Chris Writes.

Last week I got up extra early one morning to talk alongside Rich Kelly from Interbike; Rich had been asked to present some thoughts about social media to a group of industry leaders at the Bicycle Leadership Conference, and he invited me to join him.

It was, not surprisingly, a fun assignment. As the marketing lead at Interbike, Rich was able to tap into the numbers and stats that their parent company, Nielsen Media.  He made the case for why social media is relevant, and I backed up his macro viewpoints and stats with some get-dirt-under-your-fingernails examples of how to actually use tools like Facebook and Twitter in the context of the bike industry.

Rich provided some really impressive figures that captured the attention of the room, and made them realize that this stuff is actually a big deal: social network sites are more popular than porn sites, 1M to 2M people are on facebook at any one time, and twitter saw 1323% growth last year. He wrapped it up in a tidy package that included how this stuff can affect ROI, and then tossed the mic to me.

The basics of what I said: if a company is authentic, complex, and socially talked about, then there is a good chance that social media tools will be useful in helping to support a business strategy, or achieve a stated goal.  Alternatively, if your company is in serious trouble, social media tools may prove to be a fast and effective way to help get through a scandal or controversy (if you’re willing to be honest about what happened).

After that, I showed some favorite examples from the bike world: Sunflower Bike Shop in Kansas, and Ned Overend’s fan page, on Facebook.  Lance on Twitter.  Even Sockington the cat.  All with the intent of showing why these media tools are effective in these applications, and (hopefully) clarifying that they’re tools, not strategy.

This tools vs strategy point is exactly why you should be careful before trusting any self-proclaimed ’social media expert’; you don’t hire a hammer expert when you need custom furniture, you hire a carpenter.

Our presentation slides are available here: blc_outline_vfinal

We got a fantastic package of letters from a 3rd grade class delivered to work today, all from kids who were writing with questions about bikes, and stories about their bikes.  There are too many to list here, but I thought I’d share a few inspiring, thoughtful, and playful highlights.  But first, a few answers to the most commonly asked questions:

1. How many bikes do you have?  I have six, at the moment: two road bikes, two mountain bikes, a track bike, and a cyclocross bike.

2. Do you have to glue or tape [your bikes] together?  We never use tape, but sometimes on some of our bikes, we use glue that is so strong it could hold an elephant to the ceiling.

3. Do you get to ride at work?  Yes, every day at lunch time we go for a ride.

4. How much does your fastest bike cost?  A tough question, because the bike is only as fast as the rider can pedal.  But I would say that the fastest looking bike is our carbon fiber Transition.  They cost between $3,300 and $8,800.  If you want to see pictures, you can find them on our website!  Here’s one:

And now, some excerpts, first from Tyler who rides a fixie:

Next up, from Cassie who asked that we not tell anyone that she didn’t take off her training wheels until she was 7.  Got news for you Cassie: lots of kids keep them longer than that!  Cassie will be a pro racer, because she just wants us to make a 10-lb Tarmac SL2.  In her size, it might be!

Sarah’s dad clearly keeps her in the loop on pro racing as well, so I suspect this 3rd grade class is going to develop into a lot of fast athletes in the future:

Brandon has different interests, he’s more into skateboarding.  Guess what?  That’s cool too.  Just remember to wear a helmet, whether you’re skating or riding, okay?

Michael wrote to us with some sweet color ideas, perhaps he’s got a future in our graphic design department. His letter said that he and his sister both ride Specialized bikes! Awesome!

Mia wrote in her letter about things she likes. We appreciate independent thinkers.  I bet she doesn’t color inside the lines, either.  And let me tell you Mia, I never did either.  And now I work for a bike company and get to ride my bike a lot! And because she asked: Mia, my favorite bike memory is when I got my first 10-speed, a red one that my dad and I fixed and painted together.

Megan is a step ahead, she knows that biking is always good for the environment. No Megan, we don’t make scooters, but we do all ride with helmets whenever we ride.  Hope you do too!

Natalie is already serious about riding: this 3rd grader can ride 4 miles!

Raphael measures distance in pedals - it takes him fifty to get to school! - and he’s faster than cars! Not only that, he likes reading AND math, so for sure he could be a bike engineer and design new bikes some day!

And while all the letters were fantastic, for so many reasons, I really loved this 3-word request from our distance rider Natalie.  I think I’ll come to work tomorrow. But I’ll still ride at lunch.

A lot of people gathered in one place does not guarantee that you can get their attention, if they’re not gathered there to listen to you in the first place. In fact, at the *person* level, I think it might be harder to get someone’s attention when they’re already distracted by the reason they’re part of the crowd in the first place.

Think about the last big music concert you went to: there were a lot of people there.  Probably thousands.  Maybe tens of thousands. All around the show were lots of $BIGNUM  advertisers, in all sorts of guises, and yet sponsor recall is notoriously low - except maybe for the name of the stadium, though even those change often enough that I still call the nearby SF stadium by it’s old name, SBC Park, `cuz it works well for the mnemonic of “Some Big Corporation”.  The point is: people are there to see a show.  The fact that there are lots of people doesn’t necessarily make it a good medium for advertising.  Budweiser and Coca Cola may disagree, but they have an advantage: within that environment, they’re valid. They get to sell their stuff right there in the stadium.

It’s largely the same with big TV advertising campaigns: we live in a world of increasingly fragmented and competing consumer interests, coupled with a frustratingly fixed amount of time in the day.  This means that messages seeking a narrower target than “18-45yr old males” fail to work in a crowd setting.  A TV ad for a bike company (like the one I work for) that plays during coverage of the Tour de France is valid, but this same ad should not be expected to have much validity in the middle of a Thursday night sitcom.  Even though the sitcom has millions more viewers, the validity is orders of magnitude higher when shown during the Tour de France.  Collectively, the marketing world is finally realizing this, and social media continues to charge forward as the proof in this pudding, providing scalable ways to connect at a virtual one-to-one level with relevance, authenticity, and validity.  Particularly at scale, I think it’s safe to say that social media can connect valid messages with relevant groups faster and more efficiently than any other medium.

And yet, companies are now turning to Facebook and Twitter for the same wrong reason that stadiums and prime time don’t work for them: “there’s a lot of people there, so someone must need me”, and the classic “if I just sell $1 worth of stuff to everyone on Facebook, (or on Twitter, or in China) I’ll be rich”. This method isn’t reliable, and it’s usually embarked upon because time isn’t spent figuring out what the most valid approach would be.  In the short term it’s almost always easier to try to blanket the world and then see if we can get 0.001% of the people to care.  This is the attitude, you might note, that brings spam to your email inbox every day.

So what’s the point?  it’s that you need to be valid first, and then present second.  If you’re not valid on Facebook first, figure out what it will take to achieve the same validity that CocaCola has at a concert, or that Lego has to an 8-year old boy, or that bike companies have during race broadcasts. I’m pretty sure that the time spent to figure this out is always worth it.

I have seen this link passed around quite a lot recently, and have given the comparison some thought.  I am pretty sure that cycling is not the new golf, for several reasons.

Before we go to far, let me clarify what I think the assertion is: that as participants in the only sport with shoes uglier than bike shoes, the well-but-grotesquely-heeled golfers are giving up golf for cycling.  Perhaps even more specifically, they’re giving up golf-situated meetings for ride-situated meetings, and making cycling the ‘new hip way’ to close a deal, kiss your bosses ass, or lay the smackdown into that Higgins miscreant down in accounts receivable.  One of my more tech savvy connections noted that similar comments were once made about World of Warcraft being the new golf. I suspect the World of Warcraft people, had they heard about this, would have protested as well, albeit for different reasons.

This cycling=golf thinking can only lead to doom. The risk I see is that this nouveau high end of the sport, and the media in lockstep, may position elite level riding too closely with the impression of *requiring* the $8000 bike and the club membership, rather than requiring nothing more than a good attuide, perhaps some interval training, and maybe a few 6hr rides.  I imagine wrinkled veterans and young skinsuited pros with fresh manicures saying to those who can afford it: “Welcome to the good life. Here is your custom carbon bike, you have now made it into the club. Have a cigar.”  As if that somehow wins you a podium spot in your next crit.  It does not.  And you know this.

As an old riding buddy mentioned recently, this comparison leaves cycling with the risk of being seen by non-cyclists as an ‘elite sport’, and participation tantamount to a statement of social status.  We must fight this with every bit of Cat-5 scrappaciousness that we can collectively muster. Growing the sport to include the country club members is fine, but not if they commandeer the sport’s soul from the same people who made cycling awesome. In aggregate, it gains cycling very little by having the Rockefellers riding bikes in the Hamptons, and stands to isolate a large number who, even recently, may have been re-introduced to cycling as a means towards fun, fitness, and transportation. Cycling is not an elitist sport, as it can be enjoyed by nearly anyone, nearly anywhere. Ask any commuter from Portland, they’ll tell you.

Another colleague quipped that “cycling is the new guitar hero”, which is a clever alternative, but the evidence suggests otherwise.  Meanwhile, cycling sometimes wishes for new growth patterns like this, while guitar hero probably hopes their franchise might last into the next decade before people get bored and fret about something else.

From an analytic framework, let’s look at the web as a proxy for behavior. My interpretation of this: golf and cycling follow distinct patterns over the past 5 years (they’re both more popular in the summer, no surprise), and they seem to have minimal aggregate shifts in popularity.  There does not seem to be evidence here that one is replacing the other.  If anything by this measure, it seems at first glance that cycling is in decline (though I think this omits the important distinction of cycling having developed road, MTB, BMX, and other vertical outlets within it, whereas golf doesn’t offer the array of experiences; the term ‘cycling’ declines as specialties within it increase).

One possible reason that someone could say cycling is the new golf would be if golf were dying completely and being replaced by cycling entirely.  Consider that city infrastructure projects are opening up more and more places to ride, while according to the National Golf Federation, “NGF has identified 113 golf courses, in 18-hole equivalents, that opened for business in the U.S. in 2007. During the same period, there were 121.5 golf course closures, resulting in a net negative of 8.5 courses. This year’s story is much the same as 2006 when the number of closures outnumbered openings by 26.5.”  But of course, one sport in infrastructure decline while the other is growing does not mean that one replaces the other.  If cycling were actually replacing golf, I’d expect we’d need to see an increase in sales to a much older demographic, and I’m not seeing that.

No matter how you slice the data though, I think the key difference is the requirement of competition: golf or guitar hero, both carry an inherent scorecard and leaderboard. In cycling, every ride is different, motivations vary, and the experience can be one of gentle camaraderie as easily as it can be one of wanting to tear the legs off a competitor in every imaginable sense. Cycling will never be the new golf, because it’s always possible to ride without counting your strokes.  Even when golfers are at the driving range, they’re still watching every ball to gauge distance.  When’s the last time you saw a golfer swinging a club for the sheer joy of swinging it?  As much as golf might wish their sport were this intrinsically enjoyable, it does not seem to be.

This is not to bash golf, it’s still an obviously valid sport that gets lots of people out for long walks, which is clearly beneficial.  But say it with me people: “Cycling is not the new golf, because golf wishes it were the new cycling.” Golf, however, might be too self absorbed to realize this, so don’t be surprised when they deny it.  But be nice and compliment their shoes; they paid a lot of money to make their feet look like that.

Just read the article in Road magazine about Floyd Landis and Team Ouch – reminds me again that he is clearly the same stand-up, straight-up guy I was once lucky enough to share dinner with.  I can only applaud his tenacity through the past two years, and say that I’m looking forward to seeing him obliterate critics and competitors at the tour of California.  I truly, honestly hope he wins it – mostly because I think he deserves it, and I’d love to see his new team do well.  Domestic racing often gets overshadowed, so it’d be nice to see these guys make a big mark, early.  Reality is that however it shakes out, it will just be damn good to see him back racing.

Just noticed that Dell has lept into the idea of empowering SMB’s to use social media, and they’ve put together some clever guides (and a slick facebook page for it) to share what they have.  Check it out here

Seems like they’ve got a good collection of starting points, though their facebook primer could stand to be a little friendlier to the new users out there…but it’s still workable.

Seriously folks, whether you’re a bike shop or a florist, if you’re not on top of this stuff soon, you’re going to be playing catch up in a world where tribes are already forming.  And if you’re not there already, do you know where your current tribe is *right now*?

A recent economist article pointed out a new purchasing pattern surrounding netbooks.  It would seem that computers, for most normal use, are now getting cheaper instead of more powerful.  Perhaps we’ve reached the pinnacle of what is (currently) required for 90% of the world’s users (web browsers, email, photos, youtube).  A small number require the processing power of FinalCut or Autocad, but not many.

In a similar vein over even just the past 5 years, bicycles have exploded forwards in terms of advances in aerodynamics, weight, stiffness, strength, suspension, and drivetrain capabilities.  And over that same timeframe, as is common in the bike biz, the trickle down of the best of these features have massively improved the quality of mid-range and entry-level bikes below them.

I wonder if we could be on the cusp of an enthusiast price softening, where it now costs less than ever before to buy a bike that is, by nearly all measures, truly fantastic?  Years ago, Keith Bontrager said to me that “there weren’t many bad bikes made anymore”.  It seems this is only becoming more true.  Compared to the declining quality of products in other industries, yet again, the bike industry gives us a reason to feel like we’re doing something good for the people out there who actually ride bikes, and enjoy riding.

This started as a very small, very simple idea. Yet, with free time and inspiration, sometimes strange things happen.

I noted recently that there are very few bike shops that are taking advantage of free Social Media marketing that’s available to them. This is stuff that ANY bike shop can and should do, and in times of scaled back marketing budgets, the practicality of it makes it extra sensible. However, if you’ve never used it before, it can be rather intimidating.

My basic premise: Because Social Media can make bike shops easier to find, can improve tribal connections with a shop’s communities, and can help shops build their online reputations, every bike shop should:

1. have an active presence on Facebook
2. actively use Twitter
3. find ways to use cycling-specific social media like the Specialized Riders Club and Plus3 Network

So in my spare time (seriously!), I made a little how-to guide that walks you through the steps to get it done, with lots of pictures and examples.  It should take an hour or two to get started, depending on how savvy you are, and how easily you get sucked into awesome projects that will benefit your business at zero cost. It requires no programming skills, no advanced design skills, and no money.  And it’s all here, free, for any bike shop that wants it.  Download it here.

In tough economic times, it’s your tribe of dedicated friends and followers that will get you through it.  And you need them just as they need you to be there for them when their bike needs service, or when they need new tires. If this can help even one bike shop weather the downturn, then I figure I’ve done something good.

And for those who follow these sorts of things: I’ve released this under a creative commons share-alike license, so you can share this with anyone, and you can even make changes to it, but any derivitave works must also be released under the same CC license.

Enjoy, and happy Christmas!

I’ve recently found myself curious about the idea and process of finding retailers on the internet. It’s rather mundane on the surface, I admit. But I think we’re all missing something.

Search for “Dealer Locator” on google and the top 3 results are car companies: Toyota, Ford, and VW, in that order. And they all help you find dealers that sell EXACTLY THE SAME PRODUCT LINE.  It doesn’t much matter to me which one I go to, they’re largely the same.

As a bicycle guy, I found myself thinking that if I were a newbie rider, or even an experienced cyclist, when I search for a Specialized (or Trek, or Giant, or Cannondale, etc) dealer in the Bay Area, I am stunned by the options.  There are lots of dealers close enough to me to drive to, and guaranteed they all have DIFFERENT STUFF TO SELL, some fantastic shops even specialize (please pardon the pun) in selling only mountain bikes, for example - great shop, but not so useful if I need bar tape. Much like picking a doctor from the blue cross website, a dealer locator provides little-to-no contextual knowledge of the shop - they are all supposed to be “the same”.  And I know for certain they’re not, yet I’m forced to call each one on the list, or worse, drive around and visit each one.

So here’s the point: I’m going to theorize that the dealer location element of a manufacturer’s website, especially in the bike business, is probably the most important feature of the website, bar none.  And I think we’re totally missing a massive opportunity to rethink how this could work.

You can look at your moblie phone and call it a phone.  Or you could call it a communication device, accepting that it also sends/recieves email, text messages, photos, and streaming video.  You could look at your dealer locator link and call it a dealer locator, or you could call it a relationship development device.

I wonder what the ultimate solution looks like. I have some guesses I’m working on, though at this point, they’re purely theoretical.

Last night, I went to the second commonwealth club event I’ve attended this week - not bad considering it was Wednesday. For some reason, I even threw down another stack of twenties to join the club for the year; something about it being non-profit and needing money.

I had no real expectations going into this: I knew very little of Ted, other than he had his CNN affiliation. I even suspected it would reek of republicanism and media control - even more so once I arrived and realized I was probably the youngest person there, and the average age was probably 55 to 60. But when it was over, I was pleasantly surprised.

Ted was gregarious, a steamroller of a conversationalist that used the interviewer like a cat toy: batting at it viciously at first, then abruptly wandering off, ignoring it completely. She’d try to interject a new question, and about half the time, he’d barrel over the question with a delayed continuation to the previous answer, or to continue an anecdote from 5 minutes ago, or to introduce a complete non sequitor. Ever seen someone play several chess games at once? It was like that. Lots going on inside his head, but to an observer, it risked a rather messy appearance.

So, the short list of his accomplishments includes founding CNN, owning and running the Atlanta Braves (that’s a baseball team, I think), and managing a massive foundation that targets nuclear disarmament, an end to oil dependence, and a reduction to climate change. There’s a bunch more, but even still, that’s a good list. As he quipped early though, you only get to live to see one renaissance. He followed this by noting that Alexander the Great conquered the world, but that’s all he did. Indeed.

After joking around about not being able to remember if he had Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s (yesterday was his 70th birthday), he waxed nostalgic about his family, his marriages (including once to Jane Fonda, with whom he still speaks weekly for his ‘dose of humility’), and noted that life is rather like a B-Movie, in that you don’t want to get up halfway through and leave, but you don’t really want to sit through it again either.

He had some harsh words for the auto industry, with a laissez-faire attitude that I can only agree with (granted, I do work in the bike industry, so perhaps I’m pre-biased), and he mused his surprise at how much stupidity is out there. He referred to newspapers as an obsolete technology (again, agreed), but to refer to it as a technology was an interesting twist: McLuhan would have simply called it a cool media. He likened it to an abacus.

Amidst more jokes, he offered insights about how his land (he’s the largest private landowner in the USA) is all empty land that is good for nothing except raising his 45,000 bison (!!!), which, oddly enough, makes it *perfect* for wind farms and solar panels. He slammed the government for maintaining subsidies on gasoline (which is why it’s $2.29 a gallon here, and $6 to $9 a gallon in the EU), and then pointed out that these artificially low prices aren’t sustainable, and they’re driving alternative energy companies (wind and solar, particularly) out of business at exactly the time that they’re needed.

No mention of bicycles, but no matter: here’s a guy who started with less than nothing, worked hard, enjoyed success, was crushed, and then rose back up again. And now, he’s happy to spend the rest of his life having fun. And he looks healthy enough to think he’s got a good chunk of time left, which is good cuz he’s certainly passionate about trying to fix some of the problems that, as he points out, take more than four years to fix, thus putting them outside the realm of what the US government will tackle.