Twitter

If you haven't been, you should start. Cause it will become bigger than FaceBook. And, the possibilities of aggregating the information from Twitter could have huge trend ramifications. This SXSW, I've seen the beginning the of the "social media" discipline in advertising/marketing. I know I'm a little late, but it's real and it's coming... if I had a dollar for every time I heard Twitter or Tweet or talked to people through Twitter, I wouldn't have to go back to work. :)

I've got 2-3 more posts to write up on the plane ride back. Overall, SXSW was a great, inspiring time, I'll definitely return next year. I'd like to do just a post on Twitter and talk about my new friends from RADAR DDB in Vancouver.

Graphic Recording

During yesterday's Opening Remarks with Tony Hsieh of Zappos, I saw two women drawing while he was speaking. I wasn't really sure what they were doing, turns out they were making a graphic recording of the speech. hmmm. Cool.

Not sure exactly what you do with it, but the finished product is very cool. I'm going to try and talk to the two artist: Sunni Brown and Marilyn Martin after the presentation to find out more.

Austin has two food groups

BBQ and Mexican.

I have eaten both kinds, nonstop.

"The Science of Happiness" or "Making your company a fortune 100 place to work"

Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com has a different philosophy about doing business. It probably leaves a lot of other CEOs scratching their heads.

Tony is more concerned with happy employees and happy customers. Not necessarily profits. He argues that if you have happy employees and happy customers, and you're half-way smart about running your business, money comes later... and that's okay, if you decide that's how you want to run your company.

Well, considering Zappos is a fortune 100 "best places to work" and one of the top online retailers, I'd say he's on to something. Also, 75% of Zappos revenue is from repeat customers.

I'm most interested in how he has built the right culture for his company. He believes in culture so much that he invests in it. Instead of spending money on marketing or advertising, he spends on the hiring process, the training process and taking care of his employees.

Hsei argues that your brand= your culture as a company, which if you're an online retailer, or if you're in the service industry (ahem, advertising!) then this is your model. Your brand is the people you have.

I'd even argue it's more important in advertising. Your your ideas are dependent on the people you have and their happiness or drive/desire to innovate.

These are Hsei's 7 steps for building a brand that matters:

Step 1: Decide
If you're trying to build a long term sustainable brand, then there's a lot of trade-offs you make. You might take a hit on revenue and profit opportunities in the beginning, but you must decide if this is what you're about.

Step 2: Figure out Values & Culture
What are your personal core values? What are the company core values? Start early. It is surprisingly harder than you think to create these. In the end, it doesn't matter what the values are. The most important thing is alignment from everyone who works there "These are our values as a company." Culture & Brand are the same thing.

Step 3: Commit to Transparency
"Be real and you ahve nothing to fear." Hsei gives his vendors and brands he sells 100% transparency into his business online through login accounts. He's not afraid of competition, he thinks of it as actually having 1500 other companies helping him make his business better.

Step 4: Vision.
Whatever you're thinking, think bigger. Does the vision have meaning? Chase the vision, not the money... "Don't chase the paper, chase the dream." Motivation vs. Inspiration. Think about inspiring your employees rather than motivating.

Step 5: Build Relationships.
Personally, I hate networking. It seems so insincere. Mostly, I'd rather meet people I'm interested in. Which is why this point hit home!
Don't network. Be INTERESTED instead of being INTERESTING.

Step 6: Build your team.
"If you want to go quickly, go alone. If you wan to go far, go together." Hire slowly. Fire quickly. Too many times we hire to quickly to just fill a seat, think about the people we have to let go because they weren't the right fit? I can't tell you how much I believe in this. Especially in light of recent events.

Step 7: Think Long Term.
There is no "get rich quick" formula. "Overnight" success usually has been years in the making.

Mobile Revolution: take a photo of an avocado. Get a recipe for guacamole.

The panel:
Rob Gonda
www.robgonda.com
Juan Morales
http://blog.thedigitalstew.com
Ryan Stewart
http://blog.digitalbackcountry.com

Interesting speakers today on the future of mobile technology. Statistics show that SmartPhones are definitely going to be increasing.

There are 3X the number of mobile phone subscribers (3.3 billion) than those just using the internet on a PC.

In Asia and Europe, they are much more advanced on using their mobile phones. You can buy groceries, clothes... many things all by just scanning your phone.

While there was nothing completely groundbreaking at this discussion. The most curious points were actually having phones with much better recognition software.

So, let's say I can take a photo of pretty much anything, a phone can recognize it and then provide more information. This is happening with QR codes, but gurus predict we can go beyond that and having our phones recognize organic objects. Like take a photo of an orange, and find out where it was grown, or if it really was grown organically.

There was also much around the idea of having phones recognize audio patterns embedded in songs or movies. Let's say within a movie or a song, they embed a frequency that is much too high for us to hear, but the phone can "hear" it. Once the phone can pick it up, then you can get more information. What if?? (my favorite thing to say!) What if you are seeing a movie, and you want to know who sings a certain song, you hold your phone up in the theater and voila! You can then get that information.

Last point here.

Augmented Reality. Really dumb name, but it's actually cool. Right now it's used in gaming or creating a digital overlay that can be viewed through your mobile device. Imagine playing table tennis on a table that is just through your phones. Each mobile phone is the paddle. So, it's kind of like Wii and if you have a plain surface, then you can see the ball/net/out-of-bounds lines all through your phone. Get ready to game anywhere.

Here's a game that's coming out for iPhone called "Kweekies"... you'll be able to have a virtual pet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te9gj22M_aU&feature=related

Here's another link that shows augmented reality by GE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00FGtH5nkxM

A "Tweet-up"

My favorite thing about language is it's every-evolving nature. New words pop up as our world changes. Today's new favorite word for me is "Tweet Up."

A Tweet Up is when a bunch of people meet up at a location all coordinated through Twitter.

Twitter, also, is THE most used word and technology at SXSW right now.

So, go make a tweet up.

If you invite me to one, I'm bartolucci72

Bogusky rides his B-Cycle to SXSW: Random Musings on an Ad Icon

So. Okay. I'm going to admit it. We all have idols in the business. CPB has always been mine. What's great about the story behind that agency is when they started, they were all people who couldn't get jobs at Fallon, or Goodby, or Wieden.

Then, they all hunkered down in Miami and decided to do their own thing. They were so driven by the rejection and hungry to prove that they were just as legit, that arguably, they have surpassed their competitors in many respects.

So, I've admired their work over the years. It's always ballsy. It's always breaking the "rules." I look at their work a lot and say, "F(*&# Crispin" because that is the work I want to do. So, I was really excited to see the man who is able to sell through this type of work and really relish in the experience.

He was selling me a B-cycle.

no. Not a bicycle. A B-Cycle.

And while he was selling me a B-Cycle, he was selling me the fact that his ad agency has the full-on capability to create a new product; a new service; pull together the players to make it happen; and then also workshop the designs/architecture to make it reality.

(side note here: best part of the preso... he's going through his preso, his PC starts failing. Someone in the audience yells, "Want to borrow my Macintosh?" Laughter erupts.)

Anyhow. A B-Cycle is a similar business model to IgO or ZipCars. Timeshare model, but for bicycles. I think, a really responsible cool idea. We should promote bicycles and esp. in the cities. It's social awareness and green endorsed, what's not to like?

Mostly, I was looking for how he presents. What does he do to captivate an audience? How the hell does he sell something like Subservient Chicken??

Frankly, he takes his careful preparation and turns it into a casual, off-the-cuff, insert-a-swear-word-here-and-there kinda layin' out the facts way. He easily takes what the assignment might have been, but then switches the perspective of it. "GM is really convinced they want to sell cars, but the people really just want a solution for transportation, not more cars." It's this type of swift intelligence that makes it so compelling.

Whatever it is. It works. It comes off sincere (spare me the tears a bit there Mr. Bogusky when talking environment) and effective. The crowd was riveted and followed with more questions than time alloted.

Some great quotes in the preso:

I apologize for any profanity contained in this fucking presentation.

Can an ad guy bring bike sharing to america. (his first slide) No. (his second slide)

The art of sticking your nose where it doesn't belong.

Our business model. (Crispin)
A holding company for smart people
no silos
no timesheets
focussed on business
momentum vs. deliverables

I'll stop gushing now, but it's always the smartest thing to study people you hold in high regard. You learn, you adapt and last time I checked, there aren't too many agencies more successful then they are.

Check out more on B-Cycle. It's a cool program, and well designed. Hope it can reduce our emissions and make this world a bit cleaner. It's even better an Ad Agency is trying to break the current model. Let's just say, SXSW paid off in the inspiration dept. today!

thx.

Bogusky of CPB

Going to a panel now on Alex Bogusky trying to sell a service on bicycle sharing. I love how many things at this high-tech conference are actually very low-tech ideas.

Google Gots Your Number

Google is quickly getting in the business of phone #'s. If anyone remembers the service "Grand Central" from 2006, it was a technology where you could manage all of your phone #'s with one central number. Someone calls, and all your phones ring: home, cell, work. It also had a online hub, where you could manage voicemails, texts etc...

Everyone thought after Google purchased Grand Central, that it was gone and forgotten, however, quite the opposite, Google has been working on it all along and is soon to release it as Google Voice(tm).

Here's what's so cool about it. You give out one number to everyone (well, you'll have to get new business cards and give a new number) and that's your one number for life. Then you can manage all your texts, emails, voicemails and phonecalls from one location.

On first thought, that sounds really cool. On second thought, it actually might be kind of scary.

but be your own judge:

https://www.google.com/voice

Coffee Soup

Ever go to the coffee shop and wait behind someone making coffee soup? I'm sure you have. Since the coffee-prep area is about the size of small frisbee, you are at the mercy of the person in front of you before you can properly cream & sugar your coffee. Just now, however, I waited for someone who put in whole milk, then, half-n-half. Then sugar. Then vanilla powder. Then cinnamon (why do they have this?).

Then you wait and watch them taste.

Then they add more crap. More vanilla. More cream. More sugar.

Then they stir.

They are not making coffee. It's coffee soup.

Road rage lives beyond cars.

Promise this will get more interesting once I'm at SXSW.