The IT Systems Engineer will work as part of a small team responsible for the design, architecture, and maintenance of IT infrastructure that supports company’s 24 x 7 x 365 SaaS products.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to the design, architecture, and maintenance of IT infrastructure for robust websites and web applications
• Assist in the design of solutions to further improve security, availability and reliability of IT infrastructure
• Assist in architecting, designing, and implementing the servers, storage, databases, web servers and services that support our SaaS products.  Responsibilities include all aspects of the application stack, including virtualization, storage, Operating System, SQL databases, and web services.  The candidate is expected to help evolve the infrastructure by taking systems level view, finding inefficiencies, areas for improvement and solving issues.
• As a member of the Data Center Engineering team, the Systems Engineer will also work with development team to gather requirements for new features and translate them into IT infrastructure design
• Support 24 x 7 x 365 environment assumes occasional off-hours and weekend work, as well as participating in on-call rotation

Technologies 

• Windows Server 2003, 2008
• Red Hat, Debian, Ubuntu Linux
• vSphere
• Active Directory
• Networking, Cisco routers, PIX, Sonicwall, switching, VLANs
• Advanced understanding of DNS, BIND
• IIS
• Apache, MySQL, experience with LAMP architecture
• Nagios, SNMP
• Shell, Perl scripting
• MS SQL administration
• SAN concepts, EMC Clariion, McData switches
• Enterprise backup/DR solutions
• Asterisk PBX
• SVN

Qualifications and Skills

• 2-5 years of industry experience in IT
• Strong troubleshooting skills, root cause analysis
• Strong communication and documentation skills
• Exposure to Data Center operations
• Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, Engineering, or related field

Apply here.

Altimeter Group recently released a report,  ‘A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation,’that has some valuable insights into how companies need to prepare for and manage social media proliferation.

One to One’s MessageMaker solution is featured and received the highest ranking, Strong Capability, in the Tailored Service and Support category and so we thought we would share our top three takeaways from this report:

#1. Technology alone is not enough and social media management tools and solutions will ultimately fail unless—brands set clear goals and social business strategies.

#2.  The rapid proliferation of social media accounts will cause chaos if not managed properly

#3. Global enterprises and regulated companies require customization and intensive support

Read More

Altimeter Group recently released a report, ‘A Strategy for Managing Social Media Proliferation,’ that has some valuable insights into how companies need to prepare for and manage social media proliferation.   They surveyed buyers–144 enterprise-class corporations and over 25 social media management vendors and service providers.

One to One’s MessageMaker solution is featured and received the highest ranking, Strong Capability, in the Tailored Service and Support category and so we thought we would share our top three takeaways from this report:

#1. Technology alone is not enough and social media management tools and solutions will ultimately fail unless—brands set clear goals and social business strategies. Even with a high adoption rate of social media most do not have a clear strategy and “…an average of just 43% said they had a formalized strategy roadmap that addresses how social will meet specific business goals.”

Does your social media management solution come with strategic counsel, expert services and the ability to provide truly customized solutions?  One to One has seen the pitfalls when engaging with clients who are not sure where or how to integrate social with their business objectives.  We start by utilizing customer intelligence and then map to customer acquisition, CRM and sales goals before helping clients engage the social customer through activation, cultivation and a broad digital presence.

#2.  The rapid proliferation of social media accounts will cause chaos if not managed properly—Altimeter found that global corporations have an average of 178 discrete social media accounts.  Think about this for a moment.  How many locations and separate product lines do you have and what rogue or inactive accounts are out there taking up valuable space where your official brand should be?  It is not too hard to reach 100 accounts quickly and that does not include employee social accounts.

Does your solution have the capabilities to manage and monitor hundreds to thousands of accounts and provide meaningful perspectives?  Looking at each social account throughout a company individually can create an array of myopic, unrelated views. To get a true, clear picture of your company’s social presence, you need to be able to take a broad, honest view to understand the ‘chaos’ and be able to shift to narrower, focused views as needed. A social media management solution with this flexibility will reveal general trends and engagement across the company while allowing brands to delve into pockets of success or failure.

One to One has been working on the forefront of social media management and helping clients with the challenge of keeping thousands of social accounts consistent, compliant and relevant.

#3. Global enterprises and regulated companies require customization and intensive support—Altimeter aptly points out that one size rarely fits and customization is required in nearly every deployment.  Our experience proves this and it doesn’t matter whether you are a multinational corporation, in a regulated industry or a national franchise, every company has unique needs and requirements in managing their social ecosystem.

Can your solution provide customized reporting and a large support team?  This comes with a manual, right? Enterprise-class companies need enterprise-wide support and a social strategy that integrates with their larger digital strategy.  Employee (and management) training, customized analytics dashboards, unique apps, tabs and other requirements for the full brand experience on social networks are all part of the tailored services and support brands should consider when developing their social media management strategy.

One to One provides customized solutions, including content strategies that work across the entire digital spectrum and can integrate with business intelligence, CRM systems and social monitoring, among other sales and marketing efforts.

In conclusion:  It’s important to remember that to deploy your social business strategy properly it should become a working part of your overall digital presence. Plug-and-play social media management tools do not ensure your social marketing will work side-by-side with your overall brand marketing and other initiatives (website, mobile, search, etc.).

A holistic view of your entire digital ecosystem and a partner who can help activate and acquire the social customer is essential.

This is the third and final installment of curated social infographics produced in 2011. I started this series with a focus on the Social Customer. It is imperative for brands to understand how their customers use social media, what expectations they have as it relates to engaging the brand, and what they are saying about your company’s product’s and services. My second post was dedicated to Social Business. This spoke to the need for brands to understand their current internal readiness to engage via social channels across the entire enterprise. A viable social business strategy will define the correct organizational model, identify the necessary social enterprise platforms, and detail the necessary objectives and KPIs to successfully engage with internal and external stakeholders via social channels.

I am concluding this series with a focus on the Social Brand, loosely defined as “any company, product, or individual that uses social technologies to communicate with social customers“. Social Brand budgets generally are allocated toward agencies, community management, social applications, blogs, etc. Below contains illustrations regarding what it means to be a Social Brand and who is doing it right.

BRANDING AND HOW IT WORKS IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA AGE

Source: aytm

CONSUMERS ARE SOCIAL. BRANDS AREN'T THERE YET.

Source: Beyond

HOW ENGAGED IS YOUR BRAND?

Source: Tab Juice

SOCIAL MEDIA BRANDSPHERE

Source: MOONtoast

SOCIAL BRAND CURRENCY

Source: BzzAgent

5 BRANDS ROCKING SOCIAL MEDIA

Source: aytm

SOCIAL BRAND VALUE

Source: AssistedLivingToday

Yesterday, I shared my round up of 7 Infographics that I felt best summarized the Social Customer. Today, I feel it is important to curate another collection of 7 Infographics focused on Social Business. The Social Customer has required businesses to evolve in almost every way. Particular attention needs to be paid to executive support, governance, employee activation, education, and organizational models in order for an enterprise to successfully make the transformation. The following set of illustrations succinctly overviews demand for social business, internal and external strategies, and brands who have already begun to make strides in their respective transformations.

SOCIAL BUSINESS DNA

Source: Intersection Consulting

SOCIAL BUSINESS IMPERATIVE

Source: Michael Brito

LET'S GET DOWN TO SOCIAL BUSINESS

Source: Get Satisfaction

SOCIAL MEDIA AND YOUR BUSINESS COMMUNICATION STRATEGY

Source: Socialcast

EXECS MAKE JUMP TO SOCIAL

Source: Jive Software

THE FUTURE SOCIAL CEO

Source: CEO.com

ROI OF ENTERPRISE SOCIAL SOFTWARE

Source: Socialcast

I would like to give a shout out to Niall Cook from Social Agility who published a comprehensive round up of Social Business Infographics this past August in a post titled “5 Essential Social Business Infographics“. I also urge anyone interested in learning more about becoming a Social Business to check out David Armano’s post “Demystifying Social Business“. David and the gang at Edelman Digital are producing some fantastic thought leadership on the subject.

The maturation of Social Media and the rapid onset of the Social Customer has been one of the most transformative events in marketing communications since the commercial advent of the Internet. As a result, 2011 yielded one of the most impressive collection of infographics that tried to distill this transformation into compelling visualization. Below are 7 infographics that provide a comprehensive overview of the Social Customer and why they rule!

AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE SOCIAL CONSUMER

Source: Beyond

WHAT CHANNELS INFLUENCE THE SOCIAL CONSUMER?

Source: Beyond

SOCIAL COMMERCE PSYCHOLOGY

Source: Tab Juice

THE ANATOMY OF A FAN

Source: MOONtoast

A FIELD GUIDE TO BRAND ADVOCATES

Source: BzzAgent

BRANDING AND HOW IT WORKS IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA AGE

Source: aytm

HOW SOCIAL MEDIA IS RUINING OUR MINDS

Source: AssistedLivingToday

The Mobile Excellence Awards honored industry leaders and rising stars at its annual gala, which took place on Monday, December 5^that a prestigious event in Los Angeles, CA and exclusively covered and filmed by the prestigious Arts & Living Magazine.

The Mobile Excellence Awards is the only coveted award program in the industry of this caliber which recognizes and honors the companies that have truly set the bar of excellence in their respective fields.  From leading brands to studios, carriers and startups, Mobile Excellence Award finalists and winners were celebrated by the industry’s leading executives, influencers and guests at the Gala Celebration.

One to One and National Geographic took home the award for ‘Best Content Extension Made for Mobile’ for the National Geographic Kids 2012 Almanac QR Code Campaign. The results of the campaign are impressive for the world’s best-selling kids’ almanac, including:

• First kid’s almanac to use QR codes
• Extremely high engagement rates with over 150,000 scans in 5 months
• 4.5/5 star user review rating on Amazon.com and About.com
• #3 on The New York Times Best Sellers list for Children’s Paperbacks

http://www.mobilexawards.com/finalists/winners

“Do you have a good hotel recommendation in York?” asked one of my best friends this morning. “Nah, “ I replied, as my experience from our stay last year was pretty lackluster. During a one-day stopover, I booked a room late in the afternoon at a quaint hotel.  We checked-in, dropped our luggage in the room and went for a walk in the city. Upon our return later that night, we noticed a strange and unpleasant smell coming from the bathroom. But we were tired and had an early wake up call the next morning so we didn’t have the will to complain; instead we shut the bathroom door and went to bed. This is how we “resolved” the smell issue. We woke the next morning, checked out and went on driving towards Scotland. None of the checkout staff asked if we were happy with our stay and we did not bother mentioning the unpleasant smell.

Why am I telling you this? It’s because here lays one of the biggest challenges for many companies as they attempt to address usability issues with their products. Many managers believe analysing user support calls will yield the usability issues facing their users and then they’ll fix them.

Sounds reasonable? It is natural to think so. The data is available as most companies keep support call logs so all you need is smart analysis. With minimal effort, you can get a big list of usability issues to resolve. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The problem with such an approach is that many users do not provide accurate feedback or any at all (as in my example above). People often think complaining is inconvenient and are skeptical as to the service they’ll receive after doing so. But, as a company, the fact that a customer does not log a complaint does not necessarily equal satisfaction. Your customers might be resolving their problem the same way we did – hiding it or ignoring it. Slowly but steadily those dissatisfied customers may drift away until they are gone forever. It’s the users who do not renew contracts or upgrade to the latest version and when you find out it’s usually too late. Support analysis will give you valuable data insight and knowledge but will not paint the full picture of consumer sentiment around your product or service.

Your overall customer base can be placed into three buckets:

• Customers who absolutely adore your offering and care about providing feedback, good or bad. They write add-ons, blog about you and praise your brand publicly. You usually get a lot of information from them with little effort.
• Potential users who are not your customers. You attempt to grow your user pool by acquisition strategies but certain people are just out of your focus, which is fine. You might, however, be surprised to learn that some were a customer at one point.
• And then there are your silent customers. They simply use your product or service without giving away too much information. The majority of your customers will comprise this group and are the most likely to drift away without you even noticing until it is too late.

Coming from the world of support and user services, I know how important it is for users to provide input and even I did not file a complaint. Plumbing issues can occur in any hotel and it could have resided in my memory as a “great little hotel that upgraded us to a magnificent suite after we told them about the odor problem.” Instead it’s the hotel I did not recommend to my friend.

So, what should the hotel have done to keep me a happy customer? What should you do to prevent users from drifting away? First and foremost, acknowledge user support and services as one of the organisation’s most important activities. This is how customers see you and is a major way for them to establish a positive opinion about your brand.

When you put your mind to it, you can develop practical steps to ensure the following:

• Make it easy for customers to provide input, whether positive or negative. A good example is “Love Film” DVD rentals service (owned by Amazon). When “Love Film” sends a DVD, a customer will also receive a pre-paid return envelope and feedback form already populated with comments / problems commonly reported by other users. Instead of having to freehand, “This DVD is scratched”, a user simply has to check the box.
• When you do receive a user comment, show it’s important to you. Make the user feel you have taken their feedback to heart and provide fast, courteous and impeccable service. Apologise and compensate!
• Most importantly, be proactive. Do research. Perform user testing of your products not only before releasing them but also over time because circumstances can change the way your product is used (E.g. people, technology, social norms, context of use, etc.). You must invest in user research; test user journeys over and over again during the product life cycle. Do not rely on users to provide you with voluntary feedback.

The above steps serve as a way to start a conversation with customers and continue the dialogue, creating brand loyalty. Don’t let your customers drift away. Instead, create an experience that makes them recommend your nice little hotel in York to their friends.

Overview

The Account Manager (AM) is responsible for day-to-day management of a single or multiple projects across smaller accounts.  Account Managers report to an Account Director (AD) and are accountable for the delivery of quality projects which meet client expectations and are delivered on time and on budget.  Working with ADs or Account Supervisors, AMs are expected to be able to take loosely defined project concepts and scope and develop actionable interactive marketing projects.  In managing their projects, Account Managers are responsible for on time and on budget delivery, quality control, coordination with delivery resources, development of effective working teams, and day to day management of client expectations.  Account Managers may or may not have Account Coordinators reporting to them on projects.

Responsibilities

• Successfully developing project plans by scoping, scheduling, and estimating efforts across projects’ full life cycle
• Writing and delivering statements of work
• Successfully executing project plans by coordinating resource management and planning with multiple internal departments and with multiple third party vendors
• Successfully setting and managing client expectations for projects and programs
• Working with Account Services and Project Management teams to ensure timely delivery of quality deliverables
• Serving as the primary day to day execution point of contact for projects
• Establishing, leading, and motivating project delivery teams
• Successfully controlling projects by:   recognizing, negotiating, and tracking changes in scope
• Tracking and reporting schedule and budget progress against plans
• Providing regular reports and briefings to the client
• Working with customers to establish proper governance structures
• Tracking actual hours and effort against a project plan and making appropriate changes to deliver projects and programs on time and on budget
• Maintaining contractual control over all aspects of the project/program

Qualifications/Skills

• At least 3-5 of years of project/account management experience including 1-3 years experience within Interactive Marketing Agency or Consultancy whose core business is selling & delivering online marketing and direct/database driven marketing & analytical solutions to clients (ideally including experience within the e-mail and other online channels)
• Prior exposure to/experience with digital media is a definite plus
• Excellent communication skills (oral and written)
• Strong client management skills, especially as it relates to setting and managing client expectations
• Project management experience
• Proven team building and leadership skills
• Proven track record delivering multiple interactive marketing projects simultaneously
• Experience writing statements of work
• Hands on experience with scheduling, estimating, and planning tools
• Client facing experience
• PMI PMP certification a plus
• Bachelor degree required

Apply here.

A new marketing paradigm is emerging—human-centric marketing, which is an evolution of our current customer-centric approach. And it’s beginning to change the way we are introduced to and form relationships with brands.

Before I define human-centric marketing and answer the question “why now?” it makes sense to review why the consumer-centric approach to marketing is falling short:

1. It views people as somewhat passive participants.
2. It measures success by how much merchandise a consumer moves.
3. Rising paradoxes have led consumers to seek more meaningful relations with brands.

The consumer-centric approach to marketing is a result of the information age, which has information technology at its core. It was an economic shift, a move away from older corporate-centered systems defined by large companies to a more people-driven one.

Websites, social networks, blogs, microblogging platforms, and mobile apps now allow people to have a voice. As a result, that shift has driven transparency and global access to products and services in the market. It has changed the dynamics of individual and corporate communications, which are becoming more active, micro, portable, live, informational, improvisational, and personal.

However, one problem with the consumer-centric approach is that it views people as somewhat passive participants in marketing campaigns.
“Consumer-oriented brands’ only meaningful metric is how much merchandise they move, and consumers tie their status to how much of a scarce resource they consume,” writes Mike Bonifer in his GameChangers. “The model is unsustainable. It is a zero-sum game. If we keep playing it, we are like arsonists watching our own homes burn.”

Events such as 9-11, the massive economic downturn of the past decade, and rising paradoxes associated with globalization and environmental disasters, such as BP’s oil leak into the Gulf of Mexico and the devastating earthquake in Japan earlier this year, have led people to seek out more meaningful, authentic connections with one another and with brands.

In his Marketing 3.0, Philip Kotler, author of some 20 marketing books, suggests we have been going through a process of social adaptation, organizational readjustment, and changing personal expectation. At first glance, these recent changes seem centered on new forms of informational resources, much as the Industrial Revolution seemed to be powered by new machines and new forms of energy. But a closer examination reveals that the current transformation we are undergoing is broader.

The deep and enduring changes of our age are not technological but social and cultural—indeed, human.

The Emergence of Human-Centric Marketing

Human-centric marketing represents a broader evolution in marketing and embodies many cultural, societal, economic, and technological changes that have occurred over the last decade.

Kotler offers a concise definition of this emerging marketing paradigm: “Human-centric marketing is defined by brands [that] approach engaging their current and prospective customers via advertising and marketing tactics as whole human beings with hearts, minds, and spirits.”
The Integral Institute’s Robb Smith adds to Kotler’s definition, claiming that the companies that will succeed in this next era of marketing will be those that build their brands and entire companies around a serious, deep purpose—an ultimate concern—and then effectively translate that purpose to people with different worldviews and perspectives.

In his book The Rise of the Creative Class, Richard Florida highlights the rise of human creativity in the last decade as being a key factor in our evolving economy and society. Both at work and in other spheres of our lives, we value creativity more highly than ever and cultivate it more intensely.
The “creative class” is now being let loose on an unprecedented scale:

• It consists of 38 million members in the US
• It makes up more than 30% of the nation’s workforce (compared with 10% at the turn of the 20th century)
• It accounts for nearly half of all wage and salary income in the US—$1.7 trillion (as much as the manufacturing and service sectors combined).

This emerging trend is not about creating more artists. It’s about fostering and embracing those generations that care about and can solve 21st century problems.

Finally, technology has played an integral part in the rise of human-centric marketing and will continue to do so as it leads us into the next evolution of the Web—Web 3.0.

Web 3.0, or the Semantic Web, will be characterized by a massive explosion of connected things—Internet-enabled devices both for people and for objects—and the ability for technology to discern real meaning from the interactions and corresponding data between infinite digital touch points. That dynamic will continue to flatten the world and bring people closer together while increasing the mediation of brands.

The Key Characteristics of Human-Centric Marketing

Angela Koch, director of innovation strategy at innovation consultancy Invitro, suggests that companies need to shift from category understanding to deep human understanding if they are to activate and captivate their relevant stakeholders:

• Instead of imagery, a company should focus on utility in its communications.
• Instead of being concerned about perception, a brand is better suited to define its purpose.
• Instead of complexity and massive content generation, focus on simplicity and context when engaging in dialogue.
• Instead of messaging to your audience, seek to engage them in active participation.
• Instead of focusing on corporate values, focus on human values.
• Instead of relying solely on rationality, be prepared to embrace irrationality… We are only human, after all.

* * *
I look forward to receiving your feedback and continuing the discussion on human-centric marketing.

This post was originally written by Jeremi Karnell for MarketingProfs.com, published July 20, 2011