And now what? Social networks among hype, business failure and “secret weapons”. With no knowledge and culture of relationships, direct and interactive marketing, there is no 2.0 marketing.

That is the title of the lecture I will be presenting at the next OMExpo Madrid, on February 24th. I would like to share the summary with you and get your feedback.

“When even shoeshine boys are giving you stock tips, it’s time to sell”
Joseph P. Kennedy

Current times remind me of Kennedy’s famous quote, quoted above; a man who sold his stocks some days before the 1929 crash. When the President of a large Spanish company asks me to teach him how to “twitter”, it is time to stop and evaluate. I recognize a bubble when I see it. I remember the hype of the CRM (“I have just bought a CRM”), and of the “virtual communities” and the “brand co-creation” (“We have opened a community. We no longer need to take care of the content”).

In CRM, Virtual Communities and now Social Networks, most of the companies are moving from total ignorance to a relentless search to ride the trendy train, in just a year. And then fail miserable. Only a few companies have been able to turn these basic concepts in their “secret weapons” to obtain a lasting competitive advantage. They are the exceptions in the current markets that are infatuated with the latest technologies and trends, and ignorant of the most basic strategies to take advantage of them.

Only companies and professionals with knowledge and culture of relationship, direct and interactive marketing are saved from this debacle. Those who understand the delicate balance between listening to the customer in an structured way, adapting to his or her needs on a one-on-one basis, and maintaining the capacity to positively surprise the customer when it is least expected.

In my presentation, we will kill some sacred cows and will play the midwife in the birth of some calves with great potential to become pure breed bulls.

Yesterday afternoon we went for a walk near the Barcelona office and asked people what they thought íncipy was. These were some of the answers. We hope that you enjoy watching this as much as we enjoyed preparing it. Merry Christmas and Happy 2010! The same to those who know what íncipy is and to those who don’t :)

Undoubtedly one of the key factors in differentiating your business is innovation. Nobody doubts that. In fact, the healthiest companies are those that see clearly that innovation is part of their natural activity.

But there is something more important than innovation, which is adopting an open attitude towards new ideas, clients, suppliers, media, society. Companies adopting such an attitude in the market are clearly preferred by clients.

While this principle may seem extremely basic, it is not as common among Spanish companies. This is one of the reasons that drove us to create íncipy. We would like to convince companies and institutions that innovation is worth it and that it must to be carried out in an open manner.

What you see in the picture is one of our “meeting rooms” in Barcelona. It is located in Plaça Narcís Oller and is one of our sites for open discussion. It helps us follow people closely and suggest open ideas to our clients but also listen to them. That is why we would like to suggest something:

This is our first official post and we would like to ask your opinion about our website. Take a look and send us your comments. It will help us to improve and allow us to get to know you a little better. At the end of the day, that is what this is all about, isn’t it? ;)

Communities have existed as long as mankind has and virtual communities have existed as long as the Internet. We all know that as human beings we have in our DNA an instinct to search and form groups with other human beings. The sense of belonging and social acceptance is a basic human need and has not changed in thousands of years.

So, why do communities and social webs lately seem such a modern invention? Why is the concept of web 2.0 so trendy and everyone is talking about it? Are social network and community the same thing? What are the differences?

Some of the most important differences are that social networks are open by nature given that their basic objective is to add “nodes” (people) to the network and thereby increase the number of opportunities for interconnection. Their conceptual approach is very clear: «a virtual place to broaden our contact network».

Therefore, although some social networks can accommodate groups or “communities” as capsules, they are open and generic by nature, they tend to expand and do not have tools for group identification. A social network is very useful to connect people in an structured way but not to get the empathy among members and to influence their preferences.

The communities are something substantially different. Although it is true that they have in common the social interaction and the networking, they are useful for something more than simply connecting people. They can win their affection and preference and they are a powerful marketing tool.

The success of virtual communities depends on whether they have the ability to develop a strong “sense of community”. This is a well-know concept in social psychology (not so much in marketing) that prioritizes the experience of the community over its structure or formal characteristics.

For a community to work and add value to the organization, it must make a sense to its members. It must help connect people with the same expectations and ways to understand their identity.

That way, the interaction of the members generates a sense of belonging and mutual loyalty. That way, a “community with sense” becomes a very important strategically asset to link a brand to its consumers and to have a positive influence on them in order to be chosen by them.

If you have read up to here, I hope that from here on, whenever you hear or read something about social networks, virtual communities, you will get the gist of it. Otherwise, I am here for you.

Tomorrow Wednesday, July 15 in Madrid, and on Thursday, July 16 in Barcelona, I will be hosting a workshop on Twitter applied to business. The idea came up at a FECEMD meeting some weeks ago and with a couple of emails, it was all set up and organized. More than 160 people have signed up in Madrid and just as many in Barcelona. That is good!

This time, I have been lucky to be able to choose my good friend Marc Cortés as co-instructor in the workshop. He will explain the more functional side of Twitter, and I will speak about the need to define the digital strategy in social networks for the company. We will also talk about the opportunities to make good use of Twitter and the risks generated otherwise.

We will also study a couple of cases of Spanish companies that are using Twitter from a strategical point of view. In Madrid, we will be with Pedro Jareño from mininube and in Barcelona with Nico Bour de eDreams, As you can see, it will be interesting. I hope you will have the chance to send a comment on the subject. I am sure I will find more than one friend among you.

By the way, if you want to download the presentation, this is the link.

Edited on Saturday, July 18 to add some links:

A picture of a workshop in Barcelona. The room was full, some people were standing.

• Presentation by Marc Cortés.
• Presentation by Pedro Jareño (pending).
• Presentation by Nico Bour.
• Report by Javier Piedrahita from Marketingdirecto.com, with video and pictures…
• Report by Mar Abad from Brandlife.es
• Pictures of the workshop in Barcelona on the Fecemd Flickr.

Shortly after Mario Benedetti passed away, a good friend of mine emailed me one of his writings which expresses masterfully thoughts that, upon reading them, one recognizes as his or her very own thoughts and would have liked to express them. This text talks about the kind of people we at íncipy like. We have placed it at the entrance to the Barcelona office, just changing the tense and talking about ourselves, instead of doing so in the first person. Thus, every visitor that is seated on the couch by the entrance can take the time to know what makes us smile.

People whom I like

First of all,

I like people with good vibes, who don’t need to be pushed, nor to be told to do things, but know what must be done and do it in less time than expected.

I like people who can measure the consequences of their actions, people who do not make random decisions.

I like people who are strict with their people and with themselves but do not forget that we are humans and can make mistakes.

I like people who think that team work, with friends, produces more than chaotic individual efforts.

I like people who understand the importance of joy.

I like people who are sincere and honest, able to oppose themselves with calm and reasonable arguments to decisions made by a boss.

I like people who have an opinion, who are not ashamed to admit they don’t know something and recognize their mistakes.

I like people who accept their mistakes, making a genuine effort not to make them again.

I like people who can criticize me constructively face to face. I call those people my friends.

I like people who are loyal and persistent, who continue striving to reach their goals and ideas despite the difficulties.

I like people who work for results.

With such people, I can take on anything, as just by having had such people around, I consider myself well-paid.

MARIO BENEDETTI
Uruguayan poet and writer

Last June I published this in my personal blog and I would like to put it here so that it becomes part of the story starting now with this íncipy blog debuting tomorrow, so I leave you now with what I have written so that you can have it on record.

It’s been over two months that I have wanted to write this and today the day has finally come. The division of Professional Consulting has become an independent company. It is called íncipy, and it is the most exciting professional project I have undertaken so far.

Why this change?

In fact, more than a change, it is an evolution because, since we started in September 2005, we have seen steady growth. Not only in the business but in the interest of customers who are today convinced that social networks and new technologies correctly aligned with the strategic management can be a competitive factor for their businesses or organisations.

As we have grown, we have also noticed that this consulting business is very different from the database exploitation businesses, which is the natural business of Profesionalia (secretariaplus.com and directivosplus.com). This, together with the current context that requires that every company concentrates on whatever area they know best, made us one day make the decision to take the journey on our own, while still keeping the relationship. That way, Profesionalia and the USG People group it belongs to, are now íncipy customers.

From then and until now, everything has been preparing us to consolidate what I am announcing today while not forgetting even for a second our valued customers. They are the reason behind our project and we owe them this new phase. Thanks for your trust and support!

But what is íncipy?

The first Spanish company devoted to the outsourcing of digital innovation. We teach and help our clients to use the best technology to obtain the best results. We are experts in recruiting and capturing customers and employees, in creating new products/services, in new marketing channels and in shaping new marketing strategies, focused on interactive systems, social networks, Web 2.0, and whatever the future may hold…

We do not consider ourselves consultants but a driving force as we believe that the work is not finished until our clients have successfully implemented all the changes we help them to bring about. Thus, we get involved in every project as if it were our own. We involve ourselves in the natural dynamics of our clients work and help them, not just to obtain the results they expect, but to grow and develop as professionals during the process.

In other words: it is as if our customers are able to hire internally, for a period of time, the best professionals to coach them, teach them and help the rest of the organization to obtain the highest performance possible or to resolve a pending matter, without having to add anyone to the staff.

Among íncipy´s partners are some of the people that I admire most in the digital marketing industry, people from whom I have learned in my career and whom I am now lucky to have so close. Soon there will be more information on the website we are preparing. If you want to receive notification when the site is ready, you can add your contact information here.

Why this name?

When we started to think about what to call it, we knew it should not sound like technology or pure consultancy as our competitive strength is to help achieve things. No matter whether the strategy is ours or if it already exists.

We also knew that in whatever we do there is a constant: innovation applied to the digital world. That means ensuring that new technologies are serving the company and obtaining real benefits reflected in the results.

That is the most frequent problem we find with our customers, not that they do not know the proper strategy but they have difficulties carrying it out, either because it is not very realistic or because those in charge of carrying it out do not know how to do it or are not able to do so.

íncipy comes from the Latin incipit, a word that means ‘beginning’ and refers to the first words of the text of a manuscript or ancient printed document. The Wikipedia definition makes perfect sense out of it all.

What changes from now on?

Apart from new partners, brand and office, we are changing the way we offer our services. We are working much more as assistants or trainers for our customers. The Business Training line will be one of the most active ones. But I don’t want to announce much more as the website will explain it in greater detail.

What does not change?

Most importantly, the human resource team and the customers. The members of the internal team of the consulting unit of Profesionalia are the same who are working now for íncipy. The customers that have trusted us up to this point, continue to do so now in the same way. The technology partners, the team members and the vocation of services remain the same. Not only have they not changed but they have been reinforced.

You will be able to see more very soon. I hope to receive your comments :)