Today marks my last day at Forrester Research.

As many of my colleagues tell me, I have a very eclectic background. Music, politics, technology, design, business... it was all by design, and it will continue to grow and expand.

In September, my new phase will begin when I join Jeffrey Dachis, former co-founder of Razorfish, to help him build a new company focused on developing an enterprise social software platform. I'll also be joining my former Forrester colleague, Peter Kim. We'll be working closely to help Jeff build this company.

As for Forrester, it's as strong as ever. I've worked with brilliant people before, but Forrester is certainly the largest collection of intellectual firepower I've ever witnessed. I walk away a much smarter person than I came in, and for that I am grateful. There are exciting times ahead with the Jupiter acquisition. It's a group of very talented people that are a great addition for the Forrester team.

I've learned so much from my time there. I'm a much better writer, communicator, and thinker. I was able to push big ideas into the market place. My reports about Engagement was the theme of our 2008 Marketing Forum, I was its opening keynote speaker, and I eventually won me our Top Keynote award. I've gained a unique perspective on the marketplace, perched from a location very few get to experience. And that insight makes me stronger, and well equipped for this new venture.

Now I know it's the time to act and put my ideas into practice--the opportunity is too great.

This new job is ambiguous. I don't have a job title. The company doesn't have a name. At the moment, there are only three of us. We don't know what this will become, we only have a general direction. My office will be at my house... in Austin... and in cyberspace on IM, Twitter, Facebook... To many, this recipe might spell fear. To me, it's comfortable. I thrive in the unknown--no rules, no baggage, no momentum to pull us into mediocrity. We get to build this from scratch in a thoughtful and disciplined manner. It's my opportunity to bring my engagement ideas to life and the perfect time to leverage my background to apply a design thinking approach to the way we, and our clients, do business. And I'm excited to get to work, executing on Jeff's vision, learning from his experience and a brilliant entrepreneur--a path I see myself taking in the not too distant future.

Our goal is to help companies navigate and participate in this changing world, charged with social technologies and driven by people and employees who are in control. We're looking for companies that need help navigating these waters, we're looking for partners and developers to help us build this engine, and we're looking for smart people to help us realize this vision. If you're interested, contact Jeff at jdachis at austinventures dot com.

More to come...

UPDATE: Sorry I didn't clarify, I'm going to remain in Boston.

How should a company participate in social media?

It's one of the most perplexing issues facing companies today. The trends are clear: people increasingly interact with one another online, amplified by social technologies. But once a company steps in, bad things typically happen. The problem? Firms always place their own needs ahead of their own and they can only think about their product as the subject matter. It's this egoistic approach that turns people off.

We've all me this person. Self-absorbed, always talking about themselves, but never there to listen to what you have to say. They love to hang out with you when you're doing something they enjoy, regardless of your wishes. This is how companies behave. They want a community of people to talk about how the product is--no other subjects allowed. If you're Harley Davidson, Apple, a move studio, a video game maker, or a toy manufacturer, maybe it will happen. But people aren't going to join your social network because they're huge fans of mortgages or toilet paper. This approach diminishes your company's credibility, calls into question your intentions, and basically makes people think you're a prick — just like that person I mentioned above.

So how do you find that level of participation that's just right? It's all about the context of use. Context of use is the situation or scenario in which your product gets used. It's the overarching goal your customer is trying to achieve, of which your product is only a part. So the context is not the mortgage, it's home buying. And it's that context in which a brand can participate. The objective is to create, or facilitate the creation of, content that helps that customer achieve their goal. Don't assume or expect people to just talk about your product--it's the context that matters and it's the context where opportunity is ripe for the picking.

The design approach always begins here — identifying what people are trying to accomplish and then developing a solution that helps them do so. That's why designers use or conduct ethnographic research, participatory design, and eventually usability testing. This situation is no different. Companies need to take a few steps back and look at how they can help their customers. The responsibility lies on the company to identify the need, provide the solution, and then figure out how to make money — you have the resources to do that, not your customer. And when it comes to measurement, I've already talked a lot about how to do that (and I even have new research out that goes into more detail).

This is why a design thinking approach works around the inadequacies of most marketing organizations. It's about meeting customer needs — design will soon be the key differentiator.

Wall Street... I'm placing initial blame on you. In the 1950s we saw unprecedented innovation, largely fueled by our country's Post War efforts. But the companies that brought all of these new ideas to the market place were a different breed than today's. American business was focused on quality and innovation and not tethered to a rapid and wired stock market. Today, companies are bound to the Street's demand for squeezing profits out of every quarter -- and only business results anchored in those time periods matter. So, we loose long term focus to get a few more pennies out of the stock price.

This short term thinking often fails to accommodate the longer time periods to understand customer needs and develop great, meaningful products. Any request for dollars is met with a response demanding specific financial results within the next 90 days. But beneficial customer insight requires patience and rigor, yielding results that may not be visible until several quarters, possibly years depending on development and manufacturing cycles. The result: all of those crappy products and annoying, irrelevant marketing messages.

What innovation require are senior leaders with the balls to foster a collaborative, discovery driven culture and put some dollars behind initiatives to better understand customer needs as generate as many new ideas as possible.

If that doesn't happen, then just go private.

Finally, there's a video excerpt of my keynote speech for Forrester's Marketing Forum in Los Angeles (April 8-9, 2008). The theme of the entire conference was based on my report, Marketing's New Key Metric: Engagement. I was the opening keynote on the first day of the conference. The title of my speech was Engagement: A New Approach To Understanding Your Customers.

It was pretty exciting once I got on stage, but it certainly was stressful in the preparation and rehearsal phase. It's admittedly difficult to find time with all of the other analyst responsibilities on my plate. Regardless, the keynote was a hit.

I opened with a fascinating story about Jen, an IKEA fan from Ohio. I told her story about attempting to encourage IKEA to open a store near her in Cincinnati. She did this using her fan blog, OHIKEA.com.

Then I debunked the marketing funnel (one of my favorite things to do), introduced my Engagement framework, and aligned it with the buying process. Then I told a story of Laura, who is an engaged user of Glaxo Smith Klein Consumer Healthcare's alli weight loss product. My good friends at Communispace were kind enough to connect me with Laura and share the sucesses of their online community for GSK.

I closed by recommending how to measure engagement. I'll follow up with another post including the details of my speech, but overall the experience was fantastic, I received lots of positive feedback, and it was certainly fun. Kerry was the keynote on day two, discussing Designing For Engagement — and she rocked it as well.

Every good marketing school will teach you to value the brand. But when do you let go of a brand rather than force it into an identity that just isn't true to it's personality? I've seen more and more brands of yesteryear try to reposition themselves -- with little success. Take Oldsmobile for example. The heritage of this brand spans back 111 years. Founded by Ransom E. Olds in 1897, it was acquired by General Motors in 1908 and lived a successful life. In the 1990s, GM tried repositioning the brand as an upscale brand to battle imports, but it never fully escaped it's 'old' image. After several unsuccessful attempts, GM decided to put the brand to rest.

Recently, I've seen the Old Spice brand desperately struggling to maintain it's market share amid several new youthful entrants into the space, namely Axe. Axe has its brand positioning down cold -- edgy, sex-crazed, and in your face -- the perfect fit for frat boys looking to get laid (and for older frat boys to feel young again, and perhaps get laid). Enter Old Spice. The new campaign tries to fend off the Axe brand. But come on, are people really buying this. Now, the 'Olds' in Oldsmobile doesn't come from the word 'old' -- it's actually the name of the founder, Ransome E. Olds. Unfortunate perhaps, considering the evolving edginess of modern culture. The Old Spice brand was initially based on a colonial nautical theme. Again, unfortunate, but clinging to this brand for the youthful products seems questionable (I'm not suggesting they do away with the brand, just consider a different identity for the more youthful products).

My question is this: when should you just let go of the brand? Why doesn't Old Spice take all of it's core competencies, manufacturing resources, distribution capabilities, and retail relationships and create a new brand to fend off Axe? I know the MBA/Brand Management philosophy is basically to go in as a brand manager and just simply try not to fuck it up. But if a company isn't willing to take a risk, how viable is a brand that claims to be something it isn't?

This is yet another example of the marketing discipline falling woefully short of understanding the new dynamics of the marketplace. And it's only a matter of time (hopefully soon) that the marketplace will consistently punish this lack of insight. Either that, or I'll be completely wrong as I fork over $500 for Apple's new iOlds.