I pulled out an article from the Financial Times on Wednesday night before the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. It was about Room to Read, an organization I had recently heard about but which I really did not know much about. It was going to be my relaxing subway ride home reading and I was looking forward to it. I look forward to my reading about things that interest me as the subway winds it way to Brooklyn. Turns out that Room to Read is the FT’s seasonal appeal this year. Now I understand why. It is the story of an advocate extraordinaire. Here is what the article said about how it got started.
“Room to Read started out nearly 10 years ago with smaller ambitions. It all ?began with a trekking holiday to Nepal. A casual encounter with a school inspector led Mr Wood, then Microsoft’s head of business development for greater China, to a Himalayan school three strenuous hours up a mountain path. There he found a classroom so bereft of educational materials that the only books available – a few cast-offs from trekkers, including the absurdly inappropriate Finnegan’s Wake – were precious objects kept under lock and key.
It was there that the headmaster uttered a phrase that was to change Mr Wood’s life: “Perhaps, sir, you will some day come back with books.”
Back in Kathmandu, the Microsoft executive furiously dispatched e-mails to his friends, urging them to send him picture books. The following year, he returned to Nepal with eight donkeys bearing 37 boxes of children’s stories. He was so overwhelmed by the reception at Bahundanda school, where children decked him in marigold garlands, that he quit to devote himself to the cause of education.”
Literacy is a basic right and alters individuals and communities. The San Francisco-based charity builds and stocks libraries, constructs schools, offers scholarships for girls and publishes books in local languages. What could be a better advocacy appeal. As an avid reader, mother of girls, author and education advocate, I was moved and intend to contribute this season.
Fur is back this holiday season! “Furry” to be more precise. And of the electronic hamster persuasion no less. No, not the hamster-dancing-fools of Internet past. This time it’s personal. This time it’s pets. This time it’s the Zhu Zhu electronic pet hamsters.
While these super-lovable Wonder Pets can’t fly, there’s little that can be done to stop them rocketing off of retailers’ shelves right now. Or to keep their prices from reaching a dizzying $100 on eBay and Amazon. So move over Pyrus Dragonoid, Ventus Skyress and you so many Bakugan Brawlers. That’s boy’s play. There’s a new must-have gift A-team in town–four in all. Pipsqueek, Num Nums, Chunk, and (sorry Mr. T), the sensational Mr. Squiggles.
So just how did this overnight marketing phenomenon happen? A big helping hand from some ground up, influential seeding and grassroots marketing, as reported by Beth Snyder Bulik in Advertising Age today. In plain english: word-of-mouth advocacy.
Tune in next week when we ask Philip K. Dick “Do Zhu Zhu’s Dream of Electronic Sheep?” The lucky reader who nails that reference might even get their very own Mr. Squiggles, that is if there are left to be had!
As if “High School Musical” wasn’t enough. Yes, as if?!? With this weekend’s record shattering box office gross of New Moon, the sequel in the unstoppable Twilight series, the world has been introduced to what Simon Dumenco of AdWeek called the “billion dollar Twilight economy.” Perhaps this, and the fandemonium you see below in the offline world for YouTube teen-music sensation Justin Bieber, is the stimulus we’ve all been waiting for?
Yesterday The New York Times teased an upcoming Strategic Management Journal paper about the positive influence of zealous employees. Their research found that strong sales growth is correlated with an organizational culture in which employees thought more highly of their company than did the public. In other words, when staff believes in its organization, pride and loyalty shows through and customers pick up on the positivity.
The theme of employee advocacy, and its importance to business success, was one of our key findings from research we released earlier this year (Risky Business: Reputations Online™ conducted with the Economist Intelligence Unit). Our study found that global executives believe that the best way to protect reputations online is to monitor employee satisfaction levels and respond to results from employee satisfaction surveys. Many executives echoed the importance of building “best places to work” cultures when asked in an open-ended question about the greatest reputation threats facing their companies over the next three years. As one Australian executive said in response to this question: “Failure to engage the passions of employees will cause the most damage to corporate reputation in the future.” Without a doubt, no company interested in protecting its reputation can afford to have a mob of grumbling employees online. Satisfied employees who are company advocates are the best antidote for–and defense against–reputation failure. A company’s culture is ultimately its best protection both online and offline.
Looking forward to the release of the Strategic Management Journal report. In the meantime, remember: your employees are your best advocates.
I returned to the Air Force Blogger Assessment tool today as I was writing something I hope to eventually publish. As I refreshed my memory about the blogging guidelines, I fell upon David Meerman Scott’s blog which had an interview with Captain David Faggard, Chief of Emerging Technology at the Air Force Public Affairs Agency at the Pentagon and developer of the blogger tool. The tool is also on his web site. I could hardly believe my eyes when I read that Faggard oversees 330,000 communicators! That is a big number! Scott spoke with Faggard (who I also emailed with months ago) and this is what Meerman wrote about their exchange.
“Their mission is to use current and developing Web 2.0 applications as a way to actively engage conversations between Airmen and the general public. Yes, that’s right, the goal of the program is that every single Airman is an on-line communicator.
In an environment where many corporations are scared witless about social media, here a huge global organization firmly committed to social media communications to spread messages, stories, knowledge and ideals. Capt. Faggard says that the focus is on: “Direct Action within Social Media (blogging, counter-blogging, posting products to YouTube, etc.); Monitoring and Analysis of the Social Media landscape (relating to Air Force and Airmen); and policy and education (educating all Public Affairs practitioners and the bigger Air Force on Social Media).”
While I was amazed that the Air Force is doing so much while many in the private sector are still doing so little, I asked about the unique challenges faced by the US armed forces when it comes to social media. In particular, I was intrigued by the term “counter-blogging” which Capt. Faggard says is when “Airmen counter the people out there in the blogosphere who have negative opinions about the US government and the air force.”
This interchange reminded me of Weber Shandwick’s discussions and research on badvocates. Counter-blogging is similar to countering and engaging badvocates before it is too late. Scott’s comment about the private sector’s reluctance to wholeheartedly use social media to manage critics struck home. In our research with global executives, Risky Business, nearly four in ten said that they worried alot about the damage that can be done to company reputation from dissatisfied customers and critics.
Thought that the parallels were worth mentioning here. Hope you do too.
New level of iPhone fandom and Halloween genius, or a bigger cultural statement about where media personalization is headed? Whatever the case, I hope they got a ton of candy for the effort in addition to their well-deserved accolades on YouTube.
Talk about advocates. Microsoft’s new campaign for Windows 7 uses customers to help it make its selling points for its new operating system.The ads say, “I’m a PC and Windows 7 was my idea.”From what I have read about this campaign, there will also be print ads, banners, mobile ads, and all the many ways to reach customers.For those customers who had ideas on how to make Windows 7 work better for them, they now have a voice in the campaign and are featured as the real heroes. Supposedly one billion people helped Microsoft improve the new Windows product. That’s many advocates. Even employees are getting into the act. Real people as advocates makes great sense in a world where listening to your supporters and enthusiasts is the newest narrative. To learn more, read this article where I found out about this new initiative.
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About
All About Advocacy is a blog written by and for people who believe in the accelerating power of Advocates in society today.
Contributors include a wide range of Weber Shandwick Advocates (plus any other Advocacy fans like yourself) who share their unique perspectives about this new shift in communications.
We encourage comments from our readers! That’s what advocacy is all about!
For further information about this blog go to the About page. For author biogs please go to the Contributing Advocates page.
Disclaimer
Everything posted in this blog represents personal opinion of the individual authors. It does not necessarily represent the views of Weber Shandwick or its clients.
I pulled out an article from the Financial Times on Wednesday night before the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. It was about Room to Read, an organization I had recently heard about but which I really did not know much about. It was going to be my relaxing subway ride home reading and I was looking forward to it. I look forward to my reading about things that interest me as the subway winds it way to Brooklyn. Turns out that Room to Read is the FT’s seasonal appeal this year. Now I understand why. It is the story of an advocate extraordinaire. Here is what the article said about how it got started.
I returned to the Air Force Blogger Assessment tool today as I was writing something I hope to eventually publish. As I refreshed my memory about the blogging guidelines, I fell upon 
