Meet Ryan Rasmussen, the new Emerging Media Specialist at Levenger.
His job is to do all the cool social media stuff that we all talk about.
He represents the company in social networks and Second Life. He schmoozes bloggers. He encourages real consumers to help design and develop products.
Basically, he does all those things that big companies are struggling with. While marketing departments and agencies are debating the optimal word of mouth strategy … Ryan just does it.
Oh, yeah — Ryan is also the manager of their Chicago store.
No one made him do this stuff, no one paid him to do it, probably no one even knew. He did it because it was a great thing to do, because it’s fun to interact with real customers, and it’s a truly creative activity. Most of what he does is on his own time.
Steve Leveen, the very smart CEO of Levenger, is wise enough to recognize Ryan’s genius and give him a title to match his activities.
Some of Ryan’s interesting projects:
- Develop into an official evangelist network of brand advocates and product hackers through Flickr pools, online video prototyping, virtual products and brand experiences in Second Life, Facebook groups, and crowdsourcing innovation within productivity blogs and community forums.
- Blog interaction through participatory engagement: http://www.diyplanner.com/search/node/circa and http://www.diyplanner.com/search/node/rasmussen
- Product hacking through Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/28341343@N00/1077365218/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/28341343@N00/
- Blogroll synthesizing interactive experiences – http://rrasmussen.tumblr.com
My favorite Ryan quote: "Just be honest with people. That’s what makes it last."
Lesson: Who is your Ryan? Do they have permission to do this? How do you let loose the passion?