Republican or Democrat, most everyone can agree that the online coverage of politics has changed significantly since four years ago. With the political convention season upon us, the impact of social media is hard to overlook. From online video to Facebook, take a look at some of the new media tools and resources being utilized during this year’s conventions…

• Streaming video: Both Newsweek.com and The WashingtonPost.com are boasting seven hours a day of live Web coverage of the Democratic and Republican conventions. Much of that coverage includes streaming video featuring feature star reporters, editors and analysts. Unlike previous conventions, live video allows mobile users (among others) to engage in the convention experience as well.
• Bloggers: The number of credentialed bloggers attending the Democratic convention this year more than tripled to 120 – from 35 in 2004, the first year they were allowed to attend. Google, DailyKos and others sponsored a “Big Tent” on site at the Democratic Convention where hundreds of bloggers sat together, posting content and taking video of each other most of the day and night. It cost bloggers $100 for the week to attend. The convention also has its own blogging team.
• Social networking sites: MySpace hosted a competition to choose its “citizen journalist” correspondents at the major parties’ national conventions. Entrants had to be MySpace members who were 18 years or older, and were asked to answer one of the following questions via a video submission: “Why do you vote?” “Why are you the best person for this job?” and “How will you stand out in the crowd and get the scoop no one else can?” Convention reports (both text and video) are being featured in MySpace and MSNBC’s campaign coverage from the two winning “journalists” Matt Britten and Sara Pat Badgley – who were chosen by members of MySpace.
• Video sharing sites: The YouTube 2008 Conventions channel already has over 2,475 videos watched, and 101,341 channel views. Bill Clinton’s speech from the Democratic Convention this week alone has already been viewed by 92,011 people. Google also has its own conventions landing page, with links to news, blogs and YouTube coverage.
• Twitter: Republicans and Democrats can follow political bloggers on Twitter to get a peek at what potential interviews they are writing, and what they are doing at the conventions. The Twitter Blog recommended following the Huffington Post’s account for updates on the Democratic convention. For Republicans, the GOP has its own Twitter page, and our friend, blogger David All will be tweeting his coverage next week.
• Text: Just prior to the convention, Obama chose to send a text message to millions of supporters announcing Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. as his running mate. The convention closed with a giant texting session last night at Mile High in Denver, where the 75,000 people in the stands were asked to send text messages to their friends and family about their experience.

If you haven’t heard of OneWebDay, think of it as Earth Day, but for the Internet. As OWD describes itself, “an environmental movement for the Internet ecosystem. It’s a platform for people to educate and activate others about issues that are important for the Internet’s future.”

We’re excited to announce that Ogilvy’s Digital Influence team has signed on to be a OneWebDay Ambassador - one of 100 bloggers who’ve committed to letting their networks know about the cause in the 100 days leading up to OWD’s September 22nd milestone. This year’s theme is “online participation in democracy.”

In the spirit of this collective celebration, Ogilvy’s Digital Influence team has tapped its network of experts from around our global network. Some of the top minds in our company, from Paris to Singapore to London, will address how they’ve seen the web facilitate new, innovative ways of democratic participation in their regions.

Stay tuned for a series of posts highlighting recent cases from around the globe. In the meantime, head over to the OneWebDay site or check out their:

OWD Stories Blog

Twitter Handle

Facebook Cause

Meet Up Calendar

Project Proposal Wiki

Kaitlyn has done a great job of explaining Twitter, what it can be used for and how to use it in her past two blog posts. In Twitter: Edition 101, she provides a great example of what Twitter can to do enhance communication and generate conversation around a specific event, topic, brand. And in Twitter: Edition 102, she shows what can happen when a company is not really listening (to social media).

But for the companies that ARE listening, what next?

There are about a zillion posts out there on the “Ideas on Using Twitter“, etc. Our goal now, is to boil this great insight down to identify the overall best practices for Twitter.

This post has been broken down into the do’s and don’t’s of Twittering in an effort to establish a base set of best practices. Similar to the development of our Blogger Code of Ethics, I will look to you (Twitterers and corporates alike) to get your feedback to help build these guidelines.

Twitter Do’s - Starting Out:

DO see what other businesses are doing on Twitter

Customer Relations - @ComcastCares

Product Discounts/e-Commerce Updates - @DellOutlet

Event Coverage - @Lenovo2008

Current Events/Headlines - @BarackObama

DO use Twitter search engines for keyword searches around brands, products and topic of interest. Tools like Summize (or Twitter Search - same site) and TweetScan allow you to do a keyword search within conversations on Twitter.

DO follow Twitterers with similar interests to establish a brand presence within conversation (See Valerie Maltoni’s post)

Twitter Do’s - Building a Community:

DO use Twitter to start a conversation

“Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn’t sell more widgets, but it shows us you’re human.” - Chris Brogan

DO be dedicated to Twitter. Chris Brogan recommends having more than one employee on Twitter so ensure an ongoing presence. (@BaskinRobbins could have continued to grow their presence on Twitter, but instead lasted only 1 month)

DO ask questions and get feedback from your followers

DO engage consumers in co-creation and get constructive insights for future company developments or publications

DO follow the Blogger Code of Ethics within all things social media, David Armano sums it up beautifully in his post:

• Be transparent in your reason d’Tweet (Let your followers know your about - Customer Service, Product Discounts, etc)
• Respect other Twitterers (Know when to participate and when to listen)
• Think before you direct message (Will your direct message be seen as helpful or intrusive?)
• Make sure your message directly relates to those you are reaching out to
• Provide value to your followers (Whether it’s free product or valuable advice, something that gives you credibility and reiterates the value you see in your followers)

DO spread the word about your participation on Twitter - include your Twitter handle in your email signature, send out your Twitter URL, http://twitter.com/USERNAME (mine is http://twitter.com/KFoster926), to co-workers, peers and even customers (if relevant)

Twitter DON’T'S:

DON’T use Twitter to push ads or brand messaging. Don’t just Tweet but also follow others to join in or start a conversation. As @CatchUpLady says,

“[It’s] annoying when a person or brand blatantly uses Twitter as a channel to push a msg, not a conversation tool.”

DON’T use Twitter to tell your everyday tasks, make sure your Tweets are resourceful, entertaining and/or valuable to your followers

DON’T be boring! (Havi Brooks puts it best on her recent post,

“If you try to talk about what you’re doing (unless what you happen to be doing is boxing a poodle while stilt-walking with your poodle-booter troupe), you will almost certainly be boring. And the first rule of Twitter is ‘Do not be boring’!”

DON’T panic if you are “Twitter-Jacked“, where other Twitterers use your identity within their Twitter handles, instead contact the Twitterers and find out their reasoning before taking action (they could turn out to be your biggest fans)

DON’T I REPEAT - DO NOT Tweet anything about clients, co-workers, friends, etc. that you would not want them to see - this is a good way to burn bridges and lose customers (not to mention make a bad name for yourself)
Helpful Links:

Below are a few thoughts from colleagues and Twitter peers on the Best Practices of Twitter. Their thoughts and insights helped to develop this first round of best practice:

Harvi Brooks - Fluent Self
http://www.fluentself.com/blog/stuff/twitter-demystified-the-great-debunking-begins/

Valeria Maltoni - Conversation Agent
http://www.conversationagent.com/2008/08/business-uses-for-twitter.html

Chris Brogan
http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/

David Armano - Logic + Emotion
http://darmano.typepad.com/logic_emotion/2008/08/guidelines-for.html

Jeremiah Owyang - Web Strategy
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/08/18/web-strategy-the-evolution-of-brands-on-twitter/

Social Media Club
http://www.socialmediaclub.org/2008/08/26/social-media-now-082608/

Tweets from the following:

CatchUpLady @KFoster926 Tweet *and* follow. Annoying when a person or brand blatantly uses Twitter as a channel to push a msg, not a conversation tool 11:45 AM August 26, 2008 from web in reply to KFoster926

rcaggiano @KFoster926 use it to chat, listen, post interesting links, drive traffic & be witty. do NOT use it to document boring details of your day. 06:45 PM August 25, 2008 from web in reply to KFoster926

Orbret @KFoster926 Value can come from content you found that someone else didn’t have the time to find but enjoys. Random comments aren’t useful 03:59 PM August 25, 2008 from web in reply to KFoster926

Here are some active marketing/social media Twitter handles for you to follow:

@socialmediaclub

@guykawasaki

@Scobleizer

@armano

@TechCrunch

@Mashable

What are your thoughts? What other best practices should be added to this list? Share your do’s and don’t by commenting on this post.

Your feedback could warrant a Twitter Best Practices: Round 2, so stay tuned.

I find it immensely difficult to explain Twitter to individuals and clients who are not currently involved in the platform. In my effort to demystify it, I posted Why Twitter Should Matter To You 101: Olympic Edition last week. In this post I discussed three ways that a newbie could begin to see the value in Twitter using a nice, friendly worldwide event as a reference point.

I didn’t anticipate the Why Twitter Should Matter to You becoming a series - but low and behold here we are. Today I saw something go down on Twitter that I couldn’t NOT write about - simply because it applies to so many companies today. Companies that likely look at Twitter as one of those “geeky kid” things that don’t have real impact on their bottom line. So Lesson #2 for those of you who are trying to get your arms around Twitter: While Twitter is incredibly helpeful for a brand or an individual who wants to get proactively involved in a conversation - it’s also an essential customer service tool in today’s fast paced social media environment. Speed kills. And nowhere are brands built up, and torn down, faster than Twitter. For example, today David Alston (@DavidAlston) of Radian6 and tweetpr tweeted this:

“My wife just went through a totally rude customer service experience with our local UHaul rep. Downright rude. Do they want the business?”

David has over 1,500 “followers” on Twitter, who see his updates on Twitter or directly on their mobile devices. Within an hour, nearly two dozen others (including myself) had used Twitter to responded with their own UHaul woe.

• “Uhaul does NOT care. Period.” @FreshFocus (415 followers)
• ” I’ve learned never to use UHaul! They screwed up my move and offered me a $5 gift certificate?!?!” @karimkanji (75 followers)
• ” UHaul has quite the reputation. Poor customer service is almost an art form. [link to Consumerist posts on UHaul” @jmoriarty (405 followers)
• “In my experience, Uhaul has some of the worst customer service I have ever experienced. They don’t care.” @adamlevenson (213 followers)
• “UHaul hands down has the worst customer service I have ever dealt with in my life. Phone and face-to-face.” @paul177 (48 followers)
• “Some of the absolute worst customer service experiences I have ever had came from dealing with UHaul agents [in Halifax].” @quietrevolution (153 followers)
• “after my move on Saturday…I hate UHaul…awful service” @prkeener (52 followers)
• “thousands of horror stories about them, I’m lucky my local Uhaul is great.” @unmarketing (656 followers)
• “Just back from maddening trip to Uhaul to get our money back for failed hitch install. Contemplating my options.” @rynosoft (128 followers)
• “I will NEVER use Uhaul again. I have had way too many problems with them - bad equipment, oversold equipment, etc.” @KeenerGuy (119 followers)
• “I’ve rented some from them. I’ve just walked in, and turned off all my needs. Their CS people are just about useless.” @novartis (43 followers)
• “Uhaul! Argh…broken axel, 115 degrees, I-5 in San Joaquin Valley, and they cannot find me. Took 6hrs to get back on the road.” @josephwilburn (93 followers)
• “I hate Uhaul. Reserved a trailer to move from Boston to DC 6 weeks out, only to find out (when *I* called) they didn’t have one.” @CatchUpLady - ME! (247 followers)
• “got lots of UHaul horror stories. Worked there while in college. Where do I submit?” @ChrisJohnson (1,163 followers)
• “uHaul has pitiful customer service” @duncanfreeman (216 followers)
• “My guess is many consumers aren’t aware of other choices and suffer through UHaul anyways” @brandonzeman (45 followers)
• “I think some companies survive *in spite of* horrendous service. Uhaul fails on many levels. poorly maintained trucks too.” @brightwhite (191 followers)
• “UHaul sounds like the equivalent of the Royal Mail in the UK, poor customer service, rude, never on time, frequently lost items.” @6consulting (84 followers)
• “I’m going to need a moving truck soon, always just went with uhaul…maybe I should try another company this time around” @johnsgunn (125 followers)

Yesterday was the final day of the Beijing Olympics - and while I’m sorry to see the Games end, I’m proud about what they’ve represented from a social media standpoint. Many people have compared the Internet powered evolution of the Games in Beijing to the 1960 Olympics in Rome where television revolutionized the public’s exposure to event, as well as the athletes.

(Lest there be any confusion Beijing will NOT be remembered as the Games when network coverage went digital. I found most major network Web sites to have somewhat awkward UI’s, and content that failed to deliver behind the expected front of tail stories. I couldn’t get the much hyped streaming to work on my computers, and while I heard there were some social media plays with athletes (which is great) it did not seem to be prominently featured. I believe there was a big opportunity missed here, and look forward to seeing this go further next time around.)

Though I’m admittedly biased because of my close proximity to Lenovo’s Voices of the Olympic Games project, I do believe that Beijing will be remembered as the Games when independent athlete blogging took off in a way that was meaningful for them, the fans, and the Olympics - and I could not have been more excited to have a front row seat at that event.

Lenovo’s David Churbuck offers a great post entitled “Building a Social Athlete” in which he breaks out four benefits for blogging athletes- Recognition, Support, Sponsorship and Satisfaction. And indeed, almost every athlete blogger I spoke with (old or newly minted) cited many or all of these reasons as motivators for them. Click here for a great interview I did with “long time” blogger, and US 110m Hurdles bronze medalist David Oliver. David was one of more than 100 athletes blogging as a part of the Lenovo Voices project.

Everyone I talked to from the sponsors, to coaches, to “traditional” journalists, to the USOC sees this “Athlete 2.0″ as an essential ingredient in Games going forward - and that’s great news for fans. In Beijing athlete blogs meant that fans could begin to craft a highly personalized Olympic experience from their own living room. They could follow the preparations of a particular athlete, and get the real, unedited inside scoop on competitions. They could also connect. Athletes I spoke to were in awe of the well wishes they received from around the world, which numbered in the dozens for some and thousands for others - like Abhinav Bindra, who won India’s first ever individual gold medal.

American television coverage may never go beyond what appeals to the masses (yes, we’ll probably be stuck watching Beach Volleyball, Basketball, Gymnastics, Athletics and Swimming until the end of time - you might be surprised to learn that at present there are 26 other Olympic sports!) But, well crafted social media projects, and the smart use of digital rights to the Games is going to open up new doors for Olympic fans and spectators around the world. Imagine thousands (not hundreds) of athletes blogging. Imagine photo and video libraries co-created with attendees and athletes. Imagine social networks created around specific sports. Imagine real time streaming of all competitions. Increasingly, we’ll be able to tap into the best Olympic experience available to each of us individually - and that is something to cheer about.

*Photo courtsey of Lenovo Voices of the Olympic Games blogger and USA Epee Fencer Seth Kelsey, author of the blog En Garde Beijing.

I’m fortunate to have been invited for two weeks of intensive training with Ogilvy PR’s 360 Degree Digital Influence team in Washington, DC. As week one wraps, a few thoughts on what I’ve learned …

1. Digital Influence involves a tremendous amount of vital research – research that can only help to effectively tease out insights if the researcher is (1) patient (2) clever (3) knows the subject matter and (4) cares [see #2].
2. Our Digital Influence team is a wonderful mix of savvy, insightful veteran counselors and an incredibly talented group of dedicated, smart, hustling kids [Well, kids relative to me. Anyone born after 1980 is a kid in my book].
3. As plugged in as I may be relative to the general population [hey - I blog, Tweet, Skype and text with the best of them] these kids [see #2] are really on the cutting edge.
4. My Yahoo! has been my homepage of choice for years. In five minutes that all changed – NetVibes just became the first thing I see in the morning.
5. When people in DC talk about “us” and “them,” they mean the Democrats and Republicans. In Chicago, it means the Cubs and the White Sox.
6. The Google Adwords Keyword tool is my new favorite research toy.
7. Successful practitioners of Digital Influence follow a clear set of established best practices, yet recognize that their discipline is part art, part science.
8. While SEO is something I’ve always been somewhat familiar with, I always figured it was the programmers on that front line. Not so – SEO is so much more than how you build your site [although that’s important]. It’s a topic I’m eager to dive deeper into on my own.
9. The possibilities of rich media advertising are vast [and, to use a technical term, pretty cool]. Moving forward I’m going to may much closer attention to rich media ads in order to understand what impact that particular vehicle can have for my clients.
10. OPRDCITACOTW [Ogilvy Public Relations DC is the acronym capital of the world].

Fellow trainees – anything you’d like to add?

Last week I attended an all day training seminar on Google Analytics in order to hone my skills with this fabulous FREE web site analytics tool offered by Google. If you work with Web sites in any capacity you should understand the basic metrics that are used to measure the performance of a web site. The following are some basic concepts that are used to analyze web site behavior:

ALWAYS Define A GOAL for Success - An increased number of visitors should NEVER be your goal for success. What if the majority of people that come to your site leave within 10 seconds? What kind of value does that provide? Just because you are not selling something does not mean there aren’t desired actions you want your visitors to take that represent a deeper level of engagement, and therefore a greater value. Once you define an action that you want your visitors to take you can measure success based on your conversion rate (the number of people who perform this action divided by the number of people who had the opportunity to perform that task).

The above conversion funnel from the Google analytics interface shows a goal of downloading a press release. Of the 27,145 people who entered the site on the homepage, 701 people downloaded the press release, which yielded a conversion rate of 2.58%.

Now you can ask yourself the question of what can we we do to improve our conversion rate. Maybe the press release needs a better call-out on a section of the page that receives more focus. Maybe the call-to-action copy could be stronger. Maybe the press release is old news, or worse, not news-worthy at all. In no way way does a conversion have to be a sale. Set up goals for RSS subscriptions, newsletter sign-ups, “email-a-friend” or social media buttons clicks. There is NO excuse not to have goals that represent increased visitor engagement.

Bounce Rate - This is defined as the percentage of people who come to a page on your site, and leave without viewing any more pages. Bounce rates can range significantly depending on the objectives of the site. As a very general rule of thumb, a bounce rate of 35% and below is considered good, and anything above 50% could be improved. Google Analytics allows you to segment bounce rate by entry page and the search keyword which led the visitor to find that page. The following graph shows what keywords which led someone to this page yielded a below average bounce rate and what keywords yield an above average bounce rate (compared to average of entire site):

The majority of visitors only came to the site once within the selected time period. As the visitors become increasingly loyal (returned more times) their numbers become less. Ask yourself what you can do to your site to make people want to return. Implementing RSS functionality so visitors can subscribe to your feed and be notified every time you make an update is a great way to increase the number of return visitors. This of course could be debated as many people who use RSS read your content within the confines of their feed reader without returning to your site, but that’s topic for another post.

I have merely scratched the surface of what Google Analytics can offer your Web site. If you are not utilizing this free tool please do so as soon as possible. Web behavior data will not provide all the answers, and it will certainly not tell you exactly what to do, but the fact is the numbers don’t lie. As much as you may think you know what your customers, members, or information seekers want, you really don’t. The best thing you can do is learn from the numbers, test, test, and test again, which brings us to Google’s next free tool for achieving success with your website: Google Website Optimizer.

Yesterday’s WSJ contained a front page story detailing the Olive Garden’s unusual challenge of figuring out how to handle the repeated, vocal endorsements of Kendra Wilkinson. As a playmate, Hef girlfriend, star of E!’s Girls Next Door, and “friend” of 730k+ on MySpace, Ms. Wilkinson has a considerable platform for her declarations of Olive Garden love regardless of the feelings the family-friendly brand may have about her.

The core question posed in this situation is what do you do if you find yourself with a brand ambassador that in no way matches the brand “persona” imagined in the board room? What if they do not reflect the brand’s core values? What if they aren’t even using the product in the way you imagined or marketed it? As the article repeats, this is a complicated issue, but I think there are a few steps to walk through when any unexpected brand ambassador shows himself - whether or not they match your ideal target.

Stage 1: Acceptance. Per the solid advice of WOMMA board member Dave Balter, the first thing to do is accept that this is going on and it can’t be stopped. The quicker you can pass through this stage, the quicker you can get to the good stuff.

Stage 2: Opprtunity Identification. Maybe this isn’t your dream spokesperson, but is there an opportunity here? While there are sure to be pros and cons, why not explore? Does the appearance of a new ambassador mean that there are additional untapped market segments for the brand? Could you engage these new segments without compromising your values or offending your core audience?

Stage 3: Reimagine Success. Chances are that there is an engagement option somewhere between ignoring and embracing the rogue ambassador where the pros outweigh the cons for the brand. Success may not be what you envisioned at the company retreat, but the rogue brand ambassador could show you the promise of a different reality that might have higher revenues and more word of mouth surrounding it.

How would the pros and cons weigh out for inviting Kendra to design her own chicken parm-based entree? Offering to shut down the place to host her birthday? Or simply inviting her on a tour of the test kitchens to be taped for the show? Maybe some old fashioned “hospitaliano” could go a long way.

You might wonder what types of conversational and social media to engage in online. The answer is probably more than just one type. In traditional media, it’s been shown that marketing messages delivered across multiple overlapping media (for example, television and print) are often more effective than those delivered through one channel - even if the reach and frequency in that one channel is optimized.

Consider extending this offline marketing campaign notion to the online space by creating “distributed branding”.

The idea behind this strategy is to ensure your brand/positioning messaging is visible wherever target consumers live on the web. This strategy effectively maintains brand awareness over time at a cost that can be carefully optimized.

In actually implementing a distributed branding strategy, you’ll be pulling together all the usual basic knowledge about your online audience: what your target users are doing online, where they’re spending their time and what are the behaviors of influencers (i.e. friends, children and colleagues and others who will probably have a significant impact on the decisions of your core audience).

While you’ll probably want (or already have) more detailed use data for your target audience, below is helpful data from Forrester Research / Businessweek (see a longer article) that summarizes online activity by age segment. In a nutshell, for people age 18-40:

• 30-70% use social networking sites
• 40-60% read blogs, watch videos, listen to podcasts
• 25-35% comment/rate/read/write reviews
• 15-20% subscribe to RSS feeds, tag web pages

Even the best home sites typically engage consumers for only a limited time, often in connection with a specific activity. A distributed and pervasive presence can engage consumers through:

• widgets
• desktop apps
• screensavers or wallpaper
• podcasts
• blogs
• video
• games
• rss
• microblogging
• social networks (white label)
• social networks
• and more

Keeping your brand top-of-mind is a key objective, and the full variety of tools available online should be considered - if not used - in achieving this goal.

Near the top of the list of social media questions I get on a regular basis is, “Why would anyone use Twitter!?” (This comes right after “How do you even find time to blog?!”, which Ian Sohn already answered.)
I believe the Olympics have provided the perfect opportunity to convert non-believers to Twitter, as the platform has really exploded internationally around the Games - highlighting several of the most popular uses for the site in a way that is easy for the general, non-geeked out public to understand.

Here are three ways that Twitter has been used effectively around the Games:

• Finding Like Minded People: Using popular Twitter search engines, it’s fast and easy to search for “hashtags” which people include in tweets on various subjects and events of interest so that others can quickly connect with them. The hashtag #080808 was created for the Olympic Games. Click here to see tweets from individuals talking about all aspects of the Games using the #080808 hashtag. DO: Search for topics of interest to you, and start following new people! Try finding people using Twellow, the Twitter yellow pages.

• Organizing “Tweet Ups”: Offline meet ups of online networks were made popular long ago by sites like MeetUp.com, where you can search for real world meetings of every kind (knitters, euchre players, sports fans, etc.) in your area. Twitter helps quickly faciliate similar meetings, or Tweet Ups, among networks of Twitterers. We recently used Twitter to organize a Blogger Meet Up, which was attended by several Beijing area bloggers, bloggers in town for the Games, and Namibian flag bearer and Voices of the Olympic Games blogger, Mannie Heymans. DO: Start keeping an eye out for Tweet Ups in your area and expand take your online personal or professional network offline.

• Getting On The Ground Reports From Events You Can’t Attend: From BlogHer conferences, to Auto Shows, to Mac World, to the Olympics, Twitter makes it easy to get real time updates about events that you can’t attend yourself. For instance by following @lenovo2008 you can get the play by plays from the Lenovo team on the ground at the Games as we attend sporting events, visit Olympic venues, and highlight the best Olympic blog posts. DO: Next time you can’t make it to a conference, check out Twitter - odds are you can get all the best stats in real time from attendees live tweeting the event.
  

It’s clear to see how these three situations I’ve outlined apply to almost any topic of interest or business area that’s out there. Twitter, and other microblogging platforms like Plurk, are redefining the way that people communicate with each other around their lives, brands they use, events they attend and things they care about. If you or your client is not listening you should be, and if you’re not participating yet you should seriously think about it.