Strategic Public Relations

A Tale of Two Syndromes

The more you talk with people about the “next shiny new thing,” the more you see camps of thought evolve around it. Each camp is rapt with a unique syndrome.

One Thing Syndrome
Let’s be honest, it’s annoying when a wave of hype hits around the next shiny new thing. It’s deemed to be a “killer” of the last technology everyone had tattooed on their laptops and distracts everyone from Arrington to ZDNet.

Instead of distilling this hype and figuring out what the new technology means to them, some people learn the “one thing” about it with which they disagree. It’s one negative element that allows them to pigeonhole the entire topic, concept, technology website or even a political figure for that matter.

“Twitter asks ‘what are you doing’ and WHY would I care about what Joe had for lunch?”

And if Twitter comes up in conversation? You can see them tune out as they wait to tell you their one thing, regardless of how relevant it is, like Pavlov's pooch.

The cure for this is trying the technology out for yourself and forming your own opinion. I’m proof of this as I used to have a slight case of One Thing Syndrome. It manifested itself in this cartoon.

Everything Syndrome
At the other extreme, we have the Everything Syndrome where folks act quite the opposite of those with One Thing Syndrome.

“Twitter has changed my life and it’s changing communication as we know it. A friend of my brother’s heard Twitter healed a boy with smallpox. It cures more disease than Robitussin. It’s cleaning my oven right now.”

Everything Syndrome hits people that are more than just passionate about the next shiny new thing. In fact they’re blind with appreciation for the new topic, concept, technology website or political figure. This translates into effusive praise which gives the next shiny new thing more Google juice than any technology is worthy of receiving.

The cure for this is a mantra reminding yourself that every next shiny new thing is just one piece of a much larger puzzle. Focus on the larger puzzle before you tattoo “next shiny new” on your forearm.

To be honest, the above syndromes are completely understandable. But the truth is somewhere in the middle. So when the next shiny new technology comes up in conversation, consider if the person you’re talking to has one of these syndromes or if they have been cured with a healthy dose of pragmatism.

Is Customer Interaction An Opportunity Or a Cost?

Pandora believes customer interaction is an opportunity and this belief is one of the reasons you’re still listening to them today.

Tim Westergren, Pandora Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, spoke with Cincinnati Social Media Breakfast attendees and detailed how Pandora came to be, future plans and how their customer focus came to their rescue.

Grassroots Investment Pays Dividends
When Congress was recently considering new policies that would have tripled music royalty costs, Pandora reached out to users and asked them to write/fax Congress.

According to the Washington Post, Pandora was making its last stand. The influx of requests to save Pandora was larger than those requesting Congress end the war in Iraq. The overwhelming citizen response forced a second round of negotiations with Congress.

This return on investment provides an obvious reason to focus on the customer. But consider that Pandora’s customer base expands by 40,000 new listeners – each day. Most companies with a rapidly increasing customer base could just as easily see interactions with them as a cost. Some consumer goods companies traditionally would hide behind a byzantine phone menu and/or outsource live support to a call center. Pandora takes road trips across the United States and has town meetings with users in cities big and small.

So while the number of customers might have brands considering economy of scale when it comes to interacting with them, consider Pandora.

Inspired Audience Creates Content
This was just one of the stories that Westergren shared at the event sponsored by Lucrum and hosted by LPK. Here are related links if you’re interested in learning more about Pandora and Westergren’s engaging presentation.

Net radio entrepreneur visits | The Cincinnati Enquirer

UStream Video Feed | Thanks to VAE, we streamed the event and recorded portions of it.

Lucrum Podcast | David Bowman and I discuss Pandora and the Social Media Breakfast events.

SMB Rocked The Hizzous with Pandora | Krista Neher blogged the event and snapped pics.

Pandora Comes to Town | Michelle Lentz covered the story for Bub.blicio.us.

CincySMB5, Social Media Breakfast, Cincinnati 027 uploaded by kristaneher
tags | Cincinnati | cincysmb5 | social media breakfast | Pandora | Lucrum | Tim Westergren