Happy Halloween from RD2!

In this picture: Mark the Robot, Patty the Leopard, Caitlin the Fightin’ Texas Aggie Football Player, BJ the Chicken, Ben the Russian Spy, Andrea the Fairy, and Jeremy the Ghost (pictured).

Training looks different to different clients. For some clients, it’s an all day Blogger Conference starting with “What is Social Media and why is it important” and ending with a hands on session in which we create podcasts, video, and post to the live site. For others, it is a small brainstorming session on sample posts that make sense for their community.

For our latest project, we put together a series of screencasts to roll out internally “introducing” the new website to the company.

It took a few days of me holed up in the RD2 “recording studio” using a Snowball microphone and a tool called ScreenFlow… and the result was 15 screencasts on various functionality of the website.

Thanks to Robbie for creating the makeshift “ON AIR” sign alerting the team that I was recording. Next stop - the morning traffic report.

Today we official launched US-HomeTeam.com!

U.S. Home Team is a Direct Repair Program and Program Administrator that provides innovative water damage solutions to property and casualty insurers, agents, and policyholders. U.S. Home Team’s CEO Guy Hoffman has been really great and inspiring to work with, especially in his energy and excitement for how he can engage his community of agents and policy holders, and improve his business processes using online tools.

In a traditionally low-tech industry, U.S. Home Team and RD2 have developed the website as a way to push the envelope for online communications between U.S. Home Team, its producers, and its policy holders.

The first launch is a foundation for more to come, so keep watching!

“Communicating and engaging customers and partners with your brand is always challenging, but doing it for a business developing products and services that have never existed before would be daunting without the creativity and enthusiasm of the RD2 team. Besides, any team that could put up with me on an ongoing basis deserves special recognition in a category of its own.”

- Guy Hoffman, CEO U.S. Home Team

There are millions of companies out there, which means millions of business processes to be followed. What makes the initial research and concept phase so important? This sets the groundwork for the rest of the project.

“Concepting” is a word that is thrown around often in our space. There is even debate on whether or not it should be a word. At RD2 we define concepting as coming up with ideas based on conjecture and fleshing them out to give the client an idea of what we’re envisioning. Concepting allows us to detail out a hypothesis. We come up with functionality that may be the best fit for our client’s customers and a sample user experience that may be the best way to achieve their goals.

Step 1. Inspiration

When coming up with this hypothesis, the first step is inspirational research. We look at other companies online (in and out of the industry), but that’s really only the beginning. In doing inspirational research, we don’t trust other websites to be the standard. The next step is to look at everything around us, find inspirational things from outside sources (not just the web).

Step 2. Ideas

This part of the process is the time where everyone at the company (across disciplines and across project teams) are free to express their ideas – bring anything to the table, no holds barred. It is critical to allow creative freedom at the beginning of the process. In these discussions we engage strategy team members and experts from our development and design departments to bounce concepts off of.

In some cases a business will require a specific platform, but if that platform is unknown this stage should be completely platform agnostic. We want to find the best user experience, the best concept to satisfy the goals of the project. Once that is found, we look for a platform that syncs up the most.

Step 3. Focus

As we begin to focus our hypothesis, it is essential to have the business goals for the project near at all times. We always ask ourselves “does this line up with their goals?” Though we’re not doing a full strategic dive at this point, we take all of the strategic information we know about a client and consider it when honing our ideas.

Step 4. Put Something on Paper

So what do concepts look like? Where do I start once I have all these ideas, screenshots, etc from my research?

Concepts can start anywhere. They can be sketched out on a napkin when the idea hits during dinner, or they can be scrawled out on paper. You should use whatever form you are most comfortable with and will provide the least amount of barrier between your brain and the medium in which you want to express it on.

At RD2, we generally use Illustrator to fine tune and tweak our concepts, going through several internal revisions to be sure that we build them in a way that tells a story. When we walk the company through the concept and experience, we want to be sure that we are communicating our vision so that they “get it” and can get fired up around the project.

Step 5. What Now?

So you have some great concepts, ideas, and inspiration. What now? Now you have the opportunity to prove your hypothesis by digging into the strategy, design, and development phases. All that work should not be thrown away or set aside. To get the most benefit from your documents after the presentation, use what you learned and discussed in the conceptitng process to help you execute on your great ideas. They may change or be modified based on strategic learning, but the goals, ideas, and inspiration are still applicable throughout all your work with the client.

After the launch of our latest site, you may have noticed the Social Media Maturity Model displayed prominently on RD2’s updated Solutions page.

The Social Media Maturity Model displays the seven levels of Social Media participation and integration for organizations. We use this model to graphically show our clients where they measure in regards to Social Media, where they could be, and what it will take to get them where they need to be.

It is important to note that as every organization has different goals, there is no one “magic” place to be on this curve. We have to consider each individual organization and industry separately to determine their ideal place on the graph. As we all know, Social Media for Social Media’s sake does not help organizations achieve their goals.

Below are attributes of each of the stages in the curve -

1. Unaware - Either oblivious to social media, or aware of the concept but feel it’s just a fad and not important to their business.
2. Listening - Immersed in conversation across a variety of social media tools and networks, though not yet engaging customers.
3. Participating - Sharing materials with the community. Beginning to start a dialogue, rather than a monologue, with their customers.
4. Measuring - Creating mechanisms to measure community impact in all areas of the business. Attributing ROI or other improvements to social media. Enacting change as a result of customer feedback.
5. Letting Go - No longer attempting to control the conversation. Facilitating, inspiring, and starting to influence customers to talk about their brand. Understanding that negativity can be used positively. This is the mental step where an organization goes from reactive to proactive.
6. Actively Engaging - Creating personalized social media tools. Providing more opportunities for customers to talk about the brand. Maintaining open, honest, and authentic dialogue.
7. Propagating - Social media is utilized throughout the organization, not just a single department. Utilizing community tools to enhance, improve, or replace existing communications business processes.

Feedback

We have received these kind words from Sally Herbert, acclaimed consultant and friend of RD2, on our Social Media Maturity Model approach:

Accolades to RD2 for the leadership in creating a Social Media Maturity Model to assist companies in assessing where they are on the maturity curve. Your social and interactive media solutions to assist a client to accelerate up the curve provide innovation with high business impact. In the current economic environment all companies should seek to actively engage with their customers, vendors and other stakeholder communities.

Sally M. Herbert
Co-Founder of Dallas Advisory Partners LLC
s.herbert@dallasadvisorypartners.com

So, here we are, in a recession. We’re launching a new website and changing some things. Clarity is the hardest thing to do in our line of work. Why? Because it’s easy to work so darn hard at making things sound more complicated than they really are, when what we all really need right now is simplicity and clarity…

At RD2 we can’t single handedly change the global economy, consumer sentiment, and the general malaise that is eating away at the livelihoods of so many. So, what can we do or change to make things better? Absolutely nothing. We already know that we have to work harder right now and focus on doing all the same things we have been refining for a long time. However, if we could do one thing different, my view is that we should just work hard to be more like… us. We should show the attitude and fire that it takes to be ourselves and to give just that to our clients. That’s what they need and that’s what we need.

So, why in a recession would I pay nearly 500 bones for a rights managed image displaying a dude in black and white who is running on what appears to be the set of “That 70’s show”? Because the photo on our home page is a picture of a guy who changed everything by just being himself. A dude who could run really, really fast, and hated like crazy to lose at anything.

That man was Steve Prefontaine. When the rules say to draft your competition and to squirt around them at the end, this was a guy who did the opposite. Steve ran from the front, taking on the entire field. He changed the rules not to just be different, but because that is what worked for him. Why bother pacing yourself, just run the first mile like a maniac and then maintain that intensity all the way through.

In thinking about what image or metaphor conveys us best during these times, an image of Steve Prefontaine came to mind immediately. But with Steve, it’s not just about the image. It’s the attitude. To approach the situation like you own it. To say what comes to mind because it just needs to be said. To belly up to the bar and set a ridiculous pace and then hammer the entire time. That’s the way Pre did it. That’s the way our team does it. This image and metaphor seemed very fitting to a deserving team who is shoving aside the stupidity of a troubled market, and taking on the challenges of our partners as if they were our challenges.

Here’s to the best, most talented, most brilliant team I have ever worked with. A simple image of an idea. The notion of just doing what you do and pushing out what does not feel right. I’d have paid 5x the price for this image, just because it makes me think of a team that has the same guts and passion.

“I am going to work so that it’s a pure guts race. In the end, if it is, I’m the only one that can win it” — Steve Prefontaine

The UK train travel site thetrainline.com is the leading independent retailer of train tickets online. They have sold over 14 million journeys to over 8.4 million registered users.

Trainline.com Ltd came to RD2 because they understand how social media can enhance their brand and their company. Last week we officially launched Inside TTL, an internal community site for employees of Trainline.com Ltd.

The Challenge:

Launch an internal website that incorporates both blogs and a forum through single-sign-on. The community must be a solid foundation to support all the big ideas that Trainline.com Ltd has, but be built within a short timeline.

What We Did:

The internal site utilizes Drupal for news blogs and employee polls, and PHP Bulletin Board for an employee forum. A single-sign-on Drupal module allows users to log into both pieces through one login.

The team worked quickly and intelligently to build a solution that incorporates functionality like moderation, content management, user management, user profiles, and forum interaction… and will allow the scalability to easily add further functionality and features.

The Results:

Inside TTL is already buzzing with conversations from Trainline.com Ltd employees around customer service, rail news, and other industry related topics. The community will serve as a foundation for the many more endeavors to come for Trainline.com Ltd - so keep watching!

From Trainline.com Ltd:

“I wanted to say a big thank you on behalf of all of thetrainline, your hard work and creativity were very much appreciated…. The initial feedback of the site has been incredible with lots of new ideas flying around the office. I truly hope that this is the first, and smallest, step towards a long relationship between our companies.”
- Tom Britton, Project Manager, Trainline.com Ltd

We are thrilled to congratulate Nuts About Southwest for being named the Best Corporate Blog by PR News’ Platinum PR Awards for the second year in a row!

SWA and RD2 launched the original Blog Southwest in 2006, and in 2008 upgraded the blog with a new design and included additional features such as a video blog, podcasts, news, flickr integration, and media galleries.

As usual, the expectations were extremely high, and the competition was fierce - with firms such as Weber Shandwick, Ogilvy & Mathers, and Hellerman Baretz in the running. Yes, we have a specific process and methodology for making these things happen, but what’s our secret ingredient? A perfect chemistry between the cultures of RD2 and Southwest.

We love working with Southwest because they get it. They are phenomenal at creating really engaging content around their community. We couldn’t be prouder of the things we’ve accomplished together!