august 2008

Now, I love the audacity of this, but I wonder who signed off on it ... and who the ad is actually targeted towards. But then, maybe it increased sales in dance venues.

Over the past week or so there have been a series of ideas coming together in my mind. I had been struggling to pull them together into a coherent framework until I saw this post by Peter Kim. He asks some difficult questions around the benefit of social media, but goes further -- suggesting that social media does not scale:

One-ninth of the WORLD's population watched the 2006 FIFA World Cup final.  Social media vs. Television for marketing purposes just doesn't match up.

But in my view, this is looking only at potential reach around a single, fixed-in-time event. And surely the predominant global brand on display during the match was the FIFA World Cup -- all the rest of the advertising space would have been segmented to maximise the returns available in each broadcaster's market. This fragmentation of ad space is exactly the domain and power of the long tail -- where social media can provide a resonance and relevance to niche audiences.

Having said this, there is an issue around the human resources required to activate a social media program. As Peter says:

I do believe social media can help sell.  Social content has started integrating into traditional tactics like banners and emails.  I have a better opinion of Comcast after Frank helped me with my cable modem and will resist Verizon FIOS for a while longer.  From my last post asking if social media matters, the commenting consensus seems to agree, with its impact in awareness, consideration, and preference.

But if social media marketing matters, then does it scale?

I don't think so.  I think the technologies scale.  But the programs - especially those with a labor-intensive component - don't.

In doing so you have to manage the constraints -- COST, SCALE or CONTROL. Any change you make to one will impact both the others. The more you activate the social network, the less control you will have of your brand, your messaging and your story. Yet this is the cost-benefit paradox -- for while you release your brand, your services and maybe even your support into the wilds of the social media landscape, you find, perhaps, a more authentic brand story coming to life -- a story borne out of a participatory experience between your evangelists and your everyday or casual consumers.

future of your brand is dependent upon good design. Good design will ask the restless questions -- it will push you to examine the shifting patterns of consumer/participant behaviour. It will demand that you consider a variety of usage patterns. And it will prompt you to continuously deliver new value. And the fact that it will find hidden gold within the mountain of enterprise data is an added bonus. After all, it is still about surprise and delight.

One of the things that I dislike about most search engines is that they do not provide any context. You don't get to see the connection between various sites and topics. However, this new search engine, Tianamo,  looks set to change this.

When you use Tianamo, you get to see the topics that match, the sub-topics and the relative connection between them shown in a 3D-style frequency map. The map itself is interactive, meaning that you can interrogate the data and the links by rotating, zooming and clicking. It would be fascinating to see this style of visual mapping applied to tag clouds.

While Tianamo is currently in beta, you can try it out by following this link.

I am starting to think about SXSW next year ... and am wondering how I can organise to get there. Running from March 13-17, 2009, the interactive event brings new technologies, evangelists, entrepreneurs and creatives together to look at what works NOW, and what WILL work in the near future. Twitter is a great example from last year. Clearly it is a great event with many fantastic panels, presenters and chances to meet with folks who I normally only converse with online.

One of the most interesting aspects of SXSW is that presenters are more than happy to have some fun with the content and format of the panels. This presentation by Merlin Mann is a great example where he introduces the room to FlockdUp.com -- a site dedicated to the under-served visionaries who power all things social media -- the thought leaders.

The Face of Facebook. And while it is focused on the US population, it provides a primer for all marketers considering their first forays into social networks.

Please read it.

With Twitter and Plurk peforming a strong role as a link sharing platform, the relevance of blogrolls has become questionable. However, blogrolls do have an important role in building a community, demonstrating a blog's "membership" through self-branding. And on a more practical level, blogrolls do make a handy way of visiting your favourite blogs.

But, to me, blogrolls allow you to step into the world of the blogger that you are reading. It is like being invited into the inner world of a blog author -- and by flipping through the "bookcase" of your favourite (or new) bloggers -- you are able to step into, and understand a little of the CONTEXT in which they operate. Think about it. When you visit the home of a new friend, do you check their bookshelves? Do you look through their CD collection or MP3 list? What does this list tell you?

If you are new to this blog, please take some time to visit the sites that ARE on my blogroll. These are the websites that I read regularly. They help create my context and frame my thinking. I read almost all of them every day.

Over the next few days I will also be adding the following to my already large list. Be sure to check them out:

• Amber Naslund's the brandbox is  a great site focusing on social media and its alignment with business
• Julian Coles's AdspacePioneers has injected a lot of energy into the marketing blog scene in Australia
• Mike Arauz's combination of essay and commentary on new media, marketing and technology
• Ann Handley's breathtakingly personal blog that reminds us all that storytelling is not a lost art
• Steven Collins' AcidLabs site is a great resource for those wondering where social media is taking the enterprise (or perhaps it is the other way around)

Image courtesy of the tombstone generator.

In the debate over whether Scorched.TV really is social media, I was reminded of this line from one of my favourite movies, The Princess Bride.

Not content with taking Channel 9's word for it, I decided to check out the Scorched.TV site and upload a video of my own. Unfortunately, even when I follow the directions provided by the "EP of CPN" (that is, the executive producer of a fictional news network), the best I could do was to send them an email with my story idea. This is hardly social media.

Social media is relatively simple ... and it looks like the slide below. The way this plays out, however, is complicated -- and is most articulately explained in Michael Wesch's definition of "context collapse" which I talked about here. The defining feature, however, is participation of "users", or "consumers" or "people like me". And until you have those folks involved, creating, changing, mashing and even destroying, then in my book, you don't have social media.

I can remember sitting through a pitch on the oddcast technology. These spookily real looking avatars were interesting, maybe even funky, but I could not quite see how we were going to be able to use them for client promotions. And to be honest, the licensing rates were, at that time, beyond what we had in our budget.

Age of Conversation, there is no doubt that a blogger being featured in the mainstream media is still a novelty. For while reports and analysis continue to point towards social media reaching a tipping point, there is clearly a way to go before most of us reach the level of respect and authority that is wielded by the intern writing in the local community newsletter.

However, as the passionate and articulate Gen Y begin storming the cubicles and marching every onwards towards the corner offices, it is clear that brands and the businesses behind them are in for a rough decade of transition. No longer can they rely on a form of skull and cross-bones brand promise -- interaction and engagement must go well beyond a simple raising of the flag.

Paul McEnany, the brain behind Hee-Haw Marketing, was interviewed in his local Dallas Morning News. When asked what is the biggest mistake companies make in dealing with Gen Y, he responds:

The biggest mistake is to assume that they give a crap about you. This is true across all demographics, but maybe more pronounced or obvious in the younger segment. This group has grown up with total control of their media environment, advertising included, and too many [companies] think they can just stroll in with screeching guitars while adding "for your generation" to the end of a tagline and expect that to connect.

This is echoed in Paul Den's commentary on the banking industry:

Where all banking and finance [brands] ... FAIL is that they lack the ability to resonate with my generation ... I'm with NAB - not because I've been saturated with advertising, but because my mates recommended their Student Saver program when I was at uni. More often then not, especially with financed related products, we seek influence from our friends, family, work colleagues etc.

With a fragmentation of both media and influence, those brands wanting to reach, engage, hire and retain those born after 1980 are going to have to deal with the complexities and demands of Gen Y. And, to be honest, with an almost 1:1 ratio of Gen Y entering the workforce as the Baby Boomers retire, there is no choice if you want to thrive and survive. The challenge for brands is now to seek out those advisors, consultants and agencies that can help navigate this complex landscape.

It is the year 2012. Warragamba Dam, which supplies Sydney with fresh water has now reached critical levels, holding only 15% of its capacity -- and the city has been placed on Level 8 water restrictions. Country towns, meanwhile, are struggling to survive.

This is the setting for Channel 9/NineMSN's new drama series, Scorched. Gordon Whitehead has an excellent post explaining the digital strategy that has been put into place to support the series and to transform it into an immersive online experience. But he also asks, "is this social media?" -- provoking some interesting discussion with Craig Wilson. After taking a look at the Scorched.TV site, there seems to be quite some distance between the stated aim of allowing users to contribute content and the activation which requires you to send your ideas for video submission via email/form.

Perhaps it is still early days, and the social media strategy is yet to kick in. However, there is clearly some good thinking around transmedia digital strategy in place, or what Faris Yakob calls "converged communication" (see below). But with an airing date of August 31, Scorched have only a couple of weeks to begin really building and activating their viewing community. And if the plan is to extend the storylines into web-only episodes post-August 31, the success (or otherwise) of this effort will be available for us all to see. The clock is ticking ...

Over the last couple of months I have been helping a local final year, high school student with a marketing plan for her major work. Now, I don't know about your final year project, but mine was fairly low key. But Isadore Biffin has other ideas.

child soldiers and resolved to do something about it. Now, a year and a half later, Isadore's challenge is to raise funds to assist in the rehabilitation of child soldiers in the Democratic Republic of Congo -- and her plan is to hold a concert in Sydney on November 20, 2008.

Things are now starting to come together ... Isadore has confirmed some local bands like The Shipwrecked and Peregrine -- but I believe she is hoping to add a headline act to the list. There will be speakers and T-shirts and plenty of activity. One of her friends, Murray Bunton from Streetline Media has created great artwork, including logo and shirt designs; and Deanna Coleman and Stig Richards have given invaluable advice about getting the word out.

If you want to keep up-to-date with Isadore's efforts, you can subscribe to her blog and join her Facebook cause (then you will be sure and hear when the tickets are available). Now, we just need to get some TV interviews scheduled and we will be set ;)

Oh, and THIS was my 1000th post! Wow.

In a digitally-connected world, our past may no longer be "ours". With sites like the WayBackMachine and Google's great caching engine, our own words and the words of others ABOUT us will live long into the future. Add to this the "handles", user IDs, profiles and so on that we create in the various courses of our lives -- from Facebook to Twitter, Flickr and even dating sites -- and we can amass a digital footprint that extends well past the bounds of public/private and into the deeply personal.

But how might this play out for a baby? Or for, say, my nephew who is 10 years old? What is out there and how will all this data affect the relationships that he has in the future? What about his first job? His first date? Or his twentieth? What about the photos taken by his family and friends? Who sees what and who "owns" what is shown?

This video produced by Kanupriya Tewari for the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society’s Digital Natives Project shows how all this may play out for a newborn (hat tip to Katie Chatfield). But watch the video, then read this account of a first date gone wrong.

There are lessons here for brands as well. Clearly, with 78% of consumers trusting the purchase advice of friends or even networked acquaintances over advertising, it pays to at least monitor the conversations that are ALREADY taking place about your products/services. And while, yes, consumers have always spoken about and discussed the brands that they love and hate, in this Age of Conversation, these sentiments are captured, stored and immediately available well into the future.

Social media may look like a tulip field, but it is, in fact, a whole new way of playing and participating. Tiptoe with care!

When Sara Goldstein, aka the Bargain Queen, bundled up her house, her laptop and Mr BQ to take on one of the fashion capitals of the world, the Australian blogging community became a lot quieter. After all, Sara had been instrumental in bringing a wide range of disparate groups together for drinks and discussion. With her mascot pink pig in tow, we made the Arthouse Hotel in Sydney a regular home away from the keyboard -- at least for a while.

But since moving to New York, Sara has been anything but idle. She has been busily laying plans for global domination. Here is the pilot for Sara's Style Spice show for the Wardrobe Channel -- I am looking forward to seeing more of this style of web based programming in the future. In the meantime, Sara is sure to be learning plenty out there on the frontier.

With the emergence of self-organising groups such as the Social Media Club, Planning for Good and even Interesting South, is it any wonder that the peak bodies that represent the media, advertising and digital services are feeling under pressure? Often these bodies only provide services and membership to corporations, not individuals -- which does not take into account the sweeping changes in the nature of work in these areas. After all, with the vast array of easy-to-use tools, we can all now publish, broadcast and market to a worldwide audience. It seems anachronistic for these industry bodies to not recognise and adapt to the changes that characterise the industries they represent.

MarketingMag). But the situation here in Australia compares favourably with the state of play in Belgium.

Kris Hoet's popular blog, 'crossthebreeze, builds on the conversation surrounding the Belgian Direct Marketing group's upcoming conference -- Revenge of the I. Roughly translated (by Kris), the email announcing the conference states:

“During the congress we’ll deepdive into the current era of ‘consumer terrorism’ that is coming up with the rise of digital and social technologies such as blogs, social networks and email.”

As Kris points out, not only does this remind brands and companies to treat consumers with suspicion, it sets up an artificial divide between the "traditional" and "new media" camps. Branding and marketing is no longer something that is forced upon consumers (if it ever was). After all, it is easy enough to simply click away, delete the email or fast forward through the advertising. The POWER disparity between brands and consumers has been eroding for years -- and it is time that all parties -- brands, industry bodies, practitioners and even consumers (yes, yes invite them in) began to collaborate to find suitable solutions that deliver value all round.

Yes, it is time to join the conversation. It is already happening. You start by listening.

josephjaffe

Last year I missed the geek drinks with the big Crayon, Joseph Jaffe. The stories of "Brand Minxiness" and associated photos make it clear that it was event that should NOT have been missed.

UPDATED: So, if you are like me, and you want to take the opportunity of meeting up with Mr Jaffe in person, we will be gathering next Tuesday evening (August 19 ) at the bar of the Tilbury Hotel at Woolloomooloo in Sydney, between 9:30pm and 10:00pm. See you there.

Earlier this week I received a LinkedIn question from Jay Ehret, wondering whether I knew of any good, free eBooks on marketing. Unfortunately, most of the eBooks that I knew of were not free. But then, yesterday, Andrea Vascellari, sent a message on Twitter advising on the availability of a free marketing strategy eBook.

From a quick scan, "Strategic Communications Planning" by Dave Fleet is a great introduction to the steps required to develop a corporate communications plan. It covers context, audience, messaging, tactics, budget and even evaluation. For those wanting to go into further detail on the planning process, I would advise you to join the Plannersphere and begin reading the blogs of various members. AND don't forget to visit the Staufenberger Repository to download this valuable (and rare) PDF of Stephen King's Planning Guide.

But remember, while this material is available free of charge, putting the recommendations and suggestions in place in either a client or in-house setting is a challenge. The ideas are out there, but the devil is in the execution, in how you actually turn these ideas into frameworks, notes, analysis documents and creative briefs -- and that is where professional planners can add real value. Good luck!

Truus, Bob & Jan too!

A couple of times a year I get a call from Dennis Price. Not the movie star shown here, but the blogger, retail guru and course director of the Macquarie Graduate School of Management's MBA program. Each time I go along and talk about Web 2.0, social media and the Age of Conversation. I always aim to provide as much of an overview as possible -- and then use the Age of Conversation as a case study for how the tools can allow conversations, communities, brands and consumers to come together. This can be challenging with only an hour or so available.

When I first went along, I spent quite some time explaining technology. The students in general were not participating in any form of social media. That meant that my focus would shift to explaining the applications and their use. This situation did not change much when I returned in the following semesters.

Today, however, I was pleasantly surprised that the students had a strong understanding of many of the social media tools available. Many were under heavy use.

In about a year and a half, the students who participate in this prestigious MBA program and who will move into leadership positions across the business spectrum in the coming years, are already demonstrating a sound understanding of social media. For these folks, it is not something foreign or indescribable. It is tangible and already a part of the fabric of their lives.

Not only that, the questions that were asked also got me thinking. There was some serious questions around the following topics (feel free to chime in with answers):

Business modelsWhat is the business model for Web 2.0 businesses? Is it reliant only on advertising? Is valuation based on potential advertising revenue or is there something more to it? Do all business start-up to sell?

Personal relationshipsIs the Internet or social media damaging our personal relationships? Is there something out of balance when families spend more time, individualised and participating with their "networks" and not with each other?

Group dynamicsDoes group dynamics inhibit innovation or growth?

What is the future?Where does all this technology, all this community etc go next? How is/will this change us?

How do individuals make money doing this?While it seems that start-ups can make money, what about individuals? Is there a personal business model?

Now, I am looking forward to the next round ... and wondering what the audience will have in store for me. And the best part about it, is that I learn something new each time.

What happens when you raise a lion as a pet (!) and then release him into the wild? Kim Komando shares a story about two men who did just that. John Rendall and Ace Berg purchased Christian from the zoo in 1969, but after a couple of years found he was too big to handle safely. They agreed to release him into the wild.

Nine months later, they decided to travel to Africa to see Christian, the lion, one more time. They were told that he would not recognise them. What will happen at their reunion?

Hat tip to David Armano.

Years ago, while working at IBM, I began to see the convergence of a number of disciplines. I had spent quite some time learning about, product managing and implementing an Internet-based community publishing system and could see that the publishing model was being turned on its head. And while this phenomenal, integrated, web-based system built by a company called Koz.com appeared to me, to be the future of newspapers for the digital age, it was clearly well ahead of its time. More than 10 years ahead of its time.

What I learned about this community-oriented technology business, however, seemed more easily digested and activated within a closed community. In particular, it seemed to apply more readily to business.

As my career progressed, I moved into roles which focused on change, knowledge and innovation management. Each time I applied what I had learned about communities, about activating them online and the power that comes from allowing connections between people to thrive. I remember procuring machines and application servers, stashing them under desks and cobbling together interfaces that linked instant messaging, wiki-style collaboration and whiteboarding applications. Hooking into address books and intranet search engines meant that secure, trackable access became available to the worldwide workforce, and put our small projects onto the global (if internal) stage. My focus, however, was on the people who used (and needed) these systems ... and by ensuring the systems were user friendly AND helped people deliver over and above their KPIs, we saw system adoption accelerate faster than word of mouth. Back then, e-mail was our friend. These days we would call this "web 2.0", or "social media" -- perhaps even, "enterprise 2.0" -- but back them, I was just trying to find a new way of achieving an outcome.

Ever since that time, I have kept one eye on the world of knowledge management. I have also been fascinated by the concept of business innovation management -- how the process of strategy can, in fact, deliver competitive advantage. And in many ways, the opportunities offered by Enterprise 2.0 occupy a similar space for large scale businesses that social media offers for business-to-consumer brands. My interest lies in how these all overlap -- understanding how, where and why our various business, professional, consumer and producer "roles" merge, and what that means for the brands and businesses that we engage with.

Recently, Bill Ives has pulled together a great list of 40 bloggers who write on the Web 2.0 and/or Enterprise 2.0 space. Many of these bloggers cover this murky area. There are no great surprises in the first 20, where the blogging heavyweights converge, including TechCrunch, Mashable, Om Malik, Guy Kawasaki, Seth Godin, Robert Scoble and Steve Rubel. However, the second 20 (of which I am counted) reveals quite a few blogs which are new to me as well as some old favourites. These include:

• Nick Carr -- Rough Type -- well-known author of Does IT Matter ...

Sometimes I wonder if Wade Millican secretly wears a cape. Not only is he incredibly smart, he also acts as the social conscience of Twitter, regularly pointing out the imbalances in our world. Or perhaps it's just mine (thanks, Wade). So this week's Friday Folly is devoted to Henderson & Horning who are being personally introduced to social media by Wade.

A few weeks ago, Wade pointed out the billboard shown here. He wasn't happy about the depiction and content. He didn't like walking past it each day on his way to work -- so he decided to do something about it. He rang Henderson & Horning to complain. Not gaining satisfaction, he contacted the advertising standards board and lodged an official complaint ... which is now being processed.

Yesterday, Wade provided an update, noticing that a Google search for Henderson and Horning brings up his entry "Sexist Advertising" just below the business' entry. The memory of the long tail is, indeed, forever.

Update: Seth Godin asks us to consider our complicity in bad marketing. Think about the choices we make when we make a purchase decision.

Here is John Grant's excellent speech at JWT's Planning Begins at 40 conference. He raises a fantastic point -- that we either choose to generate or stagnate -- and while this applies to planners, it also extends to all of us on an individual level. He argues that we can continue, in an ongoing way, to challenge ourselves, be open to the new and the different ... or we can stick with what we know and what has worked for us in the past.

There is even a suggestion that someone's generative challenge may be the agency of the future. Any takers?

What happens when you see a great creative idea? Can you recognise it for what it is worth? Do you turn away? Do you get shivers, goosebumps or sweats? Does it make you smile or gasp? Any or all of these reactions (or more) indicate that an idea will deliver on the "Yelp of Surprise and Delight" that I discuss in the P-L-A-Y framework.

But, of course, the challenge is not just in the conception of such an idea. It must also follow-through in the execution. For TV that means, a myriad of challenges -- setting, casting, script etc. For digital this is magnified -- call to action, availability, timing ...

Kathryn Schlieben has provided a great demonstration of how this can play out, with this video aimed at attracting the next Gordon Ramsay to the Caterer.com job portal (specialising in hospitality employment).

To deliver a knockout in terms of RESULTS for your brand, it is important to bring all this together in a unified, yet flexible strategy. The P-L-A-Y framework is definitely at work here ... can you see the elements? And gasp! I certainly did.

During my entire working life, the publishing and newspaper industry has been under constant evolution and threat. As a 16 year old, I spent a week's work experience with the Sydney Morning Herald where I made and drank a lot of coffee, listened to the police and emergency services radios and generally wondered what was going on. One of the highlights of the week was an early morning visit downstairs to the print room where the newspapers were typeset and printed.

I met a man must have been in his late 50s. He had been partially deafened by the roaring of the presses. He explained that he had worked on the floor since he was an apprentice and he had seen a lot of change. He was afraid that his working life was coming to an end soon -- that his skills were no longer valued. He then asked me for my name, turned to his typesetting machine, flicked a few keys, and seconds later, handed me a metal row of type bearing the words "DAVIN HEATON".

Two years later, the typesetting machines were replaced by computers.

And while the story of newspapers continues to evolve, there is something fascinating that they bring to the study of marketing. Take a look through some old newspapers and you will be amazed at the way that advertising has changed even in the last 50 years. Look at the placement. Think about the editorial and its proximity. Then contrast it to what is done today. Clearly the development of "niche" content has been well underway well before the Internet's Long Tail piqued our interest.

So it is rather fascinating, for me at least, to see two forms of the long tail overlap. My friend, Todd Andrlik has just launched a new site, RagLinen.com, that sells historic and rare newspapers -- giving new, fresh audiences the chance to read and engage with the events that shaped our histories -- one story at a time (there is even an affiliate program). Todd says:

Attention marketing and media professionals! Looking for the perfect collectible and investment for your industry. Look no further, it’s rare and historic newspapers. These are the newspapers that first reported about the plague, smallpox, kings and queens, pirates, colonies, revolution, founding fathers, civil war, assassinations, great fires and more. All are 100 percent authentic originals. Framed, they make great wall art at PR and advertising agencies, or unique gifts for your corporate marketing clients.

Be sure to check out Todd's launch post ... and some of the rare items he has available now.