Our Perspective

It’s April… Wait, Really?

Is it us, or was Christmas just a few weeks ago? Nonetheless, spring is officially upon us, and at 104 West, that means one thing… baseball season. Having Coors Field as our next-door neighbor means that every April we find ourselves right in the middle of a very distinct kind of chaos, also known as Rockies season.

But things are scarcely less busy inside our office, as we have a flurry of new clients that have us hitting the ground running, including GoodData, Mobile Pulse, and Neighborhood Pay Services.  

GoodData, a disruptive, cloud-based enterprise platform for business intelligence, helps convert big data into profitable insights and strategies for business executives. The company’s mantra “BI without the BS” has leading innovators taking notice – GoodData is funded by Andreessen Horowitz and trusted by companies including Living Social, Pandora, Mint to name a few.

Mobile Pulse provides simple, secure, and scalable mobile broadband measurement software solutions. You can read some great local coverage by the Denver Post here and again here.

Neighborhood Pay Services (NPS) is a financial service provider for the multifamily housing industry. The company’s Rent Assurance program was recently launched and enables property companies to capture incremental occupancy from conditionally approved applicants.

We are thrilled to be adding these companies to our roster, and to build partnerships with them. They are all poised to disrupt their respective markets, and are faced with the opportunity to make a lasting impact by driving the industry conversation and displaying thought-leadership.

One of the best aspects of working with new clients is that the unique needs of every business means that we continue to be tasked with innovating the conventionally trusted methods of communicating… and we thrive on that challenge. 

 

Who Wants to be a Corporate Executive? The Answer Might Surprise You

From the desk of Kelli Flores…

104 West recently worked with our client, Intelligent Office, to develop what would come to be known as the Work IQ survey. The idea behind the survey was simple… everyone has a work style, but it’s not always the work style that they want to have. So we set out to find out how people currently work, but more importantly, how they aspire to work. Intelligent Office is a virtual, professionally staffed office space with locations across North America, so they have a vested interest in knowing what modern workers want their workday to look like.

So to gain the insight that we wanted, we put together a survey that asked a variety of questions on work environment, attire, resources, technology, hours, etc., and for each question, respondents gave two answers… how do you currently work, and how do you aspire to work. As a result of how they answered each question, every respondent fell into one of four categories to define both their current and aspirational work styles: corporate executive, professional, entrepreneur or independent.

We collected more than 1,000 responses to the survey, and when we started compiling the data, we weren’t exactly sure what the outcome would be. What we actually found was more surprising than even we had anticipated. When it came to how people want to work, not a single respondent wanted to be a corporate executive. Could that be right? We pored over the data, and then pored over it again. Survey says? No one wants to be a corporate executive. Not a few, not just one… none.

The data from the survey pointed to an enormous shift toward more mobility, flexibility, and ultimately, more freedom in the workplace. Some of what modern workers want is still what you might expect… people want to dress professionally, and they still want to have an office and a personal assistant. But an overwhelming majority also said that they want to have a better work/life balance and they want to have resources that will allow them to get away from their desks.  We think that this represents a new generation of workers that have emerged out of the recent recession. They still want to be successful, and they still want the “American Dream”, they just want it on their own terms.

We’re excited about what we uncovered with the Work IQ survey, and because of its tremendous success, we are now preparing to launch the second round of the survey. So stay tuned, because we’re about to dig even further into what it means to be a modern worker.  

 

Roundup: 104 West Preferred Smartphone Apps

At 104 West, we love our smartphones because they give us the flexibility to check email, review projects and update clients. Sometimes, we even use them to make phone calls. But a smartphone can feel a bit like a tether making it hard to breakaway from work.

Fortunately, there’s an app store that makes using a smartphone a little more fun.

Below is a roundup of some our favorite apps that we use so that it’s not all work and no play around here. What is your favorite app?

“If you scroll through my apps, you will find they are heavily dominated by the likes of princesses, Dora, birds, painting and football. My phone has become the domain of my three kids. These apps come in handy on the way to school, soccer, or any long car trip being derailed by three children stuck in a confined space. While screen savers of Ariel and Dora now adorn my phone and cause looks of question from my colleagues, I have grown to love all of these apps for the fun they bring my kids.” ~ Jen Roane, vice president

“Epicurious is one of my favorite sources for stellar recipes so the Epi app was one of the first apps that I downloaded. This is my favorite app on my phone. The homepage makes it simple to search for easy-to-follow recipes from Bon Appetit, Gourmet and other sources. The interactive shopping list is the app’s best feature. By tapping the plus sign on any recipe, you can create a shopping list and check off items as you shop.” ~Joanie Kindblade, account director

“We love to use lots of recipe apps to come up with new ideas for meals and snacks for the family. We also love to use Skype to share our daily adventures with friends and family who can't be with us.” ~Johanna Erickson, account director

“I’m a sucker for loyalty cards and the discounts that they so faithfully provide, but no one likes holding up a line of people while you flip through your wallet or keys to find the right card (or even worse, being that poor person waiting in line). Enter Key Ring. Key Ring lets me store and access all of my loyalty cards on my phone, and also let’s me receive mobile coupons. It has made signing up for and using loyalty cards an immensely easier process. Bring on the discounts.” ~Kelli Flores, account executive

“I truly love Open Table and The Daily Beast. I travel a lot and entertain so Open Table lets me discover and reserve restaurants simply from hundreds of miles away. And I love the curated content model of the Daily Beast. I get a great cross section of news in one easy-to-navigate place.” ~ Patrick Ward, CEO

“I love to start my mornings with a Skype video call to my daughter and 7-month-old grandson in England. He has just started crawling and standing and when “grammy” makes her special goofy sound, he is all smiles. We have come such a long way since the pioneers who left their homes and rarely, if ever, saw their loved ones again. Alexander Graham Bell helped tremendously with the phone, but Skype has brought intimacy to my daily communication. The broad smiles and impish grins set the tone for my whole day! Thank you, Niklas Zennstrom!” ~Susan Sage, operations manager  

Reflections on SXSW

From the desk of Patrick Ward…

This is the second consecutive year I have had a major client project at SXSW. Last year, I was sort of overwhelmed by the whole thing and got sucked into the vortex of parties, networking and discovery. Last year was also my first as a member of the Advisory Panel for SXSW Accelerator.

In the year between this year and last, I did one really smart thing: I reserved my hotel in March 2011 for March 2012. And I also thought hard about what I get out of SXSW and came to the realization that there are two distinctly different paths.

The first is personal. I love the music at SX. I love seeing old friends and chatting, even if it is more like screaming over house music at some party. I love Austin in general, especially the food. But I can't really justify spending my own money or certainly my clients' budgets to enjoy myself. If it's a happy coincidence, that's one thing, but I can't treat my Austin time as pure pleasure.

So, the other path is professional. There are a lot of interesting panels and the networking is good, but I have plenty of other resources for that. And trying to tackle all of SXSW is like trying to wrestle with Proteus: once you have a hold of it, it changes and you are cast off in a totally different direction. My personal philosophy on SXSW has become to do one thing and do it very well.  

This year, we focused on a panel for our client Smartling. We worked really hard to get Foursquare, Spotify and Zendesk as panelists and to get Christine Lagorio, the executive editor at Inc.com to participate. And we worked hard to ensure a filled room. It was very successful. We had a packed house, good social media traffic and satisfied participants. That's a win. And there is a whole team at 104 West that deserves credit.

In a maelstrom like SXSW, it's best, it seems to me, to pick your spots. I don't like those big hotel buffets because I always feel like I left something literally on the table. I used to feel the same about SXSW. If I wasn't trying to suck it all in, I was somehow losing. Now, I just focus and I think I'm more productive.

Patrick Ward’s Guide to SXSW

From the desk of Patrick Ward…

I’m about to leave on my annual trek to Austin for SXSW, which some think of as a geek spring break. Whether you’re a SXSW neophyte or you’ve been going for decades, here are my tips to help you navigate the excitement and chaos that embodies SXSW.

• Wear your walking shoes. If you have a car, just park it.
• Pick up your registration badge and SXSW bag and ditch the bag at your hotel room.  
• Create an agenda and identify which panels you want to see. For example, go to Startup Village and check out Smartling’s panel on Saturday, which also features Spotify, foursquare and Zendesk.
• Go to the happy hour events and skip the late night parties.
• Plan on eating breakfast and dinner, but skip lunch. A lot of great panels are scheduled during lunch and you don’t want to miss them. 
• Check out the Austin Food Carts blog for the best guide on food trucks.
• Crowds tend to congregate in hotel lobbies or hallways. This is the place to run into people and chat.
• Hit the Tradeshow block party to mingle with cool companies while enjoying free food and drink.

Hope these tips help you get the most out of SXSW. I’ll be tweeting from Austin so follow me on Twitter @patricknward. 

 

Today, I Know I Stood Close to History Once...

 
From the desk of Patrick Ward…

A lot has been written about Steve Jobs today and yesterday and it's hard to generate enough ego to pile on, but since I have had a few run-ins with him over the years, some close encounters and others from one or two degrees of separation, I thought it was at least worth a few lines.

My first encounter with Jobs was sometime in the early 90s, I'm really not sure exactly when.  It was at the old MacWorld, when they used to stage it in the hot New England summers in Boston.  I somehow found myself at a private luncheon at a table close to the dais where Jobs was on a panel.  For some reason, Esther Dyson was at my table, which must have been by chance.  When Jobs started to take questions, Esther's hand shot up and she asked something pointed.  I can't remember the question, but I remember Jobs bristled.  He shot back.  Esther, herself no wilting flower, re-engaged.  It was on.  My memory is that it lasted a while, but it was probably a short exchange, and I do recall feeling uncomfortable.  I walked out not sensing it was historic, but certainly memorable.  It was the first time I had been close to Jobs' intimidating mind, but not the last.
 
In 1997, I met John Sculley.  John was involved as an investor and non-executive chairman of LivePicture, an early player in the digital photo world that emerged in the late 1990s, and I was his PR agency guy.  I found Sculley an affable guy with an almost patrician style.  I didn't ask much about Jobs, but the subject came up in every press interview we did, which were many.  I remember he always seemed to shake his head and look forlorn at the subject of Steve Jobs.  I always sensed that he was disappointed more than anything else at the way their relationship had devolved, almost like the way an older brother thinks of his brash younger sibling.
 
My relationship with another early Apple employee, Trip Hawkins, runs much deeper.  I met Hawkins around the same time I met Sculley.  Hawkins was a polar opposite to Sculley. Steve's impact on Trip could not have been more different.  He was employee 56 or something at Apple, so he was in the thick of business culture upheaval that Jobs brought to technology and at that time relatively stale Silicon Valley.  For Hawkins, Jobs was all inspiration.  Trip had always conceived of the computer as a gaming device and he gleaned so much about starting a business and understanding how to be different from Jobs.  Trip is a proud guy, something I have always liked about him in the 15 years I have known him, and he will eagerly enumerate the business and technical inventions he made after founding EA.  But you can tell when he talks about Jobs, that there is reverence there.  When, some 20 years after they stopped working together, Hawkins' games company, Digital Chocolate sported the top positions on Jobs' latest -- and perhaps greatest -- invention, the iPhone, I could see a sense of satisfaction in Trip.  The falcon had come home to the falconer.
 
My closest encounter with Jobs came in 1997 at a San Francisco event to launch the Mac edition of Microsoft Office.  Steve was deep in his own wilderness and his beloved company was there with him.  NeXt had ostensibly failed.  Pixar had one hit and was on its way, but none of us could tell how great it would be.  And there was Steve on stage with his trademark minimalist slides touting not only the new software but also the $150 million investment Microsoft had recently made.  After the speech, long before his most recent celebrity, Steve was standing near the stage in a gaggle of reporters, holding court.  I was standing with a new friend, (who is now an old friend) and a senior national reporter covering Apple.  As Steve spoke, answering a variety of questions in a pretty intimate setting, my friend became agitated, paralyzed in the presence of Jobs, wanting to ask a question, but feeling inadequate.  He was intimating, just as he had been in Boston just a few years before.  But I remember thinking there was a certain humility this time.  He was witty, confident and persuasive, but he was on a different mission than he had been before.  He was older and probably wiser.
 
The last time I saw Jobs in person was at D – All Things Digital, just a few years ago in what has become a famous series of interviews.  He had been very sick but his clothes weren't yet draping on him like they do on a wire hanger.  Everything, except his mind, seemed to move a little slower.  Everything was a little less intense than in my other encounters, except his eyes, which glistened in the refraction of his glasses.  I saw him both in his individual interview, in his historic dual interview with Bill Gates and then hanging around the conference that evening.  I was never close to him, never spoke to him (I may have in San Francisco that night years before, but probably said something silly or at best forgettable) but unlike the other times, now I knew I was in the company of true genius.  
 
I can't say Steve Jobs has had some great impact on me or my life. I buy Apple products and love them.  I converted my company to all Mac PCs.  And my experiences are probably close to a lot of people's.  Famous people get around and everyone in their sphere feels touched somehow.  But I have memories that will stick with me and I will tell my grandchildren some day that I stood that close to Jobs once or twice and they will look at me like we might look at someone who saw Edison demonstrate the phonograph.  And they'll be right.  I may not make history in my life, but I stood pretty close to it once.

Why Twitter Chats Make Sense For B2B

From the desk of Ben Johnson…

One key advantage of social media is to use it as a new channel. So while companies, and particularly B2B companies, should continue broadcasting via webinars, speaking at industry events – all of the traditional t  ools, why not host these types of events on Twitter?

I started thinking about this after participating in a weekly Twitter chat about social media. A few days before the chat, the moderator tweeted the hashtag that would be used during the event and then asked for specific questions that the “speaker” would answer during the designated chat time. During the actual chat, participants retweeted, replied, and shared information using the pre-designated hashtag.

This made me wonder, if an individual could be a moderator for a Twitter chat, why couldn’t a brand? As an individual, I want to, typically, step away from my Twitter account with a significant increase in new followers weekly. Again, this is what the companies I work with also want.

So, why aren’t companies utilizing these types of activities more often? Is it because they‘re hesitant to turn to social media for such conversations? Obviously their Twitter followers are invested in what they have to say online.

It can sometimes take weeks to get feedback or any type of measurement on how successful a webinar or a speaking engagement was for a company. Not to mention the obvious hard costs associated with developing a webinar or attending a tradeshow or event. But, with a Twitter chat, there aren’t any real hard costs. Feedback is immediate and much more engaging – a dialogue vs. a monologue. Measurement happens more from a “real-time” perspective by tracking and monitoring the reach, replies, and retweets of the individual chats.

And how about the increases in discovery of new customers, partners, followers, etc. through existing online communities furthering engagement? This is just Twitter, imagine the possibilities if you continue the conversation on other social networks, or a corporate blog.

While Twitter chats are not a new concept, many companies are not taking advantage. I thought maybe some tips to help initiate and organize a Twitter chat would be helpful.

• Create a designated hashtag to identify the chat
• Use a free tool such as TweetChat to follow the conversation in real-time
• Promote the chat on other social networks and Twitter prior to the chat
• Field questions prior to the chat to help with an organized agenda
• Measure the reach of your tweets using TweetReach to see how effective the chat was on reaching new followers

I also thought I would recommend two weekly Twitter chats that I like and are currently taking place:

#BWEchat Twitter Party
Wednesdays at 9:00 PM EST/6:00 PST
Description: A Twitter chat run by BlogWorld and features guest speakers and panels about conference-related topics.

#LeadershipChat
Tuesdays at 8:00 PM EST/5:00 PST
Description: A chat with over 180 active participants, Leadership Chat focuses on various topics each week.

I am looking for way to incorporate Twitter chats into what I am doing for our clients. So, I would love to hear what you think or if you come across any that are interesting, please share it with me on the 104 West Facebook page.

We've Been Busy

From the desk of Jennifer Roane…

Is it May already? I can’t tell. With all this rain and cold in Colorado it seems more like November in Boston. But, it is spring in Colorado and we almost missed it. Not because of the rain, but because we hit the ground running at the beginning of 2011 and haven’t looked up until now. 

Since we launched Content Delivery Optimization late last year, we have been working hard with existing clients to create PR programing based on this process. We have also been out talking to new prospects and as many companies as we can about why CDO is creating value and tangible returns to our existing clients’ businesses. 

Over the course of the past six months, we have learned that our CDO process is providing clients with a modern form of communication and engagement. By using CDO as the basis for all of the programs we create, we are building rich communications platforms and are able to translate these into campaigns that provide the right mix of connection with audiences. 

It is a twist on the way big brands create their corporate communication strategy, but tailored to smaller companies, budgets and the new normal landscape we find in the world of public relations.

We are seeing this translating into exciting work with existing clients, as well as helping us bring on new clients. In fact, we just announced three new clients on Wednesday -- eWise, North Plains and Smartling. All three companies chose to work with us because of this approach to communications. 

You can read more about these new clients in the press release. All are strong additions to our current mix. They all are innovating in their respective markets and making exciting moves – a combination that is energizing. 

We think that 104 West CDO process is ready-made for delivering strategic messaging that takes advantage of all the myriad communications channels we now have, and opens up more delivery mechanisms for our clients.

Now that CDO is up and running successfully for clients, we will continue to evolve it to make it work even harder for companies. 

Content Delivery Optimization™ - Engage Your Audience and Become Your Own Media Company

From the desk of Patrick Ward...

From newspapers to iPads - the way we consume and interact with media has changed. How often do you find interesting stories through your Facebook friends or Twitter feeds? Fueled by the increasing pervasiveness of social media, the discovery and sharing of news has changed for good.

We, at 104 West, think this marks an exciting opportunity for communications.

Harnessing the power of social media, 104 West has introduced Content Delivery Optimization (CDO), a proprietary, patent-pending methodology for creating comprehensive communications programs that go beyond traditional public relations approaches. CDO is a program that melds public relations, social media, marketing, content generation and delivery with lead generation and marketing metrics. This type of program enables businesses to directly and persistently reach their audiences where they consume and share news the most, on the web and through social media.

In short, a CDO campaign involves the development of original content concerning a single issue and engages both traditional and social media channels to achieve a persistent stream of communication to critical audiences.

How is it done?

Critical components of a CDO campaign include:

• Creation of original and curated content

• The establishment, improvement or refinement of social media channels

• Development of a proprietary website landing page where all content is housed

• Distribution of content to target audiences with mechanisms to drive traffic back to a client’s website

• Development of specific metrics like lead generation and ongoing reporting/analysis for the life of the campaign

CDO is results oriented and highly measurable, ensuring that your communications efforts are making an impact.

“Everywhere you look people in marketing and communications are talking about social media, but it has been virtually impossible for us to identify a focused and productive social media approach for a business like ours,” said John Hoholik, executive vice president, New Business Development and Marketing at Evolv. “After running our first CDO campaign, we were able to draw a direct line from that focused campaign to significant, qualified sales leads, as well as a more engaged community following –- these are the kinds of the results we have wanted from a communications strategy.”

If you have been struggling to see how your business can utilize social media or just want to bolster your existing efforts, CDO is the program for your business.

The Mother of Reinvention

From the desk of Patrick Ward...

It is by now a hackneyed cliché that the communications world is changing. It is almost equally hackneyed for PR people to say that our industry and discipline need to change with it.  Today, 104 West is acting instead of talking.

We are pleased to launch our latest service, Content Delivery Optimization (CDO), as well as an entirely re-tooled web site.

Anyone who has read this blog for the last six months, and I know that is a small group, has followed our building argument for clients to re-think their relationship with content and communications.  CDO is the payoff of that discussion.  We have an entire post dedicated to CDO, so I won’t burden anyone with another narrative on it here.

We are also very pleased to unveil our new web site.  So many firms simply bolt on new services to their existing web site, partly, we imagine, to dip their toes in the water, and partly to avoid the inconvenience and expense of new perspectives.  We have gone all in.  We are committed to CDO as a new communications strategy for our clients and believed that the most public commitment we could show was to demonstrate it on our own web site.  We want to thank our friends at Chronos Interactive for their partnership on the site. They did a fantastic job.

When we first entered into this persistent recession, my good friend and the former philosopher-CEO at Webroot, David Moll, said that any business who could weather through would be better on the other side.  I retorted that, for us at 104 West,  it wasn’t just the economy that was changing, but also the very nature of the news industry and PR.  I worried that instead of blue skies and calm seas on the other side, it would be more like some Denver neighborhoods after those late summer afternoon micro-bursts. The sky will clear only to reveal that the winds picked up your all deck and lawn furniture, pushed it around for a while and strewn it all over the yard.  Sure, the storm has passed, but the aftermath presents a lot of work.  Unfortunately, I think I was closer to reality than my pal.  But today, we start to put the yard back together....

Thanks to everyone at 104 West who helped in this birth of CDO and our website.  A special note of thanks to Herb Leifer who helped us and me remain true to our idea and kept spinning the wheel as the clay began to take shape. His guidance and patience and persistence were all immeasurable and invaluable.