ThinkingSparks

Passion

 

Excited about the new year. This year's theme is DARE.

Developed 4 seminars for business owners. First ad is one of Axarquia's magazines tomorrow. Poke the box!

Setting up shop in Spain

So we moved to Spain. Sold the house in Amsterdam. Rented one in Andalucia. The sunshine and the view of the hills and the Mediterranean in the distance sure beat the rain and 40 neighbors looking into your backyard.

We explored our surroundings. Observed and listened. There is still a lot to learn and find out but I am poking the Spanish box. Let's see what happens...

 

Social media is not an option

Over the last half year or so I immersed myself in social media. Read a lot of stuff. Tried to weed out the self proclaimed gurus from the people who really know what they are talking about. And of course I dabbled in social media myself. I learned a lot and I would like to say that my learning curve has been very steep. Going up that is.

I needed to read up because when working for TNT Post as an interim manager on employer branding and job marketing we didn't use social media at all. Sounds like blasphemy, but thousands of people needed to be hired, while it looked like thousands of employees would lose their job. Strikes and labor unions were part of daily life back then and social media had been abused by disgruntled employees before so it was a no go back then. However, in the mean time the Communication Department strategized on how to deal with social media. They came up with some excellent guidelines that I blogged about last December.

So I was held back. Or so it felt. When awake from this "social media" less period of my life - I didn't even have time to write my blog back then - I realized that lots of organizations, professionals (even friends in the same line of work as I) don't use any form of social media. It reminded me of a friend who 13 years ago was working in food FMCG and proclaimed that the internet was of no use for his business. He was the commercial director and he was wrong. It still boggles my mind that people who work in branding, marketing or communication aren't on LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook. You don't have to be fanatic about it, but how do you know how it works or what it can do, if you do not use it? And if you don't use it how can you give the best advice possible to colleagues or clients?

Or course there are people who say that social media isn't for everyone or every organization. I beg to differ. I think social media has an impact on the organization and its brand(s).

It is very simple really. If branding is all about the image in the heads of the consumer, you have to listen to what they are saying about you. And they using social media to say it. So social media is not an option. You don't get to chose if you're in or out. It is mandatory. Your (potential) customers are out there talking about you and you should listen. It is the least you can do.

If your organizations is like most organizations it has employees. They use social media too and may say good or bad things about your organization. With service providers employees have always been creating moments of truth. Every interaction with customers is a moment of truth. The emergence of social media confronts other types of organizations with this phenomenon as well. Listening, and clear and simple guidelines would be a minimum involvement in social media for an organization with employees.

Businesses exist because they sell stuff. Person to person sales has taken on a whole new dimension with social media. Cold calling has been replaced by smart calling. That is, if you use social media to your advantage. And why wouldn''t you? I have never met anyone who likes cold calling. Nor have I ever met anywone who likes to be "cold called".

It is a challenge to figure out how to best use these media to your advantage. But you really have no choice in "if" you should use them. It influences your organization and your brand whether you use it or not.

To explore this topic I started the group The Social Brand on LinkedIn. Why don't you join me there?

 

Workshop on Positioning; March 24

This coming thursday I will be one of the speakers at the Women Event, an event for female entrepreneurs in The Netherlands. Check out the other speakers too: Annemarie van Gaal en Coco de Meyere (Dutch link only).

I will be doing a workshop on positioning in which we will do a quick scan of the positioning of the entrepreneurs' organization. There will be some homework to do and I will give each and every participant written individual feedback.

So if you are in The Netherlands and want to know if you have laid the foundations of your organization correctly come and join me.

Who do you feel comfortable with when asking for help?

My sabbatical is over and I want to start working again. Not as an interim manager anymore, but as a consultant, sparring-partner, issue coach, or whatever role it takes to help you solve your organization's problems when it comes to strategic fit, positioning, branding, services marketing and communication strategy.

So I wrote the business plan. The website in Dutch is done. The website in English is being finished this week. Check it out and let me know what you think.

It is also the time to ask people in my network for help. I know a lot of people, but I realized that I only feel comfortable enough to ask for help, with a limited number of people. Is that silly me or is that normal? Or should I not consider those people I do not feel comfortable with, part of my network.

Please give me your opinion. Or give a helping hand if you are comfortable with it.

Using Twitter: 100 days likes and dislikes

Although I have had a Twitter account for quite some time, I only really started using it about 3 months ago. As it is good usance to review after 100 days I thought I'd share my thoughts on using Twitter. Not that the world is waiting for another self-proclaimed social networking guru, but I just want to share and check my thoughts with others.

I found that I see Twitter as an extension of my working environment. It is how I act in the workplace in real life. I share knowledge and go looking for new insights. If I don't understand something I'll ask. If I do not agree I'll question and be my usual critical self (it is a gift you know). I also found I do not want to be all work and no play. So I utter things I would around the water cooler or coffee vending machine. Or have the small conversations I would have with people I meet on the go, at the trainstation or in the elevator. I like those short dialogs with people. I like the feeling that just for a short time I found a kindred spirit, or gained a new insight by an unexpected view of a virtual stranger. I like meeting new people and I like feeling connected.

But just as in real life there are things I do not like or get about people on Twitter. I do not get following zillions of people. The other day I started following someone who I thought to be interesting. He has more than 300.000 followers and to give him credit, he was also following a 300.000+ people back. But I wonder how you engage with so many people. There is no way to follow so many people and have time to do anything else worthwhile in your day to day life. I ended up unfollowing the person.

Also it seems to me that a lot of people use Twitter in an oldfashioned "one-to-many communication" kind of way. They use Twitter to broadcast and send out their messages. If they are real pros about it they automate, repeat and schedule their messages. There is in principal nothing wrong with all of these things but at times I feel like I am listening to the ongoing repetitive SOS signal on the island in Lost. To me it doesn't feel very sincere and the lifecycle of these messages are very short. Eventually I end up unfollowing those kind of people because they only advertise. They aren't sharing, they aren't opening up for dialogue, they never initiate dialogue.

I mostly use Twitter to learn and share about professional topics. I tend to follow people who do the same thing. Sometimes however people do not live up to my expectations. My bad, as they are my expectations. Having said that though I just don't get the "I woke up", "I had a coffee", "I arrived at the office" kinda updates. Who cares? It boggles my mind that those people actually have followers. I must admit that in one particular case I waited around for some big revelations, but they never came. So after 10 strikes, I unfollowed.

Sometimes I find messages undecipherable. It happens with messages that have lots of @'s, #'s and http's in them. I am not sure if it is just me but I find that my brain simply rejects them. My brain will command my eyes not to read them. Someone will probably do or is doing a study into the effectiveness of the 140 character message, but I am betting that all those at-signs, hashtags and URL's in one tweet add to the ineffectiveness of messages.

All in all I really like Twitter as a tool to meet, share and engage. I try to add a bit of myself to the mix in the process. I liked doing the #FF FollowFriday recommendations. But with the brain shutdown at the sight of too many  @'s and wanting to be sincere in my recommendations I started limiting the number of #FF's. So now I #FF 4 people every friday and motivate why I think other people should follow them too. It sparks dialogue, which I enjoy.

Want to share your thoughts on Twitter?

 

 

 

What happens if a partnership network doesn't share values

The other day I wrote about how to deal with a corporate brand in a partnership network. My view on it is that shared goals are not sufficient. You also have to share values among the partners. Be it a traditional supply chain, a network, a lateral partnership or a multilevel marketing organization.

Share goals and values increase congruent and thus consistent behavior in the network. Consistent behavior is needed to build a consistent brand during all moments of truth.

I came across an intersting article in USA Today. It talks about Amway and organizations like it. The whole question of them being MLM organizations or pyramid schemes isn't my point here. The relevance of the story is that Amway claims to have a code of conduct and apparently some of their distributors do not behave according to this code. It is similar to having laws and people breaking these laws.

Codes of conduct are nice but if people do not subscribe to the values that are the foundation of this code of conduct, they will have trouble living by these rules. It shows that sharing values as well as sharing goals is important.

Read the story for yourself. It is a good illustration of what happens when you do not share values within a partnership network.

Why everyone in corporate branding should read Schein

Yesterday I wrote about the strategic character of organizational culture. Just now - by chance - I came across the following quote. As I consider myself to be a follower of Edgar Schein's thought leadership, I could kick myself for not knowing this wonderful quote.

“The only thing of real importance that leaders do is to create and manage culture.”

-Edgar Schein, Award Winning Author and Professor MIT Sloan School of Management

 

Schein is a real guru who has been attributed with coining the term "organizational culture". I had the honor of taking a week of classes with him in the summer of 2004 and not only is he briliant, he is also inspiring.

I can recommend all his work, but this one is especially interesting with the strategic aspect of organizational culture and a leader's responsibility for it.

I believe and know from my head to my toes that succesful organizations and thus corporate brands are rooted in a healthy organizational culture. Branding for too long has focussed solely on external communication. Promissing the moon, but not being able to deliver that said moon.

Everyone in corporate branding should familiarize itself with the insights Edgar Schein has to offer.He is the expert on organizational culture. After the week of classes I took with Edgar Schein I had the chance to talk with him briefly and tested my view on the relation between corporate brands and his theory on organizational culture, with him. He said: "That is absolutely right.", and continued to elaborate on it. I still feel like a balloon about to pop when I think about it.

So if you are in corporate branding read his work. As a matter of fact, anyone who works in organizational change or development should be familiar with Schein's views. But I'll settle for the branding folks today.

Let me know if you think of Edgar Schein's views on organizational culture.

 

Why organizational culture is not solely the domain of HR & Communication

The other day I was reading this book on the process of positioning. A very useful book from two renowned authors. There were a couple of thing in the book that I see differently though. I polled one of them via Twitter.

The authors state that "business orientation", "core competences", "vision" and, "mission" are aspects of strategic management and are usually formulated by the board of an organization. "Organizational culture", "organizational values" and, "customer values" are the domain of HR and (Internal) Communication.

The poll was on the second sentence about culture and values being the domain of HR and Communication. I didn't receive hundreds of responses, even less than ten, but they were all unanimous in disagreeing with the second sentence.

I believe that organizational culture and organizatonal and customer values are strategic too. If you want a succesful positioning and a strong brand you need consistent organizational behavior at every moment of truth. Organizational culture influences organizational behavior and vice versa.That makes it a strategic issue. One that the leader of an organization certainly holds responsibililty for.That doesn't mean that HR and Communication can contribute their expertise, but they are not solely responsible.

To me this is a clear and shut case. But that may be because I believe in culture based brands.

Do you believe in culture based brands?