The craphammer made the Top 25 list. It's likely because of Mack's shift from Alexa to Technorati. Nice to see that being a technorati whore is paying off. ;)
Richard Florida talk at TONext
Also, I finally got around to uploading the Richard Florida talk that ReMarkk dragged me out to see. My apologies for the audio quality. I was playing with a new MP3 recorder and had the settings a little wonky.
Totally worth a listen, though. You can download the mp3 here. For those of you who are unfamiliar with his work, here's a link to his wikipedia entry. His research revolves around how the creative class (most everyone reading this blog) is directly linked to the current and future growth of North American economies.
And I am just finishing version 3 of ESB. Will upload for Paul to post tomorrow AM. My apologies for the long delay there.
Shouts out to Katie, Gavin and Sacrum who together have been keeping this thread on strategic models alive and kicking.
My last model was of the infamous lego variety. And it generated some really neat feedback.
My purpose in creating it was to define how the traditional findings from a brand strategy impact the more tactic/idea focused models being discussed.
A brilliant friend, however, commented on the lack of insight in the model. And I concur. It made me realize that my brand strategy approach was beyond broken. The jump from brand strategy to campaign tactics was ridiculously large. And the lack of consistent insight across both was ludicrous.
Katie recently posted a new version of her 'building digital connections' model. I was interested to note that hers also grew in the area of insight. But she also added in some other neat elements as well.
I highly recommend you all read her post. Her tease about "intelligent insights" has me squirming to know more. I've sent Gavin to dig through her garbage in the interim.
I am back to my well-played "axe" that we are witnessing a cultural phenomenon. And that it comes down to "control".
Manufacturing was revolutionized by a prescriptive approach to efficiencies that resulted in a division of labour - the shift from a "craftsman" who built an item from start to finish into a more easily scalable system where less skilled labour can perform very simple individual tasks in a production line.
The act of taking a prescriptive approach to manufacturing and business meant someone had to devise what was "right" and everyone else had to follow. Command and Control became an integral part of the equation. And this necessitated one-way communications as a critical component. It's not about questioning the way of things in a production line.
And I would argue this affected our decisions about how to use and deploy technology in all its forms. The world of mass media was scaled around the same principles: prescriptive, control, and one-way. They all fit the model: TV, Radio, Print.
Take politics. There was a time when the reach of a politician was extremely limited. They had to cross a region and speak at town hall meetings. They were involved in a conversation with their constituents. We had a voice. We could "guffaw" or even shout them down. They had to respond to the audiences they spoke to.
Today, it's a different world. If you have an hour, I highly recommend the documentary "Spin" of all the "off-air" live satellite feeds in the 1992 elections by Brian Springer. It exposes the reality of being a politician in a mass media world of one-way communications.
But there is a cultural backlash afoot. A subtle shift back to reciprocal, two-way interactions. I see this everywhere: blogs, the growth of online communities, and do-it-yourself trends. And here too, politics is a great case study to see the impact of this shift in near-real-time.
Obama is making waves, as we've all seen. His latest campaign to connect his followers across the country in community/street meetings was a brilliant one.
And then, just this morning, I received a very interesting email from Robert Greenwald of bravenewfilms fame. It was calling for the impeachment of the US Attorney General, Gonzales. But unlike a traditional campaign leaflet or news story, I was able to watch a video showing Gonzales evading congress, follow a link to a influential New York Times editorial and even sign a petition to impeach, should I choose.
[embedded video]
Regardless of my political views, It brings home the realization of voice. I can share this with my friends just by hitting this powerful little forward button in my email client and even add my own spin. Or, in my case, I can post it on my blog. In both cases, I am impacting the last age of politics where the battle was for who could "resonate" with the widest audience in a one-way media world.
Okay. But why is this a cultural phenomenon?
I don't believe command and control is the result of some conspiracy by some evil empire or organization. It's something we have chosen, and even fought for - all of us. It is a cultural phenomenon that gave us all the benefits of industrialization, a way of life, and even a new god: the economy (but that is for a longer post.)
I believe we are witnessing a cultural battle where we are struggling to embrace reciprocal again. On all fronts: technology, social, business, personally. And the challenge for marketers is that we can't accomplish this easily from within an old world view. If everything of value in the company we work for was created as a direct benefit of command and control in action, then it can be extremely frustrating and difficult to move into a world where this reality is fundamentally challenged.
More timely, and slightly more contentious is this tidbit snagged from Scott Monty.
He points to new research from Columbia University which "shows that [influencers] primarily have an impact only on the small number of people they have interaction with." He goes on to talk about the Forest Fire analogy. The idea that it's not the size of the spark, but rather the conditions of the forest. Is it ready for an epidemic blaze?
I've often wondered about the ability of a group of influencers to trigger viral growth. The Forest Fire analogy points us back to the conditions that better enable velocity. And it potentially puts influencers back as a component of a larger campaign/seeding strategy.
Made me stop and ponder the obstacles to any social/engagement/word-of-mouth/participation campaign
Physical: Giving 300 or 3000 sneakers away to some teens isn't likely to go past the tipping point as they are unlikely to pass their sneakers along and they may not have a vehicle for self-publishing the event. Giving out a dozen cameras to bloggers however, is a different story. The idea of the physical highlights how its sometimes easier to share an idea, file or service.
Technical: This one is tied into the physical. Yet so many campaigns stumble because they deploy their media/idea in a format that is difficult or outright impossible to share. So it's worth mentioning.
Social/Cultural: The groups we are members of (implicit and explicit) affect our outlook and our actions. ie: there are those we just assume we are members of: health nut, music styles, urban/suburban. And there are those who we explicitly choose: nike, religion, amex platinum, etc. And let's not forget the rest of the world. We are a minority in the Western world. And each culture defines our use of technology [Ursula Franklin].
Psych: The decision to share something continues to fascinate and amaze me. We intrinisically desire to share things, but which items, at what times and in what situations? So many intriguing variables that are a bit of a red herring. In the right context, it's as if it's all thrown out the window and a person is motivated to share something as quickly and widely as possible.
??
Certainly not a comprehensive list. Or even an authoritative one. Wade in! The water's nice in here! And I haven't peed in it for at least an hour...
Been researching trends for a client. Came across this quote from 2006, thanks to Bernice!
"Witness some other old-school taglines: Brylcreem's 'A little dab'll do ya,' 'Please don't squeeze the Charmin,' Avis' 'We try harder,' AT&T's 'Reach out and touch someone' and American Express' 'Don't leave home without it,' to name a few. They were all statements from the brands to the consumers-if not outright commands.
By contrast, here are some recent tags: 'My Life, My Card' (American Express), 'The power of all of us' (eBay), 'Your potential, our passion' (Microsoft), 'Your choice, your Chase' (JPMorgan Chase) and 'You can do it. We can help. (The Home Depot)."
This is a film created by the folks over at bringtheloveback.com in association with Microsoft Belgium.
How do we view consumers? How do consumers view us as "marketers" or "advertisers"? This video presents a cogent answer to both in a humorous story format.
To very loosely quote CK, "If this was a PSA (public service announcement), then great!" But it appears to be an ad. From a digital advertising solutions group at Microsoft. Most bizarre. What is Microsoft doing about this?
Well. To their credit, Geert answered me.
"Excellent question Sean, the whole idea is to look at digital or online
marketing as one of the answers (of course there is more than one). We
first have to convince people to invest online before we can try to
convince them to look at advertising within Messenger or at in-game
advertising. Once we will have all the big spenders online, then we can
start talking"
Kudos to Geert and the team for doing this and responding to our questions. But this answer still strikes me as very "ad" focused. I'm curious as to your reactions. CK has a great one.
They have also posted new versions that are easier to get the embed code for. Nice. So here she is.
NOTE: This is a cross-post from my post yesterday over at onedegree.ca
The CGM smoke screen
To Geert's point above, to say that advertisers don't really get this space is an understatement. Take Sears.
This one is from the amazing Kate over at mynameiskate.
Sears launched a CGM campaign with lots of fanfare. Only to find out it's a vote off. You can help choose one of four images for the new cover of some wishbook publication.
No uploading. No contributing. No comments. Just vote. Dammit!
Join Kate in creating a CGM campaign to rival theirs. She has launched a flickr group and everything. Come on!
If you are a marketer and want to know how to use the "blogosphere" to market a product, you need look no further than CK and her Marketing Profs book club. This month the book is "Made to Stick"; a mouth watering book about how to get our ideas to stick. What caught my attention is the focus on the power and relevance of stories.
Be sure to check out the link to her book club above. She gives a free 8 page synopsis of the Made To Stick book (by Cam Beck). She offers 50 free books for those who register. She promotes the event powerfully across blog properties (commenting and posting). The act of the book club itself generates value and content for all parties. The focus is on participation, not readership (ie: we all create the content.) And finally registration opens up new opportunities for the Marketing Profs website to continue to contact us all. Brilliant.
And in the hope that Cam Beck may do an amazing synopsis on the other books in my "to read" pile, here they are!
The Rise of the Creative Class by Richard Florida
On Certainty by Ludwig Wittgenstein
Citizen Marketers by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba
Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz
Inevitable Surprises by Peter Schwartz
Connected Marketing, edited by Justin Kirby and Paul Marsden
Traditional demographics and psychographics paint a pretty picture. A wonderful, encased little world in which people behave as expected. A world that does not exist outside of our minds or statistics.
Communities aren't like that, in the real world or the "virtual". And this desire to portray them as well packaged groups of simple minded and predictable entities is really getting on my nerves.
A couple weeks back, I went to a co-workers birthday party. It was a big one. Not because he was turning any special age, but rather because he was inviting all his favorite friends into one location.
We had: a cosmologist who is currently perceived by many to have disproven Einsten's theory of relativity by presenting an argument for the speed of light being variable under certain conditions; An embroidering punk rocker who brought the birthday boy a shirt she had made by hand; A soft rock musician; A heavy metal lesbian chic into death, cats and boy bands; An amazing journalist (one of only 5 people in Canada selected for the highly regarded "Ideas" show); Her husband the Mensa wonder and video streaming specialist; Two hippy brothers who run one of the original green sustainable coffee firms in the region; A magician with a leather fetish (among others); and let's not forget the retired food scientist with some really sweet weed.
There were more, but it starts to get a bit foggy and disjointed. And while I can understand this desire to remove outliers and paint a pretty picture of casebook segmentations, I continue to search for a model that better fits reality. A model that is built around the passions, contradictions and idiosyncrasies that define people.
The recent AMA Journal (Vol 71, Number 2) has a pertinent article by Min Ding about how people are not simple beasts and their decision making is highly complex. He is attempting to provide a quantitative (and testable) model by which to portray the many warring identities or utilities within a person. So he sets about applying multiperson game theory to an individual psyche. I Highly recommend it though I must admit the math in it is akin to a greek translation of latin poetry about sin waves.
Of course, if you can decipher latin sin waves in greek, then you will find he has a complex mathematical model that paints us into a quantifiable and testable model. And it appears to come down to a war between variety-seeking and equity building or something involving equines, a ferret and three imported baseballs. I'm still working on it.
Wow. This came as a total shock.
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