Telstra blocks facebook

So Telstra has got some more headlines in the news this week. It seems the have blocked their employees (all 49,000 of them) from accessing the social networking site facebook. Check the article on techcrunch.

For a company that should be at the cutting edge of technology (and perceived that way by both employees and users) and encouraging consumers to get online, this is a ridiculously short-sighted decision from the management boffins at Telstra.

Telstra (or any company for that matter), aside from the fact that they should be trying to ensure employees are treated respectfully and engaged with, should be encouraging their employees to use the products that the company either sells or actively enables (obviously as a Broadband internet provider this would include all the cool things that one might be able to do and interact with online).

Get you employers immersed in your business, submerged in the industry of you business and in love with what your companies products and services can do to enhance their lives and experiences. Encourage them to experiment, look for insights, build social networks and share ideas. This way not only will your employees be true advocates for your company and brand (imagine an entrenched sales culture at every point of your organisation) but they will constantly be looking for better ways, everyday, to do their job and run your business.

A lesson from The Merchants of Cool

So today I was watching the PBS documentary "the merchants of cool" and despite the fact that a lot has changed since 2001 when the doco was aired (Malcolm Gladwell's hairstyle being one of them), it still has some very relevant messages for marketers.

The doco looks at how marketers are doing everything they can to infiltrate the teen landscape in an effort to integrate their marketing message into pop culture thus associating their brand with whats considered "cool". But this brings about the problem, when the drivers of "cool", the early adopters, see what ever it is they are currently into start appearing in the main stream, the "cool" very quickly wears off.

It would be easy to point the finger at marketers as being responsible for ruining what is "cool" but if we wind the clock back to the days before marketers were scientifically employing psychological trickery to coax money from the pockets of the unsuspecting consumer, this phenomenon was alive and well.

The prime example of this is how music trend move through history. There is a good reason why kids todays aren't sitting around listening to Benny Goodman big band albums (well actually some of them are, but for a different reason) and thats because somewhere along the line this style of music was no longer "cool" and thus music progressed to a new sound. This happened again and again right through the last century from rock and roll to punk to disco to rap, etc.. it just goes on and on. As marketers this may seem a little frustrating, but its actually quite the blessing. There will come a day when walking around with an ipod and uploading pictures to your facebook page will be so unbeleavabley uncool that kids will be rolling their eyes at their parents for even saying such a thing out loud and when that day comes marketers will be miles away frustraitedly working on how to integrate their message with whatever IS cool on that day. So for marketers, this constant cycle will ensure the business of marketing will exist for many years to come..