The BestBuy Crowdsourced Contest. Results?

The Best Buy Job Description "contest" closed about four days ago, but we've not heard much from them since. Does that bother me? No, not really, even though I apparently won. I think it serves as a good example for the marketing community; loosely planned social events sink ships.

In his blog post on July 8th, Best Buy CMO Barry Judge stated:

"The winner is the one with the most votes on IdeaX as of Thursday, July 16th at 5pm Central. What does the winner get? Mostly just publicity, some satisfaction maybe. We debated about offering prizes but decided an authentic discussion is more likely to happen when people are interested in the topic without secondary motivations. We’re hoping for a really robust discussion that perhaps will foster clarity for how to craft these types of roles."

Did I enter for the win? Yeah, a little bit, but I really wanted to engage in conversation with the community and the forward-thinking posse at this large brand. One of the greatest, and most apropos, quotes that I've heard in my years as a marketing professional came from the Head Lifeguard of our Yahoo! satellite office, "Companies act their age." When Yahoo! was seven, it was a cantankerous, moody seven-year-old. When the automobile manufacturers were the age of our grandparents, they were set in their ways, immobile and deaf to new thoughts and ideas. So, what was Best Buy doing to alter an aging corporate culture?

Mr. Judge continued:

"Of course the resulting job description that we post is ultimately still up to us, but we plan to incorporate the winning idea’s description and qualifications. It may be that we mash-up the top three, or even other entries. We’re confident that good ideas will come from the discussion, and that we’ll incorporate those ideas."

The key words here, to me, are "discussion" and "incorporate." I've been disappointed in the lack of participation by the Best Buy corporation in the conversation and the missing process of mashing or incorporating from the time that several of us spent participating.

So, where's Best Buy?

I can understand their not being as public about the finality or any learnings from the process. After all, in order to vote or leave comments on the entries, individuals had to register for the IdeaX web site and practically everyone failed to receive the confirmation emails timely enough for their votes to be counted. In fact, most got a flood of confirmation emails yesterday, Monday, four days after the voting period had closed. If nothing else, we helped Best Buy figure out that their confirmation system had a bug that's been squashed.

In this day of social discussion, we want authenticity and disclosure. In fact, we demand it from our brands. Being loyal means that you're always there; you always respond to our concerns and our praise. And, when switching costs are so low--on the Internet we can find the same product from somewhere else where they do respond to us--well, brands should concoct a better plan before just throwing things out into the socialverse, unless they tell us up front that we're just gonna see what happens. We all know how to just go with the flow if that's the expectation that's set.

Deal?

My Best Buy Contest Submission

The following job description is my submission to the Best Buy job description contest... nothing to win but for a lil' writing fame.

RESPONSIBILITIES
The Sr Manager, Emerging Media Marketing must be able to, first of all, create an acronym for his or her title because saying the “Sr Manager, Emerging Media Marketing” each time the position is referred to will contradict one of the qualifications below: Efficiently manage one’s time. For the purpose of this job description, we will use “SM,EMM”, it’s up to you whether you wish to recognize the pause dictated by the comma in the title (however, please reread the qualification about time management).

The SM,EMM must be responsible, as this section suggests. Responsibility means being relied upon to make sound decisions on one’s own in accordance with the company message and be accountable for such decisions in the areas of strategy, budget and management. It also means that the employee mustn’t @ reply when the tweet called for the privacy of a DM. In emerging media, it is important to be authentic and accountable or someone will bust you. It is also important to remember that an organization has fewer than four hours to respond to any misleading or improper information posted online (such as videos taken by employees in the back of the store), therefore the SM,EMM must be available 24/7 in case of such emergencies.

This employee is required to understand as much as possible about the brands, products, initiatives and services of the company or, when in doubt, leverage the general public for the correct information since the internet has more information and has proven to be quicker to report it than any other medium.

There are a billion people in the world that can use the tools that the SM,EMM will have to use and there are a many who can tell a story, but few that can do both. The SM,EMM must be a master in the art of persuasive non-fiction through the channels of emerging media. Long gone are the days of epic public relations fables, today’s communications specialist must be eloquently pithy.

The SM,EMM must not only be virtual, but must interact with real people, as well. This position will serve as the liaison between the company and our agency partners. Developing a network to accomplish tasks is a must in this position and the SM,EMM should be an inspirational manager for all direct reports (a box of donuts goes a long way).

Be creative.

BASIC QUALIFICATIONS
Basic qualifications are like the sign at the amusement park, “You must be this tall to ride.”

• Equally be able to speak and write in proper English, but squeeze a message into as few characters as possible without sacrificing comprehension.
• Understand the difference between dialogue and monologue; in other words, the difference between conversation and broadcast.
• Efficiently manage one’s time. We realize that it’s very easy to get sucked into comments on status updates, so avoiding it when it isn’t in accordance with the company mission is a necessity.
• The internet is the best place to lie—you can be anyone you want online—therefore the SM,EMM must be real and truthful. The “Poke in the Arm” test may be administered at the interview.
• Be able to work with the following sites/tools: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Plaxo, Google, Alltop, Backtype, Blogger, Ning, Tweetdeck, Seesmic, Squidoo, Twitter Grader, Friend or Follow, delicious, Slideshare, YouTube, Vimeo, StumbleUpon, Digg, PRWeb, Scribd, Flickr, WordPress, TypePad, Technorati, IceRocket, Tumblr, TipJoy, Alexa, Wikipedia, and BaseCamp (this list may change, in fact will change, with daily frequency).
• Understand the following acronyms: RSS, SEM, SEO, PPC, CPM, CPC, LOL, IMHO, WTF, API, B2C, B2B, CTR, IM, PV, RON, WWW, TTYL, LMAO, ROTFLMAO, WYSIWYG and, most importantly, RTFM.
• Own a smartphone (at least one) and have a bountiful data/text plan.
  

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS
Preferred qualifications are like paying for the picture that was taken at the end of the roller coaster ride; they’re nice, but not necessary.

• The Triple Crown of social networking: 1000 Twitter followers, 500 Facebook friends and 250 LinkedIn connections.
• Finalist in the speed-juggling of tasks across multiple browsers, browser tabs, desktop applications and devices.
• Nimbly tactile; no fumble-fingers will be hired.
• Understand and be able to operate under both intended and emergent strategies (be proactive and reactive).
• Viral, but not contagious.
  

OTHER
It is a common misnomer that multi-tasking is a desired job requirement. We are looking for someone who realizes that multi-tasking means that nothing is getting your full attention. Therefore, we prefer that the SM,EMM be able to transition between tasks quickly and fluidly without loss of energy or heat.

Being in “the now” is a must in this day and age. Pavlovian responses in meetings to texts, cell phones calls, instant messages, email dings, Skype bloops or calendar alarms will not be looked upon with favor. We recommend the SM,EMM be able to show up to meetings with paper and pen.

Have read the following: Made to Stick, The Tipping Point, Good to Great, Cluetrain Manifesto, New Rules of Marketing & PR, Groundswell, Tribes, Here Comes Everybody, Naked Conversations, Freakanomics, and Wisdom 2.0 (applicant will be asked to provide a book report for each).

Please vote for my job description NOW! The contest has ended, but feel free to visit the Best Buy IdeaX web site.