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.

 

 

Crisis preparedness - Are you ready?

It's always interesting to watch how brands deal with a crisis when they arise. As example, JetBlue had their hands full this week with an unfortunate situation at 36k feet. The good news, the brand reacted swiftly and confidently, suggesting they have a well-established crisis response framework in place.

But it seems JetBlue may be in the minority here. There are endless examples of brands seemingly caught completely unprepared for the inevitable. In a study by Burson-Masrsteller, a whopping 79% of business decision makers believe their company will experience a crisis within the next twelve months.

So why then do only 38% of global respondents feel that they are prepared to deal with an emerging crisis through new media?

In our socially-connected world, every customer has a microphone, an audience and an opinion. Brands must be prepared for a potential crisis. In a best-case scenario, crisis planning never sees the light of day. But more often than not, advanced planning can help manage, and often times mitigate, a crisis from causing irreparable damage to your brand.

So what's your level of crisis preparedness? 

@LenDevanna

 

 

EMC Fights Cancer

It's one of the things I love about EMC's culture - the seemingly insatiable desire to make the world a better place.

Each quarter, we take on a new cause, and harness the power and passion of our global employees to make a difference. Earlier this year, we set our sights on fighting hunger. We sure did have an impact, collecting over 40,000 pounds of food and helping over 20,000 individuals across the globe.

In fact, we doubled our goal.

This quarter, we take on something that's touched just about all of us in some way or another - Cancer.

There are no shortage of organized activities taking place throughout our third quarter. Folks are posting ribbons in their offices, tomorrow we'll literally be painting one of our offices pink, we have a silent auction to raise money for Swim Across America, so much more.

What's Your Social Media Strategy?

It was an honor to see EMC's approach to Social Media cited in the July issue of the Harvard Business Review. The article is well worth the read, if you haven't seen it already. Be sure to read the healthy and provocative comments from the community.

What's most interesting to me in reading this piece is the fact that no one size fits all. The authors call out four basic approaches - The 'predictive practitioner', 'creative experimenter', 'social media champion' and 'social media transformer'.

While it's true that we (EMC) continue to embrace the notion of experimenting, our journey has actually taken us to each of the other approaches described (and then some...). The authors note this, suggesting that 'many organizations will progress from one to another' during their journey. That's definitely proven to be the case.

The most important take away is that all of the approaches cited, all of the different behaviors, have one thing in common - These brands have embraced Social Media and are leveraging it to transform their business.

We've seen remarkable results, and have only scratched the surface.

So, what's your strategy?

 

 

Social Connects Companies... To Themselves

One of the things I love most about being part of the social revolution is the unexpected 'ah-ha' moments that surface almost daily. I had one such moment this week, and wanted to share the observation.

Given the command and control structure that remains prominent in the traditional web, there are inherent checks and balances in place to ensure consistent messaging and positioning. In that model, a centralized web team is usually organizationally agnostic, with their focus being on providing a consistent experience to visitors of a traditional .COM site, as example.

As we know very well, social flips that model upside down, providing a direct path from subject matter expert to audience. In effect, it can remove all of the checks and balances that the more traditional model provided.

An Approach to Enterprise Social Media Education

To celebrate Social Media Day, we thought we'd share a little something with the community...

At EMC, we pride ourselves on our approach to Social Media adoption. When we started this journey years back, we chose to focus on employee proficiency - and that strategy has paid us back many times over.

But, the social world is constantly changing. New tools and techniques show up daily. In addition, we've all become so completely ingrained in the digital world that it's easy to lose sight of the larger picture, the incredible reach we have, and the vast diversity of our audience.

To that end, we set out to create an educational video highlighting the opportunities and possible pitfalls of social engagement. While it's designed with our global EMC family in mind, the key points should resonate with just about everyone... Give it a look.

 

 

We ARE Big Data

At EMC World last week, ten-thousand of us got together in person to discuss what happens when cloud meets big data. Through the wonders of Social Media, we were able to extend that conversation well beyond the physical confines of the event, to hundreds of thousands more.

It was simply awesome to watch.

As we've done in recent years, we had a really cool 'buzzboard' running on plasma screens throughout the event (See screenshot below). Somewhat par for the course, our buzzboard scrolled tweets and images tagged #EMCWorld in real time. It's a good reminder of the digital discussions that take place alongside the physical.

During his opening keynote, EMC CEO Joe Tucci shared that in 2010, the digital universe was 1.2 zetabytes. By end of decade, it's projected to be 35 zetabytes. That's 44x growth. WOW!

To that end, we added a new twist to our buzzboard this year - The 'Big Data Meter'. Here's a screengrab from the counter on our EMC World Facebook page.

 

 

We set out to project the amount of digital information generated during an event such as EMC World. To get there, we looked at social activity from last years event and made some assumptions based on audience growth.

We then turned our attention to the logistics of this years show... How many keynotes, how many breakout sessions, how many hours of live broadcast, etc;.

The net net here - Between tweets, blogs, images, breakout presentations, keynote videos, live broadcasts and the like, roughly 100 terabytes of information a day was created and added to the digital universe during EMC World.

And, as we watched it all unfold in real-time, I'm convinced that our assumptions going in were rather conservative.

My takeaway - big data is not merely an interesting theme on the horizon. It's not a phenomenon specific to big companies. Rather, it's here, it's now, and it's all of us...

More information on our exploding digital universe over here.

Virtually attending EMC World 2011 - Let me count the ways

Not able to attend EMC World in Vegas this year? That's OK. We've got you covered! Here are some ways you can tune in via your favorite browser and catch some of the fun from the comfort of your sofa...

Follow EMC on Facebook

We EMC'ers sure like our friends. And to prove it, here's what you'll get for showing us some Facebook love...

*Exclusive* access to EMC World keynotes and Super-Sessions in near real time. Just check out the agenda to see some of the discussions you'll be able to access via Facebook.

We'll also be pulling random winners from our Facebook followers for a trip to EMC World 2012 - on us, of course. Still not enough? How about a free Mozy Home account?

Told ya we like our friends.

 

Join the (virtual) EMC World Community

We've got a cool schedule of meetups taking place in EMC World's 'Social City'. Topics range from a chat on VMWare and EMC integration to a physical version of the ever popular 'Ask Chuck'.

Many of these will be broadcast via the EMC Community Network - and you'll be able to interact with the session via live Q&A. Check it out!

 

Follow the Hashtags!

EMCWorld is our tried and true event hashtag... Tune in here for general show happenings. For more targeted conversations, be sure to check the latest on #BigData and #Cloud... When these two things intersect - there's bound to be some compelling discussions.

Of course, if you want the late breaking news from the show, be sure to follow @EMCCorp and @EMCWorld on Twitter.

 

EMC World Central on EMC.com

Not to be outdone by all this new-fangled social stuff, the gang over on EMC.com will be keeping pace with the latest news and info coming out of the event via the EMC World hub. Check it out for all the latest goodies.

 

Tune in to the EMC Bloggers

Opinions? Yeah, we got 'em. Many of EMC's blogging elite will be attending the show and providing their perspectives in real time. Get the latest inside scoop from some of the industry's biggest thinkers over via the EMC Blogging Corps.

 

Check out the live broadcast from the Bloggers Lounge!

Our friends from Wikibon and Silicon Angle will be back in full force and covering all the happenings at EMC World. My lips are sealed on the schedule, but suffice it to say you'll see some of the biggest names from the industry broadcasting live from our cozy little Bloggers Lounge. Tune in and be in the know!

 

So if you can't join us in person - know that we'll miss you! But there's no shortage of ways to tune in and expand your thinking on all things big data and cloud. Pay attention - as there just may be a test. ;)

I'm sure I've forgotten some channels... Feel free to leave additional ways to plug into the EMC World vibe in the comments!

LD

 

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!