Confessions of an eBiz Junkie

The Power of the Narrative

What do you suppose this small corked bottle filled with sand is worth?

It was purchased at a yard sale for 33 cents.

It was later sold for $59.50 on eBay.

How's this possible? The power of the narrative.

We've been telling one another stories since we figured out how to carve pictures into rocks thousands of years ago. Stories can serve as a powerful tool to teach, entertain, or simply activate our imaginations. 

But storytelling isn't restricted to the 'once upon a time' variety. Stories can be used to engage your audience on virtually any topic, and can offer a far more interesting means of sharing your message than the more mundane and traditional means we often use today. 

Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker set out to determine if stories (even fictional stories) could add significant value to an object. The team  purchased a couple hundred small items at yard sales, dollar stores, and the like for $1.25 or less. They then recruited a group of writers to create interesting yet fictional stories about each object.

The objects were then put up for sale on eBay, where they brought in a total of $8,000.00 - a profit of over 2,700 percent per object. 

This project provides a wonderful reminder of the power of the narrative and I simply had to share. Head on over to the  Significant Objects website for much more information on this fascinating topic.

 

 

A Tour of Social City at EMC World

So I'm off to the Big Apple to represent EMC and pick up our first-place award for engagement marketing in BtoB Online's 2011 Social Media awards. The campaign that took the award was a rather large launch (internally known as 'Mega Launch') back in January.

As I sit here staring at the inevitable flight delay board, I reflect on our ongoing evolution in the social realm. One thing that's consistent - When we want to have an impact in Social, we go BIG.

To that end, and with EMC World 2011 now in the rear-view mirror, I thought I'd give you an inside look into our social presence at EMC World - 'Social City'.

Social City was designed to put all of our social engagement points front and center for attendees of the event. Be it EMC's Facebook presence, our EMC Community Network, our roster of industry bloggers - There's a point of engagement for everyone.

It was also designed to help drive EMC World discussions far beyond the physical confines of the event. As you'll see - Social City helped us extend the conversations to hundreds of thousands more via digital channels.

So - See for yourself. Here's your very own tour of Social City - including the now infamous Bloggers Lounge - at EMC World by yours truly. I suspect you'll see what I mean... We like to go BIG with Social.

 

 

Congrats EMC - First Place for Social Media Marketing

Much like the Academy Awards... The winner gets up on stage, is humbled at the recognition, especially given the competition at hand, and ultimately sets out to thank the Academy, a long list of producers, family and friends, actors and the like.

Except for us, it's not about the Academy, the Directors, or anything like that. For EMC, it's about our social voices. It's about the multi-year investment we've made in helping our global workforce become 'socially proficient'.

EMC's been awarded first place in B2B Online's 2011 Social Media Marketing Awards for the technology category. The recognition is based on our supporting social campaign for EMC's record breaking product launch back in January.

There were several components to this social campaign - from driving early speculation as to what EMC was up to, to engaging influential social voices, to a rather addictive Facebook game that went rather viral and helped us grow our Facebook community significantly.

All in all, the 'social' aspects of the campaign ended up realizing 28% of the total audience at the launch event in January... Not bad, eh?

But, as suggested above, what can't get lost here is the power of social proficiency. Since beginning our journey some years back, we've taken an inside-out approach. We invested in ourselves - helping our global workforce of more than 48k become 'proficient' in the social world. These are the folks that ultimately helped us go BIG.

So kudos to EMC, our highly-passionate and always engaged global employees, and a stellar Social Media Team that I'm honored to be a part of.

Oh... There's one more thing... We're honored to now be up for the 'People's Choice Award'... How about casting a vote for your pals at EMC? I hope we can once again show how we EMC'ers like to GO BIG using #SocMed.

Thanks!