Resources > Guru Speak > Andy Smith
Andy Smith, Co-author, The Dragonfly EffectAndy Smith and his wife and co-author, Jennifer Aaker
Andy Smith is the co-author of The Dragonfly Effect, which presents quick, effective, and powerful ways - concepts from social media, marketing strategy, and consumer psychology, to help people achieve social good.
Andy is an experienced tech marketer and a Principal of Vonavona Ventures where he advises and bootstraps technical and social ventures with guidance in marketing, customer strategy and operations. He earned his MBA at UCLA's Anderson School and holds an Economics degree from Pomona College. Over the past 20 years, Andy has served as an executive in the high tech industry leading teams at Dolby Labs, BIGWORDS, LiquidWit, Intel, Analysis Group, Polaroid, Integral Inc. and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. He is a contributor to GOOD Magazine, where he writes on businesses that embrace and integrate a social mission. He is on the boards of 140 Proof, ProFounder, LIF Brands, EveryWun, and One Family One Meal. "Transparency plays a key role in success in the social space"
Younomy: The importance of transparency in winning the trust of people cannot be overemphasized in the age of social media. Do you think it would help if businesses focus on getting themselves rated for corporate governance, sustainability, traceability or any other third-party corporate reporting standards promoted by organizations such as Global Reporting Initiative? Andy Smith: Transparency plays a key role in success in the social space, whether you are a company or an individual. Third-party reporting standards provide excellent means to communicate transparency and adherence to an objective benchmark for relevant industry standards, as a base for further trust and brand building. Standards are great for separating the bad from the not bad, but are not enough in themselves to allow a company to stand out long-term. If they are first to the certification, they may be able to realize a higher return than those that follow later. Eventually, for most companies, the standards promoted by the Global Reporting Initiative will become “table stakes,” necessary elements for doing business, and such a progression is a very good thing. There needs to be a “step two” for companies who lead in certifications to stand apart from their simple “meets expectations” or “good” brethren. It’s also important for companies to listen to customers and employees when prioritizing what ratings to go after. Standards that matter broadly to external stakeholders (as well as internal rank and file stakeholders) are generally the ones that contribute significantly to the company’s main source of revenue. For example, purchasing only certified free trade beans is important if you are in the business of serving coffee, such as Starbucks, but less relevant if you are a tool and die manufacturer. Similarly, becoming ISO9000 certified is important for the tool and die company, but is not a burning question on the mind of Starbucks customer waiting in line for their latte. Younomy: Your book places huge emphasize on interactivity. Do you think investment in facilitating digital or social media interactions - in terms of creating digital infrastructure, deploying people to manage community, developing widgets, offering incentives to encourage participation, etc, to make “immediate” business sense as much as investments in products or services make? Andy Smith: I think there can be few things more worth investing in than in tools – digital or otherwise that create meaningful interactions between a company and its customers. The evolution of the social web has provided an opportunity for brands to engage with their customers in a way that involves very little effort on the part of the customer. All other things being equal this should translate into the opportunity to develop a wealth of extremely broad customer insights that in turn lead to better products and services. So the trade-off between investing in product and in interacting with customers is only encountered by companies who see the opportunity to engage merely as a means to promote their offerings. The social web is not just a new place for companies to put ads. Those that view it that way are not only wasting their money, they are possibly missing an unprecedented chance to learn a huge amount about their customer and how to fulfill their current and future needs. One last point, here, when it comes to the number of customers to listen to, beyond a certain point size doesn’t matter. It’s a great deal more important to direct effort toward really listening to the relatively few highly engaged customers who say they can’t live without your product than to the many more weak-tie participants that encounter your company solely for a contest entry and a chance to win a trip to Disneyland. Younomy: Your view that businesses need to be “caretakers of brands”, rather than brand owners is easy or nice to accept but difficult to implement? How do businesses know that they are acting as brand trustees and not brand owners? What could be the brand trusteeship indicators? Andy Smith: Those of us that have spent time in brand management have at one point or another believed we “controlled” our brand, but we were wrong -- even before the advent of the social web. I think of brand as reputation. Reputation is not something you control, it’s something you earn and do your best to protect. It’s something entirely abstract with many characteristics normally associated with a person: trustworthiness, fun, reliability, intelligence, excitement, et cetera. Trademark law grants you the right to protect your name and logo, but that’s not your brand. Those are simply the symbols that represent your brand. The fact that you and I have an entirely different perception of BP than we did a year ago has nothing to do with anything that anyone in their marketing or brand management team did – for better or worse. Do you think they wonder if they are in control of their brand now? Brand identity is what the company believes the brand stands for while brand image is how customers see it. When brands are doing a good job of being trustees, there is a relatively narrow gap in brand image versus brand identity, which can be measured quantitatively. Younomy: There appears to be two ways to co-create or crowd source product ideas: 1) going to communities with specific problems (the P&G’s Connect and Develop model), and 2) going to communities without any specifications (the Threadless model). What works best in the long run? Andy Smith: Crowdsourcing presents great opportunities, but has achieved such buzzword status that many people have difficulty contemplating it seriously. There are many examples which have been noted for success such as My Starbucks Idea Dell’s IdeaStorm, and Threadless among others. As with any effort we profile in The Dragonfly Effect, the key is to have a single, clear goal of what you want to achieve. Each crowdsourcing approach differs in that each is designed to fulfill a different need. Starbucks and Dell wanted help getting the voice of the consumer out of market research and into the part of the business where products are conceived. Threadless was designed not to support an existing business with insight but to have people cross the line between customer and producer, with a lot of decision-making in between allowing a totally new market to develop -- not dissimilar to eBay. I would not say that any of these success stories have been without specification. In each there is a game layer of sorts with rules and roles that direct how people contribute and spend their energy. For most companies, the result of a goal-focused design process may result with a crowdsourcing structure more like Dell, Starbucks or P&G. But it is a mistake to simply imitate. The question needs to be asked: if I could get a thousand customers/employees/partners to help me, what would I ask them to do? Younomy: Broadly speaking, how do companies that co-create share the business benefits that come out of using society’s knowledge? Andy Smith: From what I have observed, for the most part crowdsourcing is not a replacement for employees. Participants tend to participate for the opportunity to contribute to something they care about, and for the potential recognition of supplying something that is useful and stands out. Companies tend to share the benefit through the recognition process that may also include a prize of some sort, as well as through the development of better products, faster. Stakeholders who participate actively enough to matter to companies are often those that benefit from satisfaction and from improving a product that they use. Younomy: From your experience, what types of business-sponsored communities are easy to build online? Are the communities that are built around technical or functional ideas or the communities that are built around “common causes” such as world peace, green living, wild life, etc? Andy Smith: The key point in any community is a common cause or rallying point. In Dragonfly Effect terms: a focused, singular clear goal. There should be no doubt why people are there. If a business is to sponsor a community, they first have to identify that rallying point that is meaningful not just to the company, but to their constituents as well. Further, each party should bring something to the community that adds to its value, and continually renews itself. In investment communities such as StockTwits for example, the company brings the core framework for a discussion about stocks, and real-time access to financial information. The individual members bring their experiences and opinions and the value of the community grows as a result. Cause-related communities can be great, but they need to ensure that the goal is clear and that there are measurable elements that indicate progress so that the community members can retain their direction and motivation. World peace is a wonderful, aspirational goal, but it’s achieved one step at a time, one region at a time and that’s how a community’s micro-goals should be established to keep participants engaged. |