Jeff Pedone

The Quest for Greatness

It is a fact that everyone is not a great writer. We are not all great storytellers. This applies to every creative form of expression. We can all certainly practice those arts, but achieving greatness, that’s another matter. Few of us can truly be labeled great writers, artists, musicians, singers, bloggers etc…

What is Greatness?

Now before we begin the “us versus them” battle, or you think this is just snobbery, or perhaps you think this is being too critical and stunting free expression and initiative, let’s just examine this a bit. Is is subjective? Can anything be considered great? Is it great just because someone or a group or multitudes consider it so? Can something be great in one area and terrible in another? Should we even be measuring greatness? Isn’t initiative or the process, or what we learn the most important thing? Can an amateur even measure greatness? Should we reward greatness? Should greatness only be measured in how much we help or aide others? If you struggle and overcome adversity, isn’t that greatness? Raising a family, toiling in the day-to-day struggles of life, isn’t this the measure of greatness?

Great Bloggers?

In Blogs Falling in an Empty Forest, a recent NY Times article by Douglas Quenqua, the author details the disparity between the number of blogs that have been created and those that have been abandoned or not followed. He catalogues those cast aside as “public remnants of a dream – or at least an ambition – unfulfilled.” There are a number of reasons people abandon blogs – lack of interest on the part of the blogger or the public, the blogger being too busy, a quest for anonymity after fame or the spotlight, or others just give up after not making money (their original intent), some even tire of telling their stories.

The 5%

My belief is that the 5% of active blogs, those bloggers continually post to, and those that are read, can be divided into two categories – those bloggers who are truly great, and those bloggers who write for no other reason but self fulfillment. The latter are most likely the true writers, those who love wordsmithing, those who elevate the art beyond their contribution to it.

Where to find Greatness

So, to end my rant, here are some places to find quotes regarding greatness:

http://www.wow4u.com/greatnessquotes/index.html
http://www.motivatingquotes.com/greatness.htm
http://quotationsbook.com/tag/greatness/
http://www.answers.com/topic/greatness

Greatness in the Doing

I also think this quote by Helen Keller is great – “I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.”

Cause Marketing Meets Social Media

There was an interesting article last month on Brandweek.com written by Brian Morrissey. The article, Cause Marketing Meets Social Media, discussed how companies were undertaking cause marketing via social media.

Give Me a Cause, Any Cause

In my career as a marketer, I have been involved with several companies who raised the profile of their brands by aligning themselves with causes or jumped on the cause marketing bandwagon because they felt this was a good way to show their “human” side.

With Sincere Thanks

For other companies, these efforts were truly born out of the employees or founders direct experience with a disease, issue, or cause. Great campaigns that have fostered awareness, research, and funding have brought about significant and lasting impact. I applaud these efforts and those involved.

Consumer Choice

Now, it seems that the traditional cause marketers have found a new way to reach their audiences, social media marketing. Since others are being helped by these efforts, which is evident throughout many of these campaigns, I say, Bravo! My hope is that the consumer, those that are marketed to, will examine those causes they would like to support, and seek them out through all avenues, social media included. If you happen upon a brand that you use and they support the cause you are behind, you are golden. If they support an equally worthy cause, that is great as well.

Your Role in Social Media

Place the seeking, research, and initiative back in your control. The power of social media is at your fingertips. The greatness and impact you can achieve is limitless. Social media is not only for the marketers, it is for us all to help each other. I wish you the best in your efforts.

Changing Our World

My post today originally had at it’s heart a speech given by Michael Hoffman, Chairman and CEO of Changing Our World, Inc.. This is a fantastic organization dedicated to providing philanthropic services, worldwide, to a variety of organizations. Mr. Hoffman gave the commencement speech at Molloy College’s 2009 Graduation.

Treat Others The Way We Want to be Treated

There were three principals that he spoke of as goals for his audience. I choose to concentrate on the first one, and hope I can do some justice to it, because at the date of this post, it coincides with President Obama’s paramount speech in Cairo to the Muslim world. Both speeches hold as their foundational truth that we must always, respect and treat others the way we want to be treated. This central principal is highlighted and mentioned by both speakers.

Our Collective Faith

Both speeches are religious in nature, calling on the common areas of our collective faith to understand each other, respect each other, and treat each other well. Hoffman turns to the world religions and finds the centrality of how each of us should treat the other in Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism. President Obama speaks of the freedom of religion and how faith can bring us all together.

Our Responsibility

Both men acknowledge that it is our responsibility, in the face of those who would divide or those who are skeptical to make a difference in the world and make it a better place for our children. Michael Hoffman closes with this line, “…make a significant impact in making a difference in the world and make our world a more beautiful and peaceful place.” President Obama closes, “The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God’s vision. Now, that must be our work on Earth…”

Begin Today

Let us all begin today, this moment.

The Little Engine That Could

Many of us remember the children’s story of The Little Engine That Could. The story reappeared in my home when I began to read it to my own children before bedtime. It is a great story of optimism, hard work, and resiliency. Many adaptations and offshoots have been produced, yet the Watty Piper classic still holds the essence of hope for me.

I think I can

The classic refrain, ” I think I can, I think I can, I think I can,” is only placed in higher relief when after completing its mission, the little blue engine remarks, “I thought I could, I thought I could, I thought I could.”

Change The World

The Obama Presidency win could only be categorized in these terms, when the social media engine that helped get him elected acknowledged this same spirit and drive. Much the same type of movement is occurring all over the web as social media entrepreneurs are reaching out into the blogosphere and twitterverse to take on social ills and change the world.

Get The Word Out

I encourage all those who spend their days wrapped in their own bubbles of influence to spend a small amount of time each day getting the word out about these causes and their collective influence.

The Power of “We”

I think we can, I think we can, I think we can…I thought we could, I thought we could, I thou….

A Social Giving Starter Guide

Please visit:
Social Media for Social Change
50 Ways to Give
Change the Web
Social Actions

Important Issues

Today, I was originally going to post regarding storytelling and content. However, I realize that there are more pressing issues going on in the world.

Social Media & Marketing Unite

If you are in any way involved in social media, marketing, or just have found this blog by chance, join me at countless others in trying to eliminate world hunger.

Join Us

See my link here to join the “Walk the Web” movement through the World Food Programme and make your contribution today. It coincides with the actual walk on June 7, 2009, but you can always donate and stay involved.

Let us all take care of each other.

Character, Decency, Empathy, Kindness

While reading a recent post on CNN.com by Bob Greene, How words can last a lifetime, I took a moment to pause and let the message resonate. To me, his thoughts spoke to things that we currently lack in our culture – character, decency, empathy, and kindness.

The Sadness of Online Conversations

As we hurl ourselves toward the future with reckless abandon, breaking all the rules of decency and tact when it comes to social interactions, few of us in the digital and social media marketing space realize what we are missing. Online conversations are clipped and blunt, brevity and minimalism is applauded, and less face-to-face contact is preferred.

What is Your Mark on Life?

My hope and challenge is to express and convey my thoughts with careful thought and measured response. Convey to people only what they would be interested in hearing, see Mark Cuban’s post, Who Cares What People Write?. Finally, to treat others with respect and realize that the mark you make on life, is directly related to your character and how you own up to your mistakes.

Publish with Care

Words do still possess the power to move mountains. Let us not abuse them for the sake of publishing our views on the web.

See Neoformix for more images.

“You have three minutes or the meeting is over”

“You have three minutes to deliver on our spec. or I will stop you and our meeting is over.” I actually said this to a vendor, stopped them three minutes later, and ushered them out of our Fortune 500 offices shortly after that.

Vendor Yo-Yo

To give you some perspective (so you don’t think I’m a total tyrant); it was the third time we had offered to have the vendor discuss their offerings with us, once on a conference call and two times in person. After the second time, I counseled the vendor on where they needed improvement, where they needed to deliver, and told them they only had one last shot. Not even the VP of Sales (a real class act and nice guy) flying into meet with us in person and over lunch could salvage the vendor from being passed over.

Vendors – Many are called…few deliver

Although the SOW (statement of work) is important, the KPI’s (key performance indicators) are essential, the SLA (service level agreement) is paramount, and having the appropriate people from specific areas of your company (IT, business, systems etc…) involved in entire process; the most important element and the one fraught with the potential to deliver the most disastrous outcome is during the client-vendor meetings and negotiation process. By this point in time you have narrowed your field of suppliers to three or possibly five and everyone is set to be done with the process and move on to contact signing.

Overwhelmed with it all

The entire process to this point has encompassed close to six months and the members of your core team are now a bit worried to be spending another 2+hours in a conference room over the next few weeks. The collaborative software and PM (project manager) may be a great help, but the volume of data, email, and various quick meetings in the hall or over lunch are now pushing everyone toward completion. This comes at the time most critical to negotiate and assess.

When to call in expert assistance

Having a fresh pair of eyes, someone who is not an insider or burdened with various other projects and deliverables is what is needed at this juncture. This is to say nothing of the voice of impartiality and deep experience with various vendors and engagements can bring to the table.

Negotiation

Negotiating involves the ability to get to the KPI’s and have them demonstrated, an SLA that is iron-clad and one your legal team can finally sign off on. The ranking and matrix used to score is used continually during the negotiation process. Price, which can involve bundled services, additional costs, support and customer service considerations, upgrades, and hourly fees is paramount and a visionary mindset that can anticipate needs in the future is prudent.

Where are they now?

Lest we forget that in the ever-changing and shifting waters of employment and corporate restructuring; documentation of the negotiating process with all the pitfalls and prime considerations is primary. This will leave an audit trail for the next group, who will most certainly be involved when an RFP is requested again.

My Entrepreneurial Journey

The moment of greatest clarity for me that defined my place in the annals of entrepreneurship was when I was mixing a large batch of Good Dog Foods Home Mix, in the CAFT test kitchen of Rutgers University. The product line was all human-grade food (meat, vegetables, rice, nutritional powder) made in a USDA approved facility. You begin to think about the choice you made as an entrepreneur when you’re shoulder deep in cold mixed meat and vegetables. I don’t regret a minute of it.

Today’s Social Entrepreneurs

I began to think about that again recently when I started to see Tweet posts (@JeffPed) regarding social media experts and those launching businesses in today’s social media landscape. When I launched my marketing consulting and gourmet frozen dog food businesses in the 1990’s, there was a prescribed and albeit “traditional” way of launching and marketing your business. Today the landscape has changed dramatically and few of the new entrepreneurs are versed in sustaining a business utilizing social media.

Yes, you can jump in quickly and begin to promote your business almost instantly, however due to the amount of information that needs to be processed, networking and marketing that needs to be done, and lack of truly trustworthy advice that you will receive, most businesses will wallow in relative obscurity, be a flash in the pan, or rise and fall quickly and dramatically.

Take a Cue from The President

The reason The President surrounds himself with a Cabinet and trusted advisors is that for all his wisdom and experience, he still cannot concentrate adequately on all the multiple areas of running the country at once. You can’t do this either, there is not enough time in your day nor will you be an expert on every area you need to, to be successful.

When to Seek Help

Find the key drivers of your business and your specialties, your unique value proposition. You should be the “specialist” or “expert” in these. That does not mean you should not be continually learning from others and perfecting your craft, social media is great for this. But, if social media is too big a challenge for you, the new marketing vehicles are changing too rapidly, or every vendor you meet or person you speak to has a varied opinion on the same question you are trying to answer, do this:

How to Work with Trusted Advisors

1. Get referrals from people you trust in your network to others who can help you.
   
2. Check their credentials thoroughly by speaking to clients and those they have worked with.
   
3. Ask them to provide answers to a short test case you create of how they would tackle your challenge.
   
4. Work with them on a trial basis before signing on for an extended engagement.
   
5. Communicate with them continually on your needs and expectations.

If you are not living in a cave, I am sure you have been immersed in the flood of reports regarding the end of so many media formats (email, print, newspapers, direct mail, books), the list is endless. To that end, you have also heard the points on both sides, from very experienced and well regarded icons in their fields, and now are probably hoping they move on to something new.

My concern is not so much with the natural progression of media, the birth and death of tactics and vehicles of communication and expression; my concern is regarding time. Most “traditional” media took some time to establish itself. The normal bell curve for print, newspapers and books encompasses many decades and longer. As we approach the newer forms of media, this curve becomes more flattened and the speed of adoption is instantaneous and amazing.

Email is an interesting study. Started in the 1960’s at MIT, email by 2008 had become, “..the bane of some people’s professional lives.” – NY Times. However, fifty years is certainly not a long time and email only really took off with wide adoption in the 1980’s. Is it now dead? The larger question is, ‘What will replace it, and for how long?”

If adoption to death is in hyper-drive, how can the consumer and marketer survive? For larger organizations and those still holding on to the past, it could mean the end of the road, the current auto-industry and many large print and newspaper publishers are a prime example.

How to survive and thrive can be found where the innovators are. Here is a place to begin or here or here. Drucker, Peters, Friedman, Gilbert, Godin, Anderson, Moddelmog, Kelley, Kawasaki, Handley – all innovators, all great people to study and follow. The list is extensive. Get busy!

You must, however begin the work. By being selective, Twitter can also be a great place to follow innovation. Only follow those who consistently give you great links to valuable information that propel your marketing programs forward. Also, your career is changing right before your eyes, so staying on the cutting edge will make you more valuable and marketable.

Remember, be selective…you don’t have much time to waste.

You’re cruising along complaining about the commute to the job, hearing the rumblings of others, trying not to be an employed snob.
You give the proper attention and measured respect, when job losses are discussed, you feel the tension begin in your neck.

Immersed in projects, feeling secure in your place, you think to yourself, “I can’t be replaced!”
Then, fate, destiny or opportunity catches you unaware, and you are called forth to be given your share.

For some the reaction is shock, anger, anxiety, disbelief. For others it is hope, anticipation and the sense of release.
The range of reactions and emotions are varied and diverse, before you realize it there are new lines to rehearse.

The goodbyes ensue and often the company wants a quick and clean break. Calls are made, posts are generated, new plans to make. The package is discussed, budgets are planned, priorities are shifted, and the great wheel of fire turned by new hands.

Networking, applying, emailing, interviewing, posting, blogging, tweeting…boredom, waiting, anticipating, useless meetings.

Assistance is offered, recommendations new, promises are made, very few true. One minute you’re close, the next hopes are dashed, change after change, time spins slow than ever so fast.

Weeks move forward and you discover the true power of the Web . Pass on links to face the challenges ahead . New skills are acquired, new resilience is built, fear is a constant friend as well as guilt.

Introspection, more time with those you love…long forgotten passions and new ones fit like a glove. Thinking in abundance, remembering the one chief aim…reinventing yourself, you’re still in the game.