You know that feeling you get when you're staring at a blank sheet of paper? That sense of opportunity mingled with apprehension? You stare at it knowing that the application of your skill could potentially transform that white sheet into a literary masterpiece or budgie-cage lining.
Now imagine that as a business, creating something from scratch.
This is day five of "Operation: Tech Start-up" and I'm filling in a blank sheet of paper with what I hope will be a workable social media and marketing strategy for a new cloud enterprise capable of amazing things in 2011. It was that very opportunity - to be the one to create the way the business communicates from the ground up exactly as I think it should be - that made me take the job in the first place. A blank slate. Make it good!
And what a slate!
Anyone who has followed me for a long time or subscribes to my other marketing blog - Atomik Soapbox - knows I believe that social media (how I have come to hate that phrase) should be woven into the very DNA of an organisation. It should be as fundamental to business operations as the phone on the desk or the email on the screen. It should not simply be bolted onto the side of an existing, traditional business model by allocating a couple of guys in marketing to tweet out specials while everyone else staunchly refuses to acknowledge anything that doesn't come to them through one or two 'approved' channels.
So when I was invited to join a new cloud start-up from the very beginning specifically to build that community-base, real time marketing culture into the business from the ground up, I couldn't say no.
Just this morning I was able to brief the entire organisation (currently about 8 people) on my vision for how we will relate to the online and offline communities. To see the entire team not only agree but actively become enthusiastic to do their bit convinced me that this could be extremely powerful. I'm lucky. So many marketers have an immensely difficult job convincing stakeholders to adjust and move away from bedded in procedures and embrace a whole new way of relating to their customer base. To join a company that already had online and offline community built into its core business launch design has stripped away the barriers and allowed me great freedom to implement and - hopefully - start to innovate.
Too often, the public face of a company is provided by marketing - and sometimes the CEO. And half the time, that face is fake; a model, a stock photo, a celebrity. Our whole team will be on Twitter - the real people behind the business. Most will also contribute to the blog and participate in whatever activities we carry out as part of the broader IT / tech / digital communities.
I still have a scary amount to do between now and the Christmas break in readiness for a huge January but I'll keep you posted on my steps along the way. At least I have a great view from my desk!
