advergirl

PRSA International Conference: Social media panel

Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who joined Jamie, Adam and me our social media panel on Monday. I'll be writing more about the ideas we shared and answering some of the Qs that we didn't get to in the coming days, but for right now, here are a few items I promised to post:

Materials from the session: If you want to access any of the frameworks we referenced, those are on ologie.com/prsa. A podcast will be available soon.

Valuing the opinion of "someone like me": Edelman's latest Trust Barometer report - including the content about the importance of peer recommendations - can be downloaded here.

How a city can use social media: The Asheville case study is a great one. You can see all those details here. And, the recent brouhaha our local CVB found itself in will be of interest, too.

Using networks to find ideas: The oil spill example I shared was powered by a company called Innocentive. The big idea behind the platform is that resources in any given company are finite. Not every problem can be solved at HQ. So, we'll need to change our perceived career role / value from problem solver to solution finder - wherever that solution might lie. Here's the Exxon story:

20 years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, there was still a lot of oil on the ocean floor. The problem was that Exxon couldn’t figure out how to separate frozen oil from water. So, they worked with Innocentive to put out an open call for a solution.  Anyone who considered themselves a problem solver could respond to the challenge on this social platform.

An Illinois chemist from the concrete industry saw the problem and quickly scribbled an idea on the back of a napkin. He sent that scan in with a half-page write up about a certain kind of oscillator working at a certain speed and solved the problem Exxon had been wrestling with for 20 years.

More later this week. If there's specific content you want to see me write about, leave me a note in the comments.

Social media questions from the back channel

I'm headed to Motor City this weekend to be part of the PRSA 2008 International Conference "The Point of Connection."

Jamie Timm and I are joining PRSSA 2007-08 National President Melissa Csuhran and GM Social Media Guy Adam Denison on a panel about Social Media. If you'll be at the conference, please join us. It's one of the 3:30 sessions on Monday.

Of course, you don't have to be there to get involved. We're looking for questions from the back channel, too. Tweet your Qs and ideas to @JamieTimm or @leighhouse. Or, leave comments here.

The session will be archived as a podcast and  - with any luck - talked about on Twitter. Plus, I'll plan on sharing some highlights and materials from the session here.

More from Detroit!

Advergirl's Most Popular Posts

If the Feedburner reports are right, it looks like I have a lot of new readers. Welcome.

I've been blogging since February 2004. Long enough to have amassed quite a gnarly archive that's part playful and part manifesto. So - as an alternative to braving those wilds - let me offer a guided tour:

Advergirl's 10 Most Popular Posts of All Time

1. AEs: This is your real job description
2. Get Interactive: Teaching interactive in your organization
3. Guerilla in the Board Room
4. Resume makeovers 1, 2 and 3
5. Web 1.0 vs. 2.0
6. iCitizen wrap up 1 and 2
7. Practical advice on social media and your marketing mix
8. Questions a Job Candidate Should Ask In an Interview
9. Social Media in Action: Learnings from a successful flop
10. Sizing Up Agencies: Check out the chic clothes

Blog Action Day: Do this one thing with me

Really different topic today.

Poverty.

Today is Blog Action Day. An annual one-day movement to change the conversation. To focus the power of all our little blogging podiums on one topic that means more than any of the things I post about day-to-day.

This year the topic is poverty. And the big and little things you and I can do to lift people up.

Sometimes these questions seems too big. It can be easier to just say they’re unsolvable, inevitable. But, as the sermon said a few Sundays ago, there is enough for everyone, we’re just not willing to share it.

Here is a big and small way people just like us are creating change:

Big Way: Many of you have heard me talk about my father. A better man than most. He recently returned from a trip to India where - among other things - he cut the big celebratory ribbon on the Vadaketh Development Center - a place he helped raise the money to build. Vadaketh is set to help people - from babies to job seekers - who have developmental disabilities live more fulfilled lives.

While there, Dad met Rev. Timothy.

As a boy, Timothy lived in the Red Light District. His mother was a prostitute. A missionary family walked them out of that hard life and helped them start over.

As an adult, Timothy returned to the Red Light District. There, he has a rudimentary workshop where he teaches sex workers to sew and offers day care for their children. All with the goal of helping them walk out and start over.

His daughter is going to medical school. She’s able to because another caring family is housing her and helping her with expenses so that Timothy can continue to do good work for other families without holding back his own.

(You pick which is the big thing in that story. There are a lot.)

You can see my dad’s notes about Timothy here. If you want to help him out, email me.

Small Way: Our good friend David Griner is a new dad. He and wife Karen have invested a lot of thought in ways to pass on their values to Allison. One of the first things they did was create a Kiva account in her name.

Today, they make loans on her behalf. As she gets older, she’ll take over the account, giving her a very real look into the challenges of poverty and need. And, showing her that one person can absolutely help.

I’m funding my Kiva account today. I hope you’ll open one, too.

Please pass this on.

Creative Columbus Spaces: Hiatus

I've received great feedback -in the form of comments, emails, tweets, and referral traffic- about the series.  Thank you all for that. I'm very proud of this place I call home - so, it feels great be part of the energy around our creative economy.

I've reached the end of my photo collection FOR NOW. That said, I know there are a lot of other great creative spaces in Columbus and I'd love to do another week of show-and-tell. I know we've got to check out Northlich's new space in the fabulously urban Smith Brothers Building. And check out that incredible new building Paul Werth & Associates moved into downtown. Who else? Connect me with some agencies you think deserve to be shown off. (Specific go-to people or - heck, why not ask - final photographs would be greatly appreaciated.)

We're off to a new topic tomorrow, but I'll plan to return to this series at the end of the month. Until then, just a few quick updates:

• Bloggers love Columbus. The series has received lots of referral traffic from far-flung bloggers, like Armin at Quipsologies and Darryl at BrandFlakes for Breakfast


• Things are changing at Fitch. Word is they're moving from that cool getaway we looked at to some new space in the brewery district south of downtown.


• And I found out that Conrad I Phillips I Vutech and I share a common favorite. Apparently their space is decked out with work from the same artist who dominates the shelves and walls at my house - the fabulous Columbus alum, Michael Phillips. Love that.

Creative Columbus Spaces: Conrad I Phillips I Vutech & Salvato Coe + Gabor

Wow, that's a lot of names!

Here's the story: full-service marketing agency CPV shares space with hot design firm Salvato Coe & Gabor. The cohabitants built the space from the ground up in an emerging creative services corridor on Goodale Boulevard. The area is home to both the "create" and the "do" of our industry - design firms, special events planners, printers, and production companies. Today, it shares space with the abandoned Big Bear grocery store HQ. But that hulking campus is soon to be redeveloped as "Grandview Yard" - a mixed use urban community abutting the young, vibrant Grandview neighborhood.

The firms moved to these new wilds from our gallery and boutique district to create a better place to work. The building was designed to coordinate with the two existing converted warehouses in the same compound. Inside, everything's exposed. Lots of concrete, wood trusses, exposed HVAC. Flooded with natural light. Kirk Phillips jokes, "In many ways it resembles a large Chipotle."

Oh, and while the good people at B&A are brainstorming in the concrete corn field, the team at CPV is getting inspired by a little microcosm of human habitat right outside their windows: The Grandview Pool. Ah, moms, kids and angry teenagers - that's America!

 

Creative Columbus Spaces: SBC Advertising

Off to SBC Advertising.

(No, not the phone company)

(Wait, maybe with all the mergers and whatnot, I don't have to say that anymore)

Anywhoo - SBC is a retail advertising/PR/Web shop. One that national and regional retail brands like AAA, Bed Bath & Beyond, Big Lots!, Elmer’s, Oreck, HoneyBaked Ham and Subway rely on. It's rumored to be one of the worst places to work in Columbus, but it's got some great new digs.

It's located in the growing Arena District, in batting distance of the construction zone soon to be the Columbus Clippers new home: Huntington Park.

Ok, onto the sneak peek.

Creative Columbus Spaces: Ologie

Ologie is home to Advergirl!

Seriously, can you believe I waited this long to showoff?

Ologie is a nationally-recognized branding firm owned by three partners who definitely don't believe in treating office space as a neutral asset - just some place to come and work. They've transformed an old auto dealership in the sometimes-dicey Market Exchange District into a living treatise on how to do good work. 

Most of the walls are covered floor-to-ceiling with cork - not that you could tell walking in. More often they appear to be covered with hundreds of tacked up sheets of ideas and work and reference. The few walls that are cork-free are emblazoned with shared values. The entire place is flooded with natural light. It's space made to align and inspire.

Ologie has lots of people-friendly perks, like super comfy, Dr. Suess-esque brainstorm chairs; totally-private, cleverly-signed restrooms; yummy organic homemade lunches; visiting pets; and SNOW DAYS.

Yeah, I know, send me your resume.

Anyway, here's the promised peek inside.

(The first 5 images are from Ologie's marketing library; the peek into my office is from me; the desk shot is from Aaron Blazey and the two pictures from our media space were taken by Brandon King.)

 

 

Creative Columbus Spaces: Fitch

Where can you design a better sippy cup for Gerber and a cool popup store for Nokia? In the woods, of course. That's where design consultancy Fitch located their innovative North American HQ.

I'll share some pictures of the outside (literally a retreat located in a bedroom community not far from a historic downtown) at the end of this series. But for now, let's talk about the inside -

A serious creative space. Chocked full of resources, libraries and inspiring art and artifacts.

These pictures speak for themselves:

(See their entire Flickr photo stream here)

Creative Columbus Spaces: B&A

Who the heck is B&A? Well, I asked and they told me to let you know that they are ‘strategic’ and ‘integrated.’ Because agency people eat that stuff up.

Want to go a little deeper? Formerly know as Buchanan and Associates, this 20-person team located in a prominent business district along our outerbelt proves you don't have to be big or downtown to have great space.

B&A's space is built around their culture. Entrepreneurial and flexible by habit and design, all the desks are on wheels. The computers are laptops. And the internet is wireless. All to enable work teams to pull together (literally) and pound out great work.

And if the good people of B&A ever feel cramped in their collaborative space, they can always walk across the street to brainstorm in a giant field home to 109-ears of people-sized concrete corn. (What's out your window?)

B&A is a people-focused place. The wall of frames below is a lobby view of each of their team members (including reader favorites like Holly Roby, Billy Fischer and Tim Laubacher). The benefits are creative and enviable, like: unlimited vacation days, unlimited book allowance, unlimited ... well, beer.

Peek inside: