Insights

The Power of a Great Idea

When he was pre-planning Nintendo Wii video game?Disney Epic Mickey, gaming legend?Warren Spector?(creator of classic games?System Shock?and?Deus Ex) took a slightly different approach to how the game would pan out.

Instead of having his best designers, scripters, coders and creatives brainstorming ideas, Spector got a bunch of interns together from the Disney Interactive Studios intern group. He then let them have free range over coming up with ideas on the game’s look, feel and plot.

The result is one of the most unique and successful games from last year’s holiday period, with a great twist in gameplay mechanics. It’s also proof in Warren Spector’s belief in the power of a great idea: you don’t have to have years of experience to come up with greatness.

Now think how your business can transfer a video game’s approach to your overall one.

Age is a Fallacy

As Spector’s use of interns show, age doesn’t always equate to experience. Sure, the older you are, the more experience you?have?of things. But this generation has grown up with the web as a standard; who do you think would be the best people to have brainstorming a web project, for example?

Think of the people you have versus the people you need?- they’re not always the same thing.

Ears Are Better Than Eyes

The first step to any sales success is listening to what the market needs. Sure, as marketers, our job is to provide what the market wants (or at least make the market want our products). But sometimes we really do just need to listen to what the market needs. Our eyes can see trends and results of action; but our ears can get the real story behind the trend (or even before it happens).

Listen more – don’t just rely on sight. Listen to your employees; your customers; your sales team; your competitors. Don’t just accept what you see;?interpret what you hear.

Greatness Never Ends

Just because you have one big hit that pays the bills for the next ten years, don’t accept that that’s necessarily all you need to do. Royalties are great but times change – your great idea from last year might be next year’s black sheep.

Continue to push yourself and ask what worked; why it worked; what didn’t; how it can be improved. Acknowledge the great ideas that others have had, and ask how you can adapt to your own needs. Ideas only stop when you’re dead.

How about you – how are you powering?your?great idea?

image:?Abdulrahman’photographer

“Haters Gonna Hate” Or A Lame Assed Cop Out?

Opinions are great. They allow people to share their thoughts on something, and contribute to a conversation that otherwise may have passed them by.

Opposing opinions are even better, as they stop us from becoming too ego-centric and full of our own bunkum. Opposing opinions can make us re-evaluate our viewpoints with fact and make us better people for learning new ideas.

Of course, the problem with having opposing opinions to something is that, often, the people you’re questioning don’t like it. So they get snarky. Or, if that person’s a blogger, their adoring fans respond to your comment with a “Haters gonna hate” reply.

Seriously, what the f*ck does that have to do with anything?

Because someone doesn’t have their nose up your demigod’s ass too, all of a sudden that makes them a hater? Get real.

You want hate? Try being gay in Jamaica. Or try being ethnic in some parts of Canada. Or try being a woman in Afghanistan. Or try expressing your civil rights in Equatorial Guinea.

That’s hate, right there. Where your life is about as valued as dog crap. The people living in these places and experiencing that hate every day would laugh in your face if you said an opinion on a blog post, or an online thought, meant you were a hater.

The sad thing is, it’s becoming more common to use the “haters gonna hate” excuse for countering a different opinion. I’ve seen social media leaders use it, or not do anything to discourage it in their readers, and I’ve seen people use it more when someone expresses a valid opinion or counter-point.

Here’s the thing though – the “haters gonna hate” exuse? It’s just a lame cop out by people that have usually been called out on crap, and have nothing valid to respond with. It means your ass has been handed to you, and all you can come up with is the person that just handed you your ass is obviously a hater.

Trouble is, others see that you’ve been called out too with a valid counterpoint. And coming back with a “haters gonna hate” soundbite just makes you look as lame as the term itself.

Especially when you put it into context alongside real hate in the world…

image: kenfagerdotcom

American Express and Foursquare – So What?

Over at Fast Company, there’s a post about the American Express partnership with Foursquare. While the announcement is interesting, the direction that Fast Company runs with the article is less so.

According to Fast Company, the AMEX/FourSquare deal?“…might finally give us some hard evidence as to whether social media is a worthwhile investment for merchants and marketers.”

Ummm… riiiiigghht.

I’m not sure where Fast Company has – or hasn’t – been looking, but agencies, consultants and business owners have been proving the ROI (return on investment) for a while now.

The Easy Social Media Management Example

Lauren McMullen is the owner of Easy Social Media Management, a consultancy that helps small businesses understand social media and how it can help their bottom line. Her agency was recently involved in a book launch for an anthology called Align, Expand and Succeed – Shifting the Paradigm of Entrepreneurial Success.

The book featured 40 authors, and over a six-month period Lauren used the social networks of the authors and the publisher to build awareness around the impending publication. This included blogs, YouTube interviews, and article directory promotions.

Because of this, the book became an Amazon bestseller on the morning of launch, and held the number one position in the four categories it was targeted to.

The Willis eTech Ltd. Example

John Willis is the founder and owner of Willis eTech Ltd., a small business offering photography, video and websites for other small businesses based in Okanagan, BC.

While flying over the newly-opened Sparkling Hills resort in Vernon, BC, John took some pictures of the resort and uploaded them to his TwitPic account. He tweeted the owner of the area where Sparkling Hills had opened their resort, and was invited to contact them.

That led to a bunch of photography and media projects for John’s company, and his use of other social media platforms saw him become recognized as the go-to guy in his area for social media and how it can be used to drive business. He speaks at local Chamber of Commerce events as well as seminars, and trains businesses on how they can effectively use social media.

Why the AMEX / Foursquare Deal Isn’t All That

These are just two examples. If you want others, just type in?“social media roi success stories” to Google and you’ll find just under 3,000 results. Now, that may not sound much in the grand scheme of things, especially when other Google searches often result in millions of examples.

But that’s more than likely to do with the fact that instead of writing about how the ROI of social media is real, most businesses and agencies are just getting on with proving it to their clients, as opposed to trying to show how great they are in public.

They’re making results happen every single day – which is why the Fast Company angle means less than they might have hoped for.

For instance, according to the article, one of the “big wins” with the deal is that Foursquare will “…help merchants foster customer loyalty.” By encouraging check-ins and rewards, and the ability to tie back into your AMEX card, it means more people will shop at your location.

Great stuff. Except for one major problem – you don’t have to be at a location to check in. You don’t have to physically be there to become a Mayor and reap the rewards for it (like a free meal, or a discount on your clothing, etc).

My house is about 5 miles away from my office. Yet, by not checking in anywhere when I leave the office, I can be at home and check into my office because of the way Foursquare caches my last check-in.

Think about that from the point of view of a restaurant owner. They decide to offer a free meal and drink to the Mayor of their restaurant. I see that, so start checking in, even though I’ve never been there before in my life. I become Mayor, get my free meal and drink, don’t pay a thing and leave.

I then get my friends to do the same, and between us we constantly force the restaurant owner to give us free meals and drinks. But we never go to that restaurant as paying customers.

So… where’s the loyalty building in that?

Until location-based services can actually lock you down somewhere and make it impossible for you to check in somewhere unless you’re there, you’re not going to build loyalty through offers. You will, however, lose the vendor money – and that doesn’t build loyalty or ROI.

image: Slightlynorth