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Field report: LAUNCH last Friday!

Filed in: Textbooks |  field notes |  LAUNCH |  READY | 
Posted on Tue, Mar 31, 2009, by Akira Morita

Launch was a rousing success!

DK had a very engaged group of a dozen professionals willing to listen and give frank, honest contributions to the conversation at hand: do we need to change how we do business because of new media?

If you missed this, don’t worry. See below for details of Launch II, set for Friday, April 24 at 9am at Design Kompany’s office.

Tim Hicks (NW Business Consulting) kicked off by saying how he thinks everything will revolve around the web in a few years, and we all need to get on the bus or risk being left behind.

The discussion quickly gained momentum from there, revolving around several points:

Do we all need to blog?

Some felt blogging tended to be a rather frivolous form of communication. Others said some businesses, like a mom-and-pop cleaner or Teriyaki take-out, will never have the need to make the jump.

Bill Blake, a consultant and national health care reform advocate, asked rhetorically: “Why would anyone want to read about your personal preferences?” But others felt blogging’s going to be part of business reality soon, just like email and fax machines before that. Tim emphasized his point thus: “Sure, you can do without it, if you must, but the advantage is with the businesses that blog.”

Is small beautiful?

DK’s own Akira Morita proposed that in today’s economic and societal climate, small businesses have a distinct advantage to establish meaningful connections with their customers quickly. Connections are based on people aligning their brands with their own personalities.

Why is this useful? Being small, you are more likely to be able to adapt quickly to the new technologies and ideas: “Can you imagine Dave’s Killer Breads brand coming out of some big food-as-consumer product companies, like Nabisco?”

Some pointed out that being small doesn’t mean doing it alone, and you will need to work with office politics, personality clashes and established protocols, no matter the size of the company.

Build connections

Karrie Kohlhaas, business consultant, said people are more and more starved for physical, real-life connection. “I am starting this walk-and-talk group, and you wouldn’t believe the kind of response I am getting.”

Connecting with customers meaningfully, and collaborating with fellow professionals and companies, was a recurring theme.

“Face to face will always be the most valuable connection,” said Shane Hyatt, coordinator for Creative Washington, a new media advocacy radio program.

Stay authentic

Someone brought up a subject of ghost writers for celebrity twitter accounts. Justin Carder of the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog offered his front-line wisdom: “When you are fake about [your tweets/blog posts], whether with or without ghost writers, it’s pretty obvious to anyone reading them.”

Can others write for you if you hate writing, and still stay authentic? “Sure,” Akira said. “If you the owner and the writer are on the same page about who you [as the company] are, chances are you put an authentic message out there.

Despite it being on a Friday morning, the energy at the meeting was palpable. One attendee remarked: “Our time wasn’t wasted for a minute. The atmosphere of giving and receiving feedback about everyone’s ideas was valuable.”

The group even decided to set the date to meet again! Next LAUNCH will be on Friday, April 24, at Design Kompany’s studio, from 9AM.

If you missed this one, you should definitely join us.

What is LAUNCH?

LAUNCH is a series of knowledge-sharing sessions around the concept of Lightfoot Branding: Start Where You Are. Afraid of marketing? Don’t know what to do? Here’s where you can start. The specific topic change every month, but there will always be an element of take-home know-hows, and an open dialogue around the emerging new ways to market ourselves. Want to check it out? Email us or sign up with our newsletter here.