Community Guy – Jake McKee

Creating a book, one blog entry at a time

I just stumbled across this really interesting site – Writers Block Live. Basically, a former Apple employee is blogging his Apple experiences with the drive to a book when he’s collected enough content.

Writing a book may be easy for some, but definitely not for me. Writers Block Live will put you right there among the chaos and pain of creation. See me struggle to remember the events I’m writing about, and grope around in the dark trying to find the right words to describe them. See the unpolished beginnings and hopefully watch them morph into something good.

But you can be more than just an observer; leave comments on articles that you like (or don’t like); tell me about things that don’t make sense; offer suggestions about content or style or spelling. It will all help me move things in the right direction.

From the entries I’ve read so far, this is just the kind of "personal journey" book I’m going to enjoy reading.

Presentation Fun

Check out this fun read about how Steve Jobs prepares for his big presentations.

Flash and LEGO Design

A colleague just send me a link to this interesting article from one the creators of Macromedia Flash.

The human mind is much too limited to capture the entirety of a complex creation all at once. With LEGO, you can start with the vision and work out the details of the design as you progress. With patience and persistence, I developed the following LEGO-based design process. It’s more or less the same process we ultimately used to develop Flash.

1. Choose a problem: Build a LEGO ship.
2. Develop a vision: What sort of ship will it be? How big will it be? What will it carry?
3. Build: Build the framework of the ship.
4. Fill in the details: Design and build the details of the ship, ramps, doors, etc.
5. Test: Drive the cars around the ship and sail the ship while exploring the house.
6. Refine: Take parts of the ship apart and make them better.
7. Learn: Take what you learned from building this ship and use it to build a better one next time.

(On a side note, I feel really old that I can remember the launch of Future Splash)

Cool TechCrunch Finds

One of my new favorite sites is TechCrunch. The sites tracks the coolest Web 2.0 tools, business, and sites.



Here’s a couple recent finds:

• TailRank
• FeedXS

It’s wonderful to see such huge flow of great ideas again after a bit of a post-dotcom bust downturn.

Ghostwriting Blogs

Everyone seem to have a different opinion on the issue of whether ghost written executive blogs are kosher or not. This discussion shows a number of opinions on the subject.

I don’t think there’s one answer to this question because it’s so dependent on the actual implementation. If by “Ghost Writer” we’re really saying “Marketing Schomo who has the blessing of the CEO to sign his name”, then it’s just lies. But if we’re talking about a “Ghost Writer” as a helping hand to an exec who works 100 hour weeks, I have no problem with it at all.

I once talked to the GM blog lead and he mentioned that Bob Lutz, famous GM Chairman of the Board/blogger would drop Blackberry notes from the airport waiting area and the folks at HQ would brush it off and post it live. Nothing wrong with that – the spirit of corporate blogging is about getting information out. That process certainly fits.

As Johnnie said:

“I try to avoid inventing too many rules for blogging – I encourage companies to try stuff and see what happens. You can usually reverse your mistakes. And a lot depends on the quality of your ghost.”

Authenticity

Reading this article about brands creating actual content as a way to grab new consumers made me smile.

Companies are aiming for a more authentic connection than they could get by a product placement deal or with the standard promotional efforts around a Hollywood movie premiere. Instead, the documentary format allows the companies to immerse viewers in the brand’s imagery and lifestyle attributes without—for the most part—the blatant branding that tends to turn off their core consumers. Plus, brands are finding that a documentary can provide a bona fide platform for live events and other marketing communications.

The full article really is a worth a read. If you ever ask yourself “how does a brand like Mountain Dew or Dr. Martens get such an avid base?”, this is part of your answer.

Not at all correct

I just came across this site. I nearly jumped out of my skin when I read this definition:

NO NO NO NO!!!



Customer loyalty is not at all a "byproduct" of any "program". This type of thinking is exactly what’s gotten marketing people into so much trouble in the first place.



Let’s try this is again:

Rule: See It Through

Being a community advocate/evanglist/supporter at this point in business means that you’re going to constantly be running into brick walls. Colleagues, community members, you name it; someone is always telling you that your ideas are crazy.



That means it’s that much more important to stick to your guns – See It Through. There’s two components of this issue:



Believe in your ideas

This is a "basic business" rule, but it’s even more important when talking about community work. When you’re getting push back from colleagues, make sure that you believe in your ideas. If you don’t, then ask yourself why you’re trying to sell it in the first place. If you do, then do what it takes to push it forward.



This device is a great idea, but imagine taking the idea to the Sony execs and suggesting that the next generation PSP should be completely and totally hackable. As Jack Welch says:

Don’t quit too early

Once you’ve gotten people to agree to your ideas, make sure that you don’t quit too early. .Getting someone to say yes in the early stages is one thing. Getting them to follow through to end is another thing. Don’t assume your community projects are finalized until you’re setting in the After Action Review meeting.

Socialization of the Web

Came across a short but sweet blog post today. The full entry is worth a read, but this bit really stuck out to me:

Now this is where it gets interesting, what used to be simply web presence has now become an actual online persona which reflects nearly every aspect in the real world. Its difficult to even talk about real world or offline existence because the line is blurring to such an extent that online presence is becoming nothing less than an extension to your daily activities.

Here the social aspect comes into play, looking back at communities you now get more organicly formed groups of people with similar interests that interact but do so as separate entities, somewhat along the lines of creating a neural network. I believe we’re only seeing the very beginnings of this coming into play but it seems to have potential to grow into a very significant phenomena.

What being honest is all about

Imagine saying this to your colleagues. Publicly.

These are quotes from Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s best known blogger.



Old school thinking was that this type of thing is damaging to a company’s reputation. Like the problems of a traditional old world family, negativity should stay hidden and repressed.



You can read more about the actual story above, but the details aren’t important to this discussion. Scoble has turned a story that could hold huge potential for PR blow-up and shown that Microsoft is not only made up of real people who think like you and I, but that the company isn’t scared of open debate. This example is a great showcase of the process of how to business blog:

1. Be honest - even if it hurts to talk about your colleagues or your company
2. Find answers - it’s not enough just to talk about things openly. You also need to be engaging conversation with those who in are involved directly with the things you’re blogging about.
3. Follow up – Once you’ve gotten the other side of the story, or additional facts, or any other type of information that’s relevant, fill in your audience. Create a full circle of feedback

Bonus point: (this one is for the company management) Support your bloggers – it might hurt to hear honesty, but your consumers appreciate it. (Just read the commments in the thread if you need an example) You may say you support the concept of blogging, but support the individuals too. Support their content. Get your management to post comments regularly. Help ensure that they’re getting the information they need from colleagues internally.



Great work, Scoble.