Social Awareness Online: Part 2

Becoming socially aware in the social space, and understanding the need to be just as active in the "doing" of life, my wife was handed a great opportunity.

The young girl she will be helping, thanks to the Make A Wish Foundation, has been battling leukemia and has dreamed of a Fairy Tale celebration. My wife is going to work hard to make this happen.

Opportunities like this are attainable for anyone if you understand that even in the social space, maybe even moreso, it's important to be aware of your community and the needs of your network.

I challenge all of you to find something that you can put your network to use for to help elevate another person, or, like in my wife's case, find a way to make their dreams happen.

The social web can be as big or small as we want to make it, but there is no denying the impact of "DOING".

Social Awareness Online: Part 1

Being a part of the social web is more than just conversation, promoting, networking, and sharing. I think a large part of what we forget is the DOING.

Taking all the conversation, promoting, networking and sharing to the next level and making an impact in your life or someone elses. Becoming socially aware that your community is no longer just your backyard but in essence is the entire world can make "doing" a little intimidating.

What I want to share is a success story of just what "doing" can bring about. My wife has just recently launched two online initiatives, one focusing on couples another on her profession, fashion design. Beyond promoting what she is doing and the networks she is building she is always seeking opportunities to use that network to do something bigger than herself.

Finally today all her diligence has paid off and the Make A Wish Foundation has selected her to fulfill a young girls dream of going to a ball and feeling like Cinderella on her own custom gown.

Microsoft Blunders Family Guy Marketing Partnership

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I'm not going to get too deep into this, if you do a Google search you'll surely find enough information from just about anyone in technology, entertainment, social media, traditional media, and marketing/advertising.

I wonder sometimes about the sensibility of the marketing department when a failure like this happens. Microsoft immediately, and embarrasingly, pulls their marketing in a partnership that had been originally established with Fox and Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane. This comes just days after Microsoft touted this new collaboration as something that was sure to be a success.

The cause?

Someone actually sat down and watched an episode of Family Guy and realized that the “riffs on deaf people, the Holocaust, feminine hygiene and incest” were “not a fit with the Windows brand.”

Really? Someone should have just asked the intern what Family Guy was before committing.

I can just imagine how the stuffy board meeting must have gone.

- "We need to market ourselves as cool, hip, and funny."

- "Let's find a popular TV show that our target market will be watching."

- "How about Full House? What about Family Matter? Those are wholesome shows."

- "Those shows aren't on TV anymore, they haven't been for a very long time."

- "WHAT!? Why wasn't I informed."

- "Hey look at this TV guide, there's a show called Family Guy, let's contact Fox and get this partnership going."

- "Yes sir!" (said in unison as the minions run off to make phone calls)

- "Yes, Family Guy sounds like a great show, I wonder if they have that Urkel on there, he's one funny guy."

Note: I swear I didn't have the office bugged...no really I didn't.

The lesson from all this? Be sure to know where your taking your brand BEFORE you commit to a marketing partnership.

Keep It Simple, Never Complicate

I just felt compelled to share something that bugged me today on three different occasions. I found myself hurredly attempting to complete online tasks that had a definite timeline and in doing so became increasingly frustrated with redesigns or new procedures. I go to do research on a topic and the site I bookmarked a week ago has all of a sudden undergone a major re-design and I now cannot find the information that I had thought would be there when I went back. In my search of it, it turns out that content past a certain date was not brought over to the redesign and I thus had to do further searching for related and relevant content.

Secondly, I go to a bank site to gather information only to find that instead of the original process of logging into an account, I now have to re-verify, wait for an email, authorize, go back to the site, and leap through four, yes I said four, landing pages just to finally get to my information.

A lesson for all companies out there that are considering re-branding, re-designing, or re-doing any of their processes, please keep the end user in mind and keep it simple. Overly complicated processes that keep me or anyone else from getting to what they want only frustrates us and drives us away.

Just because it makes sense to you, does not mean that will translate to the user.

If you've had a similar experience today, this week, or even this year, share that with us. How would you have handled it had you been the company?

Photo Credit Sybren A. Stuvel

New Should Be A Habit

There's nothing more frustrating than running stagnant in what you're doing. I think something most of us fear is trying something new, or adding something new into our lives. Most of us, just by sheer instincts of human nature, feel comfortable in what is familiar and known.

I say break out of that, be innovative, creative, outspoken, experimental, an early adopter, and change the way you live life. A common rule of thumb I try hard to live by is to never let life happen, but rather make life happen.

It's the little things that can make a big difference.

So as we go into the weekend here's something to consider. Try something new for a change. Try a new food, walk into a different store, pick up a book you would not otherwise read, talk to someone you don't know, watch a movie in a genre you don't normally watch, open yourself up to a new experience. By diversifying life and who you are you can add joy into just about anything.

If you do something new, let me know. Share your story, and I'll share mine next week with all of you.

Under Construction - New Online Look

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The Daily Slackr is getting a new look online as we work towards developing our brand further. This is just phase one of the changes coming up for the site, and phase II is planned for summer of 2010. So while we have a little time I ask that you "pardon our dust" as changes are being made.

In a time when branding has been on my mind pretty heavily, I'm looking at many of my other projects that have transformed and I quickly realized that this site has remained the same for going on two years, and it didn't really have a look or feel that was identifiable.

The construction of this site should hopefully be done by the weekend, but in the meantime enjoy the posts, feel free to continue to leave comments, and reach me in the following ways:

Twitter: @LuisSandovalJr
Facebook: Daily Slackr
Skype: luissandovaljr
email: luissandovaljr@gmail.com

I'm always looking to hear from you can connect with new people.

So now I ask this, what changes have you made lately to something that perhaps has gotten stagnant in your life? It does not necessarily have to do with tech or business, life changes are just as important.

Media Minute

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Focusing on Crowdsourcing

Just a quick post that I wanted to share with our audience that perhaps has not been watching the Twitter stream. Watching the discussions today and interacting with a few contacts, a leading social engagement professional and key brand builder, Chris Brogan, re-tweeted a message from another leading social engagement professional Tim Hayden regarding the modern state of focus groups.


Yes, according to Tim Hayden, "the focus group is dead." As you let that sink in, I'd like you to consider what your company has done. When was the last time you organized a real life focus group to test your product or service?

Online networks allow us to crowdsource these days which gives us access to people of all walks of life, from all corners of the globe, within all demographics, providing a much deeper well of differences than perhaps a real world focus group could be. Not to mention the time spent sifting through applicants just to pick the perfect candidates for your test group which is drastically reduced by tapping your online networks.

So here's the question, what's your company doing to test services and products? Are you still using traditional focus groups? If so why? Have you decided to tap online communities and crowdsource for feedback? How has that worked for you?

New Media Requires New Ideas

A few days ago I was surfing the net, doing research for a client that I'll soon be working with, and in that time I became frustrated with the sites that I found. One of the things that I talk about when discussing the proper use of new media is how back in the mid-to-late nineties, companies would build websites and walk away. This assumption that a website was a billboard was so prevalent that few spoke out in outrage. Very few actually "got it" when it came to a digital platform to engage a worldwide audience. Those that got it updated their site regularly and provided fresh content that users would find interesting, keeping them returning for the latest updates.

More recently, while browsing my Twitter stream, I was reminded that some of the sites I had recently searched were still stuck in 'billboard mode." At what point did they not get the message? Who thought it would be a good idea to assume that online audiences would keep coming back to a site that remained static throughout it's life?

Here's a piece of advice for all those designing websites, no matter the reason. What worked in the mid-to-late nineties does not work today. Remaining static and unchanging makes you irrelevant. Despite what you think, your audience will not come back, they were not engaged, and their lives were not enriched by the experience. You stand to be quickly forgotten and your competition, if doing this differently, stands to gain greatly by your lack of effort.

Suggestion. Look at your web presence. Make your company interesting, engaging, and interactive. Websites, social profiles, blogs are not billboards, they can be living, breathing pieces of marketing with huge benefits to your company.

Photo Credit mediaboytodd

Deconstructing Society

In the many interactions I have at networking events, speaking engagements, and other social gatherings, I find it shocking at how prevalent some of the fears people have on social engagement. I can't say that the fears are entirely unfounded, but to allow those fears to keep someone from entering the digital social space concerns me because by severing that opportunity, you sever the chance to expand your voice, extend your brand's influence, and your also sever the ability to learn from others with unique perspectives.

Most recently the one fear that was mentioned by more than one person was the fear of how social media has begun the deconstruction of real life interactions. This perceived change in how we communicate with one another is the crux of why a new generation lacks the socialetiquette to interact in real life professional situations and creates an awkwardness that is hard to overcome for those that lack those social skills. In a sense, real face to face communication is being replaced by constant connectivity to networks like Twitter, instant messaging, video chats, and other supplemental forms of media.

The fear comes from a generation that still remembers what it meant to have a firm handshake, a look in the eye, and the ability to read body language. I'm not that far removed from those days, but for someone who's been involved in media for over 10 years, it's been a clear cut understanding for me on which medium is most appropriate for what I have to communicate. The question I ask is, with all the technology that is introduced in our lives, are we failing to promote face to face interactions, encouraging people to rely on social networks to pass the message along?

I have always been an advocate for using social media to supplement your real life relationships, not to replace it, but I'm a rare breed of my generation that understands the need for both. Do you see us losing ourselves to these networks? Do you see a younger generation deferring to online networks and growing into social awkwardness?

I'd like to hear your thoughts on that. The fear to me seems almost silly, while I understand it, I just don't see it happening. But I'm looking at the issue from my own eyes. Perhaps your eyes see something different.

Photo Credit John H.M. Tsang