Following a whirlwind first couple of weeks at NixonMcInnes, I thought it was about time to introduce myself. My name’s Louise Greeves and I’m NixonMcInnes’ new Helicopter Commander, which, luckily for my piloting skills, is actually code here for social media consultant.
Having somehow got through the company’s selection process – and believe me rigorous is not the word (I’m still having nightmares about one of the role play scenarios in the windowless meeting room), I’ve been relieved to discover that psychological turmoil was only part of the interview process. Democratic business is very much a mantra that the whole team at NixonMcInnes is committed to and, although I don’t get the coding jokes that have been flying around the meeting room table yet, everyone’s quickly made me feel at home. Read more…
In my mind Cisco are the kings of B2B technology marketing, and are also organising themselves in some very interesting networked ways to compete in the internet age. At their recent Cisco Velocity Partner event I offered my thoughts on 8 key principles for B2B tech marketers engaging with social media.
After my talk Alexandra Krasne, who is a cool Cisco video person, made a quick video.
I say the word network too many times (note to self!) but it might be offer one or two useful snippety thoughts if you are involved in B2B social media shizzle.
My thanks as always to Cisco – who are also a NixonMcInnes client – for involving me.
For me, the most compelling and interesting is the WetPaint / Altimeter Group study that found a strong link between company performance and use of social media. As I was saying the other day, it’s not easy to prove that the social media use caused the increased sales, but if social media is something that successful companies are doing then I think it’s safe to assume that they’re on to something good.
This is a blog post that I’ve wanted to write for a loooooong time! As we enter our 10th year of business – most of which have been in somewhat ‘rough around the edges’ serviced offices – we’re finally moving to a nice shiny HQ of our own in central Brighton.
Here’s the important info:
Our last day at the Brighton Media Centre is this Friday – 20 November.
Mail sent to our old address will be redirected for a few months.
New phone numbers will be updated on our website once we have themare here. We’ll also email everyone we know.
Old phone numbers will be redirected for as long as necessary, but please do update your address book once you have the new numbers as the Brighton Media Centre will eventually need to recycle the old ones.
We’ve worked hard to make sure that our email will work seamlessly and we have various techies on red alert during the switch-over (although personally I’m cynical about these things and expect something to go wrong with an ISP or a server somewhere in the process!) If you are worried about an urgent communication getting through, please call us on 01273 648301. But I’m sure it’ll all be fine. Really.
All of our client’s websites are safe and sound in data centres in London and will be completely unaffected by our office move, so that’s something that we don’t have to worry about.
Yes, there will be an office warming party once we’ve settled in.
If you’re a client or friend of ours and are curious about the new place, just drop us a line and we’d love to have you pop in for a cuppa and a look around.
OK that’s the practical stuff. On a self-indulgent and sentimental note, I just wanted to say what a big deal this is not just for me – who has worked in the same building since 2001 – but for the whole team here at NM.
Over the last couple of years, if you had asked just about anyone on the team if they could change one thing about working here, the answer would have almost certainly been ‘FFS – WE NEED A NEW OFFICE!’ We’ve been cramped; split over two floors; and put up with strange smells in the corridor (“Is that the odour of fish soup, or is there another dead pigeon in the lift shaft?”)
Brighton is a nightmare if you’re in the market for a decent quality office around 2000 square foot. We had a couple of false starts with other places, and the team have been so patient and tolerant of our sub-standard digs. We kind of can’t believe that we’re finally moving.
Our new office has such basic features as: a proper boardroom; kitchen; quiet working room (for when Will’s random outbursts are interrupting your flow) and a lovely creative space with a floor-to-ceiling whiteboard, big screen and beanbags where we can stroke our chins and invent the future for our clients.
Creating the new seating plan has been an interesting challenge. In a democratic company, everyone gets a say, and the directors don’t get any special treatment (damn!)
Probably the biggest unanswered question is what to do about the office stereo. The Wednesday tradition of the love hour will stay, but any suggestions about how to get 18 people to agree on what to play on the office airwaves would be much appreciated in the comments.
Finally, a HUGE thank you to Lasy for sorting the legals and financials; Josh, Anna, Jenni and Edd for planning the interior; but most of all to Leesa for co-ordinating absolutely everything else.
So… YAY TO NEW OFFICES! Can’t wait to have you round.
Here’s an interesting presentation about measuring the real ROI of social media that’s been doing the rounds this week. It’s worth it for the picture of the ‘Social Media Manager’ alone :)
I love the focus on getting to the real ROI of social media in financial terms (not followers, friends, fans, retweets, comments…) but it left two questions in my mind:
1) In a large organisation, how realistic is it to benchmark financial performance ‘before social media’ and ‘after social media’? If a large publicly listed company posts great quarterly results after starting a social media programme, could you really assert that social media was the cause when there are thousands of other programmes running in the business to try to cut costs and increase revenue.
2) The presentation says we should try to correlate social media measurements with financial indicators. But there’s the old problem of establishing causation: Did sales increase as a result of positive buzz increasing, or was the company doing some other things right that led to increased sales and positive buzz? It reminded me of this study about the Nissan Pathfinder.
I can see this model working in businesses that are relatively easy to measure like online retail but is it too simple to be a panacea for measuring social media ROI across the board? I’d love to know what others think about this.
Yesterday hailed a bit of a landmark for our forward-thinking local council in how they use the web to serve local residents.
Like lots of other other councils in the UK, they’ve had a presence in social spaces for a while now, with a Facebook page, Twitter profile and YouTube channel. In the meantime they’ve been working out how they can best use these spaces to actually engage rather than simply represent (disclaimer – this is something we’ve been helping them with).
A simple Twitter conversation yesterday proves that they absolutely do get it. Of course this example is just a start and there’s more that can be done (the conversation happens over a few hours), but it’s a great indication.
One local resident spotted a pedestrian light stuck on red, and tweeted about it at the Brighton & Hove City Council twitter profile:
Not only did the Council respond to thank the person and reassure them it was being looked into…
…but really did have it fixed and tweeted back to confirm:
As I say, this is just a small step, but one that points in a massively positive direction.
Some cities in the US have pioneered the use of social platforms as tools for communicating with their local residents – San Francisco’s SF311 non-emergency Twitter reporting service being a prime example.
Here in the UK however, most of our public sector bodies are still working out how these channels can be used for real public engagement. A quick check through the 129 UK local councils on twitter shows that, with a handful of exceptions (props to Derbyshire County Council), Twitter is used mainly as a means of pushing information out, at best soliciting feedback via surveys on their own websites.
Given the logistics involved in communicating with all of the residents of Brighton who are on Twitter, I’m not suggesting this single event sets a definite precedent (though others may disagree), but it is indicative of a forward-thinking attitude towards how the social web can be used and has definitely generated some good karma.
…but really did have it fixed and tweeted back to confirm:
