Can someone tell Capitol Records that the music has stopped?

If you haven’t been following events, Capitol Records (EMI) has sued Boston-based Redigi (a used digital music marketplace) for what amounts to copyright infringement. 

Today, Google decided to enter the fray as a third party, and filed an amicus curiae brief (friend of the court) to ask the court to allow their participation in some key disputes.  In Google’s estimation, Capitol Records is attempting to blur the established fair use, copyright legal lines. 

Here is what Google is trying to protect:

1. The ability to allow people, at their own discretion, to move or copy their legally owned digital files.

2. That the service provider cannot be held liable for a users action with regards to #1

3. The fair use doctrine where users can copy their legally owned, digital files to other devices or cloud services controlled by the user.

4.  That ReDigi is infringing on Capitol’s exclusive right to “distribute copies or phonorecords,” despite Capitol’s admission that no material objects are distributed.  And that Google, “urges the Court to reject an internally inconsistent argument that would weaken the statutory restrictions on the distribution right.” 

Capitol is fighting for the old status quo and is willing to sacrifice anyone that gets in their way.  Their filing against Redigi is an attempt to rewrite and revise established law to suit their pre-digital interests. 

Why? As Google states, they are fighting over a 41 billion marketplace. A marketplace slowing slipping out of their control.  Instead of embracing the future, they’re endeavoring to fight it.

They may also be concerned about the conversations swirling around regarding some deep pocket investments and/or the potential acquisition of Redigi by some major players.  If that happens, the music industry will need a new strategy in its attempt to avoid irrelevancy. 

The Music Industry Needs a New Strategy

It’s as if the Capitol Records legal team is litigating for litigation sake.  Cranking up the last bit of fees in an attempt to milk the last bit of cash from the last bit of control Capitol has on the industry.

As Google warns: “The Court can and should deny the motion for preliminary injunction without reaching the complex and profound legal issues outlined above because any decision should be informed.” 

One has to wonder if Capitol has been informed that we’ve entered the digital age. Because their decision to fight, not embrace and profit from the new, digital era will only expedite their departure from it.

According to a recent Gallup Poll, about a third of all U.S. workers are dissatisfied with either the recognition they receive, their chances for promotion, or the amount of money they earn. Worse, seventy-one percent of American workers are "not engaged" or "actively disengaged" in their work. 

Since most of us cannot change the economy, I’d like to focus on what we can do at work instead.

I’m going to share a few strategies garnered from my discussions with Michael Wu, Lithium’s Principal Scientist, and author of The Science of Social.  And I am going to make you a promise.  If you follow these strategies and and act on Wu’s insights, I believe you’ll minimize dissatisfaction amongst the rank and file while increasing worker productivity.

Sounds too good to be true?

I know it sounds fluffy, but there’s some real science and empirical evidence behind the strategies. My hope is that it will motivate you to start changing how your company stimulates its most important resource. Your employees.  

Motivation Science and Worker Productivity

What motivates people?

Wu believes it has a lot to do with intrinsic motivation, “Dan Pink wrote about autonomy, mastery and purpose. But there’s another and it’s called relatedness. Scott Rigby is a researcher for motivation. He found that autonomy, competence, relatedness and reasons are essentially the four intrinsic motivations for people. That relatedness is actually what a lot of people just call social. It’s the social facilitation and the social competition.”

Strategy #1: Intrinsic Motivation, Place People in their Proper Positions

Do you have salespeople that seem to gravitate to Marketing? How about the CTO that is often found late at night programming new code to solve simple problems. Problems best left to the junior staff.  Perhaps there’s a mismatch in what they are currently doing, versus what really interests them. 

Wu suggests we figure out what motivates people intrinsically by letting them self-select, “People’s intrinsic motivations are fairly stable. They don’t change from day to day. They do change over long periods of time, but overall they’re pretty stable. You essentially have to let them perform a lot of things and let them choose what they like to do. That’s autonomy. Giving them autonomy to choose what they like to do.”

I know it’s not easy to simply throw away the old human resources playbook. But increasingly, not placing people in the role that intrinsically motivates them is not going to work. It doesn’t matter that the individual had a career path in Sales. If she is passionate about Marketing, then you must find a way for her to be involved with Marketing.

Sorry, this is the price you need to pay for a happier, engaged and ultimately more productive employee.    

Strategy #2: Work Needs to be More Like a Video Game

Most video games give the player enough autonomy to select his own path.  It’s not a linear path to success, but a series of choices the employee makes to reach a goal.  Sure the goals and objectives need to be defined by the company, but give people real choice and feedback along the way.

Wu expands on the importance of feedback, “You need to show an employee’s progress and give them rapid feedback. Typically this requires tracking and analytics. You need to track everything they do that’s relevant to their job. For an engineering organization, you may want to track how many lines of codes they submitted then compare it to their colleagues.  You need to provide specific, rapid feedback every time they check in. There’s also some long return performance metrics. Over a long period of time, a quarter or a year, you also want to be able to track their performance.”

Most people like video games because they are receiving rapid feedback (usually a score) about their performance. Better, the score increases when the player is closer to the goal, and may even decrease if they stray too far from it.

Wu emphasizes the point, “I can’t imagine playing a video game and not receiving a score until the game was over. That would be kind of a weird feeling.”

Why can’t work be more like a video game? We’d all enjoy it more.

Strategy #3: Gamify Employee Training

Muhammad Ali used to say that, “I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.’"

The problem is that most of us hate corporate training and tend to tune out.  The drab, preach and memorize training methodology, is losing our attention to social media, television, blogs and other more engaging media.

Employees then become demotivated and less likely to follow procedure and thus don’t become champions. 

The antidote? Wu likes to cite an anecdote about Microsoft’s Ribbon Hero 2 as an example of combining training with gamification: “Microsoft made the training tool for the Office Suite into a game. It’s actually a serious, educational game,” Wu explains, “Ribbon Hero tracks all the features you use and then recommends a feature and challenges you. Suppose you are trying to write and publish content to the web using Microsoft Word. It will challenge you and ask, ‘Do you know that you can better format and convert graphics for web formats?’”

Once the task is complete, the game rewards the user with points or badges.

To make training more engaging and more motivating, provide training experiences that reward people for accomplishing the right tasks correctly. 

The brutal truth is that you’re wasting money on training consultants and internal support employees that are following the old playbook.  Spend that money instead on designing intelligent training systems that work.

Strategy #4 The Technology Choices Your Company Makes Impacts Success at Work

We have many technology choices at work. Some we like and some we dislike intensely.  Do you monitor the use of them in your company to determine efficacy and adoption rates?

Have you ever noticed how fast Yammer is adopted in most organizations? It’s easy to set up and use, anyone can participate, and the discussions are broadcast to subscribers in order to maximize distribution.  In turn, anyone can comment or post their own message to the organization.  No friction, no permission. 

Conversely, most project management systems are difficult to set up and use, require extensive training, and as a result, only a handful of people use them.  

Wu describes the need for gamification in business tools to create critical mass and engagement, “A lot of times the way we work is heavily dictated by the technology choice that a company makes. It changes the way that people work. I think an important aspect of that is for  technology vendors to infuse gamification principles in their technology to drive a social facilitation, a social competition which is related to aspects of motivation.”

You see, your technology choices can make your employees collaborative or solitary. The wrong tool choice can lead to apathy, while the right choice can launch your company to new heights. And that’s something worth investing in.

Strategy #5 Reward Failure, Expect Better Results

What if I told you that with one policy change, you can completely transform your organization while increasing employee engagement?  Would you listen or show me the door?

Employees rarely take unnecessary risks because of the fear of failure. ‘Failure’ and ‘loss of employment’ have become ‘cause and effect’ in most organizations. Yet in order to innovate as an organization you need to fail.

Fail by brainstorming new ideas. Fail by conducting myriad experiments. Fail by testing concepts with customers, thought leaders and visionaries.  Eventually, the organization learns from those failures and develops something remarkable.

Wu underscores the situation by highlighting how employees feel today, “Right now in big corporations, part of the reason that people don’t take the opportunity to self-actualize (Maslov’s highest level of need) is because they’re afraid to fail. They’ve been so entrenched in this kind of environment that punishes failure that they’d rather not take that chance.”

Bluntly, afraid to fail stifles innovation and creativity.

If you’re a Manager of people, change the rules. Encourage people to try new ideas, let them know it’s okay to fail (without retribution). Psychologically, your employees will open up new reservoirs of creativity and will share it with the group. In turn, the group will either make the ideas better or suggest new ideas instead.   

Either way, you win. 

In the Future, Companies Will Work Like the Movie Industry

The future, according to Wu, is about finding work that we enjoy: “It’s hard to find the jobs that place people into a mental state that psychologists call flow.  Flow of work that people enjoy. Most people are pushed into a corner to do routine things that they hate to do.”

Wu believes the future workplace will work like the movie business, where self selected experts participate as needed: “Every single movie that’s been produced works in the following way. You gather the right people, people who have the specific skill you need – the lighting specialist, the makeup artist, the actors, the film crew – you put them together, they work on this project and once they’re finished they disperse.”

For me, it’s hard to tell where the future workplace is headed.  I do know that the five strategies Wu highlighted above should be implemented today in order to reverse the dissatisfaction trend. 

Study them, better – implement them. Take the opportunity to be a leader while improving your organization’s effectiveness. 

Do you have stories to tell about employee motivation? Have you tried gamification techniques?

Please share your own ideas in the comments below.

(all images are creative commons from Flickr and are linked above)

The song Blackout is moving up the Music Industry charts, and is bound to reach number one because it fits the industry’s belief systems.

In what can only be described as acts of Dumb and Dumber, the music industry is now targeting businesses in their quest to censor the internet and control our rights to digital goods. 

Just recently, EMI filed suit against Boston based Redigi in an attempt to shut down the company’s facilitation of used music sales.  In EMI’s complaint, the company claims that, “While ReDigi touts its service as the equivalent of a used record store, that analogy is inapplicable: used record stores do not make copies to fill their shelves,” and further, “ReDigi is actually a clearinghouse for copyright infringement and a business model built on widespread, unauthorized copying of sound recordings.”

Apparently the Music Industry, EMI and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) forgot to re-read the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) which states, and I’ve borrowed from blogger Bijan Sabet here:

1. Users take responsibility for content they upload
2. Content owners notify website owners of infringing material
3. Website owners receive the notice, review the notice and then take down any infringing content.

In other words, Redigi is protected from legal action because the user is responsible for their actions. That’s why sites like eBay and YouTube are not shut down or sued by over-zealous copyright holders. 

In it’s response filed today, Redigi counters that it’s not creating copies, but legally facilitating a sales of legally owned music. Redigi’s service is so sophisticated that it can detect legally owned music from copies and thus only allow the sale of legally owned, digital goods.  Also, that first sale doctrine applies in digital goods as it does in the analog world.  In other words, Redigi only allow users to sell legally purchased digital music and that right is secured by law. 

From my viewpoint, we are dealing with part two in the horror of the grotesquely senseless. That Hollywood and the Music Industry haven’t yet understood that they are in a new world. A world not controlled by scripts, stages, sets and lights.

And after years of preaching about infringement violation, they are attempting to infringe on ours. They are effectively saying that we no longer have the right to the digital goods we buy. That they still own them even after we pay for them.  That first sale doctrine is suspended because they say so. 

To further understand the lunacy of the Music Industry’s attitude, observe the RIAAs callous reaction to the Wikipedia self imposed blackout RIAAs:  "After Wikipedia blackout, somewhere, a student today is doing original research and getting his/her facts straight," tweeted spokesmen Jonathan Lamy. 

Notably, in the practice what you preach department, Lamy later deleted the tweet in an ironic act of self-censorship. 

From my perspective, the music industry possesses neither the mind nor the initiative to understand that the world has passed them by. They are stuck in a type of mind-set epitomized by the intellectually sterile.  No new ideas, no understanding of new business models, and no reason to connect with the 21st century.

They are having to deal with irrelevancy, and are striving to bring the rest of us with them. 

I can’t help but laugh at the TechCrunch gang’s corporate ad hominem last week. It seemed more of a personal attack than any real attempt to provide a product review. 

TechCrunch didn’t merely reproach their building mate, they reprimanded them. Stranger, most of the article really didn’t say anything at all, because they were not talking to us. They seem to be too entranced by TechCrunch.

I have to agree with Alexia Tsotsis’s dating analogy when referring to their relationship with Yammer, “Everyone knows someone who dates a girl that they’re not particularly into but for some reason they haven’t made the move to cut ties.”

I imagine Yammer feels the same way. I imagine how they want to respond in public but as the more mature party, they’ve taken the high road.  I imagine if they were to have responded, the retort would have gone something like this:

SUBJECT: “Let’s Just Be Friends”

How do you manage a relationship with a gang of Sybils?

You’re practicing the kind of journalism that psychologists refer to as Dissociative identity disorder. You love us, you hate us, make up your many minds.

Your behavior is like the boyfriend that is obsessed with us on one day, and then is slashing our tires the next.  The guy that sends us flowers in the morning but prank calls us at night.  The girl who claims she “needs her space”, but later stalks us like prey.  

Your Jekyll and Hyde routine seems to be triggered by random, dissociative acts or simply for the computer-game fun of it. It’s hard to tell which.

As you may know, Mark Twain once said: “character may be learned from the adjectives which she uses in conversation”, which is telling given the number of times the word ‘sucks’ is used in your article. He should have added that, in order to properly judge ones work, you must have undertaken the responsibility yourself.

So let’s add up and compare the tangible contributions to society and business.  We have millions of users around the world collaborating, sharing and creating new products using our software. 80 percent of the Fortune 500 are using Yammer to break down communication barriers to surface and improve on ideas. We’re facilitating real connections between a company’s suppliers and partners from Brazil to Russia to India to China in order to strengthen relationships across cultures and geographic boundaries.

And what are you creating? How are you benefiting society? Are you working for or against it?

But, to be disappointed, you must first have an expectation of something good and this is your journalism we’re talking about. You seem to be acting like the snob who snubs for the sake of snubbing.  Or that we missed our protection shakedown payment and your making us your public display.

We’re left to wonder if Fred Wilson’s warning is coming true, that after Michael Arrington and a few others left, the media powerhouse would lose its swag.  After pondering the issue, Wilson closes his thoughts with, “But I’m not terribly worried about it. The TechCrunch audience, including me, will find new sources of news, information, and entertainment elsewhere if that’s what needs to happen.”

But hey, let’s let bygones be bygones, alter egos be united, hurt feelings be forgiven – in fact, let’s just be friends.

H.R. 2930 appears to be just another US Congressional Bill winding its way through the system. Yet I can imagine most Professional Angel Investors recognize (or should) the bill and its potential impact on their livelihood.  The House has already passed it with a 95% majority. It’s now on to the Senate and possibly the White House.

If the bill passes (watch the latest Congressional Bill Progress), you can say good bye to the Professional Angel Investment Community as we know it today.

Here’s Why 

H.R. 2930 or the “Entrepreneur Access to Capital Act,”  would provide companies the ability to raise up to $1 million (US) to fund projects and companies. The bill will ease fund raising restrictions and regulations on both companies and investors.   So if you are a start up in need of an early round of financing, you no longer need to ask friends and family, you can ask friend of friends or their extended network for seed capital. 

And that’s where companies like Kickstarter will have an advantage over Angel Investors. 

Let’s face it, the Professional Angel community is insular. They invest in each others deals, they invest in similar types of deals, and they invest in who they know.  Why? Because it’s safe and they have a legitimate need to protect their client’s capital.  But that has led to a lack of investment diversity and has created an investment “group think” that is limiting the potential of the community.

Conversely, sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo enable people with a diversity of knowledge, skills and experience to fund projects and receive rewards for helping entrepreneurs. It’s called crowdfunding and it allows almost anyone to give money to an entrepreneur to complete a project.

In some aspects it’s like American Idol.  Because it enables anyone to vote (by making a prescribed monetary pledge) and become a fan of a project (by following it).  At the end of 30 days if the pledges don’t meet the minimum requirement as set by the entrepreneur, then the money is refunded to the investors.  If the project funding goals are met, then the project moves forward, but with an important added fan base.

Today on crowdsourcing sites, project funding ranges between $100 – $8000 and pledges a fraction of that amount. But if H.R. 2930 passes, you can bet crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter will quickly move into the business of helping entrepreneurs raise Angel levels of capital ($100,000 to $1 million) . 

So why will the Professional Angel Investment community die? Because, if entrepreneurs are given a choice between raising funds through an opaque, arduous and slow Professional Angel route versus a much more efficient, diverse and knowledgeable path, the latter will win ever time.

To further emphasize the point, I’ve also prepared a summary table which differentiates the options:

I understand the value, knowledge and relationships that most Professional Angel investors bring, but in the future, that value will be crowdsourced as well.  More on this below.

Case Study: KickStarter

Rather than speculate, I decided to invest in a Kickstarter project myself to understand how it all works. I chose an iPhone/iPad game called Stop Those Fish by Eye Interactive for three reasons.

First, I know the founder of Eye Interactive and he sent me an invite email to participate. Second, I could tell that Eye Interactive’s new game was creating buzz from my personal network which provided me with social proof (due diligence).  Third, his first game Zombi Samurai reached #3 on the charts making it one of the most successful games in the last few months.

I asked Jason Seldon, Eye Interactive’s founder why he decided to raise funds from Kickstarter versus taking a more traditional route through Angel’s or friends and family.  Seldon responded, “I believe Kickstarter’s value goes way beyond their stated value proposition of being a new way to fund creative projects. In addition to helping individuals and small businesses fund these creative endeavors, I believe it is also a way to generate tremendous pre-release buzz for a new product and to build a fan base prior to launch.”

Seldon continues,  “It gives early adopters a unique sense of ownership over a new product. In our case, project backers actually get their names in the game credits. So it really encourages a deep connection with consumers. In a sense, you are building a street team comprised of all of your project backers prior to product launch. These individuals can then serve as brand ambassadors to help make your newly launched product a success.”

What the Crowdfunding Critics Have to Say

If the bill passes, the first objection you’ll hear from critics in regards to crowdfunding sites is the opportunity for scam artists to commit fraud and place unsophisticated investors at risk of losing their capital.

My reply to objection # 1 is twofold.  First as we’ve seen with Wall Street, even sophisticated systems that are heavily regulated are subject to fraud.  In this case, several hundred billion.  Second, because sites like Kickstarter do their own background checks, make the process transparent, and allow potential investors to see who has invested (social proof), the risk is mitigated by a number of check points.  I’m not saying it’s fool-proof, in fact I am positive we’ll see fraud at some point, but the benefits of crowdfunding far outweigh the potential for fraud.

The second objection I hear is that new start-ups will lose the coaching and networking opportunities from a professional Angel investor.  In the short run, I agree with this objection. But in the near future, crowdfunding sites will overtake those basic functions and eventually crowd source the networking, intelligence and strategy aspect the Angels provide today.  More, crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter will enable virtual teams to sign on (think eLance meets Kickstarter) to help start-ups fill talent quality gaps.     

Who else will H.R. 2930 benefit?

Besides start-ups, crowdfunding sites, and mom and pop investors, companies like Angel List, and Bolstr will offer nearly anyone the opportunity to participate in an investment round. 

For example, if the Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) start-up Nimble wanted to quickly raise a round of capital, Angel’s List could convert Nimble’s followers to investors by offering them a chance to participate in their next round of funding.  If the new bill passes, I suspect Angel List will provide a swipe your credit card platform to participate.   

As a quick aside, I’d like to touch on is the rich analytics and statistical information these crowdfunding sites can potentially track. Imagine giving start-ups the ability to see how many page visits, clicks, and conversions they’ve had to their page. More, who is referring potential investors to the page? Which segments of social networks seem to be supporting the idea the most? What is the sentiment of start-ups product?

That information could be used for a variety of purposes from improving the business idea to increased transparency. 

So let’s review…

• The Professional Angel community will quickly lose its wings if H.R. 2930 passes. You can bet on it.
• Sites, like Kickstarter, IndieGoGo, Angel List, and Bolstr will offer superior services through the crowd sourcing of funding, talent and the ability to organically build a fan base.
• These crowdfunding sites will eventually offer superior access to intelligence and strategy than professional Angels provide today.
• The crowdfunding process is much more transparent but potentially more dangerous than traditional Angel financing.  

Ok, now tell me what you think…

The Performance Marketing industry has grown in complexity, making it difficult to separate the professionals from the second-tier players and unscrupulous amateurs. But while the industry can be complex–and even turbulent as laws, practices, and legislation try to keep pace with tactics– it also is too important to ignore. Talented performance marketers with solid ethics can change your business. They can show you what really works in the digital space—what performs, what brings back a positive ROI. And they can do this on a performance-basis, making it possible for merchants to grow their businesses without vast budgets. Yet, for merchants and new comers to the industry, it is often hard to find the true leaders among all the noise and distractions in the space.

According to the Performance Marketing Industry, “In performance marketing, advertisers and marketers only pay for successful transactions. Each transaction is based on a consumer taking a defined action, such as making a purchase from the advertiser or signing up for a subscription. The trackability of performance marketing isn’t based on estimates. It’s based on actual results — meaning that a marketing program’s effectiveness is accurately determined, down to the mouse click.”

It’s an important, multibillion dollar industry where the best publishers and advertisers can improve their bottom lines significantly.  With that in mind, the Santa Barbara, California company Impact Radius researched and developed a list of influencers that not only cut through the noise, but deliver the best advice.  Advice that is influential and focuses people on the right actions.

The new infographic from Impact Radius , showing the top 25 online influencers in the Performance Marketing community, is an impressive array of individuals who sustain community through sharp insight and advice. While some companies try to influence a community of thought leaders, the best ones create or sustain a community of influencers.

Here is the list in infographic form:

Saddened by the loss of an individual who has brought great joy and anticipation back into our lives.  He’s the only individual I know of where millions of people tune into his product announcements.  He’s earned that level of attention by bringing to market products that create emotional bonds with the owner.   So, out of respect, I spent a few hours putting this tribute together for him. 

I appreciate everything he’s done for us.  

It’s not in character for these advocates to boast, which is appropriate, really, for the cause they are supporting leaves little to boast about.  They could of course, if they were the bragging type, brag about the 300,000 Facebook fans they acquired in just 70 days; or the one million unique visitors to their 911day.org and fan page during the first 9 months of 2011; or even that their “I Will” campaign reached the #1 global trending topic on Twitter last Sunday.   

But perhaps the most notable thing the 911Day.org organizers started, but won’t tell you, is that they were the first organization to promote the idea of 9/11 as a day of charitable service.

10 Years to “I Will”

This past week marked the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy and in its aftermath, the 911Day.org movement.  Founders Jay Winuk and David Paine started the movement when on September 11, 2001, Jay lost his younger brother Glenn J. Winuk, an attorney and volunteer firefighter, who was killed in the line of duty when the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.

Although both these anniversaries passed year after year- only the 9/11 tragedy garnered the attention is so justly deserved.  For Jay, David and their initiative, it was challenging not gaining any traction. Yet they soldiered on – achieving some small but inconsequential victories.

“To me it felt like over the last decade we were a little like The Little Engine that Could. It was never easy. Every year was a struggle to raise the money we needed and for some years we were running a deficit. We were not raising enough money to cover our costs. My wife and I donated a lot of money in the early days to keep this thing afloat. There were quite a number of years when I wondered if this thing was ever going to go anywhere,” explained Paine.

To most of us, there may not have been enough determination to keep the movement alive. Yet most of us are not David or Jay. It’s not that we don’t care about promoting a day of service; it’s that our will to press on diminishes over time. The motivational equivalent of poor management, where efforts are perpetually ignored, triggering enthusiasm to fade.

Fortunately, Paine had a burning passion for the idea, explaining, “We really believed in it. We believed in it before anybody else did. I truly believe that people fundamentally are good and when given the opportunity to express that compassion, they will willingly and generously do so with very little effort. I just felt that if we stuck it out, it would come to pass; it would come to fruition.”

Hope came as President Obama and Congress passed a law that make September 11th a federally recognized National Day of Service and Remembrance. “That helped generate a significant increase in interest, adoption and awareness. That was a big development for us and because of that we were able to raise about $700,000 in 2009,” Paine emphasized.

How 911Day.org became the most recognized 9/11 social movement (think differentiating strategy and social media execution) 

Adverse, dramatic events often result in positive outcomes. It also helps to have extremely talented and forward thinking people at your side. One such person is Kirk Souder, Executive Director of the Agency GOOD/Corps which is a Strategic/Creative Consultancy in the social impact space.

Paine gives Souder credit for helping to organize a group of architects that, “came and donated a lot of their time to develop not just the execution elements like what kind of campaign elements do we need, like Public Service Announcements (PSAs), fan pages, marketing tactics but more important, what’s your brand strategy?”

The set of elements that raised the thermostat of awareness for the movement wasn’t the Website, Facebook Fan Page, Twitter account or email messages sent out; but the communication strategy and supporting platform that enabled 911Day.org to achieve its goals. 

“At GOOD Corps we’re very, almost maniacal about starting off with an end in mind and real results. There’s a lot of public service work out there that just kind of puts out some nice PSAs and they’re done with it. We really wanted to center everybody on what is our objective? We set out to say let’s really go for hundreds of thousands of tributes. What would we need to do to make that happen?” explained Souder.

The first significant breakthrough occurred when Souder’s team realized that “volunteerism” to most people means days, weeks or even months of time spent on an activity. They concluded that if they positioned the movement that way, they would not achieve the cultural penetration they were seeking.

Souder explains, “From the beginning what we really wanted to do was to literally change the meaning of 9/11 from one of negativity to one of positive construction, positive change, people doing good things for one another. To have a level of cultural penetration, the first thing we did was to say ‘let’s frame up for the American public what we mean by tribute.’ It can be any one of three sizes really. It can be a dedicated day or two volunteering. It can be something in the middle which takes an hour. Or, your tribute can take a single minute. For example having a positive, social discussion with your child, reading a book to your grandmother, or whatever you want it to be.”

The simple but genius idea here is that they made the act of tribute wholly inclusive. They redefined the act of volunteering to include micro acts of tribute.  Here, it’s safe to say, no one’s inner voice is going to provide an excuse not to participate since the act of volunteering covers all manner of lifestyle and social status.

But 911Day.org still had an awareness and branding problem. They needed a simple tagline that resonated with the American public in order to make it shareable and viral. So after some heaving brainstorming, Souder’s team presented a few ideas to Paine and 911Day.org and shortly thereafter “I Will” was born. Think “I will do this tribute act on this day,” where the first two words of any tribute start with ‘I will.’     

Souder went on to explain, “We believed could turn this into a cultural meaning where everyone was going to use that sentence in their own way. So that’s how ‘I will’ was generated.”

Creating the Social Communication Platform

One of the skills of a public relations firm is to communicate a message in a clever and appealing way. So it was a pleasure for Souder’s team to see how open 911Day.org was to many of their new and innovative approaches.  Approaches ranging from creating a digital quilt of “I Will” tributes posted online to forming strategic partnerships with Nascar, the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB) and critically, the Creative Artists Agency (CAA).  

“Even though people on the outside regard us as a kind of nonprofit, we took it on as if we were doing this work for any big brand in America and how could we integrate this across all different technology channels, all different kinds of communications channels? That’s what we did,” said Souder.  And all of it culminated in to the number one trending topic on Twitter on 9/11; but more on that later.

Souder’s team used a mix of both offline and online communication channels to promote awareness. Offline they leveraged TV and radio spots, print, outdoor advertising. One of the more creative things that occurred was a Times Square takeover by 300 Broadway stars who sang New York, New York in support of the campaign. 

Online they placed digital banners on relevant websites, created social network campaigns, and organized tweet campaigns to funnel prospective volunteers to their website and Facebook fan page. 

There is a noteworthy observation that might have some currency with CMOs. The key to the success of the awareness campaign was not the offline/online multichannel communication approach, but how they presented the content to the recipient.

“We created a number of scenarios of different people talking about their tribute. We were careful in how we supplied the audience with a range of content to where they would see people do something as simple as forgiving another person, or having a conversation with a loved one, or even a larger commitment to volunteering at a homeless shelter. We were very strategic in how we lined those things up,” Souder explained. 

The New Game: Participatory Brand Relationships for Social Causes

One of the most striking things about Souder’s experience with the “I Will” campaign is the level of audience participation they received.  He aimed for awareness and acquired participation. For that he has many people to thank (see below), but the key things he learned are:

1. Brands have to identify that there’s something about the core business of the brand that is making a positive social impact in the world.
2. They have to enable people an easy and accessible way to participate in that higher cause or purpose

Souder emphasized, “If brands do that, they will be successful.  They will move the audience from passive viewers to advocates and champions of the brand.”

For brands the lesson seems to be come full circle back to Peter Drucker’s ever popular maxim, “That such objectives (social responsibility objectives) need to be built into the strategy of a business, rather than merely be statements of good intentions.” It’s essential to note however, that Drucker cautioned that the enterprise must first and foremost resist responsibility for a social problem that would impair the performance of the business.

But does the new age of the Social Enterprise allow brands to promote worthy causes related to their own profit goals while minimizing the expenses? Better, do these new social strategies and tools allow companies to simultaneously profit from selling their products to an engaged audience while helping society profit from a participatory community? 

This sense of community empowerment and brand advocacy — where both society and brand benefit — is what makes the experience of the 911Day.org’s movement such a potential game-changer for brands. And in case you are wondering, companies like American Express,  GlaxoSmithKline, Best Buy and Chase all recognized the value of participating.

This could get interesting for all the shared social causes that intersect with brand values. For example, American Express lost 10 people in the 9/11 attacks. Their shared cause with 911Day.org dovetailed nicely into a powerful campaign that motivated 600,000 people to volunteer for service. Responsibly, American Express probably did not profit from this campaign, but in other circumstances it will make sense to benefit financially.

Our Social Advocacy Future

It’s now all about social engagement.  Brand and community interdependence are on the horizon. The biggest change is the natural consequence of an empowered consumer through free access to social media.  Social Darwinsism is the new game, where brands that tune in and adapt to changes in customer need thrive and those that don’t risk extinction.

911Day.org and their partners demonstrated how a brand sponsored social cause can lead to a powerful and mutually beneficial relationship. A case study in which brands become karmically linked to their community’s social causes.  

One modern example is IBM’s Smarter Planet, where IBM positions their existing products as having a positive impact on the planet and by extension their bottom line. 

David Paine and Kirk Souder each tell me their work on the ‘Day of Service’ is just starting.  That the next 10 years is just as important as the last 10.  Paine emphasizes that it’s a positive movement but also a tribute to the people that lost their lives. He sums up the future of movement well, “I intend to ensure that this becomes a ubiquitous ritual in the United States and it realizes its potential to transform the borders of the United States and reach people in other parts of the world.”

This will be hard. Some difficult challenges lie ahead, but they will be made much easier thanks to the lessons learned from this experience.  Perhaps you can join them.

Special note: These companies and people also said “I Will” to remembering the victims of 9/11 and supporting ‘Day of Service’ cause:

This is a guest article by Ruben Corbo, a writer for the website Broadband Expert where you can find internet service providers in your area and compare prices on different deals for your mobile broadband needs.

When technology is placed in the hands of a gamer, it will not take long before they will figure out a way to install, code, or fabricate a game. This is the very scenario that spawned the world of mobile gaming, a niche market in an industry that nets billions in revenue every single year. While the transition from monochrome games on Nokias to the high definition games of today was not immediate, it would forever change the world’s view on what was possible on a mobile phone.

(Photos Courtesy of Flickr Users: Kaeru & viagallery.com)

Before the days of dual-core processors and wireless internet providers, the mobile phone had only the most basic of games by the end of the 20th century. Many consider Snake, first seen in 1997, to be the original mobile game. This simple 2D game involved directing an ever-growing snake around the screen to pick up items. While exceedingly plain, it began a craze for mobile gaming that would continue on indefinitely.

(Photos Courtesy of Flickr Users by kokeshi, jontintinjordan, & Kayhadrin)

There were only so many possibilities for games that could be used on a monochrome screen and directed by a numerical keypad. Other pre-installed games saw limited popularity as manufacturers began releasing shooting, racing, and card games on their phones. Games would remain simplistic and single player until the advent of WAP, or wireless application protocol. This would allow greater amounts of data to be sent and received by mobile phones, opening up phones to be used for competitive multi-player games. It also allowed users to begin downloading games from servers.

(Photo Courtesy of Flickr User: elektronhjarnan)

The next five or six years were a rocky period for mobile gaming as companies struggle to understand what exactly was possible with this market. Handheld devices such as the N-Gage utilized wireless internet providers on top of traditional mobile phone reception to blend handheld gaming with phone usage. Most of these devices would end up as failed experiments and money sinks for their respective companies.

(Photos Courtesy of Flickr User: brandon shigeta)

In 2007, the first generation of the iPhone was released and the world of mobile gaming would come back to life. The iPhone, and every smartphone that has come after it, is the perfect platform for gaming. They utilize important components such as a high-definition screens, accelerometers, gyroscopes, and touch screens. On top of this impressive hardware, the software used to run games has become much more accessible and affordable. App markets began popping up, allowing gamers to utilize their wireless internet providers and play any of thousands of games in seconds.

(Photo Courtesy of Flickr User: Mark Fidelman)

Current trends in mobile gaming have pushed in two distinct directions: competitive online gaming and 3D graphics. As 3D technology became readily available in smaller sizes, the 3D smartphone was born. Game developers have begun delivering massive, 3D worlds into the hands of anyone with a smartphone. Wireless service providers have also bumped up their speeds with the expansion of 4G networks. This not only allows games to be downloaded to a phone much faster, it also makes online play much more viable.

(Photos Courtesy of Flickr Users: docpop, kartooner, ahsandilshad)

While the possibilities for mobile gaming are practically endless, the most popular games on smartphones remain simplistic and addictive. On one end of the market are the instant classics such as Angry Birds, while the other end is home to 3D MMORPGs with hundreds of thousands of players.

What is it with billionaires these days? Buffett suggesting we need to tax him more? Stop coddling the super-rich he says. 

In other words, he’s saying “I’ve done such a fine job with my money, now I want to give more to a government that hasn’t.” 

Mr. Buffett, has someone changed your suppositions? It seems counter intuitive to your “invest in great management” philosophy.  Shouldn’t you really be telling the government to cut costs?  Just like you demanded of your Netjets, Clayton Homes, and Helzberg Diamond Shops executives.

In fact you said, “We have no alternative,” at your annual meeting in May 2009. Really? Why didn’t you just raise prices on your most profitable customers? Couldn’t they afford it? Stop coddling them Mr. Buffett. 

Buffett writes, “I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone — not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 — shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain.”

What they do Mr. Buffett is invest somewhere else. Like overseas. And guess what, they don’t bring that money back into the US because of our high tax rates. That’s an estimated $60 billion a year that could be used to pay down the $14 trillion dollar debt that the same government you want to give more money too, owes everyone else. 

Since Mr. Buffett thinks the government can do a better job with his money than he can, then give it to them. We can sure use it. You’ve already given the government $7 million last year, what’s $50 million more? You can afford it. Stop talking about giving more and just do it.

Which begs the question, why hasn’t he already? Is it because he doesn’t trust the government to spend his money wisely? Doesn’t he like Washington’s management?

Haven’t you always said Mr. Buffett to invest in what you know? You seem to know a lot about taxes and Washington, so write the check.  Go ahead and put your money where the sun doesn’t shine or as the rest of us non-billionaires call it, the Federal Deficit.