Are you more prestigious than your school ?

Or why you should pay attention at school, but not only. —Everyone has been talking about schools, lately. I guess this is because May and June are the ultimate period for school applications. For better or worse !

So, are you more prestigious than your school ?

This question popped in my mind as I was watching the news on TV, about “why rank universities”.

At first, I didn’t really pay attention. It started with how great and beautiful Yale and Harvard are, yada yada. But then, the reporter started something that clearly didn’t make sense : she compared French and American universites, in order to show that “La Sorbonne is the Yale of France”. 

I’ll just let Maggie Simpson say it :

Booya !

Yet, all this got me thinking : “What have I actually been learning for over 15 years ?” 

A good friend of mine recently told me :

It’s boring when people who failed try so hard to convince you that they ended up doing something else, but it’s even greater than their initial plan. It’s just lame. Get over yourself, people !

I was ashamed to tell him he got it all wrong. Failure is probably the most crucial and the hardest lesson to learn.

This conversation eventually had me wonder and I felt the need to write down the lessons I’ve learnt from 15 years spent studying — things I wish someone had told me before.

1. It’s okay to not know what you want to do, at first. Try things out, discover what works for you. 

2. No school is toxic. As long as you remain coherent and your background provides value to what you want to become, just do as you wish.

3. If you ever come to realize the field you’re in is not for you, switch.

It’s not bad to admit you took a wrong turn. On the contrary, better now than later. Find something that suits you. Internships will help you understand the kind of job/environment that is good for you. 

4. Learn by yourself.

Innovative fields, by definition, evolve fast. This implies that you have to keep up with the industry you like, and more importantly, that specific trainings don’t cover everything. If the sector you like is brand new, teach yourself and find your own way to things. You’ll be just fine.

5. Turn everything you see, hear, touch, and say into something you can use later. 

6. If you read, talk, think, and write a lot, publish everything that comes to your mind. It’s the easiest thing, nowadays. 

7. If you don’t read, talk, think, and write a lot, get to it.

8. Think outside the box. Stand out. You might think you’re unique, but you’re not. There are plenty of students out there who are just like you. 

9. Create a powerful network.

It will make your personal and professional life much easier. Take care of people. I remember Chris Brogan tweeted a few weeks ago :

Tell stories about others. The story of you is about others.

This happens to be very true. Always keep that in mind, especially if you’re a marketer. People bring opportunities, they’re yours to seize. Also, expand your network to different sectors. Diversity is good, broaden your view.

10. Focus on results, not activity. 

11. Be measurable and keep it concrete. 

12. At some point, be prepared to do something else. Something you’ve never planned before, that falls upon you, and actually works out. Unexpected events can turn out as great opportunities. 

13. Start something early. Don’t waste time, you’ll regret it. Make things happen. 

14. Never give up. By that, I don’t mean “don’t drop out of college”. I mean never, ever, give up on anything. You’ll regret it later. 

15. Never miss a day at school. You never know when Beyoncé might show up.

 See also :

The coming disruption : teen knowledge work

Higher education’s toughest test

What’s high school for ?

ReMIX11 : Media + Technology + Innovation

ReMIX11

The annual ReMIX took place at Microsoft (MS) France, yesterday. —My very first MS conference, yay ! Organization wasn’t bad, except for the wifi down and absolutely no service for Orange mobile phones. Quite ironic, for that sort of event. I swear, the frustration when you can’t live-tweet… 

  • Digital, marketing, and digital marketing.

The opening speech greeted the audience with a few words of introduction. Since it was my first time at a MS event, I found it funny that MS mostly talked about… itself. Of course, they didn’t forget to include Skype at the last minute on their chart.

But light was shed upon something I didn’t know. MS’ approach towards community management is very interesting. For years, they’ve actually been calling it audience marketing, which sounds much more old school but adequate. Isn’t it cool ?

But then I breathed my first sigh after 15 minutes, when Bing was mentioned :

In France, Bing only has a 3% market share. But that’s a good thing, because it means we have everything to win.

Really ? I couldn’t help but think of an article, published 2 weeks prior, that insisted on Bing not making Microsoft any money.

  • “A new way to tell your stories.”

The next part got us right into concrete stuff. It dealt with how the digital aspect involved the evolution of marketing and completely set a new ball game.

Among the innovations in advertising, a demo of Microsoft Advertising’s Filmstrip was shown, taking Toyota as an example :

 

  • What are campaigns for ?

Gilles Quetel (Toyota France) showed up and explained how they managed to make the Toyota Hybrid campaign a success.

Apparently, you need 2 kinds of campaign with 2 distinct objectives :

  1. First comes the branding campaign that will increase notoriety of products.
  2. Second comes the ROI campaign that is supposed to get more qualified traffic.

As Digitas worked on the new Toyota campaign, they spoke next. It got more technical from there on, but if there’s only one thing to keep in mind, remember this :

HTML5 is good for SEO !

  • Emotion will get you anywhere you want.

The next discussion concerned the issues of brands on social media. Loïc Calvy (Tech Strategist, Isobar) pretty much nailed it :

If you want the best social media campaign, the key factor is emotion. The hardest thing for agencies today is to arouse the target’s emotion. The rest comes naturally.

A high number of fan must not be your ultimate goal. Buying fans is pointless if you can’t establish a close relationship with the user.

So, if you’ve been wondering forever what’s at stake when it comes to communicating on social networks, you finally have the answer : ROI on social media is all about emotion.

And it makes sense. I would even go further on that one and say that social media ROI is likeability. Not in terms of measurable numbers, but literally — i.e. the fact that consumers actually like you more than they used to once they become fans.

Mathieu Llorens (CEO at AT Internet) rephrased it, highlighting the fact that traffic optimisation comes through developing customer loyalty and not customer acquisition.

  • The notion of digital proximity.

Eric Cremer (VP Media Development at Dailymotion) and Bertrand Dupuis (Head of Services, Nokia) made a good point showing we’re not living in an information society anymore, but rather a conversation society. And yet, even though it’s the golden age of story telling, 80 % of the French don’t own a smartphone.

The lesson for brands here is that they should get to establish global proximity, on the Web as in real life, because people live in both — e.g. you often go to an online store before going to the same physical store, so you need coherence.

  • You game ?

Damon Crepin-Burr (partner at FullSIX) did an amazing job exposing his view of social gaming and the impact it can have in the future. He kindly released his presentation publicly, so here it is :

 

Damon’s point of view is that in order to build relationships at a massive level, brands should play with users, because data = management = game. The allusion to Yelp and Foursquare was very relevant.

To illustrate the facts, he gave an example :

US students, at age 21, have spent just as much time in class as in front of video games (approximately 10k hours). 

This brings up a new challenge : in the context of virtual reality, there are no physical limits anymore. Talk about a time for innovation.

The Web is a means, not an end.

webrip chart

YOU HAVE PROBABLY SEEN THIS CHART MANY TIMES ALREADY. —Wired’s article about the death of the web made it quite famous.

The thing is, I’ve come across this graph 3 times, last week. Twice at conferences, once in a blog post. And each time, I felt like analyses and comments were on the wrong track, so I just want to share my opinion on this.

  • There’s a story behind every figure. Numbers alone don’t mean anything.

Today’s traffic is essentially about video and P2P. Well… This is pretty normal. P2P affects all the cultural industry (mostly music, movies and video games), which is heavy. Therefore, there’s no need to fuss about how much traffic P2P and video get. Besides, videos have been playing an essential part in viral marketing over the last years, so there’s a reason for the rise. Also, don’t forget pornography, which might as well explain the numbers.

  • The problem with applications…

… is that not everyone uses them.

The web is dying because people now rather use apps.

This trend has only been proved in a few countries. I know the graph concerns the US, but I was amazed to see how people managed to extrapolate from it. A lot of Facebook users still use their good old browser (whether for PC or mobile) and don’t use any of the existing applications. In addition, the Web is not limited to the US. Remember : World Wide Web.

  • In the end, the Web hasn’t been dying : it’s been evolving.

To put it simply, the emergence of apps was responsible for social media.

As a matter of fact, a company website is not sufficient, nowadays. It’s become harder to build brand loyalty. Everything is now about users. Brands need to communicate through their own app, their Facebook page, their Twitter account, their blog, etc.

  • But that doesn’t mean websites don’t matter anymore.

Websites remain absolutely necessary. Keep in mind that everyone is not on Facebook. 600M users (as of January ‘11) is a lot of people, but it also means there are a few billion people left out.

  • So, how could we save the Web ?

If that’s what you’re asking, then you still don’t get it. The challenge today is not to save the Web. It is to take advantage of all the opportunities offered by social media.

The Web was just a means in the first place, not an end.

Lead, don’t manage your intranet !

Communicators are facing new challenges in the digital workplace. — I attended last week a meeting at IABC France. The speaker, Jane McConnell (NetStrategy JMC) presented the history of intranet, its evolution, and solutions as to how it can fit in the digital era.

Before we go any further : there are a few things you need to know about intranets.

  1.  Contrary to popular belief, HR doesn’t have much ownership role in intranet —if any. Actually, this role usually belongs to communications and IT departments.
  2. Social media changed the environment and made people feeling uncomfortable. People started creating blogs and wikis, because it was faster and easier to publish than intranets.

And as direct consequences, social media managers and community managers were born. Intranet managers got lost in the process.

Today’s confusion is a crucial problem, because employees can’t seem to find what they need, and questions emerge :

  • Where should I work with my team ?
  • Which platform is optimal ?

Intranet is about content management. It gives management tools, applications, etc so people can work together, collaborate and connect.

Today, the digital workplace is comprised of social, collaboration, and content management. In this workplace, people discover, discuss, work, create, and refer. This includes partners, customers, competitors, and opinion leaders.

Therefore, communication, IT and HR are losing control.

The main challenge is to socially enable the digital workplace. Community should be facilitated and encourage people : that’s what community managers are for. Their goal is to bring value to the business.

Jane McConnell has figured out a few strategies for governance today. You can read all the explanations on her blog.

But if you were to be responsible for your intranet, how would you manage it ?

See also :

Governance for collaboration : think operational, not organizational.

Is business steering your digital workplace ?

Source: netjmc.com

Weekly Tweet Summary —April, 25th 2011

I hope you all had a royal week ! :)

In case your attention was caught by the current events, here are the tweets you shouldn’t miss :