In an effort to better explore the relationship between Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) and Chief Information Officers (CIOs), I partnered with Michael Krigsman and launched a weekly Google hangout. We invited the bestselling author, investor and marketing extraordinaire Guy Kawasaki to learn more about self-publishing and his new book APE, marketing in the social era, and the challenging role of the CIO and CMO.
Not surprisingly, Guy Kawasaki was brilliant, sharing incredible insights on how CIOs and CMOs can succeed in today's connected economy. Here is a summary of our truly enchanting discussions:
How is marketing different today than past years? "The individual choice and individuals voice is louder than it has ever been... and it's due to social media. The democratized world scares the big companies and the power is shifting to smaller companies." - G. Kawasaki
Tell us about your new book APE and how does it relate to the new world of marketing? "The most powerful thing you can do with self-branding is to write a book." - G. Kawasaki
You speak about improving your personal brand with TLC - trustworthiness, likeability and competence. Big company CMOs are mostly not social so can they be considered competent? "If a CMO is enlightened enough to let other parts of the organization be social, that is good enough." - G Kawasaki
In your book Enchantment you said Twitter was the most enchanting social platform. Do you still believe Twitter is the most enchanting social tool? "I must say that I have changed my mind, Google plus is the most enchanting tool. I love the Twitter integration, it effects your search results, YouTube sharing, it effects things and ways that you can't even conceive of." - G Kawasaki
The market is questioning the role of the CIO as compared to the CDO and the CMO. What advice do you have for CIOs?
"Tell the CIOs to tell the CDOs, that when their network is attacked by a denial of service, who are they going to call. I have a lot of respect for CIOs." - G Kawasaki
Is the CIO only working on the boring stuff while the CMO/CDO is working on the interesting stuff?
"I think the two functions are so different. The CMO should be totally outward focused. The CIO is trying to empowering the CMO as well as the other parts of the organization." - G Kawasaki
How can social improve the voice of the brand?
"The dinosaurs CMOs who doesn't get social media but at least empowering parts of their organization to use social media. So obvious to me that Social media is so fast, and free and ubiquitous and proven over and over again. There is a lot of other ROI that you can check before checking social media ROI." - G Kawasaki
Guy Kawasaki also provided amazing insight regarding crowdsourcing to self-publish an amazingly successful book with nearly 300 5-star reviews on Amazon in a short time.
"The foundation of crowdsourcing is built on trust. I trust the crowd. The upside of crowdsourcing help is so much more than the downside of piracy or giving a copy to someone who would have bought it. I used crowdsourcing more than any other author in the history of man." - G Kawasaki
I also had an amazing conversation with Guy Kawasaki about my social recruiting process. I told Guy that I am hiring a six-figure salaried social marketer, recruiting via Twitter only, and not accepting any resumes. Guy asked about my filtering and recruitment process and then asked if I would be interested in hiring him since his Klout score is 89 with millions of followers. You can see my answer in the video -- a bit of suspense here. I also asked Guy about his favorite TEDTalks and I was surprised to hear his wonderful answer.
Our show ended with profound wisdom from Guy: "luck favors the people who are willing to grind it out."
I hope that you enjoy our video chat with Guy Kawasaki. I also look forward to hearing from you every week as we discuss the latest and most important CMO and CIO challenges and opportunities.