Marketing in the Recommendation Age
May 15, 2008
“Why on Earth would your company want a blog?” “Aren’t you afraid of what people might say?” “What about your brand?” As the guy who championed the idea of the blog at LUCRUM, and regular blogging evangelist, I am asked this question almost daily. My answer is simple. “I trust our people to do the right thing.”
My coworkers at LUCRUM are smart - much smarter than I am. I know that when they talk about technology, they are passionate about it. They speak from experience and they speak from the heart. They are sincere, and that is different. They are interesting. They are real. They are the essence of “The Brand.”
I also trust the readers of the site. They can smell disingenuous corporate speak from a mile away. Yeah, I could hire professional writers to put together a brand strategy for our blog. We could toil endlessly on the exact wording of every phrase - but why? It would not be real. It would not be different. It would invisible.
Thankfully, it is real. And… it is really fun to be involved with.
Just today, we were contacted by a talented IT Professional who was so moved by Andy Erickson’s LinkedIn profile and the honesty of the blog site that she sent in an amazing letter with her resume expressing her desire to join the LUCRUM team.
This is the result of conversation.
What we hope to achieve is not just conversation, but also recommendation. In this day and age reputation is so important. What you do is far more important than what you say you do. What you do IS the marketing. It is about customer service, employee relations, innovative thinking, and delivering real value for Clients each and every day.
We are working on building a tribe. A loyal group of eager participants, fully engaged in the experience of LUCRUM. We want to create evangelists. We aspire to deliver greatness. That aspiration lives in each of us, and thus the blog serves as the platform for sharing our honest hopes and dreams for the firm. It is a metaphor for the business as a whole. It is about being “recommendable” or perhaps more properly put “remarkable.”
Are we there yet? Nope. But we have taken the steps necessary to start the journey. Each and every day we learn. Each and every day we evolve. Hopefully, we listen, we grow, and we improve along the way.
Why blog? Well if what we do is to solve business problems by using technology, than why not embrace technology to identify those problems and uncover the solutions? Why not engage our people to drive innovation at every level of the organization? Why not give everyone, including our clients and the world at large, a voice in the conversation. Why not become recommendable?
Check out the link below for a great article about marketing in the recommendation age.
Marketing in the Recommendation Age | Small Business Solutions - TheStreet.com
Sphere: Related ContentStill Standing
April 30, 2008
Before I became a LUCRUM employee I heard a lot of rumblings about LUCRUM . My friends in the business were concerned about the mistakes LUCRUM had made in the past and the challenges that we faced moving forward.
When confronted with that, I asked my peers and I will ask you – what technology firm isn’t facing these challenges? Who do you know that hasn’t lost money in one of the last 10 years? Is there a group out there that hasn’t had layoffs, turnover or tremendous organizational shifts and changes?
I sure can’t think of one right now, I am betting not many of you can either.
But all this change is ok. Change isn’t comfortable for a lot of people but it is OK. One thing LUCRUM can proudly say after 15 years in this crazy industry is that WE are still STANDING.
Go back through your old contacts. I bet you would be shocked to see how many places that were well known in the industry 10 even 5 years ago that don’t even exist any longer!
I know of several firms that bit the dust. I was actually employed by one of them. THAT firm was one of the great ones in Cincinnati during the mid to late 90’s.
THAT firm had a growth rate of 50% per month for a very long time. Anyone that worked there made a lot of money and we were very proud to tell others where we were employed.
Where is THAT firm now? Well the first iteration has LONG been gone. After a multitude of acquisitions and name changes and leadership turnover THAT firm declared bankruptcy.
Within a blink of an eye our stock plummeted from 80 dollars a share to just around 4 cents a share. Just last week the second coming of THAT firm failed again and abysmally at that.
So as an employee or a client or a potential client please remember that LUCRUM survived. We survived the .com implosion, the 9/11 catastrophe, the Iraqi war (God Bless our Troops), the downturn in the economy and the exponential increase in foreclosures. We survived.
As a LUCRUM employee, I have a great place to come to work every day. LUCRUM hasn’t been through a dozen name changes or had a multitude of mergers. LUCRUM still has clients that have been with the firm for 15 years. THESE ARE GOOD THINGS!
So, whenever you wonder how is LUCRUM? Remember this – LUCRUM is still standing strong – 15 years and counting!
Ehem…Standardizing Every Aspect of Delivery
April 9, 2008
LUCRUM works hard to standardize every aspect of our delivery processes. Mary wrote earlier about LUCRUM’s efforts in Quality Management. In order to focus on business problems, LUCRUM has implemented a standard dress code so that consultants don’t need to think about what they need to wear on a given day. Here Josh and Jeff show off for Tan and Teal Thursday.
- Andy
Sphere: Related ContentWhat’s Cooking?
April 4, 2008
One of the things many people don’t know about John Bostick is that he has a great love of the culinary arts. I was fortunate enough to attend a cooking class at Jungle Jims in which John was the guest chef.
The class, entitled “Get the Winter Cold Out with Hot Thai Food and Beer,” was held at the Jungle Jim Cooking School on April 2nd. Within a 2 hour timeframe, John and his team of helpers created a multitude of Thai dishes including an appetizer, soup, a side dish, two entrées, and a dessert. Students were provided a recipe syllabus to follow along with, as each dish was prepared. The menu for the evening included the following:
- Shrimp Sticks with Savory Dipping Sauce
- Kaeng Jud Thao Hu (Bean Curd Soup with Meat Balls)
- Gai Yang (Marinated Barbecued Chicken)
- Taeng Kwa Brio Wan (Sweet and Sour Fresh Cucumber)
- Jasmine Rice
- Beef Panang Curry
- Sticky Rice with Fresh Mango
Students not only learned how to prepare the dishes, but were also provided ethnic background on how food was prepared and served. An example of this would be that restaurants in Thailand do not have knives at the table because they have a belief that food should be prepared in bite sized portions for the guest. As each dish was prepared, John also provided interesting information and helpful hints about the ingredients. He talked about how to buy garlic – “it should be tight with no sprouts.” He prefers to use “the purple kind from Mexico.” “When using garlic, it’s better to chop or slice than to use a garlic press.” “Using a garlic press can change the flavor of garlic in dishes as the oils are extracted.” If students had questions about a particular ingredient, John is excellent on providing informative answers. He is extremely knowledgeable on the composition of the food item and provides suggestions on different ways to include the ingredient in other dishes.
After each dish was completed, a generous sample was provided to each student for sampling. Each one was flavorful and delicious. At the end of the evening, students were anxious to sign up for another class as it was truly an enjoyable experience.
Those interested in attending one of John’s classes should check out the Jungle Jim website (www.junglejims.com) under Cooking School. The Spring Quarter Class Brochure will be posted in the near future.
Giving Back - Part 3
March 28, 2008
After reading David Bowman’s blog about Giving Back and John Bostick’s, Giving Back continued, I felt the need to put in my two cents. LUCRUM is definitely committed to the community. I have seen this first hand in my three years here at LUCRUM. One fond memory of mine was in October 2006 when we combined our efforts and did a United Way Community Care Week project for the Boy Scouts. LUCRUM volunteers painted the Cub World structure at the Dan Beard Council Boy Scout Camp in Loveland, Ohio. We had LUCRUM employees and their family members volunteer to paint from 9:00am to 5:00pm. Everyone came to the camp with the assumption that the structure was just that a structure of some sort but we weren’t quite sure what it was. Imagine our surprise when we found out it was a very large cabin! Our job was to primer the cabin for the real painters to finish the job the following week. That didn’t discourage us. We were there to help and we certainly did. I have attached pictures for you to see the huge accomplishment. To this day, my daughter still talks about how she helped paint the largest cabin she has ever seen.
Ugh, Not Another PowerPoint?!
March 26, 2008
You can say it formally the way Edward Tufte did in The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, or you can just say it in plain English: Do I have to sit through another meaningless presentation? The answer is a resounding, “NO!” Okay, this post is more entertainment than thoughtfulness, but you can learn a *whole bunch* of what NOT to do by meandering over to Life after Death by PowerPoint and reviewing the first video. And then take a gander at the second one just for fun. You’ll hear Don McMillan’s life lessons.
When you’re done with your homework, visit Presentation Zen, pickup the book, then practice so that we don’t have to sit through your boring presentation 
- Andy
Sphere: Related ContentGiving Back - Continued
March 26, 2008
I was checking out our new blog today, and saw a post by one of our newest employees, David Bowman. It is great to hear about people in our company giving back. It is an important part of our culture and frankly, it’s one of the most special parts of living on this earth.
I guess when I think about giving, I go back to my parents and the stories that they taught me about their growing up in the Great Depression. In today’s world and the complex financial crisis that the sub-prime mortgage market has along with the recent failings of some of Wall Street’s giants, I have to admit: I still think we as a society have no clue about the real impact of what our families and relatives went through in the Great Depression. My parents were fortunate. My mother is First Generation American. Her parents immigrated from Eastern Austria-Hungary and the Ukraine shortly after the beginning of this last century. Coal-miner, shoemaker, Goodyear Rubber & Tire factory work, her parents always put food on the table and had a modest life of comfort and stability. During the Depression, they constantly had people coming to their door asking for chores. Back then, pride was 100% of your character. One never took hand-outs. You would not take “free food” even though my grandparents were willing and able to share. My father grew up the 6th child of a Southern Alabama farm family. Again, lots of people were very unfortunate in the South during the Depression. He learned to give to his neighbors and support the community. This was a practice that he continued throughout his entire life.
Fast forward over my years growing up with them. My 2 brothers and I were in Boy Scouts in our formative years. Outside of camping in the Upstate New York Adirondacks once a month, community service was the core of our activities. Weekends were spent participating in newspaper drives, helping in the neighborhood parks, cleaning up the “teen center” and many other volunteer activities. We learned to support our community.
Fast forward to today: I still have it in my blood. LUCRUM is committed to participating in Community Service through providing 4 approaches: economic, leadership, professional, and material assistance to local and regional organizations. Economic simply means donated cash. Leadership is where people in our firm invest their time in guiding, assisting, participating in community organizations. Professional is where LUCRUM provides consulting, web development, and general software development services. LUCRUM’s community support initiatives have recently included: The United Way(www.uwgc.org) and the Tocqueville Society Campaign, the Central Clinic (www.centralclinic.org), the Boy Scouts(www.danbeard.org), the Evans’ Scholar Golf Outing, the Epilepsy Foundation, the Cincinnati Art Museum (www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org), the Fine Arts Fund (www.fineartsfund.org) and their new Technology Sector campaign, and the National Father-Son Tennis Tournaments to name a few. As you can imagine, it’s contagious with our employees and their commitment to the community amplifies ours.
So, “thank-you” David Bowman. “Thank-you” to all of our LUCRUM professionals in their commitment in supporting our community.
Sphere: Related ContentPeople, Technology, and Learning
March 25, 2008
As the new marketing manager for LUCRUM, there is so much that I do not understand about what we do. Here is the good news. I know that I can learn. I was reminded of this as I was reading one of Seth Godin’s latest posts about learning. There has never been a time in history where knowledge has been so readily available. The problem now becomes one of attention - picking what to learn out of the vast choices of information. I am lucky to be surrounded by technology experts, all willing to share information about the technical aspects we deliver to our clients. Here at LUCRUM, we regularly have employees present internally on emerging technologies through our Lunch and Learn and Brain Brew programs. Learn by teaching is deeply engrained in our culture. This only helps to make our consultants more effective with our clients, and our team better equipped to meet the evolving needs of business. I know I have a lot to learn. What is better is to know that I work somewhere where I am not only encouraged to learn, I am expected to. Combine the culture I work in with the endless knowledge provided on the web, and there is really no excuse not to learn something of value every day. Occasionally, I might test that knowledge here - soliciting your feedback to yield even greater understanding. What an amazing time to be alive, and what an amazing place to be living it!
Seth’s Blog: Things you don’t understand
Sphere: Related ContentBlog Training at LUCRUM
March 25, 2008
Today, I was given the distinct privilege of presenting to my fellow LUCRUM employees on blogging. More specifically, I was tasked with teaching them how to blog. I was given 90 minutes, which is a long time to talk about something that is really quite easy to do. I spent some time discussing why it is important to blog. I touched on the changing state of marketing from that of a dialog to an interactive monologue, and stressed that their voices matter. I then went on to talk about ways to construct posts, do’s and don’ts of blogging, and then showed them just how simple it is to use WordPress. We touched on tools like RSS, digital cameras, Google Blog Search, and plain old note cards as ways to develop content. We even got into some emerging tools like Alltop and Snipshot. Overall, I think that everyone was interested. It is tough to present to such a diverse group - especially when many are far more versed in technology than I. The true test of the presentation will be very easy to measure. If you see more posts from more people, it worked. If not, I will go back to the white board. I am convinced that the people here at LUCRUM are some of the best and brightest in the world. My challenge is convincing them to share that brilliance with the rest of the world. If I can, what an amazing experiment this will turn out to be. Hopefully today was the first step in making that happen. Thanks to everyone who attended. You were a great audience.
Sphere: Related ContentGiving Back
March 19, 2008
The purpose of this post is twofold. First, I want to use this platform to promote an upcoming charitable event that I am involved in organizing. It is a pancake breakfast that is going to be held this Saturday, March 22nd, at F&S Harley Davidson in Dayton, Ohio. The event is being held to raise money for the Epilepsy Foundation of Western Ohio, a group with which I am proud to be involved. It is going to be from 8:00am to 11:00am. It should be great fun, and if you are interested in finding out more or RSVP’ing for the event - visit PancakesPancakes.com I hope you can join the fun and contribute to a great cause in the process.
More importantly is the second purpose of my post, which is to talk about how rewarding it is to work at a place that encourages employees to get involved in making the community better. During my short time here at LUCRUM, I have been encouraged to continue my work with the Epilepsy Foundation. Many of my co-workers have gotten involved as well. It has been very moving to get such an overwhelmingly positive response from people whom I just recently met. Many are even getting up early on Saturday morning - sacrificing free time - to come to Dayton for the pancake breakfast. Pretty amazing. What’s more, shortly after starting here, I learned that LUCRUM is actively involved with supporting the Epilepsy Foundation here in Cincinnati - a coincidence that made me feel even better about my choice to come to work here. From the Fine Arts Fund to the Boy Scouts to countless other community organizations, we demonstrate our commitment by contributing time, money, and effort to the cause.
Some will ask “Does this take away from profitable, billable time?” Yes, of course. However, the value of giving far outweighs the cost of some billable hours here and there. It adds meaning to our work and out lives. This is something that makes our company unique. I am thankful to senior management for their commitment to the community, and their willingness to let everyone make a difference. I appreciate it, and I just wanted to let you know. Not only to I love the work I get to do, I am proud of where I get do it.
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