May 0914
All day long, I sit in meetings where my staff, clients and I try to intuit what customers and members want. We look at usage reports, search logs, customer feedback forms, guestbook entries, and survey results. All of these sources give us insight into what customers do, seek and want. But after conducting a focus group for a client this evening, I’m reminded that we need regular face time with our customers and we need to just ask them what they want.
Tonight’s focus group was amazing. Nearly two dozen people gave up two hours of their day to discuss why they are members of an organization, what they like about the Web site, and what would make their jobs easier. Some of the ideas were mind-blowingly simple, while others were flat out brilliant. If half of the product ideas prove economically feasible, this organization has a product road map for the next year.
Speaking of product road maps, I am in the habit of calling a couple of customers after each release of our association management software, MatrixMaxx. I call to check-in, get feedback on new features, and, most importantly, ask them for the one thing they would like to see in a future release. For the 9.1 release, the suggestions were all spot on, some were so easy to implement we wondered why we hadn’t done the work earlier, and some proved to be blockbusters.
But what do you do when you have zillions of customers and you get a flood of customer requests on a regular basis? Google Moderator allows communities to post suggestions/questions and then vote on all ideas submitted. President Obama used Google Moderator to accept questions for an electronic town hall meeting; citizens submitted and then ranked questions; the President answered the most popular questions. Read the rest of this entry
May 0905
It’s Election Day in Alexandria, VA. Today, we voted for Mayor, City Council and School Board. These are pretty important positions in our City government. Here’s the problem: voter turnout was ridiculously low. When I went to vote at lunchtime, I was the only person in the entire polling station. The volunteer told me that about 5% of registered voters in my precinct had voted.
Low voter turnout, especially for a non-Presidential race, is nothing new. Mid-term elections are notorious for having low voter turnout. Evidently, the millions who turned out for the 2008 Presidential race that elected President Obama have tuned out again and are skipping local elections.
Know what I think? Election Day needs a marketing plan. We market our meetings, conventions, products, and tradeshows. I say that we need to deploy some of the tactics we use to get people to attend a tradeshow, register on a Web site or buy a product and get people to the polling stations! Here are some of my ideas:
- Create a sweepstakes. Every person who votes is entered into a contest to win $10, $100, $10,000 or whatever amount is available. The dollar value doesn’t matter; the excitement of a sweepstakes is what counts.
- Give out points for voting. We all love gold stars. My polling station should have my voter record and give me a gold star for consistent voting. A bell should ring when a longtime voter checks in. I should get a $25 Starbucks card for a perfect voting record in the last 24 years.
- Voting should be fun. Let’s face it. We all want to be entertained. Why not have the local school bands perform at the polling stations? We should have stand-up comics making fun of the candidates. Let’s have magicians entertain the folks waiting in line.
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Mar 0926
Candidate Obama ran a great campaign and made amazing use of social networking services to get the word out about his campaign, mobilize supporters, create viral messages, and raise money. When the campaign ended, I wondered if President Obama would continue to use social networking tools or if the constraints of the White House or security would put an end all that open communication and engagement.
I’ve been so happy to see that President Obama is being just as innovative and engaging online.
Jan 0916
I’m excited and fascinated by next week’s Inauguration. And I’m relying on the Web to keep me up to date with the festivities.
- I’m following the Presidential Inaugural Committee (PIC) (@obamainaugural) and loving the YouTube contest, the news about the inaugural activities, and the updates about various balls.
- I’m following the DC Government on Twitter (@Inauguration_DC) and appreciating the news about road closures, tips from the National Park Service, etc.
- I’m impressed with the Web site of the Presidential Inaugural Committee, especially the blog. I have enjoyed reading about the rehearsal and the stand-ins, the concert at Lincoln Memorial is going to be fabulous, and the videos from Barack and Michelle Obama were a nice touch.
- The PIC’s Flickr account is full of beautiful photos of DC and the preparations for next week’s events.
- I plan to be part of the Facebook crowd watching the inauguration live and updating my status when the new President is sworn in.
For the first time ever, I feel like I’m getting an insider’s view of what goes into an inauguration and know about a lot of the activities. The blog and photos especially are creating an intimacy to the event that I did not think possible, considering that hundreds of thousands (millions?) are going to be here next week. Read the rest of this entry
Oct 0807
In 28 days, we Americans get to vote for a new President. On the one hand, I have been glued to the TV during both conventions and the debates, and I’m reading everything I can about the candidates and their platforms. On the other hand, I’m completely sick of the politics, the inflated promises, and the false statements. Since I’m a bit of a political junkie, I have been scouring the Web for some of the most informative and innovative resources on the election. Here are some of my favorite sites:
My Election Decision is aimed that the coveted undecided voters. You take a quiz and the system tells who your candidate should be.
I think the New York Times has the best election coverage of any of the major news outlets.
The Washington Post and CNN also have a good election centers.
Google has created a series of Google maps that chart the timeline of both candidates’ lives, map Twitter posts about the election, and show where the candidates are on the campaign trail. Be sure to reload this page a couple of times to see all of the possible maps. Read the rest of this entry
Jul 0815
A friend of mine boasted that she is following Barack Obama on Twitter and he is following her back. Curious, I logged on to my Twitter account and started following Barack Obama. Lo and behold, within a few minutes, I got an e-mail from Twitter saying that Barack Obama was following me back on Twitter.
Why on earth would a presidential candidate follow every Tom, Dick and Harry who wants to follow him on Twitter? And is some poor soul on his staff really assigned to monitor the Twitter posts?
And then it hit me. Looking at Obama’s Twitter page, you’ll note that as of midnight on July 14, 2008, there are 46,535 people following him. It’s not about the Twitter posts, it’s about showing how many people care about what Obama is doing, about showing the huge diversity of his supporters, and allowing his supporters to get connected.
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