Marketing Roadmaps

Susan Getgood

Sundance, New Communications Forum and BlogHer

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Whew. The holidays are over, so we can get back to work. And sanity. I still have some thoughts to share on the "Microsoft Vista-Edelman-bloggers get PCs" brouhaha of last week, but haven’t had time to pull it all together the way I’d like as a commentary, so stay tuned for that.

However, I realized this morning that I have a bit of blog housekeeping to do. A few events that I am involved with are approaching, some faster than others, and I haven’t said much about them. Until today.

First, the Sundance Film Festival is coming up later this month, and once again I am helping HP with the Backstage at Sundance blog. The blog is just getting restarted with previews of the Festival and should be in full swing by the time Sundance starts on January 18th. 

In March, I am speaking at two conferences. First, on March 8th, I’ll be leading a session on Viral Marketing at the New Communications Forum in Las Vegas (March 7-9 at the Venetian). We still need case studies, good and bad, for the discussion, so if you are planning to attend, and have a project to share, there is plenty of room for one or two people to join us in the hot seats. Just email or call me.

Then at the end of March, I am doing a couple of things at BlogHer Business in New York City. On Thursday March 22, I’ll be doing a blog case study interview with small business blogger Shirley Frazier and on Friday March 23, I’ll be part of a session on blogger relations. And there is a whole lot more going on at the conference, so I urge you to check it out before early bird registration ends this month.

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New Year’s Resolutions

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To help my clients meet their communications and marketing goals

To spend more time with my husband and son, with friends and family

To find at least five new clients

To post at least  twice a week on this blog even when I am busy

To stick to my current exercise regime

To finally get the Marketing Roadshow podcast off the ground

To enjoy my connections with marketing & PR colleagues around the world, in both our virtual and real manifestations

And as I sign off for 2006, I would like to leave you with the lyrics of an old song that really resonated for me this year — May Every Day Be Christmas by Louis Jordan:

"May every day be Christmas
And every day be blessed
Let the end of every day be filled with happiness
And may the Lord be good to you with every rising sun
All through the day have a smile for everyone
[repeats] At night time comes a longing to be with ones you love
To sit around the fireside and dream of stars above
So may God bless you and keep you, come what may
Then every day will be a happy day [end repeat]
May good times come to you every day"

That is my wish for you, dear readers: May good times come to you every day!

Askville

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From the folks behind Amazon, a Web community called Askville. Concept:  members pose questions about whatever they want. Other members in the community answer them. In this process, you earn coins which will have value of some sort in the not-too-distant future. There are a number of elements that increase the stickiness of the site – each question is limited to 5 answers, better answers get more points and so on. Read the FAQ if you really want to know. There’s also a blog and a discussion forum. And, oh yeah, you can easily insert product recommendations related to your answer…

So, is this a) the wisdom of crowds. b) the collective mind. c) another way to move product. or d) possibly all of the above?

 I’m going with answer d, and a cautious congratulations to the developers of the site. The idea that everyone is an expert in something is a compelling one.  Askville promises to give people an outlet to share that expertise without having to start a blog of their own or deal with the administrivia of open source endeavors like Wikipedia. And unlike other equally noble collective efforts, they’ve got a head start on getting adoption with the Amazon connection. I was pleased that the product recommendations are not limited to products available on Amazon. In the questions I poked around in, I saw links to all sorts of resources, Google maps, etc., so they definitely dodged a bullet that could have had them DOA.

But… before I give un an unqualified "YEAH," I’d like to know what the rewards will be, which is still unannounced. Given that this IS a commercial venture, the participants will expect real value for expertise, especially since they are being asked to conform to a structure.

My other concern is that the structure does seem a bit complex. When things get complicated like that, I always wonder if they are going to collapse under their own weight. 

That said,  I’m glad to see any recognition by big companies of the value and importance of community. Askville is still in beta and  I imagine my questions, and many others, will be answered in due course.

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