Digital Native vs Digital Immigrants

At the start of a project I always do research. I don't go to the library. I rarely start by talking with an expert. I don't read a book or find an industry magazine. I don't even search Google.

I go straight to YouTube.

I read recently that the average time spent on a task is only 11 minutes before attention wanders. YouTube fits my need perfectly. It is a wealth of knowledge, from a multi-faceted range of people, fed to me in short, visually interesting pieces.

I am a digital native.

There is a lot of talk at the moment around how to combine the four generations in the working world; the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, GenX and GenY. These definitions seem redundant to me.

The classification is based on the idea that people who have gone through similar experiences will have similar values. This idea, I think, holds water. The assertion that everybody who was born between 1978 and 1998 have been through similar experiences, however, is ridiculous.

We are working in a global world. Which by itself creates a whole load more issues. You want to learn more about the cultures people come from so you can better understand them- but you don't want to pigeonhole them with stereotypes. You want to be sympathetic of their values and life goals- but you don't want to presume you know what they want.

Most of the research I have come across is around how to accommodate this new generation of Digital Natives into the workplace, another ridiculous thought. Digital Natives, by definition, are adaptable and will create their own space in any work force.

It is the Digital Immigrants who are having trouble dealing with this.

I saw a interview with a bunch of GenY kids. They were asked why they expected to go on holiday two months after starting a new job. That was the first time that it had occurred to me that a holiday was seen as a reward. It was a luxury not a necessity. This simple statement, for me, optimizes the difference between the generations, the natives and the immigrants.

For me the reason to work is twofold. Firstly, to earn money so that I can do the things I want to do. Secondly, by not working I am limiting what everyone else can do. If nobody worked there would be no way I could go on holiday without walking, as there would be no pilots, no hotels, no shops, no phones- no internet. So I work.

There is a popular statistic going around at the moment that it took radio 38 years to reach an audience of 50 million, television 13 years, the Internet just four and Facebook three. The world is evolving faster and faster. Facebook gained 50 million new active users in first three months of this year.

The modern workplace needs to catch up with Digital Natives, and Digital Immigrants need to know how to adapt.

New teams will be virtual and temporary- doesn't this benefit the Immigrants as much as the Natives?

By being comfortable using online, collaborative software baby boomers can put off retiring, which many can't afford to do anyway. They can work in a virtual team from wherever they are.

So they want to move abroad? No problem, as long as there is internet. So they want to have long holidays? No problem, join a temporary team. Want longer weekends? No problem, job share.

The industry is so focused on hiring the younger generation because they are "tech savvy" they miss out on the potential of the baby boomers.

It is estimated that by the time I am 38 I will have had 10-14 jobs, I have already had 5 (I am 21 now). So if you want to invest training and resources into someone who is in it for the long run, I suggest someone from a more mature age group.

It is true that baby boomers have had quite bad press recently; The Pinch: How the Baby Boomers Stole Their Children's Future, The Baby Boomers Have Totally Screwed Us Over, and other such titles fill the Internet. But they must still be able to bring something to the table, right?

According to HR Management baby boomers are great project managers, they have focus and drive. They want success and they expect the same from the rest of their workforce.

In my experience this is what is missing from the Digital Natives, whether they want it or not. With so many distractions, and the blurring lines between information and entertainment, a good leader to keep the team on task will be a great benefit.

For all this segmentation the only thing left to say is that you must treat everyone like an individual. If you are struggling with a person- talk to them. Every single person has different expectations from work and different ways of working so embrace the difference.

You may just find that your differences complement their differences.

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Everyone wants to be treated as an individual, that much I know. I don't think anyone has ever gone through an automated telephone system and wished, after being asked to press one for cinema times followed by pressing the wrong button and not being able to get back to the original menu, that more things in life were that one-size-fits-all style of communication.

Nobody likes to be mass communicated to, or to feel like one of a number, it makes you feel meaningless and unimportant. Generalisations and assumptions have the same affect.

Conversely, people don't like being singled out. People don't mind being treated differently because they are clever, but hate being treated differently because they are blonde. Now I realise that being singled out for a negative reason is never going to go down well, but what I struggle with is how do you treat everyone as an individual, but equally?

Perhaps it is because of my experiences and my background, but the idea of celebrating and using people's differences is one that has always been ingrained in me. Studying the IB every aspect of the course has to relate to culture, whether that was the culture of a foreign country, an artist or your own peers.

But there's so much more to it than simply people's differences. I found a quote from Ernest Istook, former Republican member of the US house of Representatives, about America, but I think the principle holds strong for any society or organisation:

America's strength is not our diversity; our strength is our ability to unite people of different backgrounds around common principles.

If you've ever worked in a team that just seems to work, that's slick, progresses well and is fun

to work in, you'll know that it it only really happens when everybody is working to their strengths and everybody has different strengths. It is so important to learn from those around you. It makes my mind boggle that every person you meet has had such different experiences to you, knows completely different things to you, different opinions. In that team where people work so well together you went through a process together; you slowly built on an idea, each drawing from your own lives, shaping the idea, eventually creating something that no one of you would ever have come up with on your own.

Around the side of the £2 coins is inscribed "standing on the shoulders of giants", which was apparently said by Sir Isaac Newton, but I think it was a Latin saying originally, sums up this idea that with others you can reach new heights (I know that was a bit cheesy). It is also an album from Oasis.

Everybody makes judgements, there's not a lot you can do about that, without these "mental short cuts" the brain wouldn't be able to think as quickly, remember as much or function as well, but it is definitely beneficial to be aware of our own judgements, think about why we make those assumptions and about what they are founded on. The other day I got on the bus at Heathrow and the only other person on the bus was this old Asian guy, with his shoes off, his feet up on the seat, running prayer beads through his hand. He grinned at me like a Cheshire cat and said hello. He looked like a slightly creepy, modern day Buddha.

I remember consciously disputing whether or not to respond to him, I had just finished work and was tired. But I said hello and started chatting to him. It turned out that he had a flat that he needed to rent out (cheaply) in the area that I was looking for a flat to rent.

Had I gone with my initial decision I would never have had that opportunity.

Now I’m sure all of you reading this in the UK are hoping beyond hope that I don’t try and fit in some crass reference to the Coalition government to try and make a point about working together- but I am going to anyway.

I'm not saying that this new government is going to work better than any other we’ve had in the last 30 years, but I do think that it is favourable to have a larger pool of resources and policies to draw from. Ignoring the politics of the situation, if you can, this government can now create almost any policy and they can make it because it is right for Britain at this moment in time; not because it fits their agenda or what they should be doing for their party.

It is an opportunity to battle out ideas and pick the best part of each idea to form something, with any luck, better than either of the original ideas and together they can achieve more.

Steve Richards, of the Independent, reckons that one of the keys things that keeps this government progressing is that this situation means that the minority must fight for his life simply to stay afloat which, in turn, means that the majority has to step up his game to keep ahead.

That's not to say that when you throw a load of random people together you will get success, of course there will be issues. It is quite possible that you'll have a few people with opposing views who are absolutely adamant that they are correct, pulling the group in conflicting directions. Not only that, but in terms of diversity it can be taken too far, becoming a box-ticking, political correctness exercise. What each person wants to get out of a situation will depend on their life experiences and terminal values. How they act in a group will be a culmination of many factors in their life, including the culture they come from and Geert Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions, such as power index (how likely someone is to speak up if they think their boss/superior is wrong), uncertainty avoidance index (how likely someone is take/avoid risks) and individualism vs collectivism. I've gone into much more detail in my other blog, click here to view.

When you get this "melting pot" situation it is important to make the most of the people and resources that you have available by making sure everyone has their time to be heard and understood. With any evolution of an idea having others input is vital. This is why I was particularly impressed with Cisco's new More Together initiative.

More Together is all about making people aware of their everyday behaviours and how they affect those around them to get the best out of your peers- do the same people always speak in meetings? is this because they are the most qualified to answer the questions raised in the meeting? or is it because they shout the loudest?

Which brings me back to my original question, which I still haven't answered and would be pleased to hear your opinion on the subject, how do you treat everyone as an individual, but equally?

Diversity: the art of thinking independently together-Malcolm Forbes

TECHNOLOGY FOR MARKETING AND ADVERTISING 23RD FEBRUARY 2010

An Introduction to Social Media Marketing

- Michelle Goodall, Online PR/ Social Media Consultant

Observations: Social media marketing has been around for well over a decade as the Web was created as a social tool and will, most likely, reach maturity in 2010.

Much of what Michelle spoke about was to do with advocates and detractors.

As far as advocates are concerned it is important to make sure that interaction with them is not just on the Internet, to be fully effective it must come offline. Two campaigns that she sited were Coca-Cola’s Facebook group and Marmite’s Marmarati campaign.

The Coca-Cola Facebook group was not a corporate creation, but advocates recruiting other advocates to build a network. Instead of closing the group down for using copyright material, as other corporations have done, Coca-Cola flew the admins of the group to the American HQ and gave them all access passes.

Successful social media means fun, innovation and transparency. It needs to have a customer sentiment and smarter content syndication. You must have a single landing page that links up all these different social media sites and objectives to make sure you keep driving traffic back to your website.

A theme that kept occurring through the day was using social media not just for customer services but for monitored customer conversation. This does not mean that every time someone Twitters about your product, you try and sell or promote that product, but join the conversation in a way that gives value to the consumer.

Another recurring theme is that social media cannot be fully successful went departments act in separated silos. There must be one Twitter feed for the product/service that is used by the PR team, the customer services department and for sales. It must be bred in depth across the company and used integrally.

Online communities can give operations saving costs. One prominent and very effective example of this is Dell Ideastorm, which is essentially a community where people can voice their ideas about what Dell do and what they should be doing and can, consequently, rate other peoples' suggestions. Ideastorm brought Dell back from the brink of collapse after hate sites were set up because of their lack of customer service and corporate response. It's about transparency, community, dialogue and honesty.

There are many challenges that stop companies engaging in social media, including; corporate silos (which I’ve just mentioned), rapidly evolving tools, measurability, how to make it work globally/locally, legalities (especially in the financial sector), the fear of human error and the fear of attacks from individuals with a personal agenda.

Interest ¦ Invest ¦ Commit ¦ Engage ¦ Embed

Recognition of problem/opportunity; in time/training/development; top down belief in social media; listening to multiple channels; feedback loops, innovation and evolution

Meaningful Metrics: ENGAGEMENT DB REPORT

Traffic, Interaction, Sales, Leads, Search Marketing, PR REPUTATION, Sentiments, Advocates, Detractors, Customer Engagements, Retention, Profits, Operation Costs Reduction.

The best structure for maximising social media is by creating a cross-functional team to be responsible for ensuring that the entire organisation is represented, including those at the top. Organisations that don’t do this will not have the formation/ability to react with speed to social media situations. Smaller organisations are better at social media as they are not so departmentalised, without any corporate silos. The stick of rock theory still applies on the Internet.

The main mistake made by those trying to get involved in social media is that they get overly focused on the tools and techniques, rather than going back to the business objectives and finding the tools which fit.

Uses for Social Media:

- Powerful Lobbying Tool

- Empowering individual voices, recognition, advocates; reward people who engage with you or this level can be an unpaid work force

- Processes and guidelines in place to enhance staff use of social media

- Implications of data/geolocation (pleaserobme/foursquare)

It can be valuable to become a listening organisation; hearing what people are saying about your organisation/brand, survey competitors/markets/problems/what channels people are using/key influencers/opportunities/gap analysis/ research and development/early warning for issues.

- Set clear objectives; what are you trying to achieve?

- Understand resources

- Establish keywords/phrases that have been thoroughly tested

- Ascertain appropriate listening posts

- Tested and evolved free tools

- My buzz monitor

Tools that could be used for this process:

1. Define/refine keywords

2. Addict-o-matic/Tweetdeck (snapshot tools)

3. Google Alerts, Social Mention, into RSS feeds

4. Nev bites

Listening¦Engaging

Key things to remember when establishing a social media plan for your business:

- Set objectives based on business objectives

- Establish meaningful tools

- Establish works flows, a social risk matrix, escalation procedure and social media guidelines

- Look at a multi channel approach

- Use cross-department teams

- Be aware of key advocates/detractors.

Marketing 3.0: Push and Pull Marketing is Not Enough

- Riaz Kanani, International Marketing Director, Silverpop

The average consumer in the UK is subjected to approximately 3,000 marketing messages everyday. The effect of this on marketers is compacted by the fact that consumers are trustingall sources less and less every year, including friends/peers, TV news and newspapers. This means there is more competition for consumers’ attention, through more fragmented and less trusted channels. How can social media combat this?

Customer services have been seen for far too long as a drain on resources. This can no longer be the case as in this instant feedback culture customer service must move to the centre of the strategic initiative.

The most likely cause of negative conversation on the web about a product/brand comes from a gap between the marketing message and the operation’s delivery.

Sideways marketing is the name given to the rising amount of consumer 2 consumer conversation. The mains aspects of this are 3Ps; People, Place, Publish.

People- customers and fans are the centre of your marketing plan. Think of their interests as tribal behaviour.

Place (online)- Your website is no longer the centre of your universe. You must create a base for all the other channels that your social media will lead back to. The interests of the consumer will change due to where they are logging on, at home they will have different interests at than at work. If they are using their mobile on the go they will have different interests than if they are sitting at their laptop.

Publish- It is vital to have content that engages, educates and solves problems, as this is what consumers want/expect from quality sites. It will encourage small social tribes passing on your message to their wider group of friends.

Interest ¦ Invest ¦ Commit ¦ Engage ¦ Embed

Beyond Post-Click: Landing Pages and Conversion Funnels

- DSNR Media Group

Pre-Click			Post-Click
Creative/Banners/Pop-Ups	Media Placement (Guardian, Channel, Networks)	Click Pool	Conversion Funnel	Results
		Generate qualified visitors to the site	Starts with the landing page, continues to the conversion (registration/purchase)

The key to segmentation is to be aware of Current Interest/Mood vs General Interest. This goes back to what Riaz Kanani said about what device/channel/location the consumer was accessing the internet from. Just because someone is interest in something now, doesn’t mean that they will be interested in it next week.

You need to be able to match the visitor’s current interest (pre-click) to the advertiser’s call to action (post-click).

Post-click optimisation must be seen as an integral part of the value chain, yet still optimising each component separately, such as; right media for the right audience, creative for engagement/qualification, landing pages and conversion funnels for conversion rates and customer value. The right technology is key to bringing it all together so the outcome is meaningful and actionable.

Does your value chain drive the masses to the landing page, or does it drive quality leads to the landing page?

Keeping Your Audience Engaged through E-Mail and Social Media

- Dave Chaffey, Lead Consultant, Marketing Insights.

The integration of social media with e-mail marketing has been largely neglected. E-mail still plays a major role in the online marketing campaign, as can bee seen by the EFT ratio:

E-Mail : Facebook : Twitter

100 : 8 : 1

Recipients : Fans: Followers

A successful e-mail marketing campaign must be run on an event trigger system to support the customer’s lifestyle and behaviour. Time constrained offer e-mails are often successful.

Chaffey offered a list of components that should be built into every e-mail marketing campaign:

- Buzz Generation

- Connectivity, shareability, social proof

- Momentum, content movement

- Repeat mailing to increase urgency with time limited offers

It can be constructive to test different approaches side by side. An example of this could be sending out e-mail shots with five different creatives and which one has the high response/pass-on rate or where each e-mail has a different engagement element, such as a quiz, a news story or a game.

An element that has appeared in many elements of marketing that I am learning about, and that was repeated by Chaffey, was that there are three main aims of a campaign; to engage, to celebrate and to educate. You must decide which one or which combination suits your campaign. Any correspondence sent out must deliver scannability and skimmability.

Your content must do the following to be of any interest to the recipient:

- Make their life/work easier

- Help them to learn/develop/have fun

- Make them look good

- Be useful/interesting/entertaining

On the subject of combining this with social media Chaffey stated that people want three things from the internet; to learn, to have fun and to socialize. He stated that for whatever you do on the net people want social proof through comments, ratings, testimonials not just of the products, but of the company and the process.

Why CRM Technologies are Failing Marketers… 10 Initiatives for 2010

- Adam Sharp, Clever Touch

The web has fundamentally changed the buying/selling dynamic and the buying process is now dictating the sales cycle.

Many companies saw CRM systems as the end to all their marketing worries and started using it as a platform for their marketing initiatives.

1. Balance

2. Move from e-mail marketing to marketing automation.

3. Adopt a 2.0 mindset;

§ Track all inbound and outbound activity

§ Drive all communications back to your website

§ Trigger activity from different behaviours

§ Connect all the different corporate silos

4. Data Analysis

5. Psychometric marketing (attitude, aptitude, level of understanding), engagement measurement, engaging the consumer from the buyer’s perspective

6. Business Process Review- lead leakage analysis.

7. Technology architecture;

§ Map your requirements- don’t buy features, buy based on business objectives

§ Keep your data in one place

§ Look for patterns to be the basis of your campaigns

8. Consider Engagement Marketing- Openness and organisational momentum.

9. Social Media=Reach, generate buzz not direct sales by;

a. Listening

b. Influencer Marketing

c. Creating Compelling Content

10. Dynamic Demand Management, as supplied by Clevertouch

Marketing automation is a opportunity for Marketing Transformation. 2010 looks for a holistic approach to CRM and marketing.