Dr. Neil Hair

Over the past few months I have been working away as a special edition editor for one of my favourite journals – the International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising. Edited by Dr Eldon Li the publication has had a commendable impact on the state of our understanding in the field. When I was asked to edit a special edition I therefore accepted. Accordingly you can expect the special edition on Social Media Marketing and Advertising in the forthcoming year. Several highlights – a number of papers that help segment the social collective – vital in targeting the right consumer, social CRM in a business to business context, and papers that help extend the methodology for exploring social media spaces.

I finally find myself some time to reflect on the comings and goings of a busy marketing professor. The last few months have been something of a whirlwind of happenings. One highlight (of my academic life thus far in fact) was hosting the 19th International Colloquium in Relationship Marketing. This global conference is my absolute favourite – largely because of the supportive culture that it has engendered over the years, and especially as it was the first venue where I presented my doctoral work (Kaiserslautern, Germany, back in 2002). It was the only conference over my doctoral career where I felt truly energized by those around me and the advice that I was given (who would not relish the opportunity to get feedback on an early research idea from the likes of Gummesson, Gronroos and my all time academic favourite friend Ballantyne for instance?). Two years ago whilst attending the Swansea conference the latter academic asked if I would host the 19th. I jumped at the task. Organizing an international conference is no easy task, and I can assure you this tested just about every inch of these skills in order to make it a success. And thankfully armed with people from Saunders like Dana Pierce (the true organizing force of the event) – Vic Perotti (who kept me sane throughout) and my marketing colleagues including Raj Murthy (AKA @theraj), Joe Miller and Adriana Boveda-Lambie all attended or presented their papers of leading edge research. The topic of the conference was 'The Future of Relationship Marketing A Technologically Connected Global Social Network' – the site is still live *here*. All of the papers dealt with relationship marketing, an area clearly dear to my heart. The key to the conference's success was its intimacy, 30 international academics representing over ten different countries from New Zealand to Finland. Specifically limited under my direction as host to engender what became a number of single track sessions where all delegates got to muse over, and debate the content of each others papers in depth. We also played hard as academics, visiting the Rohrbachs brewery in Ogden, the Lower Mills Gallery, and a gala event for the final evening at the award winning Casa Larga Winery. We showcased some of the best spots the area has to offer including the obligatory tour of Niagara Falls during Fridays final event. It was a real pleasure hosting the event and seeing so many colleagues and friends descend on Rochester. My thanks too the out going Dean of the Saunders College who supported the event whole heartedly.  Just another reason to believe in the quality of education youre getting at Saunders, an environment that truly supports a quality research environment that ultimately benefits all our students and faculty alike. I should know, Ive already included many of the findings of key papers in my internet marketing and strategy classes on social media. Some of the little Neil'isms inflicted on the conference include: a live twitter stream were papers were debated realtime throughout the event, pictures were shared, and speakers were teased (especially the one that broke the presentation controller!), a collection of youtube videos of speakers in action, plenty of pictures to capture the vibe, and goodie bags of local produce to welcome delegates with. Who says conferences cant be unique and fun at the same time?

I presented a paper last weekend at the Summer AMA in Boston that Chris Adams and I authored on marketing professionals perceptions of personally branded websites. It identified ten thematic areas of importance in the context of an ideal personally branded experience. The research question we posed were; what are marketing professionals perceptions of ideal personal brand experiences on personal websites? What counts? What are the features we can use to effectively communicate our expertise? How are these features perceived and at what cost? What are the intended and unintended consequences and how do these relate to our overall perceptions of professionalism and expertise? Ten things count:

1.  Design and aesthetics – perhaps not a surprise, how you look online transfers into perceptions of your expertise and ability. Avoid the chintz, sound, busy designs or garish colours.

2.  Credibility – how you project your expertise, experience, knowledge and compassion. Discussing former experience, lessons learned and understanding succinctly what value you offer your end user.

3.  Challenges to the visitor. Whilst visitors want to explore and be challenged by innovative or interesting content they do not want to have to hunt for hours to find it. Structure is of critical importance.

4.  Proprietor of the site. What does your site actually say about you? Not just in a professional context, but personal as well. Is presenting a personal face on a professionally branded personal website a problem? Not according to our findings. People want to see the whole person when they’re forming opinions about professionalism and expertise.

5.  Interest stimulation. Is your site actually interesting? Are visitors skipping over content or deep diving into what you have to say and offer? A quick review of your google analytics account will tell you how long people are staying – 5 minutes or 15 seconds?

6.  Topic of the site. The all important relevance question, how are you impacting your audience? Have you considered what topics are of importance to them? How are you helping them become more effective? Are they learning anything from you?

7.  Comfort / threat level. Are you easy to engage with? Is your content aimed at someone with a physics degree? We found that people’s perception of personal effectiveness is directly related to one’s ability to be able to ‘speak’ to their audience. Are you making a connection that is meaningful? Are you even asking the question of your audience?

8.  Applicability to the visitor. Linked to the above, how many connections can you make with your audience so that they feel they are connecting with the many multiple facets of the real you? Are you all about work and no play? What about your hobbies or other aspects of your life that enhance your abilities as a professional?

9.  Career usefulness. How effective are you at solving problems or expanding issues relative to your audience needs? Can your site make a direct impact on those using it? What categories of blog posts do you use?

10.  And finally site presence and liveliness. Are you as boring as a weather text received on a Sunday morning? What are you doing to engage, or update your site? Are you using a twitter feed on a daily basis updating your activities?

Hat off to my other colleagues that presented papers this summer – Joe Miller and Raj Murthy. By all accounts only Saunders and St John Fisher were represented locally at the nation’s premier marketing academics conference. That’s good news for us and representative of the fact that we are engaged in relevant, leading edge research.

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.