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Catalytic Podcasts: Episode 1 – Trust, Recorded June 11 2013

This is the first of the AdHocnium Catalytic Podcasts, and in this inaugural conversation we focus on the changing role of trust in the era of social media. In particular, our Catalysts examine the different degrees of trust present in our various social networks, the behavior of trust as a non-traditional currency, and the shift of trust in advertising towards networks of peers. Chris Heuer is joined by Mitch Liberman of DRI Global, Hank Wasiak of Concept Farm, and Andy Sternberg of Adler Integrated.Together, they share their insights and experiences on the strategic value and importance of trust, especially in the context of business.

 

We chose this topic to initiate the Catalytic Podcasts because AdHocnium itself is a trust network just as much as a consulting network. The Catalysts are trusted professionals and inventive individuals that Founder Chris Heuer has known for a long time, a key factor for building trust that he emphasizes on this podcast.

According to Mitch, trust is not a currency in the traditional sense, and he describes it as a lubricant. It is not something that can be spent, but it can be earned or lost. This concept is extremely important for heightening customer engagement, and as a result, trust can be built by branding yourself with more humanity. Chris furthers the idea of trust as a lubricant, explaining that trust allows people to more comfortably exchange services and goods.

Later, Andy broadens the conversation by asserting that trust requires maintaining dialogue and open communication in a consistent manner. However, in personal and customer relationships, surprise is welcomed and encouraged. Balancing spontaneity and consistency can be a challenge for brands, but it is rewarded with positive customer reactions and deeper engagement with the company.

Open book branding is a concept Hank introduces; “It’s scary to be open with your audiences, but the more transparent you are, the easier it is to build trust.” A good read around this idea is The Open Brand: When Push Comes to Pull in a Web-Made World (Currently 30% off on Amazon). He also goes on to say that trust can firmly establish itself or collapse entirely in a brief period of time, emphasizing the occasionally volatile nature of trust.

Today, there are many convoluted sources of trust, and many factors worth bearing in mind to secure it. Listen in on this conversation among our leading digital and social business strategists for insights on how trust is won, lost, and fundamental to business success. Our Catalysts talk collaboratively and build off one another fluidly, resulting in a deep conversation with invaluable insights to improve your strategic approach to customer engagement.

As Mitch concludes, one of the solutions to modern trust complications is “something like AdHocnium, which is trust network-built. I think trust networks are very interesting because they extend beyond the trust of an individual.” Listen to our sixteen minute conversation and please share your thoughts on the relationship between trust and business below.

Directly download our podcast here.

 

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By Andrew Marks
June 18, 2013

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Robert Rose #SDLInnovate Session – Chaos, Context and Content


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By Chris Heuer
June 13, 2013

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AdHocnium Disrupts Traditional Consulting Model With Global Network of Social Business Leaders

The Catalysts of AdHocnium have created a global network with deep expertise in engagement, collaboration and holistic business strategy to provide companies with the key insights needed to change their culture and operations and transform their businesses into Social Businesses.

San Francisco, CA – AdHocnium is announcing its launch as a global network Consulting Bureau with 17 new members forming the core of its network. Akin to a Speakers Bureau in many ways, AdHocnium focuses on selling days, not long-term projects. But instead of simply providing speakers who tell their story, the Catalysts of AdHocnium specialize in solving the toughest problems around business performance in the social era. This includes aligning a globally dispersed workforce, seizing market share, improving customer experience, and creating collaborative cultures, while also expanding leadership’s view of what’s possible, educating them on emerging trends and transforming how they operate.

According to founder Chris Heuer, “Strategy is not a PowerPoint deck, it is an insight that changes how companies think and act. Rather than focusing on creating huge documents that often go unread, we seek to create mindshifts in our clients by educating them, inspiring them and enabling them to lead into the future. Particularly, around embracing the principles, technologies and tactics of Social Business.”

The AdHocnium network of leading business strategists, authors and entrepreneurs help clients understand the perils and opportunities of this increasingly complicated, connected and real time market fueled by social media and connected by mobile devices.

AdHocnium seeks to disrupt the traditional consulting model in several ways, most especially by foregoing long term contracts with oversized teams to instead produce targeted workshops, seminars and customer co-creation sessions. Rather than bringing in a team of a dozen or more MBA’s and one or two thought leaders for several months, AdHocnium works with clients to assemble the right talent from its network of industry leaders providing the highest value insights over just a couple ofof days. Ultimately, AdHocnium empowers teams to do the important work themselves, ensuring they not only know it, but that they own it.

Chris Heuer has been recruiting top talent from his global network over the past two months, recruiting leading practitioners in key functional areas with backgrounds in marketing, engagement, social media, community management, influencer relations, public relations, advertising, content development, video production, talent management, collaboration, innovation, customer experience, CRM, business strategy (with a more holistic view) and change management.

The team of new Catalysts include:

AdHocnium has also established relationships with key agencies for mutual benefit, including those being lead by many of the catalysts above. Agency relationships include:

The network is expecting to expand over the coming months to fill in additional areas of expertise around SEO, Systems Integration, Data Visualization, Application Design, and other functional areas providing relevant perspectives related to Social Business transformation. This expansion is expected to be limited in scope, according to founder Chris Heuer, “We aren’t seeking to be the biggest network of consultants, just the best. The entire selection process thus far has been based on the trust I have in the network members, both personally and professionally. It is this trust, combined with a commitment to our mutual success and a focus on creating value for clients that will bond us together.”

Quotes

Chris Heuer, Founder, Principle, Engagement Catalyst

 On Strategy:

“Strategy is not a PowerPoint deck, it is an insight that changes how companies think and act. Rather than focusing on creating huge documents that often go unread, we seek to create mindshifts in our clients by educating them, inspiring them and enabling them to lead into the future. Particularly, around embracing the principles, technologies and tactics of Social Business.”

On Engagement:

“Engagement is interaction with intention that goes beyond concern for the transaction.”

On the meaning of the word AdHocnium:

“The original idea came out of the first BarCamp, which lead to the birth of the Web 2.0 and Social Media eras. As a loosely organized open space, it attracted a number of entrepresenurs, open source developers and truly innovative Silicon Valley disruptors. But it was missing something essential, what some people call “the suits”. But most traditional business people were too structured in their thinking, and their evaluation of such events. But there was value in the structured, and the unstructured. There was value in the formal and the informal. This is when I realized that we needed to find a way to bring together the best of all worlds, so I imagined a molecule, a catalytic element if you will, that would bind together the best aspects of adhoc emergent groups and more structured organizational models. Hence, the concept of AdHocnium was born.”

On AdHocnium’s Growth:

“We aren’t seeking to be the biggest network of consultants, just the best. The entire selection process thus far has been based on the trust I have in the members, both personally and professionally. It is this trust, combined with a commitment to our mutual success and a focus on creating value for clients that will bond us together.”

Shel Holtz, Catalyst, + Holtz Communication + Technology

On the disruptive power of AdHocnium:

“The opportunity to work with a team of experienced leaders configured specifically to meet a client’s needs is unusual, to say the least. Most consulting organizations need to feed the full-time staff they have, regardless of their competencies. The chance to work with this unique team is one I’m anticipating greatly.”

Mark Fidelman, Catalyst + Evolve!

On Social Business and the AdHocnium Network

“Becoming a Social Business is no longer a nice to have, it’s a must have. Heuer has assembled an A team of experts and influencers to help transform virtually any business into an adaptive, powerful revenue engine using the latest in social business principles.”

Kris Robinson, Catalyst, + Robinson Solutions

On the need for social integration across companies:

“Using social business technologies and principles internally can transform siloed organizations into collaborative, efficient, innovative companies where ideas and information flow freely. Being an AdHocnium Catalyst is an exciting opportunity for me to help facilitate these transformations and work with people who are on the leading edge of social business.”

Hank Wasiak, Catalyst, + Concept Farm

On the need to adapt to the changing ecosystem of social connectedness:

“The traditional “hard assets” of marketing are “table stakes” today. Businesses have an unprecedented opportunity to make the most of marketing as it is meant to be…”the art of one-on-one persuasion”…..by differentiating through powerful soft assets. Some key guideposts. Great brands are built on trust, transparency and truth. The purpose, people and passion behind the brands matter most. Infusing the emotional power of a finely tuned brand positioning into all aspects the company’s culture is the essential building block. Practice “Open Book” Branding…nothing to hide, share everything.

Andy Sternberg, Catalyst, + Adler Integrated

On the importance of connected community:

“Adler Integrated is thrilled to be part of the AdHocnium network. Our work is rooted in the belief that the power of community is essential to building great things to enrich the human experience. We look forward to working with the other catalysts in the network to improve strategy for and empower leadership roles within client organizations.”

Mitch Lieberman, Customer Catalyst, + DRI-North America

On AdHocnium’s role in the ecosystem:

“To visionaries and critical thinkers, it is about surfacing the information that others miss and connecting the dots that are hard to see. Working along side smart, passionate and great people who are leaders in their respective field is simply a honor. The new normal can be a bit rough, I am excited to be a part of a team who make it all just a bit easier to navigate.

In the land of too much information, it is about context – give the right person, the right information, at the right time, on the right device. In the world of changing business rules; social business, it is about bringing the right people together, at the right time, in the right way to solve, the tough problems together. It is great to a part of just such a team.”

Additional Links:

AdHocnium Website: http://adhocnium.com/
On Twitter: http://twitter.com/adhocnium
The Story of AdHocnium: http://adhocnium.com/about
Blog Post: The World is Changing, Most Companies Aren’t Keeping Up

Contact:

For press inquiries or to schedule interviews, please contact
Chloé Mayer, Administrative Catalyst
chloe@adhocnium.com

For client inquiries or to apply to join the network, please visit
http://adhocnium.com/contact

Posted in Announcements, Social Business. Tagged with , , , , , , , .

By Chris Heuer
June 11, 2013

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The World is Changing, Most Companies Aren’t Keeping Up

Today’s markets are more connected and complicated than ever before. The impact of digital technology has not only changed how we create value, but what we value. How customers make purchase decisions, influenced by their friends and familiar strangers, makes it more difficult to get their attention and earn their trust, not to mention the challenge of earning a share of their wallet.

This new world not only requires a change in marketing strategy, but a change across all aspects of operations. It also requires a new mindset and a new set of strategies for navigating the business landscape. A massive transformation of our economy, society and culture is well under way changing nearly every aspect of what we have come to hold as our world view.

It’s now abundantly clear that most businesses are failing to keep up with these changes in the market, and many business leaders are ill-prepared to lead their companies into this connected, socially empowered future. Worse, many are reluctant to change, lest they move into a new paradigm or technology trend too quickly, having been previously burned through prior business cycles by adopting immature technology or placing their bets in the wrong place. This problem is even worse amongst the middle management who are headed towards extinction and clinging to relevancy with every ounce of their bodies.

But change is exactly what most large organizations need most today, despite the reluctance and fear. As society has become more connected through digital and social media, businesses of all size are trying to become connected companies. Unfortunately, they are failing at it miserably, with most leaders out of touch with the cultural shift that is required to realize the full benefits from Social Business principles, technologies and tactics. While many are deploying enterprise social networks to create this connectivity, their systems of compensation and rewards are grossly misaligned, often times discouraging the very collaboration they seek to create.

Meanwhile, thought leaders the world over are still trying to get executives to focus on providing real value to customers instead of maximizing the profitability of each transaction. Many companies have yet to realize the value of great customer relationships, and most still do not understand why customer lifetime value matters at all. They continue to push messages into the heads of consumers through traditional advertising techniques, unsure how to embrace engagement strategies that create more meaningful, intentional interactions that lead to deeper loyalty.

This is the focus of AdHocnium. To enable and empower global businesses to understand, embrace and enact the policies and practices that will make them truly Social Businesses.

Social Business is a much deeper and broader concept than what it’s name and general reputation may imply. As business process reengineering focused on creating bottom line business results through improving consistency and quality of outputs through a standardization of business processes, Social Business finds similar performance improvements. Instead of focusing on the most common processes however, Social Business is about empowering the people within an organization with social tools that enable them to manage the exceptions as well as the rules. More importantly, it’s about bringing the the human element back to business, because the old adage doesn’t apply any more.

Today it’s personal, and its business too.

This is what the soon to be announced network of AdHocnium Catalysts inherently understand. It’s what we will help you understand when you hire our network to transform your business. You can no longer afford to wait for the world to validate innovative new ways to create value through social technology. It’s not a fad, it’s a vision for a better way to work being realized at companies of all sizes all around the world. So contact us today to find the insights and inspiration you need to change and seize the opportunities that being a Social Business provides.

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By Chris Heuer
June 9, 2013

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Chris Heuer Explains Social Business At The Villa Austin during SxSW

Was fortunate to sit down with Hermione Way and share my key insights on Social Business. This is a really good summary of the main points that will be explored and explained in my upcoming book, Serve the Market. About 10 minutes, and I think very worthwhile. If you want to talk about how these insights can impact your business, its culture and its performance, contact us today.

 


Video streaming by Ustream

Posted in Interviews, Social Business, Thoughts, Video.

By Chris Heuer
March 17, 2013

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Are Your Strategic Objectives in Harmony?

One of the most important observations coming from our Social Media Buyers Guide Project was the distinction between the two mindsets that drove strategic decision making.

  1. Organizations with a considered purchase cycle seek to improve their reputation and develop long term relationships with the markets they serve.
  2. Organizations who focus on short-term results that build revenue.

There are clearly different schools of thought with regards to which is best here, and in which situations it is most appropriate to seek these different types of return on time and return on investment.  This is a strong reinforcement of the fact that every situation is indeed unique. It is therefore paramount that creativity, adaptability and flexibility of ALL team members (internal and external) is a required trait within this fast changing market environment.

This is seemingly the key decision an organization should make before creating a more detailed Social Media strategy. All else that follows is much easier if you can all agree on that decision. This is the cornerstone of a great Social Media strategy.

But the best of the best companies know it is not an either/or decision, but one of to what degree being focused on the bottom line or being focused on building reputation is emphasized. The best do just enough of each, with their objectives in harmony and a flexible attitude to know when to color outside the lines.

This is the one crystal clear advantage of having a bigger company. Unfortunately for the typical large enterprise though, that advantage is often eclipsed by their complete inability to align their goals between different groups inside highly politicized working environments. The silo walls are still quite thick, even though we have talked about this problem for decades.

Conclusion:

It is our recommendation that you get together with everyone involved and spend an hour or two talking about the question of how much you should be focused on the bottom line vs. building your overall reputation.  What are those key metrics that really matter most to the business not to your bonus? Why do you feel this way?  Remember, we are trying to find the right solution for your unique situation, there is no one right answer but there is one right way of discovering what is best, and that is open and honest conversation.

Perhaps then going forward, you can find other ways to talk about things like this and get all your oars rowing in the same direction. Could you imagine such a day???

PS – we are talking more about this topic at our panel during Web 2 Expo this Friday at 2:40 PM in Room 2006.

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By Chris Heuer
April 2, 2009

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Noded! The Way We Work

This is an interview with Jaan Orvet from Noded about his book and the model behind their Noded business network. Rather than working in hierarchically driven organizations or in a distributed team, Jaan and his colleagues each work as nodes within a trusted network. Each are free to bring work in, turn work down or do what they want.

This model is very similar to what we are doing with AdHocnium, except they have no central entity at the heart. This is small pieces, barely joined (except by trust) as opposed to our approach of pieces loosely joined. (small semantical difference, but important).

Please check them out, and check out the book if you are interested in living the Noded workstyle too!

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Posted in Chemistry, Interviews, Thoughts, Video. Tagged with , , , , , , .

By
March 10, 2009

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David Sifry’s New Venture: Personalized Travel Guides

At DLD I had the opportunity to speak with David Sifry about his new project, Offbeat Guides.  Offbeat Guides, which launched publicly in November, is the first company to create fully customizable travel guides.  Unlike many travel guides which were written over a year ago by a travel writer who quickly popped in and out of the city you will be visiting, Offbeat Guides are customized with the most up-to-date information written by locals and put together by travel editors and curators.  They are currently offering customizable guides for 30,000 of the most popular cities worldwide.

All you have to do is go to the Offbeat Guides website, enter your name, your destination, where you are coming from and, if you have accomodation, where you are staying.  Offbeat Guides will then compile all of the most relevant information, events, festivals, bands and more just for the specific days of your trip.  They even gather together information about the weather, currency exchange rates, location of your country’s embassy and more.

Once your travel guide is complete you can preview it online, make changes and customize chapters.  You can then purchase a printed version for $24.95, a PDF version for $9.95 or view your travel guide online for free.

For me, one of the most frustrating things about traveling is trying to gather together all of the information about the cities I’m visiting.  Searching around for the simple things like the weather forecast, currency and exchange information, local spots and events can take a lot of time and effort, so I think that it’s wonderful that Offbeat Guides does all of this for you in seconds.  In addition, I hate feeling like I am going to tourist places as opposed to where the locals go. With Offbeat Guides I can check out the local hot spots. I look forward to using it on my upcoming trip to Paris, London and Geneva.

David Sifry is a software entrepreneur and blogger.  He is most known for founding Technorati and blogs at Sifry’s Alerts.  For our full interview, watch the below video.

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By Chris Heuer
February 9, 2009

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