Tim Bauer’s Running Thoughts

Semi-daily webcast summaries/insights

David Armano: Enabling Doctors to be Patients

Ok, this one goes out to all the marketing and UX posse out there. Here is today’s riddle …

“Can any company really can weave into their DNA a ‘true’ understanding the customer? Really? I am talking an understanding so deep that they can honestly say they can represent, accurately, their needs and goals. If so, how?”

Now this webcast is by David Armano who quickly built a online community around him when working at Digitas. While the content is a bit old (18 months) the concepts being presented are rather timeless. How should individuals or companies use a blog to learn about themselves and more importantly those they serve. What is the biggest gain (hint it’s tied to the question above) from blogging?

I was curious and I have to admit I was amused by David’s cowboy hat (see his link below). So I fired it up to see what this advertising guru / rhinestone cowboy could offer.

Details Notable Points
Title/Link:

Duration:

  • ~20m

Speakers:

Recommend to Watch? No

  • Just because its dated. However, one of his strengths is visual representation of concepts. You can get a sense from a slide show he just posted covering micro-interactions.
 1. Four Keys of a Blog

  • Quality. Clarity. Vision. Community.
  • If you review his blog you can see he tries to add some visual sizzle periodically (and does well at it). But beyond that, he believes it’s the commentary interaction that is driving his readers to come back. So, as a business, you should ponder how your blog enables you to engage your consumer. Better yet enable them to engage with each other. Take a look at this example of how Nike is acting on these basic principles (i.e. enabling their customers to engage with one another). Same thing that David points out around comment interaction on blogs.

2. The Film That Defines How To Do His Job? The Doctor .

  • In his role focused on experience design, he feels this movie says it all. Doctor is brilliant but sucks at bedside manner (House?). Becomes patient and sees his weakness and why its important. Marketers struggle to understand the customer (patient) in cases in his view. They need to find a way to get into the skin of the people they serve and experience how what they are creating is interacting with them. Nothing earth shattering there … but his point was that blogs are a conduit for learning about your customers and what they think. Think about how twitter drives feedback to keynotes these days. Its a real time feedback loop. Marketers need the same thing … be it from blogs … or activity streams.

So, nothing to earth shatter but I would recommend tracking David because (1) he wears cowboy hats and (2) he creates excellent visualization on trends without losing the nuance of the point. A worthy add to any of your activity streams.

** START OF RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

• To Digitas
• http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/blogs_eye_view_video/index.html
• Marketing is about conversations, community … pull vs push
• 4/27/2008, 7:56 AM
• Done in 11/09/06
• How started
…………..○ Been w/ digitas in a year
…………..○ Started in late feb 06
……………………….§ So was this an early adopter phenom
…………..○ Mark Beecham called him (so he was their proto blogger)
…………..○ Logic + Emotion is his blog title
…………..○ Broad
• 4/27/2008, 7:59 AM
• Focus
…………..○ He comes up w/ simple visuals to describe thoughts
…………..○ That is his fuel for growth
…………..○ Visual learner focus
• 4/27/2008, 8:00 AM
• Image of him being separate from the audience … chasm
• How did he cross the chasm (same riddle as their customers)
• 4/27/2008, 8:01 AM
• Another picture of community clusters … how to get engaged w/ various community clusters
…………..○ Bauer comment - that is the interesting thing w/ Friendfeed comments … ability to raise your hand (bad or good) and have a voice in a community by following a leader or their friends
• 4/27/2008, 8:03 AM
• Visual on how blog allows him to validate ideas
…………..○ Does have some nice process flow images and/or concept diagrams
• Value based on traffic uptake on his ideas
• 4/27/2008, 8:04 AM
• Another visual … more radiate between ecosystems … organic versus rigid structure … pebble into a pond … multiple ripples
…………..○ @ 9:00 into the presentation
• Seth Godin (Go-din)
…………..○ Purple cow concept
…………..○ Written a lot of books (platform)
• His case (no book platform)
…………..○ 4 ingredients
……………………….§ Quality
……………………….§ Clarity
……………………………………□ Voice is fairly consistent (style of writing)
……………………….§ Vision
……………………….§ Community
……………………………………□ People take time to comment .. He visits and embraces them
……………………………………□ You can’t fake that
• 4/27/2008, 8:07 AM
• Another visual @ 11:30
…………..○ McMarketing drive through … how do you do more than sell a supersize #6
• Learn by doing (blog)
• 4/27/2008, 8:08 AM
• Airplane slide
…………..○ Film in 90’s “The Doctor” … he becomes sick … learns what he lacks (bedside manner) by changing the role. That drives the presentation. Marketers need to become patients
…………..○ Develop
……………………….§ Empathy
……………………….§ Experience
……………………….§ Curiosity

** END RAW SCRIBBLE TAKEN WHILE RUNNING **

April 30, 2008 - Posted by bauertim | 3-No Go (unless you are bored) | , , , | 6 Comments

6 Comments »

  1. I really enjoy your reviews, Tim. I’ve found your recommendations for watching or not to be quite reliable, and would love to have a way to filter your posts based on the ultimate recommendation.

    For example, if you included a simple “(Yes)” or “(No)” at the end of each post title, it would be easy to create a filter in my RSS Reader (which, for me, happens to be Outlook) that highlighted the posts where your conclusion is “Yes”… that way I can be sure to grab the webcasts you’re recommending, when I’m more pressed for time, but can wait to read through your “No” posts on the weekends when I have more time to peruse my feeds. :)

    Just a thought… thanks for all the work you put into these reviews!

    Comment by Kenneth LeFebvre | May 3, 2008

  2. Even better, it just occurred to me, that you could create a category for all the “Yes” recommendations! That way, those of your readers who use the website, can click on the “Yes” category and see them filtered online. :)

    Comment by Kenneth LeFebvre | May 3, 2008

  3. Kenneth. I can do that … I thought about it one time and then moved on … but you are right … it is one of the salient points of my review.

    I’ll put in a new category going forward … well two … “Worth A Sitting-Yes” and “Worth A Sitting-No”.

    If you think of any webcasts I missed … or you want to watch but haven’t had time … drop me a line and I’ll slap it into the rotation.

    Comment by bauertim | May 3, 2008

  4. Done. I think you were right Kenneth. It did clean up the right navigation a bit.

    Comment by bauertim | May 4, 2008

  5. Cool! Now, I’ll create rules in Outlook to highlight your definite recommendations, so I can be sure to pay attention!

    I like the 3-way grading you came up with…

    Thanks!

    Comment by kenlefeb | May 4, 2008

  6. By the way, I posted about you… :)

    http://kenneth.lefebvre.us/2008/05/04/cliff-notes-for-webcasts/

    Comment by kenlefeb | May 4, 2008

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