Community Guy – Jake McKee

We The Practitioners

When Sean and I started Ant’s Eye View almost exactly a year ago, we had a pretty clear dream. We wanted to build a company that was based on senior talent, doing in-depth work with clients who were rolling up their sleeves and diving into social media and customer engagement with force.

A year in, we’ve achieved exactly that. Our team is an amazing group of geniuses. Our clients list is amazing and we’re helping them develop and implement some impressive programs and internal changes. And we’ve grown to 11 people and 2 offices.
11 people and 2 offices.

Never in our wildest dreams did we think we’d reach such heights in a mere 12 months. But here we are about to celebrate again.

That’s right, we’re growing again. As you may have read on the AEV blog today, we are very excited to announce that we’re opening a Silicon Valley office. 3 offices!

Building out that office will be the newest Ant, Kira Wampler. Kira has been the Group Marketing Manager of Online Engagement with Intuit and will join as Managing Director. Here’s some background:

When it comes to being in the trenches with customer engagement , nobody has been deeper, or done more amazing work than Kira Wampler. Having had a chance to work with Kira when she was at Intuit, I was blown away by her depth of knowledge, amazing leadership, and of course her stunning use of BSG references. Kira has been named a Small Business Marketer of the Year not once, but twice (2008 and 2009), and her project Small Business United won the WOMMA 2009 Grand Prix Award. In short, she’s a rockstar.

As Kira joins the team, it’s a good, and proud reminder that our team is unique. We have built something that attracts amazingly talented practitioners that otherwise wouldn’t join an agency or consulting firm.

It was an amazing 2009, but 2010 is shaping up to be flat out stunning. With a team like this, how could it not be?!?

What’s the ROI of the phone?

My genius business partner, Sean O’Driscoll talks about social, ROI, and other genius points. This one is well worth the watch.

My Sincere Thanks

WARNING: What lies ahead is a sappy, lovefest of a blog post. While it might be all squishy, it’s entirely heartfelt. Consider yourself warned.

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2009 has been an interesting year. I’ve moved across the country twice, seen my (now) three year old daughter blossom into an even more amazing person than ever, began to get to know my little brother as an adult, and undergone some absolutely devastating personal relationship issues.

Through all this, the one constant of this year has been the amazing, and frankly, mostly unexpected rise of Ant’s Eye View. In just under a year, Sean O’Driscoll and I went from “hey I have an idea” to “well look at that, we have 10 employees!” Our business is extremely healthy, our clients are happy, our team is fantastic, and we’re having more fun than we ever have before.

This Thanksgiving, as I consider what I have to be thankful for I’d be absolutely remiss if I didn’t specifically call out four groups.

The Ant’s Eye View Team
When Sean and I first started sketching out the type of company we wanted to build, our primary goal was simple: to build the best team in the world, a team of practitioners who had real life, real world skills in helping companies become more social.

Not only did we build that team, we’ve built it faster and stronger than either of us dreamed possible. Literally every day, I am more impressed with the team than the day before. As each member of the team finds their footing, they’ve launched into true individual and industry powerhouses. In the management philosophy of surrounding yourself with people smarter than you and then helping them get smarter, Sean and I have nailed it. Seeing you all in action at WOMMA last week was truly amazing.

Ant’s Eye View Team: Thank you! From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Sean and I will be working even harder next year to provide you the room to run even further, to have more fun than ever, and to achieve results our team and our clients could previously only dream of.

The Ant’s Eye View Clients
No matter what how great the individuals on the AEV team looked on paper, we were (and are) still a brand new company. The list of clients who gave us a shot this year is truly astounding. The two best assets we have as a company are our people and our clients, and we’ve scored in a big way on both fronts. We wouldn’t have been able to fly like we have if not for our clients putting significant trust in our team.

AEV Clients: Thank you for your trust this year. We sincerely hope we’ve delivered on your expectations and promise you that every day we’ll be better than the day before. If you think we did great work this year (and we hope you do!), then just wait until you see what we have in store next year!

My friend, my partner, Sean O’Driscoll
Sean, this year we’ve smiled with glee, hugged, and shook hands in vigorous celebration many, many times. I will always remember our breakfast at the Marriott in Redmond as the first day of one of the most amazing adventures of my life.

I am counting the days until we raise our glasses at the company holiday parties (yeah,that’s right, we’ve opened not one office this year, but two!), and toast to this year and dream of next. Thank you, Sean not only for your friendship but for the volume of knowledge I’ve already gained by working with you.

Sean: We have much to be proud of, my friend.

CommunityGuy.com Readers
It’s been a tough year on my blogging. Travel, business, and personal life have conspired to make my blogging a bit thin this year, but you’ve stuck around. For that, I simply must thank you. (I should mention that our team is also blogging at the AEV Blog too, if you have a thirst for great content)

Here’s to a happy and safe holiday season, a successful year end, and all of us having an impressive 2010!

Ant’s Eye View acquires Wabash & Lake

It seems hard to remember, but it’s only been a year since I merged Ant’s Eye View 1.0 with Sean O’Driscoll’s CGT Consulting to create Ant’s Eye View 2.0. This time last year, Sean and I were just starting to talk through the details of our pending merger.

Flash forward to today: Sean and I have built an amazing time, truly world class people generating world class results. Our team is growing rapidly, and today I’m incredibly proud to announce yet another landmark in the short, but rich history of our organization.

We’ve acquired Wabash & Lake. That’s right, we’ve completed our first acquisition less than a year after our formation.

So, who is Wabash and Lake?

You may not know the company name, but I’m almost certain you know its principals, Ben McConnell & Jackie Huba. Ben and Jackie have been recognized as two of the web’s most influential marketers with over 120,000 daily readers of their Church of the Customer blog and best selling Word of Mouth Marketing books, “Citizen Marketers” and “Creating Customer Evangelists”. Forbes has described their work as “the word of mouth gospel.”

When Sean and I were still at Microsoft and LEGO, respectively, Ben and Jackie were an inspiration to both of us. We couldn’t be more proud to have them join us as we guide organizations through the process of transforming customer experience and brand engagement by activating and embedding customer voice in every aspect of the business.

Sean and I have always wanted to build the strongest, smartest, most experience team of social nerds on the planet, and today’s announcement (live from the WOMMA Summit in Vegas) is yet another way we’re making that vision a continued reality.

If you aren’t already, you can follow Ben and Jackie on twitter at @benmcconnell and @jackiehuba respectively.

And by the way – if you’re in Vegas for the WOMMA Summit, be sure to stop by the Risque Lounge in the Paris hotel after 7:30p tonight. We’re buying the drinks as a way to celebrate this great news. We’ve even created the world’s newest and most amazing drink: The Antini.

Ant’s Eye View is hiring!

Here we go again! One of my colleagues at Ant’s Eye View just posted a new job opening on the Community Guy Job Board. That’s right, we’re hiring a Senior Consultant. Interested? Check out the job post, or see the details below.

Ant’s Eye View continues to grow and we are looking for the next ant to join our colony. The open position is a Senior Consultant in the Seattle, Washington area to lead client engagements, build out project deliverables, and contribute to internal business operations/processes.

Successful candidates will meet the following criteria:

• 5-7 years experience in Product Management, Product Marketing, and/or Strategy Consulting.
• 1-3 years experience with online community management/strategy (specifically experience with applying social media and/or web 2.0 technologies to solve business problems)
• Experience project managing medium/large scale, multi-phased client engagements or product/service launches.
• A base level of knowledge in business strategy, marketing, finance, operations, and data analysis techniques Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills, both written and verbal.
• Need to be able to present comfortable to executive audience.
• A bachelor’s degree in Business Management, Marketing, or some related discipline is required. MBA is a plus.
• Ability to travel – TBD on exact frequency, but expect 1-2 trips per month, could be more or less.
• Approximately 50+% of work can be accomplished at AEV office and via conference calls with clients.

Benefits include:

• Healthcare plan
• 401K
• Fun and collaborative work environment
• Bragging rights to be part of the ant colony
• Chance to become an expert on Ant trivia

Using your eyes to listen

My Ant’s Eye View colleague, Jennifer Hughes is blogging at the AEV blog and her first post is awesome!

What I have learned is – online listening to your customers is about reading. There is no tool that is going to eliminate the need for you to truly listen to your customers. The tools just make it quicker, easier, and even a little fun! Listening only to influencers will not tell you what your customers are saying. You need to listen to all discussion on different media types (forums, blogs, tweets, tags). Forum discussions can give you a very different view than blogs alone.

Be sure to read the rest of Jenn’s post.

What’s Jake doing in Austin??

If you’ve been watching my tweets lately, you’ve probably noticed quite a few mentions of my presence in Austin, Texas.

I’m am proud to share the news that after having an informal presence in Austin, Ant’s Eye View has opened our second official office here! With the hiring of Jennifer Hughes, our second Austin employee, our need to formalize our Austin office took on greater necessity.

My business partner, Sean, and I talked through options on how to make this work and coupled with some significant personal life changes, it made a lot of sense for me to move back to Austin and oversee the growth here.

And yes, I just moved to Seattle. And yes, I love Seattle. But hey, I also love Austin, so I feel like I’m hitting a double jackpot. Austin, after all, is the Live Music Capital of the World ^TM

We have a great office space here, and we’ll soon have an open house event. I’m even considering re-instituting an age old tradition: the NVD Nooner. Years ago when I worked at NVision Design in Dallas, we held an afternoon event the last Friday of every month. We’d get a keg, invite industry friends, hide our confidential materials and open the office up. Since we have a great deck at the office, the AEV Nooner is a moral imperative!

I’m stoked to be an Austin resident, have already discovered I live down the street from Hey Cupake!, and am trying to readjust to October humidity and heat. I’m baaaack, baby!

Clay Shirky on Iran, Twitter, and the changing world

Another must watch (no seriously) video from Clay Shirky. This dude is seriously amazing.

Top 10 Customer Experience blogs

The fine folks at Six Apart asked the Ant’s Eye View team to share our Top 10 Customer Experience blogs. We’ve put together what I think is a pretty strong list of blogs you may or may not be reading.

Here’s the first three on the list, just as a teaser. If you want to see all 10, head to Blogs.com.

Confessions of an Aca/Fan
One of the smartest brains around about fan culture. If you ever get a chance to see Henry speak, fight for a spot up front.

Customer Experience Matters
One of the best blogs on customer experience as a discipline around.

Customers Rock!
Hey, if don’t agree with the premise of the URL, then this list is moot anyway!

Why is a lack of knowledge cool?

Last week I was reading this article about Secretary of State Clinton talking about Twitter’s role in the Iranian elections. Overall, it’s an impressive statement of the role of social tools on the world stage.

But one part had me thinking all weekend:

“We promote the right of free expression,” the chief US diplomat added.

“And it is the case that one of the means of expression, the use of Twitter is a very important one, not only to the Iranian people but now increasingly to people around the world, and most particularly to young people,” she said.

“I wouldn’t know a twitter from a tweeter, but apparently it is very important,” she said, sparking laughter.

Will there be a time when older people don’t think it’s cool to joke about their tech cluelessness? I know it’s a brave new world and all, but seriously, when you’re the Secretary of State and Twitter is a major part of the revolution in Iran, joking that you don’t know anything about it is just stupid.

UPDATE: Des follows up on this topic. Good stuff, Des.