Community Guy – Jake McKee

9 tips for creating a great customer collaboration session

Last week’s trip to Seattle for the Microsoft for the Microsoft Technology Summit 2008 got me thinking about the power of bringing customers and employees together for open discussion. There’s been an up tick in both the creation of events like this, as well as the debate about whether they yield any real value. As someone who has created many, many of these types of events over the years, I absolutely believe in their power. That said, it’s also crucial to design and run the event effectively in order to gain real value.

Inspired by, but not based on the Microsoft event, here are my top 10 tips for building a great customer collaboration/engagement session

1. Define your objective
I don’t care what anyone tries to say, you can only have one first priority. In the case of these sessions, you have to choose whether your first priority is to gain ideas and feedback about the development (current and future) of your products, or if it is to generate excitement around your product line. Every other part of the event is based on which one of these two options is the priority of the event. This isn’t to say you won’t do both, but your decisions about the second priority will be driven by the first priority.

Here’s a simple example: If your first priority is to showcase the latest products to a group of influence and you’re only secondarily interested in their opinions of these new products you’ll likely keep a tight rein on the event schedule in order to ensure you pack in everything you planned. If, on the other hand, your first priority is to gain customer feedback and insight into certain products you’ll be much more inclined to let the schedule flex according to the level of participation.

2. Set the expectation on Day 1
From the first moment of the session, attendees should be told specifically why they’re there, the hoped/expected outcome of the event is, and why each one was chosen. It’s surprising how often attendees are just excited to be invited and never stop to think about (or ask) what they event is about. If done correctly, attendees don’t feel like they’re being used when they hear this info, they get excited to get started because they understand what is needed.

3. Choose the attendee list with purpose
A great session starts with a great group, and there is perhaps no greater decision to be made than who to invite. A great group will connect with each other, build off each other’s discussions, and perhaps even continue to work together after the session. Build the session with the smallest appropriate number of attendees, and make sure you know enough about each attendee to determine whether they will gel with the rest of the group. Create group diversity, but only with a specific niche. It sounds like a great idea to get stay-at-home moms together with C++ coders in order to gain a wide range of opinion, but in truth this range is too wide for anything effective to develop

4 Learn the group in advance
Hopefully you’ve already built up a connection to your community such that you know the attendees in advance. If not, make sure to do your homework on each one of them. Learn as much as you can about each person in order to understand their hot buttons, pet issues, and other relevant issues. If you have a small group, call each person in advance and talk to them a few minutes about what their interest are, what they hope to see at the event, and how their personality works. If you have a big group, put together a short web survey that asks both on and off-topic questions. The goal, as the event manager, is to understand when to bring up certain issues, and when to avoid other issues.

If you really want to be good, put together a “briefing book” for the colleagues that are attending that outline each attendee with a brief bio, a photo, the list of URLs where they can learn more, and a short overview of why they were invited.

5. Find a good facilitator
Hopefully the task of running the event falls to your community manager, someone who already has a known face to your community or who will have a lasting connection afterwards. What’s that? You don’t have a community manager? (You really should get on that) Find someone who has a good MC quality to them, someone who can not only keep things light and fun, but be one hell of a task master. Make sure they understand how to get a derailed conversation back on track. Make sure they can read an audience and understand the “bigger question” they’re really trying to ask. This person should be include in every stage of the event design.

6. Design the event
Customer collaboration events are something far grander than the last team meeting you set up. You’re trying to not only generate something specific during the session, you’re trying to build a relationship to the larger community through this small group of attendees. As such, every part of the event is a “design element”. Lost a lot of money last year? Probably not wise to cater in caviar.

While every element of the event warrants attention and care, here are two crucial areas that are too often overlooked:

• The room: Are you hoping for open discussion? Set up the room in the round, with people facing each other rather than the front of the room. Subconciously, tables/chairs facing a single speaker says “Please don’t talk until the end of my presentation”. If the group is too big to set up a circle of chairs, think about breaking the group into smaller working sessions.
• The goodies: If you have a company store, work in a trip. If you are putting people up in a hotel, have a goodie bag ready to go when they check in. Shuttling people around with a bus? Put a bag of M&Ms on each seat before they board. These small things have a huge impact on how well paid attention to each attendee feels. And the more pampered they feel, the more likely they are to share the experience with the larger community after they leave. (Microsoft had an inexpensive gift bag with an agenda, welcome letter, water, M&Ms, and breath mints when I checked in – Photo 1, Photo 2)

7. Invite colleagues, then train them on expectations
Unless your event design specifically calls for it, don’t stick your attendees in a room only with your team for the entire session. Invite your colleagues to come present what they’re working or participate in the session as members of the group. Just make sure to tell them in advance what the purpose of the group is and what you specifically want to see from them. (Share the briefing book too, if you’re created one)

8. Social events rule the day

More than just giving attendees a much needed break after a long day, social events serve several crucial functions. First off, they allow attendees to process the information they received during the day. The discussions that happen over dinner and beers will help each attendee understand the bigger picture, highlight things they didn’t catch during the event, and perhaps raise questions for the next day. Additionally, the social events give the attendees time (mostly) away from you to talk through their conclusions in a way that will improve the larger distribution to the overall community after the event.

Notice anything about those activities? They require talking and comprehension, so be sure to pick a social event venue that isn’t so loud it renders decent conversation unattainable.

9. Create a method of follow-up
No matter what style of event you put together, and no matter what the core purpose was, each of these events should drive a better relationship between the company and the overall community. The attendees of this event are community ambassadors, and they should be encouraged to take what they’ve learned and share it with the community when they get home. It’s important to clarify from the first moment of the event to the last what is and is not acceptable to talk about publicly. The default from attendees will always be to not talk about anything. If you ask them to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), they’re likely to not share anything at all out of fear, regardless of how much you tell them they can share certain things. (One of the many, many reasons to skip the NDA)

Additionally, before the event starts think about building a Facebook group, an email list, a Ning community, or any number of others mechanisms where people can connect after the session. Introduce this connection on Day 1, and remind them on the way out the door. You’ll need to apply some basic community management skills to start and maintain the conversation, but getting people to continue collaborating is well work the effort!

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Above all else, remember two things: You can’t plan enough, and your plan will need to flex the first moment the event kicks off. These session can yield some fantastic results and are great fun. What are you waiting for?

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Update: John applied my tips to a recent experience he had at an Adobe event.

How to get profiled on TechCrunch

At SWSWi, one of my many hallway conversations revolved around the trouble of getting profiled on TechCrunch. My fellow “mobile panelist” (thanks Chris Heuer for that term) said something like:

“If you don’t get profiled when you launch, you’ll never get profiled on TechCrunch. If they can’t point to their early coverage of you, they think they look like they missed something.”

For some reason this stuck with me, probably because it scares me that one of the biggest sources of news for this industry I love so much is so …. haphazard and personal. Eager to test this theory, I checked out the latest stories about startups on TechCrunch, and this theory defintely seems to ring true. When I wrote this blog entry, I checked the first three older startups featured on the site, and each entry made reference to previous coverage in a significant way.

[1] “In mid 2005 I profiled YouTube for the first time.”

[2] “London based Songkick, a Y Combinator startup that launched in October 2007…”

[3] “See our February 2008 review of Bungee Connect here.”

I have nothing at all against being self-referential. I do it here, and I wouldn’t begrudge anyone else. But if this theory plays out in truth (I’ll be watching to see), then that’s a bit sad. Imagine CNN or MSNBC not covering a story because they didn’t break it.

Fox News? Maybe. But do we really want our biggest industry source to more closely associate with Fox News than honest journalism? (And yes, TechCrunch is absolutely journalism)

What is Open-Innovation exactly?

What is Open-Innovation exactly? That’s the question that Dub Studios spotlights.

Henry Chesbrough is Executive Director of the Centre for Open Innovation, a unit of the Institute of Management, Innovation, and Organization at UC-Berkeley, and leading figure in the world of innovation and open-innovation per se. Here’s what they have to say on the subject;

Open Innovation is the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate innovation. With knowledge now widely distributed, companies cannot rely entirely on their own research, but should acquire inventions or intellectual property from other companies when it advances the business model.

Open Business Models create value by leveraging many more ideas, due to their inclusion of a variety of external concepts, and can also enable greater value capture, by using a key asset, resource, or position not only in the company’s own business model but also in other companies’ businesses.

Microsoft Technology Summit ‘08

Chris: “How would you like to attend the Microsoft Technology Summit in Redmond?”

Me: “I use a Mac and don’t do development, you sure?”

Chris: “That’s fine, that’s what the event is about… getting diversity of opinion.”

And here I am in Seattle (Redmond, WA actually) as part of the group of 50 meeting with a variety of backgrounds, interests, and careers having some incredibly open and interesting conversations about the direction of the company.

I’m going to be writing more about this event next week when I’m back home. But I’d like to quickly say that this is simply not the company I worked with in 2000-2001. Yes, they have a long way to go in my aspects as an organization, but from an individual employee standpoint this is a different company than I remember.

I’m surprised at how open these employees are to think and accept open source (ideas if not software). When I worked with MSN years back, the tone of the company had me swearing off working with them again. Yet today I find myself excited to help Microsoft move into the future, primarily because it’s obvious that a large number of employees I’ve met are dying to open up the company.

Sure, there’s a large distance between individual employee desires and overall company outcomes. But if in a few short years Microsoft has gone from a company I’ve sworn off working with to one I’m excited about engaging with, there’s every reason to believe that they’re on the right course.

Canon vs. Nikon: Who’s engaging their fans?

One of my LEGO community friends is an amazing photographer and has been a Canon fan for years. I remember him using Canon before I even knew that there was a Canon vs. Nikon struggle happening amongst photogs. (Think Apple vs. PC, Coke vs. Pepsi)

He and I recently exchanged emails and I was telling him about my newest lens, the Nikon 18-200mm lens. It brought home the irritation he has for Canon that they’ve largely ignored the desires of their non-professional consumers, while Nikon is delivering success after success because they’re listening and responding.

Ah, the famed 18-200VR– you see, that’s one of those products Canon fans keep saying they need to introduce, yet Canon is content to sell that lens broken in two–  a 18-55mm IS and a 55-200mm IS.

Canon has a very strange relationship with photographers.  They have a high end seeding program and beta setup– word is the Annie Leibowitzes of the world Canon often betas new cameras with.  Yet for the fans and enthusiasts there’s virtually no contact.

That’s because unlike Lego, where no one is really a professional (eg makes a living from it), some photographers are and others aren’t.  Also, there are many varying outfits– press who have their equipment supplier by an agency/newspaper versus the mom and pop wedding studio.

Canon operates a program called CPS-Canon Professional Services, for lens rentals/loans, priority service, loaners etc.  Membership varies by country– but generally required to have at least one pro body and three pro lenses.

So for working photographers, Canon seems to know its base well and caters to them.  It handles relationship building in the typical industrial customer way.  It does -not- however do any fan or user community base marketing.

Canon’s sole contact, or at least it appears online, is a guy named Chuck Westfall.  He’s some sort of “Manager of Technical Services or Information” but you’ll see his name all over in forums, blogs, websites where he’s explaining issues Canon has to the online/photographer community.  Stuff like why a product is being recalled, what’s going on behind how their products work, etc.  He seems very dedicated.

But otherwise Canon doesn’t really manage their enthusiast base.

Canon seems to be thinking in old school photography terms where there are two distinct audiences with hard lines between them: Professionals and hobbyists. Nikon seems to fully recognize that the line between those two audiences is disappearing quickly. More and more people are buying DSLRs that have lenses that change between the low end DSLR bodies and the high end bodies. If you’re a pro, why wouldn’t you choose the brand that allows you to do hand-me-downs to your friends and family? Why not choose the brand that has a larger presence in the used marketplace through both pros and hobbyists?

By going after the tourist crowd, so to speak, they’re indirectly targeting (or perhaps creating) more Nikon-based semi-pros and pros. Canon seems to be sticking to the formula that has worked for them in days gone past, and I can’t imagine it’s going to be healthy in the long term. Especially when you have reactions like you see from long-time Canon loyalists like my friend quoted above.

I applaud the fact that Canon has a rep working the forums and blogs for technical issues, but where is their version of the D80 Blogger Outreach Program? Where is their version of the Flickr contest? W
Even as a Nikon guy, I’d love to see more competition in this area between these two great companies. It’d be good for all involved.

Inspired Photography

In another medium jumping use of the Flickr API, I found PhotoTimeCapsule, from the photography geeks at Photojojo comes.

Every couple weeks, the Time Capsule looks at your Flickr account for photos you took a year ago. It picks the ones that are most interesting — the ones that got viewed the most, favorited the most, and commented on the most — and sends them to you in email.

That’s it!

You’ll be amazed by how wonderful it is to get a photo blast from the past.

When you sign up they send you a test run post so you can see the an example of what you’re about to get regularly. It’s truly amazing how much fun photos (not just photography) can be when you put them to work. As I scrolled through the first email time capsule, I was getting a little misty by the photos of the baby only a few months old. Photos I’d forgotten all about had been brought to life.

And of course, my other favorite Flickr API-based application, FlickrFan. It turns your Flickr photostream into an amazingly captivating, TV-like experience. It’s amazing what a little motion and a lot of screen real estate can do!

We’re winning.

First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.
- Mohandas Gandhi

Thanks to Doc Searls for pointing out this quote (and the idea of the GhandhiCon levels) and the idea that we’re winning. The ideas of open source, social media, and community building are taking hold in the world. We have a long way to go, but we’re certainly getting there!

(original photo credit: streetart)

Robert Stephens from GeekSquad is cool.

I know I linked to this the other day, but seriously, watch this. It’s well worth your time.

What “viral” really looks like…

I came across my all-time favorite YouTube video (embedded below) today and notice something amazing… look at the stats:

3.7 million views. Say that out loud several times, then watch the video. Is that making you rethink your next “viral campaign”? It should.

4 Lessons for improved blogger outreach

After posting what has to be one of the worst blogger outreach emails of all time as part of this post, I thought it was only fair that I dived into a bit more detail about what makes it so bad and how to avoid similar issues. I’m not trying to rail on the emailer or hurt the cause, but I think this situation has provided fantastic fodder for discussion.

Before we go any further, let me repost the email in question.

Subject: Short and sweet…and crooked?

Hi Jake,

I’m going to keep this short and sweet, seeing as you’ll likely only be interested in the community angle of this….

I wanted to let you know about a new site that just recently launched by [company removed]. It’s [URL removed]. Now, don’t be surprised that this site is all about Peyronie’s Disease (aka – crooked penises)…that’s just the background information. The cool thing is that [company remove], the company that started the site, is anxious to become a part of Healthcare 2.0. To do this, they encourage men and their partners to start a conversation in the community on their site. It actually is a great, anonymous way for people with this disease to talk about it, and perhaps worthy of being mentioned in your blog.

Crooked penises aside, I hope all things at Community Guy are going well. Also, keep in touch, as I have some cool projects for other companies on the horizon that I’d like to keep you posted on.

Thanks Jake!

Now, onto the discussion part of tonight’s program.

1. Language matters.
As I’ve written about before, community interaction is highly language dependent. Especially in a text based medium like email, text is basically all you have; you’d better get it right. Here’s a few of my favorite gaffs of this mail:

• (Subject line) “Short and sweet…and crooked?” – The emailer set a tone from the onset that was far too light, considering she was trying to make seem important.
• “… seeing as you’ll likely only be interested in the community angle” – Is she trying to imply I might have a more “personal” interest in this community?
• “… [the company is] anxious to become a part of Healthcare 2.0″ – Really? So anxious that they’ve outsource the relationship to an agency?
• “To do this, they encourage men and their partners to start a conversation in the community on their site” (emphasis mine) – If it’s the company’s community, why would anyone feel comfortable there talking about uncomfortable personal issues? Why would I want to start a conversation about this? What’s the point? (I’m sure there is one, but it leaves me wondering what it is)
• “Crooked penises aside…” – Again, is this a serious issue or a gig at people who have this problem? Hard to tell with statements like this.

2. Personality matters.
As a man, what is the biggest health issue you wouldn’t want to discuss with a woman? That’s right: anything at all having to do with the penis. Having the right person actually start these kinds of conversations is as important as the way they start them. Would you want a male agency rep sending blogger outreach emails to women about yeast infections? Choose your representative wisely.

3. Context matters.
It’s sad this needs to be said, but…

• Research your subject enough to customize the conversation. In the case of this email, the emailer could have spent 3 minutes on the site and realized that I do 10 question interviews and offered herself or her client up as a interview subject. She could have done a quick search and pointed out something that I’ve written about that connects to the way the site was designed.
• Understand the goals of your client. I can’t say for sure, obviously, but I have a hard time believing that the client for this outreach campaign would really enjoy the silliness that this email carries as a way to bring exposure to the cause/issue. When it’s so easy to make fun of something you’re trying to make into a serious issue, why would you use this joking tone to get the message across?

4. Conversation matters.
The emailer clearly “customized” a form letter with the opening and closing sentences. That’s not necessarily bad (so long as point 1 above is respected), but why not actually use this email to open up a real discussion about what’s going on with this new community. Offer to let me interview you about the “community angle”. Offer up some personal stories from community members about why this cause is even important in the first place. Tell me some pointers about the site that might be blog worthy. If you’re sending a blogger outreach email to someone, chances are it’s because they’re big enough in a certain space to pay attention to. That means other people are paying attention to them too, and you need to start a real conversation about what makes you interesting. Otherwise, why bother?

Blogger outreach is more akin to dating than marketing. You’re trying to court someone interesting in order to build a relationship, not blast a group of people with an offer to jump into bed for the night. We all know which one of those lasts longer!

Unfortunately, much of the blogger outreach that’s being done today is a being sold and bought on the ad impression model. “If you give us X amount of money, we’ll send your message to X amount of people.” Pointless. Totally pointless… as this blog entry proves.

Tune in tomorrow for my revised version of this mail!

(original photo credit: nofrills)