Being Peter Kim

Verizon Wireless and strange BREW

I have a friend who just can't get competent help from Verizon Wireless.  See, for the past couple of months she has been receiving strange SMS messages to her phone that consist of a bunch of code, prefaced by the word "BREW."

Now she's pretty sure on why she's getting these; about a year ago, she was upgrading phones (new every two!) and test drove a LG VX9800.  It was fun playing with "Get It Now" for a day or two, until you realize that the video is too small and slow to provide a good experience.  So she kept the same number and swapped it for a more practical Treo.

But for the past two months she has been getting BREW SMS messages at all times of day and night, some days 20 or more.  It's pretty clear that these BREW alerts are related to the old phone - they mention VX9800 amongst the gobbeldygook along with a site name like "Accuweather" or "Fox Sports" and apparent subject lines like "Doctors say Everett impr" and "VZW Fox Sports."

But Verizon's customer service can't seem to figure out how to stop the messages.
- She's been in two stores where techs said they'd fix everything in 20 minutes.  No clue.
- Been on the phone three times with tech support.  No help.
- Sent to 3rd party alert provider.  No idea.
- Checked settings online.  Nothing there.

The solutions offered have ranged from "change your phone number" to "just ignore and delete them."  Verizon will not block spam, even when it's their own.  That's about 5+ hours of life wasted with tech support that had no clue.  They can't even connect the dots on the "Get It Now" part of the equation!

At this point, she is ready to terminate the contract and switch carriers.  If she's going to switch numbers, why stay with a network that can't help you?

This is a known, but uncommon problem.  Anyone else experience this?  Have a solution?

Reflections on New York

  times square 
  Originally uploaded by Pete Kim.

I was in New York this week.  Some things I noticed:

- The weather was hot and humid. More like July than September.
- Three people reading TIME magazine.  Not in doctor's offices either.
- I didn't see many people wearing Yankees caps.  Where's the pride?
- Subway ads are mostly educational.  Learn English, public health info.
- The Airtrain rocks.  $7, no stop-and-go traffic.
- New Yorkers talking on the phone walk like tourists with cameras.
- Heads of state prefer the Intercontinental or the Waldorf-Astoria.  Their entourages stay in the W and the Marriott.

Questions for Richard Edelman?

Richard Edelman will be speaking about "Corporate Image In The Age Of Social Technologies" at Forrester's Consumer Forum.

I'm introducing him and moderating Q&A afterwards.

What questions do you want me to ask?  For anything asked, you'll most likely get a response via blog or twitter.

Keep in mind that I only have a couple of questions and then we'll open it up to the audience to respond to the speech - but I'll do my best to ask anything that comes in here and is relevant!

links for 2007-09-25

• Adweek: Are Web Giants Looking to Edge Out Ad Agencies?
  I think agencies still have a lot to bring to the table - but the flavor of the day is "how El Goog will take over the world." Google's Tim Armstrong gave the best googlesque quote on the matter: "It would be mathematically impossible for us to get into
  (tags: pressquote agencies)
• NYT: The View From Your Airplane Window Was Brought to You by ...
  Remind me again why consumers hate advertising?
  (tags: advertising)

In the company of smart people

This was a good week to meet people and get exposed to new ideas.

At a client engagement, I met Steve Zades who helps people figure out the future.  He's founding partner of The Odyssey Network.

At Edelman, I was part of a group brought together by Jonny Bentwood, creator of the Social Media Index.  Max Kalehoff has written a post/column titled "What Is Influence?" that captures part of the discussion.  Henry Copeland pointed out a dissonance in blog advertising and a point about HoJo Brooklyn.  Jeff Jarvis was on a Mac and soon to be interviewing Michael Dell.  Steve Rubel was bullish on search, was twittering the least, and caught a lot of grief for using a Mariah Carey example.  Rick Murray was in from Chicago and did a great job of bringing the ideas together.  I also stepped out for a while to discuss Richard Edelman's speech at Forrester's Consumer Forum where I'll be introducing him and moderating Q&A.  Looking forward to Jonny's next steps here!

Back in Boston, Compete and Yahoo hosted tastybytes at the Boston Harbor Hotel.  Kathleen Gilroy and Otter Group are doing some interesting things with their podcasting platform.  I almost worked for Zefer back in 2000 and asked Tony Tjan about the most interesting sites on his mind these days - Knovel and Incenticlick.  I had an enlightening conversation with Katie Paine about brand monitoring and she told me about the upcoming IPR Summit on Measurement.

I also got some great information from companies using Twitter for an upcoming research piece and interviews with Y&R and Critical Mass for a Q4 piece on the "agency of the future."

My JetBlue flights between Boston and JFK were both early.  My Chipotle burritos were huge.  I caught a show.  I'd call it a good week to be Peter Kim.

Hey! nielsen beta

So as my media consumption diary tells me, I watch a lot of TV.  And just in time for the start of fall TV season, I've gotten started on Hey! nielsen - in the company's words, "part opinion engine, part social network, and part buzz tracker."

From what I can tell, if Nielsen can get critical mass here it could be the social news arbiter of the entertainment industry.  Face it, digg is best for tech geeks.  Lipstick is for the celebrity obsessed.  These sites work best around a long tail issue.

Until the site opens to the public, you can read the blog, subscribe to their YouTube vids, join their Facebook group, friend them on MySpace, and follow them on Twitter.  That's a lot of social media - mostly for marketing - and all the value is in the community being created.

Consumers Don't Trust Advertising

Max Kalehoff points out a Nielsen Buzzmetrics brand association map outlining terms associated with advertising in blog chatter.   The "inner circle" represents most frequent terms, grouped into four categories:

• Media:  commercials, ads (makes sense)
• Stakeholders:  marketers (naturally)
• Campaigns:  dollars, revenue (ok...)
• Negative associations:  false, misleading (uh oh)

This mirrors Forrester's data that only 6% of North American consumers agree with the statement "Companies generally tell the truth in advertising."

Interesting stuff.

The Media Consumption Diary

Earlier this year, Jeremiah posted about his media consumption diet.  I had a follow up idea in mind for about seven months and finally got around to it last week - the media consumption diary.

In my response to Jeremiah's post, I thought about my use of/exposure to (mostly) measured media channels.  For the past week, I have been keeping a diary of time spent with media.  What follows is a totally mundane post, so before I lose you, here's the value:

• Keep track of your own patterns using a spreadsheet like this one.  It's tough!
• Don't update more than 2 - 3 times a day; you'll likely bias your consumption.
• If you are a marketer - think about your diet vis-a-vis that of your average consumer.  Then recognize the biases that exist from your own habits and be aware when planning media in the future.

Here's my media consumption diary from the past week:

1. Internet:  35 hours (46%).  Mostly during the day at work, but also multi-tasking with TV at home/night.  Can't remember any ads I saw.
2. Outdoor:  17 hours (23%).  Some while commuting, but mostly while at sporting events.  I went to at&t park and Fenway Park (where the Red Sox beat the Yankees 10 - 1).  I remember at&t messages all over at&t and Covidien, CVS, and F.W. Webb in Fenway.  Although I feel outdoor ads are quite unengaging, brute force repetition gets the recall job done, I guess.
3. TV:  17 hours (22%).  Almost all while multitasking in the evening with a computer.  Except during last Sunday's football game.  Can't remember any ads.
4. Mobile:  4 hours (5%).  Usually while commuting, so counted most of these as multitasking with outdoor.  Can't remember any ads, although most content I use doesn't have any.
5. Radio:  2 hours (3%).  I don't spend nearly as much time with the radio as I did when I owned a car.
6. Print:  1 hour (1%).  This number surprised me the most.  I picked up a Boston Herald on Monday to read about the Patriots - Jets game.  I had this week's copies of Adweek and Ad Age, skimmed to make sure I didn't miss anything via RSS.
7. Direct mail:  0 hours (0%).  Other members of my household take care of it before I can.

What's a "typical" week?  I don't think one exists for me.

links for 2007-09-12

• Ad Age - Organic Has No Problem Working With Rival Shops
  Organic launches standalone digital strategy services
  (tags: pressquote agencies)

links for 2007-09-11

• BtoB Magazine - Clients' ROI needs drive agency deals
  And WPP has just closed a deal for LA shop Schematic
  (tags: pressquote agencies)

One month left until Forrester's Consumer Forum

We are officially one month away from Forrester's Consumer Forum - it's going to be held in Chicago from October 10 - 12.  Here are some of the things that I'm involved with during the event and others that I'm looking forward to.

- Using Twitter, Facebook, and Forrester's Marketing Blog to communicate around the event.

- Facilitating the "Tools For Tomorrow's CMO" workshop with Lisa Bradner the day before the forum.

- Forrester keynotes from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff.  They have finished the first draft of Groundswell and have great content to share.  I am currently tied (with Cliff Condon) for the highest rated Forrester keynote this year - I hope to lose that title because one or both of these speeches are so good.

- Facilitating Q&A for Richard Edelman after his speech titled "Corporate Image In The Age Of Social Technologies."  Any burning questions on your mind?

- Moderating a panel discussion on brand monitoring, Thu Oct 11 at 4 pm.  This is going to be a good one with only client-side marketers on the panel.  I'm really looking forward to the discussion with David Churbuck from Lenovo, Suzanne Fanning of Fiskars, and Karl Long of Nokia.

- Moderating another panel on using WOM for market research, Fri Oct 12 at 1:45 pm.  Another good one with Dave Balter from BzzAgent and client Steve Scebelo, SVP Marketing at TV Guide.  The value of this discussion is getting past the played out story of "BzzAgent:  good or evil?" and getting to a less obvious but highly valuable aspect of using an agent network:  market research.

And finally, we're working on a meet up for Thursday night...can't post details yet but it involves Andy Sernovitz, David Armano, and Jeremiah Owyang among others.  I'm pretty sure it'll be worth attending.

Three strikes for Comcast Triple Play

My Comcast service is out at home.  I am a triple play subscriber.  This means:

1. No TV (not a big deal)
2. No internet access (a hassle)
3. No telephone (potentially a big deal)

Here's the transcript of my chat session.  A quick summary:  "Oh hai.  Can't help.  Here's some spam.  Ok bye."

user Peter_ has entered room
P:  My comcast service is down - no internet access, phone calls, or tv.  When will it be fixed?

analyst Eric has entered room
E:  Hello Peter_, Thank you for contacting Comcast Live Chat Support. My name is Eric. Please give me one moment to review your information.
E:  I am very sorry to learn about the difficulties that you have experienced.  I will be happy to assist you in resolving them.
E:  One moment please while I see if there is trouble in your area.
E:  I apologize for the inconvenience. There is an outage in the area. Our technicians are currently working to resolve the problem. At this time we do not have an estimated time of repair.

E:  Is there anything else I can assist you with today?
P:  No.

E:  Thank you for contacting Comcast. If you need assistance in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us through Live Chat or E-mail (available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week). Thank you again for choosing Comcast we appreciate your business.  To visit our local support page including links to contact us via Email, as well as  many downloadable forms,and FAQ pages, please visit:  http://www.comcast.com/nesupport/

Did you know that Comcast offers its customers a variety of free benefits?  These include McAfee Antivirus, Firewall and Privacy software as well the Comcast tool bar that lets you take Comcast.net with you while you surf, and the Desktop Doctor to help you restore lost settings...plus much more, please visit http://www.comcast.net/downloads/ to see all of the extras that we provide.

E:  Get tips from the FBI on how to protect your family online and watch an overview of the McAfee security suite! Please join us for “Online Safety for the Connected Family”, a free live webinar, September 12th, 2007 at 8pm. A live question and answer session will follow the presentation. Visit www.comcast.com/getconnected for more details and to register!

Don’t forget Comcast offers its customers many free benefits McAfee Antivirus, Firewall and Privacy software as well the Comcast tool bar that lets you take Comcast.net with you while you surf, and the Desktop Doctor to help you restore lost settings...plus much more, visit http://www.comcast.net/downloads/ to see all of the extras!

Thank you very much for contacting Comcast electronic support.

If you require additional assistance in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us again; we appreciate your business!
To visit our local download page please visit:  http://www.comcast.com/nesupport/

Analyst has closed chat and left the room
analyst Eric has left room

links for 2007-09-05

• Web Strategy: What the Web Strategist should know about Twitter
  Post from Jeremiah Owyang on Twitter
  (tags: twitter)
• AdWeek: Widgets: The Next Generation
  Article on STA Travel's widgets
  (tags: pressquote socialcomputing)

Applying Buffett to social media

Robert Bruner of Darden shared some words of wisdom from Warren Buffett recently in a message to Darden alumni and on his blog:

"We can afford to lose money. We can afford to lose a lot of money. But we cannot afford to lose one shred of our reputation. Make sure everything you do can be reported on the front page of your local newspaper written by an unfriendly, but intelligent reporter."

These words of wisdom should be applied in toto as advice on how to succeed in social media.

All these things that I've done

  Portfolio viewer 
  Originally uploaded by Pete Kim.

"...I am so much older than I can take
And my affection, well it comes and goes
I need direction to perfection, no no no no

Help me out"

[just put up a portfolio of sites I've managed.]

(thanks Autoviewer!)