200 Posts!!

200 is a completely irrelevant number, but I happened to notice it in the blog-log and it made me stop and think about what that meant. I started this blog between the 1st and 2nd semester as an experiment in trying to foster a new type of conversation between my classmates. My hope was that they might extend some of the classroom discussions online. That never really panned out, but I learned a number of other lessons in it's place:

1. A blog, like anything else, takes practices. A lot of practice. With 200 posts, I've created just under one per day, which isn't too bad. It forces me to find a style (maybe 3-4 paragraphs), but also allows me to try some new things (embed videos, etc.). I am by no means approaching a "moderately average" level for quality, but by making it habitual it does force me to consolidate my thoughts and find ways to communicate them.
2. I have found that a number of people/classmates do occasionally read the blog, but many of their comments are sent to me via email or verbally (face-to-face). I'm surprised by how many people tell me they don't want to communicate their ideas or feedback in public. I would think that MBA students seeking to become higher-level leaders would welcome the opportunity to practice their public writing or communication, but I vastly under-estimated that element of the blog.
3. As I've mentioned before, it's been amazing to me how many people from foreign countries have visited. I hope that maybe that means I'm starting to take a more international view of the world and those international posts are somewhat interesting. The international aspect of our MBA program has easily been the most interestng portion for me.

The other experiment with the blog was to gain a much greater set of "hands-on" experiences with social media and online communities. This is becoming such a huge part of marketing, branding, communicating, community building (internally & externally for companies and new ideas), that I felt like I needed to really understanding it from the ground up. Could I do a better job of building my personal brand? Could I effectively communicate new or complicated ideas? Could I foster discussion with new communities of people with common interests? Could I master some of the basic techniques needed to spread content and ideas around the Internet?

The answer to all those questions is still a work in progress, but I definitely know 1000% more now than I did just 12 months ago. I've been able to take the learnings from this blog and turn it into a Social Media strategy for my company that has drawn over 100,000 visits to our company blog, 50,000 visits to our company's YouTube channel, and over 25,000 downloads of collateral that helps to drive new product sales.

So thank you to anyone that has taken the time to read the blog and provide any feedback. I've found it to be a great experiment and a needed outlet for my itch to write. I'll continue with it through our graduation in December, and take the learnings with me to my various other professional outlets. Maybe I'll be able to get to 300 before the program is completed.

ObamaNation - Lessons from the Front Lines of Social Media

As promised, here is the presentation that Team 5 gave in our Strategic Marketing course on advances in marketing.

As I mentioned before, there was so much that could be covered. We felt like these 5 powerful concepts played a

major role in the success of the Obama campaign. We also believed that those items could be translated to most

businesses, which was the other key goal we had for the project.

After the presentation, as good set of questions and discussions ensued around how to apply this to other

businesses, where we think the next social media trends will emerge (start-ups emerging

from all the layoffs), would this work if it extended beyond 2yrs (most marketing campaigns don't go

that long), and how to create a spreadable message (keep it simple, inclusive and positive).

NOTE: Several people asked this was done to push a specific political agenda. The answer is no. Our team

is made up of Republicans, Democrats and Independents. We chose the Obama campaign because of its

visibility. Since few of our classmates plan to run for political office, our ultimate goal was to help the class

learn concepts that they could apply to their businesses.

ObamaNation - Lessons from the Front Lines of Social Media

View more presentations from bgracely.

Even great brands can't rest on their laurels

You might think that after 350 years (and 100 for HBS) that reputation and years of top rankings would lead an organization to relax and potentially ride the wave of past successes.  Not the case. BusinessWeek does a nice job of showing how Harvard's recruiting office aggressively goes after the best in an effort to retain the ideals that the school was founded on.  

A great lesson for not only my WFU classmates, but the entire WFU administration as we seek to create greater value for students of the newly combined WFU business schools, as well as draw closer to the ideals that WFU was founded upon.