a master connector

Jay Moonah, Digital, Information Strategist, 58Ninety - budding hamster viral impressario, digital pro +++ and driving force beind blog Media Driving

Peter Coish - Founder of XYYZ Media Venture - builder of a community of guys and former agency head of Draft Canada

Kiran Balladin  Cathy Landolt, Scott Bartley and David Phillips , CMA - our conference planning experts, gurus, communicators and sponsorship whizzes

Sign up today or go to  our Facebook page, become a fan and get a code for $50 off before May 1st...and of course, spread the word.

My other colleague's post of "From Mass to Grass":

David at PR Works "Psst...50 dollars off CMA Word of Mouth Conference...Pass It On"

Kate at My Name is Kate "From Mass to Grass Returns"

Mitch at Six Pixels of Separation "SPOS #88"

Pew Research Nuggets #10 - Mirror, Mirror on The Media Wall, Who has the Smartest Readers/Viewers/Listeners of Them All?

It would appear the more  extreme you are in your political views, the smarter you are...kind of defies my life's worth of learning but sometimes numbers don't lie.