Dr. Neil Hair

One of the most useful conferences I try to attend each year - the International Colloquium on Relationship Marketing - is being held in Henley on Thames next year in sunny England (dont worry - in September, when it should still be sunny!). Vargo and Lusch aka Drs Service Dominant Logic will be in attendance as well as the usual RM crowd including David Ballantyne, Roger Palmer, Moira Clark and most likely my good friend from over the boarder Lyle Wetsch. As I have blogged before now, the conference is a single track affair which means should you get a paper accepted for presentation you get to run the gauntlet of excellent feedback (which proved really helpful for my PhD back in the day). I cant recommend it enough. Accordingly, as a heads up, we are proud to host the 2011 ICRM conference at the E Philip Saunders college of business. I look forward to seeing the worlds relationship marketers converge on our shores to discuss progress in the field.

You may have noticed a few updates from me recently on the Cisco project via Twitter and Facebook feeds. I have been thoroughly impressed with the quality at which participants have spoken (sometimes candidly) about their use of social media for innovation and collaboration. The list of local, national, and truly global organizations include a pretty impressive 90 companies so far (and no I cant share specific details or contacts with you until the project is complete); the big such as - Xerox, Kodak, 3M, Bank of America, Seagate, KBC Banking and Insurance, BAE, Corus, Telstra, the nimble - Carrot Creative, Logicalis, Tipping Point, Earthscribe, Clearspring Technologies - and the just plain beautiful - Mac Village Productions, Blue Fountain Media, Fixitology, iwritemarketing, Accession Media, Girls in Tech amongst many many others.

The project is soon to come to a close with only a few thought leaders left to interview. Then begins the process of coding and analysis to draw together common themes. Once that is complete I get to represent a great team of researchers in announcing the findings of this study at Cisco's CIO summit event in October in San Diego - a huge privilege!

Ive learned a great deal from my conversations with experts in this area and look forward to crunching over 100 hours of data in the pursuit of a theory of innovation and collaboration in social media. One thing is for certain, passions run very high for this area, there is most certainly a huge competitive advantage to be had by organizations using these tools effectively, metrics ARE available for ensuring successful outcomes, and caveats, of which there are many, have to be avoided. It is proving to be a really exciting project.

I have been asked to present a review of social media strategies for the Greece Chamber of Commerce on 16th July 2009 at their monthly networking luncheon. The last event I MC'd for the GCC was great fun and I'd recommend coming along. The session will focus on strategies businesses from all walks of life are using regards popular social media platforms like Twitter, Yammer, LinkedIn and of course Facebook. In this presentation you'll get a sneak preview of some of the things Im learning from my own research program. Details of the event can be found here.

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 just completed a trip to Leipzig, Germany, where I presented a paper with my colleagues at Henley Business School on a qualitative use of Repertory Grid in marketing research. The event was very successful and I came away with a greater appreciation for the quantitative use of grids in organizational and marketing research. Richard Bell was key noting the session and did a great job of presenting the historical significance of Kelly's grids and offering a unique critique on the most popular forms of grid analysis (principle components analysis and cluster analysis). A second key note from Thomas Landschof was also unique, more on this once the digital recording of this event is made available. I also enjoyed my German colleagues company greatly - they have a very common sense of humor to the Brits (perhaps because we share a common neighbour ). Leipzig is a beautiful city - I recommend it to you. And now I am in England preparing for another conference on customer management. Should be a fun few weeks and its always nice to be in the motherland sampling its home grown produce.

On Thursday I simulcasted Saunders first conference presentation to delegates in the UK from within SecondLife and live over an adobe connect meeting. It went extremely well thanks to the planning of my colleagues at Henley. The topic of my presentation to the 3rd annual conference on customer management was exploring current business models in SecondLife. I presented an overview of the virtual world (including a live tour of RIT's own island), presented my findings on business models in B2C, B2B and not for profit sectors, and outlined what I believe to be, the future of virtual worlds as they relate to commercialization. I particularly enjoyed the live Q&A session where I could see and interact with delegates and organizers alike. It proved to me once and for all the viability of electronic media in being able to deliver presentations and continue to engage the audience even if they're 3600 miles away and 5 hours ahead of EST! SecondLife is a wonderful tool for extending digital reach. Delegates in the UK saw a live presentation on the big screen and a virtual tour of SecondLife on another. I had expected more technical difficulties than actually arose, one of which was my avatar auto logging out of the virtual world for inactivity during the first five minutes of my presentation! I'm looking forward to updating my class materials to reflect my research in this space and those registered for my internet marketing classes at graduate and undergraduate levels in the Winter of 08 will benefit first.

Welcome to the world new secret research facility! This morning at approximately 10.05am a new facility was built in Facebook to house a motley crew of friends, alums and current students dedicated to offering themselves and their advice to Neil's all important research questions. You too can join this facility and answer occasional survey type questions on what's moving and shaking in the internet marketing area. You will - by contributing - also benefit career wise by being the first to get the results of the efforts. And who wouldn't want to impress the boss with the latest ideas built off the back of some of the worlds finest lab rats. Welcome lab rats to a brave new world of hackademia!

p.s No rats are ever harmed at this facility.

Ive been presenting my ideas on Marketing Trends for 2010 for some time now to the great and good of Rochester. It's proved a popular session that I've run at a number of local conferences and in the UK. One of the key issues I explore in this is the business case for online social networks, the role of virtual worlds in innovating the provision of service / customer experience, and how to build and maintain a personal brand in this new era. Towards the end of summer I will be presenting 'Marketing Trends 2010' to the Greater Rochester Area Partnership with the Elderly - looking specifically at how marketing trends affect the business of elderly care. As with my classes - one of the key outputs I use to judge the effectiveness of the presentation is the extent to which there are concrete take homes for participants to then act on. The benefits of experiential learning shouldn't be the preserve of our students alone afterall. I also find it helps keep me honest - practitioners are always very quick to pick up on practical application, relevance and the measurement of the bottom line with my suggestions.

Presenting this evening to RIT Alums at the Rio Bamba in the city of Rochester. The nature of the presentation - exploring how you can use online social networks to enhance your career. Whilst many are talking about the role of facebook in extending social relationships very few have explored the notion that companies could benefit from enhanced online socially enabled professional relationships. Our work on value (with Vic Perotti) and exploring attitudes towards advertising (Sue Barnes) will be highlighted. Some key findings I want all my alums to think about:

Social networks are becoming relevant for careers;

• Generational and sub generational changes in usage and expectations of usage
• 98% incoming freshman part of a facebook RIT network BEFORE arriving on campus
• Extension of activity POST study
• Socially enabled career progression
• Socially assisted career success
• You are as strong as your network

Some steps I am now advising all outgoing graduates:

1. Don’t ignore the potential of online social networks regards career progression
2. Cover your bases – FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Power be part of the movement
3. Stay current - there will be new opportunities and new platforms
4. Don’t go overboard with your look - FaceBook Professional is a movement
5. Use alumni relations for name hunts of old peers
6. Start groups based on social / work interests
7. Extol the benefits of the movement to managerial audiences
8. Don’t limit yourself to the social aspect

Friday I speak with Sue Barnes at the 2008 Kern Communication Conference here at RIT - 9.45 to 11.45am, Friday 11th April (at the Strathallen in the City of Rochester). Sue and I recently charted the development of Internet Advertising using McLuhan's concept of the rear view mirror as a theoretical framework for understanding future trends. One of the key findings of our research was a focus on consumer personal branding - and branding via association. The event is free for all RIT students and faculty and we hope you'll make it. Here I am pictured at the conference in 2007 discussing of all things - Tech Fetish!