CrapHammer

Rethinking Digital and Social Marketing for the Arts

Or the five hardest questions I've ever been asked.

Rethinking Digital and Social Marketing for the Arts

The presentation that I gave today to the International Society for the Performing Arts.

Do individuals matter anymore?

The other day I received a survey and it made me wonder.

When was the last time a survey made me feel engaged and listened to?

Surveys are now part of our cultural narrative.

Some come with a dollar bill in the envelope.

A few are even "mandatory", or so we are informed by the census.

As youth, we quickly learn that surveys are about an aggregate understanding.

A survey is a sign that a brand is disconnected from their audience.

Which is not to say surveys are bad.

But they send a signal that a brand is struggling to understand something.

At best.

At their worst, they scream to us that the customer doesn't really matter unless he or she happens to answer the same as a significant number of the rest of the disillusioned masses.

We know that some faceless manager in an office somewhere needs to make a "business decision" and likely doesn't have a lot of time for a little old outlier like us.

And even knowing all this, we still fill them out from time to time in a vain attempt to be heard or to feel like we were consulted.

There must be a better way. A way to truly listen to another. I'm not referring to when we monitor conversations, hold focus groups or perform stakeholder consultations.

I'm speaking of when we are open to someone else.

When we are putting them first.

In a world increasingly fascinated with "optimizing service delivery" and "experience design", I have to wonder if we've lost sight of the individual as an individual.

What if there is something beyond "customer first" or "customer centred"?

I heard Bob Young, of Red Hat and Lulu fame, speak last night at the Baycrest and MaRS scientist and entrepreneur event.

At the end, someone asked him, "If you could do it all again, what would you do differently with your first company?"

Bob had an answer ready.

He would create Hewlett Packard.

His reason was quite straight forward in that he envied and respected their culture.

A culture built around giving to the community.

A culture that was unstoppable and able to overcome just about any obstacle placed before or inside the company.

Bob spoke about a key aspect of this culture - how they would pay to educate the brightest young minds with no payback or expectations attached.

These youth then wanted to work for Hewlett Packard later in their life or they wanted to become customers of HP.

There was a relationship built around more than anything that can be captured on a spreadsheet.

Hewlett Packard cared.

About individuals.

Maybe it's a leap, but once again I see another example of how an evangelist employee strategy can truly transform brands and organizations.

Some of the most successful evangelist programs move beyond monitoring and empower employees to to listen and to care.

A strategy with non-linear returns that enables an organization to invest in and develop relationships with its communities and individual customers.

I really need to track down the book Bob was speaking of about Hewlett and Packard and the culture they worked so hard to build.

 

[Photo credit: gadl]

Planningness 2010 Recap: Made By Many on Making Things

I'm kicking off my recap of PlanningNess 2010 with a deck by the Made by Many folks.

I've seen a lot of talk about agile and scrum.  And frankly, it's usually just someone spouting a lot of buzz words and urging agencies need to adapt.  But its generally someone from the outside without a lot of credibility on how to improve what we do.

But I've clearly never seen Made by Many talk about it.  And there are few agencies on this planet I hold in higher esteem.  And true to form, I found their presentation deck insightful, inspiring and dead on as to where we need to get to.

So many gems in here!  How about a dozen user testing and engagement tools we could be all be using in our project development processes?  God I love these guys.  I think I want to have their baby.  Shit.

How to really make something

View more presentations from Made by Many.

My IgniteTO Talk on "The Most Passionate"

Here is my Toronto Ignite Talk on "The Most Passionate" for those that couldn't attend the other night. I re-recorded the audio just for you, Mom!

Toronto Ignite 4! - The Most Passionate

View more webinars from Sean Howard.

Many thanks to the amazing folks quoted herein that made this possible: Matthew Milan, Ellen Di Resta, Mike Arauz, Saul Kaplan, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and more!

What we REALLY know

Fuck.  Fuck.  Fuck.

I can't say any more or less at this point about the following presentation.

Other than to say it is filled with more nuggets per pound than anything I've read in the past 2 years.

The Real Life Social Network v2

View more documents from Paul Adams.

Design for Participation

Mike Arauz's slideshare presentation on "Design for Networks" is brilliant.

Design for Networks

His thinking in the above is only surpassed by his very own post on the same topic.

I'm honored to know Mr. Arauz and pray one day we have real drinks as he keeps tantalizing me with his drink mixing tweets.

Mike's framework brought me back to some earlier blog conversations he had initiated around systems of rewards. ¹

He was exploring game design and behavioral psychology to understand how to create rewards that incent ongoing engagement and even addictive behaviors.  Why we love to play some games for hours on end.

The answer was a very academic approach to "combine unexpected rewards together with reward mechanics that are clear and predictable" to best achieve sustained and steady engagement with our audiences.

What I love about what Mike has done in his latest presentation is he's managed to make a cohesive and powerful argument for relegating "engagement" to it's proper place in the digital landscape - the closet of less important measures. All hail the belittling of engagement!

So in a world where the real game is driving participation, what reward mechanics should we be putting in place?

In "Drive," Daniel Pink outlines the dilemma of external rewards in what he calls motivation 1.0/2.0. ²

"CARROTS AND STICKS: The Seven Deadly Flaws
1. They can extinguish intrinsic motivation.
2. They can diminish performance.
3. They can crush creativity.
4. They can crowd out good behavior.
5. They can encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior.
6. They can become addictive.
7. They can foster short-term thinking."

Pink talks about the need to "instead emphasize the elements of deeper motivation - autonomy, mastery, and purpose."  He explores the disconnect between our rewards systems of old which were built around repetitive tasks and the present where people are being challenged to accomplish creative tasks.

Pink cites a study where two Swedish economists tested the effect of incenting people with a monetary reward to donate blood.  The book is full of study and examples galore that show how external rewards often backfire.  In the case above, it led to 20% less people donating than those who were offered no incentive other than doing their social duty. "It tainted an altruistic act and 'crowded out' the intrinsic desire to do something good."

How many contests are plagued by contest hounds who care nothing about the contest, brand or issues at hand?

Interestingly, when a reward is money for a charity, the negative impact to motivation can be avoided (if done properly.)

All of this made me once again question whether the campaigns we build truly reflect the proper motivational or reward structures.  And if we are building systems that drive participation, fueling the intrinsic motivators will be critical to creating systems that have higher levels of participation and more importantly that will self sustaining.

All of this caused me to pencil this slide together.  It's rough and likely anything but complete but it captured some of my thoughts.

   

I thought I would close with my favorite quote from Pink's Drive as it points to the opportunity at hand.

"Human beings have an innate inner drive to be autonomous, self-determined, and connected to one another.  And when that drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives."

Footnotes:

1. Dummies Guide to Behavioral Psychology and Engagement, Craphammer.ca
2. Daniel Pink, "Drive", Riverhead Books, 2009

Wearing my creative briefs

A member of my team was questioning the creative brief.

She then began interviewing some people internally about what works and doesn't.

It's now blown out into a cool little investigation.

And she's not alone.

Dare put up a great deck on how to properly use the brief.

Creative Brief Workshop

I have to wonder if the problem is really how to best use a brief.

Is it really that "simple"?

Gareth Kay has one of the best slideshares on the digital creative brief I've ever seen.

I'd go so far as to say he believes the brief is broken.

I have to wonder if he is on to something.

The brief in the post digital age

What do you think of the creative brief?  Is it broken?  It is just misused?

(H/T to Paul for the slideshare finds!)

Dummies Guide to Behavioral Psychology and Engagement

Mike Arauz had a great post on What Behavioral Psychology Can Teach Us About Engagement.

He refers to an article by John Hopson on Behavioral Game Design.

Hopson is attempting to open up the world of behavioral psychology to game designers.

Namely the idea of rewards and contingencies.

Rewards are pretty self explanatory.

And contingencies are simply the "rules governing when rewards are given out."

 

Now we add in the user and their actions.

"there are actions on the part of the participant which provide a reward under specific circumstances."

Hopson defines two types of reward rules (or contingencies): Ratios and Intervals

A ratio example would be a game where you gain XP for every monster you slay. [And after so many monsters you go up a level (reward)]

An interval example would be Space Invaders where power-ups appear based on what level you are on.

 

The biggest breakthrough in behavioral psychology came when B.F. Skinner was running low on rat pellets and began giving out rewards intermittently.

"Experimenting with different regimens of reward, he found that they produced markedly different patterns of response."

And I had to realize we've gotten lazy.

Too many of our experiences tie a reward to every desired action.

A coupon for every friend you delete.

A free VIP gift for becoming a fan.

Points for every tweet!

Or worse, our rewards are completely "random" in nature.

Win a camera!  Win a car!  Thousands of prizes!

Hopson points out that ratios alone lead to long pauses between flurries of activity which can be a challenge if we want to keep people consistently engaged in something.

As such, Arauz is recommending we explore using Variable Ratio Schedules in experience design.

This is a fancy way of saying we combine unexpected rewards together with reward mechanics that are clear and predictable.

"If you want to see sustained steady engagement, then the best approach is a Variable Ratio Schedule. In this approach the number of activities required to trigger a reward changes randomly, so the first time the player may have to kill 10 monsters to get an extra life, but the next time they only have to kill 5. The promise of the next reward is always on the horizon."

I like the idea a lot.  But is it realistic?  Is it actionable?  How would we apply it to an experience we create? 

Lemme know your thoughts.

Seductive Interactions

I recently stumbled across this wonderful presentation from Stephen Anderson titled "Seductive Interactions".  Hat tip to Michael

Seductive Interactions (Idea 09 Version)

View more documents from Stephen Anderson.

Slide 81 is a simple yet powerful statement for why design matters in a world of focus groups, usability testing and efficiency over all things human.

This presentation reminds me of the Yahoo Pattern Libraries for Communities.  There was a great presentation on game theory some time back and how it applies to building products/communities online but I can't seem to dig it up again.

What Spammers Know That We Don't

We are all working like mad to develop location based services and technologies. Phones that know where the nearest cool coffee shop is, discount coupons that apply to a store you just snubbed and walked past.  I believe it is considered to be a multi-billion dollar opportunity and the salvation of the mobile industry.

But frankly, we are sucking eggs and doing next to nothing while a few key individuals are proving you can mine for location based gold today with free or near-free resources.

Spammers Innovating Faster than Hi Tech:

The Real Estate, Online Pharmacies and Porn Spammers have once again proven they are leaders in adapting new technologies to their annoying purposes.

I tweeted the following:

And within minutes I received a follow from KatyFStewart.

She offers one link on her page.  To this site:

 

Should I be promoting her Twitter account?  Should I have clicked through on a link from a semi-naked nubile photo?  No.  Of course not.  But will I be alone?  Nope.  Guaranteed.  Not only that, I would bet that many a media person would cry to get even 1/10 of the clickthrough and conversion rates these people are achieving.

Not Just Porn:

Tweet the name of a city and you will undoubtedly get a sudden increase in followers.  Why?  Because the real estate industry is not about to be left behind by the porn industry.  Quite a few real estate agents appear to be using auto-subscribe services to add you as a friend in cities they do their work in.

These are services that listen for a set of keywords and once it finds a match with any twitter user in the world, it sends that person a follow request on your behalf.

Let me be clear. I hate auto-subscribe services.  It's like paying someone to get you more friends.

That said, it does make me wonder.  Do we really need fancy and expensive GPS and high tech solutions or could we just better monitor and respond to the contextual content people are providing in their tweets and status updates?

Brilliance:

What I love about [what] Ms. Stewart is doing (real name likely Amanda Hogsbottom) is that they are using simple, free and contextual tools to mine twitter and facebook.  Then they are doing simple (and free) IP sniffing from their website to provide an end to end contextually relevant and highly personalized (location based) solution.  Something the big brands are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to achieve with likely far less success.