Deven Nongbri
B2B tech marketer with B2C mindset. Penchant for family, travel, photography, live music and pro sports. Fan of the unique for marketing and branding.
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Info
- VP, Marketing. CMO. Strategic Consulting.Management Consulting | Houston, Texas Area, USSummary
Business-to-business global marketing professional with a consumer marketing mindset, focused on strategy and message development. Broad experience in technology, entertainment and business product and service offerings, with a background in brand, product, corporate and investor communications.
Currently looking for new professional opportunities.
Specialties: Strategic planning, team leadership, budgeting and forecasting, developing integrated marketing strategies, copy writing, brand development, database and direct marketing, corporate communications, event marketing and agency management.
Experience- 2011 - PresentVP, Marketing / Extremetix, Inc.
- 2010 - 2011Global Marketing / Dell
- 2004 - 2011Guest Lecturer / Trinity University
- 2007 - 2009Sr. Director, New Media and Interactive Marketing / Spurs Sports & Entertainment
- 2000 - 2007Director, Consumer Marketing / AT&T
- 1999 - 2000Communications Specialist, ICOM Group / Johnson & Johnson
Education- Northwestern University
- Trinity University
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Posts
The Ultimate Cheat Guide to Matching Shirts and Ties: http://bit.ly/12AWblH
I could use all the help I can get in this department.
Despite what some may think, Japanese students are some of the most creative kids I’ve come across.
Former Googler, Apple Engineer Tackle Educational Robots | AllThingsD
There are apps that teach kids the basics of programming.
And then there are robots that get the job done.
That’s the vision of a group of four tech entrepreneurs who late last year formed a company with the purpose of creating educational robots for kids.
The Bay Area-based company, called Play-i, is still in the early stages of building out its bots and determining their form and functionality.
Vikas Gupta, Play-i’s founder and CEO, says the robots will be targeted at children aged 5 to 8, and will most likely work in conjunction with tablets. Using a tablet or other mobile device running compatible software, the child will be able to program his or her robot to perform certain actions.
Love this. Great idea. Would love to try it.
- Social media problem? More like reputation problem
Image courtesy of livemint
Originally published April 15, 2013
The topic of this short post is about those self-inflicted problems companies often face; the goof-ups, oops and uh-ohs that happen to companies all of the time but drag down their brands’ positive perceptions. Why is that some companies bounce back better than others?
For one thing, they think bigger. Social media is a handy scapegoat of sorts these days, often thought of as a cure-all for publicity ills. But if you think a couple of posts and an apology on Facebook are going to cut it, you better find some better PR counsel.
Assuming social media engagement can quell a growing issue with the company’s brand or other public problem is too simple, and even online reputation management doesn’t cover the whole scope of the issue. Brands need to think in terms of how the issue affects every stakeholder group from employees, customers, prospects, contractors, partners, potential partners and everyone else right up to the board of directors. Tap into those media vehicles that best reach those groups and don’t get lazy with the communications.
More often than not, board members are becoming very interested in how their reputations are perceived while in the midst of a crisis, and your response as the chief communicator is critical. Your company’s reputation is at stake (and perhaps yours as well), and a social media response is but one element of a comprehensive approach to managing, protecting and rebuilding that reputation.
Think big, my friends, think big. - Calendar with context: Tempo
Image courtesy of dnongbri
Originally posted April 8, 2013
Occasionally I’ll post something about one of the tools I’m using or trying out – things that help me do my job better. And this is something I think everyone should use. It’s how we wanted to make a calendar app about 10 years ago when we launched SBC Yahoo! DSL; we wanted to redefine the portal experience with integrated calendars and email. We didn’t have the technology to do it then but it’s here now, and the good folks at Tempo AI did it first.
It’s called Tempo, and the app itself is in beta for iOS; I’ve been using it for almost two months and really like how it’s made my calendar and email more useful, more contextual and simply more relevant to what I’m doing every day. At its core, it’s a calendar app, but if you adjust how you enter information on your calendar, the app becomes infinitely more useful.
With your permission, Tempo taps into your email and uses other apps on your phone like Maps. So when you enter people’s names into a calendar event, Tempo pulls up their email (and other contact info you have stored, like phone numbers and addresses). Tempo also provides links to maps for any physical location address it finds in your calendar entries.
Another neat feature is how Tempo parses out conference calling information like the conference IDs. The interface makes it simple to tap and join conference calls – excellent job on the intelligence behind that feature as well as the UI.
And because I live in Houston, and am driving everywhere to get to meetings, the “I’m-running-late” feature is stupendous. On one of the Tempo screens, you can tap to send a pre-written text or email to other meeting attendees to let them you how many minutes late you’ll be. I’m trying hard not to abuse that feature. :\
All in all, this is my favorite app of the year (so far) and I suggest you sign up for it as well. - The importance of the CIO-CMO relationship
Image courtesy of shirtsayings
Originally posted March 25, 2013
One of the things I’ve noticed in my rotation as CMO of a start-up software-as-a-service (SaaS) firm, and recently confirmed with a peer CMO in tech, was that we as marketing leads are using unprecedented amounts of big data to simply do our jobs. I’m hands-on with customer information and prefer to “swim in data” and discover the trends myself, and I expect my team to be up to the task as well. Gone are the days of putting in a request to IT to get a report pulled.
As CMOs, we’re constantly tapping new technologies to discover and reach new prospects in addition to acquiring those prospects and turning them into customers. Building and nurturing customer relationships are the crux of what we do as CMOs, and data helps us keep a pulse on how those relationships are doing BEFORE they end. So we’re tracking the most relevant points along the way. We may not be investing more on technology than our CIO yet, but we soon will be. The CMO will be the champion for the technology budget in the near future so a healthy CMO-CIO relationship is critical for every organization.
A recent Harvard Business Review write-up (and companion IBM research) indicated “more than 70% of CMOs feel they are underprepared to manage the explosion of data” they encounter as part of their jobs. Who better to help the CMO get a handle on the data than the CIO? Working together will create new opportunities for individuals, teams and the organization as a whole – it’s a win-win-win!
Reaching out to your CIO may not seem like the easiest thing to do, but think of the consequences of not building that relationship: constant struggle for limited budget dollars, potentially on opposite sides of projects, little understanding of what value each team brings to the table, constantly trying to get your projects prioritized in that next “IT push” and the list goes on.
Alignment in CMO-CIO planning = success
At the SaaS firm, my CIO and I bonded outside of work over sushi, tater tots and the shooting range (hey, we live in Texas). We grabbed lunch quite often and commiserated on new technologies over breakfast tacos numerous times. We also made it a point to sit in on each other’s weekly staff meetings at least once a month and presented our annual plans to each other before sharing with the rest of the senior management team.
These “meetings of the minds” got us on the same page and ensured our organizations were aligned, and an unintended benefit was that our CEO felt that IT was beginning to come across as more “customer-centric.” We ended up working on several initiatives that weren’t even on the IT roadmap at the beginning of the year and those paid off by growing the business 16% from the previous year. So, what are you waiting for? Go get your CIO and start making lunch plans – it’s an opportunity you don’t want to miss. - Making better decisions: a quick review of Decisive
Image courtesy of Chip and Dan Heath
Another good read this spring comes in the form of Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work by Chip and Dan Heath. The Heath brothers have teamed up on a couple of books I’d recommend as well: Switch and Made to Stick.
In Decisive, the brothers tackle the often nebulous topic of decision-making in both life and work contexts, and have pulled together some great examples of how leaders can apply a process to make coming to a decision less daunting. That’s truly one of the biggest problems in organizations of any size today – actually making a decision. Chip and Dan fill their book with some great stories of how to get to those important points in time without feeling completely overwhelmed.
It starts with psychology and why we dread making decisions. You’d be surprised to learn some of the research uncovered by the brothers indicates corporate decisions are sometimes made in the same way as high schoolers decide what to do on a Friday night, and often with the same uninspiring results. Is there a better way to actually make informed decisions? Chip and Dan think there is and they spell it out as the WRAP process:
- Widen your options
- Reality Test Your Assumptions
- Attain Some Distance
- Prepare to Be Wrong
You’ll have to read the book for a full understanding of how this process can apply to any choice you’ll encounter across your personal and professional lives, but I’m taking my time in starting to apply the process to the everyday choices I’m coming across. And I’m looking forward to reviewing some big choices in the WRAP process as well – it makes a lot of sense.
Instagram Refreshes Logo, Becoming Instagram Instead of gnstagram
Probably time they did something, but looks like Jnstagram to me now.
- Celebrity Creative Directors Are a Bad Idea
Image courtesy of SPIN
Originally posted April 1, 2013
Every time I catch the Bud Light Platinum spot with Justin Timberlake’s “Suit and Tie” in the background, I’m reminded why I don’t like the idea of relying on a celebrity creative director for a brand. What are you actually promoting, the celebrity or your brand?
Don’t get me wrong, I like JT’s, Beyonce’s (Pepsi) and Alicia Keys’ (Blackberry) music and respect their work and talent as artists and entertainers, but that’s as far as it goes. Building and nurturing a brand is hard work for trained professionals, not another “project” for a celebrity to juggle with a busy tour schedule. It’s more than tradeshows and sales meeting appearances, it’s more than lending a name, image and song to TV and radio commercials – it’s planning – AND REACTING – to how the brand is received in the marketplace.
Honestly, are you remotely interested in the Blackberry 10 because Alicia Keys used it in a corporate video? From all accounts, sales of the device seem to be doing pretty well because the device itself got better, not because a Alicia appeared on stage as part of the launch.
Celebrity endorsements have their place in the marketing spectrum and it’s a tool that can and should be used under the right circumstances, but remember, it’s your brand, your message and your (company’s or investors’) money. Not the celebrities’ or their managers. As more of these deals pop up, your celebrity creative director will be off to the next highest bidder when the contract ends, and you as the brand owner will be back to square one. Or what happens when that celebrity slips up (Alicia Keys spotted using an iPhone after announcing Blackberry deal)?
Keep control of your brand and skip the celebrity-as-creative-director urges. If you have to bring in a third party, let them focus on the product. You’re better off inviting Robert Scoble to test your product and share the reviews (through his Google Glass) with his friends and followers – you’ll get actionable feedback on the product and you’ll have more time to do the important work of branding yourself. - Social Media To The Rescue
Image courtesy of dnongbri
Originally posted on March 18, 2013
Or how a new way of looking at marketing saved a great blues festival from going under prematurely
Digging into the library for this one, but it’s relevant today as music festival season is upon us, and folks have just returned from SXSW down in Austin, TX. I shared this presentation at the International Music Conference in Austin last year and described how we leveraged social media to really engage with new fans and sell more tickets to a 22-year old blues festival down in Florida.
A storied festival had hit hard times and was in danger of tearing down the stage for the last time (great grist for a blues number, isn’t it?) when our company decided to buy the festival. From an operations standpoint, there was a lot we worked on to streamline and automate things like concessions and ticketing. And we did quite a bit for sponsorships and marketing, too.
Know Thy Audience
Our core fans were aging rockers and blues fans who were surprisingly active on Facebook and Pinterest, among other social networks. We looked at where we sold tickets before, who bought them and then surveyed past ticket purchasers, and discovered that many of them used smart phones for more than calls and web browsing.
Spread Your (Limited) Budget Wisely
We knew these were lean times, so we relied on social media early on to generate buzz and create public relations leads for us. Festival marketing happens year-round, but you don’t know your festival artists until four months from the festival date. It was interesting to see a slightly older demographic engage with the festival brand in Facebook and Pinterest (where those fans were comfortable), and then get them to try new networks, like Spotify, to actually sample the music from artists coming to the festival.
We did do traditional media as well but really looked to capitalize on the artists headlining the festival by having each artist record a one-minute video clip “welcoming” fans to the festival. These clips formed the basis of the content marketing portion of the outreach plan so that we could reveal a clip in the fan email newsletter each week leading up the festival. Plus, these were posted on the site and on YouTube, and shared on the Facebook timeline and Twitter feeds to make the clips even more viral.
Big Data Can Be Used for Good
The other discipline we brought to the table was around using ticket buyer data in real-time to see where tickets were being sold so we could adjust our targeting and deploy traditional print and radio in areas that weren’t selling well. Saving a bit of the budget for a push in the three-to-four weeks just prior to the festival is essential to capitalizing on the data collected to date. Got to have both to be effective.
In addition, we rolled out the industry’s first mobile box office where people could buy tickets from a poster on their smart phones then skip the long box office line and get scanned in right away. Fans appreciated the convenience but missed having a hard stock ticket stub, so we’ll address that with the next festival.
How’d We Do?
Sold out VIP tickets 30 days BEFORE the festival (a first) and ended up selling out the rest of the seats the day of the festival. Social media accounted for more than 12% of all ticket sales (normally 1-2% for most music festivals but growing) and check-in day of the festival broadcast events to an additional twenty thousand people (I’ll have to do a separate post on location-based services (LBS) another time).
If you have a public event and know the basics of what you want that experience to be, you should be leveraging social media nine to twelve months in advance to build that buzz and energize that fan base. Layer on paid and placed media closer to the event then turn things over to your fans to “market” the event with contests and other relevant communications to keep engagement and interest levels up. It’s a roadmap for a successful event!
Note set from DOIY Design contains 1000 delicious paper Salami slices.
Not a fan of cured meats but this is clever.
- What To Do If Your Brand DOES Get Hacked
Image courtesy of Twitter
Originally posted March 11, 2013
If you followed everything I mentioned in a previous post about keeping your brand hack-free, but you still got hacked, then you need to kick your crisis communications into gear and put on your best-looking customer care gloves.
Don’t have a crisis communications plan? Here are some guidelines to get things started:
1) Five steps for crisis management using social media
2) Creating your social media crisis communications plan
But what happens when your brand comes under attack across social media platforms? How do you respond? What should you do? There’s been a lot of coverage on the topic recently, so take a look at some of the better write-ups on how to help your brand bounce back after a social media faux pas.
- Recovering from a social media fail – Nestle, Domino’s Pizza and United Airlines provide examples of what could happen to any brand. Social Times breaks it down.
- Full-on attacks on big-name brands – Ann Taylor and Southwest Airlines responded with grace and humility as detailed by Mashable.
- Common sense steps to respond – boils down to listening and responding, just like any good crisis communications plan recommends, courtesy of Edelman and Ragan Communications.
If there are other good examples of brands under attack or bouncing back in a unique way, especially from other countries, please let everyone know with a comment and some links.
- The best companies keep it simple
The Johnson & Johnson Credo in Japanese courtesy of dnongbri
I’m going to keep going on about customers for at least one more post. When you put customers first, everyone wins.
When I worked at Johnson & Johnson, I first came across this thing called “The Credo” (pictured above). It’s actually referred to as “Our Credo” and it’s a living, breathing document that every employee worldwide agrees to uphold when they start working for J&J.
The Credo spells out how J&J conducts its business, and it starts with customers, the buyers and users of the products (healthcare providers and patients for the healthcare products). Are the products safe, is there a good user experience in finding, buying and using the product? If so, the customers will continue to be customers and then the company can focus on its employees.
When employees are treated fairly and with respect, they’re more apt to feel engaged with what they’re producing and doing for customers. The Credo goes so far as to spell out that J&J “must provide competent management,” whose “actions must be just and ethical.” As a manager at J&J, I really felt a strong sense of purpose to both customers and to my co-workers; the words in The Credo are no joke.
Happy customers lead to thoughtful employees which then lets the company focus on the communities where not only their employees live and work but also the communities where their customers live. The Credo spells out what being a good corporate citizen means, wherever that citizenship may be as J&J operates in over 100 countries.
J&J’s final responsibility, according to The Credo, is to its millions of shareholders. If the company does right by the first three parts of The Credo, the rest takes care of itself.
And shareholders have done quite well, even over the last ten years. $100 invested in JNJ stock back in 2003 is now worth $151 – there aren’t many $70 billion companies that can boast of a 51% return. Keep in mind, that’s the return after the recession, after the mommy blogger outcry over Motrin and after the shampoo brouhaha. The company and the brand bounce back because employees know to keep things simple, and do right by the customer even when they make mistakes.
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Tweets
- Nice profile of @anniseparker & #diversity of #Houston on @wsj today, just in time for #hackhou: http://t.co/beKDtBBvqh #Htown #cultureMay 18, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Gr8 crowd at #Houston #Hackathon listening to @brucehaupt talk city plans for #opendata. #hackhou #hackforchange http://t.co/NQ9cZZQbK9May 17, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Houston doing big things for #opendata with #Hackathon this weekend. #hackhou #hackforchange #Htown http://t.co/tmX8HVXdlTMay 17, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Well, I know where I'm eating next time I'm in #NYC! #foodie RT @questlove Ladies & Gentleman! #Hybird! @hybirdnyc! https://t.co/FJ6RvLhRM4May 17, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Interesting...lobbyists buying up airtime on @ESPN to influence White House: http://t.co/AHrFlRB6UK #politics #sportsbiz #marketing
- Well, yeah! RT #marketing #HigherEd @MedillTalentQ: #Medill #IMC is the best program in the country- @JeffDavidoff @MedillSchool @VitaminIMCMay 16, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Good read on Al Jazeera's plans for their #American #brand fm @MedillSchool: http://t.co/nm7HXjZr8E (via @NorthwesternU) #media #journalismMay 16, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- You guys know I love me some @flipboard! Neat #infographic on what people read on the engaging platform: http://t.co/6aseHayMDn #content
- Good stuff in my #Flipboard magazine, #CMO Daily: http://t.co/XPRh4PSLqc #marketing #design #culture
- Nike, adidas dominate #endorsement world: http://t.co/GW3q0L50sd #marketing #sportsbiz #branding (via @sporttechie)May 15, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- May 15, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- The #marketing of women athletes walks careful line between savvy and sexist: http://t.co/bfZpTkpzQS #culture #sportsbiz #soccer
- Japan has the coolest people transports RT @AtlanticCities: Honoring the escalator with some amazing #photos http://t.co/8xPteYaC5H
- Good read: daily rituals of the world's most #creative people: http://t.co/Hy2A5LWfAj #lifehacks #advice #history #artMay 14, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Diplomats who shun #socialmedia are being left behind: http://t.co/Nt79dZEu5C #diplomacy #culture #traveltuesday (via @susanbeebe)May 14, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- Fun take on becoming a #writer and the importance of thank you notes: http://t.co/5xeUSapNCc #communicationsMay 14, 13 from web Reply, Retweet, Favorite
- The #NFL is doing it right in #socialmedia: http://t.co/84VOL5q9F9 #sportsbiz #marketing #fans #football
- And my personal fav fm #houartcar - #luchelibre! #wrasslin #arts #culture #Htown #Houston http://t.co/RDCDfghFAr
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