Sourcecrowding

Thanks to Blogdesignblog I heard today on twitter about a neat concept proposed by fellow twitterer cwestbrook : How You Can Help End the Problem of Blogs With Great Content and No Readers. It seems like a complementary idea to crowdsourcing with a collective action twist; cwestbrook is looking to develop a horde of bloggers who will commit in serial fashion to reading a selected blog of the group's for two weeks, and then move on to another. This reminds me of crowdsourcing, but in a twisted way - perhaps it is sourcecrowding? Where instead of throwing a problem out to the receptive masses for a solution to be generated, the seeking masses go roving around looking for a place to contribute. Almost like following the grateful dead from venue to venue, but way more geeky, like halloween socks complete with red flashing lights.

cwestbrook describes the benefit of this best in his own words:

"Imagine how it would feel to have those numbers and those people looking at your blog after it’s been frustratingly quiet for months. It would be tremendous. That blogger would be permanently bolstered, and it would all be because of the strength of their content, and anything that allows bloggers that focus fully on content to succeed is great for the medium."

I'm optimistic enough with a positive perspective on human nature to think this would be great.

Round crowd image by alex itin. But those feet are all mine.

Cream filled center of the marketing éclair

Yesterday I attended the American Marketing Association Conference on Digital Centered Marketing. It was a smaller group than attended the last such event on search engine marketing, but as such the group was very active and participatory instead of just being quietly receptive. That was pretty neat.

Featured speakers included:

• Bill Flitter, Founder of pheedo.com - Bill led a great discussion about how to leverage from one social site to another using connector sites, and explained persuasively why that was the right tact. He also provided an excellent case study re: Kryptonite locks and the power of social networks along with a very real dollars-based quantification of the impact. (One small criticism: his handouts made me feel a bit guilty - lots of 24-point font sentences on 66 pages of single sided paper. It presented well on screen but the handout wasn't designed as a handout, it was just a print of what was shown and not therefore as effective. I feel like I need to go plant a tree to make up for the gratuitous paper usage. Often presenters should consider providing multiple-slide per page layouts on double sided printouts to be more ecologically minded.)


• Toby Bloomberg of Bloomberg Marketing - great material on how to sell what social marketing is based on building relationships. She covered the basic netiquette of getting started in the social marketing arena. One helpful take away she provided was information about corporate blogging policies; see her post on this, Corporate Blogging Guidelines for further info.
  

• Dana VanDen Heuvel of MarketingSavant - Dana got closest to addressing the holy grail I was questing for by coming to the conference: how do I value social marketing efforts? Unfortunately, I don't think the medium is mature enough yet to start pricing it - or, the data is lacking for the analysis I want. Dana will be someone to check back with later though as I expect he'll take a swing at addressing this someday.

I twittered the event. Here's most of my tweetstream for the Digital Centered Marketing Event, excepting those posts I forgot to tag. Quick twitter lesson for online marketers - use the hash mark and a phrase to tag your tweets to group them for later indexing. (Hey twitter or twitter-analogues I have a feature request: how about an auto-tagging widget tag summary type tool?

The conference today was good, the AMA gives good Hot Topics. Thanks to the presenters! #AMADCM about 2 hours ago from web checking out slide.com #AMADCM about 5 hours ago from web now in the lab portion, we're assessing how today's lessons could be applied tomorrow. #AMADCM about 5 hours ago from web talking about the book Groundswell #AMADCM about 5 hours ago from web Currently Browsing: http://www.digitalcenteredm... is the event website. I love electronic handouts instead of paper. #AMADCM about 6 hours ago from TwitterBar I won a book in a corporate bingo - Citizen Marketers. So, now I have another book to review. Thanks Dana! #AMADCM about 6 hours ago from web Ok, I can hook this site to that and the other for updates. But what if one hook goes under? Better to keep the hub in house. #AMADCM about 6 hours ago from TwitterBar Social Marketing analysis of the Obama campaign - very topical insights, kudos Bill. #AMADCM about 6 hours ago from TwitterBar how to use rss to tie all the social networking sites together now. Write once post many. #AMADCM about 6 hours ago from TwitterBar thinking about product images on flickr and google images. How'd they get there? How do I get more up and promote the brand? #AMADCM about 7 hours ago from web Anyone else remember the the kryptonite blogstorm? Makes a good case study. #AMADCM about 7 hours ago from TwitterBar there is a fan for every product. But does it make sense that hot wheels has a market cap higher than GM? about 8 hours ago from web wondering whether the wii internet channel will support ads. Hmm. about 8 hours ago from web Bill Flitter, founder of pheedo now presenting http://www.tinyurl.com/AMAD... #AMADCM about 8 hours ago from TwitterBar wolfgang puck serves an awesome business lunch. #AMADCM about 8 hours ago from web word of mouth recommendations from an person on the take is only 63% as effective as unbiased recommendations online. about 10 hours ago from web Social marketing gives you answers to questions that you never asked. Yes, but how to separate the wheat from the chaff? about 10 hours ago from web reviewing a recommended article http://tinyurl.com/trustand... #AMADCM about 10 hours ago from web Now speaking at the AMA digital centered marketing conference: Toby Bloomberg of Bloomberg Marketing about 11 hours ago from TwitterBar Over 63% of reviews on Amazon.com are positive. Maybe I shouldn't be so cynical. #AMADCM about 12 hours ago from web A recent verified study for a Christian Women's group found only 3% of women age 33-50 were social networking. #AMADCM about 12 hours ago from TwitterBar "We're in the beta economy." Awesome quote, given market conditions. about 12 hours ago from TwitterBar doing digital centered marketing right requires a solid CRM strategy too. Well, of course! about 12 hours ago from web there are 7000+ variations of the my coke rewards program emails, varied by behavioral heuristics. Dang. about 12 hours ago from web Dana VanDen Heuvel of MarketingSavant is now presenting re: Assessing the impact of new media. I want numbers. about 12 hours ago from web Jupiter research says: social network users are 3x more likely to trust peer opinions over advertising in purchase decisions. about 12 hours ago from web Today I'll be live tweeting from the AMA conference Digital Centered Marketing http://www.tinyurl.com/AMAd... about 12 hours ago from web Awake in Chicago. about 14 hours ago from twitterrific

I won a book in a corporate bingo (caught Bill saying 'target market' - ha! The book is Citizen Marketers by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba. So, now I have another book to review soon. Dana said they selected it as a good review of the evolution of the 'everyone is in the marketing department' idea. Thanks Dana!

I learned of a bunch of interesting sites I will soon check out. Top on my list is the digital centered marketing event website. I am very, very impressed that this was available immediately after the event with the slides and references. There was some great discussion going on with fellow students in the class; I wonder if that discussion will be able to continue on the site?

The majority of the sites discussed are bookmarked at http://delicious.com/digitalcenteredmarketing. And of course I will have to dive into their list of 24 books on digital centered marketing that they recommend.

Choices

When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a Choice Architect

My Grandmother's Chest

When I was a teenager, I first noticed an old linen chest that my grandmother kept in the basement with a few potted houseplants atop it. The chest was interesting to be because of the elaborate combination lock on the front and the heavy solidity and history of it - I used to imagine that Houdini could have used it for one of his acts, had he been able to lift it. The wood is heavy, difficult to move around, and dangerous in that there is no guard to stop the lid from crashing down on one's fingers.

Even so, I've always liked the piece and it has usually found itself in a prominent place in my home. Unfortunately, the damage to the wood veneer from Grandma's zealous houseplant watering left some unsightly blemishes which I covered up with a cushion. I always wanted to get it repaired, but estimates were way too costly and I wasn't sure who to trust with the piece. I have no other heirloom pieces, so if this one was lost or ruined I'd be out of my furniture heritage entirely.

Fortunately, Paul at Paul A Howard custom furniture set me up nicely by upholstering the top with some nifty brass tacks adorning the new leather. It coordinates nicely with the house, and the leather is grainy enough that even with everyday use it should hold up well. Thanks Paul!

Quirked

I picked this one up over at fidoknits. The fact that I regularly read a blog devoted to knitting when I've never knitted one... knitlet... could count as a quirk, but I'll give that one as a freebie.

Here's how to play:

1) Link to the person who tagged you (yup)
2) Mention the rules (if you can read this, then yes, I've mentioned the rules)
3) Tell six quirky yet boring, unspectacular details about yourself
4) Tag six other bloggers by linking to them (I follow the precedent set by fido, above: please self-report your linkage, if such applies to you. Honesty is its own reward.)
5) Go to each person’s blog and leave a comment that lets them know they’ve been tagged (I hereby faithfully swear to execute the office of recursive tagger, should you henceforth post a comment that you've done your quirky duty).

So now that the preamble is over... Here's Eva's list o'quirks:
1. I played the alphabet game a lot as a kid on car rides, and still lapse into it as an adult when I'm traveling by car.

2. I really like my beagle's big floppy ears, they are so goofy and soft. If could find a way to do it that didn't involve animal cruelty, I'd make a blanket out of beagle ears.

3. I refuse to throw out even the most hideous and sickly of houseplants; if it is alive, it can stay and fight for another day.

4. I rescue spiders and crickets from inside the house and release them outside. Mosquitoes, millipedes, and moths are summarily executed.

5. I have a wide variety of socks, in various seasonal and color assortments. This includes a pair for St. Patrick's day, flag day/memorial day/independence day, Halloween and of course Winter Solstice. Plus a variety of striped, fuzzed, bedazzled and toe-socked varieties. Ok, not bedazzled (that would be weird).

6. My sleep habits are easily upset.

Lunar the Coonhound available for adoption

One reason I love dogs is for their philosophy of life - no matter what happened yesterday, each day is a new day and most dogs will easily move on and put their past behind them. Lunar certainly needed all of this attitude to make it as far as he has - when we got him, he was extremely thin and weak. With some extra feedings and TLC, he has come into his own rapidly and is just the funniest ungainly hound, so eager to please you that he tries to sit up for a treat even though he falls over each time.

'Lunar' has a blog on indypaws.com too - check out Lunar the Coonhound's blog.



If you'd like to help Lunar find a new home, please feel free to print out and hang the Bluetick Coonhound flyer at any place pet pals gather - the vets, the dog bakery, or agreeable pet supply stores. And thanks for the help!

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