We shape the world, by the questions we ask.

I attended the CleanTech Energy Series last week and heard a fantastic quote, “We shape the world by the questions that we ask.”  If you don’t ask questions, you are satisfied with your current environment.  Challenge, understand and develop an action plan – that what this quote says to me.

Green Marketing

I’ve mentioned previously that I am blogging on social media best practices for the Atlanta Green Chamber of Commerce.  I’m not sure that I’m the most qualified person for the job, but I took the challenge and have enjoyed learning and writing about how to use social media in your business.

Yesterday afternoon, I flew back from Houston and wondered if there was criteria which defined Green Marketing.  Sure enough, with a quick Google search, I found a far amount of information on this topic.  I’ve read through a couple links, and found AWEA’s Principles of Green Marketing to be quite thoughtful, except for number 8 (Other Issues), which I assume is a mis-enter.

Principle number 4 focuses on full-disclosure and,  I believe, this the most important green marketing principle.  After reading EcoIntelligence by Daniel Goldman, I learned of companies like Good Guide and Skin Deep who have started focusing on full disclosure whether companies liked it or not.  A couple thoughts on this, first it puts more onus on the consumer to weight the implications of their purchase.  As learned in Paradox of Choice, more information and choices make decisions exponentially harder for a person – particularly maximizers.

Second, full-disclosure creates a new level intimacy between customers and suppliers.  A supplier who practices full-disclosure is vulnerable, however, if they open and honest about their efforts for improvement and end goal customers will reward them.  Jeff Jarvis has practices full disclosure on his blog and he has earned my trust as a journalist.  I thought of a couple  suppliers that I support that are open about their efforts and impact, Coke, Google and Nike.  I admit that when I walk through the aisles of Kroger, I’m not thinking about a products impact nor do I take the time to research a purchase prior to my trip.   Part of this is my fault and part is the availability of information.  Information flow and availability will improve and resolve that my efforts will as well.  I hope that enough consumers will also make similar improvements.

In closing, I haven’t posted in some time and would like to recognize some of the new web-sites and blogs that I read.  LowImpactLiving and SocialMediaB2B – both are very good and informative.

Bloomingdales

I went to Bloomindales last night to return a gift (pant suit) that I bought for my wife over the holidays.  Two kids in tow, up we went in the escalator to the women’s section of the store.  We turned the first corner to find a cashier checkout and placed the items on the counter and requested a return.  The cashier told us that he could not accept our return at this section of the women’s store and we had to go over the area where we purchased the item.  So, we walked all of 30 feet to a different cashier and returned the item.  This is ridiculous and makes zero sense.  Pleasename someone responsible for this lunacy.  It is the same Bloomingdales after all.

A poor customer experience is just one reason that i choose not to shop in malls anymore.  I just don’t enjoy it.  There are way to many clothes packed into a store and it takes too long to search for something that might interest me.  I will give credit to the two women that helped pick out the original outfit.  They went out of their way to find something that my wife would like.  But, I’ve taken my business online as you would expect and it’s saved me time, money and the hassle.

Regarding the plentiful choices available in the store and mall, in the Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz talks about how decisions become more difficult the more options that you have to choose from.  This is particularly true for a subset of people he calls Maximizers, someone who has to ‘maximize’ their purchase each and every time.  I’m not a Maximizer, but more of a Satisficer.  A satisficer doesn’t need to know that they purchased the best.  They just need to know that their purchase is a good one.  Through the use of Google and Twitter, I find that the Internet is a much more effective way to do this.   Amazon is particular does such a good job of knowing who I am and what books i like to read, i think they know me personally.   Also, Amazon presents me with 3  - 4 items per category on their/my home page; a much more effective way to help me choose the product that I ultimately want.

I trust Amazon to weed out the  products that are inferior and bring to me the top 3 or 4 recommendations that may interest me.   Thanks Amazon.

Do unto others

Chris Brogran and Julien Smith suggest that you should promote others 12x as much as you promote yourself.  It’s something that I need to improve on as my links to other blogs and resources are…well…paltry.  So, no time like today to start.  I’ve learned a lot about social marketing and it’s ability to communicate with customers and people on the web in the last year.  Seth Godin was my first thought leader and continues to provide insight and thought through his blog.  I also read blog posts from the Remarkablogger.  His post today uses a quote from Oscar Wilde, “Be Yourself.  Everybody is already taken.”  I need to put more of myself into my blog as I’ve found it to be an excellent outlet for my thoughts and promote others as Chris and Julien recommend.  Other bloggers that I follow/topics:

Self Improvement – Steve Pavilina

WordPress – Matt Mullenweg CEO

Miscellaneous Blogs - Ewdison, The Leggett, Smartware and Lifehacker

Tech - Slashgear, HongKiat, HowtoCreateaWebsite and Yoast

Goals going forward – promote others 12x more than i promote myself.

Also, in the spirit of promoting others.  I’ve committed $30 to kiva.org to support The Vision Plus Group in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.   My contribution will support Brigette Kasanji and her local spice business.

One last note, I’ve started blogging for the Atlanta Green Chamber of Commerce, specifically on the topic of social media.  I look forward to your comments.

Fun

Thanks to Chris Brogran for posting this video from @boxofcrayons.  The video highlights many points from books by Chris, Seth Godin and other.

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/are-you-ready-for-fun/

Zip to Green

I have the belief that regarding the environment most people want to do the right thing, they just don’t know where to start.  ZiptoGreen is a site that answers many questions and provides a plan for a homeowner so they can do the right thing for their environment and wallet.

Mine Mine Mine

Do you remember the seagulls in the movie Finding Nemo?  When the fish pops to the surface, the seagulls repeatedly claim that the fish is “Mine Mine Mine Mine Mine”  The poor fish stares death in the face and fortunately escapes.  For the fish, it is definitely terrifying.  For the seagulls, they end us fighting over the fish and miss out on the opportunity to enjoy a meal because they are selfish and only think of their self interests.

In some ways this summarizes the past and present models of business.  In the past, businesses were created to make “Mine” as big as possible.  Right?  Companies wanted to own everything, particularly the IP and force additional products onto as their customers.  Profits were maximized because customers couldn’t go anywhere else.  If you controlled the IP and thus the customer, that’s all you really needed.  Customer service, product development, marketing were of secondary concern.  These were the lessons of business school – maximize channel, maximize profits, maximize ownership.

In contrast, InBound Marketing, Trust Agents, Constructive  Capitalism and What Would Google Do? all speak to the substantial benefits if people view things as Ours and promote selflessness as the proper way to build communities and trust networks.    Customers are smarter than ever and have substantiative access to resources.  They’ll figure out if you’ve locked them in.   Would you trust someone who locked you in to an account and raised prices on you without additional features, value, etc.?

This makes the recent introduction of the Nexus One so interesting.  If you’re not locked into a contract, then the power shifts to the cell phone and software maker – not the network.

Trust Agents

I am currently reading Chris Brogan’s book, Trust Agents. 30 pages in, he poses that the future of social media and commerce will be successful through trust agents.  A trust agent is someone who provides unbiased advice on a particular topic.  In other words, you as a consumer trust this person on their recommendations, advice, wisdom, etc.  Chris Brogan is a trust agent of mine for social media.  I know that he’s not going to push products in front of me continuously, rather, he will provide commentary and wisdom on various topics.   Inbound Marketing touched briefly on this, but Chris goes into much more detail.

What does this mean for anyone that works for a company?  Chris seems be more or less a free lance writer who espouses the values of ‘trust’.   It is easy to be unbiased in his position.  Initially, I was skeptical that people who work for a manufacturing company could do the same.  Today, I read that Zappos customer service personnel are welcome to recommend a competitors products if they do not have one in stock or for sale.  That’s a trust agent.

A company could look as registered trust agents as an opportunity or problem.  In pump land, I believe that  a company would not want to admit that their products are not the best.  But, isn’t it better to admit your faults and develop a plan to address them?  I think so.

Do Over –

Seth Godin posted yesterday the 11 things that he would do if he were to start a company today or or would do if he had to play catch up in the market.  http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/12/is-it-too-late-to-catch-up.html.  These are great thoughts and I always respect his opinion.

But how do you ensure an innovative and infectious culture where people want to work?  ”Culture eats strategy for breakfast everyday.”  So sayeth the great management guru Peter Drucker.   This has been a major complaint of mine in the places that I have worked.  People make the difference in the job and without good people who are passionate and a management team that is equally committed everyone ends up going through the motion.

It starts with leadership as the right leader can make or break a subordinate.  I worked for someone a few years ago and this guy sucked the life out of me.  He left me totally demoralized and moved me to probably the lowest point in my professional career.  What bothered me even more was that management did nothing about it. In fact, they promoted him!  I digress, this is not productive.  Based on this experience, I learned much more about what I would do by figuring out that  i would do the opposite of what my former boss did.  Here are my 11 goals for management.

1. Care about people and their lives in and out of work
2. Give people the freedom to make their own decisions and take responsibility for their work
3. Be honest and ethical about situations and topics
4. Encourage group collaboration
5. Have lunch with my employees and tell them when they’re doing a good job
6. Challenge people with new assignments and let them come to me with the answer.  I don’t always have the answer.
7. Listen more than I talk (believe it or not, i once was on a conference call with this guy for 4 hours and didn’t say a word) and ask more questions that statements
8. Pay them appropriately and develop incentives that mean something.
9. Have an open door policy and let my employees know that they can talk with me about anything at anytime.
10. Set a standard of excellence
11. Don’t say, “I’ve already done that.” or “That will never work.” or provide a criticism in a condensing manner.

Be Interesting

Some of the greatest lessons take longer to sink in.  A friend of mine, Marty Gupta, once told me “Be Interesting”.  Yeah yeah yeah I thought, I’m interesting.  I’ve got an MBA, I’ve got a Chemistry degree, I travel the world – I’m interesting.  Everyone would want to hear what I have to say.  Marty’s “Be Interesting” is very similar to Seth Godin’s “Remarkable”.  Give people a reason to talk about you.

It took me a long time for me to realize that I’m not interesting.  You’re interesting if you engage people in conversations, seek out and make meaningful relationship, help people, get your name out in the world, etc.  This is what I have to work on.  It’s four or five years too late, but thanks Marty.

This guy is interesting -