The words I’m writing here will be outdated by the time you read them…

Actually, this is a great video illustrating the pace of technology and change.  For me it  confirms the need to be open, aware and flexible towards the future with a strong central core of knowing yourself in the big ( and fast moving ) wide world.

There are massive paradigm shifts going on in how we live and interact as global societies.  This movement is being created by the ever more connected collective of minds and unique inspired insight. It’s an exciting time to be alive if you consciously move from your center and embrace full circle awareness.

The possibilities becoming realities are not yet dreamed of.

ROI is critical to business success. Businesses have to pay attention to ROI ( return on investment ). Everything a business does goes back to the bottom line. Your marketing plan has to consider the additional business each initiative will bring to you and if it will be valuable. In today’s fast paced world making these decisions gets tricky. How do you know what your customers will respond to? Would it be valuable to have a deep enough relationship with your customers to know what they’re thinking? If you establish direct communication channels and listen, learn and evolve you can develop a broader ROI, a return on insight.

What is Insight?

Insight means the capacity to gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing. Insight takes a combination of listening, learning and evolving in a continuing flow. With insight communication becomes more valuable. Communication flows full circle and evolution turns communication into trusted conversation. The conversation is ongoing and never really ends.

A Circle of Perpetual Value

Listen

There are many ways for small businesses to listen to what’s being said about them. Google search, Alerts and Twitter are some basic starting places for listening. There are many quality services available that can uncover and analyze what people are saying about you inside communities and the open web. Conversations are going on about your business at all times. Listening is a continual process that yields insights into your customers attitudes, discovers influencers and the best places for engagement on the web.

- Continually listening

Learn

Learning is a process of actively launching small initiatives, discovering opportunities and designing activity plans. Analyze what’s working and then redesign. Learning helps focus on quality activities and reduce unproductive activities. To truly provide insight you never want to stop learning.

- Continually learning

Evolve

Evaluating return on insight is continuing process of adaption to the awareness that your listening and learning is bringing. To benefit from insight your business needs to be flexible enough to pay attention to what’s working and make adjustments. Navigating the course for your business takes a combination of reading the information and discovering insights to help you move forward with clarity. Insight helps you steer a flexible course of success.

- Continually evolving

Questions for Reflection

Here are some reflection questions from David Armano’s “The New Focus Group: The Collective”

1. Are you actively listening to your customers in the places they frequent online?

2. Are you launching initiatives that can be easily updated? Are you enabling a “culture of rapid response?”

3. Are you evaluating current processes and updating them as needed?

4. Are you building a culture in which “failure” is acceptable?

5. Are you allowing your teams to create “pilots” prior to scrutinizing them through traditional ROI exercises?

6. Are you planning initiatives that will help your organization learn prior to backing major marketing campaigns?

7. Are you synthesizing qualitative insights in addition to analyzing hard data points?

8. Are you tweaking your strategy along the way—and adapting where change may be needed?

9. Are you empowering all members of your teams to think and act like “digital anthropologists?”

10. Are you evolving the tools and methods to measure success (i.e. going beyond clicks and impressions)?

Revolutionary Insights

In the rapidly shifting world of today insight is more important than ever. Insights help us design solutions to the rapidly changing needs of our customers. By listening and engaging we have the opportunity to be more in tune with customers needs and also to evolve more quickly as our markets do. The opportunity to be connected like never before brings the potential to create new ways of doing business with more consciousness. Increased consciousness in business is good for people and good for our world.

sources: David Armano’s Business Week Article and Beth’s Blog

What is all this social media stuff about anyway? I’m just trying to run my business why would I care?

Social media is all about creating and growing relationships. The more clearly you understand this and implement this understanding into your insights the better you can grow your relationships with your customers.

Social Media value from a personal point of view:

• helps people connect better
• exchange ideas, opinions and information
• helps people find each other and stay connected

Social media value from a business point of view:

• re-humanize relations between companies and the public
• become part of the community
• listen to the conversations your customers are having
• better understanding of customers
• better understanding brings anticipation of wants and needs
• better information
  

• better and faster service
• friendlier connection points
• increased customer satisfaction
• higher level of trust
• interact with customers on a deeper level
• build lasting relationships
• build a stronger sense of loyalty

The Central Focus

At the center of social media are communications tools that help us connect with each other. As a small business person the sooner you realize this the sooner you can use these tools to leverage your communication and build meaningful relationships with your customers. With more understanding comes more effective communication which leads to more insightful marketing and more value for your investment.

Big Opportunities

Social media is more than creating your community. Think of the opportunity to connect with your customers and join them in their spheres. With the ability of social media to connect with your customers think about what can happen to your business.

• exciting interactions spread
• exponential word of mouth
• create evangelists for your business
• people go out of there way to promote you
• your customers literally become fans

Your greatest value and goal with social media is to create a real base of fans that love you and support what you do for everyone’s mutual benefit.

Designing a stop sign with corporate communication. 
What if everything you do had to go through this process?

It’s great to seek ideas and feedback.  Group think can be very helpful to your projects and help create something better.  Teams working together can create so much more than an individual working alone.  Clearly aligned vision is critical to produce valuable contributions.  Big challenges can happen if the team isn’t crystal clear.  Executing a simple idea becomes a confusing mess.

Too many Voices Muddy the Conversation

Getting too many voices involved without clear understanding is a path to chaos, as illustrated in the video.  I’ve been there a few times and it rarely works.

Get Clear about what Your Creating

Anything you’re doing, including starting a blog and developing a conversational marketing strategy benefits from a clear vision of who you are.  Take some time to understand what it is that you wish to share with the world.  Listen to your community and explore what they’re interested in.  Consider why you’re creating what your creating and who you’re creating it for.

Be a Voice of Clarity

He who knows others is wise, but he who knows himself is enlightened.  ~ Lao-Tzo

Your projects and conversations will blossom if you listen to yourself and express yourself with an authentic voice.   Take the time to be consciously in your center before sharing your voice.  Listen to your inner wisdom that is always right there to guide you if you take the time to get in alignment.  When you share from your heart you are able to flow with passion and purpose, bringing clear focus to your creations.