The Business of Humanization

Social media has humanized interaction and has enabled people to easily obtain and exchange experiences.

Technology has humanized the user experience by making it easier for people to communicate and share information.

Meanwhile, many businesses have used technology to go in the opposite direction, to dehumanize.

Look at customer service, which has sadly become a (near) robotic experience at many companies. Look at email marketing where companies send emails from an email address like “please-do-not-reply@we-hate-getting-email-from-you-com”.

Put aside all the usual stuff about social media offering great opportunities to promote your products, overturn negative experiences and build long-term relationships.

First and foremost, social media is a call for humanization in how you communicate. Social media has humanized interaction, technology has humanized the experience, but only you can humanize your business.

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Honest Logos by Viktor Hertz

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Find more from the artist here.

Transavia’s Crowdsourcing Campaign Falls Flat

Dutch airline Transavia held an online contest to determine their new slogan. The campaign was wildly successful with over 100,000 submissions. Some of the entries were even printed onto billboard ads.

A panel of judges determined the top entries and the eventual winner. This is where the campaign fell flat. The entries that were chosen as best entries sucked. They lacked edginess and creativity (some slogans had already been used by other airlines). The winning slogan was “That makes you happy”. That’s not just bad, it’s pathetic.

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Unevolved Brands by Graham Smith

Graham Smith simplified many brands and logos. Do you recognize them?

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Find more from the artist here.

Social Business: Analysis – Part 3A: As-Is And To-Be Considerations

The Fundamentals series continues the analysis phase with a mini-series on assessing the value and effectiveness of social business. This mini-series will cover the following aspects:

  • Reasons to participate in social business (covered in parts A, B and C)
  • Internal considerations
  • Debunking myths
  • Social business in B2B environments

I’ve divided the reasons to participate in social business into two categories:

  1. As-Is and To-Be
  2. Company Readiness

Today, we’ll look at a company’s As-Is and To-Be considerations for getting into social business.

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