a groovyweb by isman tanuri

‘Cool’ is A Powerful Marketing and Social Force

Isman Tanuri — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 22:06:44 +0000

I had an enjoyable chat over coffee with Anol and Josh from B2Bento last evening. Among other topics, we spoke and debated about how ‘social media’ can be an organisational tool to encourage employees to be advocates of their employer’s brand. I got stumped over a few tough questions, but nothing is more enjoyable than intellectual stimulation.

Among Anol’s many questions, one particularly touched the very foundation of my arguments for enhancing social connectivity in the workplace. Here it is, paraphrased.

What then is the winning formula to encourage employees to speak openly and favourably of their employers’ brand? How do you create employee brand ambassadors?

Not an easy question to answer. I have argued for leadership figures to lead and implement fundamental changes to encourage open discussion and endorsement of employer’s brand. It is a tall order, as Anol pointed out, because the undertaking seeks to overhaul culture that has probably been ingrained for years within an organisation (especially true in a Singaporean context, many examples of conservative people structures exist). Is there another way in then?

Finding out later that Anol is an Apple fanatic and aficionado was an important discovery (particularly in that moment). The immediate answer then (not the answer, but probably one of many probable answers and solutions) became more apparent to me.

Selling Cool

About a month or so ago, I swallowed my ‘Google boy’ ego, bit the bullet, took a vow of geek celibacy and resolved to remain above the fray:

I vowed never to get into another argument about which smartphone or mobile operating system (OS) is better. No more iPhone vs (somebody), iOS vs Android, etc.

Technology serves a purpose in making our lives better, so the more of my peers, seniors at work and people in general adopt the smartphone as a tool for learning, the better I will feel. Everyone has the right to access real-time information and knowledge, just as I do, for work or daily life. In any case, I do openly admit that the iPhone is such a usable, intuitive and easy-to-use device. And most certainly not everyone needs a ‘WIFI hotspot’ in their pocket.

But I also realised something that will not keep Apple down or weaken it in the face of competition from the likes of Motorola, Samsung, HTC or any of the other mobile device manufacturer. Simply because…

You can only fight cool with cool.

Let’s face it, Apple is the epitome of cool. No doubt about it. The real hook in their messaging to customers and their admirers is that ’you can be cool’. Anol mentioned a Don Norman’s concept about us wanting to see ourselves in the objects that we own (correct me if I’m wrong). That’s exactly what Apple addresses in its ads. Apple sells you ‘cool’, a state of mind enhanced by how you think others will perceive ‘you’. Here’s a comparative study using video ads. Watch this iPod ad from Apple.

I brought back the iPod ad because it was the beginning of Apple mad love for most ‘non-design’ people that ultimately led to the current obsession with the iPhone. Now contrast that with this Motorola ad for the Droid. “Android 2.1”? “Xenon Flash”? Only the geeks will truly appreciate it. Sterile.

Here’s where Apple triumps again. Nothing in the following video mentions the iPhone (except the end caption). What Apple did was to connect that delicate human moment with the iPhone 4. No hard sell, but gentle tugging at our emotions. Cool.

Now this is my phone. In my opinion, if OS is a winning criteria, quite possibly the most powerful phone in the world right now. However, I’m in no doubt that Google sucks bad at marketing its products (other than their cash cow aka internet ads) and this video reflects that. This video is all about features, features, features. No ‘you’ or ‘me’ in it.

‘Selling cool’ has certainly helped Apple to maintain its mystique.

So if ‘selling cool’ works for products, can it work in an organisational context? Can companies sell ‘cool’ to their employees?

The Cool Organisation

I say, why not? What’s stopping anyone from internally marketing their company’s brand as ‘cool’? Isn’t communicating the virtues of the company’s brand, in relation to market competitors’, a sure way of keeping employees’ morale up? No one wants to work for a No. 2 or No. 3 brand.

Or am I wrong? Or ‘cool’ is just not feasible in employee relations?

But if you agree that ‘cool’ has its merits in creating employee brand ambassadors, the challenge is then, how do you create a ‘cool’ organisation? How do you create an organisation’s brand that employees will talk about openly and passionately?

Here’s another quick case study on ‘cool’.

Is YOG ‘cool’ enough to be passionate about?

In this CNA article, Zainudin Noordin implied that the Youth Olympic Games is not getting the kind of passionate support that it needs. That what is needed now is people “coming to action” to be passionate about the YOG. After the JJ Lin YOG cheer fiasco, I am sure YOG ‘cool factor’ has lost some of its shine. Is there a fix? Can ‘cool’ be produced on demand?

But most certainly not if someone’s brilliant idea of YOG cool is Ris Low, as in the next video.

What do YOU think? Is ‘cool’ cool enough to change how we perceive our employers’ brands? What will be the stumbling blocks? Is it the type of products or services that will determine ‘cool’? Can management folks appreciate ‘cool’? Do share below with your opinions, I would love to hear from you.

Social Media World Forum Asia 2010 : 22-23 September, Singapore

Isman Tanuri — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 02:24:40 +0000

Ever wonder what’s the fuss about social media? Why is it important to understand social media’s impact on how we communicate and share information? And the fact that, just like the internet and email, the social and technological changes brought about by social media are irreversible?

Look Who’s Back

For the second year running, the folks from Six Degrees are back to present Social Media World Forum Asia 2010 in Singapore. This year’s event promises to be bigger than last year’s and will present a host of speakers from many sides of the social media story.

Among the many distinguished speakers I look forward to hearing are:

Brian Solis : Acclaimed original thought leader on social media and writer of the new book ‘Engage’

Blake Chandlee : VP & Commercial Director at Facebook, EMEA

Thomas Crampton : Asia Pacific Director, 360 Digital Influence, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide

Shalabh Pandey: Leading digital marketing personality in Asia. Author and founder of Chasingthestorm

I Am Interested in

What I really am excited about is to hear how businesses are transforming their organisations through embracing ‘social media’ within their organisations. Or is it all merely outwardly PR- and marketing-focused? What are the initiatives taken by business leaders to empower their employees to engage in social media? Is it ‘See & No Touch’ approach? Have they built ‘social media-like’ infrastructures in their organisations to facilitate social conversations and learning? Are their employees allowed to be on ‘social media’ in the office?

After all, ‘social media’ is really all about ‘online conversations around bits of information and new learning’.

I look forward to meeting these folks in person with these ‘difficult questions’.

Derek Yeo : Head of Marketing, Tiger Airways

Pooja Arora : Brand Manager, P&G

Jeremy Khoo : Deputy Director, Marketing & Communication, NTUC Fairprice

Disclosure: A Groovyweb will be at the two-day forum as an official blogger, courtesy of Six Degrees. If you would like to follow the live coverage of the event, follow me on Twitter via @ismantanuri

More Information

The event will be held on 22-23 July at the Suntec International Convention & Exhibition Centre.
The early bird 25% off discount ends on 31 July, so do register for the Social Media World Forum soon or you may also register for the free exhibition-only pass.
If you would like to stay for the Singapore F1 race happening on the same week, find out more on how you can register for the Social Media World Forum and F1 Networking Pass (includes a ‘3-day Premier Walkabout’ ticket to watch the F1 race
You can follow updates on the event via Twitter @socialmedWF
For Facebook fans, visit the official Social Media World Forum Asia Facebook Page
See the presentation below for even more information including other speakers:

Complaints are Healthy, Positive and Good for Business

Isman Tanuri — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:01:38 +0000

This post first appeared in an internal employee ‘email-cast’ by yours truly. Adapted for general reading.

Singaporeans like to complain, right?

We complain about everything! Why is it flooding in Orchard Road? Why are MRT fares expensive? Why watching World Cup on cable is so expensive? Why is the weather so hot/cold? Okay lah, let’s say we call these: ‘feedback‘.

Now look at the photo on the right. This is the message from the video display screens around Gatwick Airport in London:

‘Are you on Twitter? Get in touch with us @Gatwick_Airport and let us know about your experience at Gatwick today.’

Isn’t this the perfect airport for Singaporeans!?

The airport that gives you the license to complain all you want!

Feedback is Good

But really, there is value in all of these ‘feedback’. For businesses who are ‘listening in to these feedback’, it is a way to find out what is wrong with their products or services. For customers, complaining is a ‘healthy way’ to voice your unhappiness. If we don’t say it, we can only suffer in silence and businesses will never improve or give us what we pay good money for.

The SingPost Experience

Here is my personal story on why complaining is good. When SingPost lost my wife’s US$400 parcel (they cannot explain why, gave us totally crap customer service and didn’t want to admit to losing the parcel) I decided to blog about it . I shared the story on Facebook and Twitter and we received so much support from friends and strangers that eventually SingPost had to come to our home, apologised and refunded the whole amount. Moral of the story? Never keep quiet as a customer.

(Honestly, I really salute SingPost for having the courage to talk to us directly and doing what we feel is within our rights as a paying customer.)

Complaints Are Inevitable, Take Them Positively

In any industry, complaints are inevitable. Just as you and I like to complain, customers and clients are in the habit of doing it too (we are in Singapore after all!). But let’s take a moment and look at complaints differently, and positively, in these ways.

Complaints are never personal. So don’t take it personally.

Ignoring complaints is a good way to tell your customers or clients: well, we don’t care.

All complaints are an opportunity to find out what we are doing wrong or even right. Look at the Gatwick Airport story, they are not afraid of receiving complaints because they want to improve themselves.

Listening to clients or customers’ complaints and positively resolving their problems is actually a good opportunity for clients to tell their bosses and customers to tell their friends how good your organisation is! Strange idea?

If we are perfect all the time (unfortunately no one is), then all the hard work we do serving customers or clients will forever go unnoticed and no one talks about it.
But because we are not perfect and we will receive complaints, this is actually an opportunity to shine! And if we shine, people will talk about it. Make sense?
SingPost shines for me because they received a complaint from us and decided to act on it to make things right.

Complaints are a good way to fill up the time in a productive manner. Well, as long as there are not too many of them. Which also means you’re doing your job very well.

So that’s it:

Complaints are good, complaining is positive.
And certainly good for business.

Daniel Pink: The Surprising Science of Motivation (And What Really Motivates Us)

Isman Tanuri — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:31:12 +0000

Daniel Pink has a big compelling statement to make:

There’s a mismatch between what science knows
and what business does.

Pink is the author of the best-selling book ‘Drive: The Surprising Truth of What Motivates Us’, a study that argues long-held conventional beliefs in human motivation are actually hampering effective, high performance.

This is a continuation on my series of posts that discusses the intrinsic needs of employees in a new social environment that is increasingly connected through digital means and how businesses can relook its stance on employees’ engagement in social media and derive positive branding opportunities along the way. Pink’s works and ideas have been a huge recent inspiration and motivation for me to continue discussing the need of social engagement through digital means, especially within organisations, in achieving business objectives.

Now what exactly does science knows and business is doing wrong?

Monetary Rewards Do Not Guarantee Performance for 21st Century Work

Here’s the gist of Pink’s argument on what really motivates us, based on scientific findings from a Dan Ariely study sanctioned by the Federal Reserve Bank of America :

‘As long as tasks involved only mechanical skills, bonuses worked as they would be expected: the higher the pay, the better the performance
‘But once a task calls for even ‘rudimentary cognitive skills’*, a larger reward led to poor performance.
Organisations are ‘making decisions and policies about human talents (including financial incentives) based on assumptions that are outdated, unexamined and rooted in folklore than on proven findings in behavioural science.’

The Scientific Solution

In brief, Pink argues the solution to better and effective performance from modern employees are rooted, not in increased monetary rewards, but in providing the right conditions for these three intrinsic motivational factors to take shape:

Autonomy
- ‘The urge to direct our own lives’
Mastery
- ‘The desire to get better and better in something that matters’
Purpose
- ‘The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves’

There are a lot more discussions that can be had based on Pink’s arguments and these scientific findings, including parallels that I am developing in my mind for my own arguments that social connectivity through digital means will aid in providing these intrinsic motivations for employees (for eg. social media providing us with the control to direct our personal and professional communications (Autonomy) and the abundance of real-time information on social media and on the web that can help all of us get better at our work (Mastery)). But let’s keep that for later.

For now, what better way than to have Pink explains his argument to you in person. Here’s Pink’s hilarious talk at TEDGlobal fully discussing the inspiration behind Drive with case studies and anecdotes.

This next video is a helpful rendering of the same motivation argument made by Pink. Using ‘on point’ caricatures, this visualisation is a great tool to easily understand and absorb Pink’s refreshing perspective on what motivates us.

Connect with Pink on social media via Twitter

* Definition of Cognitive Skills:
Any mental skills that are used in the process of acquiring knowledge; including reasoning, perception and intuition.

Social Belonging (Not Money) is Key to Employee Brand Ambassadors on Social Media

Isman Tanuri — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 09:23:54 +0000

After letting the previous post run happy (Happy Employees = Best Brand Ambassadors), I received a tweet question from @thangdynasty thrown into the mix:

@thangdynasty asked (read more about @thangdynasty) :

What about monetary incentives? Do you think these will taint or complement the positive effects of the rise in social currency?

The Short Answer

The Beatles said it best. Money can’t buy you love.

That is my sole conviction. Just as the practice of paying bloggers in dollars to endorse products is a thorny and questionable issue, providing employees with monetary incentives to engage on the social web comes with considerable risks to reputations, both employer’s and employees’. The integrity of the corporate and personal brands will be questioned. Don’t forget, we are dealing with social media, everyone is ready to pounce on you at the whiff of a questionable practice or the slightest mistake (see Google search results on ‘I Hate Tiger Airways’).

Furthermore, to quote Daryl Tay:
‘Will paying get the same kind of emotions and authenticity? Will your paid post even be remembered a week from today?’

But I know you will still ask, why would employees openly and willingly talk about their employers on social media when they are not compensated for it?

Let us assume my argument here for ‘happy employees make the best brand ambassadors’ is true and that you buy my theory that employees are the best assets for ‘spreading the employer brand love’.

High Pay = Employee Ambassador = Result of Love & Belonging

Let’s look at it from another perspective, ‘Will high-paying employees be brand ambassadors for their employers on the social web?’ I sincerely doubt it. With the internet as a window to opportunities, employees are increasingly mobile. A high-paying employee paid to market or promote the employer’s brand are compensated to do so. But what about the rank-and-file? What will trigger employer brand endorsement? What can we cultivate internally within the employee network and ecosystem to encourage employee ambassadorship?

Love and Belonging

Now, you may ask, how can I justify that? Let’s go back into history and revisit the work of Abraham Maslow, in particular his theory on ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory’ (credit to @thangdynasty again for putting this into my view). Here is the most common representation of this motivation theory:

In short, Maslow theorised that we progress through different levels of self-need in seeking satisfaction and motivation. But only if a more pressing need is fulfilled first, for example, food and shelter before employment, family before friends.

So What Does Our Employment Address?

Our safety and security needs. All of us probably feel we are not being paid enough (who doesn’t?!) but ultimately our family and our own’s safety and security are ensured by the monthly salary we receive. The salary pays for our property and daily expenses and keep us on a social equilibrium. Can this sense of security be replicated in every workplace in the world? More likely than not. So what else do we seek for happiness?

Love and Belonging As Social Glue

If Maslow is right, we yearn for love and sense of belonging. Put aside family and friends you grew up with, we are more than likely to seek fulfilment in these needs through our colleagues: fellow employees we spend most our daylight hours with. Discounting colleagues you’re in dispute with and office politics aside, there is very likely a group of colleagues at work you would consider as ‘friends’ (if you don’t, then I’d suggest you re-look your relationships in the workplace.) All of us wants to belong to a group or be affiliated to like-minded individuals.

When we have determined these friends and established trust, what do we do next?

We literally get into each other’s Facebook and we establish Twitter communes. Vice versa.

Managers and leaders cannot pretend that this does not exist. Because it does and it is happening everywhere. Even in the most unsophisticated of workplaces.

Employees Are on Social Media and They Are Happy

Now that we have established the fact that employees use social media to interact with one another (sense of belonging) and with their family and friend (love and friendship), we can now firmly conclude that social media is not going anywhere because these online social channels fulfil and satisfy employees’ needs for belonging and affiliation. Belonging can actually means multiple choices of lunch partners to hang out with. So these positively equate to the following:

Employees Are Happy on Facebook Because They Belong

Employees Bring ‘Facebook-Happy’ to Work and Hang Out with Happy

Happy Employees Spread More Happy

So here’s the good news and conclusion: Employees are more than happy to hang out on social media with their colleagues. And employers don’t have to pay for it because their self-needs for belonging will take care of that.

Agree?

Now The Bigger Picture

The not-so-good news:

Employees are not talking enough about their employers’ brand (or products) because they are told not to mix work with personal.
Employers are not seeing the big picture on employees engaging on social media and the opportunities that it represent.

Let’s address the more immediate issue 2 for now. Here’s a comment snippet (on a blog post by Belinda Ang) from Anol Bhattacharya who fully explains issue 2:

Another big missing link I see in organizations – strategy to harness the informal networks. Most likely your people are already in various social networks and connected informally with your clients and prospects. Why not tap on that opportunity and provide them the relevant context, engagement opportunities and (if possible) relevant content to ignite a conversation!

And Belinda’s response highlights the exact sentiments I would expect from many business leaders today:

Indeed! Power of the community comes first from within. Like it or not, employees are ambassadors of your brand and they can make or break it with the things they say and do online. However, that calls for a very top-level intervention and most companies aren’t ready to dive into something like that, which potentially changes the business and internal communications framework.

The Business Leaders Challenge

If you agree with Anol’s and my own argument that ‘happy employees can be the best brand ambassadors’, then the immediate challenge for business leaders is to identify the value of social media internally and how it can contribute to their organisation’s growth and visibility. We have all heard about the huge buzz that is ‘social media: the weapon of unhappy customers’ but what about ‘social media: the ‘creating happy employees’ tool’?

To consider:

cultivate social engagements from within the workplace by providing access to social platforms
extending trust and empowering employees to engage in conversations that involve the employers’ brand
use employees’ social media engagement as a tool for promoting the corporate brand
use social media as an internal culture- and team-building tool

What are you thoughts? If you are a manager or a business owner, then I would love to hear your opinion on this issue. Do you feel there’s value in social media for your employees and your brand? Or social media is more risk than necessary for your business?

*Image credits for Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: The Skool of Life

Your Happy Employees Are Your Best Brand Ambassadors (And Social Media Can Help)

Isman Tanuri — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:00:20 +0000

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):

It is crucial that we treat employees as ‘internal customers‘. Making that differentiation can make a lot of difference to how they perceive their jobs/roles and contribution to the company. Job satisfaction will equate to retaining of talents and knowledge assets, which is something a lot of managers are grappling with (especially in a positive economy).

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).

Now watch what Tom Peters had to say about ‘treating your employees like customers’. Peters recounts a story about an American Airlines’ annual meeting in Dallas being picketed by the Airlines Pilot Union. On the same day and in the same city, the same pilot union took out two full pages of advertisement in USA Today to honour the contribution of retiring Southwest Airlines’ co-founder, Herb Kelleher. Why? Because of Southwest’s differentiated support and care for its pilots. In Herb’s own words, the secret of Southwest’s success is “You have to treat your employees like customers.”

The Employee Ambassador

Further, I continued in my reply to Brenda and the main focus of this post ‘Employees as Brand Ambassadors’:

I personally subscribe to the belief that employees are an organisation’s best brand ambassadors. A satisfied employee talks about their employers in a better light, they share more about the brand and, in time, improve customers’ and public’s perception of the organisation. Especially when social media-generated content are indexed more and more by search engines, any brand mention by an employee (good or bad) can make a lot of perceptual difference to a prospective customer or client.

Let’s explore more on why I believe employees are an organisation’s best brand ambassadors and how social media can help.

With social media (or more accurately, user-generated content channels, including blogs, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) becoming the norm and pervasive in our daily lives, a satisfied and happy employee is more likely to be naturally-inclined in displaying their professional affiliation on their social media profiles. We see many examples of this on our friends’ Facebook profiles. I have personally encountered many tweets from my Twitter mates professing their admiration for their bosses and colleagues. A more publicly visible example would be Robert Scoble’s initial admiration for Rackspace and his subsequent employment with Rackspace, whom he consistently and positively write about on his personal blog.

The Happy Employee Ambassador Spreads the Word

The US$1billion American shoe company, Zappos, showed that encouraging and empowering its employees to be happy gave such a positive vibe that its customers return for more, one is even quoted as saying Zappos delivers ‘Happiness in A Box‘. And how about this? Zappos further helps its employees to spread its Happiness mission by building ‘Twitter.Zappos.Com‘. Not only it showcases all Twitter mentions (positive and negative) of Zappos, the portal also displays all tweets and twitpics by its employees for the world to see. Empowerment and trust at play. See it here: http://twitter.zappos.com/employee_tweets

Closer to home, look at how an ex-employee (Wei Yang) of The Garden Slug, a dining eatery in eastern Singapore, positively responded and left a public comment on The Garden Slug’s blog post to announce his next career change. Despite the severance of professional ties, the satisfactory and appreciated stint Wei Yang most likely experienced at The Garden Slug ultimately contributed to a positive PR outcome for the eatery in the form of public endorsement.

Here’s another real-life example. As a current employee of Hogg Robinson Group (HRG), my LinkedIn profile reflects my affiliation and I am happy to include a URL link to HRG Singapore’s Communique Digital Magazine on my profile (pictured below). Why? Because I am happy to be empowered with a major responsibility, which is to develop HRG’s communication initiatives and this is one of them.

And the result? Someone did clicked on the ‘Communique: HRG Singapore’ link on my LinkedIn profile and most certainly discovered more information on my employer (shown below)*.

A simple referral link on LinkedIn has positively provided exposure for my employer’s brand (and at minimal cost). Can you imagine the impact a unified and consistent LinkedIn approach by your happy employees will have on your organisation’s brand and stature? For B2B organisations, a devised branding strategy for LinkedIn may perhaps be a valuable, effective and worthwhile effort to undertake.

So back to the question, how then do you create job satisfaction AND progressively encourage employee ambassadorship?

That’s a big question that deserves its own post. In my opinion, a full dive-in is essential to fully understand what is required by leadership teams to engage ‘social media-empowered’ employees and how they can tap into these ready-pool of brand ambassadors. Despite its infamy as an exclusive arsenal of the irate customer, leaders must now view social media and its technologies as valuable tools to help an organisation meet its business or people objectives.

Part of my current thinking has been heavily influenced by Charlene Li’s ‘Open Leadership’ book (which I am currently reviewing, have a look here at what it all means). These are some of the keywords I will explore with you in the near future: ‘employee empowerment’, ‘organisational openness’, ‘collaborative work’.

In the meantime, can you think of any other examples of happy employees who have undoubtedly become brand ambassadors for their employers? Please share in the comments as I’d love to hear from you.

* Quote from ‘Management Challenges for the 21st Century’
* Disclosure: I am currently responsible for Communique: HRG Singapore hence the access to the web analytics.
All opinions stated in this blog are of my own and not of my employer.

Twitter: Increasing Followers’ Count vs Building a Community

Isman Tanuri — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 23:04:16 +0000

Rakesh Ojha asked this Twitter question on LinkedIn Answers recently:

How to Increase Twitter followers?

Which of the two is a good strategy to increase Twitter followers for business purpose and not play number game?
1) Follow large number of members who will follow you in return to increase your followers.
2) Tweet interesting topics, value insights so that others automatically follow you.
I understand initially you need to follow people to allow for others to follow you but in the long run which strategy you will adopt to increase your followers. I mean real followers who can actually be beneficial to your business later on or you can benefit from them.
Will you follow twit(s) (Somebody who uses twitter) who will never follow you?

A fair number of people on LinkedIn mentioned ‘Buy your Twitter followers on eBay’ and I totally agree with that. It is fairly easy to increase your followers count if you are really keen on doing that and there are published methodologies on how to go about doing it. An example, certain keywords that you tweet on will somehow automatically get you followers, for instance, ‘social media’, ‘holidays’ and the very popular ‘sex’.

Personally, I do not really care about my followers’ count on Twitter. A third are probably bots and another third are friends who were wondering ‘what’s this Twitter hype’ and have since left the conversation. I do have to admit a fair number are probably still lurking and mostly reading. They are the quiet audience.

Building a Community on Twitter

Here’s my published answer on LinkedIn Answers (with some edits):

I will answer this objectively. Perhaps you would like to look at it from a different perspective. I personally do not believe in ‘follow to get followed’ or ‘tweeting interesting topics to get followed’ etc.

My suggestions on how to ‘increase your Twitter followers’ count’ organically:

1. Build a community.
An interconnected community that chats and exchange ideas and knowledge on Twitter. It takes a while but once you get there, you will realise that people who were once strangers to you already knew each other and will now know you. The richness of Twitter is in the living community. Not in followers’ count.

2. It is not about who is following you, but who you follow – Scobleizer
Robert Scoble: “I don’t define myself by who follows me, but I define myself by who I follow! I follow smart people who teach me things and put interesting stuff in my view”

3. Interact with community.
You may follow thousands of folks on Twitter but if you do nothing to interact with all of them, they will do nothing to interact with you. Followers’ size do not matter and, remember, there are many bots on Twitter.

4. Your best followers are those who interact with you. Value them.
Here’s my observation, your best followers will be those who has sub-30-50 people on their Follow list.

They are not Twitter superstars. If someone famous, with millions of followers, retweets you, that is as good as striking a lottery.
They are the ones who will notice your tweets more (because their own Twitter timelines are less obscured by random musings).
They are the ones who use Twitter as it should be: interacting, chatting, (most importantly) sharing and they are THE MOST LIKELY to retweet you.

5. Be appreciative.
Something I find sorely lacking in Twitter etiquette, even among the power users. All it takes is a simple personal ‘Thank you’ if someone replies to a question you asked or helped in retweeting your question or a funny tweet you made. Nothing beats that personal appreciative touch to build a valuable listening community.

So, above all, build a Twitter community, not your followers’ count.

I don’t think I have covered all there is about building a valuable interactive community on Twitter. If you have any suggestions or would like to share your own personal experience on cultivating your on Twitter community, I hope you will kindly do so by leaving a comment below. Keep on tweeting!

My Malay Barber: The Simple Marketing Guy Who Listened and Listened

Isman Tanuri — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 03:07:31 +0000

Sometime in 2006, I started to frequent a Malay barber guy in Race Course Road, close to where I used to live on Petain Road. Operating out of a shop underneath a HDB block, the joint has probably seen better days; it is now sparse and functional. Three of them (all in their 50s) worked out of the same premises and it took me a while to get comfortable with one particular guy. Other than being cheap (SG$8 per trim), a haircut at the barber gets the job done quickly and efficiently, none of the fussiness of the salon and its army of stylists.

My Malay barber’s a quiet man. Apart from pleasantries, Vespa stories and the weather, we hardly got personal. But all the same, my sessions with this guy had been very pleasant. We had a well-established, mutually-beneficial relationship. His colleagues knew that and respected this relationship well to never court me to sit in their chairs, even if the place was swarmed. I was this guy’s regular and loyal customer.

Loyalty is Painful Sometimes

I have loyally continued to patronise this place all these years, even after moving back to my folks in Pasir Ris (briefly before marriage) and now in our matrimonial home (Toa Payoh).

Yesterday, I made a Sunday morning trip to the barber shop for a haircut. I was looking forward to the occasion because a while ago (the Saturday before my convocation on May 22, to be exact), I had gone there wanting a trim. Unfortunately, he did not turned up as per usual and did not answer any calls to his mobile. I waited an hour for him to arrive (I really didn’t mind waiting at all) before reluctantly letting my hair to be trimmed by one of his colleagues. Yesterday, I had wanted to ‘playfully chide’ him for making me wait.

On arrival, I saw his spot remained empty and enquired if he’s late again. The news that greeted me at the door left me stumped and speechless.

My Malay barber guy had passed away on 6 June 2010.

A long-term loyal relationship has ended for good. And there was no opportunity to say goodbye or to express my deep gratitude for all these years.

What Made Our Relationship Great?

Nonetheless, I still needed a haircut yesterday and I received one from the same guy that stood in the last time. In all honesty, I wasn’t terribly thrilled with my haircuts, not that I wanted something fancy (my idea of a haircut is merely getting my hair trimmed to a length that will allow me to style it any way I want later on).

Unfortunately, I did not receive a memorable experience with this guy. It was just not the same.

So what really made the difference? You might say a haircut is a haircut.

Well, the difference is my late Malay barber guy listened. And again and again and again.

From the first time and every time since then, he would ask once before each session what I wanted (despite knowing very well what I wanted), listened to my request and proceeded. If I thought my hair needed a little more trimming (just like my dad’s, my hair burst into life and starts growing wildly the moment I step off the barber’s chair), I would make regular requests (in a single session) to have the sides trimmed to the length I wanted. He would listen, never let out a sigh or complain and gave it to me every time.

I also have a (call it peculiar) belief that buzz machine-cut hair do not grow out well and had insisted on a traditional scissors-cut the very first time I patronised his services. All these years, he remembered that very first request and never gave me a full haircut with a machine (only touch-ups).

The new guy left me disappointed. Crucially, he did not ask what I wanted or listened close enough to what I had to say.

All Great Marketers Listen to Their Customers

First rule of marketing: Give what the customers want. And that is only achievable by listening to what they really want.

That, in essence, is what my late Malay barber did. He asked what I wanted and continued to listen every time. He was a marketing guy in the most simple and effective way. He did not put forth fancy hairstyle ideas or suggest a new hair colour. He did not lavish me with in-store perks or loyalty points. He never called me by my name.

But he listened and listened. And gave me what I really wanted.

Truly a hallmark of any great marketer.

Farewell

I regretted knowing and calling my late Malay barber only as ‘Pakcik’ (Malay for uncle) (I’d love to give you a name here). I probably knew his name at some point but we had gotten on so comfortably, we never did have a need for names. Nonetheless, he’ll be greatly missed.

May God give strength to his family and friends and bless my Malay barber’s soul in the ever-after.

The simple guy who listened and listened and listened.

The Digital Edge: People Development through Simple Technologies

Isman Tanuri — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:58:43 +0000

Full disclosure: I admit I am a technology geek and, unabashedly, a Google fanboy. I am always fiddling with my gadget of choice (my Google Nexus One phone), customising my Google Chrome browser and I constantly try to outsmart the office’s laptop and its ‘restrictions’. You may ask why do I spend valuable time and effort on activities like these?

Well, I demand technology to work for me, to get the most value out of pieces of technology I own or paid good money for. But most simple technologies are made available to me for free, so being Singaporean, free is holy. But, above all, the driving motivation for this is to increased productivity and efficiency, both for my personal and professional uses. (Particularly useful when I was studying too).

Consider these very simple examples:

Very simple example 1:

Bookmarks Sync: Using the Chrome browser means all my favourite bookmarks I had saved on my home desktop is automatically available to me on my work laptop. Google keeps Chrome on all of my computers synced automatically.

No exporting, no importing, no mess. And most importantly, no emailing a URL link to myself!

Very simple example 2:

Universal Calendar: As a professional, I have to keep to a schedule (meetings, lunch appointments, etc.), in this case, I have to use the Outlook calendar in my work laptop. However, I need a personal calendar too (nephews and nieces’ birthday parties, dentist appointments, ‘buy milk’, bachelor’s parties, etc.).

As I don’t think carrying my work laptop everywhere I go or on the weekends is a terribly brilliant or cool idea, I use Google Calendar. I have Google Calendar on my Nexus One and I can access Google Calendar everywhere I go, even on holidays. All I need is a browser and an internet connection.

And there IS a way to have my Outlook and Google Calendar ‘make friends with each other’. Update one and the other automatically updates itself.

No exporting, no importing, no mess. And most importantly, no double duplicate repetitive work!

Very simple example 3:

Auto-Silence Mobile Phone: To keep this really simple, I use my Nexus One with a Locale application with the following strict settings:

Only on Mondays to Fridays, between 8.30am and 6.30pm, and only at HarbourFront Tower 2.

Result: Every single weekday morning when I walked into the office, my phone had auto-silenced itself off. Neat, right?

No time-wasting fiddling, no sweat, no more WonderGirls’ ringtone going off unexpectedly and no more embarrassments. Isn’t that nice?

And there are many more little tricks and simple tools that are waiting for to be discovered and used daily. Technology (even weaponry) are meant to help us in some way or another to improve our lives. The computer, the telephone and even the humble toothpick (care for a twig?)

All This Is Fuddy-Duddy to You?

Are you saying these to yourself “That is too difficult!”, “Oh, I don’t think I am savvy enough”, “I am afraid of the Internet”, “I don’t have a smartphone”, etc.? Well, heard about the 99-year old grandmother with an iPad? Or the 1-year old iPhone-savvy baby?

Believe me, you too can take advantage of simple technologies like these and make your life a little more productive and efficient. As long as you have a computer, work with a computer or simply surf the web on a computer, you deserve the opportunity to harness the power of simple technologies.

Everyone has a right to simple technologies to enhance their lives. Every second saved through being efficient really adds up. (In a year, how many hours do you waste in total waiting for your favourite news website to load every morning?)

The Truth Hurts

To be frank, I keep company with young and technologically-savvy people (maybe an old-age inferiority thang!) Many of them understand the power of simple technologies and use this knowledge for their own benefits. They are school-leavers (could possibly be your child, nephew or niece), below the age of 26, equipped and exposed to iPhones and iPads and also totally understand and exploit the value of online social networks, such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

In a few years’ time, they will slowly and collectively change the culture in your workplace: they have Twitter on their iPhones so they are getting news as it is breaking. They have placed their trust in cloud computing because they know it is efficient, timely and cost-friendly. They will make lightning-quick and well-informed decisions and will be the main driver and steward of a real-time and social economy.

Where will you be then? Can you catch up?

My working experience in the world’s biggest enterprise software company has been quite telling. Despite the technology-driven environment, a large majority of my former colleagues are not taking advantage or leveraging on simple technologies to help them in their work and learning. Even for something simple and efficient like RSS for reading. If folks from a top technology company are ‘not getting it’, what about the rest of us?

No one I knew in school (I used to attend part-time classes) uses RSS for reading or research.

The digital divide is alarming. And here are my plans.

I REALLY Need Your Help With This Survey

I believe I can help bridge this gap in digital learning. I have this platform, my blog, to share my own practices, knowledge and experiences with simple technologies as well as trends in efficient computing (do bookmark or subscribe to this blog if you wish to keep in touch).

However, I wish to do more. But first, I need your help.

In order for me to better understand the scale and scope of this issue, I would like to have some information and data to study the pain points, apprehension and views you may have on adopting simple technologies for daily use. I have prepared a simple survey to achieve this (using Google Forms, its free!).

The Digital Edge Survey: Do You Use These Simple Technologies?

Survey Link: http://bit.ly/DigitalEdgeSurvey

All are welcomed to participate in this survey as I will appreciate the opportunity to hear insights from the different age groups or profiles. However, my ideal participant should be as follow:

Between the age of 26-50
Of any gender, race, educational and professional background
Of any level of computing proficiency
Resident of Singapore

I apologise for the very Google-centric nature of this survey. Why is this so (other than what my wife calls my ‘one-sided love affair with Google’)? Because I have been taking serious advantage of Google’s free online tools and services for my personal, professional and academic use. There are so many of them, I am hard-pressed to use other services! The convenience and benefits I have received far outweigh the time and effort I have spent discovering and learning Google’s tools.

I mean, did you know that there’s a ‘(‘Home-made’) Ice Cream Map of Singapore’ on Google Maps? :)

(In truth, there are many free online productivity tools and services that are available, such as Zoho, Evernote, Remember The Milk, just to name a few.)

If you believe the study and work that I am about to embark on will be beneficial and of value, I really hope you will spare some time for the survey or help to distribute the survey URL link to this survey to your friends, family, colleagues and anyone you think who will be able to provide insights for this study. The more participants, the better!

Survey Link: http://bit.ly/DigitalEdgeSurvey

Survey Outcome and Future Plans

I plan to publish the results and analysis of this survey on this blog during the week of 14-20 June 2010. I really hope this future report will provide great insights and viewpoints that will assist me and others to develop educational digital learning content for the general populace.

I am also assuring you that my blog will now focus on sharing the secrets of simple technologies through learning posts that I hope you will find useful and adopt for your daily and professional use.

I thank you for your participation and for your willingness to re-share this survey.

Why Am I Doing This?

I will write a more in-depth post soon on my future objectives and my conviction on why I should set out and do this. But here’s a short explanation in a nutshell.

Recently, I did some thinking and had a ‘A-HA!’ moment that totally changed my focus and perspective.

An empowered and enabled employee will do more wonders for an organisation than state-of-the-art software or a roomful of high-end servers. Period.

Throughout this blog, I have written about how businesses should adopt and adapt the ‘open’ business model through social media and online marketing.

I was totally missing the point.

It is people that should matter first. Develop the people, then develop the business.

Didn’t they say the most efficient and productive workforce keeps the economy running smooth and healthy?

I leave you now with one of my inspiration. Watch this (a little dizzy at times) video to understand what I mean.

Video Credits: Dan Pink’s animated talk: ‘Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us’

Thanks for reading this post. If you have any comment or would like to share your ideas, thoughts or even to give input on how I can improve on the survey and study, do feel free to use the Comment space below.

Facebook: It’s Not Privacy You Are Losing But Your Consumer’s Rights and Control

Isman Tanuri — Tue, 18 May 2010 03:00:39 +0000

The hot topic of discussion in the social web right now is Facebook’s push towards becoming a more public platform and its ‘shenanigans’ with your privacy. There is now an organised movement (QuitFacebookDay.com) that has earmarked May 31st as D-Day. For a better idea of what has changed on Facebook, I suggest you have a look at the informative graphic below. PC World has a good article that outlines Facebook’s open social strategy too.

The Open Web is The Future Web

Without a doubt, I am all for an open web. I keep my Facebook profile public and I do not shy away from sharing most parts of my life on the web. I believe the more we are willing to share, the better our experience with the web will be and the more knowledgeable and useful the internet will become. Note this: I chose to be open.

I am blogging this in response to Daphne Maia’s own post ‘Privacy Has Been Long Dead. Mark Zuckerberg Didn’t Steal It’. Daphne made some great points that I agree big-heartedly, including:

Facebook still remains a juggernaut in our lives. Our friends and family are in there and it is a great platform for businesses with over 400 million Facebook users to tap. How will we ever let go?
Facebook is a “structured blog..within a big big community” and more (eg. games, online shopping, news, etc). I agree with Daphne here that Facebook’s main draw is its blog-like feature, a space to share with people on your network. There are really an abundance of things to do on Facebook. (FarmVille anyone?)
‘Facebook users need to learn how to: exercise gumption and exercise discretion’. I agree wholeheartedly. Very important. I have seen so many sharing failures on Twitter (an even more public platform) that I sometimes wonder if people ever realised they are being watched and read.

But my stand and opinion differ from Daphne’s here on on a large part of her observation and belief. Disclaimer (if one is required): Daphne and I are friends, online and in real life. Friends can disagree, yes? :)

Not Everyone Is Schooled in Social. Open Social.

Daphne knows the value of social media, just as I do. We are communication professionals who know how to control the message. The what, where and when to let it out. We share and blog ‘smartly’, we behave appropriately online (Twitter, Facebook, Plurk, you name it, we’re on it!) and we ‘game’ the system to build our own personal brands, consciously or otherwise (Daphne on Google).

But not everyone is as well-versed as us. That is the very real reality. Despite all the goodness of being open and social online, not everyone understands it and not everyone wants it. And that is essentially a basic right of the consumer that has to be respected.

In the long run, I would love to have everyone contribute to the open web but, realistically, that time is still much far off. Lots of education and understanding is needed to move people on the same open-thinking platform, perhaps only with the next generational change even. But for now, we, marketers and communicators, must respect consumers’ rights in wanting to protect their personal profiles and data. That can only be a positive prelude to a much more open relationship with consumers in the future.

Facebook: Rogue Business Practices?

Facebook’s success is fuelled by the rate of adoption and use by the masses. It sold us the idea and premise of a “private social network” to connect with “friends and family”. It has a secured, login-required platform that even Google’s mighty spiders do not have access to. And that was the pretext of joining Facebook for most people. Share your photos and thoughts, say Facebook, and shared away we did. We did not even care if Facebook owns our data for eternity. Why? Because there was ‘CONTROL’. Easily-manipulated controls over our profiles and what was to be shared with others. (There are now 50 settings with 170 options in Facebook’ privacy settings. Can YOU figure it out?)

Daphne made a point: ‘What makes the content you publish on Facebook so differentiated (in terms of privacy) from the content you would put on your blog?’ On the contrary, THAT is exactly the reason why most people on Facebook don’t keep an open personal blog. Instead they trust Facebook to keep their sharing and profiles private within their inner circle. They add friends very very carefully. These folks want to have control over their online profiles and engagements and Facebook offered this great and innovative solution. A ‘friends and family-only’ network. We have to respect this right to remain private as much as we expect others’ not to go through our personal belongings.

The Erosion of Trust

Do you think there is a trust issue here?

In business, trust is everything. Facebook is a business. One that earns from advertisers and 3rd party developers, but the way Facebook is pushing its open social platform forward (way too prematurely, I think) in a daredevil, yet blasé manner, I am not sure if they are building upon the trust granted by its users. People are leaving already. Robert Scoble, despite his arguments for going all-out public on Facebook (with a very public profile with public data. Because Scoble does not trust Facebook with his private data), suggests splitting Facebook into two: one private and one public. Scoble obviously knows the value of trust within the every day republic. Read more on Scoble’s suggestions to Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook’s CEO)

In Facebook’s pursuit to compete with Google and Twitter (both being very public and open platforms) in chasing the advertising dollars, where, I wonder, is the respect for its users that have kept its platform alive and well? Remember, Myspace, once mighty, now languishes, feebly.

Do Not Lose Control of Your Consumer’s Rights

As the graphic illustration below shows, much has changed on Facebook. For me personally, and I agree with Daphne on this, privacy on the web remains an elusive endeavour. As long as you use somebody’s online asset, be it Google, Twitter, Hotmail, etc., your privacy remains at their mercy. Even Steve Jobs got his emails outed in public. Another thing, are we, online users, a part of a huge market research data pool for advertisers? You bet and I don’t care!

But what should remain always yours is your control over your personal profile and your data. As an online consumer, you have the right to make choices on who receives your data and who has the right to capitalise commercially on it. But should every online move we make be granularly tracked and sold on to 3rd party services without our permission? I’m not keen. Just because someone in my network is playing FarmVille does not mean Zygna (FarmVille’s developer) has the right to access my profile and those of my friends’ and family. That is an outright abuse of trust.

In fact, one of the main reason why I remain on the fence about staying put on Facebook, is that I feel uncomfortable exposing my family and friends’ privacy (those who still value them) and profile data through my very public Facebook page. I chose to be public because I believe in openness but at what cost? Now it seems being public and open is such a selfish thing to do.

So Will I be leaving Facebook too?

I don’t know as yet. I know it is hypocritical if I stick around in Facebook, but much is at stake (including my professional needs) so I would like to look at options and solutions. But for a start, I will look at how I will now interact with Facebook and how I can move my personal relationships within my network beyond Facebook.

For those who treasure and are still pursuing online privacy, Gina Trapani’s Online Privacy: Check Yourself (Before Your Wreck Yourself) is a good read and outlines what steps to take. When I get home tonight, I will be looking at the service Youropenbook.org. As explained by PC World in the article ‘Facebook Privacy: Secrets Unveiled’, there are so many personal stories, some damning, to be found on Facebook that has been publicly published, unknowingly.

But I am sure you won’t miss me if I do leave Facebook. Want to keep in touch with me? Here’s my Google public profile: http://www.google.com/profiles/isman.tanuri This is the truth, nothing but the truth.

And I’m in control.

Share your thoughts on this Facebook and privacy issue. Are you still keen on Facebook now? Which side are you on?

Graphic above originally found at: http://s3.moveon.org/images/with_dims/facebook-graphic-1.3_750x615.png (Courtesy of @lucian on Twitter)