What the Upstream, Midstream and Downstream

I was recently invited to join a networking group within the Oil and Gas industry. As I started to delve into the particulars of the group, a few items popped out. Several terms that were continuously used were Upstream, Midstream and Downstream. As a student for life, I ventured to find the definitions to gain an understanding.

Now it's your turn, click on the word:
Upstream
Midstream
Downstream

Never go a day without learning something new. You will be surprised when you may need this new found information and it broadens your depth of knowledge.



Michael Newhouse WCN group

Digital Marketing Talent Crisis

There is a Digital Talent Crisis happening according to a recent article by Shane Steele of Yahoo.  Shane discusses if the media and advertising industry is going to fully recover and grow in the future we must invest in talent. That begs the question, where is the talent coming from, particularly with the skills and experience needed to keep up with the radical pace of change in the digital age?

There is new digital education program called Boulder Digital Works (http://bdw.colorado.edu), a school with the ambition to produce the world’s best digital creative, business, and technology talent. BDW was formed by the University of Colorado in partnership with MDC Partners, Microsoft, and a number of other companies to address what its founders saw as a pressing need for digital talent and leadership in their own businesses. Their goal – build a digital boot camp to groom educated workers and leaders who move comfortably and intelligently across the disciplines of technology, creative, and business.

Upon reviewing job posting for digital marketing positions the confusion also lies with hiring agencies, managers and companies.  Digital marketing evolves daily with new technologies and transformations including how customers/prospects utilize and adopt the technologies.  Example would be that of eCommerce how years ago people were skeptical and did not trust this process.  Well, times have changed and the numbers of online sales continues to rise. 

Do current digital marketing professionals know how to build trust, create navigation that leads customers to conversion, or how to even drive customers to their sites and so on...

According to BDW they refer to this type of talent profile as “T-Shaped Talent,” or an “Integrated Digital Thinker.” It means that no matter what your specialty (base of the T), be it copywriting, media planning or flash design, in order to be most effective in the workplace today, employees must complement their subject matter expertise with a broad and holistic understanding of how digital technology impacts their business (top of the T). In other words, today’s talent must be fluent in at least one language but also literate in many.

We are Human!

Yes, you read the title correctly, "We are Human"!. At first you may wonder did he fall of the deep end finally or did he have a moment of clarity. Probably a combination of the two but the bottom line is this, in the B-B marketing world we tend to forget that we are marketing to people, just like you and I. Please excuse me for categories you with my, my sincerely apologize.

During my daily discover of scanning newsletters, articles, blog post ect., I came across this wonderful piece by one of my favorite companies called www.Oneupweb.com (more info here). In there blog piece that talked about this basic marketing principle which made me jump for joy that I am human. The business to business marketing article talked about who are the decision makers behind the businesses and it came back to humans (for the time being).

The article also discussed how businesses of all types must go where your customers are and interact with them. Cold calling percentage of winning business is as good as direct mail, usually a 1-2% closing rate. Not a very good closing rate for an activity that takes hours upon hours (research, pitch development, calling, not answering, leaving messages, writing notes, ect...).

I personally do not like unsolicited calls but will sometimes have fun with the person especially if they did not do their homework on me or business. Had one the other day in which I asked a few questions that they could not answer then I politely said not interested. From the caller I heard a huff of disgust and then a dial tone. Do you think that I will be doing business with that company? Quite the opposite which leads to authentic and transparent, both keywords from last year that will still be resonating this year because of the continued growth of online social networks and the ability for all humans to have a voice online.

So, please, be human, think human and market human because that is who we are behind those phones, computers, social networks and doors.