Wow, it's my first launch on the Spaces team and I've been amazed at how effectively the team has executed. I was in the backseat for the most part (well.. all parts) of this one so it was a great way to learn through observation. For those who don't know how a product team works, there are two sides. The peanut butter and the jelly. The peanut butter is the product team - they build it, make it strong, test it, retest it and flip the switch to launch it. The jelly is the BG (business group) which I'm on. We run the business side, marketing, monitization, strategy. That stuff.  Neither peanut butter or jelly is as good alone as they are together. Peanut butter can be eaten alone but would it really get the love it gets when it's with jelly? No way.

Anyway, the launch effort is a execution of both the peanut butter and the jelly. The product team has build some fabulous new features that can be seen here. And the business group has got the word out. Read some reviews here and here and here. Take a look. Give it a try. What I love is the feature upgrades are all driven from customer feedback. Voice of the customer is being heard. That's always a good thing.

Happy Launch Day!

I went to an interesting panel at the Web2.0 Expo today. Spaces was mentioned several times by the former name, MSN Spaces. Ho Hum. What's interesting is it was mentioned in regards to why the big boys, AOL, Yahoo! and Microsoft, can't get a successful Social Networking site going. The start ups are eating our lunch according to moderator Charlene Li. I have to hand it to the Mike Speiser who was on the panel from Yahoo! He handled some tough questions very well, mainly why Yahoo hasn't innovated in the last 3 years. Why their site isn't up to Web2.0 standards. Why do the small start up's like Facebook and LinkedIn get it right the first time? He recognized that large companies like Yahoo and Microsoft are focusing on so many things it makes it harder to innovate well on any one thing. Agreed. He said the key to successful Social Networking is to iterate over and over again.

Matt Cohler from Facebook emphasized it is crucial to understand the relationships between the users, not just create a site that attracts users but understand how they are relating to each other. Reid Hoffman from LinkedIn emphasized the importance of a great distribution channel. His advice to start ups is to focus on the distribution and the network and worry about monitization later. Without a distribution monitization would be putting the cart before the horse. The fourth speaker was Gina Bianchini, founder of Ning. Her advice was to make sure you are always offering new content, profiles, new things to do with your profile. She emphasized the need to offer instant gratification to the user. Always be fun and fresh.

All the panelists acknowledged that none of them are tackling the very challenging task of localizing content for other parts of the world, something Spaces does. No one indicated it was anywhere on their radar for the near future and if they did tackle international markets it would most likely be through partners. For now they are satisfied with getting it right in the US, and after all, who can blame them.

I found a GREAT post about community building and ROI. By far the most complete, informative blog post I've seen on the topic. The blog post is on the Creating Passionate Users blog by Kathy Sierra. I've posted the insert below.

User Community and ROI

Every time I give a talk, someone always asks, "That's all good and nice that helping users learn is the key to creating passionate users... but who's going to do all that extra work? Who's going to make the extra tutorials and better docs?" Answer: your user community. Think about all the things a strong user community can do for you: tech support, user training, marketing (evangelism, word of mouth), third-party add-ons, even new product ideas. And that's not including any extra sales you might make on community/tribe items like t-shirts, stickers, and other gear.

Yes, there's still a budget... but we've all seen third-party fan/user groups that got no support at all from "the mother ship" and yet thrived and gave users a level of support and training the company didn't provide. But there's still that little of issue of getting users involved, and for that--the single biggest factor is getting users involved at a much earlier path on their learning journey than typically happens.

This picture is from an earlier post:

In Building a User Community Part 1 we talked about the importance of not only a strict "There Are No Dumb Questions" policy, but also an even more dedicated "There Are No Dumb Answers" message.

Today, this post will offer a few more tips on how to use your marketing budget (tiny as it may be) to build, support, and grow a user community from the beginning.

* Host some kind of discussion forum (can include chat, wikis, and blogs as well), and do whatever it takes to get people there as soon as possible, ideally while the thing is still in beta (but it's never too late to start!)

* Look on other third-party forums where users are discussing (which usually means struggling) your product, and find the most active people. Reach out to your earliest adopters or strongest new users and offer them non-paid incentives for becoming active. Chances are, if you have any users at all and your product is even the least bit complicated, people are discussing it somewhere. This could be anywhere from Amazon product reviews to technical discussion boards and even comments on related blogs.

* Make these folks life-time "charter members" with special privileges and recognition as 'founders' that nobody else will ever get.

* Have levels and rewards for participating (but again, not money--that totally changes the motivation, or at least the perceived motivation). The rewards can simply be status, early access to betas, and especially restricted access to the developers where they can discuss their ideas or at least listen to the engineers and designers describe why they made the choices they did, etc. [Don't reward people for post quantity alone... if post-count is the only criteria, you end up with a zillion useless posts]. Study successful user group communities for examples (like, say, javaranch.com--3/4 million unique visitors a month).

* Teach users how to help other members by creating documents (or getting other users to write them) on how to ask and answer questions in the most productive way.

* Include some just-for-fun activities in your community, like one (usually ONLY one) totally off-topic forum.

* Make sure there are interesting, easy-access ways for users to get to know more about one another. Be SURE to have user profile pages that include gender, photos, and some other personal info in addition to the specifics related to this particular community. Which leads to...

* Encourage members to meet offline! Hold a dirt-cheap User's Conference, ideally in more than one city, to get things started. Start a forum from the people who sign-up for the conference, and offer user group or forum leaders free entry to the event (and be sure to have a private user group or forum leader cocktail reception). Tips for that are in this recent post on face-to-face). Create a document on How To Start A User Group, and make sure users know how to get it. There is a great series of posts on how to start a user group written by the guys behind the Edmonton .NET User Group. (Thanks guys)

* Encourage forum moderators or other community leaders to have their own private discussion space.

* Don't tolerate abuse of the beginners, but don't force the experts to have to put up with newbie issues. As any community matures, you must provide separate areas for newbies and experts... if the community culture is one of generosity and motivation, there will still be enough experts who want to spend time helping newbies.

* Why not help your top community leaders get a book deal? You never know... if it's a tech topic, direct them (or yourself) over to Wiley publisher Joe Wikert for some excellent and candid advice (search his archives, and you'll find everything from how to write a proposal, whether you need an agent, etc.)

* Consider starting a monthly "official" user group membership subscription, with something that comes in the real mail each month. Think about it. Think about how you feel when Fedex or UPS pulls up with that little Amazon box with the smile on the side. Each month, send them a newsletter or DVD. Where's the budget for that content? Get your users involved! Have them submit things, and use the small monthly membership fee to cover the cost of materials and mailing, etc. Maybe you can partner with a sponsor on this, to include other things in the monthly "kit."

* Create limited-edition, not-for-sale t-shirts, stickers, and other gear JUST for the founding community members (if you're just getting started in building a community). For ongoing communities, do the same thing and distribute them randomly, for free. Use the principle of "intermittent variable reward" that works so well to make slot machines and twitter so addicting ; )

* Make your community leaders or even just active participants HEROES. Create "superhero" Moo cards for them. Plaster their photos everywhere. (Cute story I heard from a reader here -- she met her husband online while they were both moderators for an Autodesk CAD forum.)

* Host an offline retreat just for the key community leaders. Can't afford to do what Microsoft does with its Search Champs? Can't afford to put people up at the "W"? Have a campout. Supply the marshmallows.

* Above all, keep teaching members to teach other members. Give everyone a crash course in learning theory. The better they become at helping others--the more skills they develop in mentoring/tutoring others--the more meaningful and motivating it is for them to keep on doing it..

These are just a few tips for now. Stay tuned for more. And of course, please add your own... while I have quite a lot of user group/community experience having launched several groups from scratch, they were all technology-related, and many of you are from very different domains.

Posted by Kathy Sierra on March 21, 2007 | Permalink

Here is a fantastic article about why Microsoft isn't dead. (Glad to hear it) But what's really interesting is the point he makes about the difference between what mouthpieces in our society say and what is really true. Paul Graham says Microsoft is dead because Google has come along. Microsoft is dead because companies aren't afraid to play in 'our' space anymore. So what's he says is companies aren't afraid to take on Microsoft as a competitor. That's not dead, that's capitalism. Good for us for being challenged. Good for us to have to prove ourselves again. I don't think anyone here disagrees that we are in the fight everyday. But I also drive by miles of construction sites on my way to work where buildings are going up on campus. We have to valet park the cars because more people work here than ever before. I can assure you weren't not dead.

What Graham reveals is that there is still a big gap between what technology leaders say is true, and what really is true. It's like saying the newspaper business is dead and no one will get papers delivered anymore. Well that's just not true. I see piles of them every day in restaurants, airplanes, hotel lobbies, etc. A few affluent tech writers in Silicon Valley can't possibly know what is happening in Omaha, Nebraska or Gnome, Alaska. I'm often reminded when talking to my parents and friends that working in technology to some degree separates us from the general population. We think it's all about speed, efficiency, connectivity. But there are still more people without MySpaces than there are with them. I still walk to the mailbox everyday and last I checked I had no chip implanted quite yet. Even writing this blog is something most people don't do.

No, we're not dead. But thanks for checking.

I heard a great story this week. Safeco announced their oldest shareholder is 100 years old. Turns out the woman bought 15 shares of the stock 55 years ago and has held on to it all these years. After all the splits take a guess at what it's worth today. Hold you breath.... ready... $2 million. I say, "AMEN sister!"

I was given 2 shares of Nordstrom stock at my high school graduation. Dare I dream.

Sometimes I just love the simple things that make me laugh. On my site statistics for my blog it sometimes shows URL's that linked to my blog so I can see where traffic comes from. Last week there was a Google search for Marty Collins that linked to my blog. I still get curious when I find out people actually Googled my name. And the first thing that comes to my mind is, did they mean 'me' Marty Collins or a different Marty Collins? And did they find what they were looking for?

Last week a Google search showed up with my name and it was the same afternoon I had just given a speech to about 250 people at a luncheon. So it's not too hard to imagine that someone saw me at that luncheon and went back to their office and Googled me. Maybe they thought I was good, bad, cute, annoying. Who knows. But that search got them 1,400,000 hits. Did they have any idea the Marty Collins they found was the right one?

Yesterday I got a hit from a search on 'Marty Collins auto'. Turns out there is an marketing executive at Ford Co. named Marty Collins. There is also a Martin Car Dealership in Fort Collins, Co. But my blog came up 2nd because I had used the word auto populate in one of my posts. Does that have anything to do with the auto that I'm sure this person was searching for? Not even close. I'm happy my blog came up because that means it's getting crawled in search engines. But it also shows how far search technology still has to go. If I talk about auto populating a field in my blog and someone searches for an auto they get my post. Or maybe they wanted to know what kind of car Marty Collins drives? A Jeep in case you were wondering. No - search certainly isn't that smart - yet!

In case you missed it, MSN announced the line up for the Live Earth concert today. You can see the US and the UK lists on Liveeath.msn.com.  There is also a LiveEarth Space where the latest info will be posted. Tickets go on sale this Saturday!

I went to a buzz marketing training session last week that was entertaining but not too revolutionary. The big thing right now is to talk about buzz marketing and consumer generated content. There are thousands of examples of these consumer generated content pieces, in fact I've identified a few in my blog, my favorite being here. But what I'm still missing is how this has moved the needle on brand equity, revenue, customer acquisition, etc. You get the picture.

Here is a great blog post from Sara Holoubek about measurements for next generation marketing (that's my term -- I made it up). She argues that we shouldn't be using old school metrics to determine the success for buzz marketing strategies like Second Life. I completely agree. Buzz marketing is a long term play when you are talking about building brand equity, I agree with that too. But I still have this voice in my head, really it's my finance prof's voice, saying "what do you have to show for it?" And I'm not saying these campaigns aren't the right way to go or that I don't love them. In fact I'm pitching one right now to the higher powers that be in my group. What I am saying is I don't hear anyone talking about success of the campaigns in terms of sales, or PV or whatever your metric is. I'm talking about long term effects, not instant click through's. But does your research actually show that a buzz campaign made your audience think you are cooler or are more likely to buy from you the next time they make a purchase?

I asked that question to the presenters at the training session last week and they looked at me like I was speaking Japanese or something. Then I asked them what they thought of the Forrester report on ROI of blogging which I actually loved. It was the first and only real piece of data I had seen to show impact and ROI. They had no idea what I was talking about and took a note to go find that report when they got back to the office. Did I mention these people I just written a book about Buzz marketing and were on a book tour which is why I think they were teaching this workshop.

Right....

I got a new computer at work last week and had the IT desk transfer my files from old PC to new PC. They did a great job and I was actually impressed with how much of the settings stayed the same. But inevitably I lost two things that I rely heavy on, 1. the auto populate email feature in Outlook. I know no ones emails anymore because they auto populate in the to: line when I compose a mail. But in my computer transfer that feature didn't transfer over. So big bummer, I now have to go find people's email again and type it in. How lazy I've become. This is like cell phone. Do you really know anyone's phone number any more. You put it in your phone contacts and forget it. Now the only phone number I know is my cell phone and my Mom's number because she's had the same number since 1978.

The 2nd thing I lost was my RSS list in IE7. Luckily my Outlook was picking up RSS feeds so I went to my RSS folder and started opening all the downloaded files. But then it occurred to me this is a great time to update my RSS list and find new feeds. So I thought I'd share a few new RSS feeds I've added and I won't bother telling you the one's I've dropped. Here are the new feeds:

10e20: the name came from when they were working in a building on 10 East 21st Street in Manhattan.

Marketing Hipster: I like this blog because he is also customer centric in his writings and does a great job of calling out other smart blogger's. I should do a better job of this.

ParisLemon: okay, this one isn't new but I still like it so I'm carrying it over!

Caution; this is a rant. I'm saying right up front in full disclosure I have not read the book I am about to rant about, nor do I plan on reading it. But I did see the author on the Today show this morning and I was completely outraged at the advice she was handing out to young mothers and any women planning on being mothers. Leslie Bennetts writes about the economic downfall of women who decide to stay home instead of staying in the work force. She threw out numbers like a woman will lose 40% of her earning potential over her lifetime if she doesn't work those pivotal career building years. She says 50% of all women will get divorced and not have the security of their man to support them so they better keep working and forget about staying home for a few years with your kids because the work force will never allow you to make up for lost time and wages.

My biggest problem with this argument is that it's simply not true and I am living proof. I have done exactly what she says in her book can't be done. I have taken off time from my career in those pivotal 20 something years to stay at home with my two children. After staying home for 3 years and I went to business school for 2 more years and earned my MBA. So I was out of the workforce for a total of 5 years. But somehow I have managed dispute her predictions to find a great job with a great company that didn't bat an eye when it was clear I had taken time off to raise my children. My career is everything she says is not possible. And my biggest problem with her argument and her appearance on the Today show this morning is that there was no representation of the other side of the issue.

What has she done to empower women? All she has done is use scare tactics to make women believe they have no other choice than to go back to work after having children because chances are they are going to get divorced and need that job someday and it just might not be there.  I was raised by a woman who found herself a single mom with three kids after being a stay at home mom for 10 years. She picked herself up, got a job and went on living her life. And she will tell you that not for a moment did she ever regret staying home for the time she was able.

What I want to see is women supporting women for their decision to work or stay home based on what is right for them. The danger in this debate is that pointing figures and saying "you must do it this way" will always make some women feel inadequate and question the very difficult decision they made to stay home or work. Who is any one person to say what is right or wrong for another. Instead wouldn't it be helpful to say "here's how I can help empower you." Look how I did it and see if anything may work for you. Let me help you find your way, not judge you for making what was a very difficult decision even harder.