This Month
May 2010
I can't believe we're roaring into May already. I just dodged an allegedly continent size cloud of volcanic ash to fly in and out of Romania. One of the more interesting tasks I was asked to do there was to develop a programme to make a company famous. From the inside out. What was even more interesting was that they had made their most recent recruit in her early 20s effectively the brand manager for the entire company. I'm used to the unusual when I go to Romania but this broke new ground for me. I'm not going to say anything more about the inside-out aspect here - below you can read my idea of the month about social objects. Why is it that in so called creative organisations we assume that the most responsibility should be given to the most senior, most experienced people who are often more averse to risk? It is still going to take guts, daring and a lot of work. There's no reason why a young person can't achieve at least as much. Particularly if the approach is one of rule breaking. Which is the case here.
Insights anybody?
The third podcast I have made with Surinder is now available on Researchtalk. Surinder Siama and I are interviewing thought leaders in market research. This month we talk to Lisa Ohlin and Jaroslav Cir. Lisa was global head of insight for Cadburys and Jaroslav European insight head of Rexona for Unilever. Only in the last 12 months they both changed jobs and went supply side. That change in perspective made them particularly interesting to talk to. It was also good to be able to interview Jaroslav in the Prague café from which his company now works. With Europe paralysed by volcanic ash. That's the power of the internet for you! If you're a researcher by profession you may be interested in the training course I'm running on June 8th with Pauline Williams to enable researchers to generate better insights, more likely to be used by client companies. Pauline has over 20 years experience working as an insight manager in some of the UK's biggest companies. She has also led 2 industry wide initiaves in evaluating the return on research expenditure. If you work in the insight business, this is one not to miss. More information here.
Idea of the month: Social Objects
Social objects are things that people like and find useful. Cups of coffee, widgets on an iphone, cult TV programmes, Facebook. Things that bring people together and encourage them to share and create themselves. Promotional campaigns usually aren't social objects being discarded once they have serve the original creator's purpose. Which is why marketers are getting interesting in building relationships using social objects. Which when adopted by real people can have a life of their own. In recent years I have been learning to spend less effort in straight promotion and more effort in making things that people find useful or want to share with others. It's a very different way of working. But very rewarding. The Research Liberation Front which ran its 4th event - an art gallery in the Young Vic in March and Cloud of Knowing which has its next meeting May 13th both take the form of social objects - they only survive and flourish as long as they are useful. Think how you can make social objects for your customers.
Upandcoming
I am speaking at the Northern MRS conference tomorrow. And have several projects at the proposal stage. Call me if you have anything else you want to discuss.
You can always catch my blog on Furtherandfaster not to mention johngriffiths7 on twitter.