Five steps to writing a speech that motivates

From Ragan.com:

In 2001 pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly lost its patent on Prozac. At that time Prozac accounted for a quarter of all Lilly’s domestic sales. To say they faced serious economic issues would be an understatement.

But amid the cutbacks and elimination of bonuses, Chairman Sidney Taurel delivered a speech meant to motivate employees through difficult times.

“He stood up and held up a single dollar bill and he said, ‘As the management, and most of all me, should be the ones bearing most of the burden during this time, I will be working next year for this symbolic dollar,’” said Rob Friedman, director of executive communications at Eli Lilly. “It’s something people still remember to this day.”

-Rob Friedman

Friedman's five steps to crafting an effective motivational speech:

Step 1: Empathize with employees.

Step 2: Identify the challenges.

Step 3: Determine what ‘levers’ you can pull.

Step 4: Use anecdotes and examples of ‘heroes.’

Step 4-a: Show examples of failure.

Step 5: Walk the walk.

Read the entire article and hear Friedman here.

FIVE KEYS TO INNOVATION

"What the innovators have in common is that they can put together ideas and information in unique combinations that nobody else has quite put together before."

Professors from Harvard Business School, Insead and Brigham Young University have just completed a six-year study of more than 3,000 executives and 500 innovative entrepreneurs and

have identified five skills that drive innovation:

Associating: The ability to connect seemingly unrelated questions, problems or ideas from different fields.

Questioning: Innovators constantly ask questions that challenge the common wisdom. They ask "why?", "why not?" and "what if?"

Observing: Discovery-driven executives scrutinize common phenomena, particularly the behavior of potential customers.

Experimenting: Innovative entrepreneurs actively try out new ideas by creating prototypes and launching pilots.

Networking: innovators go out of their way to meet people with different ideas and perspectives.

Source: CNN Report

Help for Academic Librarians in the latest issue of Marketing Library Services

If you're an academic librarian who's wondering how to get more students to use your references services, help is here. In the new issue (Nov/Dec) issue of Marketing Library Services newsletter, the free online article is called "Working With Campus Marketing Classes to Improve Reference Service Visibility."

It's a case study from Illinois Wesleyan University that explains how two librarians worked with a marketing professor. Together, they employeed kids in marketing classes to do surveys to get the student body's opinions of reference services and to ask how often they used them (or what they used instead). You'll want to read the interesting insights that the surveys revealed!

IL09: Surface Computer

Internet Librarian 09. 

There were some incredible programs at IL this year. One presentation that was creating quite a buzz was by Kurt Will, University of Nevada, who presented about the Microsoft Surface units being used at the University of Nevada, Reno's Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center. Read Jenny Levine's notes from the presentation on her blog, The Shifted Librarian, here. 

Here is a great demo of possiblities that MS put together. Sounds fun doesn't it?

New WOM Book from Peggy and Linda

Kathy and I are so excited to see another marketing book for libraries coming out. This time it's from our friends, Peggy Barber and Linda Wallace. The book is called Building a Buzz: Libraries & Word-of-Mouth Marketing.

This duo is well-known in the library community and this book is sure to be a winner! If you've been to ALA's Swap & Shop in recent years and seen the white-coated "PR Docs" evaluating promo pieces, that's Linda & Peggy. So you know that they know their stuff.

Building a Buzz offers numerous effective word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) strategies. And there's a wide range of sound marketing principles to help you spread the word about libraries within the community, including tips for delivering an effective message for your library, best practices and insightful reviews. Don't miss it!

Is Mobile Marketing right for Libraries and Non-profits?

I presented a talk on mobile marketing at Internet Librarian and thought you might want to hear about it as well. I've been talking about MM for quite awhile and think there is some potential for  libraries to take advantage of it. The most popular tools of MM are Voice, Text - SMS, Mobile Web, Mobile Search: Mobile SEO, Mobile Advertising: Web banners on mobile sites, Mobile Publicity:  Target press, Social Networking, Proximity Marketing: Blue Tooth  and Apps. 

I know everyone is really psyched about the iPhone and Blackberry apps. I am too but we've been experimenting with SMS texting because of the cost (we are doing campaigns for as little as $50 a month ) and because it can reach the greatest amount of users. We have 10 libraries that are experimenting with it to develop a communication marketing network with teens, parents, Spanish speaking customers, advocates, and niche groups. So far what we've discovered the toughest part is getting people to sign up. Once we get the sign ups, the rest is fairly easy as long as we have something of value to communicate. 

Of course the reason why I'm so hooked on the idea is that it is two way street. We can communicate to our customers but they can also communicate back. In terms of evaluating services and developing new ideas, it doesn't get better than that. The other huge advantage for libraries and non-profits is that the system is just one big database that allows you to segment your audience from the tiniest niche to the largest groups. And it's easy to use since you work on an online site and send messages from your computer rather than your cell phone. 

The way it works for customers is they text a keyword to a phone number (short code). 

Here in NJ I'm starting a new advocacy campaign that will allow people to text in to get information. Try typing “Champion” to 51684 and you'll be signed up for our champion campaign. We are also using a keyword to allow people to contribute to the book we are compiling this month. (“H2H” to 51684, hit “space” and type your advice.)  The folks for Kingsford just ran a mobile campaign at the Keith Urban World Tour and 530,000 people participated.  Here in NJ I'm starting a new advocacy campaign that will allow people to text in to get information about free cool stuff. If you're interested in this concept and want to talk to me feel free to call me 609-278-2640 x 122.-Nancy

Help NJSL write a book

This is National November Write Your Own Book Month and the New Jersey State Library is taking the challenge to write a book with 50,000 words in one month. They need your help to both write and to spread the word to EVERYONE you know – friends, family, customers, co-workers, hairdressers, teachers, students. Everyone has the potential to write something that might positively impact the life of a stranger with this book!

Here is the plan:
The NJ State Library will compile a book with the collective wisdom of people sharing advice with another human being. Words of wisdom for a child, friend, politician, parent, teenager, adult, parent … The catch is, you have to text your advice and it can only be 140 characters or less. The text messages will be collected until there are 50,000 words of wisdom. The name of the book will be, H2H (Human to Human) wisdom in 140 characters- unless someone texts us a better title! NJSL will even publish it online so you can share it with your friends and families.

How to submit your H2H words of wisdom:

1. Text “H2H” to 51684, hit “space” and type your advice. Standard message charges apply. You’ll receive a message to let you know your submission has been accepted. NJSL will keep you updated about the book but we won’t send more than 1 message per week and you can stop the messages anytime you want by replying “Stop”.

2. Tweet to: @h2hbook

3. Write online: Follow this link

We will include your initials or first name to your quote if you include it. All entries must be submitted no later than November 30.

Guidelines:

No profanity

No personal references

While we would love to use all quotes that are submitted, we will be editing the final product and reserve the right to reject submissions.

Questions? Nancy Dowd: ndowd@njstatelib.org

Nancy Dowd
Director of Marketing and Public Relations
New Jersey State Library
609-278-2640 ext 122
www.njstatelib.org

Twitter Lists

Twitter has found a great popularity with some librarians. If you are one of them, you will want to know about Twitter's newest feature, lists. John Jantesch, Duct Tape Marketing, has found himself hooked on the new feature and list the following five reasons: 

5 Reasons to Use New the Twitter List Feature

1) Monitor without following 

2) One button list follow 

3) Promote your lists

4) Filtered by an expert 

5) Build a bigger following 

Full article can be found on his blog, Duct Tape Marketing.

Expanding News Coverage: Op-Eds, Editorials and Letters to the Editor

While it may be difficult to get stories in ever-shrinking traditional media there are a few areas libraries may find some success in landing coverage such as Op-eds, editorials and letters to the editor.

ALA has posted a fantastic video from the annual conference featuring Tom McNamee, Chicago Sun Times, on how to get your op-ed letters published. The term “op-ed” means opposite the editorial. In newspapers, an op-ed piece is usually placed on the page opposite an editorial. We've been including op-eds as part of our marketing strategy for the State Library here in NJ and I urge all of you to add it to your repertoire.  

Here are the key points Tom points out in the video:

• Keep them to  400- 500 words ( I suggest you call your editor and ask them or do a word count in the paper you are sending it to.)
  
• Have something worth saying
  
• Tell a story
  
• No matter how important your story is, remember that people will only read it if it entertains them
  

We've also learned that you need to plan your op-eds because chances are your paper isn't going to publish your op-ed every month (they call those columns). My departments plans on two op-eds a year and try to connect them to both a major campaign we're running and larger issues facing communities. Our larger papers want responses or solutions to problems and won't even go near anything that sounds like an infomercial, even for National Library Week. 

Make sure the topic is relevant to the paper's readers. A great place to start is by reading the the headlines, knowing what discussions are taking place at council meetings or just listening to what your customers are talking about when they come to the library. 

Keep your op-ed customer centric. 

Tom talks about incorporating stories in your op-ed. I couldn't agree with him more. Make sure your are writing about your customers and how your library is solving problems for them. I write on how to create a short strategic story in my book, Bite-Sized Marketing, and will be giving a workshop at ALA annual, but the basic formula is really  simple. Be sure to stay away from stories that simply praise your library like, "I couldn't live without my library!" Instead find stories about your customers where the library has solved a problem like "I lost my job and the new career center helped me fill out applications online." 

1. Introduce your character 

2. Tell the problem he or she is facing

3. Show how the library resolved the problem

Editorial Boards

You could also have your local newspaper write an editorial about your library. We've found that some smaller local papers will sometimes take a well written piece and run it as their editorial. But for the larger papers you'll need to call for an appointment to meet with the editorial board. These boards usually consist of the editorial page editor, editor writers and maybe subject specialists. You might consider this approach for larger topics such as funding issues, closures, essential services, etc. Know your position and outline a presentation in an easy to follow format (bullet points are great). Include background information and links to facts. Invite relevant people to attend the meeting with you. We brought several people who could give first hand testimony of the impact the loss of funding would have on various institutions and businesses when we met an editorial board regarding editorial support for the restoration of funding for a initiative. Also make sure you have an understanding of all sides of the issue and be prepared to discuss why your perspective deserves support. 

Letters to the Editor

Don't overlook another great tool, the Letter to the Editor. This format is perfect for your supporters to spread a positive message about how your library is an added value to the community. These are great tools for the Friends, foundations, teens and parents groups. Ask people to keep the letters short and specific. Make sure they include how the library solved a problem for them and how that action could help everyone in the community. 

Your library can write a letter to the editor to praise the work of volunteers that made an event successful,to thank staff for extraordinary effort, to thank elected officials for their support, community members for their help and support, etc. The possibilities are endless. Keep the letters short, to the point and make sure to connect it to the fact that the library is valuable to your community.

Another great place to post your appreciation is on blogs. You can either post them directly to your blog or add them as comment to community or news blogs. The same goes in the 140 character realm of Twitter. And of course, never overlook the opportunity to post your 

op-eds or letter directly to news websites.

  

Interesting solution to market your library's ROI from Cornell

Take a look at how Cornell Medical Library solved question of how to promote their library's ROI. Great video created by Loretta Merlo for their display and Facebook page. Proving your library provides a strong return on investment is key for libraries looking to gain support from stake holders whether they are elected officials, staff or the public.