When the speakers were announced in mid-August for the upcoming ConvergeSouth conference in North Carolina, the Schenkers were thrilled to accept the invitation to present at the conference. The conference, founded in 2004, is one of the pre-eminent technology conferences in the Southeast so what a privilege it is to be included. This is also the first time in ten years that the conference is returning to Winston-Salem, NC, the home base of Cover Story Media^®, Inc. so it was an easy yes! The 2014 conference will be held on Friday, October 17, 2014, at Wake Forest University’s School of Law. If you missed it, check out a recap of their presentation below via Slideshare.

Slideshare: Managing Virtual Teams in the Workplace of the Future

Overview of Virtual Teams Presentation

Alex and Michelle Schenker will be presenting at 3pm on the subject of “Managing Virtual Teams in the Workplace of the Future”, a subject that the pair have a ton of first-hand experience with given the entire team all works virtually and work from their remote offices in Montreal, Peru, Iowa and everywhere in between. Join them to learn more about how work is evolving thanks to new technology and people’s growing desire to enjoy more flexibility in their schedules and lives. You will also learn:

• What is a virtual team?
• Home office & virtual team stats including trend data
• Cost savings data
• Case studies of virtual team-based companies in various industries
• Pros and cons for employers and workers
• How to do it for yourself – Tips, tricks
• Management Tools overview and objectives of each
• And, how to work with your spouse!

Michelle and Alex invite you to join them to find out how you could spend more time with your family and doing what you love vs. sitting in your dingy old cubicle while your manager watches your every move over your shoulder.

WHEN: Friday, October 17, 2014 at 3pm

WHERE: Wake Fore University, School of Law

You will need to buy a ticket to get in to this and all the other great sessions of tech learning for the day. Visit the ConvergeSouth website to learn more about the conference and buy your ticket.

What are your remote work tips?

When we first made the decision to attend Social Brand Forum, I asked a few locals what is there to do in Iowa. Well, it will not surprise anyone to hear that the first and only answer I got was “Take a photo by/in a cornfield.” Thanks Macy Koch of Brand Driven Digital and Event Manager for the inspired response!

But, while the rolling corn fields did not disappoint, the caliber of speakers and sheer networking opportunities offered at this great social media and marketing event were unparalleled. Kudos to Nick Westergaard, Macy and the entire team at Brand Driven Digital for making this second-year conference a class act among a heavily populated conference world.

A Shared and Approachable Learning Environment

It is a single-track event which means everyone, even the speakers, all stay in the same room and hear the same thing for the entire conference. This creates a shared experience which makes it easy to discuss with anyone what you have learned and to brainstorm how you can get started using the ideas learned in your business. The Midwestern setting and smaller venue than most conferences of this type also add to its intimate nature and invite everyone to get to know one another and learn from each other. It was a welcome break from the big city events we have attended in the past where the spotlight shines bright on the ideas and the people vs. the bright city lights and the parties. But this is not to say there was less partying, just a little more down to earth.

Students and Professionals Network and Learn From Each Other

One other unique and enlightening aspect of this event is its large attendance by students and faculty of nearby colleges. They asked great questions, contributed to hallway and twitter conversations and made for an interesting mix of academic and professional mingling that you rarely see. It also kept all of us on our toes since there is no question that college kids today know a great deal more than the rest of us on how their generation is truly using social media.

But in case you are wondering what you missed, I have captured the major speaker themes followed by a personal story or two from my time in Iowa to demonstrate why the suggested marketing concept works so well.

Be Useful

“Is your marketing so useful, people would pay for it?” asks Jay Baer, opening keynote speaker and author of the New York Times best selling book, Youtility. This idea was echoed by Laura Fitton of HubSpot: “Social media in two words: Be useful.”

The most useful example (pun intended) was Hilton Hotels Suggest twitter strategy where they created a new twitter handle @HiltonSuggests and actively find ways to help people with the questions they are asking to add value in someone’s life – even if it is not travel related.

In this example you can see how Hilton helped someone locate a charity in Dubai. This is so not related to their core business objectives to sell more rooms but then again, when Dr. Ons is looking for a hotel next time, don’t you think Hilton will be the first brand to come to mind? If you can be truly helpful to someone, you will build a personal relationship that will likely turn into customer loyalty, word of mouth and business growth.

My Iowa Be Useful Story

Speaking of hotels, we were at the hotel bar and were craving hard cider. When in the Midwest during October, who wouldn’t?!? But the bar was lacking it on their menu. Luckily our resourceful bartender did not skip a beat as he jumped in to create his own version of a hard apple cider, if we were game. And game we were. Kudos to Adam, the bartender at the Marriott Conference Hotel in Coralville, IA, for mixing up some vodka, apple juice, club soda and lemon for a new crave-satisfying apple cider. Way to go the extra mile to be helpful to his customers and needless to say, he had our loyalty for the rest of our stay. Not to mention the fact that I can now make this recipe at home to share this story with my friends – on the web and in my kitchen!

Be The Best and Most Trustworthy Answer

In a related vein, many speakers including Lee Odden, DJ Waldow and Marcus Sheridan spoke to a closely related subject: Be the answer to the question your customer is asking. But not just any answer – ALL the answers. Today we look to 10+ sources of information before making purchase decisions. This is up from half that in 2010! So, if someone is going to 11 different places to research and make their decision than ~75% of the choice has already been made before they talk to your actual sales team. But if you can answer all their questions up front – even the scary ones about how your competitor might do something better than you – then you invite trust and perhaps a quicker decision. And a quicker decision means the sale is much less likely to fall through the cracks by a confused or annoyed customer who cannot find the answers to their questions. So define your target market, then understand their pain points, questions and buying process inside and out. At this point you will be ready to help them make a better decision which in turn will grow your business. And by sharing the good, the bad and the ugly, you will also be a more trusted resource for this and future purchases.

This concept is also perfectly aligned with our core mission at Cover Story Media: “To deliver information and create online communities that improve people’s ability to make better, more educated decisions.” But can we work harder to fulfill this mission? Yes, every single day we should strive to do it better.

My Iowa Be the Answer Story

When we were pulling into the hotel it was almost 5pm. So I was starting my nightly spiral into food obsession and right there, within walking distance of our room was a local brew pub. BackPocket Brewery, a local Iowa beer company, has smartly built a restaurant complete with a full brewery that you can tour right there. And did I mention that the hotel is a conference center too? So there are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of people in the building at any given time and only a stone’s throw from this cleverly placed bar. So for me, BackPocket Brewery was most definitely THE ANSWER upon arrival – promising a local experience via food and drink. Oh, and they have Nutella pizza with bacon – BEST. IDEA. EVER!

Be Funnier, Be Mobile & Be True to Your Moral Compass

These were among the other themes discussed during the conference that should also guide your marketing plans in 2014 and beyond. After all, these are pretty universal themes in life and in business.

Use Humor to Personalize Your Brand

Tim Washer, former SNL comedy writer and current humor video developer at Cisco, shared his tips on how to inject humor into your creative. The #1 takeaway was find the best storytellers in your organization and empower them with the tools to tell your brand’s story, even if it may seem a little off your core business plans to start. In Washer’s words, “Start telling more interesting stories.” It may just lead to great things and will most certainly make your brand more memorable with your customers. Oh yeah, and another great tip was to partner with a film school and/or improv theater group in your local area to get started. Do not be afraid of video or you will miss out – YouTube is the second most used search engine on the web today. So if you are not in video, you are missing some important customer opportunities.

Embrace Mobile

Tim Hayden explained that according to Nielsen, comScore, Pew and several other research organizations, ~60% of Americans age 12 and older now have smartphones and more than 70% of all phones are within arm’s length at all hours of the day (Edison Research). So the time is now to embrace mobile as a part of your strategy. Sure this seems kind of a no-brainer but when the crowd of 250 marketers in the room was asked to raise their hands if they had a mobile strategy in place currently, only 25% or so raised their hands. This is a HUGE disconnect.

As technology continues to grow for mobile devices at breakneck speed and we continue to expand the ways we are using our phones at this same rapid pace, it becomes more and more crucial to your business’ success that you find ways to make the experience customers have with your brand via smartphone better, smarter, more intuitive and easier. And, bonus tip, there are many ways to use other marketing in conjunction with the phone (not just hashtags people!) since it is always in hand or in pocket.

Follow Your Moral Compass

Marketing has always gotten a bad rap for being a little slimy around the edges but for most of us this is just unfair. However, a few slimeballs can make a whole industry look bad and now the bad guys are everywhere you turn online. But, Gini Dietrich shared that this offers a huge opportunity for us as marketers to be honest, transparent and ethical so that we stand out as the trusted resource in our area. If you create genuine conversations with your readers, customers, the media, etc. that are helpful, than you will be rewarded with more honest press opportunities and more loyal customers. After all, aren’t we all seeking more honesty in today’s fast-paced world? The easier you make it as a marketer for your customers to cut through the crap and get to the honest answers, the more they will want to buy from you vs. your less reputable competitor. As Dietrich said, “always go back to your moral compass” and for me, this was a refreshing and compelling reminder for each of us to stay true to who we are as brands and, most importantly, as people.

Share Your Experience

Did you attend this event? We’d love for you to leave a comment below about what you enjoyed most about the Social Brand Forum in Coralville, Iowa in 2013.

Lots of Firsts

Well, it was a lot of firsts when Alex and I had our first podcast interview on The Work Talk Show, in March 2013. It was the first time Alex and I had ever recorded an interview as Cover Story Media^®, Inc. It was the first time The Work Talk Show ever interviewed two people at once, much less a married couple. And, you are going to find this hard to believe after you listen to the podcast but, this was actually the first time Alex and I ever met Nick or DJ… But we were all fast friends.  As I said, lots of firsts.

What is The Work Talk Show, Anyway?

But this multitude of firsts turned into an amazing conversation about how we get worked done here at Cover Story Media. And that is exactly the point of this new podcast from DJ Waldow and Nick Westergaard. The Work Talk Show is a series of interviews with various guests from various backgrounds about how they do work in today’s modern society, what tools they use to be successful, what their teams look like, what their offices look like (Nick and Alex both use treadmill desks which never fails to amaze many of our friends, family and colleagues) and more.

How We Work Today

With technology becoming such a large part of how we do work each day, the actual idea of working in a physical office with cubicles, which was the norm just 10 short years ago, is no longer the reality. Sure there are still cubes, and sure people still commute to offices each day, but this is happening less and less as more people find ways to freelance, work from home offices and/or follow their dreams as entrepreneurs. The day and age of feeling like you trust your employer to take care of you until retirement (or even until next year) is over after the massive layoffs of recent years. Let’s face it just about each and everyone of us is replaceable. That is the sad reality of today’s world. This is why I believe so many more people are taking their destiny into their own hands by creating their own work future. And that is at the core of what Alex and I discussed with Nick and DJ during this fun interview.

Laughter and Failure are Key to Success

And when I say fun, I most certainly mean it. While it sounds like a really serious topic we discussed, there was no shortage of laughter. The truth is that when you’re building a business, the only way to survive is to laugh a lot, work with people you trust and enjoy the ups and downs as best you can. You’ve got to take some falls to make tomorrow more successful. I find that it works best when you not only accept failure, but encourage failure as a means towards learning to be better in the future.

Take a Listen to Cover Story Media’s Podcast Debut on The Work Talk Show

So, that’s just a little taste but we encourage you to take a listen to our discussion about how we do work here at Cover Story Media and also how we both work and live together as a husband-and-wife team and business.

And if you enjoy the show as much as I do, you can actually subscribe to it on iTunes so you could download each week when the new shows are released every Wednesday morning.

How Did We Do?

If you listened and want to share how you work, leave us a comment below. Or if you have any thoughts on how we at Cover Story Media can work better, we want to hear that too. We welcome your comments – the good, the bad and the brilliant. So, bring it on!

Go Big or Go Home at New Media Expo 2013

2013 is the year that Cover Story Media^®, Inc. has decided to go big or go home – in Vegas! In September 2012, we made the decision to send our leadership team to the New Media Expo’s event in January 2013 (formerly known as Blogworld). There we hoped to learn more about how to deliver more engaging content to our readers, ways to use social media more effectively to promote and interact with our followers and maybe even some tips on how to make our brands more powerful. The conference delivered in spades and #nmx quickly went down in my book as one of the best conferences I have ever attended.

Key Takeaways from the NMX Conference

Wondering what you might get out of a blog conference? Our primary takeaways included:

• People want to like people – not static brands – so add more personality into your business to make it more memorable.
• Google Plus may not seem like it will replace Facebook and you are probably right, BUT, it is extremely tied into search results and helps one find new friends who share your passions, not just your alma mater. As Guy Kawasaki said, “Facebook is for People, Google Plus is for Passions.”
• A picture is worth a thousand words so use more photos to engage your audience.
• And, in case you missed the memo (or meme) from the past 9+ months, cats make everything funnier and more sharable.

The Team That Plays Blackjack Together, Stays Together

But, what we did not expect was just how amazing the gift was to have our leadership team meet and hang out – professionally and socially. At Cover Story Media, we all work virtually all over the country and the majority of the team has only met on email, Skype or Google Hangout (the best tool to happen to CSM since Basecamp!). So the opportunity to have the four key day-to-day team members together in one place was the most meaningful aspect of this venture. We enjoyed great meals and drank exotic cocktails, as expected, but who could’ve predicted the whole team playing blackjack late-night at the MGM with our dealer Thom while the pit boss offered to take a photo of our team wearing (and playing with) fake mustaches?!? Team building does not get much better than this, nor do the memories and friendships made.

We also spent some time brainstorming how the ideas learned at the conference fit into our business and how we can incorporate them into 2013. It was an exciting time and one that will launch us right into what we are all inspired to make the best year ever for Cover Story Media. This is the rare time that I can say that every single thing that happened in Vegas will not stay there – except for my lost voice (laryngitis sucks)!