Last week we hosted #SoRightLive, our first-ever live video webcast featuring RadioShack products and people. Powered by Twitter, Facebook, and Ustream, the event included 5 broadcast segments showcasing “So Right” gifts: from smartphones and RC cars to headphones and DIY tech kits. All segments were hosted by RadioShack’s own Ricky Cadden, Paige Guyton, Danny Ramirez and Lauren Kushnerick and we built out a full set at the Dallas Omni Hotel. The video below has some must-see highlights.
Why is this news? Glad you asked. This combination of real people showcasing technology using social media delivered the following results:
80 million global impressions (30M U.S.)
550 total hours of video viewed with 2K streamed views.
Average viewing time per user: 20 minutes
4% engagement rate on Twitter
20+ bloggers, influencers and experts participated in the on-site studio event
#SoRightLive was an experiment for all of us and there are several learnings we’ll apply to future episodes. Since being tasked with launching the interactive practice at RadioShack my goal has been to humanize the brand and ensure our consumer communications had just as much heart as muscle. Traditional media like TV, radio, print and direct mail play a vital role in the consumer’s path to purchase and our goal as interactive marketers is to close the loop with media, messaging and motives that builds trust. It’s a word we don’t use enough considering it ultimately decides how, where and when consumer’s spend their money.
Thanks to everyone for their hard work on delivering with excellence today while moving the needle for tomorrow. More to come. Get ready 2012.
Would love to hear from other digital marketers and influencers on their experience with live events. What role can it play in driving real conversations?
The secret is out. Each one of us has an idiot lurking inside just waiting to be unleashed. Even a genius is mediocre at something.
The books you read and the people you meet are powerful tools for increasing your understanding of just about anything. One of the most frequent inquiries I get at conferences and keynotes is what books I read and recommend. From creating competitive barriers in business to analysis of the pigeon’s impact on humanity, my personal library is a testament to one thing: I have more questions than answers.
That said, I’ve compiled a list of my 10 most-recommended books on business and leadership. Each of these books has significantly influenced me at various times in my life and shaped positive outcomes for many of my peers. These must-read titles are ranked roughly in order of impact. So start at the top and check each book out for yourself.
This one’s easy. Peter’s books are staples in business schools across the country and this one gives clear parameters for successfully navigating organizations by managing 5 realities: your time, contributions, personal strengths, priorities and decision-making. For most, it serves as a compass of confirmation and courage when managing change. The realization that there are always limited resources means rethinking where we spend our time and how best to achieve world-class results. This book isn’t tucked away in my office library, it’s in the living room. Read often.
Birds were born to fly. Fish were formed to swim. I was made to _______. The word you put in that blank guides your steps, defines success and influences how you lead others. Munroe’s message is fairly simple: to understand the creation you must know why it was created. I had the opportunity to meet him in Austin shortly after launching my own start-up 4 years ago. His tips, or better yet, truths are universal and foundational. This book is 20% information and 80% inspiration, making it a great weapon to have in your mental and emotional arsenal.
Not your typical management book, Rainforest Strategy explores how observations from nature’s most fascinating ecosystem can actually be applied to business and industry. Pink spent several months researching the scarcity of resources in rainforests and how the plant life transformed adversity into abundance. For instance, tropical rainforests produce 50% of their own rain by using the process of transpiration, where water evaporating from leaves is pushed right back into the ecosystem’s air. In business terms, Pink asserts that productive businesses should never rely on outside sources for more than half of their information. He suggests tactics for gathering, evaluating, disseminating and ultimately leveraging a corporation’s best thinking from the inside out.
My first entrepreneurial seizure, as Gerber calls it, occurred in the winter of 2006. I was running the specialty retail marketing division for Liz Claiborne and, after trading ambitious emails with a good friend, was stricken with the overwhelming urge to spread my wings and soar. One year later I was scouting office space, hiring graphic designers, pitching new business and running a brand development firm in Dallas. E-Myth is a non-negotiable must-read for anyone who has even a tingle of passion for starting their own business. He dives deep into the fatal assumptions that plague entrepreneurs before they ever start and gives practical advice for building a business model that works without you, not because of you. For a 5-minute primer on the 8 things I’ve learned from running my own business, check out my post E-Attitudes: So You Want To Be An Entrepreneur?
New opportunities bring new challenges. It’s estimated that 40 – 50% of outside hires within a new organization fail to achieve the desired results, costing millions of dollars, wasted resources and impeding both personal and professional growth. The First 90 Days provides a strategically sound road map for beginning a new position, accelerating your learning, assessing needed strategies, securing early wins, building a formal and informal team and defining success. In every new role, your goal is to produce results and demonstrate measurable value while reaching a tipping point where the company needs you more than you need the position. These days such perceived and actual value is more critical than ever. For an overview of my approach to starting a new job and building the social media practice at RadioShack, read 365 Days of Social Media: How I Learned by Shutting My Mouth.
My copy of Groundswell isn’t at home, it’s at work. Groundswell was the first book that adequately captured the challenges and strategies faced when activating social media as a business tool, not simply a marketing tactic. When I accepted my current position at RadioShack, I was left with one lonely mandate: read this book. Two years later I was standing on stage accepting a Groundswell award from Josh Bernoff in recognition of our RadioShack interactive marketing campaign that yielded energized consumers and business profits. The potency of this title isn’t solely reserved for digital marketing execs, it also provides a framework for engaging communities and building internal consensus. Since the book’s release, Charlene started the Altimeter Group, a social business consultancy in San Mateo, CA who produce some of the brightest thinking in the industry. Josh’s follow-up book, Empowered, is also a must-read and I’ve personally claimed him as my own book-writing coach.
When Stanley Tam founded U.S. Plastic Corporation more than 60 years ago, he had a simple yet profound desire: to legally make God the majority shareholder of his business. As you can imagine, the story that ensued is quite a tale as he ultimately discovers a way to donate extraordinarily generous portions of annual profits to help others. Even if you look beyond his ambitious attempt at divine accounting, the core principle of Tam’s message is quite plain. Things happen when you know who your Senior Partner is and acknowledge that He’s equipped you with all you need to get the job done. Indeed, hope is not a business strategy but using your physical, mental and spiritual resources certainly is. There aren’t very many books or stories that reconcile faith and business so this one is a great reference. Iron sharpens iron.
Half of the articles published on the Harvard Business Review website mention at least one of these companies: IBM, GE, Dell, Wal-Mart and Southwest Airlines. Yet, every large business started as a small one and there seems to be a dearth of data on how the little guy gets bigger, successfully. Keith was challenged and encouraged by Peter Drucker and Jim Collins to attempt to identify the core drivers that empower a start-up to mature into a material growth company. After a 5 year research program that included 7,000 companies, The Breakthrough Company presents these findings in an interesting read. By addressing such issues as exit strategies for founders, building a blueprint for company culture and enhancing capabilities, Keith gives small and medium business owners several insights worth rehearsing. Best of all, he provides granular snapshots inside breakthrough companies, including Chico’s, Fastenal, Intuit, Polaris, SAS and The Staubach Company. Talk about a cheat sheet.
Awesomely enough, I discovered John Hope Bryant via Twitter. The guy provides daily doses of global facts, reality checks and introspective one-liners that require a mental pause. His book brings together two of our country’s favorite pastimes, loving and leading, into a biographical journey through his childhood, the L.A. riots and Presidential favor. He argues that doing what’s profitable and doing what’s right doesn’t involve compromising one for the other. Honestly, I respect his perspective for the obvious reasons – he’s an African American male pioneering change – and also for his transparency in sharing his flaws and fears. This vulnerability, he asserts, can be our greatest source of power.
This collection of case studies, business principles and management tactics is another reference tool for emerging and established entrepreneurs. The editors took prime learnings from top professors, consultants and business owners and packaged them into a lexicon for legal, tax, financial and regulatory insights. Needless to say, I keep it close by and highly recommend you have a similar source of proven jewels. It’s slightly cheaper than an MBA or the business courses I took at SMU.
I’m always looking for an excuse to place an Amazon order so drop me a comment below with your must-read books or any I missed. What authors have changed your POV?
Happiness is… when where you are is exactly where you want to be.
This is a truth I learned while attempting to date my future wife, Alisha. I call it an attempt because no matter how hard I tried, I remained in the dreaded “friend zone” far longer than my ego could bear. After going out with half of the single women in Manhattan, the dating scene back in my hometown of Dallas/Fort Worth would be a cake walk, right?
Not only was I wrong, I was in for quite a lesson in patience & purpose. Being Alisha’s friend taught me to cherish the moment of now and be grateful for just enough. Isn’t that what happiness is all about?
Of course, it doesn’t hurt that in the end I got the girl. Cheers.
I just recently became aware of Lauren after posting a series of articles exploring the purpose, effects and condition of cancer. Though I didn’t know her personally, I was inspired by her story of fortitude and courage in the face of adversity.
On November 1, Lauren left cancer behind. My prayers and thoughts are with her family, friends and loved-ones who are undoubtedly missing an angel whose halo sparked awareness and action. I do believe that wounds become wins when we place them in God’s hands. Lauren is in good hands indeed.
Rest in peace Lauren. While I regret we never met, I truly do celebrate your amazing journey.
In the days following the tragic tsunami in Japan that claimed 28,000 lives, I recall seeing a Facebook post from a college buddy. He was sick and tired of hearing about a God who would allow such senseless pain and refused to believe God existed at all. It broke my heart that mourning for loss could push someone even further away from healing.
Like now, I didn’t have an answer. I attempted a very biblically scholastic response, stating that “time and chance happen to us all” and no one knows why these things occur. It’s simply not for us to understand, I added. Of course this reply was quickly suffocated by the other commenters who also decided they’d had enough of this “good God” thing.
I felt like “good” had lost and “bad” won.
What’s The Verdict?
Over the past few days I’ve written blog posts asking myself 2 things:
2) If we think of cancer in the broader sense (anything destructive that causes death, decay and disease), why does God allow cancer at all?
What do you think? (Seems like a great time to test drive the poll plug-in).
The interesting thing is, though I still don’t have an answer, the online and in-person discussions regarding this subject have convinced me of a 2 things.
Bad things lose their power when we let them go. In order for anything to be destructive it must be present (in proximity) and potent (capable of damage). While we can’t always control what’s present in our lives, we do influence the amount of personal damage inflected. Big problems look a lot smaller when we face them head-on.
As much as it bugs me, I was never intended to have all the answers. There is no formula for overcoming life’s storms or recreating rainbows. They happen and we react, respond and relent as best we can. God gives us just enough information to get from here to heaven and the rest is yet to be told.
This week I came across this song by Laura Story called “Blessings.” It’s a ballad that explores how good can come from bad, deliberately, by design and in love. Check it out:
A few days ago I shared a blog post, What Is The Purpose of Cancer?, inspired by my participation in the LIVESTRONG Challenge bike race. The courage, compassion and unity I witnessed there led me to a second self-inflicted inquiry: why does a good God allow bad cancer? This, quite frankly, sent me down a mental rabbit trail pondering if my simplistic definitions of good and bad were long overdue for a system reboot.
Is it possible that genuinely good outcomes can be birthed from ostensibly bad circumstances?
The notion of cancer can also be applied to connote “something evil that spreads destructively“. Seems like a fitting description for other aspects of life beyond the purely physiological. Cancer comes in all shapes, sizes and situations. Its physical form is visible via MRI. Economic cancer is revealed in finance reports. Relational cancer is often detected far too late in divorce proceedings while societal cancer circles the globe in wars, uprisings, unrest and revolution. Within this larger definition – cancer as anything that spreads destructively and causes disease, decay and death – I’d like to reframe how I personally view cancer.
The 4 D’s of Cancer
No matter what your spiritual conviction, most us can agree that disease, death, destruction and decay are bad. When I look at each of these through my weak, short-sighted eyes, I too see situations that are too bad to be good. Yet, when I put on corrective lenses I begin to understand that what I see isn’t always what I get. In fact, what we see is often less about us and more about a bigger plan that isn’t for our understanding in the first place. I believe good can come from bad in my life and the effects of cancer (the 4 D’s) can be reversed.
Death
The death of a close friend, relative or even a co-worker is hard to digest. This mental and emotional journey can take years to process, or even a lifetime. How can we look beyond the lifeless and celebrate a life complete?
Coach Tony Dungy and son, James (right)
A story that still touches me is that of James Dungy, the son of former NFL coach Tony Dungy, who committed suicide in 2005 at the age of 18. In an address at a 2006 Super Bowl event, Dungy shared how his son’s story has inspired struggling youth and his donated corneas have gifted sight to 2 people.
“I’m not totally recovered, I don’t know if I ever will be, it’s still ever-painful. But some good things have come out of it,” he said in room full of players, coaches and media.
“If God had talked to me before James’ death and said his death would have helped all these people, it would have saved them and healed their sins, but I would have to take your son, I would have said no, I can’t do that.”
Dark mourning clouds become morning sunshine when we realize we each have a specific, unique purpose during our brief time here.
Destruction
The aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 left a city in ruin and an entire country’s peace of mind entangled in the rubble. I visited Ground Zero in New York City 6 months after the attack and found the impact indescribable. Bad cancer had transformed tall buildings into deep craters. The fence of a neighboring church became a makeshift memorial. The bustle of business was hushed to reverent, pensive silence.
I remember thinking, this place will never be the same. And it wasn’t.
9/11 Church Memorial (image by Shannon Hurst Lane)
Lower Manhattan has become a monument to courage in the face of life-changing adversity. Acts of violence acted as catalysts for unity across all 50 states and beyond. As we mourn the heroes and the victims we also remember the victory over terrorism. Cancer inflected injury but failed to infect our liberty.
“The attacks of September 11th were intended to break our spirit. Instead we have emerged stronger and more unified. We feel renewed devotion to the principles of political, economic and religious freedom, the rule of law and respect for human life. We are more determined than ever to live our lives in freedom.” –Rudolph W. Giuliani.
Disease
One in 4 deaths in the United States is due to cancer. In 2011 alone, an estimated 1.6 million new cases of cancer will be diagnosed. The stats paint a not-so-pretty picture of a seemingly insurmountable foe.
I received a very poignant response to my original post, What Is The Purpose of Cancer?, from a former co-worker who shared how cancer shaped her life, and ultimately the lens through which she viewed bad things. Sarah knows the bad side of cancer all too well and her struggles are not uncommon.
“For me, a good God allows bad cancer to guide refocus in those who’ve been directly or indirectly touched by the bad cancer. For me, that’s what He has done,” she said.
Sarah was also kind enough to share the story of Lauren Skillman, a 20-year-old Fort Worth woman who is battling cancer for the third time in 2 years. Lauren’s Facebook page has become a social pep rally in support of her testimony and ongoing treatments.
In a May 2011 interview with NBC, Lauren’s doctor Kenneth Heym shared his thoughts:
“I’ve always wondered whether the most amazing people get these challenging diseases or if something happens to them once they get it, that they become the most amazing people. But with Lauren, since I’ve known her from the beginning, just facing everything with bravery, and courage and laughter.”
Lauren Skillman, 20, has a message for cancer.
If bad cancer is a reminder of our finite & fragile lives, could it also present an opportunity to trust in power outside our own? Perhaps the opportunity to be weak, dependent and confused creates the capacity to be stronger than we would ever be individually.
Decay
Life and loss go hand in hand. From small things (like my hair) to substantial items, most of what we have today will be gone at some point. My father always said, “Don’t hold on to stuff too tight. Sooner or later it’s gone or we’re gone.”
Cancer causes decay, the act of declining or decreasing, and often challenges our assumptions and shifts our focus. The very public moral decay of pro quarterback Michael Vick in 2007 was met with much scrutiny, media coverage and condemnation. Vick, pleaded guilty to illegal dog fighting and faced severe federal charges, ultimately serving 21 months in prison, filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and losing “it all.”
His physical talents afforded him a life of means yet a cancerous environment and destructive decision-making wiped it all away. Or did it?
Since then, Vick has served his time, been reinstated into the NFL and is progressing positively at a pace few would have guessed. What struck me about Vick’s story was not his rise or fall, but the lessons he learned during this journey. In the process of losing fame and fortune, Vick found salvation. I’ll never forget watching his public apology on TV and grinning ear-to-ear while witnessing good from bad. Check the video out for yourself:
I’ve been asking myself why a good God allows bad cancer. What I’ve learned is that lessons preserved by pain are never lost. Yes, even if that pain happens to be cancer of any type. More valuable than a pain-free life, is a pleasing life that serves, honors and creates meaning that lasts well beyond a lifetime.
Do you have stories of good that has come from bad?
In your own life, have you found that the painful times have served a bigger purpose?
As always, please leave your feedback, comments or send me a Tweet shout-out @adriandparker with thoughts.
Last week I had the honor of accepting a Groundswell Award from Forrester Research on behalf of the RadioShack marketing team and imc2 agency. We earned top honors for our 2010 Holiday Heroes social media campaign and it was a very humbling experience on many levels. When I started at RadioShack in January 2010, I was left with one lonely mandate: read the book Groundswell.
Two years after launching the social media practice there, not only were we being recognized by the very people who wrote the book on social, but also we were considered among 200 other entries, including Mercedes Benz, Starbucks, MTV, Sprint, Best Buy and *gulp* Britney Spears.
You can check out the winning campaign, press and other details online. For now, you absolutely must peep the above acceptance video imc2 created for the ceremony. It’s epic.
