Karen Rubin's Ramblings

I know I am a couple days behind on this one, but did you hear that ESPN has mandated that their talent cannot post anything online about sports? 

According to CNet the memo states, 

 "Personal websites and blogs that contain sports content are not permitted...If ESPN.com opts not to post sports related social media content created by ESPN talent, you are not permitted to report, speculate, discuss or give any opinions on sports related topics or personalities on your personal platforms(.)" 

 I am actually surprised by this one. ESPN always has seemed so on top of it. Based on nothing but my own recollections, I feel like they were one of the first sites to really leverage online video. From Ric Bucher to the guys at PTI, their newscasters have also been all over social media. Are they just going to stop?

ESPN says "they want to be smarter about how we do it," but here is some free advice for them, this is not the smart way!  

*Thanks to Brad for the story! 

This Friday is HubSpot.tv's 52nd episode! As expected, we will celebrate our "birthday" in the only was we know how...by throwing a party! Come join us for free beer from Harpoon, burgers from B Good, funky pan-Asian food from Meyers and Chang and of course a rockin* good time! Come on down to join us. 

In honor of our birthday, here are 5 little known facts about HubSpot.tv.  

1. Last summer I wrote a proposal for HubSpot.tv that Mike has still never read. 

2. Friday will actually be the 53rd episode. The first episode of HubSpot.tv was lost in a recording accident. It was watched by about 13 viewers, half of who were related to me. 

3. The first couple of episodes were not in front of a live studio audience. I didn't think it would work to have all those people watching us!

4. We shoot every episode with 2 separate cameras, a webcam for the live streaming and a higher quality camcorder for the iTunes podcast. 

5. We have only had one near death accident on the set when one of the lights exploded and shot hot glass all over Mike. 

An of course, a highlight reel!

(*The aforementioned rockin good time may or may not include a TV show, significant high five-ing, the debut of the HubSpot band, ping pong, a tiger, campaign showers, foosball and a general sense of merriment.)

When I was 5, I wanted a cat more than anything else in the world. I begged and begged and begged until finally my parents relented. They decided I could get a cat if I gave up sucking my thumb before my 6th birthday (because my parents weren't about making it easy for me!) I struggled for 6 weeks, but finally managed to kick the habit, and was rewarded with my cat Frisky.  

I am yet again at a point in my life were I desperately want a kitten, but instead of convincing my parents, I have to convince my husband. Jared has been pushing back for a couple of years now, but last night I finally convinced him that the nagging and badgering was only going to get worse. Having learned from my parents, he isn't planning to go down without a fight, but has agreed that if I can get him 2,000 followers on Twitter, I can have a cat!

 So I am here, asking to you to help me out by FOLLOWING JARED! As your friends to follow Jared! Ask your co-workers to follow Jared! Tweet with the hash tag #akittenforkaren and spread the word about my latest social media challenge!

The other day a friend sent me a new Sprite ad that had been banned in Germany. I watched it and it was so over the top, it even made me feel a little uncomfortable! However, my laughter intrigued my colleagues and the end result was a group viewing which sparked the discussion of if it could possibly be real, and if so "what was Sprite thinking!?!?"

As it turns out, it wasn't real. It was not created by Sprite but instead by an MTV director who wanted to see what would happen and called it a "social experiment."  

The thing is, what I expect happened is that a lot of people who saw it really questioned Sprite as a brand. It brings two questions to mind, first what should Sprite do? Second, in an age of unlimited content creators, how can brands protect themselves?

 Here is the ad in case you missed it. Please beware it is NOT SAFE FOR WORK or CHILDREN!

This weekend, I was watching a video of Don Norman talking at TED about ways in which design makes you happy.

He tells a story about a study in which students were asked to solve a problem. The first group of students failed, but the second succeeded. The only difference between the two was that before the study began the second group was given a box of chocolates, and it made them a little happy.

 Normal explains that this little bit of happiness enhances your problem solving ability because you "squirt dopamine into the prefrontal lobes which makes you a breadth first problem solver, you are more susceptible to interruption and you do out of the box thinking." 

I realized that HubSpot has done a really good job of getting us all to squirt a little dopamine and perhaps this is why we create cool content.

We have crazy amounts of food,

 and beer, 

and Ping Pong!

My theory is that this makes us happy, which helps us think outside the box and do crazy things like HubSpot.tv and our newest music video.  

If you work in an environment that doesn't value the creative energy in a bag of M&M's and you are a marketer looking to create great content. I recommend you invite all your craziest people to lunch, buy them some pizza and get them squirting! 

One of the things that makes planning for HubSpot.tv easy is that Mike and I are lucky enough to get content suggestions from the HubSpot team all week long. Today, in preparation for Friday's show, @BradfordCoffey brought this fantastic article on TechCrunch to my attention. 

 In it, an unidentified, but "well known executive at one of the largest sites on the Internet" argues that the search engine optimization and marketing industry needs to be regulated. He/she urges us to imagine,

 "that the entire Internet is contained within a single continent. That continent is filled with countries, states and cities. Each jurisdiction is autonomous, relying on visitors to cross on to their turf to engage in commerce. Now, imagine if the only way to get into this continent involved just two methods: SEO and SEM. Let's further imagine that the borders to this continent were controlled by a single company."

The argument goes on further to say that as a result of controlling organic and paid listings and by not disclosing how the results are displayed on these systems, Google is effectively deciding what business succeed and what businesses fail.  

 The author comes to the conclusion that the solution to this problem is requiring that search engines disclose how their algorithms work. Further stating that this is the only way by "which all businesses can compete freely in the organic and paid search marketplaces."

I would love to discuss this on HubSpot.tv on Friday, but I am not sure if I agree or disagree. I would love to know what you think. Do Google (and other search engines) have to disclose their magic in order to have a free market on the internet?  

I don't spend a lot of time paying attention to the traditional advertising industry. In my world, it is an old school, outbound marketing, TV and magazine ad producing, industry that doesn't understand much about inbound marketing.

As a result, I was impressed when I learned that agency Crispin, Porter and Bogusky is releasing (it hasn't actually launched yet) a beta site that is very inbound marketing focused.

 The site, beta.cpbgroup.com, does a couple great things. When you arrive, there is a spunky, short video explaining the site. In it @Bogusky explains that they hope the site will be "a giant digital fishing net that gathers everything that is relevant about us and out clients."

Great Thing #1: The intro video is short and not over produced. I can't imagine it took them long to pull together. Video doesn't have to take forever!

@Bogusky goes on to explain that there is only one section of the page where CP&B controls the content, the rest is auto generated coming from blogs, twitter and other news sites. 

Great Thing #2: CP&B has accepted letting go and losing control. By using content created by others, CP&B opens themselves up to whatever the loonies that inhabit the internet want to say. They also make their site a great hub of information for the industry and create a cool site that doesn't need a ton of management to keep running. 

I clicked around the site, and realized the home page is all about CP&B and the ad industry.  Then I noticed the true brilliance, at the top there are 9 tabs each going to the same type of page for a different big name customer. This means, I can go check out the latest TV ads from VW, Burger King or Hulu and read the buzz about them on Twitter, in the blogosphere and in the news. 

Great Thing #3: There are really two great things here. First, GP&B is doing something @mvolpe and I talk about on HubSpot.tv all the time. They are using the information and data they have as part of their business to create a cool/fun tool online. HubSpot does this with the State of the Twittersphere and Technorati does this with the State of the Blogosphere. If you have interesting information that people want, you should use it to your advantage!

Second, they have pulled the site together for themselves AND ther customers. This will help their customers (see Great Thing #2) and shows their prospects that they are an ad agency that understands this new inbound marketing thing. Brilliant!

The other morning my father sent me an email that said "If you do nothing else today watch this." Being a normal well adjusted child, I did not listen and waited 3 days to watch the video. By doing so, I once again proved that Dads are always right. (Does that ever stop? So annoying!)

 The video is a TED talk posted earlier this month (and included below) and as promised was well worth the 15 minutes. It will also be for you, if any of the following are true,

• You use social media in either your job or your life

• You use the internet in either your job for your life

• You have ever wondered what this interweb thing is and why it matters (in which case, I am thrilled you read MY blog!)

I had no idea who Clay Shirky was when I started the video, but clearly he is one smart dude. His talk is about how the internet has changed the way the world works by allowing people to consume and create content. Something that no other form of media had managed to do thus far. My favorite analogy was, "It would be as if you were given a printing press when you received your first book."

It is remarkably well done and very enjoyable. I recommend you either watch it today while you think about your plans for the 4th of July and procrastinate so you don't have to work, tomorrow while you enjoy the 4th from inside as it pours, or on Monday when you are bummed to be back at work and again looking to procrastinate. 

Have a great 4th of July!