35 Things I learned at #FireSessions 2010.

Posted by Jami Mullikin on Jul 29, 2010 in branding, Culture, Greenville, Marketing, Social Media | 2 comments

I was fortunate to get a chance to participate in Brains on Fire’s 2010 Fire Sessions today and, as usual, they put on an extraordinary event. I started my career with them almost 15 years ago and over the last 10 years have remained great friends with them all and enjoyed watching them spread their passion and find their voice.

Their work is phenomenal and their attitudes are contagious. But they are not great for what they do, but for who they are. They are an all-star team of smart, creative problem-solvers that practice what they preach and do not settle for compromise. Congrats BOF crew on a job well done, and on the book which I look forward to reading this weekend.

In no particular order, here are 35 key points I took away from Geno Church, Steve Knox, and Max Lenderman.

1. Leaders come in all shapes and sizes.
2. Practice. Practice. Practice. Start small and accept failure.
3. Go where your customers are.
4. Everyone wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves.
5. Engagement and depth, not numbers.
6. Average tenure of a CMO is 19 months: tough job!
7. Advertisers, media companies and agencies all have to change but can’t.
8. Victory is celebrated in advocacy, not sales.
9. Advocates beget other advocates and decrease marketing expenses. This is the business case.
10. Advocacy marketing is the new practice in marketing.
11. Harness the power of third party independents.
12. Talk about people and human beings, not technology.
13. Not consumers. But people.
14. Reciprocal altruism – give something with no expectation of return.
15. Social and transactional can not coexist.
16. Interact, listen, respond.
17. The brain is designed not to think.
18. Break Schemas – mental models that provide assumptions so we do not have to think.
19. A brand must be congruent most of the time, but not all of the time.
20. Connectors have social networks larger than normal and represent 20% of society.
21. The concept of “The Influencials” can not be validated by P&G. There is only a core group of people that talk to more people.
22. Deliver gifts of unexpected knowledge!!!!!!! The big idea of the day.
23. Cooperation brings happiness.
24. Advocacy vs amplification. Buzz is worthless.
25. Have a purpose higher than selling something.
26. 300 people is statistically confident at 85-90% as a representation of all of the US.
27. Don’t fight everything. Learn to let go.
28. The web will never be asynchronous, face-to-face conversations.
29. A Word-of-mouth purchase buys 200% more and sends 2x as many referrals.
30. Scale based on existing resources.
31. IBM employees can use whatever they want to start conversations and have dialog.
32. Establish centers of excellence.
33. KPI is measured in the same way as other business units.
34. Tell me and I will forget. Show me and I may remember. Engage me and I will understand.
35. Create experiences and expect nothing in return and your customers will follow.

If I missed anything, let me know.