Citizen Marketer 2.1

Aaron Strout

Experts in the Industry: Ken Burbary (69 of 45)

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Here are just a few words I would use to describemy friend, Ken Burbary, VP of digital at Big Communications… smart, thoughtful, sports enthusiast, late. Doh! [Sorry Ken, I couldn’t resist that last one]. Seriously though, Ken is one of those people that I’ve enjoyed following and chatting with on Twitter over the last couple of years. I was also fortunate enough to meet Ken when he came to Boston last fall when we held a tweetup in his honor.

Before I make Ken’s answers to the Experts in the Industry series questions any later, let’s see what he had to say:

In one sentence, please describe what you do and why you’re good at it.
I help companies navigate an incredibly complex online world to improve their online marketing, advertising and communication efforts. I focus on helping them develop the strategies and capabilities needed to do so. I’m a natural teacher, and get satisfaction from showing others “how to fish”, and then watching them move forward successfully.

How did you get into the world of online community, social media or social marketing?
I’ve been involved long before we referred to it by those names. Basically, I’m a Digital native. I have my dad to thank for being an early adopter, and bringing some of the earliest personal computers into our house. I was an avid user of bulletin board systems in the 1980s, Compuserve, Prodigy, and then eventually AOL. All of that time online, interacting with others, eventually led me to the online marketing and advertising industry in the early 1990s. I’m hooked on it, and can’t imagine doing anything else. Since then I’ve done corporate web marketing, some consulting and spent most of my time at agencies big and small.

If you had $10 million to invest in one company and one company only based on their use of “social,” which company would it be and why?
Easy answer. Zappos. Any company that is as focused on serving the customer as Zappos is will succeed in the marketplace, regardless of what they are selling. People remember how you made them feel. Zappos customers feel good about their interaction with the company, and that builds a strong relationship (aka loyal customer).

Which business leader, politician or public figure do you most respect?
Bill Gates. Refrain from rolling your eyes and hear me out first. He is an incredibly successful business leader (currently the wealthiest individual on the plant to be exact), and yet he also possesses a sense of social responsibility that we see in so few people in similar positions. What he and his wife are doing with the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation is a shining example of philanthropic work. He places a strong emphasis on the notion that everyone has equal value. He has given back a large part of his success (money and time) for the benefit of others. I respect his accomplishments and would like to see these qualities in more of our business, political or public leaders.

Would you join a toothpaste community? Why?
Yes, I absolutely would. If only to learn what actually happens in a toothpaste community so I could finally answer the question you’ve been asking for almost a year now. 😉

In all seriousness, I don’t have any personal interest in joining one but could probably learn more about online communities if I did join, even if it comes from one focused on toothpaste. I’m a optimist and try to see the positive in things.

Freeform – here’s where you can riff on anyone or anything – good or bad. Or just share a pearl of wisdom.
I debated coming up with something nifty to say here but instead want to thank the people that I have had the benefit of learning from, collaborating with, and allowed me to develop friendships that I cherish. This is hardly a comprehensive list (too many people to thank) but the people I frequently look to for guidance and/or inspiration when navigating the social space are Adam Cohen, Blagica Bottigliero, Damian Rintelmann, Amber Naslund, David Armano, Scott Monty, and YOU Mr. Strout. Thanks a million everyone!!

Background on my “Breakthrough” Hiring 2.0 Post

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http://www.utterli.com/fp/slimline.swf?1228230653
Back in March, I wrote a post titled “Hiring in a 2.0 World.” If you haven’t read it, it’s an interesting way to think about including social networking into your hiring (or “being hired”) process.

That’s not the reason I did this Utter-cast however. It was to give some background to my friend, Ken Burbary as to why this was a “breakthrough” post for me. As you’ll hear in the audio portion of this utter-cast, it was a big post for me for three reasons:

  1. I learned that being prescriptive was the way to go – it’s much easier for people to derive value from your thoughts if you keep things in a box and give them actionable steps on how to do what your recommending that they do.
  2. As a result of being prescriptive (and selectively reaching out to a few friends for feedback) I got dozens of thought provoking comments AND several other add on posts
  3. Combining numbers one and two (along with the savvy of Doug Haslam http://twitter.com/dough was doing some PR for us at the time), the topic garnered interest from US News and World Report and the Boston Sunday Globe.

So there you have it Ken. Hope that helps!

Mobile post sent by astrout using Utterli. reply-count Replies.  mp3

7 Things You May or May Not Know About Me

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Thanks to friend, Lyell Petersen aka @93octane, for tagging me in the most recent meme floating around the blogosphere and by “thanks” I really mean “thanks for nothing.” 😉 But seriously, this should be fun so I don’t mind participating. Without further adieu, here are the seven things you may or may not have known about me…

  1. I’ve been to all but nine states in the U.S. Rather than list the states I’ve visited, I’ll mention the ones I haven’t: Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Now that I’ve moved (or am in the process of moving) to Texas, I will likely eliminate Nebraska and Oklahoma from this list soon.
  2. I have a tattoo of a thunderbird on my right hip. I went to get it with my good friend, Joe Maher (I’ve known Joe since I was seven years old). When we got the tattoos, we had to go to New Hampshire because it was still illegal to get them in Massachusetts at the time. That was back in 1992.
  3. When I was four, I spent a month in Oslo, Norway with my mother and father. While I was there, I cut my mouth on a glass that I bit into, was bitten by a horse and fell into a freezing cold river with my dad where we were lucky not to drown. I also had one of the worst earaches of my life. In spite of that, it was one of the most exciting times of my life.
  4. Blue Velvet (not to be confused with International Velvet) Good Will Hunting, The Matrix, Trading Places, Stripes, Beverly Hill Cops and Shawshank Redemption are my favorite movies of all time. The Office is the funniest show I’ve ever seen (shame on me for not realizing that prior to this year).
  5. My friend Scott Lareau who I served on the board of BIMA with is the reason I have an 18 month old daughter. Short version of the story is that my wife and I had two children already and at least I thought we were done. Following a chance meeting of Scott on a trip out to Jackson Hole, WY, Scott was telling me that he and his wife had just had their third child and that it was a mere speed bump in comparison to the other two. Coincidentally, his children were the same age (7 and 5) and sex (girl/boy) as our first two. I came home after that ski trip and said, “honey, I’m ready to have a third child.” Twelve months later, our third child, Audrey, was born.
  6. My musical tastes range from Nora Jones, Adele, Pink, Miles Davis and Jamiroquai to Beck, Tool, Rage Against the Machine and Seether. Yup, I pretty much like everything other than country.
  7. I’ve been to Russia AND the Soviet Union. For those of you not well schooled in geography/world history, Russia was in fact part of the Soviet Union prior to its fall in 1991 (that’s the Soviet Union’s fall, not Russia’s). First go around, I went to a city called Leningrad and spent two and a half glorious summer months learning about Soviet culture and furthering my Russian language skills. Second go around, I ended up in a city called St. Petersburgh that looked strangely similar to Leningrad only there were a lot fewer hammer and sickle flags and not as many statues of Lenin.
So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Now the big question is who will the lucky recipients of my meme tag be? I know not to choose friend and former colleague, Jim Storer, ’cause I’ve tried that before and he doesn’t play nice in the sandbox on things like this (oops, did I just call you out Jimbo?). Same is true about Jennifer Leggio whom I also love dearly. 😉
NOTE: As of 3:30 PM ET, I’ve dealt Jennifer in.

NOTE 2: On 12/26/08, my friend Ken Burbary brought the love back to me. Since I’ve written my post already, I’m noting this here.
How about:
In the words of the honorable @93octane, here are the rules:
* Link to your original tagger(s) and list these rules in your post.
* Share seven facts about yourself in the post.
* Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
* Let them know they’ve been tagged

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