8 Ways Social Media Benefits Events

Incorporating social media (via Twitter, blogging, video, community sites, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) is a growing phenomenon for live and virtual events. Last week included a swing through Chicago for strategy development on two conferences where I produced social media in 2009. I'll be heavily involved in growing the social media presence for both events (the national Business Marketing Association and the American Marketing Association Market Research Conferences) again in 2010.

According to attendees and event industry observers, we introduced more innovative social media experiences than even many tech-oriented events. This impact at the front end of producing event-based social media comes from the fact the activity merges several areas of expertise for Brainzooming, including:

• Strategy development
• Customer experience design
• Social media
• Event production

Based on first-hand experience, beyond creating a buzz or "newness" for an event, strategically incorporating event-based social media delivers a variety of real benefits:

• We created additional layers of content beyond capturing speaker talking points. We produced additional commentary, links to relevant information, and video interviews, among other educational assets.
• We extended the conference impact to audiences outside the event through conference websites and the liberal use of hashtags.
• It's possible to motivate favorable behaviors through incorporating promotional offers to drive trade show traffic.
• It provides another way for attendees to become actively engaged in an event.
• We gained an understanding of audience reactions to presenters on a real-time basis.
• It's a way to solicit and address on-site customer service issues.
• Our efforts provided additional educational value by introducing a large percentage of attendees to social media applications.
• The social media team's presence prompted new interaction opportunities among those engaged in tweeting at each event.

What experiences have you discovered with event-based social media? We've found that realizing the full range of benefits requires a well-planned strategy and "producing" an event's social media effort, not simply leaving it solely to organic development. (Check out the deck we put together for the AMA Marketing Research Conference to get a sense of the range of interactivity we built into the event.)

Through both producing major events and taking a lead on organic social media in a number of smaller events, we've developed many fundamental approaches and look forward to sharing the benefits of these learnings in events this year. And if you're doing event planning, let us know if you're interested in finding out more about how social media can deliver new value for your event. - Mike Brown

The Memorability of Creative Job Titles - Guest Post by Misty Stocksdale

I caught up with Misty Stocksdale last fall at a Kansas City tweetup hosted by Shelly Kramer and Laura Lake at Manifesto - a very cool, very dark setting. We exchanged business cards, but her attention-commanding title at Total Home was only visible the next morning: Multi-Skilled Genius.

After checking the company's website and seeing that everyone had equally cool titles, I tweeted Misty, asking asked her to share the rationale and impact behind them. In the first guest Brainzooming post of 2010, here's Misty's take on creative job titles:

The Kansas City home remodeling industry is home to thousands of contractors, business owners, project managers and installers. Attend an industry function and you’ll collect an array of business cards: different sizes, shapes and colors; identical titles, labels and monikers.

Peer-to-peer networking and executive-to-prospect interactions should be memorable and distinguishing. Anything less makes the connection insignificant and possibly forgettable. A name, for the most part, cannot be altered. But a job title, on the other hand, leaves room for creative flexibility and long-term impact.

My small business decided to do away with the traditional title syndrome two years back. We no longer hire Painters, Accountants and Marketing Managers. Instead, we recruit Artists, Number Crunchers and Multi-Skilled Geniuses. We showcase these distinct titles on our email signatures, business cards and website contact pages.

A creative job title sparks ice-breaking curiosity. It removes standard barriers and it allows an individual to be instantaneously expressive of who they are and what type of work they do. The creative combination of a few words can make for an interesting calling card that will inevitably set the Head Chef of a home remodeling company apart from every other Owner/Manager in the room.

Our titles evoke friendly responses from clients and professionals, alike. The obvious creativity and flair behind such a title is inspiring to a person who will potentially be working with us. The titles offer a window to our attitude and make us just a little more memorable in comparison to our peers. In an industry that values the skillfulness of reformation, the innovativeness of renovation and the resourcefulness of imagination, the last thing we would want to do is get lost in the crowd. - Misty Stocksdale

See Me, Feel Me, Criticize Me

It's a challenge to objectively examine your own website as if a prospect or customer seeking information would. There's an approach you can follow to get ideas flowing though: Look at a direct competitor's online presence, trying to shoot holes in it based on how a customer might view it.

You should really be able to get into it by answering a few questions:

• What misleading or out-of-date information is presented?


• What's not compelling about the website?


• What's confusing about the navigation?


• How much unnecessary detail do I have to supply to get a copy of the "free" download?


• What questions do I have that the website doesn't answer?


• Do I know where to get my other questions answered?


• In what ways did I get smarter by browsing this website?


• In what ways were my information needs left wanting?

After doing this, go back and see how your own online presence compares. Looking at yourself from a customer perspective should now be much easier! - Mike Brown

Don't I Know You?

How do you cultivate relationships initiated and largely conducted online? And how does it work with thousands of people following you?

The answer to the first question is, pretty much like you do offline relationships. And the answer to the second question is...the same.

For me, "shared experiences" are at the heart of successful relationships. The extent of peoples' common experiences strengthen and sustain relationships, even when contact levels may be minimal at times. The degree of emotional intensity in the experiences also drives memorability.

While social networking allows for many more "shared" experiences, it doesn't facilitate a comparable expansion in emotional capacity. Thinking about Twitter, it's clear an RT or a brief DM exchange provides little emotional impact. That makes it tough to remember some people you may have engaged with even a few months ago.

For those with tens or hundreds of thousands of followers, it's no different than an offline star: emotional intensity isn't always bi-directional , i.e., fans have intensely emotional experiences with (Twitter rock) stars who have no emotional connection in return.

Beyond simply managing numbers, it's important to manage how you create opportunities for shared experiences online and offline, (i.e., participate in tweetups) and emotional connections within your network over time. By actively, acting on these variables, you can introduce new shared experiences to help keep a waning relationship going within an expanding network. - Mike Brown

Whenever I Call You Friend

A year ago, a “friend” was someone I’d almost certainly met in person. We had come to know one another through shared personal experiences. Keeping in touch was enjoyable, even if through infrequent phone or email exchanges.

One year later, having used Twitter and the Brainzooming blog in a strategy to “meet” people globally, my concept of friendship has been dramatically expanded.

Now, there are “friends” I have:

• Never spoken to directly and may never speak to via phone, and certainly not in person.
• Come to know through shared online experiences, typically in messages of 140 characters, that have nevertheless provided memorable insights into their personalities.
• Been excited to see show up (via their avatars) and communicate with on Twitter, the blog, or in my email.

This expanded group of friends has enriched my life tremendously. They’ve shared their expertise, talents, ideas, creativity, reading lists, suggestions, and personal cheerleading so generously. I communicate with many of them weekly, and know them better than IRL people I’ve been around for years.

All this is a remarkable transformation in perspective, especially considering for a number of these new friends, I don’t even know their full names.

In what innovative ways has your definition of “friend” been changed by social media? – Mike Brown

3 Must-Haves for Driving Social Media

The title topic came up recently on Twitter, as it had at a B2B social media roundtable late last year: Who should be doing social media strategy and implementation for a brand - organizationally and individually?

My take is a strategic perspective is the foundation for a social media effort to build a sustaining impact. When it comes to questions of social media strategy "ownership," it's clear sole responsibility for it doesn't fit nicely into a box on today's org charts.

Stepping back from the discussions, I forced myself into three criteria which seem necessary for taking on social media responsibilities in corporations:

• Ability to always be on message for the brand, which implies effectively linking brand strategy to messaging


• Appropriate sensibilities for social media channels


• Diverse communication skills that work across various social media channels

Sometimes those people are in marketing communications, but you may find them in other parts of a company as well. They may also exist outside a company's employee base; that's fine too.

Most importantly, given the rapid pace of social media, you want the best strategic writers crafting the communication. Where are these people located in and around your company? Find them wherever they may be! - Mike Brown

Everybody in the Pool (or Snow Drift) for the Brand Promise

Trends are pushing brands into innovative channels to sell their products and services. These strategies include going through intermediaries who resell, repackage, aggregate, or creates marketplaces for multiple providers' offerings. These arrangements have been the rise and ruin of many brands.

A specific challenge for parties in these intermediary relationships is that each brand visible to the end customer is bringing its individual brand promise to the sale. In turn, each becomes responsible for the aggregate brand promise, making it critical for various individual promises to fit together in a sensible way for customers. It's also vital that each provider (and its employees) can and do carry out the aggregate promise of whatever's being offered.

Our experience last week highlighted the challenges involved. Trying to get our driveway cleared of 9 inches of snow before returning from a trip, we used ServiceMagic.com. It promises to identify a short list of screened and approved professionals for home repair and contracting work, backed with a seal of approval and a guarantee.

We chose the first one to contact us (whose name can best be described as "Generic Subdivision Name Lawn and Garden" company).

Here's the rub. Beyond whatever else ServiceMagic promises, its name implies something more. It's not operating under a generic lawn and garden company name. Adding the name "Magic" into the collective brand promise implies an enhanced sense of delight and wonder with the service performed.

Unfortunately, we returned home to find the snow removal only partially completed. The porch, walk, and driveway were still half covered in snow - hardly a magic moment. A call to the snow removal company didn't get someone back to do the work by the next morning. I wound up finishing the project, shooting a video before and after to substantiate what was and wasn't done.

As of this posting, no one's contacted us and we haven't been invoiced by anyone. Maybe that's the "magic" part of the service. If this is the case though, it would be a more magic strategy if someone called to say, "Hey, we screwed up, and it's free!" Doing so would ensure our return for more performances! - Mike Brown

Personal Branding When You're 25x 2.0

Thanks to a tweet from Richard Dedor, Chris Reaburn and I were last minute attendees at a Kansas City PRSA lunch session by Dan Schawbel based on his book Me 2.0 - Build a Personal Brand to Achieve Career Success.

The talk was part of a career day for students interested in PR, so the average audience age was 20. As a result, Dan's slant on personal branding was customized for the industry and audience life stage.

The concepts he covered were nonetheless applicable to anyone working on personal branding. From talking with many people in mid-career transitions, however, they tend to be woefully behind on how personal branding applies to their situations. So for the 25 times 2.0 crowd, here are three suggestions customized for you:

1. Volunteering for meaningful assignments with professional associations is a great mid-career internship.

Dan highlights the necessity of internships for college-age job seekers. Mid career job seekers have similar opportunities. I speak with many people whose current job is "looking for a job." There's no sizzle and not much built-in skill development there. Yet associations relevant to you are likely looking for knowledgeable professionals to take on assignments. One great thing about a smartly-chosen volunteer project is you typically have room to make it much cooler than anyone in the association ever expected. The result is you get to experiment, learn, and have something with sizzle to lead with when networking.

2. Mid-career, it's imperative to assess your personality and get on with changing what's not working.

My advice to people who leave for other companies is always to think about who they want to be in a new job, because it's the only opportunity to create a "new" you. Dan makes the point it's tremendously challenging to reinvent yourself in the age of (nearly) total visibility to your online presence. That's true, but if you continually trip yourself up through the same behaviors, do the self-help, career coaching, or counseling necessary to eliminate rough spots. Become if not a new, at least a "new formula" you.

3. Mid-career people need a solid offline and online network you're actively growing.

Dan's right when he says a larger network has the potential to work much harder for you. But with a number of years of experience, you should be good at determining the highest value people in your network. While you definitely want to serve and cultivate these relationships very actively, you should also be continually reaching out to expand your network offline and online. Focus on adding people you may be able to help while building the most vibrant, responsive network you can. That's a far better move than creating the largest network possible filled with people having few real ties to you.

This topic is of increasing interest, so look for more on it as we go forward. Let me know how we can deliver value to you as part of the Brainzooming family! - Mike Brown

Taking Note in a New Way

Want to meet cool new people? Next time you're at a public presentation, "live tweet" it. Live tweeting implies using Twitter to report:

• What the speaker is communicating
• Offering your own commentary
• Retweeting what others are tweeting about it

I live tweeted the Integrated Marketing Summit last week in Kansas City to further experiment with the process. Based on my tweets from a direct database marketing session, Doug Haslam switched breakouts and joined the session. This created the opportunity to chat, and after attending his session on PR and social media, later talk at the networking reception.

I wouldn't have necessarily gone up and talked with someone new (ah, the curse of an introvert), but live tweeting opened the door to connect and meet a new, really smart person at the forefront of social media.

Beyond the in-person opportunity, live tweeting often opens the opportunity to attract and follow new people in your Twitter network as well.

Live tweeting - a whole new way for introverts to become social animals. - Mike Brown

Write Shorter

A very nice blog reader stopped me at the Integrated Marketing Summit to say she reads Brainzooming every day, "when it's short."

Great reminder to me and to you.

When writing, set a deliberately low limit on the total number of words you'll ultimately allow yourself. Challenge every word. While you're at it, eliminate "that" from your writing. The blog's rough drafts have taught me "that" is my most frequently used unnecessary word. Based on other material I read, it's likely one of yours too.

A reader once told me I get one minute of his time each day, which is a "big deal." His statement is on my mind every time I write a post. I appreciate and respect the time you spend with Brainzooming and want to make sure it's of value. So I'll try and keep it short. - Mike Brown

Marketing Research RIP 2029: Why marketing research will not exist by 2029 (or by 2019 for that matter) - Guest Post by Ted Morris

Note: A mid-September tweet from #Researchlive asked for short posts about what the market research industry will look like in 2029. A retweet by @amamrc prompted Ted Morris to comment that by 2029, market research will be a dead industry. Amid a conference theme challenging us all to imagine "What's Next," we reached out to Ted to expand on his challenging idea. Here are his perspectives on the developments paving the way for the market research industry, as we know it, to die away:


These are times of transformation for an industry reputed to see the world through a rear-view mirror rather than drive marketing innovation. This current recession / depression is a good time to us to rethink, retool, and re-launch.

So here are a few things to think about when going to your next client meeting:

Mobile and the Generation ‘Effect’: Verizon just announced it's getting out of the land line business by 2012. Telecom industry analysts have suggested that the general public will have completely disconnected from land lines by 2020. Most consumers aged 16-29 currently do not have a landline subscription and are one of the most difficult target markets to contact for survey research. If you think your teenage son or daughter are hard to reach because of their preoccupation with mobile devices and the Internet, just imagine how mobile the world will be in 20 years. Focus groups won’t be taking place in stuffy rooms with one-way mirrors, fancy sandwiches, and droning moderators.

Community Building: While some say “the consumer now controls the brand”, brands have commissioned companies such as Communispace to establish brand communities – online aggregations of consumers who have a specific loyalty, interest and adherence to a brand. Communispace has built over 300 online brand communities for clients such as HP, Kraft, Reebok, Starwood, and GSK. Brands use communities for direct feedback on product experience, innovation, service ideas, and value augmentation, allocating dollars that would normally go to marketing research budgets.

Social Media Monitoring Platforms: Five years ago the marketing research industry scoffed at such listening platforms. I can say that from first hand experience having held a corporate development role for a technology startup that was looking to the MR industry for capital. The biggest objection I heard was that social media monitoring "wasn’t market research." While I never suggested it was, social media monitoring is a way to passively listen and quantify brand conversations consumers choose to undertake online. This would have been like saying that digital advertising wasn’t true advertising since it did not use traditional creative, media and pricing models.

Aptly, Digitas recently referred to the Internet as ‘one large focus group”. Indeed.
Some early adopters, notably TNS/Kantar, Nielsen and J.D. Power & Associates took the early lead in making acquisitions. In turn they gained competitive advantage in meeting emerging client requirements: provide a capability to monitor and understand the nature of online consumer content, coined as WOM – Word of Mouth. WOM was coined by WOMMA, Word Of Mouth Marketing Association. WOMMA was founded by Andy Sernovitz, one of the nation’s most influential marketing and social media observers. Public Relations agencies, consultancies and OEM’s are also partnering with companies like Radian6 and Sysomos in order to have their own capability to monitor brands and emerging consumer trends.

Big Brands/ Big Digital Branding: Pepsi, Ford, Dell, NCR, General Mills are going digital, or at least migrating in that direction, when it comes to online consumer engagement. Ford for example, invests heavily in social media to manage, monitor, measure and position Ford as the most “social” automotive manufacturer. Pepsi is using various social media platforms to engage consumers, while Dell and Marriott are generating revenues from social media platforms. All are using social media to ‘sense and respond’ to customer requirements at times bypassing traditional marketing research as the need for "real time/on demand" consumer feedback grows.

Advertising Agency networks: WPP, for example, now has a portfolio that is roughly 50% digital. The WPP network is in the process of consolidating the back offices of its four major traditional ad agencies that are, one, unnamed WPP executive was known to have said “dying profitably”. As more advertising dollars go digital so are dollars allocated to traditional marketing research: the Social Media listening industry has been pegged at $150M according for Forrester. That’s up from $0 in 2003. Publicis, MDC, Ominicom, Havas have all stocked up on digital companies the past 3 years.

Marketing Research: By contrast the market research industry has been consolidating for 10 years to the point where the top 10 global MR firms own about a 40% share of revenues. In the past 3 years, revenues have barely kept up with inflation and have actually declined in 2008 along with the drop in ad spend. In fact, according to the 2008 Honomichl 50 report, with the exception of 2004, the US MR industry has not kept up with the rate of inflation since 2001 – the dawn of social media.

Our current economic recession has also seen some client companies completely eliminate their entire global MR spend – and you know who they are. There are exceptions: Comscore has grown 400% in the past 5 years according to Inside Research. Comscore focuses on measuring in the digital world. Makes sense as digital ad spend will rise by 9% next year, according to GroupM and mobile will rise by 19%.

By contrast, traditional ad spending is seeing drops of 23- 35% in the US, depending on the industry sector – not good for the MR industry. Moreover, WPP’s Sir Martin Sorrell sees digital has having a 20% share of marketing budgets by 2014.

Haven’t heard the same about marketing research? Is that food for thought or a call to action for the industry? You decide. As Yogi Berra aptly put it, “When you get to a fork in the road, take it”. The clock is ticking. - Ted Morris ©4SceenMedia

Storytelling to Frame Research Reports - Guest Post by Sean Buvala

I'm chairing the American Marketing Association Marketing Research Conference October 4 - 7. It's going to be a great event, with three educational tracks all tied back to theme, "Making Business Sense of What's Next."

Our main programming objective for the conference is providing ideas, tools, and networking to help researchers approach business more broadly and with a clear means to help lead their companies successfully into the future. Through the conference social media effort, you'll be able to track the conference's progress using the hashtag #amamrc on Twitter and on the conference website, where I'll be blogging along with others next week.

To give you an early sense of the conference tone and content, today's guest Brainzooming columnist is presenting a workshop this Sunday at the conference's start. Sean Buvala is an award-winning trainer who teaches businesses and nonprofit organizations how to improve their business results through the power of storytelling. You learn more about his work at www.seantells.net.

In this piece, Sean challenges researchers (and really anyone communicating in business) to better incorporate framing to fully realize the impact of great storytelling.


The more esoteric your work, the more you need storytelling in your job. Those of you in research, I am talking to you.

Sometimes it is hard for others to understand the ins, outs, and mysteries of research. By using the power of storytelling in your communications, you can create "frames" to highlight, carry, and explain bigger concepts.

Every house I have ever been in has place filled with pictures of family and friends. Rather than just glue these pictures to the wall, the pictures are placed in frames that help draw the eye to the subjects within. In the most artistic homes, frames surrounding pictures have been carefully chosen to emphasize the content of the pictures. More important pictures (the "everybody in the family" type) have the most expensive and sturdy frames. Done well, frames are an extension of the pictures.

Just like picture frames in someone's home, framing complicated and important data in the context of a memorable story protects and carries your message to your listeners. Here's an example.

You could talk about the collection methods used to complete a survey and how that proves the validity of the data. However, folks want results first. So, instead of talking first about how the data means you must completely drop an ingrained and "sacred cow" program from your company, you could start with the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk," (JATBS) emphasizing how Jack's mother was furious with Jack for trading her sacred cow for a few magic beans. In the end, however, Jack ends up with a goose that lays golden eggs, giving Jack and his mother more than they ever dreamt.

You'll still present your data, but after you tell your version of JATBS, showing the data that correlates to your conclusion. Then, you might lead a discussion based on the data asking, "Just like the mother in JATBS, what do we fear in what the data tells us? In what ways is this data like magic beans for our company's future?" Finally, end your presentation with a recap of JATBS.

Now, you have framed your data (which is important and needed) in the center of a very familiar and comfortable story. I can assure you the first time you do this you will wade through some discomfort and come out with a presentation that will cement the conclusions into the minds of your listeners.

Here are three things you should know about story and narrative as framing tools:

1. People just want to know, "What's in it for me?"

Co-workers aren't as interested in you job's mechanics as you are. I know you have gone to school to learn how statistics work. However, the people you work with haven't. For most of them, how you collected the data is not nearly as important as what the data means for their work. Storytelling lets you talk about benefits of research, not just mechanics.

2. Stories remind you to speak in the language of the people: your fellow employees.

Although stereotypes of overly detailed researchers may seem unfair, there are those in your company still slightly afraid of you. When they know you will speak understandably, they are more open to hear what you have to say. When you share the story of how others have benefited by what you are proposing, they will feel better about providing tools and time to fulfill your projects. It's far better to talk to others about how Susan at the other office was twice as successful after incorporating research results you reported. In a sense, storytelling allows others to know you are "on their side."

3. Your CFO approves funds for results not information.

Most people hate the process of change. Results are better than promises. Stories are frames that carry results. You will get much more support for a project when folks know how others have benefited from your proposals. How the office across the city became so successful that they now have doubled sales is 100% more effective in getting results than any presentation mired in how the research was conducted.

Your work in research and statistics is vital. Even more vital is your ability to communicate the benefits of your work to the rest of your company. Information framed in the context of story, information carried by understandable narratives, will stick with your fellow staff members much longer than data alone. Take a chance and frame your next presentation in a story. - Sean Buvala

What Did We Learn?

Craig Ferguson ends his Late Late Show program nightly with a brief segment called, "What did we learn on the show tonight Craig?"

For him, it's a regular comedy bit and a time cushion for the program's close where he reflects on specific moments from the show.

For us, it's a valuable question to ask and answer at any inflection point in a project that's in progress. It's a way to force stepping back and looking for broader, more general lessons to add to your personal or business survival toolkit (and potentially share with others).

Consider variations of the question as well. I try to ask myself at the end of each day, "What experiences from today could turn into Brainzooming blog items?" The discipline of asking the question and jotting down (or even tweeting) a few answers helps keep Brainzooming running each weekday.

BTW - If you're on Twitter, there's an effort today to move Craig Ferguson into the top trending topics list. To help, post a tweet that includes this hashtag: #CraigFerguson. For more info, you can check out a video on the effort and help the cause out!

Twitter Hashtag Days - #TwitterTwist

I recently started using the hashtag #TwitterTwist for lessons and ideas inspired by tweets other people made. Here are some of the first of these:

• Want to expand your perspectives on social media? Try explaining it to someone who isn't active in it. I've done various presentations and one-on-one conversations on social media recently with people who aren't very (if at all) active in it. Having to justify its value and dissect strategies for getting started really forces you to be on top of your game.


• Read your jargon-filled email/memo/report. If it were written without jargon, how much clearer could it be? Jargon is the bane of modern business speech. Want to get rid of it in your own language? Check out "Why Business People Speak Like Idiots."


• Don't watch the clock when talking with cherished friends & loved ones. Others things will wait. When you're with the important people in your life, stop the clock. Pay attention to them, not to how much time you're spending or to other things going on around you. They'll appreciate it. And you'll be a better person for it.


• Recall how often the first time you did something turned out surprisingly well. Get over your apprehensions. This one's a challenge since I spend a lot of planning time thinking about all the bad things needing to be planned around. You too? Let's make a pact to visualize the best possible outcome and make it happen! - Mike Brown

So You Wanna Write Something? Become a Brainzooming Guest Author

One objective emerging for the Brainzooming blog is to create a place for cool creative and strategic thinkers to share perspectives. It's always great to have new and different voices on Brainzooming, and it's very humbling to see the number of great guest authors regularly grow!

If you're interested in writing a guest blog, let me know your subject idea via email at mike@mikebrownspeaks.com. Be sure to include "Brainzooming Guest Blog" in the subject line.

Writing & Publishing Overview

As you think about a topic and approach, here's background info I use for doing Brainzooming:

• The broad topic areas for Brainzooming include innovation, strategic thinking, and creativity. Anything within and around those areas that isn't a commercial is potential fair game for an article.


• Articles are typically 300 - 500 words. Please include links to other relevant sources of interest to readers. Similarly, include image ideas that will help convey the article's message.


• The material should be new content or, at minimum, a new variation (updated, freshened, modified) on something you've personally written and published previously.


• You can forward your article in Word or the body of an email. Also include a brief bio.


• I edit the article so its style fits with the blog and includes links to related topics. Should there be a need for significant editing, you'll receive a copy in advance to ensure you're okay with the changes.


• Guest articles typically run Thursdays. Since there's generally a queue of future guest articles, there's no particular deadline. I'm usually able to give you a sense ahead of time about what future Thursday your article will run.


• You'll get a link to your guest post early on the Thursday it publishes to share with your network on Twitter, your blog, via email, etc.

Please consider sharing your expert perspective and joining the Brainzooming creative team! - Mike Brown

I'm Mike Brown - Niche Market

I was followed recently on Twitter by @FollowMikeBrown who is carving out "a place to follow all the Mike Browns in the World."

Talk about a focused niche.

Based on the website How Many of Me, there are 32,000 Mike and Michael Browns in the US, with another 1,050 Miguel Brown/Morenos, and 4,000 Michelle Browns. The day he followed me, there were more than 250 Mike Brown's on the list. I'm not sure if any prizes are involved, but I'm definitely intrigued by how things will progress.

So here's a question: How many focused niches can you strategically subdivide your business into successfully & cost-effectively? And can you start an innovative community for your niche that feels as personalized and comfortable as @FollowMikeBrown does for me? - Mike Brown

Give Your Workspace a Massive Creative Boost - Guest Post from Andrew Tilling

We have another international guest post this week. Andrew Tilling, from Surrey, UK, is a consultant specialising in creative thinking techniques, team dynamics and leadership. He heads Preseli Partnerships Ltd. which provides providing training, coaching and consultancy to help organisations make a difference.

Andrew is also a founding partner in The Nutshell Project, recognizing the value to be found in personal professional development time away from the demands of the day to day. Based on connecting on Twitter and visiting Andrew's blog, I asked him to share his perspective on the importance of place on creativity:


I have the luckiest job in the world. I am given the freedom to work with people to help them find new ideas, develop those ideas, and get on and make a change in their world. Plus, I get to do this in some beautiful places. It strikes me how much more creative people can be with a change of environment.

And as tempting as it is to write a detailed report on why all businesses should send employees to areas of outstanding natural beauty in order to boost creativity, it's more beneficial to explore what we can do to our own environment to help become more productive – and especially more creative.

The unconscious mind is our creative powerhouse. To help it along we need to understand it's capable of processing a lot more than our conscious mind. A natural, stimulating environment adds fuel to the creative fire. We are fortunate that simple objects can remind us of those environments. Objects help our unconscious access old memories in incredible detail, allowing us to draw on new connections and shifting our state into a more resourceful one.

Here are a few things you can add to your workspace to help you become more creative.

• Have something natural – Innovators constantly draw on nature for ideas. We are part of nature and only our artificial environments disconnect us from that. Office policy or not on potted plants, you'll want something that grows (or at least grew) in nature to allow you to reconnect.
  
• Make time work for you– Have a stop watch or countdown clock you can set for 10 minute bursts of concentration or bookmark a site with a countdown-clock.
  
• Something from somewhere special – Remember a time when you felt free from the pressures of daily life? I have a notebook used while travelling that's never far from my desk. It helps unlock creative potential just thinking about it.
  
• A picture of a creative genius – We all need a circle of inspiration – alive or dead. Find a picture of someone whose work blows you away. Learn about and talk with them often (in your head, of course, or people will think you are nuts).
  
• A picture of a business genius – Someone else for your circle of inspiration. If you can keep in mind the demands of the market place while being creative, you have more chance of your ideas becoming a genuine innovation.
  
• Blank paper and 4 color pen – These 'click' pens are awesome for mind-mapping. Shut your laptop lid and find somewhere comfy to sit and doodle.
  
• Composition & presentation space – Recognize that finding and presenting an idea are two very different mindsets. Make different spaces for different kinds of work. Even if you can't move from your desk, you change your space internally through listening to different music styles.
  
• Water – Drink it, walk by it, have it flowing nearby. Take holidays by it, swim in it, and study it. You are 90% water. A dear writer friend of mine swears by toilet breaks for getting over writers block. Water helps you get into the creative flow on so many levels. Without it, there is not much of you left.
  
• An excuse to walk the scenic route – Whether it is walking a dog or feeding stale bread to ducks, get out into nature at least once daily. Walking will allow you to let off steam and clear your head. That beats playing "spot the idea amid all the clutter" and will make you rapidly more productive.
  
• A crowded square – People-watching is a great for finding new associations to help your ideas grow. J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter in a coffee shop. Snatched snippets of conversations and chance encounters make all the difference – SO LONG AS YOU STOP TO LOOK AND LISTEN. Invest the time, and you will reap rewards.
  
• Join the conversation – Social media is a constant source of inspiration nowadays. Just keep your objective in mind as you set your countdown clock and do a 10 minute resource harvest. Later, make sure you post something you learned in return to keep the flow going both ways.

I hope you find these tips to be as much value as I have. I love interaction, so if you have any questions, feel free to comment, get in touch on twitter (@andrewtilling) or check out The Nutshell Project blog. - Andrew Tilling

What Has Social Media Done for Me? Plenty

A January post highlighted the plan to broaden Brainzooming through social media. Specific tactics included Twitter, capturing story ideas with Flip video, and participating elsewhere online.

Since many readers have asked, here's a progress update: the opportunities, connections, and possibilities from implementing the plan have been beyond my expectations. For those considering using social media in your personal brand efforts, here are some highlights:

• Since grabbing the @Brainzooming Twitter name in January 2009, it's grown to a focused network of several thousand, including great thinkers globally on innovation, creativity, marketing, and branding.


• BrainzoomingTM blog activity is up 3 times for the biggest month in 2009 vs. 2008. It's increased through Twitter, answering questions and updating activities on LinkedIn, sharing links on Business Week Business Exchange, and commenting on other blogs.


• Twitter led to connecting with @sethsimonds, who's helping revamp Brainzooming, moving it to Wordpress (and Brainzooming.com).


• Posting "Taking the NO Out of InNOvation" on Slideshare, being selected as a feature ebook, and sharing the link broadly generated nearly 3700 views in six months to broaden the Brainzooming audience.


• I worked with a talented team to live tweet, blog, and video the Business Marketing Association conference in June 2009. We'll build on the experience for the October 2009 American Marketing Association Market Research Conference I'm chairing. We're building a Twitter presence with @amamrc, recording webcasts, bringing live tweeting into presentations via ParaTweet, and exploring unconference and Pecha Kucha presentations (which yes, I learned about through Twitter).


• A request came through Twitter to participate in a Sydney, Australia innovation event with two stories shot on the Flip and posted on YouTube. There have also been new speaking opportunities on social media and innovation (in person, on radio, and the internet) and writing connections with 24 Hours of Innovation, World Creativity and Innovation Week, and Braden Kelly's Blogging Innovation website.


• Brainzooming is listed among top innovation blogs on IdeaConnection. (If you have a minute, please go there and vote up Brainzooming!) Brainzooming has become more of a recognized outpost for innovation thinking, with a wonderful group of Twitter-based guest bloggers contributing and PR outreaches from people wanting to be featured on Brainzooming.


• Finally, Googling "Brainzooming" in December 2008 would have yielded about 40 hits. Doing it just now, "Brainzooming" returned thousands.

One learning has been that taking a strategic approach to social media for me means concentrating efforts on only a few sites. That's why there's little presence from me on Facebook or Plaxo. I will be trying though to make a concerted attempt to get back to some high impact sites and explore new ones. One is Bulbstorm.com - a crowdsourcing beta site allowing individuals and businesses to solicit input on ideas while still protecting fundamental, proprietary elements of the ideas through varying access levels.

What a partial year so far of learning, meeting new people, and discovering new opportunities! Email or DM me with questions on your social media effort or suggestions for mine. - Mike Brown

It Will Be Just Like Starting Over

I'm a huge advocate of saving idea snippets for later refinement. Doing this has saved me so much creative time over the years.

Sometimes, though, this strategy leads to a creative dead end.

I have a nearly 100 page Word file of blog article starters along with several sketchbooks loaded with ideas. These have been great resources, serving as a safety net when ideas or time are tight.

Yet, the ease with which I used to write the blog has evaporated over the past several months.

This is likely due to a whole variety of legitimate tugs on my time and mental energy. But instead of my idea trove helping me, the chore of sifting through it and thinking about what and how to edit the ideas has been more daunting than invigorating.

So I tried a new approach this weekend. I began with a brand new Word file, a few ideas written down this week, and pounded out 5 new articles Saturday evening, just like the early days. Freed from the creative baggage of feeling compelled to rescue ideas, words and ideas started flowing naturally again.

It comes back to a fundamental strategy: be willing to walk away from what has worked for you when it isn't working anymore. - Mike Brown