It is difficult these days to read a headline that does not fill you with despair or fear to some degree.  Earthquakes, war, unemployment, bickering politicians, global warming, corporate greed — there is enough of it going around to desensitize even the most compassionate of us.  And so I understand people’s fascination with reality TV, online video games, and fantasy football.

These distracting influences keep us from being overwhelmed sometimes, and maintaining one’s own balance and sense of “being centered” is critical.  Unfortunately, too much attention to the meaningless can insulate and detach us from reality if we aren’t careful.  Checking out once in awhile is okay, but too many check out for a lifetime.  A better alternative to escapism, I think, is an attitude shift.  It allows you to stay centered, while also encouraging greater productivity and joy.  Becoming a more positive person can save your life.  It is a breakthrough in thinking that can dramatically change your view of the world and its inhabitants.  But meaningful change requires that the doors to your heart and mind be open.  Are your doors open?

I founded Expedition Balance after a much-needed time out in my for-profit career.  With all due respect to the metals industry and those who make it go, it did not make my heart sing.  Putting food on the table and a roof over your head are difficult and honorable causes, but when your profession crushes your soul a little every day, it is time to get out.  So I did.  As an eleven-year veteran of the Navy, educated in the ways of business, and with my mother’s passion to serve others, I decided it was time to (once again) heed the call of duty and work for something bigger than me.  The something that reached out and selected me is our effort to help ease the burden of combat veterans suffering from PTSD.  Fortunately for me and this great cause, Wayfinder stepped up and offered their services and resources.  EB would be nowhere without their help.

The problem is this: at least one in five combat veterans suffers from the symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and there are nearly 2 million combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan alone.  Add to those numbers all the affected vets from the Persian Gulf War, Vietnam, Korea, WWII, and all the lesser known conflicts during our lifetime, and you begin to see the scope of our challenge.  Now consider this: PTSD causes everything from nightmares and flashbacks to suicide, homelessness, domestic violence, alcoholism, drug abuse, loss of hope and productivity, and other debilitating conditions.  Almost none of the combat vets that walk away from war with these symptoms, carried them into the conflict.  War created the problem.  War damaged their spirits and minds.  And because the government’s ability to treat this condition is limited, it is necessary for citizens and community efforts to help bridge the gap.  Like most good inventions, necessity created Expedition Balance.

Our little group knows that psychotherapy and medications can only go so far in treating PTSD.  Sufferers need to find a permanent solution; a long-term means to address the symptoms and bring joy back into their lives.  So, EB offers a host of proven methods that don’t come in pill form or a white lab coat; yoga, meditation, nutritional counselling, creative arts therapy, outdoor adventure, and several other remedies of nature.  Our vets can participate in our programs and then walk away with tools they can use everyday, in the privacy of their own homes.  No prescriptions or referrals required.

So as we approach the point where we are almost set to begin our operations, I wonder if I can do as much for our former warriors as they have already done for me.  Two years ago, I was one of those numb souls, living for the paycheck and watching too much TV.  A year ago, I began to wake up.  Today, I’m honored to serve the men and women who sacrificed much of themselves for the benefit of others.  It’s our turn to give them shelter.

Our website will tell you about ways to donate or otherwise help the cause: http://expeditionbalance.org/.  Peace.

Today is my last day here at Wayfinder (I’ll be gone by the time this is posted), which had me thinking about what advice I could leave behind to help someone out in the future. That is why I’m going to tell you about how I lost my iPhone over the weekend.

Losing an iPhone is almost as heartbreaking as losing a dog. I backtracked, woke people up at ungodly hours, overturned their couches, and left my name and contact information everywhere I went to that day. I almost thought about posting reward posters on telephone poles throughout SF.

I tried looking for another phone on craigslist, but I don’t have the patience and am not very trusting, so I gave up. I figured I’d just go to AT&T and pay $99 for another 3G. WRONG! The only reason I got that price was because I signed a 2-year contract. My contract wasn’t up until June of 2011. This meant I’d have to pay $499-$699 for a replacement. I refused.

Long story short, a good friend who works for Sprint hooked me up with an HTC Hero. It’s comparable, has a better camera, better sound quality than the iPhone, but isn’t as beautiful or cool, I’ll admit. The main pros though are that my monthly phone bill will be cut in half and Sprint offers me insurance so that I only pay a $100 deductible for a replacement.

Now, for the advice:

Throughout my ordeal, there were so many “woulda, coulda, shouldas.” Apple & AT&T know the iPhone is a thing of beauty, which is why they don’t care if you lose it. They don’t offer insurance because they know a lot of people will pay full price for another one. So here are some things you could do BEFORE you lose your iPhone:

1)    Get your iPhone insured. Be careful because most insurance companies won’t cover what most of us need them to, including theft, loss or accidental damage (like rain damage or dropping and cracking it). If you’re lucky enough to pin one down, the cost of the monthly fee combined with the deductible won’t even be worth it. You could end up paying the insurance company the same amount you would have to get a new iPhone.

2)    Download and subscribe to an application that will track your phone down. One of my sister’s bosses knows himself too well, so he subscribes to MobileMe ($99/year) which can pinpoint his iPhone’s location via satellite each time he loses it. It’s a good idea if, staying true to form, he drops it in the conference room and finds it a few hours later. I don’t recommend you use it to stalk and confront your thief, however.

3)    It may not be pretty, but make a wallpaper using Photoshop that gives your name and some way to contact you. If your screen locks, they won’t be able to go into your phone to find out who you are or call you, but at least they’ll be able to contact you because they still can see the wallpaper. Maybe add that you’re offering a reward. A $50-$100 reward is better than dropping another $499-$699 for a new iPhone.

If I knew what I know now, I might still be a proud owner of an iPhone. It was a lovely 8-month romance, but the high-cost replacement and large phone bill made it easier for me to walk away. Though, I’ll probably be back one day.

What’s wrong with my kids? I spend my days talking to clients and prospects about the virtues of social media marketing. My clients worry social media is all kid stuff—but my kids have no idea what I’m talking about.

Their social lives flow through Facebook. They don’t walk into a restaurant before checking it out on Yelp. They post photos to Picasa. “Social what, Dad?”

They’re on Linkedin to check out career opportunities. One of them is looking to be a mayor on Four Square. Over dinner I learn what’s not to be missed based on their daily (hourly?) Digg perusals. But, do they talk about new apps? Nope, it’s just “now you can do this.”

I try to educate them on the basics of engagement, but do they listen?

A friend of theirs established a Facebook page (Fiesta World) and is tapping into his extended network to validate a marketing idea. But, his eyes glazed over when I tried to talk to him about crowd sourcing.

These kids have no appreciation for the fact that two-way ongoing conversations have replaced one-way message broadcasting. They just don’t get that what they can’t even describe is playing an essential role in extending brands and achieving business goals. That GPS apps are revolutionizing engagement strategies. That whole industries are changing their product development and customer service models thanks to ongoing, instantaneous customer conversations on fan-based or corporate community sites. They just don’t get it.

What’s the matter with kids today?

James Cameron and Nicholas Christakis just authored a new book titled “Connected,” discussing the intricacies of social networks. While not having had a chance to read through the whole of their findings, I was drawn to one observation about our behaviors having a ripple effect on our network of friends.

Not just our friends, actually, but our friend’s friends as well.

Apparently, with up to three degrees of separation, we have the ability to affect others moods, decisions, buying habits and voting patterns, among other things. This goes double for members of the same sex in a social group. We all have an understanding that we humans love to follow the herd, but I certainly like to think that my moods and my decisions are my own, and no one else’s.  Apparently not.

And while in some ways that saddens me that we are SO susceptible to what others say and feel, it can also be very comforting. We create these social networks, whether online, or in the traditional sense, on purpose. There is a sense of contentment and community that we find in turning to others on our good days and bad days, and it’s great that we can rely on the opinions of those we find useful. Our social networks are our safety net, and if that means that when a friend is having a bad day, that saddens us, and we feel empathetic, I think that makes us all the more “Connected,” as it were.

In terms of how this relates to the marketing sphere, I think the most obvious connection is that we are influencers over our network in a very real and measurable way. As consumers, we now live in a world with online ratings for every product in our lives. Every choice we make as consumers becomes a very deliberate one, and I know I feel a responsibility to let the greater internet community know if a product has either over/underwhelmed me. In so doing, we take care of this network we’ve created. It all seems like a win-win to me.

Successful online marketing starts with a strategic process backed with data insights. Have you wondered who owns web analytics data in your organization? Does more than one team member use the data? Are they talking to each other to understand different perspectives and opportunities? Most often they are not. This is where web analytics governance comes into play. It provides a process to ensure success. However, there are some challenges.

What are the challenges?
A study by Jupiter Research showed the top challenges cited by decision makers in companies with $50 million or more in revenue. The top three challenges include the following.
51%: Improving usability of site
44%: Demonstrating ROI
44%: Understanding/influencing customer satisfaction

How can I overcome the top online marketing challenges?
By being ruthless in your pursuit of excellence. To start, you will need to structure a web analytics governance committee. This should include your search engine marketing strategist, social media marketing strategists, digital strategist, technology, creative and other groups. The executive leading this committee will help to define the strategic process.

How does the Web Analytics Governance process work?

Step 1: Establish the team structure and assign ownership and accountability.
Step 2: Gathering and presentation of facts.
Step 3: Data analysis and reporting.
Step 4: Predictive modeling and recommendations for improvement.
Step 5: Plan and prioritize initiatives.
Step 6: Optimization. Return to step 2.

Why is Web Analytics Governance important?
Web analytics governance helps to avoid hunches that can cost time, money and competitive advantage. The process improves an organization’s productivity and knowledge base thus delivering greater customer value and profitability. It will also help to inform business intelligence and will show you how you can engage customers to deepen relationships and improve satisfaction.

How do I ensure success?
Teamwork. The dynamic interaction of your web analytics committee will mirror the social market space and empower your team to capitalize on real-time communication. With the introduction of real-time search, explosion of social media and mobile applications, marketers will need to develop a marketing mix that can evolve and adapt to changing technologies. This is achieved with a web analytics committee and a strategic digital marketing mix. And again, this happens with teamwork!

How does my marketing plan keep up with changing technologies?
What happens when real-time search interferes with the users’ experience? Where will they go to search for information? At Wayfinder we have our finger on the pulse of market trends and monitor them to ensure that your marketing performance doesn’t skip a beat.

For more information regarding web analytics governance and developing a digital marketing strategy, please call Luca Angeli at Wayfinder at 415-277-6968.

Evidently, the experience of dealing with the negative social response to their product in the last year has made Domino’s Pizza a true believer in social media.  They recently went public with a new “Pizza Turnaround” campaign.  It starts with a 4 minute online video in which real employees publicly face customer criticism, like  “Crust tastes like cardboard” and “Sauce tastes like ketchup”.  They discuss the pride they take in making their pizza, and express their genuine hurt at the negative feedback. However, they used the criticism constructively, and reworked their recipes. Now, their responsiveness and new pizza recipes are paying off by building traffic on their website, Facebook and Twitter.

I’m a big fan of honesty.  And while feeling refreshing and honest, this is actually a pretty safe bet.  American consumers are a forgiving lot and have let people off for a lot worse than lousy pizza - as long they fess up and we see change.  In reality, with the intense competition circling around the $5 meal these days, a provocative story like this is an economical way to generate measurable results, in visits, tweets, facebook mentions and–most importantly–sales.

It’ll be interesting to see if the Dominos brand is going to change, or just the pizza.

Tom Abrams summed up two days of FDA hearings in one word: “Wow.”

Abrams, director of the FDA’s Division of Drug Marketing, Advertising and Communications, was reacting to the conclusion of roughly 16 hours of presentations by 69 speakers over two days. As reported in my last blog, the FDA called the hearings Nov. 12-13 to find out more about how healthcare and pharma companies are using online promotion and education methods to inform patients, and to hear ideas on whether social media use by such companies should be addressed in FDA guidance or regulations.

After the hearings concluded, there were two words healthcare marketers and agency executives used to sum up their sentiments: “What now?”

That’s the big question for everyone, which even Abrams acknowledged will be challenging for the agency to address. He didn’t provide a timetable for FDA’s expected next steps, other than to note the docket for the hearing will remain open until Feb. 28, 2010. “We will do this carefully so we get this right,” Abrams said in his wrap-up discussing how FDA will proceed in reviewing the data and presentations. “It’s too important of an area not to do it right, as we want the best information about medical products [to be available] for consumers and healthcare professionals.”

The takeaways from the hearing were fairly clear: the Internet and social media are quite different than traditional print and broadcast advertising. Also, it is evident that the few critics of healthcare promotion who presented at the hearings want the FDA to raise the bar on fair balance presentation using new media and agency executives, while many DTC advocates are full of ideas for making the Internet more user-friendly for health-seeking searchers.

A few highlights from the hearings:

• Pfizer chief medical officer, Dr. Freda Lewis-Hall, noted in her second-day testimony, “We’ve clearly seen from our experience that social media is a different animal. It does not operate in the same way as other traditional communication channels. Based on our research with physicians….. We now know that doctors expect transparency, speed, convenience and custom-tailored approaches in answering even the most complex medical questions. They don’t want to be TALKED AT…they want to engage in a dialogue, but they want to initiate that dialogue and keep control over it.”

• Google representatives suggested a new, custom ad format for FDA-approved products which would include an extra line of text to clearly state risks and also link to more information for consumers. “We think this new format will help set a clear standard for advertisers and give users important information,” Google managing policy counsel, Pablo Chavez, wrote on the search company’s blog last week.

• Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence offered a solution. It is based on the concept of the “3 C’s Rule” of accountability for brands and online content. The gist of the Ogilvy proposal is that brands should be held accountable for content if they created it or if they collaborated with or compensated the creator in some way. “The real significance of our presentation, however, and several others throughout the day was that they are clear signs from people within the industry raising their hands and saying, ‘We want regulation to help us define right and wrong,’” Ogilvy’s Rohit Bhargava wrote on his blog. “The tone is not one of resistance, but of participation. Guidelines help all of us, and we want to see them as soon as we can.”

While the presentations tilted in favor of finding a way to put the full power of the Internet in the hands of both healthcare companies and patients, the questions asked by FDA staff did not provide a real sense of the agency’s thinking on the issue. It would be hard for anyone, however, to argue with the statement that technology has changed the playing field for anyone in the healthcare system, be it patients, doctors or marketers and agency executives.

Only time will tell how the FDA responds, but in the interim the wheel that is social media keeps turning - - creating new opportunities for healthcare companies and patients to collaborate.  Regardless of FDA direction, like other industries, social media has forever changed healthcare and pharma marketing.

It all started with a Monkey and a Plumber, or did it?

As I was scrambling to get my last-minute shopping done, I was thinking about one of the most popular brands in the game world: Nintendo, and thinking back to my favorite arcade game of all time, Donkey Kong.

Yes, Donkey Kong.

I thought that Nintendo started its current run of success in the early 80s when DK was released. Boy was I wrong. By about 120 years.

Nintendo Koppai was founded in 1889

You see, Nintendo opened for business in 1889. It started as a “Hanafuda” playing card company and didn’t really get into the toy market until 1970s -10 years before the mega-hot Donkey Kong was released.

So other than the Hanafuda playing cards pictured above, here are just a couple of little inventions/innovative products that you may remember fondly.

These products have kept the Nintendo brand in the forefront of gaming since 1981. Even when the entire electronic/arcade/console game industry imploded in the 80s, Nintendo kept on going. Kept innovating. And stayed a household brand.

Now for a brief list of my favorite Nintendo product highlights.

Donkey Kong
The cursed monkey changed the face of computer gaming forever. And I, like so many others, dropped many a quarter into that game.

Handheld Donkey Kong game
A very innovative system at the time (early 1980s). Just check out the similarities to the current Nintendo DS:

Game & Watch

Nintendo DS

GameBoy
The handheld Donkey Kong system set the stage for the must-have handheld, GameBoy - a pocket gaming console with interchangeable game cartridges.

Nintendo Entertainment System(NES) and Super NES
An insanely popular console that continued where the monkey left off.

Fast forward to today’s Nintendo

The Nintendo game products like the DS and the gamecube seem to blend together for me. But maybe I am blinded by the brilliance of the Wii.

Nintendo, a brand success story from 1889 to today and still counting.

During this holiday season, I’d like to acknowledge the people of Wayfinder, my big-hearted colleagues, who offered themselves in the spirit of giving throughout 2009. Here’s a glimpse of what a few Wayfinders have been up to:

• CMO/Partner Louis Briones is a founding board member of “Expedition Balance,” a non-profit foundation that supports the recovery of U.S. combat veterans. Expedition Balance offers a balanced approach to wellness through: group recreation; spiritual awareness and contemplation; creative expression; physical fitness; and healthy lifestyle education. While Louis is on the Board of Directors for several worthy non-profits, he has a special place in his heart for “Expedition Balance”—so much so that he has recruited many of us at Wayfinder to help launch this wonderful cause.

• VP of Account Service Nellie Newman parlays her business savvy, heart of gold, and passion for fashion to benefit many of San Francisco’s disadvantaged women. Nellie makes a big difference as a San Francisco Board of Director for the national non-profit, “Dress for Success.” Nellie’s mission in San Francisco is to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support, and the career development tools necessary to help women thrive in work and in life.

• Production Manager Jim Chazer has been a committed volunteer coach of youth sports programs for the South San Francisco Boys and Girls Club for several years. In California, school sports programs have experienced drastic cutbacks. With this ongoing declining trend, Jim has become an enthusiastic athletic booster for his son’s public high school’s basketball team, the “El Camino Colts.”

• As a new resident to the San Francisco Bay Area (and a proud Wayfinder), Art Director Elke Barter did not waste any time getting involved in local community volunteerism. In the past year, Elke volunteered to organize a major fundraising dinner and auction to benefit her Synagogue; she prepared meals for those in need in the inner city, where many residents appreciate her talents as a chef and baker; she is a caretaker of animals for the local SPCA; she also lent her design skills to Expedition Balance by designing their logo.

Just a short one today.

“A lie travels half-way around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

- Winston Churchill

And that was before the Internet. So if you care to protect your brand’s reputation, you had better be monitoring what’s being said about it and have a strategy in place to squelch rumors and lies.