Agile for interactive marketers: new executive briefing from THINK

Our latest THINKmail introduces some things interactive marketers should know about Agile, including

• A quick overview of Agile's origins and objectives
• An overview of what works – and what can be challenging about Agile for marketers
• An action plan for getting ahead of the curve

As we point out in the article, it's inevitable that IT organizations will push for Agile at some point and in some form – and essential for marketers to be driving some key pieces of the agenda. Marketers own the channel metrics, and they need to have a strong voice in how the organization commits to delivering the enabling technologies required to meet those numbers.

You can download the PDF here.

Collaboration 2.0

Back in the day, 1.0 collaboration tools like Groove and, to a lesser extent, the remote presentation tools like WebEx, presented a compelling idea: let remote teams work together in a shared, virtual workspace. However, the experience was just too clunky for the benefits to overcome the costs.

We were early users of Groove and wished that it really worked well. Now we're trying out several of a new generation of tools -- starting with Thinkature, described by it's creators as "a collaboration environment, a meeting room, a personal web-based whiteboard, or something entirely new." (Thanks, TechCrunch for the lead on this.) Well, that's just about the same promise Groove made -- how will it work in a 2.0 world?

Not having to download a client is possibly the most compelling feature of the 2.0 take on collaboration. In the past, clients helped keep local copies of files synched across the workgroup. With ubiquitous web access, I'm more comfortable with the shared work living on the web. (Of course, nothing terribly secure goes out there -- next level of problem to solve.) And the lack of a single answer is annoying -- Thinkature is good for whiteboarding and mapping, Vyew adds document sharing and web conferencing, but the visual collaboration isn't as good. Can this stuff be mashed up?

The question at the heart of the issue, of course, is how will our own ability to ideate in relationship with others evolve. For most of my generation, we just do it better in a f2f setting. We're wired that way. We've grown quite used to serial collaboration remotely, first via email, IM and now via wiki... but parallel collaboration continues to work best around a table. Preferably with good coffee and snacks.

How quickly will the capabilities of the organism adapt? We see lots of evidence of  adaptive behaviors among the young, including simultaneous use of multiple media. But amidst all the CGMM, social networking, crowdsourcing, and even the work to date done in virtual worlds, parallel collaboration still seems to be at the horizon.

This geezer will continue to try.

6 Marketers: Why Blogging Matters

Churbuck.com has a post up with 6 marketing professionals opinions on blogs for corporations.

#1 - PR and Blogging – A Love Story or Peaceful Coexistence 

Dan Greenfield  is vice president of corporate communications at EarthLink. 

"We are living an age where boundaries are collapsing, definitions are changing and roles are combining.  Blogging and PR need each other, belong with each other, even though they can sometimes appear to be working against each other."

 #2 – Blogging and the “new influencers”

Eric Kintz is VP, Global Marketing Strategy at Hewlett-Packard.

"Marketers will need to identify first the new key blogger-influencers in their space, using tools likeAlexa or Technorati, and treat them more and more like some of the other influencing constituencies such as analysts or journalists."

 #3 – The role of blogging in the changing world of advertising

Will Waugh is Senior Director, Communications – ANA.

"The utilization of blogs is critical, particularly in a growing world where social currency is more and more important. They are powerful communication and business tools which can connect with a variety of audiences for your brands/products/services. These audiences range from core customers to prospects to influencers to investors."

 #4 – The role of blogging as part of an integrated web strategy

David Churbuck is Vice President, Global Web Marketing at Lenovo.

"In context, a blog is an efficient way for a corporation to quickly publish onto the Internet and through a syndication pipeline, messages that may need rapid dissemination or a more personal voice than the corporate online edifices represented by so-called traditional web sites. Taken as a “light” content management system, blogs can be regarded as loosely associated sites that can have a strong effect on the organization’s primary web presence."

#5 - Drive Harmony in Conversational Touchpoints

Pete Blackshaw is Chief Marketing Officer of Nielsen BuzzMetrics

"Blogging is a great way to put a fresh new face on a corporate structure, but the rest of the organization can't be too far behind.  As corporate leaders, we need to develop the right strategies and tactics to ignite and catalyze positive change leveraging blog tools and methods while keeping the rest of the organization in tow."

#6 - Creativity, Innovation + Blogging

David Armano is Creative VP at Digitas.

"Looking back at my blog after nearly eight months, I realize that in addition to building a community and gaining momentum—I have created a the ultimate digital sketchbook for myself. Blogging is a great way to document your creative process for future reference for say, writing a book."