As a company, we just went through an exercise to identify and document BzzAgent’s Values, or the philosophies that guide our actions.   At various stages, the whole company collaborated on defining the values that are already prevalent at BzzAgent, as well as the ones that we want to begin to instill.   What we’ve finalized feels just right for who we are and for who we want to be.

If you’re at a company that doesn’t have its values defined, I’d highly recommend the process.

What’s somewhat disturbing is that we’re in our 8th year of business and this is the first time we’ve ever gone through this process.  Up until this point, many employees would agree we had values, and many would even agree on what they were – but because they weren’t articulated, it was impossible to make decisions based on them.  Well, it’s never too late, right?

BzzAgent Believes In:

Being radically focused on voice of the consumer

We believe that whatever consumers have to say, be it good or bad, it is worth listening to.  We’re passionate about getting people to talk — and others to listen — and we’re unrelenting in searching for and understanding consumers’ wants and needs. We will invest in technologies and methods that bring us closer to authentic conversations and provide consumers valuable and rich experiences that allow them to converse more effectively.  We know that the voice of the consumer is permanently changing the marketing landscape, and we seek to offer marketers pragmatic solutions to be part of that conversation.

Making marketing a better place for marketers and consumers

We believe in a new era of marketing, where it’s no longer acceptable to interrupt, interfere or capture the consumer against their wishes.  In this era marketers must be respectful of a consumer’s time, interests and preferences.  This can only be accomplished by understanding, respecting and aligning with consumers’ natural behavior, without seeking to drastically change it.  Consumers benefit when they feel a marketer is honest and provides additional value when and where desired.  Marketers benefit when people actually want to hear their messages.

Transparency from all stakeholders at all times

We believe the future is about being open and honest in everything you do.  For our clients, this means we stand for ethical word of mouth and social media interactions that include disclosure, script-free messaging and honesty of opinions.  For our staff, this means we will share information generously, answer any question as best we’re able and create consistent opportunities for two-way dialogue.  And for the world, this means we’re always willing to bend the rules of what it means to be open about our business.  Try us.

Embracing individuality

We believe that we’re all a little different and that’s what makes each of us so wonderful and valuable (as people and to the business).  We want our staff to be themselves in every aspect of what they do, no matter how quirky, eccentric or outlandish that may be.  We believe our individuality is the spirit that drives each of us to succeed and the combined power of our individualism is the bond that creates a sense of team and community.  As a member of our community, we expect you to share your opinions whenever, wherever, however and with whomever you feel appropriate:  we trust your judgment.  So go ahead and let your freak flags fly, baby.

Responsiveness that blows minds

We believe that being responsive is being considerate, and that swiftness is the ultimate sign of respect.  Without being hasty or sacrificing thoughtfulness, our sense of urgency is a powerful communicator of how much we care about our clients, consumers, employees and vendors.  We want people to be wowed by our availability and our devotion and the speed with which we deliver it.  We believe people should communicate early and often and you should never do tomorrow what can be done today.

Continuous innovation

We believe in delivering exceptional value because we’re constantly willing to experiment.  For our clients, we aim to listen to their needs and be flexible enough to deliver outstanding solutions.  For members of our consumer community we want to provide an experience and engagement with brands that is unlike anything they’ve had before.  And for our staff, we want to provide a work environment that is fresh and different in meaningful and unique ways.  With all of this in mind, we seek to always be leading, and will leave the following to everyone else.

There’s a standard that says full-time employees shouldn’t take on freelance work, and I think it’s time to throw that out.

According to our employee agreements, no one employed by BzzAgent should be taking on any freelance work.  Section 4, paragraph #1 states:

You agree to devote the full measure of your total business time, skill, attention and best efforts to the Company’s business and to discharge and fulfill the responsibilities assigned to you by the Company during your employment under this Agreement.  You agree that you will not render services to any other person or entity without the prior written consent of the Company, and that you shall not engage in any activity which conflicts or interferes with the performance of the duties and responsibilities of the Position.

For some companies, freelancing full-time employees is something to turn a blind eye to, like turning at a red light with a “no turn on red” sign (or, I guess,  smoking kind buds on the Boston Common in Massachusetts…).  For others, it’s considered acceptable with approval, which is an awkward process for everyone involved.  After some informal polling, it appears that to most CEOs, it’s disapproved entirely and is considered grounds for a serious discussion about the employee’s role in the business.  But this makes no sense.

We have one employee who does web design work for us full time, and is also a master bronze sculptor who often gets commissioned to make pieces in his off hours.   A creative outlet on the side – of course we’re cool with that.  We have another employee who owns a rental property up in New Hampshire, which he manages in his spare time.   That’s considered entrepreneurial which we’re highly supportive of.  Shoot, one employee started and owns the coolest retail store on the eastern seaboard, Grand.   All of these are considered acceptable – and yet, if someone is being contracted to do exactly what they do at BzzAgent (without using confidential information or working for a competitor) we consider it inappropriate behavior.  So it seems the line is drawn at only being able to freelance what you’re NOT hired by BzzAgent to do.

I think this is an outdated concept.  The fact is, few white-collar employees work 9-5 at all anymore.  We’re expected to address work issues on weeknights and often on weekends.  We’re constantly reachable and it goes without saying that many are reviewed on the merits of their “always on” capacity.   More to the point, many of us expect employees to be  constantly active within the realms of social media – facebooking, tweeting, Linked-Ining – to connect, but also to gather research, identify new clients, get better at their job.  People are working more, and not getting paid differently for it.

But really…what an employee does in their off hours – nights and weekends – is their own business.  They’re not indentured servants.

So, as long as people get their work done, don’t divulge confidential information and don’t work for a competitor, my sense is freelancing is a smart thing for a business to allow:

• It provides employees with additional revenue without costing the company a dime
• It enhances the employee’s skill set, as they’re required to continue honing their craft for other managers
• It reduces any likelihood of an employee having to sneak around or even occasionally feeling guilty
• It may reduce turnover, as an employee can make more without going somewhere else

And, quite frankly, if someone has enough time to freelance, it’s our own fault for not keeping them busy enough.

So, we’re going to try a little experiment.  For the next 3 months, I’m officially allowing all of our full time employees to freelance – if it works out, then this will become company policy going forward.  My rules are as follows:

• This doesn’t reduce any expectation of getting BzzAgent work done ( in some ways it probably makes it even clearer that you must produce at a very high level)
• You don’t do any freelance work during the workday
• You bring new skills back to the office to do awesome things for us
• You don’t get so stressed at the extra work that you freak out completely
• You take me to lunch or buy me a beer with all of the extra money you make

Who’s with me?

(Yes, the BzzAgent Festivus Grievance Pole was one of the highlights of 2009…)

In an effort to improve morale and in the absence of an “official” employee survey, we have analyzed the Festivus ‘09 Grievance list and devised bullet-proof recommendations that are sure to improve company culture.

Results

• 60 Grievances submitted
• 77% are anonymous
• 75% have something to do with the office (vs. the world at large)
• 42% ARE WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS
• 32% are complaints about colleagues
• 18% are complaints about the list itself
• 12% are complaints about Andy Roebuck specifically
• 5% have some sort of rich media (pictures, etc.)

For those of you who like a more visual representation of the data, please see below:

Recommendations

Based on these results, we recommend the following:

• Clearly, employees love writing in all caps, so we should force at least 40% of correspondence (internal AND external) to be conduced in all capitals. This will improve morale greatly and increase communication efficiency. THERE’S NO BETTER WAY TO GET YOUR MESSAGE ACROSS THAN BY SHOUTING.
• Employees like anonymity AND complaining about other employees. In order to facilitate these two needs (SYNERGYYYYYYYYYYYYYY), we should start a generic “youreallywanttoknowwhatithink?@bzzagent.com” email alias that any employee can use to send whatever message they want to any other employee, this will most certainly end well. (FRICTIONLESSSSSSSSSSS)
• Andy Roebuck should stop sneezing, sitting near Fletch, sneezing, talking about hot air balloons (“It’s not like you just jump in a wicker basket and go up. There’s a lot more to it than that.”), and sneezing
• We should now eat Stonyfield yogurt with 3.5 pronged forks

I was going to say the exact same thing…

The σα reflects the degree of heterogeneity across individuals, and the σδ reflects the degree of unobserved heterogeneity across campaigns (not accounted for by whatever observed covariates Xj in that model). The observation-specific idiosyncratic error can be interpreted as the unobserved interaction effect of a particular person’s propensity to talk about a particular product-campaign. Also, the parameter σε reflects the degree of over-dispersion in the counts, conditional on the other parameters.

(seriously, the rest of the paper is incredibly rich and easier to digest…more to come!)

What happens when Seth Godin asks a few of his friends to chip in 200 words each for his new e-book? The answer is pretty obvious…

What Matters Now includes thought pieces from the likes of Guy Kawasaki, Jason Fried, Fred Wilson, Tom Peters, Chip and Dan Heath, Gary Vuynerchuk, Paco Underhill, Chris Anderson and Arianna Huffington…and little ol’ me… To read it yourself, click the image below.

While the e-book is important, what’s intriguing is how Godin uses social media to create immediate virality. I think Pete Kim coined this as an “ego trap”, which Seth appropriately recoined as “Hero Marketing”. The ingredients are pretty simple: make it easy for time-constrained, smart, semi-narcissistic folks to be a part of it. Then, make it free for intelligent, idea-hungry people to consume it. Presto, immediate virality.

But Seth realizes the most important ingredient can’t be overlooked: quality content worth consuming. The idea-hungry part of me read the book front to back and was truly blown away. The semi-narcissistic part of me wants to tell you my piece, titled “Dumb”, is on page 43.

Have fun!

You can’t get much more real deal than this…

We’re overwhelmed by the capacity for social media to actually drive real return. Forget about lengthy case studies that trump up the challenge, over-analyze the market dynamics and glowingly summarize how we solved. Forget about the squishy metrics like “Lift in Brand Perception” or “Purchase Intent”. Let’s get down to brass tacks, people…

Today, Dec. 1, the FTC’s new Endorsement Guidelines officially go into effect.  If you’re a marketer tapping into the power of social media, word of mouth or advocacy programs, this isn’t something to be taken lightly.

Here are some tips for thinking about whether or not your programs are in compliance.

When we started BzzAgent 8 years ago, we had the wise idea to develop a team of ‘Communications Developers’ who could act as stewards of great Word of Mouth behavior.  We now have 100 people on staff who review, analyze and respond to word of mouth reports.  Many mocked the business case of the ‘labor’ of these individuals, as an undue burden.  Now, with the FTC Guides in effect, these folks have been ultimately validated as a critical asset to BzzAgent.  As they’re now armed with everything there is to know about the FTC Guides and compliance, we’ve renamed them the Compliance Assurance Team (CAT) and are allowing marketers to utilize our expertise for any social media or word of mouth programs (not just ours).  See how below…

In 2004, Pete Blackshaw, Jonathan Carson and Dave Balter (yeah, that’s me) founded the Word of Mouth Marketing Association.  Our goal was to help our industry grow by setting ethical and measurement standards.  We knew almost nothing about associations, but we were adept at building businesses and had passion to beat the band

Last week, at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas, the Association held its annual conference and nearly 500 people chatted, shook hands, reconnected, learned something and generally got their Vegas on.   The rise of Social Media and the FTC’s updated Endorsement Guides were the major themes of the event, and provided plenty of fodder for discussion and debate.

A rolling boulder collects no moss…and these early WOMMA characters are no different.  Here’s where these early industry innovators were then and where they are now …

It was a hazy few days…that’s all I remember.  Congrats, BTW, to the entire WOMMA team for pulling this event together.  Truly exceptional work… Read the rest of this entry »

So, I’ve got this incredible, market-making, revolutionary idea.  I need a CEO to run with it.

I have ideas all the time, but this is one of the special ones.  One that makes you drop everything else to make it a reality.   But, the thing is, my day job as CEO of BzzAgent keeps me pretty busy, and it’s not droppable.

So, if you’ve been a CEO – or haven’t been, but should be – I wanna talk to you.  Here’s the criteria:

• I don’t care what school you went to or how old you are.  I’m ok with MBA, PHD or high school degree.
• Experience in the real world is good, but not necessary.  Experience with a successful startup is valuable.  Experience with failure is a huge plus.
• You must have the drive and energy to make this a reality.  9-5 doesn’t cut it, and the clock won’t stop.
• Your charisma needs to magnetize people around you, and attract them like moths to a flame.
• I want to see pinwheels in your eyes when you get excited about an idea.  If clients, friends, consumers don’t see that, it will never work.
• This is a startup, which we’re going to build without “trying to fund it” first.  That means little cash, but lotsa upside.
• You’ll have to deal with me.  That can be fun, inspiring and annoying all at once.

I will say no to a lot of people.  If you’re one of them, don’t take it personally.  I can’t tell you who will be perfect, but I’ll know it when I see it.

You ready?  Go!