How Designers Destroyed The World - Mike Montiero [Video]

So many articles, posts and talks nowadays drone on about how to optimize for conversions, generate leads, and "growth hack" (for lack of a worse term). Marketers and designers love to talk about how they caused an engagement graph to move up and to the right. What we rarely hear about are the fundamental privacy and/or trust rules they ignored -- or worse, broke -- along the way.

This talk from Mike Montiero ( <- Links to his twitter profile which is arguably NSFW) delivers a swift smack-upside-the-head to every one of us who have sacrificed what we think is right for what we're told to do or what we think we need to do to impress those we report to.

As builders, marketers and designers, we have the power to please, empower, irritate and destroy those who trust us with their information. Let's do more of the former and less of the latter.

You are directly responsible for what you put into the world. Yet every day designers all over the world work on projects without giving any thought or consideration to the impact that work has on the world around them. This needs to change.

Jason Fried: Marketing Is Sharing [Video]

Jason Fried, Founder of 37 Signals, talks about why teaching is such an important aspect of marketing. Must watch for anybody who's trying to market and sell a product or service (or sell anything, for that matter). 

The Talk: Marketing by Sharing Jason Fried is the co-founder and President of 37signals, a privately-held Chicago-based company committed to building the best web-based tools possible with the least number of features necessary. 37signals' products include Basecamp, Highrise, Backpack, Campfire, Ta-da List, and Writeboard. 37signals also developed and open-sourced the Ruby on Rails programming framework.

Authenticity

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I love this post from the owner (Cam) of the Counterpoint bar/restaurant in Golden Hill (SD). It’s raw, admittedly underprepared and unformatted. Yet people are commenting all over it; and one person even mentioned to friends that she wants to “switch date night to this place.”

If Cam had posted a staged, filtered Instagram of the new menu — hashtagged with all the regular SD foodie terms — would it have gotten the same level of response? Probably, but not because he followed the social media marketing playbook.

The post gets engagement because it’s real. It’s straight from the guy who spends time with people from both sides of the bar day in and day out. It delivers on the tagline: “a place for people.”

Social media doesn’t favor cleverness. It favors hearing from and about the great people behind kick-ass products and services.

Go have a drink and see what all the fuss is about. If you want those annoying brussel sprouts you better act fast.

[Transparency/Disclosure: Counterpoint isn’t a client of mine. I’m a customer of theirs. Cam’s my neighbor.]

Experience Design Creates Marketing Value Down River

Nowadays, customers’ social networks are far reaching, influential and contagious. Sharing has become so easy and ubiquitous that even mundane experiences are shared with hundreds or thousands of individuals. Extremely positive or negative interactions can reach millions.

Our brand’s influence and message is now far beyond our reach as marketers. We can no longer control the message with ad dollars and crafty copy but we can influence a positive sentiment by shifting the focus from selling products and services to selling great experiences. 

Every interaction your company has with a customer, a vendor, a prospect or otherwise is an opportunity for a great experience. On the other hand it’s also an opportunity for a negative one. Unless we continually evaluate and evolve the experiences we create, we could be limiting — or worse, damaging — our company’s potential for growth.

There’s a saying that goes; “people do business with people they like.” I’d argue that the saying holds true for brands. “People do business with brands they like.” This is true for me personally; I fly Southwest and frequent Chipotle (not clients) because I like the way they do business. These companies have managed to ensure I have a great brand experience nearly every time we interact. 

Now that customers control the brand message and the volume, it’s up to us to foster a positive experience every time we get the opportunity to interact with them. If we delight them, they’ll write ads for us.

What’s your company like to work with?