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30 Jun This post is from from my other blog here We had an interesting social media discussion on Plurk today (now known as a Plurkshop) that raised a lot of questions. There were many participants in the quickly shifting conversation, including Amber Naslund, Connie Reece, Tim Jackson, Beth Harte and Mack Collier. The conversation started by talking about managing conversations across different platforms (Amber has a great wrap-up here), but along the way, the conversation shifted and changed. One of the questions that was raised concerns the objectives of social media -- how do you use/activate social media and why. The answer depends on where in the media spectrum that you sit. At the far end of the blogging spectrum, there is the lone blogger who is writing for their own enjoyment -- the diarist. Then comes the activist or even passionate brand evangelist. In the centre is the Careerist -- the blogger who writes as a demonstration of their skills and expertise. Next comes the "expert" blogger who writes about their area of knowledge. Then there is the corporate blogger which is written from a business perspective. Professional bloggers can roam across any or all of these categories (and I am sure there are many others). But each of these bloggers will have their own objectives ranging from the personal to the professional -- but there is something that they have in common -- a desire to create a community.
You may not start with the aim of turning your social media/content into a business, but once a community forms and achieves a critical mass, opportunities will be pulled into your gravitational field. This is, perhaps, the great leveller of social media -- the traditional barriers to entry in media are related to reach and production cost. Both are dramatically lowered thanks to social media. After all, with social media, it is not where ...
30 Jun This post is from from my other blog here McAzadi
The problem with good ideas is that they take a LOT of hard work to bring them to life. Now, both Drew McLellan and I knew that going for a second edition of the Age of Conversation was going to be a challenge, but we had already lived to tell the tale once already. Little did we know that the author list would more than double! And while we had about 275 authors raise their hand early on, life and the other catastrophes of modern living have intervened, whittling this down to a mere 237. As a result, we are knee deep in editing right now -- still aiming for a publication date towards the end of August (we are still discussing and planning the exact launch date -- but we WILL let you know). In the meantime, become acquainted with those outstanding individuals who have committed their time and creativity in the name of charity (after all, all proceeds go to Variety, the Children's Charity): Adrian Ho, Aki Spicer, Alex Henault, Amy Jussel, Andrew Odom, Andy Nulman, Andy Sernovitz, Andy Whitlock, Angela Maiers, Ann Handley, Anna Farmery, Armando Alves, Arun Rajagopal, Asi Sharabi, Becky Carroll, Becky McCray, Bernie Scheffler, Bill Gammell, Bob LeDrew, Brad Shorr, Brandon Murphy, Branislav Peric, Brent Dixon, Brett Macfarlane, Brian Reich, C.C. Chapman, Cam Beck, Casper Willer, Cathleen Rittereiser, Cathryn Hrudicka, Cedric Giorgi, Charles Sipe, Chris Kieff, Chris Cree, Chris Wilson, Christina Kerley (CK), C.B. Whittemore, Chris Brown, Connie Bensen, Connie Reece, Corentin Monot, Craig Wilson, Daniel Honigman, Dan Schawbel, Dan Sitter, Daria Radota Rasmussen, Darren Herman, Dave Davison, David Armano, David Berkowitz, David Koopmans, David Meerman Scott, David Petherick, David Reich, David Weinfeld, David Zinger, Deanna Gernert, Deborah Brown, Dennis Price, Derrick Kwa, Dino Demopoulos, Doug Haslam, Doug Meacham, Doug Mitchell, Douglas Hanna, Douglas Karr, Drew McLellan, Duane Brown, Dustin Jacobsen, Dylan Viner, Ed Brenegar, Ed Cotton, Efrain Mendicuti, Ellen Weber, Eric Peterson, Eric Nehrlich, Ernie Mosteller, Faris Yakob, Fernanda Romano, Francis Anderson, Gareth Kay, Gary Cohen, Gaurav Mishra, Gavin Heaton, Geert Desager, George Jenkins, G.L. Hoffman, Gianandrea Facchini, Gordon Whitehead, Greg Verdino, Gretel Going & Kathryn Fleming, Hillel Cooperman, Hugh Weber, J. Erik Potter, James Gordon-Macintosh, Jamey Shiels, Jasmin Tragas, Jason Oke, Jay Ehret, Jeanne Dininni, Jeff De Cagna, Jeff Gwynne & Todd Cabral, Jeff Noble, Jeff Wallace, Jennifer Warwick, Jenny Meade, Jeremy Fuksa, Jeremy Heilpern, Jeroen Verkroost, Jessica Hagy, Joanna Young, Joe Pulizzi, John Herrington, John Moore, John Rosen, John Todor, Jon Burg, Jon Swanson, Jonathan Trenn, Jordan Behan, Julie Fleischer, Justin Foster, Karl Turley, Kate Trgovac, Katie Chatfield, Katie Konrath, Kenny Lauer, Keri Willenborg, Kevin Jessop, Kristin Gorski, Lewis Green, Lois Kelly, Lori Magno, Louise Manning, Luc Debaisieux, Mario Vellandi, Mark Blair, Mark Earls, Mark Goren, Mark Hancock, Mark Lewis, Mark McGuinness, Matt Dickman, Matt J. McDonald, Matt Moore, Michael Karnjanaprakorn, Michelle Lamar, Mike Arauz, Mike McAllen, Mike Sansone, Mitch Joel, Neil Perkin, Nettie Hartsock, Nick Rice, Oleksandr Skorokhod, Ozgur Alaz, Paul Chaney, Paul Hebert, Paul Isakson, Paul McEnany, Paul Tedesco, Paul Williams, Pet Campbell, Pete Deutschman, Peter Corbett, Phil Gerbyshak, Phil Lewis, Phil Soden, Piet Wulleman, Rachel Steiner, Sreeraj Menon, Reginald Adkins, Richard Huntington, Rishi Desai, Robert Hruzek, Roberta Rosenberg, Robyn McMaster, Roger von Oech, Rohit Bhargava, Ron Shevlin, Ryan Barrett, Ryan Karpeles, Ryan Rasmussen, Sam Huleatt, Sandy Renshaw, Scott Goodson, Scott Monty, Scott Townsend, Scott White, Sean Howard, Sean Scott, Seni Thomas, Seth Gaffney, Shama Hyder, Sheila Scarborough, Sheryl Steadman, Simon Payn, Sonia Simone, Spike Jones, Stanley Johnson, Stephen Collins, Stephen Landau, Stephen Smith, Steve Bannister, Steve Hardy, Steve Portigal, Steve Roesler, Steven Verbruggen, Steve Woodruff, Sue Edworthy, Susan Bird, Susan Gunelius, Susan Heywood, Tammy Lenski, Terrell Meek, Thomas Clifford, Thomas Knoll, Tim Brunelle, Tim Connor, Tim Jackson, Tim Mannveille, Tim Tyler, Timothy Johnson, Tinu Abayomi-Paul, Toby Bloomberg, Todd Andrlik, Troy Rutter, Troy Worman, Uwe Hook, Valeria Maltoni, Vandana Ahuja, Vanessa DiMauro, Veronique Rabuteau, Wayne Buckhanan, William Azaroff, Yves Van Landeghem
26 Jun This post is from from my other blog here "The IT Crowd" is one of the funniest shows on TV -- especially if you work in (or near) IT.
24 Jun This post is from from my other blog here What does it mean to be happy? According to Malcolm Gladwell, it is the different between 60% and 78%. In this great TED Talk (thanks to Drew McLellan via Todd Andrik), Malcolm delivers a great story built around Howard Moskowitz's pioneering work in the field of psychology-led market research. Moskowitz successfully used data to not just build out a long tail type analysis of data, but he aggregated this data to form clusters of relevance. How this works for a taste test for coffee is as follows:
However, if a high level pre-screening takes place before the focus group, the outcomes are dramatically different. If participants can self-select a style of coffee (eg mild, heavy roast etc) -- from as little as three categories -- and then that particular style is provided to the focus group, the ranking from 1 to 100 will rise to 78. A 78% ranking is a "coffee that makes you deliriously happy". Think about this in terms of your brand. Consider it in light of your profiling and strategic approach. Perhaps we don't need to deliver value to the "nth" level of the long tail ... we simply need to deliver value to the clusters. The old adage "you can't please all the people all the time" is true -- but if you can spend your research and insight budget in a way that will identify the clusters that make sense for your brand/product, then making your consumers 78% happy will more than deliver on your brand promise. It will open new markets. Don't believe me? Listen in to the whole of Malcolm's speech.
24 Jun This post is from from my other blog here Last week, Jed White from itechne hosted Pubcamp, Sydney - the Web 2.0 media day - bringing the publishing/media world face-to-face with the increasingly vocal and empowered social media/web 2.0 crowd. This week, it was followed up with a Melbourne event. Broken into a short format presentation style (similar to the approach we took at Interesting South), a variety of speakers provided their take on the current role and the future of media. There was a panel discussion and a debate -- all followed by unconference sessions which allowed participants to actively investigate some of the topics raised during the presentations. In Sydney the room seemed to divide into two camps. One one side were the new media folks, furiously commenting and conversing via the Twitter "backchannel" -- and on the other the "traditional media" folks who appeared largely unaware of the un-unconference being carried on through Twitter. There seemed to be no middle ground between the two sides -- each holding firm to the belief in their own relevance. It was, however, during the panel discussion where the Twitter conversation spilled over from the back channel onto the conference room floor. The panel appeared to be populated by people who had spent most of their careers in the publishing industry with no "new media" representative. Stephen Collins summed up the collective Twitter response along the lines of "you don't know what you are talking about". From that point onwards, there was no going back -- with the conversation becoming stuck around the relative merits of "professional" vs "citizen" journalism. It wasn't, however, until I sat in on Matt Moore's unconference session on value networks that I began to see a way forward. It is not that there is no overlap between the two camps, it is just that there is no shared vocabulary for us to discuss shared areas of interest. And rather than spending our energies debating the relative merits of our own cases, I feel it would be far more productive identifying opportunities where each group could collaborate or experiment together. This, of course, means new ways of identifying and measuring value -- it means new approaches to community and to business. And while there may well be a long way to go before we see such opportunities come to pass, perhaps Pubcamp is the first, tentative step forward. Next time, I hope to see greater web 2.0/social media representation; getting down and dirty with the business model discussion; less plugs for new services/offerings; discussion on the role of communities; involvement from digital strategists/agencies. For more detailed coverage of the Sydney event, see Renai LeMay (for the AFR), Craig Wilson and Nic Hodges (let me know if I have missed your coverage). Melbourne has been covered by Ben Barren, Michael Specht, Stephen Mayne.
23 Jun This post is from from my other blog here This excellent presentation by Tara Hunt clearly draws a connection between customer experience and brands. To do this, Tara suggests we need to understand the four pillars of happiness -- Autonomy, Competence, Relatedness and Self-esteem -- as well as the barriers to happiness -- fear, confusion, loneliness, lack of control and struggle for survival. By delighting your customers you are adding to their happiness. By removing the pain/anxiety of your customers you are removing barriers to their happiness. Makes sense. Sounds simple ... and as Tara explains, it ties into the self actualization model of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. But how does this tie into your business strategy? How does it really become part of the way that you do business, drive revenue, and manage your costs? Clearly activating this comes down to the experience of your product/service. It comes down to the exchange of value between your brand and its community and that means that you need to understand how your brand rubs up against the factors that affect happiness or the barriers to happiness. This is a strategic choice and should inform every iteration of your brand's product/service line. But there is also a more significant opportunity around happiness that applies directly to social media and to digital strategy. Take a look through Tara's presentation, and then continue reading below. Upload your ownMost brands are likely to position themselves on one side or other of the "axis of misery" that Tara talks about. However, the larger opportunity is to activate your digital strategy in a complimentary manner. That is, if your brand positioning is closely aligned with the four pillars of happiness, then your digital strategy should focus on removing the barriers to happiness -- and vice versa. Many "Web 2.0" brands are already take this holistic approach. Think about Google, for example. Not does the experience of interacting with the Google Search Engine deliver value on the four pillars of happiness, it also directly impacts on the barriers to happiness. This is extended through a range of other service offerings from Orkut through to Gmail. It strikes me that viewing happiness as a business model provides a unique way of investigating your brand's strategic positioning and provides insight in terms of its future direction. It reverses the debate around brands from one that is internally focused into an analysis which is oriented towards the experiential impact of your brand through the eyes of your brand community. Revolution? Maybe.
23 Jun
22 Jun This post is from from my other blog here We all know a good story when we hear or read it, just like we know a good film when we see it. But there are many, many elements that need to come together to ensure that a story "works". From the youngest age, we have been conditioned by storytelling ... there are conventions, expectations, structures and rhythms that need to be respected (or broken). There are archetypes that can be manipulated and themes that can be called upon, and there are even standard phrases (think "once upon a time"). But often, content creators of all kinds (from brand storytellers to creative directors) forget the basics -- the beginning, middle and end. In the past, I have worked with teams to work through these elements. I have pushed the beginning, middle and end because it provides a context within which we can tell stories. This is especially important in digital storytelling because context can often be a battleground, signifying everything or nothing. The role of the digital storyteller, however, is to reign in the context -- to provide a focus. Precisely because the context can be so broad, the digital storyteller, must take a lead from the scientist -- to study the micro, to set an agenda that cannot be seen by the naked eye -- and deliver the razor sharp insight that will draw participants into the web of the story. How is this done? Like anything, you need to start with an idea. This is the 1%. A good idea will get you started but an idea on its own is dormant. There is another 9% that is planning. You need to think through the what, why and how of your story. You need to consider the methods you will take to bring your idea to life. The next 40% you need to focus on execution. This is the actual doing of the work. This brings together the idea and the strategy and makes it available to the world. The remaining 50% is participation ... It is this final 50% that is the MOST important element. Without the participation of an audience your project is a failure. In the digital story, all MEANING is co-created. That means that, after launch, your digital story continues. It needs feeding. You need to respond to the nuances of its reading. You need to ENGAGE. Perhaps this is why brands struggle with the concept of digital storytelling. Perhaps this is why it is harder to plan for and activate/support a digital story ... because they can, and do last forever. Mostly ... Katie Chatfield has created a fantastic presentation that explains and profiles Marcus Brown, who is in my view, one of the premier digital storytellers of our time. In this presentation, Katie steps through the process of digital storytelling, charting the rise, life and ultimate ending of some of Marcus' characters whose digital exuberance spilled, at times, into real life. There was clearly a beginning, middle and end -- and maybe even a hint ...
19 Jun This post is from from my other blog here Craig Wilson and Gordon Whitehead from Sticky Advertising took some time out at Pubcamp Sydney to probe some members of the audience on the future of media in 2008. Here is the first set of responses ... featuring (in order of appearance Gavin Heaton, Sean Carmody and Markus Hafner). I am currently writing up a review of the Sydney event, but in the meantime, take a look at Matt Moore's summary or view the twitter stream for yourself. Don't forget, Pubcamp Melbourne next week. PubCamp - The Web 2.0 Media Day from Sticky Advertising on Vimeo.
19 Jun This post is from from my other blog here Brilliance in less than 140 characters courtesy of Tim Noonan -- I participate therefore I am.
18 Jun
18 Jun This post is from from my other blog here Starting Thursday, Todd Andrlik has asked a few of us to do some guest posting. Here is the line-up ... so make sure you get along and see what damage/contribution we all make to Todd's already successful blog. The line-up is: // Thu / Leo Bottary of Client Service Insights// Fri / Kami Huyse of Communication Overtones// Mon / Gavin Heaton of Servant of Chaos// Tue / Drew McLellan of Drew’s Marketing Minute// Wed / Darryl Ohrt of Brand Flakes for Breakfast
16 Jun
15 Jun This post is from from my other blog here In marketing/advertising we talk about changing behaviour. We speak of trends, present analysis and peer into the near horizon of our own timelines. We blog about the changing of consumer experience, discuss demographics, strategies and new ways of measuring reach, frequency and engagement. And in amongst all this conversation we are building our own edifice to social media -- shouting, talking and building, word by word, our own empire. But I wonder, is this all sounding so hollow? We are the hollow menWe are the stuffed menLeaning togetherHeadpiece filled with straw. Alas!Our dried voices, whenWe whisper togetherAre quiet and meaninglessAs wind in dry grassOr rats' feet over broken glassIn our dry cellar-- TS Eliot, The Hollow Men If we take a look at the shapes of these stimulus, if we examine the state of BEING rather than the active state of PERFORMING (in our roles of employer, employee, creator, listener, receiver, etc), then we may wonder at the particular historical moment in which we have found ourselves. The popularity and rise associated with "reality TV" shows such as Big Brother and even Eurovision only hold sway momentarily, never to be repeated in the future -- for the interactivity, voting and audience involvement is as transient as the beep notification of an SMS alert. And while our cultural artefacts are being produced at ever greater rates, the co-creation and location of their meaning appears to be increasingly bound up in the evanescent energy of this "interactivity". David Cushman, for example, cites a press release claiming that: More video material has been uploaded to YouTube in the past six months than has ever been aired on all major networks combined, according to cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch. About 88 percent is new and original content, most of which has been created by people formerly known as “the audience". However, as Alan Kirby points out in this article on Postmodernism (via Amanda Chappel): A culture based on these things can have no memory – certainly not the burdensome sense of a preceding cultural inheritance which informed modernism and postmodernism. Non-reproducible and evanescent, pseudo-modernism is thus also amnesiac: these are cultural actions in the present moment with no sense of either past or future. In the place of Postmodernism, Kirby argues for a new defining cultural moment -- pseudo modernism. Identifying 1980 as the turning point, the pseudo modernists can also be seen as those generations succeeding Generation X -- so called Generation Y or Millennials, though like anything, is more likely to relate to a mode of being than to an age/demographic group. Kirby's pseudo modernists are spookily devoid of agency, caught in the neverland between the capacity to effect change and the overwhelming minutiae digital interactions: You click, you punch the keys, you are ‘involved’, engulfed, deciding. You are the text, there is no-one else, no ‘author’; there is nowhere else, no other time or place. But if this is the case -- if the central seeding authority of the pseudo modernist is "cluelessness" -- a contrasting capacity to see and ...
13 Jun This post is from from my other blog here In the wake of the Enterprise 2.0 summit in Boston this week, I have been taking a peek at the blog coverage and thinking through the opportunities and challenges facing organisations struggling to find their way. (BTW, Stephen Collins has a couple of great posts here, which I am sure he will drill down into on his return.) A clear intersection for me is the collision between the demands/desires of knowledge workers and the expectations of the business/management. The same is true for branding. We are effectively seeing the 20th Century modes of business (command and control) being subverted by the activities of individuals. The strict hierarchies and mechanisms of control are being called into question by active (consumer) participants and employee evangelists determined to achieve outcomes (often in spite of the barriers placed in their way). As Stephen Collins says: ... there is an active and engaged community out there who want to do this stuff in their organisations or are keen to be a part of organisations that do. And while many businesses/brands react by blocking or disabling access to social networks, the fact remains -- the PRACTICE of business (just like the PRACTICE of marketing/advertising) is changing in ways that have never before been imagined. These EMERGENT practices require new skills and flexible thinking ... and they may not yet, deliver the value you want. But they will (even the CIA agrees). We (and I do mean "we") just need to create the connections between the practices, our business strategies and our bottom lines -- this is the hard, behind the scenes activities that also need to happen (who said Web 2.0 is all fun and games). In the meantime, if you are like me, and was unable to attend in person, get your fill of Enterprise 2.0 thinking at the Conference Community site, and start saving for 2009. And before you go, take two minutes to listen to Karen Appleton, VP of Business Development of Box, the file storage utility, talking about the importance of social networks to your business (via Enterprise 2.0 blog).
11 Jun
11 Jun This post is from from my other blog here With so much to read, so many meetings, connections, emails and so on, it is a wonder today's knowledge workers are able to live productive work lives. There are incursions from our private and digitally-social lives that add to the noise while also offering promise -- tools like Twitter, Plurk, Facebook and even YouTube threaten to both liberate our thinking from the structures of the enterprise and sink our productivity. As Marci Alboher says: Distracted? And how. Beeped and pinged, interrupted and inundated, overloaded and hurried – that’s how we live today. We prize knowledge work — work that relies on our intellectual abilities — and yet increasingly feel that we have no time to think. For all our connectivity, we often catch little more than snippets and glimpses of one another. With the average knowledge worker switching tasks every three minutes, returning to the original task half an hour later, it is clear that we are facing an attention deficit. However, this does not necessarily take into account the leaps in productivity offered by this new mode of working. Anne Zelenka talks about the clash of working cultures and expectations brought on by the Web 2.0 world, characterising this change as the difference between "bursty" and "busy": The busyness economy works on face time, incremental improvement, strategic long-term planning, return on investment, and hierarchical control. The burst economy, enabled by the Web, works on innovation, flat knowledge networks, and Clearly businesses contain a variety of people. I most productively work in the bursty model, though I can also operate in the busy mode. My guess is that we need a mix of both. But rather than characterising "bursty" types as having low attention, my view is that it is not about attending to tasks, but achieving outcomes. Don't look at the HOW of things, look at the RESULTS. For a comical view on those suffering from Web 2.0 distractions, take a look at Twitterwhore.
10 Jun This post is from from my other blog here nfolson It should have happened ages ago, but I have been delaying it and waiting for it to go away. But now I am making a more concerted effort.That's right, I am playing URL hockey with Technorati.If you have been reading my blog for any length of time, then no doubt you use my Typepad URL -- servantofchaos.typepad.com. And while this will always work, over the last six months or so I have been changing the way that I reference my blog ... using www.servantofchaos.com.Now while I don't plan on moving away from Typepad at anytime soon, I would appreciate it if you could update your bookmarks. Thank you kindly!
10 Jun This post is from from my other blog here When I graduated from university, Peter Weir, the Australian movie director was awarded an honourary doctorate and gave an excellent speech on the need to be innovaive, persistent and to think critically. It was a great speech, and while I cannot remember much of it now, I do recall the feelings that it elicited. Some of those feelings were reignited while watching JK Rowling's Commencement Address at Harvard, “The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination”. You can watch the whole thing at the Harvard Magazine site, or on YouTube in parts. I have embedded part 1 below. Enjoy.
10 Jun
10 Jun This post is from from my other blog here Treekins
A comment on my post about Twitter, Plurk and teens the other day really got me thinking. In the comment, Arthus Erea suggested that one of the driving factors for teens in their uptake of new technology is critical mass. Now, this is not surprising, but it is refreshing to hear it directly. As Arthus says, community is king: Community is the driving factor for my generation: we want to be where our friends are. That's why *everyone* switches from MySpace to Facebook at roughly the same time (around 9th grade now). Sure, we knew Facebook was out there and was better than MySpace. But we don't switch till there's a critical mass (read: high school students) worthy of our attention. So how does this play out? What is it that is going on in the lives of teens? What is this vision of community? What are they thinking and what does this hold for the futures of us all? One of Arthus' side projects (apart from school, blogging, photography, business and a plethora of other things) is Students 2.0. It is an inspiring insight into the thinking and passions of tomorrow's business leaders: For decades, students have been stuck in classrooms, behind desks, being told how and what to learn. For a time, when students were expected to become widgets for the vast machine of industry, this model of education was highly effective. However, we have now entered a new age: an age where thinking is more important than knowing, where thoughts out-do the facts. Borders are melting away; project teams collaborate across the globe and intelligence is being continually redefined. The world’s information is at our fingertips and anybody can publish their thoughts for virtually no cost. Everywhere, we see changes: with how business operates, how people interact and how success is accomplished. There is unfortunately one place that remains unchanged, the place that could benefit most from the changes we see today... the classroom. The education system continues to “stay the course” upon a falling ship. Yet, the widgets within the machine are no longer content to grind away. Ideas are popping up everywhere, across the globe. Students are continually redefining their own lives and how they want to learn and interact I will certainly be adding Students 2.0 to my reading list. Check it out, I am sure you will too.
07 Jun This post is from from my other blog here There is some great discussion going on around the nature, role and function of media. Neil Perkin has put together a great deck that digs into the impact of social media, while Craig Wilson looks at the potential of social media for local and regional brands. Interestingly, that is one of the comment threads suggested by Matt Hazel. What do you think? What's next? What's missing? What is going to create the next, next thing? ![]()
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