Wow! After placing 26th on the Inner City 100 list a couple weeks ago, we’ve been racing to keep up with all the congratulations and kind words coming our way. You know what they say about coming into luck - you always realize you had friends you never knew existed.

We were even more excited to learn earlier this week that we got some love in the latest issue of BusinessWeek, in which e-Storm is highlighted in the Inner City 100 wrap-up. We chatted briefly with reporter Jeremy Quittner a few weeks ago, not expecting too much what with the award results still under wraps, but there we are online and in the latest print issue as well.

Head on over to the BusinessWeek article to read more. And look out for more news about e-Storm in the coming weeks.

Thanks to our employees, past & current clients, and partners for making this possible.

William

I was in Boston and New York this past week to meet with some great analysts from Forrester, IDC and Gartner (and not to mention, take advantage of the awesome weather - 81° F in New York on Friday!).

But I was also invited out here by the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City (ICIC), as e-Storm was shortlisted by the organization for their 2009 Inner City list, an annual competition highlighting the nation’s 100 fastest-growing companies located in urban communities. Upon entering the ceremony with ‘adjusted’ expectations, I was absolutely thrilled when we learned that we placed 26th out of the 100 finalists!

As one of the over 5,000 companies to have been nominated, and as one of fifteen companies in California selected to the final 100, e-Storm was able to make the list by demonstrating its ability to continually thrive in San Francisco, one of the nation’s, if not world’s, most competitive cities. The qualification was made based on several variables, including e-Storm’s year-over-year growth rate, current financials, workforce composition, and of course, location.

I’d like to thank everyone who made this possible, and we look forward to continuing this tradition on into 2010 and beyond.

Past honorees of the InnerCity 100? Extreme Pizza, Belkin Corporation, Niman Ranch, and BankServ….nice to be part of the group!

Al Ries’ recent May 4 article in Advertising Age titled “Metric Madness” is, to put it lightly, dangerous thinking.

I do not disagree with the idea of running a marketing program, let alone a company or brand, by numbers alone.  That is dangerous thinking also.

But to run it solely on intuition, or to even suggest that numbers and intuition are antagonistic (“right versus left-brained”), is to put it lightly again, narrow minded.

If one does not have the intuition to know what questions to ask, then how does one proceed to explore the data provided?  To oversimplify the practice of mathematics as mindless number crunching is to perpetrate the phobia of math (why else do you think US students rank consistently low in math and science?).

In fact, my understanding is that math is the intuitive approach and holistic application of tools to solve problems (let’s hope Ries paid attention to that part of his integral calculus lectures).  Intuition is built on a similar system - using tools to draw conclusions about the world around us.

To take the example of Apple that Ries uses in his article, yes – what Apple is doing is working, but (and here is where intuition is key) to continue maintaining its competitive edge, Apple has to understand the why and how.  And that’s where math (analytics) comes in.

Knowing which marketing vehicle is generating the highest ROI allows Apple to optimize its resources against the successful efforts, while shifting resources away from the unsuccessful ones.  Of course, defining ROI is up to Apple’s key stakeholders and leaders.  An exercise also based on, you guessed it… intuition.

Otherwise, Apple could very well be throwing good money at bad investments.  And isn’t that why we are in the current financial crisis to begin with?  Remember that thing called subprime loans?  Someone failed to check under the hood to see if the numbers made intuitive sense.

Just read an interesting article that is dear to my heart - integrated campaigns.

I am still shocked to see that there are such resistance and frankly ignorance on the part of some marketers in corporations and agencies about the benefit of multi-channel/integrated marketing.

In this article by Jon Lafayette 0f TV Week, he mentions:

• An IMMI study looked at the multitasking behavior of television viewers and found that TV watchers spent an average of 9.3% of their time online and simultaneously watching the tube.
• Among viewers watching broadcast TV, 11% also are surfing the Web
• The survey also found that women, who do the bulk of the shopping, do the most simultaneous viewing

Yet, Jon goes on to mention that a recent study by Association of National Advertisers and the American Association of Advertising Agencies “found that in addition to the lack of metrics, the biggest impediment to effectively adopting digital media was that key people at a company, including senior management, simply don’t have a deep understanding of digital media. They also are reluctant to move marketing dollars away from techniques that have worked in the past”

What is surprising and frankly hard to understand is that these marketers are ignoring consumer behavior - their customers’ behavior.

Consumer as we know are using many channels as Jon Lafayette of TV Week mentions above. In fact, a Carlson study showed that customers who use three or more channels of communication with a company feel 66% more committed to the company than consumers with just one touch point.

We are witnessing that the smart marketers and CMOs rely more and more on their digital agencies for integrated campaigns, since the traditional agencies don’t want and don’t have the skills to think digital and integrated “it” into other “proven” media.

What are the biggest impediment to integrating offline and online?

Please tell me what you are seeing within your organization (let it be corporation or an agency)

As mentioned in previous blog entries, Chris Heuer of Social Media Club and I had the pleasure to host Jeanette Gibson of Cisco, Isabelle Christensen of REC Solar, and Mike Walsh of a Fortune 50.

We presented the following presentation as the foundation for the panel at Web 2.0

Otherwise, here are some fun pictures from the panel.

Last, as we mentioned during the panel, we will be releasing all the findings from the podcasts, panel and survey a little later in the month at www.socialmediabuyersguide.com. If you can’t wait and want to dig in to analyzing, do check out the Wiki that Social Media Club created here.

What are the top issues you face in adopting social media within your organization? Please chime in and we can integrate your issues into the findings of the research.