COM 581 WEEK 5
http://www.niemanlab.org/2009/04/ny-plane-scare-from-terrifying-tweet-to-news-report-in-4-minutes/http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103562240 "Twitter's Power to Misinform"
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N28351698.htm Swine flu gets big dose of American media coverage
http://www.techflash.com/Microsoft_Vine_to_link_Facebook_other_networks_into_alert_system_43838022.htmlhttp://adage.com/print?article_id=136325 At Century 21, Social Media Is the New TV
http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=136355 Ten Things Marketers Can Learn From the CDC's Response to the Swine Flu Epidemic
http://flipthemedia.com/index.php/2009/04/swineflu-or-swinefail/http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2009/4/20lanham.htmlCDC Twitter
BuzzGain: do it yourself public relations http://buzzgain.com/web/index.php?action=Login
Gillin
SIFF deliverable discussion.
Minute papers.
Breaking news.
Next deliverables. Commit.
In-class exercise to test next deliverable. I thought a good activity would be to allow people to make a choice and ultimately commit to a project. They need to get going soon if they want to have time to work on it. I looked at your “Welcome to week 5” e-mail. This would work with your 4th point, “We'll discuss the remaining deliverables in class on Thursday.” I thought we could break into four groups: 1) Habitat for Humanity; 2) SIFF; 3) Zooppa; 4) Undecided. We can let them discuss issues and approaches. Some may decide they wanted to do SIFF but move to Zooppa based on conversations and ultimately we’ll ask that they decide on what project they are committing to. Whatcha think?
AdTec Systems is a small manufacturing company, our product is electric tankless water heaters. Electric tankless water heaters provide endless, instant hot water with the potential for great energy savings and health benefits. There are several well-known companies who have been making tankless water heaters for years but AdTec’s unique design and the quality materials used make our little heaters stand out. AdTec heaters are made with all stainless steel components, custom flash cartridge elements and an in-wall mounting design that is not seen in any other tankless heater on the market. These design element help make the heater over 99% energy efficient which is a big incentive for conservation-minded consumers. Furthermore, the design of AdTec heaters allows it to be more flexible in how it is used, we have commercial, residential and models designed specifically for radiant heat systems. We feel that despite a general economic slowdown now is an excellent time for our products to be on the market as consumers and government agencies are looking at ways to be more efficient and energy conscious.
As a small business, AdTec is facing a few common problems – reaching a larger audience with a boot-strap marketing budget, being the little fish in a big ocean of water heater manufactures and educating potential customers on how our product can fit their needs. The technology of electric tankless water heaters have had a spotty past which gave them a reputation of poor performance. Many of the issues consumers had have been resolved with newer technologies but the perception is still there. We face problems with reaching a larger audience, educating them so they can decide if this technology is appropriate for them and doing so in a cost effective, boot-strappable manner. Our product design is unique enough that when customers have an opportunity to compare it side by side with our competitors they easily can see the advantages; the problem is getting our product in front of enough qualified eyeballs.
We would really benefit from help with putting together and implementing a marketing strategy that uses social media and viral marketing approaches. Our target market is contractors, plumbers and architects. There needs to be end consumer messaging as well since they ultimately are the ones making a purchase.
http://www.soccersaves.org/home.asp
A good friend that I've worked with for years on many issues related to impact of social inequity, disasters, etc, is a partner in this non profit. His name is Frank Schott. He's also the Global Program Director for NetHope (his bio is on the site).
He called me yesterday with a question/proposition that immediately had me thinking about MCDM. And, I met with Leigh Anne Dunkin to discuss his proposition as well.
The basic premise of this nonprofit is youth:youth sponsorship to achieve AIDS awareness. Frank and his team at SoccerSaves are thinking about active ways to engage high school (and college) youth with their contemporaries in Africa. The ultimate goal would be a student based program similar to SEDS http://seds.org/
http://www.seds.org/chair/ChapterExpansionKit30.pdf
His question to me was how to use social media to connect interested parties.
He also noted that nonprofits are having great success in raising money for their efforts leveraging social media tools. I'm sure you saw the new project that Bill Gates has a hand in for matching the needs of schools with those interested/willing to help them out - Donor's Choose http://www.donorschoose.org/homepage/main.html?zone=404
Here's his pitch. Soccer Saves would like to offer internships to college students this summer. The hope is that they are student athletes (both genders, soccer preferred but not required, and hopefully with a business/marketing/communications focus of study).
The focus of their 'internship' would be to collaborate on projects aimed at developing a strategy and plans to move this program forward (marketing using SN; visibility, engagement and awareness; outreach to HS students and connecting them to their peers in Africa, etc).
Cliff McGrath, one of the nonprofit founders and a well connected local soccer coach has already reached out to his contacts at colleges and universities across the country to identify students for the internships. Given a distributed pool of interns, we'll need to leverage SN and the web to 'connect' them so they can collaborate on projects and even compete to solve some of the problems we're targeting with the projects we assign them (a strategy for SN, etc).
I believe this is another excellent way to form a 'community' and use the open source tools you and your students are looking at. It would also be a fantastic project for the Media Space to participate in this summer.
Leigh Anne is interested in working with me/us on this. I'm hoping that we might get a few minutes on Thursday when I come up to meet with you/your class to explore this idea further. I'd love to engage some of your students in developing a plan to make the soccer saves internship idea a reality; it will be a great project with terrific learning and impact.
Thanks for your time and consideration. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow and if you could spare a few minutes to chat, I would be much in your debt.
Need some sort of reading to discuss.
Maybe: Advertising Age: Future of Media Marketing
Forrester: Social Media Playtime Over