Community Guy – Jake McKee

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.

Please stop calling it “Recession Marketing”

I’ve been reading and hearing a lot of discussion about how this social stuff (social media, community building, customer collaboration) is a magic bullet for these troubling economic times. The term “Recession Marketing” is being thrown pretty willy nilly.

(Did I just use the term “willy nilly”?? Oh my.)

These times aren’t about simply changing the style of our marketing. A tough economy isn’t a time for a new marketing tactic. Marketplace woes aren’t a reason to see more of your marketing mix shifted to “social”.

No, the recession is time for all of us to look at our companies, clients, and customers and ask if we’re truly serving their needs. It’s time to ask if we’re giving an exceptional customer experience. It’s time to listen to customer feedback in order to understand whether we’re delivering on the brand promise.

We’re not in a period of “Recession Marketing”. We’re faced with an opportunity to improve customer experience and thus strength our (and our client’s) businesses. We need better products, better and different marketing tactics, and better communication with customers. These things aren’t specific to a recession, we just tend to forget them (or at least undervalue them) until market conditions force us to focus again.

Who’s going to join me in striking “Recession Marketing” from our collective vocabulary before it’s too late?

If you’re interested, join the Facebook group to make your voice heard in this Epic Struggle.

Extortion: American Airlines’ new business model.

Extortion: To obtain property or money by the use of threats or intimidation.

Try as I might to quit flying American Airlines, living in Dallas makes that fairly difficult. I’ve already started flying Southwest more than I have in the past, as well as a number of other airlines. The more time I spend dealing with American Airlines, the more I seriously consider moving away from Dallas and/or changing my career to one that doesn’t require as much travel. Seriously.

Sadly, this blog post is just another in a long series of ridiculous and horrible customer service experiences that American has put me through. This one, however, wins the case for pure insanity. Here’s the short version of the details:

• I booked a ticket to Seattle on American.
• I needed to make changes so I called customer service and paid the change fee to make said changes.
• I needed to make a second round of changes, called customer service. The woman on the phone was terribly sweet. I should have known something was wrong.
• She booked the ticket and only charged me 50 cents for the upgrades. I questioned her, had her confirm the changes I needed. She said that fare differences covered the change fee, thus 50 cents.
• I showed up to the airport and was told my round-trip ticket had become a one-way, and that the only way I was getting on the flight was to pay to buy back my original ticket.

Both the airport desk clerk and her supervisor and the person at customer service they called on the phone agreed that this wasn’t my fault. They all agreed that American was at fault. Yet, the policies were so strict, none of them could do anything to fix this. Epic Fail.

Due to their own, admitted error, I was now on the hook for another $300+ or else no flight. No meetings with clients I’d already agreed to. I’ve yet to be reimbursed for the portion of the flight that was canceled, effectively having me pay twice for something I already had a contract for.

What’s to say I’m not going to show up to the airport next week and by some AA “accident”, I’m not going to be required to pay $1000, or $5000 to get on that flight?

How is this not extortion?

UPDATE: I received a follow-up from American saying they would refund this cost. In 4-6 weeks.

Do you know who your real brand manager is?

At iMedia Brand Summit yesterday, I was floored by a comment from Jerry Courtney, Group Manager at Target. He said that they don’t think of retail employees at the stores as “clerks”, but as “brand managers”. After all, his point was, the frontline employees have vastly more control over the actual brand perceptions than anyone in the home office.

This point was on my mind when I arrived at the airport today. Long-time readers of this blog know that I have some serious issues with American Airlines. I have nearly 700,000 flown miles with them in the last 7+ years. I live in Dallas, their main hub. I have thought about putting a requirement for me to fly on American for client travel. I can deal with their crazy up charges, and have defended (or perhaps rationalized) their odd policies. I’ve cut them slack for putting more effort into their pointless Facebook app while neglecting to provide updates about whether Hurricane Ike will effect my flights.

When I checked into my flight home today, I wasn’t assigned a seat. I had applied for an upgrade when I checked in online and was told that I didn’t have enough credits. But strangely, I noticed an upgrade notification in my inbox as I rushed to get to the airport. When I checked in, I wasn’t assigned a seat, so I checked with the gate agent. Here is the shortened and slightly paraphrased version of how things played out. It was actually much worse in person.

Me: Hi there! I need to get a seat assignment. I believe that my upgrade request came through.

Jill: (searching) Yes, you did. That’ll be $105.

Me: I’m sorry?

Jill: Your upgrade costs are $105.

Me: Sorry, I’m confused. I’m not sure why the fee.

Jill: Because. You. Requested. An. Upgrade.

Me: Is that fee something new? I’ve not had to pay for upgrades before.

Jill: Yes, you have.

Me: Actually, no, I haven’t.

Jill: Maybe you didn’t know you did.

Me: I’m pretty sure I’d remember paying $105 numerous times.

Jill: Upgrades. Cost. Money. You. Pay. Money. And. You. Get. An. Upgrade.

Me: Ma’am, there’s not need to talk to me like I’m dumb. I’m just confused about the policy. I thought upgrades were based on upgrade segments….

Jill: Yes, and maybe you don’t have any left.

Me: Ah! I’m just trying to understand – if I don’t have any segments, that actually makes sense. I get that I would need to buy more.

Jill: I don’t know if you have any segments or not.

Me: Oh, OK.

Jill: Sir, I don’t know what you’re having a hard time understanding. Upgrades cost money. Each time you fly 500 miles you pay for an upgrade.

Me: Yes, I know. I’ve been a Platinum customers several times and am Gold now…

Jill: You’re not Platinum now, you’re Gold.

Me: …but I’ve never had to pay for an upgrade before.

Jill: Yes, you did.

Me: Fine, can I…

Jill: I just don’t understand what doesn’t make sense. I’m trying to help.

Me: Can I just decline the upgrade?

Jill: You’ll have to move back to coach. What seat were you in?

I know travel is tough these days. I know that paychecks have been slashed for people like Jill. I know that she has to deal with a lot of irritated travelers during each of her shifts. I feel for Jill, I really do. But the reason travel sucks is not the travelers, it’s you Jill. It’s the angry flight attendants that get mad when you ask for a blanket. It’s the busted ass planes. It’s the charges for absolutely everything that isn’t screwed down.

But I also know that Jill doesn’t care about her business, her company, or her industry. I know that she’s about the furthest thing from a brand manager that she can be. It’s obvious in the way she, and her colleagues, treat the customers. Airlines, with the exception of Southwest, have forgotten that the customer is always right. Or at least that the customer is not your mortal enemy.

And as alarmingly rude as Jill from San Diego was, she’s not really to blame. American Airlines is a company that has lost their way, building marketing-based Facebook apps when they should be building customer service facing blogs. Restricting smart employee decision making rather than empowering employees to bend or break silly policies. Wasting money on direct mail marketing campaigns rather than investing in creating better methods for accepting and reacting to feedback.

If Jill was empowered, trained, and encouraged to be a brand manager, she’d be demanding such things too. Unfortunately for all of us, American’s home office doesn’t trust her anymore than they respect their customers.

Jake’s 9/11 Story

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you’re probably growing tired of this post once a year. But you may also remember that I’ve promised myself to read this story every year for at least 10 years after 9/11.

http://www.communityguy.com/911story/

This story was written on the first anniversary of 9/11, and as you can tell from the tone, it was still pretty raw. By this point, I was going back into the city every two weeks and our building was literally across the street from where they had checkpoints set up to verify that you were allowed to go into lower Manhattan. The walls of the building were plastered with missing persons posters. The city that people called “alive” was noticeably different. Even late at night with empty streets from the back of a cab you could tell the city was just … different.

As the years have ticked by, I rehash this story every year to remind myself what it was like. It’s easy to forget the pain, the fear, the helplessness. I know that many other New Yorkers, Americans, and world citizens have vastly more devastaing stories than mine. By posting I’m in no way trying to diminish their story or compare mine.

I have my opinions about what these emotions have lead to, but I’ll keep them to myself today. Today is about remembering those people who were caught up in world politics in a way they never should have been.

Focusing on the wrong things.

Seriously?

It never ceases to amaze me how much time is wasted on pointless, silly issues in offices. Imagine if the same time used to develop this sign was put into figuring out how to increase profits enough to allow for additional creamer purchases.

Along these lines, Citigroup is cutting color copies and Blackberries. I can certainly understand the color copies – they are an expensive waste that people tend to think very little about their actual need before using them. But giving an employee a Blackberry usually means that they willingly end up working 24/7. Why would the company want to stop that as a way to save money? Isn’t it just costing them money instead?

Community Organizing is Social Media

(I’ll warn you in advance, this is a politics-influenced rant, but it does relate to community issues!)

During last night’s keynote speech by Rudy Giuliani at the Republican National Convention, Giuliani poked at Barack Obama’s former work as a community organizer with a smirk. Giuliani was clearly implying that community organizing was a joke, an utter waste of time. The crowd at the event laughed alongside him long enough to make him pause his speech. During Sarah Palin’s acceptance speech, she took a swipe at Obama’s service. Again the crowd went nuts.

Classy.

Here’s a part of how Barack Obama described his supposedly foolish pursuit in 1990:

In return, organizing teaches as nothing else does the beauty and strength of everyday people. Through the songs of the church and the talk on the stoops, through the hundreds of individual stories of coming up from the South and finding any job that would pay, of raising families on threadbare budgets, of losing some children to drugs and watching others earn degrees and land jobs their parents could never aspire to — it is through these stories and songs of dashed hopes and powers of endurance, of ugliness and strife, subtlety and laughter, that organizers can shape a sense of community not only for others, but for themselves.

Sound familiar? It should; social media and online community building are based on the “beauty and strength of everyday people”. Those of us who believe in the power of social media generally believe that small groups can have grand impact. The social media wonks among us have taken company after company to task for ignoring or misunderstanding this reality, and I hope that we do the same in this case.

This post isn’t about politics. It’s a reminder to all of us that laughing at those working to change the world or their neighborhoods for the better is absolutely unacceptable. We don’t accept it from the companies we buy from and we shouldn’t accept it from the politicians that we vote for, whatever side they come down on.

UPDATE: In the comments below and around the punditsphere today by many Republican supporters that the laughter was directed not at the concept of community organization, but the fact that Obama is somehow foolish for including that in discussions of his experience. Personally, I don’t buy that in the slightest, but you can watch the video and judge for yourself.

Pandora is at serious risk of shutting down

Just when you think that the music industry can’t sink any lower…

Founder Tim Westergren has stated that the service is approaching a “pull-the-plug kind of decision” for the service. Why is this happening? Last year, web radio giants were hit with outrageously ridiculous fees by a federal panel for every song that would be played on their stations. This caused a lot of services to either shutdown, or go through what Pandora has been experiencing for the past year. In doing so, it seems the financial problems the music industry has set out to create in order to win the constant battle between rights, piracy, and copyrighted music, are working.

So perhaps the most significant opportunity for the music industry in the last 5 years (iPhone + Pandora + instant purchase) is at risk because of idiotic music industry lobbying efforts and bad legislation. Genius.

I love how anti-welfare so many Americans (and a certain political party) can be, yet corporate welfare as shown here for the music industry or seen in industries from steel to airlines to investment houses is perfectly acceptable.

Want to help save Pandora and internet radio? Head to SaveNetRadio.org.

I think I hate George Lucas

George Lucas is a genius. Let’s get that out of the way right up front.

But his genius isn’t about movie making, it’s one of Empire Building. He has created, or at least been a crucial player in, several multi-billion dollar industries that have continued to grow and change the way we think not just about movies but about entertainment and culture generally. Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light and Magic have both revolutionized their industries. The toys and other products that support the Star Wars ecosystem have driven billions of dollars in revenue for thousands of companies worldwide.

But I think I hate George Lucas.

For 30+ years, nearly as long as I’ve been alive, Lucas has had to deal with fanboy rage and love. He’s been a celebrity, but one primarily associated with only one thing. Even Paris Hilton has moved past the sex tape debacle that brought her initial infamy. The irritation and desire to move on must be overwhelming. Many people ask me how I could possibly leave a job as cool as LEGO Community Manager, but after 5 years, I was ready to move onto new challenges and new topics. Extend that six times and that’s what Lucas has been facing.

It’s no damn wonder his movies suck.

I didn’t realize how off the mark Episodes I-III were until I watched the first Clone Wars cartoon on Cartoon Network. That 5 minute cartoon had more “Star Wars spirit” than the 2 hour Star Wars: The Phantom Menace movie. Funny thing, Lucas barely had anything to do with their production. Same goes for the incredible Star Wars: Clone Wars movie that opened on Friday. Again, as IMDB indicates, Lucas was only slightly involved in the production. (I’m sure he had a heavy hand in overseeing the project)

Kids who grew up on Star Wars in the 1970s created the Clone Wars cartoons. Lucas cast Hayden Christensen.

Let’s dig a little deeper. Look at how Lucas talks about his franchise (from Vanity Fair cover story):

And maybe after five years people will accept it.

Well … the motivation for the whole thing, to go more than three, was to have a good time. We had fun making those movies, they were fun movies, we liked them, and … of course it’s hard to go home again. Things change. But the eerie part of this movie—I call it the Motion Picture, the Movie of Dorian Gray, because nobody changed. Everybody looks exactly as they did, Steven is directing exactly as he did, and everybody had a wonderful time. And I think we got a great movie. I know the critics are going to hate it. They already hate it. So there’s nothing we can do about that. They hate the idea that we’re making another one. They’ve already made up their minds. And all they’re going to do is go to the movie to say they saw it, but they could already write their review today. The fans are all upset. They’re always going to be upset. “Why did he do it like this? And why didn’t he do it like this?” They write their own movie, and then, if you don’t do their movie, they get upset about it. So you just have to stand by for the bricks and the custard pies, because they’re going to come flying your way. You know it’s gonna come. Will this be Titanic? Probably not. Will this do O.K.? I think, yes, it will. So there’s not much to worry about.

Or worse, take a look at what Lucas says about Indiana Jones (Entertainment Weekly, issue #988):

Entertainment Weekly: So why resurrect Indy after all these years?

George Lucas: We’re doing it to have fun. We’re not doing it to say, Oh we’re gonna get an Academy Award, everybody’s gonna love us… We don’t need the money. We’re only going to get aggravation. The fans think it’s gonna be the Second Coming. And it’s not the Second Coming. They’ve already written the story [in their heads], and lemme tell ya, it’s not that story. So they’re going to be very disappointed. I went through this with Phantom Menace. Believe me, I’ve been there, I’ve done it, I know exactly the way they react. And they’re very vocal about these things. We’re not gonna have adoring fans sending us e-mails saying how much they loved the movie. We’re gonna have a bunch of angry people saying “You’re a bunch of a–holes, you should never have done this. You’ve ruined my life forever. I loved Indiana Jones so much and now it’s ruined.” And all that kind of stuff.

Steven Spielberg: Uh, he needs to speak for himself there. [Laughter all around] You need to put in parentheses “George Lucas is totally speaking for himself.” And I absolve myself of any connection with that last statement about fans not liking it.

Compare that tone with what David Duchovny said about X-Files (same issue of EW):

“If you try to anticipate an audience, then I think you get into trouble. We’ll make it, you enjoy it. And if you don’t enjoy it, then we didn’t hold up our end of the bargain.”

Basically, Duchovny and Lucas are saying the same thing: you can let fanboy run your life. But Lucas has long ago forgotten the bargain.

The new generation of Star Wars content producers are coming to the show with less baggage and therefore a far better approach:

Dave Filoni: There’s really not much difference, to be very honest with you. There’s a sense of immense responsibility coming from sitting in the audience to sitting up here. I felt it was really important that the whole crew who was going to work on Clone Wars felt the same way I did, which is we grew up on Star Wars and we really believed in it. It was something that inspired me creatively, and it’s something that inspired many generations. I think that’s important. I respect everybody out there and their opinions. Everybody comes up to me to talk about Star Wars, and I listen because I want to make sure when we do this, that we do it right and this will be the Star Wars that we all love.

Is it any wonder that Star Wars: Clone Wars was an absolutely amazing movie? (I know others have railed on it, but this movie is the first two episodes of an running Cartoon Network serial, not a new trilogy for crying out loud!)

The sad truth is that passion does wan over time. Businesses that interact regularly with fans (and thankfully the number of these businesses is increasing daily) run the risk of falling into the same trap George Lucas has. Even the best community management team will eventually get sick of being beat up by external (and even internal) forces.

A good community strategy includes a community manager, but a great community strategy includes plans for how to rotate and promote community staff to avoid the same kind of fanboy saturation and burn out that has effected George Lucas’ output.

iPhone Apps are not dead.

To read TechCrunch and GigaOm, you’d think that the iTunes App Store is crashing and burning. Both articles have used the overwhelming sales numbers as a catalyst for a “too cool for school” rant about how the App Store and iPhone apps in general are destined for failure.

Steve Jobs released the numbers for the first 30 days of the App Store:

• Total Downloads: 60 Million
• Total Revenues: $30 Million
• Sales Going To App Developers: $21 Million
• Sales Going To Top Ten Apps: $9 Million
• Sales of Sega’s Super Monkey Ball: $3 Million

Both Om and Erick have concerns about basically the same issues:

• Too many apps are being downloaded to be manageable
• Email is the killer app for the iPhone
• Usage is minimal, perhaps in only 5 minute bursts
• Users aren’t using the apps daily

All of this is fairly ridiculous. Yes, email and phone is going to be the killer app for a mobile device. Yes, when the store is new and untested people are going to experiment by downloading many more apps than they will realistically use (and probably realize that while doing so). Yes, apps are going to be used in short bursts – it’s a mobile device! Yes, just like the desktop, only a few apps are used daily while others might be wonderfully useful and only used infrequently.

Don’t pay too much attention to either of these articles – they’re focused both on the writer’s personal usage patterns and the very short term view. Personally, I believe we’re only just beginning to see the potential of a platform like the iPhone. While they might not be “killer apps” for everyone, there are three that excite me beyond belief about the iPhone application platform:

• Jott – Incredibly effective way to create voice dictation notes to yourself, which are then transcribed (and available online, on your phone, or via email). I never use Jott on the Web, as cool as it is but find myself using it daily on the iPhone. Of course, never in more than bursts of a minute or two. That’s the point.
• Pandora – Mobile, customized music “stations” that give me a personalized radio anywhere I go.
• UrbanSpoon – While I’m not using this much, and I don’t think it’s close to “killer app” status yet, I’m excited about the interface design that has me shaking the phone to create an action in the application. I can only imagine what this might allow and encourage UI designers to do in the coming months.

I know it’s cool for tech nerds to bash on new, hyped tech platforms to show off, don’t pay much attention to them. The iPhone and the App Store are a platform that has already created a lucrative marketplace for developers, a significant revenue stream for Apple, and tons of great content for users. If this is what can be developed in the first 30 days, imagine what will happen in the next year!