Mike interviews Longg Weeks from the IBM islands in Secondlife.com. In real life his name is Chuck Hamilton and he is in Vancouver Canada. Chuck talks about how Second Life has been utilized by IBM for training, culture and fun!
A new study has just been released. It is a new survey by Komjuniti, a Hamburg, Germany about Second Life marketing efforts. The study found that more than 70% of the site’s users say they are disappointed with the marketing that goes on in SecondLife.com. (Second life is a virtual world) My thoughts –>where Second Life has taken on the feeling of the old Dot Com era, lots of companies like IBM, Toyota and others running to get on board. But the Komjuniti survey is missing the point. Second Life is a different way of marketing. I am sure the ROI is very low but we are just at the beginning of new social media like virtual worlds, podcasts, social media websites such as MySpace, Flickr, Gather, Ning etc. I feel that these early adopters are on the right track. Front runners in this new landscape. Lewis and clarks of the new frontier.
A study like this is valid, but as the landscape changes in marketing, media, training, events and such, it is missing the big picture. I dont watch TV commercials anymore. Never. I tivo thru them all. I also don’t listen to the radio, I listen to podcasts, on demand stuff, what I want to listen to right now.
If marketers want to get to me they better keep trying on things like IBM and Toyota. I have spent quite allot of time in both places. The people at Komjuniti never talked to me. I also saw that, 42% of all respondents surveyed doubted companies would actually put much follow-up effort into the site. This is shame, but I applaud them for trying new ways of communicating their messages. They took a shot with a small investment which really does have great potential in the future. Instead of giving up, these companies should be holding concerts and having seminars in there Second Life areas. Bringing the people in. Random Books just had Dean Koontz stop in their bookstore in Second Life and give a reading and answered questions. What a great idea and it was a total hit. Most of these second life areas don’t have anyone there. They need to staff them. The whole Kevin Costner saying.” If you build it they will come” does not work in real life nor in your second life. Marketers need to keep being creative and the people will come….I know I will.
Today was a very productive day. I had two inquiries for programs and I did a ton of billing from the last event we produced. Grass Shack really is doing very good financially at last after four+ years of hard work. I also spent a little time in Second Life with one of my partners in there discussing 2 events in second life we will be facilitating. One is a training meeting and another a meetup on Monday at Noon (second life/pacific time) April 2nd at the Kiva building. I also spoke with the wonderfully excited Fiona Ramsey at Kiva about this meetup and the podcasts I have been producing for them. She has so much passion and excitement about Kiva.org that its infectious. I also spoke to her about the Kiva Podcast and what we were going to do next. Pretty fun stuff, lots of work but its for a good cause.
Then I came across this post….. The kiva folks seem very rich to me.
http://therichestpeopleinamerica.com/default.asp?x=1&n1=8
Do you know anyone on this list? Do you aspire to be on it?
This months March cover of Successful Meetings Magazine features Mike McAllen our CEO. Which is me!!!!!! How cool! The article is by Sarah Welch and is really interesting. I had the good fortune of being interviewed by her for the article and then photographed for the cover. We talked about Second Life and Grass Shack Events & Media. Check it out, its very informative and also features Donald E Jones from Georgetown University, Chuck Hamilton of IBM. (a podshackradio podcast guest coming up next month),Claus Nehmzow and some other folks who talk about meetings and events in Second life. Its a great overview of how the landscape is changing for communications.
See me next on the cover of Time. (yeah right- this is my 20 minutes of fame)
Also featured in the Magazine is Grass Shacks friend Simone Champagnie for her awesome blog. Check it out at www.sncdestinations.com/cblog
Yesterday I went through a whirlwind of fun with Meetings Community Forum board in Google forums. I have been enjoying the new media space for the last couple of years. I am a closet nerd. Well not so closeted lately. Blogging (sorta) since 2003. I have been podcasting for the last 2 years: Barking Spider Ranch(podfaded), USP Talk(podfaded), NSheets(podfaded), PodShackRadio, KIVA.org to name a few I have been directly producing all for just fun. I also have been in second life after hearing Eric Rice and CC Chapman speak at the Podcast Academy at Yahoo. I also have been attending the Podcast expo and as many Podcamps, podcast Academy’s as possible. All the while having the best year EVER last year for Grass Shack Events & Media. We tripled our sales. Correlation? I don’t know….
So back to the whirlwind of fun yesterday. I really have enjoyed listening to Managing the Gray podcast. CC Chapman who does this podcast is quite an inspiration to me. He totally gets it and I wanna get it. So I am one of the MTG Sheep in he herd. CC and his company Crayon have a new marketing Meetup in Second life which I attend every Thursday at 6am. (yes its fricken early) I really enjoy listening in and being in the conversation. Because, that’s what it is all about the conversation! Talking to strangers. Don’t listen to what your parents said, talk to strangers! Build your brand! (CCisms) I decided I should start a Meetup in Second life in my office in Second Life for meeting planners and resources that put on meetinsg and conferences, experimental marketers etc. So I invited everyone on the meetings and events forum boards/ g-mail list in the MIM list and the newer MeCo list. I was immediately flamed for marketing. I also had several people stand up for me. Well the meetups have had a total of 6 people come (including friends who aren’t involved with meeting planning) I just thought this would be agreat forum to share ideas in a new fun way. Plus all the meetinsg and events going on in Second Life why wouldnt the RL meeting folks want to see what all the noise is about??? Well obviously some dont want to know.
I scheduled them for 8-9am Thursday mornings so I can attend the Crayonville meetup, go get some coffee and then be there for my meetings meetup. The few that did show I really enjoyed showing the meeting planners who did make it some of second life. We started at the Grass Shack then I took them to Crayon and showed them around. Then off to IBM and other spots of interest.
All in all I am amazed at the pushback from the forum boards. But it was so great to get all the emails and encouragement from the people who “get it”. It is so important to me to try new things – if it is a new way to present material for a conference, a new sort of scrim for staging to something like Second Life.
Sorry for the drawn out post. I would love to hear your comments. I also posted a new Podshackradio of me bantering about this a little. No interview this week. CC Chapman told me in an email that he would do an interview soon. I need to send him a voice comment for his show about all this hubub.
Following the new media, social media world has really been cool for me the last year or so. I am involved with blogger, podcasting, second life, my space, flickr, gather, twitter, tumblr, ning.com. I also basically keep my Bloglines account open all day long. It’s exhausting.
So it brings me to the point of when do I work? Grass Shack has been more successful this year then ever. We tripled our gross revenue from 2005. Interesting? Is there a correlation? I am involved with so many communities now. Business is about relationships. I have many more relationships with folks I have never had the pleasure of meeting in person. But it is all networking and really really fun.
I am not sure where to focus my attention. I also know that these services are popping up more and more. When I attended and sponsored the Social media club in San Francisco last month I was amazed at the number of folks who were getting start ups together to get a piece of this space.
I look forward to seeing what happens and being a part of this virtual gold rush of communities.
I read somewhere about a older college football coach getting an ipod and listening to rock and hip hop music to better understand his players. He basically wanted to learn his players language. I guess it ended up being the best season they ever had. Not sure if it was that years crop of players, or the harmony they all felt from the music.
My daughter and her boyfriend, who is 20 years her senior, seem to speak the same language. Yet she and I don’t really understand each other.
This sort of thing happens all the time. My grandson babbles at me all morning, and I don’t understand him. I tried to watch cartoons, but he doesn’t seem to understand them either. Then again he is five months old. I will keep trying.
Recently we pitched some creative to a client. The internal event staff loved it. The executives thought it was over the top. They ended up using a very old and tired idea. Everyone had seen it many many times. It went over like a box of yellow jackets pour on stage.
We really feel you have to push the limits to inform and entertain. Spending the money to fly attendees out to the event, the hotels, meals, all to bore them with stale PowerPoint is not good ROI. (that’s a word they like to hear) But that is our job to try and get them to use some creative delivery methods. Like clever opening videos, second life meetups, podcasts, videocasts, anything to get the audience engaged.
I guess I will give my executive clients ipods this next holiday season
.BMP "Offices in Second Life and Real Life")
Sue Pelletier mentioned Grass Shack in her latest post. Makes me smile. 
To hear more about Sue listen to the latest interview on http://www.podshackradio.com/index.php?post_id=175192
Check out Sues blog at http://blog.meetingsnet.com/face2face/2007/01/29/podcast-now-up/
(That’s me in the blue top and jeans)
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