I read an interesting article from INC. today called "Are Your Employees Destroying your Business?".  It discusses the ways that the people we're around the most -- those we spend the most time with -- have a direct impact on our own psychology.  So, if your staff or coworkers are unpleasant and difficult to get along with, guess what?  YOU will begin to be the same way!  Even if you started out as an upbeat, positive person -- being surrounded by Eeyores will bring you down.  

Great point for businesses, and especially for smaller teams.  Nowadays, unless you're working for a major corporation, you're probably at a company where the teams consist of small groups.  Even at bigger companies, the typical day-to-day working group won't be huge... if "five people" are the magic attitude trigger, we need to pay close attention to the five people we spend the most time with.  And reality is that for most executives, we tend to spend more time with our work colleagues than we do with our own family; so the people we hire and work with are essential to our own mental health. Interesting to ponder, isn't it?  

"Don’t waste two to four hours a day on Twitter and call it lead generation. It’s the same as watching soap operas."             
-- Chris Brogan
Certainly, social media matters -- but it's not the ONLY thing that matters.  The biggest problem with social media is that it can be a time-waster, and your Klout score notwithstanding, it's still difficult to track and measure the impact you're having.  Not impossible, but not easy, either. Most brands need the whole package:  even a pure online play will need to show up at targeted events from time to time!  That requires a skill set that is more than online-focused.  Most brands cannot Tweet their way to the bottom line.

New Year, new quarter, new objectives – do you need to set a brainstorming meeting?  One of the big challenges can be if you’re trying to include groups in multiple locations for a single session.  There are many great tech tools that enable you to connect via video, online whiteboard, audio and PowerPoint – but the tools, while important, are not all you need.  I’ve had to run sessions like this in different US cities as well as with offices located in different countries, and it takes more thought and preplanning to make brainstorming work effectively if you don’t have everyone in the same place, let alone taking into account any time zone or cultural differences. The book “Gamestorming” by Sunni Brown provides great ideas for the actual meeting content; but here are some other tips to keep in mind: 

• Preplanning is essential – you need more structure when groups are not together
• Give each team prework to accomplish. Use the “split groups” necessity as a positive instead of a negative: give each group tasks to complete and then share with the rest of the team
• If all team members don’t know each other well, have them wear name tags. Do everything you can to familiarize the team members prior to the brainstorming
• If possible, have each group GO OFFSITE to a video conferencing room – it helps remove distractions. Video makes it a lot easier to interact.
• Make sure you have the same resources available to both teams (ie, books, notes, reports, etc.)
• Have a team leader at each location; but only one overall Moderator – Moderator should be skilled at managing this kind of meeting
• Think up icebreaking activities that can help build trust (just google “meeting icebreakers”) – but here are a bunch of ideas: http://insight.typepad.co.uk/40_icebreakers_for_small_groups.pdf
• Have a backup planned in case your online tools go down. (It DOES happen!)
• Keep the group size manageable: max of 8 – 10 at each location (4 – 6 seems ideal)
• Make attendance mandatory if at all possible. If time zones are way off (ie, meeting in San Francisco and Dublin), try to schedule two sessions: one that’s easiest for each group (since one group will get to work early, and one will stay late)
• Stick to a firm schedule (especially for breaks and start and stop times)
• Don’t let the “Main Office” group dominate the meeting
• Structure the session so there’s time at the end to summarize and clarify next steps
  

Good luck! this can be a fun and informative experience if you plan it well.

My husband and I were watching the evening news tonight, which is something we very rarely do because we get most of our news from online sources (though he's also a radio junkie).  This story comes on to one of our local Denver area stations:  a local company that provides products specifically for dogs, made a very generous donation of dog oxygen masks to the local fire department's rescue squad.  Great video, and actually a pretty long story (slow news day, I think).  The image of a sweet Golden Retriever being cuddled by a fireman as he adjusts an oxygen mask over doggie's muzzle is coupled with a voiceover stating that this will now allow the fire department to provide help to pets "in distress" from smoke inhalation at a house fire.

This company sells products specifically for homeowners with dogs, and it's a pretty significant investment if you use their product.  What a smart donation, right?  Directly helps animals AND the local community (that didn't have the budget for this sort of thing) AND also showcases the product and company in  beautifully positive light.

So....

I Google the company.  I find a national Web site with no news feed or press area.  (I think the donor was a local franchisee, but I'm guessing).  I google everything I can think of to try to find the company -- zip..  I DID find the story had been picked up by all of our local TV stations.  Nothing popped up for the actual company office in Denver.  

Then I tried social media -- Facebook, Twiter,  LinkedIn -- nothing, nothing, nothing  The company has a Facebook page staked out -- zero content.  On LinkedIn, there are franchisees in Florida and San Francisco -- zip in Denver.  

This is so puzzling to me!  Animal lovers are a passionate bunch -- they tend to vote with their wallets when companies do GOOD THINGS that help animals.  I'm not even naming this company because honestly I'm so embarrassed for them.  They did a great thing, and yet they have made it IMPOSSIBLE for anyone who find out about that donation to connect with them -- and connecting for a big-ticket pet investment that requires wiring and construction... well... to me, you drive sales by CONNECTING with potential customers.  

This company did a kind and compassionate thing with their donation -- and they totally blew the opportunity to be accessible to potential customers.  Strange to see nowadays!

I have read a number of articles recently on what to do to ramp up your company's mobile marketing, like this one.  Most articles provide similar sorts of advice:  don't spam, know your market, provide a coupon, things like that. All good advice. However, as an Android user with a wee bit of an addiction to my device, I've got a more modest proposal:  

If you want to goose along your mobile marketing strategy, start with something a little more basic:  MAKE SURE YOUR WEB SITE IS PHONE-FRIENDLY.

For example, this Mobile Usability Update from late September 2011 discussed the following types of tasks

• Highly specific tasks. For example, "You are in an electronics store and consider buying a Canon PowerShot SD1100IS as a present. The camera costs $220.25 in the store. Check adorama.com to see if you can get a better price online."
• Directed, but less specific. For example, "Find a moisturizer with SPF 30 or above that is suitable for your skin." (While using the Walgreens app.)
• Open-ended, but restricted to a predetermined site or app. For example, "See if you can find any interesting pictures related to today's news." (While using the China Daily app.)
• Web-wide tasks that let users go anywhere they wanted. For example, "Find out which is the tallest building in the world." (While giving users no indication of which site might have the answer.)

How does your own company's Web site stack up?  Do you have a dedicated mobile site that's easy for someone to use via phone?  Do you offer a choice?  I know a company that drove a lot of their customers nuts last year because if you accessed their ecommerce site from anything that was not a traditional computer, you got their phone app.  Which, if you think about it, would drive a tablet owner NUTS.  My site is built using Weebly, and I love how clean the mobile version is from my phone -- AND that they offer a choice of viewing either "Mobile Site or Full Site".  

What I'd love to see in 2012 regarding mobile marketing is for more companies to focus FIRST on providing a super clean, easy to use home base, and once that's handled... then start testing other tactics.

  I just noticed this post on Alltop about how social media has plateaued.  I'm not surprised!  I remember when marketers got all hot and sweaty about email marketing in the mid-90's; it was supposed to kill off virtually all other types of media, and we;d even stop killing trees.  Anybody remember the promises of "the paperless office"???  

Twitter's tapering off... Chris Brogan made a great point about this, and as usual I agree with him. Believing you NEED more Twitter followers is like believing you NEED more Facebook friends.  Heck, I routinely bump people off my back because I don't cotton to spam or irrelevance.  

It's not going to die, certainly, but I think we'll start seeing a rebound in 2012, where people start to reconnect to other people in real life, face to face.  It will be interesting to see how the trends continue to shift.

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I've found a great brand recently -- and it's kind of a surprising one, because it's truly disruptive.  It's a local Denver area-based company called Pawngo.  Why am I excited about this brand?  Watch this video about Pawngo, and you'll see.  

Most people wouldn't think of a pawn shop as the sort of company that would bear a truly disruptive brand -- but this group has managed to attract solid venture capital backing, and they are creating true value by extending the consumer lending category.  This is going to be a company to watch, and I predict a lot of success for them.  They are clearly doing the right things right -- at the right time.

growing up in San Francisco, I got to see snow ONE TIME at my house.  I was 12 or 13, and my mom woke me up at the ungodly hour of 5 a.m. because it was SNOWING!  I know I have a photo of me standing in the backyard somewhere, with maybe a scant inch or so of snow covering the lawn.  I got to stay home from school, and we played in the yard until it all melted by noon.  

Today, I woke up to a total Winter Wonderland.  Shoveling still makes me happy, even though I've now lived in snowy climates for maybe a third of my life.  When you grow up in California near the beach, snow just doesn't cross your mind (unless you're vacationing at Lake Tahoe or something.)

It's a beautiful, happy day -- and it's our wedding anniversary, too!  I think we get closer every year.  

Love it, love it, love it -- Klaatu42's Talking Animals Channel -- Animals Sing "12 Days of Christmas".  Share with the pet-lovers in your life!!!!