The hospital used computer-guided lasers that stacked/fused plastic layers into more than a hundred tiny tubes. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave the hospital special permission to implant one of the tubes in the baby, who’s now doing just fine.

In addition to healthcare, 3D printing is fast making significant inroads in a wide variety of vertical markets.

“It’s the wave of the future,” said Dr. Robert Weatherly, a pediatric specialist at the University of Missouri in Kansas City.

Elizabeth Royte, writing in this month’s Smithsonian Magazine, reported that even the printing of organs – and cartilage and skin and tissue – “holds great promise for transforming healthcare and extending longevity. Transplanted organs from a patient’s own tissues won’t be rejected. Waiting times for kidneys and other donor organs will decrease, and organ traffickers could be put out of business.”

One of Royte’s sources, Anthony Atala, who heads up the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine, says in a few years hospitals will have 3D printers that can print skin – “from subcutaneous fat up through keratinocytes to hair follicles, oil glands and melanocytes – directly into a patient’s body.”

3D printing, like most other technologies, may have a dark side. Earlier this month Defense Distributed, a Texas-based company, posted details online on how to make a plastic gun (called the ‘Liberator’) using a 3D printer (see Fox News photo). The U.S. Department of State ordered the company to take the blueprints offline because they may contain data controlled by the federal government – Defense Distributed has now complied. Before the firm did so, there were more than 100,000 downloads worldwide.

Forbes also reported that 15 of the gun’s 16 pieces were made on an $8,000 Stratasys Dimension SST 3D printer. “The final piece is a common nail, used as a firing pin that can be found in a hardware store,” noted Forbes.

A U.S. Department of Homeland Security intelligence bulletin issued on May 21 highlighted the U.S. government’s chief concerns:

“Significant advances in 3D printing capabilities, availability of free digital 3D printer files for firearms components, and difficulty regulating file sharing may present public safety risks from unqualified gun seekers who obtain or manufacture 3D printed guns…magnetometers may fail to detect the Liberator, depending on device sensitivity. Future designs could further reduce or eliminate metal entirely…unqualified gun seekers may be able to acquire or manufacture their own Liberators with no background checks.”

But as the technology continues to evolve, hopefully 3D printing will be an agent of good.

Peter Friedman, who publishes the Innovation Investment Journal, said car dealers, for instance, might eventually include free 3D printers with vehicles so owners can manufacture their own parts.

“3D printing is not just the future of making things you don’t have…it’s the future of making things that you do have immortal,” he said.

However, to use some British vernacular, this may result in a sticky wicket. Royte pointed out a number of legal issues that will pop up:

“Who is liable if a home-printed design fails to perform? Who owns the intellectual property of codes and the objects they produce? 3D printing is bound to encourage counterfeiting, with serious consequences for brand owners,” Royte said.

In addition to the plastic gun example mentioned earlier, Royte said hackers have already stolen personal banking information after creating a widget on a 3D printer that fits inside an ATM.

Nonetheless, 3D printing could jump-start certain industries.

One of these is the solar energy industry.

John J. Licata, chief energy strategist of Blue Phoenix, a consultancy focusing on next generation energy, believes 3D printing will revolutionize solar panel and photovoltaic (PV) cell manufacturing.

Licata said a lack of energy storage, coupled with manufacturing inefficiencies, have had a negative impact on the industry – future production of solar cells need to be more sustainable.

“3D solar cells, despite advances in energy storage, can capture more sunlight than conventional PV models because they are more precise (using copper, indium, gallium, selenide), less complex and weigh less,” said Licata.

He also pointed out that researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) believe 3D solar panels could be about 20 percent more efficient than flat solar panels – 3D printing can extend the amount of solar absorbed into cells.

Licata added that 3D printing may also drop production costs by half by eliminating various inefficiencies associated with the waste of costly materials like glass or polysilicon.

“The ability to control material inputs of your finished solar product would further turn traditional manufacturing of PV on its head by creating more of an on-demand model that doesn’t require fabrication at distant warehouses,” he said.

Lastly, Licata believes that 3D printing can generate very thin solar cells that can be printed on untreated paper, plastic or fabric rather than expensive glass.

“Creating lighter weight flexible solar panels could have bigger positive implications for wearable hi-tech clothing, radios and future electronics,” he said.

Assuming, like all relatively new technologies, that the costs of 3D printers will start to decrease, 3D printing could lead to a new wave of customization for businesses.

Eric Savitz of Forbes reported that this customization potential will compel “leaders to adjust their sales, distribution and marketing channels to take advantage of their capability to provide customization direct to the consumer.”

And from the consumer’s perspective, noted Carine Carmy, director of marketing for Shapeways, a 3D printing marketplace and community, 3D printing helps extend the conversation with brands opened by digital and social media to possibly co-creating products. She also succinctly summed up the technology’s potential:

“As previously occurred with social media, brands early to adopt 3D printing will be in a position to define the market and develop their way to innovation.”

Sky’s the limit. Stay tuned.

One thing we can count on is by the time you have finished reading this buying behavior may have been altered one again.  Changes in buyer behaviors continue unabated.  This is making it difficult for marketing and sales leaders to plan the right mix of strategies and tactics resulting in a winning formula.

5 Buyer Behaviors B2B Marketing Must Keep An Eye On

New buying behaviors means B2B marketers have to become more responsive today.  Creating nimble organizations and improving knowledge in buyer understanding.  Here are ways buyer behavior will continue to reshape marketing:

Buyers Embrace Collaboration

Social and digital technologies has allowed for progress in the area of collaboration.  Meaning the sphere of influence and interaction not only has widened but increased.  Old ideas about roles on buying teams are being shattered as we speak.  The era of collaborative buyer networks has arrived.  We now have to consider internal as well as external members of collaborative networks impacting decision-making.

Buyers Want Co-Creation

Collaborative networks are fostering a new environment for co-creating products, services, and for solving problems.  This new development will put pressure on B2B organizations to get in line with flexible products and services which allow buyers to play an active role in co-creating.  Buyers and their collaborative networks will demand it.  For B2B marketers, this means a broader view on how you deliver messaging.

Buyers Want Less Content

I am sure some will do a double take on the above sub-header.  The fact is buyers are overwhelmed with content.  Here is how one buyer put it to me: “Look, I think twice now about putting my name in a form - not because I am not willing - but I know this just means I am going to get a flood of emails to download more information.” Buyers want less content – yet desire smart content.

Buyers Want 1-to-1

A funny thing happened on the way to marketing automation.  Marketing may be inadvertently dripping back into the mode of 1-to-many as opposed to the coveted 1-to-1.  I came upon this thought after conducting two reviews of lead generation and nurturing campaigns.  Buyers can see right through this screen.  They can smell automation.  A buyer’s voice on an email she received: “What is this?  I really don’t know because it doesn't say anything to me.”

Buyers Want More Than Insight

There is the old adage “too much of a good thing.”  I think we may have such a situation happening.  We have embraced the idea of the Challenger Sale and you see organizations racing to offer insight.  An issue here is too many items are being classified as insight.  This can actually counter-balance the act of contributing insight.   What this means for B2B marketing and sales is they will have to be more judicious in what they label insight.  Why dilute a good thing?

Adaptive and Agile Marketing

With rapidly changing buying behaviors, B2B marketing will need to be more adaptive and agile.  I foresee buyer behaviors shifting in waves.  This means marketing must be able to see these waves and make adaptive shifts in how they connect with buyers.  This will certainly not be easy to do.

Predictability will become even more important as we look ahead.  While Big Data holds promise, it will equally take developing the qualitative ability to anticipate where the new buyers of today are heading.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to the Buyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Related articles

• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle
• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle
• The Art of Buying
• 7 Big Questions for B2B Marketers in 2013

This past weekend at BlogPaws (a social media conference for pet bloggers) an FTC rep was on hand to disseminate the information to publishers, but this information is extremely valuable to those of us in marketing who conduct blogger outreach.

Understanding FTC guidelines is essential to protecting your agency, your client and also the consumers who you are marketing to.

1. When does a blog post need to have a disclosure?

Whenever there is a material connection between the post’s author and the brand. If a blogger happens to purchase a product that they love and then write a post detailing the product’s virtues, there is no material connection between them and the brand.

A material connection is established when an agency or brand reaches out to a publisher and offers product, gift cards, payment or other items that could be considered a transaction (a free dinner, trip etc.)

So, if you work in-house or at an agency and are conducting blogger outreach you need to be familiar with FTC guidelines. If you chose to ignore them, you are running a risk that your agency and your brand will be the subject of an investigation and possible action by the FTC meaning fines.

Who has been subject to these investigations? The speaker mentioned Porter Novelli, HP, Ann Taylor Loft, and Hyundai.

What were they giving away? As little as a $50 gift card. So, whether you are offering cars or carnations to bloggers you need to know the FTC guidleines.

2. Direct bloggers to use the #ad in any tweets, pins or Instagram images they share to promote product review or sponsored posts. DO NOT use #Spon

The FTC would like to see bloggers on Twitter and other microblogging platforms discontinue the use of the hashtag #spon (which means sponsored post in blogger speak). The meaning of the #spon hashtag may not be apparent to consumers, and the mission of the FTC is to ensure consumers understand the material connection between the blogger and company. It is the responsibility of the brand who did the outreach to communicate this as a necessity.

#Ad is much more clear to everyday people that what they are seeing is an ad of some sort, whether the post is paid for which cash or stems from a product review of items sent free of charge to a blogger.

3. Disclosures should be placed as close as possible to the claim they qualify.

This means, that instead of a blogger writing 4 paragraphs about the nifty gizmo they received and then waiting to the end of a post to mention that the above post was paid or that they got said gizmo for free, bloggers should disclose their material relationship to the brand in the heart of the post, close to where they detail the product.

What language should be used? The important thing is that a normal person can understand the disclosure. Legalese need not apply. So, ask bloggers to disclose that the product was provided free of charge by your company right when they start discussing it. For instance: “Gizmody  Co. just sent me GizmoXY  free of charge for review and I think it is super nifty.”

Asterisks and other weird symbols that refer readers to the bottom of a post for disclosure just don’t cut it in the eyes of the FTC. With an increasing number of mobile users who are viewing content in small bits and bouncing fast, they realize the number of people who read posts in their entirety is small.

4. If you are a marketer, you are not allowed to leave positive reviews for your clients on Yelp, Amazon, iTunes or anywhere else.

Especially if you do not disclose that you are a representative of the company. The FTC rep was very clear that this would not be tolerated and highlighted a case in which the FTC investigated a PR company who left numerous positive reviews for a client’s video game app in the iTunes store. So, just don’t do it.

5. Don’t use hyperlinks for disclosures that are integral to a claim

Linking off to information that the consumer needs to make an informed decision about the value of the opinion stated in the post or for important information like safety or cost. The speaker did add that hyperlinks are permissible if a disclosure is expecially long or has to be repeated over and over on the same site.

6. Make sure your agency or brand has a social media policy that includes mandating disclosure from bloggers you work with.

The speaker said some investigations against agencies and brands ultimately were closed without action because the agency or brand had a social media policy in place and showed that the outreach for the campaign being investigated was done by a “rogue” employee. Having a policy documented and in place could help your agency or brand in the event that an FTC investigation is launched.

Blogger outreach is a great way to build word of mouth, backlinks and to seed a new product with consumers. Just do it responsibly.

Additional resources for brands, agencies and bloggers can be found at www.business.ftc.gov

What other media channel can compare with this?

Consumers are rapidly adopting mobile devices and behaviors and spending an average of 2 hours per day on smartphone devices. We are rarely separated from them, and we check our phones every 6.5 minutes (or 150 times daily). 

MOBILE advertising grew by 88% in 2012

While MOBILE ad/media spending is only 1% of total media (vs. 10% share of consumer media time), MOBILE advertising grew by 88% in 2012 (from $2.4B to $4.5B). MOBILE ad spending growth to-date has been limited by marketers/agencies challenges in creating MOBILE ads designed specifically to take advantage of MOBILE devices. Chia Chen, SVP Mobile Practice Leader at Digitas indicated their client's mobile ad spending grew by 400% (4X more rapidly) because their ads for Amex, Taco Bell, M&Ms and other clients treated smart phones as "small TVs" and incorporated richer media, and more native creative palettes.

Global Tablet Advertising Study - Results Presented

Beth Doyle, Innovation Director at Vivaki, revealed the results of a 14-month global industry study of 20 million global tablet users (sponsored by 12 advertisers including P&G and Coke and 12 media companies) titled The Pool: The Tablet Lane - TABLETS RISING. This study tested 35-40 tablet advertising formats and yielded 3 STD Tablet ad formats being proven as meeting consumers' needs: (1) let me drive; (2) more for me; (3) "tablet-ize" the user experience; (4) no guessing games - keep it intuitive and simple. Clearly, with MOBILE (smartphone and tablet) ad standards emerging, marketers are well on their way to utilizing this new medium in unique ways not available through other previous media channels.

MOBILE's Big Differentiators

MOBILE is a one-to-one media channel and LOCATION is MOBILE's big differentiator. These devices give consumers the ability to find anything they need in real-time and for marketers (with opt-in permission) to find their best customers and prospects when they are in active shopping/buying mode. 40% of consumers already utilize MOBILE devices as their primary (exclusive) online research channel and 60% of mobile shopping converts to purchase (with 75% of sales take place in-store).

Todd Morris, EVP of Mobile & Marketing at Catalina indicated mobile-assisted grocery shoppers buy 8%+ more and over 1M+ consumers are already spending over $1B+ in mobile grocery shopping where items are scanned, store discounts/coupons are applied, and orders are delivered or picked up without waiting in checkout lines.

Trish Mueller, CMO at Home Depot indicated mCommerce grew 129% in 2012 and sales from MOBILE are projected to exceed $650M by 2016. Home Depot has developed a MOBILE web and apps which make it one of the top 10 retail sites creating "an endless aisle" where consumers can access 400,000 SKUs as well as product information and peer reviews at the point of purchase. One of the most innovative apps is "Find A Pro" where consumers can take a video of a problem, send it to Home Depot, and they will connect consumers with "Pros" who can bid the job.

Winston Wang, Global Director - Strategic Innovation at AB Bev, demonstrated "beer and MOBILE go hand-in-hand" indicating beer is the original social network and MOBILE is helping Sales & Marketing along the entire purchase funnel as well as in the loyalty/advocacy areas after purchase. Winston shared MOBILE apps for Stella Artois (9 step pouring ritual, LeBar finder), Beck's and Bud Light.

Announcement: A New MMA Initiative To Address The Mobile Talent Gap

MMA-NA has launched a NEW Mobile Talent Task Force (Jeff Gundersen - Co-Chair) and the first open Committee meeting was held at the MMA-NY 2013 Forum. All parties (marketers, agencies, media companies, technology providers, educators, training & development companies, and other interested parties) are invited to reach out to Jeff Gundersen for a copy of the "Strategic Framework" and related mobile talent research studies pertaining to this new Committee.

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
― Ernest Hemmingway
The concept of buyer personas, as a means for understanding buyers, has been around now for over a decade.  It is an understatement to say many things have changed in the world of buying and selling since their beginning.

We have witnessed the changing dynamics of the buyer-seller relationship. The dynamics I refer to are buying behaviors and buyer goals.  On the other side of the coin, we see marketing and sales making attempts to adapt.  The concepts of content marketing, lead nurturing, insight-based selling, customer experience, and brand management emphasized.  These practices have been introduced as gateways to connecting with buyers in the new digital age.

Adapting to New Realities

Personas, at their core, were introduced as a tool to communicate the goals and behaviors of users and buyers.  Specifically for informing strategies related to product design and marketing to buyers.  For B2B Marketing and Sales, a clearer picture has begun to emerge around the goals and behaviors of buyers.  Yet, there are many more miles to go.  My endeavor and work with organizations over the past decade lead me to this conclusion:

Personas, specifically in B2B, need to be adaptive to new goals and behaviors of buyers throughout their buyer’s journey.  In addition, personas need to be designed for the new practices, which are developing in marketing and sales.

The term buyer persona has been used universally to an extreme level. The term worked well when buyers relied on sales for their buying cycle for upwards to eighty percent.  We are seeing the inverse today.  Here is where I believe buyer trends as well as qualitative evidence is telling us to go:

B2B personas need to be researched, understood, and designed to meet robust goals and behaviors of buyers throughout the end-to-end buying cycle and brand experience.  In addition, personas need to be designed to enable as well as make more effective new practices, functions, and roles.

Persona Buying Cycle™

As new operational models for marketing and sales develop, there are 5 buying behavior phases of the buying cycle personas must now address:

1. Audience Behavior: the concept of content marketing reaching audiences is more prevalent.  Audience goals and behaviors are distinctly different when not in the market for products or services.  Yet, awareness, insight, and intelligence are an important component of connecting with existing customers and future buyers today.  Content marketing effectiveness is enabled when it can reach many different types of audiences.  Audience personas must now include the likes of industry influences and more.
2. Lead Behavior: one of the fastest growing areas, in terms of emerging practices, is the rise in lead nurturing and lead development.  Buyers have distinct goals and behaviors when they convert from being a part of a wider audience to an interested party.   New forms of lead research and lead personas can create more effective conversions from an interested party to an active buyer.
3. Buyer Behavior: the core persona when buyers have become actually engaged in the process of buying.  Buying behaviors, and buying goals, operate on a different level when buyers are actively engaged in the buying process.  Buyer personas, true their original intent, are designed to enable the buying process between buyer and seller.
4. Customer Behavior: when a buyer becomes a customer, there is a trial period underway.  This trial period consists of a different set of goals and behaviors meaningful to confirmation and customer experience.  Specific customer personas can enable understanding and capabilities to meet customer goals post-sale.  Implementation and customer support teams can benefit immensely from personas designed specifically for their roles.
5. Brand Behavior: brand management is emerging out of the shadows, as a competency B2B companies have to get right today.  Fulfilling the brand promise consistently is one of the hardest jobs of marketing and an organization as a whole.  Customers and buyers have different goals, behaviors, and beliefs, which surround brands.  The goal here is to convert customer personas into brand persona advocates.

A recommendation for forward-thinking marketing and sales leaders is to begin thinking in terms of the Persona Buying Cycle™ versus a singular focus on a buyer persona.  One certainty is the buyer’s journey not only begins before buyers think of themselves as a buyer, but also extends beyond the purchase.  Having a common visual and story of how buyer’s goals and behaviors change throughout the buying cycle is compelling.   We are also seeing activities, functions, and roles widen in marketing and sales in response to changing buying behaviors.  The Persona Buying Cycle™ is a natural extension to address both of these developments.

Positive Outcomes

Creating B2B personas through the lenses of a Persona Buying Cycle™ help bring these positive outcomes:

• • Make personas relevant throughout the major touchpoints of the end-to-end buyer’s journey
  • Make personas more practical to each functional team interacting with audiences, buyers, and customers
  • Make demand generation, lead generation, opportunity management, and customer experience more effective
  • Provide a common communications platform for understanding buyers
  • Foster alignment between marketing and sales by mapping to specific buyer goals and behaviors

In a dozen years, we have seen the then straightforward buyer-seller dynamics become more complex.  How B2B views the use of personas, from a pragmatic standpoint, now must adapt.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to the Buyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Related articles

• Marketing is in the Throes of a Buyer Revolution
• The Art of Buying

• 5 Buying Behaviors of the Persona Buying Cycle (tonyzambito.com)

The quest to uncover how and why people and businesses engage in the act of buying is becoming an endurance race.  Spurred on by increasing social technologies advances.  The result is many organizations, whether academia or business, have focused on the science of buying.  What we may be losing is critical understanding of the art of buying.

What we are witnessing in the new digital age is the old rules of near total dependency on understanding processes and rules associated with buying is no longer the sole winning ticket.  Buying processes and rules have been dissected and analyzed many times over throughout the past few decades.  We clung to the belief of knowing the how will lead us to systematic knowledge of how to close more business with buyers.   The problem marketing and selling organizations face today is the how – processes and rules – are not as easily defined or structured as in the past.  Social technologies have made it possible for new networks and collaboration amongst buyers – causing plenty of flex in processes and rules.

The Why of Buying

If the science of buying has focused on the how of buying, the art of buying is a heightened quest for understanding the Why of Buying™.  The focus on how businesses buy in B2B marketing and sales has led to many different spin offs of stages, processes, cycles, and funnel shapes.  These exercises do have value.  However, here is a way of looking at what is missing:

A pure focus on process and stages, for example, creates a focus on what buyers are doing rather than what they are thinking and why it is important.

My point of view goes something like this:

Despite all the hype and efforts made in demand generation and content marketing, organizations are still struggling in these areas.  This is due to campaigns and programs designed to fit into established ideas of how businesses buy.  We have even believed automating processes to fit into our view of how we believe buyers buy will speed up purchase cycles.  This is happening at the expense of innovating marketing and sales to get at the core why of buying.

In the recent B2B Demand Generation Benchmark Survey 2012 sponsored by Eloqua, CMO, and Software Advice, I was struck by how 45 to 60% of the 155 marketer respondents believed demand generation performance were below expectations.  Those using marketing automation believing performances were better than those not using marketing automation.   In recent CMI as well as eConsultancy surveys, 40 to 50% of marketers surveyed believed their content marketing efforts were not effective.

Effectiveness a Continuing Struggle

Effectiveness and performance continue to be ongoing issues when it comes to demand generation and content marketing.  While organizations may be getting more productive and efficient at automating processes related to demand generation and content marketing, the missing link is an understanding of why buyers behave, think, and decide as they do.  How buyers behave, think, and decide do not always fit squarely into boxes we have defined to go with processes, rules, or stages.

To become more effective at helping buyers, marketing and sales organizations will need to do this:

Put more investment and energy into understanding the why of buying as opposed to an over abundance on the science of marketing and sales.  We cannot understand how to help buyers unless we are grounded in knowing the why.

Competitive advantage will be determined by knowledge of the motivations, beliefs, thinking, perceptions, goals, behaviors, and responses on the part of buyers.  Marketing today must fulfill the role of understanding how buyers behave and think.   Sales must become the enablers of buyers helping themselves.

The Stories of Buyers

The art of buying is represented through the stories of buyers.  For every industry, there are compelling stories about buyers, which can be told.  It is through these stories we can learn the motivations and goals of buyers, which open the door to understand the why of buying.  For marketing and sales, the key to future success will be in understanding what stories are unfolding, why these stories are important, and how to become part of stories. To mold this key, it will take more art than science to achieve.

(Become part of the dialogue.  Connect with me on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus as well as subscribe to the Buyer Persona Blog on the tonyzambito.com website.)

Follow @tonyzambito

Related articles

• Marketing is in the Throes of a Buyer Revolution
• 4 Buyer Trends That Will Shake Marketing in 2013

• The Art of Buying (tonyzambito.com)

A good example is the recently concluded Linley Tech Mobile Conference, held last week in Santa Clara, CA and organized by Mountain View, CA-based The Linley Group, a market research firm providing independent technology analyses of semiconductors for networking, communications, mobile, and wireless applications. The company also produces a trade publication, Microprocessor Report.

This was the fourth year the event was held; according to company founder and Principal Analyst Linley Gwennap, the conference attracted about 200 people, including those from mobile IP and chip companies, handset and other device vendors, carriers and software vendors, as well as the financial community and press. Attendees represented a broad range of companies, including Broadcom, China Mobile, Cisco, Dell, Ericsson, HP, Huawei, Imagination Technologies, Marvel, Samsung and Sony, as well as financial analysts from Bank of America, Credit Suisse, UBS, and Wells Fargo.

The conference focused on a wide array of topics; here’s a snapshot:

• Heterogeneous processing
• Licensable CPUs for mobile devices
• Licensable GPU and DSP cores
• Mobile semiconductors
• Mobile SoC design issues
• Mobile software trends
• Multicore application processors
• Other low-power IP cores

The presentations addressed design issues for mobile devices -- tablet computers, smartphones, navigation devices, media players, handheld games, and e-book readers.

One of the conference highlights, noted Gwennap, was a panel on the growing China mobile market, featuring executives from China Mobile, Imagination Technologies, MediaTek and Spreadtrum. The panel addressed key challenges and opportunities for mobile products in China, the diverging demands of Chinese consumers and the different tiering in that enormous market. One interesting takeaway: the total available market for mobile handsets in China is larger than the entire population of the United States!

Another session on mobile CPUs talked about major issues for mobile product development. One of the panelists, Mark Throndson, serves as Director of Processor Technology Marketing for UK-based Imagination Technologies.

One of Throndson’s conclusions was that industry trends are forcing more efficiency in how companies build products, and to enable this, new technologies are abstracting software development away from the underlying hardware/instruction sets.

“At the end of the day, even though software is becoming less dependent on the hardware it runs on, good underlying architectures are still important as they affect the user experience through delivering high performance, longer battery life, and lower costs,” said Throndson.

Another interesting session focused on power-optimized design. This is an increasing challenge as today’s mobile devices integrate ever-more features and functionality, yet battery technology hasn’t kept pace. A couple of session participants proposed that the answer lies in adding a bit more complexity in hardware to handle power management. While this additional logic may consume some power, the end result, according to these panelists, is increased efficiency and longer battery life.

I’ve been to gobs of analyst-driven events that focused too much on promoting the market research firm and its offerings; the buzz on the Linley gathering from attendees is that it was two days well-spent.

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#1 Hello Kitty - photo2013-03-31 16:41

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Cool Hunting with the CLA 250

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BMW Brand Store Paris

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TopTen is weekly summarty of the previous week's ten most engaging posts from the largest 100 consumer brand pages on Facebook. All data is pulled using social media content strategy tool Zuum.

At some point in their career, every communications professional needs to handle at least a few crisis situations on behalf of a client. All things being relative - whether it’s a disaster like the BP oil spill, a trolling commenter on your brand’s Facebook page, or an executive giving out embargoed information too early – the way you initially respond will set the tone for everything that follows. It’s all about being prepared to the best degree, and then maintaining as much control as possible.

But in some cases, keeping a loose grip on that control and relying on trusted advocates to speak on your behalf can be more effective than any prepared statement.

An example of this recently played out between Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk and the New York Times. When Musk went on the attack against a negative review of the company’s East Coast charging station, first via social media, then by blog, and eventually (perpetually?) even further, his response quickly incited a crisis spiral. A back-and-forth argument over data points and accusations of purposefully unfair journalism/misleading rebuttals were lobbed between the two groups for weeks afterwards.

In the media coverage that followed, neither side was ever truly in control of what was being said. Set aside the argument of right vs. wrong…who in this situation comes out looking foolish for making misrepresentations? To varying degrees, probably both parties.

How could Musk/Tesla have approached the rebuttal differently?

First, take the age-old advice on manners, and throw away the angry letter (in this case delete the Tweet) that was drafted and re-approach the situation with a clearer head.

Next, run the second draft by a PR/communications team before sending it. Then throw that version out too. Any response in a case like this based on emotion, and not facts, would come across sounding like the complaints of a spoiled kid whose school chums didn’t like his new toy on the playground. While emotion has its place here in conveying passion, it can’t come from the accuser of the impropriety.

Most importantly, learn from one of the interesting things that happened following the back and forth hoopla; a call-to-arms from Tesla’s fanbase, as well as other media outlets, to recreate the experience of the New York Times, but do so successfully. In fact, multiple parties were able to complete the trip without issue. In the end, this speaks more than any amount of data ever could. If Musk and Tesla had engaged with the outspoken community from the outset in order to prove the reporting wrong, the public perception of the results would have overwhelmingly been in their favor.

Just as people trust recommendations from their friends more so than from advertisers or company websites, having other third parties take up the cause for responding back to a crisis of criticism has the potential to deliver the most effective results. If these groups had been mobilized to take up the argument on behalf of Tesla, Musk would have been able to make the point he wanted without having to awkwardly say it himself. Still, this strategy can be a very delicate balancing act with high risk. In the end, it’s likely that the general public’s perception will remain polarized, but if your core audience and base of advocates can be bolstered and become vocal enough, it can support next steps back from where the crisis began.

At the very least, Musk can be given credit for not taking the “put head in sand” approach and hoping that the bad article and ensuing situation(s) blow over. But most companies’ CEOs would not be as outspoken or unconcerned about blowback. The takeaway from this unique crisis situation is that there are more ways to respond than a simple public statement, and taking the time to develop a strategy can pay off in the end.

One of the most interesting occurred before the exhibit halls opened -- the first GDC State of the Industry survey that polled more than 2,500 attendees. The results revealed some intriguing trends in funding, platform preference and publishing models.

For starters, how are developers funding their projects? A few survey numbers:

• 72% are being funded by a company’s existing war chest or an individual’s personal funds

• 9% are from VCs

• 10% are publisher-funded

• 4% are crowdfunded – and 8% of the developers have worked on crowdfunded projects, with another 44% planning to go this route in the future

Indies Rising

The survey also found that 53% of respondents consider themselves ‘indie developers’; 46% are employed at companies of 10 people or less – and only 24% reported they worked with a publisher on their last game.

Platforms

According to survey results, more respondents are developing for smartphones and tablets than for any other platform – 38% released their last game for smartphones and tablets; 55% are making their current games there; 58% will release their next games on these platforms.

Cool Stuff

Survey results aside, there were some cool products to play with and even some significant Windows 8 stats rolled out by Microsoft as part of its full-court press to draw more games and developers to the platform.

Hands down, the most popular was Irvine, CA-based Oculus VR’s Rift, a virtual reality headset with stereoscopic 3-D, a 110-degree field of view and low-latency head tracking. Woe to anyone who strayed along the footpath leading up to their booth once the morning doors swung wide – they would have been trampled by the hordes who ran pell mell to line up and play ‘Hawken’, a first-person shooter game that situates players inside a levitating war machine.

Beyond, the hype, equally impressive was that the company raised $2.4 million from crowdfunding.

As reported by John Gaudiosi, editor of Gamerhub.tv, a video syndication network, Zombie Studios demonstrated Daylight, slated for release sometime this fall. It’s the first horror game for Sony’s new PlayStation 4. A team of six people, noted Gaudiosi, created the game and are self-publishing on PlayStation 4.

Daylight, said Gaudiosi, “traps players inside a haunted insane asylum. Armed only with the light and apps from your in-game smartphone, you must try to get out alive. There are no weapons other than your feet – which are best used to run.”

Gaudiosi added that the developer has written “a lot of back story about centuries of souls who were mistreated within the asylum’s walls.”

Lastly, Develop said that Microsoft is attracting a slew of developers to Windows 8, some of which include Disney, GameHouse and Glu. The publication added that “as for revenue share on the Windows Store and what benefits successful developers can receive on the platform, should an app pass $25,000 in sales, developers will start receiving an 80% share of all subsequent sales, instead of the usual 70/30 split.”

Look forward to seeing what will unfold during GDC 2014!

According to recent statistics, over half of festival goers in 2012 won’t be attending one this year, and whilst many festivals will still be sold out, there are many arguing that the over commercialisation of festivals is limiting their use as a promotional opportunity.

A recent post on the iD Experiential blog, by iD Staffing Account Director, Anna Brettie Jones hopes to show that experiential marketers can still utilise music festivals – they just have to deliver credible experiences. Credibility can be achieved, but the days of simply sponsoring a bar tent are gone. To leverage value from a festival, you have to deliver an experience that enhances the overall experience, adding value in a way that is aligned with your USPs and brand.

Within the blog Anna has highlighted some great examples of brands that have done this well and will give insight into how to improve return on investment from experiential marketing at festivals.

Why not take a look at Anna’s full post on the iD Experiential blog?

TopTen is the ten most engaging posts last week from the largest 100 consumer brand pages on Facebook.
All data is gathered with social media content strategy tool Zuum.

#1 Chick-fil-A - photo2013-03-14 19:01

Happy 92nd birthday to Chick-fil-A Founder, Truett Cathy! Click "Like" to share your birthday wishes.

4.09% enagement rate 257,119 likes 8,582 comments 6,684 shares 2% shares

#2 BMW - photo2013-03-14 18:01

BMW Instagram

Thank you all for liking, sharing and commenting on the photos we post here on Facebook. If you want to see more of them, follow @BMW on Instagram: http://instagram.com/bmw

3.136% enagement rate 345,230 likes 5,258 comments 54,857 shares 14% shares

#3 CHANEL - video2013-03-13 17:10

The fashion essential that never goes out of style… a new film revealing the story behind the iconic CHANEL jacket. http://inside-chanel.com

The jacket - Inside CHANEL

www.youtube.com

3.027% enagement rate 248,268 likes 3,603 comments 12,628 shares 5% shares

#4 Macy's - photo2013-03-14 21:03

What’s topping VIP shopping lists everywhere? Designer shoes in every heel, size & color! http://bit.ly/WaVUFu

1.178% enagement rate 119,894 likes 1,529 comments 4,940 shares 4% shares

#5 Nokia - photo2013-03-11 17:10

Want Instagram for Nokia Lumia? Join the movement: http://nokia.ly/Zw5Tmv #2InstaWithLove

1.072% enagement rate 99,321 likes 3,302 comments 3,501 shares 3% shares

#6 Mercedes-Benz - photo2013-03-17 12:55

We present our latest selection of the most beloved pictures on our Instagram channel. Don't forget to follow us onhttp://instagram.com/mercedesbenz

The roar of the engine - Best of Instagram

We present our latest selection of the most beloved pictures on our Instagram channel. Don't forget to follow us onhttp://instagram.com/mercedesbenz

0.843% enagement rate 73,486 likes 774 comments 8,399 shares 10% shares

#7 Hello Kitty - photo2013-03-14 19:40

Tea time is so much fun with Hello Kitty! Find sweet porcelain mugs and plates now at Sanrio.com: http://ar.gy/3j_0

New Photos

0.613% enagement rate 67,385 likes 965 comments 8,978 shares 12% shares

#8 Amazon.com - status2013-03-11 02:00

Who would like that hour back?

0.529% enagement rate 87,486 likes 3,028 comments 573 shares 1% shares

#9 Gucci - photo2013-03-13 16:10

Black? Green? Yellow? Discover which Gucci 1953 Horsebit Loafer suits your style best. http://bddy.me/12H9T8H

0.41% enagement rate 37,586 likes 1,447 comments 3,409 shares 8% shares

#10 Ferrari - photo2013-03-11 16:59

You've seen it in Rosso Corsa and Nero liveries. Now the new special limited series car can be admired in Giallo Modena. To discover the avilable configurations pease click here: http://www.laferrari.com/en/design/

0.381% enagement rate 35,680 likes 527 comments 5,375 shares 13% shares

Changes can be unsettling, whether they're potential or actual, positive or negative. You may be gearing up for a promotion/new position, staring at a wide-open field of new prospective clients, or launching new products and services. Or you may be hunkering down in the face of outsourcing, downsizing, mergers/consolidations, takeovers, and local or global competition. 

Consider the Changes Taking Place at Yahoo!

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has certainly unleashed enormous, untold passions about how, when and where people should work at Yahoo.

The recent, now infamous, change requiring Yahoo employees to work in the office instead of telecommuting from home has been likened to the shot heard round the world.

No less than a great war has ensued and Marissa Mayer has been villainized and vilified by some and verified and validated by others.

It is no secret that Yahoo has been struggling to keep pace with the likes of Apple, Facebook, and Google, all of whom have strong in-office cultures and not coincidentally, strong revenues to match.

In Our Opinion...It’s not about trusting people to work at home, it’s about Mayer’s challenge in the turnaround of Yahoo regardless of where people are working. Mayer has to build a new corporate culture of trust in the infinite possibilities of what the Yahoo organization can create together.

However, as we are hearing, this change process is creating considerable stress for Yahoo employees.

How We Respond to Change

Do you respond or react to change and do you know the difference? As soon as something nudges you out of your regular routine, or challenges your understanding of how the world works and where you fit into it, it will likely trigger a deluge of feelings including; fear, anxiety, overwhelm, excitement, distraction or denial.

How Does the Way You Respond to Change Impact Your Brand?

These feelings can manifest in your behavior.  You may, unconsciously, act out with behavior that is not a brand match for you, or your communication style alters, both at work and at home. You might feel compelled to push yourself and others to overwork, or take the opposite approach - which most do - and procrastinate, avoid the work that's on your plate and get sidetracked with misconceptions, assumptions and gossip to changes that may or may not happen.

On a personal level, your self-care may suffer and you may reach for unhealthy substances, get less sleep, skip meals or overindulge. You might cut yourself off from friends and family, and spend more time alone or with other people who have unhealthy habits or attract people who are in the same place as you.

The Impact

Dealing with change requires flexibility, resilience and an ability to think on your feet. Unfortunately, when you're caught up in your reaction to change, these mental abilities are affected as well. When you're preoccupied, worried and focused on the future instead of the present, it's much harder to concentrate and apply your brainpower to what's in front of you.

Great leaders are admired for their serenity and confidence even in the face of uncertainty and upheaval. For many of us, though, when change is afoot, serenity is far from our reach. Instead, emotions are much closer to the surface and can flare up at the most inopportune times. Whether you lash out, cry, or pound on your desk behind closed doors, it's incredibly uncomfortable to feel so out of control.

Consider, also, the impact on the people around you. Emotional outbursts, whether at work or at home, can irrevocably damage your effectiveness, your reputation and your relationships.

Successful Strategies for Dealing With Change

Here are five strategies to help you remain flexible and resilient in the face of change:

1. Take care of YOUr body. Eat well, sleep well and refrain from harmful habits like indulging in caffeine adrenaline behavior, excessive drinking, or other risky behavior. Work out whatever that is for you!

2. Take care of YOUr mind. Stay in the present moment. Challenge your negative thinking and keep things in perspective; when the doom and gloom sets in, ask, "How important is this, really?"

3. Take control of YOUr emotions. Find reasons to smile and laugh, even when you don't feel like it—especially when you don't feel like it! Funny movies, blogs or videos can help. Vent your negative feelings by exercising, banging on a drum or pounding on a pillow.

4. Treat others well. Strengthen your good relationships so you can draw on their support and work at your challenging relationships so they don't add to your stress.  In fact, this may be a good time to remove them from your life altogether.

5. Take charge. Be proactive and prepare the best you can for the changes that might come, but then accept the reality of the moment. Think back to other challenges that you've come through and remind yourself that everything will work out okay this time, too.

Trends, Shares, Hashtags and Retweets!  Twitter is social media’s most interactive resource to keep in touch with virtually anything and anyone you so desire, and, in real time. Since Twitter became one of the leading social media sites, I have become curious to know the numbers that make Twitter unique; so I did some research and I came up with a list of my favorite ever-changing Twitter statistics.

- 124,000,000,000 (Yes, that's 9 Zero's!) Tweets worldwide in 2012

- 500 million Twitter users worldwide

- 300 thousand NEW Twitter visitors every day

- 73 percent of Twitter users are between 15 and 25 years old

- 50 percent of 2013 Super Bowl ads mentioned Twitter

- 24 million Tweets accounted for during the 2013 Super Bowl (XLVII); up nearly 50 percent from 12 million in 2011 and 15 million in 2012

- 22 percent of Twitter user accounts are located in the United States (that's 110 million Americans!)

- 16 million: the amount of the official Twitter account followers

- 11 new accounts are created every second

- 7 years since Twitter’s 2006 launch at SXSW

- 2nd ranked country for Twitter users is the England, just behind the US

- 1st Ranked for Twitter followers is Justin Bieber, 34 million and counting

Regardless of what number or metric we measure, it’s clear that social media has taken the world by storm.  Nearly 1.5 billion people engage in one or more social media platform as of December 2012; that’s 30% of adults worldwide.  The numbers for the United States are even more impressive with 69% of Americans ages 15 and up using social media, for a tally of 168 million users.  It’s always been said that “numbers don’t lie"; so my educated guess is that this social media craze will only grow and become more embedded in our culture and economy just as the internet and television did some 20 and 60 years ago. Until next time, happy Tweeting, Liking, Pinning and connecting!

What personal characteristics do we look for when hiring for Private Equity?

How can you assess if you have the “chops” to work for private equity? Is your personal brand a match for private equity? What can you expect and what is expected once you are hired, in terms of the operational differences, compared to working for a large, publicly owned company?

If you are considering a career opportunity in a private equity financed business, then check out the top 5 qualities and characteristics to better understand if you really are ready, willing and able. 

1. PE firms want to work with entrepreneurs.

Private equity firms have been started by investment bankers, successful corporate executives and entrepreneurs with a proven track record of building wealth by risking capital and building businesses entrepreneurially. In selecting a CEO, COO, or other C-level executive, private equity firms want to see proven entrepreneurship in the executive’s prior career steps. Has the candidate successfully started and built a business from scratch? Has he or she turned around a troubled business? Does the candidate have the proven track record and hands-on leadership profile to build confidence among others in the organization (including strategic alliance partners)? You need not apply if you do not have “entrepreneurial DNA" and passion, plus prior success implementing a business plan involving significant change (i.e., not managing a “steady state" business).

2. PE investors want “hunters" not “farmers."

While they tend not to manage from quarter to quarter, like so many public companies, private equity investors are looking for—and expecting—mega-growth of a business over a five- to seven-year window. The expectation is that the returns on capital are multiples of the original investment once the business is sold (usually to a strategic buyer) at the end of the investment period. Hunters have the fearlessness to compete in the marketplace on a daily basis, and their hunting skills are usually directly tied to an ability to increase the top-line revenues. In addition to growth via acquisition, most private equity investors evaluate revenue increases in the base line (“same store") business. This almost always leads them to hire a new Head of New Business—and it always needs to be a “hunter." We recently completed four executive search assignments nationwide for this type of position, most within the first year after a private equity firm has made an investment.

3. PE firms hire "doers" with a strong bias for action.

In LBOs and buyouts of privately held businesses, there are typically major issues that need to be addressed immediately: the prior owner/parent company/CEO may have failed; growth in the business may be stagnant; and investments or changes in the business were deferred because it was deemed a “non-core" asset. This is one reason that private equity investors like to hire “doers" with a bias for action – because typically so much needs to be done – and very quickly. Consider the GM turnaround and the three months the Board gave the initial CEO before making a change. As Jack Welch has said numerous times, a non-decision is sometimes the worst decision a CEO can make. If you are a procrastinator, stay away from private equity.

4. PE investors are reasonable until they become unreasonable.

Private equity investors typically resist hands-on involvement in the day-to-day operations of a business. They will typically put two to three of their own people on the Board of Directors and will remain minimally involved as long as the business moves forward according to (and in alignment with) the corporate business plan. They may come to Board meetings to listen to the CEO (and others in senior management), and they’ll work on complementary activities related to expanding and growing the business, such as additional acquisitions, or capital investment to increase manufacturing capacity. However, when/if the CEO and senior leadership begin missing the milestones, and the business turns south (even slightly), they are back with a vengeance ready to make changes in the senior leadership team (i.e., trade out the CEO, hire a strong COO with a sales/business development background, etc.) Working with a private equity-backed firm is potentially good for executives who (1) under-promise and over-deliver, and (2) are good at developing and implementing realistic business plans—and keeping the company on track and ahead of the key milestones outlined in these plans.

5. PE firms want an accelerated pace of change; be prepared to “ride the rapids."

While many C-level executives express frustrations at the slow pace of change in large corporations, many are unprepared emotionally to work in the rapid waters of private equity. You can expect almost 180 degrees the opposite environment once you switch over to a private equity-owned business. When you meet with the partners of these firms, invariably the first question they will ask you is, “If given this job, what would you do first?" and “What would be your plan for growing/fixing this business?"

Know what works best for your personal brand before jumping in!

It is extremely important to be prepared, and to do your homework, especially if you are considering one of these types of opportunities. For some true entrepreneurs, those unafraid of operating without a safety net, it can be exhilarating and highly rewarding (equity stakes and payouts are usually much higher than stock options earned inside a public company). However, for those executives lacking the necessary risk-profile and DNA, this is a career step to be avoided altogether.

If you have worked for a private equity firm, or have considered pursuing one of these opportunities, please write to us and share your experiences and perspectives.

When we hear the word endurance, we usually relate it to the performance, stamina and the resilience of an athlete. As leaders and emerging leaders, we suggest you “hear” the word and take the same definition, but add the elements of bravery, prevail, and persistence.

Particularly in these challenging economic times, we need to create athlete-like minds AND bodies to sustain performance in the pace of the current marketplace, to be great role models, and to create outstanding results in every area of our lives!

Endurance is Crucial not Optional

Where does your brand need to ramp up it’s endurance? Is it the challenges of your company, role or business sector? Is it the balancing of work and home responsibilities? Or perhaps it is the uncertainty of your brand not getting the traction it needs. What do you need to do to strengthen and flex your endurance muscles? What can you eliminate or change immediately to increase endurance both personally and professionally?

What relevance does building physical endurance have to your performance in business? In our experience as senior-level talent acquisition and personal branding specialists, endurance is crucial and not optional. We all know and have seen too many examples of over-stressed and out-of-shape CEOs, some of whom have died on the job due to stress-related illnesses or heart attacks.

Clearly, such a lifestyle is personally dangerous. But it can also be professionally dangerous. In today’s 24/7/365 environment, you do not want to risk making a costly business or personal brand decision simply because you were tired, careless, and sloppy due to a lack of endurance.

Also, if you are a C-level or even an emerging leader and you do not take care of yourself, how can you expect to be a role model for others in the organization? To the contrary, you send an undesirable message to the organization.

Take control of building the endurance you need to maximize your performance. Incorporate our EC Top 5 List of “Endurance Best Practices” into your daily schedule to improve your endurance:

1. Take an Endurance assessment. Check your endurance levels and create an action plan where you need energy the most. Want more endurance?  Stop doing what drags you down. Plan for eliminating the “tolerations” in the following areas; business, personal, finance, health and well-being, and relationships. This could include questions, such as; What is keeping me up at night? When do I schedule time away from my work?  What do I need to improve to get into better physical condition? What relationships do I need to remove that drain me of my energy?  Remaining active outside the office will help you build the stamina and endurance you will need on the job.
2. Develop and maintain an optimistic attitude. It is proven medically, people with a “glass half full” mentality are happier and less stressed than their alternative counterparts.  It takes a lot less energy to be positive. Work on your unique outlook and eliminate worrying about all the people, places and things that are not aligned with being positive or outside of your personal control.
3. Delegate, Delegate, Delegate! Identify the tasks at work and at home that you really do not want to do or you are not good at (the “drudge” tasks) and delegate these immediately. You will be amazed how much lighter this will make you feel and give your endurance a boost! Notice how our energy levels seems to be low when we do not want to do something or be somewhere we don’t want to be.
4. Take Control of Your Calendar. Don’t constantly overbook yourself. For example, after a late night of meetings, travel or client entertaining, do not schedule yourself for a 7 a.m. breakfast meeting. Give yourself time to recover. Don’t let business issues spill over into your personal life and vice versa. Work on compartmentalizing the different areas of your life and use success and happiness in one area to raise your energy and spirits in the other areas.
5. Plan ahead. Be Pro-Active! Manage your health and mental well-being! Most senior executives have at least four to five weeks of vacation annually; you will be surprised how many do not take this time off, or if they do, they actually work all day on vacation. Set boundaries, leave the laptop at home, empower others to step up, and disengage on a quarterly basis.

And above all…check in with yourself on a regular basis and make course corrections as necessary, you can shift and change as you need to. Continue to build your brand to endure maximum performance!

The amber nectar has been around for thousands of years – ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians were probably the original craft brewers. In fact, in Mesopotamia, the oldest evidence of beer is a 6,000-year-old Sumerian tablet that shows people drinking through reed straws from a communal bowl. Party on!

Fast forward to the 21st Century. While enjoying a beer recently at a San Diego microbrewery, I began to ponder that with so many national and international brands available today, how do these smaller microbreweries rise above the advertising din of giants like Anheuser Busch and Coors and get noticed?

For the past several years -- via social media. From Singapore to Delaware, numerous microbreweries have utilized a wide array of social media platforms, programs, tools, etc., to help with branding and marketing.

So while sitting at home this afternoon with a cold wobbly pop (yes, another beer slang term), I decided to roam around online and check out a few microbreweries that appear to be doing a bang up job at promoting their brands:

Brewerkz Singapore

Established in 1997, the Singapore-based microbrewery and restaurant features a number of signature beers, some of which include Golden Ale, Iguana Lager, Hopback Ale, India Pale Ale and Oatmeal Stout.

As reported by Tech in Asia, Brewerkz has been proactive from the gitgo in using social media to promote its products. One interesting promotion has been with BuUuk, a restaurant scouting mobile app with 50,000+ users in Singapore. The microbrewery recently ran a successful one-for-one beer pint promo with BuUuk.

Other social media platforms are constantly cross-linked – this example of a recent tweet offering giveaway tickets takes you to the Brewerkz Facebook page, which is chock full of photos, videos, news about contests and posts from fans:

We have a pack of 8 VIP Singapore Slingers tickets to give away this weekend Sunday, 24 Feb. 1600hrs Singapore... http://fb.me/ssJffgno

Tech in Asia indicated that Brewerkz is constantly measuring social media ROI too. Facebook Insights are used to measure post quality and interactions; Google Analytics is employed to find out how much traffic comes from Facebook.

SweetWater Brewing Company

The Atlanta-based microbrewery offers a variety of year-round brews – some of the more catchy brands include Georgia Brown: Smoother than a Bill Clinton Apology; Blue: Ain’t Just for Breakfast Anymore; and India Pale Ale: the Beer You’ve Been Training For.

SweetWater maintains a lively blog – The Fish Wrap, which also features links to Flickr (where the microbrewery posts photos on events, promotions, and more), a From the Tap section that links back to Facebook and Twitter, and a Twitter roll they call TweetWater. A SweetWater In the News section on the Fish Wrap page also provides updated information on key events/programs to be held at the microbrewery. One recent event was a fundraiser for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Dogfish Head

Located in Rehoboth Beach, DE, Dogfish Head has been churning out quality craft brewed ales since 1995. The company, reports Philly Beer Scene, has had a lot of success in promoting its brand via Twitter – as of today there were 115,449 followers.

Co-founder Mariah Calagione, noted Philly Beer Scene, mused about receiving a tweet once that read, “I’m at #Dogfish Brewpub and I haven’t seen my waiter in a while.” Calagione tweeted back asking what the customer was wearing, then immediately phoned the restaurant and had the waiter at the customer’s table in minutes. The customer soon posted another tweet praising the superb service.

Microbreweries like the aforementioned have also gotten a boost from companies like San Diego-based TapHunter. Founded by beer aficionados Melani and Jeff Gordon, the husband and wife team launched TapHunter “to help bars, bottle shops and tasting rooms save time and increase sales by connecting to their most profitable customers with online and mobile solutions.”

TapHunter is both an app (see the graphic embedded in this post) and website that connects craft beer fans with beers, brewers and the locations that pour them. TapHunter started in San Diego and has since expanded services to more than a dozen U.S. cities and regions, some of which include Austin, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle.

Social media will continue to shape the beer universe. And that’s a good thing, I reckon. Philly Beer Scene’s Brittanie Sterner succinctly summed it up:

“If Twitter and Facebook can help weave the beer community into the world in positive ways, maybe it doesn’t matter beer drinkers might also use the platforms to broadcast puffed-up opinions. Critical consumer feedback can even serve as a gateway to brewers to tweak and tighten their methods, try new things, and ultimately take the craft industry farther. Maybe social media is just that kind of double-edged sword. At any rate, it’s making beer more popular. And isn’t that the idea – for everyone to drink good beer?”

I’ll raise a glass to that!

Some interesting observations for this industry:

• While Facebook communities far outsize Twitter, Twitter community growth outpaces Facebook.
• Moderate posting volume: 70% of brands posted within a 22-28 post per month window.
• Content dominated by visuals: 96% of all posts are photos or videos.
• Brands approach Facebook as a destination: Links off to websites treated secondarily.

By - Jeff Gundersen, CEO Executive Connections LLC

We are approaching the time of year when annual bonuses (both short-term cash incentives and long-term options/restricted stock) are being paid out and the incomes of CEOs and senior officers in public companies are disclosed. It’s the perfect time to ask yourself, “What’s the value of my personal brand and how beneficial is my current company (and industry sector) as a vehicle to increasing my brand value over time?

Use Brand Consultancy Models As A Guide

Interbrand, the branding consultancy owned by Omnicom Group, publishes an annual study of the Best 100 Global Brands including the value of each brand. In 2012, once again Coca-Cola (#1) was the top global brand, closely edging out Apple (#2), IBM (#3), Google (#4) and Microsoft (#5). Interestingly, 4 of the top 5 most valuable corporate brands are in the technology sector and this coincides with CEOs of technology companies achieving some of the highest levels of compensation primarily based upon the value of long-term incentives (i.e., stock) tied to the rapid growth in market capitalization of many technology companies. While Facebook shareholders may not be faring so well in the early going, Mark Zuckerberg became one of the top 10 richest people in the world based upon Facebook’s valuation at the IPO in 2012. Likewise, many of the early private equity investors, and early-stage employees became multi-millionaires as a result of the IPO.

Consider Sheryl Sandberg, COO at Facebook, who sold approx. 1 million shares of Facebook stock in Dec. 2012 netting $26.2 million. If you think this is not bad for helping Mark Zuckerberg run the company, Sandberg still owns 18.7 million shares valued at over $550 million. Assuming Sandberg remains at Facebook, and the share price recovers and rises beyond the original IPO level, Sandberg might well net over $1 billion from her total long-term stock incentives at Facebook. Not bad compensation for a COO!

Investment Banking Is Another Lucrative Personal Brand Sector

Investment Banking was another lucrative sector in 2012, with Goldman Sachs providing CEO Lloyd Blankfein a $13.3 million restricted stock bonus as part of a $21 million total 2012 pay package (for increasing GS’ net income by +76% over 2011 performance) making Blankfein one of the highest paid Wall Street executives. Further, in 2012 GS awarded a total of $100 million in restricted stock awards to the top 12 executives (including Blankfein) meaning the average long-term restricted stock payouts to other members of the GS executive team averaged between $7-8 million.

Long-Term Incentive/Equity Compensation Matters Most

From EC’s perspective, the greatest single factor impacting personal brand value is the long-term incentive compensation (i.e., restricted stock, options, and equity awards). So in evaluating you career and your current and long-term brand value, ask yourself, “What do the top people earn in my company and industry sector and what will it take for me to rise to become one of these leaders?” If your industry and company are growing, particularly related to unique technological innovations and/or financial deal-making, your personal brand value can skyrocket based upon choosing the right company and riding the wave of earnings and market capitalization growth over a relatively short time period.

On the other hand, if your industry sector is shrinking instead of growing, and if your company is not among the category leaders, you have to ask yourself, “Why does it make any sense for me to continue to invest the value of my personal brand at a place where there is little prospect of achieving a long-term return?” Frankly, most people in this circumstance would be much better off quitting and starting or joining a small business where they will have an equity/ownership stake.

Now Is The Time To Act

Now is the ideal time, early in the New Year, to make career changes. Make the choices that put you on the best path toward a large long-term incentive payout and you will be maximizing your personal brand value and thanking yourself down the road.

About the Author:

Jeff Gundersen is CEO of Executive Connections LLC, a boutique executive search consulting and personal branding firm, specializing in placement and development of senior-level digital, social and mobile marketing talent.

By the Numbers, Email is King

When it comes to digital marketing, email communication is as classic as it gets. When done effectively, email marketing can drive a significant amount of traffic to your business; consider these numbers, courtesy of the 2012 Channel Preference Survey, conducted by the digital marketing group ExactTarget:

• 96 percent of online consumers use email at least weekly
• 66 percent have made a purchase after receiving an email marketing message
• 76 percent prefer email over all other channels for customer service messages
• 66 percent of teens (ages 15-17) prefer email over all other channels for permission-based marketing
• Email marketing drives more consumers to make a purchase than Facebook and text messaging combined

To put the popularity of email into context, this helpful graph from GovDelivery shows the breadth of users across various communication platforms.

• If Facebook were a country: Population: 850 million. It would be the world’s third-largest country, bigger than North and South America combined
• If Twitter were a country: Population: 200 million, bigger than Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan
• If email users formed a country: Population 2.9 billion. It would be an empire.

Email marketing is untouchable because of its immense user base and the way it brings targeted messages into users’ most personal digital space – their personal inbox. There are variances in email approaches and strategies and new advancements in email marketing software that aid in this process, and here are some tips to get you started:

Use a catchy subject line. No pressure, but the fate of your email rests in the 50-something characters used in your subject line. Avoid spam-friendly language such as “free,” “act now” and “limited time” – these words will send your email straight into spam purgatory. Never use all-capital letters (why would you yell at a potential customer?) and cool it with the exclamation points (ditto – why are you exclaiming? It! sniffs! of! overstatement!). "Reminder” is another word that usually causes users to click “delete” right off the bat.

Make the design user-friendly. Your email communication must be both responsive and scalable. Users must be able to take action, whether they are viewing it on their mobile device or desktop computer, so scale your content to be viewed on multiple platforms. “For all the sophistication of mobile devices, email marketers see the most success with layouts that have as little noise [i.e., graphics, photos and video] as possible and the call to action visible without scrolling," Dean Levitt, chief of culture at email marketing software provider Mad Mimi, told CIO.com.

Value the importance of permissions marketing. Because your customers are highly valued and have opted to receive messages from your brand, it's important to communicate with value. Your emails should offer relevant substance and value to your readers. Bring news, brand insights, customer survey information and more to the table. Avoid puffery and pumped up nothingness in the body copy. Have your readers see the effort of substance that your brand is putting forth, and how you are staying true to your company’s brand and mission statement.

Make the user want to read your email. What motivated people to sign up for your emails in the first place? Knowing this will help you understand them as a community and facilitate delivering what they want. Are they looking for discounts? Do they want something to do? Provide them with relevant content other than your featured promotion. In return for their time and loyalty, engage with them to inspire their curiosity.

Give a call to action above the fold. Provide a link, special promotion or other eye-catching tactic on the initial screen, without no need to scroll down. A clear call to action drives the reader to take the next step toward conversion.

Finally, before you click “send” … Make sure your address list is accurate before you send your email. A recent Experian survey found that more than 90 percent of companies suspected that up to 25 percent of their data is inaccurate. Look at the number of bounce-backs or routinely un-opened emails.

Remember, your marketing emails are sharing valuable real estate with consumers’ personal messages. Consistently give them something they want. To ensure deliverability, research how users like to receive updates (all posts, limited information, etc.) and determine what day and time are the most effective when it comes to open rates and click-thrus.