Frog in the well

Internet is a force to reckon.
Internet is an emerging media.
Online traffic numbers are staggering.
New age media. Pay per click. iTV. Portals.

This is the pattern I see in articles about internet as a medium. In the last 3 years the amount of interest and focus that marketers have gained about online media is making me go Uh oh! Not another fad! The truth is, I am somewhat prejudiced, bitter and jealous about Internet.
Prejudiced because I don't fancy anything too hyped.
Bitter because of its influence over young minds in every thing.
Jealous because of the kind of attention it gets.
O.k. For argument sake, you may ask me why I blog. To be heard, I say. You say, 'There you go!'. Well, I must confess that I started blogging just to understand a client of mine, one of the largest internet companies at one time. That's a story by itself. Anyway...

The frog in the well in this story is the person who suddenly wakes up to the fact that Internet is gaining momentum as a strong media and feels earth crumbling under the feet. For this person, all other media blurs into the background. The outline is only Online media and nothing else. So there goes 100% productivity in making a martyr of the Big I's. Interactive. Internet. IPods. Iphones. Ibook. IMac. So on. Note that other latest geek-dgets are added too. The trends extend to Pod casts, Blue tooth marketing and others.

Now, I have observed that this frog has a cousin. The traditional marketer. The one who never budges to try anything new. Only those tested and tried methods are the weapons of mass marketing. Example: Print medium, billboards, In person trade shows etc.

One thing I have never been able to understand is that, why the two cousins don't get along and put their heads together. Perhaps, the best explainations may be given by Behavioural scientists. The kind that deals with humans. There! I have come to the point. The inconsistencies in marketing approach results from human judgements and thoughts. No matter how advanced you are technologically, you are still thinking based on your pre-conditioning and the opinions you form based on your personal interest. So how can you possibly think that all other humans (the one you presume are your target group) will succumb to your latest techniques and be in awe with your isolated advancement/dementia?

All I am saying is...be the frog. But the kind that goes beyond leaps and bounds. Connect with your stakeholders, work hard to be democratic but assertive, make attempts to know your customer well and only then you may flood them with your superior ideas and techniques in making their experience as a customer better.

eMarketing Vs Employee Productivity

Warning: Please note that this article is based only on
a. Companies focused on eMarketing and b. Internet users at work place

Have you ever wondered why your focus is slowly shifting towards terms like impressions, traffic, CPC, CPM, optimization etc? And have you wondered what relation does this have on your employee productivity?

Here is a theory in eMarketing. You are the reason why people spend more time online than the other way around. With free access to internet more employees spend time on their desk for a. To appear to be working b. To surf the internet. Ok, you already knew this.

But imagine this. With 1000s of establishments providing Desktops with internet connections to their employees, it is likely that you are targeting your products and services to millions of office workers. Again, you already knew this.

While you are happy with so many netizens around the world, are you thrilled with the fact that other businesses are happy too? To target your employees!! Would you rather have your employees shop online than complete a project proposal? (Note: Employees can be both, active or passive shoppers).

The easiest way to curb this user behaviour is to cut off access to general websites and social networking sites at the office. However, this would also mean employees meddling with the system admins to obtain easy access. This is especially true in small to medium sized companies. Aren't they spending more time cracking ways to browse than browsing itself?

I would think that browsing the internet is not essentially bad. It is definetely an asset to have access to so much of information but not knowing when to stop is! So how do we drive a message home?

Like a few companies I know, the best way is to use the timer system. An employee can browse anytime of the day on any website but those sites unauthorized by the Network administrator will go off if the usage exceeds a certain time-limit...say 1 hour per day.
Also asking employees to maintain a log of all sites visited and profiling themselves with their areas of interests. This will help you track user profiles and behaviour using your own employees as consumers. Be it any product! Just make sure you assure your employees that it's ok to do this and it has no reflection on their performance reports. This may not be the most conventional idea nor would every company practice this. But if you are Computer/Consumer product company trying this will surely not hurt your pocket, unless you have a stringent Internet policy at your office! ;-)