Todd Defren of the bicoastal PR firm of the future, SHIFT Communications, wrote a post in his PR²Squared blog about my “You Need Doug Winfield” Facebook campaign. He mentions that multiple folks at SHIFT brought it to his attention and how the word-of-mouth generated by the campaign encouraged him to connect with me. That’s the exact set of actions that I desired. Although the ad says “Shift Should Hire Me”, my real goal was that SHIFT (and other targeted companies) should talk about me. Employees active on twitter notice the ads that address their company directly and have one of several reactions:

1. Ignore it (Not so good)
2. Click on the ad and view my Fanpage (Good)
3. See it talk to their friends and manager about it (Very good)
4. Get creeped out and send it to HR (Really Good)
5. Download my resume submit to HR and try to collect a recruitment bonus (A big win-win)

If that leads to an email, a phone call or a superb post like Todd’s; I feel like I’ve used a modern influential tool to engage a desired audience and potentially start relationships with interesting people. That’s never a bad thing.

Any problems so far? Sure there have been a couple. An earlier iteration of the campaign used company logos in the ads. A couple of companies objected, and had Facebook discontinue those ads. Quite understandable but I wish they had taken the social media approach and voiced their objections to me directly. Also a few folks have asked who am I to tell a company to hire me. The answer is:

I’m Doug Winfield. I’ve created digital and online experiences for the past 15 years and for the past 6+ years I’ve conceptualized and put into action methods for engaging audiences via social media conversations and digital content. I can confidently say that I would be a valuable member of your organization.

Does that make me sound like an egotistical wind bag? I sure hope not, but this is not the time to be coy, demure or submissive. Communicators (PR, Advertising & Marketing folks) need to make bold moves, innovate like crazy and explore new options. That’s what I’m all about. That’s why, “You Need Doug Winfield”.

I like Microsoft’s new It’s Everybody’s Business online business reality program. Don’t get me wrong, I think that Jack Welch is more than a little creepy, but Microsoft is taking a fresh approach to engaging with their audience, creating original content to inform and entertain an audience. Although I said this approach is fresh, perhaps I should have said refreshed. Proctor & Gamble created this concept with radio soap operas back in 1937, and it was the norm for TV shows to have been spawned by ad agencies for a single sponsor during television’s Golden Age. I have a few complaints. First, I would rather have seen the show in short chunks. I think internet attention spans don’t allow for watching long form programming. I also wonder how original this programming is? Something about it feels like it’s been sitting on a shelf for a while or that it’s a vanity production hatched and funded by Jack & Suzy Welch to remain relevant. Regardless, I like the direction that it moves Microsoft’s advertising strategy, so kudos.(but I was hoping for a "You're Fired" or two.) I actually had a similar concept for a client a few months ago. A senior manager (CEO perhaps) would spend a day talking to innovators big and small at the company, and these interactions would be taped and shared online. The goal was to reveal the many great people at this technology company and to allow the CEO to break out of the shadow of his predecessor. Couldn’t make it happen at the time due to schedules and budgets, I hope they do it someday.

I really enjoy using Visible Tweets to present posts from Twitter. It supports Twitter Search queries so you have very fine control over what's displayed. Endlessly fascinating.

Here’s an excellent animation that explains the value of broadcasting your status and tuning into others updates. This concept of being able to remain connected through passive or ambient methods helps to create communities of shared ideas and interest. Quub.com, the service that created the animation, makes the point that the information spectrum is only as good as the accuracy and timeliness of status updates. Their system is designed to understand your activity patterns and automate some of the publishing chores, an interesting idea. I’m not sure how it works in practice, and I’m a bit concerned that it may contribute to more chatter and communication overload. However, it’s worth taking a look at. The problem it doesn’t solve is the reception issue. How do you find the people, ideas and things that will resonate most with you? On Twitter people use #FollowFriday, hash tags, search and follower mining to look for folks who are worth connecting to. This can work, but it often leads to huge follow lists of nearly random people. This can lead to some great, nearly accidental connections, but in reality it’s often just a moderate reduction in the social noise. What’s really needed now is a selection or decision engine for social media. Think bing.com combined with Netflix and a smattering of eHarmony. That kind of system could be applied across the social communications spectrum and applied to Twitter, Facebook and the usual suspects. The real power would be to use it to help people find entertainment, products and information that they’ll want before they know they wanted it. It could also be used the opposite way as well. Marketers could truly connect with people who are likely to crave their products and satiate that need.

Introduction to quub from quub.com on Vimeo.

A few days ago I posted about how I’m using Facebook Social Ads to connect with potential employers. This first round is focused on posing the question, are you ready for emerging influence? Simple ads with the company’s logo and a message to encourage them to click though to my “You need Doug Winfield” Facebook job search page. So far, I’ve generated tens of thousands of impressions, and have had CTRs as high as 3%. That’s pretty good, but I will do additional rounds to increase that and tie the message more to my specific goal. Only problem I’ve had thus far is Edelman objected to the use of their logo. I’ve created a new version without the logo and the click through rate dropped by 66%. That supports my thinking that the more personalized the ads are, the better the results. I certainly understand their desire to protect their brand by preventing any potential misuse of their logo or name, but I’m disappointed that the Edelman folks didn’t take advantage of the social aspect of the system to engage with me. My take is that modern influence is about connecting and encouraging action, rather than being heavy-handed and quashing expression and conversations.

My former boss at Waggener Edstrom Worldwide wrote a very moving blog post titled Panic and the power of fear. She's pulled some keen insights from a recent trauma and related them to the changing world of communications. I felt compelled to write a response which I will post here and with her post.

First of all, I wanted to say that I’m so sorry to hear about the event that triggered this story. Your daughter Emma is a very intelligent, perceptive and special person. I’m saddened to hear that you and she had such a traumatic experience. Just reading about it triggered my worry, fear and panic instincts. These instinctive parts of our brains have served us well since before humans were human. The release of adrenaline sets into motion a series of well orchestrated, time-tested responses before the conscious mind has time to weigh all the options and possibilities. Those autonomic responses can also throw us into dangerous situations that would be best avoided, or they stifle our ability to make innovative and creative solutions to eliminate those dangers. I think the ability to balance the reflexive mind and the thoughtful mind is one of the most powerful aspects of human evolution. Communications, PR, Marketing, and Advertising have all relied upon repeatable tactics and boilerplate plans for much of their modern incarnations. Those rulebooks, dividing lines and action plans make it easy to respond to almost any situation. They also lead to stale experiences and reward people who excel at following the tried-and-true, while marginalizing folks who might see additional options or opportunities. I think this is the time for evolved, silo-free communications aimed at audience needs with realistic goals and using the most appropriate platforms and channels to impact the audience. Does that mean we throw out everything that was by the book and reflexive? No, many of those traditional tactics can inform our future actions, but we shouldn’t let them limit our choices. In evolved communications the panic button should be replaced with a dimmer switch. Just enough fear to keep us motivated and nimble but not so much that we become mindless flacks. Great post, and I'm glad that you and Emma aren't letting fear and panic keep you away from fun in the water.