For those of you who haven’t heard, Voices That Matter was the 4th installment of a 2 day conference held in sunny San Fran featuring some of the most innovative speakers & writers of our industry. Topics ranged from HTML5, CSS3, mobile optimization, web typography, social networks, user experience, microformats, and more. I’d like to share an overview of the more memorable presentations of the conference.

Who were some of the speakers that killed it? Jesse James Garrett (The Obi-Wan Kenobi of User Experience Design) explored the topic that a quality web experience is much more than just a pretty design. Beyond the surface, constructing a website is a delicate balance of strategy, scope, and structure. Physical and emotional engagement are essential for a memorable online experience, whether it be on a laptop or a mobile phone. Designers are more of maestros orchestrating many moving parts in order to create a beautiful web symphony.

With many different devices and competing browsers emerging, a popular question in web design today has been: “Should all websites look the same to everyone?” The answer, Todd Parker insists, is “Nope.” Designers shouldn’t worry if their intricate jQuery image carousel works on Grandma’s old IE6 browser. The question then becomes: “Will my website still achieve the same goal if used in a less capable environment?” Basic usability & functionality can be built for all devices and browsers with carefully planned markup. When that is taken care of, a designer can then add the frills of progressive enhancement to their site, catered to those who are capable of it. State-of-the-art design techniques are rewarded to those who choose to be a little more modern.

My favorite presentation of the conference was Paul Adam‘s “Designing for the Real Life Social Network.” His points on the social web, human connections, relationships, influence, identity, and privacy hit close to home with the work we deal with every day here at Carrot. The web is shifting from data-centered information to social-centered relationships, and it is essential for designers to understand human behavior if they want to create in this space correctly. Through his studies with Google, he broke down an average Facebook user’s “friends” into different categories – strong ties, weak ties, and temporary ties. Each play a different yet important role in the lives of social network users, and interaction among these ties provides clues as to why we participate in the social web in the first place. Just like in real life, trust and privacy issues remain a huge concern every time a user uploads a piece of themselves online. I can go on and on about Paul’s fascinating studies, but I strongly recommend pre-ordering his upcoming book “Social Circles: How offline relationships influence online behavior and what it means for design and marketing” to learn more.

Thanks again to all of the speakers and the folks at New Ryders who made this inspirational event possible. Can’t wait to bring some of the California Love back to Carrot Creative’s east coast operations.

This article is copyright © 2010 

Banksy

I spent my Sunday afternoon skimming some of my old(ish) marketing books, particularly one of my favorite sections from the The Adweek Copywriting Handbook about assumed constraints in history. There was so much assimilation to the challenges in social media I just had to blog about it.

A few examples from the section:

“Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value.“
Ferdinand Foch, commander of Allied Armies in World War 1.

“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.“
Irving Fisher, professor of economics, Yale University, 1929.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.“
Thomas Watson Sr., president of IBM, 1943.

“So we went to Atari and said ‘Hey we’ve got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we’ll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we’ll come work for you.’ And they said ‘No.‘ ” This was related by Steve Jobs of Apple, on his attempts in the mid-1970s to get Atari interested in his and Steve Wozniak’s personal computer.

“A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research report says America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make.”
In response to Debbi Fields’ idea of starting Mrs. Fields Cookies.

And my favorite… “640K ought to be enough for anybody.”
Bill Gates, Microsoft founder, 1981.

Those of us with a vocation for social media must never let assumptions take hold of our our creative potential, since the philosophy of this industry really has no limits.  We must go balls to the wall.  If Carrot’s ability to help clients was limited by what ‘was possible’, we would be no different than these large-house agencies now offering “social media” as service offering (#burn).  We’re a full-service new media agency, all of it done in house. We work hard to stay on the pulse of what’s new and has that ‘social hotness’.  We encourage our developers to have pet projects to learn the newest technologies through our Carrot Labs program.  We build on platforms and APIs that won’t be popular for another six months.  All this and more are reasons why we can service our clients disregarding any perceived limitations. There is allllways a way to work around problems or optimize a current digital strategy.

Unfortunately, clients often feel constrained by these perceived limits.  It is the responsibility of the agency to continuously introduce new features and platforms to help break down the walls of assumed constraints. The creative challenge lies within the ancillary restrictions (budget, timing, etc…), while coming up with the creative becomes the secondary objective. Obviously concepts like augmented reality or QR codes might be more costly and timely, so it’s up to us as an agency to customize the creative process to stay innovative, while keeping the limitations of the client in mind.

Oftentimes, clients are quick to assume that certain platforms or features wouldn’t apply to their product or business.  Be it because they’re not familiar with the platform yet or they still haven’t found the brands “voice” yet, whatever the reason, NEW can be a scary word. That is why our creative team is spending time thinking about concepts for clients we haven’t even signed yet (or in a few cases, clients we don’t even have a contact for!)  Our motto is “always be ready, be one step ahead”.

Naturally in hindsight, it’s amazing that those historical constraints were ever considered. Carrot Creative is constantly reminded that whenever we hear “you think so?” or “is that even possible?”,  it’s just a reminder that we’re on the right path.  It’s when we look past these limitations that we find brilliance.

This article is copyright © 2010 

As reported on Mashable, “Syracuse University has purchased six-month subscriptions to Brand-Yourself.com’s online reputation management platform for all 4,100 of its graduating seniors.” In my opinion this is a win, both for Syracuse University and the class 2010.

As many graduates approach the great migration from college to the real world, some are beginning to clean up their social media profiles, however, many are not.  “According to a recent study by Cross-Tab Marketing services, 75% of HR departments worldwide are required to screen job candidates online,” quotes Mashable. Social Media is rapidly becoming just as important as a GPA, but this isn’t a new concept. Carrot’s CEO Robert Gaafar and President Mike Germano both taught classes about Online Reputation Management at Quinnipiac University. The course, then in 2008, consisted mostly of Google Search results and Facebook Profile management.  Because, let’s face it, most employers don’t enjoy seeing a potential employee do keg stands (well, except for Carrot).  But now it’s more than just Facebook and Google; recruiters are now actively looking for the music you listen to, the videos you post, the tweets you make, or the bars you check-in to. Now is the time to switch the tides, students.

Personal social media management should no longer be just about crisis management and Natty Light untagging; personal social media management can work in your favor. As businesses begin branding and communicating in the realm of social media, they are looking for people who are familiar with the space and how it operates. That doesn’t necessarily mean keeping everything PG-13, but rather showcasing both personality and dexterity. They WANT to see you on Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, Foursquare…yadda, yadda, yadda, so they feel comfortable putting their brand’s reputations in your hands. After speaking to Patrick Ambron, CMO of Brand-Yourself.com, Brand-Yourself and other coporations are doing exactly this. The site “educates individuals about the importance of their online reputation and the different tools and techniques that help them put their best foot forward on the web.”  Their recent deal with Syracuse University is a great first step for universities in general.

As a student that just graduated in 2009, I can strongly say that every opportunity I have received so far has been due to Social Media. In my graduation class, that was a very odd and unique statement to admit amongst my peers. I will begin to put my bottom dollar on the fact that universities nationwide will not only begin to follow Syracuse’s lead, but that Social Media guides, courses and majors will be standard, starting this year. Patrick also agrees, “Very soon I think all career services (university or professional) will be helping clients put their best foot forward on the web. They will have no choice.”

Here are a few tips from Carrot to help recent graduates get a leg up in the Social Media space:

• Follow other people in your industry and talk to them.  Think of it as approaching someone new at a bar.  Be polite, but show your fun side.
• Choose an appropriate avatar and use the same one for every single site you’re on.  This will help your face become recognizable from constant repetition.  Remember, consistency is key when it comes to branding.
• Don’t leave out LinkedIn.  You may not have a lot of job experience yet, but those people you want to showcase your work to?  Yeah…they’re on LinkedIn.  List your activities, class projects, volunteer work or whatever it is you’ve gotten yourself involved in and search for those who’ve done the same.
• Participate!  Don’t be the shy kid standing in the corner, jump into conversations.
• Leave insightful comments on the blogs you read.  Not only will you pet the ego of the author, but more importantly you’ll expose yourself to others interested in the same subjects.
• Never forget that the groundswell is about person-to-person activity.  Ultimately, Social Media is simply connecting person to person, just like a phone call or face-to-face conversation would.  Whether it’s a recruiter, CEO, professor or coworker; they’re all just as human as you.  Chill out, relax and be yourself.
• Be patient.  Just because you’re tweeting and commenting to people does not mean they’ll get back to you right away.  Keep it up.  The more they see your name, the more likely they’ll ultimately talk back.

This article is copyright © 2010 

At its very core, Facebook has set out to make it dead-pan simple to integrate Facebook all over the web (see: CNN.com, Yelp.com). So what does that mean for the way we surf the web? A lot. Allow me to explain…

Social Plugins
Facebook has released a suite of social plugins that make it amazingly simple to add contextual and social features to your existing website. Most prominent and perhaps effective example is the new “Like” plugin. Facebook has decided to make the “Like” it’s most central property, after of course, the user. By allowing the ability to Like almost any content on the web, Facebook aims to centralize user preferences and activity by allowing all users to Like content. An interesting aspect to the new web-wide Like is that “liked” content will now be part of your profile info, therefore using user actions to drive preferences, rather then profile forms.

Here’s a quick run-through of some other Social Plugins you will no doubt be encountering in your travels:

Activity Feed – An embeddable mini-feed of recent activity for your website. User’s friends show up first, then the rest of user activity, including shares and likes.

Comments – Not new to the Facebook bag of tricks, but now much easier to implement.  You can now add Facebook comments to your website or blog posts. This resembles posting to a User’s wall – with a nice checkbox to add published posts to the poster’s profile (say that five times fast).

Facepile – 
A really nice way to show potential users which of their friends have signed up for your website by showing a row of profile pictures.

Login with Faces – 
A single sign-on button. This combines a Facebook Connect like sign-in, while showing a version of Facepile to encourage engagement.

Recommendations – 
A nice embeddable widget that offers users recommendations on content. Signed out users see the most popular interactions with your website, while signed-in users get recommendations pulled from the interactions your friends have, allowing it to recommend content more intelligently.

The Open Graph – Get used to this term, Open Graph, because soon enough you will be hearing and seeing it all over. The Open Graph Protocol is Facebook’s attempt to create a seamless and semantic way to connect users and content all over the web. Now to a lot of people that doesn’t mean much – but soon enough you will see the impact such an ambitious protocol will have.

By connecting real-life content like celebrities, brands, products, movies (you know the stuff they have Facebook Pages for) to Facebook’s Open Graph – Facebook is able to make intelligent connections by studying user preferences and interactions. Furthermore, by promoting semantic indexing, using snazzy HTML5 style meta tags, Facebook is able to smoothly index what would normally be scattered all over the web, into clear contextual searches and relationships. The ability to add context to web content is incredibly powerful.  Contextually, it’s something many companies have worked towards (see: http://getglue.com/) but with Facebook’s influence – this will have a massive impact.

What does it all mean?

Facebook has become the party everyone wants an invitation to, and they’re charging at the door.  For one, it means you are going to see A LOT more of Facebook around the internet. The inherent value of Facebook’s social tools and ease of implementation makes it a great opportunity for content generators to create discussion and interaction. Of course, this doesn’t just benefit the content creators – but greatly helps Facebook’s reach around the web.

Facebook has always been able to make associations and hypertarget users through their friends, fans, and interests – but now, by positioning itself all over the web, Facebook can also make connections by the way you surf. Where Google indexes the world by what they are looking for, Facebook may soon be able to index the world once you get there (and know what your favorite band is too).

It’s a classic business model with a new-wave twist. Offer consumers something of such high value that they become evangelists, proliferate and repeat. In this man’s opinion, I can see this working towards a world-wide advertising platform. Imagine a world where ads are not only contextually accurate (see: Open Graph) but hyper-acute. It’s clear Facebook is positioning themselves with their influence and leverage to offer such unique data to the rest of the world. Who is the end user? Who are their friends? What are their interests? Where do they hang out online? These are all questions marketers strive to infer, but soon enough, Facebook will have the answers.

This article is copyright © 2010 

Eduard ended up jumping at the opportunity. Within a few days he began a social media initiative posting this video for his supporters.  Now, whether or not this actually becomes a hit is irrelevant to this post.  Eduard is a successful example of what many companies are implicating or should start doing: listening, reacting and using an open window to develop something bigger.

These are the crucial tools to a successful social media campaign.  Communities thrive around companies like Ford and Zappos because they listen and respond within minutes, hours or at the longest a couple days.  As businesses that are new to social media begin to hire social media teams and agencies, efficient communication and transparency are both critical to a growing campaign. Even though many companies notice how important social media is, seeing a 75 year old man see and act on it demonstrates a great example to follow.

Another recent example is in the growing popularity of Chatroulette.  A few companies have dipped their toe in the water, testing marketing possibilities but only one stands out, Ode to Merton. Based off of the original viral video, Ode to Merton, Ben Folds ended up taking it to another level.  During a live concert, Ben Folds decided to make his own Ode to Ode to Merton. Within 2 days of posting, the video garnered almost 700,000 views, with the possibility of more videos and many, many, many more views to come.  I am not one to compliment someone for copying, but what I do admire is that he jumped almost immediately at the opportunity to implicate this during his concerts.  Personally I hope someday the original man behind Ode to Merton and Ben Folds will pair up, but I fear the internet may implode on itself unable to handle that amount of awesomeness.

I have to say that it is unfair to compare a social media stunt by Ben Folds or the star of a growing meme to a company just getting into social media.  Ben and Eduard have buzz, popularity and an international fan base already working in their favor.  But the base of this article is the opportunity.  Especially now, it is important for companies to open up and start diving into social media instead of slowly waltzing in.  There are possibilities developing everywhere and as this growing sector of marketing develops it’s better to learn with it, than not learn at all.

This article is copyright © 2010 

My prediction is that there is much more to come for this type of “ionospheric” implementation of the Twitter platform. Ideally Twitter will become the de-facto standard for sending a “personal” note to anyone, anywhere. Users can easily and actively vet incoming communications in a separate space from their traditional, and practically sacred, inboxes.

@anywhere will push relevant users to the forefront and allow Twitter accounts to become a more mainstream tool for interpersonal communication. Judging by the early screenshots, I’d say the Twitter team is still catering to power-users and not doing enough to make the service accessible to the masses. Case-in-point—to re-tweet, reply, or view a users profile page they seem to only use icons. While this is accepted iconography within the Twitter community, it will not open up the platform to casual observers—an absolute must if they continue to organically grow their user-base.

The bigger-picture implications of @anywhere come in the simple fact that the future of communication will come not from impersonal phone numbers, but from personalized “usernames” that will make exchanging quick messages with friends seem like a world away from the numerical strings that made up the majority of email addresses until the launch of the mainstream version of AOL in the early ‘90s. Instead of limiting ourselves to simple text transactions, I can see the Twitter ecosystem opening up to include a wide-swath of communications options—voice and long-form messaging, along with the short bursts of text we’re currently using it for.

It could become a switchboard for the modern era, nicely sidestepping and/or complementing everything Google has rolled out over the past six months.

As soon as we get our hands on the platform we’ll be able to post a more robust commentary on whether the future value of this tool is in the sheer number of sites its placed within (a potential advertising platform), or whether it serves as a launchpad for future structural changes for the service (communications switchboard).

This article is copyright © 2010 

Greasin’ the Wheels is submersing yourself in the problem, the execution and the potential. We are in the most exciting time to be in the advertising industry, since the 1960s creative revolution.  We are witnessing communication with consumers move into uncharted territories.  There are unlimited possibilities that have never been done before, nor fathomed 10 years ago. Ideas are developing into forms of Alternate Reality Gaming and Interactive Location based Social media, growing more complex and organic.  But a good concept always boils down to the three important pieces mentioned earlier, a.k.a. the three wheels:  the problem, execution and potential.

The Problem:
We have one goal in advertising: solve the problem.  Every creative idea revolves around that simple sentence, but a lot of the time it gets lost in the hoopla.  Nothing unclogs the creative drain better than going back and determining what is the problem.  This then leads to a clearer message, a satisfied client and champagne for everyone. Salute.

The Execution:
The execution is the meat and potatoes of concepting.  There are books on how to approach creative thinking written by people that have years, degrees and awards that go beyond my knowledge.  I won’t bore with the same old yadda.  But the fact that everyone is involved separates Carrot from any other group I have worked with.  In my introduction I mentioned Katy, Mike and I; to clarify that is the Head of Communications, the President and the Intern, all greasin’ out ideas together.  An open, humble environment is essential to creating and refining a good idea into a great one.

The Potential:
This is the newest part of the creative puzzle and honestly where the true greasin’ happens.  The potential of a successful, awesomesauce concept lies in the hands of the consumer.  Campaigns are now constantly evolving in the digital space as communities are built around the brand.  Pieces like user generated content and engagement are not to be feared, but embraced.  So don’t only think how people will view it, think where people will take it.

If all three of these wheels are well greased and cranking, we’re on the right track.  We may all look like lunatics but sometimes you have to think a little crazy to get a little creative.

This article is copyright © 2010 

Recently I had the privilege of participating in a groundbreaking social media study underwritten by Cisco, spearheaded by one of my mentors, Dr. Neil Hair and sponsored by my Alma Mater,  Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) and the University of Navarra. The comprehensive global study sought to better understand how consumer-based social media tools effect both interpersonal collaboration within a corporate setting and external communication with key stakeholders.

The direct impact of this study is not only a greater understanding of what sort of best practices have arisen in the advertising/PR industry but also how many firms actually have such policies. It’s fascinating to see how firms of different sizes and specialties leverage either embrace or choose to ignore the power of conversational messaging.

A quoted excerpt from the published report:

“At Carrot, we live and breathe social media. We work with our clients to build the best social media strategies that will help them meet their business goals and reach more customers. What we’re working to instill with our clients is the idea that information consumption is no longer a passive task. Instead, businesses need to take a proactive approach with their brand and demonstrate to customers that they are hearing and delivering on their needs, now and in the future.” – Maury Postal

Some additional highlights:

• Of the organizations interviewed, 75 percent identified social networks as the consumer-based social media tools they primarily use, while roughly 50 percent of the group also identified extensive use of microblogging.
• Only one in seven of the companies noted a formal process associated with adopting consumer-based social networking tools for business purposes, indicating that the potential risks associated with these tools in the enterprise are either overlooked or not well understood.
• Only one in five participants identified any policies in place concerning the use of consumer-based social networking technologies in the enterprise.

We at Carrot recognize the challenges that large organizations face when trying to implement an external facing social media campaign. Enacting a clear set of usage guidelines and content directives are key to any mass-scale digital communication initiative—something we’ve not only helped some of the largest organizations on the planet formulate and place into practice—but also take to heart internally. We pride ourselves on our interaction with every major mainstream social media tool as well as understanding the implications of having our people in the public eye—something any business, of any size needs to come to terms with in the modern age of always on, immersive media.

The full findings of the study are published here.

This article is copyright © 2010 

Top sports business trade journal, The Sports Business Exchange, chose Jeff Brunelle as their weekly sports professional to highlight.  As Carrot Creative’s Director of Sports & Entertainment, Jeff is the go-to guy for the social media and communication strategies for some of todays most successful athletes and sports organizations.  Impressively, Jeff is also the co-founder of LacrosseAllStars.com, with friend Ryan Craven, the leading content hub for lacrosse news and fan commentary.

An excerpt:

If you could give one piece of advice to young sports business professionals coming up the ranks behind you, what would it be?
Work hard and mind the details. People remember if you make mistakes, but if you get things right every time you’re accountable. That can go a long way.

Everyone here at Carrot knows how great Jeff is and we’re happy TSBX recognises his talent as we do.   Check out The Sports Business Exchange online and read the rest of Jeff’s interview HERE.

This article is copyright © 2010 

Top Media/PR bloggers from MediaBistro, Joe Ciarallo of PRNewser and Matt Van Hoven of AgencySpy, sat down with Carrot President and Creative Director Mike Germano to chat about the landscape of Social Media.

An excerpt:

“…social media is not meant for everyone (or, more poignantly, every client). Germano says clients come to him, whether of their own volition or via an agency who seeks Carrot’s skills, however Carrot still turns down one in five clients whose business isn’t right for Social Media. Regardless, Germano considers his (and co-founders Robert Gaafar and Chris Petescia) business an agency — not a vendor.”

Videos of each interview are posted on the AgencySpy and PRNewser blogs.

This article is copyright © 2010