Carman Pirie's Blog

Herd

Mark Earls' wonderful book Herd illustrates a lot of very important points that marketers should know... overall, it teaches us about how we - as super-social apes / humans - act in herds. It explains in wonderful detail how this happens, and it really is a must read.

With that in mind, I direct you to this article from the Financial Post: Step aside kids! Grandpa wants his Wii. In explaining the popularity of Nintendo's Wii amongst the older demographic, the article says:

"This is something that they can do with their children and their grandchildren," says Brian McMillan, owner of a Home Instead Senior Care nursing home franchise in Winnipeg.

"They are thinking, 'if I pick this up for Christmas, it's something that we can do as we gather together.' "

Happy Christmas

Credit: imaginepeace.com

As I try to wrap things up here at the office for another year, it occurs to me that John Lennon's Christmas message is as important today as it was when originally released in 1971. Sometimes, it just doesn't feel like society has learned much over the past 36 years.

Happy Christmas to you and yours. Catch you on the other side.

Colour launches social media practice

You may recall that several weeks back I mentioned that I was working on a new venture here at Colour… well, we finally launched today. I’m heading up a new practice area here at Colour focused on social media. More detail on the services of this new division can be found by clicking on the social media tab on the top nav of Colour’s main site.

In announcing this, we’ve taken our first crack at a social media news release… first introduced by Shift Communications based in San Francisco and Boston. You can take a look at it here. I’m sure we’ll improve this over time, but I’m pretty happy with it for a first effort.

In conjunction with the launch, we’re also announcing a strategic partnership with Radian6. They’re based in Fredericton, NB and have been doing some fantastic work developing social media monitoring technology.

Expect to hear much more about this in the weeks and months ahead.

Finding marketing's chaordic path

James over at Modern Marketing has a great post about where the world of marketing is going. I agree with him on many points.

Over here on the other side of the pond I feel consensus is building too... it's not a consensus about what to do in this new world of marketing but, rather, that the old assumptions just don't apply. Sure, some are still resisting... but I'm finding that in many cases the people who used to just roll their eyes at the mere mention of all of this a year ago are now listening - and wanting to know and understand more.

James references some of his recent client sessions where he has said that he is "definitely not there to provide people with a new rule book". I love that. In many ways, this is what a lot of people are looking for. The old rules of marketing were formed largely on a very mechanistic view. Sure, there were a lot of pieces to the puzzle, but it was viewed as a just that - a puzzle. It was complicated... not complex. The rule book was simple... everything unfolded in sequence as a direct result of the last tactic or collection of tactics. The new marketing doesn't work like this. If old marketing was mechanistic and tactical... new marketing is human and spiritual. It is complex... seeking to make things happen indirectly.

I think this is why I'm fascinated by the ten thousand hours concept in cognitive psychology research... that expertise in any field requires ten thousand hours of practice. Marketing and public relations are changing at a dramatic pace... a pace that makes it impossible to perfect any field of practice because new stuff comes along well before you've had time to spend ten thousand hours on the last 'new big thing'.

Understanding that new marketing is not about the technology, but about the conversation, goes a long way to helping make sense of it all I think. This understanding, combined with participation in the space, gives you the minimum amount of order needed to harness the creative potential of the chaos.

James says that "in a world where everything has been thrown up in the air, the only reliable roadmap is the one you draw up yourself". Or, to put it in context of chaos and order, the only reliable roadmap is finding your chaordic path in all of this and having the courage to walk it.

Starting a smarter conversation about the physical workplace

Jim's new blog

I've been working with Office Interiors lately. If you're not from Atlantic Canada, Office Interiors is our region's leading supplier of office furniture and equipment. They also have a fantastic little division called Constructive Solutions that provides all manner of interior modular construction and assorted other services... this allows you to tear down the inside of your office, reconfigure full walls, etc., and never send anything to landfill. All the stuff is produced in a zero waste manufacturing facility to boot. Very cool. While, for many, being environmentally friendly is more of a post-Al Gore / Inconvenient Truth idea, Office Interiors has been at this for a while.

All of this is happening at a time when most every product out there is 'good enough'. Most every desk works fine, and most every copier is as good as the next. The very definition of a market that is becoming commoditized in our surplus society.

So, we're going to be doing some work over the next while to start what Hugh would call a 'Smarter Conversation' about how the space you work in, and the equipment you work with, has a dramatically significant impact on the results your organization gets. To get this going, Jim Mills, President and CEO of Office Interiors, has started a new blog. Jim's a good friend of mine, a fantastic guy, and he has a ton of knowledge about how to make the physical workplace function at the highest level possible. And how to do so while reducing your organization's impact on the environment.

All in all, I think the blog will develop to be a great source of information, ideas and conversation about making workplaces work better. And since most organizations cite HR as their #1 expense, it would seem to me that having a productive place for them to work is a pretty good idea. I'm happy to be a part of it.

(Disclosure: While Office Interiors is currently a client, I was their Director of Marketing from 2004 to 2006.)

Landlord Lou makes mediaincanada.com

Mediaincanada.com is giving Landlord Lou lots of love running it as today's top story. They are the online newsletter of Strategy Magazine... fantastic stuff.

Landlord Lou’s Heroic Gatherings

As mentioned earlier, I’ve been working with the good folks over at Killam Properties towards a phase two of the wonderfully successful Landlord Lou campaign.

The first campaign was targeted exclusively towards their student-focused properties in the lead up to the start of the school year. Previous posts about it are located here, here, here, here and here. This time, we’re extending Landlord Lou to the rest of Killam’s tenants by sponsoring Heroic Gatherings.

Heroic Gatherings are any social event that a tenant chooses to host at their apartment… just invite Landlord Lou to the party via Facebook or call a toll-free order line, and you’ll be hooked up with your choice of five party food options. Through our partnership with Boston Pizza and Swiss Chalet, we’ve got some fantastic menu options that will be great for entertaining. Just in time for the holidays, etc. You can grab a full look at the menu options and the rest of the campaign by going to the Landlord Lou website.

Here are some thoughts about the new campaign:

1. My observation is that who you hang out with, and where you live, are both largely determined by the same socio-economic factors. People who live in apartments tend to be friends with other people who live in apartments. Live in a house? Then chances are your friends live in a house too. No, it doesn’t always work like this. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule. But, on balance, it is often the case.

2. Ergo, if you live in an apartment and you invite your friends over, chances are some of those friends also live in apartments. Maybe they even have a lease coming due soon…

3. Most people (around Atlantic Canada anyway) tend to give ‘tours’ of their place to friends when they come over. I had dinner at a friend’s place on Sunday night, and we got ‘the tour’ about two seconds after our shoes came off. It seems to almost always happen this way.

4. If you’re at your friend’s place for a party, and the landlord shows up to supply the food, that has to be worth talking about – at least briefly. And that conversation might lead to something.

5. Should you be interested further, you'll have already had an opportunity to see a Killam apartment and talk to someone who is currently a tenant.

6. And so it goes. With approximately 8,500 apartment units in Atlantic Canada, I think we have an opportunity to spark a lot of conversations. At the same time, we give our tenants an excuse to have some friends over. It works for everybody involved.

There you have it. A big thank you to Killam, too. A great bunch to work with, to be sure.