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I love Atlanta. I’ve been here for almost 12 years and I think it is a great city. We’ve got millions of people,  great neighborhoods, great restaurants,  a major airport, lots of free wi-fi, plenty of diverse businesses, a healthy laptop per capita ratio in any coffee shop you should happen to wander into, but somehow I think that Atlanta is not living up to its potential as a great center for web innovation.   And I don’t think I am alone in this opinion.

I’m not saying there is no innovation here, but I think as a city we are a little behind the times.  I offer as example the reluctant adoption of Web 2.0 in Atlanta.  Web 2.0 as both  a term and a practice seems to have only grudgingly been accepted in the Atlanta business world.   Sure, there is a growing pool of adopters leading the charge at events like SoCon07 and 08, AWE, and Barcamp, but to call them early adopters would only be accurate in a geographically limited definition.  They’re early for Georgia, but not for the world.  I’d like to see that change.

I think Atlanta should skip Web 2.0.  Not skip as in miss, but skip as in skip ahead.  Instead of playing perpetual catch-up with innovation centers like Silicon Valley, Seattle, Boston and NY, we should leap-frog those places and boldly invest in our time, money, thoughts and effort in redefining the context of the Internet.  The web has become the plumbing of our lives. Business is changing, marketing is changing, socializing is changing, lines are blurring, but we drag our feet and take incremental steps toward ideas that come to us from the west coast.

There are people in this town who would like to see Atlanta at the center of the discourse - a legitimate force in shaping our collective destinies through technology and its catalytic effect on human interaction.  And there is no reason why we can’t be, but we won’t get there by being a follower.  We need to figure out what Web 4.0 is, or 5.0, or maybe dare to embrace a term that isn’t Web x.x anything, but something new, something ambitious, something risky.  We might look silly, but we also may find a point of view, a value, a context that re-centers the discourse.

Let’s start talking.

That’s a nice pairing of words; “soulful excellence”.  Highly evocative, together they smack of quality and emotion, like art - not clinical quality, like a spreadsheet.  So few pairings of words smack of anything so I just had to point them out.  I wish I could say they were mine, but alas credit must go to the remarkable Joey Reiman who uttered that phrase yesterday during a presentation for the Technology Association of Georgia’s Enterprise 2.0 Society. Yesterday we had a fabulous meeting featuring Mr. Reiman, Thinker & CEO and Elizabeth Clubb, Thinker & CSO, of BrightHouse.

Perhaps even more remarkable than the phrase itself is that it was used in the context of discussing new enterprise technology solutions.   The social computing mindset is different: powerful and enabling and dangerous to old modes of thinking.  It is changing the way we brand and the way we work.  They are becoming one. “Soulful Excellence” is evidence of that.  Chew on that phrase and watch out for more.

Sometimes the good stuff leaps out at you during a random phone call. Tonight it was from my good friend David Bailey, a source of many gems, but this one I particularly liked. So, with his permission:

If your customer has a mouse, don’t build the better mousetrap. Just trap that mouse.

Don’t just focus on what you can do. Focus on solving your customer’s problem.

It is getting to be a habit and I like it!  Kathleen Smart has invited me to once again visit the Connect Grow Profit Radio show, part of the Blog Talk Radio network. The show will “air” live at 12pm eastern on Monday, April 14th 2008, and then be available as a podcast.

We’ll be discussing the self-service culture of the internet, the pitfalls of virtual “location”, and the essential elements of web branding: Clarity, Authenticity and Consistency.

Listeners will be able to call in with questions by dialing the Call-in Number:  (646) 716-8171.

Just wanted to share two great quotes from a terrific article: “Can You Say What Your Strategy Is?” by David J. Collis and Michael G. Rukstad in this month’s Harvard Business Review. The first is the teaser for the article:

“It’s a dirty little secret: Most executives cannot articulate the objective, scope, and advantage of their business in a simple statement. If they can’t, neither can anyone else.”

Although the article is discussing strategy statements I think this speaks to the vital importance of brand positioning and the all-to-common void of clarity in this area from the corner office on down the line. The second quote points to the solution by affirming the power of well-chosen words to act as a catalyst for brand alignment:

“A 35-word statement can have a substantial impact on a company’s success…. Spending the time to develop the few words that truly capture your strategy and that will energize and empower your people will raise the long-term financial performance of your organization.”

– Can You Say What Your Strategy Is? by Collis and Rukstad, Harvard Business Review, Vol.86 No.4, April 2008

I love it!

Only Jeff Pulver would fly around the world hosting “Social Media Breakfasts” and thank goodness!   This was a great event, lots of fun.   I don’t know if the concept is Jeff’s originally, but he has been going  from city to city on a mission to bring social computing techniques to real-world networking.   Using the web 2.0 metaphor of tagging and Facebook “Walls” you have a great icebreaker for starting conversations  and learning more about the person you just shook hands with.  The photo above is my personal tag cloud from about halfway through the event.

You need to be on Facebook to rsvp, but if Jeff brings one of these events to your town, definitely check it out.   If not, host your own and send me an invite!

My friend Mike just sent me a link to a nice article on personal branding: Maintaining your Personal Brand Online by Jonathan Snook.  First of all, I happen to think it is one of the more attractively and readably designed blogs that I’ve seen lately, but I’m recommending the article for different reasons. Seven reasons to be exact.  Actually seven very practical tips for stepping up your engagement in your personal brand, that Mr. Snook has thoughtfully provided.   I won’t spoil his thunder, but I will say that I think these are good, easy to do steps that will help raise your recognizability online. And as you know that is the first of the three Rs of branding.

Visit: Maintaining your Personal Brand Online

Yes, I admit it.  Sometimes I will indulge in a little high-brow, high-level or high-concept marketing-speak.  I can’t help it, it is in my nature (blame the right brain).   That’s why I am glad that I have friends like Dave Eissman to keep me grounded, and I hope you don’t mind if I give him and his new blog a plug:

Dave has a knack for breaking down marketing tactics into straight forward, approachable steps that get results.  I have had the good fortune to collaborate with Dave on behalf of the International Business Academies, Limited, for whom we are both advisers, and I have always admired his straightforward, make-it-practical approach as well as his warm and generous nature.  Dave recently started a new blog - One on Many Marketing, and his current post, What is One on Many Marketing? is a wake-up call to B-to-B businesses to make use of the efficient tools of the Internet to bring scale to their lead generation and relationship building processes.  Dave is offering a free tele-seminar on the subject (details here) - I plan to attend and I hope I’ll see you online then too.

Have you ever tried to walk across the bottom of the deep end of a swimming pool? It may have been fun bouncing along under the surface, but you certainly didn’t get anywhere very fast. What works very efficiently on dry land is almost completely ineffectual under the water.

Now imagine trying to swim down a sidewalk. Sounds painful doesn’t it? Without the buoyancy you would just grind in place. Change your medium and what was once an asset can become a liability, a successful tactic might just be limiting your progress or bringing it to a grinding halt.

I’m a big believer in paying attention to context, what works in print may not work in radio. What works on the radio, might not work for TV. The big new swimming pool is social media. Not every marketing tactic is going to work the same in the social web. Some old standbys may not work at all. Trying too hard to control the message and interrupting people will leave you bouncing in one place running out of air. Sharing, educating, listening and participating seem to be the better strokes in these new waters.

When it comes to writing, everyone’s favorite acronym is K.I.S.S. - Keep It Simple, Stupid. Sage advice, but have you ever asked why? Well here’s another acronym for you: S.I.S. - Simple Ideas Succeed.

I often work with technology companies where the product or service is likely to be anything but simple. The desire to explain and build logical chains from features to benefits often eclipses the ability for an idea to get attention. Think about Albert Einstein for a second. Chances are E = mc2 comes to mind before the words “Theory of Relativity” jump into your head. And unless you happen to be a physicist your thoughts are more likely to run to an image of the frazzled-haired genius and not to the concept of energy-mass equivalence.

Does E = mc2 really tell me anything about physics or the nature of the universe? Not really. Not on its own. Not to the uninitiated, or at least not without a good hour spent watching a PBS special, but it is has become a familiar surrogate for a complex idea. The symbol spreads farther and more easily than the underlying complex theory. Thus I give you the sibling acronym, part 2: S.I.S. - Symbols for (complex) Ideas Spread.

Yes, I’m torturing an acronym, but if you want your idea to spread you’ve got to make it portable, and simple ideas are easier to carry around. If the idea can’t be easily reduced to a simple phrase, then roll up your sleeves and keep trying. Look for a surrogate, or an icon that can be invested with meaning. You’ve got to do the work so that the job of spreading your idea, the job you are asking your customers, partners and prospects to do for you, is as easy as possible. That leads to the final sibling acronym for the day: S.I.S. - Simplicity Isn’t Simple.

Well it was a great morning - we had a full house for the kick-off meeting of TAG’s newest society, Enterprise 2.0.  Our society chair and vision leader, Sherry Heyl, did a great job acting as emcee and blog-journalist.  Check out her blow-by-blow report written live during the event.  And our featured speaker, Puneet Gupta, CEO of Connectbeam, gave a great summary and product demonstration, which I think helped to open our audience’s eyes to the advantages of well-managed social bookmarking in a corporate context.

The point I keep coming back to when it comes to Enterprise 2.0 is the idea that the trend toward adoption of social computing tools is already widespread - the people in your corporation are already using these tools and operating on different paradigms of communication.  The younger the employee the more likely they are to be “infected” with a web 2.0/social media mindset.  These are the people being hired by companies big and small every day.  Whether you choose to put an Enterprise 2.0 strategy in place for your organization, there is already a strong contingent of users who know from direct experience that there are other choices for communication and collaboration than those that may be already blessed by your IT department.  Progressive companies will recognize this and do what is necessary to keep apace of this wave of innovation and cultural change.  They’ll do it because they know that the young upstarts - the ones with no baggage are already there - and they are moving nimbly forward, unfettered by old-school command and control driven approaches.  The people know the tools, and like ‘em and knowing the taste of transparent collaboration it is hard to go back to restricted access and cumbersome methods.  Today policies of restriction and banned IP addresses may be met with grumbling compliance - tomorrow the response might be rebellion and defection.

The Connectbeam offering was a great focal point for our first session because the concept of bookmarking is so well understood by virtually anyone who has used a browser in the last decade or so.  Shared bookmarking doesn’t require learning new and complicated skills, but through relevance algorithms and intelligent use of meta-data the social bookmarker gains advantages over the older tool.   Data becomes more meaningful and portable.  Communities of shared interest grow organically from the clustering of bookmarks and knowledge centers are exposed throughout the organization.  Now who wouldn’t want that power working for their corporation?

If you live in Georgia you probably know that TAG stands for the Technology Association of Georgia. TAG does a fantastic job of building communities around all the many facets of technology, culture and business. Its main vehicle for doing so is through the support of subgroups called societies.

I’m proud to say that I am on the steering committee for one of TAG’s newest societies: Enterprise 2.0. Our mission is to provide a forum for education and dialog around the topic of social computing for the enterprise. We are coming up fast on our first meeting to be held on March 5th, 2008, 7:30am - 9:30am at the Ashford Club in Atlanta. We are very pleased to have Puneet Gupta, CEO of Connectbeam, as our featured speaker for this kick-off session. Puneet’s talk entitled “Connecting People and Ideas: Using Social Software to Turbo Charge Innovation” will discuss how knowledge management and social bookmarking can help corporations to innovate and rapidly assimilate new ideas. Registration is still open, but the room is filling up fast. I hope to see you there.

Sometimes you can get carried away when you write a blog or sit down with a client.  You don’t mean to, but you end up waxing on and on about the nuance of this point or the other.  That is why it is nice to occasionally run across a simple little list that offers a lot of compact value.  The Blake Project offers a great 7 bullet list on Key Brand Management Considerations.  Each one is pearl.

Art Butcher of International Business Academies Limited (a.k.a. IBAL) asked me to write a post to share on the IBAL’s new website. While that project is coming together I thought I would share the post here as well:

Everyone has heard of the 3 R’s of education: “Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic”, but have you heard of the 3 R’s of branding? They are Recognition, Reputation and Reaction.

Recognition: We want our products to be recognized. We want the hard work that goes into packaging our products and services, the money we spend on advertising, and all the planning we do in marketing, to benefit our brand, not the competition. This why logos are important. This why we craft tag lines and slogans. This why Coke is so fussy about the exact shade and hue of red in their packaging. This is why McDonald’s is so aggressive about controlling the use of “Mc____” wherever it can.

Reputation: In the end your branding is a suggestion that your company makes about relevance and meaning, and it is your customers, prospects and partners who get to decide what your brand truly means to them. You can be well recognized, but if your reputation is bad the recognition can hurt you. On the other hand, if your product is undistinguished from your competition, a well recognized brand alone may not be helping you as much as you think. How often have you sneezed, asked for a Kleenex, and been handed a Puff? Did you notice the difference? Did you care? Recognition is naturally associated with reputation, but the reputation is strongest when it encompasses a unique value or serves the needs of a particular niche.

Reaction: This where the money is made, or lost. You want your brand to provoke a positive reaction, to get people to choose your product over the competition’s. You want a reaction so positive and strong that it can beat a sale price on a similar item or have a customer choose your service over another solution. But a negative reaction can be brutal. Whether you are being ignored on the shelf, or actively boycotted, a negative reaction cycle can be ruinous to your business.
So how do you tune your branding to get the reaction you want? Well the magic won’t happen if the recognition and reputation aren’t right. You have to take Recognition beyond merely locating yourself in an industry or slapping a logo on your business card. You have to approach Reputation in a mindful way - don’t just let it happen, participate. Align your values with the expectation you set for your brand. Know the boundaries of your message and the expectations you are setting with your brand promises. Be prepared to walk your talk and fix it when you stumble. You are in the business of developing and maintaining trust.

Here a few more R’s for you: Repetition, Reinforcement and Rigor. Consistent and attentive behavior, clearly communicated value, and a track record of disciplined delivery will support the 3 R’s of Branding and will get you seeing the Reactions the matter.

I’ve been on a roll lately with opportunities to put my artwork out into the world.  This next display has the added plus of being for a good cause:  raising money for the Senior Care and Activities Center in Montclair, NJ.  On March 7th they will be holding a wine and art auction to help raise money and to celebrate their 30th Anniversary.  For more information visit their web site or call 973-783-5589 Ext. 12.  I will have a handful of pieces for sale to help the cause, along with several other artists.  A special shout-out goes to Jacklyn Kling of KlingArts for her work curating the show, and to my dad for being my biggest fan and keeping me informed about these things.

What can I say? Katrena likes my work. So once again I will have some old and new paintings on display at the ASODA Gallery. This time I will be sharing the space with another artist, who I am looking forward to meeting. The opening is from 7pm - 10pm Friday February 22nd 2008, which is the night of this month’s Castleberry Hill Art Stroll. I hope to see you there.

David Cohen at ASODA Gallery
Opening Friday, February 22, 2008

238 Walker St. #18
7pm - 10pm

(once you enter the building the gallery is on the second floor)

More info on Castleberry Hill neighborhood and the Art Stroll:
castleberryhill.org

Thanks again to Katrena Griggs for inviting me to show at ASODA!

My apologies to anyone trying to listen to the radio show.   We’re having technical glitches.  Reset for 1pm today.

Once again, Kathleen Smart has invited me to be her guest on the Connect Grow Profit Radio show, part of the Blog Talk Radio network.  The show will “air” live  at 12pm eastern today, Monday, February 11th 2008, and then be available as a podcast.  We’ll be discussing branding issues for individuals and small companies and further explore the idea of being the ambassador of your brand.

Just a quick note to say I had an absolutely great time at at SoCon08!  The turnout was impressive and the attendees were enthusiastic, intelligent and interested in getting some serious conversations on.   I had the distinct pleasure of leading a discussion group on personal branding, which was a blast for me, and hopefully enjoyable and though-provoking for those who participated.  I’m a little exhausted now, but I’ll try to jot down some thoughts on the event soon.  Meanwhile I’ll just say kudos and thanks to Leonard, Jeff, Sherry, Josh, Chris, Kennesaw State, and all the attendees that made it a terrific weekend!

Just wanted to give a shout out to my friend Robert Mayberry who just made his blogging debut.  And it is a strong start.  Rob’s lead post, The Problem with Marketing…, is an insightful and biting observation of the state of marketing today and the rampant over-emphasis on promotion, to the detriment of truly strategic marketing.   Creating alignment of marketing with company mission, vision, products and services, should be a top corner office priority.   New marketing, as redefined by the rise of social media and the decline of the effectiveness of interruptive techniques, demands a rethink of the role and scope of market thinking in an organization.   Rob’s post is an articulate challenge to marketers to get in the game.