Managing Too Many Choices

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For a web video project, I recently interviewed Sheena Iyengar, author of The Art of Choosing.  She is a professor and researcher who famously conducted the so-called “jam” experiments at a farmer’s market. Shoppers at the booth with the most flavor choices purchased the least amount of jam. Those with fewer options purchased more. When it comes to social media and the internet, I’m starting to feel like the first group of jam shoppers. Overwhelmed.  Iyengar’s research points to our need to choose from among a smaller group of pre-identified choices.  When we do this, we actually have better outcomes.

So who’s helping us choose?

On the internet, there is much talk of “influencers.”  These folks are supposed to know something, and if we follow them on Twitter, or join the groups they lead on LinkedIn, read their blog posts or friend them on Facebook, we will have some assistance in our discernment.  So where do we start finding these people?  If we are in a particular field, then the thought leaders in that field are an excellent place to start.  But in the social media field itself, there are many self-titled experts. Some have thousands of followers on Twitter mainly because they’ve figured out how to game the system and get lots of automatic follow-backs.  Following them could make us the lemmings headed over the cliff.

Last in, first out.

This expression usually refers to hiring and firing. But it could easily apply to how we are processing information in a world with too much of it.  According to behavioral economist George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University, we are wired to pay the most attention to the most recent piece of information we receive.  So in a daily barage of emails, the last couple we get before we leave the office might receive undue priority.  This is making us particularly bad choosers.  Unless we purposely learn to screen out some of the input. On days when I get very productive, it’s usually because I’m only reading emails every couple of hours. I know, that sounds crazy. Remember the days when there were Never any emails, and people had to bother to call you about something so it had to be important.

Can technology help?

Maybe if technology got us into this jam (pun intended), it can help get us out.  For example, James Bridle manages a blog called Open Bookmarks that is a discussion forum to hash out rules for social reading. That is, sharing your bookmarks and annotations in e-readers. Publishers, booksellers, educators, and social reading application developers are all working on a solution together. So that one day, you could potentially get the social bookmarks of your favorite thought leader on books that he or she recommends. Certainly a more useful step beyond simply jotting down their reading list by helping you think through the text in a new way.

Who shouldn’t be choosing for us?

The other question the internet brings is who is already choosing for us and we don’t even know it? So, for example, when you see a trending topic on Twitter, you might not realize that persistently popular memes don’t always appear.  And in an effort it claims was to deprive content-farm websites of high traffic volume, Google recently changed its search algorithm to penalize websites that it deems ‘not very useful.’  This sounds helpful, but do you want Google to be the one making your choices? (Maybe you do. They have a point about those annoyingly un-useful sites that just list other people’s content.)

I wish I had all the answers here, but it’s still an open question. How can we become better choosers in a world with exponentially increasing choices? In the short term, my strategy is to frankly ignore some of those choices. I can already hear my stunned techno-saavy friends (the ones who tsk tsk me for not ordering the new iPad or the very latest app). But hey, they can help me choose!

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Music and Editing Matter for Web and Event Video

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I was thrilled that The Social Network won Oscars for original music score and editing. Both of these crafts are essential, in my view, to successful narrative film.  And they are critical elements to my most successful online and event video productions, too.

So often, I find that music and editing get short-changed.  Clients want fast turnarounds–to get something on YouTube or their website–and these crafts get left by the wayside. But the projects that are most effective–whether for issue advocacy, education, or fundraising–are almost always those in which I’ve been able to spend the time crafting the edit and working with a composer on an original score.

What makes the difference?

On the editing side, it’s having time for multiple refinements. Not those that just wear down the original concept and don’t improve it. But those that are significant stylistic approaches–montage sequences, transitions, pacing–that result in better impact of the visuals.  An edit that I’ve been able to spend time designing, and my editor and I have had the time to evolve creatively, is one that will be stronger for that collaboration.  At a bare minimum, one should budget one edit day for every finished minute of end-product.

On the music side, a composed score matches the nuances of emotion and picture perfectly.  So often, clients want to rely on stock music for budget reasons. And yet, it often takes more editing time to make stock music support the images, pacing and emotional content without seeming to be overbearing or inappropriate.  Often stock music cuts have just one set of instrumentation per cut, for example. Whereas in a composed score, I can create a transition from a powerful, fast-paced montage to a slower-paced sequence by using different instruments but maintaining the same musical theme, for continuity.  I’ve been very effective with library music, too, but it takes significant time to search for the right cuts, with the right pacing and instrumentation, and having a specific (editing) game-plan for weaving them all together. Whether using stock audio or custom, having time to properly mix it–along with nterviews, narration, and “natural sound”–also helps keep distractions to a minimum and reinforces a production’s goals.

So if your story has an emotional component–as every good narrative should–then you need to strongly consider adding the time and budget for effective editing and music scoring.  Your show will have added impact, which can change bottom-line results from a “nice video” to something that changes minds, or opens checkbooks.

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Storytelling Connects With Donors and Grassroots Supporters

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In philanthropy, the saying is that people give to people, not causes. Connecting at the level of hearts and minds has always been critical to building long-term relationships with donors, and also with grassroots supporters. And the best way to do that is through storytelling.  Now that YouTube and other Web 2.0 tools are giving so many nonprofits a “channel” for their stories, personal narrative is being rediscovered.  But to tell a compelling story requires critical elements.

What makes a compelling story about mission?

1.       Focus on outcomes. Everyone loves a success story. Reality TV is filled with them: obese person becomes thinner, aspiring chef wins the prize, talented singer gets a record deal.  Think of the success stories in your organization, but instead of listing them as bullet-points, express them through anecdotal stories.

2.       Focus on people. The people who make it happen and the people whose lives are changed. Who are the teachers who made a difference in students lives? What are those students doing today? Who is the volunteer who went into a community and changed it for the better? What is happening in that neighborhood now? What would have happened to that child without a medical intervention paid for by others? What kind of life does this child have today?  Interview-driven narratives are highly successful at building the case for donors and volunteers.

3.       Show why your organization matters. Somewhere in the narrative, you need to show viewers why your organization made a tangible difference in the outcome.  It wasn’t just random acts of kindness that led to this success. It was your people, your dedication, your/their dollars at work.

4.       Engage viewers in their own narrative. Make sure there is a call to action somewhere in your story, usually at the very end. “How can you make a difference just like Alice did?”  “With just 20 cents per day, you can change the life of a child like Shawn.” “Join us at our XYZ event to make your voice heard.”  Think about what story viewers want to create for themselves after watching yours.

5.       Provide follow-up options. If a viewer is moved by your narrative, they should easily be able to click somewhere next to the video or case study to do something–sign up for the conference, make a donation, become a member.  Despite the tendency to want sheer numbers—hey, our video got 20,000 views!—you really want qualified viewers. You also want the video to be the entrance point to engage them with other content, either on your web page, Facebook page, etc.  So be sure you provide that option in your web video interface.

Telling and hearing stories is our oldest human instinct. Web 2.0 just makes it easier to share.

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Are You Reaching the Grandparent Market?

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©2010 B. DeLouiseYou’ve heard it said a million times–we’re a “youth culture.” But consider this: 3 out of every 10 adults in America are grandparents—that’s about 80 million people.  And their number is increasing at about double that of the rest of the population.  Grandparents control 75% of the wealth in this country, and they’re spending quite a bit of it.  For example, they spend $100 billion a year alone just on entertainment.  They spend $2 trillion per year on goods and services. See Peter Francese, The Grandparent Economy, a study commissioned by grandparents.com, April 2009)

Is your company or nonprofit positioned to reach seniors?

Before you think about marketing to seniors, consider what products or services you offer that would serve this market niche. For example, law firms are finding elder law to be a burgeoning new legal field.  Attorneys are helping family members navigate the issues related not only to medical care and estate planning, but also guardianship and fiduciary administration.  The travel industry has long reached out to the grandparent market with cruises and tours. Now RoadScholar (formerly Elderhostel)  and Grandtravel offer grandparent-grandchild tour packages. Since the economic downturn, grandparents are also stepping in to purchase items for their grandchildren, from clothing to school supplies to dinners out. Consider what you have to offer that fits this trend.

On the nonprofit side, grandparents are generous donors.  They make 45% of the nation’s cash contributions to nonprofit organizations.  Studies on donors have long shown differences between men and women.  Since aging women are a large portion of the donor population (outliving their husbands), understanding their interests and behavior around philanthropy is critical. For example, it might surprise you to learn that older women respond to recognition before the group for their gifts.  That might mean a naming opportunity or it could mean receiving an award at an annual event.

How do seniors want to communicate?

Once you’ve figured out the product, service or charity you want to position with the grandparent  generation, you need to know how your target audience wants to communicate with you.  Since half the grandparent population are now baby boomers—soon to be 60% by 2015—many are comfortable with online tools like email and Facebook.  But not all grandparents want to see things via the web or email.  Many still prefer to communicate with charities by mail, which means you still need to send out print copies of newsletters or ask letters.  Checking in with your prospective and existing donors is always important, but especially now that this donor group contains such a wide range of comfort levels with the tools we use to reach out about a charity’s mission and accomplishments.

Whatever you do, don’t ignore the grandparent market. It’s big and it’s here to stay.

What is your organization doing to reach the grandparent market?  Shoot me an email or post a comment here.

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Nonprofit Brands

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The recession is slowly lifting. Corporations are banking huge profits. Donors are getting out their checkbooks again. If your nonprofit weathered the storm, are you poised to take advantage of the new market landscape?  Do you have a marketing and branding strategy that positions you well for leadership, funding, and volunteers?

Nonprofits often resist marketing. Marketing and sales smack of for-profit activities. In the best of cases, marketing dollars are viewed as an expenditure that reduces money for core mission projects. Worst case, branding, marketing and brand management are considered downright inappropriate.

But whether you acknowledge it or not, you’re already selling your mission. The question is to whom, how, and how effectively?

In today’s highly competitive marketplace of ideas, your non-profit organization has very little emotional space in which to differentiate itself from the pack. When a nonprofit calls, or when a friend emails a Facebook link for donating, we look at this request not just against a backdrop of all our nonprofit investments but also against the other competing interests in our lives—our son’s Little League team, our work picnic, the birthday party we are hosting next weekend.

Here’s where a strong brand comes into play.

When a household already contributes to a church and a Little League Team and a PTA, they may feel that their nonprofit “basket” is full. To make an impression on this family, a nonprofit has to make a bold and memorable case for support. Having a strong brand already in place can help open the door or close the sale. For example, when my local volunteer fire department comes knocking at the door for their annual donation drive, I already understand their brand. They volunteer at our schools to explain fire safety to the children. The firehouse hosts kids’ parties and we’ve all taken the tour and tried to lift the 100-plus pounds of gear each firefighter wears in a fire. And a few years ago, they put out a fire on my street. They have a strong brand and they don’t need to tell me what they do. So the conversation is focused on what level of donation I am able and willing to give for the cause.

Not everyone can have as compelling and easy a case to understand as the local volunteer fire department. But if you don’t, you need to work hard to make it easy for people both inside and outside your organization to “get” what change you make in the world. A simple, uniform message across web, social media, email and print goes a long way. That doesn’t mean you can’t differentiate sub-markets. But the overall mission must fit into a sentence or two. Then, the trick is that once you’ve invested time and dollars making your brand known, you need to manage your brand so that there’s no slippage.

Your “brand promise” has to be delivered as expected every time your organization or its name/logo is used.

And that means Every Time, or you may have done lasting damage to your mission by reducing your ability to raise funds and attract talented staff and volunteers. This includes even what might appear to be non-marketing materials, such as a letter home to parents explaining an independent school’s decision about a health incident, or how a hospital handles patient family members during a blizzard, or how a university human resources department communicates–or doesn’t–to job applicants .  In today’s 24-hour news cycle, everything you do and everyone who does it reflects on your brand.

Do you have a brand success story or brand crisis? Please share (names can be changed to protect organizational anonymity)!

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Managing Transitions in the New Economy

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Doctors explaining Gabrielle Giffords’ seemingly amazing transition on the path to recovery after her gunshot wound have credited “neuroplasticity,” or the ability of the brain to compensate for damage by at least partly rewiring itself and assigning new tasks to undamaged regions. It made me think about many organizations I know–including my own business–that were forced to “rewire” when the economic downturn hit. Now we’re on the road to recovery, how much of this flexibility can and should we retain?

People: During the downturn, many of my clients became super-multi-taskers (they were already multi-tasking plenty).  When their staff and colleagues were “downsized,” they suddenly found themselves doing additional jobs–sometimes ones they had given up years before.  They had to re-learn old skills and acquire new ones. They had to plug into the hierarchy in new ways. I did the same when I became a solo practitioner, after years of running a multi-person studio.  Skills I’d like to keep: teaming with clients and vendors, avoiding bureaucracy, and using technology to work efficiently. Skills I’d like to lose: making my own coffee (so far, successfully outsourced to my husband and 12-year-old!)

Leadership: The downturn seemed to bring more collaborative leadership styles, perhaps due to a de-layering of the intervening bureaucracy.  Many nonprofits became more tuned in to the skills of their boards, and tried to tap them more effectively. Leaders had to become more strategic about financial management and fundraising, and make up for lost staff talents.  Skill to keep: Board and Leadership engagement with the mission and strategy. Skill to lose: Board involvement in day-to-day decisions.

Money: Several organizations I work with lost revenue sources, but through quick adaptation and administrative and board engagement were able to develop new ones.  In my business model I did the same–adding more workshops and brand consulting to a mix that had included mainly video and multi-media production.  Skills to keep: Making the money last longer. Skills to lose: Under-charging, and penny-pinching that means the end product suffers and the brand takes a hit.

Time: As a corollary to shrinking staffs and less money, we all came to stretch how much time we spent at work.  We are, after all, the “most productive” country in the world.  Or so we think. Skill to keep: Efficiency.  Skill to lose: So much multi-tasking that we aren’t thoughtful and creative.

What skill did you gain during the downturn and do you want to keep it or lose it?

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In Marketing Your Message, Think Like a Pirate

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CNN ran a story today about how well organized pirates on the high seas have become. As you’ve probably read or heard, pirate attacks are becoming a frequent hazard for sailors –particularly in areas such as off the coast of Somalia, with its highly unstable—some would say non-existent—government.  While pirates may appear to be rag-tag bunches of young men in small boats, it turns out they have significant organizations behind them.  Ones with strategic business plans.  And tactical structures like advisory boards and directors of logistics.  They don’t spend their money on fancy boats, but they do outfit their teams with the latest technologies, including GPS.  These are deployed systematically, through grass-roots teams on well-equipped small boats, which often foil larger ships with more sailors.

The management approach of pirates got me thinking about what grassroots organizations could learn from pirates.   The best know you don’t have to have the fancy ship, but you do have to have a plan for outmaneuvering those with more money and personnel.  For starters, having a business plan is essential. Not just for the organization, but also for each program, and even each outreach component.  So, for example, to deploy a new YouTube video to members, it’s critical to have a strategy, and then identify a tactical team, a logistics plan, and means of harnessing technologies–not just the medium for the message, but the tools to get eyeballs there and turn those viewers into positive outcomes for your organization.

So one of my New Year’s plans is to remind myself—and my clients—to think more like pirates. But for a much better cause.

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Happy New Year

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It’s time to kick off the New Year.  Are you ready? Here are some of my resolutions, when it comes to branding and marketing, that is.

1. Add more video content. YouTube is the second most popular search engine after Google. So it’s important that people searching for a brand find the content there. I’ve been primarily using Vimeo, because I prefer its copyright protections, but this year I may have to give in and post some clips on YouTube.  I already have video clips on my site, but I could do more to keep them fresh–I am a video producer, after all!

2. Set aside less time for email, more time for social media.  According to Neilsen Research, social media has now surpassed email for communication. I want to be sure I’m working in this space and not still getting sucked into the batting-away-emails mode.  Facebook also just surpassed Google in terms of most sought website. So maybe I have to suck it up and put a professional page there, in addition to my personal one. What do you think?

3. Be a more consistent blogger. I’ll admit this year I fell off the wagon a few times and didn’t post weekly. That reduces pickup by Google and other search engines. Guest posting was really successful and I want to add some more guest bloggers this year. Let me know if you’d like to be one!

4. More speaking engagements.  I got pretty tied up with content production this year, and only did a handful of engagements. This year I’ll be giving 5 workshops at the NAB Convention in Vegas, so I’m already on my way to doing more presentations in 2011.  It’s a great way to meet people, and take time to consider the big picture of social media, marketing and brand strategy.

5. More comments from you.  I’ll admit it, I’m a little anxious about posting on controversial subjects. It gets more hits but the comments can get rough. But I’ll try to be a little more daring this year. Shoot me a topic you’d like to hear more about.

Happy New Year to you and yours. May it be a great year for advancing your mission, raising awareness about your issue, or bringing more impact for your company.

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Polishing the Tarnished Brand of Private Philanthropy

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Last week Claire Gaudiani wrote in the San Francisco Examiner about organizations such as the Greenlining Institute and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, who charge that today’s private foundations do not sufficiently meet the needs of society’s poorest and most marginalized populations. In other words, they think private foundations have a poor brand–often for good reason–and it needs fixing. Greenlining and NCRP have been advocating both for set percentages of funding (as much as 50%) for such groups, and also that foundations report the ethnic and racial composition of their boards and staffs.  In many ways, these actions could serve to increase the responsiveness of the foundation sector to people in need. In other ways, these goals could be counterproductive.

First, let’s take the diversity goal. When I work with nonprofit boards, particularly in the area of governance, I am always pushing for diversity. But what I often find is not so much a lack of racial and ethnic diversity as a lack of economic and age diversity.  Age, what’s that got to do with it, you say? Well, a lot.  When I poll boards before working with them, I typically find the bulk of members are within a ten-year age range.  While some boards skew older and some younger, in most cases they are missing members in their 20’s and 30’s and those in their 70’s and 80’s.  From the younger group they could gain a better understanding of the power of social media–with tools like social networks, web video, podcasts, and mobile technologies–to reach donors and service-users alike. (For example, mobile phone use is very high in so-called under-served populations.)  In the older group, they would find experience running organizations, managing investments, and excellent community connections.

In terms of the charge that private foundations should provide more grants to marginalized populations, one of the key stumbling blocks to this funding may be ensuring the readiness of grantees to actually manage the grant, with its reporting, communications, and financial responsibilities. The US Agency for International Development (USAID) provides a good model in the way it provides capacity-building grants to nonprofit re-granting organizations that act as bridges, helping communities and very small nonprofits learn to manage the funding process, build community-based solutions and improve their capacity, so that in the future AID can make them direct grants.  This is a model followed by many private foundations as well, and so the target measurements should take this into account.

There’s no question private foundations can improve their work, and their image. The question is how to do it in a way that benefits society, and builds more capacity within the donor organizations, too.

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Kids Have a Brand, too, in Cyberspace

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As a parent, I know that cyber-bullying has been a hot topic lately.  It seems everywhere we look there’s a PTA meeting about it, or consultant being hired to give us tips. And the most extreme cases have led victimized kids to suicide. Yesterday’s New York Times carried yet another wake-up call article for parents.  Among many frightening stories, it discussed a child who had no presence on Facebook, but whose peers had created a page using his name and images and were posting nasty comments, as if by him, about other kids. As a result, this child was shunned, taunted and ultimately physically threatened.

The idea that your child has a brand online is hard for some of us parents to imagine.  We have a hard enough time managing our own online brands, both personal and professional. Now, we are told, we should have Google Alerts set up for our kids. (It’s a good idea, when you think about it.)

So what can we do to protect our childrens’ good names?

We can teach them to be cautious about what they put online, including texts and IM messages, and consider it public.  We all know college admissions staff, as well as HR personnel, regularly look at websites and social media to do background checks. Which leads to my next point…

Let your kids know you watch what they do (and then actually watch). Some parents are putting keystroke capturing software on their kids’ computers so they can see where they’ve been.  I periodically review texts.  Kids should know that we’re paying attention to what they say and do in cyberspace, just like we do anywhere else.

Teach a healthy skepticism about both what and who is online. In a media literacy classes I teach in schools, I talk about how what you see isn’t exactly always what you get in terms of sources of content.  But we can extend this to the home communications environment. Kids need to know that every avatar isn’t necessarily who they say they are. And that any given text or Facebook post may not be from the person listed.  Impersonation is one a common occurrence in cyber-bullying. The lure of online postings–for both bullies and victims–is the anonymity. Dealing with someone directly, in person or over the phone, can take away some of that power.

Finally, we need to get digi-literate. I teach classes in online brand management and social media for professionals, and I’d say a good majority of my attendees have kids. Yet most are only touching the surface of social networking and online engagement. I’m starting to think I need to add a new call to action: If you don’t want to deal with Twitter, Facebook, IM, interactive tools, and texting for you, do it for your kids.

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