At a recent seminar, I was struck by the number of people wondering, “Will these slides be posted?” Struck because the nature of this presentation was such that, without the presenter, the slides wouldn’t do you much good.

It got me thinking about our constant use of slide-creating software, and I realized there are three things that really bug me about it.

1. Slides don’t tell me what I need to know.
Several weeks ago, I followed a friend’s Twitter link to a presentation on SlideShare. I dutifully watched it, but at several points found myself thinking, “Gee, I wonder what she talked about on this slide.” A big ol’ screenshot of a web site probably provided great fodder for her insightful commentary, but didn’t do me much good as a passive observer. If audio would have been included, it would have been a different story but SlideShare doesn’t include audio. Watching a presentation with no one presenting ends up feeling like listening to one side of a phone conversation: you get the gist, but not the whole story. And entire stretches remain a total mystery.

As my pal @rrazor said, “Slides are often (hopefully?) the most content-poor part of a presentation. SlideShare is just a tease.”

Put another way, if I can get everything I need from your slides alone — why would I bother coming to see you speak? And, if I can’t get everything I need from your slides alone — what’s the point of putting them on SlideShare?

2. I’ve had just about enough of slide culture.
I realize I’m swimming against a cultural tsunami that cannot be stopped, but I really wish we could scale back our use of slides. PowerPoint is the ubiquitous format for communicating everything. And I do mean everything. I recently got an invitation to an event that was — you guessed it — a PowerPoint slide. From what I can tell, the ability for this organization to animate the crap out of every piece of text and embed a soundtrack is what really sold them on this format. A nice, clean PDF simply stating the details of the event pales in comparison.

A colleague sent me a deck of slides that had no business being on slides in the first place; it really warranted several pages of text (like a White Paper). Cramming that amount of information into a set of slides is just silliness: it’s an attempt to bullet-ize information that shouldn’t be communicated in bullets. Thoughts that should be sentences end up as half-sensical phrases and groups of thoughts that should be paragraph end up as dense bulleted lists filling up the slide. Why even try to put that amount of data in a slide?

Something about our ADD/multi-tasking/Twitter-ized lifestyles seems to have made us loathe to communicate information in anything other than small, bite-sized chunks. But, guess what? Not everything can be communicated that way. In 2003, Edward Tufte wrote an article titled PowerPoint is evil. The guy’s got a point.

(He’s also got a longer piece on this topic, which I’d highly recommend, including a fascinating look at some slides from NASA about the space shuttle Columbia.)

3. If we really cared, we’d write it down.
Most of the time, when I hear people ask, “Will this be posted online?” what I think they are saying is, “Do I really need to take notes?” These days, we’re so busy tweeting and live-blogging during presentations that we’re only paying half-attention to the presentation itself. So, we want the slides to remind us of the half that we missed. Maybe I’m being old fashioned, but whatever happened to taking notes? If a presenter says something that you think is really important, WRITE IT DOWN. Is it really that hard?

There is one situation I can think of where I found slide sharing helpful. At an Adaptive Path seminar years ago, they distributed several workbooks. One of which was a printout of the presentation in small-slide format with an area for notes next to each slide. This was actually helpful; while the presenter was talking, I jotted down information related to what he was saying. There was so little data on the slides (compared to the oceans of data coming out of the presenter’s mouth) that the slides alone wouldn’t have been any good. The slides plus my notes were okay, but still not half as good as attending the seminar itself. So maybe that’s what’s bugging me: people mistaking the slides for the presentation. The two are not the same. And if they are, the presentation wasn’t worth whatever you paid to attend.

Am I wrong?
What is with our obsession with sharing slides? Maybe someone who voraciously devours presentations posted by other people can help enlighten me: what am I missing here? I can’t imagine asking Al Gore to send me the slides for his presentation, An Inconvenient Truth. Rather than striving to create slides to post for everyone to see, shouldn’t we strive to create presentations that are so engaging that our audience closes their laptops and listens?

I spend most of my time encouraging people to use technology. This week, I’d like to challenge you to not use PowerPoint (and Mac users — that means no Keynote, either). Let’s see how long we can make it.

[cross-posted at the Geek Girls Guide]

Chances are you have a number of different inboxes, all competing for your attention. Professional and personal e-mail accounts. Voicemail and instant messaging at the office, your mobile device and at home. And now there’s all the social media inboxes – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yammer, YouTube, Flickr – the list goes on and on.

Talk about your inbox insanity.

While many internet marketing professionals thrive on exploring ways to use these tools to generate and share content, we are a clear minority. Indeed, a vast majority of our customers and prospective customers are finding the proliferation of inboxes overwhelming. And as a result, 1:1 social media networks are beginning to fragment in the same way traditional media did before.

These are all insights Jeffrey Rohrs, Vice President of Marketing for ExactTarget, shared with about 150 MIMA members and guests at our February workshop. Speaking to us on a snowy morning at the Depot in downtown Minneapolis he also shared these observations on the current state of email marketing, some tips for successful practice and a vision for the future.

Observation one – Marketers are not in control. Consumers now scan and delete messages that do not appear relevant to them to manage their busy inboxes. Plus, they appreciate the greater control over the source of messaging they receive offered by social media inboxes. So email marketing messages must become more personal and less promotional to be opened, read and acted upon.

Observation two – Marketing communications increasingly exist by invitation. This is especially true for Millennials.

Observation three – Invitations are easily revoked. Remember the recent Burger King “angry Whopper®” offer for a free burger to anyone who got rid of ten Facebook friends? Demand was so high, they had to shut down the application.

Observations one, two and three demonstrate that permission and relevance matter. Fail to heed this simple rule and risk being deleted from the inbox or dropped by the consumer.

Tips for implementing a successful email marketing program
• Create conversations, deliver meaningful offers and don’t push for the sale
• Give consumers the information THEY want and the respect THEY deserve
• Don’t “pollute” the inbox with irrelevant communications
• Position your communications as customer service opportunities
• Create “subscribers” who opt-in and look forward to your communications

Based on these observations and tips, Rohrs said to be effective email marketing programs must be built on smart use of market data. Shockingly, he cited research from the CMO Council 2008 that reveals that few of us are prepared to succeed.

• Only 6% of CMOs surveyed said they have excellent knowledge of their customers.
• More than 50% of CMOs surveyed said they had little or no knowledge of their customers’ demographic, behavioral, psychographic or transactional data.

Clearly, these numbers need to change. Rohrs suggests marketers strive to transform from thinking like siloed businesses to thinking like publishers. Based on this concept, he and his firm, ExactTarget, believe that the future of email marketing will belong to those who take an agnostic approach where subscribers rule.

Key take aways
• Serve individuals
• Honor their unique preferences regarding communication, content, frequency and channel
• Deliver timely, relevant content that improves their lives (always send value)

When I first saw this month’s MIMA event was about email marketing I figured I could skip it. Mass emails and spamming are not my gig. Yup, that’s my first thought when I think email marketing – SPAM!

But yesterday as the MIMA event got underway I got curious. What does everybody else think of first when they hear email marketing? Do they have the same attitude as me? Why do I ignore email marketing when most other aspects of internet marketing really intrigue me? I’ve done a limited amount of email marketing in my past and know there is much more to it than spam blasting to a massive list of unsuspecting recipients. But for some reason email marketing has always been an easy topic for me to ignore in practice and study. I just have not been interested.

To quench my thirst for answers before my interest once again waned on the subject, I fired up the MIMA Live feed of the event (great feature by the way) along with Twitter and Twitter Search. I asked my fellow tweeters What do you think of first when you think of “Email Marketing”? The people I hang with on Twitter includes a good share of marketing type peeps so keep that in mind when reading their responses. Not all responses came from the marketing world though. Here are the replies I received….

AaronWeiche ROI

GraemeThickins that’s easy… spam

justrobyn Ad/specials, and exposure campaigns to new or existing cust’s via email.

brichterv i think email marketing is great but somehow it gets misrepresented as spam

_Dave_E Spam. Irksome, at best.

leeodden Email marketing is still one of the best return on investment marketing tactics and ties in perfectly with social media marketing

DazzlinDonna The first thing I think of when I think of Email Marketing is Companies leverage existing client base to sell products to them in the future. Easier to sell to existing clients than to attain new ones.

martinbowling First thing I think of “spam” hehe

TwisterMc Are effective campaigns about the words or graphics?

RuudHein spam. carpet bombing. blast marketing. gimmicky. sell vs. help.

martinbowling We use email marketing but only as a communication devise we try not to do “pitchy” emails

RuudHein no, haven’t used. When I will it will be newsletter/list based; content w. sales

mjkeliher When I think “e-mail marketing,” I think “opt-out.” As in, you better give me an easy way to opt out and a load of reasons not to

GraemeThickins don’t use it personally..I’m an independent consultant who gets business by personal referral..but some of my clients (tech startups) use it

josephrueter Conversation is the preferred stance in most anything. Any medium executed in a way that helps conversation is a GO!

bigboxcar First thing I think: Difficult. It’s hard to accomplish a dynamite email marketing campaign. Especially for publishers. 2nd thing: Cheap.

Via Facebook I also heard from John Bonfield who said ‘I do EMM, so I may not be representative … anyway, here ya go: “Designed for a Preview Pane”‘

Now, after listening to Jeffrey K. Rohrs, VP of Marketing for ExactTarget give his presentation to MIMA members and reading through the tweets I received, my gut reaction to email marketing has gained some depth, intrigue, and appreciation. The thoughts of spam still linger when I think of email marketing, but they are not as strong. I’ve come out this with these bullet points to remember…

• Precision Marketing & Customization – use data & behavioral info to message when it is of greatest relevance to them.
• Email Marketing has a great ROI
• Get Creative in building your lists and monetizing them
• The pool of folks with email is much larger than that of social media, don’t lose sight of that
• People have the control, treat them well
• Learn and know your customers

Thanks to Jeffrey K. Rohrs for the great presentation and to all of those that tweeted in reply! You can follow Jeffrey Rohrs on Twitter. If you want to follow any of the people above on Twitter they are of quality tweetitude! If you want to follow me on Twitter you can catch me at @dohman. You can also find the archived video feed of the presentation at MIMA’s UstreamTv channel. And last, if you would like to share your first thoughts of email marketing, or help clue me in on something more, I would love to read them, leave a reply!

Would you open this e-newsletter?

E-Newsletter 1.12.09

It’s from an organization I know and trust, but really, how boring is this?

E-Newsletter 1.09.09
E-Newsletter 12.11.08
E-Newsletter 12.04.08
E-Newsletter 11.20.08
E-Newsletter 11.12.08

My inbox is full of these — unopened. Suppose I had opened one, and found something I wanted to refer to later. The chronological labeling doesn’t help me in the least.

Other similar examples:

AIGA Minnesota Distiller January 2009
AIGA Minnesota Distiller December 2008
AIGA Minnesota Distiller November 2008
AIGA Minnesota Distiller October 2008

These AIGA e-newsletters are gorgeous and full of interesting content. Why are they hiding behind such a dreary door? In my inbox, the “From” line is also AIGIA Minnesota, so I really don’t need the branding repeated in the subject line.

Entice me with real content! C’mon, you only have about 50-60 characters in an email subject line. Don’t waste them on your name (I can read it in the “From” line), the month (which I already know), and the year (which I also know).

Here’s another set, with a slightly different style:

AIGA Communique Vol 8 Issue 10
AIGA Communique Vol 8 Issue 9
AIGA Communique Vol 8 Issue 8
AIGA Communique Vol 8 Issue 7

Quick fix: Put AIGA Communique in the “From” line, save the Vol 8 Issue 9 information for the masthead, and give me a delicious taste of what’s inside with a subject line like this:

Design leaders see stronger design economy coming

This is what Chad White calls a one-interest trigger subject line. Use it if your story is compelling. Or use multiple interest triggers, as in this example:

Design for Democracy, Winterhouse Writing Awards, AIGA Fellows

Here are some other unopened e-newsletters languishing in my inbox. Would you be willing to click?

Your January/February issue of I.D. Magazine is here.
Reminder – Your January/February issue of I.D. Magazine is here.
Your November/December issue of I.D. Magazine is here.
Reminder – Your November/December issue of I.D. Magazine is here.

I’m getting the “Reminder” email because I didn’t open the first email. Maybe it had something to do with the subject line?

Here’s yet another set:

Gwyn, Your January Issue of Interface Has Arrived!
Gwyn, Your January Issue of Gate-Way Has Arrived!
Gwyn, Your December Issue of Interface Has Arrived!
Gwyn, Your December Issue of Gate-Way Has Arrived!

I appreciate the personalization (although my name is Gwyneth), and I do rather like the breathless, we’re-so-proud-to-present-this-to-you enthusiasm. But really it’s better left to a personal message: Our New Baby Has Arrived!

And, please, let’s watch that Title Case. Because Everything In The Subject Line Isn’t Really That Important!

I don’t know about you, but my inbox is full of intriguing, urgent messages that grab my attention far faster than a ho-hum label and a date. A few examples:

From the ubiquitous Jared M. Spool:

UIE Tips: Failure is Not an Option — It’s a Requirement
UIE Tips: Four Essential Skills for Information Architects
UIE Tips: How to Innovate Right Now

From MarketingProfs Today:

5 Tips For Developing a Corporate Blogging Policy

What Not To Do on Facebook, How to Create a Successful Video Blog, Nurturing the Right Leads

How Obama Did It, How a Good Bistro is Like a Good Web Business

The MarketingProfs emails are really pushing the character-count limit. But they can because they’re interesting, intriguing, informative.

Here are some subject lines from Larsen inSights, the email newsletter I edit. Do these capture your attention? Our open rates say “yes.”

Color: 5 trends important to your business
Presentations: 8 Mistakes Everyone Makes
Brand identity: When should you refresh?

Finally, here’s an email subject line I couldn’t resist:

Email Insider: Subject-Line Absolutes: Are There Any?

Did you click? You should. It’s a great article.

P.S. See you at the upcoming MIMA event: Inbox Insanity: The Future of Email Marketing. Perhaps Jeff Rohrs will share the boring, the bewildering, and the best from his inbox.

Our January event was a panel discussion attended by nearly 200 interactive marketing professionals. While we all appreciate learning from the national experts, such as November’s speaker, Ginny Redish author of Letting Go of the Words – Writing Web Content that Works, these panel discussions are equally worthwhile to attend.

That’s because MIMA members have a ton of creativity, knowledge, experience – and personality – and the panel format is an excellent forum for us to share our expertise with one another. It’s one of the things that makes MIMA membership great.

Actionable take aways recommended by the panel follow.  Like someone said: “If you’ve got clients, customers and competitors who A) know how to type and B) have Internet connections, seriously, don’t miss this discussion.”

• Set up a Google Alert for your company’s name as well as your own name
• Reach out to the people who are talking about you to help shape the message

Tammy Lee Stanoch, VP Corporate Communications for NWA

• Don’t overlook Twitter when listening for what people are saying about you
• Look for profile sites that are aggregating information about your company – sometimes the information can be incorrect and you can correct it
• Register your name on .org, .net, .biz, .tv and other domain extensions besides .com

Lela Phommasouvahn, Senior Consultant, Search Marketing for FindLaw, a Thomson Reuters Business

• Check out spy.apspot.com
• Before engaging customers in social media spaces, ask yourself what kind of relationship do you want
• Remember that you do not have control of your brand in social media – you won’t influence anyone until you build their trust

Steve Bendt, Social Technology Activist for Best Buy, Inc.

Moderator Greg Swan, Digital Strategy Manager at Weber Shandwick, also made the case for why digital reputation management should be a priority for any business by sharing the following quote from Warren Buffett.

“If you lose money for the firm by bad decisions, I will be understanding. If you lose reputation for the firm, I will be ruthless.”

Is this a corollary to the ageless axiom: “reputations take years to create but can be undone in seconds”? In today’s world of mobile internet, social media and user generated content, this is a truth that is wise to be mindful of.

For more information visit http://delicious.com/digitalreputationmanagement.

Over the past year, Twitter seems to have hit its tipping point and truly entered popular consciousness. (@idpkbrian called it when he saw a reference to Twitter in a Wal-Mart ad in a movie theatre this summer.)

Just to be contrarian, I think it’s time I shared my Twitter peeves. Let the Twitter scroogin’ begin!

Twitter != IM
If more than half your tweets start with @, you might want to consider downloading an instant messaging client. Of course, if all those @ replies are interesting to your followers, more power to you. But, more often than not, @ replies consist of stuff like, “@ so-and-so, what are you doing tonight? I’m washing my hair!”

Know what I say to that? #annoying! Pick up the phone, send an email or use instant messenger.

Watch the re-tweets, Mister.
RT, or re-tweeting, is repeating what someone else said because you thought it was funny or interesting. That’s fine, but if more than half your tweets are RTs, what the hell are you doing? Add something interesting to the conversation, or don’t talk. (This from the girl who tweets pictures of her kid. Who do I think I am?)

Twitter is also not RSS
If all that you or your company are tweeting about is your latest blog post, please stop. If we want to read your blog, we’ll subscribe to your RSS feed. (If you sprinkle your blog notices among other interesting tweets, no worries.)

On a related note, if all you’re doing is @replying to people who mention you or your competitor, please stop. You’re killing me.

Quantity vs. Quality
This goes for tweets and followers alike. If you’ve been on Twitter for six months and you have thousands of tweets, you are either:
a) incredibly interesting and knowledgable
b) self-obsessed
c) in need of an IM client (see: Twitter != IM)

The answer is most likely b or c. Sorry.

Low or No-Value Tweets
When it comes to followers, I’m glad you have X-hundred or thousand. Good for you! Seriously, good for you. But, you don’t have to tweet every time another 5 people start following you. “I have 100 followers!” “I have 110 followers!” gets old very fast. As someone who’s following you, I obviously think you have something to say. Rattling off your number of followers is not that interesting. If I want to see how many followers you have, I can look at your profile anytime I want. On a related note, it’s really not necessary to publicly thank all your followers.

I am Not a Snob.
I saw a video last month decrying Twitter “snobbery.” The basic message was that if you have a ton of followers and don’t follow all of them back, you’re not social media, you’re solo media.

Um, no. I certainly don’t expect every blog that I read to also read my blog. Similarly, I don’t expect everyone I follow on Twitter to follow me back. I’m busy, they’re busy, we’re all busy, and keeping up with 2,000 tweeters may not be high on my list, or theirs. There are certainly people with thousands of Followers and Followees, and God bless them (see: @stephenfry). But, I have a full-time job, a blog, a husband, a house and two kids. I use Twitter to follow some friends and some industry people that I think are interesting. That’s it. And it doesn’t make me a snob, it just means I’m smart enough to know my own limits.

The Elite
It bugged me when bloggers did it years ago and it bugs me now that tweeters are doing it: lists of who is “elite” based on number of followers or number of tweets or other wacky methods. What bugs me is the “I’m more popluar than you” mentality that smacks of junior high school. The beauty of where technology is right now (Web 2.0, if you will) is that we all have a voice. Not everyone can start a radio or TV station, or start printing a newspaper, but anyone can set up a Twitter account, a web site, a blog, or a Facebook page — and if they have something interesting to say, they’ll find an audience.

If anyone has this kind of right, it seems like Mr. Tweet does. He looks at it in terms of influence and relevance, which seems right on the mark. Trying to calculate who is elite based on followers or tweets just seems silly to me. I’ve seen people who have made thousands of low-value tweets. That ain’t elite. Where Mr. Tweet gets it right is in understanding that it’s in the eye of the follower: what’s relevant to me may not be relevant to someone else. This is not high school. There is no “in crowd.”

The Echo Chamber
Just like in real life, there are clusters of Twitter users. Many of us follow many of the same people. The result is that I might get the same article tweeted 5 times in 5 minutes. (related: my RT gripe). @jongordon noted a few weeks ago that it seemed like Twitter was made up of 90% PR people and “social media experts” and sometimes, it sure seems like he’s right.

Everyone was all a-buzz about the Motrin Moms a couple of months ago, but only ONE DAY after the whole thing happened there were so many tweets ABOUT it that it was impossible to find the tweets that actually WERE it. Echo….echo…echo…

Ego-Tweeting
I got a lot of Amens this week when I tweeted, “the more people use twitter, the more it becomes a place for ego-tripping and butt-kissing. i’m ready for that to stop now.”

Here’s what I’m talking about: the ego-tweet (made by what @JenKaneCo refers to as “twarcissists”) is the standard annoying bragadocious comment. This was brilliantly parodied by @lolife who said, “Having lunch with @god, then a meeting with @obama and then drinks with @bono before my date with @superhotchick.” Ego-tweets are all a variation on that theme. #snore

The butt-kiss tweet is usually a reaction. It goes something like this: powerful client-type person tweets about their business. The bajillion vendor-type people who follow this person go into a tweeting frenzy, each one trying to prove their smarts and derring-do. “Why yes, @powerfulclient-typeperson, we are incredibly strategic and smart!” And then we’re all subjected to the equivalent of a group capabilities presentation in 140 character bites. Which makes me, and all the kittens in the world, weep.

The Circle of Life
Don’t get me wrong, I love Twitter. It’s changed my life, cleared up my acne and I have lost 15 pounds since November. It’s just going through an interesting phase.

If you think about the arc that blogs have followed, it’s easy to draw parallels: began life as geek-only tool, gained popularity, users started defining crietria which make them “elite” to set them apart from all the newcomers, companies thought they were a golden ticket, blog ad networks developed and PR companies actively wooed bloggers, some bloggers were outed as shills and some managed to make a living at it, “real” journalists bristled but grudgingly started accepting blogs, blogs pronounced dead.

This same arc applies to Twitter. When I joined almost two years ago, there weren’t a whole lot of other people tweeting. Now that it’s hit the mass consciousness, the elite lists have started popping up, more and more companies are tweeting (and just like with blogs, a few are getting it right and the rest don’t know what to do), Twitter ad services have started popping up and will soon start to infiltrate. When I was watching CNN last month they were scrolling tweets across the bottom of the screen which means that sometime later this year, you can expect the “Twitter is Dead” headline to hit Wired.

Of course, blogs aren’t really dead — they’re just not the Next Best Thing anymore. Now, that mantle is carried by Twitter. We’ll see how long it lasts. In the meantime, happy tweeting. Follows or rotten tomatoes can be directed @irishgirl.

[cross-posted on the Geek Girls Guide]

Political oratory at its best can inspire, inform, and incite millions to action. (A bit like great web content, huh?)

Don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to hear Obama’s inaugural address. (Anything else I might blog about the day before this historic speech seems insubstantial.) So in anticipation, I took a close look at Obama’s inspiring November 4th presidential acceptance speech. Let’s start with the opening sentence:

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

This is a fine example of a periodic sentence with expert parallelism and skillful repetition:

Like all periodic sentences, this one builds to a rousing conclusion. Just like election night itself, holding our interest hour after hour as the votes are tallied, this sentence holds us in suspense until its final inspiring statement:

tonight is your answer

The use of second person — your answer — speaks boldly and directly to this doubting anyone Obama mentions, as if to convince the stubborn holdout of the historic significance of this moment. How much weaker the sentence would be without second person:

The choice of anyone, rather than someone is also notable: If there is anyone out there who still doubts …

I particularly like the word choice out there. It suggests, quite literally, that you are really out there (out on a limb, out of it, out of touch) if you’re not moved by this historic moment.

And take a look at the two embedded independent clauses:

America is a place where all things are possible
The dream of our founders is alive in our time

My only quibble is that the third phrase in this grouping should also be an independent clause. So instead of this structure:

America is a place where all things are possible
The dream of our founders is alive in our time
The power of our democracy

It might be:

America is a place where all things are possible
The dream of our founders is alive in our time
The power of our democracy is unshakable

The sentence would then read:

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions if the power of our democracy is unshakable, tonight is your answer.

So that was the first sentence. (I told you I liked this speech.) Let’s move on, quickly.

After proclaiming the ringing phrase tonight is your answer in his opening sentence, Obama skillfully reinforces it in the second, third, and fifth paragraphs:

It’s the answer told …
It’s the answer spoken …
It’s the answer that led …

He also evidences a skillful use of the humble prepositional phrase:

It’s been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.

Count ‘em. There are four:

of what we did
on this date
in this election
at this defining moment

And guess what defining word they lead us to? Change.

And of course, there are the carefully crafted soundbites:

We cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.

I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation … block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

A new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

What’s that? You’re not a fan of this rhetoric? Well go ahead then: Write Obama’s inaugural speech yourself.

Or take a less arduous path and read how noted presidential speechwriters are suggesting Obama craft his inaugural message.

So I ask all of you interactive marketers reading this today: Can we create web content with the same power and influence as an inaugural address?

Yes we can.

Both President-Elect Obama’s detractors and supporters agree that the man can turn a good phrase, so like many, I’m looking forward to his inaugural address. Maybe he’ll even have a few tips for interactive marketers. No, really! Some of the best Presidential quotes can easily be applied to interactive marketers. Here are just a few to inspire you in the new year:

“No one ever listened themselves out of a job.” -Calvin Coolidge

Now more than ever, the customer comes first. Think about what they want from your websites and communications, not what you want to tell them. For example, maybe your customers want information in a straightforward format, rather than in an exciting, cutting edge design. The customer isn’t always fun, but they’re always right.

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” -Dwight Eisenhower

For the retail marketers that survived it (and even those who didn’t), this holiday season seemed like nothing but a great battle. Plans were made. And changed. But that doesn’t mean planning is futile. Think like a great general and adopt the discipline of planning, but with the flexibility to manage contingencies.

“Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.” -Ronald Reagan

Many companies are understandably concerned about managing their digital reputation, but it’s important to set expectations around those efforts. In the digital age, anyone can write something negative about your company. It’s impossible to stop it, but it is possible, and vital, to join the conversation about your brand. There will still be negative comments out there, but at least your brand’s perspective on those comments will also be represented.

“I not only use all the brains I have but all I can borrow.” -Woodrow Wilson

We’re all swamped at work, but this quote is a good reminder to spend some time looking at what other companies are doing. What ideas can you borrow? Think about setting aside an hour a week to purposefully shop online and take note of the way that other companies promote and merchandise their product, not to mention the functionality they offer customers.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. -John Adams

The beauty of interactive marketing is that it’s grounded in numbers. Everything is trackable. I’m an idea and gut instinct person, but I get far more buy in and support when I can back up those feelings with cold, hard facts.

Towering genius disdains a beaten path. -Abraham Lincoln

Don’t abandon ideas just because no one else is trying them. One of the other great things about interactive marketing is that it’s easier to recover from failure in the digital world simply because it’s easier to change things (and then change them back). Take advantage of this flexibility of interactive marketing to try something new.

In matters of principals, stand like a rock; in matters of taste, swim with the current. -Thomas Jefferson

By all means, explore the possibilities of the latest interactive marketing vehicles. Make a Facebook fan page and a You Tube channel. Have a blog and a Twitter presence. But, don’t forget that at the end of the day you’ll thrive and survive based on the experience and value you deliver to your customers (think of this as the “Zappos rule”).

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. -Theodore Roosevelt

In an age of limited resources, it’s vital to utilize every tool to its fullest. But as interactive marketers, you can’t just get caught up in technology. Don’t forget about existing, low tech ways like, for example, the lowly packing slip, that’ll help you get your message out.

It’s a damn poor mind that can only think of one way to spell a word. -Andrew Jackson

There are no cookie cutter customers. They’ll find you from different sources. They’ll navigate your site in different ways. They’ll want to talk to you via different channels. In an increasingly hostile economy, you can’t afford to support only those customers that experience your brand in the way you want or expect them to.

I always remember an epitaph which is in the cemetery at Tombstone, Arizona. It says: ”Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest.” I think that is the greatest epitaph a man can have. -Harry Truman

You can’t control the macro economy. Sometimes you can’t control your pricing, product or even promotions. What we can do as interactive marketers is to continue to do the best work possible and learn as much as we can from both our successes and failures and be ready to pounce when the economy finally turns around.

Like most interactive marketers, this time of the year I live in the now. Plans are made to be changed (after all, it’s “easy” to change things up on the web, right? But now, with 2009 looming, it’s time to think ahead. So what should interactive marketers be vowing to do in the new year? Here are my humble suggestions.

9. Do liberally buy domain names when the spirit moves you. You’ll get lots of use out of eatingourwaytohappiness.com. Right?

8. Don’t refer to friends and family by their Twitter handle.

7. Do exercise more than your right index finger (or left index finger for you southpaws out there).

6. Don’t give up the search for that magic button that makes things “automatically” happen on the web.

5. Do strive to make natural search language more understandable by using it in every day situations (“I wanted to no follow that guy, but he got 301ed by my friend and found my email.”)

4. Don’t get discouraged about your blog’s traffic. If you write it, they’ll come. Eventually. Really!

3. Do remember that “Happy Hour” doesn’t refer to the time your web site refreshes.

2. Don’t do something just because it’ll make a great Facebook status update.

1. Do work hard and play hard. This stuff is supposed to be fun!

Are you ready for the client that wants the “Obama approach?” Wondering if I’d be ready, I started dissecting articles about Barack Obama’s marketing campaign. Next, I started a list of all the interactive tools on Obama’s website. Soon, the list was over 45 items long, including partner websites, the way he’d made speeches available on iTunes, and the mesmerizing, story-telling photos on Flickr.

Obama’s seamless integration of so many interactive tools makes his approach look simple and easy. For the most part, it is. Consensus among writers from Fortune Magazine, CNN.com, Fast Company and more is that what made it work was Obama’s clear sense of knowing what his key messages and strategy would be from the beginning.

In an election-night interview with “60 Minutes,” Obama’s staff said that they knew from day one what their messages and strategy would be. They stuck to it and never wavered.

One of the biggest pressures marketers face is the pressure to second-guess. How do you get to be so confident about your point of view? Research helps. Knowing yourself helps. Can we help our clients with that? Absolutely.

As clients ask, we can point out Obama’s consistency throughout all 45 (and more) tools. Fonts, colors and images are the same regardless of whether they’re on Facebook or Obama’s site. Obama’s key strategy? Focus on the “buyer.” Use “We and you” language. In contrast, Hilary Clinton’s campaign was “seller” focused, using phrases like “I, me, and my experience.”

It’s all too easy for clients to see the Twittering, text messaging and Flickr photos and want to embrace them for their own brands. That’s exactly the spot where we can encourage them to start with the “big rocks.” Well-defined strategy, key messages, and carefully selected analytics allowed the campaign to be flexible and agile. When it made sense to use Twitter, they did. When it made sense to use a different medium, they fluidly moved to the other medium.

Incidentally, Obama’s staff was clear on what analytics would drive their next moves. Reports say that it wasn’t hits, or time on the site, but engagement that mattered most. If people went to the site, that was just the start. If they went to the site and clicked-through to send a message to the VP pick, the campaign knew it was on the right track.

You can see how the desire for engagement drove site design. Every part of it is simple and user-friendly. Each click-through opportunity was low-risk and often associated with a reward; if users forwarded a message to a friend, for example, the campaign would follow-up with a free a sticker for the sender.

Many of the articles I came across cited Obama’s mastery of database micromarketing. If you haven’t seen one of the personalized videos that voters could send to friends to encourage voting, track down an Obama fan. The videos are compelling and entertaining. They make the sender appear to be fun, savvy and affectionate, and give the receiver something they can’t turn away from. How can you turn away from a video that has YOUR NAME embedded in nearly every frame?

The bottom line is that if your clients want the “Obama approach,” you’ve got the perfect opportunity to talk about strategy, consistency, and how to put the customer first. The roadmap for how to integrate the latest online tools will fall into place from there.