Dr. Neil Hair

I am very pleased to announce a collaborative project between Henley Business School, IESI Business School and the E Philip Saunders College of Business at RIT. The project, sponsored by Cisco, is exploring through industry thought leaders the role that social media plays in assisting innovation and collaboration projects between and within organizations. My partners from the UK and Spain and I are looking to interview companies in both B2C and B2B spaces that are using social media to facilitate intra and inter firm relationships. So far we have interviewed a whole host of advanced users including representatives from Cisco, Xerox, Bank of America, 3M, Oracle, Capgemini, KPMG, Corus, LinkedIn, IBM, Unileaver amongst many others. This is your chance to participate. We are currently interviewing companies across the world about their social media practices with a view to colating insights into best case practices. The results of the study will be made available to all participating firms that qualify to meet our inclusion criteria. So - if youre using social media and youre interested in talking about it with me, let me know by signifying your interest on our project website. Either myself or one of my partners will then contact you to set up a convenient time for a one hour interview with you. I will of course be blogging some of the genric findings of the study as it progresses including updates on my twitter, LinkedIn and facebook feeds. Its a great project, extremely timely and Im looking forward to talking to more experts in this area.

 I was recently asked by the Provost to represent the Saunders college of business at the Greater Expectations Institute that was held in Burlington VT over the past few days. We were charged by Number One to explore the 'experience' of our students and make recommendations towards enhancing it. The team was an excellent example of what can be achieved with a diverse set of faculty, staff and students from all over the institute who care about one thing - RIT success. I was truly amazed at the extend to which we managed to bond, resolve issues and come up with strategic as well as tactical recommendations for the university. Our efforts are still on going and therefore I cant say too much about the ideas as they need to continue to be fleshed out. I can say though that we all hoped to make a difference in the perceptions of our students and that from our perspective we've come a long way towards achieving it in just a few intense days of deliberations. I met a number of really interesting people from RIT as well as a number of cool folk from the US Navy - as my twitter feed attests, I was even hugged by a General in the closing hours of presentations to delegates. Not many people get to say that in a lifetime As an aside I was also taken aback by the whole renewable / recycle / local produce focus on Burlington university. They really made an effort to source all materials from local quarries and businesses helping to reduce its footprint ecologically, the buildings even had water bottle filling stations to help in the reduction of bottles of water being bought by students. We could learn a great deal from this campus effort.

Monday’s four hour training that I ran for Saunders and Digital Rochester’s Get Smarter program was extremely engaging, at least from my perspective. I always enjoy interacting with practitioners as the experience is very different from that of more traditional student audiences. For one there is no grading! I always find that practitioners are great at keeping us academics honest about the theories and strategies we promote. The session was structured so that delegates received a review of social media channels, and a heavy emphasis on a review of current business models in both B2C and B2B realms. Following dinner the session was geared towards establishing a marketing plan for social media and therefore much more experiential and personally relevant. Whereas there are many opportunities to attend talks on social media very few that I am aware of actually offer the take home of a plan of action. Granted, there is only so much you can accomplish in a four hour session but feedback suggested that the opportunity to work with smaller teams of 5 worked really well. Delegates were particularly pleased to be at least talking to like minded folk that are social media evangelists but work in environments that are not ‘currently’ accepting of the social media cause. Therapeutic one imagines! One interesting reflection on the session was that the vast majority of the 80 participants were from the B2B area. I counted less than ten representing B2C companies.  Thankfully for the majority, my research tends to focus on the B2B applications of social media so we had lots to talk about. The live tweet feed worked well also. I asked a number of questions throughout the session aimed at polling the wisdom of the team. The contents of this feed will be the subject matter for a number of follow up blog posts so worry not – I’ll share those discussions once I have content analyzed the feed. I was also happy that most of the participants were already experimenting in the space which meant I got to kick the discussions up a notch and not have to pitch the analysis at the level of the beginner. The most pleasing aspect of the event was the passion people shared, to an extent I was preaching to the converted, but hopefully the session helped arm delegates with details on how you can build, and frame politically the case for social media in their organizations. I look forward to continuing the conversation with this fantastic group of people. There are even a number of tweet pics out there from the session Thanks Julie and Donna for helping to organize this event and thanks again to those who were there that made it such a success!

On Monday June 15th from 5-9pm I will be facilitating a first in kind class that presents an overview of strategies for social media use in business. The session's objectives are to produce a plan of action for delegates as they chart these new waters. What's different about the session is that it will initiate a direct call to action for attendees leaving them with a clear understanding of next steps. To my mind this is a deliverable worth having! We are proud to be working with Digital Rochester for this event and I expect it to be both heavily attended and extremely worthwhile. Further details including registration can be found here. Please note that walkins for the event are not permitted given anticipated demand for the event (we have 100 spaces available and I believe 70 registrations already). We will also be tweeting the event live on the night and sharing experiences of the social media space. One to watch for! 

One of my favorite local networks hosts a half day conference tomorrow on 'Marketing Yourself - The Power of Marketing through Publishing, Presenting & Teaching' to held at Saunders starting 7.30am through lunch. I'll be talking about branding oneself using an array of tools - getting your strategy in order, and reviewing commonly misunderstood tools and techniques on and off line. Should be a great event, hope to see you there.

I cant believe another quarter has finished so quickly, they seem to constantly speed up! This quarter I had the privilege of working with two excellent classes. One using old technology - I say old - Adobe Connect is anything but old - with my online marketing concepts class - the more I interact with students in this space the more impressed I am with its ease of use and above all else superb team functionality. The other class, undergraduate internet marketing, used Online Learning's state of the art A400 smart classroom otherwise known as the TLT Center. This saw the use of three screens simultaneously, using a 'matrox' system of three rear projectors (so you can stand in front of your materials and not go blind basically!). SecondLife looked amazing on this system! The class also made use of state of the art laptops with built in reading lights (the highlight of class for some - myself included). This helped take team-client interactions to a new level in my opinion and Im happy to report that I get to use the same room with both my classes in the fall quarter. Looking forward to a number of innovations including a live twitter feed and greater incorporation of RIT's SecondLife island in teaching both internet marketing (B2C) and b2b e-commerce. I see already that one student has signed up for BOTH classes, a feat only once previously attempted . Of course the other thing I am really looking forward to in the fall is being joined by two fantastic new marketing faculty, Drs Raj Murthy and Adriana Boveda both of which teach in innovative spaces regards the use of technology. Getting better looking everyday as retired Professor Tyler would say!

It seems that some companies are starting to get it recently. Consumers want simple. We dont want e-numbers (English term), preservatives or caramel colouring. We want - simple. And now companies are jumping on this creating a more memorable customer experience. Take Haagen Daas (pity the name isnt simple). New range - only 5 ingredients. Perfect marketing! Amusingly if you look at regular HD vanilla icecream you see only 1 extra ingredient. Vanilla extract. Truth is though, only sad marketing academics pick up the originals to compare to see whats now missing. Simple appears to be the new complicated. 5 is also the number of ingredients for the perfect pink gin and tonic (I am a qualified bartender remember); Bombay Sapphire Gin, Diet Schweppes Tonic (good luck finding that in this region), Lime, Ice and two dashes of Angostura Bitters. Simple it seems - can also be fun!

OK, I'm very happy to add my two cents to the outrage people are expressing regards the capping of broadband of roadrunner users. It appears that its all for nothing that Ive been a loyal customer and advocate of TWCRR for over 7 years total (netting them well over $9000 in the process). Greed has taken over it seems and they want to charge for what they call 'excessive' usage. By all accounts that involves using more than 5gb of data a month. How ridiculous. I have it on good authority (the cable guy none the less) that their bandwidth is no where near saturated - in fact they claim internally to be able to offer double the current speeds (but will only do so once competitors match existing speeds). Thankfully competition has kicked in. Frontier - sensing the ability to strike back at TWC has promised NOT to cap speeds or data use. I suspect we are therefore in for some dramatic changes to our local landscape when it comes to customers of both companies. For me though it speaks to how both companies have failed to sense a cultural shift in what we do with our spare time and how we work and play. Take TWC, it amuses me that they spend so much money and time advertising digital home phones that only our grandparents still use. It amuses me that they dont see the wireless providers stepping into the ring (where tethering services that now cost an additional $15 for an unlimited service - check out Verizon, T-Mobile and AT&T - not to mention Cricket and Sprint!). What amuses me most of all though is that this sudden announcement has caused my family at least to call into question just how much cable TV we really watch. I can count the hours on one hand per week. Thats about $5 an hour of viewing that I am being charged. It also amuses me that most of the channels I watch are in HD - the exact same channels are available FOR FREE over the air with a good piece of reception kit stuck on my roof. No, I think Im going to pass on this years $1500 TWC bill for 12 months of service. And here is the irony - I think I will pass on this bill whether they go back on this silly decision to cap usage or not. Im spending too much on too little service, very little value added. So I guess I want to say thank you Time Warner. Ive just realised I dont need your service after all.

Good job on the marketing by the way. I look forward to using this in class;

Several other issues they will face in the future, a planned demonstration outside of their offices on Mount Hope on the 18th April from 11am to 5pm (hay protesting for those hours should save you that 5gb you would have used watching three of NetFlix's online streaming videos!)

Hundreds of Facebook groups protesting unfair practice. Way to go with viral marketing! Pity its not positive but there you go.

Hundreds of blogs from consumers unhappy with such changes - my fave by the way passed onto me courtessy of Dave Ballard at Saunders http://www.stopthecap.com/. 

Something is up in little Britain. The news for one. This weekend alone;

1. Runaway Scooter carries away pensioner

2. Hope the white German Shepherd mowes the lawn

3. Lap dancing Nun to perform for cardinals and bishops (my favourite)

4. Her Majesty getting upset with Italy's Berlisconi

5. Rural villagers send Google Cam packing

And people wonder why I refuse to use local websites for all my news.