Internetiturundus - interneta mārketings - internet marketing

Estonian media, hearts and minds have been dominated recently by the death of former, and first, President Lennart Meri.

I must confess my ignorance that I had never heard of the man until his death.

I feel proud that I was in Kadriorg yesterday for the ‘goodbye’ ceremony.

I have grown to love this country and it is now obvious to me that Lennart Meri was a key reason for Estonia’s freedom and spectacular pace of development.

I get the feeling from the Estonians that Lennart Meri will continue to be an inspiration and that there will never be a President quite as good as him again.

Lennart Meri also seemed to be fun, not just a great leader/thinker/humanitarian.

I particularly liked the stories of his moments of anti-protocol. His smiling, occasionally mischievous-looking, eyes say a lot to me.

Normally I do not have much time for nationalists and nationalism ( I think of myself as a Global citizen) but when someone is so passionately nationalist - and in such a charming and eloquent way it makes me wonder.

Goodbye Mr Meri, Hello Mr Meri….it’s time for me to learn more about you..

Sam Michel is speaking at Eturundus! 5 in Tallinn, Estonia April 13th 2006

Sam is a digital marketing veteran with over 10 years’ experience. He was the UK’s first full-time webmaster, creating Time Out’s first website as well as leading the development of Popcorn.co.uk, an award-nominated movie website for UK TV giant, Carlton plc.

Sam founded Chinwag in 1996, which includes uk-netmarketing, the UK’s oldest and best-known marketing discussion forum, which he continues to moderate.

Personally I have been participating in UKNM since 1997 - it has been a source of much inspiration, admiration and a few business deals too

From the initial forum, uk-netmarketing, Chinwag expanded to include other topics including design, usability, wireless marketing, an announcement service for jobs and many more.

Sam’s consultancy work focuses on digital marketing strategy, in particular the use of email marketing and eCRM to keep customers happy and, ultimately, increasing return on investment. Recent projects include work for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), MSN, Homechoice, Arsenal FC and The Bank of England.

“Our team’s expertise is built on over 10 years’ experience of running campaigns both in-house and on behalf of clients. Chinwag itself sends over 2 million emails to subscribers each month.”
Sam Michel

His specialité de la maison, is a holistic approach that encompasses the user’s journey from subscription through purchase and retention, with a clear goal of improving customer satisfaction and generating a higher return on investment. (Yuk..that was a bit salesy)

This will be Sam’s first time in Estonia and a rare opportunity to hear him speak.

Hopefully he will be given a warm reception and will go back to England singing praise of Estonia, Estonians and Eturundus! which will help fulfil one (altex) mission of building “digital bridges” between England and Estonia.

His visit is made possible thanks to the generous support of RedGroup and Estonian Air who have provided Sam with an apartment in Tallinn and flight to Tallinn and a flight back to England too!

Essentials about Eturundus! 5 for the diary.

Thursday 13th April, 2-5pm
Reval Hotel Olümpia, Tallinn Conference Centre, Estonia:
Room Alfa 2 (120 people).

5 speakers this time:

1. Ain Kabal, Hansa Law
2. Andrus Purde, Skype
3. Epp-Kristiina Keerov, EMT
4. Kristina Randver, TNS Emor

plus a mystery guest from the UK (just waiting to confirm his flight before we announce for sure.)

This time tickets will be available on a donation model.

(I know, I know, that means some people will not pay anything….but if we do not cover the costs of the event then we will not do the donation model again. No problem.)

The suggested minimum donation level will be:

Students / FIE(self employed) / Academics / Unemployed 100eek

Small business (under 10 people) 200eek

Medium Business (10-50 people) 300eek

Big Business (over 50 people) 500eek

This time we will also be offering LOTS OF FREE FOOD after the event (5-7pm) to encourage networking.

30 seats have already been reserved - before we even announced the event or knew the line up!! I guess the word about Eturundus! is spreading

More details will follow (here and in the altex newsletter) but if you really want to reserve your seat now then pls contact Priit Põld (priit @ altex.ee)

You can make a donation, of any size, to altex marketing at this account.

Hansapank
Arveldusarve: 221 027 741 257
IBAN: EE982200221027741257

Please refer to to E!5 and don’t forget to tell Priit please.

If the event is over subscribed then priority will be given to those who have made advance donations.

Oh, I nearly forgot. Eturundus! 5 is supported by Estonian Air and RedGroup apartments in Tallinn.

It’s true.

Recently I was invited to lecture at the Estonian Business School.

This is an honour but a bit scary too. It has been a while since I taught formally. The last time I taught a degree level course was at Ankarra University in Turkey some years ago.

However I have trained a few people, given some lectures and talks etc so I am not a novice completely (EBS WILL be pleased to know that!)

Anyway, I digress from the point of this post.

I needed some help, major help, putting together a syllabus for this e-commerce/ emarketing / ebusiness (let’s not go into definitions today - another time maybe) course.

So I shouted for help.

To David Chaffey and Katri Kerem. And guess what?

They have been amazing. Sharing tips and knowledge that will help make the course even better than I had hoped.

So David, Katri take a bow. You are officially ’stars’. Thankyou.

Katri does not have a website but is a well known Estonian lecturer on e issues (and other stuff too).

David is a well known internet marketer with an excellent internet marketing blog

International Design and Engagability Conference 2006 15th October @ NordiCHI Oslo Proceedings edited by Knight, J. Sheriden, J and
Torstensson C.

This came into my inbox this morning so I thought I would share it.

I certainly plan to go.

I also feel a little proud to be the first (I think) to get this on the web. Its not even on the Nordichi.org site yet - or Nordichi.net

I guess that’s a scoop !

The conference agenda is, I must say, pretty amazing:

Stream 1. Design for engagement

Engaging users for a better work experience
Izabel Barros, Dave Lathrop and Bruce Simoneaux.

Appreciative Inquiry: Designing for Engagement in
Technology-Mediated Learning
Denise Withers and Janet McCracken.

Person-Centered Design Methodology As An Instrument To Create
New Products
Denise Dantas and Leda Gomes.

User Models for Children: Fact or Fiction?
Alissa N. Antle.

Unveiling People’s Inner Needs, Desires And Fantasies To
Forecast Future User-Product Interaction Experiences
O. Tomico et al.

Development of a conceptual design methodology for
ergonomically-shaped Product forms
M. D. Shieh, C. C. Yang. and F.S. Lin

Designing for engagement in a simulation game for learning
Cecilia Katzeff and Carin Torstensson.

Visual Realism and Virtual Pedagogical Agents
Magnus Haake and Agneta Gulz.

The Participatory Web: Engaging Audiences Through Remix Culture
Robert Sharl.

Engaging Experiences with Emotional Virtual Therapists
Chris Creed and Russell Beale.

Engaging students in active learning - a virtual environment
Sue Barnes and Viv Bell.

Stream 2. Interpreting engagement

Is mobile TV engaging?
Anxo Roibas.

Sky reverie: Create your worn constellation with your wishes
Jinsil Seo.

Real Pong and Virtual Tennis - Hybrid Spaces in Everyday Life
are Possible
Joost van Eupen et al.

Think local: Merging online and real life communities
Frank Jesgarz et al.

Re-Presencing; A ‘denser now’?
Terry Rosenberg and Mike Waller’

Urban navigation and the pedestrian
Andrew Furman.

Media Hybrids and Language Interactions: Humans, Machines and
the Middle Ground
Lanfranco Aceti and Marco Gillies.

Interactive environments: towards an epistemology [models and
methodologies for interactive design]
Daniela Kutschat Hanns et al

Stir (evoking sensory awareness)
Stephanie Grey

Ambient Art: Understanding qualities of (dis)engagement
John Knight

Video storytelling as an experiential database for volunteer
festival workers
Cecilia Katzeff and Vanessa Ware.

NordiCHI is a forum for human-computer interaction research.

NordiCHI happens every two years. Previously: Stockholm (2000), Århus (2002) and Tampere (2004).

I like Skype, I use it all the time and altex has a close relationship with Skype too, so I thought you might be interested in, or tempted by, these latest vacancies.

“Skype is growing its Estonia-based marketing team and is hiring online-marketing specialists. More specifically we are looking for an Online Direct Marketing Analyst and a Search and Pay-per-Lead Product Manager. In both cases we expect applicants to have 5+ years of experience behind the belt, know online marketing inside out, show interest in industry trends and speak fluent English (ie. notice the one grammar error in this text)

What we offer in return is blood, sweat and tears A true challenge in a truly global company with all accompanying benefits, that is. Both posts will be located in Tallinn, but as Skype’s marketing people work mostly from London, it would help if the applicants were not afraid of flying.

Check out specs for Online Direct Marketing Analyst or Search and Pay-per-Lead Product Manager.

For additional questions (preferably after reading the spec) please write to jaanus.kase at skype.net”

If you do apply or contact Jaanus then please mention where you saw the info. Thanks.

Corporate blogging sucks as an online community creation technique.

That was the title of a piece I have had in my draft folder for a while.

Since I started corporate blogging (yuk) I have realised there is something wrong, no not ‘wrong’, but missing.

People, dialogue, freedom of speech.

Yeah ok! We corporate bloggers can sit and rant our views on the world and share knowledge etc.

Great.

And yes, we can (and do) promote offline activities so anyone within a geographic radius of x can ‘meet up’ and ‘commune’. But that’s not building online community - just helping to shape one offline.

Corporate blogs ARE good at shaping and nurturing but not creating online communities.

Why not?

Because it’s not open conversation.

I post, you comment, I comment back and I control the edit button.

It’s hierarchical.

Yet another example of a business (in this case altex marketing) PUSHING their views at you whilst trying to make themselves sound personal and interesting.

(This feels weird - criticising ourselves and our own blog in the third person!)

And what about so called successful blogs with ‘tonnes of comments’ ? (I hear you say)..Surely they are creating community.

Well…..nope, not really.

Think about it.

You visit a popular blog that hundreds or thousands of other people visit. Now tell me, how many do you know personally? (forget about the geographic tie up which leads to nuturing)

Not many huh? Not really community is it?

More of a cult thing actually. Exactly.

Until corporate blogs actually open their doors to anyone who wants to post then they will only be one way push with the blogger behind the scenes acting as some sort of editor..dreaming of the A list so their blog can become…..a magazine!

An A list blog is little more than a specialist magazine with a ‘letter to the editor feature’.

Well that WAS the piece I was going to write but then I just picked up on this little BETA Brave new blog from Honda.

Now anyone (registration required) can blog (including criticism -read the blog about the Honda Civic’s bad back lights) at Honda, not just comment.

All of a sudden I feel alive again, maybe corporate blogs really can create online community after all.

I hope the Honda experiment is a successful one.

So at altex are we going to allow anyone to blog?

Well…yes…sort of.

If you want to post on this blog just let us know and if we like the idea then you can. It’s a half way position I know… but we are getting there….

Needless to say, comments are welcome, especially if anyone knows of other corporations that allow non employed stakeholders to blog.

The internet marketing speeches and presentations from Eturundus! 4 are now available, free, at the altex E! archive.

I like to think of myself as a specialist in internet marketing, after all I have been doing and studying it since 1997.

So, like many specialists, I am sometimes amazed or confused as to why someone would approach a traditional marketing agency first - to solve internet marketing problems or develop online strategy.

I usually assume it is either a case ‘who we know’ or a real belief that the ‘big agency’ probably knows best.

But a recent study of chimps, yes that’s right chimps, perhaps gives us another way to understand this curious type of decision.

Apparently when presented with a task that requires cooperation a chimp will look for help from another.

When given the choice between (and here comes the analogy bit) :

a) an experienced but subbordinate chimp (specialist agency)

b) an inexperienced but dominant chimp (traditional agency)

Guess what. The chimp, just like most humans, chooses b. Doh!

But wait…

The decision only lasts until the chimp realises that the dominant chimp helper is ‘useless’ and then he chooses the experienced helper…whatever their status.

Perhaps the choice for the dominant chimp is one of deference i.e. that it is the ‘right thing to do’, to ’show respect’ etc.

This mirrors my own business experience in internet marketing.

Typical situations:

1. We contracted this big agency to do our website, but it’s not really working. Why is that? Could you ‘have a look’?

2. We want to do all this ‘internet marketing stuff’ but we do not have a big budget because we spent it all on the last agency!

3. We spend a lot on banner ads. Our agency says banners are good for branding but we are not getting much response. What else can we do?

So it’s normal.

Apparently, assuming you believe in evolution, we humans are ‘conditioned’ to respect the dominant powers and that’s why clients often try the big agencies first. (Ok, where’s my nobel prize?)

It is not always the best decision (sometimes it is, there are some very good large agencies….and some not very good specialists too..out there) but it’s natural.

So the task in hand perhaps is to make it easier for client to see which “chimp” can really deliver the results. So they can save time and make money faster.

Internet marketing CAN deliver huge competitive advantages provided you move fast enough and don’t waste time mixing with the wrong monkeys.

PS We change our name to “monkey marketing” next week.

Robin ‘chimpee’ Gurney

Read more about this monkey business at the New Scientist.

Last week after Eturundus!4 there was the first PeaToit!

60 people came to E!4 last week and afterwards about 25 to PeaToit!1.

Special thanks to Peeter Marvet for handling the webcast and to whoever had the idea of joining all the tables together Good move.

The feedback for both events was very positive, thankyou (it means we are committed even more than before to continue these events) and it helped inspire a new direction too.

A Think Tank!

To cut a long story short: we are looking at the idea of creating an adhoc panel of highly experienced and creative marketing people (internet and traditional communications too) from both clients and agencies.

I do not want to say too much yet because the idea is still being formed but essentially the Think Tank would offer creative internet strategy for leading Estonian companies.

Already one major company has expressed an interest in being a client.

If you are interested in joining the Think Tank panel then please get in touch…