The "V"

Mark my words:

Housing sales increased in the month of December. Housing Prices are up. Jobs were cut this week, but employers commonly lag in recognizing when the economy is turning positive. I'll also mention that I have gut feeling that this is almost over. Does this mean that the initial bailout worked to free up the credit markets and therefore bank lending? What about Obama's proposed stimulus plan? If the economy is begining to swing positive and Obama manages to get his stimulus plan then that makes the positive slope steaper, right? Your thoughts are always welcome.

Another way to Football/Engage

I stumbled upon this Washington Post article through kottke.org about a project called MyFootballClub.co.uk. The basic premise is as follows, 31,000 members pay a minor monthly fee to a nonprofit which owns a soccer team in England. Here's the catch, each of the 31,000 members are part owners of the club. They vote on major and minor decisions, but most importantly, they are engaged in the business.

Why does this matter? We hear a lot about using social networking and Web 2.0 tools to advertise businesses or products. Seth Godin, for example, talks about creating a tribe. The concepts are all fine and well, but how can one apply these strategies to their business? Can anything be wikified? Are all products created equal? What are the repercussions if done incorrectly?

As a consultant I've seen plenty of organizations get very excited about new technologies and strategies but overwhelmed with the implementation. This reminds me of some comments about the TV show We Mean Business on A&E:

"When I watched the episodes,  it was my turn to be surprised.  I was surprised by how resistant to new ideas several business owners were. Some argued openly with the team about their ideas. There was a follow-up video done a few months after each makeover, and in several cases the owner had un-done parts of the makeover. (Usually in those cases the business was not doing any better, either.  Remind me the next time someone gives me advice, to take it.)"

- Anita Campbell @ Small Business Trends

In light of the pitfalls of 2.0 marketing and the challenges associated with change, MyFootballClub and other examples of consumer engagement are exciting and demystify social networking for small business owners.  These strategies are particularly important to nonprofits who rely heavily on customer (donor) engagement.

So, to step back a moment. I want to be an owner of a sports team, too. If I were business owner, I would want people to be so excited about my product that they create new niches for it. But the steps for getting to that point can seem overwhelming. Let me know if the tone of this post is TOO cautious.

It starts...

Whatever youir political views, you have to admit that the use of web 2.0 tools to engage the electorate is exciting. The engaging has begun. This from the Change.gov website:

"The story of this campaign is your story. It is about the great things we can do when we come together around a common purpose. We want to hear your inspiring stories from the campaign and election day."

Exciting!

Politics and the Internet

What I like about online marketing is that it is targeted. It makes the consumer feel like the center of attention. *Barack Obama ran a campaign that uses one important marketing mantra, this is about you, your experiences and how your life can be better with the product/solution I offer.

Obama has created a huge contact database. Access to the attention of the people on this system is priceless. The all important question... How will Obama further engage these relationships in the political process? I can see the whole 'Google for Government' and CapWiz like tools become really really important. Will Facebook and MySpace pick up a 'contact your representative' tool now that political action is so important to so many people?

Strictly in terms of these great web 2.0 tools, it would be a shame for these relationships to be wasted.

Tell me how you would like these relationships/web 2.0 to be used in the next 4 years.

*My spell check marked Barack Obama as misspelled. Will his name be added to word processor dictionaries so that the name Barack Obama no longer shows up as incorrectly spelled?

Polling and Data

Everyone's all a buzz with the general election coming up. We see cool touch screen maps on CNN and tons of polling data all around us. I just heard that one candidate took a stance on the whole Georgia/Florida water feud to pick up some votes from Floridian oyster farmers. What?! This is really crazy to me. How does the campaign even know these people exist?

My issue isn't with oyster farmers. I question these polls. As a matter of fact, I am a huge huge suporter of informed decsion making, and guess what, data is information. Let me contextualize my point of view.

For years I worked with non-profits. Non-profits are notorious for being disorganized and mismanaged*. But the misuse of data and innacurate conclusions from poor quality information collection struck me from the begining. I happened to be working for an awesome small organization which has now gone national. Fortunately they were cutting edge: 1) They had a database to track all of their "clients" 2) The database tracked a lot of different types of data 3) They understood the value of using this data for making decisions for and about their "clients" 4) They were willing to learn. I was fortunate enough to be put in charge of the database and I was the lead number cruncher. Interestingly enough I spent most of my time educating my co-workers in how to accurately communicating our results. It was easy to say that 80% of our clients improved when in reality 80% of clients received the instruction and tools which we believed led to improvement. Big difference.

But I digress. As I got deeper into the data analysis and our number crunching became more complex I stumbled upon an anecdote from a college prof. She warned of the dangers of using statistical software to do data anlysis. In her day she had to write the code for the stats software and then crunch the numbers. It took her years to get the training to do this and guess what, she knew her stuff. Today data analysis software easy to come across and large data sets are often offered for free. This means that more people are crunching numbers and coming to conclusions. Today's statistical conclusions, in essence, are cheaper and this has effected the quality of the conclusions. Understand this, the people crunching the numbers today don't necessarily have the same training as the people crunching numbers years ago.

So, I pose this question. Do you trust poll results? Everyone has their unique methodology. Everyone has their biases. Is it possible for polls to be used as a political tool to sway the public? I have seen organizations want a good result so much that they unknowlingly distort conclusions. What is your opinion? 

* This isn't a statement about all nonprofits. There are many organizations that are awesome businesses and I think some publically traded companies should take a hint from some of these smaller organizations.

photo by re_birf

Back on the ball

Its been a while since I've added anything to the blog. As you know I was traveling a good bit in Ecuador and now I'm back stateside and I've settled in the SW. Now this is a big deal for a few reason's:

1) The desert - I spent a portion of my upbringing in FL and I don't mind the heat. As a matter of fact, I like heat and humidity. The heat without humidity worries me.
2) The wife begins a PhD program and this means a lot of hard work for a long time.
3) This is a "small town" and this worries me the most.

Not that there is anything wrong with small towns, coming from DC, I think it will be a challenge to get used to "the volume" of interactions. If you take the law of large numbers into consideration, it will take longer to make contact with that one meaningful person if there are fewer interaction (because there are fewer people). This particularly of concern because I gave up a job in DC and now I must find work in Tucson.

So, I hand it over to you all, how do you find that one meaningful interaction when there are fewer interactions taking place? What is the best starting point in a close nit community?

PS: The posting will happen more frequently now that I'm back on the ball. Thanks for the patience.

A Personal Entry

As I mentioned in my last post, I am not in the United States and this has posed a few challenges these last few weeks - internet access being one of them. Its taken me a while to figure it out, but internet access is only part of the problem. I am worried about loosing people's interest by getting too personal. Thus, I am hesitant to blog about myself and my personal life.

Now, you must understand that I am usually motivated to write a post by what happens around me daily - pretty personal if you ask me. But, I still don't know how much of myself to leave on this blog. Since I'm not in an office surrounded by the daily conversations about managing a business, nonprofit, or IT infrastructure, my only source of inspiration is my family and my vacation. And, it just happens that the recurring issues that we addressed at NPower DC aren't necessarily relevant in Cuenca, Ecuador.

So, I turn to you all for advice, how much of your personal life do you leave on your blog? Since this isn't a blog about the latest and greatest in video cards (or anything of the sort), I have the freedom to diverge from the tone of the standard business blog. Right? Either way, I am attaching a photo of our challenging hike in Cajas National Park (Ecuador). You'd be surprised at how little oxygen there is at 14,900 ft. Thanks for reading!