Forbes highlights Marc Andreessen as using Twitter the way it was intended. Like a human. And they are right – not just in that Mark is using Twitter well, but that he is using it the right way.

Andreessen is exactly the kind of person who could be excused for not using Twitter like a human. Inhumanly busy? Check. Prominent enough that they could cause a media firestorm with a wrong choice of words? Check. Powerful enough that a tweet could derail multizillion-dollar deals? Check.

And yet, he’s using Twitter the way you wish every person who gets invited to Davos would. He doesn’t just tweet humorous utterances and replies every once in a while. He goes on epic rants (most recently on the NSA). He tells stories. He entertains replies and is seemingly willing to banter with anyone who’s got anything smart to say. He even, o feat of social media savvy, uses the “favorite” option as a way to “like” tweets, which has become all the rage of late.

But it is going to take more that just the business leader changing for others to benefit from this advice. 

First, context is everything. Say you are the CEO of a bank – your business context is very different from that of a Silicon Valley super star. Would you be able to behave in the same way? Simply put, no.

Second, communication needs to be a priorty. Mark has clearly prioritized communicating. Most business leaders don’t. Except through facile emails and videos cooked up by comms teams that would be, for the most part, better off getting out of the way.

Third, Mark’s brand is Mark. Most business leaders struggle with this. Are they the brand – or is the company the brand. In this new world of zero intermediaries I argue it has never been more important for Executives to build their own brands and communicate authentically. Most wont because communicating isnt a priority for them – they favor opacity over transparency (see 2) and if they did, their business context might not allow for it.

Either way, I hope Mark continues what he is doing.

The Tipping Point

A great post from Jeff. Like he says:

The data suggests that there are two very different patterns going on with respect to e-commerce penetration. The two largest categories — “Food and Beverage” and “Health and Personal Care” — show e-commerce penetration well below the overall average. These categories essentially are the domains of grocery stores and drug stores, and e-commerce (at least to date) has achieved only modest penetration of these massive categories (but Amazon Fresh has designs on changing that).

The other four categories are what I would consider to be the domains of traditional specialty retail categories, the ones that are transacted in the malls of America. All of these demonstrate e-commerce penetration well above the overall average, ranging from a low of 12 percent for “Clothing and Accessories,” up to 24 percent for “Media, Sporting and Hobby Goods.” It’s in these specialty retail categories where e-commerce to date has had its strongest impact.

One additional observation is that the pace of online share gain in the specialty retail categories shows absolutely no signs of slowing down. All of these charts are “up and to the right.”

Air New Zealand does something delightful every year. They send you a Christmas present – at least to the Gold Elite customers.

This year they added a great choice – the ability to donate the value of your gift to the Department of Conversation. An even nicer touch. What makes Air NZ’s work is that they give you a choice – there is a good chance you get something you want.

I remember when Amazon was getting going they’d do something similar – maybe a coffee tumbler, something like that. That’s been long gone.

Thanks Air New Zealand. This is a nice touch.

disclosure: Air New Zealand are a client of Group Lark

Try ordering something online and have it delivered to your home address. I dare you to. At least in Australia.

You’ll be confronted by one of the most common zero moments of uncertainty – “when will my package arrive, how will I possibly take delivery of it”.

It’s likely you’ll might not benefit from the convenience of home delivery in Australia. Instead, after a series of frustrating notifications you’ll be forced to drive to a pick-up center, or worse, a Post Office. This only gets worse as more and more businesses shut down the opportunity for the employee to have products delivered at work (they’ve got a point as small delivery bays designed for mail get filled with boxes packed with everything from undies to wine and surfboards.

The very name the companies serving us go by underscores the basic problem we all face – they are logistics companies. Or something like that. They serve the sender not the receiver even though it is us paying for their services (for the most part). I doubt many of them have ever looked at the challenge of delivery through the lens of the receiver. And the company doing the sending lets their focus slide once the package leaves their despatch bay.

So, rather than randomly appearing on our doorstep only to be confronted by an absent recipient shippers could solve this most basic issue using, dare I say it, email. Or an app. Even a text message. This is a simple service design gap – an assumption on their part and source of uncertainty and dissatisfaction on ours.

Simply put, ask us if we are home electronically, invite us to select a time for delivery, or, even change the delivery address. eCommerce will grow. More satisfied and trusting customers will result. And massive fuel and labor savings for carriers will abound. So simple.

All they need to do is embrace service design and the need to satisfy my customer’s customer.

For so many advertising campaigns social is merely a bolt-on. An amplifier added at the last minute to improve reach.

TD Ameritrade’s latest Olympic campaign looks to have done it right, integrating social into the fabric of the campaign.

In what the brand is calling a first, it also is sending seven athletes, aged 14 to 21, to the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia in February, who are not competing but hope to qualify for the Winter Olympics in 2018. These next-generation athletes, as the brand refers to them, compete in the same sports as the sponsored Olympic athletes, who will act as their mentors.

TD Ameritrade set up brokerage accounts for these next-generation athletes, and once they arrive in Russia, every time consumers use the hashtag #itaddsup, the company will add $1 to a fund that will be split equally in their accounts, with each receiving a total of as much as $25,000.