Tag / marketing

by jcuene

Starbucks Doesn’t Need a DAO, It’s Employees Do

Sort of riffing on a thoughtful, provocative thread by @magdalenakala who makes an argument for a Starbucks DAO to augment or replace their super successful loyalty program.

I like her points a lot, but the hope and hype of DAOs will run into the reality of: Starbucks doesn’t need to complexify something that works extremely well right now.

I do think there’s an argument to be made that Starbucks should have their own $star or $bucks or whatever, to evolve points to a genuine currency. Lots of interesting cross-brand ideas there.

The folks at Starbucks that do need a DAO are the employees. Should/could a DAO replace the employee union? Hypothetically:

  • There might be an employee DAO, with a token whose value is pegged to either the shareprice or some other long term business performance metric. The value of the tokens rises as the performance of the company improves
  • For hours worked, employees could be granted tokens that represent votes/governance in the employee DAO
  • Workers could also get tokens based on tenure or other milestones.
  • Workers could grant tokens based on skills, experiences gained, etc. as they become, essentially, more valuable to their co-workers and to the company.

The DAO could represent the interest of employees/workers on issues of safety, privacy, enviromental issues, etc.

Would Starbucks ownership prefer to deal with a DAO vs. an employee union? Probably. Especially if the incentives are fully aligned.

Would a token system be an alternative to to other long term interest-driving tools like profit sharing or 401Ks? Probably, but I’d almost see this as a complement to a the traditional ones. In fact, the token system actually creates real-world value for the experience and tenure and skills of a long-term employee.

Obviously haven’t thought this all the way through, but i do believe DAO’s for employees would ultimately deliver more value to the company than a crypto-CRM loyalty program.

by jcuene

Stay Golden, kid: Meet The 20-Year-Old Millennial Making A Living Off Facebook

I love stories like Koby Conrad who is hustling and growing his hemp business on Facebook (uh, it’s growing like a weed?). There are so many good, smart little businesses grinding it out and supporting jobs. I wish more of the business press would focus on this kind of story (a la “Bootstrapped and Profitable” from 37Signals.)

He’s a kid with limited technical expertise, who is using the Internet to build a fast-growing, small business.

He’s the kind of hustling, hard-working person the experts say doesn’t exist in his “millennial” generation.

“Everyone always tell you to be scared,” he says.

“Be scared of things going wrong, be scared of things not working, be scared of the people you meet online, but no one ever tells you that it could all actually work.”

via Meet The 20-Year-Old Millennial Making A Living Off Facebook – Business Insider.

by jcuene

Contently: Not Content Marketing, but Brand Publishing

Really like this write up from Contently’s Sam Slaughter (@samslaughter215) at Adweek. Focused on the distinction between content marketing and brand publishing. 

When brands make the decision to use content (and really, social media’s already made that decision for them), they need to forget about being marketers and worry about being publishers.

But this is harder than it should be for brands because of this: 

Like publishers, brands need to make sure that each piece of content—Facebook update, tweet, sponsored story, Pinterest board and microsite—is valuable to their customers, and maps back to a greater narrative.

Ads and ad messages aren’t all that valuable in the day to day life of anyone. And, most brands have no clue what a “greater narrative” means when they’re just focused on selling soap or widgets right now. 

 

by jcuene

Are You A Strong Node?

After around 15 years of advocating for the embrace of "Digital Marketing", we're in the early stages of being advocates for embracing marketing for a digital world. I first heard this from Mark Comerford, but like all truisms, i feel like i had heard it before. It's a nice verbal flip, of course, but it's also true: "Digital Marketing" as a separate, distinct category for marketing needs to go away, and in it's place we need to simply be marketers to people who are connected digitally across so many devices, applications, networks, and touchpoints. That is, all marketing is or should be "digital" marketing.

But, Commerford actually makes a point of distinguishing between the word "digital" and "networked", preferring "networked", presumably, because it implies what happens (we get networked to each other) instead of how (via digital means). All of us digital marketers have spent so much time talking about the "how" of digital marketing – all our jargon, our easy comparisons with traditional, our smug satisfaction about being on trend – that we haven't paid enough attention to what's really going to happen when all this stuff takes hold. More importantly, we're not spending enough time understanding how *our* behavior should change when we're all networked.

Those of us who have been around for a while owe it to others to be at our best, to ensure they're benefiting from our experience and knowledge. It's democratic, maybe a little socialistic, but we have to ensure we are acting like modern leaders connecting our peers together to ensure the effect is bigger than the sum of the parts. The best outcome for the best marketers, i would argue, is becoming a strong node in a network of likeminded marketers. We need to connect the players into the hard lessons we all learned. So, the question is, are you a strong node? Here are the questions to ask yourself: 

Are you a connector? Do you work hard to make new connections to other marketers, learning from them and connecting your friends to others who could benefit from the relationship? Are you bringing new folks and new ideas into the conversation? 

Are you a repeater? Do you take the signal your hearing – the message, the content – and clean it up  so it can be passed along effectively? Do you make sure the flow of knowledge and info is going on to the next user on the network? Are you passing it along and getting it to the right person? 

Are you communicating in a common protocol? Are you using weird jargon (um, like "Strong node") or are you focused on keeping the messaging as simple as possible. A common language helps info flow faster and makes it easier for new participants to find their way. 

Are you a Hub? Are you enabling others to plug into the flow of knowledge you're seeing? Do you make it easy for new folks to get connected?

Are you a router? Do you break the complex stuff into easy to understand, easily simplified "packets" so the knowledge can flow easier? A good router will ensure the most pertinent info gets to the right node as efficiently as possible. It could be as simple as forwarding an email, or as involved as introducing one marketer to another.  

Are you adding value? Whether its ensuring a good signal/noise ration, volunteering to be a hub, router or access point, there are many ways a good marketer can help drive some larger, pursuit-driven objects. But, it all starts with learning ways to ensure the rest of the nodes refers to you. 

Do you create Bufferbloat? Do hold onto the information you have? Do you obfuscate, complexify, or otherwise mystify those you are communicating with? Then, you're creating bufferbloat: You're holding information back, and preventing it from moving efficiently through the system

When the evolution goes well, we all end up better for our effort. That's the network effect in action. When it's NOT done well, it's a broken network that doesn't generate strength.