Nano-Marketing

Welcome to my home ! !Sorry, to my office.  Just got here, I’ll check my blackberry which has been vibrating non-stop. Probably alerts for this morning’s meeting. Take a look at my instant messaging system to see if the others have arrived. Call Joe as I know he likes to start the day calmly and tends to disconnect from everyone else. I’m not on fantastic form this morning because of last night’s company ‘speed dating ’ session. With about twenty or so colleagues who are registered on ‘letsmeet’ – we decided to have a proper get together as our profiles made at least a 75% match. Strange experience as we had only ever met through our avatars . Secret gardens are great but given the size of the company this was an extremely enlightening experience…a chance to see the wood from the trees.

In fact I’ve just received a friendly SMS from somebody I met last night who’s invited me to log onto my blog . I switch in and see they’ve left a huge comment on the post I did on bungee jumping. While chatting with this guy he informed me that the marketing department was on for doing an ad using bungee jumpers. Looks like I’ll be flying through the airwaves again with more news for my ‘extremelife’ community .

In fact it looks like I’ve got a few alerts from the community hub . They have all been given the buzz on this project so it’s going to be a collective jump. Those guys in marketing don’t know how lucky they are: a swarm of angels – what could be better. Oh and there’s another message from the product and brand communication manager who wants some feed back. Our best bungee jumper – a friend and colleague - actually just left for India. The company recently tied up with a small Indian startup and needed someone out there.

It’s a weird chain of events that got her out there. Since she is totally in love with India – I think she lived there as a child and then went back on a regular basis – she started a blog with an Indian friend. She sort of got this reputation of being a total India junkie and her surname was the Bollywood princess…Management told her to stop blogging at work as they really didn’t see how India could possibly be related to her job. Then, one night she was sent an SMS by upper management who wanted to see her. She thought this would be it and out – particularly with her latest initiative on eyespot.com with feeds from a whole series of Bollywood videos and advertisements.  In fact, it appeared that the Directors had been reading her posts and since they’d just tied up with this Indian outfit, needed her expertise. They realized that if there was someone in the company who had a grasp of media , social and otherwise in India it was her.

So the Bollywood princess is now in Mumbai and can only jump virtually on her latest Japanese import from Nintendo – a virtual climbing wall. The great advantage of this whole episode is that communications realized the importance of wikis and has recently tied up with HR to give them the chance to listen to what the crowd has to say. Relations seem a lot better between internal and external communications. Staff have a better understanding of what HR are trying to do and one really gets the impression team spirit is on the up.

Enough of that, the meeting is about to start and luckily all the documents have been uploaded to the collaborative meeting space (nicknamed ‘ourspace’ ). When meeting invitations go out they link each participant to the relative material and all related files. It’s a real time saver.

At today’s meeting I can’t see Tim as he’s suffering from a couple of rugby related injuries – or so he says…high tackle and all that. He’s using his very George Clooney looking avatar so I’m not complaining. Charlotte, is always having technical problems, I think they’re related to the state of her office where the wires are constantly being unplugged or chewed at by her Aibo . Anyway, today she has put up a picture of her country house on Second Life …what ever next –she’s trying to sell it so I suspect this is another one of her marketing ploys. Our Italy manager Massimo sent through a message with a video link – or spool as we tend to call them – a phrase coined by a previous technical manager who spent his time mixing old films and new videos – either on Youtube or the latest Yahoo inspired online software – ‘filmfun’. He has given us a couple of points for discussion and thinks that the next ad campaign should definitely be downloadable and remixable – CGC is really his thing.

My three screens – linked by the latest multi USB cords  - mean I can manage my workflow updates and validations; the meeting – that only lasts about 5 minutes because we’ve all worked together on ‘ourspace’ ; and – most importantly – a video feed from home where I have a full view on the kids and our latest babysitter who is thankfully a total whiz on my son’s latest virtual homework space.

Work gets done so much more efficiently since we set up ‘ourspace’ as we no longer have to sit through interminable ppts. Everything is online and more often than not colleagues take 5 minutes to do a quick film presentation of their work to explain the graphs etc. Our 3D powerpoint room means we can go inside our presentations to do this.

Great, I’ve just received a confirmation from our internal shopping service ‘yourshopatwork’ where we can order the groceries online from our local shops. I selected the shops I used to go to and when I post my orders ‘yourshop’ sends out a team to pick up everything and deliver it to my home. They send through photos to my mobile if they need confirmation of a new product. It has meant when I get home I can concentrate on the kids…The initiative came from our ‘workingparents’ community – a collaborative space and blog set up by the company to encourage parents to exchange and develop ideas to make life after work easier…’Myconcierge’ is another of their initiatives giving us access to online services for babysitting, house repairs and car rentals…

Charlotte is trying to sell her virtual country home, but I’m still trying to sell my parents real cottage in the Western Isles. Luckily our intranet has a marketplace that is also linked up to our subsidiaries all over the world. It means I’m sure to find a buyer as we have a huge affiliated company in Vancouver where the number of Canadian Scots on the look out for holiday homes is on the rise. I had a post from a potential client who has created an online family tree (scottishroots.com) where you can upload info to trace back your relatives (they love this in Canada ). He can trace back his roots 400 years… There has been a request to allow outside companies to advertise on the intranet so management have decided that as a % of the advertising revenue will be given to a charity chosen by popular vote among the employees. I thought I might suggest we use it to fund our own kids school computer equipment as the buzz on the intranet is that a lot of the local schools are struggling to keep up with children’s demands. The vote will be carried out over three days. I’m really hoping that advertisers will also give us some worthwhile reductions….

All these tools have created a much calmer more relaxed atmosphere at work. It used to be such a rush all the time for everyone.  Local shops aren’t too upset…as they’re still being used regularly by the ‘yourshopatwork’ team. Banks are open from 9-7pm…if we need them, because most of our transactions are either online or via the company ATM where bills can be paid, cash and cheques put into our accounts etc. This ATM is linked up to every employee’s bank .  People are off work far less and staff motivation is definitely on the rise.

Where motivation is concerned, perhaps the biggest push came from the idea platform “ideafeed”. When my assistant suggested a different method of managing stationary stock and received a reply the same day he really felt he had a voice in the company . A month later, his idea was taken up and put into practice. As there was a considerable saving to be had, he was not only named employee of the month on the online noticeboard but received a bonus cheque.  He is now an active blogger on ‘ideafeed’ and has managed to increase site traffic by 50%.

If I’m quick I’ll have time to go and swing a golf club in our virtual sports room. I think Miki has reserved a 15 minute slot and if I’m lucky we might even make the online fitness class too. This week it’s coming from our UK office where the coach is this amazing looking avatar – a mix between Brad Pitt and Ralph Fiennes – if that’s not motivating what is?  Apparently our Japanese office has come up with an even more up to date version of the Wii where a 3D image means you can play tennis opposite a real or virtual player of your choice. Not sure how it works yet. Will keep you posted.

If you ’re interested and want to keep in touch, come and see me on my virtual space or stop by at my community space online . Clearly I’m far better off at home on my intranet than lost on the evermore complex spider’s web of the internet …

Flickr, wiki, tag, poke me soon !

Caroline

Mots-clés : blackberry , speed dating , avatars , company , blog , community , hub , swarm of angels , communication , Bollywood , eyespot.com , media , Nintendo , wikis , crowd , collaborative , Aibo , Second Life , Youtube , CGC , ppt , mobile , marketplace , intranet , Internet , motivation , idea , noticeboard , online