Community Guy – Jake McKee

Another Jake Interview

Thought some of you might be interested to know that I was interviewed on another podcast, this time for the Architectonic blog.



I’ve not listened to it yet, so I can’t make any claims about how good the interview went! The podcast feed can be found here.



Thanks to Christopher for the fun time and all his work in putting this together (and tracking me down to actually talk).

Uh…….

What in the world is this??



Seriously, watch it to the end.



I’m dying to know what they’re saying….

Tags: Off Topic

Random Finds

Just a few things I found recently through my travels around the Web:

• Hackoff - an e-Book delivered via blogs
• Running your company on Web apps
• Veoh.com – new TV network concept… through the Web
• DropSend – send big files easily
• PodTrac – podcast advertising network
• Web 2.0 business models

Slate and Podcast Ads

I’ve become hooked on the Slate.com daily podcast. They are wonderful little 5-7 minute chunks of interestirng content off of the Slate.com site, read by their editor. Andy has the perfect voice for the podcasts, and the content is always silly, pointless, and fun.

Additionally, Slate was one of the first podcasts to integrate real advertising (at least from what I listen to). They’re also the first ones to do it right. Well, sort of.

Andy gives a quick overview of the day’s story, then cuts to an add. In the weeks since the podcasts launched, they’ve had several ad spots, including one for a Chrysler that has an engine that switches from 8 to 6 cylinders at cruising speed. Very cool. (And even cooler for Chrysler that I remember this)

But for the past several weeks, they’ve had the same ad playing every day. Day after day.

I literally typed that from memory, and I’ll bet if I check it the only thing I will have gotten wrong is the URL. (And can anyone tell me what the hell an "MP3 board" is, and why I’d want one in my car??)

Slate has done a great job for themselves, for listeners, and for advertisers in the way they’ve structured their ad placement. It’s short, it’s mostly contextually revelvant (in theory anyway), and it’s between content in a way that doesn’t make me want to immediately fast foward or stop listening.

What they’re failing on is two things:

Ad Content
OK, first off let me say that the copy above seems like it was written by a first day intern. I’m pretty sure I’m the target market for this car, yet I feel like they’re talking to my dad or grandfather. "Tear up the road"? "Pamper me"? "One dimension"?

Podcast ads had better be contextually relevant far past what’s required in other media. When people have complete and total control on deciding whether or not to choose your content by individual installment, you can’t simply guess at what fits, you’d better be creating it specifically for the target podcast.

The ad above is the bottom of the barrel content inserted into brilliant and fun writing. Why is that style not showcased instead?

I’m now listening to the Slate Explainer podcast too. Guess what ad is running on there too??

Ad Replinishment
In podcasts, you have a completely different type of delivery mechanism than you do with most other media. Typically, old school media has a release schedule that is industry specific. New TV shows come out every week. Magazines every month. Morning radio shows every morning.

Podcasts are much different because there’s very few that have a set schedule for release, and none that are consumed on a set schedule. (The great thing about the podcast is that I can listen any time or any place I want). This means greater care needs to be taken to change out the content in a way that doesn’t get tired. I don’t want to hear this stupid Lexus ad every single solitary individual day on my commute home at 5:00p. I have my routines and I don’t want to have this Lexus ad be one of them.

But if Slate changed it up and ran that ad every three days for a longer period of time, I’d certainly respond better. It’s when I hear that dude’s voice in my head at night that makes me want to step away from Slate podcasts all together.

I know this is all new, but come on. This should be obvious stuff to a company who effectively stays in business off of advertising.

What is it?

A great way to think about community:

Additionally…

Communities are NOT:	Communities are :
About the Company first	All about me! (The individual community member)
One size fits all markets	Local in its approach even if the overall goal is global
About having control	Open source mindset
On-line only	360 degrees perspective – on-line and off line integration
Selling mindset	Building relationships with consumers directly
A mold – repeating itself over and over	Different & unique

LEGO Ambassadors

It dawned on me that I’ve never really blogged about the projects I’ve worked on at LEGO. The first one I wanted to share is the LEGO Ambassadors.

The LEGO Ambassador Program is a community based program made up of adult LEGO hobbyists. The mission of the LEGO Ambassador Program is to develop a tighter bond between the LEGO Group and the LEGO Community, by forming trusted relationships with a select group of the leaders of the adult LEGO community. The program is designed to provide a continuous exchange of information, ideas, and community feedback between the Adult LEGO community and the LEGO Group. There are currently 20 LEGO Ambassador "seats".

LEGO Ambassadors are the “representative voice” of the community. This means that they will act as true ambassadors for the adult LEGO community into the company, as well as finding and delivering information of relevance to the community out of the company. LEGO Ambassadors have the opportunity to become the eyes, ears, and voice of the adult LEGO community inside and outside the company. They help keep the community informed of current LEGO Group news, internal background information, and other subjects of interest for the adult fan community. Additionally,Ambassadors help bring the opinions and desires of the community into the company.



During each cycle, Ambassadors will be asked to participate in projects from three main areas:

Community Development: Based on the cycle-specific “Ambassadors Agenda” that is set at the beginning of each cycle, Ambassadors will work together with the LEGO Community Team to help grow the adult fan community. The Ambassador Agenda projects are based on the overall community needs and desires, with a goal of expansion and solidification.

Ambassador selection is based on a written email application, that outlines why the applicant feels s/he should be accepted. Selection is based on a review of the application against a long list of objective and subjective criteria, and based in no small part on participation and contribution to the LEGO community overall.



Participation and contribution comes in many forms – creating great events, forum postings that help other fans out, organizing a local club, enthusiasm about building, sharing with LEGO elements, or a range of other qualifications. The key ingredient for an Ambassador is the ability to communicate effectively, representing and exciting the community groups they interact with.



It’s important to note that a closer, more formal relationship with the LEGO Group doesn’t negate the ability of an Ambassador to speak freely, even critically on LEGO subjects. Informed critiques from the community through Ambassadors to the LEGO Group is as valuable as other forms of enthusiasm. Ambassadors are not LEGO spokespersons, but instead trusted allies.



The term of service (or cycle) for an Ambassador is approximately six months. Every Ambassador has to re-apply every cycle. An Ambassador might be in the program for 2 years or more, but all Ambassadors reapply every 6 months. There is no upper limit to how often a particular Ambassador may serve.

The program is based on applications and not recruitment. This means, for example, if no one from South America applies, then there’s no chance that South America will be represented. The goal is to have both the best talent from the community as well as a representative distribution among countries. Due to the community nature of the program, all Ambassadors must be conversant in the English language, although not necessarily fluent.

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This program is coming up on its second cycle, and is doing quite well. The first cycle was as much about learning what the Ambassadors would be interested in as well as figuring out how to sell this program to colleagues internally.



Overall, the program is proving very successful. It’s also been a great help to me, as the community liaison to have a small group that I can turn to for feedback on various subjects. I use a private email list and they have non-disclosure agreements they’re required to sign, so I can toss out pics of new sets, or ask about ideas for marketing programs, or any number of other things.



But the key benefit is that there’s a funnel effect. I can work with the community leaders on information sharing, information gathering, and new projects which they in turn share with the community at large. In the next cycle, we’re actually adding something comparable to the Supreme Court Chief Justice. This will provide an "organizational leader" (rather than hierarchal leader) who is equal in hierarchy but who has a few additional duties to help keep the group on track. This will further extend the funnel model of involvement for me.



As you can tell, there’s been a great deal of work on balancing the program to benefit both the company and the community…. thus sticking to my mantra: Everybody goes home happy.

I’m in another book

I’m in another book… well, sorta. I’m in the acknowledgements at least.

Yun Mi Antorini has been working on her PhD for a while and has just published a book with  her findings (as well as a few other colleagues). Yun Mi and I have been talking about community concepts for years now, and it’s great to see some of the discussions make it into print, at least in some form.

Check out Corparate Branding: Purpose/People/Process.

Congrats to Yun Mi!

 

Another cool wiki concept

Another cool wiki concept: wikiHow. Post your own how-to articles on a variety of subjects. Looks like it could be cool over time… we’ll see. A project like this is all about the content, of course, so how valuable a resource this turns into will be dependent on the community.