a groovyweb

Brenda Neckvatal asked on LinkedIn Answers:

‘Can treating employees like customers increase job satisfaction?’

The Satisfied Employee

Here’s my initial response to Brenda’s question (with edits):

Peter Drucker said ‘management’s duty is to preserve the assets of the institution in its care’*. In that respect, all employees must be equally treated with the same care typically reserved for customers. In today’s information-producing workplaces, even more importance and care must be given to increasingly-mobile employees. Unlike the manual worker (who peddles his strength and energy), today’s information-driven employees retain their practice’s knowledge and developed skills and sought to bring them along to the next employer (and, in some cases, including knowledge of the ex-employer’s strategic and operational secrets).

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The 2nd annual Mobile Marketing Forum Asia Pacific 2010 (MMAF) is currently underway in Grand Copthorne Waterfront Hotel, Singapore. Since 13 April, industry experts and players have been discussing the present and future of the mobile marketing landscape. The focus for this year’s event is ‘Building Brands with Mobile’. The full view of the agenda and topics of discussion is available here. The event continues till April 15.

I will continue to share the latest tidbits and my personal commentaries (in 140 characters!) from the event’s floor. Add me on Twitter at @ismantanuri if you would like to follow the event closely. Alternatively, you can lock your Tweetdeck or other Twitter client to the official Mobile Marketing Forum Asia Pacific hashtag #MMAF2010. Or you can visit this Twitter search page for all the discussion and chatter so far.

And yes! I will be livetweeting the event on my mobile phone. It is only apt and I will be proving that computing and communication can be effectively achieved through the mobile platform. My gear of choice is my trusty Google Nexus One  with Seesmic for Android as my Twitter app.

For fans of Facebook, you can also visit the Mobile Marketing Association Fanpage for the latest discussion and industry news: http://www.facebook.com/mobilemarketingassociation.apac

The Mobile Marketing Association is also on Twitter (@MMA_APAC).

I have been invited to the event by Rice Communications as part of the Community Media team. I am loving it so far and kudos to the team for the fantastic event organisation.

Mobile is the present and the future, folks! The tipple has tipped.

I think we have to agree that traditional offline marketing is still a crucial business initiative even in today’s consumer markets. As much as I am a huge advocate of bringing people online and influencing through great online content and virtual social interaction, digital alone will not cut it. Going out there with road shows, direct marketing with flyers and sales promotions are still expected by the buying public, most especially in Singapore (Great Singapore Sale, anyone?)

Which is great for the economy, especially in the current slumpish conditions. But unfortunately, most businesses want to fast track the route to cash. ‘What is the fastest way to push stock and goods?’ ‘Which shopping season will reap the most money for us?’ Hence, the customer neglect.

Segment and predict the market, yes. Understand the market, NO!

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Here is something I received last Saturday morning, what I termed as ‘Door Spam’, leaflets/flyers stuck on the front door grille. It is a leaflet for a condominium development. Which one? I really can’t say. This is the second time I have received this leaflet. I cringed both times.

Observe for a moment. What is wrong with this leaflet?

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Updated 13/11: This post also appears as a guest blog post on Penn Olson.

I was recently reading an early chapter of Al and Laura Ries’ ‘The Origin of Brands’ and was struck by this concept:

The world’s best and long-lasting brands were typically created by a divergence from an existing product category and that these brands continue to survive not because of their ‘share of market’ but for being first in the mind of consumers.

Consider these examples of divergence and its disregard for market size of the day:

• What was the size of the cola market the day Coca Cola was launched?
• What was the market size of Mac users when Apple launched their Apple I system?
• How about the size of the personal computer market the day Microsoft launched their MS-DOS platform?
• And when McDonald first introduced the fast-food hamburger to the American public, what was the size of the fast-food market?

The answer to these questions: Zero.

However, these brands have proven they have what it takes to survive and prosper all these years. So, why is this possible?
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Talk about itself. All the time. David Meerman Scott has something to say about this.

Writer’s Note: Hundred Trees is a condominium development in Singapore. Hundred Trees is on Twitter and Facebook. Please note that I have personally seen @hundredtrees reply to tweets previously (if you don’t see any in their current timeline). Credit to @hundredtrees for being social when it mattered.

So what should brands do instead?
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