Things have been quiet here on the blog for a while. The new job has been keeping me busy, and one of the goals of this blog was to focus on topics a little deeper than most and not write rehashes of popular marketing topics that create no unique value. That requires some extra time that I don’t currently have.

So, in order to stay the course and produce an authentic and hopefully useful blog, I’m declaring this a brief sabbatical until more time avails itself. Come back in a few months when the summer has passed and the nights are long. Then I will be writing again.

I have a new job as a B2B marketer at http://www.northplains.com. The standard disclaimers apply: Test-Driven Marketing is my personal blog and does not reflect the opinions of my employer But I figured that since my employer does sell software that impacts content marketing, global branding, and marketing execution in general, I should let my readers know where I am at, and what is influencing my thinking.

North Plains is a company with some amazing technology. They manage rich media- images, photos and video- and pioneered this market sixteen years ago. The creation, management and reuse of digital assets is a core marketing and communication challenge. If you consider that large companies have millions of assets and thousands of users of those assets its easy to see how digital asset management is an important engine for powering global marketing departments the world over.

But why the switch to a Digital Asset Management company for me personally? Partially because it’s a natural fit for me- my career has been in content, knowledge and process management.  But mostly, blame TED.

No, not Ted. TED. The “Ideas Worth Spreading” conference at http://www.ted.com that I keep linking to when writing blog posts like these:

What Spaghetti Sauce Teaches Us About The Diversity of Marketing Audiences

Do You Need Obsession-Driven Marketing?

TED for Marketers

How to Manage the Coming Content Explosion (not TED but another video reference)

I finally clued in. The world has changed. Video is important. I kept referencing video in my posts, not articles. I thought about my study and learning over the last year- it was probably about 50% video. For me. A reading nut with thousands of books in his library.

I did the Inbound Marketing certification which had excellent video content from the leading minds of the online marketing world.

At home, I watched TED videos more often than movies or TV shows and was often compelled to blog about them. I met person after person who grudgingly watched a TED conference and was amazed at how good and addictive they were. I guess they were expecting something like high school or television documentaries (the signal to noise ratio of television documentaries is usually abysmal, probably due to their seeking to reach everyone- much like most generic enterprise marketing).

I started going to weekly webinars from companies like MarketingProfs and MarketingExperiments.

When I decided I needed to become a real soccer coach ( 8 year olds are almost coachable ) I went to YouTube and learned from the best European soccer youth coaches.

When I wanted to teach my eight year old some math that was fun, I found a ton of excellent content on YouTube. He even got his first introduction to quantum physics from YouTube- at a level he could understand no less.

Video is suddenly very, very important.

Why now, and not in the 1950s when T.V. arrived? Because with the modern Internet it’s become scalable, findable, and a result, personally relevant. Anybody can create video and distribute it themselves- something largely reserved for the written word ten years ago. And, more importantly, people can find what they are interested in and self-select what they watch. Search across a wide body of video content turns video into a T.V. channel dedicated to me. This in turn creates new markets for content, spurring effort and creativity and further growth of personally relevant content.

There was no room on broadcast television for personally relevant video content previously- it had to be mass media, targeted to the broadest set of interests. With no other viable delivery mechanism, there was no audience or feedback mechanism to drive that content. The Internet has changed that, and probably far more profoundly than most people realize.

This video sums it up perfectly and brilliantly:

TED’s Chris Anderson: How Web Video Powers Global Innovation

And that’s why I’ve joined a company in the Digital Asset Management market. My vision of the future, as shaped by TED and other rich media interactions over the last couple of years has made me view Digital Asset Management a landmark endeavour in human culture. Visual rich media is driving a cultural and knowledge revolution that is already stunning in its reach and scope. I want to be part of it and contribute to it.

But don’t worry -this blog remains and lives on, still focused on test-driven marketing. For digital asset management blogging, you can visit me at the North Plains company blog:

http://wespeakdigitalmedia.com

I’ve just posted my first post there- How to Overcome the Content Barrier in Marketing Operations.

Now back to my regular blogging

Lawyers can teach a simple rule to product managers and marketers that will serve them well. It’s an evil sounding rule- one you might not believe at first. But bear with me.

Never Use One Word When Two Will Do.

Well, not all the time, but getting to specific meaning is very hard in most business environments.

Words are fluid and have multiple meanings. Said a fancier way, words are connotational, not denotational. That is, their meaning is tied to other meanings and context in very subtle and not-so subtle ways. Context matters, and when you capture requirements, you are removing those ideas from their living, operational context. There is no human mind in a job function, interacting with other humans, with lots of surrounding context.

For instance, in any company that does product development the meaning of the word product changes per department (merchandising, design, development, testing, sourcing, manufacturing, support) or per lifecycle stage (ideation, development, sourcing, testing, commercialization, etc) or combination of both.

Or even better, when making changes when is that product no longer that product? Some departments use form/fit/function- if it’s the same, it’s the same product. But if a purchased component would it it still be the same product if from different vendors?

Often, from a design perspective, yes. From a manufacturing and quality perspective, no.

All these departments use the word “product”, and never suffer from ambiguity or confusion in their day to day operations. Context is king, and the human mind is marvellous.

But all hell breaks lose once that context is gone, and requirements are put to paper. I’ve seen arguments rage for hours, and then repeat every few weeks, all due to ambiguity arising from this brave new paper reality.

Not convinced? Let’s look at an example using concise, well written English:

“There shall only be one product per product number. Product numbers shall not be reused”.

System is built, rolled out to designers. Or if lucky, they are brought into a requirements meeting before building the system.

“What? Are you nuts. We do 70 prototypes per final product and you are saying we can’t link them all to a final intended product number? And that we can’t change the product number to the final number?”

(BTW- this is one area where Agile methods start falling down- when slight increases in complexity tend to completely make over your domain model)

Okay. We see the problems. Let’s bring in our lawyer-mind, and revise the requirements using our new almost-evil rule:

“There shall only be one Manufactured Product per Manufacturing Product Number. Manufacturing Product Numbers shall not be reused”.

“Designers shall generate a unique Design Product Number per Design Product. There can be any number of Design Products per Manufactured Product, but only one released design. Once the Manufacturing Product is released, the design product can’t be changed without a change management process.

The new requirements make each domain object a compound term, and add time context such as “released” and control contexts such as when change control is required.

Now the problem with writing like this is that it can get carried away, and become unclear by it’s very complexity. This is where you need to match your approach to the problem you are trying to solve. Lawyers need to solve for provability in court, to the point of moving way past clarity into a unique language all it’s own. Similarly, requirements analysts need to ensure clarity, communication and the ability to be translated into specifications and features. If there is no effective communication, then the requirements can’t be validated.

The other issue to watch out for is the separation of requirements from design. Just because you call something “Manufactured Product” in requirements analysis DOESN’T mean you call it that in the software. Unlike written requirements, software introduces context back into the equation. Manufacturing is using the manufacturing tools, or only seeing the manufactured products. You can design the software to say “Product”. You just can’t analyze it that way.

PREVIOUS POST: Should You Trust a Blogless Marketer

ANOTHER POST: Do You Need Obsession-Driven Marketing?

MOST POPULAR POST (LAST 60 DAYS): Why Marketing is Becoming Like Software Development

2ND MOST POPULAR POST (LAST 60 DAYS): Is Sales Becoming Marketing Technical Support?

Starting a personal blog is one of the best marketing educations a person can get. The journey of a new blog to readership is marketing in its raw essence, the experience of which will make almost any person a better marketer.

The Inner World And Growth of a New Blogger

The silence of a crowded market makes you feel invisible.

You have a constant pull to sell out and republish common, boring, rehashed content that creates emotional rather then intellectual connections. I.e. it’s daring and hard to be original and authentic.

One piece of content is celebrated, the next two completely ignored even though you thought they were better.

You realize too late that a bad title killed your articles uptake.

You try harder, and what you thought was a good title is completely ignored.

You start to recognized your own authentic and inauthentic voices and become embarrassed for some of your prior work.

You finally become comfortable blogging, a feeling similar to when you’re at a party for 30 minutes and finally relax and join the flow.

You become too comfortable, and confuse your readership with content that doesn’t follow your theme. It’s self-indulgent or chases trends.

You recognize that trying too hard shows, and you go back to being quietly authentic.

You realize promotion is 50% of your effort per post.

You realize that promotion is a mistake, and that participation is 50% of your effort per post.

Twitter finally starts making sense to you. An epiphany strikes, and you realize that Twitter is like any market, just much faster. Authenticity, personality, focus, adding value, visibility, relationships are all core.

You realize that face-to-face connections are 50x more powerful then online connections. You start to realize that most top-bloggers are also top conference attendees and top conference presenters.

You realize that constant effort, strong focus on a theme, and lots of persistence are what make things happen- ripples, not splashes. Or drips if your prefer Seth Godin’s description.

You realize that you need to grind it out inch by inch, not try for the hail mary pass.

You realize that your new blog relationships are in fact soft-partnerships. People recognize when you help others, and in turn, help you.

And, ultimately, all this is in your bones because it was your credibility, your reputation, and your ego on the line.

You are now a way better marketer then you were six months ago.

Should you trust a blogless marketer? Of course. Maybe they have more important and valuable things to do, or they just don’t care for it. However, it’s worth taking into account, as one experience among many, what a blog means to a person’s marketing intuition and outlook.

PREVIOUS POST: How to Manage the Coming Content Explosion

SADLY IGNORED POST: Do You Need Obsession-Driven Marketing?

MOST POPULAR POST (LAST 30 DAYS): Why Marketing is Becoming Like Software Development

2ND MOST POPULAR POST (LAST 30 DAYS): Is Sales Becoming Marketing Technical Support?

Google Reader Loves Your Content So Much It Just Doesn’t Want to Let Go

Sometimes when you delete a post, it doesn’t go away- Google Reader keeps it around. And with up to 65% of your readership using Google Reader directly or indirectly (many standalone readers sync with Google Reader, including NetNewsWire on Mac and Pulse and Reeder on iPad) this can be a real problem.

Most people publish something accidentally at one time or another. In my case, this happened when trying a new approach to managing my blogs- I tried keeping all my drafts “in the cloud” by publishing as Drafts to my WordPress blog, and changing to Published when ready to publish. I don’t do this anymore.

So you publish something accidentally, and then to your horror notice it a while later and quickly move it to a draft state. Getting back to your normal life, you later visit your RSS reader and notice the post is still there. Confused, you delete the post to put an end to this madness, only it doesn’t end. It’s still there, the wayward post from hell.

RSS Heaven for Lost Posts

What the bleep is going on?

It’s pretty simple, actually. Feeds are one-way publishing, like magazines in the mail. There is no delete command, real or implied. When something disappears from your feed, RSS readers just assume you aren’t talking about that content anymore, but that it’s still there.

Google Reader is smart and efficient – it caches and shares your feed for everyone so as not to waste space. However, as a result, your wayward post is now cached and is everywhere for evermore. And since Google Reader dominates RSS readers (either directly or by other RSS readers syncing with it), this is a problem. 65% of your readers are sharing this one copy of your feed, making Google Reader the afterlife for your deleted posts. Even new subscribers using Google Reader are picking your polterpost.

So now what?

How to Effectively Delete a Blog Post

If you catch the errant post quickly, before anyone has pulled it into or synced it with Google Reader, you may not be too late. If you have already done what I did and deleted your post, you’ll find extra steps near the end of this article after you read the next section.

If you think you’ve accidentally posted something, don’t look through Readers. You may be the first person looking, causing yourself the grief you want to avoid. Instead, do the following as fast as possible, and possibly stop the post from making it into the Google Reader cache:

1. Put the post into draft mode.
2. Force Feedburner (if you don’t use Feedburner, just ensure your feed isn’t showing the post- that’s all this activity is doing) to rebuild your feed (via Feedburner’s Troubleshootize tabs ping or resync).
3. Ensure your post isn’t in your feed by looking at your Feedburner feed on Feedburner’s website (or viewing your feed XML). Don’t use any RSS Readers yet- they may synch with Google Reader, or they may have their own cache. Feedburner feeds are easy to view via HTML. For regular XML feeds, you could use a Reader that is guaranteed not to cache (or you haven’t used it yet) or sync with Google Reader.
4. Finally, check Google Reader listing to see of it appeared there. If not, great! You caught it time. However, if it’s there still you need to move on to the next set of instructions below.

I Was Too Late! Google Reader Has My Post in Purgatory

Your errant post got to Google Reader before you caught it. Now what? You’ll have accept the post will remain in Google reader, but all is not lost. You can still change the post, because Google Reader syncs posts based on a universal id (called a GUID- Globally Unique IDentifier).

1. Change the post- scrub the content so it doesn’t stand out. Put a simple title, simple content, and backdate the post so it appears way back in your feed. If you can quickly write something, do that. I chose not to because I don’t like rushing content.
2. Republish your post (i.e. change from Draft to Published) to push out the scrubbed post.
3. Rebuild your Feedburner feed to include your newly published scrubbed post.
4. Refresh Google Reader to pick up the new feed and make sure it’s showing the updated post in the further back position.
5. Now- if your scrubbed post is just a placeholder to placate Google Reader, unpublish and rebuild your Feedburner feed to not include it. Now other services using your feed won’t pick it up. However if you managed to tuck some useful content in the post, leave it as it. But realize that it’s back-dated and not as likely to be noticed.

Note that when publishing, deleting and changing entries, Feedburner will not update instantly but rather at it’s regular 30 minute interval. To force a quick Feedburner update visit Feedburner’s Troubleshootize tab and use the Ping or Resync (noted as the nuclear option) to force a quicker update.

But I Did What You Did and Deleted the Post

An what if you’ve already deleted the post? Recreating a new one with the same name won’t work- all of the synchronization is based on the GUID- the unique id generated per post. FeedBurner and Google Reader both rely on the post GUID.

What you need to do is create a new post, make it look the way you want (the scrubbed version or your new content), save it as a draft to WordPress, and then change the GUID to match the one of your deleted post.

Where to get the GUID? Google Reader! It’s based on the post URL and post id so it’s pretty easy to manage.

How to change the GUID on your new post? It has its own GUID (based on url and it’s newly generated post id ) so you will look for that and put in your old one dug up from Google Reader. In my case I kept the same title so all I needed to do was change the new post id to the cached post id in a few places (the post_id and GUID fields).

Here is the scary bit- to do this I had to find the new post I created in the WordPress database and change the post_id and GUID references to the deleted one stuck in Google Reader. While this sounds scary, it’s not too bad as these things go. WordPress has a nice clean, simple database structure, and the GUID is based on urls and post ids.

Once you have got a post with your original GUID in place, go back to “How to Effectively Delete a Blog Post” above and follow those steps to republish it into your feed- you are essentially at the point where you would have been if you had not deleted the post.

If you read this and are swearing at me for not leaving more details, leave a comment and I’ll post clearer steps. Who knows? Maybe there is a nice WordPress plugin that does this- I never thought to look until just now.

TED has become a phenomena, and an addictive one at that. It is a great source of inspiration for both presentation and content.

Top 5 TED Talks for Inbound Marketers is a great set of links and comments regarding TED talks of particular interest to marketers.

As a bonus, there is also a good eBook on content that summarizes a lot of today’s leading thinking on content.