The last Ted event I went to was for Absinthe at WOMMA New Orleans.

The Dell Hell/Turnaround story is often cited at events and this one has been no exception. Bob likes to think that Dell has just finished Chapter 1. Of course in that chapter there were some things that Dell did wrong, but they've made some significant strides to fix things.

A few key points: First, obviously, we're in the most significant period of change online.

Second, the number of conversation and data online is growing exponentially.

Third, customers want to speak with us in their language. English only reaches 1/3 of the world on a good day

Fourth, new countries have formed that are not being treated with the full respect they deserve. If you look at data, if MySpace was a country, it would be the 11th largest in the world.

Fifth, watch out for the content pushers. They want to create stuff and them dump it. People are looking for conversations and relevance.

Leaders will enter and become relevant in conversations every day in every language all around the world about their company and product.

Six, your new home page is Google. The content and experience is being driven by the customer. What are they defining about you?

Seventh, if you build it they may not come. The traffic that matters is not about you. The search action is not brands, it's broader topics.

Eighth, less than 1% of a person's time online is spent buying product. The majority of the people visiting your site are looking for something else, what are you providing them?

What were Dell's key learnings?

1. The most important thing we do is help customers with their technology problems. Dell has created blog response/support teams that go out and help customers with their problems. Only later did they launch their own blog.

2. Blogging is global, blogging multi-lingual, blogging is a community of passion, blogging is not one blog.

3. Would you rather do a focus group with 10 people or listen to 100,000 people debate ideas for a few months ad ask them questions through the process? This lead to Idea Storm. Idea Storm has generated 12,000 ideas, 120 of which are in action externally.

4. Customers are partners. Dell recently launched ReGeneration, a blog about their customers. Customers are driving it.

5. Communities are more powerful than individuals, communities want to help each other improve. Whatever we can do to empower our customers and communities, benefits everyone.

6. The online experience at work should be simulate to the experience at home. At Dell they gave all their employees complete access to the web, how many large companies do that?

7. Join your customers communities and become part of the solution. Think direct to customer Q&A. They participate in forums like Yahoo Answers.

8. You can see in real time whether or not you're relevant to the conversation. Twitter is great for this.

You begin to ask, if you are doing all of this, why do you need to use something like a press release?

9. If you are dealing with an issue, be truthful, transparent and diligent in updating your customers.

10. Your customers are people, not lines of business. Yes we know that, but what do your customers do? What does your customer do, when they're not your customer....i.e. their personal lives. How can you engage

11. Measurement requires thinking outside the box. Things like awareness and activities are easy to measure, but what really matters are conversations and communities.

Jeffrey disagreed with Joesph, he thinks that WOM and traditional marketing can co-exist, that is that traditional advertising is not going away.

Jeffrey has a new title for his presentation: WOM: Marketing's Butt Crack. Good laugh.

Next up was a quick game to get things started.

First question: What are the more commonly used marketing objectives? A: Branding/Awareness B: Direct Response C: Trial Response

Second question: What variables are used most commonly in planning marketing? A: Demographics B: Contextual Relevance C: Cost

Third question: What are the most common measures of marketing effectiveness? A: Direct B: Response Branding

Fourth question: What is the most influential contact point? A: Word of Mouth

There is a big disconnect, marketers know that WOM is important, but the investment, planning and measurement still skews toward traditional media.

What are the myths around WOM?
- You can't influence it.
- You can't buy it in scale.
- You can't integrate it.
- You can't measure it.

All this results in WOM getting a very small portion of the marketing budget, hence the butt crack:

All marketing should be word of mouth, but mass communications can still influence/start. Advertising can drive brand advocacy.

Start thinking about putting word of mouth at the center of media planning.

Media planning for dummies:
- Determine the objectives and targets
- Select media channels
- Develop a short list
- Measure results

Old Way: Demographics, Psychographics, Buying Behavior. New Way: Looking at the level of conversations about brands. Why are people talking? Why not?

Old Way: Channels. New Way: Conversations by technology category.

Old Way: The Short List. New Way: Think about quality and influence of content, what is starting conversation?

The NYTimes tracks what brands their readers are talking about....wouldn't a brand want to be in front of an audience that is talking about them?

Old Way: Measurement, Clicks, Impressions. New Way: WOM.

The Holy Grail has always been directly linking marketing to sales. It's called a Holy Grail for a reason, it's difficult to find. Marketers come up with proxies to link sales to marketing.

WOM also forces us to redefine our markets, since it can easily go global via the technology channels available.

Since WOM is a key motivator, shouldn't we link WOM with marketing? That is, what level of conversation is generated by advertising? Should WOM be the ROI measure for advertising?

One of Joe's basic premises is that everything can be a conversation starter. If a book or a business card can be a conversation started, why can't a brand? However, conversation and community are much bigger than a series of tactical strategies.

What's more important impressions or relationships? What brands realize now is that a single bad relationship can have a dramatic impact, i.e. Dell Hell.

The Cluetrain said that markets are conversation, Joe thinks that marketing can be a conversation. If we as an industry don't participate, we'll be left behind.

Joe jokingly said, "God gave us two ears and one mouth, use it"

Step 1, listen. It's unacceptable that often a marketing department doesn't know what's going on. Of course part of listening is hearing and understanding.

Step 2 is response, once you listen and hear you need be responsive. People expect a response.

Step 3 is join, but more importantly, be invited to join. Brands aren't as cool and sexy as they think they are. When brands built islands on Second Life the realized that nobody wanted to come. Brands have to earn their place in the party.

Step 4, catalyze. Brands have the budget, staff and resources to help things along. Find the influencers and help them.

Joe showed some graphs of Twitter conversations related to the Oovoo brand conversation compared

Word of mouth is not bought, it is not sponsored, it is earned. At this point you can get to...

Step 5, start a conversation. You can't do this, unless you've done the first four steps.

So what shouldn't you do?

Don't fake it. Don't manipulate the conversation. Don't control the conversation. Don't dominate the conversation...we (brands) like to talk don't we?

Lastly, avoiding the conversation. Brands are very good at this. Some just don't care.

Are you in the campaign or the commitment business? Are you building relationships that will build and profit over time, or just a quick impression?

Brands need to protect and nurture the new non-traditional programs since they're helping build relationships. How much are you spending on experimentation? Marketing should be storm-chasers, delving into new territories.

Joe believes that corporations will have conversation departments by 2012. Customer service will be a major brand differentiator.

Brands will be redefined based upon on they relate and interact with their communities/customers.

Speaking of airports, the other night I was part of a select group that toured the new Indianapolis Airport. It was somewhat bizarre to stand inside a huge empty building like that. I'll be posting those

I'm writing to you with frustrating news about a needless delay of the Registered Traveler program at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

When Hartsfield-Jackson began its process of choosing a service provider for the program last October, we cheered the news and quickly opened an enrollment center in downtown Atlanta. We anticipated lanes opening in December or January, because the entire process has generally taken about three months (although in some places, such as San Francisco and Salt Lake City, it has moved considerably faster).

However, through the winter we heard no decision from the Airport. Then, last Friday afternoon - six months after the process began, during which time four other major airports launched Registered Traveler programs - the Airport announced that because of plans to build four additional security lanes it was delaying implementation of the program until this summer.

Hartsfield-Jackson is run by some of the most dedicated, highly regarded professionals in the industry. So we hesitate to be critical of this decision. However, we are disappointed and surprised, for the following reasons:

1. We have implemented Clear at airports - such as Washington Dulles and San Jose - where construction was going on. If anything, Clear has helped to ease crowding during that time.

2. Atlanta Airport stated that its goal in adding the new lanes was to reduce average wait time to twenty minutes or less. Even if achieved, this would still mean that some would stand in line forty minutes or longer and that no one would have the simple, predictable five minutes or less passage through security that Registered Traveler's 140,000 members now enjoy at 17 airports across the country. So, even after the new lanes are added, a Registered Traveler program will be needed.

3. Indeed, even with the addition of just four new lanes to ATL's current 28 lanes (a 14% increase), Hartsfield-Jackson will have fewer lanes per departing passenger than Orlando - which pioneered Registered Traveler and is glad it did.

4. And Clear's lane concierges - plus the prospect of new, enhanced security equipment - make Clear's Registered Traveler lanes move so much faster that they absorb more people than the other lanes while still speeding them through - which means that all travelers in all lanes move through the airport faster.

5. The Airport's construction program will cost the Airport $25m, according to the Airport's own announcement. Registered Traveler costs the Airport nothing. In fact, it will bring concession revenue to the Airport, plus hundreds of new jobs to Atlanta. In fact, in our proposal Clear offered to build and staff a whole new lane for the Airport - which, according to the Airport's announcement, would be worth more than $6m. So, while the building of four new lanes is obviously beneficial, one of them could have been built at no cost to the Airport or City taxpayers, plus generate concession revenue and new jobs for the City. So, why not do both?

6. Clear's lanes could be operating and speeding travelers through security within four weeks of approval, whereas the construction program is scheduled for this summer. Again, why not do both?

In short, there is nothing about this lane construction project that should preclude Registered Traveler, while everything about the modest goals of that project actually makes the case for Registered Traveler stronger.

We hope to meet soon with the Mayor and the Airport to review these facts and persuade them to change this decision to delay the program. At the same time we are working with one or more of the major airlines operating out of Hartsfield-Jackson to make arrangements for them to sponsor Clear in Atlanta immediately, an alternative that the Transportation Security Administration has allowed when an airport chooses not to act on its own.

Thousands of you have written or emailed us about ATL in recent months. So, I suspect that you are as frustrated as we are.

Therefore, I hope that you will help us bring Clear to Atlanta immediately by contacting the following key decision makers and sharing your view that it's time that Atlanta implement this common-sense, cutting edge program.

Indeed, both the Mayor and City Council have to approve the $25m construction program; so, it seems logical to ask them to make sure at the same time that the faster-track, highly beneficial, and revenue-producing Registered Traveler program is not delayed any further.

Here are the officials you might want to contact:

- Shirley Franklin, Mayor of Atlanta, sfranklin@atlantaga.gov, 404.330.6100
- Benjamin DeCosta, Aviation Manager, Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, 404.530.6600
- Council President Lisa Borders, President, Atlanta City Council, lmborders@atlantaga.gov, 404.589.1037
- Council Member Clair Muller, Chair, Atlanta City Council Transportation Subcommittee, cmuller@atlantaga.gov, 404.330.6051

I travel *through* Atlanta quite a bit, so I don't have to deal with security that often, but if I lived in Atlanta I'd be furious.

I'll be watching Flickr for photos to remind me what I'm missing.

Mike and I took the train from Windsor and arrived in London early for some great light for photos. More photos from my UK trip are over on the Flickr.

Tuesday I head to London with Mike Manuel for some Voce-related work/meetings and some tourist-type stuff. While we're in town Neville Hobson is organizing a meet-up/dinner/pub-crawl on Saturday, April 12th. More details on that soon. Neville has the details posted.

What will I be doing with the D80? Not sure. A few friends that have been thinking about buying one are going to borrow it though.