Community Guy – Jake McKee

The power of a great story

Shortly before Christmas last year, I needed a new watch. It was time to step up to a “big boy watch”, forsaking the $100 jobs I’d been used to. Since this was likely to be a large purchase, I started searching the Web. I found a number of fantastic watches, each of them with a great story.The WWII Soviet watch on eBay, for example, wasn’t functional, but holy cow did it have a great story! But yeah, actually being able to report time seemed like a major criteria, so I headed to the jewelry store.

When I started shopping, I didn’t have much interest in brands, and certainly didn’t know the difference between Breitling, Omega, Tag Heuer, or Rolex. Regardless of quality or even style, I couldn’t really get excited about spending money on “just a watch”. So I told the salesman that I wanted a watch with a story. He showed me the Omega Speedmaster and told me that it was the first and only watch worn on the moon. Sold!

Well, not quite. I left the store without the Speedmaster, but lusting after it nonetheless. I went home and checked online to see if this story was correct; according to the Omega Web site, it sure was. But their own excitement about this story was, as you can see, less than compelling.

But after a few days, I realized I’d been talking all about this watch to friends and family. I was telling the story of this watch over and over again.. and I didn’t even own it. The depth of the story was selling me.

Christmas morning, I was overjoyed to find the Speedmaster under the tree. I couldn’t wait to learn more about the story of this watch timepiece. But in the box was literally nothing related to the story. Not one mention of its history and barely anything about its functions. (Although the manual was translated into 753 languages… gee thanks, that’s helpful)

But this watch’s story was so easy to share, that I found myself sharing it. Bragging about my new present, sure. But it was also about space, watches, the design style of the 1960s.

Stories are not just about the person tell it though, they’re also about what happens when someone hears it. Like my father-in-law who sent me the photo below from the Houston Space Center museum on his recent vacation trip. The story I told him about the watch, my passion at the time, provided context for him to both understand my passion and be on the lookout for it in the future.

There are two key lessons to learn from this experience:

1. Providing a story about your product makes it easier for people to talk about your product. If this was just a nice watch, how would I show it off without looking like a jackass? When I can talk about the story, it’s much easier.

2. Stories explain passion. It’s easy to understand why I’m excited about a watch, and it’s easy to create a reason for people to be on the lookout for the Omega brand if those people understand why I’m so excited.

It’s incredibly disappointing that Omega is overlooking such a great opportunity to let their customers tell great stories about this product, or I assume the rest of their product line.

Maybe that’s a good thing though… I don’t have to share this story with anyone!

7 New Community Jobs

A lot of great new Community Jobs this week.

• *HOT NEW* Social Network Coordinator/Facilitator, Boca Raton, FL
• *NEW* Community Manager Team Leader, Gibraltar
• *NEW* Community Manager, Gibraltar
• *NEW* Community Manager, Anywhere
• *NEW* Social Media and Content Strategy Guru, Seattle or Telecommute
• *NEW* Front End Developer, San Francisco, CA
• *NEW* Director, User Operations, San Francisco, CA

To see all job openings: http://www.communityguy.com/jobs/

1 New & 3 HOT Community Jobs

Please feel free to post any Community based Job Openings you may have or someone you know.  http://www.communityguy.com/jobs/

• *NEW* Facilitator (Wikipedia Strategic Plan), San Francisco, CA
• *HOT* Community Manager – seeking AGENCY background, Watertown, MA
• *HOT* Community Manager, Truckee, CA
• *HOT* Community Manager for Social Networking Site, El Segundo, CA
• Still open -  Global Digital Communications Manager, Dearborn, MI

To see all job openings: http://www.communityguy.com/jobs/

Apple customer service continues to improve

After another weird iPhone sync, my rented movies disappeared (along with all my other media). Since rented iTunes movies only live in one spot, they were gone. I emailed customer service for the second time in so many weeks to ask them to allow me to re-download them.

In the past, Apple iTunes customer service has been …. not great. Form letters, a near total lack of personality or humanism, and answers that protect the company at all costs. So you can imagine when, for a second time, Apple support gave me the ability to re-download my rented movies at no charge, and in about 12 hour response time (which started at midnight).

Not only that, the support team sent the email below to make sure I was all good. Wow.

Hi Jacob,

This is Destyni, with a courtesy follow-up. I haven’t heard from you and wanted to make sure that your request was handled to your satisfaction. You’ve truly been a remarkable asset to the iTunes Store Family and as such I don’t want to leave you without any type of resolution, so if you do not respond, I will be closing this request. I hope that you continue to enjoy the iTunes Store and would like to thank you for being such a wonderful member of our family. If you find yourself with any other questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to send me an email. Have a great day!

Sincerely,

Destyni
iTunes Store Customer Support

(Disclosure: Apple is a client of my company, Ant’s Eye View)

The Ultimate Question: The Interview

Fred explains The Ultimate Question:

Success by 1000 Paper Cuts

As many of you know, I do quite a bit of public speaking. Most of my engagements focus on social engagement and customer experience, specifically helping business people figure out how to better connect with their customers, fans, and clients.

There are a few questions I can always count on getting during or after the session:

“But what if nobody in the organization is empowered to make the changes you mention? Who’s job is this change you refer to?”

Out of all the frequently asked questions in my sessions, this is that one that gets me the most amped up, ready to pounce. My reaction is normally summed up by a quote overheard in the hallways of SXSW 2009 a few weeks ago:

“If you know something’s wrong…fucking fix it!”

We’ve come to see that fear dictates many of our external facing business decisions, giving rise to massive Terms of Service agreements, NDAs, massive Legal team power, and other protectionist tactics. But it continues to surprise me how afraid we are of our bosses, colleagues, and management teams.

Whose job is it to fix things we recognize as problematic? Ours! It is every employee’s obligation to stand up for their customers, to be on the look out for ways to improve the company.

When I started at LEGO, I was a Senior Web Producer who saw instantly that the Adult Enthusiast community was being completely overlooked. I took on a few extra hours a week to help them. Those few hours turn into an official part of my job, and then my entire job. I didn’t ask for permission, I just started fixing it.

Surprisingly, especially for me, nobody told me to mind my own business or focus on my “real job”. They started seeing results I was producing and asked me to take on more and more and more of those duties.

The trick to making this process work is to use a tactic I call Success by 1000 Paper Cuts. The idea is simple: start with the biggest element of activity that you can do without having to get full blown approvals, budget sign offs, or legal approvals. A single paper cut barely gets notice, but enough of them and you can cut off a limb.

Start small, create success, share results.

The repeat over and over again until you have a collection of successes that represent a landmark. Bundle that landmark up and show it off. Use the landmark to get permission to bigger and radical and perhaps more expensive projects, but only by the new increment.

Start just a bit bigger, create success, share results.

So what are the small things you’re going to do today to impact change and improve your customer experience?

Reason #23,4593 people don’t trust companies

Most people don’t trust most companies. Let’s be honest about that. We’ve been trained for decades to distrust companies because they fail to act like groups of humans rather than lawsuit fearing entities.

Case in point:

Ty, the toy company responsible for the popular Beanie Babies dolls, is now marketing “Sweet Sasha” and “Marvelous Malia” dolls.

The first lady’s office said Friday Ty was out of line. “We feel it is inappropriate to use young private citizens for marketing purposes,” said a spokeswoman for Michelle Obama in a statement.

And how does Ty respond?

A Ty representative told CNN the company generally avoids naming dolls for “any particular living individual,” because doing so might interfere with how kids use their imaginations to play with them. But they wouldn’t reveal the source of their inspiration for the new figures, telling CNN that information relating to the development of the company’s merchandise — including how it comes up with products, product names, and trademarks – is proprietary.

Are you kidding me? Either own it or don’t do it. Anyone with at least one eye and a marginally functional brain can see right through this silly protectionism language. Just take a look and the pictures and tell me these dolls don’t have anything to do with the Obama girls.

And now, as a parent of a two year old who would probably dig these dolls, not only am I not buying, I’m so insulted by their response I’m on the look out for Ty toys to avoid. Genius program there, Ty.

Top rated Super Bowl commercials

Uptake needs an UI/Application Engineer… is that you?

Uptake.com is looking to hire. Here’s the info:

As a small startup, this person should expect to wear a lot of hats. They will develop application features with a focus on the user experience. This means that this person should be equally passionate about mid-tier Web technologies (XML, SOAP, SAX, Rails, Web Services, J2EE) and about interaction/visual design issues. Add in business needs like search engine optimization, and multivariate testing and you get the picture of the breadth of what this person will be working on. The full job description is here.

If you apply, please let them know I sent you!

ANNOUCEMENT: Ant’s Eye View 2.0

After Christmas and at the start of every new year, thoughts turn to our reflections of the year past and the year coming up. For me and for my business, 2008 was an incredible year in every conceivable measure. This year, we grew from a new startup to a solid, sustained business with some of the best clients a guy could ask for you. As I predicted one year ago, 2008 was indeed The Year of the Kick Ass.

From the very beginning of my business, I’ve wondered how it should and could grow as the business and the industry matured. Marketing agencies, clients, and other consultants are continuing to get smarter and more experienced with social projects, which is great news for all of us in this space. Personally, that means that I have to up the ante on driving the industry, rather than just supporting it. To this end, January 2009 will mark a major evolution for Ant’s Eye View.

After months of discussion and planning, I’m incredibly pleased to announce that Ant’s Eye View and Sean O’Driscoll’s CGT Consulting firm will merge, effectively immediately.

If you don’t know Sean, introduce yourself. He’s one of the smartest, most seasoned people around when it comes to influencer strategy and implementation. Before starting CGT Consulting, Sean was a Microsoft General Manager, responsible for running the Microsoft MVP program. If you’re not following Sean’s blog, head over there now (www.communitygrouptherapy.com), or look him up on twitter (@seanodmvp).

Ant’s Eye View will continue to be focused on working with brands that are committed to taking a leadership position in their markets creating amazing customer experiences. This work will span organizational silos, from Customer Service & Support, to Sales & Marketing, to Research & Development, driving improvements at every customer touch point. Never before has delivery against a brand promise been so discoverable by customers, prospects and partners. We believe our clients deserve a partner that understands this transformation and is committed to building the most experienced, practitioner-focused team in the industry. Our practice will continue to focus on Customer Collaboration Strategy in the following key areas:

• Social Media and Communities: The container in which customer experience conversations take place
• Voice of the Customer: Understanding what customers and prospects are saying
• Influencer/Enthusiast Strategy Development: Finding, thanking and engaging the key contributors to those conversations

Sean and I are focused on nothing short of changing the world, through driving a better relationship between companies and their customers. (Want to join us in that quest? We’re hiring!) While it may take a few weeks to bring our web sites and other branding elements together, we’ve already begun offering joint services to clients, both existing and new.

Here’s to an incredible 2009 for all of us. It’s going to be a trying year in many respects, but for those who use this year as a way to establish better customer relationships, you will succeed where your competition fails. And if you need help in building those relationships, just give us a shout.