Dance With Strangers

We talk a lot about “shiny object syndrome” or the trap of getting too excited about the next great tool, gadget, website, social network, etc.

It struck me this morning however that shiny object syndrome is talked about because it is so easy to fall into…and to be honest, I love being in this phase. I do love new tools, gadgets, websites, social networks and more. There is something about unwrapping a new toy that harkens us back to that birthday so many years ago. I love discovering people on a new social network, particularly seeing folks I already recognize from other networks; reminds me of running into an old friend on the street purely on accident.

This week I have been hit by the syndrome twice! First was starting to use Gowalla, a geo-location social network similar to FourSquare. It is a fun network that allows me to find different “hot spots” near me such as a restaurant, movie, etc. The long term usage of this type of network may be minimal, but right now I’m having a blast collecting tacos (you have to play to understand that one).

But this morning my shiny object syndrome hit a fever pitch when I started to unwrap my new Kodak Zi8. I’ll be back with a longer review of how I use it from a B2B prespective…but today I’m just going to enjoy the side effects of the syndrome!

Our jobs have always relied on the proper use of tools, but for a long time we did not concern ourselves with any of the technology behind these tools. Today, we do not have that luxury, nor would we want to ignore the underlying technology for at that level are the opportunities for you and your business to truly differentiate yourself. Tools will always be a manner in which to implement tactics stemming from sound vision and strategy, but ultimately marketers, you must learn how to better use your tools.

Yesterday during Jason Stoddard’s Ubiquity Marketing unSummit I got a fantastic reminder of how important this notion was from the always poignant Michelle Greer. During one of the panels Michelle quite adamantly reminded all of the attendees that they have to learn how to use these tools, and she wasn’t talking about Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Michelle was talking drupal, APIs and at the very least HTML.

No longer can you be a marketer that simply comes up with big ideas (see my post about marketing people that are all talk and no action). Instead we must come up with smart ideas and be able to implement them at some level. If you want to build a blog for your company don’t read a book about effective blogging techniques, buy some books on WordPress, HTML and CSS. Have a great idea on how to filter Tweets to more easily respond to customer inquiries? Don’t worry about how to engage people on Twitter, worry about how to work with the Twitter API in order to get it done. The best way for you to insure your role in the future of marketing is to not only coming up with the great ideas, but also helping to implement the ideas and watch them pay off for your business or organization.

Learning these skills can often seem like learning a foreign language. Wait, scratch that, it IS like learning a new language. Did I ever think that I would write this way as a marketer?

span tal:repeat="subject python:here.Subject()"
                a tal:attributes="href python:here.blog.tags.absolute_url()
                                                                    + '/' + subject"
                                                   span tal:replace="subject"

No, of course not, but in order to manager our website and implement some functionality we wanted it was important for me to purchase “Learning Python“. Have I read the whole book? No. I read what I needed to read to do what I needed to do and when I reached my very low brick wall of learning I asked people for help. The point is that working in marketing means working with technology as much as anything else.

Today, rather than just Tweeting, learn what makes Twitter work.

Thanks Michelle for moving me again on this topic, I’ve been meaning to dive a bit more into CSS and just put “CSS: The Definitive Guide” into my back back for the long weekend.