Over at the Feeding the Puppy blog, John has baked up an interesting concept to describe the social stuff vs. traditional advertising: Bonfires & Fireworks.
For whatever strange reason, John has branded me a Bonfire Builder and interviewed me for his blog. Here’s a snippet.
How do you persuade others of the need to build social bonfires alongside setting off advertising fireworks?
The answer to this question is a bit different if you’re talking about being an employee of a company working inside the enterprise towards change versus working as a consultant helping those folks see change through to completion.
Looking at the work that needs to be done inside the organization (since that’s where the buck stops), I’ve always talked about the strategy of “Success by 1000 paper cuts”. Start with the smallest element you can effectively do with minimal budget, little managerial approval, and minor legal team approval.
Nothing breeds acceptance like success. Even tiny successes excite people to see more. Succeed, expand your efforts a little, succeed again, rinse and repeat. Before you know it, you’ll be launching huge programs but with far more support than if you tried to launch a big program straight away.
Check out the post for the full interview.