Are you a Vancouver-based marketer or PR flack who is intrigued by the unconference movement, but is worried that BarCamp and the like are a little too geeky? Well, come out and test the waters at CaseCampVancouver!
1 CommentCategory: Kate Trgovac
I just got back from the “CMA Convention and Tradeshow”:http://www.the-cma.org/convention/intro.html in Montreal. And what is left ringing in my ears? *It’s all about ME.* Well, it’s all about them… the consumer. Marketers need to internalise that the game has changed and the consumer is taking an active, if not leading role.
Well, not even the consumer, but rather the “prosumer”. Max Lenderman (Creative Director at GMR Marketing LLC) defines the prosumer as a consumer that is: proactive, professional or a producer. In any case, this prosumer is empowered. And if we choose to collaborate *with* them, they can become our most powerful brand evangelists. More details can be found in Lenderman’s blog “Experience the Message”:http://experiencethemessage.typepad.com/.
Co-collaboration was also highlighted by Dr. Martha Rogers (Founding Partner, Peppers & Rogers Group). Rogers asserted that organizations need to enter a “learning relationship” with our customers. By positioning my customer as a co-collaborator with me, I am able to de-commoditize my product/service. I will have something to offer my customer that none of my competitors will – an ability to support my customer in a unique and personalised way. Rogers’ new book “Return on Customer”:http://www.returnoncustomer.com/ contains additional information about creating customer relationships built on trust and co-collaboration.
My mom is not what you’d call a geek, or even someone who is really interested in computers or the Internet.
She works for an HMO in the US and uses the computer for work-related tasks and email. She also keeps up to date on her favourite tennis players at the US Open site and forwards me funny photos of cats, but that’s about it. She does 100% of her Internet activity at work because she doesn’t have a computer at home.
I looked into getting her Internet access at home last year, but she lives in a rural area in Pennsylvania. Dial-up is still the norm and *that* is a level of technical support I don’t want to provide long-distance. It is surprising to me how many places in the States still don’t have access to broadband. According to some recent ComScore data I’ve seen, 77% of Canadians use broadband while only 53% of Americans do! (Q3 2005 data). That’s something I definitely take for granted being up here.
But, back to my mom. Her workplace has slowly been implementing security measures on their computer networks. And they have recently introduced some network sniffers to monitor for illegal downloads. Now my mom doesn’t know how to download music or movies, either legally or illegally. So imagine her surprise when her boss burst into her office one morning and announced “Network Security has found illegal files on your computer. You could be fired!!” and stormed out.