In Category: Converseon News
We often say that we’re in a post marketing discipline definition world where the lines between direct marketing, advertising and PR have blurred. The new agency of the future is indeed a mashup that brings together the best of those disciplines, skills and people. Converseon has grown in part because of the alchemy that occurs when bringing together search, public relations, computer scientists, direct marketing experts, independent film makers, and more.
Finding the best and brightest from diverse areas has been a core focus of ours. While our team may come from far flung places, cultures and backgrounds, the one consistent and essential element we all share is passion.
At Converseon, we believe in the power of social media to bring people together, no matter where they are, through their passion. And in the world of social media, those with passion self-identify through engagement. They raise their hand through their actions and rise to the top. The proliferation of social media has changed the way we find and hire talent. And it’s one of the reasons we continue to bring in the best and the brightest.
In a world united by social media an organization can cast a much wider net in its search for the most talented employees. Every organization wants to work with highly skilled employees who are truly passionate about what they do. Social media allows you to find these passionate individuals, form a relationship and get to know them on a personal basis. The days of a quick scan of a resume and a brief job interview ahead of a hire are coming to an end. As such, I’m pleased to announce that Christin Eubanks has joined Converseon as an Account Executive.
Christin is one of those who have expressed their passion through social media (and it’s how we found her). She comes to us from Auburn University, Alabama, where she was one of the star students of their PR program, including the highly regarded social media class taught by Robert French. Christin visited our New York headquarters after we got to know her through her various online efforts. Her intelligence and passion for social media shine through online – and even more so in person.
Our team at Converseon is continually expanding and social media is leading us to passionate, talented people from completely disparate backgrounds. We’re lucky to have found a supremely talented group of people throughout the USA and the world. Christin is just the latest example of our own mission to assemble an innovative, flexible and highly skilled team sourced from the global conversation.
Good news today as we learned that our Second Chance Trees project has been selected as one of three finalists in the ‘Virtual Worlds’ category of the 2007 OMMA Awards.
OMMA describe their Awards thus:
The OMMA Awards honor the brand marketers, agencies and content providers who continue to push the potential of online advertising creative. The OMMA Awards celebrate the year’s most innovative and brilliant creative work in 20 categories.
The online medium is the most fertile canvas for innovation and creativity, and the OMMA Awards will salute the stars that shine brilliantly among us.
The goal of the OMMA Awards is to offer insight and vision on what is truly possible using the online arena and to illuminate those who continue to stretch the boundaries of online advertising creative. The OMMA Awards will set the gold standard for creative excellence in the interactive industry.
It’s great to see further recognition for the project on top of its selection as the only social media project among the American Express Members Project finalists and other success to date. We’re in good company alongside Pontiac’s Motorati Island and Coke’s Virtual Thirst; we’ll find out if we are adjudged the best entry at the OMMA Awards Reception on September 25.
CEO Rob Key will appear on a ‘Buzz Monitoring‘ panel at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in San Jose on Thursday 23 August.
As The Economist said in March 2006: “The direct, unfiltered, brutally honest nature of much online discussion is gold dust to big companies that want to spot trends, or find out what customers really think of them.” Listening to the online conversation can give companies a powerful competitive advantage and this session will help share tips and techniques for monitoring buzz online.
What
Search Engine Strategies 2007 Conference and Expo – ‘Buzz Monitoring‘ panel
Who
Rob Key, CEO, Converseon
Chris Sherman, Co-Chair, SES San Jose
Andy Beal, Consultant, Editor, Author, MarketingPilgrim.com
Jonathan Ashton, Director of SEO, Agency.com
When
Thursday, 23 August, 2007
12:30pm-1:45pm
Where
San Jose Convention Center
San Jose, California
Converseon CEO Rob Key will be presenting his ‘Cultural Anthropology in Online Communities’ case study focusing on Second Chance Trees and the principle of ‘karmic-communications’ at WOMMA’s Learn It! Do It! event in DC tomorrow.
Rob presented the same topic at the corresponding event in New York last week and now is the best time to learn from this case study because of all the recent activity around Second Chance Trees. The event looks to be an excellent educational opportunity and there are still some seats available (register here).
What
WOMMA Learn It, Do It Series
Who
Rob Key, CEO, Converseon
Peter Waldheim, Interim CEO, WOMMA
John Bell, Managing Director – 360° Digital Influence, Ogilvy PR
Malcolm Faulds, Vice President of Media Services, Bzzagent
Leslie Forde, Vice President of Strategic Alliances, Communispace Corporation
Ted Wright, Managing Partner, Fizz
When
Tuesday July 24 2007
7:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Where
Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
1111 19th Street NW, 10th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20036
Please leave a comment below if you will be attending, or with any thoughts after the event.
On the weekend Seth Godin said “The art of marketing is not finding more money to do more marketing. It’s figuring out how to tell a story that spreads with the resources you’ve got”, in doing so he unwittingly summed up the Second Chance Trees American Express Members Project campaign.
Our goal here was to utilize social media to raise awareness (and votes) for the Second Chance Trees project. The tricky part: no budget and virtually no time.
After a week of online chatter, the results look like this:
- The Second Chance Trees machinima video has risen to the top of 4,120,000 Google search results for the term ‘American Express Members project‘, while a related image in the Converseon Flickr account ranks third.
- CNN featured the project prominently with their Future Summit program
- The machinima video has been viewed over 2,600 times and received six ’5 star’ ratings on YouTube
- There have been over 100 blog posts referencing Second Chance Trees, including leading Second Life, Environmental, PR/Marketing and SEO blogs
- Second Chance Trees Island has had its most successful week to date, with the planting of over 140 endangered rainforest trees
When reviewing those figures, it’s important remember that this all happened in 7 days on a shoestring budget.
Unfortunately, despite all the buzz we fell short of recording enough votes to make the final 25. However, the similarly titled ‘One Million Trees – Global Reforestation’ project gained several hundred votes over the past week. While some of those may have been confused by the difficult voting process at the American Express site, it’s good to see an identical reforestation effort (even without the innovative educational experience offered by Second Life) moving forward on the back of popular opinion.
To all our supporters who voted, blogged, commented, viewed or planted – thank you very much for taking the time to support a good social media cause. While we might no longer be in the running for the $5 million American Express Members Project, we are committed to the Second Chance Trees project for the long term and we’ll continue to look for corporate sponsors and other methods to expand the projects influence.
Be sure to continue to support your favorite American Express Members Project!
Some of you may already be familiar with our Second Chance Trees Project.
It’s been an amazingly interesting initiative that has let us experiment with new and innovative approaches. It’s also a good demonstration of the power of social media to do good. Utilizing Second Life as the center of gravity for the project, supported across other communities including Flickr, Digg, Newsvine, among others, shows how a meme truly interconnects across social media venues.
One of the more interesting outcomes though has come from Google.
When we talk about social search strategies, we advocate content optimization in various forms – text, audio and video – across different platforms. This is especially important in the wake of Google’s Universal Search initiative. We know that social media is becoming increasingly visible in top search rankings.
The Second Chance Trees project is an incredibly interesting case in point. To promote individuals to vote for the project in the American Express Members Project, we created a machinima video and uploaded it to YouTube only 4 days ago. The initiative has really taken a life of its own with many bloggers (thank you!) embracing the concept and linking to the video.
Today, the listing went from nowhere to number 2 for the “American Express Members Project” (out of more than 4 million indexed pages) in just four days, outranking even the Scorcese advertisement. If there is ever a need to demonstrate the power of social media to impact top rankings rapidly, one need look no further.
Thanks to all for ongoing support of the initiative. Success really goes far beyond Converseon and spotlights the power and potential of the entire social media industry. It’s the industry and those pioneering social media strategies that have the most to gain from each and every successful case study.
Social media has the power to change the world. People can connect around the world in ways that were never possible before. Geography is no longer a barrier to meaningful relationships and individuals everywhere now have the power to share their voice with the world.
We would like your help to put this power into action. With a few moments of your time you can help take a step towards planting millions of trees in endangered rainforest regions and providing a powerful example of social media in action in the process.
First, please watch this machinima video, filmed at Second Chance Trees Island:
As explained in the video, our non-profit partner Plant It 2020 has been chosen as the fulfilling organization for one of the 50 finalists in the American Express Members Project, with a first prize of $5 million up for grabs. If successful, the
Second Chance Trees project would be able to plant millions of trees in endangered rainforest regions throughout the world.
Here’s the trick: We only have until this Sunday July 15 to get as many votes as possible in order to make it to the final 25. We’ve got a long way to go at the moment so each and every vote is extremely valuable. Time is of the essence – so please help us now!
Second Chance Trees is the only Members Project finalist based in Second Life. It is also the only finalist with a strong social media focus. By supporting Second Chance Trees you can not only help to plant millions of trees, you also make a statement for the power of social media. We are using social media to promote our social media cause – if successful, this would form a powerful demonstrative example of the power of social media to create positive societal change.
How You Can Help
Most importantly, you can help by voting for the Virtual Forests Project. If you are a US-based American Express cardholder please click here to register and vote.
(Note: Please follow the direct link above and be sure to vote for the ‘Virtual Forest Project. One Million Trees. Easy.‘ concept. There is a similar initiative on the site that has been confusing some people)
Once you have voted, you can lend your support using all the social media tools at your disposal:
- Share the machinima video – embed it on your blog or social network page or email it to a friend
- Blog about it – You can get more information from our social media release or by emailing me at pyoung@converseon.com
- Visit Second Chance Trees Island in Second Life and plant your own tree
- Embed the Members Project widgets on your blog or social network page
- Add Second Chance Trees as a friend in Flickr or MySpace
- Tell your friends wherever they may be – Facebook, Twitter or any of the other myriad social media venues out there
- Remember email – we’ve all got friends who are yet to climb aboard the social media bandwagon, send them an email pointing out the project and they might get enthused!
- Learn more at the Second Chance Trees website
Please leave a comment below letting us know how you’ve supported Second Chance Trees and it will be our pleasure to plant a tree in the honor of each and every one of you.
