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Chris Brogan coined the phrase “grow bigger ears” and for the past two years or so, as brands got comfortable with social media, it was more important for them to listen more than it was to jump out and converse with us. For those brands that got social media early on, they are already listening in more places and with larger ears than their customers are probably comfortable with. For brands that are just starting out on the social media path, start running; you’re already behind.

But it might be time to stop growing bigger ears and start growing bigger hands. It might be time for brands to start integrating social media within their operations and not just their marketing or customer experience departments. We don’t really want brands to “converse” with us; just do for us.

What do I mean by this? A couple of examples.

CPG Brands at Retail
Many brands pay merchandising service organizations to go into retailers and perform audits, new product cut-in, restocking, point-of-purchase placement, etc. What if one of the point of purchase placards just had a @twitter address and said something like: “Tweet you are here, take a picture of the 8oz bottles of BrandX and get a coupon for a buy one/get one free.” How many time-stamped, geo-tagged photos and fan tweets do you think that CPG brand would get? Would this create more demand for at retail service due to an increased turn on the product? Maybe, but until someone tries it, we’ll never know.

Pizza
On Tuesday afternoon, about 4:00pm, Papa Johns sent out a tweet something like “Hungry? Order a Papa John’s pizza.” Oh, man was I ever. It was a long day and I did not have time to eat. So, I clicked on the link. Bang, right to the front page. So, from there, I had to log in.. can’t remember my password… looked it up.. got to the order page, had to decide… oh, y’know what, I’m just not that hungry.

What Papa John’s could be doing is give me the option to save a Twitter preference. Next time they send me a tweet, all I have to do is reply to it and my preferred pizza has been ordered, paid for with my save credit card, in the oven and on it’s way to my front door; all just by replying to the tweet. (I know, there are some issues with privacy/security and such, but maybe they could send me a DM or an email confirming I did indeed reply to and order a pizza.)

What’s missing in social media right now is that last ten yards of connection to the customer. Sure the smart brands are listening with big ears but until they start growing bigger hands and integrate social media into their operations, social media will be the stuff of late night jokes and CNN scare stories instead of Harvard Business School case studies.

UPDATE: @Neenz just published the Paralympics page at Alltop.com last night, Mar 5. If you know of or write a blog on the Paralympics, submit it here to be included.

I first got schooled in the Paralympic Games from Kim* during a telephone conversation my first week on the job back in 1996. For those who don’t know, I used to sell exercise bikes to paralyzed people. True.

“I am a tennis player,” she said.

“You mean you used to play tennis?” I asked.

“No, stupid. I play tennis. Wheelchair tennis. And I’m training for the 2000 Paralympics in Sydney.”

“The Special Olympics?” I said.

“No, I’m in a chair, not a f***ing r*tard!” she shot back angrily.

She was not one to mince words. She had also served four years in the US Navy and she swore like a sailor.

By the time I left the company several years later, we had gotten to be pretty good friends. I wish I had kept in touch, but that wasn’t what Kim was all about. She was one who lived in the moment, curious and anxious for the future with no regrets for the past. She never made it to Sydney, but it wasn’t for lack of trying.

That was my introduction to the Paralympic Games. They are held two weeks after the Olympic Games everyone knows about and gets broadcast on TV. Here is the Web site for the Games in Vancouver.

Eventually, I hope the Paralympic Games are played alongside the Olympic Games as paralympic athletes are every bit as tough as their able-boded counterparts. It seems to me that even when NBC doesn’t see the value in broadcasting the Paralympic Games, Social Media should be all over it. The Paralympics are like a really cool blog that you accidentally stumble into that you didn’t know existed, but changes your world view forever. If you want to see some real athletic ability, I encourage you to watch this year. And London. And Russia. And Rio.

Get involved on twitter. Encourage Guy and Neenz to establish a blog directory for the Paralympics on Alltop.com that doesn’t lead to disability. Write a blog article about how you feel about the Paralympics.

Do something inclusive. We’re all in this together.

*Withholding last name, but in case she ever reads this and I have permission to fill in the last name, I’d be happy to.
**Please don’t contact me about ELA being out of business. That happened way after I left.

I ran out of coffee filters the other day. Not a big deal, I’ll just hike to Kroger and get some more. When I got there, I saw the empty peghook that once held my filters. Moreover, there was a red tag on the hook informing me that this product would be discontinued.

Here’s why this is a big deal. A few years ago, the 53rd automatic drip coffee maker I have ever purchased in my life, died. Just quit. Arrgghh, there has to be a better way. And there was. Melitta makes this carafe and cone set that only requires hot water and gravity to make coffee. The only wrinkle is that it also requires a size 6 cone filter. But, since Kroger carried it, not a big deal. I adopted my new system. And it was great because it was so simple. It only really required gravity to work. And gravity was free.

Then someone at Kroger decided they were not selling enough #6 filters. And, without asking me, they just quit carrying them.

Amazon.com still sells the #6 and I just bought approximately 2.6 years worth of filters. Until my filters arrive, I am using paper towels to line the cone. In the event Melitta decides to quit selling the #6 cone filter altogether, I know I have 2.6 years to come up with an alternate solution to a perfectly good system. But, what I foolishly adopted outside of the normal 10-cup basket filter automatic drip coffee maker is now showing signs of that death-march to obsolescence. An inferior technology persists because it is ubiquitous.

We get change and new stuff. Really, we do. It excites us. It gets us out of bed every day. But we also have a library of 8mm reels our childhood is on that we can’t watch, a library of 8 track and cassettes our music is on that we can’t hear, a library of VHS tapes our children’s lives are on that we can’t relive and a mountain of Zip Drive cartridges our careers are on that we can’t share or pass on. We’ve seen the result of a system being brought to its knees when a tiny bit of the supply chain becomes obsolete right after we dedicate a large chunk of our lives to it.

We grew up in large families (which is why there are so many of us now clogging the ladder rungs to the top) where everything from dinner to clothes to mom’s attention was a competition with the people you lived with. Most of our families had one car and one income and choices were made based on the supply of resources. We got jobs that promised us work, retirement accounts and free benefits that seemed too good to be true. We took them and squirreled them away, believing that one day they would be gone (turns out we were right.) We’ve lived through and survived at least three recessions and a very large oil embargo. We’ve seen an explosive increase in the divorce rate. In short, we’ve been conditioned to know that free is never unlimited free. Free will run out. Free has a catch. The good times do not last. Commitments are broken every day without apology, remorse or obligation.

And now Twitter and Foursquare want to be the operations in our supply chains, somewhere between service delivery and invoicing. I can see the possibilities for several industries we do work for and it is very, very exciting. But Twitter is free, it has really no reason to be there tomorrow, no obligations, no contract with me.

As I reach for the coffee filters that are no longer there, between boiling the water and lining the cone with carefully folded paper towels, I pause and think, “What if Evan Williams decided to just quit doing Twitter?”

Talk is one thing. Money is quite another.

A couple years ago, this thing called Twitter popped up on the landscape. Sure, it was a lot of fun and pretty much a waste of time. The kids in the company took to it right away and started following each other, tapping out little notes on what they were doing at the time. And they had their Facebook, blogs, Flickr accounts and all sorts of other social media venues they were wasting their time with.

“Let them play,” was the mostly unofficial, official stance many companies took. “At least it keeps them happy and out of my hair.” And every now and again, the bosses would throw these kids a bone, allowing them to speak at a conference or work on a project that involved some social media listening dashboard and other harmless, tech stuff that would amount to nothing. And it would shut the kids up for a while so the bosses could get some real work done.

But then the bosses started noticing that lots of people were on Twitter and Facebook. Lots of folks were interacting with the kids at the keyboards and the kids were becoming the voices of their brands. And the game began changing from one of cheap talk to revenue opportunities being let out the door.

Now there is money to be made collecting, packaging and selling information. Suddenly, social media was no longer a toy. And the walls started to go up around the kids who were the face and voice of the brands. Average Joe could no longer interact with the familiar, casual voice on the other end of a twitter stream. Contracts needed to be signed, releases vetted, HR needed to authorize who could and could not speak at a particular venue.

“The voice of our brand must be aligned with the organization.” “Materials must be pre-approved to ensure no company secrets are revealed during your presentation.” “Legal must approve your tweets to ensure there is not implied contract being made.” And it goes on.

And suddenly — without much fanfare save the deafening sound of large walls falling into place — social media is now a business. And make no mistake about it, a damn serious one. Because social media is no longer just marketing, engagement or customer experience; it is operations. And operations people are deadly, stealthy serious players.

My BFF Rupert Murdoch* has been taking some hits lately about him wanting to block Google from indexing his sites and putting up pay walls. I understand his reasoning and don’t think he is too far off the mark. In order to explain my thinking, I have an analogy.

Say you own a small grocery store. It is in an urban setting and there are lots of other stores in the neighborhood that is similar to yours. You seek more foot traffic because some fancy college grad with a marketing degree convinces you that the more traffic you can pump through your stores, the more likely these people will stop and buy some impulse item you strategically place near the exit.

In order to produce more traffic, you encourage people to stop by and use the restroom. (the other guys down the street make you buy something first!) As word gets around, the locals and tourists stop into your store and use your restroom, flush the toilet, wipe their hands and stop and buy something cause they kinda feel guilty using your restroom for free. You’re not making enough in additional sales to cover the cost of the water bill, the additional cleaning staff, the paper towel, the soap and various other things that go with making a restroom public. In addition, the city health department caught on that you were making your restroom available to the public and cited you for not being handicap accessible. You pay the fine and some contractors to put up grab rails, new toilets and a ramp. But, the marketing dude you hired kept swearing that with patience and persistence, the free restroom policy will pay off.

“Give it time. That is investment. It’s all about giving back,” he says.

As time wears on, more people are using your restrooms because they heard from a friend who heard from another who tweeted that your restroom was free. And, these folks didn’t even bother to buy anything anymore. They just wanted to use the restroom. Moreover, lots of them stopped by the magazine rack and leafed through the latest issues without buying, especially on rainy days. If you didn’t want them in your store, why did you let them use the restroom? Meanwhile, the cost of water, soap and cleaning kept going up.

Then a recession hit and you had to fire some people, including the smart marketing degree guy who seemed to want to text and tweet more than he wanted to stock shelves and help paying customers. You took down your “Restroom open to the public” sign and immediately, the freeloaders started blogging and tweeting that you do not understand customer service in the Internet age. Your customers who came in and bought something could still use the restroom and they started to remark that is was much cleaner than it had been when the public at large was there. In fact, the experience for paying customers became so nice, they didn’t even notice you raised your prices $.10 here and $.20 there.

And your bottom line got better, even when your foot traffic dropped significantly. Your water, cleaning and supplies bills went way down. Almost none of the folks who used your restrooms for free ever came around anymore and when they did, it was to insult you and your stupid, miserly ways.

That is what I think Rupert was going for. Maybe.

Feel free to snark on twitter. Opinions are free, but if you would like to buy something on the way out, you are welcome to.

*I don’t really know Rupert Murdoch and we’re not really BFF. He’s probably a pretty dangerous person with his nutty politics and such. But, he is not stupid and he really does understand people. He understands they fear more than they think and worry and dream more than they act. Video here. Gawker.com didn’t want me embedding the video for free. Ironic.

John Nese is the proprietor of Galcos Soda Pop Stop in LA. His father ran it as a grocery store, and when the time came for John to take charge, he decided to convert it into the ultimate soda-lovers destination. About 500 pops line the shelves, sourced lovingly by John from around the world.

John has made it his mission to keep small soda-makers afloat and help them find their consumers. Galcos also acts as a distributor for restaurants and bars along the West Coast, spreading the gospel of soda made with cane sugar (no high-fructose corn syrup if John can avoid it). His store is here on the Internet.

For comparison, Gary is at http://www.winelibrary.tv. John is older and has a calmer presentation style, but his passion erupts as he speaks. He is what Gary will be with age.

Just for fun and visual cognition, I made a Wordle Cloud from my résumé.

I think a lot of hiring managers would benefit a lot by running résumé through a word cloud so see the major words and concepts show up quickly. Maybe some already do.

What does your résumé word cloud say about you? Would it get you hired?

Image above generated by http://www.wordle.net/ Click through to make your own.

Some time back, Kroger decided to “dress up” the packaging of their private label sour cream. Instead of plain white containers, they decided that they were going to show a photo of the product in use.

And that is when they started confusing me.

Take a look at the container above. Is the sour cream plain, low fat plain, onion flavored, chive flavored, garlic flavored, with bacon bits included? I don’t know. But, when I see rows of sour cream all lined up with photos of serving suggestions next to another row of plain white sour cream containers with name brands, I know what I want.

I reach for the Daisy sour cream in the plain white container. It probably costs more, but I don’t have the time to scrutinize the label to verify if indeed the sour cream is really, really just plain sour cream only to find I had picked up a flavored variety when I got home.

Plain white container says plain white sour cream.

Sometimes too much design is not the appropriate design. Sometimes more just confuses what should be a “blink” decision.

Know your audience. It’s always about them, not you.

A couple weeks ago, I posted this up about an experience with Northwest Airlines. My daughter wrote one last letter and let them know her response was a blog post and that they really don’t need to keep on the conversation as it was going nowhere anyway.

Oops. They replied via a letter, further explaining their position and just making things worse. She will not reply back, but here is the letter and a little bit of insight, in case Northwest Airlines were to want to wander over here and read this.

Really. I mean it this time. Do not reply back. We get it and we’re ok with all of this. You are meeting our expectations, even though they are so low as to almost be nonexistent.

Insights:
1. The value of any customer experience to a brand is what they are willing to give you to make things right. If they are willing to give you their attention, listen to what you say and make a reasoned attempt at making you happy, that has value. If they are willing to make things right by robotically reaching into a big bowl of beads, you know how much they really value you.

2. Northwest Airlines practically admitted in their letter that all passengers are merely cargo, all big sacks of DNA to be shuttled here and there “equitably.” Every dissatisfaction with our service will not get a personal reply, just a handful of standardized beads.

3. We expect airlines to board late, have long layovers in the middle of the day, treat us like cargo, have no services, be surly and stick to the rules at all times. Airlines expect their cargo passengers to sit still, shut up, have their papers in order, do what their told and accept token of beads in exchange for bad behavior from them. We get it and we’re ok with it. Sure, some passengers may erupt in frustration from time to time, but after the news people all go away and folks like Ms. Arden continue to write letters celebrating banality, they give up. But, they will fly again.

4. We do not expect any “compensation” for anything in point 3 above. When we get it, however, we expect worthless vouchers and beads.

5. Our expectations are really, really low. We’re just happy you didn’t kill us falling out of the sky.

Perhaps Ms. Arden and Ms. Irlwig can get together for a drink and laugh about us silly passengers and our unrealistic expectations. I’m sure it will be funny to them in twenty years; it’s already funny to us now.

Here is the ugly truth about American soccer. It is something kids DO, not who they are. Yet many soccer clubs and tournaments focus their marketing and message around the assumption that soccer is central to the players lives and that everything else is ancillary or inconsequential.

The ASAE (American Society of Association Executives) produced the video below for their annual meeting just this past weekend. (It runs a little long, the movie beats you up a little with the message, but pay attention to the subtitles. They are really small, but perhaps the most important part of the whole piece.)

I get it; trade associations connect people together and that was the obvious point. But, the not so obvious point is that all these people who are working at trade associations during the day are spending their nights and weekends with their true passion; music.

We have seen this kind of thing before, but usually the talent is mediocre. But, these folks are darn good! The ASAE not only had the criterion of involving their members, but that the member had to have a high level of skill, proficiency and passion. Brilliant!

What does a harmonica have to do with biodiesel? Nothing except for Joe Jobe. Or a guitar with concrete or paint? For Joe Vickers and Phil Bour, the combination make perfect sense. Railroads and drum kits? Michael Fore makes it work. He probably taps out routines on his desk, driving his co-workers crazy. And there is no hiding the rapture Mike Skiados (ASAE) feels when he plays his guitar.

The Disney movie High School Musical (HSM) was a similar deafening intervention cry from kids, yet few adults paid attention to the underlying message, mostly dismissing it as bubble-gum entertainment. But the kids got it and that is what made the movie “stick.”

Social Media like Facebook gets this concept by allowing members to establish a core identity and then add interests and groups to them. More specialized sites like Meet the Boss, various Ning sites and sites like WePlay.com don’t. Neither do “gardens of brands” like Skittles or Ford. In their world, there is no room for “other interests” and no way to connect the person with them. (As an aside, the WSJ had an interesting article on fans. Worth a read… after you are done with this post and have commented/tweeted, of course.)

Anyone who doesn’t know me is surprised that among my passionate interests are newspapers, old typewriters, literature, photography, coffee, typography, dogs and harmonicas. Computers and soccer come in almost last on the list. Internet is the way I make a living and it is imperative I am knowledgeable and skilled in it, but it is not my passion. In their world, I develop Web-based properties therefore I must be a geek and only care about the latest technology. Sorry. Technology is a tool; no more, no less.

For sports organizations, the random connections that social media reveals is like gold. How many times have you approached a large brand for a sponsorship and gotten, “What does our brand/product have to do with soccer?” If you dig deeper into the social media networks like Facebook, you may well have a stronger answer. Your model is HSM and the ASAE video.

Our advice: Find the connections. The more random and strange, the better. Watch the touchlines and the space between games more intently than the games themselves at your next tournament. What are the kids doing? What are their parents doing? How many questions do your get about a particular topic? Why? Ask questions, observe behaviors. Your next sponsor may be in the non-soccer parts of the game that your sponsor’s target audience is most passionate about.

Note: This post was originally intended for just TourneyCentral, but because the medium here is also the message, we posted this on almost every brand we own. Dogs and soccer? Coffee and soccer? Marketing and soccer? Yeah, it all fits when you start looking hard enough. And, thank you Cindy Butts for the inspiration.