Luke Bryan always says “Rain is a good thing.” My trip to Madison in the rain on Wednesday definitely proves that. I met both dudes on that one trip. One was at Social Media Breakfast Madison and the other was indirectly via dude Spencer X Smith.
Lauren Teague
How could you not like a presentation about pineapple on pizza? That might not be what Lauren Teague was going for when she gave her presentation “Social Media + Statistics = Not Your Average Metrics Discussion”. It was however a great hook to get people drawn into a great discussion on numbers. Of course the IT guy in the house would have loved the numbers no matter what. I also loved energy and knowledge Lauren brought to the discussion.
Her 7 A’s are something important to focus on in more endeavors than just social media. Audience, Applause, Action, Amplification, Activity, Advocacy and Accelerant help to give a framework in which to create a very detailed playbook to measure success.
The biggest take away for people however was probably lost on many. She said a couple of times that she uses the numbers to tell a story. She crafts that story with a masterful combination of numbers, graphics, charts and words. The story she crafts uses the businesses needs and strategy to show the real value that is coming from social media efforts. This is very powerful. You can watch her presentation here. I am not in the credits but you can see me at the beginning showing my networking ineptitude and at the end asking about the almighty dollar. In-spite of those drawbacks the video is well worth the hour.
Jason Iverson
About a week ago I saw a video on LinkedIn that caught my eye. It talked about IT spending in terms of what is spent to keep IT running and what is spent to drive value to the business. The numbers were something I long suspected so I asked the poster Jason Iverson about the details. It turns out that they are from a rather large research company that charges for their information. However that interaction led to a coffee this week with Jason.
Jason is a fascinating guy. He has run his own business and is now helping boost the presence of his current company in Milwaukee. Jason and I talked strategy, logos, trust, and what kills companies. It was one of those discussions where it quickly turned into talking to an old friend. Jason’s company Applied Tech is one that will go into my tool box. He has a very solid offering for outsourcing IT and I can’t wait to continue to work with and get to know Jason.
As always if you don’t have time to meet either of of this weeks dudes feel free to sign up for a coffee or lunch with me here. I would be happy to talk more with you about why you should talk with them.