october 2007

This post is from from my other blog here

Now these guys have a great name -- Zeus Jones. And a fascinating blog. And when they start their credentials pitch with "We need to use marketing as a chance to do things for people, not an excuse to say things to them", then you know that this is an agency who are doing things a little differently.

This presentation by Adrian Ho captures some of their thinking around shifting from "designing communications" to "designing interactions". Thought I would share with you all. Enjoy.

Upload your own

This post is from from my other blog here

Back in the lead-up to the Year 2000 I was working at IBM. There were massive ... really, massive projects underway to eliminate the "Year 2000 bug" from worldwide computer systems. These involved combing through millions of lines of computer code to remove any instances of six number dates (MMDDYY -- those dates that reset the year counter to 00 rather than 2000).

To achieve this, there were whole, global divisions established, new competencies developed and careers were established for life ... on both the technical and client side. The investment in people, technology and processes was amazing. The cost was hugely expensive. And the outcome? Well ... the new year clicked over and not one plane fell out of the air. No catastrophe hit the financial markets. Hospitals continued to function. And I had a great night out.

But I was just watching this great video (courtesy of David Koopmans) on the relative risks of global climate change and our INACTION on this crisis (and yes, let's admit it is a crisis). One thing that the Year 2000 folks understood was risk management. They understood that there was going to be a cost no matter what decision was taken ... but the upside of action was the "management" of the cost and the outcome. The downside of INACTION was catastrophe on a scale never before imagined. This is the same situation today -- just the debate is now about global climate change, not computer code failure.

I encourage you, watch this video. Invest the 10 minutes. And then push it. Spend five minutes more telling others about it. Don't let this be the MOST TERRIFYING video you will ever see. Make it the most important.

This post is from from my other blog here

The FAQs

This post is from from my other blog here

In my meanderings yesterday, I happened across this interesting post on Noah Brier's blog. Here he mentioned "the strength of weak ties" in relation to social media (and a link to a PDF). I was fascinated immediately by the title and wanted to learn more. Interestingly enough, this must be a promiscuous idea, as I had already written a draft on this exact topic some weeks ago but didn't realise it until I did a picture search for "granovetter diagrams".

This article by Mark S Granovetter dates back to 1973 and was published by the American Journal of Sociology (vol 78, issue 6). The central idea is that in a social network, the WEAKEST ties are the most powerful in terms of disseminating information. This would seem to be counter-intuitive ... surely the strongest links are most important? Apparently not ... and this is where it gets interesting!

There is a lot of detail in the article, so I just want to look at a couple of key points. (For more detail take a look at Shiv Singh's post over at Boxes and Arrows where he applies Granovetter's ideas to Web 2.0).

First adopters and early adopters

The article points out the difference between FIRST adopters and EARLY adopters. The first adopters are the innovators. They are marginal, isolated, with very small social networks. One of the characteristics of these innovators is that they have one-to-one or "bridge" relationships with people who are part of groups that are at arm's length. It is also important to note that the bridge is only a "weak tie". The early adopters by comparison, have a "reputation" to protect ... they are not the innovators, but they travel close behind them. This means, for an idea to spread across a social network, there must be a weak link between the FIRST and the EARLY adopter. The most effective FIRST adopters are those that have a number of bridges between themselves and other networks:

Intuitively speaking, this means that whatever is to be diffused can reach a larger number of people, and traverse greater social distance (i.e., path length), when passed through weak ties rather than strong (p 1366).

Weak ties drive action One of the surprising results of the analysis is the connection between weak ties and action. Based on a study of job seekers, it appears that finding a new role will come not through the strong ties (who you would think would have a vested interest in their friends' success), but through the extended network of weak ties (in over 80% of cases). What is shown here is that the network of weak ties is more likely to activate a request than someone closer -- perhaps the motivation here is to grow that weak tie into something more substantial.

... studies of social and mass communication have shown that people rarely act on mass-media information unless it is also transmitted through personal ties ...

This post is from from my other blog here

I have been tagged by Valeria Maltoni and Drew McLellan on the topic of media snackers. The video above (thanks to Jeremiah Owyang) describes media snackers as "young people", but in my view, media snackers are a style of behaviour, not an age group. I, myself, am a media snacker when it suits me ... and I know of many in the business community who would also fit this description. But this meme is about whether I cater for media snackers ... and specifically, where I can improve to cater to their minute attention spans.

As Valeria points out, for media snackers one of the most important determinants of their media consumption is RELEVANCE. How does one have relevance? I have a feeling that it is all about being interesting, but this could be wrong. It really depends on whether a PARTICULAR media snacker is a Winker or a Nodder. So how can/do I make myself relevant to media snackers?

I don't ... and I agree with Cathleen Rittereiser -- "we show respect for all social media consumers by assuming they possess the intelligence and faculties to decide for themselves how, when and where they want to consume media".

And this is the important point -- Media Snackers will CHOOSE you. They will choose you because:

• You have broken bread together in a previous 12 seconds
• They like the cut of your jib (or the way that you style a headline)
• Someone they respect tagged you first
• Your last post showed up on Digg
• There was an RSS feed error and they ended up on your blog
• You were Scobleized

So now after his tasty meme-rant, it is my turn to tag five others. So, I tag the five NEW additions to my blogroll:

• Neil Perkin ... because he has a tasty, bite sized blog full of punch
• Anne Simons ... because every snack needs some sizzle
• Chris Bernard ... because we should all snack by design
• Meg Tsiamis ... because sometimes an Aussie snack is full of flavour
• Kris Hoet ... because he thinks the term "conversation" isn't over used (and I agree)

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pH [浪人]

In the Age of Conversation there is plenty of talk. Plenty of chatter. But an authentic and trusted voice does more than talk ... it incites, it points to action. It leads us to where, perhaps, we are on the edge of comfort.For marketers, this means pushing ourselves beyond themes and messages. It is more than a clever catch phrase or a quip ... it asks us to re-examine the NATURE and METHODS of the work we do. It asks us to "live our brands" in ways that we have never been asked to do. It is less about saying and more about DOING.

John Grant's new book The Green Marketing Manifesto, which is due to be published any day now, sets out an agenda for marketers who are interested and willing to engage with "sustainable marketing".

One of the things that I like about John's approach is that he takes a positive approach to what is a difficult and challenging situation. Take a look at his blog and you will see a willingness to grapple with issues -- but within a strategic framework and with a practical approach.

Don't be caught sleeping while the world changes ... I have a feeling this book could well be one that we have all been waiting for ... now I just have to wait for mine to arrive!

This post is from from my other blog here

Café Latte

There are blogs that you read that make you nod your head ... you agree with the sentiments, with the content and the approach. You lurk, read and maybe even comment from time to time. You will warm to the author, maybe even try to find out more about them (read their About page, check their Technorati profile or their LinkedIn page). You may even go so far as to stalk them on Facebook where you will vascillate between "friending" the blogger or just look at their friend list. But the conversation between you and the blog author really plays out in your own mind -- the mind of the reader. These blogs are Nodders.

Another type of blog is like the Nodder, but with more sex appeal. This blog also has good content, makes you smile, teases you a little. Perhaps you find the writing voice just a little bit attractive ... the ideas, oh so gently seductive. Maybe this blog is pretty. Friendly. Accessible. For you. But this blog is also smart. Pretty and smart -- what a combination! When you read you agree, really agree ... or discuss, argue. It is a relationship after all. These blogs are the Penny Droppers. They bring the ideas together for you in a way that lets you own them. I love a penny dropper. We all do.

There are other blogs that we love, but we know they are bad for us. They draw us in ... expose us to ideas, concepts, content ... dirty content that we can't resist. When we comment or participate on these blogs we do so with a surreptitious excitement. It is a risk. A challenge. It could also be a fight. We can't help being attracted to these blogs ... we add them to our feed list, we follow their authors on Twitter and we check their photos on Flickr. We get close, oh so close, to stalking the authors ... digitally. But our strange, digital attraction can also end quite quickly. Over. These are the Tinderbox blogs and you know you can't resist them.

Then there is the Winker. The Winker has great style and panache. There is some great writing and concepting ... there is personality to play with and an open style. You would like to have a drink with the Winker because the Winker is a great host, a fun storyteller and could, but probably won't, get you into trouble. Depends on the day of the week.

NOW ... I am interested in these characterisations (and there may be more), because they tell us something about the way that we, as readers, relate to the blogs that we read. From a CERTAIN reader's point of view, one blog could be considered a Winker, but ANOTHER will find that blog more dangerous -- a Tinderbox -- and take the ...

This post is from from my other blog here

Café Latte

There are blogs that you read that make you nod your head ... you agree with the sentiments, with the content and the approach. You lurk, read and maybe even comment from time to time. You will warm to the author, maybe even try to find out more about them (read their About page, check their Technorati profile or their LinkedIn page). You may even go so far as to stalk them on Facebook where you will vascillate between "friending" the blogger or just look at their friend list. But the conversation between you and the blog author really plays out in your own mind -- the mind of the reader. These blogs are Nodders.

Another type of blog is like the Nodder, but with more sex appeal. This blog also has good content, makes you smile, teases you a little. Perhaps you find the writing voice just a little bit attractive ... the ideas, oh so gently seductive. Maybe this blog is pretty. Friendly. Accessible. For you. But this blog is also smart. Pretty and smart -- what a combination! When you read you agree, really agree ... or discuss, argue. It is a relationship after all. These blogs are the Penny Droppers. They bring the ideas together for you in a way that lets you own them. I love a penny dropper. We all do.

There are other blogs that we love, but we know they are bad for us. They draw us in ... expose us to ideas, concepts, content ... dirty content that we can't resist. When we comment or participate on these blogs we do so with a surreptitious excitement. It is a risk. A challenge. It could also be a fight. We can't help being attracted to these blogs ... we add them to our feed list, we follow their authors on Twitter and we check their photos on Flickr. We get close, oh so close, to stalking the authors ... digitally. But our strange, digital attraction can also end quite quickly. Over. These are the Tinderbox blogs and you know you can't resist them.

Then there is the Winker. The Winker has great style and panache. There is some great writing and concepting ... there is personality to play with and an open style. You would like to have a drink with the Winker because the Winker is a great host, a fun storyteller and could, but probably won't, get you into trouble. Depends on the day of the week.

NOW ... I am interested in these characterisations (and there may be more), because they tell us something about the way that we, as readers, relate to the blogs that we read. From a CERTAIN reader's point of view, one blog could be considered a Winker, but ANOTHER will find that blog more dangerous -- a Tinderbox -- and take the ...

This post is from from my other blog here

Normally I complain about Apple and iTunes, but today I have a positive story. I was checking out iTunes U and found some great free content on sustainability, environmentalism and global warming. This series is free to download and features luminaries such as Al Gore (The Earth in the Balance) and William McDonough (Cradle to Cradle Design).

And, of course, following the hypertext love, there are links through to Stanford's Social Innovation Review site. There is plenty of great insight (some subscription only) here around non-profits, foundations and socially responsible businesses. They even have a blog.

Update: There are also some great seminars, chats, poetry etc also available on iTunes U. Check out "Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain", UC Berkeley campus event featuring David Lynch.

This post is from from my other blog here

Normally I complain about Apple and iTunes, but today I have a positive story. I was checking out iTunes U and found some great free content on sustainability, environmentalism and global warming. This series is free to download and features luminaries such as Al Gore (The Earth in the Balance) and William McDonough (Cradle to Cradle Design).

And, of course, following the hypertext love, there are links through to Stanford's Social Innovation Review site. There is plenty of great insight (some subscription only) here around non-profits, foundations and socially responsible businesses. They even have a blog.

Update: There are also some great seminars, chats, poetry etc also available on iTunes U. Check out "Consciousness, Creativity and the Brain", UC Berkeley campus event featuring David Lynch.

This post is from from my other blog here

prblog

The Caxton Awards is a long running program that recognises excellence in newspaper advertising here in Australia. Supported by the major metropolitan newspapers, awards are spread across 20 categories that range from "automotive" and "fashion" through to "best copywriting" and "best campaign".

This year, the judges refused to nominate a winner in twenty categories, reports Lara Sinclair in The Australian. It raises an interesting question ... where has the talent gone? The focus?

While I agree with Tony Hale, CEO of the industry body, The Newspaper Works, who said "Ordinary creative compromises the effectiveness of our business", I am wondering whether the explosion of digital has distracted agencies from the lucrative and challenging news space. Given that there is a slow, but industry-wide move away from the traditional media channels, there are at least two opportunities arising in news and magazine advertising:

• Creative thinking and strategy: Facing mediocre competition, clever creative will stand out. The opportunity here is to produce work that will play to the strengths of the printed medium.
• Storytelling: The chance to take advantage of longer form storytelling should not be overlooked. While we spend increasingly large amounts of our free and fragmented time online, newspapers and magazines can still draw us in, but only if the story is good and the narrative is strong.

While I believe that digital is the future, I am also of the belief that newspapers and magazines will continue to serve a purpose. This purpose is now shifting and needs ongoing redefinition. But this cannot be done by the publishers alone ... it needs the collective thinking of the whole industry -- it needs collaboration and reinvention. Only then will the newspaper advertising rise from the dead.

This post is from from my other blog here

prblog

The Caxton Awards is a long running program that recognises excellence in newspaper advertising here in Australia. Supported by the major metropolitan newspapers, awards are spread across 20 categories that range from "automotive" and "fashion" through to "best copywriting" and "best campaign".

This year, the judges refused to nominate a winner in twenty categories, reports Lara Sinclair in The Australian. It raises an interesting question ... where has the talent gone? The focus?

While I agree with Tony Hale, CEO of the industry body, The Newspaper Works, who said "Ordinary creative compromises the effectiveness of our business", I am wondering whether the explosion of digital has distracted agencies from the lucrative and challenging news space. Given that there is a slow, but industry-wide move away from the traditional media channels, there are at least two opportunities arising in news and magazine advertising:

• Creative thinking and strategy: Facing mediocre competition, clever creative will stand out. The opportunity here is to produce work that will play to the strengths of the printed medium.
• Storytelling: The chance to take advantage of longer form storytelling should not be overlooked. While we spend increasingly large amounts of our free and fragmented time online, newspapers and magazines can still draw us in, but only if the story is good and the narrative is strong.

While I believe that digital is the future, I am also of the belief that newspapers and magazines will continue to serve a purpose. This purpose is now shifting and needs ongoing redefinition. But this cannot be done by the publishers alone ... it needs the collective thinking of the whole industry -- it needs collaboration and reinvention. Only then will the newspaper advertising rise from the dead.

This post is from from my other blog here

purplespace

A reminder for those thinking about or preparing to enter our "So, You Think You Can Market?" competition. Remember, your entries have to be with us by October 31 ... with the first round of voting starting the next day!

If you have not already, check out the FAQs ... and make sure you take a good look at

This post is from from my other blog here

purplespace

A reminder for those thinking about or preparing to enter our "So, You Think You Can Market?" competition. Remember, your entries have to be with us by October 31 ... with the first round of voting starting the next day!

If you have not already, check out the FAQs ... and make sure you take a good look at

This post is from from my other blog here

here. Now, if only I had only kept that receipt!

This post is from from my other blog here

here. Now, if only I had only kept that receipt!

This post is from from my other blog here

servantofchaos

Want to harness your creativity? Want a change of perspective? Easy. Hand your digital camera over to a child.

Inspired by this post on sharing ideas by Cam Beck ... and in preparation for my up-coming talk at InterestingSouth, I wrote this post over at MarketingProfs. It looks at the amazine world of my four year old daughter ... and while we share the same spaces -- her world is infinitely more magical than mine. Or was ... until I saw the pictures.

This post is from from my other blog here

servantofchaos

Want to harness your creativity? Want a change of perspective? Easy. Hand your digital camera over to a child.

Inspired by this post on sharing ideas by Cam Beck ... and in preparation for my up-coming talk at InterestingSouth, I wrote this post over at MarketingProfs. It looks at the amazine world of my four year old daughter ... and while we share the same spaces -- her world is infinitely more magical than mine. Or was ... until I saw the pictures.

This post is from from my other blog here

William Hamon

I am loving Twitter at the moment ... I am coming in contact with more and more people who have fascinating blogs, great insight and, well, a brilliant sense of humour. It is always a joy to dig into a newly discovered blog ... to find out about what interests them, how they interpret their passion (or their work), and how their readers respond to their writing.

Chris Hambly has a great blog that looks at new media ... with some great recent posts on the state of the music industry. But digging found I found this great question ... "what stops you commenting?". It made me think. I get a lot of visits here and a mostly regular core of commentors ... but what about the casual reader? What about the feed reader? What about the lurker?

Really, I am interested to know ... perhaps there is something that I can do to invite you into the conversation. A change in tone. More seriousness? Less?

Go on ... let me know. As Chris says, "lose the comment fear".

This post is from from my other blog here

William Hamon

I am loving Twitter at the moment ... I am coming in contact with more and more people who have fascinating blogs, great insight and, well, a brilliant sense of humour. It is always a joy to dig into a newly discovered blog ... to find out about what interests them, how they interpret their passion (or their work), and how their readers respond to their writing.

Chris Hambly has a great blog that looks at new media ... with some great recent posts on the state of the music industry. But digging found I found this great question ... "what stops you commenting?". It made me think. I get a lot of visits here and a mostly regular core of commentors ... but what about the casual reader? What about the feed reader? What about the lurker?

Really, I am interested to know ... perhaps there is something that I can do to invite you into the conversation. A change in tone. More seriousness? Less?

Go on ... let me know. As Chris says, "lose the comment fear".

This post is from from my other blog here

methods and even its value. One of the things that I find fascinating is the way that your own analysis and reading can actually bear out similar results to the research firms ... next time you are commissioning market research -- or even just digging around, try the following:

• When you are formulating your brief (or just a series of questions), hand write your brief on a separate notepad
• Write two bullet point responses to each question -- indicating a low expectation response and a high expectation response
• Ask a couple of people that you know for their responses to your questions (it helps if they are in your field of inquiry)
• If you don't know anyone who can help you, drop your question into LinkedIn or on Facebook and see what turns up (the network is smarter than you are) ... (BIG thanks to Kris Hoet and Ewan McIntosh here)

Anyway, along the way, I found this summary of social media research which makes for interesting reading. Not compelling ... it is market research after all!

Datamonitors predict that the explosive growth of social media membership will plateau in five years. FIVE years! It seems to me that the folks over at Datamonitors don't understand this space at all! This is going to be a completely different space in five years ... in the two years that I have been writing this blog there has been a vast amount of change. For example, about 12 months ago I was thinking that Facebook was washed up ... that the horse had bolted and that MySpace had won (glad I don't write predictions here especially given today's news!).

And as Ann Handley jokes, blogging years are like "dog years" ... one year counts for about seven in terms of experience. So if we apply this to the research ... in about 35 years social media will plateau -- basically growth in social media in 2042 will only be possible in line with global population expansion.

Ok, that was slightly facetious. But you know I love research ... but not as much as Rob.

This post is from from my other blog here

methods and even its value. One of the things that I find fascinating is the way that your own analysis and reading can actually bear out similar results to the research firms ... next time you are commissioning market research -- or even just digging around, try the following:

• When you are formulating your brief (or just a series of questions), hand write your brief on a separate notepad
• Write two bullet point responses to each question -- indicating a low expectation response and a high expectation response
• Ask a couple of people that you know for their responses to your questions (it helps if they are in your field of inquiry)
• If you don't know anyone who can help you, drop your question into LinkedIn or on Facebook and see what turns up (the network is smarter than you are) ... (BIG thanks to Kris Hoet and Ewan McIntosh here)

Anyway, along the way, I found this summary of social media research which makes for interesting reading. Not compelling ... it is market research after all!

Datamonitors predict that the explosive growth of social media membership will plateau in five years. FIVE years! It seems to me that the folks over at Datamonitors don't understand this space at all! This is going to be a completely different space in five years ... in the two years that I have been writing this blog there has been a vast amount of change. For example, about 12 months ago I was thinking that Facebook was washed up ... that the horse had bolted and that MySpace had won (glad I don't write predictions here especially given today's news!).

And as Ann Handley jokes, blogging years are like "dog years" ... one year counts for about seven in terms of experience. So if we apply this to the research ... in about 35 years social media will plateau -- basically growth in social media in 2042 will only be possible in line with global population expansion.

Ok, that was slightly facetious. But you know I love research ... but not as much as Rob.

This post is from from my other blog here

Emily thinking?

This post is from from my other blog here

Emily thinking?

This post is from from my other blog here

It has been a long time between drinks, but Sean, Paul and I are finally back with the next instalment of Eat.Sleep.Blog. And in our ongoing exploration of technologies, we have shifted, yet again ... this time trying out the new Kaltura video collaboration system.

A couple of days we started thinking about doing another episode ... so I suggested we try Kaltura to make the recording. Sean setup a series of clips as a framework and our "experiment" very quickly turned into a production rough cut ... thanks largely to the ease of use of the system. Despite a few issues with permissions, it is surprisingly easy to arrange, edit and produce a video podcast. And while this first Kaltura episode is a little rough ... I am sure it will get better over time.

This episode covers:

• Questions about "value"
• Coverage of Wilkinson Sword's Fight for Kisses Campaign
• Richard Huntington's Are Brand Ideas Too Big for Advertising
• Culture of experimentation vs the challenge of digital storytelling
• The weather in Texas
• The So, You Think You Can Market competition
• Joseph Jaffe's Join the Conversation launch

This post is from from my other blog here

It has been a long time between drinks, but Sean, Paul and I are finally back with the next instalment of Eat.Sleep.Blog. And in our ongoing exploration of technologies, we have shifted, yet again ... this time trying out the new Kaltura video collaboration system.

A couple of days we started thinking about doing another episode ... so I suggested we try Kaltura to make the recording. Sean setup a series of clips as a framework and our "experiment" very quickly turned into a production rough cut ... thanks largely to the ease of use of the system. Despite a few issues with permissions, it is surprisingly easy to arrange, edit and produce a video podcast. And while this first Kaltura episode is a little rough ... I am sure it will get better over time.

This episode covers:

• Questions about "value"
• Coverage of Wilkinson Sword's Fight for Kisses Campaign
• Richard Huntington's Are Brand Ideas Too Big for Advertising
• Culture of experimentation vs the challenge of digital storytelling
• The weather in Texas
• The So, You Think You Can Market competition