The Organ Grinder’s Monkey

What is this site about?

In short, this blog is all about how marketing and PR are changing in the virtual, global conversation economy.

Call it what you will - conversation marketing, Marketing 2.0, permission marketing, whatever - the fact is that the rules of marketing and PR are evolving, often faster than a lot of us can keep up. Web 2.0, blogs, flogs, vlogs, grassroots, astroturf, word of mouth, sock puppets, spam, splogs, Twitter, YouTube, viral evangelism, MySpace, bootstrap frontiers and guerrillas in the mist…hell, these days it seems like you need a 25-page glossary just to figure out how to launch a new product, let alone position a new brand or reclaim market share in a highly competitive industry.

Some people find all of these changes and new concepts overwhelming, confusing or just plain scary. I happen to find them fascinating.

I also find myself spending a lot of time explaining, discussing and strategizing aspects of these new marketing concepts with friends, colleagues and clients. It would start with a simple question - Do I need a blog? Should I be on MySpace? What the hell is going on out there? - and three hours later we’re careening around the far reaches Outer Webnerdia, discussing the finer points of Twitter-stream marketing. (Before you ask, no I’m not on Twitter. Dear God, no…I have work to do.)

Eventually, I realized that I needed someplace place where I could dump all these ideas and concepts, talk about the stuff that people are always asking me about and clear my brain out so I could concentrate on my work; a sort of Web 2.0/Marketing 2.0 primer for small business and microenterprise, with lots of resources and other shiny objects.

Clearly, this called for a blog.

Who is this blog for?

My personal goal is to help folks who are trying to make the world a better place (or a weirder one, which is pretty much the same thing as far as I’m concerned) create the voice and platform they need to put their ideas into action. My professional goal is to make a living doing that. This blog is just one of many projects that fall somewhere near the crossroads of those two ideals.

Primarily, this site is written for the clueless newbie who’s out to save the world but who, although they may know everything there is to know about their business or topic, needs some help figuring out how to put all these new and confusing tools to best use to achieve their goals. It’s dedicated to the bootstrapper, the DIY entrepreneur, the back-bedroom-and-half-of-the-kitchen-table microenterprise, the local co-op, org or activist group, the zine-maker and all the other folks who are out there every day trying to make the world a better place all by themselves. These are the people who are pushing us all uphill to a higher level against our own baser instincts, and they’re my peeps.

But really, anyone who plans to be buying, selling, reaching out to, connecting with or speaking to an audience for any purpose in the foreseeable future will probably find something of interest and use here. Even the big guys who have people to handle all this stuff for them might want to take a peek now and then, just to make sure their PR orgs aren’t missing something important.

So, you’re some sort of marketing expert then?

Absolutely not. Call me a Web 2.0 enthusiast, or a marketing geek, or even a fangirl of the conversation economy. I just happen to find all this stuff very cool, plus I have some occasional free time to get my geek on and I like to share what I find with others.

As a result, I sometimes wind up knowing more about this or that than someone else who needs that information, which means that sometimes I’m in a position to be of some help. Which sounds all lofty and stuff, until you realize that’s just a fancy way of saying that once I learn about something cool or new or interesting, I can’t shut up about it until I’ve told everyone..yanno, the basic blogger mentality.

But an expert? Eh, these days things move so fast in the online and marketing worlds that by the time you think you know enough to call yourself an “expert” you’re already a dinosaur. A tasty, slow moving dinosaur.

So I’ll just stick with the term “geek” and keep playing and learning and chasing all the pretty shiny objects. It’s more fun that way, and I’m less likely to get swallowed whole by my own gaping hubris.

So, what does any of this have to do with monkeys?

Three things…

First, if the organ grinder is a symbol for the independent mindset of frontier-busting business pioneers, then that little dancing monkey with the bright red fez is literally Marketing 2.0 incarnate. It cavorts around out in front of the musicmaker shaking its groove thang, doing tricks and interacting with the audience - and in doing so, creates a social object that the audience can share, play with and get excited about, which increases traffic, stickiness and sales. And it’s fun! All of which means more shiny for the organ grinder.

Second, monkeys are a nice memetic shorthand for the primate part of human nature that makes us all susceptible to the blandishments of marketing, and the part of the brain that business people need to consider when deciding how to speak effectively to their target audience. It’s the monkey that is suddenly obsessed with getting it’s hands on what is exclusive or limited, even thought it wouldn’t even look twice if the supply was openly available and endless. It’s the monkey that instigates irrational decision-making based on faulty risk assessment or who falls for false arguments. And it’s the monkey that makes us behave the way we do when we react rather than responding.

Third, I just happen to like monkeys. They’re funny, clever, mischievous, silly, snarky, street-savvy little bastards with a keen eye for opportunity and a go-for-it attitude that meshes perfectly with the online world as well as the feeling I’m trying to create here. They’re my animist alter ego. And I think they’re funny. So, there’s that.

For more information and the basic site rules, etc, visit The Inevitable Welcome Post.