The Twittering CEO

Hsieh's Vision Spurs Out-of-the-Shoebox Success

Long before Tony Hsieh stepped into his current shoes - a pair of Asics most days - he ran a pizza business while in college. That's when and where the 1995 Harvard University graduate met Alfred Lin - then his no. 1 pizza customer, now the COO and CFO of Zappos.com.

Together they co-founded Venture Frogs, an incubator and investment firm that funded Internet start-ups including Ask Jeeves, Tellme Networks and Zappos.com. Hsieh joined the Henderson, online shoe retailer full time in 2000. Now the company's CEO, Hsieh is credited with growing sales from $1.6 million in 2000 to more than $1 billion by 2008. Last summer, the world's largest online shoe retailer was acquired by amazon.com in deal valued at approximately $887.9 million.

Hsieh helped make Zappos.com a market leader by stressing customer service and selection. It stocks some 1,000 brands - and 3 million pairs - of shoes, many difficult to find in mainstream malls. Hsieh also believes in communication technology: Zappos provides training for all staff on the use of Twitter, and the company has earned leadership kudos for the use of social networks to promote its culture and brand. Therefore it shouldn't be surprising that Hsieh is being honored as NRF Retail Innovator of the Year for setting Zappos.com apart from the pack through the use of new and imaginative techniques and formats.

I learned that it's not enough to focus just on what you sell: you really need to think about the overall customer experience. For the pizza business, it meant creating a fun enviroment where students would want to hang out. For Zappos, it means delivering great customer service and making a personal emotional connection with our customers.

The "Twittering CEO".

Hsiah only send out one to two tweets a day, so it only takes a few minutes. You can view the number of followers he has (approximately 1.5 million) - twitter.com/zappos. He tries to inspire, connect, entertain, and/or educate with each of his tweets. Those are things that can resonate with anyone.

Zappo has a super-blogger named Melissa. They have a lot of photos and videos on blogs (blogs.zappos.com). Many of them are done to give people insight into what the Zappos culture is like. They have many different Zappo events that happens everyday, so it's hard to keep track of them all. That's part of what they really like about their culture: Employees from all over the company are the ones coming up with the ideas, and they run with whatever they're passionate about.

Hsiah read a lot of customer feedback on a daily basis that get through twitter and by email, but in terms of day-to-day operations for market and costumers service, we have teams of people who are dedicated to those things.

I think the most inspiring thing is that we're just scratching the surface of what's possible. Ten years ago, we wouldn't have been able to predict or imagine that we'd be where we are today. I'm inspired and excited by what we could be doing 10 years from now.

Adaptation 200 years after Darwin's birth

Sucharita Mulputu, VP and Principal Analyst. Forrester Research

The Stage of Retail Online 2010.

The Retail online performed better in 2009 than the rest of industry. She began by noting an interesting coincidence in dates. Charles Darwin's On The Origin of Species, was published in 1859. Its author was born in 1809.

One of the key observations in Darwin's book was that animals tended to adapt to changes in their physical circumstances. One such set of adaptations, exhaustively chronicled in the book, has to do with variations in beak structure among several species of finches found in the Galapagos Islands. These variations, Darwin posited, arose from differences in food availability. Birds with access to vegetables developed broader, stronger beaks, that enabled them to reach into narrow crevices and catch bugs.

Exactly 150 years later (200 years later, in the case of Darwin's birth), a chain of technological cand economic circumstances caused retailers in various segments, like Darwin's finches, to adapt to altered circumstances. "72% of surveyed retailers said online retailing was better suited to survive in times of stress than offline.This observation was echoed by online revenue growth results reported by the same cohort of retailers. As a group they reported 18% year-over-year growth for the fourth quarter of 2008 and 26% for 2009, significantly outperforming the retail industry as a whole. Which, though not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison, can still be construed as a bright spot in the somewhat somber landscape of 2009's retail sales. Forrester has identified a number of adaptations made by succesful online retailers in 2009, as well as some lessons that can be learned from them. One is remembering the 'world' in world wide web. If you look at global gross domestic product, 21% is accounted for by rest of the world, and in many cases, for example, emerging - and in many cases, rapidly growing - economies.

These same countries account for only 2% of online sales, which would seem to indicate a certain level of opportunity. Another adaptation is "respect for IT," by which she meant investment at a level high enough to actually make a difference. In 2008 IT spend was 2% of gross revenue in non-online retail and 3% in all industries. In web-based retailing it was 7%. Of that 7%, about 2% was spent on the same thing as the 2% spent by the rest of retail - replacing servers, upgrading software and otherwise keeping the lights on. The other 5% was thus available for innovation.

Online retailing also allows merchants to reinforce their partners and partnerships. The internet allows manufacturers to work with retailers to raise their profile and leverage brand loyalty; it also lessens the tension between manufacturers and retailers cause by private labels. Then there's reacting to "people power". The advent of social networking is having a huge influence on online retailing. Right now it's hard to quantify; even online retailers who like it and use it a lot are divided about what it does for them. Of retailers polled, 58% said the principal ROI is listening. What everyone seems to agree on is that it's not safe, or smart, to ignore it. Successful adapters realized there was a mobile revolution. Like social networking, the real significance of the nexus of mobile phones, the internet and retailing is still inclear - but there are some indications. One interesting point is that the United States is not a leader in this area. In a global survey of consumers, 58% of Japanese reported using the mobile internet at least once a month. In the United States, the figure was 16%.

What social media tools are your customers using?

Anne Green, President, COO of CooperKatz & Company, Inc., advised retailers to become active consumers of media. Don't just wait for the next big social media tool; jump in and learn what's out there now. You need to know what social media tools your consumers are using. If your consumers aren't on Facebook, then why are you?

Green advocated finding a partner within your organization to work on a social media strategy. The reality is keeping up with social media takes time, and it's time you might not personally have to devote. So find the best person within your organization to help you formulate a strategy and then execute it.

In addition to the time needed to plan a strategy, significant time is also needed to manage the social media channels in which your organization decides to become involved. "The key here is engagement. These things don't run themselves," Rudman said.

You have to cultivate the community you've become part of. That means you have to engage with your community, but also become aware of the possible competitors in the space, said Sarah Endline of Sweetriot. And last but not least, you have to be authentic. Your audience will know when you're not, and they will make the decision to stop following you.

To Recast Retail, focus on adaptability - 2

One thing is to be more focused on our consumers, which means technology investments. We've spent more money in technology in the last 18 months than we did in the preceding 10 years. We've also focused in adaptability. We saw the recession earlier than a lot of people, and we started working on our cost structure immediately. We're the low-cost supplier and we have to keep our costs down. As an industry, we did not respond quickly enough to the events of 2008.the industry may not yet have responded to the sacle of those events, or the way they have reshaped the landscape. We still have too much retail space. It may take five or 10 years to get back to where we were.

To Recast Retail, focus on adaptability

Recasting Retail New Rules - and opportunities - of the global economy. Howard Levine, Chairman and CEO Family Dollar; Allen Questrom, former CEO J.C. Penney Company and Mark Zandi, chief economist, Moody's Economy.com.

Both the industries and consumers adapted to doing more with less in 2009. Whether we would continue to do that in 2010 or whether the economy might improve? The economy today is measurably better than it was a year ago, and it will be measurably better than this a year from now. The most significant index of this is job growth. After a year of brutal shrinkage, the emplyment market is begining to recover - or at least to shrink more slowly - and by a year from now, we expect to see real growth of somewhere around 150.000 jobs per month.

They credited last year's massive economics stimulus package for this improvement, and said it is directly reflected in retail sales. Core retail sales for Christmas 2008 were down 4%. This past december showed a 1 to 2 percent recovery, and 2010 should se growths of 3 to 4 percent. What we have to come to come to terms with is the fact that in the last decade excessive access to credit and excessive home valuations created an inflated economy.

First impressions lasting expressions

Daren marshall, The Coca Cola Company

Creating value through specialness, creating specialness through experiences. Can you remeber your first Coca Cola? I remeber mine. It was so special.... At the end of the day, because I have good memories, that create value for me. One thing is soda, another one Coca Cola. That's why brand Coca Cola becomes so special.

Special brands are made for special people at special occasions. Coca Cola is a multisense and unique experience. Is an icon of positiveness, a connection. Marketing exists to convince people to buy a brand based on experience at retail, that has to be special experience.

In the street, in the store on the shelf. This is special. More special. Two different persons go to the same store, looking for the same product, but see different things. Both will spend U$3,50 in a Coca Cola bottle. Both create value, but with different economics. One size of bottle does not fit all the values.

Have fun Stamping Experiences!

7 Habits of shelf sawy marketing

Daren Marshall, The Coca Cola Company.

Balance. Balance brand love & brand value in all we do. Priorization. Priorize growth & investment opportunities. Portfolio. Increase discipline to portfolio choices. Segmentation. Build segmentation capability for strategy & execution. Interruption. Create retail brand experiences... In and beyond the beverage aisle.

Occasions. Provide a compelling reason when & why out brands should be consumed.

Social Media: a viable, long-term marketing or business buiding opportunity?

Three hundred million Facebook users after five years, 50 million Twitter users after two years... Where to begin? Companies haven't really figured out how to use these platforms effectively yet, but they will. Attention can be monetized - and these platforms are getting a huge amount of attention. The Social Graph has the potential to be an extremely powerful marketing tool. Since the dawn of time, the most persuasive marketing message has been a friend's recomendation. If companies figure out a way to harness that without freaking people out, the results will be awe-inspiring.

Como localizar brasileiros num Congresso Internacional

1) Procure nos grupinhos. Brasileiros no exterior adoram andar com outros brasileiros.
2) Veja se o grupinho tem um gordo ou um baixinho contando piadas, com os outros rindo muito alto. Se tiver, não tem erro: brasileiro.
3) Tem alguem guardando varios lugares nos assentos? Ou guardando uma mesa e gritando para o outro que estah na fila do caixa? Chegue perto que voce vai ouvir o brasileires.
4) Entre as mulheres, alguma usando agasalho de pele, oculos escuros em ambiente interno ou com varias sacolas da Victoria Secret? Diga ola como vai.
5) No Cyber Lounge voce ve um cara que NÃO esta usando o computador, mas não quer sair porque quer passar a vez para o colega? Chegue perto que e brazuca.
6) Alguem usando copo usado de refrigerante para pegar cafe de graca? Facil, facil... Vou cantar-te nos meus versos.
7) A melhor de todas: num salao grande com umas 1000 pessoas, quando o palestrante troca um slide algumas pessoas se levantam para fotografar o slide projetado. Sao todas coisa nossa.

Tectonic Shifts

Anytime you have tectonic shifts like this, you're going to have a lot of new winners... And a lot of shakeout. In the 90s, it would have seemed inconceivable that companies like Viacom and Time Warner would be shrinking while staring up at a giant company called Google that is worth more than most of the rest of the media industry put together. But that's creative destruction at work. And as social media really gets cranking, this evolution is likely to continue.

Afinal, quando as Midias Sociais vao de fato mudar o mercado e a sociedade como um todo?

In the short-term, changes like these happen slowly enough that they may not seem earth-shattering. But you can imagine what the world will look like when all today's teenagers hit middle age; They aren't going to start to watching TV or reading newspapers just to look at the ads and figure out what to buy. They'll just ask their "friends" - their virtual network or what Facebook calls their "Social Graph" - what to buy. And thanks to social media, that has gotten a heck of a lot easier.

Por que o texto em ingles?

Juro que não eh por ser metido, apesar de se-lo.

O lance eh que estou postando a partir do meu blackberry, em tempo real, durante as palestras e paineis.

Daih fica bem mais chato e demorado se tiver que parar para fazer o switch do idioma e compor texto em portugues antes de publicar.

Simples assim.

How Social Media can Change Your Business?

If you go back to the 90s, Internet hype got way ahead of the reality. But 15 years later has already had a far more profound impact in the world than ever the dreamers ever thought it would. With social media, we've already seen how enormously popular it is, and how quickly it's changing the world. Teenagers don't like to talk on the phone anymore; they don't like to watch TV or read newspapers or magazines anymore; they don't even like to communicate via email. Instead, they like instant messaging, texting, and Facebook. The short-term pursuit of the commercial opportunity this represents is giving rise to unrealistic expectations in terms of immediate returns.

How Social Media can Change Your Business?

Fundamentally, the relationship between brands and customers is changing. The Era of one-way communication - of brands pushing their messages to customers through media outlets - is waning. Brands that embrace the new conversational opportunities with their customers will win. Those that do not will suffer.

How Social Media can Change Your Business?

NRF2010, 11jan. Speakers: Anne Green, president and COO of CooperKatz&Co e Michael Kleinmann, President of Freshpair.

There are 3 key reasons for business to engage: First, social media is where your customers are. Secondly, Social Media is where your customers are talking about you (and your competitors). And finally, social media is a simple way to communicate with customers and potentials who want to hear from you.