CrapHammer

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.

I am not an influencer and we are not friends (try 2)

 

I would think that writing an article titled "F*ck Influencers..." would have halted some of the SPAM PR email I receive every day, but alas, just last week I received yet another in a steady stream of such emails.  This one stood out as it actually referenced the "F*ck Influencers..." post. 

All of these emails tend to follow a very simple format.

Dear Mr. Howard,

[Introduction on how they love and follow my blog.]  [Crafty little segue into their new product and service they are launching.]

[Calling out a post they liked by its title] [Some reference about how their service may be of interest to me (call to action)]

[One or more paragraphs on their service/offering that appears to be cut and pasted from a press release.]

Signed,

Name, Phone, Email, etc.

The email I received last week actually appeared to be written by hand and not by a PR firm.  I can only assume this individual had been told "how" to email blog owners, had paid someone to do this on his behalf, or is perfectly harmless and just stepped into a hornets nest.  So in an effort to help this individual out...

I AM NOT AN "INFLUENCER" AND WE ARE NOT FRIENDS.

That's not to say I don't have influence.  And that's not to say we couldn't one day be friends.  It simply means I am not a vehicle sitting around idly waiting to SPAM my friends no matter how "awesome" this piece of PR news is. 

Let's talk about what influence I have and how to get me to one day care enough about your service to potentially share it within my circles of influence.

It's amazingly simple.

1. Have a conversation with me.

Don't call me and don't email me.  So where can you have a conversation with me?  Well, here's a crazy idea, how about on the very blog that brought me to your attention?

2. Have a conversation with ME about what matters to ME. 

Every article on my blog has a wonderful little comment feature.  Here's an "out of the box" thought.  What about leaving a comment on the very post you were about to say your really liked in the spam email?

But there's a catch, you have bring some value to the conversation or I'm going to assume you are a spammer and press "mark as spam."

But that's a lot of comments you have to leave and monitor.  What is a PR lackey tasked to incent and measure massive viral reach via SPAM emails to do??? 

Die, hopefully.

3. Create a Relationship

Relationships are two way streets. They are touch and go.  They take lots of time and enormous amounts of effort. Which may be why everyone, including PR firms and agencies who should know better, spam everyone by email.

But it's only when we have a relationship that you are then able to leverage my influence. It's only when we have a relationship that we are able to determine what is of value to each other.  The relationships that bring value to each of us as well as our extended circles of influence become stronger and open up new opportunities.

4. Relationships are complex

Here is the good news about relationships: they are not an on/off switch.  There are more contexts for relationships than I think can be defined or addressed.  I may think you are cute.  You may think I'm nice but too big for my boots.  I may disagree with everything you say but admire your transparency and openness. We might see the world the same way or from radically different perspectives.

Or we may only have a relationship built around a topic or area of interest.  Something I'm interested in and you are able to provide insight or access to.

I am 100% in the Herd camp.  Influencers don't exist, only influence.  Step 1 is to have a relationship.  I'd go so far as to say that the person with the most relationships wins.

[Image Source: Xurble ]

Every Website Should be Social

Found this presentation over on the Frith'sters rantbase.  ;)

View more documents from shivsingh.

To date, most Facebook Connect sites make very limited us of the Social Graph information available.  So in the presentation above, the authors ask if the real value of something like FB Connect is in its being the window into things like collaborative commerce.

What if we logged into a retailer and reviews from our friends or our friends' friends were listed at the top?  It's one of the reasons I love services like GigPark because I'm able to get reviews from people I trust.  I'm quite fed up with reading highly emotional reviews that turn out to be bogus or misleading. Something tells me I'm not alone.

We are all building trusted networks online.  The question is how to tap into these.  Perhaps its less about how many clicks a person takes to get to a product and rather how many clicks it takes them to find out from THEIR network just how good or bad a product is.

I've long been interested in social shopping and while there have been a few attempts by some retailers to move into this area, they were hindered by the fact that your friends were likely not participating in the site.  So adoption became a significant barrier to entry.

As we move down the road of Facebook Connect microsites and promotions, it would do us all good to start thinking of this as a new opportunity for connecting everyday tasks with the uniqueness of our social connections.  In other words, to make the sites we visit far more relevant, helpful and of use.

Leaving the Path

I was going to talk about "fans" of brands today.  The theme of my comments was going to be that fans have their place, but a "fan economy" misses the mark when it comes to the opportunities presented by the most passionate.  Fans are about the brand in the centre.  It is about people attaching themselves to a brand. 

The opportunity is in the reverse:  brands supporting peoples' pursuit of the things they are most passionate about.

Mike Arauz saves us all by presenting a beautifully reasoned argument for the person at the centre.  He calls this method "Desire Paths".  I think he is on the right path, indeed.

Enjoy.

Desire Paths: Branding for Digital Lives

View more presentations from Mike Arauz. (tags: internet marketing)

The Future of Publics

I don't come from this space, so speaking of "publics" in the plural freaks me out a little.  That said, this presentation rocks.  It's much closer to engagement in this new socially leveraged world of technology we live in today.

Public Media 09 Presentation | Public Media 2.0: Dynamic, Engaged Publics, by Jessica Clark and Pat Aufderheide of the Center for Social Media

View more presentations from Jessica Clark. (tags: for center)

The Passion Economy eBook

It all started when I first read Saul Kaplan's article on "Creating a Passion Economy". I was so enamored with this concept that I asked eleven people I respect to weigh in on their views regarding "The Passion Economy" and it's role or impact on business, brands and each of us.

 

 

 
Downloadable Link:
The Passion Economy: opportunity for brands or jut a fad? (PDF, 2.3 megs)

First, a big thanks to:
Saul Kaplan for the article that kicked this all off (catalyst!)
Valeria Maltoni for the idea I stole (eBook)
Peter Flaschner for his design vision, ideas and wine
Eli McIlveen for urging me on and his amazing editorial reviews

And now, a round of applause for the contributors:

Scott Suthren
Ellen Di Resta
Gavin Heaton
Charles Frith
Mike Wagner
Mack Collier
Mike Arauz
Katie Chatfield
Alan Wolk
Peter Flaschner
Matthew Milan

Please share this document freely and join in the conversation!

 

Participation Public of Spectrum

The IAP2 present a very compelling, well constructed and well-adopted framework for public engagement.  Something no doubt honed and developed over many years of successful public engagements and policy reform.

Only it's wrong.  The stages may be fine, but it is 100% wrong in that is is completely backwards.

What I've come to understand in exploring engagement from the point of view of passion and within the context of our present day world is that "business as usual" is over.  There are some significant opportunities to enable and support deeper levels of engagement but it requires us to change our approach.

The need

You want to reach a group of people.  You have something you wish to accomplish.  The first step is to break down the underlying values and passions that are driving your initiative and then begin to identify who you are looking to engage with.

Stage 1: Empower

As Rahaf Harfoush might say, the first step is to pay attention to who among those you are trying to reach is already taking action and the tools they are using. 

It is not about us.  Repeat with me.  It is not about us.  It is about supporting these individuals and groups. It is about answering this question, "What can I actively bring to these people to help them accomplish the goals they are already committed to achieving?"

This takes time but it is quite straightforward to being to identify and find these passionate individuals.  A topic for a later post.

Stage 2: Collaborate

You have connected with the most passionate and likely your view of the world has been lifted and changed as a result.  And if you have done Stage 1 even moderately well, you have built relationships with real people. 

This is critical. Unlike the traditional approach where you hope to have strong bonds of trust by the end, in stage 2 you should have a platform of trust built with the most active and passionate people you can find.  This can now be leveraged to engage these people (and their networks) to work towards something larger or tangential but that aligns with their passions and actions to date.

This is about working together towards a common goal.  This is about you being seen as someone who helps them to accomplish that which they believe in.  A facilitator for their passions.

Stage 3: Involve

It can start with a simple invitation to a place or platform that can better harness or support a larger community of people united by common passions, values and/or beliefs.  Or it can be shifting the spend on conferences to become a series of community engagements where you are supporting the communities to further their own interests.

This is the realm of co-creation.  I'm reminded of a quote from Brains on Fire that remains one of my favorites.

"And believe us, it’s not about influence, because influencers can be MADE. But passion can’t. And it’s not about evangelizing your brand. It’s about your brand being the jumping off point that allows people to evangelize what’s important in their lives."

Stage 4: Consult

The world of prototyping, participatory design and mass collaboration open up many opportunities to more actively consult those you value and trust to offer insight, manpower and feedback to what you are working to accomplish.  Here they begin to work together with you to build your platform to support your goals, actions and passions.

Stage 5: Inform

This is my favorite.  This is no longer about posting notices, or publicizing town halls or making sure your point of view or platform is up on some website.  This stage is now about reaching out to all those who have been involved to date and showing them clearly what you have been able to build together with them.  And also the launching off point to loop back into an earlier stage.

NOTE: In my conversations with Lina Srivastava and Aaron Dus it has been quickly raised by both that the terms (names of the stages) need to be updated and there is also the opportunity to grow and evolve this model.  I'm very interested to see what both Lina and Aaron come back with.

A Story about Quality and Quantity

There are numerous articles exploring the extraordinary pressures agencies increasingly find themselves under.  I'm most interested in those with an intent to identify emergent traits or opportunities for the "agency of the future."

In a recent article of this milieu, Charles Frith looks at what transmedia and the Black Swan bring to how agencies create the ideas and the products, if you will, to meet their clients' needs.

What pleasantly surprised me about Charles Frith's article (really, NOTHING should ever surprise me about Charles at this point) was his explicit focus on quantity vs quality.  Sadly, some of his readers didn't get what he was trying to say and a couple posted comments calling for better quality control in the agency.  Exactly what Charles was arguing against.

I've recently been reading the wonderful tome on Sketching User Experience by Bill Buxton and he referenced a story I found most poignant to this topic.  I posted this story in comment form to Charle's article.  As this story has informed a lot of my facilitation work, I wanted to share it here as well.  I am paraphrasing from memory.

The story is about a ceramics professor who allegedly divided his advanced class into two groups at the beginning of the term. One was to be graded SOLELY on weight. The other on the quality of a single pot of their selection.

So one group just had to surpass a certain specified volume target. The other had to determine how to best achieve as close to "perfection" as possible in one single pot.

As you may have guessed, the volume group got higher grades. This was to be expected, as they had clear and known measurement criteria - volume. What was a breakthrough was that when the professor looked at the final pieces created by the volume group, they also scored significantly higher from a quality point-of-view (ie: they made way better pots as well.)

Two things I look for in stories such as this one are the context and the intent. This was a class where everyone DESIRED to make or learn how to make great pottery - exceptional pottery, even. Had this experiment been run with random people, the results may have differed.

So both desired the same thing, but one group was given the freedom and the necessity to explore through quantity of ideas.  I find it very interesting that the second group COULD have explored through quantity but it was not expressed as a mandate and they suffered as a result.  I believe there are lessons in this for those of us who design the operations side of agencies.

It was interesting to see a comment on Charles' article saying that volume equates to low-cost crap. I believe, like Charles, that the opposite is actually the case. Before I get flamed, do understand I am no advocating that crap be the goal, rather only that people be freed (and even forced) to fail for out of this can come brilliant work of a quality unmatched by any other method (IMO).

Eat Sleep Blog #8

Wow.  There's actual content in this week's episode.  Crazy.

Running time: 14 minutes.  Myself, Paul and Gavin.

Eat.Sleep.Blog #08 from servantofchaos on Vimeo.

We briefly explore why people buy things vs. stealing them.  Why do people buy in a world where almost everything can be gotten for free?  We explore what O'Reilly is seeing in their sales of digital "books" and how it is now their third largest sales channel.

Then my connection from the Banff mountains forces us into the normal ESB videoconferencing experience.  That and I had to put pants on.

(My apologies for cutting off Paul when he was on a roll... we were not seeing what each other was saying in real time anymore... and I had to get dressed for dinner.  grin.)

Creating Experiences that Bring About Change - Part 1

When Experiences Must Do Something

I feel it is important to start with a simple hypothesis - that what we are able to think of is constrained directly by what we are able to imagine.  So if we can't imagine different futures beyond the present situation, then we can't effectively explore new ideas, cover new ground or innovate.

Now imagine we are on a project with a large team and our role as a planner or as a UX person is to help the group frame the challenges and opportunities facing the client/organization. Some would say this is our only role.  Here I turn to a much needed conversation going on between Matthew Milan and Adrian about the overlap and state of affairs within planning and UX.

"As a planner I saw my job as creating new possibilities. I wanted to always be on the side of providing an opening for my brands and my colleagues to explore and play within a completely different and unexpected context."  Adrian

I agree and feel quite strongly that we have to "change" the audience so that they have the ability to "see" different realities in a world where few people spend time imagining things differently.  How we accomplish this is the "black art" of our field.  Do we draw a picture, create a powerpoint or tell a story?I

I propose that we must do what they are asking us to do - create an experience that has the potential to involve the viewer and enable the change to occur.

A Model For Creating Change
Hillis spoke some time back (2004) at the Long Now Foundation about the "Progress on the 10,000-year Clock".  Hillis is attempting the impossible by many accounts.  He is looking to change how we see the world, the future and - by extension - what is possible.

37 minutes into his presentation, he stops presenting what has been built to date and begins talking about how the clock is more than a thing - how it is an experience designed to change the viewer/visitor. 

He presents a model for the stages of an experience that can change the participant. (I was surprised to find out that he had spent time at Disney focused on creating experiences.)

• Picture:  we require a picture in our mind of what it is we are going to accomplish. 
• Commit:  the moment where we choose to engage - to commit.
• Glimpse:  a glimpse of something that pulls us forward - the "weenie in front of the dog."
• Trial:  a period of confusion where we leave behind our old ways of thinking - where we are unsure and even frightened enough to look for something different or new.
• Arrive:  we achieve what we set out to accomplish.
• Payoff:  the "high". A moment of reflection.
• Secrete Payoff: secret and personal payoff that only the people who have the experience can realize.
• Return:  start over at the beginning.

((Rituals appear to share many of these.  Future article?))

7 simple stages to think about in crafting an experience (or series of experiences) with a loop back to the beginning.  For this article, I want to call our attention to the very first step.  To have a picture.  A step so very often overlooked and yet so critically important.

It seems simple enough.  We paint a "picture" of what the experience is going to be like and use our media people to get this picture in front of everyone that matters.  If only it was that simple.  Going back to the opening hypothesis, our audience has to believe something is possible and be able to imagine it before they can even have a hope of "seeing it" let alone believing it.  So what do we do when we are trying to invent something "out of the box" or "new/different"?

Role of Comics
I've spoken about comics a few times now and I've been using them as a prototyping tool in a variety of situations.  This has been great, but it is becoming clear that comics are applicable for far more than just prototyping. 

They excel at the first step in the Hillis model.  They not only present a picture, they give the user the tools to imagine a different world and slowly change their perception to the point they can consider an idea.

There's been some high profile and really amazing uses of comics recently in just this context.

Google Chrome: Google wanted to introduce a new browser into the market that redefined a whole slew of protocols, technologies and methods used to build a browser.  They needed to generate awareness and buy-in on the concepts and why a new browser is needed - topics generally beyond most people's interest or ability to comprehend.   Yet critical if one were to imagine a new standard for browsers.  Their initial launch idea?  A brilliant comic by Scott McCloud.

Akoha: Akoha is attempting to bring "pay it forward" into a social networking environment.  This requires that people be engaged in learning what "pay it forward" is and then to be interested and willing to explore how Akoha works.  A lot of work when the goal is to create sign-ups and growth in the usage of the site.

 

I'm interested in what others in the field have to say about experiences that can bring about change, the Hillis model and/or the role of comics in this context.  Join in!