“Holy crap! I’m really glad someone is working on that!.” That’s the response The Barbarian Group (TBG) hopes to elicit from visitors to the GE adventure blog . It details behind the scenes action at client General Electric. Works like this: TBG goes on field trips to discover cool things GE is up to, and posts the experience. A simple premise that offers lessons for our industry:
1) Territory shmerritory – TBG is a digital agency. But here’s a partial list of other organizations that could have credibly proposed and delivered the idea: GE’s employee communication team, PR agencies, ad agencies, media agencies, a motivated summer intern. If you recognized that GE had cool things in the hopper and you could tell stories, it was your idea to pitch. Oh, and you’d have to know how to open a WordPress account.
2) Git ‘er done – I love that they started this without knowing precisely where it might take them (according to recent coverage). If the basic premise is sound, get started and learn on the go. To paraphrase General Patton, a good plan executed now is better than the perfect plan next week. He actually said “violently executed”, but I’d leave that out of the strategy brief.
3) Don’t wait to make an impact – By blogging this way, TBG is doing the research they would have done anyway to create a larger campaign. The campaign is still coming. They’re just making the “discovery” process public, and maybe getting more ideas from readers along the way.
One criticism. Better yet, let’s call it a question: Is the blog’s impact on the reader lessened by having an outside company telling the stories? I might rather hear from proud GE employees directly. You can tell me if I’m nitpicking.
Matt Jones
You know, I thought I wouldn’t like the fact that this was written by a marketing company, but because they’re so open about it, and because the blog is so matter-of-fact, and “this is cool” in nature, it doesn’t bother me at all. I think it’s all about style and authenticity (to use an overused term). Loved your 3 points. Go gett’um.
Andrea
Hey Matt, thanks so much for the kind words. Really glad you like the site and you really nailed all the important points in my mind.
As for your question about insiders/outsiders, I do generally agree hearing the stories from the horses mouth are usually a great way to go. GE actually has a few sites that do that: From Edison’s Desk and GE Reports. What I think what we’re attempting is to help with the stories where the most interesting angle hasn’t been found yet. Generally our hope is that an outside perspective will help bring up some new ideas/open new doors and we are featuring as much video and quotes directly from the employees as possible. (As a side note, I think another thing about GE is that sometimes they’re a little shy and we’re trying to help them talk more freely about some of the cool stuff they have going on.)
Anyway, really glad you like it and thanks again.
Oh, and thank you as well Andrea
Noah – Agreed, and hope the project inspires other great companies to recognize some of the remarkable things they’re doing and tell those stories. Thanks for joining the conversation, and come on back anytime!