Posts Tagged ‘Social Tech Workshops’

I’m publishing this post from inside the all-day Executive Management Session at the DAIAB Conference at Rehoboth Beach, DE. The session lays out like this:

Morning – Baseline understanding on Social Technologies

• 90 minutes: What it means and how to leverage it
• 90 minutes: Web sites, Blogs and Twitter

Afternoon – Tactical How-to’s on Primary Business Social Tech

• Measuring Results
• Linkedin
• Facebook
• FourSquare
• Mobile
• Viral Media and Video

Bonus, time-permitting: RSS, Alerts, Analytics

This group is focused on the Property & Casualty side of the insurance space. The Association members are regional and local agencies selling both commercial and personal lines products. Several niche insurance companies provide the products. And of course several business partners support the environment with various business operation and marketing services. Good people working hard to provide valuable risk-management services to the business community. An example: insurance products specifically designed for the coastal environment – flood, hurricane, that kind of thing. Always fun meeting new people, learning about new applications and products, and seeing how Social fits in.

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A few learnings to share from a recent all-day Social Media Marketing strategy session with an insurance company and two pilot participants:

1. Doing a Social Media Marketing pilot is always a great way to “test before you INvest”.
2. Extremely helpful on several levels for the insurance company marketing folks to invite the compliance folks into the session. Why? That’s a subject for another post.
3. Insurance marketing partners are chomping at the bit to start using Social.
4. Our “Ideation Session” turned up several really solid Social Media Marketing opportunities to chose from.
5. Good decision for the company to use marketing dollars already in the budget to fund the pilot. Takes the issue of money right off the table. Pretty small investment in the grand scheme of things.
6. A lot of the technologies needed for the pilots are already in place and can be reused, for example on Facebook pages, with minor variations.
7. Many others but confidentiality prevails.

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Next week: Another all-day Social Media Marketing strategy session with a large insurance agency.

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I’m also attending Scott Klososky’s Social Tech Bootcamp in Chicago. Can’t wait to see all the new Social Tech stuff he’s been working on.

Btw, if you’d like to collaborate on a Social Tech Bootcamp for your company or for your clients or prospects, reach out to me. I can guarantee it to be an extremely effective use of time any way you skin it.

A few recent pics:

Sunrise at the Gifford Pinchot State Park after visiting Gettysburg

A coiled-up Delaware Black Snake glaring back from the marsh

My golfing partner grabbed the thing – amazing to see.

Coming right at the camera! Yikes!

Running in between PIMA and ICMG with tons of follow-up from the former while getting organized for the latter. Geesh! All the while, Cleveland and the Midwest is getting pummeled by “snow-pocalypse”.

Future note to keep me accountable: At the closing session, I asked several attendees the question, “What is the one thing you would say to someone who wasn’t here regarding all the innovation content we heard?” And then, “What is the one BIG barrier to innovation that we must overcome?” Really looking forward to sharing the content with you.. very interesting mosaic of comments. Look for that next week.

In the meantime, a few thoughts collected real-time. Curious for reader comments. Btw, if you are serious about Social Technologies, especially as they relate to Innovation, Mobile, Viral Marketing, e-Word-of-Mouth, etc., I’m meeting with a few clients at the Scott Klososky Enterprise Social Tech Bootcamp in Dallas in early March. I’ve got one open spot left.

Seismic changes in this age of the consumer, disruptive technologies….

“Innovation is a necessity.”

Unknown and unarticulated needs

Culture of failure is important

No such thing as B2B anymore – just the relative distance from the consumer.

…the things that didn’t work… “We lucked into innovation…”

“Big Slow Staid Bureaucratic”
good descriptive of our industry

“All the innovation is already there; you just have to unleash it.”

Mobile is changing everything – right in our customers hands

recognize failure “a lot” – words of encouragement

Lessons Learned
#1 Solve for Ideas
Innovation process… THEN product development process
#2 Unpeel you Onion – innovation is already there…

“disruptive innovation: product or utility that does less and cost less”

Huffington – embrace the new economy, embrace the link economy

Extreme Affinity – LA City Employees Association – referral from American General

“Insurance wasn’t enough”

Captivating and compelling use of innovation. Gobs and gobs of take-aways…

Pictures

PIMA hashtag search

Next Meeting – The Broadmoor

Meantime – Brand project, continuing the discussion on Linkedin, lots of client engagements, Innovation

What was your take-away from the conference? Good for you? What about some of these concepts? If you weren’t there, feel free to ask questions. Perhaps the reader crowd can bring clarity. Please Comment below. Thanks in advance.

So it’s been snowing off and on here for three days!!! Geez. But there’s LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL – Miami in 12 days… for 9 days. PIMA and ICMG. First PIMA…

[Twitter Hash-tag for PIMA: #PIMAAssn (more on Twitter at the end of the story)]

The 2011 PIMA Annual Meeting will be in full swing two weeks from today. At 200 registrations and climbing, and with content focused on “Innovation”, it’s shaping up to be a bang-up conference. Greatly looking forward to attending, taking pictures, engaging in thought-provoking discussions, podcasting with a very sharp new member and savvy guests on innovation, and having fun with people a lot smarter than me in this business.

I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be asked a few recurring questions.

• “How’s it going with the new business?” and
• “What’s new in e-Commerce and Social as it relates to our business model?”

…or something along those lines. I have some really good answers to both.

But I’m equally sure I will also hear a few recurring statements.

1. “I don’t have time for all that.”
2. “Compliance just won’t let us do blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.”
3. “I’ve been very successful with Direct Marketing…I don’t need all the Social stuff…”

…or something along those lines.

Totally understand and resonate. Let me collect a few thoughts and ask for your comments…

On “No Time”…

Social Media Marketing, building a Social-based river of information, actively engaging your constituents, and paying attention to ‘listenting’ programs definitely takes time and resources. No doubt about it. As an example, this blog post took me from 9-1030am this morning from start to finish.

A little about what I do…

1. A weekly appointment with myself to write a new Blog post.
2. Open Tweetdeck several times a day looking at my stream or running keyword searches.
3. Check in on Facebook a few times a day and have top priority network updates coming to Gmail and the Droid.
4. Spend 15 minutes a day on Linkedin keeping my status fresh and looking for places to add value in conversations.

It does take time.

But on the flip side, I am NOT doing things that used to take up that time. Looking back over last year, I would characterize several big items:

1. seemingly important but often meaningless conversations with co-workers (I’m sorry, don’t mean to offend, and I enjoyed them and saw value, but nonetheless, a bit of a waste of time, usually in 15-20 min chunks),
2. inefficient meetings (easily consuming 15-20 min’s of waste each),
3. paper shuffling (ugh),
4. and a big one – watching TV at night, especially sports (we gave it up as a family – we’re talkin’ HOURS a week there).

Net net, diving in and making room for Social in my schedule has actually freed up AT LEAST an equal amount of time that it has consumed.

How about you? If you’ve done a similar process, has this been your experience?

If you’ve haven’t done this process, do you see opportunities with your time where you could make similar changes?

Please share a comment.

On the Compliance side, totally get that. Here’s the good news. Last year I collaborated on a strategic project with a leading insurance company in the insurance affinity space. Long story short, they hired me to research industry and company guidance relative to Social Media and Compliance. Once we had all the facts in a nicely organized document, we then took a half day and talked through the ‘real deal’ wrt Social and the insurance industry and more specifically the affinity distribution model. At the end of the day (literally), compliance was VERY pleased with the report, the discussion, and, perhaps most importantly, the approach. (I give great Kudo’s to the affinity marketing veteran who led the effort – a STUDY in professionalism on several levels.) We’re now moving beyond that into the strategy phase – in collaboration with a much smarter compliance department.

Is Compliance still an issue for you? What questions do you have?

Comment below or let’s talk at PIMA…

To the statement about past success, it’s totally legit. Absolutely. I still don’t have a good answer… at least one that doesn’t come off as a scare tactic or offensive. I have a lot of answers, but they typically aren’t successful in helping someone in this mode understand their need for Social and/or to get started. But invariably when I hear this statement, the first company that comes to mind is Blockbuster and the whole Netflix/Redbox situation, since I see the remnant of a Blockbuster store near my house quite often.

At one point, Blockbuster was extremely successful. But now they are… well, let’s just say they have fallen. Why? Of course there are a lot of reasons (click on this Google search called blockbuster case study 2010). But no doubt (and if anyone has a true story to share, please do), at some point in the early days of Netflix, there were conversations at Blockbuster about Netflix as a threat, the whole streaming video business model idea, the potential impact on consumer behaviors, and so forth. What was the response at that moment by the leadership team?

Am I out in left field, or would it be safe to say that Blockbuster did not adapt, perhaps at the very point that they were REALLY successful, at a point where the executives might have said,

“Why change? Our business model has made us VERY successful?”

What do you think? Do you see a connection with the insurance affinity exec that says,

“Why do Social Media Marketing? I’ve been very successful with Direct Marketing.”

What’s your take on all this. Whether you are going to PIMA or not, do you have anything to share that we can all learn from? I, for one, am all ears.. and I’m confident many of the follow-on readers will be as well. Please Comment below. Thanks a gazillion in advance. (Btw, if you do Comment, click the button that subscribes you to the subsequent comments so you can stay posted on the thread.)

Mike

More on Twitter:

Hashtags? YouTube video on it

How Twitter and Hashtags help enrich conferences. Great stuff on this Google Search.

Not sure about Twitter?  Link to Twitter Handbook… excellent Resource.

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Oh yeah, PS. Akron Men’s Soccer set yet another record!!! In the MLS SuperDraft, 5 OF THE TOP 10 DRAFTEES were from Akron!!! Holy Cow! Read the story here.

I just have a few minutes this morning as I rush off to a presentation on SocialTech and Compliance at an insurance company.

It’s an honor to be asked to lead a Webinar on Social for PIMA, a 30-year old association I’ve been involved in.  Without going into too much detail, I hope it suffices to say that I deeply appreciate the opportunity to snowplow the road a bit for the group.  But I know that the group will quickly catch up to me once they see the potential of all this.  It’s a group of VERY bright people that I am very pleased to associate with.  And much of what I will be discussing I’ve chewed on with some of the members over the past couple year at meetings and on phone calls.  So I definitely can’t lay claim to much original thought.  I guess that make me a Content Curator!

A word on logistics:

Learn and Register here.

Pre and Post Webinar dialog here.

Twitter Hashtag for the group – #PIMAAssn

It’s impossible to cover everything on Social in about 60-70 minutes – of course.  So my goal is share some of the things I’ve learned about the magnitude of Social as well as a few practical examples of how sales and marketing organizations are using SocialTech.  Understandably, and IMHO unfortunately, the nature of the health and life insurance business means there are not a lot of examples on the insurance side.  The business is highly regulated with the threat of losing your license always looming over you.  It’s also a conservative business by nature, so wary of hype and new stuff.  And in general, compensation up and down the org chart is tied to sales results – and rightfully so.  More industries should be that way (especially education, but that’s another story).

That said, I’ve been calling around and started a discussion (and Poll – please take it) on Linkedin.  I’m trying to get a sense about where people are with SocialTech and what people would most like to hear.  I definitely want to debunk some myths about SocialTech as well as the scope and scale of Social.  But I’m hearing that people would really like to get information on two big issues.

1. How do we do Social in the context of Compliance and Regulations?
2. What about ROI?  How quickly can we show sales results?

What would you like to know?  What do you know you’d like to share?  Please Comment here or on the Linkedin thread.

I would most like people to take away the concept of using SocialTech to build a powerful river of information.  In my mind, this is the biggest secret right now.  I’m personally using SocialTech to feed my brain in a way unlike ever before.  And that’s something that we can all do regardless of Compliance because it’s all inbound consumption.  To be sure, they all already know this – in general.  The difference now is how to use SocialTech to make the stream even more powerful – and efficient given all our time constraints.

Looking forward to it.  Please Comment on the Linkedin Group if you are a PIMA Member.

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Meantime, next week is also the Aartrijk Brand Camp in Austin.  Really looking forward to that.  Some of the smartest people in Social in insurance.  Can’t wait.  Doing a viral video after!

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A couple poignant pictures from my son’s last year as a soccer player before he graduates as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Army.

Getting ready to launch on of his trademark throw-ins. Special pic because Mom is in the background.

Lifting his fellow defender Mitch carefully into the truck after he got a concussion.  Somehow I think of the Army and the future….

First, to explain the hashtags in the title, see my comment on last weeks post here – very powerful reason relative to Social Influence.

For those of you that listened to Part 1 of the terrific podcast with Nibby Preist and Chris Jordan (click here for that), you will be pleased with Part 2.  For those that missed it, perhaps download both.  In Part 1, we covered Linkedin and Twitter – how insurance agents are using the tools for business.  This one picks up where we left off and talks about Facebook and Blogging.  Chris & Nibby share great insights about what they are doing to drive ROI with Social Media.  (I like that I’ve waited since April to publish Part 2.  There have been some interesting new developments since then which add a bit of a retrospective to the conversation.)

Click here to listen in.

A couple notes to reinforce:

From Nibby – Lots of Facebook ROI, but you have to stick with it.  Which leads me to give myself a shameless plug – Hire me to do the strategy.  I can save you a lot of time and brain damage, and connect you into some powerful information streams along the way.  Call me.

Nibby and Chris both talk about redeeming wasted time to make room for Social.  I speak to this point often with people who ask, “How do you make time for your Social stuff?  I’m swamped as it is….”  Listen to what they say and come back with a Comment below.  What do YOU think?

The comment about the use of mobile and the blur of work happening outside of traditional 9-5 is spot on.  Those of you that are doing this, what do you think about it?  Those that aren’t, you might say, “You see??? That’s EXACTLY why I DON’T want to get into social stuff.  When I go home, the LAST thing I want to do is get on the computer or check email on my mobile….”  After listening, what are your comments about the blur?

Chris – spot on about learning more about prospects and business partners and pull-marketing.

Nibby referenced these two sites: http://www.rescuetime.com/ http://gist.com/

Fantastic that both commented about the ROI of their blogs, especially about the unified voice, about SEO, and about newspaper and media outlets.  I’ve been sayin’ it for a while now…

Listen in and please Comment below.

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Favorite recent picture…. I shot a nationally televised college soccer game – absolutely thrilling to get that chance.  The Photo Gallery has been simply POUNDED.  This is one of my favorites.  Mattocks from Jamaica scored the third goal and came running right at me – and the “Fear the Roo” image is in view on the building behind him.  Love that shot.

My 2nd favorite you’ll have to click through on – my wife sitting with the girlfriend of Anthony Ampaipitakwong (Ampai), the #1 college player in America! What a cool coincidence!