The book offers a step-by-step approach for making important business decisions with regards to technology adoption. It teaches managers how to measure and evaluate the effectiveness of their New/Social media endeavors. And lastly, it outlines the organizational changes that upper management must consider before blindly presuming that these technologies must reside within the staid confines of marketing or public relations.

With the ink-and-paper version of Read This First soon to be released, I’m excited to share the fruits of my labor by releasing the audio book for free. My hope is that if you like what you hear, you just might decide to purchase one (or ten!) copies of the physical version when it’s available in late November 2009.

The entire book was recorded a few weeks ago and I’m in the process of editing those audio files. My goal is to complete one chapter per week for the next eleven weeks until I’m done.

So, without further ado, I present to you: Chapter 1: The Economics of Influence.

Download audio file (Read_This_First_01.mp3)
Note: The chapter is 26 minutes long.

If you’d prefer to download the file, please right-click on the following link to save it to your computer:

Read This First: Chapter 1: The Economics of Influence

Lastly, if you’d prefer to subscribe to the podcast, you may do so through the following iTunes or RSS Feed buttons:

Feel free to share this audio book with anyone who is trying to make business sense out of New/Social Media. For example, do you have a boss or a client that you’ve been trying to convince to use New Media tools? Perhaps Read This First will help you make your case:-)

I’ve established both the Twitter hashtag #ReadThisFirst, and the bit.ly URL http://bit.ly/ReadFirst for your convenience. Please feel free to use them liberally:-)

Tags: Read This First Business Book: New Media Social Media Executive’s Guide Executive Ron Ploof ronamok audio book free podcast

Whenever I get the keys to a client’s Web analytics, I feel like Indiana Jones, exploring cobweb-laced catacombs that contain hidden treasures which are just waiting to be discovered–treasures that frequently result in meaningful business intelligence. Unfortunately, though, I’ve learned that traditional business communicators don’t share my enthusiasm for online data analysis. Many view such activity as meaningless busywork, so, instead of rolling up their sleeves and wading deeply into the raw data, they cast fleeting glances at their automatically generated Web reports.

It’s understandable. Most marketing and PR folks still don’t understand the impact of a dynamic online marketplace. In the past, these professional business communicators reported on static measurements such as banner ad impressions or media mentions. Such metrics were good-enough when companies were the only initiators of online content, yet fall short of the task as 3rd parties (customers, prospects, competitors, and investors) have joined the online content party.

The amount of online content created about your company is increasing every day, and the effects of that content are becoming more significant. The question remains, “Does your company have a finger on the pulse of these effects?” If not, it’s like running into a dark forest without a helmet.

Most companies do nothing with the data that their analytics packages collect every day, and of those that do, even fewer perform analysis, preferring cursory looks at first-order results (unique visitors, page views, referrals, popular pages). First-order results work well in a traditional controlled content environment, but reveal their inadequacies in a dynamic online world. The real juicy business stories are found in the second-order calculations. Remember that old High School algebra and y=mx+b? Remember how to calculate the slope of a line?

Business stories are found in the second-order affects of Web analytics data. Rather than glancing at static numbers collected independently on a week-to-week basis, savvy communicators plot them over time. Enlightened business communicators study these graphs and ask questions such as:

• What is the slope of the data?
• Are the unique visitors rising or falling over time?
• Did the visits to a specific Web page spike and then return to its baseline level in a short amount of time? What could be the cause of that?
• Why did a number of people recently come to our Web site through someone else’s YouTube channel?
• Why did our company see a significant spike in Facebook fans over the past few weeks?
• Why is the fastest growing Web referral from Google tied to the keyword bad customer service?

Keep a close watch on these second-order effects. Find the trends. Once you do, you’ll be able to make smart executive-level decisions based on what you find.

Of course, if you’d like to hire a very smart consultant to show you how, I’m always available:-)

Photo Credit: vrkerbs

Tags: data y=mx+b algebra social media second-order effects ronploof measurements ronamok

The successful implementation of social media requires a fundamental shift in the way professional corporate communicators approach their customers. Historically, marketing and public relations professionals have described their customers in the abstract, referring to them generically as “markets,” “buyers,” or “consumers,” rather than as living beings. As a result, customers were considered entities to conquer, as proved by the war analogies communicators used to describe how they orchestrated campaigns and launched initiatives in a continuous effort to position, target, and capture them.

Such vocabulary made sense when corporate communications endeavors consisted of simple, one-way transmissions. But ever since customers began interacting with online content by leaving comments on blogs, recording voicemails for podcasters, and responding to online videos with videos of their own, they ceased being militants to conquer. And when they started identifying themselves as “friends,” “fans,” and “followers” through services such as Facebook and Twitter, they demanded more respectful treatment.

Before you allow your marketing or PR folks to start using social media channels, have them rethink their approach. I’ve found that a simple exercise in word substitution helps kick-start the transformation. For example, by substituting the word “friend” for the word “customer,” the differences become clear.

• Do you target your friends?
• Do you capture your friends?
• Do you position your friends?
• Do you plan campaigns against your friends?
• Do you launch initiatives at your friends?
• Do you blast your friends with emails?
• Do you manage the expectations of, enhance your reputation with, or craft your messaging with your friends?

Thinking about customers as “friends,” “followers,” or “fans” is the “social” part of social media.

Who does your company communicate with? Enemy combatants or friends?

Photo Credit: Thumpmaster6

Tags: vocabulary war analogies marketing PR public relations ronamok friends ronploof

“That’s odd,” I thought. Why would an organization want to restrict the number of people that they can communicate with? And that’s when I saw the bio.

It’s funny how history always repeats itself. Remember how the Telecom Acts forbade Telcos from publishing online phone directories simply because the Internet dared to reach beyond the Baby Bell territories of NYNEX, Bell Atlantic, Bell South, Ameritech, Southwestern Bell, US West, Pacific Telesis, and AT&T?

The nature of technology is to obsolete things and corporate rules are not immune from its wrath. Therefore, it’s important for your company to review its corporate policies and compare them with the technologies of the day. Does the corporate handbook contain antiquated rules that prohibit the free flow of information with customers? Does it preclude your organization from sharing information with the widest possible audience? Most importantly, does the policy seek to serve the company before the customer? If so, you might wanna sharpen the ol’ pencil because…

…the Web hath no boundaries.

Tags: AAA Twitter telcos technology obsolete corporate policies antiquated

For example, take a look at this job description entitled Social Media Expert Needed. The first time I read through its meaningless requirements, I shook my head. The second time, my blood pressure rose. Instead of risking an aneurysm on a third pass, I decided to have a little fun with it. Here’s a list of its job requirements, accompanied by my translation for each one.

Photo credit: Donnaphoto

Tags:Jobs social media hiring translation ron ploof executive strategist

My son’s High School graduation occurred on a football field on a hot Southern California afternoon almost three months ago.  As the graduates left the field that day, their connections to one another remained unchanged. Just like the generation before them, some went to college; others went to work; and some are planning to get married (yikes!). But unlike their parents, all have an automatic mechanism by which to stay connected. It’s called Facebook.

After college, I stayed in touch with people the old fashioned way…we exchanged annual Christmas cards with “Family Letters” stuffed into them:-) My son, on the other hand, receives daily updates as to the who, what, when, where, why, and how his friends are doing. Instead of the annual highlights that I receive, he sees pictures of friend’s roommates, hears them complain about their professors, and rolls his eyes as they root for their new favorite football teams.

The difference between his social interaction and mine is that my son’s network grows after every life milestone, whereas mine always shrunk. This phenomenon is something that companies need to start thinking about NOW!

Your future employees are building powerful networks that will follow them into your company.  What are you doing to prepare for it? Are you making the adjustments necessary to enable those networks to help your business? Are you changing your employment profiles to hire young talent that is not only comfortable creating content online, but who also has access to a deep network of individuals who may be able to help you achieve your corporate goals?

Most companies are simply wrestling with Social Media from a marketing or PR perspective. The thought process can’t stop there. Management must look beyond these simple first-order connections and start recognizing the second-order affects of Social Media. Those who can harness the power of these second-order affects will thrive. The rest will remain disconnected, just like the graduates who walked off of that football field almost 30 years ago.

Photo Credit: Robert Crumb

Tags: Beyond Marketing and PR New Networks Graduation New Media Management Ron Ploof New Media Evangelist

For the past year, I’ve been working under the assumption that I could help shorten the Social Media time constant–helping those new to Social Media come up to speed that much quicker. But I’ve learned something during the process–that there is a limit to the Social Media time constant.  No matter how many examples that I create, no matter how many analogies that I perfect, the time it takes takes for someone to become proficient in Social Media cannot be shortened indefinitely.  I call my discovery the Natural Law of Social Media.

Natural Laws are nothing new. Long ago humans learned that the only way to reap a harvest in the Fall was to plant their crops in the Spring. The seeds needed to be in the ground for a specific length of time and no amount of extra tractors, fertilizer, or ranch hands could change that fact. To use a term from consulting: “You can’t hire nine consultants and have a baby in a month.”

Social Media too has it’s own gestation period–one that is split into three different phases: Conceptual, Internalization, and Proficiency.

Phase I : Conceptual

This first phase requires a person to have fundamental grasp of Social Media and what makes it different from traditional media. They have the ability to look at the advances in technology to see the impact that they’ve had on the state of communications.

• The ability for anyone to publish content and distribute it around the world for a cost of nothing is a game-changer in corporate communications.
• Traditional communications devices such as press releases and obsequious marketing collateral don’t work well in an environment where the content consumer controls the channels.

Phase II: Internalization

There’s a big difference between understanding concepts and internalizing them. Just as reading a book by Dr. Spock can’t make you an expert in parenting, simply understanding Social Media concepts without hands-on experience will not help you become Social Media proficient.

The only way to advance beyond a conceptual understanding of Social Media is to use the tools. Write a blog, use Twitter, or connect with your friends on Facebook. Participate in LinkedIn group discussions, upload photos to Flickr, or create and distribute a video via YouTube.

By doing so, you open yourself to nuances that you can’t experience by observing from the sidelines. Unfortunately, I know many people who don’t use the tools but profess to understand Social Media. They do understand…but are stuck in Phase I.

Phase III: Proficiency

There are no shortcuts to Social Media proficiency. Just as hard work helped you become proficient in Sales, Marketing, Public Relations, Customer Support, or Management, it takes the same commitment to become proficient in Social Media channels. Significant time must be spent listening to the online chatter, creating compelling content, and participating in online communities. By doing those things consistently, you will build an audience that you can interact with. Interacting with the audience is the “Social” part of Social Media. How can one master Social skills without having people to speak with?

Are you willing to perform the work necessary for Social Media proficiency?

Photo Credit: Library of Congress

Tags: Natural Law of Social Media Time Constant Proficiency RonAmok! New Media Coach New Media Evangelist Ron Ploof Read This First

A few years later, I read a book by Paul Zane Pilzer that not only disagreed with my college professor, but its concepts helped shape every career decision that I’ve made since.  The book, Unlimited Wealth: The Theory and Practice of Economic Alchemy, helped me understand that the pursuit of controlling scarce resources was futile because the technology-of-the-day defines what a resource is.

For example, oil was an annoyance until someone figured out that it was a rich source of energy. In an agrarian society, land was considered a scarce resource, until we developed new methods for significantly increasing the harvest per square acre. And if the laws of supply and demand proved correctly, sand, the most plentiful material on earth, should have no value at all–that is until someone discoverd its semiconductive properties and built an entire valley in Northern California based on the discovery.

The concept that yesterday’s scarce resources can become abundant today creates huge challenges to those who’ve built their businesses on the obsoleted resource. If technology determines what a resource is, and the rate of technological change is accelerating, then anyone in the business of controlling resources faces real-time financial ruin the moment someone invents a technology that transforms that scarce resource into an abundant one.

Fast forward to 2009, with a book that picks up where Unlimited Wealth left off: Chris Anderson’s Free: The Future of a Radical Price.  Twenty years ago, there was no Google, Wordpress, iTunes, Youtube, Facebook or Twitter–all technologies that transformed publishing from a scarce resource (printing presses and transmission towers) into an abundant one. Anderson takes a look at the ramifications that online technologies have had on driving the marginal cost of information delivery so low as to make it too small to measure.

While many businesses morn what has been lost through the cost marginalization of information delivery, Free focuses precicely on the abundance of opportunities that businesses have to choose from. The question (which I have posted in this blog on many occasions) is:  do business leaders have the intestinal fortitude required to reap the benefits of those opportunities? Anderson sums up the sentiment on page 233:

Free is not a magic bullet. Giving away what you do will not make you rich by itself. You have to think creatively about how to convert the reputation and attention you can get from Free into cash. Every person and every project will require a different answer to that challenge, and sometimes it won’t work at all. This is just like everything else in life–the only mystery is why people blame Free for their own poverty of imagination and intolerance for possible failure.

Every now and then, a book comes along that needs to be read multiple times to completely absorb its concepts. Not only have I’ve read Unlimited Wealth at least a half-dozen times, but I’ve purchased it at least that many times, as my copy always seems to be on someone else’s bookshelf.  More than likely I’ll be dong the same thing with Free.

During the next few weeks, I’ll be discussing specific things that companies must do (or avoid!) to benefit form the disruptive power of abundance vs. scarcity-based business thinking. Stay tuned.

Tags: Free Chris Anderson Paul Zane Pilzer Ron Ploof Abundance Scarcity New Media Evangelist Business

I was invited by Karen Bartleson of Synopsys to host a session in the company’s Conversation Central booth, but the highlight of the day came immediately after my session when a man, slightly out of breath, rushed into the room and announced that some Synopsys guy was about to start his presentation in a few minutes.

“Can you tweet about it?” he asked Karen.

Without looking up from her screen, Karen said, “Sure. Tell me something interesting about the talk.”

The man stood in the doorway, stumped for an answer. The perplexed expression on his face resembled that of a person trying to calculate the cube root of 37 without the aid of a calculator.

The man knew that Karen had built an audience on Twitter, and as a marketeer, his goal was to deliver his message to it. However, through her question, Karen helped him understand that this audience was different, because she had built it, Twitter-follower by Twitter-follower. By asking for “something interesting,” she was simply demonstrating her commitment to publishing quality content to that audience.

Companies adopting New Media channels such as Twitter can learn a huge lesson from New Media Evangelist Karen Bartleson. Not only must they build an audience through publishing compelling content, they must also continue to respect that audience. By doing so, not only will the existing audience remain loyal, but the company will likely add a few more readers/followers along the way.

Tags: Synopsys Karen Bartleson Design Automation Conference DAC46 Twitter content New Media Evangelist Ron Ploof

• Levine, Locke, Searls, and David Weinberger’s seminal The Cluetrain Manifesto, predicting that the power of communication would reside in the hands of the consumer
• David Meerman Scott’s, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, that taught how to harness the power of online communications,
• Paul Gillin’s The New Influencers, that taught about a new breed of online content creator, who has as much (if not more!) influence on our brands as we do
• Debbie Weil’s The Corporate Blogging Book, that taught the importance and role of the company blog.

But as I attempted to incorporate the ideas contained in these great books, I encountered something that none of them prepared me for–huge internal resistance to their innovative ideas. For example, marketing wasn’t willing to release control of corporate messaging; PR fretted over rogue bloggers; and gatekeepers such as the “Web Team” and Information Technology (IT) were terrified by opening a technical Pandora’s box–the fact that anyone within the organization could post text, audio, or video onto the corporate website…without going through them!

The experience did two things for me:

1) taught your New Media Evangelist much about the political ramifications of introducing New Media channels to those wedded to Old Corporate Communications thinking

2) provided the inspiration to share the lessons that I’ve learned.

I’m happy to announce that the fruits of my labor are nearly complete. Last week, I got the news that my book, Read This First: The Executive’s Guide to New Media–from blogs to social networks has gone into production.

• If you are an executive looking to adopt New Media technologies into your corporate communications strategies, I suggest that you Read This First.
• If you are a Social Media consultant who’d like to help your prospects understand the fundamental foundation by which to build their Social Media strategies upon, I highly recommend that you have them Read This First.

I don’t have an exact publishing date yet, but I do know that it will be available in October of this year. Please subscribe to this blog for updates as we get closer.

Tags: Read This First New Media Evangelist Traditionals Debbie Weil Paul Gillin David Meerman Scott Cluetrain Ron Ploof