Monthly Archives: February 2011
Enjoy this month’s Employee Spotlight with Steve Habbi from our Calgary office.
1. What is your role at CM? How do you spend your days?
As as Senior Planner on the Nissan USA account I spend my days thinking about video games, race cars, tuners and the occasional mini van…I am being serious. I try to think like the consumer and create experiences that I wish were served up to me. I ground my insights on solid research foundations and rigorous debate with creative and tech folks (and sometimes clients). I also apply common sense to planning and ask “So What?” as often as possible. I believe our job is to create value for our clients and therefore consumers, so if ideas don’t pass the “So What?” and common sense test it’ll probably get cut.
2. What is the greatest thing about CM culture?
CM culture is refreshing and invigorating. I truly mean that. Having worked as a freelancer before coming here, my day-time social life was a bit lacking. I often describe CM as being much like life at university; that being a casual place where ambitious and intelligent people gather to work hard, create, collaborate, have a good laugh then head over to the pub.
3. What drives you? What are you inspired by?
I’m driven to do the best work I can. I try to make a big impression and hope to be sought out to work on even better and more exciting projects. Life just isn’t that exciting when I’m not challenged and can’t see the bigger opportunity up ahead. Fortunately, CM provides that environment and I try to take full advantage.
COMMUNITIES
How to Integrate Customer Service Into Social Media Marketing
More and more, social media is becoming a forum for customer service. Consumers are looking for brands to listen and interact with them in order to help solve their brand-related problems. But what are some good ways to go about integrating your customer service into social media marketing? This article describes the 12 best ways to do so. The examples range from in depth (making special offers) to the simplest ideas (giving your business a human face). No matter what level of involvement you and your company are looking for, this list will have a great option for you.
TOOLS & TECHNOLOGIES
WHERE Uses Facebook and Bump To Socialize Local Recommendations
The worlds of location based services and local recommendations are colliding with the new WHERE app. WHERE allows users to find local recommendations based on their locations. However, they are now upping the ante and integrating Facebook and Bump to allow users to do this with more ease. For starters, WHERE will let users connect with Bump so they can easily exchange recommendation information. Their integration with Facebook will allow users to sign into Facebook Connect to see who else is using WHERE and get recommendations from them. This app will not only make it easier for users to find out what locations are good in their area, but it will be a more personal experience with the Facebook, Bump and location features.
MEASUREMENT
The best free social media tracking tools you should know about
Social media measurement is not an easy task to accomplish, so worrying about price can get in the way sometimes. This blog outlines the best free ways to measure your social media metrics. While the free tools may not be the most in depth way to go about find your influence, they are a definite option for simple statistics. Some of the tools reviewed here are Topsy, Klout, Backtype, CoComment and plenty of others. Take a look and see if any of these measurement tools may be helpful to you.
Welcome to issue three of this weekly post. I’m hoping to develop the format a little further in the next couple posts.
The rise of Near Field Communication (NFC)
Some of the more exciting tech that was shown at the Mobile World Congress this year was in the vein of near field communication (NFC). The prospects of near field communication are quite profound – essentially the ability to use your phone to transfer data through near contact. Like RFID, NFC would allow you to pay at a point of sale, or transfer contact information for example. One of the large differences between RFID and NFC is security: NFC was built specifically to be more secure. Read more on CNET.
The new subscription model
Over the past week or so both Apple and Google released subscription models for their app stores, drawing a straight line from publisher and consumer. There are some key differences between the two:
Apple’s model allows publishers to set the price and recurrence, and all payment is handled by the iTunes store limiting those purchases to strictly Apple devices (surprise). The Google One Pass is a lot less limited – not only do they only take 10%, but they also allow their One Pass system to work across various platforms such as web, tablet, and smartphones. Google’s subscription system is smarter too allowing for metered billing and single content billings.
HP WEBOS
Introducing the Pre 3
What chances does yet another OS have in the evermore saturated world of mobile? Apple, Google, and RIM in the forefront, Microsoft training to win ground, and now HP rekindling the WebOS software it acquired with Palm. Is it worth it? I know one person in the CM Calgary building that might say yes. Anything can happen, there is no clear winner yet.
Palm may be dead, but their Pre is back, and so is WebOS. Personally I like the simplicity of WebOS. The ‘card’ based system makes it easy to multitask, and a simple flick will close an app. It’s clean and easy to understand. The obvious downside to WebOS are the apps available: a whopping 8000.
The hardware itself is said to be massive. The 3.6″ screen AND slide out keyboard make it a handfull, but for some they’ll be glad to still have the physical keyboard. Have a look at this hands-on video for a walkthrough.
Read More
COMMUNITIES
How Retailers Can Make Video Efforts More Effective
Everyone knows that videos are an effective way to reach consumers. They are intriguing, informative and all together interesting to watch. In a recent study entitled “13th Annual Mystery Shopping Study”, “usage of online video on product pages among the 100 leading retailers studied increased by 18 percentage points between Q4 2009 and Q4 2010.” So what does this mean? Basically, videos are even more important than we thought to begin with.
TOOLS & TECHNOLOGIES
New App Helps You Decide Whether to Buy or Walk Out Empty-Handed
Picture this: you’re sitting in your favorite store with the latest gadget in your hands, contemplating purchasing. Wouldn’t it be helpful in this situation to have reviews and ratings right at the tip of your fingers in order to avoid making any impulse purchase? Enter SearchReviews, the latest app to help you make the right purchases. SearchReview aggregates reviews from sites such as eBay, Zappos, TripAdvisor, Sephora and QVC in order to give users the most current and helpful information. So say goodbye to impulse purchases and never feel the guilt of hating a new item again.
MEASUREMENT
Where Twitter Trending Topics Really Come From
HP’s Social Computing Research group has recently released results from a research project surrounding what makes Twitters trending topics. Turns out, it’s probably not what you think. Rather than focusing on who is tweeting and how often, the algorithm focuses more on the specific subject and reach of the tweet. The researchers analyzed 16.32 million tweets on 3,361 different trending topics between September and October 2010.
INFLUENCERS
Speculation continues about Apple CEO’s health
Speculation about the health of Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, is still heavy. While no one is sure what exactly is happening, one thing is clear. Sick or not, Jobs is loyal to Apple. Read More
If you’re anything like me, you enjoy a smart solution that keeps your data syncronized across everthings you own. I wish more was like this, but unforunately, it’s not. I like to sleep soundly knowing that if anything where to happen to my physical machines the important part would not be lost – the data.
I’m currently a heavy user of Evernote, I use it for everything, and with the premium account I know my data is encrypted both in transit and at rest. I even have it set so if I recieve a document via email, it is automatically stripped and moved to evernote for immediate cloud storage. The thing that has always bugged me about Evernote is it isn’t terribly smart. It stores everything how you like it and will perform full text searches within images – which is rad; however there is a whole internet out there you could potentially augment the data with.
A few weeks ago I browsed through my friends’ activity on social geolocation giant Foursquare, something I’ve found myself doing less and less frequently over the past few months. One check-in in particular caught my eye – the former global digital head of an industry leading social practice had checked in to “Planet Earth” with the note, “Kind of over this checking in thing. I think this should cover it.”
I don’t think he’s alone, as I’ve noticed fewer and fewer of my Foursquare and Gowalla friends checking in with the gusto they might have at this time last year. I myself certainly don’t pull up either of those apps the second I arrive in a new location like I once did, and most times I just leave my iPhone in my pocket altogether.
So why have we lost our lust for location? Contrary to popular belief, it’s not because users are squeamish about telling their nearest and dearest social buddies where they are at a given time. It’s because we’re a demand generation, and we haven’t found a satisfactory answer to our most influential question: What’s in it for me?
